leave a footprint on every island you see {neela 1.5, pt 2}

leave a footprint on every island you see {neela 1.5, pt 2} Jun 28, 2018 15:32:57 GMT -5

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Post by Lyn𝛿is on Jun 28, 2018 15:32:57 GMT -5

Neela
Chiffon

∞
and why must a hero die young
not to be gone and forgotten
so I pray for the broken
this is not the end of innocence
∞

As if on cue, silver parachutes rain down from the sky. Nothing expensive, like the stuff you saw Careers receiving every year, but it warms your heart nonetheless that - someone cared. Some Capitolite thought you were interesting enough to want to live a little longer, despite your cowardice, despite your measly two in training (and you were certain any other Gamemaker would have given you a 1) - so with that encouragement, you stop pacing the deck of the ship, and get to work.

First, the flag came down. You were taking, little by little, tokens of all you ventured through - the spear of fairytale-wood from the forest, the Jolly Roger that you wrapped around yourself like a cape as you gazed into the distance. They grounded you, kept you attached to symbols of the past just as surely as the paper cranes sitting in the tiny bottle hanging from your neck - they were memories you could return to, even as you grew up and the world moved on.

Yet it still seemed wrong, somehow, seeing the bare mast glaring back at you; even a broken ship deserved to have a flag to tell its stories, to wave to the world. But perhaps -

You can't fix the ship; the damage is too extensive, and you don't have the right materials. You think of moth-eaten wool, of unraveled sweaters - most of the time you couldn't make broken things go back to the way they were before, but you could change them. Make them become something new.

(you'll become someone new)

With the crowbar, you pry off the planks that have not become too rotten to use. You weave the coil of rope between them, in and out, in and out, working the wooden beams to each other until all the rope has run out (it's so much easier to do all this, when you can't feel the eyes of the Gamemakers watching you); with a hard shove, the raft slides down the tilted deck and splashes into the water. The old ship may be disintegrating, but the Jolly Roger flies proudly atop your mast; as you take your position on its deck, your vessel seems almost to develop a mind of its own, carrying you across the waves.

(Every ship needs a name, Neela. What will you name it?)

The Imberline.

lyrics: end of innocence

[Neela does more actions in Maintenance]

leave a footprint on every island you see {neela 1.5, pt 2} Jun 28, 2018 19:12:34 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Lyn𝛿is on Jun 28, 2018 19:12:34 GMT -5

∞
and why must a hero die young
not to be gone and forgotten
so I pray for the broken
this is not the end of innocence
∞

There's an incredible loneliness in setting sail through the darkness, when land disappears over the horizon and there's nothing around you but the stars above and the pitch-black ocean. You pace the deck of your vessel, every click of your shoes against the wood echoing the ache of nostalgia, deep in your belly. You miss Baize, and Jacob, and Wigan; you'd even give up the blissful silence you've earned tonight for Mother fussing over your face and plucking at your brow.

What is the point? you wonder -- what's the point of struggling and surviving if you'll only ever be fighting alone? If it would all be meaningless whether you died today or continued to cling to life by yourself, until Gamemakers grew bored of you and sent mutts to end your misery?

You want to fight for noble reasons, like so many before you; but all you reach for are flashbacks in time - listening to Jacob's music, to your brother telling you stories - even after others moved on, and left you behind.

You reached for stories, too; when the world told you to keep your head down and pretend to be everything it wanted of you - that was the way to survive, and the punishment for not obeying -

Well, you knew the folks that were always passed over for promotion, the places who'd pretend they weren't open, when the "wrong sort" of people passed by. It would start out so subtle you wouldn't notice, Mother warned you; nobody will tell you why you aren't doing right by them, until the doors of society all shut on you and you can only lament that you hadn't listened.

You could keep your head down and survive that way - you couldn't live. But you could dream of heroes and legends, of worlds where good and evil were so clear, of places where you could be a princess or a knight or anything that wasn't boring, spineless Neela.

The stories seem so hollow now. They're all in your head, they're not even real, none of it would matter, after you inevitably died in the arena - and folks wouldn't remember you as the fairytale hero you imagine. They'd only remember your mistakes, the things you didn't say or didn't do, the expectations you couldn't live up to.

But it is not for them that you build your raft, that you string the sails just so in order to restore a replica of the old ship as best as you can on your vessel. Not even, perhaps, for long-lost heroes and for intricate fantasies you imagine of yourself.

No - it's something far deeper in your core - the same reason that you continued to knit shawls of intricate lacework, hiding them as you needed to, even when your sister scoffed and Mother sighed and Father couldn't understand. It's the urge to create, a flame inside you that burns far steadier and far stronger than the will of others to extinguish it.

And you'll continue to burn with it.

lyrics: end of innocence