Divine punishment

A faithful night

||Tw : Bullying, abuse, kidnapping ||

Everything that happen after that a huge mess, she only remember it briefly, it seemed like in their perspective she had only been there for a week, but her master warned her about different time down there and up here, so none of this shocked her. However, she didn't saw Edrea that day, while the goddess was very aware of her return, she was allowed to go back home for the rest of the day. Once she arrived, her mother immediately took her away from the men's grip, she seemed to have lost weights, her face was messed up by pure exhaustion, tears messing up her attempt at makeup as soon as she saw her little girl standing in front of her, alive. She yelled and cursed at the doctors, her father stood beside her, trying to stop her and explaining that she was "Sick" and needed to be treated. Soon after the mens left, her parents got into a fight. It wasn't surprising, her father was completely loyal to purple god but most of all, the generous amount of money he was receiving for simply sending his daughter for a day was enough to convince him. Most of the kids traumatic experience such as Charlotte's past sexual abuse was no accident, her father was behind everything, he was well aware of what happened, however he had always been a greedy men. And so the fight went on, she, however had no time to see it, her brother gently took her hand and lead her away to their shared room, there, Eliza and Victoria was waiting, as soon as she appeared, both of them ran toward her, Eliza was sobbing as Victoria held her tightly, letting her worry slip away with the relieved prayers. It might have been only a simple week for them, but it seemed like her disappearance still had a huge effect on her. It was... comforting, for the first time in two years she felt genuine comfort and safety.

But still, Charlotte did not react, she weakly hugged them back not quite sure of how she needed to act, it was like she had forgotten. Her youngest sister Eliza noticed it, she stared at her lifeless sister with worry but her brother quietly made her understood to not comment on it, and so she didn't. That night, they shared dinner all together as if nothing had happened, everyone seemed to be wishing for things to go back to how they where. Except Victoria, she couldn't understand why her parents where acting like that, it was no use pretending,they all knew Charly was different but it seem like regardless of that, they kept trying  really hard to ignore Charly's odd behavior.

Due to her mother's endless protestation, Charlotte spent the next following days at home, her mother strictly refusing her dad's attempt to send her back. However, Charly staying home only made it harder for them to ignore her change of behavior, it was becoming worst and worst, like a deep wound that was slowly rotting under a conveniently placed bandaid. Their mother was deeply affected by her child's state, she tried everything to make her happy, to see her smile, she made pastries, brought them all for picnics, spent the afternoon at a playground but nothing seemed to do the trick. And eventually, she stopped all attempt, she would sometime breakdown and yell, desperately shaking the younger kid in hope of getting some tears out of her, but nothing worked. Charlotte just seemed confused,and she was, the kid couldn't understand why everyone was behaving that way, was she not acting normally, was she not being the way her father wanted her to be ? She was sure she did everything right this time, so why ? Why was her mother crying again? Why was her father yelling still ? She couldn't understand.

And so naturally Charly began to quietly copy her sister's behavior, smiling whenever she smiled, getting angry when she was angry, happy when she was happy and it seemed to make everyone happier. But keeping appearance was not enough, deep down Charlotte knew that it was only pretending, her real emotions where like a cup on the verge of overflowing. Any harsh movement could make it overflow completely, in the end not matter how much she tried she was nothing like Eliza.  Even while acting school wasn't the same, Charly saw the change of behavior of other people, "a girl who had refused the proposal of a god must be crazy" was written all over their face everytime Charlotte walked by. She could hear them whispering but she  didn't paid attention to it.  It became usual, she was... different from before, and while some people such as her father considered it a good different, kids at her school simply found her boring. But Charlotte could accept people insulting her, so even to this day, she still never quite understood what happened that day. Maybe it was the fact that Eliza was the one targeted, or maybe she simply had enough, but it was the first time in a long while that she had felt something this strong.