Heartlines [Sundrop]

So sad that I'm the hint of life
in your deserving eye
When every minute you spend
Hoping for love and respect
Brings me closer to goodbye.

She isn't here, even if she knows that sooner or later she will have to return. The warmth of sun on her face is all she needs in order to determine that for now, she has escaped the wrath of the arena and that she's back home, with mother and father and Storm and Europa and Io - everyone is together again, even though the facade is all but paper-thin and she can easily see the imperfections in the mirage. Storm smiles at her, eyes in little half moons as he hands her a small sandwich, and is soon distracted by Europa's chatter and frolicking across the lush meadow that covers pre-oil District 5. Her parents are younger, youthful, energetic and laughing as Io's hair is braided by her mother. The picturesque scene is only interrupted by Sundra herself, who is sitting, crosslegged on the red-white blanket in a green sundress, staring wide-eyed at the scene. This isn't what happened. I don't - I don't understand. Of course, the family doesn't notice her sudden change in behavior, but she simply doesn't understand why suddenly, she is there in this alternate reality where colors are too-bright and people are too-lucky.

It hurts her to see them in this way, merely because she knows that they were almost never like this. The Wies never had time to act like this, to be this joyful and fun and happy. Storm and Sundra had always kept up the well-practiced faces for the girls, telling them that it was time to play "guess what's for dinner", when food supply was low, or that the family was participating in a game of "super secret darkness spy" when the power was cut from the farming district. She knew, and she knew that he knew, that sooner or later the girls were going to outgrow that phase once they got old enough to truly understand what was going on in the world. Yet it happened sooner than she expected, starting with Storm's reaping and continuing with her own - Europa was already shell-shocked, while Io would blubber whenever she mentioned her deceased brother. They were too old now, with the imminent death of their "mother", forced to take care of themselves and forced to act like adults well before they deserved to.

It is her pessimism and melancholic thoughts that causes the dream to become fractured, slowly breaking apart into a nightmare as the ground beneath the family split apart with a loud rumble, first dragging her parents down into the deep dark depths, then Storm, then Europa. She grabbed onto Io as the ground caved in around them, leaving the two teetering on an unstable foundation of pillars as the rubble around them cleared, exposing the broken bones and pools of blood that formerly laid hidden beneath the neon-green-grass and robin's-egg-sky, the chasm surrounding the two remaining Wies filled with rotten corpses of dead tributes and the fresh new ones of their family. Io trembles, hiding her face in Sundra's shoulder as she screams - sharp, high pitched squeals of horror.

That's when she wakes up, realizing that the screams are of her own creation, only muffled by her arm being used as a pillow, her face pressed against the cold fabric, the sounds being dulled just a tad bit, although she is almost completely positive that her sleep-talk has most likely woken Ember up from a peaceful slumber. Immediately, she wipes the tears off of her cheeks, hoping that Ember doesn't notice that she is frail and weak and not able to control her emotions, but she knows it's likely to be futile. Silence is everything right now, and as the two girls head out, Sundra knows that Ember simply must know, and it makes her feel inferior to the stoic, brave girl who fought for Arden's survival rather than running to save him and failing. She walks a bit faster, determined to simply find some time to get away from Ember, just for a moment, so she can have some time to herself. Sundra finds herself losing sight of the girl as she turns around, but the sound of her name is something else entirely. Aesop Bloom is here again, and she knows that something is amiss.

A hand trails back up towards her mouth, as she remembers teeth against teeth and smiles against gasps, which detract her attention from snowmen that have emotions and boys who need companionship. And she feels pity for the boy, who has most likely gone through some sort of hardship for him to want to introduce her to his family, which contrasts with her own. Calliope and Poe; Sundra and Io. Thoughts return once again to ground cracking apart and screams of little girls and she moves to back away, but only succeeds in tripping on her feet and landing face first into the clearing. Slowly however, she makes her way to her feet and over to Aesop (because it's her own fault if he goes and decides to attack her, and she knows that she cannot simply avoid the boy who may have saved her life with the simple gifts of a kiss and a water bottle), not looking at the snowmen (for they will, no doubt, remind her of the little mounds that Io made that one winter, when snow finally coated the grounds with enough frozen water to make snowballs).

He beckons for her to join him. She does, hiding her mutilations from him as she moves to sit down, the simple act of moving her other hand in front as she smiles tentatively, but gently; almost seemingly conveying a "how are you?" or a "thank you for the water bottle" or a "hello, male who kissed me only two days ago". She knows that her family will be yelling at her to kill him, to not make attachments, to save herself and be selfish for the first time in her life. But old habits die hard, and she knows that he needs her, or at least, the idea of her, and by all means she will oblige to help as many people as possible in this arena, even if it means the inevitable occurring earlier than she would wish upon herself. The sight of such innocent souls like Aesop and Ember dying at an early age will only remind her of Storm, Trace and Arden anyways. Perhaps she finds it best that she die out before the true heartbreak begins.

For a moment longer she sits next to him, silent, before finally letting her guard down, coat accidentally shifting to reveal her injury as she moves her hand to "shake" the hands of Calliope, saying "It's very nice to meet you, Calliope. I've already heard so much about you." (And to an extent, this must be true for Aesop must have mentioned his sister in his interview, for otherwise what is the purpose of having Ceasar Flickerman prance about in monochromatic color schemes other than sharing your story?), before turning to Faux Poe, smiling and giggling as she murmurs "And it's nice to meet you too, Poe, regardless of what Aesop says about you." She turns to the boy - the real one - once more, a slightly playful (or slightly desperate to get rid of lingering thoughts and clinging depression) mood playing in her voice as she asks "So, what brings you to this part of our winter wonderland today, Aesop Bloom?"

She almost forgets that he killed Arden. But she knows that she won't, and that she can't. Yet if she lingers on bitter feelings and for too long, it's worthless in the end. In fact, perhaps everything is worthless in the end, but she knows that resentment will only go so far to protect herself in the arena, and that it's time to simply let it go, for he's not the one who she should be out to get.

He would never be able to be that one anyways.