Siberia | S. Rogers

one

.01 | No Escape

Author's Note:
Trigger warning in this chapter due to talk of suicide. I like to give my readers a heads up in case it might make you uncomfortable.

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The cold floor beneath Merida's monstrous paws would chill any other being to the bone, but for Merida it was the norm. The cold steel floor of her cage inside the giant U-Haul trailers that pulled the other animals along was her home.

It hadn't always been this way, but the good days were long behind her, like a flicker of a memory that only came to her in her dreams.

This enclosure had been her home for a very long time, but when one was a slave to something that was out of their control you became desensitized to your living conditions. You became accepting of what was happening around you.

The U-Haul came to a jarring halt, which meant they were at their next destination. The enclosure shook, rocking the other animals around her side to side before everything stilled completely, leaving the animals inside to an eerie quiet.

Merida welcomed the momentary silence.

Losing her mother had been the nail in the coffin to any kind of idea of freedom she might have had. When she shifted in front of Killian and his father it sealed her fate, and everything her mother tried so hard to keep secret was now out in the open.

The look in Killian's eyes that day was something she would never forget. His charcoal black eyes danced wildly with an obsessive gleam.

With no money or proper education behind her, Merida was stuck. She was home schooled by her mother in early years and  learned a great deal from her and the other circus members, but she was essentially a traveling nomad with the circus.

Her mother was such a free spirit that she never stopped to think that everything she had been doing was setting up Merida for a very unconventional life, one that left her very unaware and sheltered.

It left her vulnerable to hands that would prey upon her, hands like the Ringmaster's and his son, Killian.

Her mother's intentions were pure, that was for sure. She never forced Merida into anything and on many occasions she begged Merida to let her know if she wanted to live a normal life, but Merida enjoyed watching her mother live out her passions on that stage.

Her mother was so incredibly happy with her profession and traveling like a gypsy was something Vivian Reid was born to do.

Merida wondered now if her mother understood the repercussions it would have on Merida if something were to ever happen to her, leaving Merida by her lonesome with nothing to her name.

Of course, the unthinkable happened and her mother passed, leaving Merida alone with a traveling circus that turned on her in her desperate time of need after losing her mother. The Ringmaster wasted no time in exploiting her mutant ability within the circus, and soon she became a freak show act with the Ringmaster.