Sincerely, The Stranger You Call Sister

Year 1: The Fine Arts Of Porcelain Masks And Savagery

"Hello" -Normal speech.

"Hello" -Parseltongue.

'Hello' -Thoughts/Silent telepathic twin-speech.

Hello -Writing.

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Dear Little Brother,

I once read a saying; "Defeat is only bitter if you swallow it." I can't remember exactly when, or where, but those words have never left me. In both of my lives I've never heard of a saying more true, although "chocolate is life" is a close second.

There have been many bitter defeats in my life -in both of them- and you have been there for a lot of them. Some tasting like lemons, others like vanilla extract.

One defeat in particular, though, burned like no fucking other. Like lava being poured down my throat, it was scorching hot and created an itch under my skin that would never leave, leaving my tongue numb and stinging.

(And no, I'm not talking about my death.)

I can still picture his smirk. His fucking smirk -so goddamn smug, so fucking pleased with himself- as he calmly left the courtroom, free as any disgusting, revolting vulture.

I despised that fucking smirk, and I abhorred the way he had directed it towards Jacob and the way it made him flinch. My insides had felt so fucking hot, then, with the world disappearing around me except that fucking, God awful smirk, and the loud buzzing filling my ears. I had seen red, then, and if I wasn't being held back then I would have leaped over the benches and people and beat the absolute shite out him-

That defeat, more than any one before and after that day, was the most bitter defeat of them all. I was forced to swallow it at the time, with my little brother Jacob broken into a million bloody pieces, my family despaired and an empty husk, and with the bastard wearing that fucking smirk.

But it never stayed down.

It may have taken a few years, and I may have been closer to kicking the bucket, but I vomited that bitter defeat the fuck up. It still burned all the way up, still stung and tasted fucking disgusting, but the aftertaste of my original defeat was nothing compared to the pure sweetness that was my revenge.

Samuel Whitlock may have destroyed my kitchen, so to speak, but that never stopped me from picking up my tools and building it anew. From taking careful, painstaking steps to create the most beautiful and delicious revenge ever. I had all the indigents taken out. All the right tools lined up and with the oven preheating at the perfect temperature.

True, perhaps the type of revenge had changed at one point, and someone else had raised the temperature -but, really, it's his own damn fault for giving me a cooking partner midway through. But the slight changes and adjustment didn't hinder the final product in the end.

And, oh, how utterly magnificent the final product -the masterpiece- had been.

So teeth-rotteningly sweet.

The point, Tommy, is that swallowing that horribly bitter defeat once was more than enough. As Olivia I had sworn not only to Jacob, but also to myself that I would never allow what happened then to happen again. That I would rise in power and make not only the courtroom but fucking Society itself better.