yael, d2 // fin

fox Graphics 1,363 POSTS Pronouns: she/her last seen Apr 25, 2024 12:23:42 GMT -5 but a butt ?	yael, d2 // fin Mar 8, 2022 22:27:57 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by fox on Mar 8, 2022 22:27:57 GMT -5 yael damaris fifteen black room
	Last Edit: Mar 14, 2022 2:00:39 GMT -5 by fox

fox
Graphics

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last seen Apr 25, 2024 12:23:42 GMT -5

but a butt ?

yael, d2 // fin Mar 10, 2022 21:47:33 GMT -5

Quote

Post by fox on Mar 10, 2022 21:47:33 GMT -5

Y A E L

When she was very little, she remembers playing a game with her mother.

Go into the closet, sweetheart,

and Yael had to be very quiet, the door firmly shut, until her mother called her by her name.

If she was good, she'd be rewarded with a honey cake, a toy train, a hairpin in the shape of a dragonfly.

She liked this – she was good at being quiet. She was good when she swam through the crowds of bodies in the district center, foraging through pockets as the tide of people ebbed and flowed around her, like she was a silver fish just below the surface of reach.

And she was good when she fell into the shadows, climbing scaffolding and rooftops, slipping from peacekeepers into the tide.

Her mother would give her an old cassette and earphones that played Capitol tunes from the fifties. But she still remembers hearing the voices of men from the other side of the door through the music, men with soft, simmering words, and men with raw cries, raging declarations. But when she heard her name, her mother's tone was always the same, steady like earth, even and solid.

Yael,

sweetheart, my little doll.

Like this, she remembers her name being called by a sun, warm and unmovable.

When she grew older, her mother would send her outside instead with a few coins.

Yael, go play with the kids.

But she didn't like to play with the kids who had called her mother a whore. And they didn't like her after she'd flipped open a pocketknife and held the blade against the neck of one of the boys until he cried, a small cut in his skin weeping along with those fat, rolling tears.

They scattered like bugs. She laughed at them.

Her mother would cup her cheek, fingers brushing over another green and purple bruise, and tell her to use her words next time, please. But she had never been good at that.

She spent a lot of time alone. She'd buy a can of tuna from the provisions store on her block between the rows of concrete apartment complexes, knifing open the tin as the neighbourhood strays rubbed against her legs. They were soft and warm. She'd pat their little heads, and they would purr for her, turning into loaves in her lap.

Yael

sweetheart, don't come out until I tell you to. Her mother became a trembling mountain that loomed above her. And they hadn't played this game for a long time now. But one evening, her mother handed her the cassette, holding her hands for a brief moment, a strange look on her face.

She was good at being quiet.

And she waited for her name to be called, cords of the tape player tangled into the noise of voices and shattering.

After awhile, for the first time she could remember, she opened the door slightly, a scene unfolding in the space of an inch, enough to catch the apparition of a peacekeeper's uniform before he vanished from her line sight.

There was a strange feeling in her chest, a hammering and a quickening in deafening cadences.

She waited until there was only a buzzing in her ears, morning light inching through the cracks of her space. When she finally opened the door, the light hit her eyes in a blinding beam, sun pouring over her. And she remembers standing in silence for a moment before walking towards the bedroom door left ajar.

Yael, my love,

at the foot of the bed, she waited for the words, but her mother stayed silent from the ground. The blood seeped into the fabric of her knees when she knelt down beside the body, already tepid to the touch, and waited.

And waited.

No one called her name for a long time.

There was a beautiful lady, in a long dress sweeping her ankles, a dark wool coat pulled around her shoulders with tortoiseshell fastenings. A nice coat meant nice things meant money and jewels and gold watches she could take. They were all hers if she could just reach out to grab them, laid out before her like feasts on silver platters.

But this was different. And she'd almost thought she'd gotten away with it before the woman caught her by the arm, gripping her so hard her bones hurt. There was a look there. Not rage but a very casual, disinterested something she'd never seen.

Everything happened very fast –

they washed the blood and dirt from her skin, cut the tangled ends of her curly hair, bandaged her cuts and scrapes, took her measurements, drew a bag of blood, and gave her needle after needle of strange liquids.

And into uniform she went, the fabric scratchy and new, smelling faintly chemical.

A week passed, and she liked that she was never hungry. There was no desperation for food, no taking or stealing or scavenging for scraps off another's plate. And she liked that her bed was soft to fall into, that she had a place that was hers because space was scarce and precious.

She learned very quickly what she liked and didn't.

The first day in the classroom, the instructor called on her to read from the history book that had been delivered in the box of items placed on the bed of her dorm room. The spine was thick, the pages stiff and unfamiliar.

She was quiet for a long time. It was funny – after all that time, and the feeling in her chest had never left, making a little home in her lungs and throat. The sound of her pulse became so loud it made her head spin.

A girl giggled softly, a peal of a distant bell, a barely perceptible sound, but Yael looked at her, reading the simper on her face between the freckles. The room was turned to her, a wall of eyes, and the instructor called her name again.

Damaris,

are you listening?

Another smirk.

And that she didn't like.

She felt herself moving towards where the girl was seated. It was strange how the sound got sucked out of the room in the moment, like her fist held a burning star on the verge of collapse. A gentle woosh in her ears, and then her hands were tangled into the girl's hair, grabbing a hand full before she threw her face into her desk. And then again.

They punished her for it.

But it was okay. She liked the way the girl's bones crunched underneath her hand, the way the blood was left smudged on the surface of that pristine history book like a chapter she'd penned. And now everyone was really looking at her. They had a reason to look now. She'd given them permission.

They punished her for it, but no one laughed at her again.

And she liked that.

I SWIM IN WEIGHTLESSNESS.

Last Edit: Mar 14, 2022 1:59:43 GMT -5 by fox

fox Graphics 1,363 POSTS Pronouns: she/her last seen Apr 25, 2024 12:23:42 GMT -5 but a butt ?	yael, d2 // fin Mar 14, 2022 2:01:05 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by fox on Mar 14, 2022 2:01:05 GMT -5 ripred_bot

kap
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last seen Apr 27, 2024 10:23:44 GMT -5

goomy goomy on the brain

yael, d2 // fin Mar 14, 2022 8:41:16 GMT -5

Quote

Post by kap on Mar 14, 2022 8:41:16 GMT -5

"She was good when she swam through the crowds of bodies in the district center, foraging through pockets as the tide of people ebbed and flowed around her, like she was a silver fish just below the surface of reach."

:heart_eyes: