Chapter Text
Torrential rain was soaking the garbage covered and piss soaked pavement of the city, an ugly and familiar sour smell settling over the storm ridden metropolis of this shit stained town. The city was ugly. She doesn’t think she ever realized how ugly it was before.
Being blinded by pretty, sparkling lights and flashy showmanship eons ago had her thinking this city was pure magic. Fucking. Pitiful.
All that glitz and glam slapped on disguised the disgusting, seedy truth of how disgusting this city was. She was disgusted by it. She could strike a match and burn it to the ground herself, if the rain could let up.
Her bare feet dragged against the pavement, mumbling something to herself. Anything to herself. Just something verbal to ground herself to a reality that was slowly slipping away from her. The rain soaked her thin nightgown, clinging to her body in a wet, slopping mess of fabric and dirt and blood. When was there blood? She didn’t remember the blood. She didn’t remember much, actually.
She remembered yelling. She remembered running. She remembered the rain.
Fuck, it was cold. Something about that sudden realization sparked inside her and shocked her nervous system into a kickstart, as she breathed in and gasped for air. Her ribs expanded and deflated in rapid succession, coils of black hair sticking to her face and obscuring her already blurry vision. She wiped her face with her palms, scrubbing at it and willing herself to come back to her body. She felt so heavy, dreary, and so cold.
Her panic felt so…far away. Like it was kicking and screaming to get to her, but all she registered was that she was outside, it was raining, and she was cold.
Something was so very wrong here. She shouldn’t be cold. Why was she so cold?
Valerie
Something grabbed at her. She flailed, screamed, before she suddenly-
・・・・・⟢
“Miss Valerie!” A sharp voice rung in her skull as her eye sockets burn with life- her violet pupils blinking in rapid succession as she wakes with a deep gasp that has her sitting up in bed. Her comforter was on the floor- ah, she was cold- and an angry head of staff was glaring down at her.
“Miss Valerie, it is fifteen minutes past breakfast time, and your father is already gone on business!” Dear old Missus Evelyn, head of staff of the estate, and Valerie’s own personal pain in the ass. “He expects you up and dressed in one hour!”
She only groans and flops back down into bed, giving a huff as the heavy feeling in her mind and body still persist. Fuck. That was a really weird and unwelcome dream. Why can’t she ever dream about anything normal, like puppies, or rainbows, instead of debilitating past traumas? Her brain has a sick twisted sense of amusement. She was still mulling over the feelings of simmering rage in her mind before a pillow smacked her over the face.
“Hey-!” She lets out incredulously, before the snotty heels of Missus Evelyn click across her room. “I won’t ask again!” The firm click shut of the door, and then she’s alone.
She takes a moment to just mull over herself. How her mind and body feels. She’s been having that same dream for weeks now, each time more realistic and as annoying as the last. A deep ache burned inside her chest, and she willed it away with a scoff. She was so over feeling so pathetic. With a grunt, she swings her legs to the side over her bed with all the delicacy of a hornet trapped in a blanket. The usual stifling air of her bedroom greeted her. Her perfectly fluffed and cleaned bedding was now on the floor in her dream scuffle, and the cold winter air seeped through the heavy, dark wood layered plaster of her walls. The dark interior of her room always made her feel so small…despite how large it was. She couldn’t make up her mind if she felt suffocated or swallowed up.
Bare feet touch the ground, and Valerie is trudging to her vanity and chair. Another day, another morning to get dolled up for a suffocating family while living a suffocating life.
She has to make herself look in the mirror, assessing how her dreadful night of sleep affected her asset of a face.
….she looked tired. She always did, but recently, it’s been more physically apparent of how tired she actually feels.
Hair piled and tucked neatly inside a bonnet allows her to fully appreciate the sunken in eye sockets of her skull, and the deep etchings of bags beneath them. How cute.
Violet eyes stare back at her. She looks away.
Nevermind exhaustion. Nevermind feelings. It was another full day of…whatever it was she was doing.
She never really was sure these days.
Valerie groans as she hooks her clawed phalanges under her bonnet and frees the mass of black ombré coils that tortured her daily. She always did have strong magic. If only that didn’t directly correspond with the physiology of her body; strong magic? Congrats, some physical part of you is unruly.
She didn’t even get one claw around a strand of hair before her door opens and Evelyn is there with a hot plate of breakfast.
“Oh, so the beast can arise from her slumber! I’ll warn the neighbors.”
Valerie snorts as Evelyn places the tray on her nightstand. It was awfully bold to call a monster heiress a beast to her face, but Evelyn was the only human who could get away with insulting Valerie like that.
“It’s too late. I’ve maimed their dogs and ate their groundskeeper.” A brush yanks through tangles.
“Oh poor John. He was a lovely fellow.” Evelyn sits on a chaise as they quietly chuckle together; a moment of girlish unity Valerie has come to begrudgingly look forward to.
The brush is retired to the gaudily blue vanity as a decorative hair comb expertly swirls through the curls into an unruly updo.
“….youre quiet. You usually insult me more.” Valerie states. It’s quiet in general in the estate this morning. It felt…uneasy.
“Well you insult yourself plenty with that updo.” Evelyn snarks expertly, smoothing out her skirt.
A clock ticks somewhere on the wall. Thunder sounds from a distance.
Evelyn taps her fingers on the plush chaise beneath her, taking a breath. “Listen….I was instructed not to tell you this, Val. Um, well…however-“
・・・・・⟢
The click of heeled shoes on glossy floors echo through the long hallway. It’s been decorated in the same boring realism paintings and marble statues for as long as she can remember; a supposedly intimidating portrayal of wealth. She could give less of a flying fuck. All of the scenery went by it’s usual boring blur, with the added aura of anger protruding from every pore in her bones. A commotion of noise followed in her wake; squawking, nagging, grating noise.
“Valerie Helvetica, you come back here this instant!” The heavy voice of Valerie’s father drills its way into her skull, along with the muffled scufflings of unwelcome guests follow behind him. She only scoffs and quickens her pace, her movements swift, elegant, and deadly. Like if you got in her way, she wouldn’t hesitate to trample you like a wild beast being chased after to be poached for sport. And wild beast, she was.
Valerie Helvetica, the only child of the wealthy, old money Helvetica family. Whatever. The flashy life of appearances and throwing money at problems had long lost its sparkle.
She stalked down the halls, the voice of authority fading into nothingness. She was angry. Beyond angry, she felt like livestock. She felt like a slab of meat her father just presented to some- some-
Some piece of shit mobster daring to ask ‘how much per pound’.
She’s not stupid. Marriage has always been in the cards for her. She didn’t go down fighting though. Her reputation was in the pits of hell. She was a drunk. She fought, yelled, drank, and fucked in some of the seediest pits of this cesspool city. She was unmarriable. She had to be. She made sure she was.
She cant even fuck things up right.
“I hate you! Go die and rot you fat fucking pig!” A slam of a door and she was secure inside of a room she didn’t really register. She didn’t care. She was angry. Has no one suffered under her wrath enough? What did she have to do to make them learn?
“Valerie! Valerie Belladonna Helvetica open this-“
A clatter, the squeal of heavy wood against wood floors, and then a heavy thud against the doors.
The head of the Helvetica estate was fighting with his wretched daughter, who had just barricaded herself inside of a room-
Another crash. A shatter. Another shatter.
Scratch that, who had just barricaded herself inside of a room and is now eviscerating everything breakable inside. He takes a hold of the doorknob and pushes but it’s no use.
Relenting, he pulls out a handkerchief and wipes the torrential violet-colored sweat from his bone brow.
“….Please understand, sir, that she- well she just- she isn’t….” Not seeming to find the words, he gives up with a sigh.
“…is this arrangement…salvageable?”
A cigar falls to the ground, and the heavy weight of a red-bottom high heeled boot stomps it out.
“OH, MR. HELVETICA. SHE’LL FIT RIGHT IN.”