Odell Longbourne - D10 [FINISHED] | Hunger Games: The RPG

Odell Longbourne - D10 [FINISHED] Jul 6, 2012 16:29:16 GMT -5

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Post by [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨ on Jul 6, 2012 16:29:16 GMT -5

[odell longbourne + sixteen + o d a i r + district ten + female]

If it's not real
You can't hold it in your hand
You can't feel it with your heart
And I won't believe it
But if it's true you can see it with your eyes

A P P E A R A N C E

Or even in the dark
And that's where I want to be, yeah
Well you built up a world of magic
Because your real life is tragic
Yeah, you built up a world of magic

The morning sunlight spills from the windows into my bedroom, filling up the room with warmth in-between the curtain frame. It is a funny type of warmth, not the warmth you feel inside, or the warmth from a hug, or the warmth that radiates from the people who live inside of this place I've called home for two years now. A constant, never-ending warmth that lets flowers grow in the spring and the lakes dry up in the summer. It helps us thrive, all of us. Without it, we'd wither up and die. My skinny bones crumbling into dust, each long finger, worn from tugging at bell-ropes all day, slowly dying like petals on a flower. My leaves would drop, ever so slowly, falling to the ground that my lean feet stand on so carefully with toes as light as air (perfect for cloud-hopping and diving into other realms.) I've watched a few trees die over the months, every last leaf twirling to the ground - normal, at first, especially in autumn - but when they no longer begin to sprout new ones, we begin to worry. It's bark turns rotted and grey (pale skin from hours of hiding in the shadowed shelter of the bell tower shrivelling into tissue-paper layers) and its branches hang limply and solemn (arms with pointy elbows and legs with knobbly knees that jump up and down with every chime now barely able to creak into life.) It's a sad thing, when a tree dies, but we all must pass on eventually, I suppose.

A brush runs through my straw-coloured hair, limbs wrapped around each-other as I sit perched in an odd position on the chair in my room. My head stays ever-so-still, if not for the subtle tug the brushes' teeth bring, but my oval-shaped face stays just as static. Nana's rhythmic movements of her bony arms are almost soothing as she searches for knots or tangled clumps, and once again, I am reminded of age, years, time ticking away like the little clock in my room where I rest each evening. We're all dying, growing up and back down again until we're just like trees. As my chin rests on my freckled, hair-covered arms that tickle the skin in my face, I sit in silence, small pink lips tightened and still. Only the chitter of birds and my slow breathing can be heard over the gentle scrape of my hairbrush above my little, pixie-like ears.

My friends appear, smiling and waving, and a little smile appears on my mouth. The dance, flying around my head, the room - to the sound of the morning birdcalls outside my window. Breaking the silence, my little body vibrates as a giggle escaped my throat, clamping a hand over the sound as if to shove it back in, casting a flicker of a shadow against the sun's inviting light.

The brushing motion stops. "What's so funny, little one?" Nana asks suddenly, turning my brown gaze to meet hers. I have always enjoyed Nana's company - not just for her endless amount of stories that amaze me beyond my wildest ~~imagination~~ realities - but for the way in which her eyes sparkle as she crafts her legends, weaving in characters and twists; a sparkle oh-so familiar to when I look in the mirror and my friends wave back. Flickers of dust dance in the beams of light that tumble through the glass pane, just as my friends do - but they scramble under the bed, into drawers and behind the curtains at the sound of Nana's voice. They're still a bit sceptical of people here - they don't trust them like I do. Not even Nana, a person whom others call crazy but I call interesting, inspiring, extraordinary.

"I think she's like you" a friend had whispered into my ear when I first met her, the morning after I arrived. Huddled under the breakfast table adorned with a red and white tablecloth, a bowl of food in one hand and a spoon in the other, I watched the other members of the house as they hopped into the room one by one, making themselves appear for the first time in my life. "How so?" I queried with a puzzled furrow of eyebrows that match the shade of my hair, placing the bowl to my side and grasped my fingers, tapping nervously at my knuckles with bitten-down nails. "She sees. She knows. She has her own friends, too - look."

And I did look. But not at her friends - for if they were anything like mine, I know that they'd be shy; or at least, not wanting to be seen by others. I looked at Nana, and watched her mutter on about dragons and mythical monsters from her late-night stories. I looked at the others, and how they sent her sympathetic glanced, wondering if they'd do the same if they knew my secrets. I looked, I watched, I waited; but never spoke up. Neither did I now, blinking at Nana in the brief pause between us. It was commonplace at Julia to know that I hardly speak - but it was obvious, even to crazy old Nana, that I was hiding something. I've always been terrible at lying, but even worse at telling the truth.

But Nana did not intrude, or batter me with more scary questions, simply continuing to brush my hair from where she had left off. Instead, she merely asked "You got friends, dear?"

"Yes, Nana" I replied with a nod of my round head as I smoothed out my white dress a little too forecfully. "Brandon, and Jordan, and Simon t-"

"No, child. You know what I mean." she interrupted, placing the brush back down on the counter. "I got plenty o'friends," she said, "in here" with a tap of her head as if to illustrate her point. "No-one believes me, though - say I'm mad. But I just keep tellin' them the truth. Tellin' 'em they the mad ones, child. They don't see 'em." Her words sounded so soft, yet so full of knowledge and pride, and all of a sudden it was if the light had shifted in the room and a muted aurora had replaced it. Her eyes, once so bright with endless tales of magic and mischief, now muted and leaden, as if someone had poured a hundred more years into her system and drowned out her will to keep story-telling. I listened intently, eyes shining - transfixed on this woman and her limited years. Everyone else wrote her off as mad, or worse, but I felt like she was owed an audience, if ever so small.

"No matter. Here, pop down to the gardens and fetch me some carrots will you dear?" she asked, snapping out of her silent escapade, and the room was warm again and the birds had discovered their voices once more. Nodding feverishly, I hopped off my seat and pattered towards the door - but before I had closed the door behind me, I peeped around it's wooden frame and almost whispered:

"Nana?"

"Yes, child?"

"I believe you."

A warm smile spread across her old face, etched with lines of knowledge and a thousand adventures. "And I believe you, too, dear. Now run along" she motioned, eyes glancing to the drawers and curtains where my friends still hid for a moment as she did so. As they sped out of their hiding places and flew around my head, I could swear I heard a chuckle as the door shut behind me, tiptoeing down the hallways with each pitter-patter than my toes made.

"Told you" a friend whispered.

But I only smiled.

She lives in a fairy tale
Somewhere too far for us to find
Forgotten the taste and smell
Of a world that she's left behind
It's all about the exposure the lens I told her

P E R S O N A L I T Y

The angles were all wrong now
She's ripping wings off of butterflies
Keep your feet on the ground
When your head's in the clouds
Because your real life is tragic

My name itself sounds like it came from a bell. Whispered so quietly, echoing off the stone walls of the bell tower, my name turn into chimes. I watch it swirl, bounce up and down, all the colours of the rainbow at once. Illuminating the air around me, flying up, up up to the highest of clouds. Sometimes, they take me with them. But that's a secret not even a whisper could hide, not even a page in a book could conceal. I used to have to close my eyes and pretend, but now, I can float away any time I want and no-one really notices. Trees morph into marvellous sculptures, the grass turns light blue. Clouds become my bed and stars are my best friends. "I have to be home in time for the bell" I tell them, so every hour, they place me back down in my tower and I pull with all my might, letting everyone know that another hour has passed. Time is fascinating. Time passes, time stops. It tick tick ticks away.

I have secrets. A million, billion secrets. Secret places, secret thoughts. Secret friends and secret lands and secret hidey-holes. Secret: I can read myself into the pages of my books. Once I start, once my eyes begin to glide over the letters and the words slide off of my tongue and everything swirls, twists and turns around me. I become light as a feather, floating aimlessly along with the breeze. Secret: my bell-tower is the gateway to my friends in the books, and that's why no-one else is allowed up here. Nobody but me, for I am the keeper of secrets. A key to unlock a magical box inside my head, inside this tower. "Come with us, Odell. Come away to The Land, just for a while" they whisper softly. And I drown in the pages, sink into another world.

I run through fields of grass and springy as mattresses and become as light as air. I become a spinning top, dizzy to the core, collapsing onto a bed of flowers and candy floss and gave up at the shifting clouds painted with strokes of a brush. I fall through the serif of letters and crinkled old paper and skies of blue a thousand times over. I hide under tables at dinner and peer around corners to watch out for monsters. Words come out in squeaky syllables and I hide in the palms of my hands. I'm like the mice that scatter across the fields, a pearl blur skimming across the morning fog. I'm good at keeping secrets and even better at hiding my own.

[/color]

So one day he found her crying
Coiled up on the dirty ground
Her prince finally came to save her
And the rest you can figure out
But it was a trick and the clock struck twelve

H I S T O R Y

Well make sure
To build your home brick by boring brick
Or the wolf's gonna blow it down
Keep your feet on the ground
When your head's in the clouds

"What's your name, sweetheart?"

For a moment, I become as transfixed as my gaze is. Dripping from the rain that saturates my dress, shivering in bare-feet and that too-big leather jacket, teeth chatter away yet no other sound escapes my lips - desperately clutching the tattered old books to my chest as if they were pockets of warmth that I ached for. I don't remember anything except my name. I know nothing but it and the stories contained beneath my shaking arms. Secret: I can remember, but I don't want to.

"Odell," I sing softly through lips of blue. "Odell Longbourne."

Someone once told me that time was never time at all. I didn't really understand what they meant until I arrived at Julia Orchards.

[/color] Time is all around us. Endless. Like a constant, never-ending current. Time is not just a straight line, it is a thousand lines, bending and twisting and constantly changing. Time is beautiful. Time is everything. You can feel one thing in a second of time, and a million in a year. Lifetimes take up only a fraction of time, and therefore mine must be minuscule. And I realised one day that I seemed very small compared to time, and that time is almost non-existing. Time is something invented, thought up, an invisible system measured by clocks and bells and long ropes I have to stand on my tip-toes to reach. Time really isn't time after all. [/blockquote]

[/color]

"Let's play hide and seek!"

the red-headed boy from the brick house screamed. A chorus of cheers rang out against the street, and I became excited. I was the best at hide and seek, for I knew all the best hiding spots. My friends, although not yet visible, whispered secret hideaways in my ears. So in a blue of excitement, we scattered in a frenzied hurry and left an echo of "one, two, three, four, five...." behind us. My little friends flew alongside me as I sped along, giggling and breathing and flying through the long grass. Patters of footprints and twitches of bugs followed me for yards and yards, crawling under the old wooden fences and running between trees. "Come on Odell, come on Odell, you can find the best hiding spot, it's just over here..."[/i]

I didn't realise how far I'd travelled until the blur of blonde that I was against the green and yellow hills could no longer hear the roars and screams of discovered children calling out for me. I halted my feet and slammed to a stop, laughter cut off abruptly as I hesitated. My surroundings were foreign, different - but I crawled behind a bramble bush and waited, bubbling with elation. [/color]Suddenly, I was treading through a land that seemed so far away from home, so distant, so remote. But they'd find me again, they always find me last. Besides, I'd only run through a few fields, the kids were probably just hunting for the others over the fence. Momma said I should never go out alone, but I wasn't alone. I had my friends, the ones that danced through my ears and talked to me, sung to me, kept me company. The other kids wouldn't be able to find me for ages and ages, and I'd win the game of hide.

I didn't quite realise how long ages would take.[/justify]
[/blockquote][/blockquote]

Time is in the apple trees, circular rings in their trunks to mark years of growth and flourish. In the apples that sprout every year, and in those, seeds that will create even more trees to come.

[/color]I grow with the trees, the plants, the seeds. Stretch and stretch, up and up, until I become infinite. I watch my fellow orchard-goers float through this time, this space of the universe, and count down the seconds and minutes and hours until they move on. Some might not leave at all. We are trees, our roots buried into this place we call home. [/blockquote]

I woke up in the same place, still unfound.

[/color]Lost. But my invisible friends told me to walk, told me to find my way back. I walked and walked until my feet bled and my dress became grubby, the colour of dirt. Someone would find me, eventually.

And they did. The people in the trucks. Days had passed, my friends kept me company, but I grew awfully lonely. They found me walking along, barefooted, on the dusty old road to no-where. With their cowboy hats and bags of belongings and magical songs, they asked me where I was headed. I told them I was going home. "Come on, love," one of the woman said, patting the blanket she sat on on the back of one of the trailers. "We'll take ya home." And I clambered onto the truck and watched the world speed around me, on my way home.

We lit fires and someone played a guitar. I shivered under the stars and they gave me a leather jacket to keep me warm. It was miles to big, but I didn't care. I said nothing, for a while, until one night a boy who had graciously given me the jacket asked what I liked. "Stories" I replied quietly. "I like stories." They handed me two books that I read from for nights on end, huddled up by dying embers in a jacket and a blanket. They fed me, and gave me food, and for a while, I was content with the travellers. But my friends wanted to go home.[/justify][/i][/color] [/blockquote][/blockquote]

I am a ticking clock, never stopping. My body grows and ages and stretches every day, with every hour that passes. Hair gets a little longer and my height grows a little taller, like the trees in the orchard.

[/color]Perhaps, if you cut me open, you'd find sixteen rings inside of me, one after the other. Each ring would tell a story, the year I was born, the year I learnt to walk, talk, read, write, fell out of a tree, sung my first song, watched my Papa play his piano for a whole day, baked cookies with my friends, watched someone getting dragged off by a Peacekeeper for stealing an orange, broke my arm, lined up for my first Reaping, traced a rainbow across the sky as my friends slid through the universe, wandered away from home, first went to the Land, rang the bell on my birthday. Each year, a new story would be woven into my very core to settle for eternity. [/blockquote]

We'd been driving forever. Past homes, past schools, past fields of cows and sheep and horses. My friends kept me company, and I flew past blurs of grey and green and slept under the galaxy. Everything seemed normal, and I didn't think of a home for a while.

Then they drove past the Orchard.

[/color]"What's that place?" I asked one of the women, pointing a long finger at the rows and rows of apple trees that came into our view as we sped past the fields. My friends hummed their approval in my ears, and I watched with wide eyes as a rooftop appeared above the reds and greens. "Why, that's Julia. Julia Orchards, that is" she replied to my wide-eyed expression. "Owned by a couple'a kids, used t' be. Then Julia died, n' now I think the son runs it. Kids come an' go as they please, helpin' out n' all. Ain't no place else you wanna go for apples unless it's Julia, I'll say that."

But I didn't want apples. My eyes weren't so wide to see the rows of trees, hands not so thirsty to reach out for the orchards alone - no, my friends did not burst into life at the mention of fruit. It was the tower - so grand, so magnificent in it's splendour, standing above the orchard and stretching so high that the clouds could be the steps from it's top to the heavens above. And I knew, in that moment, that I belonged there. That my friends belonged there. That it was a home in itself, a home where we belonged. "You could come to our world, Odell, climb up the cloud steps and fall with us to The Land." My friends whispered promises so wondrous that my heart ached when we drove past the house, the trees, the fields, and it disappeared from view altogether. I could not think of anything else but the orchard, the fields and the magical tower that would lead me to my kingdom.[/justify][/blockquote][/blockquote]

Ringing of the bell every hour could possibly be like creating a new ring in the orchard's tree. Because so much can happen in an hour, enough for a new story. I can read a new story, or create one myself.

[/color]When I first heard of Julia, I could not stop making up stories about the place and it's people. Now, I live them out, a character in my own book of treasures. I am the author, putting pen to paper, constructing the plot and dialogue, my own main character. My life is a book and I won't stop writing. [/blockquote]

I ran away for a second time, that night.

It was raining. It was cold. I pulled on my jacket, grabbed my two precious, precious books, and off me and my friends went. Tiptoeing oh-so quietly from the tents we left, bidding goodbye to each and every person who had adopted me into their family.

[/color]But life on the road was not for me. Sooner or later, I had to stop running - that's what my friends had said. Something about that orchard, that tower, those puffy clouds to the stars; they pulled me towards them. "We belong there, Odell."

So I ran, ran barefooted with nothing but a jacket to keep my bones from turning to ice. Ran down the roads until my feet bled, ran until my hair clung to my face, ran until my sobs could no longer be heard under the thunderous drumming of rain that stole away my cries for help, for the bell-tower, for the magical land that promised to take me and my friends home. I never missed my first home on the hill, or even my temporary second on wheels - but now I missed a home that I had never even visited before. Hours and hours passed and my arms could barely hold onto the books that I clutched so desperately, and for a second, as my aching, blistered feet gave in and stinging palms scrubbed against the gravelled pathways in the darkness, books toppling to the ground, I thought that perhaps I had made the whole place up in my head. I wanted to go home.

"Odell! The lights! They guided us home!" my friends rejoiced, and sure enough, specks of light from the house windows had appeared on the horizon as if someone had plucked the stars from the sky and planted them in the distance. Up I went, scrabbling through trees and bramble, the smell of dust and rain and apple pie drawing me closer and closer to the lights, the front door, the promise of home and the Land and a warm place to sleep. My books never left my saturated arms, because what was it if I trekked so long to find my home and left my friends behind, after all the help and courage and guidance they gave me to get here? Unfair, that was what it would be. And as I raised an arm to finally, finally knock on the large front door of the wondrous house, I knew something for sure.

I was home.[/i][/justify]
[/blockquote]

TL;DR
~~(WHICH I GUARANTEE YOU WILL READ INSTEAD OF THIS MONSTROSITY)~~

PIXIE-SIZED LITTLE BLONDE THING ~~PROBABLY IS AN ACTUAL PIXIE NGL~~

SECRETS QUIET TIMID LIVES IN HER OWN LITTLE WORLD IMAGINARY FRIENDS SHE THINKS ARE REAL IDK SHE'S A TREE OR SOMETHING

GOT LOST RAN AWAY FOUND THE ORCHARD YAY BELL TOWERS RING RING RING

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