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maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]
Head RP Tutor

4,677 POSTS

Pronouns: he/him
last seen Nov 1, 2024 16:42:16 GMT -5

oof

in a week || roommates day 1 leisure Oct 17, 2020 21:58:41 GMT -5

Quote

Post by maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte] on Oct 17, 2020 21:58:41 GMT -5

was i made from a broken mold?

It's funny how thoroughly fear eclipses shame. I'm wound through Lora's fingers, silver threading gold, and I chase her like dusk does the dawn. Frigid air seems to be burning me from the inside out, every breath urging on this inevitable avalanche. The cold coaxes tears into the corners of my eyes, her lips pressed gently against them so as to keep them from falling. Its cruel, but surprisingly gentle.

Every rational part of me knows I shouldn't be standing. I cannot feel my legs beneath me, even as they threaten to give out from the strain of this sprint. Adrenaline rushes are not so potent as I was let to believe. I'm being turned inside out, bleeding from a thousand cuts so that I may taste my own panic with every labored exhale.

I think I'm supposed to care that I've just made myself into a coward. In a single moment my crown has shattered and left me looking no different than the court jester. And I know better than most that it doesn't matter who I truly am beneath it all. There's so much to me that no one has ever seen, so much that no one ever will. And I know I'm supposed to care so much about that.

I don't know why I don't.

"Lora." I speak her name with blatant desperation, leaning into the way it grates against my throat. She needs to see me right now. She needs to know I've found my ending and that whatever sweet fantasy we thought we were chasing is a cause long lost. "Stop." I say while gripping her hand tighter, stumbling over my feet as the terrain turns a minty green from frost covered grass.

I regret every promise I ever made her. If I've learned anything about about Vallora Seth in the short time we've been together is that she is everything I've never been brave enough to be.

(A survivor, for one.)

It happens in an instant. Fate tears me away from her because it knows I'd never do it myself. I'm half-falling, half wrenching myself forward with unspent momentum. My stomach lurches into my throat and I think I scream as her hand is torn from mine. Day turns to evening as my head connects hard with the ground, stars swimming in my vision as I fight through a daze to find the source of the pain currently lancing up my side.

I'm sunk, knee deep in a fucking hole. Torn cloth and fresh blood congeal in the dirt and I laugh as I watch it drip, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes to obscure the exact moment they turn to broken sobs.

"Keep going." I don't look at her.

I'm not a martyr, I promise.

ALISTAIR GALE

[receives sponsorship and all that jazz]
[we'll pick up the knife too, as a treat]

Last Edit: Oct 17, 2020 22:03:28 GMT -5 by maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]

the m o o n controls the t i d e, it could cause you to d r o w n

brad bradford ★ d5b [arx]
Retired Staff

2,484 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Nov 4, 2024 18:47:44 GMT -5

literally so gay, doing so many crimes

in a week || roommates day 1 leisure Oct 17, 2020 23:29:29 GMT -5

Quote

Post by brad bradford ★ d5b [arx] on Oct 17, 2020 23:29:29 GMT -5

it's perfectly strange,
you run in my veins.

My hand went numb ages ago, knuckles whiter than the snow melting upon my cheeks as cling to Ali with all my might. I don't dare to even pause out of fear that if I turn to look at him I'll realize I'm not actually pulling him to safety, but falling with him towards-

No. I can't let my mind wander too far, not when this was never the plan to begin with. We were meant to stand atop a pile of treasures, hand in hand and victorious—a powerful duo from District 1 like no one had ever seen. But instead-

We're falling.

"Stop."

No.

I lose my balance, his fingers wrenching painfully from mine as I tumble across frosted dirt. Grass crunches beneath my weight, burns against my cheek as I suddenly find myself so exhausted that even lifting my head feels impossible. My breath billows in large clouds around me as my breathing slows, but all I can do is stare across the abyss we've dove into.

Ali is crying somewhere behind me, his pain coming in staccato notes as the cornucopia hums in the distance. Tears threaten to fall at the corners of my eyes; it's the most heart-wrenching, soul-crushing song I've ever heard.

I lift myself then—"Keep going."—swallowing down the urge to gasp and splutter my own pain alongside his.

I stumble once; I tell myself that's all I get.

"Nice try."

I can't help that my voice cracks as I sit next to him, one hand pressed to his heart while the other drifts to his cheek before falling to asses the damage done. Not that I can fix it, not when I know my hand is already pressed to the part that hurts.

"Just-" I shift, arms finding just enough strength to pull him into me as he sits with his leg still stuck down a hole. "Breathe, huh?"

He doesn't need to know that I'm talking to myself.

VALLORA SETH

Last Edit: Oct 17, 2020 23:56:21 GMT -5 by brad bradford ★ d5b [arx]

"I run on the road, long before I dance under the lights."

maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]
Head RP Tutor

4,677 POSTS

Pronouns: he/him
last seen Nov 1, 2024 16:42:16 GMT -5

oof

in a week || roommates day 1 leisure Oct 18, 2020 0:03:52 GMT -5

Quote

Post by maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte] on Oct 18, 2020 0:03:52 GMT -5

was i made from a broken mold?

She doesn't even consider it. Her eyes don't flash toward the horizon, even if it's a truth worth contemplating she writes it off as a lie and stumbles to sit beside me. I was right about her from the beginning, a stubborn, graceless fool who's going to get herself killed.

~~For me.~~

Laughter bubbles up through my sobs on occasion, slumping forward as she tries and fails to soothe my thundering pulse. "You're so stupid." I mumble, tongue coated with the taste of dirt and tears. It takes an immense amount of effort to keep those words steady. The silence we fall into is not peaceful, but it is comfortable.

We're both frozen solid but I feel warm, the traces of our breaths mingling as they creep up toward the atmosphere. We were like this more often than not the last couple weeks, just the two of us trying to lose ourselves in a world of fantasy. This, however, feels final. There's no trace of idle laughter and indistinct chatter on the other side of plaster walls. It's me, it's her, still and bleeding in the middle of vast nothing.

Strangely, I don't feel the least bit lonely anymore.

I don't know how long it takes for my tears to stop or for my breathing to return to normal but I get the impression there's no rush as we tangle ourselves up in limbo. When I have the strength to speak again, I rest my hand over hers where it sits idle on my heart, "Thank you." A whisper on the howling winds but I'm sure she'll catch it anyway.

With a wince I try, and fail, to extricate my leg from its new home in the dirt. "I don't think anything's broken." As I scream through grit teeth, "but I don't think I want to know what I just stepped in."

I let my head fall limp on her shoulder so I can catch her gaze, not quite managing a grimace because I can't feel my face. "So, that sucked." My throat is raw and my lungs are tired and I'm too exhausted to lie about it.

ALISTAIR GALE

Last Edit: Oct 18, 2020 0:04:54 GMT -5 by maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]

the m o o n controls the t i d e, it could cause you to d r o w n

brad bradford ★ d5b [arx]
Retired Staff

2,484 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Nov 4, 2024 18:47:44 GMT -5

literally so gay, doing so many crimes

in a week || roommates day 1 leisure Oct 19, 2020 22:41:56 GMT -5

Quote

Post by brad bradford ★ d5b [arx] on Oct 19, 2020 22:41:56 GMT -5

it's perfectly strange,
you run in my veins.

The wind chills be me to the bone as the sweat that's made my hair stick uncomfortably to the back of my neck begins to evaporate, silent ghosts twisting and rising off my body as time ticks by wrapped up in an embrace that hurts and heals all at once. If you'd told me a couple weeks ago that I'd find comfort in- in this. Well, I just wouldn't have believed you. I'd grown up with broken ribs, bloodied knuckles, and black eyes. I'd spent my nights drowning myself in a bottle, tangled underneath a guy whose name I never wanted to learn. I don't remember the last time I cried in front of someone, the last time someone hugged me.

I don't let myself think on it too long though. I can't. Because I don't want to run, even as my mind screams at my limbs to put as much distance between this and me as possible.

I've never really been a good listener.

He rests his head on my shoulder and I breathe a heavy sigh against the wind. I stare at his leg—"So, that sucked."—and I laugh to keep from crying all over again.

"And he's still got jokes."

I know it wasn't one, but when your mom dies before your tenth birthday and you're raised with a sword in your hand and a blade pressed to your spine, you tend to forget that the whole world isn't just one cruel, twisted joke. Heh. Still not sure that it isn't to be honest. Isn't this all just proof?

"I'm happy to sit here and freeze to death," I say, offering up a smile weighed down by exhaustion. "Catch our breaths."

I give his leg another quick look over, worry beginning to dissipate to the edges of my mind for the moment.

"Too bad we don't have to amputate, really," I say it matter of factly, with a shrug of the shoulders as my gaze drifts to his. "Y'know, since severed limbs are actually high caliber weapons."

My grin twists awkwardly as I try to hide my own amusement, like I'm trying to keep the cracks in my foundation from spreading even further. Coping mechanisms are fucking strange.

Maybe he's the one who should keep going.

VALLORA SETH

"I run on the road, long before I dance under the lights."

maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]
Head RP Tutor

4,677 POSTS

Pronouns: he/him
last seen Nov 1, 2024 16:42:16 GMT -5

oof

in a week || roommates day 1 leisure Oct 23, 2020 23:57:10 GMT -5

Quote

Post by maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte] on Oct 23, 2020 23:57:10 GMT -5

was i made from a broken mold?

Perhaps it's gruesome to let laughter ring out like this, but I can't help myself. I laugh like her shitty joke was the funniest thing I'd ever heard. "You know," I muse, tasting the sweetness of stale joy as I do. "I don't think I was very funny before I met you." Light shines so brilliantly when shadow is all you've ever known. However brief these moments have been Vallora has carved herself into me, irrevocably and eternally. I think the chasteness of these final moments are what make them so memorable.

Or I'm pathetic and scared and clinging to the only person I've ever believed actually gives a damn about me. None of it matters because I see my reflection shining in her eyes, I'm start to believe I recognize the man staring back at me.

"Or is that all pity, Lora?" I speak to cut through the pain, a long, slow hiss sifting through my teeth as I free myself from the clutches of our stationary opponent. When I finally catch sight of my ankle it's angry and red, swollen to a size that strains against the tight fabric of my uniform. It hurts more than I'd like to admit, but I'm trying so hard to keep my expression neutral that it almost distracts from the pain. "Don't tell me you laugh at my jokes because I've got a pretty face."

I challenge her with a half-hearted smirk, turning my aching body towards her with neither tender nor grace.

And I see her for the first time since I broke, as obvious and loud as a summer storm.

She's dark. Her expression is fractured glass, the muted rays of a longing dusk spilling onto my skin, nowhere near as warm as I had come to know. "Hey." Though I can't feel my fingers they still come to rest on bitten cheeks, thumbs catching on offending crystals as I swipe them off her cheek.

"I'd love to freeze to death with you." Because I cannot bring myself to conjure any more false promises, like they might be what finally breaks us. The man I thought I was would have reveled in the uncertainty I can see laid bare before me. There's cracks in her foundation, ones I would have yearned to pry my fingers in between if they belonged to anyone but her.

I need to know she'll be okay without me, though the question lays forbidden on the back of my tongue.

Instead I close my eyes and dare to whisper one last wish.

Not a lie.

Certainly not a promise.

"But we're going to fight, aren't we?"

If only to bring back the dawn.

ALISTAIR GALE

the m o o n controls the t i d e, it could cause you to d r o w n