Clock Ticks Life Away // [VT/11/Open]
Jan 9, 2012 19:31:50 GMT -5
Post by Baby Wessex d9b [earthling] on Jan 9, 2012 19:31:50 GMT -5
for what it's worth, I have a slow disease that sucked me dry... I always aim to please
but I nearly died
It was the end, the last stop of the victory tour. In little more than a day he'd be back in Ten, but not home. Mace had thought about that through the night, instead of taking the morphling left at his bed side and slipping away. There were things that needed sorting, and he was running out of time - always running out of time. He had passed the night fairly well though, without needing more than a few cups of coffee. The caffeine agitated his tremors, but his styling team wouldn't let him on stage without something to soothe them, anyhow. He just hoped he wouldn't face plant onto the stage.
That would not do Denver justice.
He needed to start thinking less about the dead. That much was perfectly clear. He could not live focused on the part of him knelt in the snow, in vigil to the atrocities committed. Mace wasn't ready to deny that part of himself, but he couldn't be so indulgent either, not when he got back to Ten. He was tired of the guilt, and more, he had a feeling the animals wouldn't respond to him in such a distracted state. Not that he planned to return to his cows. No. It was time for someone else to herd them now, whomever had taken over in his absence. Marcelline, perhaps. He might even buy her a horse to make it worth her time.
But he would not live in the northern community home. He had a house now, and finally he began to wonder about it, to imagine the size and the land and the ease with which he could carry those twenty-three souls. He just had two more to bear and then he would be done.
His styling team found him in the dining car, chugging one last mug of the delicious black, bitter stuff. He would miss it, but maybe he could afford to buy the grains. He thought about coffee - and only coffee - while his styling team tore him apart, twisted his flesh until he looked like the cowboy Victor Panem had come to expect. And when it was just a few minutes to show time, the lead stylist said not at word at all as she slid the needle into his sore vein. Mace clamped his right hand down over the soft interior of his elbow, found his place in the lineup, and relaxed. The cloying sensation moved from his heart outward until he found himself seated on the stage, staring numbly at the Mayor as he spoke with eloquence and gusto about the two tributes from Eleven.
Mace had only known one, but he had been his brother. He craned his neck, fixing his posture, to see the families assembled. He'd never even once wondered about Denver's history - or Aesop's or Sawyer's for that matter. And now that he had a piece of Alexander's, he wanted more. Phoebe. Her name was like a bell, something distant that called to him. Now he knew, for certain, that there was more to the others, just as there was more to him than the soulbearer, the Victor from Ten. He'd have his chance, after the pomp and public part of the tour was over.
Mace shifted in his seat restlessly, ready, oh so ready, to meet the Samuels, to know Denver, to go home to a place he'd never been. Finally he seemed to be on the same schedule as time, and he couldn't wait for the next thing to happen.
banner credit: jurate
lyrics:placebo for what it's worth
lyrics:placebo for what it's worth