hey shrimpeh]] and cocktails!

[cinder]

When you're dancing, sometimes you just don't talk. Well if by sometimes, you mean always.

Unless you're one of those annoying girls who chitchats and tries to ask for names and numbers. Cass was only seventeen, but she'd figured out pretty quickly that when a guy wants to dance, he wants to just dance.

Yet at the same time, what a girl wants, a girl gets. Cass had quite a will when she felt threatened or her pride was challenged. She jerked around wildly like a possessed insect as her current partner held her hips close to his, getting a little more personal than she would have expected from him. He looked to be fifteen, was inebriated to the extreme, and on top of that, he had no style. Yellow hair, green face, and a green jumpsuit made up his sunflower, daisy costume. Cass caught a sight of her own costume as she cranked her body around in the most awkward struggle of her life. A combination of hot, white spotlights swooping over the dance floor, and her all-black costume with tiny twinkles of searing light hadn't been the best choice for Cass. She hadn't realized the kind of party she was attending when the invite came in the mail - a nice girl, this had been a nice girl's costume party with a no drug, no drinks policy.

Cass had had a vision of herself gliding through the house as a new woman who didn't need to pop a pill to calm her buzzing head down, and who would require men to ask her for her name before flying her over a dance floor, swirling her beautiful dress around - and - and...

With a final shove, she stumbled out of the grasp of the flower child, who glared harmlessly at her for a few seconds before shaking a pack of pills in her face. Cassedy's pack of pills, the ones she had stuffed into a pocket of her floor-length skirt with no intentions of using, only flushing down a toilette later tonight. He popped a few of the blue's and jerked crazily (really resembling Cass' insect quiver dance she had used to repulse the nerd enough to escape)

Well tonight was just like any other, except instead of just being drunk, high, and sweaty she was also feeling an inescapable low that no amount of drugs could cure. Cass rubbed her arms as she weaved through a mesh of tight-knit couples. A few prowling men in hunters costumes or stormy black jackets that would suit her own starry-skied costume made moves, but she evaded them, slipping out of their grasp like the stars. They reached for her, but found that she was too far away. They moved on to luminous girls dressed in bright, short-skirted costumes and soaked in the lights they radiated. No amount of false, twinkling bulbs on her dress would make Cass shine like the true party girls.

So beautiful, so fresh. They made her want to cry.

Cassedy felt a hiccup-giggle of relief bubble from her mouth just as she took in her first breath of fresh air, a few feet away from the writhing crowd of people the "good girl" harlot had invited to celebrate her eighteenth. The thing about the hiccup was that it was relief, and simultaneous sickness. Her shoes made eerily loud clattering sounds as she dashed down halls, slamming against locked doors in search of a bathroom. Her body wretched and Cass turned to potted-plant that would have been rather pretty except that it now wreaked of barf as well as lavender. Cassedy wiped her mouth off and black paint smeared off her face. She had been reluctant to dye her skin black, knowing that she'd have to redye it white, then the same golden brown that was her "natural" skintone.

She moaned and shuffled down the hall, in a daze. Where had her night gone wrong? Had it been the moment she'd felt strong music pulsating through her veins, and still walked through the threshhold into her "friends'" house? Had it been when she'd reached into the back of pills and taken one to make the pain go away, or had it been when she'd gulped so much champagne in an effort to clear her throat of the guilty choke of powder? Perhaps when she'd allowed a few guys to skim their hands along her arms and hips, intertwine her and entrap for another long night of partying. Every time she resolved to leave behind the drinks and dangers of society, society pulled her right back in again with charming smiles and boyish charisma that Cass could not resist.

Eventually she found a staircase, and with the usual laws of logic in her head for a moment, the thought popped into her mind that with stairs came more rooms, and balconies and fresh air. A bed! Cass pulled her hair back from her face and took the stairs two at a time (stumbling only three or four times) she drifted through the corridors and sitting rooms before finding a door she rather liked, carved with seashells and mermaids. She closed her hands on the handle and pushed open into a bathroom. It was rather plain, considering the wealth of the family. Cass certainly would have turned in disgust if she had entered this bathroom sober, or with the intention of doing anything. But right now her blank mind registered a sink and a toilet with a cover. A seat and water was all she needed right now.

So she shuffled through and shut the door. She stripped down to a smudged-black shirt, formerly a shade of silver-grey. Her headdress looked limp and small on the floor, and suddenly Cass was standing in her long black skirt, suddenly dragging on the floor no that she was six inches shorter, a dirty t-shirt and a ragged main of black hair. She washed the paint and stain of guilt from her face and hair until Cassedy saw a familiar face, tan and beautiful with blue eyes and slightly-darker-than-usual blonde hair surrounding it. She still looked tired and high though. Truth be told, she was still feeling tired and low. Cass didn't bother to pick up her stuff, only shovel it all into a waste-can near her feet. She even ripped the moon headdress before her back slammed against a wall and her eyes blurred with tears. Life sucked, life sucks, life will suck. Her time was growing shorter and death was coming closer. And Cass was confused about whether or not to continue partying her way through life with a falsetto note to her smile, or to chase that feeling deep in her gut that there was more to existence, something spontaneous and worth living.

And so Cassedy ran down the hall with pounding, strong feet. She pumped her arms and batted away all her problems as they whisked the air. Her actions wreaked of spontaneity and she liked it. Finally, Cass saw the end of the hall and she kept running.

Straight into a door, straight into a room and straight into a boy. She sobbed with conviction and blindly looked at him. She saw white hair, white skin, white, white, white like a cloud and she focused on only him and not the room, it didn't matter. Only his eyes. Cass wondered idly if she was on a bad trip because they were red, and she didn't see the edges of contacts, nor any tell-tale signs of surgery. She shivered and in a commanding tone spoke to him with sudden conviction and fright. "Just dance with me please, I beg you. I don't want to do anything else."

ooc- hes an Avox? She just told him to do something XD so that explains any awksness. I left the room up to your decision. Please excuse this monster-size (I think its long, I haven't checked yet) Go ahead and reply with something short pulease :3 Cass is having a midlife crisis here ^^

[shrimp]

It seemed as though he was in a completely different universe. This was still Panem, but it was completely different from anything that he had ever experienced. It was an exotic, screwed up version of the land he once knew, with people dyed all hues of the rainbow and skyscrapers that were so tall that he could barely see the top of them - it was strange and unnerving and he really didn't like it all too much. He felt trapped in this rainbow-town, stuck catering to the needs of cat-eared, silver studded, spiky-haired people whose entire live were devoted to parties and their comfortable white-collar jobs. They seemed to be in their own worlds, and it confused him to no end when they spoke about things that should have meaning like they were trivial things, like death and loss and all sorts of things. The Capitol was such an odd place, where things seemed upside down and twisted up into a sicker reality where everything looked gaudy and overly sweet yet had that despicable undertone of twisted humor and all too real entertainment.

After all, this was the land where spectators cheered on teenagers killing each other in cold blood.

Greg had never understood the Capitol's fascination with watching kids die, and now that he was here he understood it even less. They seemed to watch it nonchalantly, not really caring when the girl from District 3 had to cut off her arm or when the District 5 boy got struck by lightning or when the girl from District 7 was killed with a single swipe of a knife. They were rather... insensitive, to say the least, and while he could barely watch (not just because he was sent to do menial tasks which didn't give him time to see it in general) the games without wincing, these Capitolites didn't even bat an eye.

Oftentimes he would run his hands through his white hair (for some reason, they found his albino-ness endearing rather than strange), wondering what the hell their problem was. But now he was just a lowly avox, and he “didn’t deserve” to ask them such things. Communication had been stripped from the boy so quickly and painfully that the only thing he could do was wait for the ordeal to be over, or to try and stop Ariadne from dying or from being raped or something particularly horrendous. But he hadn’t been able to, for he had passed out, and had awoken on a train headed towards the Capitol. Ariadne was nowhere nearby. He’d probably never see her again.

And those not-so-small details is what kept Greg firmly rooted to the soil of "I don't have a chance at happiness anymore". He was an avox, and his only friend was not only ripped away from him, but the words he had said to attempt to lessen her burden... He wouldn't be surprised if they had damaged the poor girl for the worse. He was a terrible person, and he got what he deserved - no longer being able to use the only weapon that had been of use to him. His voice had always gotten him out of trouble, had helped get him along the right track in life. He had been a suck-up, and a pretty good one at that, but now it was all gone. His only advantage had vanished, disappearing in a pool of blood and dead tissue.

They must really like that "seen but not heard" stuff, he reasoned as he walked through what seemed to be an endless crowd of horny teenagers (It seemed like most of them were either dancing so close that they should have gotten their own room a half hour ago or they were too incoherent with alcohol and/or drugs to think straight) carrying a particularly large tray of food. Of course, avoxes would be the caterers at a party. After all, they wouldn't back-sass some Capitolite about double-dipping. In fact, he had noticed that avoxes had been given the task to do pretty much every single menial job possible, from cleaning the sewers to catering to prostitution. He was lucky enough to have escaped those particularly bad jobs, but... The Capitol probably didn't want their citizens complaining about breaking their nails, which is how he got the weight of responsibility shoved into him, which in this case consisted of a large tray with an extremely large array of food on it.

He'd probably have to get used to this lifestyle for a rather long time, most likely until death finally claimed him as his own, and as if some higher being had decided to simply mock him even more for his stupid mistakes, some girl smashed into him, getting whatever he had been serving to these people all over his uniform (he'd call it a uniform, but in reality it was probably just something that the daughter had ordered just to humiliate the avoxes - oh, how wonderful it would be to dress them up in clothes that were far too tight and revealed pretty much every torso muscle that one could see). Perhaps he would have cursed if he had still owned his tongue, but of course he wasn't allowed to have anything of any sort whatsoever, so he was forced to breathe deeply, close his eyes and continue serving the remainder on the tray, even if 85% of it was all over him, covering his skin in slightly scalding sauces and whatnot.

It did burn a bit, but not as much as the humiliation, for instead of being polite and apologizing to the boy, they simply laughed. For he was nothing - a traitor to all of Panem, and of course he deserved to be treated as nothing, as an object that could easily be discarded or treated like dirt. That's what burned, not the liquids that had splashed onto him. Oh and their laughs were full of happiness and a bit of spite and it just reminded him that he wouldn't be able to laugh it off, for he was physically unable to even use that as a defense mechanism. Oh how melancholy and depressing an avox's life was - to be mistreated in so many twisted ways that perhaps they really would feel like nothing at the end of the day.

And then finally the last crepe or mushroom or whatever the hell was on that damn tray was gone, and he was free to exit the premises, retreating to a nearby bathroom with clenched fists and tears (which were not coming from his emotions - they were from the sauce in his eye) welling up, almost ready to burst. He passed through a bedroom to reach one, not noticing the carefully arranged bedsheets or the sparkling lights outside - after all, he was an avox. Why should he be granted the luxury of seeing such things? The tears only started dripping down once the door closed, and he was standing alone in the room, furnished with cold ceramic fixtures that seemed to be as lifeless as he was. They were even the same fricking color; a ghostly white. The color of death.

For a time, he stood there, quietly crying. He wasn't cut out for this life - he was the illegitimate son of a mayor, for crying out loud; he wasn't used to the hard life. Sure, living with Ariadne for those few months had toughened him out so that he'd survive living here, but he was a proud person. And pride was something that you were stripped of rather quickly, and now he just felt horrible. Confidence was trickling away by the second here in the Capitol, and before long, he'd be like one of the ones who had been here for a while - cold, unfeeling, dead before their hearts stopped. For they had stopped trying, stopped hoping, stopped feeling, and at this very second, he wished that he could be like them. They'd brush this event off of their shoulders - would stow it under the rug with all of the other humiliating moments in their lives, never to return to the surface.

But he was one of the new ones - the ones who still retained their humanity and feeling and all of that cruddy stuff. For another second he stood there, feeling the food on his face getting colder and the tears in his eyes getting warmer, and then he turned on the faucet, hoping that the noise would drown out the emptiness that he was feeling at that moment. But it didn't - even though he was concentrated on getting the stuff off of his body, it still lingered in the back of his mind, creating some sort of vortex that in time would threaten to swallow him up into some sort of pitch-black abyss that was very impossible to get out of.

The shirt was removed and tossed into the trash - that was the standard protocol in the Capitol. Break something? Throw it out. Got something dirty? Throw it out. Hate the avox that's serving you? Just order them out of there and they'll be gone in a flash. A stained shirt in a bathroom garbage wouldn't be thought of as strange. He exited the room quickly and rummaged through drawers and whatnot searching for a similar shirt, and finally found one, slipping it on. Slightly relieved that it wasn't crushing his ribcage, he walked towards the door, almost ready to face the world again. But of course, the world was ready for him before he was fully 100% prepared to go out there again, for the door was flung open and a girl ran into him.

At least she's not with someone else. I don't want to have to see that. Instead, the boy was faced with a sobbing girl, perhaps his age, maybe a year or two younger. Unlike a bunch of these teenagers, she seemed relatively not-altered. Her skin was a normal hue and her hair was a relatively normal color as well, which gave the tiniest hint of normalcy to this situation. He'd rather comfort a relatively normal girl than a colorful, melodramatic parakeet any day. She looked at him, but he had a feeling that she wasn't really looking, for she seemed preoccupied and very broken.

And then she said "Just dance with me please, I beg you. I don't want to do anything else," and he simply raised an eyebrow. If this girl thought that he wanted to do something else, then clearly she was not thinking straight, for who would think that an avox would- Oh. Right. There would be no implications to prove that he actually was an avox, would there. But still, he was most likely bound to those avox rules, and he wouldn't be able to dance with her unless she commanded him to do so, which... Technically, it's sort of a command. Her voice seemed commanding enough. Besides, he probably wouldn't be able to do this ever again, so he might as well enjoy it while he can. His gaze softened a bit, and he simply nodded, holding one of her hands in his, and directing another of her hands on his waist. He in turn put his free hand on her waist, and for another second he stood there. But then he grimly smiled, and began to dance, step by step.

[cinder]

Dancing is menial in the scale of a Capitolite's life.

Dancing is a mechanism to begin a friendship, a relationship, a hook-up. People dance not for the joy of it, but only because they know its a means to an ends. Cassedy remembers more clearly the feel of hands on her hips, like a ghost pressure or a missing limb that still twitches during the night. She remembers turning to face her partner earlier this night, and seeing shut eyelids that did not hide the greed and craft of her pursuer. She felt lust and saw visions of a night that would not play out, a night planned out since the moment he had walked through the door and into the party. Here is a party, I'm going to find a girl and make a night of it, he'd thought and known he would not be fulfilled until he'd made it so. Cass had drifted through the same door under entirely different pretenses, only intending to dance with a gentle boy, and never questioning his importance in her life as a romantic aspect of her existence.

She didn't have a checklist and agenda to fulfill with a deadline on who, what, when, where and why she would feel an "intimate connection" with some other person. To Cass, life was all about the moment, because memories fade and futures are uncertain. Dancing embodied the power and grace she wished to possess, the power to choose her own life without pursuing like a hell-hound, and the grace to accept - to accept.. life, life and reality. The reality that I may not get what I want out of life, because what I want out of life is different to what others want. I just wanted to dance, thats all.

She looks at her true companion of the night and wonders at how easy it had been to find what she wanted as soon as she stopped looking. Its always the last place you'd think to look, that you find what you've always been searching for. Was he a tool, was a he a means to an end, and was this dance a means to an end? The twitch of grimy fingers on bare flesh of hip-bones vanishes, replaced by soft, smooth hands with an interesting texture that is unlike the unworked hands of her half-boy counterparts, the ones she usually encountered at social outings. They usually made bravado-driven claims of manhood and talked her ear off till Cassedy felt compelled to just kiss their sloppy, running mouths to shut off the constant noise. He was different - literally, this boy was not a tool, he was a wonderful experience to be had, and so for a little while Cass enjoys drinking in something sweeter than flavorful wine and bubbling beverages, its a moment she's experiencing unlike any other, but it gets her as drunk as any other night.

Words would only get in the way of this moment, so Cass plays a speechless part, mirroring the wordless brevity that the red-eyed boy displayed. She was itching to reach out and touch his eyes, but no - Cass was proud of her control as she reigned in desire. When you're out of your mind smashed, and you feel like reaching out and touching anything, its always better to just not or you do something you'll regret. Like stabbing this boys wonderful red eyes with her manicured nails. The good thing was though, that he seemed strong enough to Cass, that she wouldn't be able to clumsily stab him unless he was into that sorta torture thing some guys dug. And, in fact, to reach out and touch him would mean the dance would end. She was transforming under the power of the spell, Cass would never let her hands move from where he had them placed, never. Not for anything in this world, not in this moment when her eyes stung with pain and her heart sung out to her that life was not worth living. The people were cruel, the food stunk, and the parties were an affliction on the name of passion and dance. And yet she wanted to live, deep in her heart she knew she did. It didn't stop her from asking a question that sounded sulky and broke her heart the moment she spoke it, because making it audible to a person besides herself made Cass feel vulnerable and light-headed. (Not much different to any other night, again, she was usually the passed out drunk girl with does make for a light-headed vulnerability..)

"Do you ever feel like not living?" Cass murmurs gently, voicing her discontentment without breaking out of the trance. Her aqua eyes were glazing over and her body hummed with relaxation and a hidden tension all at once. It's the feeling that something is happening within, but that you don't have control, and you fear the end is near. A tear rolls down her cheek and Cass frowns, she turns to look away at the loveliness of the room, how it sparkles and shines like any other, but how it too is enraptured by the moment. The walls lean in and the chandelier lightly tinkles and whispers in anticipation. Cass is ready to answer her own question now.

"Sometimes I just don't understand why I can't be happy. You see, I know that by any other scale that matters, I'd have a nice life. I'm well to do, I don't need much work done, I have a nice laugh and sometimes guys ask me out, but it doesn't seem very real. Like it's all forced. If you took away my mom's money and I couldn't get my eyes dyed then guys wouldn't like me. And then I'd really be sad and I wouldn't laugh, and what would be left? What?" Cass is suddenly struck by the thought that her lifestyle is not necessary, she's seen the way the Tributes live and the way their natural eyes hunger for everything they touch. There are "people" living in Districts working and wanting and not having any of the things Cass does. But they might be happy, and that's all she wants. I'd gladly trade my lifestyle for their's, Cass stubbornly says to herself, although she could not know the pain and suffering that accompanied the supposed freedom she craved.

The moments now really and truly over, dead perhaps. Thats it. Gruffly, Cass removes a hand and reaches it up to touch his hair, a mid-step between restraint and her desire to feel his eyes under her fingertips, like red jewels. She's full of self-pity and loathing now, believing somehow that who she is is fundamentally wrong because Cass doesn't want what the world has offered her, and it seems rather clumsy to deny what has been thrusted at you. She should just gracefully accept that life is not what Cass wants, but that she could learn to love and live all the same. She would take drugs, go to lots of parties, have private moments with lots of guys, share her stories, retain her status, marry a nice man who treated her well with diamonds and freedom, have children to coddle and love her even when she hates herself. Have avoxes, lots of avoxes to wait on her and abuse when Cassedy feels the pressure of being perfect weighing down on her rail-thin shoulders. And doctors to prescribe pills, to administer "vaccinations" and do work on already developing "flaws" of her appearance and age. Her life would be a rambling sentence filled with endless words and secrets, rather than something that starts and stops when importance ceases, an restarts when a spark of knowledge and hope stirs her life back into being meaningful. But she can't think right now, Cass is making a vow to enjoy her moment in the sun and that she will.

"Tell me your name, tell me your story. I'm sick of mi - I'd really like to hear something different right now to make me feel better." Cass weakly flirts and bats her eyelashes, but with her make-up smudged off on a towel in a bathroom down the hall, her eye-lashes must look short and stubby, so she can't imagine the hints of seduction being picked up by her dancing partner. She hesitates and removes her hands from him, trying to rub away that spark of hope in her core that told her that she was a silly girl to give up on happiness so soon in her existence. Suddenly boredom grabs ahold of her and she twirls and sashays over to the bed, plopping down with hair spilling around her head as an angelic halo, and pain painted on the crease of her brow, while twisted, bitter anger drives her to more words although she knows they are rude and commanding, like a haughty owner to a slave. But it must be different between her and her acquaintance, because he's not anything to be commanded, he's just a person like her except that she's a bitch. Simple as pie.

Still the words burst out: "Just tell me something."

[shrimp]

The two of them danced for a time, neither of them speaking. Silence was what this dance was about - break it, and it was over. It was rather obvious after all; even the girl didn't speak, something that the avox found a bit strange. Didn't Capitolites love to talk their head off? Wasn't it their nature to just be bubbly and energetic and gossips? It was either that or just be jerks, he reasoned, for some of them treated him very poorly simply because he had to be their slave. It wasn't even because he had broken rules (and honestly, he didn't break any law that would have led to this - being framed was just oh so much fun). It was because he was powerless against them. And some of them loved to use it to their advantage, forcing him to succumb to their putrid wishes.

She seemed different, more wholesome in a way. Perhaps she wasn't even close to pure or innocent, but she just seemed so fragile right now that he wouldn't be able to put a different name to her personality. She reminded him of Ariadne right now - both of them seemed so small when faced with the world, and he wasn't sure if they were ready enough to have the weight of responsibility placed on their shoulders. True, they were both probably more capable then him, but this girl wouldn't even have to do such. She could dance through life and still live as if dreams had been fulfilled, or if she had actually been happy. Ariadne wouldn't have that. She'd probably return to the forest, living off of the bare essentials again, except worse off. Where would her javelin be? Or their supplies? She was as good as dead right now, and that snapped him out of this dreamlike state that the dance had put him in.

What if she died?

He would never know. He'd be here, in the Capitol, waiting on people for the rest of his existence, and she could just expire without him knowing it. Perhaps she had already ceased to exist, being mauled by a bear or something like that. No weapons equaled almost no chance of survival unless if you fled, and even that was particularly hard to do. And what if she met someone else, someone who was more unsavory than him? They could injure her, kill her even, and she might decide to trust them wholeheartedly. She wasn't a girl who could trust other easily, but she accepted their company readily enough, and that could lead to her downfall. Oh, how stupid he had been, to think that she would be able to live out her life. Now they were both worse off than before. And there was absolutely no way to finish it.

He was now out of the bubble of dreamland, but she still resided in it. In fact, she began speaking about rather trivial things. Yes, she was unhappy. But what did she have to be unhappy about? She wasn't lying face down in rugged terrain or inside the intestines of a wolf. Even she recognized this, saying how she didn't have the worst life, but... She was complaining about guys. So perhaps she didn't quite understand the definition of the word "hardship". And most Capitolites didn't - their lives were filled with parties upon parties, getting their skin dyed and their hairs trimmed, implants to give them whiskers or a cat's tail, maybe even the ears of a rabbit. They didn't know hardship like the others in the districts [and out of the districts as well], and hell, he didn't quite understand it either. But he knew it better than she did, and he knew that Ariadne knew that trail even better than most, and above all, he knew that he would do anything to be in her company again.

His hair was touched - he barely noticed. Rather, he was still stuck in the nightmare that consisted of numerous images of his friend under attack, being recaptured, having a fate such as death, or worse: the same as his. Being an avox was truly worse than death - you were treated like a slave, forced to work yourself to the bare bones, and then you'd be worked further. If the Capitol figured out how to reanimate corpses [and to rid the body of decomposition and smell], they would have done so with their avoxes, forcing their bodies to work forever. The ones who Greg had so previously admired, aspired to be like even, were in reality cruel beings who thought nothing of their "traitors", many of whom were simply trying to help their district.

He hardly realized that the girl had left his side, lounging on the bed and had just been babbling about his story. He didn't want to tell the girl his story [and it was rather impossible to say one's story if they had no tongue]. He did not want to reveal his past, his life as the illegitimate son of the mayor of 10, of his flight with Ariadne, the search for her parents, the arrest just outside of 7. It was his story. It was Ariadne's story. It wasn't hers. And there was no way she was going to gain any more knowledge about the fact. She was a young thing, an incoherent thing as well; she wouldn't remember tonight, and she would forget about the avox who refused to listen to her. And as this thought process finished, she burst out "Just tell me something," clearing him of the need to tell her anything.

But what could he tell her? That she was a self-absorbed girl who needed to learn that life outside the Capitol wasn't all parties and hair dye? That she needed to stop this lifestyle [he could tell - it was driving her insane, going to one party after another. Too much of a good thing, he supposed] and find some job, get some stability? No - he was just another person. He had no right to interfere in her life like that, nor would he really want to. She was allowed to behave like this; the Capitol was filled with people just like her, lost with no way of getting found. They had a good life - an unfulfilled one, but a nice, entertaining lifestyle nonetheless. That's what he wanted to tell the girl - she had a nice life. She shouldn't go throwing it around like this.

So he wandered to the vanity, his fingers tracing over a red lipstick. Grabbing it, he scrawled a few words on the flawless mirror, then left the room, not intending to return. Perhaps the girl would be confused, perplexed, maybe she might even forget the words that were written on the glass once she woke up from her booze-induced coma, but the words would remain. Perhaps she'd even remember it, and the girl-who-seemed broken would have a way to mend herself.

YOU'RE LUCKY.

[cinder]

Cassedy is talking herself into a frenzy.

She can tell by the way her arms shake thinly, like lonely reeds on opposite sides of the world that are tired and cold, alone and forgotten. Her legs thrum a quick-beat-stamp-beat-quick pattern into the carpet. If her shoes weren't off and away in a room with a sink, she'd be carving holes into the carpet and dragging life-stains into the clean, white surface. This whole room lacks any color, she's going insane. Cass doesn't want the darkness of dancing black with splashes of neon trickling through the room to filter over sweaty bodies and gleaming, smiling, happy people-teeth, but she'd like some color.

Her life is half empty, no half full. There's an extreme that will lead her into a world of regrets and commitment to a home where Dru feels welcomed amongst the damned and derailed. But like the neon light spilling onto the quick-beat-stamp-beat dance floor of her life, hope too dwells in her life, passing in and out of her existence, weaving lies and patterns into her fragile heart to stitch it back up again so she doesn't fall apart [too soon].

Not that she feels a premonition coming on, but she does. Cassedy can see the future splayed before her very eyes, somewhere between the crook of the wall-meets-the-ceiling and a strange boy dancing, all in white. Bizarre, with his dark head and light, light, light everything else. Like that shock of black, Cassedy's eyes see a strange and unfamiliar sight pouring into her consciousness, something buried deep below the shallow rivers of self-insecurities and boy-crazed conniptions. Beneath the valley of the Capitol, there is the hope for a real life with actual people who have time to listen to Cassedy instead of hurry hurry hurrying nowhere to go eat nothing and take pills and throw up trash into rows of empty white bowls hiding behind closed doors where people don't have to look at the expenditure of a sad pathetic useless fabricated existence.

Her hands are shaking and itching to grasp at someone. Her eyes are closed to keep the demons away. Her legs still thrum away the beat of her life, because hearts can't be trusted. Her arms still shiver in the cold abandon and her chest heaves with heavy breaths, all together having nothing to do with a feeble constellation [of the body].

More so, Cassedy has finally begun to realize that not all of her issues can be shared with others. Boys don't comprehend the fragile network of lies and compliments girls feed each other and throw up in private during secret 3-way phone calls to discuss pay back and trash-gossip-intel. Happy people never understand why sad people like to cry and moan and harp to others [but Cassedy won't dwell on the man's sad eyes or cool/burning/hating radiation spilling through his hands into her reed-arms and leading her to consume a healthy dose of reality which is a full-blown shock to the system]. Certainly, nobody can understand the woes of ten angst flowing in and out of Cass like waves lapping away at the solid ground she stands on and suffocating her, under waves of grime and suicide-waters where real people jumped and died and rest.

The ocean scares Cassedy more than anything ever has, even the stray anxiety of a moment spent like this

[/b] or a serial murderer wielding a weapon of choice. Not because Cass enjoys control over her life and hates to think of a big-bad carrying her off to sea where she will drown and die.

Cassedy is all too content to be mouth-fed pills, lies, and salt-water in her quest for world-domination, rehabilitation, destruction. She doesn't like to be told when she is out of this world, out of her mind, out of control, but its bearable. She's not going to pop a bottle and lock herself in a room with shards of glass to cut away her skin until she bleeds out and all that is left is a clear, burning liquid down her throat and eating away at her liver/stomach/somethingsomething/throat. It's the dead out there that she chokes on.

Cass would kill herself, die by water, drown if she didn't think of dead bodies wading through the ocean every time she closed her eyes to keep the salt from pouring in the wrong orifice that's not meant to cause slow death but instead extreme long discomfort. People jump off of cliffs and into the sea where they never get up and they still may be.

Tributes and Victors are trapped in snow-globe universes where they have to watch others choke on water and ignore the death in the h20. The Aranica and that Dru were an example. Did Aranica Petros, the rockstar girl who preferred the solid warmth of stone to the liquid hell of her victory, did she swallow the water where her ally had exhaled one last time, or choked on the air still in her throat?

There are things Cassedy fears that she will never endure [i.e. the Capitol has no sea, only pools and pools of fresh spring water/alcohol]. But then there are the subtle stings of hurtfully placed words. Soft shocks ripple into and right through her body, YOU'RE LUCKY.

YOU'RE LUCKY is a two word statement, three if you count the "ARE" so that means it has power, because three word statements can humble you, thrill you, kill you, stab you, make you want to live forever.
I love you?
I hate you?
Is this it?
Where are we?
What are you?
What is this?
I want death?
I want life?
We are strange?
People died here?
People lived here?
You are luck.

This time, Cassedy is caught between letter-choices A through Z. She wants to live forever and die and maybe not be born too, because these words are a reminder from herself of what Cass knows is true as true as true. She is lucky. She is alive, she is healthy, she is pretty and desirable. She doesn't deserve words, damn her. She's an ugly, stupid, bitchy, See You Next Tuesday who doesn't mean anything to a guy who dances. She probably sucks at dancing to, she should ask him. But then he'll say YES, YOU DO and those three words might kill her deader than YOU ARE LUCKY or I LOVE YOU or GO AWAY, (vulgar word enter here).

She doesn't know how to feel because she hasn't sorted through every emotion yet but she wants to tell him why do you hate me, why are you treating me like this? If she wants to read the words and examine them up close, Cassedy will have to cross the room on stilts and pray to god they don't break and she doesn't break down or fall. Then she'll have to look herself in the eyes and see the red words branded across the mirror, and across her forehead, if they line up correctly. How could she deny their truth then?

Exactly, she couldn't

WHY ARE YOU ANGRY?

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ooc- I could have gone on for a whole lot longer, but I felt like extending this post might break the balance between semi-coherent ramblings of a madman and incoherent BS quantityquantity post of a desperate for over 2,000 wordwhore. I achieved the part with under 2,000, I think XD maybe not the coherence bit[/blockquote]
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[shrimp]

Before he leaves, he senses something amiss, something that simply compels him to turn around and stay in the doorway, watching as new words appear on the mirror. Perhaps a thought about how some other avox will have to clean this up appears in his mind, but if it is, it is banished quickly - something is going on here and he needs to know what it is. Slowly, footsteps wander back into the room, ruby-red eyes gaze upon the sentence that has appeared on the glass, upon the girl who has written them. They confuse him for a moment, weave in and out of his mind - there, yet he cannot understand how she has come to that conclusion. But then the wheels begin to turn correctly and soon he understands. She's taken it in a slightly different manner than what he intended, something that shall result in an entirely different outcome. He's been forced to answer a question yet again, and as much as it pains him to do so, he must. That is the burden of an avox.

But is he angry?

Underneath all of the layers of the mind and soul, perhaps angry would not be the correct word. In fact, if anything he is more bitter as his luck, bitter at the fact that he has been forced to become something lower than low - an untouchable of sorts. Designated to performing the laborious occupations, to a life without speech, without anybody to listen to. No, when you're an avox, like it or not you become the listener, and maybe you don't want to solve someone else's problem, or maybe you don't want to listen [perhaps you would prefer to throw ceramic plates at walls, relishing the pain from stepping on shards, your self-destructive nature thriving on the masochism-esque actions], but that has become your new cup of tea, whether you're ready for it or not. Once in a while a Capitolite may appear in a similar manner to this girl - broken, distressed, and they make you attempt to fix their problems, even when they cannot be fixed by anyone other than themselves.

Yet these words are offering him a chance to help himself to a slice of self-pity and for him to finally return to his normal self, just for one day one hour one second one moment. Dare he not take it? The prospect of finally being treated like a normal person seems almost needed for a boy who seems trapped in an endless maze of servitude and self-deprecation, but is it appropriate for the moment? As much as he wants it, as much as he knows that using it will open up opportunities, maybe make him stronger, enable him to get through another day another month another year another lifetime he knows that he isn't brave enough to attempt it. Bravery is something that he has had to use for only a little while, and he has already failed in that category. He has already submitted himself to life as an avox rather than death. He has already agreed to willing follow Panem's rules, as hash and unreasonable as they may be.

If he was brave, he wouldn't have let himself do this, wouldn't have allowed Ariadne to be in the same room, wouldn't have allowed her to cut his tongue out. He wouldn't have allowed her to face the horrors and all of the blood trickling down his mouth onto the floor, the screeches of pain and the gleam in a Peacekeeper's eye. Yet he did all of these things - perhaps partly because he couldn't stand to do it alone, to face it alone, and even though she was forced into the room, he didn't object. No, in fact he was quiet the whole time that he saw her struggle, mean-spirited as he belittled her in an attempt to make it less painful for her, to make it more vengeful. That is not bravery in Greg's mind; that is acting, and no longer can he perform the task that had been so easy for him while he had a voice. No longer can he hurt anyone else. That is the only gain from losing a voice.

Yet he now knows that this thought process is incorrect - one's actions can speak louder than words and almost always do. And now, faced with WHY ARE YOU ANGRY? scrawled across a mirror, he realizes the consequences to his actions. Perhaps he thought of himself as a vigilante, making the world right, helping people regain their senses by a few simple words that he can no longer even say out loud; like a vigilante, he is illegally doing this, tying to take this into his own incapable hands, even though he knows that it will probably turn out worse for the wear. He is pompous, arrogant, a plain idiot for assuming that he can fix this girl's problems. She thinks differently from him - for her, the simple problems that she has faced are problems. There is no way of explaining this to her without showing her, or without revealing the social class that he has been condemned to.

He's standing in front of the mirror now, head hung downwards, white-as-snow hair hanging in his face. He makes no attempt to move it. He doesn't know what to say [write say write say same thing] either - words, which normally flow eloquently and easily through his scholarly mind, now have deserted him. The brain has become blank, filled with nothingness yet everything at once. He has now gained knowledge, yet lost it at the same time. So he stands there for what seems like an eternity decades years months hours minutes and thinks. The words begin to make their way onto imaginary paper, rearrange themselves into coherent sentences, erase themselves again and start over on parchment that is already filled with splotches of words left unsaid and words that have been said far too many times to repeat.

NOT ANGRY.
I'M SORRY.
DON'T WORRY.

[cinder]

I'M ANGRY

Therapeutic as it is to write your feelings and express what you really mean to say, Cass can't help but scribble a blurb of words onto the mirror before her hand drops a shining, silver tube of lipstain onto the vanity surface. She doesn't mean to do this, not to herself, not to him. But he feels like Oedy did when Cassedy was young and innocent. Even more so than any of Oedy's familiar companions who dance downstairs with girls dressed as rabbits and flowers, girls who stare at a white-washed room with boredom, and a fair young man with only brief interest ignited by the red eyes that tell Cass he is staring at her and willing her to know that she is ignorant to the world, more than any of the empty-headed dancers downstairs who breath in the taste of excitement and exhale joy into their date's lips without a second thought to catch in their brains and shake their bodies with fear.

Oedy, her older brother with the muscular disorder/disease/gift/power/key to unlocking the universe always stared at Cassedy like he wanted to preserve her as a specimen of the world he would have grown up in as a normal, healthy boy. But he was more than. Cass asked him questions when he left in helicopters for unknown lands of test-tubes and blood-drawing equipment, but he would only tell her about the stair-master they were testing his endurance on, or how much he bench-pressed that week, without even trying.

She was the girl who moaned to him about his old friends who hung around her, waiting to catch words they could spread to their friends so that other people would like them because they were the gift/power/key to unlocking the universe by association. They tried to rub up against Cassedy and catch her diseases, like they thought maybe being friends with the sister of the freak would make them an increment of a ways as special as him. People never seemed to understand that strangeness isn't something you catch, because Cassedy knows the visions dancing in her head and the shakes in her bones come from within. Why should you blame anyone for what you've become? Why would you ever say "it Was Jimmy Kardon who has made me so bitter."

Oh.

IM SORRY

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Oedy has a peculiar way of curing her diseases though. She may not have caught them from him, but he is the answer to her disease-ridden questions infecting her blood. With his sometimes-unwanted omnipresence in her life, and his strange way of forming words that make her curious whether it's his advanced mind rather than his special muscles that make him desirable to the white-coated lab technicians and degree-wielding doctors.

Maybe the pure-white man in front of her is like her brother. Maybe he was just born knowing something that mystifies Cassedy, and will until her untimely dying day. He sure seems like it. When she stares at him, she doesn't see snaking waves of color extending like tendrils, beckoning her into something dark and twisted. When she looks around the white, white room she sees emptiness and feels clairvoyant as a psychic.

It would be so much easier if she could speak the words of her enlightenment to the stranger, or the familiar young man standing near her, but Cassedy fears breaking his careful reconstruction of their spell of silence. He's reweaving something incredible and worth preserving. Silence, meditation, calm, her cure. She drinks it up like any vile of fluids meant to instill artificial tranquility in her heart. She'd inject it into her bloodstream to quicken the pace of his poison and taste it in her blood, working wonders.

Now that she is clear-headed enough, Cassedy, she cares. (oxymoron of the day? injecting perspective? wasn't that the thing Cassedy avoided like the plague [no pun] because it made her hurt to think of her dismal existence?) When she looks to the red-eyed injector, she doesn't just see herself through his bitter eyes, but she sees him through brand new eyes rooted in her dreamer's head.

Words take on new meaning. I'm sorry doesn't just mean she is ashamed of her self-hating tirade. She feels waves of sadness stilling in her heart's increasingly peaceful ocean. Still, and deep as a lake. Growing, expanding, blooming into something better, by her poor standards. But she tastes salt on her tongue and hears the rush of her blood through veins when she stares at the sorry boy and really sees him. He is the ocean to her river, where her teardrops land and slide along with a river of sorrow, he is the ocean they end at. Oedy was like him in this respect as well. Around the same age, same wisdom, same bearing of sadness. Her heart aches.

NOT YOUR FAULT

Her parents had always taught her to honor her elders. She did not see fit to rebel against this idea when teen angst set in during her primary teenage years, because Oedy was her elder, and respecting him had been no labor, it was just a love and idol-worship she'd always cast upon him. She reckons to herself that if his eyes tell his age, then her danseur is dragging feet that are ages older than her sky-scraper heels are tall [in meters]. If she judges him by the stillness of his bones, he is timeless and by his soft skin, he can only be a few years older than herself. So he is to be afforded respect by Cassedy.

She is grateful. He's touched her and turned her rancid colors to pure and still white. When she stares through the mirror where her words are slowly writing themselves, she no longer sees an ugly mark on the face of the glass, but something that fits. Her hair softens to a light color, filled with texture but pale as snow. When her eyes flick back to his face in sudden shock, then back to her own, she catches traces of the pale grey in the sea of aquamarine. Funny to think the stormy grey eyes she'd despised and hidden as signs of her disease, her restless musings and hunger for more, more more had become part of the natural cool running through her veins.

Her eyes with sudden depth gaze back at the words she's written, like an inner dialog. "I'm angry." "I'm sorry." "Not your fault."

She looks at the words. He is angry, he is bitter. But he is sorry and weighed down by regrets. Not his fault, never his fault. She knows without knowing, that whatever he's done it's not his fault. Unlike Cassedy with her self-destruction and rambling, colorful speeches, this isn't a matter of something he's done. Her words paint a portrait of someone who was wronged by another. His fault for trusting the other, even the world, to protect him. But not his fault he's trapped with only the barest taste of color and joy.

Cass can be tranquil, but she needs the random sparks ecstasy her aqua-eyes inspire, and the laughing dances and boy with appetites. He is all of the peace and calm she wants, but he lacks the color of life, with only deep red anger seared across his face and buried in his all-seeing eyes. She can't possibly understand him. She can only know he is facing something different than her, something out of body. Oedy would know how to help, or what to do, but she can only offer words with color and spark. She can only speak to him on his own level and let him understand her.

I'm angry. She can know this feeling. Her mind had detailed in graphic images, just before he'd smoothed away her vile thoughts, the process of smashing red lipstick through the looking glass, taking shards and cutting everything in sight. Painting it all red and colorful.

I'm sorry. Cass has blamed herself for things too, she knows how it feels to be the one with shame.

Not your fault. The reminder sings to Cass, how she can never bring Oedy back from where he is. How it isn't her responsibility to be his frozen glass girl who sits in a time-box reminding him of the fragile stability of the world he came from, the world he left. It's not her fault she can no longer bear the pressure of waiting for a brother who leaves her.

"It's-you're not what you think."

She tries to reassure him with her eyes, he is not bad. He is not unnatural. I can't know you, but I can try to understand what you're feeling. I will try.

#the awkward moment when your capitolite tries to convince you she's going through a deep, emotional evolution and you're like "right, betch but you still don't know how to feels like to have your tongue cut out XD" trying to write seriously for capitol character + who is trying to communicate to a person of actual intelligent =/= computing in my mind.

let me know if you understand what the eff she's doing. I think she started out self-absorbed in this post, then tried to relate to the mysterious red-eyed one. Eff, could ya mention his name somehow XD, Cass will do the same. It's hard finding new words for the red-eyed freak.
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[shrimp]

For one who specializes in rhetoric, words are everything. Words are what shape the mind, shape the thoughts and feelings and emotions, whether in drawn out speeches or quiet, short words. Speech is an enigma of sorts - one must solve the puzzle in order to find the solution to the problem; in other words, they must think in order to figure out what's best to say, what direction they want to head the conversation in, what they want to happen. Perhaps this is how Snow is able to succeed in his duties - his speeches and eloquent usage of words are said in order to intimidate, in order to maintain power. Yet he is only one example of the power words have on another - throughout forgotten history this is apparent in simple conversations between a husband and wife, of children playing in the square, of broken lives and tarnished dreams.

Rhetoric however, is not useful to an avox. Words are no longer palpable to them - speech is no longer palpable to them and there is simply no use in paying attention, for the only words spoken to them are commands, forcing them to face the candidness of the situation at hand, snapping them out of their dream worlds that shine of freedom and speak of futures that no longer can be reached. For an avox, speech is no longer compulsory - rather, it is the opposite that is mandatory and every single day reminds them of this. It reminds them of their sins against the country - they have relinquished their freedom in exchange for a bit of rule-breaking and gallant personalities, for the lucky ones that is. However, Wilson Gregory Macintosh never really had luck on his side. He was trapped, his newly insular world created by a master of rhetoric who was trying to save his own skin, and successfully did so. It is sad, that the master entrapped the pupil in a web of lies and blood, lifting his guilt onto innocent hands. But such is the life of an avox.

She on the other hand, is one of the lucky ones. Able to be annoyingly loquacious simply because she has the ability to use words and syllables and use her tongue in order to make words sound like words. Direct communication is always more efficient when one is able to perform it in a simple, easy to understand way, rather of being forced to have reticent behavior and be castigated for prior actions by removal of these opportunities. Speech is equivalent to freedom - she can wander wherever she likes, do whatever she feels like, simply because she has the capacity to talk herself into these situations. And he is just so jealous of these people, who have the gift that he once did not appreciate, yet used it for deeds that were not altogether good. He used to be like these haughty, ignorant fools, winding his way along the soirees and violin music of a not-so-little house in a not-so-little district, using his skills to his advantage, persuading and intimidating and complimenting his way up the stationary social ladder.

In a sense, they are the same, only it is as if someone has turned the hourglass upside down, leading them backwards on a seemingly endless trail until you come across Him, or is it She? Because both She and Him seem to be alike, just on different wavelengths of time. Shallow, eloquent, depressed fools of their lifestyle who cannot bear it anymore. It merely takes vituperative statements for their world to turn upside down and inside out and get convoluted and twisted and turned into ways that one cannot imagine - his by way of a simple sixteen year old, a paperweight and a secret that should have never been revealed / been revealed so long ago; hers by makeup and glass and all-too-loud music that resonates through his ears and down his spine. And then his is changed once again, by a girl who is the same yet different [but not completely] at the same time. And it only took a few lipstick smudges and some correctly-placed words.

Correction: rhetoric is everything to a nineteen year old albino boy, even if it is impossible for him to accomplish the task by himself. It comes in all sizes and shapes, by way of paper airplane or booming loudspeaker or the quiet tones of a girl. And once received, it changes perspectives, it manipulates thoughts and actions and it can add a small glimmer of a silver lining that is not so small anymore. It doesn't matter if you aren't the one using the rhetoric. The audience is just as important as the creator. His "father" had always told him this, and although he hadn't believed it at first [the correct statement would be that he plain did not listen to him due to sheer teenage angst] he now knew it to be true. For those few words made all the difference. She may not be completely positive about what she is talking about when she utters those syllables, but she knows she's trying to do, even if the words get messed up or the emotions are placed at the wrong times or feet clumsily trip over hardwood flooring. She is trying to understand, trying to sympathize, even if she finds it difficult.

Thank you, is a statement that he never thought that he would utter think again, yet it pops into his mind as she speaks, for she understands, if not completely, but understands nonetheless. Ever since he's been here there hasn't been a single soul who attempts to help, attempts to make everything feel better and even if she is doing this under false pretenses it makes all the difference in the world. For he is no longer alone in this battle - no, there is now someone who would believe him if he were to say "I didn't do it," or "I'm not a bad person," even though it is near impossible for him to even believe those words.

Deep down, he isn't bad, and maybe deep down he realizes that it isn't completely his fault, the mess that he has put himself in, but self-hatred had already hardened into an outer shell. And those few words had cracked the exoskeleton, leaving him free to do the rest of the work himself. It will take time, it will take tears and perseverance and far too much faith in himself, but he will heal. She has started the process; someday, the bitterness will fade, the wounds will scar over, and he will heal. It is an upward battle, but it will happen. And it continues with a small smile, and the silent sounds of lipstick smearing against an imperfect mirror.

GREG

[cinder]

I got a broken brain
The doctor's saying that I'm insane overpaid
I'm seeking someone to take the blame
Like that would solve anything

Cass is sitting in a white room with no windows while her friends are finally making their way upstairs after hours of getting to know their dates. Now it's finally time for them to dance together, and Cass finds her eyes gazing on stilt-shoes and her ears falling onto the sound of muffled giggles as soft thumps breeze right past them. She'd turned her face away with a sort of strange, strangled sound when Greg moved past her and reached for the lipstick her unsteady hands must have dropped again. She blushes because she feels her mouth formed words that are fundamentally wrong, based upon only hunches and silent divination. To be wrong about Greg seems like a betrayal, not only of herself (for Cassey is used to failing in one way or another and causing trouble for herself) but to Oedy.

Oedy had taught her better than to be one of those girls who takes and never gives. Of course, she'd started off the night harping about her own problems, issues with boys and self-image, but she'd ended it well enough: listening to another human beings expressions. She felt kind of tired though, and edgy, like there was something wrong with the picture or the colorful words smeared across a mirror. But my eyes have a penchance for deceiving me. I could be seeing this all wrong, he is just as I am. We're both just listening to each other and maybe more than a little bit hopeless at what we're designated to do with ourselves. But he seems like the kind of guy who'd be good at everything like Oedy is..

She distractedly side-glances at the white figure again, remarking to herself how Oedy was always more colorful than him. Her brother was the one with the bright lights trained on his figure always, and the secret shadows hiding behind him, where he kept his dark secrets and all the notations about the places he would go in a helicopter, and not just how many miles he walked on a stair-master that week. Things he never told Cass, but she'd adapted to picking up with her extra-Oedy senses. The ones I'm using not to decode his writing. It isn't very hard for Cass to understand now, she's no longer hysterical and muscle-memory serves her brain well so that she feels she recognizes the subtle gestures Greg is throwing her way.

But he's writing now, not turned towards her. Without red eyes gazing at and judging her with some expressions that make fear a constant presence in the back of her air-filled head, Cass is brave enough to stop standing still long enough for wobbly feet to pad quietly over to the door and shut it softly as to give them a degree's more privacy. She turns back to her guest - no, part with that, he's her host considering she rudely barged into the pristine white chamber of her own accord and nearly slammed into him while he was clearly not expecting any visitors (this wing of the house was far enough away from the party that he could have safely spent a few hours with his door open and not a partier or two would have dared enter).

Except that, for an odd reason unknown to Cass, he doesn't feel like her gracious host. Not even like the ugly, ferret boy hosting the party who liked to make eyes at all his girl-guests as though he were paying them to follow his every beck and call. He has a stranger's air about him, as though he is equally as uncomfortable with the situation they are in as she is. More so even, in that he is a guest to her walk of life. Maybe he's a performer, some singers spend all their time locked up in a room alone and won't speak for hours before a concert. Sometimes days... It would explain the unfamiliarity; his worldly qualities and older attitude's, taken right from the teachings of an aging chanteur who passes along his last lessons to the bright, young pupil with the shining, twinkling red eyes and a pale, ghostly stage presence. One who will succeed based on sheer will power and devotion to his trade, he won't even follow the rules of etiquette and introduce himself. You could take the leap yourself, Cassedy, nobodies forcing you to keep quiet you dumb-thing!

She turns to him again and ignores the pushing thoughts no, that's not it he is far too different and would have been a better dancer if he sings as a profession, every performer can do a coupling of things these days. Instead, her eyes drift over to him, but before her mind can split her tight lips and form words, she notices an unusual and wonderful thing. She isn't wrong, she isn't as wrong as she'd thought! Cass had earned herself the privilege of one name and a smile in half. He's looking at her now, instead of through her with that ghost-edge that made her young bones twitch.

"GREG" is a normal enough name, but it sounds wonderful in her mind because it goes along with everything Cass had feared and faced just then. She'd thought for a moment - she'd thought he was just another one like herself who lived on passion and addictions. To her stab-wounds ingrained deep in her inner-arm's skin, he would be the voiceless stage presence, and to her lustrous dancing was his possession of a snake charm of a voice (of this, she was sure) that was low and melodic, meant to entrap an audience just like the feel of her hips and arms when she winded them around a crooked boy with an elated smile when he realizes he's "caught" a willing partner, even though all along it's always been Cass with the power over her dancing partner and the bottle of pills she knows he has on his person, the one's she'll steal and swallow/choke/live on.

She'd feared he was a consumer like herself instead of a giver and protector like Oedy, one who can't help but involve themselves in an other, even when they don't have the pleasure of such understanding company (dare she call herself such?) as Cass.

CASS,
she writes and returns Greg's own smile with a smidgen more turn upward to show him she's happy, but concerned. Because although Cass is happy she was right about Greg's decency and torment, her rightness didn't change the state of the demons haunting his mind, the ones she sees clearly now. There's a ways of a battle if she's going to repay Greg for her temporary catharsis, the release from all that tight-winded anger she'd been stirring in with her bold colors and agonizing need to satiate the curiosity why am I different? The catharsis is important, it'll last a lifetime, but she calls it temporary now because Cass knows that just as "Greg" will face demons of her own, acknowledging her.. differentness, her pains - that doesn't mean she's through with her battle yet. Cass feels like she's facing an enemy now, but the enemy is in the mirror reflecting her image. It's inside of her, and it's something only she can dig out.

But there's hope. Both of them are crossing great distances through the land-mines of their minds, and through the barriers that had kept them distracted and separate before, before I trusted myself and let the red eyes see me for who I am. Now Cass feels a sort of kinship to Greg. She understands why he reminds her of her brother, because compared to the blood-ties between Cassey and Oedy, Greg and Cass share a mutual "something" lurking beneath their surfaces. It glints in Cassey's flickering aqua eyes, bordering on grey whenever she catches a glance from the corners of them, as though they are reverting to her natural, stormy color by their own will. It makes Cass wonder why Greg painted his eyes such a bright and bloody red - to reflect his colorful insides just like her, or to hide something darker, a secret paid in blood and concealed almost entirely from the world behind the pale white face mask Greg wears around the suggestive, blood-red eyes.

She looks at him, she turns her head a fraction to the side and down so that it hangs like a questioning puppy's. But then her tan cheek turns entirely away from him. She can't bear to look at him and not understand what she is seeing. When she looks at herself, she feels like she knows whats going on, now. But Greg only gives her half the story even when he lets himself smile and lets her eyes gaze upon it. She wants to dig up his secrets and make his tongue move, her burning curiosity is transfixed by his mysteriousness. But Cass made a promise to always respect her elders, and she feels a touch barrier being bricked like a wall between him and her. No more dancing, no more falling and sobbing into foreign arms and shaking hands touching warm skin. This is a part of Cass that must dwell in the past, if she is going to - to change. And Greg is change, he isn't something she can touch and feel and want with all her senses, he belongs in a category designated to brothers and respectable older people. But her lip still trembles under the half smile and Cass feels tears springing. She can't understand why even with someone her mind can grasp at and hold onto when her body trembles and her heart lies to her, why can't she be happy with "only" this?

Greg will understand, if she writes it. She has to know. She has to goddamned find out what the hell is still wrong with her head, he has to know. She's depended on him so far for answers, right? Distractedly, her hands pick up a pen, and then one drops to her side while the other carefully prints.

YOU MAKE ME FEEL BETTER DIFFERENT BETTER
BUT I AM STILL
UNHAPPY UNEASY - WHY?

Her lower lip slips down into a slight frown, but she looks at Greg and feels it raising up again with a silent energy backing up her happiness and tied to him, the answers to her questions, his answers.

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[shrimp]

this is totally a wip because I gotta get the outline in order. Apologies. I also need to learn how to make pictures look albino-esque, 'cause this is ridiculous.

On the plus side, the color of the text seems to be matching with the skin in this picture. Yay complements.

And now I'm being forced to go to bed. Wonderful. I'll try to write it while I'm not here and stuff. Yeah.