Wheeling Gull Isle there's nothing left for [m]e anyway (ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇɢɪɴɴɪɴɢ)

timing undetermined. felt like writing about her past.

Mature Content Warning

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: uhh language, r*pe, sexism ig

She was just a little thing then, skinny and delicate and all limbs like a fawn.

Dad would always be out and about and working on hunting and patrolling, like a man should. He didn't have time for daughters- oh, how cursed he'd been! all daughters and no sons. Thinking his wife had been a cheap joke. What good was a wife who could only bear daughters?

Mom would always tend to the little girls. Huā would listen intently when 妈妈 said things like, "one day, 宝宝, you will make such a pretty and well-behaved wife." And 妈妈 would lap at the downy fur between her ears and say, "you're growing up so pretty, 花珍." Huā would smile and her feathery little tail would wag back and forth.

and one day, Dad says, "Your mom and I are going out to have a chat and take a walk by the sea. Ying, take care of your sisters, okay?" Mom would tremble uncomfortably in Dad's shadow when he said that. and Dad and Mom would head outside, leaving the girls alone in the den.

one day.
two.

"妈妈在哪里?" one girl would ask.

"我也不知道..." would come the reply.

Hungry and lonely and utterly distressed, and then aunt was to the rescue. She knows where to find the trio, and she takes them in alongside four of her own. She was lucky, and a good wife- bearing two sons was better than none. So  there was Kunkun and Zhiji and Mingxia and Chuntao and Yingyue and Meizhen and Huāzhen... and they were happy. 

Auntie was always biased. Subtly, of course- but it was little things. The way she treated her children versus the triplets. 

Chuntao would come home with debris on her pelt, and Auntie would cry, "oh, you silly little girl! Let me clean you up, darling..."

Huāzhen would come home looking the same after playing on the beach. "Aiyah, Huāzhen, look what a mess you're making! For the love of god... please bathe yourself before you come home." She'd cringe at the sight of the raggedy, scrawny little girl.

But it was just the way things were, and Huā never complained.

Ying would always be out hunting little hunts, playfighting with Kun- sometimes talking to a boy, whom Huā watched carefully from a distance. They weren't really supposed to talk to boys... it could lead to trouble. Still, her curiosity would overcome her, and she'd join them. Huā met Fengmian then, and watched the way her sister was all teenage dreams and heart-eyes over him. It did not seem right to her, though she would never say it out loud. Marriages based on love were oft weak and lacked real benefit. Arranged marriages benefitted both families and combined the wealth of each clan in a brighter new generation. She'd still talk to Fengmian- but she'd think, my sister isn't your prize. She'll marry a real man- one who will bring our family great prosperity. Not you.

And then Auntie dies. Nothing painful. She just goes in her sleep, who knows why. All the kids are a year old now, and they've got their whole future ahead of them. Huāzhen? Well, she was finally an adult, and so excited to be a wife. That was her purpose, right? To marry and provide sons for a husband who would care for all of them.

until
he
struck

Zhiji would wait for the perfect time. The triplets were still divided from her cousins in a sense, and so one day, they'd gone out for their own group hunt.

They were the hunted.

Zhiji and five- or was it six? other men. As if his coastal blood did not do the job well enough, these men served to make him look small. They were burly and torn-up, and some of them, much older than Zhiji himself. Where had he found them? How long had he had them? What had he said, to have these men serving him so readily? 

They came for the triplets. It was swift and almost painless. Huā and Mei were knocked out quickly, skinny little things thrown through the air like a silk scarf, skulls knocked on a boulder or the ground. Ying, she put up a fight. She tried her best. But one against six (seven?) was impossible. And soon she was out like a light too. 

Huāzhen awakens. Where-? It's all dim and dark and damp here, and her eyes are adjusting, adjusting and oh! It's a cave. Tunnels spouted from the room in multiple directions. In the dimness she can make out Ying, Mei... others. Her sisters were the only ones she knew, but the others, she would be well-accquainted in time. 

And then the men come. She wished she knew the way. Even up the tunnels they came from, the paths would split into two, into three. It was not long until she realized they were escorted down by guards, and guards would always patrol those tunnels anyway... 

And she was a virgin, and she had no idea what was to come. And when the men came to her, she glanced at her sisters, pained and afraid. What is happening? And the men would laugh at that look on her face. And they'd escort her away to a little corner of the room that was not so secluded as they thought it was, and go where she could not see, and in front of god and everyone, they made her suffer. 

Her first time, and her second, and third, rape.

The men would swear in foreign words that she did not know, words like fuck and shit. She did not know what these things meant. Her conclusion was that foreign men were rapists. And blindly, she tried not to think about the fact that Zhiji had been the one calling the shots that day, and that he'd been the one to facilitate their capture.

Some were almost gentle in the way they would be careful. Others were cruel- they'd shove her down, bite- really bite, at her throat when they fucked her. She was not like Ying, who could pretend, sometimes, that they loved her.

She wanted to scream. Wanted to fight.

But instead she would let it happen, lie there like a ragdoll, like a corpse. Let herself get pushed here and there and shoved to the stone, let her eyes drain of their life. 

A shadow of herself detached, would watch from the sidelines. Like watching a horror movie- it's scary, grisly, but you know it's not you. Just a story someone made up. And so she'd watch on, and think, poor girl. I'm glad I'm not her. 

There was a girl- Daiyu. A little dark thing, and she would cry, and cry, and cry on Huā's shoulder. And Huā would think, how could the world be so cruel? To make such a young girl suffer such a fate? God, spare her, please...

It was times like these that Huā could not believe there was a god in the world. If there was a god, these terrible, horrible things would never happen. But Mei saw it differently- and it was here, that she picked up religion, quietly practicing when she could, spreading knowledge in hushed tones to the other girls.

One month, or maybe two. It isn't long, but it's long enough for plenty of men to pay Zhiji for their chance with the girls. And so Huā escapes with her sisters, and other women, a changed girl forever. A ruined bride. A girl who had been defiled and defiled until she was no longer a wife of any value.

They traveled. Huā thought many times of what it would feel like to drown. Surrounded by the deep blue, and she takes a deep breath, and her lungs fill with saltwater, and her nose bubbles, and she thrashes and thrashes until her throat is full-

Huā awakes with a sudden start in her stone den. The stars and moon shine above out her little window. Tears stain her face though her eyes are groggy with sleep. This new life, it was not so bad. She had lived much worse.

Everything would be okay now.