started with a !BANG! [ROSETTA]
May 12, 2013 18:58:01 GMT -5
Post by Rosetta on May 12, 2013 18:58:01 GMT -5
[/center]Lethe Turner
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The Games had hardened Lethe's heart.
She knew an easy target when she saw one. In fact, she could smell it, feel it. Like a weak wounded animal in the forest, Eric cringed from her blow and Lethe felt no remorse, but rather an instinctual urge to pounce further. If the Games had taught her anything, it had taught her you should never wait to make your move. Lethe had made that mistake with Razor and the glint of betrayal she'd seen in her eye early on disappeared to be replaced with glass that moved minimally in its socket.
"Sure, invite me in!" Lethe heard herself sniff disapprovingly, but nevertheless, she accepted the invitation and stepped inside. Anything to get out of the rain. The interior of his house was just like she'd imagined: typical. A candy-coated masterpiece. A Capitol home. Those extravagant things with their magnificent, showy foyers and glittering chandeliers and slippery marble floors and curving staircases. Sure, Eric had it all.
To be fair, Lethe had her own extraordinary home back in District Five in the Victor Village just as fake, like looking through a diamond: fragmented. But, at least Lethe's house was warm and filled with sisters and brothers and mother and father and little baby Eden. At least there were other bodies to fill the space Lethe felt left behind by twenty three lost souls. In contrast, Eric's house felt cold and lonely.
For a long time, Lethe found she couldn't quite look at Eric straight on. She could focus on his feet, large and awkward. No wonder he felt so clumsy stumbling into her, into the bathtub. She could glance sideways at his hands. So soft, so gentle, fumbling at her clothing, sweeping a strand of hair off her face. Holding her child. Their child. She could glance sideways at that button nose that had buried itself in her hair, in the milky smell of Eden. She could cross her eyes to discreetly watch the rise and fall of his broad chest, breathing, breathing.
While he breathed and lived, she'd bore the life of another. She could still feel that terrible pain, still gasp out and scream, but then release and the cry of another being. Lethe, a murderess, had brought life into this world. And a part of that life stood before her right now. A contributing factor to the life of her baby, her little girl, lovely little Eden, stood before her. And while she screamed and strained and pushed to bring that life into existence, where had he been? She felt her eyes rising from his feet to his torso. While she dressed, fed and kept watch over child, where had he been? To his chest she went, breathing, breathing. While she painfully left the life that had come from her body in order to watch over the lives born from the bodies of others. Discharged to watch someone else's children. And they never lived. To his throat and his chin and his face and that silly button nose. Where have you been? And his eyes, gentle, unassuming. Where were you?
The animal pounced. That horrible, scaly monster had never been good with her body. She threw her silver and prayed it stuck. She threw the words she had boiled in her mouth in the years since seeing him and prayed they stuck.
"Did you ever even care?"her voice was soft and lethal. Like knives. "Did you? Eden is our daughter and you've only seen her once. Just once. Do you really think that's enough?" She turned for his eyes were piercing and sniffed. "Do you?"