D2 // Halcyon Ithaca Antoinette

( N A M E ) Halcyon Ithaca Antoinette
( A G E ) Fifteen
( G E N D E R ) Female
( D I S T R I C T / A R E A ) District Two



"Quake sundown." Go away.

There is a pause. It is the space between two people who even if they were pressed skin-to-skin would be beyond each other. Physically there is a different distance of separation: uncertain inches past arms length and much too far for understanding to pass between them. Her breath runs steady through lungs not quite cut out for this simple exchange of sound, ribcage flexing with each inhalation (but it is never enough). Jaw set harsh and rock-steady, she is raw force with a stubborn stance, bones carrying more weight than marrow as she faces the challenge of this moment.

Desire is a deadly word, making her want things she can't have. Like respect. Like pride. Like freedom enough to rule her own body. Like communication. "Train crack said God, mountains. Rip for. Hark tomb." Your time is up, numbskull. Get lost. I'm serious. With that she glares at him, thin-eyed and relentless, because this small contortion of muscles ("so very small," a fleeting thought of her circus-trick sister reminds her) is as close to translation as she's going to get. Maybe he will see her annoyance in the way the skull-bone beneath her eyebrows juts out so far that her eyes are cloaked in permanent shadow. Maybe her freckles are the whispers of stars, pathfinder constellations for a girl who wants to discover a way back to herself. Maybe her height will be enough intimidation, the taffy-stretch of her lanky body putting her a few inches above him.

Instead he laughs and something within her that has long been broken breaks a little more. Edges fray, threads split, and she juts her jaw out a little further at him. Gruff. Defiant. That solid block of bone surely weighs more than her heart and so it is worth the effort to hold it up. Never let it fall or everything else will follow. She won't let them know she thinks it's right that they laugh, that sometimes in her most alone-moments she laughs too, sick and sardonic and cruel. Chin up, Halcyon. The dull blue of her eyes will not blink for this boy, even if her hands no longer remember how not to be fists and her lips split into a snarl of gap-toothed teeth.

This time he flinches, a twitch that courses through his entire body. One might expect that Halcyon would feel victory in his response, but this is little better than his laughter. Instead it is a confirmation of all her most horrible thoughts about how she is not really a worthwhile human being. Perhaps it is not just her words that are wrong, maybe it is all of her. After all, the two of them are standing in the middle of a Training Center, where children come from all over the District to learn the best ways to kill each other. The air is a din of clashing swords and dummies spurting fake blood, but this boy thinks she is the most terrifying thing here. Her face is something to be feared.

True, she is not a classically pretty teenage girl. With a nose too round for a face so square and lips too full for a mouth so empty of meaning, no one has ever rushed up to her to tell her how beautiful they think she is. These are words she has only heard about her sister, whose curved body would cause a certain amount of rapture from the boys in town even if she weren't so impressively skilled at bending her limbs the way Halcyon bends her words. They are both contortionists of a sort, but one is revered for her talent and the other... everyone is waiting for the day when she remembers how to connect her thoughts with her words. Except the girl knows this day is never coming. That is a fairy tale idea she gave up long ago, back when she still believed in magic and happily ever afters.

These days she remembers the truth: brain damage is not something that disappears like a slight of hand trick. When she was just a toddler, she fell and cracked her skull on the sidewalk. The doctors say she almost died, something about blood and swelling in her brain, that she should be thankful that her jumbled speech is the only remaining side-effect. That's easy for them to say... literally. Life has not been kind and sparing to her, oh no, it has been unfair.

Her sister injures herself constantly, as if teasing the fate that decided to mar Halcyon's words. Pulled muscles, broken bones, damaged vocal chords — Cricket takes her own body for granted, thinking that an ability earned is hers forever. The awful truth is that maybe this is true for her, that it is only false for her sister. One of them is blessed with immortality while the other is so easily destroyed by the smallest misstep. At least, the more unfortunate of the siblings thinks, at least I have felt the worst of it. So she drinks, smokes, and parties, because what is the worst that could happen? Her brain is already broken, so losing a few more cells here and there can't make things much worse. No one pays enough attention to her to reprimand her (Cricket has always owned the spotlight, even off stage) and so there is nothing to stop her from swallowing little promise-pills of escape.

However, there is no escaping the way the boy in the Training Center looks at her as she chases him away. It is the same expression she has seen a hundred thousand times before, that strange mixture of fear and pity that makes her want to destroy herself everything. As he scampers away, she steps up to the station he has vacated: a heavy broadsword and a practice dummy. The weapon is heavy, but her rage supplies more than enough force to wield it. As if it were weightless, she swings the blade above her head until it is crashing down upon the dummy like the wrath of Ripred. Fake blood splatters in a fifteen foot radius, disgustingly bright against her pale skin as she hacks away at the plastic target, turning its faux-flesh to a sticky pulp. The evidence of her violence stains her clothing and recolors her dull brown hair, coating its waves until they shine sick and cherry sweet.

It is a temporary release, something that soothes the moment but not the memories. To Halcyon, nothing she can do will change anything. This venting of her own frustrations will not make her any less ugly or clumsy and it will not make bring the things that come so easy in her mind out of her thoughts and into the open world. Certain that she is in a constant state of fisticuffs with impossibility itself, this is a girl who knows she is doomed to be unworthy. The other Careers, her sister, her parents — if not a one of them will ever see beyond her shortcomings, how can she?



( C O D E W O R D ) Odair

( C O M M E N T S / O T H E R )

Sister of Cricket Antoinette.

Gerard Pits in Dead Poets Society plot.