Kita/Red

“A job well done, brother dearest.”

She sniffs derisively at her older sibling and his expression turns from mild surprise to unamused realization. Had he thought her compliment genuine? What a fool. She watches in irritation as he turns and stalks off, so obviously proud of his success, of their father's pride in his success. Their father's words still echo in her ears, taunting her, torturing her, captivating her. Of course she had heard her father's praise for her brother- how could she not have? Fury overtakes her as she watches her brother's retreating back, his head held high, triumphant. She watches. And she dies a little inside.

If only she'd been born male! If only she'd been born male!

But no. She alone had been born a daughter and the youngest of her father's many children besides, the least important in his eyes. Her father's many mates had never meant anything to him- if his murder of her mother, not that she cared, was any indication of his feelings toward females- so why should she really matter in the grand scheme of things? Her brothers were the ones that held his attention, made him turn his head to acknowledge them instead. She? She was merely an interesting experiment, a thing to be appreciated when she did well but overlooked at all other hours of the day. A tool. An object. It was not fair.

She has sacrificed more than all the others, given up things that some of her peers or friends- if she had ever had any- might have thought too important or valuable to lose. In her efforts to keep pace with her competitors, her siblings, she has endured her father's harsh lessons well past her breaking point, returning home with blistered feet and rampaging headaches brought about by heat and exertion only to repeat it all again the next day without once pausing to recover. At her father's direction she has fought, and killed, to fulfill his ambitions.

For him she has sworn loyalty to his chosen king and done her utmost to support his rule. For her father she has taken up her current role and seen to it that their prisoners are kept in line, ready to serve their king whenever he demands. She has descended to their level, too, to that of a mere captive and slave, to hunt when there wasn't enough to feed their king's conquering horde. She has debased herself for her father's benefit, to shore up his influence and reputation. Does he know how much that hurt her? Does he know that her own reputation among the prisoners, who already loathe her for the part she played in the invasion, has suffered greatly as a result of her being made to join the hunts like the rest of their king's harem?

She has humiliated herself, put herself through physical, mental, and emotional pain. She has endured so much suffering and she has done all of it for him, her father, the one she idolizes, the one she wishes so strongly to impress. Yet, for him, it is not enough. It never was.

Why is she not good enough?

Oh, how she resents them for being favored without even trying. Even her second-oldest sibling- her youngest half-brother, to be precise- even he, with all his faults and his obvious mental deficiencies, even he is more favored than her. She hates him too, but for different reasons. That one really is wrong in the head; growing up he had flirted with her often, his own sister. To this day the memories of his advances repulse her, whether they were made in jest or no. Her only consolation is that he hadn't been daddy's favorite. That had been his older brother, her father's first son. It always had been.

When that one had died she had hoped, foolishly, that her efforts might receive more notice, more favor, but she had been sorely mistaken. It was another of her brothers, the one she not-so-affectionately called brother dearest, that rose to replace their deceased sibling on their father's pedestal as his ideal child, his perfect soldier. It has taken her until now to come to the conclusion, but she knew that she positively hated him for usurping her place. She earned it. She deserved it! Words alone are not enough to adequately describe the depths of her anger, but words were never effective in her family anyway. Only action was appreciated.

But hasn't she given that, too? Hasn't she obeyed his every command, fulfilled his every whim, done everything he has ever asked? Without hesitation? And what is her reward for her loyalty, to watch passively from the sidelines while others take what is hers by right, to watch her brothers' gloating faces when their father lavishes them with praise? To be left behind, unacknowledged? Second-best, always?

Razor sharp claws bite into the rotting wood of a fallen tree beside her and she imagines it screams and bleeds, and that its cries of agony and dripping wounds belong to them, her brothers. She snarls and she spits and she hisses as her claws rake across the effigy of her brothers' success again and again, but she doesn't cry. She never cries, not her, not one single tear. For too long she has suffered and borne it; this, too, is nothing to her.

A sudden sharp noise echoes through the canyon and its ringing report makes her halt her frenzy mid-swipe, muscles tensed, her frame rigid. Her ears swivel all around while she casts her gaze about her manically, looking for the source, the intruder, the one foolish enough to dare approach her while her temper rages. For a while the only sound she hears is her unsteady breathing. She waits and watches... but finds only silence. It is nothing, then.

She relaxes, slightly, and returns her wrathful gaze to the ruined, hollow tree before her. What would it be like, she wonders, to actually go through with it? To rid herself of all the obstacles in her way once and for all? To never again have to listen to her stupid brothers' voices while their father looked at her, his daughter, as the culmination of his legacy, the child of whom he was the most proud, instead of his sons? She looks at the shredded wood and she imagines it is her older brother, her father's current favorite, injured at her feet and begging for her to stop, to see reason, to be understanding. She smiles, and then she lunges for the kill. One thing only does she understand and only one reason drives her now. She does not even need to consider her choice, she realizes, and she finds this new knowledge liberating.

Her hatred spills out of her at moments like these, the red drowning out everything else as it paints her world in varying hues of violence. The red is within her as well as without, for her brother does not die peacefully in her new fantasies, no. His blood is everywhere- around her, on her, inside her. She revels in it, glories in it. She finds she has never derived so much pleasure from anything in her life as she receives from this singular act of slaughter. Red, red, all of it red, all of the red that ever was, all the red in the world! The only red missing from the scene is her father's scarlet gaze. How could he bring himself to love her if he knew she had killed the most beloved of his children? No no, no. It is better that he never sees, that he never finds out.

What daddy doesn't know can't hurt him.