[Fic] the history book on the shelf [Queen!Rachel]

[thecutdiamond]

Prompt: The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself
Characters: Rachel Caustello, various family members
Summary: The Fioros have an unfortunate family history; Rachel's past and possible future make that fact very clear.

Those who believed in magic called it a curse. Those who didn't called it unhappy coincidence, history repeating itself.

At first, it was an unnoticed phenomenon, given the nature of the Deck. Eventually, though, it became so frequent an occurrence that soon it was an acknowledged, albeit not quite accepted, fact: Rarely did a person of Fioro blood live past the age of forty-five. There was no particular reason why this was so-- the causes of death varied from illness to accident to the occasional violent death-- but still the ultimate fate remained the same. Children of Fioros were often left with one parent by their teens. A Fioro above the age of fifty was an anomaly. Because of a curse or unhappy coincidence, the bloodline of a once-strong Clubs family was slowly dying out.

And so Benjamin Fioro Senior sacrificed his life for a friend when he was thirty-nine. Benjamin Fioro Junior died under mysterious causes while off-Deck in Japan at forty-two. His daughter Elizabeth died at thirty-eight in a Challenge, while her brother Robert lived to the ripe old age of forty-four before succumbing to pancreatic cancer. His son Andrew was murdered at forty.

And then there was just one. Rachel Elaine Fioro Caustello, daughter of Elizabeth, niece of Robert, and cousin to Andrew. Proud Clubs turned Queen of Diamonds. Aged thirty-eight and counting.

In one day or perhaps in two thousand five hundred and fifty-five, she will visit the Diamond outposts and be fatally struck down in a sudden attack. In one week or perhaps in three hundred and sixty-four, she will succumb to a deadly illness. In one month or perhaps in eighty-four, she will be Challenged in a fight to the death for the crown and lose. In one year or perhaps seven, she will sacrifice everything for the Suit she has claimed as her own.

And perhaps somewhere between then and now she will have a daughter with her mother's missing smile and a name modeled after the lost. And perhaps when then finally becomes now she will grow cold like her mother before her. And perhaps when she does, people who knew the little girl with the lost smile will sigh and shake their heads and yet, somehow, find themselves not very surprised.

The girl is still a Fioro. And this is just history repeating itself.