Who: Serena - Leon What: Her story and how she joined the pride When: Nine years ago Where: Serith
woke up this morning and knew That the world would test me, come unglued Is it me or do you feel my pain? This world makes my blood boil again
You rip the heart out of me Rip the heart out of me You make it look easy You rip the heart out of me Rip the heart out of me Control and deceive me You rip the heart out of me Rip the heart out of me
I've tried everything to please you Gone out of my way like a fool What makes me break down like a bitch? It's so hard to crawl out of this ditch
You rip the heart out of me Rip the heart out of me You make it look easy You rip the heart out of me Rip the heart out of me Control and deceive me You rip the heart out of me Rip the heart out of me
You rip the heart out of me Rip the heart out of me You make it look easy You rip the heart out of me Rip the heart out of me Control and deceive me You rip the heart out of me Rip the heart out of me
Cassiopia Wednesday, a strong vibrant woman, proud of herself and of her accomplishments, happy and content with her life, or at least she told herself she was constantly. She had a good life, she had a husband that earned a good wage, she had a job of her own, and she ran the small business her father had set up years ago. Yes everything was great. On the surface anyway. Her husband cheated on her incessantly, he beat her if she mentioned it, he emptied her bank accounts frequently and left her in financial problems continually. Yet she took it all, with a smile on her face and a belief that there was always tomorrow, it get better tomorrow. It never did, with all her business acumen, she continually strived and sorted out the problems her husband caused. She continually put a brave face on for the outside world, when inside, her resolve to make the most of the life she’d allowed herself to sink into was crumbling.
She wanted to have a child, just one little person that she could love and knew would love her back. Her husband, couldn’t careless if they had children or not, as long as she carried on working. So a child they had. A beautiful little boy and all was well too the outside world.
Yet still her husband beat her, and still he embezzled the money that Cassiopia worked so hard to earn, and continually he flaunted other women in her face. She was a good woman, she’d been brought up to always believe and look for the good in others. She looked to her child to give her the strength not to loose all hope in his father. The child smiled and she grew strong once more. She faced each day with renewed vigour, her faith restored, her will untarnished. A good life was hard to find, and harder still to keep.
She was twenty five, her baby boy only three years old when the outward smile, was broken forever. She returned, tired and exhausted after having yet another meeting with yet another accountant, in the vain attempt to do something to replace the money her husband had taken from her business once again, only to be told repeatedly, she either had to hand him over to the police or face prosecution herself. They knew it was none of her doing, her friends, his friends, they all knew that Cassiopia was incapable of doing such, but still no one stood by her. They let her fall, and they kept quiet.
Three hours, that was all he had too look after their little boy, just three hours, three hours just as he was merely three years old. She returned home, she opened the door, troubled by the thought of having to talk to him, he never liked to talk about money, especially not that which he stole from her. From them. From their child, from their imaginatively good life.
Was he there when she walked in the door? Was he sat drinking as he always did whenever he bothered to spend time in their home? No.
Where was her child? Her beautiful little child, the reason she allowed herself to carry on believing the beatings were worth it, the constant striving to cover up his misdoings were what she as a good wife should be doing? He was in the kitchen, that’s where he was. He was in the kitchen with his beautiful coffee coloured skin tainted crimson, his chubby little face cold as was the rest of him. His smile that lightened her loveless marriage forever dimmed and put to rest. His large eyes held open in a death stare. Oh her beautiful little baby boy was no more.
She didn’t find him right away, she went first to the nursery, expecting to see him sleeping soundly in his new ‘big boy’ bed. He wasn’t there, his teddy wasn’t there either. His teddy was downstairs in the kitchen, helping to mop up the blood that still oozed out of his little chest. From his tiny little chest, that had been merely hours ago beaten firmly against the wall, by a father that just wanted him to shut up. A father, that hadn’t killed him, oh no, a father that had just beaten him and broken nearly all the fragile little bones in his body, but hadn’t, hadn’t killed him.
No one understood. No one cared. She sat in the court hearing lie after lie, she heard the judge say her husband was merely guilty of child abuse, that her little boy’s death was merely an accident. An accident. It drummed in her mind, it plagued her thoughts. And on the last day of the court case, she came prepared. Such a good wife, such a strong potent woman. Such a pile of crap, her whole life was a pile of crap. No more. She stood as her husband turned in his chair and looked over his shoulder towards her, and she aimed a gun and she shot him right through the centre of his forehead. Then laughed, she laughed and she laughed and they, locked her away.
It was in the mental home that Cassiopia realized that life wasn’t quite what you made of it, she was broken, she was more than ready to give up. Yet a shinning light was glimmering in the darkness. Another lost soul in need of something, a creature the likes of which none in Chicago would believe even existed. Together they fled the city and the world of which Cassiopia was all too tired of. It took her to Serith, where it finally dumped her. On the streets, penniless and broken, alone yet again, in a place she didn’t quite understand, with the fight leeched out of her and the need to survive all but dried up.
Twenty nine years old and now nothing but a prostitute in need of a fix, not the kind of life she’d ever imagined she’d be living. Yet it stopped the dreams of finding her baby on that cold linoleum floor, it stopped the ache of caring. It made everything stop. She found solace that whilst she no longer cared about herself or anything else, she could manipulate the men that came to her freely, that they ended up being the powerless ones.
At thirty one, she was becoming an old lady of the streets, the punters passed her by for younger girls, despite her looks only being diminished by the drugs she constantly used to get through each and every day. Without enough money to buy her next fix, she walked despondently down an alley way, where she saw lions.
Lions. Such a strange thing to see. Yet it made her smile. Despite the pain, the throbbing need to get her next fix, the animals made her smile.
They hadn’t noticed her, as they changed from beasts into human forms. They wouldn’t have noticed her then if she hadn’t ran up to them. Cassiopia, stayed with them. She was never to feel lonely or unloved again, she was appreciated for who she was, and whilst she was the one to teach the other lionesses, how to act like ‘ho’s’ and to teach Leon, how to act like a pimp, she knew that as long as she was with them all, she’d always be loved, no matter what.