the neon throne; golconda {day 1.5}
Feb 23, 2017 9:39:26 GMT -5
Post by kousei ♚ on Feb 23, 2017 9:39:26 GMT -5
"I am lost and lead only by the stars. Cage me like an animal; a crown of gems and gold. Eat me like a cannibal, chasing the neon throne." |
Silence that follows the fall remains unbroken by the bitter ash, smoke and mirrors crumbling to the ground around me at frightening velocities but is shattered by the cracks in Ronnie Cheyne's panicked pessimism. "That's it, we are fucking dead." And the only response I can think to give to that is to slowly shake my head in disagreement and grunt. Death can be predicted by the simple intake of dull pain, all we did was fall into a puddle and land at a destination marked by an unknown X across this arena's map.
I place his dimming lack of optimism at the back of my mind and bring myself up to rest upon bruised knees and scarlet knuckles, scrambling to gather my mallet and bag of wealth and crayons. We aren't dead, not yet at least, because my knuckles still ache in dull shades of black and blue and the sight of his leg still portrayed fractures and years of war grinding marrow to dust. We still feel pain so we are still alive, for now.
We still suffered beneath the curse of Icarus and we fell after burning in our short term ambitions. We fell for longer than the simple split second it would take to land into a puddle and be left wet with nothing but bruised skin and egos. Bruised skin paired with a bruised ego, the acceleration into the fall was longer than a split second. We tumbled, we twisted, we fell.
X marks the spot; we're back at the end point unexpected.
The not-so-familiar fluorescence of the orchard is still blinding the ticks of the Capitol mechanical clocks melded into the trees is still deafening, we fell through the the cracks of sanity only for the end point to be mirrored by the start point. That fact is evidenced by the fact that when I look to the sky I am met by the luminescence of a canopy that only knows how to express itself in bouts of bright colors and the absence of scarlet, just like the minutes prior before we fell through the puddle.
The ground gave way and we fell, why is the aftermath so identical as if nothing ever happened?
"The drugs must still be working."
I bite back a tang of annoyance. "If you say so, Ron." I roll my eyes, contemplating the meaning of this cyclic notion. Seconds pass into minutes and minutes fade to finality, I suppose thinking was never quite my strong point. "Anyway, we shoul-"
However, the sight of life on the horizon of photoluminescence kills the thought dead in its tracks. My left hand tightens around my mallet and my right hands tightens across the tote bag carrying the seeds of our wealth, and one foot comes forward. Two pigmented signs of life but I cannot distinguish whether or not they are friend or foe but I conclude it is likely the former seeing as we haven't so much as seen Ophelia and Ave since the training center.
Somewhere, there lies a scarlet river marked with my name and I have nothing to fear from adding more skull fragments to the dye. I know Ronnie sees them to but I cannot rely on someone who cannot so much as keep their feet beneath them.
I count two still beating hearts that don't belong to me or Ronnie, but when I raise my mallet and the truth becomes clearer than the results of our icarus dive less than four minutes prior. This weapon wielding to shatter skeleton falls to my side at the sight of Ophelia and Ave approaching, vagabond underneath this starless stratosphere as promised.
When my tight grip on the weapons loosens sigh of relief escapes my lungs and my rising shoulders fall. "You're alive." And they're untouched, somehow this comes as a surprise to me because they're not cut from the same stone as me and Ronnie. Despite the fact that Ophelia shares the fire of a lower district victor and despite the fact that Ave's intelligence towers over the three of us combined. It comes as a surprise to me that they're alive and are virtually unharmed but it's a surprising relief nonetheless.(we're all okay)
The sky on my shoulders shifts and my flesh no longer burns beneath the absence of stars.
table: briar
