are you wild like me? {rook/lalia}

jump that fourty-three
are you wild like me?
raised by wolves and other beasts

She doesn't think she is lost, but she has been abandoned here, a castaway without an island. Her eyes strain against the harsh morning light, struggling to adjust from hours wandering in the dusk. She is tired and hungry, but not without food or bed. She searches for answers when she doesn't even know the questions, because there's this instinct inside of her that she can't explain, and she's been desperately trying to feel normal for months.

Holland's figure is slender, her eyes narrow. Her cheekbones are higher than her unwarranted pride. She strides through grasslands, right hand cocked on her belt, left arm dangling at her side. The winds are gentle today, and she picks up all sorts of warm scents floating over the hills. It is quiet, but she knows it will rain soon. She can sense it. This reminds her of home, but she doesn't even know where home is. Every time she thinks back, all she sees is blackness, like someone has burned a hole through a sheet of parchment. She can't read the words any more, even when she tries. These nostalgic moments are all she has, and she can't even interpret them. They're just there.

She doesn't feel out of place in Nine. She knows this isn't where she is from, but she's made this District her own, found comforts in labour and hard work. Her guardian, old man Hart, with his beefy arms and caterpillar eyebrows, watches her from afar. She knows his watchful gaze always hangs over her whist she stands atop the hill, playing guardian herself. He is in his fifties, built like an ox, but crippled by asthma and heart problems. He can no longer watch his flock on a regular basis, and now she is the shepherd. She, who he took in and nursed back to health. The girl who fell from the skies like a discarded angel. He wonders which god she betrayed to be cast from heaven.

Oh and did she fall, like a meteor. Through the clouds, down towards earth, hurtling at a thousand miles an hour. All she can recall is the hovercraft's vapor trail. Must have been a thirty foot fall, she reckons. Someone dumped her here. She remembers being hit round the head a few times too, before they threw her off. Maybe that's why she can't remember who they were or where she came from. Or what her name is.

Sheep graze on the hill, moving from patch to patch, grinding down pasture into digestible mush. The light creeps through the thick black clouds, but the air is still damp. Rays of sun reflect off puddles and moist foliage, whilst nature wakes up around the District. Sleepy District Nine, gears starting to turn in the factories, bodies emerging from hovels and holes. She watches them all and ponders her place here.

Holland stands tall, an impressive thin frame with surprising tone. Her platinum hair is tied up in a bun, a purple band double-tied masterfully. The sleeves of her deep green sweater are rolled up to her elbows, revealing black ink lettering that snakes up her left arm. "Live to fight another day". She doesn't know why she had it tattooed, but it means more to her because of that fact. Her eyes rest on the flock, and the old man's sheepdog: Tess. The dog is old too, and struggles to heard for long periods of time, instead choosing to lie in the grass and have a naive animal faith that the sheep will not cause trouble. Holland can't afford to have faith, not in these dark days.

She looks to the clouds on the horizon. It will rain again, and soon. The cold months are starting to roll in, and with that comes the Reaping, and a new cycle. Unrewarded hard work, starvation, poverty. It's all the same, and it shocks her. It's like she's not used to this life, this suffering. She's not stupid, the signs are there. Her tone, her tattoo, the clothes she was found in. Holland is aware that she's likely from District One or Two. That's what worries her. She's afraid of not being accepted here, but even though she feels alien, the people here are so warm and close. She folds her arms and watches the grazing heard.

The pounding of footsteps on damp soil alert Holland. She turns to her right, and a young boy is sprinting towards her, panic in his eyes. She recognises him from the market - The butcher's son? Barely fourteen years old. Sweat drips from his jet black hair, and his red face and wide expression is enough to make her stand guard.

"WOLF!" He shouts, "WOLF!!"

She takes a step back, the word cutting her. She turns to the old man's house - his curtains are now drawn. She turns back to the boy, who is sprinting at her with no intention of looking back. She gazes past him, and there is no wolf chasing him.

"Where?!" She shouts the word at him, and he shakes his head, running past her and grabbing her arm, trying to drag her with him. She shakes free from his grasp with an angry grunt, and he doesn't stop to argue.

He vanishes, and panic fills her. Dark clouds seem to roll over the fields, and she feels heavy, like there is static in the air around her. She moves forward, away from the house and into the open, spinning on her heel to look all around her.

It starts as just a prick on the back of her neck. She thinks maybe it's sweat beading, or the hairs standing on end, but it trickles on her cheeks and bare arms. The wash of rain is thin, a light shower that she can see being curtained across the fields. She moves quickly, her boots squelching on mud as she rushes to the flock. Tess is up and running, not to her, but back to the house. Animal instinct, or a gangly old dog that's afraid of the rain? No sign of the wolf, and she can't hear any screaming, nor has an alarm been raised. The rain comes down harder, and she continues downhill, her hair now soaked. Was the boy crying wolf? She knows the boy, he isn't the mischievous type, seems an honest kid.

The hill drops steeper suddenly, and she loses her footing. She moves her left foot back instinctively to balance herself, placing it down on the mud with some momentum. The lack of friction and reverse momentum throws her, and her left foot goes to the right, as her weight twist and she falls on top of it at a disgusting angle. She screams and rolls, mud slaps her in the face. The world becomes a spiral as she rolls and rolls, up becoming down and down becoming up. She stops screaming as the hill levels out and she slides to a stop.

She tries to get to her feet and break for the wall, but she lets out another painful scream as her leg jolts. She lies in the mud, fear planted deep in her as the rain lashes down, and the breathing of a wolf carries on the wind.

i tell you all the time
i'm not mad
you tell me all the time
"i got plans"