𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐚¹- hp.

𝐱𝐱𝐯𝐢𝐢. shame, shame, shame.

꧁—— ❦ ——꧂

         The next time she lights a cig, she thinks Katalina may be right. Fun, eh? Well, it's not. It's really not. Not for any logical sense in her mind but when she's hunched over, writing what must be the tenth draft of another letter she thinks will go unanswered, she finally gets it.

The tingle in the back of her throat is irritating, and she feels she's teetering the edge of insanity with the need to cough. Just balancing on the tip of her toes and swaying with the wind. Back and forth, back and forth. A couple times, if she's honest, she thinks she may have fallen over the line. The wind blows particularly harsh and she tumbles. Rolls through the clouds of smoke until she lands on her back and the ground forces the air from her lungs, muscles aching in a way she doesn't quite understand when she's finally put the cig out. It burns, but everything burns when people touch her. Except for Harry. His touch sends waves of ice down her spine and she can finally breathe. Like a luxury she's never really been afforded and costs a kings ransoms to obtain, but he isn't here. He's at St Brutus' with Hermione and Ronaldo ( there's a jealousy. some burning pit of rage when she thinks it ) ignoring her letters and most likely destroying them as they are received — but that's when it finally clicks. It's almost like a punishment, when she truly thinks about it. There's a fog that envelopes her head when she's smoking ( head-rush, she thinks Katalina called it ) and slightly distorts her vision, making everything just that much more difficult to focus on what's happening around her. And who in their right mind wants that haze for the fun of it? It feels like an uncomfortable weight in her gut that she can't seem to shake. The urge, the shame, and that small begrudging fraction of acceptance.

Smoking, she thinks, is a socially accepted form of self-punishment. When she holds a scalding mug to her bare skin she receives strange looks from her peers, and low whispers echo throughout the halls when they see the patches of raw crimson. And then, of course, there's how observant Katalina seems to be — 'Avie, what's that from?' or 'That's not deliberate, is it?' and of course it's fucking deliberate. 'I need to purify the soul!' she wants to scream, 'cast out the demon!' until it's carved into the drywall with the tip of a knife to unveil it all to Katalina. To make her understand that she thinks she's going fucking insane. And will continue to think of the things she's done that make her stomach turn at the thought of it, and will continue to do those things until she's been freed from the strings of the puppeteer. She doesn't feel she's in control of her life — like a marionette, really. The Gods pull and she moves. They command she ruins the lives of others, and she will. She's cursed, and the ruins sit in the depths of hell, ready, prepared to swallow her whole in the void of guilt and shame. In the void of infernos that awaits her after death. Katalina doesn't fucking get it. And perhaps that's why Lavinia's so jealous of her. Like a pit of wanting and yearning and craving.