corran devereaux // one // resub // finished!

corran devereaux

Happiness hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her, stuck still, no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses
And from it she fled

A P P E A R A N C E

"Devereaux," the children whisper, watching the girl fall graciously into step with every pitter patter pitter patter her tiny feet make. She hurries - but she is in no rush, no anxious force pulling her forwards, no checks of a watch every few minutes to signal that she's supposed to be somewhere. She is, really, but rushing around schedules other people have written up for you just doesn't work for Corran. So she takes her time, letting leather-bound shoes that smell of polish and wads of money from her parent's pockets run at her pace. There is no hint about her that she shouldn't take her time - and if nobody knew better, they'd say that she was lucky to have all that free time to spend wandering around with a relaxed posture, her face contently neutral in expression if not for a gleaming curiosity in her blue eyes and a twitch of happiness at the corners of her mouth. "Devereaux ticks to her own clock."

She is porcelain. Carefully crafted, curled and carved into a little china doll for her mother to display on her shelf, blonde hair brushed and curled and clipped to perfection. Only Corran doesn't want to be a china doll - she wants to be the kite that flies high in the sky. Wind-swept hair allowed to be pulled up into the clouds of blue, arms stretched out to the very ends of her fingertips as she dances across the waterless sea. Feeling weightless, feeling free - but tethered on by a thin piece of string that always stays fixed to the ground. So she doesn't fly away, so she get lost in the clouds with no way back to Earth again. Mother dearest would never allow anything to touch her little girls on the ground, dressing her up in the warmest winter clothes money can afford. What Corran struggles to communicate is that nothing but oxygen can touch her in the sky.

But she values her parent's attempts at giving their children the best - there is no doubt in her mind that her parents did not put all they had into getting where they are today, be it fake smiles and painful evening parties - so she takes what she has and uses it. She likes hair ribbons, dainty shoes for tip-toeing, and the colour blue. It reminds her of the sky, and the unknown above her. Small in stature, she curls up in corners, couches, window-sills and park benches, burying herself in books or ones she writes herself. Watching. Waiting. Mother calls it staring, but Corran disagrees. People are fascinating, the way they move, the way they talk. Shivers creep up other's spines caused not by the winter chills, but by the eerie feeling that a pair of blue eyes have found your presence from behind the inked pages of fiction, turning you into their own works of art.

The world is her playground. Imagination bodies forth, and her pen scribbles down two small words.

I'm late.

P E R S O N A L I T Y

Her mother is furious when she walks through the door.

"Corran, darling" she winces, not even giving her daughter a second to breathe before she is ushered up the grand staircase of her home towards her bedroom door. The fifteen-year-old doesn't struggle, doesn't protest - simply lets her mother be her mother and shuttle her around. She's aware that it's agonizingly close to 'guest time' and that her Mother would have wanted her to be home hours ago, but Corran promised that she would be home in time for tea, and here she is. Hair a little frazzled by the wind from all those hours of sailing through the sky, she lets her mother pick at the loose threads on her clothes as she is thrown a dress towards her direction. "I am not even going to bother yelling at you, because it clearly doesn't seem to unnerve you in the slightest," Mrs. Devereaux chides, "just put this on and hurry!"

If her sisters were in this position, they would argue back and intentionally take more time than needed to get changed, but Corran just smiles politely and does as she's told. Sitting placidly and straight, she lets her hair be brushed and clipped by furious, fiddling fingers. She stays contently silent, nothing out of the ordinary for those who know her. Words fail to leave her mouth - instead, they are hidden amongst nods and shakes of her head, the ink in her pens and the pages bound by years in the books that line her bedroom walls. Sometimes people wonder if she speaks at all, and when she does, her words are short and simple, but a rarity in themselves. Corran is given enough ease as it is to wander alone through the District as she pleases, and freedom - if only temporary - comes at a price. Her ability to sink into background tapestry's, the corner's of rooms and the thuds and yells of her siblings throughout the house does only so much for her. Now is the time to exchange her sovereignty for a few hours of bearing the same old questions from the same old people, let her Mother show her off to people she's never met before. Let them coo at her alikeness to her siblings, her clothes, hear how she's "grown up so fast!" from people she barely recognises.

Tonight, she'll read. Perhaps tonight she'll strike a chord of luck and let herself be hidden away in a spare room with a book. Perhaps she'll sit at a table and watch. Note body movement, habits, tones of voice. Studying people, the way they are, like you would a textbook. At it unnerves people, the way she's oblivious to embarrassment, to the way she supposedly intrudes into moments of emotion, of parts of you that you never knew existed. But Corran Devereaux sees them. She sees how annoyance builds into fury by twitches of the eye, how concentration slips out of the corner of someone's mouth with the tip of their tongue, the way people walk and talk and subconsciously hide things. And perhaps that's why she stays so quiet, so placidly neutral in her vocabulary, her movement, her speech and expression. Because everybody else paints them for her.

H I S T O R Y

The first words that vacate her mouth in the past hours appear as she walks into the living room with her Mother. "Where's Ezra?"

Addison, Hollyn, Allessandra and Kyte line the room, dressed perfectly from tip to toe. Not a scratch on them, not a crease in their clothes, no wind-swept hair or bent posture for their Mother to screech about. Each and every one of them were born with silver spoons in their mouths and showered with the best of everything. Blonde and blue-eyed, the 5 youngest Devereauxs are here to impress, to behave, to make their parents proud. It's not a lot to ask for children compared to the other infamous One parents, who insist on training their children for the slaughter house, some even insisting that they put their lives on the line to bring their family glory. No, Dechlan and Maryssah Devereaux simply ask that they behave, and leave their children to do as they please. Their children's names go in reaping bowls no more times than they are needed and pray that 6 children come home safely again.

And in comes Ezra, as if on cue - striding into the room with their father in a suit that causes Kyte's eyes to light up in delight, for his big brother's clothing looks like his. Corran smiles - for Kyte, it is even harder to be polite than her. Good manners were fed to these children like baby food, but even that doesn't shield a twelve year old's excitement to bounce across walls and cause unintentional mischief. Whilst Hollyn and Addison may tsk at their younger brother's overly-active delight in the world, Ezra and Corran sympathise. For Ezra is a gentle soul - firm, but gentle - just like his father. Corran sees.

She sees the way that Hollyn tries oh so desperately to be the best Career in the District, the way she bottles up her frustration until it turns in on herself, eating at her confidence. The way that Addison tries just as hard to please her Mother as Hollyn does her trainers, copying her stern words and actions, Mummy-ing her younger siblings like it's her place, her position. And maybe that right does belong to her, just a little bit, but Corran just watches and waits. She doesn't try to fight Addison, because she sees her point of view. She sees how she's trying to live up to expectations the way every child in One attempts to. They climb and climb, struggling against duty and opinion, fighting each-other to be the best until they find that they're not fighting a current of others, but themselves. Allessandra dances her way through life, fighting her sister's demands and insisting she's mature enough to handle herself, despite her 13 year old bubbly charm. Always pleasing Daddy, always annoying Mommy. Corran's mother tries everything in her power to help her husband, and her Dad still loves her for it. Corran see's it, and consumes it in understanding.

But she's thankful that she wasn't born into extremities. Because she loves her family, despite the clashes of personality that occur regularly. Her trust in them not to let it slip to her Mother that she's off to train in secret is stronger than the fight to impress their parents. Because they understand. Each and every one of the 4 oldest Devereaux's understand. How they devote hours and hours of training on the off chance that Corran was reaped, or Ally, or Kyte. And Corran's siblings weren't getting any younger, and the youngest ones were getting older, and the fearful hand that gripped her insides when she asked herself one day what would happen if there was nobody left to take her brother and sister's places, the ones who are forbidden to attend training by their Mother for fear of damaging themselves beyond repair. Mother, don't you see that they are far better to be safe than sorry? Corran saw. And Corran did. It's the one thing that the 4 of them can agree on.

So when they clutch each-other after every reaping, each of the 6 children with their arms around each other huddled in the entranceway to their home, they all see what Corran sees. Something stronger than anything reapings could ever rip away from the Devereaux household.

They are family.