Prose: "the unbelieved"

(AN: this was originally a fanfiction/fan soundtrack piece; I won't tell you for which series because that will create biases in your mind; but I found that if I removed all mention of the intellectual property in question, it stood by itself pretty well.)

You’re the woman nobody believes.

You knew that one man was bad news even before he crafted the instruments that brought all this hell about. You saw them all raise their eyebrows at your distaste for him, your refusal to give him the merest moment of your attention. But he’s so clever! He says such beautiful things! His genius knows no bounds! Oh, young lady, don’t be foolish.

You still have nightmares about what his -- and many other men's -- greed has wrought.

You’re used to it -- you hate it, but you’re used to it, all right. You’ve danced this dance before. You’ve seen the signs of the oncoming storm. You could write the book on it all, and sometimes you seriously think you just might, one day. If you survive.

If anyone else survives to read it.

Sure, you could run to safety. You’d be fine. You’d heal overnight, right? Except you wouldn’t, because your dreaming memories are almost as real as waking life, and you’d be reminded constantly that you lived.

Just you.

The guilt that comes with that will crash over you like a wave that can drown whole empires, that can wipe islands off the map. It saturates everything. But hey, you’re safe, right?

You know how regret and shame can make you cold, snowblind. You remember the times you’ve been frozen in a moment, bodily, mentally, feeling your own heart beating like an ice-pick thrust into a glacier as some more bad news sunk in. Guilt is the fiercest blizzard; the winter wind that swallows all even and sensible thought required to survive in such a world.

They’re wrong -- your part is not finished. Your duty has not been done, not yet. You cannot leave innocent people to endure terror and imprisonment and death.

All they see is your anger, it’s all they want to see. They don’t see your anxiety keeping you wide awake all night. They don’t see you literally bite down on your tongue when things go to ruin like you knew they would, like you said they would, they don’t taste the iron tang of blood that you concentrate on so you won't cry in frustration. They don’t see your battered heart. They see the lightning and hear the roaring thunder, see the winds forcing the trees to bend and snap. They don’t see the eye of the storm, where you stand, alone, unbroken. You, the tempest, cyclone, goddamn hurricane.

You’re just another angry woman, after all.