Outcasts Rock [[Wolf Tears]]

[chaseee]

Simone Crawlings

There are few things I hate worse than that hellhole of an orphanage. One of them being myself. The other. School. It reminds me greatly of the place I currently reside. Blank, concrete walls. Disgusting food. Horrible people. Yup. Sounds about right.

I am thinking this as the third bell rings, releasing the seventh graders to lunch. I wonder what kind of slop they will be serving today as I approach my locker. There's all kinds of varieties. Slop on buns. Slop in casseroles. Slop plain. You get used to it after a while.

I gaze into my locker, setting my books on the high shelf. My jacket, my notebook, my pens and pencils. Ah. There it is. I snag the picture off the wall, and gaze at it, intently. I smile. I always find myself doing this when I'm looking at her.

Aranica Petros.

I glance around, afraid someone might have seen me. I'm safe for now. I think back to the times Aranica might have had any contact with me. A small brush of shoulders in the cramped hallways. A hello as we pass in the lunch line, maybe? All I know, is that the minute I had seen her, I had been starstruck.

If people learned of this, they would immediately taunt me. They would tease that I was in love with the victor. The freak. That I only liked her because of the lush amount of money she has in her bank. All of this is false. I had had a petiful crush on the girl since I had seen her in the hallway, and accidentaly knocked her books out of her hands. I had picked them up for her, of course, but when our eyes met, I could have sworn there had been... something. Anything.

Desperate for love, some might say. This was not altogether untrue. After years of neglect and loneliness, I would like some emotional interaction with another human being. And not out of pity or spite. I have had enough of that during my life. Pregnant women coming up to me, offering money they don't have for a decent meal that night. A warm blanket their grandmother had made for them. I found myself declining their offers, even if I so desperately needed them. I did not like pity. I had never given it out, and I hated receiving it myself.

I go back to win Aranica had been in the Games. She had fought vicously, that girl. She had gone through so many tributes. I remember the District One girl, Drusilla. She had been an evil bitch, that was for sure. But she had done the exact thing I would have done if I had been in her place. She fought, if only to prolong her life. And, in the end, it had turned against her. Her soulmate had turned against her, and now she was dead. Although I was not that torn up about it, it was a bit strange.

I walk into the cafeteria now. I hurry through the line, receiving my slop (on a stick today), and all but ran to my usual table. I don't know why, but I was afraid of someone seeing me as I made my way. I was sure I would be made fun of. They would through their slop at me, and call me names. But, of course, this does not happen. I make it to my seat safely, and open my milk carton unhesitantly. That's when I notice her.

Her black hair looks the same as always, hanging loose around her frail body, and her amber eyes are visible. I stare into them, before reminding myself that it is quite rude to stare. I do so anyways. I clear my throat to get her attention. "Um, hello Aranica. I mean, no, hi stranger. No, wait!" I sigh, and stop talking. The words are coming out completely wrong. Not at all how I imagined our first meeting. This wasn't exactly romantic, now was it? "Well, so yeah. I know your name. Mine is Aran- no! That's your name now, isn't it? Mine is Simone. Simone Crawlings." I give a sort of hysterical giggle, and lean back in my hard chair. It sucks to be me.

[WT]

((OOC- We seem to be rusty as a team, Ara and I. =/ Sorry 'bout that, and also about the length of this miniature monstrosity. I swore it would stay under 500 words, and then I made the mistake of letting Aranica take over. Thank you for wanting to revive this thread, though. :D

I know this doesn't really have a conclusion, but I've spent the last half hour trying to find one and I'm sick of it. As stated: rusty. Dx))

On the whole, Aranica really didn't mind school. She enjoyed learning for the sake of learning as much as for the practical applications, so the fact that much of what she learned would never be of use to her didn't bother her a bit. Even if she occasionally lost interest in a subject, it was at least something to fill her time and her mind. Besides, school gave her a place to interact with other people, even if the interaction was mostly pointless. Early on in the year most of the teachers didn’t let anyone disrupt class by trying to grill her, and by the time they all grew tired of being strict the students had more or less gotten used to having her in their class. It was a cycle she had to go through every year, but which meant that for the most part she got to have conversations that revolved around something other than the Games. Not too many- she had never been good at talking to humans, and nowadays she was all too aware that these people were still of Reaping age and that she was not a person most people would want to spend time with right now- but some. Enough for the unfamiliar voices to keep away the memories of voices that no longer existed, at least during the day.

All of that did not, however, mean that Aranica was used to school. What memories she had of school came from the scattered remnants of her early life. Memories from that time were not only fragmented, but were of home schooling, a necessity for a family on the run. While in her cave she had been presumed dead. After her emergence, she had no one to make her attend school, and so spent her days working or exploring the workings of the world she had found in an effort to understand it. Being cooped up in a building with large crowds and a regimented schedule was not something that came to her easily, even after two years of it, and her enjoyment of school was a tenuous thing that could be snapped with minimal pressure.

Such as, for instance, the pressure that could be found in a cafeteria.

Doing her best to focus on her thoughts, Aranica reached up to clutch her rock in one hand and press her messenger bag against her side with the other. For several long moments she hovered outside the door, opening and shutting her eyes as she tried to control her breathing. This was a ritual she went through every day and one she expected to fail as miserably today as it always did, but she couldn't bring herself to just walk through the doors without any preparation. The hallway was so safe, its walls close and its ceiling low and the lights so bright they could almost be sunlight...

With one final deep breath, she let go of her rock, wrenched the door open, and rocketed through. At full tilt she fled from one end of the cafeteria to the other. It was a futile attempt to avoid panicking; as hopelessly incapable as she was at keeping her feet in a straight line (she knocked into at least two people and had to pause to offer hasty if heartfelt apologies), she was worse at stopping her eyes when they wanted to roam to the towering windows in the wall she passed.

The noise hurt her ears, and the number of people who wanted to talk to her was much higher in the cafeteria than in her classes, and since the ceremony in the Capitol she had found herself frightened by crowds. But the windows, designed to give the cooped-up students a view to the outside and a feigned feeling of freedom... Even on cloudless days, the illusion of open space was enough to set Ara to trembling, and god help her if it was storming outside. Today there were only one or two benign-looking clouds, but even so she could all but feel them mocking her, daring her to step out from her neat little hiding place so they could-

Aranica threw herself into the nearest seat and reached into her messenger bag with trembling hands. Ignoring the wall with the windows as well as she could, she pulled out her lunch. Only an apple and a cheese sandwich came out, and the sandwich would probably go back into her bag before the end of lunch. She didn't have much of an appetite these days; it was better right now than it usually was, because something good had finally happened (Heron had won, won, lived!), but she still couldn't stomach very much. She had promised Anani (and some others) that she would eat, though, and Dru (and quite a few others) would want her to, so she did her best, if only for them.

You should be given more than silence for your loyalty to people who can no longer hold you to demands.

Stiffening, Ara pressed herself further into her seat and took a first bite out of the apple. Her rock said nothing, but hummed gently into her mind, and her messenger bag started reading off the last paper she had put inside of it. The ghost of a grateful smile danced across her lips, and she let the two voices lull her into peace as she ate.

Not even curious, little cloudlet?

With a stifled groan Ara nibbled at her apple. She was not, in fact, interested in what the clouds had to say, but there was no use in telling them that. They would continue to speak no matter what she said; if anything, replying would egg them on. Pretending she couldn't hear them was no use- they knew, they always knew- but she didn't have to give them new material. Fortunately, she wasn't going at this alone- her messenger bag was still spouting a stream of her own writing at her, offering a variety of facts and statistics about the geography of District Twelve that didn't exactly interest her but did at least kept the voices of the clouds at bay.

Consequently, when her peace was next broken it was not by the clouds, but by a human voice. Ara jumped and gave a short, sharp cry at the unexpected intrusion, almost choking on her apple. Unconsciously she started running through nearby objects that might be useful, expecting to need to fight or flee. Luckily, it only took a moment to realize that she was not in fact being attacked. Ara forced her racing heart to settle down so she could pay attention to the person who had unwittingly snuck up on her, spurring forth reactions that- among other things- she still hadn't managed to shake even years after her emergence from the Arena.

It was a boy, greeting her enthusiastically if somewhat clumsily. Aranica allowed herself a tiny smile, half amused by his confused ramblings and half saddened by recognition of a personality not so different from what her own had once been like. "Hello, Simone. Um- I'm Aranica, but I guess you know that." Her right hand twitched, longing to be held out, but she made no move to oblige. Once shaking hands was as natural as breathing, but now her need for contact was held in check by high-strung anxiety and a fear of attachment that was even more pronounced than usual right now because of the windows in her peripheral vision.

What she did do was dip her head in greeting, and then pull her gaze up to curiously examine her new tablemate. At first glance she wanted to assume he was older than her, but a second look made her reevaluate that; he was tall, yes, but his voice was slightly higher than she would expect from a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old. Moreover, there was a certain not-quite-gangliness about his stature that marked him as close to her age, though she wasn't willing to put an exact number on it.

Yes, well. You never were willing to commit to much, were you?

"Oh, fuck off," she muttered irritably- and then clapped her good hand over her mouth while her left waved around. "Not you! Oh god, I'm sorry, I didn't mean- you're fine, I- the clouds-" This was not going well. Just because she didn't want to risk shaking hands didn't mean she wanted to alienate him entirely! "Really. It's nice to meet you, Simone, I don't-" Unable to put words together in the order she wanted, she gave up on speaking and put her face in her hands, propping her elbows against the edge of the table so she didn't collapse. "Sorry," she mumbled one last time.

Her left elbow slipped, sending her hands and face tumbling into the table. Groaning softly, she pushed herself back upright, looking everywhere but at Simone. Here was a perfectly nice person- a little odd, definitely, but then so was she- and she was unintentionally mouthing off to him. She'd been doing so well these past few weeks, too, buoyed by the survival of another District Twelve tribute...

You can't hide from us for long.

Silently she reached up to put a fingertip to the rock at her neck. As bitter as that motion was for her, bringing to mind memories of Dru's laugh and Anani's tight embrace and both siblings' bloody deaths, its level voice and cool, smooth surface were still more comforting than anything else she could think of. This was the one entity in the world who had gone through the most with her, the one who she had turned to time and time again because it was the one who understood her best and the only one she trusted, beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt, to never leave her.

[chaseee]

[/b]

There was something oddly charming in the way Aranica Petros acted. Anxious, terrified, on-edge. But that is probably because of the love I have for the girl. I have several classes with her, and many classmates watch her intently in class, expecting her to crack at any given moment. It wasn't uncommon amongst victors upon returning home. They would try and get their lives back to normal, try and reassemble the peices of their lives that were shattered in the arena. They tried to pull themselves together for the camera crews, tried to plaster on a smile and look happy considering the wealth they would receive at home. But I watch them closely when they speak. The way they fidget, the way they jerk around in quick motions, not quite beleiving they're completely out of the arena. It's heartbreaking.

"Hello, Simone. Um- I'm Aranica, but I guess you know that." I give her a shy smile, which almost immediately twitches into a frown. All too well, Aranica Petros. It doesn't shock me when I feel pressure on my shoulders. A hand. Glancing to my left, I catch a glimpse of Lilliana, her eyes apologetic. Catching a vibe of sorrow from my damaged brain, she must have decided to materialize to comfort me, to try and get me out of this funk. Her eyes slide unwillingly to Aranica, telling me what she feels uncomfortable saying aloud. She's here now. Don't blow it. She vanishes then, her advice given, apparently feeling there's no need for her to stay with me.

I could sure use her comfort.

"Oh fuck off." Aranica's voice pulls me from my internal struggle, and I must admit, I'm more than a little shocked. My mouth goes slack, my lips parted askew as the hurt seeps in, pain clawing at my insides, several different emotions raging inside me. I can only just hear Buck in my mind, his voice dropping to a pleading tone.

Get out of there.

And then a tumble of words are coming out of the girl opposite him, hushed and worried. "Not you! Oh god, I'm sorry, I didn't mean- you're fine, I- the clouds-" The clouds? And then it dawns on me. In the duration of the 55th Hunger Games, Aranica had shown a fear of clouds. She was often televised talking to them, as well as the rock she wore around her neck, and... just about everything else.

I wonder what the clouds tell her. But, of course, I'd never ask about it. Doing so would probably surface memories unwanted to her. Memories of the Hunger Games, of her fallen ally, of all the death and carnage a girl so young should not have to face. And I care too much about her to bring something up that would cause her that much pain.

"Um, maybe I should just leave?" It's the last thing I want to do, but it's obvious my presence only causes discomfort and awkwardness for the both of us. You're really going to just throw away your only chance at talking to this girl because you don't feel right about asking her about your life? You sicken me. Sighing at Dane's blunt remarks, I prod at Lilliana, begging for her advice. Your choice, kid. Either suck it up and chance humiliation via the girl you love, or walk away and never know what could have happened. But your time's almost up. Make a decision and act on it, Simone. Biting on my lower lip, all I can do is gaze at Aranica Petros and wonder at how lucky I was to have ran into this remarkable girl, and how unlucky I am to have opened my stupid mouth.

ooc; bleh. thought my muse would cough up more than this. oh well, hope it gives you enough to work with.[/size][/blockquote][/ul]

[WT]

((OOC- Nah, you were fine. ^^

Look! :D A post that isn't a monstrosity! It was hard to write, though. Hopefully that doesn't show too much.))

"No!"

In years past, Aranica wouldn't have even blinked if someone she had just met tried to flee her company. She might have pouted for a while, and perhaps followed them a little longer just to be sure, but soon enough she would have accepted it as a matter of course and complied with their wishes. Scaring off others was something she had always tried not to do, but something that she had sort of come to expect by the time of her Reaping. Between her emergence from the cave and her Reaping, nobody had bothered to stick around for long, and because she had her rocks it never really bothered her.

Now, however, even the mention of leaving sent her mind reeling in panic. Never mind that Simone made no motion to follow up his words. Never mind that Aranica did not want to be his friend, as she would have three years ago- perhaps couldn't be his friend, because even if she got past her terror she was too dependent right now to hold up her end of any kind of proper relationship. None of that even occurred to her. All that she could process was that someone was talking to her, and now they wanted to go away because of something she had done.

She hadn't hurt him, had she? Suddenly wary, Aranica pulled her hand back (when had she even started to reach for him?) and studied her classmate's features carefully. Discomfort was definitely there, written all over the set of his shoulders and the awkward tilt to his mouth where he was biting his lip, but he didn't look upset, exactly. He looked upset after she spat at the clouds, and he didn't look like that anymore. Maybe he hadn't stopped being distressed and had just started hiding it because he didn't want to give some random crazy girl insight to his thoughts? But if that was the case, why was he still here in the first place...?

There was only one way to find out. Placing her good hand on the table about halfway between them, Aranica tilted her head forward and cautiously opened her mouth. "I'm sorry if I hurt you. I didn't mean anything. Please- don't go." For a moment she thought she was done and closed her mouth accordingly. Then she realized that that could be just as offensive if he thought she was trying to order him around (sometimes that happened when she was trying to make requests- apparently some people assumed that victors liked to use their status to boss other people about), and hurried to rectify that possible problem. The result was an awkward sort of half-pause that sent her stumbling over her words as she catapulted herself back into speech. I mean, don't- do- go if you want to, but don't-"

Calm down, Ara. We know what you mean, but he might not. Take it slow.

As usual, the rock was right. Aranica forced her larynx to grind to a halt and stayed still for a moment, chewing on her lip as she tried to decide how to phrase what she wanted to say. This was already going badly enough; the last thing either of them needed was another poorly-phrased sentence. "Don't... Don't feel like you have to do anything on my account."

[chaseee]

He sewed his eyes shut
Because he is afraid to see
He tries to tell me
What I put inside of me

Uncertainty fills the young boy as he takes the girl in. Am I really ready for this? He thinks back to all the times he caught himself watching her, too shy to approach, to say anything to the girl who was on his mind so often. But now here she is, and he's barely able to mutter a few words without setting her off. Was he really that irritable? Or was she still bothered about the Games? He knew her brother was killed recently. Maybe she wasn't doing so well because of that. He lets his shoulders slump, and stares hard at the wall behind them, his brows furrowed in thought.

"Um, how have you been Aranica?" He grins, but soon falters, blushing. "Uh, nevermind, don't tell me if you don't want to. I don't want to meddle in your personal life or anything." Soon after saying this, he harshly bangs his head on the table. "Damn it. I'm sorry, Aranica."

Jeez kid, get yourself together! Just say something already! Stop acting like a blubbering idiot!" Buck, ever so helpful.

"Class sure was fun today, am I right?" He gave a nervous little chuckle, looking anywhere but at the girl in front of him. Dear God, he must have blown it with her. He had, hadn't he? She'd tell him she was sorry, then move. Just like all the others. He sighed, and rested his face on his outstretched palm, shaking his head in shame.

ooc; oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. i am SO sorry wolf! for the wait, for the length, for the crappy everything. ;_;