era altyr [8m; fin]

shrimp Retired Staff 1,953 POSTS Pronouns: he/his last seen Oct 19, 2020 18:16:41 GMT -5	era altyr [8m; fin] Jan 14, 2020 21:12:18 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by shrimp on Jan 14, 2020 21:12:18 GMT -5 era altyr 18. he/him. district 8 rebel.
	Last Edit: Jan 17, 2020 22:42:58 GMT -5 by shrimp

shrimp Retired Staff 1,953 POSTS Pronouns: he/his last seen Oct 19, 2020 18:16:41 GMT -5	era altyr [8m; fin] Jan 17, 2020 21:21:52 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by shrimp on Jan 17, 2020 21:21:52 GMT -5 A day, an age, an eon, an era: Time is an elm, strong and unyielding, growing steadily through the thicket. He is a single leaf, drifting— watch how he falls.
	Last Edit: Jan 17, 2020 21:22:22 GMT -5 by shrimp

shrimp
Retired Staff

1,953 POSTS
Pronouns: he/his
last seen Oct 19, 2020 18:16:41 GMT -5

era altyr [8m; fin] Jan 17, 2020 22:42:27 GMT -5

Quote

Post by shrimp on Jan 17, 2020 22:42:27 GMT -5

It's clear skies today, endless blue staining his irises: shaking as he stares at a screen full of blood.

A twelve year old next to him covers their eyes, and his joints are concrete poured over cracks. He can't tell them everything will be okay—they are twelve, and in front of them a twelve year old dies, again and again. The camera pans to Volk, and she is lifeless. The camera cuts to Jack, and Era's heart breaks all over again.

He walks—limps, really—to fellow revolutionaries, each movement in protest to his bruised body, and when he arrives they barely turn their gaze. When they do, it is with exhaustion dug deep, expressions like ice. They do not reach out, or hold him close, or mutter orders under careful watch.

Only silence rings, louder than any slogan.

The world has given them nothing but grit. They mean to turn it into clay.

His parents raised him to be kind, but to also be good. Good meant to stick up for his principles, to put passion into his work, to help others get one step forward—and then one more. When whispers of a rebellion criss-cross through the districts, they are the first to bear its arms.

Za sits him down one night. Era is still waiting to grow lanky and looming, still clean-cheeked with a voice like a babbling brook.

"You don't have to join," they whisper (they lie). Going to war is no one's decision. It is a tsunami that sweeps up everyone in its wake. But they choose to submerge themselves into the unforgiving surf. For Era, though, it is a different story.

It is unlike them, Era notes—they normally joust with words and grandeur, with reckless metaphors and rapid crescendo. Era loves that about them, Era hates that about them. But he understands that this is a serious conversation. A grown up conversation. He just doesn't realize how grown up it is.

It is easy for something to be "bigger than himself" when he is so young. And though he knows what he stands for, he still uses phrases that he doesn't quite understand.

What does a revolution truly mean? He wonders this as his eyes grow heavy, as Za lets him rest his head on their shoulders. He thinks it means freedom, and his heart flutters, then marches to a beat.

They beat him in the streets,
when the last tribute stops playing.
Four of them: all wrath and vengeance.
It solves nothing:
a boy cannot turn back the clock.
A kick cannot undo a massacre.
So he curls up, covers his face,
his ribs, his heart (though that's already broken).
He tends to his wounds alone.
There is no one to go home to

He remembers when he was 1 of 4. A troupe, a squadron, a falchion against the regime. Brought together due to four years of dumb luck.

The rebellion called him a daydreamer, with his head in the clouds. But he could discern the shadows in the turf, knew the best hiding spots. His aim was quick, his blade was faster. Each night he'd tell ghost stories to the kids around the campfire, or in the squalor of the crypts. They'd call him morbid, but for a moment, there was something more terrible than an all-out-war.

The others understood.

Wilde: True to their namesake, loud and overbearing, impish and jealous and rage incarnate. They took a walk with him in the sewers once, passing a bottle of pilfered booze as they talked about their family: how much they hated their smug faces, how they would die for them without question. It sounded complicated. It sounded mundane. It was a welcome reprieve from gunfire.

Cavalcade: Logical and cynical, irritable and grim. He hangs back with a crossbow, even farther with a gun. They sat in the dark when the planes went to sleep, sharing tea, sharing coffee, sharing dreams, sharing a kiss. He wanted to open a bakery, he said. Era couldn't picture it, but somehow it felt right.

Atlas: Charismatic and cunning, courageous and sly. She is proud, leading the pack towards victory. She sits with him as he tells his tales and stretches with him as the dawn rises, talks about everything (the color of the sky at 4:17, the feeling of mud trampled underfoot, when is the line drawn between a capri and too-short-pants), cheats at cards. She wishes she was with her mother. She wishes she wasn't in this mess.

They laugh, they grow, they liberate.
They sweep a factory floor, and miss a tripwire.
The last thing he sees is Atlas, mouthing something he doesn't understand.
Then, the sky turns red.

He doesn't like thinking about the Center.
But it runs on loop:
When he buys eggs from the market,
When he walks the route to work,
When he washes the dye off his hands,
When he makes a cup of tea,
When he buys eggs from the market,
When he returns eggs from the market,
When he cooks dinner and gives some to the beggar, sitting across the street.
When he sits alone, staring at the wall.

They asked him,
once, twice, fifteen times,
to tell them what he knew.
Plans, People, Places, Patriotism meant
Betrayal.

He doesn't think he said anything of note.
But truth be told,
He doesn't quite know.

When they put him on a hovercraft,
there is music playing from the cockpit.
The atmosphere is mixed.
The Keepers are smiling.
"Where are you taking us?"
he asks.

"Why," one says,
with the worst grin Era has ever seen.
"You're going home."

When he was young, small, dark hair falling across long lashes, he told his parents he wanted to fly. So Dad cut wings out of cardboard, and Za fashioned feathers with leftover cloth. Tattered and ragged, he looked more like a toilet paper ghost than the pigeons that pecked at leaves, searched for worms in the cracks of the pavement. But he felt like the world was a speck underneath his feet, and ran towards the end of the couch. He leaped.

It is not the first time, it will not be the last.

Last Edit: Jan 17, 2020 22:50:07 GMT -5 by shrimp

shrimp Retired Staff 1,953 POSTS Pronouns: he/his last seen Oct 19, 2020 18:16:41 GMT -5	era altyr [8m; fin] Jan 17, 2020 22:42:38 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by shrimp on Jan 17, 2020 22:42:38 GMT -5 gm bourgeois decadence [aya] hello this is done

gm bourgeois decadence [aya] Administrator 6,256 POSTS last seen Jan 27, 2024 16:01:40 GMT -5 "GUNNERRRRR~"	era altyr [8m; fin] Jan 18, 2020 0:51:30 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by gm bourgeois decadence [aya] on Jan 18, 2020 0:51:30 GMT -5 Accepted!
	{characters} certified kindergartener stranded in "beach" "city" leader of the crystal gems