The Beginning {Before Garden}
Born and raised in Winhill, Rosalia had been a pretty normal child. In fact, this was before she started using formal speech and honorfics on people's names. She was a kid, and she had enjoyed being about to go outside and play with her sisters. As the youngest, she sometimes got away with things her elder sisters couldn't at her age. Cindy was closer to her age, even if she was older by only seven years. Then followed by Amanda and Kathleen - the eldest happened to have been the shortest of the four, or would have if Rosalia had grown to her full height before that one night happened.
Her parents were hardly around, and it came down to the sisters to watch their younger sister. Two out of three had children and they would play with their aunt 'Rosie' to keep her occupied. Cindy at one point had learned she could never have children, and she was usually the first to volunteer to watch Rosalia and the other kids. But even with the parents gone, it was to provide money and food, and they try their best to show their last child that they love her any time they could.
Every year, there would be a family reunion, and anyone related would come from miles to come to their vacation house, which was quite outside of Winhill and protected by walls and forest. Hardly any one else knew where it lay, and it was a perfect place for any family reunion. It was this that the then-seven year old girl had to experience loss and fear.
Second day into the week-long family reunion, and Rosalia was among the others that camped out on the open and sheltered grounds. Cloudless night and insects chirping in harmony. Who would have thought that when the insects go quiet that it meant doom was about to befall anyone?
That should have warned the family, but they were too busy to notice when the animals and even pets disappeared, and that the insects gone quiet. A man quietly walked through the gates and stood before the family. He merely smiled at their inquiring questions and open-fired upon them with dark fire spells. Trees and people had thrown through the air, and this was when the panic finally started. Rosalia had been pushed into an nearby cellar, and her sisters were going about to gather all the kids before the man could come after them. Unfortunately, he was a lot faster than anyone thought he would, and they were cut down to size. Screams filled the air until it died down to only two voices; Rosalia's crying, and the man's laughter.
The cellar certainly wasn't safe as the man wretched open the doors as to make sure there were no survivors. Finding only the child as the last surviving person, he had smirked and brought her to the surface. But rather than kill her like the rest, he had tortured her, with flames and a wicked-bladed weapon that would leave behind many deep scars that would remain for perhaps the rest of her life - all along her back, down her arms, on her neck, and a bit on her chest, and even some on her legs. Hours went by as the flames consumed the house and the forest, but the clearing was miraculously clear of the burning fire, but it was only by the protective spell the man had casted on himself long beforehand. Bored when she had no voice left to scream, he smirked once more and leaned down close to her ear, and spoke like a lover, "Survive this, and you'll be just like me." Those words were the last she heard as he walked off, leaving her tossed in the remains of the house, embers leaving further burns along her body.
Two days later, and a delivery person that was bringing ordered food for the big feast was the first to discover the scene, and found Rosalia half-way across the yard, having attempt to get to the gates as to leave. It took several weeks for her to heal her burns and wounds, but even longer to recover psycologically. She had hardly spoke a word upon returning to Winhill to stay in the clinic, and many had speculated that she would die. But what will she had was what kept her from slipping into the black world forever.
After five months of recovery, she would have been sent to an nearby orphanage if it wasn't for the couple named Terra and Kevin Empathica. It was to their slow approach that she would eventually talk at last, but everyone had noticed the change of speech pattern. This would be when she began using honorfics as well. It was to seem like she was close to people but a way to create a barrier between her and 'them'.
About to Join Garden
Four years prior to the attack, and Rosalia began to have thoughts about becoming strong. Though the nightmares of her family's demise haunted her to that very day, it was also the man's words that scared her badly. She wanted to be stronger to protect, not to destroy. While this was an inner conflict as to get strong or remain weak, this was when Dimitri Bishou had come to the town to visit his aunt.
At first they hadn't even noticed each other's presence, but it finally came the day that Rosalia ran into him and had fallen to the ground. While it was awkward, she felt that he was alright. And she had began to hang with the older boy, who was so serious and yet seemed insecure at times. By this point, he had learned all there was from his uncle about fighting, and one day he talked about how he wanted to become a SeeD. While Rosalia had heard about SeeD and Gardens, this was the first she even thought about it. This would be how she would become strong, and protect those that needed it. Dimitri thought that she didn't belong to that kind of world, he was shown just how willful she was, and had to admire that someone as gentle-natured as this girl was so determined to become strong to protect could very well be a good fighter. He started teaching her about battle after this, and this was when she began calling him 'Brother-sempai'.
Even as she finally joined Balamb Garden and {after a month} Dimitri following after her, she has a deep-set fear of fire. Sometimes small fire doesn't scare her badly, but when there's an explosion or even a bonfure, she had shut the door of reality on everyone around her and retreated into her inner-mind, sometimes even screaming as she held onto her arms like she was getting attacked. These episodes rarely happened, and they hadn't happened yet at the Garden. But she fears it would happen sooner or later. And not even Dimitri knew that she had scars, nor had she told anyone the truth behind what happened to her and her family.
Mafdet of Egypt · Fri Mar 11, 2011 @ 09:01pm · 0 Comments |