ophelia panos // d7 [fin]
Mar 5, 2017 20:52:48 GMT -5
Post by calla on Mar 5, 2017 20:52:48 GMT -5
ophelia panos.
female . district seven . seventeen
a p p e a r a n c e .
She's a ghost.
As pale as the lonely moon and just as distant, chasing the wind like a haunting entity. With dead flowers in her hair and dirt under her nails, she treasures the fragile bird bones that are crushed too easily under her skin and in her hands.
As pale as the lonely moon and just as distant, chasing the wind like a haunting entity. With dead flowers in her hair and dirt under her nails, she treasures the fragile bird bones that are crushed too easily under her skin and in her hands.
Her eyes are too wide and too pale, the colour of cornflowers in the spring. They're too full of that far away look, absent and dreamy. Petite features make her look younger than she is, a child hiding behind wonder filled eyes.
Long legs swing back and forth in her trees as she watches the stars move under long lashes with a laugh on her tongue. She wears out her shoes and rips holes in her newly patched clothes. Long sleeves and short hair get caught in the branches and brambles of the forest, but she keeps running, pulling them free with a distant laugh. The trees cut at her arms, her legs, her face, leaving their angry marks on her skin.
She makes crowns of sharp twigs and thorns, weaving in wildflowers to cover the dangerous glint that surrounds her temples. They're stubbornly forced on her head, making her skin bleed and her wild dark hair tangle.
Slender limbs and small hands collect the feathers that fall from the sky, tucking them away with her collection of fragile little bones and long dead wildflowers.
She's a gorgeous disaster, delicate and devastating, with a smile that shows her teeth and hides her secrets.
p e r s o n a l i t y .
They call her unhinged, but the birds call her beautiful. She sings and calls for them, mimicking their tunes until her throat is raw.
She's sugar and spice, Heaven and Hell, light and darkness, chaos and control. A wolf in sheep's clothing, she dances with the devil at night and he calls her darling.
Like an enigma, she's difficult to understand and even more difficult to put together. She's childish and impulsive, following the laws set in her own kingdom. Like a bird fluttering in it's cage, her movements are wild and fast. She speaks in circles and riddles that only she understands, weaving intricate stories from nothing but her vivid imagination.
"The trees taught me." She says. "You wouldn't understand. They hate you."
She pretends that she doesn't take the little knife from under her skirt and carve her name into the bark.
Smoothing her hair and twirling her dresses, she smiles in the faces of strangers, wide and unnerving.
"I'll trade you," she says with a laugh, "tell me your secret and I'll tell you mine."
She never does tell.
Her crown of thorns marks her domain, a secluded haven of wild things. She dances in the clearing, chasing the small game and the birds that come her way. If they ever came for her crown, she swore she'd kill them all.
She leaps across the willow branches, daring them to break and drop her to the forest floor. Drop her to where all the other dead things lay. The wind whispers through her hair, not yet. She laughs and cries and screams.
h i s t o r y.
In the spring, the birds always sat high and kingly in her trees. They watched her with black beady eyes and made her skin crawl with their heavy secrets. They sang between themselves, taunting with a language of melodies and sounds that only they knew. But she understood. They made the mistake of teaching her.
"Ophelia!" They cried, "Sing for us, Ophelia!"
And she did. She parted her lips and cleared her throat, voice echoing through the trees. She couldn't let the birds hate her. If they did then they'd never leave, and she could never be at peace. She pretended to be one of them until they trusted her, and then she screamed. The birds scattered and she laughed, falling back onto her bed of flowers and thorns.
Her life used to be full of once pleasant things. The clinking of something that wasn't quite porcelain, drinking something that definitely wasn't tea. Fresh flowers always sitting on the table, bright colors chasing away the gloom of poverty. Her Mama had always wanted red roses instead. She said that they represented love.
There was ring that Mama kept in a little wooden box under the bed. A plain brass ring with a red rose. Ophelia crept from her bed and watched Mama cry over it sometimes. It made her want to scream.
"Don't you love me, Mama?"
A tired laugh. "Of course, Ophelia. Of course."
She never wondered about her father. Mama said that he was an angel. An angel that the night stole away from her and if he knew about them, he'd come back. It had always been just the two of them, and she didn't want that to change. Ophelia understood enough to know that angels did not exist and that her father was not coming back.
She knew that he was already sleeping with the rest of her collection.
There were no red roses in her kingdom, just wildflowers and thorns and dead things. She searched the grounds and picked the purest flowers she could find, dark stems and perfect white petals. Like something from her fantastical stories. But they weren't red, which meant that Mama would hate them.
Mama had to love them. But she had to love Ophelia the most.
She pricked her fingers on the thorns and painted the flowers red.
fc: lacey rogers
