an unconventional reunion [Chaos]

Meeka
Merchant

[M:-500]

218 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Jul 2, 2017 15:17:26 GMT -5

Wer will schon das Ende wissen.

an unconventional reunion [Chaos] Jan 14, 2017 4:13:52 GMT -5

Post by Meeka on Jan 14, 2017 4:13:52 GMT -5

{ Ione K. Ashwood}

Oh, you're in my veins

;

And I cannot get you out

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Nothing goes as planned,
everything will break
People say goodbye
in their own special way

For days now we hadn't caught anything. My limbs had grown stiff from the cold and the ground beneath our feet was frozen solid. In the mornings we would wake to a thin layer of white coating the earth and each evening we'd huddle, shivering, together. I was by now growing increasingly panicked, my muscles sore and my noisy, unsettled stomach a constant reminder of what we so desperately needed. On occasion, when my distress peaked, I would lick some of the frost from the top of the tarp to quench my thirst, but nothing, nothing could quell my ever-growing hunger. The worst thing by far was the knowledge that Kit, though he was staying stoic and seldom complained, was suffering just as I was. Kit was tall and too skinny and his growing muscles needed fuel, even more than I did, for I had long-since stopped growing. With a sinking heart I realised that there was only one thing I could do to remedy our situation.

Growing up in District Nine gave us a distinct advantage. Both of us had grown up with the knowledge of hunting ingrained in our bones. We knew how to fashion our own hunting weaponry and we were skilled craftsmen when it came to the building of traps and snares. But the harsh winter months were cause for the wildlife to grow scarce and even the cold winds were hardly ever punctured by bird song. Panhandling didn't work as well in this District as it had back home. The people that inhabited it lived lives of luxury that I had seldom encountered before and I would often be passed by without any notice whenever I did crouch begging in the gutters. Sometimes a woman would catch my eye but then she would undoubtedly increase her pace, dragging her children with her. Don't look, don't look, don't look. And nothing made me feel more like the scum of the earth than the few pitying looks I garnered. No, begging absolutely would not do, not in this district. I made a mental note to move further into the forest, see if we would land elsewhere, in a district with more generous folk. But that was a job for another day, another month - for whenever we regained our strength.

When I woke on that particular morning, the air inside our tent cold and stagnant, I knew that there was no other option. I watched as my younger brother turned restlessly in his sleep, too starved to relax. He would mumble words that were carelessly strung together, his face worried even in sleep. I made my decision then: we could no longer go on like this, waiting day after day for a lone squirrel to pass by, for a morsel to drop, or for us to finally, finally wither away completely. Today I had to do something, anything, even if it was desperate in order to save us from our hopeless situation.

With Kit still asleep I donned a white shirt. It was low cut and ill-fitting, far too small for my emaciated body. I tugged on my nicest pair of trousers - the only item of clothing from my former life that I hadn't yet pawned off, or traded in scrap for scrap. They were black and made of an exquisite leather that accentuated every curve. I worked at the laces on my boots, trying to make as little noise as possible to allow Kit a few more precious hours of sleep. I told myself that I would be back before he woke and realised that I had gone. Kit didn't approve of me going into town for this. I didn't enjoy it much either, but it was easy business. The oldest business.

It never took much. All I had to do was pull my shirt down some, exposing cleavage, and stand in the town square. Whenever a Peacekeeper patrolled by I would simply pretend to be engaged with more suitable work and my weekly shop. I would wait there for someone to walk by. After nightfall all it took was the flick of a lighter, the striking of a match, and I would turn and walk into a dark alley, and wait for my client to join me. During the day it was a little more difficult, and I would have to work to catch the eye of men walking by, or else wait for someone to gesture unmistakably at me. It was always over quick, pushed up against the wall, eyes tightly closed, I let their hands and eyes wander. My souvenirs were bruises from where their hands had handled me a little too roughly, and the smell of them on my skin. But the memories I could wash away, I could push back until they reigned forgotten. I would turn my head to the side whenever one inevitably tried to kiss me, and then it was all over. For a few copper coins, some slices of bread, or a new scarf for Kit. There was no way I could get around that unsavoury business now.

Before I crawled out of the tent, I tucked the ring I wore from a chain beneath my shirt. I wore it always, but I didn't much care for someone to ask questions. I pulled a strand of hair to obscure the scarred side of my face. My clients complained, they didn't like the fleshy scar that disfigured my face. Perhaps it made them feel guilty. Ever since those first few uttered grievances I made sure that the imperfections on my body were hidden from view. I drew the flap closed behind me and turned to wander towards town and leave the safety of the forest behind me.

I had walked past the house before. In fact, I had walked past it on countless occasions, whenever I had to enter town. The house wasn't large and it certainly wasn't as grand as many of the houses near town centre. But it emitted a cosy, comforting presence, stood nestled on the very edge of the forest. Which was precisely why I had never tried stealing from there before. But now I waited, slightly obscured by a large oak tree, weighing my options in my head and eyeing the house that stood before me. There was no smoke coming from the chimney and though I stood and watched it intently, I could find no human presence, no movement in the windows. My legs felt as if they had turned to lead and I truly didn't want to go into town to pursue my other option. Releasing an anxiously held breath, I turned to look around - no one was watching. It was quiet. I thought that even if the occupants were still fast asleep inside, and not out as anticipated, I could grab a few items and make a dash for it before they woke. Besides, I would only be taking as much as we needed to survive and ignore any valuable items. I was here for food. I was here for Kit.

Mustering all my courage I pushed against the door, my heart beating overloud, terrified that it would creak. I didn't bother looking around once the door fell open. I turned instead and began looking purposefully for fruits and vegetables, for bread, for a few bites of meat, perhaps even an egg. Throughout the whole time I felt the hairs on my neck standing on edge, my arms prickling from nervous energy.

All that you rely on
and all that you can fake
will leave you in the morning
but find you in the day

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Last Edit: Jan 23, 2017 9:12:24 GMT -5 by Meeka

darling, dearest, dead.
...

sadniss everdeen
Retired Staff

1,207 POSTS
Pronouns: they/them
last seen Mar 14, 2023 11:31:04 GMT -5

nyte: date fossils? is that some kind of fetish?

an unconventional reunion [Chaos] Jan 22, 2017 20:14:08 GMT -5

Post by sadniss everdeen on Jan 22, 2017 20:14:08 GMT -5

your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine
you think your dreams are the same as mine

There was a girl, once.

("Take a good look," he rasps into my ear as the brand comes down. The manacles bite into my wrists and this fluorescent light makes every individual tear tract on Luna's cheeks sparkle, gems that dripped out through her lashes and over the bow of her lips. We're trapped in the room with the devil after years of being close with demons, the fifth circle of Hell that smells like sweat and charred flesh, and my voice cracks as I beg her to look away. To spare herself the sight.

But she never does. She never lets me suffer alone.)

There's always a girl, really. But this girl is grown now, stranded between woman and other, unknown and invariable and wandering between the lines. It's hard to know yourself when you've been forcibly broken so many times, wrenched out and put back together in ways that bristle with rough edges and with pieces that don't even look familiar. A puzzle always out of place, a picture that doesn't go with the decor.

It never used to bother her. She was always told that monsters don't find places to belong.

But this monster roamed from nine to five to eventually find a home in two, and sometimes it still takes her breath away how well the gaps in her have been filled. How easy breathing comes these days, how strange it is to remember the days when it didn't.

(At night, the fire dances along the bridge of Luna's nose like a stage performance. I could watch her for hours, the way shadows bend and break around her wrists, her hands the first unfurling of twilight and her smile the settling of dusk. In the dark it seems almost like something secret, for just the two of us alone, and my fingers tremble as I lace them gingerly with hers.

There was another girl beside me once, with different hands and different times. She was midday but she got too bright and too hard to hold, and now my scarred palms can only dip themselves in darkness. But that's okay, because the night has always been ours - Luna's lips against my own feel like missed glances and second chances, the first breath of spring into a world paralyzed by winter.

Life began to bloom again inside the cavity of my chest as my hands healed with the seasons.)

Sometimes she thinks about the past. It creates a strange hurt in her, a foreign ache like remembering it when she was a different person. Maybe she is, now. Maybe the lessons learned finally settled under her skin and she started to listen.

The family that took them in weren't kind, exactly, but were fair and just and sheltered them when they couldn't themselves. The monster returned to the sharp shadows where she most belonged and her burnt fingers relearned what had once come so naturally to them. Under their eye, she lost the stoop in her shoulders and let her hair grow long again. She forgot the hunger that would hound them at every turn and corner in Nine, and felt like she was home.

Still, she couldn't look too long at red hair without that empty feeling in her stomach.

("That's right," I laugh low, and the man bent over by my knee in his spine cries out as I twist his shoulder. It follows unwillingly, reluctant to part from the socket, and I keep it on the edge of falling. "You're in a bit of a tight spot, aren't you?"

"Please let me go," he mutters, his face pressed against the floor. From here I can see sweat and blood and tears mixing together into the dirt, the trembling of his tuning-fork spine scattering vibrations through my hands. "I'll do anything."

Footsteps. We both look up at the same time to a figure in the darkness of the doorway, and the man underneath me goes limp with resignation. He has to pay his dues, just like everyone else.)

I blink, coming out of my dreams half-disoriented and frozen. The blanket had been pulled off in the night and winter nips at my cold toes, but a shiver under my skin prevents me from going back to sleep. I peer over at Luna, nestled comfortably in her blanket cocoon, her lips parted and cheeks flushed in sleep. Nothing amiss.

I've long come to listen to my instincts. Instead of ignoring it, I rise silently from the bed, pulling on a pair of shorts and making my way down the stairs. The house is supposed to be sleeping at this time of night, the only sound the occasional sigh of the foundation as it settles in its hinges, but a soft rustle from downstairs floats up through the stairwell. I frown. There's a chance it could be one of the Hammerfell's, but it's five in the morning and usually they knock before barging in.

I skip the step that always creaks and touch down on the cold main floor. The sound is louder now, the distinct echo of rustling bags and stealthy footsteps; my hands skate along the banister and come to light on the side table in the hallway, pulling out the knife in one of the drawers. Firmly clasped in my right hand, I peer around the side to where the sounds are loudest.

It's a girl. It's always a girl. I take long enough to make sure she's working alone before stepping behind her, my left hand shackling her left wrist and bringing it behind her, wedging it between our bodies and letting the blade of my knife rest lightly against her throat. She's thin against me, bone and sinew and little else, but I don't let it phase me as I tilt her jaw towards me with the weapon until I can see the hummingbird-flutter in the junction of her throat.

"You and me are going to have a nice, quiet chat in the room behind us," I purr into her ear, "and if you resist, I won't hesitate to cut your throat open and let you bleed dry underneath that nice oak outside. Understand?"

The scent of her hair sends the unease roiling in my gut into a tailspin, but I suck in a breath of air and shake it off as I carefully steer us into the living room. After all, she's just a girl. Right?

Last Edit: Jan 22, 2017 22:34:17 GMT -5 by sadniss everdeen

Meeka
Merchant

[M:-500]

218 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Jul 2, 2017 15:17:26 GMT -5

Wer will schon das Ende wissen.

an unconventional reunion [Chaos] Jan 23, 2017 9:11:09 GMT -5

Post by Meeka on Jan 23, 2017 9:11:09 GMT -5

{ Ione K. Ashwood}

Oh, you're in my veins

;

And I cannot get you out

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Everything will change,
nothing stays the same
Nobody here is perfect
Oh, but everyone's to blame.

I don't like the darkness. But there's never a total eclipse of light inside the tent. It's patchy, old, and the fabric is stretched too thin, so the pale moonlight and glitzy glow of the stars manage to sneak their way in. I can't even remember where we got our makeshift shelter. I don't think we stole it, not this time. I might have slept with a Peacekeeper, maybe two, for the smelly canvas and the bit of tarp that would serve to protect us from the elements. Kit said he could do things, that he wouldn't mind, but he's thirteen. Thirteen. So I won't allow it.

Despite my best efforts, despite a steadily repeating a mantra inside my head each night, I'm always, inevitably, drawn back to the horror of those nights in the cell. In the beginning they kept the lights on. All day, all night, until I couldn't tell which was which - bright fluorescent lights that blinded and made my head pound and pain shoot in my eyes. I thought that darkness after all that light would be a reprieve. But they combined pain under the cover of darkness, sometimes noise, sometimes a gnawing silence. They said that they could kill me, of course. They could kill me easily, but that it wouldn't be as fun. And besides, I had information to supply. About a girl. About Flight.

Not a girl, not a girl, I thought. So much more.

They said they could cut off one of my hands. They said they could leave me and return to cut off the other. They whispered in my ear and drowned out all other thoughts while strong, calloused hands wrapped tightly around my neck. Squeezing. Leaving me gasping, and drawing short breaths. They said they could make someone talk. They said they knew ways and that I would never, ever see the light of day again. And then they left me in the dark. I thought it was amnesty from the torture and interrogation. But then a new fear spread through my body, through my bones, through every pore of my being. What if they just left me, alone in darkness, forever? What if they just forgot I was there. And I'd never see Kit - never see Flight again. Fear coiled around me ~~through me~~ like a snake. I worked at my fingers, at my nails until I bled freely, until there was little left but rosy flesh, sore to the touch. When they came back I was close, so close to telling them everything. But I didn't, and so I let him cut my face, cut down to the bone in places, leaving the jagged scar in its place.

And just like that I was out. I was reunited with Kit. And then I made the choice.

. . .

I'm picking through the meagre lot in the kitchen. I was expecting a lot more, but I can't afford to be choosy, not now. I pocket a few loose potatoes, a whole fish, and add bits of food to the thin bag that I'm carrying with me. I won't leave them with nothing, but... we need to eat. I'm about to take a bite from a shiny apple when I pick up an off sound from behind me. I drop the fruit, it lands with a sickly sound and rolls towards the door. My fists coiled, I will myself to turn around and face off with the stranger, but I'm not fast enough. The tell-tale feel of steel against my throat has me frozen firmly in place. I can't see her, but I can tell from the voice that it's not that of a man. That settles some of the fear coursing through me, but there's something about her voice that bothers me still. With my hand trapped against the small of my back and the blade held fixed against my windpipe, I'm not stupid enough to want to fight her. Besides, I'm malnourished and every bit of me feels weak. A fight wouldn't last long and then Kit would be left on his own. I've no choice but to cooperate.

My mind is spinning with possible outcomes for this. And none of them spell out anything good for me. I can feel the serrated blade of my own knife against the side of my leg, where I've hidden it inside my boots. But I can't go for it, not now, not until she lets me go. So cooperate and behave, it is. I let her steer me towards the living room, my footfalls sound heavy on the floorboards. The bag of food is still dangling from my free hand, the other one wedged steadfastly behind me.

"Okay," I say, trying to ease her off because I can feel the unyielding edge of her blade against my throat and know it won't take much to nick the skin. "Okay."

All that you rely on
and all that you can fake
will leave you in the morning
but find you in the day

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Last Edit: Jan 23, 2017 12:15:32 GMT -5 by Meeka

darling, dearest, dead.
...

sadniss everdeen
Retired Staff

1,207 POSTS
Pronouns: they/them
last seen Mar 14, 2023 11:31:04 GMT -5

nyte: date fossils? is that some kind of fetish?

an unconventional reunion [Chaos] Feb 25, 2017 17:41:36 GMT -5

Post by sadniss everdeen on Feb 25, 2017 17:41:36 GMT -5

I don't love you
but I always will

I've known my fair share of thieves. I was one for a long time, after all, adept in shadow-steps and hidden corners, my hands in places they don't belong and my ears listening to things that were supposed to remain secret. This profession, if you want to call it that, risks so many things for rewards that aren't worth it - you survive by taking from others, but what if the others have so very little to give? Doing what it takes to make it through the winter at the expense of others is tough to swallow if you weren't born into it.

Maybe this girl was, maybe she wasn't. But desperation makes monsters of us all in the end, and with every breath I feel the curvature of her spine press against my belly. She's so thin it's easy to feel each divot as her chest expands, and my hand is a mammoth vice over her wrist. It's not hard to believe that she's run out of options.

It doesn't make me any more merciful, however.

"Sit down," I growl, kicking her ankles out and forcing her to land on the threadbare couch with a whump. The Hammerfells always ask if we want to move into somewhere nicer, where it doesn't get bitterly cold at night and we have more than one little fireplace, but this house is our own and we're reluctant to give it up. It also means we know it like the back of our hand, all its little secrets that strangers won't see. I glance into the mirror behind us, use it to track my eyes down the side of her body and watch out of the corner of my eye. Like hell I'll be taken by surprise in my own home. "Now..."

The screech of a chair pulled up in front of her. I straddle it to face her, draping my arms across the back, idly spinning the knife between my fingers. "Tell me why exactly I shouldn't just cut off your fingers and throw you out, hm? Maybe I'd even let you keep the apple."

Torture is always messy and long and the last time I got blood on the floors, Luna made me scrub it out myself until only the shadow remained. The puddle is by the girl's right foot, a vaguely darker stain against the chipped hardwood - the last person who thought he could cross me shares his atoms with the tree outside, his bones turned into bark and his vessels into the roots that twist and turn underground. The ground is frozen through in the winter, but it doesn't mean that I couldn't wait until spring. Burying bodies in the snow keeps them pretty well preserved, after all.

But there's just... something. It makes that twist in my gut turn over on itself, growing stronger and stronger in the prolonged silence. What am I thinking? I've cut apart animals more intimidating than her.

"Nothing to say?" I bring the knife forward, running its point down her jaw and tilting her to face me. "Not even when I could--" The air just seems to leave me all at once, like she's slipped a knife into my side and let it leak out my lungs. I keep her there, on the edge of the knife, staring at and through someone I was convinced would fade into nothing but another ghost. It... no. It can't be. I left this memory behind when we ran from Nine.

But even with different hair, in a different district... Hell, with a different name, I'd recognize her. Even if I lost my other eye, too. Even if I tried to forget.

"...Kaya?"

Meeka
Merchant

[M:-500]

218 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Jul 2, 2017 15:17:26 GMT -5

Wer will schon das Ende wissen.

an unconventional reunion [Chaos] Mar 2, 2017 19:23:18 GMT -5

Post by Meeka on Mar 2, 2017 19:23:18 GMT -5

{ Ione K. Ashwood}

Oh, you're in my veins

;

And I cannot get you out

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

oh, you're all I taste
at night inside of my mouth
oh, you run away
'cause I am not what you found

They say that your life flashes before your eyes before you die. That you get to see the highlights of your formative years, of all memories culminating to this one final moment… and then… I’d always wondered if the tributes in the Hunger Games even had a chance to see their lives flashing. Their deaths were always over so quickly, their lives over so pointlessly.

I never thought it could be real.

But then I looked at her.

The force with which years of repressed memory returned, knocked the breath from my lungs. The blade, her blade, nicked the skin of my cheek as I rocked forwards, turned at once slack and helpless from shock. I was glad now that she, that Flight, had me sit earlier – else I would surely have knocked my head going down. I felt budding tears in my eyes, brought there by the violence of the shock. I had been prepared for many things. My thoughts, dependable as ever, kept returning to Kit. I had hoped he would still be curled up in the tent, sheltered by the innocence of sleep and remain steadfastly ignorant to my whereabouts. The thought of him having to fend for himself, for his fragmented innocence being fractured even further... it was too much to worry about. When my attempt to loot food from the house went awry, panic had clouded my senses and blunted my ever-present instinct for self-preservation. I had been prepared to run, to fight for my life. I had been prepared for torture, perhaps. Death, potentially. I had prepared myself mentally for many things. But not this.

Not this.

Flight.

But no, it couldn’t be. This person wasn’t Flight.

They looked different. I wiped at the thin line of blood now running freely down my neck, and looked at my hand, still not comprehending. Why was I bleeding? Why did my head feel as though it had been filled to the brim with wasps, angrily buzzing, trying in vain to burst free. I looked back up at this person, this person who was, undeniably, irrevocably, my former fiancée. There were some differences. The hair had grown longer, far longer than it had been back in District Nine.

They looked different. It wasn’t Flight.

But it was. There was a scar running across the face, diagonally. It was ironic then that I carried an almost identical one, running as a mirror opposite and still shielded by a curtain of my hair. And then the hands. Oh, god, the hands. I could barely look at them, and at the same time I could not tear away my gaze. The hands were horribly scarred. Healed over, then scarred again, and branded with the “souvenir” of the Capitol. My eyes burned with the tears that still wouldn’t fall. I couldn’t look away from those hands. She said my name. I shook my head. I hadn’t heard the name in years. I forbade Kit from using it. I even used my new name in diary entries, I'd whispered the new one to myself until the old one felt obsolete and unknown. The old names were banished, forever sullied. Verboten.

It was Flight.
It was my Flight.
No, not my Flight.

And I wasn’t Kaya.

I finally managed to tear my gaze from the destroyed hands, from the trembling blade still held in them. My hand automatically went to the imprint of the ring underneath my shirt. I flattened my palm over it, almost protectively. I shook my head again.

“I – I don’t know who that is. My name is Ione.”

everything is dark
it's more than you can take
But you catch a glimpse of sun light
shining, shining down on your face

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

darling, dearest, dead.
...

sadniss everdeen
Retired Staff

1,207 POSTS
Pronouns: they/them
last seen Mar 14, 2023 11:31:04 GMT -5

nyte: date fossils? is that some kind of fetish?

an unconventional reunion [Chaos] Mar 12, 2017 15:52:11 GMT -5

Post by sadniss everdeen on Mar 12, 2017 15:52:11 GMT -5

here I am expecting just a little bit too much
from the wounded but I see through it all
and see you

“I – I don’t know who that is. My name is Ione.”

Maybe if she kept her mouth shut it would have played on my doubts. It's been years and the brain has a way of letting you forget, piecing together and blowing apart memories to form something new from those ashes that isn't entirely real. Maybe I would have let my own desperation allow me to believe, to instead slice through her neck like the blade itches for me to do, and whatever this resurrected ghost was it would be nothing more than a sack of skin and bones held protecting a heart that used to beat. It would be easy, it would. But.

She opens her mouth and lies fall out but it is her. It blows away my doubt like a great hammer smashing them to pieces; after all the years of fighting and laughing and yes, even loving, I wouldn't be able to get the imprint of her voice out of my head even if I wanted to. God, how I've wanted to.

But... she's not a ghost anymore. She's here, frost-bitten and starvation-eaten and looking at me like she can't bear the sight. Like I'm the one, the one who...

And for a moment, all the years well up and stream past and I remember it all. All the anger, all the grief, all the pacing and bared teeth and God just the betrayal. That thing that stung more than any knife that's been put in me, any brand to have touched my flesh. That I wasn't even worth saying goodbye to, a piece of paper with an apology that didn't feel close to sincere and an empty bed where she used to lie.

The thought that she could just leave, take the earth from under me and carry it away, and have the audacity to pretend she wasn't the one who did it is what steals my tongue. Like I wouldn't remember her face even if they had taken my other eye instead of my dignity. Like I could ever forget, even though she's so obviously tried.

The rage that swells up in me is lightning-fast but not surprising. This district has cooled the molten edge of my anger, but Kaya is from Nine and things from there have a habit of making me forget myself. I dart forward, the knife in my hand pressed hard now against her throat until I'm almost on top of her, my knee on the seat between her legs and my presence crushing with its intensity. I bare my teeth and it's all the fury I used to direct against people who would try and hurt her; the knife presses and her blood drips slow and steady over the knuckles close to her throat.

"Don't you dare try that with me," I hiss, closing my other hand on the back of the chair by her shoulder. There's a catch in my voice that I loathe but can't hide, an animal desperation to the rage that rolls off me in waves. "You don't get to come back here, look me in the face, and tell me I see a stranger. You don't get to run away from what you've done. I have spent years trying to get away from your ghost, Kaya, and now that the memory comes back to life, you don't get to say it never existed!"

I half-snarl, half-shout the end of my spat sentence but hush my voice almost immediately after, tight and bursting with poorly-controlled ire. Luna doesn't need to see this; I take a deep breath and try to stop despite the way my heart pounds in my chest. I look away before my eyes start stinging, but the breath I let out is harsher than I wanted.

"Now," I say quietly, lifting myself a little bit but still very much caging her in, "tell me exactly what you're doing here. I'm still debating whether I want to slit your throat... just now it's for an entirely different reason."

Last Edit: Mar 12, 2017 15:54:44 GMT -5 by sadniss everdeen

Meeka
Merchant

[M:-500]

218 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Jul 2, 2017 15:17:26 GMT -5

Wer will schon das Ende wissen.

an unconventional reunion [Chaos] Mar 30, 2017 11:09:51 GMT -5

Post by Meeka on Mar 30, 2017 11:09:51 GMT -5

{ Ione K. Ashwood}

So cradle your head in your hands

;

And breathe, just breathe

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Two am and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake
can you help me unravel my latest mistake
I don't love him
winter just wasn't my season

I should not have lied.

I recoil instinctively, but not fast enough. Never fast enough, not when it comes to Flight. I inadvertently bring up my hands, a defensive movement meant to ward off the knife. Instead the blade catches on my palm. My eyes fill with tears, mostly from pain, and no amount of furious blinking will chase them away. I am surprised at the outburst, the flare of righteous anger. I’d seen Flight angry before, of course, but never directed at me. Never with such unmitigated fury. And she’d never, ever, raised a hand to me before.

Blood pools on my palms and runs garishly down my arms. I don’t look at it, instead I shrink from her anger and immediately hate myself for it. I vowed to be a different person in District Two. Stronger, tougher, made of a thicker skin. In short, I vowed to be more like her. But I can’t help it. Though my clients were often angry and never attempted to mask their rage around me, their blows and punches never truly hurt. I could deal with a couple of bruises, a blackened eye, with a couple of cuts to my thighs. I could shut my mind to it and deal with the emotional scarring too, but this was different. Confronted with Flight’s anger I felt all my resolve crumbling. I felt like I was back in Nine.

And then I hear the words; sentences reeling with hurt.

“You think I forgot about you? That I erased you from my memory?” I push away from her, and stand, wincing as the blade cuts deeper into my hand. I tug at the chain around my neck. “I never did. I never truly wanted to, that was my mistake.” The ring that I keep hidden from sight dangles free on the end of the chain. There’s blood staining it now and I wipe at it with an absentminded expression.

“I was in the Detention Centre for God knows how long. But they didn’t want me, they were after you the entire time. I never said anything, I never betrayed you, I kept silent even though – “ my voice trembles and dies and again, I hate myself. I indicate the scarred flesh on my arms, still ashamed of the way it ruins my once flawless skin. I yank up the hem of my shirt, revealing purplish slashes on my stomach. I look back at Flight, at the similarly scarred hands, the battle-worn skin. “But, I suppose you know what it’s like,” I add, and pull my hair to one side, the twin scar that mars both our faces now on display. I swallow and let the strands fall back into place. “I’m sorry, Flight. I shouldn’t have sent you that letter in the first place. It was reckless to try and reach out to you... it was vague, had to be. I just wanted to keep you safe.” My voice breaks on the last syllable and I hurriedly blink back a new set of tears. Nope.

“Look, this was a mistake. I didn’t know – I didn’t think that you lived here. You can have the goddamned apple. Let me just – let me get cleaned up so I can meet my clients and I'll be out of your way.”

Yeah we can walk through the doors
so accusing their eyes
Like they have any right at all to criticise
hypocrites, you're all here for the same reason

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Last Edit: Mar 31, 2017 16:51:21 GMT -5 by Meeka

darling, dearest, dead.
...

sadniss everdeen
Retired Staff

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nyte: date fossils? is that some kind of fetish?

an unconventional reunion [Chaos] Jun 11, 2017 15:42:27 GMT -5

Post by sadniss everdeen on Jun 11, 2017 15:42:27 GMT -5

called me from a seance
you're from a past life

I'm not sure if I want to laugh or scream. The marks that mar her skin are both new and old; I've never once felt them under my lips, but they've faded enough to not be bright and angry like the brand that caused them. My nails run anxiously over the puckered skin of my fingertips, the ends that simultaneously feel too much and too little.

"You shouldn't have bothered. They found me eventually. Found... found us. By accident, really."

There are few things that scare me. Years ago, in Nine, I would have puffed out my chest and said that I could take whatever they threw at me, that I was stronger than anyone they'd had. And maybe that was true, but fear doesn't always have to be loud and violent. It can just be weeks in the dark and the quiet, your only interactions ones filled with suffering. It can be wondering if you're ever going to see your best friend again. When the people holding you have all the time in the world until you break, it's not a matter of if, but when. Maybe I didn't used to be afraid, but I was young then. I've learned.

The irony that I wasn't even their primary target doesn't escape me. I had just found Luna and I wasn't letting her go, and I ran willingly into the jaws of the beast in order to get her back. Wandering made me forget who I was, what I'd done. They hadn't. The seals they seared into my skin were my reminders.

I can't take my eyes from the ring. It's been years since I've seen it, its twin taken from me when we got through into the Detention Center. I let it go, convinced that I emerged from those depths as a new person. But not even my different fingerprints could erase who I was completely.

Her voice cracks and my fists clench. All of a sudden I'm nineteen again and wiping the tears from her eyes - her hair might be a different colour, but the muscle memory stays the same. I glance upstairs to where Luna is still sleeping, chewing on my tongue as I unwillingly force myself to look at the situation through her eyes. Kaya looks a lot like we did, trampling through the forests after we were released, famine-bitten and delirious. We were on our last legs when we stumbled into Two, and Kaya has the same desperation hanging around her shoulders. When she pulled up her shirt, I could count the ladder in her ribs and fit my fingers into the spaces between them.

(I used to make money the same way she did. It lets you survive, but it's no way to live.)

"Hold on," I bite out, reaching forward. My fingers wrap around her wrist gentler than last time, but just as easily. They feel delicate, bird-boned, the neck of a squirrel I snapped with my thumb. "I don't..."

I sigh, halfway between defeated and frustrated. "You look like a breeze will knock you over. Come on."

I pull up a section of the kitchen floor that leads to a damp, dark cellar. It took hours of backbreaking work to make it usable again, but at least it's cool during the heat of the summer. Tucked away in the back of the room is a blood-stained table; I turn in the opposite direction.

"How long have you been in Two?" I ask, rummaging through our shelves. Talking to a ghost come back to life lends a surreality to the whole thing that I can't quite wrap my head around, and I struggle on which emotion to settle on. Tension knots between my shoulder-blades but I swallow it down. I'm not that person anymore.

At least, I thought I wasn't.

Last Edit: Jun 11, 2017 15:44:10 GMT -5 by sadniss everdeen