alight. ignite. take flight. { timothy }

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✨ zozo.
Retired Staff

8,205 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
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bloomtodeath

alight. ignite. take flight. { timothy } Mar 17, 2016 23:23:07 GMT -5

Quote

Post by ✨ zozo. on Mar 17, 2016 23:23:07 GMT -5

alight;

he smiles then,

and even though it is well past midnight,

its as if the sun has just come out.

"TIMO-"

he ends on a frantic heartbeat
struck like a piano key.

it plays a single chord;
a girl screaming his name
a boy lost in darkness and begging for light
(he shall join him there, soon, but not in the same endlessness)
an angel spitting words from hell.

the dead come stripped of life
a chorus of death

here to play their last ensemble

entitled with his name.

(there is steel at his throat.)

the sound resonates
hangs in the air
falls through ears
until it fades into nothing

(the boy is still smiling
with a finger to his lips

because he's heard this song before.)

quick,

a second

a moment.

and he with it.

"-THY!"

everything,
everything,
everything-

stops.

. . .

i never knew daylight could be so violent.

they grasp at his soul.

alight

ignite

take flight

they carry him away.

this world is blinding
as he travels through eons of life
of love
of death.

white

burning, irredescent

everywhere.

claws digging into his soul
soft as a feather
eyelashes like wings against a cloud.

(shhh!)

he sighs.

(listen!)

and then they come for him
midnight ripples
poisoning everything
everything
everything-

collides.

ripping, shredding, tearing
a battle for him
for his existence
for his martyrdom
for his entry to the beyond.

scorching
thrashing
white, black, good, evil.

(for the girl! they scream

for the girl!)

blood on his hands
the colour of death
darkness bleeding from every crevice remaining within him.

and he is dragged down

down

entombed in a rapture of wings
waiting for the feeling
of hitting the ground.

(falling, feeling, falling

it's all the same)

he closes his eyes.

. . .

once you have tasted flight,

you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned
skyward...

(a hand reaches out from the depths of beyond
plunges its light into the madness
and steals him away.)

the end is damp.

and tall.
and blue.

(a girl laughs.
his mother smiles.)

grit lies underneath his fingertips.

leaves dance, their scent wafting through the air he breathes.

("he's here," a voice says calmly.
"he!?"
"yes. his name is-"
"a boy?!")

light sparkles against his skin.

(the sun shines.
the sand whispers.
the forest calls him home.)

he stirs, hovering between here and there

as if the winged creatures still hovered above him

entrapping him in sleep.

("i can do it."
grey eyes meet brown
and they glisten.
"i can help him."

"i know.")

footsteps patter toward him

and then become still.

watching.

waiting.

wondering.

(finally, he opens his eyes.)

. . .

this is part 1 of 3
so there's more to come soon
thanks for reading so far
hope you stick around for the rest
<3

Last Edit: May 24, 2016 5:19:07 GMT -5 by ✨ zozo.

“and men said that the blood of the stars flowed in her veins.”

✨ zozo.
Retired Staff

8,205 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Nov 21, 2024 3:31:56 GMT -5

bloomtodeath

alight. ignite. take flight. { timothy } Mar 20, 2016 21:10:34 GMT -5

Quote

Post by ✨ zozo. on Mar 20, 2016 21:10:34 GMT -5

ignite;
(intermission)

In the heart of District Nine a man sets his glasses upside down upon a wooden table, falls into his chair, and stops breathing.

His hardness sets from rigid wood to marble stone. A half-empty glass tumbler cracks in the man's violent hands and shards litter the floor below him. His palms slice open and pain pours red down his arms.

Penance for his sins, they took his son and slaughtered him - as he did his child's mother. His wife.

It was only a second-

and she fell.

It was only a second-

and his son fell.

Smiling.

(The room smells like whiskey and loss.)

A great cry erupts from his soul, and then his throat, and consumes him whole.

Tears do not fall.

The blood from his scarlet hands weeps for him instead.

. . .

“and men said that the blood of the stars flowed in her veins.”

✨ zozo.
Retired Staff

8,205 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Nov 21, 2024 3:31:56 GMT -5

bloomtodeath

alight. ignite. take flight. { timothy } Jun 13, 2016 7:14:18 GMT -5

Quote

Post by ✨ zozo. on Jun 13, 2016 7:14:18 GMT -5

take flight.

...for there you have been,

and there you will always long to return.

He awakes to a world of blue and green in a younger form of himself.

Home, the child thinks at first. Until familiarity strips itself away from his surroundings and he hovers in a foreign memory. Almost. Not quite. The air smells of home, and then it doesn't. The trees towering over him look like the ones he climbed as a boy, and then the wind changes and their dance moves to a rhythm unlike anything he's seen before. Almost home. Not quite the place he grew up in.

He stands, and something whispers through the branches. A shuffling of vowels, a scratching of leaves, words stolen from foreign tongues and lost languages circling their prey. Chills creep through his skin like a mist meant to drive him out from the depths of the forest. This is not home. Far from it. There is something terribly wrong in this place, and it's coming for him. It's coming to take him away.

Hands find branches and he flies upward, desperate for the sky to take him back. He clings to the clouds and trembles, the blue endlessness above calling him away from the danger below. Fear catches in his throat and a low whimper falls through the air - hands shaking, teeth chattering.

For a while, there is no sound but the wind around him. And then, finally, she arrives: bare-footed and beautiful, the girl from the forest emerges as his saving grace.

"There's no need to hide up there," her voice laughs from below. "It's gone now."

Wide eyes dart down to the ground floor and the young boy spies her dressed in white, face tilted up to the sky. "Come on," she smiles, beckoning him down with a hand. "You're safe now."

The boy stays silent and clings to the tree with caution, hands trembling violently.

"I scared it away. You're fine."

"I don't understand!" the child calls down, voice crackling with fear.

"It's just there to protect us" the girl explains, eyes still fixed on the boy in the sky. "You didn't come here the way you're supposed to, you see, so it didn't know that you weren't a threat."

The boy says nothing, lips quivering, holding back tears.

"Would you like me to come up there instead?" she offers, kind eyes glancing at the lower branches of the tree. The boy nods, slowly, still clinging to the centre, and the girl begins her ascension.

He watches, curious, as she climbs. Confidence and elegance radiates from her, and the warm wind hums happily as if it were welcoming a friend. A white streak amongst the green and gold, she makes her way up with ease until the boy comes face-to-face with her, drinking in her features.

"I'm Rowan" the girl smiles, all kind eyes and silken hair and light freckles splashes across her cheeks. The young boy decides upon her introduction that her likes her. Trusts her, even.

"I'm...."

"Timothy" she finishes. "You're Timothy. You don't have to be scared anymore."

"But it..."

He struggles for words and wonders why. Rowan doesn't mind. She fills in the gaps of his speech with reason, as if everything in the world suddenly made sense again.

"It was just scared. You arrived here a little differently than the rest of us, and it didn't quite know what to make of you." She leans in close now, voice lowered, a glint of mischief in her eyes. "In fact," she murmurs, "I think it's more scared of you than you are of it."

Timothy looks to the ground warily, brow furrowed with uncertainty. "How can you tell?"

"Well, this forest is mine" she declares, a certainty in her soft voice that loosens the tension in little Timothy's soul. "And I can tell it what to do, sometimes. So that thing won't be bothering you ever again. I promise."

That loosens his posture, and her heart warms.

"I don't remember how I got here" he says after a while. "I don't remember anything."

"That's okay," the girl smiles. "It takes a while for everything to come back sometimes. You'll get there eventually."

"You seem to know a lot about everything."

The girl laughs softly and tilts her head toward the boy. "Well I'll let you in on a little secret, Timothy: I've never done this before - help people who come here. So I'm still learning all about that as I go."

"Then who helped you?"

Rowan smiles and looks out to the sand upon the horizon dancing between the leaves. "I think it's better if she introduces herself. She'll be here soon enough. She had to fight the thing that was trying to take you away and pulled you into this place instead. It's a lot, even for her."

"I'm sorry" the boy says quietly, guilt tainting his words.

A soft hand finds his own youthful fingers and pats them gently. "Don't be sorry. I'm glad you're here. We all are."

"We?"

"Come on," she beckons to the ground, eyes sparkling. "I want you to meet someone."

. . .

day breathes

and falls across the ocean.

you know my fears.

They love him from the moment he steps foot onto the sandy shore.

Tiger loves him in shrieks and frantic feet and wide eyes. As the shadows from the forest let him go he grows into the boy who fell from the sky and his skin sighs into the sun, her arms wrapped tightly around his frame.

Rowan loves him in her kind smiles, reassuring eyes, nods at his quizzical looks of the girl with spirals for hair and warmth radiating from her every fibre. Timothy leans into the freckle-faced girl and returns her love and Rowan's heart aches with jubilation.

Aria loves him from a distance. His serendipity almost stole her away - and across the shore she existed in whispers, in breathes of air, in shifting sands leading back to her beach, her friends, her endless existence.

She arrives, after a while, when Tiger finally lets go of their new guest and Rowan signals for their attention. Bare feet and grey eyes and billowing white garments, she commands the whole world and lets every trace of it roam free all at once. Timothy falls quiet, nothing but air tickling his ears as she approaches.

"Hello" the grey girl smiles, voice as cool as her eyes. "You must be Timothy."

Timothy nods hesitantly and turns to find Rowan, who nods with assurance.

Upon seeing this, Aria smiles. "Thank you Rowan" she says, a hand finding the tall girls own and squeezing it lightly, "for helping him find us."

Rowan beams and turns to her new friend. "This is Aria, the one who brought you here" she tells him. "She's going to explain everything to you now. Is that okay?"

Silence still grips his throat. Timothy has no words - or rather, too many of them.

"I'll be right here with you, just over there" Rowan promises, head leaning toward the banks above the shore. After a moment, Timothy nods, and Rowan and Tiger take each-other's hands and fade into the distance.

Aria walks toward the shore and sits herself in the sand, motioning for Timothy to join her. Moments pass between them as the blue waves crash delicately against the sand, filling the air with sound. Aria smiles to herself - he is not unlike her after all.

"How much did Rowan explain to you?" she asks after a while. Patient, but wise enough to know that words can be more powerful than anything.

"A little" Timothy responds, words shaky and unfamiliar on his tongue.

"I went to a great deal to get you here, Timothy, but you can take as long as you need. We have all the time we could possibly need. Do you know that?"

The boy next to her nods. And, to her surprise, begins to speak.

"I can't remember... much. But I feel it. I feel it all..." he stutters, heart shattering, insides trembling, fear hot and sticky like tar down his throat.

Aria does not laugh, nor make fun of his incomprehension. Instead she moves her hand to rest on his own and feels the world shake in his bones.

"It's okay" she whispers, words as ghosts. "It's okay."

"I did something terrible..."

"So did I."

At that, he looks her in the eyes.

"I can't quite remember what I did," Aria continues, eyes shining in the daylight "but I know that what I did was awful, and I know that I did many awful things before I came here. I can feel them in me."

Timothy, still shaking, yet still steadfast in her gaze, exhales. "Are you afraid of them?"

Aria smiles. "No. I don't let them control my fears."

He is pained, the poor boy ripped from damnation. Aria can see it in his soul.

"How?"

She looks to the horizon now, at Rowan and Tiger and everything around them.

"Because this is my place, created for me, and I do not allow fear to swallow us. And I won't allow it to swallow you, either, if you'd like to stay."

In this beautiful place he inhales the air, watches the stars dance above him in an impossible sky, and lets the ocean foam tickle his feet and disappear in a heartbeat.

He cannot leave them.

"I would."

This is home.

"Thank you, Aria."

This place will cure his bleeding soul and make him whole again.

"No, Timothy. Thank you."

. . .

never regret thy fall, o icarus of the fearless flight.

for the greatest tragedy of them all is never to feel the burning light.

In time,

when the sand runs from the hourglass
when the forest whispers of new hope
when the sun shines right above their bodies

he is free.

And from the forest comes a great swarm of black, fluttering and frantic, a windswept force of panic that rushes from the trees. They stand, hand-in-hand, the four souls joined by an end into the start of forever, 6 new stars glistening in a constellation of his name.

From the edge of the sand banks they watch as the darkness peels away from their world and spins upwards into the sky. Viscous thoughts and dark pasts leaves this place of forgiveness and Timothy watches as what he brought to this dimension disappears as quickly as he arrived.

His heart thaws. A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. All that is left is blue skies and Tiger's sun as the blurs turn to specks, to fragments, to nothing. Fear leaves. Love lives. Rowan squeezes his hand and Timothy squeezes back.

And then, as their eyes furrow, something returns.

"Go" whispers Aria, urging Timothy to the shoreline. She cannot contain her smile, for she feels it within her. "Go see."

With caution, the boy advances toward the great mass of blue with a flicker of doubt in his heart. The violent spasms of his consequences do not litter the sky, but something else does.

He watches them close in, steadfast, his family behind him to catch him should he fall.

But what comes is not and end, nor a fall, nor a mass of blackened crows spilled from beyond.

Tiny little feathers bring tiny little claws, landing on his shoulders, his fingers, by his feet. They dance and laugh and soar above him, bright and free and all his own creation.

A word, a name, it falls from his mouth and another's behind him, and in his heart he knows - for it is a name almost lost in death, a name he had not heard for lifetimes, a name stitched into his soul for ever and ever.

"Robin."

She smiles.

Her son turns around.

. . .

Last Edit: Jun 13, 2016 7:18:21 GMT -5 by ✨ zozo.

“and men said that the blood of the stars flowed in her veins.”

✨ zozo.
Retired Staff

8,205 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Nov 21, 2024 3:31:56 GMT -5

bloomtodeath

alight. ignite. take flight. { timothy } Jun 13, 2016 7:27:09 GMT -5

Quote

Post by ✨ zozo. on Jun 13, 2016 7:27:09 GMT -5

just a few obligatory thank-you's i wrote when tim died so sorry if they sound a bit outdated!

jaylen; for your leadership, creativity, loyalty and fierceness. for celia - queen of the swamp, tim's guardian, believing in him and keeping this alliance afloat.

darren; for your never-ending passion, excitement, friendship, and that long-ass skype call full of screaming. for dane and his strength and insight and bringing our characters together.

sara; for your ideas, your openness, your love and kind heart. for kite and his friendship, his words, the way he spoke of people like they were works of art.

claudia and jess; what an honour it's been, i love you both so much and the 72nd games have been so wonderfully exciting and such a pleasure to be a part of. i cannot wait to see you both triumph as gamemakers now and in the future, no doubt you'll host some more fantastic and memorable games soon enough. i look forward to reading (and hopefully being a part of) them!

kay; for your open heart, helping hand, and always being there for me.

briar; for your love, your affection and adoration of tim, all your lovely comments still make me smile to this day.

puppy; for your generosity and kindness.

the squad chat; y'all know how much i love you guys. thank you for putting up with me, always making me laugh, supporting me and being the best group of people i could ever have the pleasure of being acquainted with. bless up.

everyone else; thank you. all my love.

x