trigger warnings: mentions of underage harassment ( only mentions, it didn't happen. ), abuse, psychosis, abandonment, violence, physical abuse, wrongful conditioning.

Primp and poise, back straight, head up. Constantly preening to the satisfaction of others, not that it did much for her own self, other than fill her heart's void with the attention so thoughtfully sought after. The only attention she got was when she sat in that plush little chair in her mother's room, dolled up by the hands of the woman that birthed her, and constantly reminded - berated - to keep herself nice and neat. Always nice and neat.

She remembers the first time she wasn't neat, landing on the thick mat when she was merely six, her feet swept out from under her and her mother shaking her head in disappointment. Bruises lacing up her body, welts and scrapes left, only to be reprimanded while being swathed in countless ointments to prevent scaring. Years went by, many times her back hit the mat, gradually growing and being taught to keep the upper hand, that she's small, that she will always be small, and people think that small means weak. Her mother had worked it into her that small is not weak, small is just a size, a spoken handicap that holds no plausible truth, only assumptions.

She was very neat by the time she became fourteen. Still a child in many ways, but not in a man's eyes. Those were the ones that her mother steered her towards. Older figures that pampered her, but never touched her; 'If they touch you, you know what to do.'. A sick game of judgement, playing to her mother's whim, taking the lives of men, and women, that thought they could get away with keeping their hands on others. They never got too far.

She was always so neat, so clever. She never thought that she'd leave her mother's side, until she was eighteen. Bright, wide eyed, schooled, legal. Legal, her mother had hissed the word like it was nothing but a curse. Legal, meaning she couldn't be used for the game that her mother had played. being told to take a hike, take the money, go somewhere, anywhere, she never wants to see her face again.

No father, not one that she knows, and a mother that isn't even her mother anymore, in her eyes, she was lost. Lost in her own self, unable to navigate by herself, unable. Unable. This wasn't neat. This wasn't clean. There was no prim, no proper. Just a bank account with numbers that seem so meaningless, now. The void in her heart wouldn't be filled any longer, at that point. The constant preening from her mother's hand was just a figment of her imagination, a reflection of her own self being the only touch she could see.

continued: the awakening

Perhaps it was fate that she'd stumbled upon a ratty brochure that was in the middle of crumbling to pieces in a puddle. It was fate to see the advertisement of a place like this. Buses to buses, taxi cabs, and maps upside down, she manages. Somehow. Nearly draining a quarter of her finances just to get to this city. Just to get to this school. Enrollment being an easy task in itself, but maintaining. That was the worst. Her schools were never like this, so used to the private life of a socialite, a hierarchy that she never realized she didn't fit in to until left on the streets.

A riff raff among thieves, perfect for the likes of it. Perfect for her. Her mother had created an animal, one that doesn't believe in any justice that this world may say it has. The cruel intentions of one setting a funnel of demise that would fall on her daughter.

But in this school, she was fine. A bit rusty, a bit worried, but mostly .. Fine.