these hearts lie } wonder; VT

You are hollow, believe it or not. The words that you speak lack depth and meaning, the downcast eyes do not truly see the sidewalk. You have seen the sea before, but this is different. This sea is not marred by bloodstains and tears, washed aside by pain and fear. This sea is beautiful not because of it's majestic, magnificent perfection, but because of it's necessity. The people rely on it. You watch as they work with it as though it is a part of them and they too are a part of it. The ocean here is something that is bound into the lives of the people so completely that without it they would never survive. The merpeople of District Four are beautiful. Learning from the land, giving to it everything and taking only what they need. A perfect harmony, a beautiful, terrifying kind of wealth that threatens you somewhere deep down. You took a piece from this intricate puzzle, let another fall before your eyes, and now it will not function the same. It is your fault that this living, breathing being is not complete any longer, and you have no way of fixing this. Stolen children are one thing, but when those children are Penelope Libertine and Fitz Rilpley, two so brave and strong and caring and pure, then how could society not crumble where they left it. Another question haunts your tired mind - how long will it take for them to forget? Surely, at some point, all the people hurrying to and fro around you, hauling fish from the sea and carrying sails and oars and nets, they will move on. They'll fill the holes in their lives that the tributes of the sixty-first Hunger Games left, their hearts will heal. Families will still need feeding, homes mending. They will move on. Perhaps the families of those lost will ache a little longer, you think. But you know no amount of pain will ever make up for that. For them, two people, two human beings. Even nameless, forgetting their personalities and their quirks and their histories and their differences, even then, your heart breaks. You loved them both. Why is it that everybody you love ends up hurt?

There are so many things you ache to know about Penelope and Fitz. Little things, inconsequential moments in their lives that made them who they are. Despite everything you went through together, you didn't learn enough. Their favourite childhood toys. The thoughts that crossed their minds late at night, the kinds of things you will only ever know about someone if you are sitting with them beneath the light of the stars. Secrets not kept for any reason other than time. Time that you, my darling, never got to share with the people you called your friends. Is this why you find your feet carrying you from the shoreline to the shop that you know will provide these answers, if you search for them. But then perhaps, if you were the owner of the house, you would close the doors and bar the murderer of those who meant to much from coming inside. You did not kill Penelope Libertine, but in the end they all died so you could live. Every last one of them. In truth, although your mind looks right back to the beginning of your story, you cannot remember all of their names. Days blur, anthems fade into each other, deaths tally up in a mixture of pain and sick relief. Emotions as thick and deep as the sea. This is why you find yourself on the doorstep of the Libertine Pawn Shop, silent and desolate as the room before you. "Hello? Is anybody here?" You step inside through the open door, your eyes lingering on the dusty, half-bare shelves. They ache with emptiness, although the assortment of trinkets isn't too sparse. The shadows stretch long , and the silence that pools around you is almost defining. Although you wish to call out again, somehow the thickness of the air stops you and instead you gravitate towards a shelf, your fingers lacing around a jewellery box. It's old, very old. The hinges are worn down, and a tiny ballerina perches atop the golden box. You wind it up, very slowly, very softly, and recoil as it begins to play. The melody is slight, calming, a lilting tune you cannot resist.

Suddenly you hear footsteps behind you and drop the box back on the shelf all at once. There is a loud clatter, and then you realise no laws prevent you from touching the wares of a shop. Guilty, so guilty. Before the almost almost silent inhabitant of the walls behind the shop reaches you, panic grips your chest. What if they reject you, send you fleeing from their home before you can get to know the two who died? What then, Klaus? If the answers you are desperate for never find their way into your mind and your heart can never let go of what you have done. You missed out on their lives, and you witnessed their deaths. These people, the ones who reside in the dusty, half-abandoned Pawn Shop, hold the shards of your life you are missing. "I'm - I'm looking for Penelope?"The words leave your lips before you realise what horrors they contain. Is that why you're here, really? To find what you have lost? Love. Whether the footsteps and veering out or moving closer, you do not know. Questions pile up, one over the other in your mind until the air around you begins to spin and slide, and everything sinks backward. "Please?"