malevolent [t. riddle]

- prologue

august 1943
mentions of suicide

patience is a virtue, they say. though, who "they" is, no one seems entirely sure. from the very start of early humans discovering the concept of time, then on, any inconvenience was put squarely on the shoulders of time. if it was dark outside, simply have patience, and wait for the sun to rise. if one was impoverished and starving, they'd simply have to be patient, and wait for their gods to bring rain down on their crops. if one had an enemy, and their life simply could not continue knowing that their adversary was alive, all they'd need to do is have patience, for they'd surely die.

because everyone dies.

everyone.

patience for what, was the question that each individual in this life was tasked with determining. that was, essentially, the meaning of life.

patience in life— for death? vega was no stranger to thoughts of suicide. thoughts of death in general, really, whether it be hers or anyone else's were frequent placeholders in her conscious. she spent an unfathomable amount of time trying to suppress her constant thoughts of the afterlife, and after years of trial and error, it had become easy to divert her mind when any of the triggers arose in everyday conversation. it was never obvious, easy questions that only required a bit of patience, like what happens after death, or how do i cause death?

the philosophy behind patience, vega theorized, if only to have an arguable point, was supposed to teach people something. to ask them to wait for what they feel they deserve. but, that was a flawed ideology, one held by those with the naïve, unwavering confidence in the universe that they would get what they deserve simply because they felt they were owed it.

vega disagreed. it taught people not to work for what they want. to fight for what they want.

it taught people to accept their circumstances and to stay stagnant as they waited for their dignity to be bestowed upon them. it taught people to just accept what they got; to sit back and watch as they continually got screwed over and over and over by an unforgiving universe or an unwilling god. it taught them to submit to misalignments and stay docile as others climbed over them in search of their own goals.

things you deserve do not come to you just because you waited for them, she believed. for you could not possibly deserve something you did not work for.

patience was never really a virtue vega possessed. from her birth to her death she would continually be damned by her one fatal flaw. she did not believe that time healed all wounds, or that with time, the great things she was destined for would come to her. what rose from the ashes was a vega that knew self control, not patience. the razor-thin line that dictated the distinction between the two was one vega valued.

patience was waiting until the perfect moment to strike. instead, vega learned how to create the perfect moment.

there had only been one moment in her life that she could remember that she acted irrationally, and years of patience for vinda rosier came boiling over into one heated moment of misjudgment, and from that moment on, vega swore to never let such foolishness as "patience" cost her ever again.

"your aunt is here to see you, ma fille."

ah, vega mused. she was still getting used to the feeling of the property wards shifting when various things happened on the property. the feeling of people coming and going— there was a slight twinge somewhere on her that she couldn't pinpoint, like a foreign limb had been pricked by a needle. vega focused on that, labelling it as human guest in her mind. the sensation felt different when the house elves came and went.