Juniper Slagg || D12

Juniper Slagg || D12 Sept 5, 2014 14:26:45 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Death on Sept 5, 2014 14:26:45 GMT -5

[googlefont="Princess Sofia:400"]Juniper Layla Slagg
female | aged 18
district twelve

I am a question to the world,
Not an answer to be heard
Or a moment that's held in your arms.

I'd love to start this out with "Dear Diary" but this is less of a diary and more of a confessional. I've done some terrible things. Or things that people say are terrible, but I swear I was just trying to survive. I was only trying to keep us alive. And I'm going to keep doing it.

Forgive me, for I have sinned.

I have sinned and it was good. It brought me pleasure. I'm addicted to it. I'm addicted to the feel of his skin against mine and the strange effect his lips on my wrists and my collarbones and my spine have on my mind.

He's a peacekeeper. I won't record his name, but just know that he's a peacekeeper and he pays me well for my services. I'm not a prostitute. That would mean I slept with loads of men. No. I'm a paid mistress. I come when he asks for me. I leave when I'm done. He whispers he loves me and we both know it's a lie. A facade to make what we're doing less about the physical things.

But, it's all physical. I can tell by the way he devours my body with his eyes.

And what do you think you'd ever say?
I won't listen anyway…
You don't know me,
And I’ll never be what you want me to be.

You're a beautiful girl, Juniper, and you know it. It's a dangerous power. You use it to make money. You play on men's affections and depend on your body to give you the money your brother and you so desperately need.

5' 10" of nothing but curves and soft, smooth skin. You have stretch marks along your back from when you hit your growth spurt as a young woman. Thirteen. Crying from the growing pains in your back and your legs. Your legs didn't grow nearly as much as your back. In fact, they're rather short for a girl your height.

You've got a long, slender torso and large breasts that used to make your back hurt but they don't anymore because you bought a proper bra and you've taken off some weight since then. You try to keep your figure pristine. Perfect curves blanketing sharp hips and padding over ribs. Of course, it's hard to keep these soft curves when your sole source of income is a man who pays you by the night. You've been losing weight for weeks, especially as you throw all your effort into feeding your brother.

Some nights, as you lay in the arms of your lover, you cry for hours. You never wanted it to be like this. You never wanted to feel used like you were. Your normally fierce and guarded hazel eyes swim with tears as you think about what your mother would say. What your father would say.

What Mason would say.

Your lover likes to kiss your jaw and stoke his fingertips across your strong, square jaw. When he says something that makes you defensive, he dissolves into smiles and laughter and covers your face in kisses, murmuring, "You're so beautiful when you're challenging." You look at him, unable to do anything but cock a shy smile and tuck a stray bunch of hair behind your ear and say, "Is that right?"

His lips will move to just graze the tip of your short and straight nose. The nose that gets much wider as it nears your vibrant and full lips-- which are the next things he'll touch with his. He won't be satisfied with gentle kisses for long, though. He'll move downwards and bite at the tendons that emerge from your neck when you turn your head to accommodate him. You'll cry out, because it hurts and he'll give you a reassuring kiss of apology and then move on to your collarbones that sit above your chest like a necklace.

It will turn into further things from there, but I won't discuss that. Not when it makes you blush across those sharp cheeks (and getting even sharper as the days go by) during random parts of the day when something reminds you of it. Like Mason taking your hands in his. He'll look you in the eyes and you'll look him in the eyes. He'll ask, "Are you okay?" And you'll lie. You'll bald-faced lie.

"Yes, love," you'll say. "I'm okay."

And I want a moment to be real,

Wanna touch things I don't feel,

Wanna hold on and feel I belong.

Sometimes I think about starting this thing out with all that "Dear Diary" shit. But that's all it is. Bullshit to make me feel like I still have friends left. And I don't. They all left. Turned their back on me.

They're all such fakes. Shallow and unfeeling fakes. I know what goes on behind those closed doors. They pretend like they live perfect lives and I hate it-- especially while they lord it over my brother and I and our life that has gone to hell in a hand basket. But I'm thankful for them. For the food they give us sometimes. For trying to protect Mason from the truth.

Mason practically doesn't live here anymore. With me being gone five or six nights a week, he stays at his friend Marcus' house. The grown-ups will greet us at the door as I walk him up to the porch. They don’t invite me inside. They barely even look at me. The husband will avoid even glancing my way, but the wife will look at me, something softening in her eyes, gently nod her head at me, then close the door behind her and Mason.

I hate it. I hate the pity. I hate how they whisper about me behind my back while they hold out their hand to help me. They’re two-faced. And I don’t know why. I don’t understand! I just want to go back to life when everything was normal. When I had my place and it was fun.

What have I done wrong?! What did I do to deserve this?

I feel so alone.

And how can the world want me to change?

They’re the ones that stay the same.
They don’t know me,
'Cause I’m not here.

Your patience astounds me, Juniper. Your patience with these people who look down their noses at you for trying to survive with your parents dead and buried. You’re using your assets. You’re using what you have. Your body. That’s all that your parents left you. Your body and a tiny house that you can barely keep up with between making meals and dancing on your lover’s whims.

You just want to beat their faces in. You just want to rip their pretty hair out and scream and make a scene in the public square. But you don’t.

Instead, you hold it in. You pretend like you’re strong. Like you don’t give a flying fuck in Panem. But you do. I can see you do. You’re so close to this man who is your lover, but he’s a stranger. You’re so close and yet you’ve never felt more alone than after he falls asleep with his arms around you.

Your friends? Some friends they were. They knew what was going to happen. Oh, sure, they were polite enough during the grieving period, while you were living on what was left of your father’s meager income that was enough to support the four of you, but wouldn’t last long after that. But then, it was two months and the money had run out. You had to get to work.

Within a week of being hired… they all turned tail and ran. They’d still bring the occasional loaf of bread or other trifle. But they wouldn’t stay. They’d just hand it to you and run off without saying a word.

Well… except Burgundy. But Burgundy only stayed once. She’d come to drop off another loaf of bread. She was dressed in her signature style. Just simple, casual. But very modest. So sweet. She looked like a girl who'd never been laid. Of course, so did you, still. What other clothes did you have but the modest ones you'd purchased while your parents were still alive. But they still judged you. They judged you by what was inside, rather than outside.

She sat at your carved up kitchen table across from you, just talking. Catching up on life. She told you about how she was dating a new guy and that he might be the one. You told her that Mason had won a footrace against a whole bunch of other boys. She mentioned that it was strange not having you in school anymore. You mentioned that it was strange being alone in the house all the time.

All the while, you avoided the elephant in the room. You were different. You'd changed so much since your parents had died. It had only been two and half months, but that can change people. It's been four months as I see you now and you're still changing. Still becoming even more calloused. Descending into a pit of who knows what.You fight it, though. You love fighting it. You love a good challenge. Inside your house, when you get bored, you practice throwing knives. All the knives your father had left to Mason, but Mason didn't like carrying around. There're six. They're simple and made well enough to get the job done. But they were nothing like your lover's sleek, gleaming knives.

In the last few minutes before she'd left, she'd started blushing. She had a question. You knew what she wanted to ask. It had something to do with your new job. The only job you could find to support yourself. They wouldn't let you in the mines (and to be honest, you don't ever want to go back in there) and no towns person wanted to hire a dirty girl from the Seam. Except as... well...

"Spit it out," you'd snapped at her-- a lot harsher than you'd meant. "You've got a question, just ask it. You can ask me anything."

"Does it hurt?" she'd asked, looking away and blushing. Does it hurt? you'd asked yourself. You'd only had maybe a week's worth of experience to go on. "Sometimes," you'd said. And that was all. She'd silently picked up her things and left. She didn't wait for you to walk her to the door. You didn't even have time to get up. You'd raced to the front door, still swinging shut from her leaving it open as she left. She'd raced down the pathway back to her house.

"You disgust me, Burgundy Kilgore!" you'd screamed after her.

She'd paused and turned around in the street, looking straight back at you. "That's rich, coming from a professional whore!"

You'd stayed silent.

A whore. A professional whore. That's all you'd become to her. What else was there to Juniper except that she was the pretty whore who got men smacked upside the head for even looking her way?

They can’t tell me who to be,

‘Cause I’m not what they see.

I don't know why I keep writing in this stupid thing. Maybe it's because I can't talk to anyone about it. Not my friends. What friends, though? Not HIM. I'm supposed to give him a good time and nothing else. I'm supposed to be happy and light and adorable and funny and sexy and satisfying. Certainly not Mason.

I never want to talk to Mason about this part of my life. Ever.

Honestly, I don't blame them for casting me out of their circles. I'd have done the same thing. Ripred, I'm a shitty person. A fucking hypocrite. I have no right to demand they keep me as a friend. I've cut out girls for spending the nights with their boyfriends and here I am, spending night after night with a man so I can get paid. I'm disgusting.

Mason probably knows and that's what scares me the most. That they might convince him to turn his back on me. That I might truly be alone after they tease him enough times. I wonder if they have. Teased him, I mean.

I ever get wind of teasing, I'll show them what this Slagg is made of. My father taught me self-defense. How to take down any son of a bitch that even attempts to tangle with me. Sure, I'm a little rusty, but I can do it. I can dislocate shoulders and knock out teeth and twist the neck just so-- just so it can break under my fingertips.

Never had to use that one before. Some part of myself itches to use it.

Yeah, the world is still sleepin’,

While I keep on dreamin’ for me.

Oh, Juniper. I've claimed both your parents as my own, child. I'd apologize, but Death knows no apologies. Death only watches. And waits. And guides you to the end of your life. And when you die, I'll guide you to the next life, too. I don't regret taking them from the world they knew. I don't regret taking them from you. I pity you, though. I pity what you have become.

I've watched all of Panem. All of it. I watch them all and keep careful records. From conception, to birth, through life and into death. I've watched your life. I watched your parents meet and secretly marry because they were only seventeen and what do seventeen year olds know about love? They moved in together as soon as your mother got past the Reaping age. You were born almost a year later.

They were so young. Your mother hadn't even reached forty yet when I took her. That was a dark day for your kind. So sad. So many tears shed and families grieving. Orphans made. The cavern collapsing wasn't my fault. It wasn't anybody's fault. It just happened.

Your father had gone to work. A normal day. He'd kissed your mother before he'd left and taken Mason and you to school. You'd given him a huge hug. You didn't know why. You just did. You normally didn't hug him before school. It was a good thing you did too.

A little before lunchtime, the collapse occurred. Still not sure why it did, or what caused it. But it did. It pinned your father and crushed his rib cage. I remember coming to collect his friends' souls. How scared he looked. He was calling your mother's name and your name and your brother's name. He kept saying he was sorry. It wasn't his fault. I talked to him about that before letting him leave.

Your father's death was likely. Accidents happen all the time. Your mother's death? The odds never seem to be in your favor, now do they, Juniper? Your mother was a nurse of some kind. Not a real one, But she knew first aid. Well, you know this. She taught you everything you know. Right after the collapse, they called her up and she raced to the scene to try and dig out your father and help the survivors.

Another tremor. Another collapse. The odds of two happening like they did? Astronomical. She died instantly. Your father died a little while after she did. After no one could get to him. He died alone. Really, like all humans do. But he was alone. Truly alone.

You call yourself alone, honey? Nobody is truly alone until they die.

And their words are just whispers

And lies that I’ll never believe.

Today was the first time I cried in front of Mason since our parents died. I'm not going to explain why. I'll just let you read it yourself.

"Juni, I love you so much. I don't know what I did to get so lucky, but I am and that's how it is. I know the sacrifices you made in the name of keeping me out of the shelter. In the name of keeping me clothed and fed. I know how those bastards turned their backs on you. I hear what they say about you. And I'm telling you right now, you don't have to worry about me ever hating your because of the life you've had to take.

Every time they call you a whore, I'm going to call you a hero.

Every time they call you a slut, I'm going to call you a survivor. And a savior.

Don't believe their lies. You're my sister and that's all that matters to me. I'll love you no matter what, Juni."

I’m the one,

‘Cause I’m still here.
I’m still here.
I’m still here.
I’m still here.

As of 10.09.2014, Juniper Slagg has been given permission to be recruited for the Peacekeepers, under the stipulation she undergoes the required training.

As of 11.22.2014, Death has decided to keep Juniper Slagg at the age of 18 and not enter her into the Peacekeepers. Her age was reverted from 19 to 18 and her title of PK Recruit revoked.

"I'm Still Here," by John Reznik
Character (c) to Adri // Death
o D a i r