Super(ior) Hearts Season Two

Episode XV: Satin Nobility

"... Which, as you may have noticed, can provide many problems for the careful disguise that our forefathers have worked to forge. It was good of you to leave, but I am afraid that they cannot be allowed to survive any longer. Now, you are to deliver this to them at the next evening. Tell them it is some type of intoxicating drink, that is what sailors enjoy, yes?"

"Mother..."

"You will refer to me by my proper title. Your time with those... ruffians, changed you, and not, I think. for the better." Her fingers drifted over the bottle of brown liquid, and her lips twitched upward into the barest trace of a smile. "I do hope that the contents of this bottle with take care of that problem, as well as the ones I have already presented."

"The crew broke up years ago. Surely they have all gone their separate ways by now."

"All the more reason for us to dispatch of them. If knowledge of our bloodline's particular... abnormality spreads, then it could mean the downfall of a house that has taken thousands of generations to build." The woman looked at her daughter, blue eyes flashing red for just a moment. "And as you can clearly see, that is not an option."

"Please. I do not want to kill these people. They have not wronged me."

"That is how betrayal works. They gain your trust, by 'not wronging you', and then they tell your secrets to the inhabitants of this world. You would be surprised by how much liquor can loosen the tongue."

"I doubt any of them..."

"They are sailors," interrupted the woman in the thin skirt and tall boots. "It is simply what they do."

"Not the crew of the Ann Marie," said the woman's daughter, speaking the name that was supposed to be forbidden. "You have stayed within your stone walls for so long, you have forgotten what the outside is truly like. The people there are not black and white, they are not shapes that fit perfectly into the categories you assign them. They are, each and everyone, individual."

"They are anything I want them to be, and at the present, I wish them to be dead. So go." she forced the potion into her daughters hands and stalked from the room, pulling the collar of a coat around her neck to hide the bruises from the world that she could hardly remember seeing.

She used to be known as the cargo, before. They had not bothered to learn her name; no one liked her. She was simply another burden, another package to be carried across the skies. She sighed as she moved the potion in her fingers, asking it to the window, her skirt rustling about her. Things had changed. Her skirt had used to be red, and it still was red now, but the gentle creme had morphed into black, the color of night, the one that represented that place that she loved best. It would be hard, killing them all, Heather and Eliza and Janie and Thomas and Rap and Cookie most of all. But she would do it. She would not let petty emotions get in her way.

"I suppose the captain should go first," she said to herself. "She could cause problems when I get rid of the rest of the crew."

And so, the one that had started the best of adventures all those years ago, set off the end the greatest adventure of them all.

Life.

                                                                                      ...oOo...

"I am more than you. I have always been. You cannot resist me. And yet you still try to. Why is that?"

"I don't have a lot left, so I guess I've got to defend the few privileges I have."

"Have I not told you before to make sense." His words rang with the power that every order held, and she flinched.

"I want to be able to think," she said. "Please. At least let me do that."

"Why should I? I can't have you rebelling."

"I literally cannot rebel you idiot! Haven't you learned anything!" Her face grew red, her eyebrows lowering dangerously.

He looked at her with a dry expression, amusment hiding deep in his eyes. "Smile."

Her face twisted itself into a smile despite her best wishes, but it did not stop her from getting the words out. At least, until he ordered her to be silent.

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I suppose they always knew it was coming. The day when something went wrong, when someone dissapeared. They just didn't expect it to be her.

"How could you let this happen?!" Rift yelled, his form flickering as he unconciously began to affect the time just around him. "Of all the people! You underestimated them!"

"Sir...?"

Rift's hand lashed out, leaving a red stain across the cheek of his assistant. "How dare you speak to me! You are going to personally take the blame for this!"

Their face paled. "Please, sir, you..."

"I can do whatever I please," he said, voice as cold as the body of the person before him was going to become. Rift snapped his fingers, and the burly men at the corners of the room swooped in, draggin the poor soul away. They couldn't even find the strength to scream.

"Come," Rift said, voice suddenly harsh, his fingers locking in a iron grip around the arm of his mistress. She didn't argue, but it did not seem as if she wanted to follow him.

These were the times when Rift scared Risa most. These were the times when she truly considered running away. She could have.

But everyone knew that the girl with long black hair, run through with silver threads, would never leave.

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