CLASH!ofthe/azns/ [aesop]

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shrimp
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CLASH!ofthe/azns/ [aesop] Oct 14, 2011 17:18:06 GMT -5

Quote

Post by shrimp on Oct 14, 2011 17:18:06 GMT -5

s u n d r a

She wanders endlessly, eyes darting back and forth for a glimmer of mahogany-hued hair in the desaturated contrast of her new residence. For hours on end she weaves in and out of the trees, hands grazing tree trunks and feet making breadcrumb trails upon the forest floor. Of course, she doesn't notice this - the ground is trampled around the circumference of the cornucopia and she simply forgets to look down (perhaps if she had, she would have realized her possibly fatal error) once she leaves the boundaries and finds herself in the Great Unknown. Nine others however, have not managed to do this, and as she hears the cannons fire her heart reaches out to Arden.

Oh, if she had only seen them in time, had been able to distract the beasts as Arden shouted "flee!" But alas, she is here now, and he is not, and Ember is nowhere to be found (she briefly wonders if Ember is dead too, but that's impossible. After all, she distinctly recognized the long hair flying as the girl from eight ran away to "safety", although as the hours progress Sundra has a hard time with deciding on whether the girl was either Ember or Alliance Dowry or Cassandra Hearsh or Naida Gardez.). And Sundra is now alone, equipped with a lone crowbar and her terrifying thoughts that grow and mutate as the hours progress.

It is nearly sunset when she finally decides to simply stop, and she stands there as the sun's rays envelop the entire arena into a steampunk haven of coppers and golds. If she only had a paper and pencil, the scenery would have been duly noted, sketches not truly capturing the essence, but trying to nonetheless. But Sundra was no longer the girl from 5. She was simply a statistic at this point, stuck in the wilderness with no food nor water and a simple metal rod to keep her company. Head hung down, she wallows in her sorrow because she knows that she is only granted a few days more of life, that it will be near-to-impossible to get home to Europa and Io and mother and father without something or someone to help her. She wishes that Storm was back in 5 so he could take care of the girls, but she knows that he already went through is games, his body already decomposing in the graveyard.

She sniffs once, wipes a tear from her cheek, and gasps; for there is a reflection in the icy trunks that is not her own. Rather, it is Aesop Bloom's, and she spins around, weapon in hand as she gears herself to confront the murderer and the men that he is in cahoots with. She knows that fighting is futile, but she will not and cannot stop trying now. Ember needs her, Europa needs her, Io needs her.

But it seems that the only person who is truly in need of Sundra Wie, is Sundra Wie herself.

Last Edit: Oct 15, 2011 22:57:38 GMT -5 by shrimp

L△LIA
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CLASH!ofthe/azns/ [aesop] Oct 14, 2011 19:40:05 GMT -5

Quote

Post by L△LIA on Oct 14, 2011 19:40:05 GMT -5

What a beautiful face I have found in this place
That is circling all round the sun
What a beautiful dream that could flash on the screen
In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
Soft and sweet, let me hold it close and keep it here with me

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Walking helps, putting one foot in front of the other and shuffling through the snow. There's a certain amount of effort required in not falling down here and it's enough to distract my thoughts from the knowledge that my life is suddenly anything but, now that I'm tangled up in these Games of death. Alexander, Mace, Denver — everyone but me — seems to be coping well enough with finding a way to take murder in stride. After all, it's as necessary as breathing here. But I can't small talk, can't fret over technicalities of self-preservation when the dizzy technicolor memories of beating a girl with her own leg (an increasingly heavy weight to carry as the cold turns flesh to ice) or the smooth push of Ripred's blade into skin and stomachs replay in flashes across my eyes each time I blink. The more I mull the images over, the harder it gets to pretend they're still the divine visions of angels, because I know now and knowing can't be so easily undone. Although it doesn't stop me from trying.

"The call of nature, man." That was my excuse for wandering away from my allies, because I am a seventeen-year-old child and they're beginning to realize that now, so I'm not allowed to walk around unsupervised. There are certain things no one wants to tag along for though and that's where the secrets to freedom lay. I just need a moment — no, I need a lot more than that, but at this point it's all about taking what you can get. So a moment hidden alone in some trees is all the relief there is for me, but at least it's time away, a means of avoiding these awful truths just a little bit longer. Despite my state of mind, I wasn't completely useless in the Bloodbath — wouldn't it have been better if I were, if I had fallen on my own knife? — and yet there is judgment in their eyes when they look at me, seeing more wrongs than simply the blood on my hands. There's something like worry there, for me and for them, and it hits too close to home for comfort, looks too much like all the words my sister could never bring herself to say.

My eyes are still damp and bloodshot, puffy from my shameless crying, but the droning song of sadness has faded into silence, with only the occasional echo of a whimper causing my lower lip to tremble. The cold has numbed more than just my hands and feet as I've been plodding through this jungle. Yet, despite the signs of sorrow still etched across my face, it's all reversed within two seconds of glancing up from watching the ground for trip-hazards. The first second is spent wondering if she's a hallucination — you don't score a ten by looking like your average girl — and then another passes as I decide that I don't care either way. It's instinct or at least impulsiveness all over again as my hand flails up into the air to wave hello with that same excess of enthusiasm from the Training Center, the kind that always meant that, back in District Six, I was never the one who got the girl. A smile even manages to stretch across my face once more, although the angles are more than a little off, muscles tugging with resistance because this expression is distinctly out of place. And that's all it takes.

The reminder jolts me into stillness, as if a fuse suddenly blew out in my mind. For a brief instant, my mouth flickers between my misplaced smile and the heavy frown that declared my face its territory after the Bloodbath, the corners tightening and loosening at a rapidly indecisive pace until emptiness takes over. My hand — my hands are empty, but hers hold a crowbar and maybe even the willpower to use it — reaches up to self-consciously rub at my mouth, attempting to clear away the remnants of blood and shame lodged in the crook of my lips. The last time I saw this girl she was human, despite the unfortunate circumstances of the impending situation, but now... this place will change us all and I don't want to be the one to witness her transformation, much less be the cause of it. She is a memory of forgetfulness to me, the ability to remain in ignorance while fate closes in on all sides — the kinds of things that have gotten me through my worst moments in life; the kinds of things I need now more than ever.

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Last Edit: Oct 15, 2011 9:56:55 GMT -5 by L△LIA

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shrimp
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CLASH!ofthe/azns/ [aesop] Oct 14, 2011 22:00:38 GMT -5

Quote

Post by shrimp on Oct 14, 2011 22:00:38 GMT -5

s u n d r a

She doesn't understand how some people can waltz in and out of their own realities, drawing blood at one point and then masquerading as suave gentlemen the next. Surely it must get difficult at times - Sundra has been forced to be the star of her own show full of happy facades and secret emotions and she is already long past dying. Aesop Bloom therefore intrigues her to an extent, even if the realization is only for a split second and all of the stress and panic and frustration and mourning returns for another bout at her soul.

The emotions come hurtling at her, and the only thing that she truly wants to do is scream at Aesop, for multiple things. The murder of her district partner is something that one would become angry about (and although it was truly the girl from 12 with the 12 who dealt the final blow, his alliance was there, hacking away at Arden, maybe even killing off Ember and it upsets her to think of the two of them lying motionless in the bloodbath, their blood pooling around them as teenage boys slash and the tall, lanky girl from 5 runs). And there's also a selfish side to her annoyance, one that has never came out of the floorboards because it has never been a problem. But being treated as objects geared towards the entertainment of males is not something that the girl particularly likes, and as much as she'd like to admit that she wasn't affected by the "compliments", she was.

She wants to be a person, not a thing, and to put it quite simply, the memory of Aesop Bloom's comments, no matter what the intention, have riled her up after all of the bloodshed and witnessed, and, looking for a scapegoat, the girl has found her victim. He is the one who caused her to feel this way, after all. His alliance killed Arden. His alliance judged her and Sapphire and Charas and Naida. His alliance was at fault, his alliance was the one to blame. And so, she did just that, her voice at a hushed scream as she snapped "What are you doing here? You've done enough already," before brushing a hair out of her face and continuing.

"You know, I have had enough of you to be honest. You are haughty, arrogant and ignorant of your actions and you killed him, Aesop. You killed him, and I'm not forgiving you, or Mace or Denver or that... That guy from seven whose foot I stepped on - I'm not forgiving any of you. Because you don't deserve to be forgiven." She continued to rant, voice escalating little by little as streams of thought transferred into her brain and out of her mouth (until her death, she wouldn't even know everything that she had said to the boy, although quite a few advanced vocabulary words were exchanged), before finally, she finished off her petty little argument and rant of insecurities and fears by smacking the boy across the cheek.

Now how's that for strange.

Last Edit: Oct 14, 2011 22:07:11 GMT -5 by shrimp

L△LIA
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CLASH!ofthe/azns/ [aesop] Oct 15, 2011 2:57:20 GMT -5

Quote

Post by L△LIA on Oct 15, 2011 2:57:20 GMT -5

( A E S O P M Y K O N O S B L O O M )

And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young, let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see
Love to be in the arms of all I'm keeping here with me

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Everyone is angry with me today. It seems I've done too much and yet not enough — when did people start having expectations of me? In Six I lived under the radar, slumped behind my brother, folding my bones up until I was all but out of sight, and it worked for me. People were more than happy to overlook me, pleased when I crossed the street instead of their path. There is a memory hidden in the deep faraway of my mind involving a small, fragile girl with a look of terror, running running running disappearing from me even as I tried to help her up from the ground... and I can't blame her. Even with my best intentions, I am not the one anyone wants to encounter and if it weren't for all the words pouring out her mouth, then this girl might seem no different than the other one, but she is different.

"What are you doing here? You've done enough already. You know, I have had enough of you to be honest. You are haughty, arrogant and ignorant of your actions and you killed him, Aesop. You killed him —" She could be talking about any number of people, which makes her all the more right, because I am ignorant; just not ignorant enough. Still, my head starts to shake back and forth in the frail denial of the hopelessly damned while soft, incoherent murmuring slips out my throat, an estranged echo of my earlier wailing. I've done too much, not enough; too much and not enough. You know too much, but you don't know enough. I can feel my face contort as I flinch against her words, mentally stepping back into the sorrow and self-pity that threatens to drown me in my own tears, acid-hot drops of salt water rolling down my cheeks once more. There is a part of me that knows I should hide it, not because I'm falling apart in front of my competition or the whole of Panem — this is nothing compared to the huddled ball of incoherence I was only a few short hours ago, I even know my name now (and so does she): Aesop, Aesop, Aesop — but because I'm breaking down in front of her and that seems like the opposite of what I should be doing in front of a pretty girl.

Pretty girls aren't supposed to witness the cries of teenage boys, to see that their hands shake just the same as anyone else's, to watch them write essays across their own faces about the depth of fear and regret. We are hiding machines — not just behind the bodies of our brothers, but of things like emotion and honesty. "— and I'm not forgiving you, or Mace or Denver or that... that guy from seven whose foot I stepped on — I'm not forgiving any of you. Because you don't deserve to be forgiven." She keeps yelling and I keep stoically crying, biting my bottom lip to hold in any stray utterances of sound until the teeth marks feel as if they are imprinted deep enough that it could be used as a dental mold, which could come in handy, depending on the method of my death.

What a curious life we have found here tonight
There is music that sounds from the street
There are lights in the clouds, Anna's ghost all around
Hear her voice as it's rolling and ringing through me, soft and sweet
How the notes all bend and reach above the trees

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I am rapidly aging backwards beneath her verbal assault, words chipping away at me and making me smaller and smaller: I am fourteen, with self-conscious slipknots for vocal chords that come undone at the slightest tug of surprise; twelve and standing in line at my mother's funeral, looking into the faces of a hundred thousand strangers (their bodies bend in the facets of my watery eyes, splitting their souls into twins, triplets, and higher multiples I never learned the proper names for) that will go to bed with prayers of pity for me and wake the next morning with curses of condemnation as I steal their wallets and use their loose change to attempt to fill the gaping hole in my family; nine and tugging the pigtails of the girl who sits in front of me in school, summoning a flower from my handy dandy handkerchief when she turns around, and pouting in disappointment when she remains upset and unimpressed; seven and — cringing after doing something wrong, knowing that punishment is coming for me. Only, she and I have been time traveling in opposite directions, consequences growing up while I've been growing down. That crowbar of hers is coming for me, I can hear a whistle of motion through the air in warning, but I can't bring myself to do anything more than flinch in fatalism and stare into the wild of her eyes, waiting obediently because she's right, I don't deserve forgiveness.

When her palm collides with my damp cheek, skidding across the hollow plain stretching out from my cheekbone — the smack rings out loud enough to tell me that the new burn across my skin must have scorched her too — my shock isn't from what happened, but rather from what didn't. I was expecting the brutal crush of metal on bone, perhaps an open wound from where the clawed end of her weapon might catch on one of the few soft spots of my body, places where thin strings of muscle and sinew feebly attempt to mask my spindle-shanked joints. Instead the place of impact simply feels warm — warm like pressing my cheek to a stove burner or falling face-first into a bonfire, but warm nonetheless — a sensation that's almost pleasant in this frigid climate.

The crook of my lip twitches back to life in the wake of her fury as I sniff against my teary eyes, the corners wrinkling in the dim shadow of my eyelashes as the quietest of smiles slips back into my expression. Not a crowbar. I hold my breath for a minute, just to be sure I'm not imagining things, just to make sure there's a definable difference between respiration and nothing and when my lungs ignite in response, burning up the contents of my chest the same way she did my face, my hesitance turns to ash and is carried away by the breeze that keeps tugging her hair out of place. A tribute would have used a crowbar — and another tribute would have fought back: pulled a switchblade, pulled a machete, ~~pulled a severed leg~~, pulled a punch — so she is not a tribute, she is an angry girl with a wicked slap and I am not a tribute in her presence. I am just a boy, a no good lousy excuse of the male species, but we are human for now and that? That's enough. "I'm sorry."

It doesn't sound impressive, wrapped in a hush of defeat, but the quiet victory of my realization is tucked into each forgotten corner of the syllables. "I'm not sorry for being ignorant, because there are too many things in this place I don't want to know, but I'm sorry for remembering that you're human. I know —" my voice breaks against other thoughts and I push them down as deep as I'm able "— I know that's supposed to be a secret here, twenty-four not-humans with crowbars and switchblades and no remorse for the feet they step on —" or carry in their rucksacks "— but nobody ever tells me there are rules for life until I break them and I don't know what you expect from me," there's a pause as I turn that word over in my head again: expect, "do you really expect more from me?" There's this kicked-puppy hopefulness in my eyes as I forget to be a hiding-machine again, wondering where all these people like Sundra and Denver and Mace and Alexander (he doesn't talk much, but he doesn't yell either and maybe that's the same in its way) were during my District Six days, when no one expected me to do anything except steal and self-destruct.

Now how I remember you, how I would push my fingers through
Your mouth to make those muscles move
That made your voice so smooth and sweet
Now we keep where we don't know, all secrets sleep in winter clothes
With one you loved so long ago, now he don't even know his name

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"I'm not arrogant. I always tried to be, wanted to be like my bro—" Brother. The word catches in my throat as I break eye contact and have to take a moment to gather my words again. "— but I wasn't very good at it, only this." Reaching forward, I push a few loose strands of hair behind her ear before she manages to object, my fingers pulling away with a tiny copper coin twirling a double-time waltz across the tips. It catches the dimming light above us as I flip it up into the air with a careful toss. "Tails and I'll leave. Heads and I'll —" it lands in my palm and I don't have to look to know which side is up, I'm not a conman for nothing. A grin Blooms like a namesake across my face as I lean in and kiss her before she can swing her crowbar up to stop me. There's a clink of enamel that pinballs through my skull as our teeth tap awkwardly, because I have caught her by surprise and she has caught me by my smile, and I can't stop myself from laughing against her mouth in response. I told her I was only good at one thing and it's certainly not this part, but damn it, I'm seventeen and I want to kiss a pretty girl before I die.

The girls I kissed in Six are faded memories that might have secretly been morphling dreams; I don't really know, but if I'm going to know something, I'd rather know this. Granted, I'm not sure what this is, other than impulse and the ironic opposite of death, because I've always heard your life flashes before your eyes when you're about to die, but right now all the things I haven't had the chance to live yet are ticking through my mind. For a moment, I wonder what it would feel like if I asked her to marry me, if she taught me the biggest word she knows, if we drew hopscotch lines in the snow and didn't even remember that we were playing the wrong Game — but isn't this already the wrong Game?

There's an unrestrained idiot-grin on my face as I take a full stride back to pull away; I am six foot two and my legs are long enough to put me out of the kill zone of her crowbar in one step. Pulling a pair of empty water jugs free from where they've been strapped to the side of my pack, I toss them up into the air in acrobatic loops, their trajectories juggling careful patterns as if braiding invisible threads. On a whim, I tug at the straps as they fall back into my hand, swinging them in tethered circles of momentum that sends them flying higher than ever upon release. I know you're smarter than me. You're supposed to be the one who knows the distinction between arrogance and idiocy. There's a difference and I'm the definition of it. With a measured lob, I send one of the jugs over to land at her feet and rest against the tips of her toes. Its companion stays with me, passed at light-speed from hand to hand in the giddy forgetfulness of her presence. "Stay human, Sundra Wie."

What a beautiful face I have found in this place
That is circling all around the sun
And when we meet on a cloud I'll be laughing out loud
I'll be laughing with everyone I see
Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all

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[Aesop Bloom has given Sundra Wie an Empty Water Jug]

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Last Edit: Oct 15, 2011 13:15:46 GMT -5 by L△LIA

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