D1 // Dahlia Widower

Oh, I beg you
Can I follow
Oh, I ask you
Want to
A l w a y s

( N A M E ) Dahlia Europa Widower
( A G E ) Seventeen
( G E N D E R ) Female
( D I S T R I C T / A R E A ) District One + Wanderer

Be the ocean
Where I unravel
Be my only
Be the water
Where I'm wading

( H I S T O R Y )

My father was never content with the idea that he merely built things. No, you see, he was a creator. To him, a house was more than a series of walls brought together beneath a rooftop; it was a home that must be worthy of all the lives it would shelter. "Protection is a kind of sacrifice, Dahlia." I didn't understand at first. Such words never made any more sense to me than his superstitions, but I wasn't his daughter for nothing. I was raised to learn, after all.

A cathedral — that was his dream and life's work. More than anything, he loved the idea of building awe inspiring spires and archways that could reach up into the sky like a great stone hand... and of all the things I would come to understand, this was never one. Why was it that he wanted to lay stone upon stone in honor of a forgotten god from days relegated to the past? He was never religious about anything other than construction and that, well, there is love and there is obsession and who am I to say which is the more truthful profession of the heart? There are those who would tell you I am no more righteous than my father in that regard, but they don't know the dangerous truth of myths. Just as well as I know that there is no love without obsession, I also know that there is no fiction without fact.

Most people seem to think masons follow the kind of concrete logic they could pour into a physical foundation, but that's because they've never seen inside the walls of their own houses. If they had, they would see signatures scrawled across the framework like prayers, bottles of whiskey as offerings, charms mortared in between the bricks, and holy books enshrined behind drywall to ward away evil spirits. Perhaps they might find the bones of a long-decayed cat, who paced itself to death in a claustrophobic panic for the sacrificial sake of "luck", sealed up so tightly that no one ever even smelled the rot. The skeleton of a house must be filled with life in order to protect those that reside within it, you see, just the same as my skeleton or yours. And a cathedral —

Well, a cat just won't do.

It's not that my father didn't love me. If you think that, then you must not have met very many superstitious men. There is something so devout in their beliefs as to be optionless. Someone once told me that his love was what damned me, but in truth it was tradition. Sealing a live cat inside the walls of a new building brings good luck... or a live woman, to give the building a soul. I was raised as an anchorite, with as much love and care as my father could instill in me — believe it or not, he taught me all of my gentleness and meek humanity — because the kind of soul he taught me to possess would be the same that he dreamed I would someday pass along to his immortal masterpiece of a cathedral. I've learned that it's difficult to fault someone for attempting to remake you as a god, no matter their means.

Now, maybe I ran away from my childhood home in District One before he could seal the last breath of my life up in a holy tomb of polished stonework, in a cathedral basement beautiful enough to contradict any comparison to a prison cell, but I won't lie and pretend that wasn't coincidence. It was. After all, my father raised me better than to be a liar or a coward. If not for an obsession of my own, I might have lived out the end of my young life as a sacrificial saint, unwilling to disappoint my only parent for the pathetic sake of self-preservation. There are ideas even more unavoidable than superstitions, however, and destinies that are anything but chance. Every girl is doomed to love a man exactly like her father and while you might think I'd have had a difficult time finding a self-righteous murderer to whisper promises in my ear about godly fates, tangling myself up in Kaelen Dempsey's existence proved to be far more effortless than convincing him to keep me imprisoned in his deadly web.

You're my
R i v e r
Running high
Run deep
R u n w i l d

( P E R S O N A L I T Y )

Kaelen Dempsey is my cathedral. I dream shamelessly of the day I will seal my soul up in him, exchanging my last breath for his sake. Even after he attempted to kill me, my nearly unrequited love for him has neither faded nor tarnished within my mind — a girl raised up for sacrifice has no fear of dying for a worthy fate. I carry his heart with me, regardless of whether he has ever been willing to accept mine in return. These are the truths that echo my words just the same as I echo the words of others.

Maybe, if I'm being truly honest with myself, my echolalia is the reason he allowed me to doggedly tag along at his heels. When he spoke, more than with anyone else, I would feel his words resonating within me. They would ring out in the hollows of my lungs and twist the sweetest path of seduction up my throat and across my tongue until I was repeating nearly every word he said as though reciting prayers. It always takes me a moment to process the things people say to me and I have to take a moment to turn their questions and statements over within my mind or my mouth before I can summon a response of my own, but it was more than that when it came to Kaelen. When I echoed his words it wasn't always because I was sorting out my own thoughts, it was because I was searching for a little more insight into his.

My adoration for him has always been nothing if not obsessive; I've never lied to myself about that. Perhaps in that way it's wrong for me to call him my cathedral. If my father wanted to build a church to bring himself a little closer to some god up in the sky, then I suppose it's a bit more accurate to say that I want to be Kaelen's cathedral. He is something of a god to me and there isn't much I wouldn't do in an effort to bring myself closer to him. Sincerity and a nearly single-minded sense of selfless devotion were qualities I was raised to aspire to and these traits have found the deepest home within my soul. I know that any affection Kaelen felt for me during our time together was simply because he loved the way I loved him, identifying and connecting with me because... no one loves Kaelen Dempsey as much as he loves himself. Not even me.

I
I follow
I follow you
Deep sea baby
I follow you

( A P P E A R A N C E )

However, there were moments in our past when we would lie together beneath the sunshine as his fingers idly tangled themselves up in the pale blonde curls of my hair and I could convince myself that we were more than my innocent obsession. Kaelen would read Hemmingway aloud beneath the shade of an old willow tree and I would whisper along, repeating each word a half-step behind him — always aching to be in perfect sync, but forever a follower. Light refracting through the weeping leaves would sneak down to kiss my skin, doing its small part to make me something more than just a white-washed ghost of devotion. However, in the end, giant fireballs in the sky cannot do much to sway my soul and I continue to give just enough of myself away as to lead a questionable existence.

Before I ran away, my mother would sometimes allude the the idea that my half-self habits might simply be a phase of immaturity. She would pinch my cheeks — still round and childish to this very day — as if I were perpetually seven, clinging to my father's leg in a desperate attempt to convince him to bring me with to wherever he might be going and not five foot five with a body beginning to look the opposite of adolescent. When I stop to think about everything I've been through over the past couple years, I feel so old that I cannot fathom how anyone could see me as less than decrepit and doddering, but then I glimpse myself in a reflection and see the truth of myself so clearly that even I begin to question my wayward sense of wisdom.

Looking too closely at a nose too small, I feel as though I am shrinking. There truly is something about me that doesn't know how to grow up and it's not just my edgeless features, all round and undefined. Youth has a certain hold over me — swaying through my fragile movements with a kind of awkward uncertainty that might be crippling if not for my tunnel-vision determination. This part of me is so clearly lacking, and yet, I am full. Fuller than my lips and bigger than my baby blue eyes. That's the only reason I'm alive I suppose, because my momentum is bigger than my body and it will take more than a little poison to stop me. It'll take a lot, actually.

I
I follow
I follow you
Dark doom honey
I follow you

( R E C E N T H I S T O R Y )

Kaelen should have known me well enough to know that, but he didn't.... or maybe he just didn't care enough to bother to poison me properly. Or maybe he didn't want to kill me. He didn't want me to die. It was all just a test and maybe I passed. Maybe it's all part of his plan. He could never be so careless... not even with me.

In any case, I suppose I should have seen his betrayal coming; it's not as though I was unaware of his murderous tendencies. Except, he knew my secrets and knew how my father had planned my life out and he didn't judge me for it like I innately sensed the rest of the world would. That's how I knew that my higher path was destined to be intertwined with his own enlightened future. Everyone else told us our deepest beliefs — my right to give my life and his right to take lives away — were wrong, so in each other we found understanding. Even my mother rejected the greater plan for my soul, always so certain that I would cry out in horror or fear and rebel at any moment. She must have been relieved when Kaelen and I fled District One, thinking I was trying to leave everything behind and not realizing my actions were so much the opposite.

When the two of us ran away together, I was so focused on "together" that I didn't realize Kaelen was only in it for the "away" part of the deal. All I could think about was how he had deemed me worthy, giving me the opportunity not to simply follow, but to trek side by side with an equal future. I wasn't thinking about the necessity of it all and how he was running from the law or how useless I would be to him in the wilderness. I had one purpose: to go go go wherever he went. I never thought he'd try to kill me just the same as he killed all those awful sinners in District One.

Honestly, the most painful part wasn't even the poison, but the abandonment. A gypsy wanderer with a beautiful spirit saved me from death and nursed me back to health, but I had wounds far deeper than Tiva could mend. She taught me how to truly live within the forest, speaking about the trees as though they were as alive as the two of us. These were ideas I had never contemplated, despite having lived for sixteen years thinking of little other than the well-being of souls until I met Kaelen. My footsteps grew so quiet and light-footed with her teachings that the wind became a long-lost twin to me, my movements becoming so in tune with the world that continuing on through the forest on my own felt natural. However, just because I was capable a self-sufficient existence didn't mean I was content to live one.

I survived, yes, but Kaelen still haunted my thoughts and for nearly a year I wandered from District to District in search of him. Rumors became my compass and I followed them desperately before I discovered one that held some truth. Kaelen Dempsey was in District Thirteen, according to a wanderer who wasn't sure which of the two was the bigger ghost story — the serial murderer or the rebel stronghold. It wasn't until I had reached Thirteen that I knew he had been there. No one had to tell me; I felt the deep strum of his presence in my heartstrings the same way Tiva felt the energy of life thrumming through the forest. Only, I was too late and I knew that just as acutely.

Fate has always been my closest friend, however, and so it was surely no coincidence that someone else was leaving District Thirteen in search of Kaelen Dempsey just as I was preparing to resume my stalking quest. One of these days I'll need to thank Colt Hanlon for unknowingly guiding me home to District One and my soul's cathedral, but for now I'll fall back into my oldest habit: following.

He a message
I'm the runner
He's the rebel
I'm the daughter
Waiting for you

( C O D E W O R D ) ODAIR
( F A C E C L A I M ) Juno Temple

You're my
R i v e r
Running high
Run deep
R u n w i l d

( C O M M E N T S / O T H E R )

I Follow Rivers by Lykke Li

Chuck Palahniuk references, fo' sho'.

Echo in the Echo & Narcissus plot

I
I follow
I follow you
Deep sea baby
I follow you

( S P E A K I N G ) B4416D
( T H I N K I N G ) A15E7C
( O T H E R ) 8D7693
( T E X T ) 7394AB
( O T H E R S P E A K I N G ) 50BBB4

I
I follow
I follow you
Dark doom honey
I follow you