･ﾟ: * larkin swan, d1m [8th games]

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.
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･ﾟ: * larkin swan, d1m [8th games] Apr 14, 2023 12:50:08 GMT -5

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Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 14, 2023 12:50:08 GMT -5

larkin " lark " swan

eighteen

[8th] hunger games - district one male

'swan string orchestra's lead violinist.

Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 14, 2023 13:35:07 GMT -5

[Photographed: The Swan String Youth Orchestra's special rendition of 'The Horn of Plenty' to celebrate the defeat of the rebellion. The Swan String Youth Orchestra has been sponsored by the Capitol to play in the after party of the Annual 1st Hunger Games.]

Last Edit: Apr 15, 2023 10:55:36 GMT -5 by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.

堕落天使

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.
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･ﾟ: * larkin swan, d1m [8th games] Apr 15, 2023 11:46:59 GMT -5

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Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 15, 2023 11:46:59 GMT -5

Ever since you could remember, you have been instructed to stand for the national anthem.

Or rather, the Capitol’s anthem.

Hand over where the heart is, you’d bow your head low to the Panem flag in the district square alongside your two parents under a sky the color of ash. The orchestra blared each note with intent, powerful enough to resonate as a hum in every chest and influential enough to reshape the landscape of person with the tremors. It was so loud it drowned every thought, overwhelmed it to a synaptic death.

No wonder you learnt the composition so quick. It had become a childhood lullaby, a muscle memory when you first begun playing.

It was your parents who enlisted you to your first violin lesson, all done under the Capitol’s plan to create an atmosphere of peace and leisure. Civil unrest could teem as much as it wanted under the surface, so long as the veneer held. And that infernal summer where they attended countless luncheons, dinners, and plays- it all made quite a beautiful veneer. District one residents and their performance of leisure and luxury, how could there be a war when they upheld such a beautiful picture of good society?

Of lawn picnics, afternoon tea, and musical instrument lessons held out on a sun-bright porch?

Your parents loved pretending, and so they gave birth to a boy who was born to pretend.

The violin was your first and perhaps only true friend. It felt a heavy, awkward thing when it was originally introduced, but your fingers soon learnt the delicate secrets of handling the bow, of plucking each string with care, of knowing where to rest the bow on the string to coax out to melodies. To draw emotion. Within each melody lies great emotions, both from the violin and the violinist, and only together through this sacred union can a symphony manifest as sweet as it does.

And somewhere in the cracks of your head, there is a sweeter memory of strumming an old song, its words sung in a language your tongue no longer knows, as your mother and father sways together. It is one and the very few sweeter memories you have.

But you do not want pity. In war, choices are made on their own, not by one’s own volition, and your story wasn’t yours from the beginning.

War stories are never suffered alone.

In fact, the Swan String Orchestra is a coalition, a shared narrative, a singular entity controlled by her. The conductor. The maestro. For years and years, your hands and your very being were marionetted by the barest flicks of her fingers that it feels hollow to not have her by your side now, telling you what to play and what to do. She had the strings to every child in there, and she knew where to tug, where to pull. The maestro rewarded you if your fingers bled and made you stay for longer hours if they didn’t. She conducted the symphony, and that meant every sound was chosen to her own liking, the same way her students were.

You remember smiling when she chose you.

You were happy, if only to keep your parents happy as well with what scraps the Capitol threw their way, but every thing the Swan String Orchestra offered a child, it took ten more from them in secret. To exemplify it further, the sponsorship promised a great deal of riches, but it was asked that every child have ‘Swan’ as their last name. That was your first price to pay.

The rest of them, however, you have lost count.

Music has always had a strange, pulling influence over the mind, like a moon to the tides.

The Maestro played the national anthem by rote after every rehearsal in a way that dulls your head to even recall, much less recite. It was the Panem anthem, yet it was tailored in her image, her own special rendition. You remember her saying that she was the one who composed the anthem, and this was the unwritten part, the unheard part, the unsung part. This was the part that made a person swear true fealty to the country.

And you do not know about fealty, but you know that jarring symphony well. You feel it crawl under your skin and search deeper. You feel it reach out, like to hear the sound of it is to rouse something hidden from within you. You feel it open a door where there wasn’t before and unleash something lurking behind it.

And when it ends, you feel yourself return, reborn, back to humanness and not wherever you previously were. You hardly remember what happens between the time you get lost in one melody and is revived by the next, but it sometimes comes back in flashes and fractures. You remember that it’s easy to slice through skin with a violin string. You remember that a violin bow can be wickedly sharp. You remember ostentatious mansions and private, intimate concerts held by selected members of the Swan String Orchestra that conclude in sounds not quite … melodious.

You remember the stains.

It all gets scrubbed clean, though, when the horn of plenty blares again to herald in a new day.

And all you have left is a good conscience and strange, indistinct music playing in your head again.

The horn of plenty overflows.

堕落天使

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.
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･ﾟ: * larkin swan, d1m [8th games] Apr 16, 2023 13:34:04 GMT -5

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Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 16, 2023 13:34:04 GMT -5

You stand upright, stiff as a board, and observe a flock of hummingbirds feed beyond the glass of the Justice Building.

Your parents and Maestro converse in hushed tones behind you. Between counting the wingbeats of the birds, a few snippets of the conversation flit through—

“No need to worry, Mr. and Mrs. Sun. We shall take exceptional care of him. After all, it is quite the patriotic act he’s performing.”

“And what is our compensation?”

—before Maestro turns on her stilettoed heels, clicks, clicks, clicks across the room, and picks up a sizable chest near your seating place. She smiles at you like she is indulging you with a secret.

The chest is handed over to your parents.

“That is enough, I presume?”

No response comes. Or perhaps you do not hear, as your ears hone in upon the singing of the hummingbirds.

堕落天使

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. Retired Staff 3,108 POSTS Pronouns: he/him last seen Nov 19, 2024 3:17:51 GMT -5	･ﾟ: * larkin swan, d1m [8th games] Apr 18, 2023 10:53:25 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 18, 2023 10:53:25 GMT -5 umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars] L△LIA
	堕落天使

umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars] Administrator 7,903 POSTS last seen Nov 21, 2024 0:46:02 GMT -5 — 🥀 —	･ﾟ: * larkin swan, d1m [8th games] Apr 19, 2023 10:10:42 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars] on Apr 19, 2023 10:10:42 GMT -5
	^{I AM A GARDEN OF BLACK AND RED AGONIES}