hard as lightning, soft as candlelight (open | Excerpts)
Oct 15, 2018 0:56:38 GMT -5
Post by Lyn𝛿is on Oct 15, 2018 0:56:38 GMT -5
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This day was going terribly wrong, Alvis thought to himself in the musty catacombs. They smelled like shit and dirt, he couldn't take two steps without having a mouse or spider or something scurry in front of his feet, and he would be in so much trouble if his parents found out he'd been in a place like this.
Well. If he could manage to find his way out in the first place. He was pretty sure he'd passed by the pipe with "Fuck the Capitol" stylized in graffiti three times already, and he didn't seem to be going anywhere but in circles at the rate he was wandering. To a boy who took the same route home, the same route to school and training, who passed by the same neighborhoods filled with the same 'right sort of people' - the maze of tunnels that criss-crossed the underground of District One was overwhelming and disconcerting.
He hated the filth and chaos they stood for, a symbol of the ne'er-do-wells in the district, of the areas that the Lumieres could not control. He's old enough to remember the shock waves the disgrace had ripped through his family when he'd stepped up in the 74th, or his older cousin Atlas, a promising nascent legacy struck down by some wench from Ten. They had nothing, in districts like Ten, living their miserable lives in the mud with cows and whatnot, and his cousin had everything - had the Lumiere name, and all the training of the Academy behind him.
It had started as a dare. Live a little, Alvis, the older boys had told him. Or do you just have that stick up your ass all the time? He couldn't, he'd wanted to say back to them, not to boys who didn't understand what it meant to hold a legacy on his shoulders, what it meant to be a point of pride for his family when that bastard branch threatened to drag it down. He couldn't tell them that he had to be the quiet, responsible one, when his sister just a year younger went frolicking about like a child without a care in the world, and it took all he had to set himself apart from such an unbecoming display.
But instead he'd accepted, because - it got awfully lonely, feeling like he was holding up that weight all by himself, the words we're Lumieres, we're the Capitol's darlings, we aren't supposed to care what commoners like you think floating to the front of his mind. But of course those words were right. Of course, just as his parents had told him, he would regret straying from his path as soon as he stepped off.
They can only threaten what we have if you let them get the better of you, Alvis. He hadn't taken more than a few steps down that ladder when the heavy lid above him slammed shut, and he had only the small circle of light from his flashlight as illumination. He'd banged on it, at first, until his hands grew sore, only to be greeted by the sound of muffled laughter above him. And then the voices had vanished, and he was left in the catacombs, alone, with only the boundless darkness before him.
His siblings would not come, to rescue him. His friends - if he could call them that; we do not make friends, only allies - would not come. He was completely and utterly alone in the darkness, in the district's forbidden underbelly that he would have preferred not to exist. He mustn't be scared, he thinks as he walks, mustn't imagine himself wasting away to a skeleton in some ignominious corner of these catacombs, as forgotten and unremarkable as some drunkard dying in the streets. No, there had to be a way out, had to be somewhere -
And, in the distance, he sees it. The dim light but a pinprick in the distance - light was salvation, he'd never before felt those words so deeply, even after all he'd been taught of how he was to be the light, how their family name meant light because they were to be the purest and most loyal of the district. And he draws closer to that light, to the flickers that dance and shimmer across the aerugo on the old brass pipes, until their voices become audible above the hissing of steam and the squelching footsteps of his own boots against the dirt-packed tunnel floor.
Flashlight held before him in a poor imitation of the swords he'd handled in the training center, he steps forward into - a cozy room. The inhabitants had evidently tried to make the best of the little they had; even he had to admit they'd done a good job keeping the place clean and setting up fragrances to keep out the smell. Or maybe he'd started to grow used to walking around in filthy catacombs. That was a disturbing thought.
All around the room he sees books, and suitcases, and people reading in hushed voices from the yellowed pages of some mysterious canon. They're like a family, he thinks briefly before another, more pressing, thought takes over: the Capitol wouldn't like this. They're not supposed to be here - only Avoxes are supposed to be in these tunnels, for maintenance.
"Who are you?" he demands, then immediately wishes he'd kept his mouth shut. Rebels or otherwise, he needed these people, to hopefully show him a way out of this place.
Well. If he could manage to find his way out in the first place. He was pretty sure he'd passed by the pipe with "Fuck the Capitol" stylized in graffiti three times already, and he didn't seem to be going anywhere but in circles at the rate he was wandering. To a boy who took the same route home, the same route to school and training, who passed by the same neighborhoods filled with the same 'right sort of people' - the maze of tunnels that criss-crossed the underground of District One was overwhelming and disconcerting.
He hated the filth and chaos they stood for, a symbol of the ne'er-do-wells in the district, of the areas that the Lumieres could not control. He's old enough to remember the shock waves the disgrace had ripped through his family when he'd stepped up in the 74th, or his older cousin Atlas, a promising nascent legacy struck down by some wench from Ten. They had nothing, in districts like Ten, living their miserable lives in the mud with cows and whatnot, and his cousin had everything - had the Lumiere name, and all the training of the Academy behind him.
It had started as a dare. Live a little, Alvis, the older boys had told him. Or do you just have that stick up your ass all the time? He couldn't, he'd wanted to say back to them, not to boys who didn't understand what it meant to hold a legacy on his shoulders, what it meant to be a point of pride for his family when that bastard branch threatened to drag it down. He couldn't tell them that he had to be the quiet, responsible one, when his sister just a year younger went frolicking about like a child without a care in the world, and it took all he had to set himself apart from such an unbecoming display.
But instead he'd accepted, because - it got awfully lonely, feeling like he was holding up that weight all by himself, the words we're Lumieres, we're the Capitol's darlings, we aren't supposed to care what commoners like you think floating to the front of his mind. But of course those words were right. Of course, just as his parents had told him, he would regret straying from his path as soon as he stepped off.
They can only threaten what we have if you let them get the better of you, Alvis. He hadn't taken more than a few steps down that ladder when the heavy lid above him slammed shut, and he had only the small circle of light from his flashlight as illumination. He'd banged on it, at first, until his hands grew sore, only to be greeted by the sound of muffled laughter above him. And then the voices had vanished, and he was left in the catacombs, alone, with only the boundless darkness before him.
His siblings would not come, to rescue him. His friends - if he could call them that; we do not make friends, only allies - would not come. He was completely and utterly alone in the darkness, in the district's forbidden underbelly that he would have preferred not to exist. He mustn't be scared, he thinks as he walks, mustn't imagine himself wasting away to a skeleton in some ignominious corner of these catacombs, as forgotten and unremarkable as some drunkard dying in the streets. No, there had to be a way out, had to be somewhere -
And, in the distance, he sees it. The dim light but a pinprick in the distance - light was salvation, he'd never before felt those words so deeply, even after all he'd been taught of how he was to be the light, how their family name meant light because they were to be the purest and most loyal of the district. And he draws closer to that light, to the flickers that dance and shimmer across the aerugo on the old brass pipes, until their voices become audible above the hissing of steam and the squelching footsteps of his own boots against the dirt-packed tunnel floor.
Flashlight held before him in a poor imitation of the swords he'd handled in the training center, he steps forward into - a cozy room. The inhabitants had evidently tried to make the best of the little they had; even he had to admit they'd done a good job keeping the place clean and setting up fragrances to keep out the smell. Or maybe he'd started to grow used to walking around in filthy catacombs. That was a disturbing thought.
All around the room he sees books, and suitcases, and people reading in hushed voices from the yellowed pages of some mysterious canon. They're like a family, he thinks briefly before another, more pressing, thought takes over: the Capitol wouldn't like this. They're not supposed to be here - only Avoxes are supposed to be in these tunnels, for maintenance.
"Who are you?" he demands, then immediately wishes he'd kept his mouth shut. Rebels or otherwise, he needed these people, to hopefully show him a way out of this place.
