Becoming Nyx: Annalise

I was born Annalise Porter, only daughter and heir to Chance Porter, Bridgeport business mogul.

 My childhood was not normal by any measure. I was raised by a succession of combination nanny/bodyguards, and I rarely saw my father except for special occasions, when he had me dolled up and put on display for his business associates.

 My father was a very paranoid man. He always told me that it was the only way he had stayed alive with as many enemies as he had. He advised me to cultivate a healthy sense of paranoia. It was one of the only pieces of his advice I ever took.

It was certainly true that he had a lot of enemies, though. My father was a bad man.

A very, very bad man.

I was shielded from a lot of his actions as a child, but by the time I entered adolescence, my father expected me to start preparing to take over his business.

My introduction to the business began when he took me to get a tattoo. Every member of the gang had a tattoo of a dragon. Mine would be on the back of my neck. It was a permanent reminder of who I belonged to, and what he expected me to do.

I was alright with the stealing. To be completely honest, a part of me even liked the stealing. I had so little that was really my own. Everything that I had was my father’s, and he made sure that I never forgot it. The things I stole… they were mine. In a strange, twisted way I could even convince myself that I had earned them. If I could take it without anyone noticing, it was mine. Most of the people we were stealing from had more stuff than they knew what to do with anyway, so I could justify it to my conscience. He told me that the only thing I was ever good at was stealing. Maybe he was right.

Of course, I still felt guilty afterwards, and I wished I could return my ill-gotten gains to their rightful owners. I never did, though. I told myself that I needed it more than they did. Truthfully, though… I really just liked that it was mine.

I couldn’t ever bring myself to physically harm another person, though, and that made me a disappointment to my father.

For him, hurting people was a way of life.

Sometimes I wondered if he really thought he was helping me. He would often tell me, after I had failed him, that if I didn't make sure people knew I was strong in my own right, I would end up a Jane Doe in the morgue as soon as he wasn't there to protect me.

I wondered too if my life would have been different if I’d known my mother. I doubted it. By all reports, she and my father had a very… tumultuous relationship. She disappeared shortly after I was born. It was common knowledge that he had killed her, but they never found the body, so there was never an investigation.

By the time I was 15, I hated my life. I hated my father, his business, and especially his lackeys.

Some bowed to me…

 Some disdained me…

 And the worst of the lot hit on me.

I hated them all, until I met him.

Author's Note: And we're off! In case it isn't clear, this is the prologue to my legacy. It will be in three parts, then the actual legacy will begin.