thinking about aconite so here's another story
there was a pattern, a blueprint, to black markets. a rhythm in the undertow, chaotic with thousands of shiny things and cheap stalls vying for attention, growing dirtier and poorer the further you were from the center, with a dark, seedy underbelly you would only find if you knew where to look.
sure, the majority of illicit activity was done through the internet, nowadays, but the killers and the thieves still needed their places to gather and trade and do business.
aconite found herself there on her usual search for intel. the constant hunger-need-want for knowledge that fueled her often drove her to the worst places, but she could handle herself easily. it was a simple thing, to watch the streets, to keep her ears pricked for stray whispers. she was a master at melting into a crowd and being just a another nameless nobody when she wanted to be- her training had ensured it.
which is why she was surprised when a withered hand grabbed her arm- the lack of malicious intent in the grip the only thing keeping her from cutting it off immediately.
it was an old, wizened women, covered in mismatched layers of clothing, sitting in a tiny stall propped up in an alley. her hand was cold, from where it gripped her arm tightly, her withered voice a low croon.
"lost daughter, burning girl, come, come! care to let me tell you a fortune?"
aconite wrenched her arm away from the woman's grip, prepared to tell her off, but something made her pause. the woman. her milky pale eyes, succumbed to cataracts. there was knowing, in that gaze, and it intrigued her. true seers were rare. had she found one?
she sat on the little stool in front of the stall, and steeped her fingers.
the woman chuffed, amused.
"have I interested you, she-who-burned?"
aconite was rarely caught off guard, but this, this was not just interesting- it was dangerous. she-who-burned. there were no other survivors, of that day. how did this woman know? she leaned in, her gaze colder.
she grinned, her teeth mostly gone, the few left in her mouth yellow and cracked. the smile stretched her wrinkles. she gripped aconite's hand, as if to read her palm, but said nothing that she'd ever heard at any palm reader.
"ah, she-who-burned, you never rose from the ashes. you were not reborn. you just kept dying.
you carry much. you've tainted much, with blood and fire. your every step is another brick for the altar built to your vengeance."
aconite raised a skeptical brow. somewhat accurate, she supposed, but with too many riddles for her liking.
"perhaps that was a lucky guess on your part. go on."
she studied aconite's hand intently, tracing the lines of her palm and fingers, aconite's fingertips hard and calloused from years of labor.
"you bear the mark of a revolutionary in your half soul, she-who-burned-then-became-a-husk. but only the living can alter that which is written, and you are not living.
the tumult is eating away at you. you carry fire in your marrow, and the smoke poisons you still."
aconite scowls and snatches her hand back, her patience thin. was this woman looking down on her, somehow? was it a curse or spell, of some sort? she felt no active magic, or spellsโฆ she didn't understand, and that irked her.
"what does that mean? cease your riddles, madwoman. if you are trying to warn me of some bad omen, be straight about it."
the woman hummed mysteriously, looking almost amused. aconite wanted to kill her for the audacity.
"I do not warn, or advise. I only reveal what must be- so that you may brace yourself for what is to come. nothing you do will change fate.
heed me, burning girl. your path will not satisfy you. your soul will forever hunger. it will consume the world and swallow the stars. death wears your face, but beneath your skin, you are hollow.
only when you can no longer take, no longer steal or succor from the world you so despise, when you learn the value of the weaknesses you so readily discard- only then will you ever be whole."
aconite glared and spat at the woman's feet- this was the hag wanted to tell her? preachy garbage about morality? how absurd.
"you dare underestimate me? I am fulfilled as I will ever be. I am strong. whatever tragedy you think you see is probably something a fool like you can't hope to understand.
this was a waste of time."
in a fit of pettiness, aconite threw handful of money on the ground and stalked off, fuming.
she didn't believe in bullshit like that anyway.
she'd write her own fate.
It was only later, much later, after her capture, that aconite would understand that she had been given a prophecy. that her fate had been sealed from the start, not because it was impossible to change, but because she had refused to. she was too single minded, wrapped up in her schemes and her atrocities, to see the truth before her.
she wondered if that woman was laughing, now, at what a fool she had been.
