The Storm Has Passed [Open]

[✨ zozo.]

quartz stonewall - district four
d a d d y s l i t t l e g i r l

From her perch on the rocks, Quartz eyed the other teenagers from her position, curling up against the wind. Spying the boy hand over his jumper to one of the younger girls as they talked - who slid it on eagerly despite it being far too big for her - she smiled to herself at the gesture. It made her think of her father, which made her mouth stretch wider across her face, a warm humming feeling spreading in her chest.

Funny. This would probably be the first time today that she'd genuinely smiled. Plastering a convincing grin on her face in an effort to look confident, Quartz had promised her father that she'd return home safely after the reapings. Again, once she'd sneaked through the fatal drawing of names, she had pretended to feel fine for his sake, pretending to look pleased when he'd handed her a hot chocolate and wrapped her up in blankets, finding herself shivering despite the warmth that spread around the house as she curled up by the fire. Quartz was a sort of master of deception, but even her Daddy could tell when she was pretending and when she was telling the truth. Still, she'd rather act like herself and save him from worrying about her and wasting emotion on nothing. She'd be back to her own self in a few days, she always was. For him.

Thinking about it some more, Quartz had barely spoken a word all day. Now, she realised, she was the only one in the group that hadn't said hello - or even opened her mouth, in fact. Normally she'd be perfectly content with keeping to herself, but for some reason Quartz needed conversation. Something, anything, anyone - for that matter - to distract her mind from her straying thoughts. Tilting her head up, she thought about saying hello to the others, but shrunk back hesitantly. Knowing herself, she might snap back at a comment, even more dangerous in her agitated state. The others may know her infamous habit of being straightforward and rude, and didn't want to flame her already jumpy thoughts. Besides, they're probably perfectly happy amongst themselves, she thought glumly, resting her chin back on her crossed arms and stared out into the greys of the sea.

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[✨ zozo.]

quartz stonewall - district four
d a d d y s l i t t l e g i r l

For a while, Quartz was zoned out as she stared into the horizon, watching distant waves topple over each other and be swallowed into the sea. Her body had gotten used to the cooling winds and now sat rigid on the rocks, listening to the boy talk as her blue eyes darted from the sea to the group and back to the sea, spying a lone seagull skimming the top of the blue mass spread out in front of her. She found the way the boy strung his words together fascinating, listening as sentences tumbled of his tongue, talking to the girl he'd leant his jumper to and the other one who had previously yelled.

“Only if there’s something you’re trying to ignore. I was just here to think. And build some things, maybe. And I’m Gage, by the way.” he explained. Quartz recognised his name, perhaps from school, but hadn't met him before. She found some familiarity in his words when he explained he was at the beach to think, hitting home with her. She often came here, or other secluded water areas, to do just that. Think. Otherwise she would probably explode from her thoughts that were carried away with her crippling worry.

Her head picked up when she saw him turn his head to face her.“You?” Gage asked. He could have been talking to anyone, but his stare gave her the reassurance his question was aimed at her.

"Quartz" she replied curtly, smiling politely as she did so. She had to raise her voice a little so her reply wasn't carried away with the wind, which had picked up a little as she responded. Her name tasted bitter in her mouth, she never much liked the name her father had given her.

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[Kheft]

The body contact was odd for Sam. She couldn't recall the last time that she had touched or been touched by anyone. It was almost a little soothing - the steadiness he seemed to exude made her feel calmer - despite the cold she began to relax.

“Only if there’s something you’re trying to ignore. I was just here to think. And build some things, maybe. And I’m Gage, by the way.”

Gage…Gage…maybe the name was familiar, she couldn't exactly place it. Possibly a friend of Brooke's? But then, Brooke so rarely kept the company of anyone except her, and it had been years since they took him…so it was all just speculation anyway. It was unlikely that his name had come up in conversation at school, they kept the bigger kids separated out from the little ones. Different buildings, different break times -- unless, that is, he had a younger sibling that she might have met in passing. The thoughts kept her from realizing that she had still not replied to Gage's question.

"Quartz."

The stiff reply from the previously silent girl, reminded her, but now that they were talking Sam felt loathe to interrupt. She waited to see if any further conversation would commence, and when it did not she added her own reply. Head tilted against Gage's back, she murmured, "Saamina…Sam. We just lost another two to the sharks, so there's always plenty to try and ignore. Like when your stomach's empty and it aches, gotta take your mind off it or it just hurts all the worse. Not that I knew them I guess, glad I didn't." She careened off into silence when she realized that the jabbering was just that. Still, the quiet seemed all the worse for having been broken, so she tried to prolong the distraction.

"What were you planning to build?"

[Snareroll]

“To have shades of grey you need shades of white, and black,”

The comment struck Ariana off guard, not expecting something that deep or thought provoking. That is true, without black and white there would be no grey. But without grey what would be the boundary between black and white? And aren't shades of black and white just shades of grey anyways unless it's the purest white and pitchest black?

“And sometimes people don’t like good and evil having their own complex categories.”

"As soon has she thought she had figured out her opinion on the last comment, the second came. Does it matter if people like it? Can good and evil define people alone? No, theres much more than that to a person. Careers are ruthless killers, "evil", but what of those like myself forced into being one. Does that make me evil?

But aren't shades of black and white just shades of grey? There's only one black and one white but everything between is the grey. People are too complex to be described in one word like good or evil. Definining one with good or evil overlooks everything about them."

[Kheft]

Sam was getting drowsier by the second, and not the good drowsy. It was cold, just way too cold for her body to handle. She dropped her head forward against crossed arms and felt herself drifting off. Somewhere in the back of her head those warning bells were going off, trying to remind her that she needed to move, stay awake, find someplace warmer. Brooke always called it my 'little bear instinct'. They didn't have many bear in District Four, but Brooke had read about how they liked to hibernate and he would always tease her that she was like a bear cub in the winter time, finding warm places to fall asleep and eating whatever her hands fell upon.

The smell of Brooke was close, and she could feel him, warm and solid, against her back. His sweater engulfed her, oversized and smelling like the fishing boats he spent his days on. Her hands made fists in the sleeves that spilled down over them, clutching it closer. Noises grew softer and less intrusive, although the vibrations of Brooke's words passed from his body to hers and she could nearly translate them back into speech. Nearly… but it was so warm now…comfortable…

“I hope you don’t mind my calling you Saamina. It’s a bit more interesting than Sam.”

That was an odd thing for Brooke to say. He always called her Sam. Why was Brooke…

Her eyes blinked open in confusion. Wait, Brooke isn't here anymore, they took him. They cut out his tongue and took him away. Far, far to the Capitol where she could only hope to see him if she was doomed to enter the arena. The thought blew through her, reawakening forgotten nerve endings to their icy plight. It was Gage, not Brooke whose back she was nested against. The loss squeezed her chest tightly, fresh again in that moment. Salty tears smarted at the corners of her eyes and burned at her throat.

Unable to bear crying in the suddenly stifling presence of the other kids, Sam staggered onto numb and unsteady feet before pelting down the descent from sand dune to water's edge. Somewhere halfway she felt the ground shift and suddenly the world around was twisting in strange patterns of upwards and downwards with neither in their usual orientations.

[Snareroll]

“Black is essentially a non-color. And white is just a simple light mixture of all. Personally, I think the whole ‘black and white and gray’ metaphor is horribly overdone. People can choose their own colors to define them.”

Ariana thought about this for a minute. Though it was true that there's more to life than the greyscale, could people choose which color defines them? If so, which color defined her? She knew she couldn't, but could others? The questions rang in her mind for a while, distracting her from the bitter cold.

"Can people really choose their own color though? Or does life force a color upon them whether they like it or not? Does the ocean choose to be a blue-green color, or is it just and the light reflects off its surface? Does each blade of grass choose to be green, or is it just their natural color?"

She begun shivering as the cold crept in. Soon something seemed wrong with Sam; she had been distant for a bit and was lost in thought. Suddenly, a tear formed the corner of her eye before she ran off, stopping halfway down the dune. Concerned
Ariana approached he and placed her hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

"Are you okay?"

[Kheft]

Fear is the brightest of signs
The shape of the boundary you leave behind
So sing all your questions to sleep
The answers are out there in the drowning deep


The tears flowed in full force, spilling over her cheeks and chin, and dripping down her neck in icy trickles. Sand, disturbed by wind and her tumble, stuck to the damp patches and exacerbated an already miserable mood. The granules got in her eyes and made them water and sting all the more. No matter how religiously she wiped at her face, Sam seemed helpless to stifle the waterworks once started.

She curled up where she lay, knees tucked into her chest and face buried into the fabric of Gage's sweater, soaking it's threads. The wind was doing an admirable job of drowning out her embarrassing display so she thought. Then the sudden descent of a hand on her shoulder sent her scrabbling up onto her knees.

Ariana must have followed down the dune and was now standing over her in the dusk with well-meaning concern. From several yards away, she could now hear Gage calling her name and pursuing with only slightly more grace than her own earlier spill. She wanted to call out caution, but the words dissolved into a messy round of hiccups, and another gush of hot tears. Even their warmth was only brief, however, quickly sucked away by the surrounding air, leaving her face feeling frostbitten.

"Saamina? Saamina?"

Gage's voice was closing in as he attempted to locate her position in the dark, and Ariana hovered just above her shoulder.

This is turning into a freak show, and you are act number one, Sam. Her frustrated and humiliated thoughts brought a little color back to the pallor of her face. She prided herself on being glib, witty, tough…others could think her a fragile little girl, but to prove them right in those assumptions was beyond degrading. Tears were unallowable, and while some might soak into her pillow at night, to have this sort of vulnerability in such a public way was intolerable.

With that thought, she shook off Ariana's hand, wincing a little at her own ungratefulness, and found her footing once more. Even though night had now fully enclosed them plunging the coast into a darkness broken only by the spot of their lone lighthouse, she knew this coastline with a lonely child's intimacy. Her feet turned in the direction of cliffside and brought her unerringly to it's sheltering base. From here, the way to her family's home was easy to follow. It's windows glowed with the dull blossom of tallow candles. No matter her mother's failings, she always made sure the candles stayed lit until Saamina made it back safely each night.

The door swung on loudly protesting hinges and slammed shut behind her. She paused to secure the latch as the room's heat engulfed her. It felt like a sauna after such a prolonged exposure to the frigid elements. Sensation rushed back into her numb fingers and toes, setting them to a painful burning that had her stamping feet and slapping hands on her thighs. The long sleeves of Gage's sweater sank back down her skinny wrists and tangled in her fingers, reminding her of its previously forgotten presence.

Sam glanced out the front-room's window into the ensuing blackness, giving brief consideration to heading back outside to try and hunt Gage down on an inky black beach in the freezing wind to return his garment. She quickly discarded the notion.

"I suppose our paths will have to cross once more." The murmured words brought an unfamiliar sense of anticipation. "It's only because he reminds me of Brooke," she hissed stubbornly under her breath.

Saamina DelMar did not need friends.