speak like a child ; fenrir/ace

Cait
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if looks could kill

speak like a child ; fenrir/ace Oct 14, 2022 19:34:55 GMT -5

Post by Cait on Oct 14, 2022 19:34:55 GMT -5

ace bellisario

I never mean to end up in the places I do. It always just comes to happen, one foot in front of the other, up and up and up darkened stairwells. Through doors that should be locked, truthfully, but always seem to be conveniently left ajar for me to discover.

The night air is cool as it kisses my face, sends wisps of hair flying around my face, cotton candy whispers. An iron railing barricades me in, confining me to the centre of a small rooftop miles above the city of Panem. The world below me is touched by shadows, with no stars here to light up the night. There is only the quiet spell of the calm before the storm, and no hope of finding my way back home.

I wonder how many other children have been here before me. Spent the last night of the life that they’ve always known contemplating death, humanity. Face to face with all the fears that only come out at 2am.

It would be easy to put all of those anxieties to sleep, right now. And I can feel my fingers twitching at the thought of the freefall, impulsivity like adrenaline through my bloodstream.

I thought I wanted to get out. I thought there was no other choice for a failure of a Bellisario one year away from D-Day. I thought this was easier – leaving before that inevitable exile. But I think I just wanted to belong.

I don’t think it matters anymore.

I am here and I am alone, like I always have been. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be like this, but it’s all I will ever know.

I will not cry.

The railing comes to meet me swiftly. I swing my legs over the beam and balance precariously over the edge, drinking in the world around me. Good and bad, light and dark, the ebb and flow of it all.

i always used to be into writing sort of modern abstract
lyricism stuff (that were like) slight vague indications of a feeling.

lucius branwen / 10 — fox
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speak like a child ; fenrir/ace Oct 14, 2022 20:39:35 GMT -5

Post by lucius branwen / 10 — fox on Oct 14, 2022 20:39:35 GMT -5

f e n r i r

Something unsettles you. You lie awake, flat out on the bed, with a song stuck in your head. Hela would hum while cleaning her arrows by the fire. You remember the smell of alcohol as she poured the liquid into a stone bowl, sharp scent over the hazy tones of burning beech and smoke.

You touch your chest. It feels funny. You never knew the words.

You know you hate this place.

You can say it's the quiet, how in Seven, the woods breathe and sigh and tremble. The rhythm of the forest never left you. Your bones want the sun, the knots of roots deep below everything, a thunderstorm.

So you step out of your room and into the hall. The lights flicker on, one by one, a path illuminating like a stage.

Or maybe, it's how there's nothing quiet at all. There's everything and everyone, a thousand eyes, a hundred gestures of ceremony, and never a moment where there's no spectacle.

The door is unlocked, pushed slightly open to the roof. Outside, the sky is indigo and starless. You stand with the fluorescent light pouring from the stairwell behind you, casting a long shadow from where you stand. Someone slips over the beams of the railing.

A breeze catches their hair. They look outwards. The glow of the city comes from below like a strange sun, soft and orange in the night.

Maybe what you hate is feeling fragile, how easy it would be for the wind to shift, to fall, to be crushed by this city.

Your chest squeezes. And somehow, you're there, staggering forwards, reaching, pulling, hand on their wrist because people aren't supposed to die like this.

"Don't."

Cait
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if looks could kill

speak like a child ; fenrir/ace Oct 14, 2022 21:40:45 GMT -5

Post by Cait on Oct 14, 2022 21:40:45 GMT -5

ace bellisario

The air changes.

I don’t hear the footsteps or the sharp intake of breath until after I’m being grabbed, small wrist engulfed by a heavy hand.

I’m surprised when I shouldn’t be. Reality tells me I should have been more prepared to be discovered out here alone. But all I can think is how the delay between my muscles and senses, head and heart, is more obvious than ever.

I will not cry.

I don’t hear him speak. Rather, I watch the shape of the word his lips form, and in response, start to shake my head. Deny, deny, deny.

“I – I wasn’t…”

Were you? Weren’t you? I put a hand over my heart, realise it’s racing. The skin there is tender to touch – I feel a memory a memory of pain, of unfinished business.

I let myself be pulled down, staring down at the ground all the while. Anything to avoid looking at the stranger’s face as embarrassment settles on my own.

I last five seconds.

Eyes on eyes, I recognise the hollow face from the reruns of the Reapings. His name evades me, but the number seven burns brightly above his head.

I pull my hand from his grasp, let it drop to my side as my cold fingers tangle through a loose thread of cotton.

“I wasn’t going to.” But I don’t really know how much truth is in that sentence. My voice breaks on the last word, telling. My teeth dig deeper into the flesh of my lip as we stare at each other. Like a reprimanded child, I am thirteen again, standing in mother’s office fighting back tears.

I will not cry.

“Besides, I wouldn’t have gotten very far. There’s probably a hovercraft down there waiting to catch anyone who tries.” I smile slightly at that, the grim reality of where we are. But his face betrays no emotion, so I erase my own out of solidarity.

“What are you doing out here, forest boy?”

i always used to be into writing sort of modern abstract
lyricism stuff (that were like) slight vague indications of a feeling.

lucius branwen / 10 — fox
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last seen Nov 22, 2024 19:42:43 GMT -5

but a butt ?

speak like a child ; fenrir/ace Oct 15, 2022 0:09:12 GMT -5

Post by lucius branwen / 10 — fox on Oct 15, 2022 0:09:12 GMT -5

f e n r i r

It’s like pulling a feather from the air. They drift down from the edge.

You still have your hand on their wrist. You don't realize it until they tug away. You loosen your hold and your palm feels empty and your face burns, as if with a fever.

It happened very suddenly. You feel like a child, squeezing your sister's hand, watching the wounds across a man's neck open and close like gills on a fish on the altar. You feel like a child, finding a deer in the forest with its stomach bored out.

It feels stupid. You should know death now, even here, with the lenses and silks and people with funny names. Maybe, you've just never seen someone want to die like this. Maybe this is different.

"I wasn't going to."

They still hold your gaze, but the words sound small. There's a beat, and the tone changes. They speak and smile and you feel uneasy. You don't like it, how you felt afraid for a moment. You don't like not understanding why. You burn in the cold air, tensing again, angry at nothing you can place a finger on.

"I will kill you. If you want to die." You say it quietly. It comes more like a promise made between children than the knife that it is. You didn't mean for the softness, but it's there anyways. And it stays, soaked in the space between you and them and your threat is not a threat.

You look away, out into the city. "I couldn't sleep."