I BURNED MY INDIVIDUALITY AND FEELINGS TO THE GROUND
Content Warnings
- Cults and religion
- Fire; Live executions by burning, arson, etc.
- Monitoring and watching of others, without them knowing.
- Implied psychological and emotional child abuse
- Corrupt power
Backstory Summary
- Zeffy grew up in a cult! Great start.
- Her house was small, but it was comfortable, and she grew up with two parents and an older brother. She was relatively sheltered to what was going on behind the scenes in Kilminister, but every so often her family would talk in hushed whispers about what happened at this grand event or what family they knew had been convicted this time.
- She herself was protected from that for the most part. Occasionally, she’d ask what it was they were talking about, but even as the years passed she was only told not to talk about this to anyone.
- This isn’t something she understands the gravity of for a very long time, but eventually they start going down a bit of a research rabbithole trying to figure out the truth behind the “rebellion” that may or may not have escaped this place. This includes her brother, who at this point is old enough where he can claim that risk to be an educated adult decision.
- Of course, this does lead to tragedy—you know by now that all three of them were executed in front of their home. Zephrine never saw what happened, for she had been told to hide, but they light the house ablaze too. By the time she realizes that she should start running, she’s already been hurt, and it does not get easier.
- She gets trapped under some debris, and thinks that surely she’ll die here and be reborn—aaaand then she doesn’t.
- This is the part where they drop her in the inquisition to keep a close eye on her and make sure she doesn’t stray too. She has potential and she’s obedient and she’s too fucked up from her family dying out of nowhere to really think about any involvement they could have had in this for a bit.
- But even then she’s still a little soft-hearted. If she alone notices anything suspicious, she’ll just turn the other eye if she can help it. (She’s not sure if it helps them in the end, but she tries because it’s all she can do.)
- She did get uprooted from her old life entirely when she was taken in by the inquisition, but she does make… a single other friend off the clock, that being Fleta.
- Fleta is an interesting case! She’s your average mechanic-tinkerer-person, but what draws Zephrine to her is that… she doesn’t seem to have anyone else, either. She’d lived with her grandfather, she said, but one day he left to run an errand and never came back.
- He had a big heart, she thinks. Maybe he got involved in something he wasn’t supposed to. Would Zephrine know?
- …She doesn’t, but that’s what gets Fleta to ask if she’s happy where she is. And that’s what gets Zephrine to admit dor the first time that she really isn’t.
- And Fleta’s a bit too creative for her own good, so she starts thinking; if you can’t just walk out there, wouldn’t you be able to fly out like a bird? She’s never heard of an invention like that, but she’d like to try it—provided Zephrine doesn’t spill that secret. She promises to guard it carefully.
- It’s a lot of work, and for all she knows it’ll take years, but Zephrine starts to come in every day. Most days there isn’t that much progress, so they just talk about other things instead—and they grow close enough where some complicated feelings start to saddle Zephrine.
- She never brings them up herself, not really knowing when would be a good time to acknowledge the intimacy between them and not really knowing if she could handle commitment.
- But she starts to reconsider when Fleta asks her one day, if - even if they don’t fly out - she wants to run away with her.
- …And she accepts. The night is bliss.
- However, with both Zephrine’s brooch and any household dolls being chipped, this is where the inquisition properly steps in. Fleta gets convicted for heresy or conspiracy or something like that, and to test Zephrine’s allegiance they leave it to her to execute her sweety.
- She hesitates. For almost a second too long. But she closes her eyes before anything spills over and she hardens her heart over the cracks and she sets her alight.
- She wonders how Fleta was feeling. She couldn’t bear to look. She wonders if she resented her for it. If she understood. If she wished they could have gone together then and there.
- …She feels sick.
- She has to take a month off at that moment or she really will explode, so she does. And she doesn’t stop thinking about it—how little they really had done in the scheme of things. How she’d declared that she wanted to leave properly and lost everything the second she did. How they must have figured it out—did they have eyes and ears all over?
- But she doesn’t want to give up. If she couldn’t devote herself to their plan—she’d at least find a way out herself. That was the least she could do for her, she hopes.
- So for once, she listens. And she follows the whispers and rumors of the common folk without a moment’s rest, until she’s certain she can find a reignited Rebellion much like the first.
- Is she here to break them up? Far from it. She’s here to join their cause—wouldn’t it benefit them to have an insider, after all?
- It’s worth noting that these guys talk in sign language because they know they’ll be heard otherwise.Â
- Is it a lot to take in, the truths they speak of? Yes it is—and she wonders if she should have listened in more on her family’s conversations, but that doesn’t matter. She can process it all when they’ve found a way out.
- Of course, this also means she has to double down on her job as an inquisitor, so that the rest of the inquisition really doesn’t suspect a thing. Even if it means being cold and ruthless to the most undeserving of people, and even if it means the ash caking her hand piles up with every day.Â
- (She wonders if it’s worth it at all. But she’s already in too deep.)
- (For now, at least. That’s what’s important.)
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