{the fire and the light ; lowe twins}

It's an orange days. 

Simple and warm and orange, like a controlled flame. Flickering my fingers in between the sunlight, weaving through like Emberly's flower crowns. My back on the grass -- it's tradition. Like the reaping itself, weaving life together in the form of fauna before god's heavy hand rips them apart again. 

I'm not sure why we bother.

It's the great thing about being twins: no matter what, Emberly survives the reaping. Just the two of us, just the two of us of the four of us, no matter what one of us survives. I hold her hand and let it go and hug her and let it go and leave and die in the games; it doesn't matter. For now we're alive, and in poverty that's all we can really fucking ask for.

"Ment,"

"Huh," I toss a broken stem into the grass, weak and ruined. 

Not everybody survives.

"What happens if one of us gets reaped?"

There's a second where I think, twisting the daisy's roots into the crown, "well," oh boy.

"One of us fuckin' dies," I laugh.

Toss a smile at Emberly, joke it off -- rinse and repeat. Sixteen years and sometimes you just gotta joke it all off.

I throw a daisy's bud; "duh, bruh."

[ coding: izoe ]

"I didn't mean," ah shit. 

She breaks eye contact and I don't really hold much either, my hands limp on my crown -- ugh. "I know they'd-"

Die.

It's just a word, just three letters. One letter shorter than my own name; this isn't where I planned this going. I mean, this is where it always goes, but just, shit. I thought it would get easier after going through so many. 

"I know what happens," 

"So you can say it, then." Under my breath, smart mouth, smart moves -- I've got a loud one, and she's got deaf eyes. I guess that's how twins work sometimes. 

(Calm down, Ment.)

"But what do you think it'd be like?" 

"I-" stutter,

"What would happen to us?"

It's not really worth the time, to waste your life thinking about the dying. I stare moreso at my lap -- I don't like fighting with Emberly, or Chrysalis or Myara. Anybody else has an RVSP on some hands they need to catch, "ah shit-"

"Well, one of us gets a room to ourselves?" I try to laugh, shrug it off but Emberly isn't thinking like normal-everyday Lowe living days, and as much as I blame her, I shouldn't. We're alive right now; the pair of us, we're good for however long this sunset lasts so why do-
that.

"We'll be fine," I roll my shoulders, casual -- "I mean, we've done fine so far." 

[ coding: izoe ]

We've always been a close family. Woven together by broken fingers, life nurtures and we destroy -- as easy as that. Like daisies and lavenders and dahlias, our roots nestled together in one Lowe crown. I guess somebody has to be the broken one.  

"Yeah I guess so." 

Yeah. 

God, I hate getting sentimental.

"Do you ever wonder what happens when we die?" I feel the blood in my cheeks -- it's nothing. I just wanna break it there, nothing happens. You fuckin die and that's it; I catch the words in my teeth like a filter. The only one I got apparently. You just die. 

I hold my breath; Emberly's staring at god through the sky. 

"Yeah," for mama's sakes I pray it's something good. 

"I'm just hoping I don't have to find out," I keep my eyes to my lap. To the woven-together flowers, to the broken stems in the grass near my shoes. 

We'll be fine.

I hope.

[ coding: izoe ]