i'll crawl home to her // flight + luna
May 31, 2019 14:06:47 GMT -5
Post by sadniss everdeen on May 31, 2019 14:06:47 GMT -5
when my time comes around
lay me gently in the cold dark earth
lay me gently in the cold dark earth
Flight knew she was close to Two when the air changed.
She had lost track of the weeks as she walked. The Open Forest smelled like Nine did before the factories: fresh, the breath of spring and summer gentle on the skin, carrying with it new growth and new rain. Her shoes were worn down and her clothes became threadbare, hanging from her as the months (years?) dragged on. She was thinner, now. Mostly bone and wiry muscle. Everything she’d regained after the Detention Center gone in the wind.
It wasn’t that she regretted it. Flight knew her story with Kaya wasn’t done, not yet. Too many loose ends and dangling threads, frayed heartstrings, a wound bound shut but never healing. It would only continue to fester so long as she left it unattended… so she left when Kaya asked. What else was there? Luna was taken, snatched in the night, and that Crocetti bitch spat out between trembling lips that she was in “one of the lesser districts”. Better than pacing the alleys late at night, hoping for a glimpse of black hair. Hearing a peal of laughter on the wind… dreaming of stars she could never hold. Thinking, for one treacherous moment, that Luna left her the way Kaya did.
One balmy day in autumn, Flight and Kaya crossed the gate and didn’t look back. She left a note, sealed with a kiss, in Luna’s favourite coat.
She’d crossed rivers and climbed mountains, seen the great forests that stretched on forever, sunk her bare feet into the rich earth of the valleys that ran across these lands like a scar. There was so much beyond the fence, a world reborn in splendor after sorrow. Flight had seen these places once before: burnt and blistering, Luna’s body splinting hers as they limped through the wilderness. Without her, it was just as hard to appreciate them now.
Other things kept her attention too far from her pain. Flight carried Kaya’s brother all the way to Six and then carried Kaya’s grief when he died. It was like a weight, a stone in the depths of her, but she shouldered it so the girl she used to love didn’t have to.
She spent a year in Six. It got cold there like it did in Nine; Flight forgot the fire that burned her and remembered the frost. She found them shelter and security, scoured for food when Kaya couldn’t even get out of bed. Flight wove her threads throughout the District into a net for Kaya to fall into when she left. It felt familiar in a forbidden way, the life they were supposed to have before her wife threw it away.
Those thoughts always left a bad taste in her mouth.
Flight plucked old contacts. The lines in Nine relit, she whispered down the chains and waited for answers. Nothing. She climbed the fence a few times, crossing into old haunting grounds, gaunt and slender as a wraith. Manufacturing had eaten up the lands and made it a shadow of its former self. They had that in common.
No Luna.
Flight never stopped looking. Not as Kaya got better, not as the trees regained their leaves, and not as more Districts turned up empty. She visited Three only briefly – too advanced to be considered lesser, and too reliant on lower Districts for grunt work. Thirteen was a crater, a smoking ruin she’d heard about only in passing… but the ships from the Capitol came too frequently for her liking. Flight left it alone.
Twelve was… well. Terrible was the first word that came to mind. She thought Nine was bad – it was (is), don’t mistake her – but there was a special word for the despair that radiated through that place. She could keep looking forever through the rickety shacks and abandoned coal mines, deep into the thick forests, never to come out. It made her skin itch. Her nights at dozens of taverns spawned the same ghost stories about whatever things lived in those woods.
She always came back to Kaya eventually, empty-handed and empty-hearted. Flight tried to spend as little time in Twelve as she could, but abuse was so commonplace she had to keep looking. She combed the District up and down in a summer, gone days at a time, winding her way through seedy backalleys and coal-miner cadres, dressed in a helmet and overalls and shirking the light.
And then, the plague came.
Maybe she caught it in Twelve. Maybe it was Kaya’s brother, incubated in her for months on end after he died. Maybe it wasn’t any of these things, a simple hand of fate, a happenstance of being so close to Nine and the sickness not too far from recent memory. Either way, it struck Flight down like a hammer.
Kaya was good about it, but she was still hurting. Still mourning. Flight did what she could to help herself. Hid the fever-sweats, blamed the exhaustion on malnourishment… but it was too strong to fight alone. Flight got into bed one day and didn’t get up for two weeks; Kaya noticed after that.
And then, one day in spring, Flight gathered her things. She’d spent the winter like a corpse, ashen-pale and sunken. She held herself together through sheer force of will – she’d tasted the grave, once or twice, mired in a deep-dark dream. Heard its call. Longed to give up her burdens, to lay them down and shed this shivering body.
But she didn’t, because she’d promised Luna they’d see each other again. She couldn’t go back on that.
So she put on her shoes and filled her pack and said goodbye to Kaya for the last time. Flight wasn’t healed yet, not even close, but couldn’t stand another day in an unfamiliar district with a life that had left her behind. Kaya tried to convince her not to go, of course, but Flight only sighed and kissed the side of her head.
They held each other in the doorway of Kaya’s new home for a long few minutes.
I’m sorry, Kaya said, soft and muffled, for everything.
Flight smiled. Me too.
She took the long way back to Two. Wasn’t sure how big Panem was, exactly, but saw more of it than most people even knew existed. Back through Twelve and Eight and Eleven, down deep into the reaches of Ten where the heat blanketed the world like a weight. She met ranchers and farmers and weavers, simple people with complex problems. Strange plants with prickly leaves, more sand and stone than anywhere else in the world, and the bottom of a fence that marked the end of Panem.
And the sea, its glittering bulk like a velvet rug of crushed jewels that stretched on forever. Flight camped on the beach for a week and dug her toes into the soft sand - the water was warmer than she’d anticipated. It whispered to her at night, soft like the voices she used to hear.
She spent the winter here, still hot in the bitterest months. Flight wasn’t sure she’d survive another frost.
Eventually she had to move on. Up through Five and then Four, adept now at melting into the Open Forest and finding her way through gaps in the fences. She worked for a week at a time on the oil rigs, canvassing for any hint of her starry-eyed girl, but always came up empty. Four was salt-stained and wind-weathered, most lifelong sailors that laughed at her clumsy handling of the ropes and sails.
They taught her, though. Everywhere she went, the people were kind and patient, and kept their questions to themselves. Mostly.
She had fish for the first time, miles out on the ocean. She could’ve cried.
Seven was her last stop. Birdsong reappeared as the leaves did and Flight, too, began to unfurl – little by little, shedding her pain like old skin and leaving her raw. This District reminded her most of how she remembered Nine; wild and green, towering trees and unruly bushes. Her foraging skills had only gotten better during her wandering, and she feasted on blueberries and roots and the odd bird who found its way into her snares.
Flight healed the most here. Slept in the boughs and sloughed the fever that had clung to her like a cloak. The cough stayed; a nasty, rattling thing, but she could run again without losing her breath.
Her hair grew as the seasons changed. It was as long as it used to be before the fire, now. Hid her scars. She still couldn’t recognize herself. Didn’t know if she ever would again – this skin wasn’t the same angry teenager that left Nine. It was beaten, weathered, criss-crossed with maps only she could read. It held the marks of each District she’d crossed, inked into her skin and expanded with each new fence that she climbed. It marked her journey, starting from her wrist and winding its way up to her shoulder. Each piece had its own story to tell.
Now, though. Now the air tasted like metal and soot and she could hear the distant drills in the wind. The forest bended, thinned out and gave way to the familiar towering fences with outposts every few hundred meters. A big, blocky sign out in the distance just barely caught her eye: District Two.
It was always harder to slip in to Two. The Peacekeeper presence meant more chance for error, more guards and more guns. But… Flight’s been gone two years, and she’d learned patience in the time she’d wandered. She waited in the shadows for an hour, two, three. Held her breath as the patrols came across. The hole she’d cut into the fence on her first trip had been mended, but was no better protected, and all it took was a few well-placed snips for her to slip through and make it into the other side.
Coming back was always… odd. Little had changed but it felt so different. In reality, it was Flight who changed, a metamorphosis that left her feeling uneasy in familiar surroundings. She took the path into town, through the backalleys, and into the bar where she’d gotten most of her contracts. A few regulars nodded; most paid her no mind. They probably thought she’d died.
She did for a bit, too.
Long time no see, said the barkeep, sliding her an ale. She smiled, her bony fingers wrapping around the mug. You look like hell.
Good to see you too, she snorted. After months of the quiet forest, the din was deafening.
Did you find what you were lookin’ for?
No, Flight said, picking at the splintered wood with her nail. I didn’t.
He sighed. Shame. Your girl never stopped waiting for you.
My— Flight stopped, drink halfway to her mouth. Luna?
Aye. Made quite a name for herself here… saved my boy from the pox.
She’s—she’s here?
He leant forward. You didn’t hear it from me, but she’s staying with the Crocetti turncoat. Don’t know what they’re up to, but it’s where we went when we needed her care.
Flight put a few coins on the table and fled like fire licked her heels. She didn’t notice anything else – not the bustle of the midnight crowd, not the roaming Peacekeepers, not even the wheeze of her own breath. Just the thump-thump of her heart and the physical tug in her chest, reeling her in.
The house was dark. Quiet. Candlelight lit up a few wayward rooms, but most had gone to sleep. Flight held her breath and tried the back door – locked. She frowned and dug out her dusty lockpicking set, trying the tumblers with fingers that hadn’t forgotten the delicate dance. Click, click, push. Click, pull. Click—creak as the door swung open. She slipped inside and shut it behind her.
Only shadows were visible here. She was in some sort of kitchen, the glint of pans and the odd chair catching the moonlight from outside. Flight moved slowly, deliberately, pushing past the anxiety and testing each floorboard before she put her weight on it. She crept up the stairs by the side, bracing against the wall to creep past those that would squeak and give her away.
Once upstairs, she methodically tried every door. Put her ear up to listen, checked underneath for light, and then opened it ever so slightly. Most were empty, or quiet, with strangers sleeping in their beds. There were more people here than she expected. What had Luna wrapped herself in?
One door was slightly ajar. Candlelight spilled out onto the hallway floor like gold water. Flight tried it gingerly, holding her breath, and winced as it creaked.
A figure sat facing a desk, hunched over and scribbling. Medical supplies littered the room, spilling out of various boxes. Notes lined the walls. A few thick, dense-looking books lay scattered on the floor and tables, a particularly large one on the occupied desk. By the gentle firelight, Flight caught a glimpse of long, dark hair and slender wrists.
As the person sat back, a blue glint caught at their throat. A half-crescent moon. The pendant winked back at Flight, knowing, refracting the light and making it burn.
Flight swallowed. "Luna?"
no grave can hold my body down
i'll crawl home to her
i'll crawl home to her
