#~#If I {Fall}#~# [Chaos]

Aphotic beings flourish in darkness but I cannot help rearing my brightbright eyes to the sun, allowing them to sparkle as the gems they were perhaps once, a long time ago. It renders me blind in a pleasant sort of white-washed apathy; tinging spreads from my sockets into my bones and for a moment I can feel my frosted orb struggling to work again and pierce the veil that has permenantly been erected over my sight. The moment fades, however, and I am left with nothing but a hollow ache in my chest and the quiet singing as life begins to flourish once more, a dire constrast to my current status even as the ring on my finger flashes like a thousand splendid suns.

Kaya kissed me goodbye and promised to be back within a month from District Six - her brother had still not gotten better and they were paying to perform a trial.

It has been four months now, and I'm waiting for the punchline of a joke that I don't understand.

There is a scream that shatters the relative still of the air and I'm taken back to a time of wolves and redheads and arrows that hurthurthurt but I rub my eye wearily and frown, wondering if I should even bother to see what has passed. I have gone with lower dosages for a few days now and am beginning to feel the strain - one form of haze disappears in my eyes just to be replaced by another. The warmth of the sun quiets that into nothing but a dull ache and the coarse string of a taut bow rubs firmly against the skin of my front.
At times I try anything to rid myself of these thoughts that rebound hastily inside my cranial cavity - the fingers rubbed raw from strain attest to that - and shuffle my quiver carefully, striding in the direction of the noise with no real purpose. If anything, it will be a welcome distraction from my own sanity which threatens to swallow me whole.

"Whatever's out there, if you're going to attack me, now would be a good time. You know, while I'm sitting here helpless?"

Absently I play with the tip of an arrow and shrug the oaken bow higher up my lithe frame, careful not to point it in any unsavory directions (I am horrible with the weapon - it hates me and I loathe it just as much) as I stride through the bracken. Knives brush against the strength of my thighs and I feel powerful with the light that plays tricks inside the depths of my oculi. Blinking away stars I reach the edges of the fence and watch the girl trapped on the other side. She looks fragile and made of glass, like she would shatter if tapped too hard. Bruised black and blue and appearing defeated, I lean up against the rusted fencing.

"I don't like my prey helpless. It takes all the fun out of the hunt." Though I am a thief through and through it amuses me at times to attempt and chase my prey - if not for the novelty more than the actual use. Steps long quiet, it renders my mind into a numb haze of breathing and seeing the world for nothing more than it really is.

Lips twist up in a slight smirk as I eye her casually, feeling the fence murmur protest as I lean all six foot two inches of my height upon the fraying mental. It towers a good extra five feet above me but I make daily trips to the quiet forests now teeming with life now that all but the most wily hunters have disappeared into the various factories, enjoying the solitude and way branches rustle silently overhead. She looks tired and not altogether here - like the strings tying her to this earth fade with each passing day.

(i want to cut those ties and horde them close to my chest, another broken link to add to my already copious collection)

An eyebrow raises. "You fucked up your shoulder." A simple statement accompanied by an amused snort and lidding eyes. My engagement ring catches the blinding sun and makes me blink, temporary drawing my gaze away from her face to study the waxen skin and glossy discoloration that glows a neon sign for 'I'm sick and not close to getting better'. Everything about her screams tragic consequences and unfortunate ends but I find myself fascinated - how can one seem so broken but whole simultaneously?

She has eyes like the person that used to pull me aside once a week and attempt to coax me out of the shell I had built around myself and it hurts because I don't want to remember that bright smile or sympathetic hands or the pen that would taptaptap against the spiral bound paper and write little post-it notes about the tragedies in my life. She used to watch me weave artfully wrought conjunctions into the emotions I feel bubbling inside - a constantly moving cyclone that moulds me into a pariah amongst my own - and the ever present murmuring of the monster by my ear. She used to spur me to speak my mind when it wasn't appropriate and talk about all these things because they would never change if I kept them inside.

Instead I blinked at her in stubborn silence and shocked her into quiescence whenever I opened my mouth, painting pictures with startling clarity that would never once be brought up again. And I used to hate it.

But now, I long for the days where I could conjure more emotion into nothing but faltering verbalization.

[OOC: What is this rant at the end? I'm sorry, she was being self-centered. I told her it was rude but she ignored me.]

If there is one word that I would use to describe her, it would be tragic. She is the staple of wasted chances and quiet desires as I watch the bones underneath her discolored flesh press out from their fragile confines. While some attempt to hide their illness she wears it almost proudly - dark circles constrasting vividly under whirlwind eyes and brittle hair coming out as easily as a simple tug; she tries to hide it but I have been trained to watch for the careful nuances of human nature, and spot the stuttering hesitation with a neutral eye. I am raw and angry and dark and perhaps more than just a little bit sadistic but my natural instinct to mock her weakness is but a whisper in the face of my general irritation at the world. It has been a long time since I've felt genuine curiousity to another person - I have been taught to hate and cheat before they do the same to me - and it shines almost as brightly in my eyes as the blazing sun.

We are apathetic creatures by nature
(i know first hand from the countless faceless strangers that walk by without asking my name)
that dislike to aid anybody but ourselves. It would be in best interest to walk away and never look back from the girl with baby brittle bones but I find it too difficult to block out the inate aura of death that shrouds her in a cloak. She seems calm in the face of such turbulence.

i'm never calm. i hear about tranquility but i always feel gray like a brewing storm.

"I was trying to climb, and I fell," An eyebrow raises higher along the plains of my forehead, arms crossing along my narrow chest and feeling the steady thrum of my heart tap a staccato beat along the ridges of muscle. It comforts me that something will remain the same in a rapidly changing world.

"No, really?" Deadpan just like her previous answer, though the smirk splits to hint at slick teeth that glint dangerously in the light. "I've been at it all day, I can never get over the top."

I push myself off the fence and ignore the urge to rub at where the flakes of sharp metal have dug into my bare arm, biceps visible against the tan skin which I take in so much pride. Exotic even throughout the winter - I'm the first to admit I'm more than a little vain. "That's because you aren't supposed to climb the fence." It's delivered with the same snark that she first gave to me, but the syllables are tinged with amusement.
Wind licks along my flesh and threads through my fingers; my consciousness is nothing more than a paper plane flying through the breeze as the familiar stirrings of beautiful blank thoughts begin. It has already merged into my rivers and attempts to find its way home to where it belongs, deep in the center of my chest. Gaze sparks, dies and is reborn all over again, rational mind nudging the back of my eyes.

"Shoulder's definitely dislocated and ribs are definitely bruised, possibly cracked. Ankle is probably broken." I pay little attention at first, scraping fingers down the rough bark and feeling my nerves arch in shared mutiny at the cacophany of restless noise that assaults my ears when nails catch on rough edges. Exact emotions avoid me for the hundredth time and I bare teeth angrily out of sight; it shouldn't be this hard to just feel even when I blink languid eyes better placed on a little child made of glass. It takes repeated fluxuation of tone and tense to bring me back, eyebrows smoothing out into a practiced expression of mute neutrality.

(i shouldn't be here. i'm not in my mind. but when am I ever?)

Lithe arms wrap around the sturdy branch (it reminds me of grandpapi's skin, all scarred and cracked with a story to tell) and hoist myself up, feet finding purchase and shivering taut muscles to hold myself stationary. For a moment I am suspended halfway in the air and feel like a baby bird with nubile wings learning to fly - each process is a trial and tribulation all of its own.

"Fence can't be climbed very well." I mumble, eyes narrowed to nothing more than my immediate problems and mottled issues. It groand quietly under my weight and I murmur distant apology, stalking along its length in a hunched movement, all long limbs and glassy orbs that long to reflect the glow of the moon.

(it has yet to fully kick in and I hate that. stuck somewhere between white-washed apathy and full-blown rage. sometimes i'm scared i'll freeze there forever)

Once grounded sense seems to return to me - I always lose my head when so far above ground - and my mind clears from its foggy haze, shaking cobwebs from my vision and raising a slight eyebrow when she has yet to move. With the way the light plays off her angles she looks like a skeleton (anorexics would die for her structure) that has yet to still the rattle of stickybright bones, adament that it the story it wishes to tell has not yet been spun. In a manner I can relate; the monster refuses to be silenced until its point has been made and devastation is only the faint result of chaos.
"Why do you want to, anyway? There's nothing all that special over the other side. Lots of trees and angry animals, really." I muse, shifting my weight to one leg. Up close she is sicklier that I originally imagined and have a sudden flashback to grandmami laying in her bed, babbling incoherent Icelandic and groping for a face that wasn't really there.

A tilt of the head. Uncomplicated, genuine. I blink traces of confusion out of my xanthrous gaze.

"Want me to fix that?" A hand flicks to the angled shoulder and I trace the contoures with my eyes. Know that she either must be really stupid or really desperate to wrench it this badly - and honestly, I can't tell which one best applies. Sun beats down but the air is still once more, nothing exists in our little bubble of broken thoughts and accidental injuries. It reminds me of days long past, and coats my gaze in an accidental cold. I'll humor her and guide her through the basic steps until the morphling kicks in, until I can't feel the warmth of the sun, until she's nothing but a faceless blur.
Until there's a blank space where my dreams should be.

She rambles nonsensical whims into the air while I study her wounds, tugging down the gentle sleeve or her shirt to expose the smooth socket that juts out angrily and warps her skin into a stretched mockery of normalcy. I raise my eyebrow at both the extent of the damage and how sickly her flesh is underneath her cloth armor. There is obviously more running under the current that I can see first hand, but looking into the girl's eyes I note that there is a puzzle waiting to be unwrapped. I am not a patient being but can be presuaded to wait for the things that really intrigue me; it is how I managed to swallow my anger and pride and just -everything- to learn how to love Kaya again.

My fingers prod at the mass of bone pushing outwards, frowning lightly when it steadfastly refuses to even shift slightly under my weight. A quick glance up at the fence then at her own body shows that really, it shouldn't have popped that badly under her marginal body. "You're going to have to take your shirt off." I mumble absently, getting up and scrounging around for materials that could create a makeshift splint. I've dislocated it once, and the agony is slightly more bearable when it doesn't move every which way.

"Ah, goddamn it!" It takes all the restraint in my eleven year old body not to thrash around blindly, cradling my arm close to my chest as I lie on my back and try to remember how to breathe. The world is spinning and I feel disgustingly nauseous, surrounded by decaying leaves and spindly trees that shake in time to the call of the wind. It brushes the damp bangs from my face with a gentle touch and I resist the urge to whimper under my breath, knowing my only friend is around and she prides on me being brave and tough and not a pansy that will break down at the slightest notions of injury.

I swallow a breathy groan and attempt to sit up but remain anchored to the ground, feeling the raindrops dribble down my slick skin and slip through parted lips. The branch that I fell off of mocks me from above, casting shadows along the defined expanses of my facial features and rendering the world into a monochromatic hue. If it wasn't for the agony that I am loathe to feel apathetic towards, I would find it peaceful. "Tammy, where are you? This isn't funny!" My ribs expand to let out a reply but it onto makes pain spike along my shoulderblades, earning a strangled moan in return.

"Oh my God, are you okay?" I must have closed my eyes for a second because all of a sudden she's hovering over me with that look that says this is not okay and I bare my teeth in a mockery of a smile. "Never been better, sweetheart." She worries over my twisted arm and hesitantly touches it, jerking back when I hiss akin to an aggrivated snake.
"Um, I've seen Daddy set these before. I think I know how." Eyes roll to her in disbelief, trying desperately not to shift any portion of my body. "Are you fucking kidding me?" I snarl, digging nails into the fleshy palms of my hands. "You think you--agh!" I snap my head back against the soft cushion underneath me, rain washing off the sweat that has begun to accumilate on my brow.

She scowls (and she looks like a brewing tornado, all worried and angry and hurt). "It's either that or you wait while I go get somebody." The thought of being alone for any period of time makes me blanch, so I swallow my pride and shake my head slowly. As if spurred by some unmentioned command her hands gently press against the warped bone and she sets her jaw in a way that I'd find adorable if I weren't currently trying not to hyperventilate.

"You ready?"

"Yeah." Brace, close throat. Watch her carefully through a clouded, glassy gaze.

Snap.


Once the piece of fabric lies on the floor I manipulate her arm across her chest, watching the bones stick out sharply. I only vaguely remember having this done through a violent haze of pain, but I realize that if I don't get it right the pain might very well stop her heart. Feet shuffling under me, I blink all traces of hesitation away and lock eyes with her.

"You ready?" The words sound bittersweet on my tongue, from the days where decisions had a lot less weight behind them.
Without waiting for her reply, I dig my toes into the earth and shove downwards.

It's simple, really. First the palm aids in pulling the joint away from the body, while the other arm pushes the torso from the dislocated joint. Either I'm better than I remember or we're exceedingly lucky, for I only have to rest my place once before it sets back into place with a satisfying click. First try it got caught in the downwards dip and I had to yank with all my might to prevent the dislocation from becoming worse.

As it sets back in, I rock back on the balls of my feet and give a charming smirk complete with gleaming teeth. "Might not want to try that again, yeah?"

[OOC: Oh, I'm sorry for crap post. I just felt really guilty about not replying...]

Actions

Perhaps man was never meant to fly. Feet were meant to be kept on the ground, always rooted to their desires and only glancing up occasionally to catch a glimpse of what they were missing. Me? Well, I attempt to get as close to the sky as possible - I feel like being caged down here is never enough to truly feel liberated. I've broken bones and defied boundaries simply for that feeling of utter freedom, the wind that touches against the planes of my face as I strain ever higher for a chance at... what? Redemption? Salvation? Maybe just a time where it's easier to forget the chains that bind us back to earth. I allow my stickybright eyes to flourish in sunlight even as the rest of my body shies from the light; I will always be a contradiction in everything I will ever create.

In some cases, I can understand her. She is sick - perhaps deathly so. I see the rattle of her ribcage as something sears loose through her chest, the way her flesh is almost transparent and the strands of hair that twine subtly through her fingers, all brittle and pale and dead. She wishes to scream it from the tips of her being no, i'm not dead yet. i can still breathe and laugh but it's so difficult to listen to somebody who will soon be robbed of their ability to speak.

Still, she must either be insane or have a swiftly delivered deathwish (or perhaps both) to attempt it so soon after setting her arm back into place. While true that it seems as if it barely hurts in the wake of replacement, I know for a fact that the reason she's favoring that side is because of the ugly purple bruise that has begun to creep along her ribs, staining the once translucent skin a deep kaleidoscope of alternating colors. I narrow my eyes and fight away the glassy swimming that crawls along the edges of my vision - the morphling has long since set in and I vaguely feel like I'm floating on air that isn't here - while tracking her slow movement. She couldn't get more than a mile in that state, let alone climb a tree and struggle through the bracken. Yet, there's something so heartbreakingly longing about her expression that it has the hidden parts of me craving to sweep her up and brush the frustration out of her eyes, much like I do to Kaya when her brother starts being himself again.

"You think I could climb this thing one-handed? I'm not so sure my other arm's ready for action yet." An eyebrow arches skywards, arms crossing over my chest as I watch her carefully, seeing her scout out the very tree that I had just disembarked from. A fool's errand; she knows as well as I do that she can't climb that thing in her current state - perhaps that's why she wishes to try?

"You won't be able to climb it at all like that." A simple observation, eyes scanning the large branches absently for footholds and watching the aged nail-marks with hints of wistful amusement of days long passed. She delivers her speech poised as ever - I have a vague notion of a podium performer speaking to an audience - and I simply level my gaze, not moving and letting that eyebrow float higher until it is perched precariously close to my hairline. "I'm a mercenary. I never do anything for free." A vicious flash of teeth in something akin to a smile, and I breeze by her, grasping the nearest branch and hauling myself steady with an easy grace that has taken years of perfecting to reach. While I am not a dancer, some believe I must have been in a past life.

It is sturdy and looks like it could hold five people and god why am I even thinking of doing this? I hop from branch to branch, leaves barely rustling until I drop back by her feet, falling instinctively into a crouch as my legs take the brunt of the shock. I revel in the distant, uncomfortable tingling because it is telling my body yes, I'm alive when the morphling has dulled my touch to nothing more than a glossy haze. I know it's easy to see in my eyes, but I was raised as a master of deception - it takes more than one substance to fully best me. "Well, then," I purr (all svelte and lithe that sounds like velvet; rough on the top and smooth underneath, dark and deep enough to drown in) "you better find something large, because I don't work for free." With that, I offer her my back; shaking raven locks from my face and beckoning with my head.

"If you're really serious about this, I'll take you. I could use a little excitement now." It remains unspoken the words I wish to add onto the sentence, to not feel so alone. So that I can forget that Kaya was supposed to come home ages ago.

Actions

For a moment I'm frozen, unused to genuine human contact (it always makes that hole in my chest howl complaint) but I hesitantly reach over and hold her head against my chest for a moment - I am almost a foot taller than her, after all - with strong fingers that spiderweb through her brittle strands. My engagement ring shines against her hair and I find my lips curling into a faint smile, amused by her childish exuberance from something that I've come to take for granted. "Yeah." I murmur, watching her through a lidded gaze. "No problem."

Stupid. Now you are going to have to follow her around. She can't get back on her own. I stiffen and look into the distance, eyes flashing dangerously in the sunlight when I catch a hint of ricepaper flesh amongst the trees. My lips begin to curl angrily into a half-snarl, but she shifts away from me, bringing me back into the present and denying it an answer.

It is a disturbingly bright day even by the forest's standards, and I feel my stomach humming as the beginnings of cravings settle in. I am not and never will be a hunter - the bow hates me and Ripred do I hate it - but it doesn't take a genius to figure out how to pick plants. A finger brushes absently over the massive scar on my right eye, pushing hair from the gaze that will never see anything again. At times I believe that the ever-present blackness shifts in direct contact to light, but it's just wishful thinking to somebody who has achieved injury through sheer stupidity.

"Follow me." I hum; voice gruff and lacking good humor the closer the monster floats towards me. With Kaya's help I am no longer scared of the corpse-like thing, but it never ceases to irritate and perhaps worry me. While she cannot see it, it is as clear as day to me, and I find myself thinking irrationally the more it eyes her with gaping sockets. I'm not being short with her because she's dying, no (I have seen too many dead people in my days to let it bother me any longer), but because this is all very reminiscent of earlier days where perhaps it was easier to feel like I was flying and not held down by something as trivial as gravity.
Some days it's easy enough to ignore reality. The soft crunch of bracken underfoot and gentle sunshine is enough to lure me into a false sense of security, but a glance over to the other girl and I rub the irritation from my face, beckoning with a well placed eyebrow and the slowing of my footsteps.

"I had a friend who was dying once." I start, careful not to trip up in the dense overgrowth. "We met when I was fifteen."

What are you doing? You don't even know her.

It is ignored with palpable difficult, jerking my ear away from the source that will never fade.

"One day, it hurt so bad she asked me to kill her." Fingers skate delicately over one of the twin daggers strapped to my hips, the ornate hilts gleaming bright in the midday sun. They have seen so much blood that part of me wonders if that's why the metal is now stained a rich crimson. I bite my tongue at the confession, swallowing the fact that yes, you're walking with an unstable murderer. how are you today?
"I get the list. Life is only so big." This is more than I've spoken in a week, and I stubbornly draw my gaze ahead, unconsciously flattening the tall grasses with my feet in an effort to make it easier for her to tread. My hands reach absently for a clump of berries and I rake hair from my face, nose wrinkling from the humidity of the dense forest.

Maybe it's a need to feel her close to me while she's gone so far away in District Six, but I find myself weaving expertly through the invisible trails to the place where Kaya and I first reconnected. I vaguely remember the dull thunk of an arrow searing into my abdomen and blood dribbling from my lips, but it's nothing more than a muted haze in the wake of so many other memories that overlap and turn my consciousness into a chaotic mess of disjointed thoughts. We were still young and foolish and unable to breathe (my lips curl in irritation at the reminder that I'm no longer a teenager) through nothing but our own mistakes.
Though I have been alone for months now, the human companionship - no matter how fleeting - makes my heart sing ever so quietly, and I find myself watching her curiously from my good eye. She is an enigma wrapped up in a fading body, with hopes too high for the time she has left in this world. Still, perhaps I have some humanity remaining in me; whatever part that isn't consumed by the morphling is seized by the distant urge to cross off all those things on her list.

Perhaps guilt that I wasn't able to do the same five years ago?

Actions

"Once." A fragile notation - confirmation - of her clandestine observation, laced with wistfulness and something that I can't entirely place. Everything has changed but also stayed the same; bracken has overgrown some places but that tree that I pinned her against and stared into her soul remains long after the stains of my blood have washed away from the downpours that grace the area. She asks too many questions that I've given up on asking myself, too bewildered and tired and high to really have them mean any significance. I cock one hip and shake the hair from my face, tracking her collapse through an unreadable gaze. "If you're going to be so selective about it, we can go back." A decisive threat I have no trouble keeping my word on - I'm starting to regret my decision, if the incessant questions are any indication.

My eyes travel slowly across her frame, reveling in the fact that while I might age, I still hold the innate ability to make others feel - what? Uncomfortable? Nervous? Small?

Hunted.

She is bone where I am muscle, wasting away from a disease that the Capitol doesn't care enough about to fix. The plastic plants loom high over the horizon and I've taken care to stay away from the massive dungeons, not wanting to be roped into one of those things I see wandering down the streets late at night (exhausted and hungry and desperate, not thinking about what the nuclear chemicals are possibly doing to their insides because they have a hard enough time keeping their outsides all shiny and clean). Almost subconsciously I skate fingers across my taut abs, making sure they still exist and will not waste away from her proximity. I take pride in my appearance and am admittedly vain; I realize what I do to others and play this trait to my advantage.

I wander out of sight for a moment, distracted by the lights playing tricks along the corners of my eyes and the way I seem to move in slow motion. I'm passing by on a cloud of fractured reality and am loathe to do anything productive, but find my prize and amble what without traces of the cold hostility that saturated my tone earlier. "You said you hurt your foot." I throw her the walking stick, watching it spear into the ground by her form. It always makes me anxious to be in the forest with (baggage) another person; who knows what the Keepers will be able to trace. One stint in the Detention Center is enough to last me a lifetime, and I have no wishes to return.

I still feel her curiosity radiating in waves and while I should find it irritating, I can't bring myself to draw out that current emotion when I'm nearing the peak of the experience. It's becoming harder to hide the signs but I am a master of deception, slinking through the shadows with a quicksilver tongue and fleeting fingers. Here the darkness holds no comparison, chased away by the flowing winds of my own happiness that has become nothing more than vague echoes of my past.
My teeth grit and throat works visibly to swallow down the bile I feel rising, repeating a mantra of don'tthinkdon'tthink over and over like it would erase the pain of the knowledge that somewhere inside knows she isn't coming home and that it's all wrong; the very thought that somebody's taken her is enough for me to want to snap their bones and claw the skin until they bleed as red as the hilts of my swords--

A visible twitch as the monster begins to slip, silky smooth, into the hollow of my veins-- I reign in the ever-present fury and suck in a deep breath from my nose, turning on her to fix a cold and impassive stare. "And why do you feel the need to threaten your already diminishing lifespan by asking questions to which you know you won't receive answers?" Even, cool. Her questions slide like oil off the wiry expanse of my back. "We all have our reasons and secrets. That's why they're still called that, I keep them to myself."

A tongue traces absently over the shinyslick of my large teeth; shoulders roll and xanthrous eyes cast upwards to take in the glare of the sun.

"There isn't a guarantee about anything in life; it's as possible you won't pay me as the fact you might fall over and die tomorrow." Though I try, I cannot help the bitterness from seeping down to my brittle bones and expanding throughout my vocabulary."Do good to remember that for however long you live. Come on, let's go."

Without another word, I disappear as silent as a phantom into the underbrush. Within seconds, I am swallowed by the trees that whisper secrets and deny me the answers I wish.