[.} if the chance should happen {.][> oneshot <]
Mar 28, 2012 17:21:32 GMT -5
Post by WT on Mar 28, 2012 17:21:32 GMT -5
There's nothing I could say
To make you try to feel okay
And nothing you could do
To stop me feeling the way I do
And if the chance should happen
That I never see you again
Just remember that I'll always love you
"Drusilla Bellatrix Charlesburg."
It had been a long time since Dru's full name had passed through Ara's lips, yet the syllables fell into place without a stutter. Her eyes traced the letters as she spoke them, engraving them into her memory as firmly as they were engraved on the stone. Beyond her solitary visit to this place almost five years ago, Ara had only seen her sister's name written in newspaper stories and ticker lines. It was nice to see the words carved into stone, preserved endlessly as she deserved. Dru was more than an old tribute, to be cast aside during bets on the new; she was a person, an identity, someone who deserved to be remembered. Even if erosion claimed this stone, the world had been touched by her name now and would know it long past the death of her species.
Sighing softly, Ara knelt and touched the letters. The stone was cold, colder than Dru's body or even the water had been, but it was firm and stable, alive in a way humans never were. "I don't know if you remember me," she said, shifting her fingertips from the engraving to the top of the headstone. "I'm Aranica."
Aranica Petros. I know you, rock-cousin. You loved the girl I guard. We spoke once. Not so long ago, at that.
As always, the rocks' collective sense of time brought a smile to her face that could not completely overshadow the sad tilt of her eyebrows. Yes. Can you try to take a message to her?
Yes. I cannot promise it will reach her, however. She never responded to the first.
"That's okay. If you'll try."
Of course.
Deep breath, Aranica.
She squeezed her rock in acknowledgement and thanks, then took its advice. The air stabilized her a bit; she hadn't realized how nervous she was, although it made sense, what with out in the open air and next to her sister's memorial. Thanks.
Always. I am always here.
And that was that. Still shaking just a little, she knelt fully, pressed her forehead into the stone, and began to speak.
"Hey, Dru. It's Ara. It's been a while, huh? I'm older now than you were when we met. When you died," she corrected, figuring that Dru had never been one to dance around the cold truth. If you hear screaming... "It feels kind of weird. Being alive at all feels kind of weird, though, even now, so I guess it's not so bad."
Had she spoken to anyone else, this would be beyond awkward, but all she had to do was picture Dru and the words flowed freely. She had never had anything to hide from her sister, and she never would—not secrets, not feelings, not ideas, not herself. "I'm here because there was an earthquake in District One, a pretty bad one. Half of Panem is here—they've called in the victors for moral support. I want to help properly, but they're still getting everything set up, so I grabbed some time to come here. I wanted to talk to you, or at least try. It's been—too long." An understatement if she'd ever uttered one. It would always be too long. Every minute that passed would be a minute stolen from them, a minute they should have had, a minute that Aranica gladly would have paid for in blood if the clouds had demanded it. "So, um. I guess I should tell you about the time between then and now? If you've been checking in on me, I'm probably about to tell you a lot that you know, so sorry about that. But if you haven't—and that's my guess, because I figure you're probably busy with your own life, whatever that's like—I think you'd like to know what's going on." With a deep breath, she clasped her hands in her lap and began.
She picked up where they had left off, at the Victory Tour. It was hard to make herself go back to that time; she had been a wreck, as likely to break down in tears as to stand up, and even thinking about it made her feel like she was taking a razor to the fine web of tender skin that had sewn itself over her wounds. Quickly she skimmed over those months; it wasn't like her working at the store and drifting through life was particularly interesting, anyway. Talking about Anani was harder; describing him to Dru—how frustrated he made her feel, and yet how safe—was as impossible as describing her to him—her terrifying ferocity, her deadly loyalty—and forced her to really think about what she was remembering. Her brother, who existed after all. Who loved her after all. Who, nevertheless, left her twice.
She said little on that subject, and even less on her family. Mostly the bare basics, the few things she knew to be true: that her father had run away with her and Anani, using District Twelve to hide them from an obviously-unbalanced District One mother who had tracked them down anyway and killed him. She didn't say that she wanted to know if her mother was still alive, or that every thought of Anani was tinged with anger for leaving her and gratitude for coming back, or that she felt like a traitor for wanting the man in the rain back when Ms. Charise had done so much to take the place of a parent for her. Of the tributes, even Heron, she mentioned even less, figuring that Dru wouldn't care about people she'd never met. She described Topaz, assured Dru that her District had been well-represented (although not as well as during the fifty-fifth—never that well before, and never again).
She did linger over the latest Games, curling up with her back against the stone and her head on her knees as she talked about the brother and sister from District Eight. "Neither made it. They weren't as lucky as us, that way. Or maybe they were luckier, because they never had to fight." She sighed and leaned her head back, pressing her scalp into the engraved letters as she toyed with her rock necklace. "Only they weren't allowed to be together, either, and that discounts everything. Couldn't guard each other, couldn't help each other, couldn't even talk. That was the twist, this Quell. And I'd rather... I'd rather go through that damned finale every day for the rest of my life than not have been allowed to meet you."
There was a long silence. Neither necklace nor headstone spoke, instead allowing her to turn over her own thoughts. Memories of Dru, mostly—meeting her, loving her, killing her. Her voice, her tone, her grace. Her cold smile and her warm one. How warm her blood was when Ara helped her bandage it, and how cold her hand got when Ara clutched it at the very end.
"Thank you," she said finally. "I said that, right? Back then? Sometimes I remember all our conversations perfectly and sometimes I can't remember a single word. I hope I did." A wispy cloud appeared on the horizon, dark against the vivid sunset. When had it gotten so late? One hand tense against the ground, the other wound through the chain of her necklace, she eyed the cloud until a strong gust of wind tore it apart. "It's funny, because most of the time I don't miss you much anymore. Sometimes I think about it and it's like I just happened, and I want to—but usually, I don't miss people. Not you or Anani or anyone. It's not like I forget, it just... it gets easy to hurt, you know? You hurt for so long that you stop thinking of it as different, and it's like it goes away. But it never does, not really. It's the one thing that doesn't vanish." She took a shuddering breath and shifted so that she could press her face against into the stone. "Shit. I love you, Dru. I always will."
Another silence. She shifted again so that she was sitting flat with her legs in front of her, stretching out the movement as much as possible. Her hamstrings were screaming by the time she sat back, and her rock cut in for the first time since she had started talking. You have to tell her. You can only avoid it for so long.
"Hmm." She pressed her lips together, looked up at the sky, regretted it and pressed herself down into the ground, away from the open space. "I'm pregnant," she said, a tiny burst of laughter chasing out the words. "I bet you wouldn't approve of that much, huh? I'm not sure I do, either. Bet you'd approve plenty of Mace, though." A slight smile quirked the corners of her mouth. "He's the father. Another victor. A little older than me, a little younger than you would have been. He's... brave, one of the bravest people I've ever known. Even including you. We're not in love or anything, I don't think, but he's a great guy. I- I haven't told him yet." She flushed, half in guilt and half in embarrassment. Reality, whether cold or fuzzy, was not something Dru shied away from; she would never have spent weeks avoiding contact with someone just so she could avoid telling them something difficult. "I'm going to, though. Soon. As soon as I see him. Any longer and it'll be too late to make a decision, and I need to do that. You know I thought about you right after I found out? I couldn't think of what to do, so I tried to think of what other people would do. You'd be sensible about it, huh? Get rid of it if it's a threat, keep it if it's helpful. But I'm not too sensible, really.
"Ripred, I'm talking about myself so much." She put her face in her hands for a moment, then raised it and draped her hands across the front edge of the gravestone. "I don't know what else to say, though. Panem's pretty much the same. Some industry changes, but that's pretty much it. Nothing changes here. Do things change there? Wherever you are? I hope so. I wouldn't want you to be bored." A deep sigh. "I hope you're happy, Dru, really happy. If you aren't, fight for it, okay? Fight for whatever it is you want. And when I get there, I'll help you, and if I don't get there, I'll- I'll fucking find there, okay?"
After that she fell silent. Night did not so much fall as wrap itself tenderly around the graveyard, hiding the terrifying expanse of sky and the silent letters and the dark, helpless ground—everything but the memories of ghosts and the ghosts of memories, and the comforting feel of solid stone against her skin.
((Lyrics from "A Minor Incident" by Badly Drawn Boy.))
To make you try to feel okay
And nothing you could do
To stop me feeling the way I do
And if the chance should happen
That I never see you again
Just remember that I'll always love you
"Drusilla Bellatrix Charlesburg."
It had been a long time since Dru's full name had passed through Ara's lips, yet the syllables fell into place without a stutter. Her eyes traced the letters as she spoke them, engraving them into her memory as firmly as they were engraved on the stone. Beyond her solitary visit to this place almost five years ago, Ara had only seen her sister's name written in newspaper stories and ticker lines. It was nice to see the words carved into stone, preserved endlessly as she deserved. Dru was more than an old tribute, to be cast aside during bets on the new; she was a person, an identity, someone who deserved to be remembered. Even if erosion claimed this stone, the world had been touched by her name now and would know it long past the death of her species.
Sighing softly, Ara knelt and touched the letters. The stone was cold, colder than Dru's body or even the water had been, but it was firm and stable, alive in a way humans never were. "I don't know if you remember me," she said, shifting her fingertips from the engraving to the top of the headstone. "I'm Aranica."
Aranica Petros. I know you, rock-cousin. You loved the girl I guard. We spoke once. Not so long ago, at that.
As always, the rocks' collective sense of time brought a smile to her face that could not completely overshadow the sad tilt of her eyebrows. Yes. Can you try to take a message to her?
Yes. I cannot promise it will reach her, however. She never responded to the first.
"That's okay. If you'll try."
Of course.
Deep breath, Aranica.
She squeezed her rock in acknowledgement and thanks, then took its advice. The air stabilized her a bit; she hadn't realized how nervous she was, although it made sense, what with out in the open air and next to her sister's memorial. Thanks.
Always. I am always here.
And that was that. Still shaking just a little, she knelt fully, pressed her forehead into the stone, and began to speak.
"Hey, Dru. It's Ara. It's been a while, huh? I'm older now than you were when we met. When you died," she corrected, figuring that Dru had never been one to dance around the cold truth. If you hear screaming... "It feels kind of weird. Being alive at all feels kind of weird, though, even now, so I guess it's not so bad."
Had she spoken to anyone else, this would be beyond awkward, but all she had to do was picture Dru and the words flowed freely. She had never had anything to hide from her sister, and she never would—not secrets, not feelings, not ideas, not herself. "I'm here because there was an earthquake in District One, a pretty bad one. Half of Panem is here—they've called in the victors for moral support. I want to help properly, but they're still getting everything set up, so I grabbed some time to come here. I wanted to talk to you, or at least try. It's been—too long." An understatement if she'd ever uttered one. It would always be too long. Every minute that passed would be a minute stolen from them, a minute they should have had, a minute that Aranica gladly would have paid for in blood if the clouds had demanded it. "So, um. I guess I should tell you about the time between then and now? If you've been checking in on me, I'm probably about to tell you a lot that you know, so sorry about that. But if you haven't—and that's my guess, because I figure you're probably busy with your own life, whatever that's like—I think you'd like to know what's going on." With a deep breath, she clasped her hands in her lap and began.
She picked up where they had left off, at the Victory Tour. It was hard to make herself go back to that time; she had been a wreck, as likely to break down in tears as to stand up, and even thinking about it made her feel like she was taking a razor to the fine web of tender skin that had sewn itself over her wounds. Quickly she skimmed over those months; it wasn't like her working at the store and drifting through life was particularly interesting, anyway. Talking about Anani was harder; describing him to Dru—how frustrated he made her feel, and yet how safe—was as impossible as describing her to him—her terrifying ferocity, her deadly loyalty—and forced her to really think about what she was remembering. Her brother, who existed after all. Who loved her after all. Who, nevertheless, left her twice.
She said little on that subject, and even less on her family. Mostly the bare basics, the few things she knew to be true: that her father had run away with her and Anani, using District Twelve to hide them from an obviously-unbalanced District One mother who had tracked them down anyway and killed him. She didn't say that she wanted to know if her mother was still alive, or that every thought of Anani was tinged with anger for leaving her and gratitude for coming back, or that she felt like a traitor for wanting the man in the rain back when Ms. Charise had done so much to take the place of a parent for her. Of the tributes, even Heron, she mentioned even less, figuring that Dru wouldn't care about people she'd never met. She described Topaz, assured Dru that her District had been well-represented (although not as well as during the fifty-fifth—never that well before, and never again).
She did linger over the latest Games, curling up with her back against the stone and her head on her knees as she talked about the brother and sister from District Eight. "Neither made it. They weren't as lucky as us, that way. Or maybe they were luckier, because they never had to fight." She sighed and leaned her head back, pressing her scalp into the engraved letters as she toyed with her rock necklace. "Only they weren't allowed to be together, either, and that discounts everything. Couldn't guard each other, couldn't help each other, couldn't even talk. That was the twist, this Quell. And I'd rather... I'd rather go through that damned finale every day for the rest of my life than not have been allowed to meet you."
There was a long silence. Neither necklace nor headstone spoke, instead allowing her to turn over her own thoughts. Memories of Dru, mostly—meeting her, loving her, killing her. Her voice, her tone, her grace. Her cold smile and her warm one. How warm her blood was when Ara helped her bandage it, and how cold her hand got when Ara clutched it at the very end.
"Thank you," she said finally. "I said that, right? Back then? Sometimes I remember all our conversations perfectly and sometimes I can't remember a single word. I hope I did." A wispy cloud appeared on the horizon, dark against the vivid sunset. When had it gotten so late? One hand tense against the ground, the other wound through the chain of her necklace, she eyed the cloud until a strong gust of wind tore it apart. "It's funny, because most of the time I don't miss you much anymore. Sometimes I think about it and it's like I just happened, and I want to—but usually, I don't miss people. Not you or Anani or anyone. It's not like I forget, it just... it gets easy to hurt, you know? You hurt for so long that you stop thinking of it as different, and it's like it goes away. But it never does, not really. It's the one thing that doesn't vanish." She took a shuddering breath and shifted so that she could press her face against into the stone. "Shit. I love you, Dru. I always will."
Another silence. She shifted again so that she was sitting flat with her legs in front of her, stretching out the movement as much as possible. Her hamstrings were screaming by the time she sat back, and her rock cut in for the first time since she had started talking. You have to tell her. You can only avoid it for so long.
"Hmm." She pressed her lips together, looked up at the sky, regretted it and pressed herself down into the ground, away from the open space. "I'm pregnant," she said, a tiny burst of laughter chasing out the words. "I bet you wouldn't approve of that much, huh? I'm not sure I do, either. Bet you'd approve plenty of Mace, though." A slight smile quirked the corners of her mouth. "He's the father. Another victor. A little older than me, a little younger than you would have been. He's... brave, one of the bravest people I've ever known. Even including you. We're not in love or anything, I don't think, but he's a great guy. I- I haven't told him yet." She flushed, half in guilt and half in embarrassment. Reality, whether cold or fuzzy, was not something Dru shied away from; she would never have spent weeks avoiding contact with someone just so she could avoid telling them something difficult. "I'm going to, though. Soon. As soon as I see him. Any longer and it'll be too late to make a decision, and I need to do that. You know I thought about you right after I found out? I couldn't think of what to do, so I tried to think of what other people would do. You'd be sensible about it, huh? Get rid of it if it's a threat, keep it if it's helpful. But I'm not too sensible, really.
"Ripred, I'm talking about myself so much." She put her face in her hands for a moment, then raised it and draped her hands across the front edge of the gravestone. "I don't know what else to say, though. Panem's pretty much the same. Some industry changes, but that's pretty much it. Nothing changes here. Do things change there? Wherever you are? I hope so. I wouldn't want you to be bored." A deep sigh. "I hope you're happy, Dru, really happy. If you aren't, fight for it, okay? Fight for whatever it is you want. And when I get there, I'll help you, and if I don't get there, I'll- I'll fucking find there, okay?"
After that she fell silent. Night did not so much fall as wrap itself tenderly around the graveyard, hiding the terrifying expanse of sky and the silent letters and the dark, helpless ground—everything but the memories of ghosts and the ghosts of memories, and the comforting feel of solid stone against her skin.
((Lyrics from "A Minor Incident" by Badly Drawn Boy.))
