{Lost} Get {Found} ~Strebcal~
Sept 16, 2012 0:20:28 GMT -5
Post by Ally is tentatively back on Sept 16, 2012 0:20:28 GMT -5
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Picture, you're the queen of everything,
Far as the eye can see,
Under your command.
Far as the eye can see,
Under your command.
Crunch.
One day, people would be quoting every instance of String's life, she expected, but never once would they mention the crunching sound that started the most important night of her life. The crunching sound that she would always remember as the beginning of the end. Or... The beginning of the beginning? Hmm. In any case, she didn't know what would happen after that crunch. Just that now there were pieces of dead leaves flying around her feet, smashed and crumpled and, yes, crunched, by her combat boots. She let her head fall back, the long column of her throat jumping as she swallowed, savoring the last traces of her adrenaline high. (Of course it's a high, I got Daddy Dearest's substance abuse, alcohol was his greatest weakness, adrenaline is mine.)
As the self-produced chemical fades away from her limbs, back to her core, and finally away, she sighs and starts unbuckling her harness. The flying she'd done tonight wasn't nearly as risky as some things she's tried, but it gave her a buzz and that was all she needed, all she wanted. She slips out of the harness entirely, a dull thunk! heralding her ungraceful fall to the ground. She huffs, blows a straggly lock of hair out of her face. She's bored again already, and it's not a feeling she likes. She feels like a junkie recognizing the withdrawal nibbling at all the edges of her essence. (Let's be honest, I am a junkie, and I am feeling withdrawal, I just don't want to admit it.)
Half of the girl expects to hear catcalls, the rough and tumble scum of District Ten mocking one of their own, as is their way. String's done her fair share of this, she knows it's fine, but one end feels so much better than the other.
She expects the teasing, but it doesn't come. Cal won't be coming for several minutes at least. The night is sticky and dark like a sponge or a cloth soaked in chloroform and String can't tell whether it's trying to scrub her clean or incapacitate her and drag her away. Whichever, she's all alone and she doesn't like it. (That's why I have Cal, because I've done alone and I hate trying it more than anything.) It's not that important, she knows. It's just for a few minutes, it doesn't matter, not the tiniest little bit.
But oh, does she loathe it.
Hyperactive as usual, the dark girl starts pacing, figuring it'll ease the ache building in her legs from standing tense and still for the last minute or so. She could always sit down, but sitting's boring. (Boring boring boring. Fuck it all, I just want some fun.) There's five hundred dollars in stolen cash in her pocket, easy, so she's not stranded. She's not. She just has to wait, but waiting's boring and makes her tense. She hates being tense almost as much as she hates being alone. The dark thoughts feed on the tension.
She huffs again, angry at herself for her failing composure. She just needs to breathe. She's not a scared little girl who needs a nightlight, and there aren't many men who could take her if they wanted her. She's a badass, and she owns it. Who needs a safe home when you've got a sharp knife and sharper reflexes?
Cal, however, with her innocence, is another story. A shiver crawls up String's spine and she takes off toward where her best friend should be like a bullet, thankful for the distraction but horrified, as she always is, at the reminder that the only person she has in the world is not actually invincible. The knowledge is unsinkable, popping up from the deep pool that is her mind at the least expected times, no matter how hard she tries to drag it to the bottom. If she's honest with herself, Cal's not exactly a child, but that doesn't stop the insistent urge to worry.
She ducks under a clothesline and starts to slow down a little, hearing a crash! of something being knocked over and almost-but-not-quite swearing in the voice that's become her lullaby over the years. "Babe, you're such a klutz!" She calls, laughing, (She's okay she's okay.) and continues around the building to her left.
The best friends round the corner at the same time, String slightly out of breath from the sprint, and Cal blushing furiously and stopping to rub at her calf. "S'not my fault." The blonde grumbles softly, "People can't stack their crates and such right, apparently. Gonna have a bruise in the morning, I'm sure." String just chuckles to herself, softly, and loops her arm through Cal's easily, like it's nothing.
(Because after all these years, it is nothing.)
"Well, why don't I just walk you home?" And then she wrinkles her nose. "Ewww, I sound like a cheesy first date. Smack some sense into me, if you get the chance." Cal laughs, which was the whole point anyway.
String steers them around the corners she's got memorized in the deeper parts of her mind as Cal babbles about some song or other she found and how the music's just perfect and she's going to play it for everyone and "Is that a good idea or should I save it for next week, String?" and the shorter of the girls smiles and nods and reassures the taller easily because that's something she's memorized in the deeper parts of her mind, too.
(There's just something about more than half a decade in each other's pockets that makes you know someone like nobody else does.)
Around the overturned trash cans that look like the columns of an ancient building, once proud and sturdy, now crumbled and ruined. Under another clothesline, sheets flapping like sails in the wind. Around this corner and there's the fence w-
(Shit.)
This fence isn't the one surrounding the district, but one surrounding the home and fields of one of the district's few comparitively upper class families. It's usually all rusty, with a gaping hole near ground level for the perfect shortcut after a late flying session. Even in the dim moonlight, however, String can tell that it's been replaced, links shining new. More importantly, free of holes. "Damn." She growls. After a moment, she decides that they can't afford to waste time with backtracking, not at this time of night, when the Peacekeepers are patrolling. "Well. Up and over, I guess." A quick squeeze of Cal's hand, and she's testing the fence hesitantly, smiling at the lack of electricity, and full-out grinning when she confirms that, yes, the seemingly-fragile metal circles do give her enough of a toehold, and, yes, they will hold her weight.
She turns back to Cal, "We're good, I think." And then starts pulling herself up, fingers protesting the bite of the iron, boots scrabbling for purchase. It's not exactly a small fence, either, and it takes a few minutes to clear. A thunk!, eerily similar to earlier, makes her groan a little, even if the grass on the other side mutes the embarrassing noise. Cal's still creeping down the fence like a spider (Ironic, as I'm the spider here.), and String doesn't need to look to know that those big eyes are clamped shut as tight as they go. She sighs a little, affectionately, and leans, waiting, against the metal monstrosity of an obstacle to her plans. Once she can make out the lines in Cal's shaky hands, she pats the blonde's shoulder and mumbles, "You can let go now." Into her ear... And then she's got several armfuls of her favorite person weighing her down, Cal's momentum bowling her over. "Ack!" She half-shouts. They fall to the grass in a heap. (So this is never something we're trying again ever.) String sighs and pets the silky hair gently, mumbling nonsense reassurances.
A snapping twig makes her head snap around, and her hackles raise automatically when she sees the shadowy outline of a person appear. "Up, Babe." Is all she says, and then she's sliding out from under Cal's light form, standing in her most intimidating defensive posture and drawing a knife quickly. Cal's clambering to her feet with all the grace and stability of a newborn doe, and her eyes do nothing to stop this imagery, wide and frightened and flicking everywhere in a search for an escape route, as is her constant responsibility. (I've taught her well.) The shape is still a moment more, and then starts moving closer, skirting around the apple tree in the middle of the property as if out of habit.
"Stay the fuck back or I'll gut you." String says in a faux pleasant voice, an equally fake and equally pleasant smile on her face.
Not exactly the most conventional words with which to start something wonderful, something that would define String's life from that point on, but one thing they were was true to form. (And besides, it's not as if I've ever been conventional, anyway.)
But we're falling together,
Falling together,
Again and again!
[/size]Falling together,
Again and again!
