at the water's edge {Orion & Kit}

A cold compress of grey stains the skies of the sliver city. Behind their sheath of moisture and condensation, similar stars to the skies of home are hidden away. Most nights there is at least comfort in the face of familiarity, a lesser length between city and factory. Yet tonight is no such night. With the stars stinted by the shallow swirling clouds, Orion feels askew. The pattern which produced his place here is too central. The likely output of this equation too possible, too real. He flees from the frame of his silent staring. He flees from the reality of his mortality inching closer to its evolution of beat into canon fire.

The concrete corridors of the Capitol's sacrificial temple seem to stream on forever. Doors Orion has never seen phase past his fragmented vision, and still he does not look back. His footsteps simply keep falling, keep walking aimlessly while his mind is muddied with a million different theorems. A small spot of clouds and here he is staggering startled from a loss on congruency to his home. Could something as small as a loss of connection really stir this much delirium into his normally robotic internal infrastructure? 

Orion's feet follow through a door to the sound of water.

An indoor pool sits softly churning to the hum of its mechanized currents. A calm steadies the rattling inside of Orion's chest. In the smooth surface of the warmed water, there are shadows of memories. A little lake, or better said a large pond, rimmed with arching reeds sings songs of laughter. Young children swim and splash inside one of the District's only clean water wells. The thoughts bring a shallow smile into Orion's eyes, there is peace but it is interwoven with longing.

His toes tip gently into the water's cool caress.

For a moment, Orion settles into the near-silence, releases his feet into the will of the water. Inside the heart of Orion's head though, the numbers never quiet. Right now, as his body breathes and his eyes see shades of summers passed, his brain wanders through the algebraic avenues of adjusting the derivative of his own potential progression.

Orion spits a sigh out at himself before brushing his hands across the water's edge and then through the thicket of his hair. His back bends until he is staring up towards the flickering lights of the ceiling's electrical circuit. He lays in the moment with his feet floating and his hands behind his head, yet without an ounce of internal tranquility. Normally Adromeda would have him write it out or tell it to her slowly. She would help him piece together the puzzles his own mind makes for him. But right now, it feels like he is alone at the dining table staring at a thousand shards without even an idea of where to begin.

His eyes close.

He breathes in deeply.

His eyes open.

He is still staring at a thousand blank puzzle pieces.