when you were young; kopal

charade
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Thinking

when you were young; kopal Jun 2, 2020 3:07:55 GMT -5

Post by charade on Jun 2, 2020 3:07:55 GMT -5

k a t e l y n .

I've been awake in every state line
Dyin' to make it last us a lifetime
Tryin' to shake that it's all on an incline
Find me a way, I'll be yours in a landslide

It was getting late, the night air was cooling down from the day. Katelyn had asked Opal to meet her at a karaoke bar. She hoped she looked alright. Generally, she preferred to keep it simple. But she’d done her hair differently, and after agonizing about for half an hour she’d decided to wear heels with her little black dress. The slits on the thighs might have been a tad too much, but it was too late to change now. The train ride snaked its way back into her head, but she ignored it, shoving Cyro and Arabella out of her mind. Fairy tales and orphans could wait. This was her night.

And when Opal approached her seat at the bar, looking like the angel of her dreams, her heartbeat was louder in her ears than a dozen Capitol canons. “You look stunning,” she said as she got up, her eyes drifting across Opal with awe and a hint of desire. She cleared her throat before continuing. “Opal, I—I wanted to apologize about earlier today. I shouldn’t have dropped all of that on you, especially when it’s been so long,” she said a look of worry crossing her face for a moment. “I’m not— “she bit her lower lip. “I’m new at this. I’ve never— nobody’s ever asked me what I want. It’s always what I can do. How I can help them.”

Not that she minded. Helping others was second nature to her. But the older she got, the more she started to wonder when she would that time for herself; and the more she knew she would have to make it. The music she’d requested earlier started to play and she glanced up at the ceiling, saying a silent prayer to whoever was listening.

“Do you recognize it?” she said hopefully. It was the song they had danced to a decade ago, when Opal had consoled her after the show. One of the last good things that had happened to her before everything had gone wrong. Before the weight of the world had crushed her. Before she’d spent years picking up the pieces and putting them back together as best she could.

“But I know what I want Opal,” she said, taking her by the hand and leading her out to the dance floor. “It’s you.” And it was true. The last ten years might have been very different if she’d been a little selfish. If she’d put herself first instead of the Capitol’s whims. If she’d focused on the present instead of a dozen potential hells for the Rhodes and the Miristiomas. If she’d watched her tongue and hadn’t played with rebel fire just because she had known there were people counting on her.

If she’d returned that kiss goodnight.

“It’s always been you,” she whispered in Opal’s ear, nipping it gently as she thought about the reaction it had gotten last time. Her lips trailed, planting soft kisses on Opal’s earlobe, cheek and lips as she started to sway to the music. Katelyn had given so much of herself to everyone over the years; and she knew that before the quell was over, she would open her heart and hold out her hands to anyone that needed to be lifted up.

But for at least one night before the quell, she could be selfish. She could be happy.

“And I want tonight to be about us.”

16 Jul 12, 23:43
GB: I bet you just sit at your computer with a tea cup and a monocle

cass
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when you were young; kopal Jun 2, 2020 6:51:08 GMT -5

Post by cass on Jun 2, 2020 6:51:08 GMT -5

o p a l .

We don't have to hide our love away and
Both of us are gonna make mistakes 'cause
Leaning on somebody's never easy
But look at me and tell me you don't see, oh

She was practically walking on clouds as she headed into the city. She’d chosen one of her nicest dresses with help from Sardonyx. They’d spent an hour agonizing over the different styles, throwing back comments at one another on Opal’s preferred style against what Sardonyx loved. She was sure if she had left the entire decision up to Sardonyx, she’d be in a skin-tight dress with a slit running all the way up to her hip, heels that were longer then her arms and more jewelry then she had ever seen in her life.

Instead, they’d gone with a simple light blue dress, the sleeves were made from lace and they reached her fingers. She wore gentle heels that added some height but still made it easy for her to walk. She’d allowed Sardonyx to put on her makeup and her lips were a stark red that she had been uncertain about. But, by the time she’d glanced down at her watch she’d realised she was running late, so she’d grabbed her coat, stumbling to the door waving Sardonyx a quick goodbye. So, the red lips had stayed.

Her hair had a slight wave to it, and she tossed it over one shoulder as she made her way into the Karaoke bar. Katelyn looked amazing, and Opal had to stop herself from gasping in awe at the woman that stood up to greet her. The dress was tight and black and Opal found her gaze hungrily looking over Katelyn figure, all the way down to the slits in the sides and the heels she wore. She had never seen Katelyn wear a dress like this, or heels even and to her surprise, Katelyn had done her hair differently.

She looked amazing and Opal’s heart jumped in her chest. She loved this woman.

Katelyn began with an apology and Opal’s smile dropped as she found herself focusing on every word Katelyn said, instead of her body. By the time Katelyn finished peaking Opal had reached forward, grabbing her arm and holding onto it tightly. She shook her head, grinning at her girlfriend. “We’re both finding our feet here, and we’re both going to make mistakes. But you know what,” she leaned forward, placing a gentle kiss on Katelyn’s cheek, “you can lean on me, I’ve got you. You can tell me anything you want, okay?”

The mood shifted almost instantly, the music shifting and Opal raised a freshly plucked eyebrow as the tune wrapped itself around them. The beat was familiar, dragging her back to the first night she had danced with Katelyn in a bar. She had held onto her, looking into Katelyn’s eyes trying her best to hide the love that filled her heart. This time was different, this time Katelyn was pulling her by the hand, this time Katelyn’s eyes looked at her the same way Opal’s did.

“But I know what I want, Opal. It’s you.”

The worlds disappeared, and she’s looking into Katelyn’s eyes as the music mingled around them. The sound of her heart beating inside her chest is in her ears, and she can feel each thud, she can feel Katelyn’s hands against her skin. It’s warm, it’s safe, it’s home. The last time she had loved like this it had been for her husband and she was ready, she was ready to give her heart away, she was ready for all the good and bad that came with it.

Moments later she’s dragged back to reality as Katelyn nibbled at her ear, and she found herself leaning into her girlfriend, goosebumps littering her skin as she bit on her lip to stop herself from moaning. Katelyn’s lips are leaving fiery trails all the way down her ear, cheeks, and lips as they sway to the music. Her legs felt weak, and she wished she hadn’t worn heels, walking like this would be even more challenging.

"I'm ready," she said, eyes twinkling, her smile bright, full of life, "to spend my life dancing with you, to hold you when I go to bed at night, to take care of you." Was it too much? Too soon? She'd never been good at holding back, but she had held onto these words for twelve years and she was bursting, breaking to let them be heard, for them to be felt.

Opal had to tilt her head up to look into Katelyn’s eyes, but it didn’t stop her from wrapping her arms around her neck and pulling her down into a kiss. She pressed her lips against Katelyn’s, feeling the way it made her chest tighten and her body feel alive. She loved the way Katelyn’s dress felt under her hands, the way her hair smelled, the warmth of her mouth against her own.

Pulling back after a long moment, she stared into those blue eyes. She was happy, she was giving herself to the right person. Katelyn was so incredibly strong, she was brave, kind, gentle, smart, and a thousand other things. They deserved this, they deserved this time together, they both had fought so hard and bled so much and suffered. She didn’t want to suffer anymore. Opal’s heart was in her hands.

“I love you, Katelyn.”

And she gave it away.

charade
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Thinking

when you were young; kopal Jun 3, 2020 19:05:19 GMT -5

Post by charade on Jun 3, 2020 19:05:19 GMT -5

k a t e l y n .

I've been awake in every state line
Dyin' to make it last us a lifetime
Tryin' to shake that it's all on an incline
Find me a way, I'll be yours in a landslide

This was real, she thought as she was pulled downwards into a kiss. It was really happening.There were many events in her life that had been of her control, leaving her to bear the consequences as best she could. It was no crime, feeling weighed down by it. But through it all she’d developed a heart of iron. Wrapped herself in ice. For so long she’d been so afraid to let someone in. Afraid of what might happen.

She’d thrown herself into the role of mentor from day one, feeling as though her entire district was counting on her. But it had been a defense mechanism too, for the more time she spent focused on trying to save Kirito, the less time she’d had to think about the arena and what had happened in it.

That first year, she’d been prepared for failure, for Kirito to die. Because she’d thought her victory a fluke. Sixteen years ago, everybody knew that eleven didn’t win games. Eleven didn’t have victors. She’d been ready for the cold to envelop her; at the age of eighteen, she’d resigned herself to being alone, and laying tributes to rest next to Levi for a long time.

Kirito had saved her in more ways than one, even as she had saved him.

Harbinger too.

Though after him, she’d grown too confident. Starting believing the things they said about her. Golden hair, golden touch. However, nothing that good could last forever. Iain’s reaping and subsequent death was a hard slap in the face. The bacherlorette a cold shower, a reminder that she was Capitol property. She’d worried some important people back then, constantly stepping outside the lines of the narrative they were crafting for her.

Something had to give, and it had been her. Those years of pain in the detention center, in the Capitol, were years she could never get back. They were lost to her, but without them she wouldn’t be who she had become. Sometimes she wondered what her life would have been like if someone else’s name had been called that day. Would she still have opened a bakery? Would she have befriended Vasco Izar?

No, no she wouldn’t have. Nor would she have been there for people like Annie and Nico when they needed a shoulder. Kirito, Harbinger and Kassandra could very well be moldering in the tribute graveyard. Opal would be somewhere else, with someone else and she wouldn’t have the faintest idea who she was. It was worth it in the end, all of the dark days and the lonely nights. The stress and the anxiety. The paranoia. The scars. It was worth it because through all that, there were lives she had touched. Lives she had changed. She was a better person for it.

And Opal, dearest, sweetest Opal, had cut through the fog, made her focus.

The past couldn’t be changed, but the future was still unwritten.

Miracles could happen. They could happen to someone like her, someone who tried and tried and rarely got anything for her trouble. Someone who hadn’t set out to become strong, but had been forged into such a person anyway. At last, there was someone she could be weak with. Be vulnerable with. The ice could melt, she could take off the armor she’d crafted to protect herself from a cruel and uncaring world. Katelyn’s free hand drifted down to the small of Opal’s back and she held her closer, tighter.

“You really do mean that, don’t you.” she murmured, looking down into Opal’s eyes. They shimmered, and she could drown in them, get lost in them. The light in them made her cheeks blush., made her heart beat just a little faster. Opal Shore. Opal Earnest. Victor. Mother. Widow. One of the kindest hearts that Katelyn had ever met. She was amazing. She too had suffered, had lost herself. But despite all the cracks, she was still strong. She had never lost that spark of kindness.

They were broken, but together they were complete.

“You were always there, just waiting for me.” The hand she wasn’t keeping on Opal’s back moved to her chin, gently tilting the short victor’s face up and keeping it there. She was intoxicating, and Katelyn found that she couldn’t keep her hands off her.

“I don’t think you understand how special you are to me,” she said softly, her eyes filling with wonder, love and something that she couldn’t quite explain. The hand on Opal’s back traveled lower and pinched her gently. “I’ll have to show you.” she whispered, her eyebrow raising playfully.

If Opal intended to give her heart, Katelyn would hold it next to hers.

16 Jul 12, 23:43
GB: I bet you just sit at your computer with a tea cup and a monocle

cass
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when you were young; kopal Jun 5, 2020 1:49:49 GMT -5

Post by cass on Jun 5, 2020 1:49:49 GMT -5

o p a l .

We don't have to hide our love away and
Both of us are gonna make mistakes 'cause
Leaning on somebody's never easy
But look at me and tell me you don't see, oh

It seemed that the threats the Capitol ha given her had become a double-edged sword that cut both ways. They were determined to make her into a role-model, an image of perfection that would bring back more and more career Victors. But here she was again, her life entangled in another district Eleven, her heart given away to them once more. A smile lingered on her lips, and at times, back in district one she’d found herself chuckling along with the story she’d built for herself. She looked like a person enthralled with the district.

The reality of life was slowly sinking in, burying itself further and further into her mind, soul, and body. This new way of living was something she would have never been able to anticipate. She had assumed many years ago that Katelyn had moved on with her life, she had believed that she had no longer wanted Opal in her life and that she had pushed too hard to be a figure around her. There had been moments when she had truly believed Katelyn had figured it out, that Opal had been in love with her, and so she had stopped responding as her way of saying she wasn’t interested.

There was no way she could have expected the reality behind the silence between them. Over the past year, the guilt had gnawed its way into her stomach and she had vainly tried to shove it out of her mind and let it go. It was an impossible task to not want to think about how she could have stopped Katelyn from being tortured. If she had paid more attention, tried harder to reach her, then maybe she could have prevented it. The feel of Katelyn’s handing moving down her back dragged her back to reality. She blinked, trying to clear her mind and remind herself to be present in this moment.

“You were always there, just waiting for me.”

That wasn’t true.

Opal’s smile seemed to fade, lost in the moment as she thought about what Katelyn had just said. There was truth to the statement, she had watched and waited and been there for years, but she had also disappeared. Did that time not outway the few years she had aided Katelyn? She didn’t know, and it seemed that Katelyn didn’t mind, instead, she seemed to reflect on that time with more importance. But it felt like a gaping wound, to Opal, where the apologies she had said were not enough to mend ten years.

She supposed that she would just have to spend the rest of her life making up for it. If that meant spending all that time with Katelyn, and making every single day for her better, then Opal could do that.

“I don’t think you understand how special you are to me,” and Katelyn’s hand was moving further down her back, and suddenly the only thing on Opal’s mind was the way that it made her body react. Her own hand tightened on Katelyn, gripping her as she found herself biting her lip in response to the touch. The last person she had touched had been Elya, that had been fuelled by lust and desire with no hint of love or even kindness, just a need that had to be fulfilled. This left her body aching for more, her body craving Katelyn’s body and a want to feel them pressed together.

“Oh,” she breathed out the word, finding her cheeks burning as she thought about what that could possibly mean. “Please do tell me how you intend to show me how special I am,” she raised an eyebrow, giving Katelyn a cheeky grin as she leaned in until there was no space between their bodies. “Do we need to find a less populated place?”

charade
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Thinking

when you were young; kopal Jun 7, 2020 1:40:04 GMT -5

Post by charade on Jun 7, 2020 1:40:04 GMT -5

k a t e l y n .

I've been awake in every state line
Dyin' to make it last us a lifetime
Tryin' to shake that it's all on an incline
Find me a way, I'll be yours in a landslide

If someone had told her years ago that she was going to fall for a career from one, she would have told them they were crazy. Then again, if they had told her a fraction of the stuff she’d go through over the last decade she wouldn’t have believed any of it. The saying went that some people were born great, some achieved it, and others had it thrust upon them. Katelyn was still unsure whether she was in the second or third category, but she was leaning towards the third. She hadn’t asked for any of this. She hadn’t wanted it. She’d refused the game makers icy throne and had cracked it instead.

She hadn’t played ball with the various roles they’d attempted to make her play over the years, and she had suffered for it. She had suffered greatly, but while it had cost her time, people and experiences, she’d stayed true to herself. True, she was older now, but wiser. There were truths about herself that she had accepted. She was idealistic to a fault. Expected too much. She had too much heart, and it was often her downfall. There were times where she didn’t quite have a handle on her emotions. But she was not alone. She never had been; she’d only been too afraid to lean on someone else. It was hard when you were used to being the shoulder.

There was another truth too; Katelyn Persimmon bowed to no man. Not game-maker or politician. Certainly not a peacekeeper with teeth that were too white and too straight. Being forced to bend the knee was not the same as choosing to. But the past could heal. The fire could be relit. The passion could back; she could be remade without losing who she had been. She would build herself up on the wreckage of her past, ignite the ashes and be reborn.

That—

That was how Opal made her feel. Like anything was possible. The two of them pressed together on the dance floor made her feel safe. Put an energy in her chest that she needed to release. Whatever Opal was using in her hair smelled like springtime and sunbeams. It was irresistible. She wanted more of her, and that want was quickly becoming a need. They were in a rather public place and it was getting more and more difficult for Katelyn to keep her hands to herself.

“You’re cute when you’re like this,” she said with a purr, tapping Opal’s nose with her finger before slowly dragging it down to her lips in a shushing motion. Katelyn’s eyes smoldered as she pulled Opal’s bottom lip down with the tip of her finger.“But tell you what I plan to do?” Katelyn chuckled huskily under her breath. “Now where’s the fun in that?" She dropped her arms down and wrapped them around Opal's waist.“I believe the boys had plans tonight. We could head back to the center and up to floor eleven?”

It wasn’t a question, not really. More of a suggestion.

Last Edit: Jun 7, 2020 1:41:03 GMT -5 by charade

16 Jul 12, 23:43
GB: I bet you just sit at your computer with a tea cup and a monocle

cass
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when you were young; kopal Jun 8, 2020 23:25:32 GMT -5

Post by cass on Jun 8, 2020 23:25:32 GMT -5

o p a l .

We don't have to hide our love away and
Both of us are gonna make mistakes 'cause
Leaning on somebody's never easy
But look at me and tell me you don't see, oh

Her heart seemed to thump a little more loudly in her chest, she could feel the way it ricocheted off her ribs, the way it felt like it was getting bigger and bigger with every pump. Katelyn was like magic, weaving a spell over Opal as she gazed down and into her eyes.

This was different, so very different from the feelings she had held within her when she had been with Potato. An explosion of needs filled and met within a week, dreams strung up like chimes in a raging storm. Cut down, one by one as the rain pelted her house made of hope until it was gone. And then, she was alone, sitting in the pouring rain, the shattered remains of a white picket fence, and the images of smiling faces melted into the dirt.

This time there was a peacefulness to the story she envisioned, where she had climbed to the other side of the mountain, past all the terrible things that had happened. It was soft plains, and gentle slopes, where the cool breeze toyed with the grass. The house wasn’t the same, it was a small cottage with smoke trailing from the chimney, there were no fences, instead, patches of dirt with beautiful fruits and vegetables growing. It was an image beyond what she had dreamed of, where the gentle smell of pine and spring filled the air. There was no fear, or worry, and her heart felt so light and free.

Instead of an image entangled with death, here she was, wrapped in the arms of the living. Within the few days between this year and last year, she had already spent more time with Katelyn then she had been given with Potato. It was no wonder she felt different, she was so much older now, she had lived through so much in her life. As she gripped onto Katelyn, just a little bit tighter, she made a promise to herself. Opal would never let this one go, she’d try her best to make Katelyn the happiest woman in the world, to give her all the goodness she deserved.

It was a promise she knew she could keep.

The offer Katelyn made felt so right, and she found her stomach tightening with anticipation and nervousness as she untangled herself to grab onto Katelyn’s hand. The last time she had spent the night with someone had been a drunken mess a few years after Potato’s death. Since then, she had not shared her bed with anyone, her heart to lost and confused to bear the meaning of those desires. There hadn’t been anyone to share it with, lost in the meaning behind the action of sleeping with someone. The meaning behind this was everything she had wanted and her gaze softened with fondness as she looked at Katelyn.

“Well, that sounds like an offer that is impossible to refuse,” she replied, followed with a wink. Entwining her fingers with her girlfriends, she tugged her along and towards the exit of the karaoke bar. Opal couldn’t stop the gentle smile that spread across her lips, as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked away from Katelyn.

Love was a wonderful thing.

[ end of thread ]