#* verse 3: ANTIGONE DRESSED IN ASHES ( an eagle tied in golden chain ) ; mafia.

[arekardi]

 ANTIGONE DRESSED IN ASHES ;  an eagle tied in golden chain. ( mafia au, as inspired by @blaidded‘s verse ! )

 there’s photographs somewhere, in some dusty corner of the old hresvelg house, of eleven children on a summers day. one of the is a young girl with brown hair and a gap in her teeth. she appears again, with a blond boy, grinning as she pulls two fingers behind his head for the camera. do not go looking for her. she is dead. she is never coming back. 

 a pretty girl plays the part of the show business star, with smiles, shining lipstick, a carefully managed instagram, tv appearances. everyone knows edelgard hresvelg; you’d be stupid not to. she’s even appeared in a tv commercial or two. she’s going to inheritting her father’s company soon, after all. ( how do you get your hair to that colour, edelgard? i’ve never seen you with roots! a talk show host asks her. she laughs. purple eyes gleam. a good routine, and lucky genetics. she answers. there are too many teeth in her smile. )

 here’s another picture of her: kissing another woman behind the wall, lipstick smeared crimson like blood on her mouth. this is the least of her scandals. 

 here’s another one: no dress this time, but a blood red suit, fitted to her broad frame, a pair of sleek black heels accenting her height. she still stands shorter than most of the room, but there’s an undeniable sense of presence in her. she fills the room. her hair is tied in two tight buns, with golden horns curled round them. get the money. she says, and men rush to her word at once. her eyes are cold. they have always been cold. she spins a dagger between two fingers. blood stains under her nails. 

 she fights. she kills. she steals. she does all this for the gain of the hresvelg family. she does it all over again. she’s ruthless, she’s disgusting, she’s beautiful, she’s terrifying. she fights like there’s no tomorrow, like she’s running out of time.

 this is because she is.

 they say the hresvelg corporation is terrifying. everyone buys their products, one way or another. capitalism has allowed them to sink their rich hands into tiny companies and tear them to pieces, taking their resources for theirselves. it wasn’t always this way. they used to be a well respected business with good, friendly connections. all everyone knows is that one day there was a power struggle, and things changed. 

 the current CEO’s children - all eleven of them - disappeared from the public eye, and at the same time, the company’s private experiments turned... darker, people say. rumours say it was experimentation on some kinds of drugs. some kind of stimulant. it can be bought in the black market. they call it DB - or demonic beast. it makes it’s victim incredibly strong for a short amount of time, and then kills them about 90% of the time. 

 at the same time, children began to go missing around fodlan. occasionally, a few would be found again, all with no colour left in their hair, skin, or eyes, usually physically weaker than they had been before. most of them died just a few years later of health complications. 

 so it is here we find the girl, daughter of the CEO of the hresvelg corproation, in an underground lab. her siblings scream around her. all she knows is the cold of the medical table she’s pressed to. all she knows is the press of syringes into her neck. eventually, after a length of time and agony and pain she cannot even comprehend, the scientists cheer. her hair is white. her eyes are light purple instead of the dark violet they were before. and she’s much, much stronger than anyone else.

 her siblings are all killed. they’re failures. her uncle walks in, smiling like a hungry beast. she feels blinding fury. she feels cold fear. she feels more than she has ever felt in her life. 

 her uncle touches her face, and she tries to bite his hand. he laughs. you are our greatest creation, edelgard. he says. she wants to be sick. 

 the next few years are easy. she reappears in public as if nothing ever happened, and makes a name for herself as show business darling, while in the criminal underworld, everyone learns not to underestimate her. she fights like she’s running out of time, because she is. 

 she is twenty three years old, and in seven years she will be dead. she does not have much time. this world, that her uncle and his men thrive in, that allows the slaughter and torture of children, must be dismantled. but the authorities are just as bad. everyone worships money, and drugs, and violence. if she is going to win, she will play them at their game and win. 

 ( it should be noted that edelgard always tries to minimise innocent or even unneeded death. there’s always an offer to fall under her magnetic pull. she always needs new allies, after all. very few innocents have been killed under her name, however cruel she might be. )

 she will take the power of all the families in this rotton city, take all the power and then slowly, carefully, dismantle it and destroy her uncle and his disgusting followers. and she can only set the events in motion. 

 in a letter adressed to her closest follower, hubert vestra, entitled read when i am dead, she sets all this in motion, in the ways that he must let each part go. until eventually, fodlan will be clean once more, no more mobs, and no more blood. 

  to achieve this goal i shall become the monster i was always supposed to be. i shall kill and defile and lie and steal. but i shall end this. i leave the rest to you, hubert. reads the letter. 

 the last line reads, and when it is over, the children shall be free. whether she is talking of the children of the future, free of the threat of such torture as she went through, or the souls of the children of the past is unknown.