luke collins / d7 / resub (fin)

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.
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luke collins / d7 / resub (fin) Jan 1, 2020 13:00:50 GMT -5

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Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Jan 1, 2020 13:00:50 GMT -5

LUKE COLLINS

district seven
eighteen
wooden soldier

“ i kept being alive
when i should have been burning:
i was joan, i was lazarus. ”

— louise gluck; the seven ages, saint joan.

Last Edit: Jan 11, 2020 12:42:10 GMT -5 by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.

堕落天使

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.
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luke collins / d7 / resub (fin) Jan 2, 2020 12:55:21 GMT -5

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Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Jan 2, 2020 12:55:21 GMT -5

He remembers the wooden soldiers.

Smooth, their dark skins were, exquisitely honed and shaped by his grandfather’s hands to life, the newness of them a stark contrast against the old and time-withered hands that’d fashioned them. They had a scabbard at their side, a sword sheathed in it, and even though they were wood, they seemed nearly alive as if at any given moment they would begin to creak and move, their wooden hearts awakening with a steadfast rhythm.

He remembers marveling at them.

“They’re the soldiers from the old days,” his grandfather smiled at him. “Who fought gallantly, who fought for their people, who gave rise to the age of heroes.” These sort of old tales were ones he’d grown up with—the magic and the yore of them always mesmerizing him. It wasn’t a mystery to how his grandfather knew them. Even though the man sat calmly on a rocking chair, every part of him flashed out sharply with curiosities: a constellation of scars on his arms, the crookedness to his jaw, the indentation in the skin upon his forever-closed eyelid. He told stories that only a veteran would know, stories he’d lived through.

“What happened to them?”

He remembers asking, bewildered.

A wooden soldier smiled at him.

“The thing that happens to soldiers,” his grandfather replied, “the war.”

He remembers the ache in his words.

Last Edit: Jan 2, 2020 12:58:44 GMT -5 by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.

堕落天使

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.
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luke collins / d7 / resub (fin) Jan 2, 2020 13:31:11 GMT -5

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Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Jan 2, 2020 13:31:11 GMT -5

One summer, his grandfather taught him how to whit. There was a rhythm to the way the blade glided across the wood, a cautious rhythm that, once broken, could very well make the blade scratch at your fingers. But, the danger was common and the nicks were welcomed, he was told. It was from the blade and the blood it shed, that a wooden sculpture was born from. That a wooden sculpture held a fragment of life, no matter how infinitesimal.

He would bring the crude sculptures he’d made to class and play them with during pastimes, waging wars, saving damsels from burning towers, asking for help from stone trolls. A dreamer he once was, content in his own world, the fantasies in his head as bright and as vast as a starry night sky.

He remembers the childish delight.

Then, he finished the soldier he’d been working on for months on end, his finest work yet—his grandfather said. It was one of the heroes in his grandfather’s stories, a friend who’d been his partner in the past. He had a sharp face that shone in the sculpture, all his jagged edges brought to life by the sharpness of the blade. He had his head tipped skyward and the ridge of his apple’s tree protruded beautifully from his throat.

He remembers the pride.

He played with him near the shade of a winter-barren tree when they came, a group of children, prowling like tigers in a way young bullies were renowned for. Individually, each child was envious of him, of his family’s blooming woodworking business, of his sleek looks and the way he always held his hand up first in class when a question was asked.

Collectively, the group was here to take a bite out of him.

“Looking at little soldier boy and his toys,” one snarled.

“Didn’t you ever grow up?”

But, the wooden soldiers never grew up.

“Did you make that with your grandpa?” one wrenched the soldier out of his hand, looked at it with disinterest, and then handed it to anyone.

He had risen to his feet now, reaching for the toy, teeth clenched so hard it could shatter but it did not shatter.

What did shatter, was the soldier.

He remembers the sound—
how hollow and tragically wood broke.

堕落天使

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.
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luke collins / d7 / resub (fin) Jan 11, 2020 12:40:06 GMT -5

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Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Jan 11, 2020 12:40:06 GMT -5

He stopped bringing his soldiers to school ever since that day.

He stopped whetting toys a month later, when his grandfather perished to old age.

Didn’t you ever grow up? He knew he needed to—because the world demanded it of him. Soft-boned dreamers couldn’t grow in a place where everything had teeth, where softness meant defenselessness and that meant weakness of character. He couldn’t be weak, not when he wanted to join the ranks of the wooden soldiers, not when he wanted to be someone another’s grandfather would carve into a wooden soldier.

He remembers the tenacity.

But then, that forsaken day came.

It began with a rotten bush of flowers he’d stumbled upon near the front of his house, the pungent smell and the grotesque look of it heralding a wrongness. He brushed it off, blamed it on how superstitious he’d become from heeding his grandfather’s other, wilder tales. Then, he cut open a scratch on his finger when he was whetting an axe-handle. The blood splattered on the ground like a watercolor drop.

He remembers the strangeness.

A quick flutter of eyelashes and in a sudden, he was pent amongst children his age, a scorching sun upon their backs, eyes cast towards the podium. The scratch on his finger ached. “Luke Collins!”

He remembers the haze.

It begun as quickly as it ended—his name called, and then another’s name said. Raven Sayer. A dark-haired boy that had marched to the stage and then, eventually, to his death. With tear and blood, Raven fought, the entire district cheering for him until his death at Stella’s blood-soaked hands. He was the first soldier he could had never been.

He remembers the burden in his heart—

coward, coward, coward.

Little soldier boy and his toys.

Little soldier boy.

Another year of scratches from whetting and woodwork, of leaves turning green and dust collecting on the shoulders of the wooden soldiers on his shelves and—

“Luke Collins!”

Angel De Costa—I volunteer.

He was the second soldier he could had never been.

堕落天使

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. Graphics 3,106 POSTS Pronouns: he/him last seen May 15, 2024 2:54:35 GMT -5	luke collins / d7 / resub (fin) Jan 11, 2020 12:41:52 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Jan 11, 2020 12:41:52 GMT -5 dars has dibs. ♡
	堕落天使

dars Administrator 7,715 POSTS last seen May 17, 2024 12:17:01 GMT -5 — 🥀 —	luke collins / d7 / resub (fin) Jan 11, 2020 13:05:13 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by dars on Jan 11, 2020 13:05:13 GMT -5 www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvdLovAaYzM king of misfit toys !!
	^{I AM A GARDEN OF BLACK AND RED AGONIES}