these hearts lie } wonder; VT

[florentine, d4b ❁]

[presto]

klaus goravich
seventeen
district three

[/presto]

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OH, FOR EVERY KING THAT DIED

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You are hollow, believe it or not. The words that you speak lack depth and meaning, the downcast eyes do not truly see the sidewalk. You have seen the sea before, but this is different. This sea is not marred by bloodstains and tears, washed aside by pain and fear. This sea is beautiful not because of it's majestic, magnificent perfection, but because of it's necessity. The people rely on it. You watch as they work with it as though it is a part of them and they too are a part of it. The ocean here is something that is bound into the lives of the people so completely that without it they would never survive. The merpeople of District Four are beautiful. Learning from the land, giving to it everything and taking only what they need. A perfect harmony, a beautiful, terrifying kind of wealth that threatens you somewhere deep down. You took a piece from this intricate puzzle, let another fall before your eyes, and now it will not function the same. It is your fault that this living, breathing being is not complete any longer, and you have no way of fixing this. Stolen children are one thing, but when those children are Penelope Libertine and Fitz Rilpley, two so brave and strong and caring and pure, then how could society not crumble where they left it. Another question haunts your tired mind - how long will it take for them to forget? Surely, at some point, all the people hurrying to and fro around you, hauling fish from the sea and carrying sails and oars and nets, they will move on. They'll fill the holes in their lives that the tributes of the sixty-first Hunger Games left, their hearts will heal. Families will still need feeding, homes mending. They will move on. Perhaps the families of those lost will ache a little longer, you think. But you know no amount of pain will ever make up for that. For them, two people, two human beings. Even nameless, forgetting their personalities and their quirks and their histories and their differences, even then, your heart breaks. You loved them both. Why is it that everybody you love ends up hurt? There are so many things you ache to know about Penelope and Fitz. Little things, inconsequential moments in their lives that made them who they are. Despite everything you went through together, you didn't learn enough. Their favourite childhood toys. The thoughts that crossed their minds late at night, the kinds of things you will only ever know about someone if you are sitting with them beneath the light of the stars. Secrets not kept for any reason other than time. Time that you, my darling, never got to share with the people you called your friends. Is this why you find your feet carrying you from the shoreline to the shop that you know will provide these answers, if you search for them. But then perhaps, if you were the owner of the house, you would close the doors and bar the murderer of those who meant to much from coming inside. You did not kill Penelope Libertine, but in the end they all died so you could live. Every last one of them. In truth, although your mind looks right back to the beginning of your story, you cannot remember all of their names. Days blur, anthems fade into each other, deaths tally up in a mixture of pain and sick relief. Emotions as thick and deep as the sea. This is why you find yourself on the doorstep of the Libertine Pawn Shop, silent and desolate as the room before you. "Hello? Is anybody here?" You step inside through the open door, your eyes lingering on the dusty, half-bare shelves. They ache with emptiness, although the assortment of trinkets isn't too sparse. The shadows stretch long , and the silence that pools around you is almost defining. Although you wish to call out again, somehow the thickness of the air stops you and instead you gravitate towards a shelf, your fingers lacing around a jewellery box. It's old, very old. The hinges are worn down, and a tiny ballerina perches atop the golden box. You wind it up, very slowly, very softly, and recoil as it begins to play. The melody is slight, calming, a lilting tune you cannot resist. Suddenly you hear footsteps behind you and drop the box back on the shelf all at once. There is a loud clatter, and then you realise no laws prevent you from touching the wares of a shop. Guilty, so guilty. Before the almost almost silent inhabitant of the walls behind the shop reaches you, panic grips your chest. What if they reject you, send you fleeing from their home before you can get to know the two who died? What then, Klaus? If the answers you are desperate for never find their way into your mind and your heart can never let go of what you have done. You missed out on their lives, and you witnessed their deaths. These people, the ones who reside in the dusty, half-abandoned Pawn Shop, hold the shards of your life you are missing. "I'm - I'm looking for Penelope?"The words leave your lips before you realise what horrors they contain. Is that why you're here, really? To find what you have lost? Love. Whether the footsteps and veering out or moving closer, you do not know. Questions pile up, one over the other in your mind until the air around you begins to spin and slide, and everything sinks backward. "Please?"

THEY WOULD CROWN ANOTHER

[Wonder]

and i can tell just what you want
you don't want to be alone

[/color][/size]

Dear Penelope, they say that you're gone but I've never quite looked up long enough to scout out your eyes to watch them drown lately.

[/i] The screams have stopped coming these days, the loud brilliant vibratos shaking the shelves and caressing gently the glass figurines that dance dangerously on the edge of our dirty shelves. The screams have stopped at night, and I think maybe it's because finally the water has run too high, and your sealed windows and doors have yet to give way. The screams have stopped, dear Penelope, the screams have stopped.[/color] Light creeps through the window seals, slowly and surely creating magnificent shadows across the counter tops. Light pounding the dust away, each little speck running from the light only to fail. As much as they ran, the light would only find them soon enough, but if you asked me I would let it hit me right away, the sun only made them dance through the air so carelessly. Free and careless, no longer clinging to the surfaces in which they were never welcomed, but travelling freely through the clouds. No creaks pierce the gentle air of the shop, no sniffles of a sick nose or harsh raspy breaths of chain smokers come through these days. They like to leave us alone lately, a family in grieving and in full light of the sick twisted kings of the chess game meant there was no shady business for the pawn's to have.


Dear Penelope, I thought of you today as I watched the sun come through.[/i] They say it was three o'clock, but oh dear Penelope, the clock's of this house all strike differently, for all I know it could be four or five or six or seven o'clock where you are now. Dear Penelope, where are you, the sun says it's four and you haven't come round for dinner in a while, they say you're travelling the world, but oh sweet Penelope, I know you wouldn't do that without me, now would you? The boats like to come in for their afternoon tea at this time as the fronts hit the shore, leaving their mark, a small slit in the sand waiting to be erased - but there were some scars that took longer to heal, and with something in the way, it would be a time before the water could wash them away. I don't know where the people are - the people who try and take things off the walls and hide them so quickly in their trench coats and purses. There hasn't been a sale in a while, just bitter pies and sweet sorrowful messages from neighbours I never knew we had. Where have they come from and why are their pies so bitter, it wasn't their child who disappeared. The late night shuffles always worry me, there wasn't enough noise in this house any more, there weren't enough sounds to let me sleep so I don't, I don't sleep unless I go to bed early, when everyone is still awake. But even at those times, sounds aren't made - just the gentle scrapes of wooden chairs and the delicate screeches of knife on plates.


Dearest Fitz, where have you been Mr. Ripley? You said you'd bring her home but now it's half past eleven and it's past her curfew.[/i] It's a little late right now Mr. Fitz, but the moon has risen hours ago and I can no longer see the four shadows walk across the beach with playful shoving - nor do I even see three, only the harsh waves of the night-time tide. I don't see your wedding bands - perhaps they've been sold or stolen, but maybe you could bring in some more? I always did prefer your smile to the rest, Mr. Fitz. The rest weren't as friendly or kind, but perhaps you weren't as nice as the rest since you aren't on time, her curfew was hours ago.[/color] They got me a new cushion, this one is more comfortable than the rest, it only makes me want to stay here longer, watching the shores and tides come in and out and the sun rise from the west, blinding and beautiful, and the people sitting in the grass watching their lovers work and the boats. And people's fingers steadily moving along long bits of twine and rope weaving nets so delicately trying not to break the strings. These were how days were spent, watching the dust and watching the fingers, but never watching perhaps what may happen right and front of me, but I haven't seen my siblings in days[/color] and maybe they'd just been to busy to come in front of my window. Maybe they'd walked away too.


Dearest Penelope, they say you fell and drowned, and it's no surprise to me that this time around your dream caught up to you.Penelope, dear Penelope, they say you died but I don't believe that one bit and yet the words sit carved across a cold rock in the ground, here lies - dear Penelope, Fitz is home too and I thought you should know. They say he was valiant, they say he was king, they say that Ripley and Libertine shall remain together forever, Penelope.[/color] The shuffling starts early, as the sun raises and the boy comes running from the shore - as if I don't see his small figure running running running, running looking for answers, but Ursula did that too and found none, so what's your excuse? It was the day I woke up from the six glass frames I'd started to call home, some dirtier than others and the twists and turns of the spider's web that sat in the bottom left, I've been awake for a while so what's your excuse? The door creaks open, creak, creak, creak[/color] the floorboards give slight way with each step that's second-guessed. Why are you here young boy, you were granted the opportunity to see the world and this is where you come? A ballerina swirls and nearly falls off her point, I tip toe to the shelves, there was no guessing in my steps but still the squeaks came too, they were here for everyone. The ballerina falls, a music box had to stop, and every so often the girl had to stop dancing.


"Is anybody here?" Dearest Penelope, I see why you chose this boy to ride along side you, a knight to the queen was just as important as the king who rode beside you. Naive as the rest, he is, lost in a world he doesn't quite understand, weren't you supposed to grab hold of him with your siren's call and lead him home? If that's the case dear Penelope, you lead him home, but your song didn't come quite through.[/color] I'm here, I hear every word you say, I'm always here watching and waiting, but you were too busy listening to another song boy, you saw the world but you were stuck with a ballerina in a pawn shop. How long until you stopped dancing? Stu-stum-stumbling on wor-word-words like the boy you once were, what happened to the boy who plunged his knife deep into the Ripley's heart? I'm looking. We're all looking, we're all seeking things, that's what deals were for, that's what this shop was for, that's what this all was for. Deals. "Please?" The voice chokes out, chokes out words thriving for her siren song when all there was was a wanderlust boy and his dreams being taken by a boy who can't even walk without creaking.


"We're all looking for her." Here lies Penelope Libertine - siren of the seas, lover of her family tree, here lies Penelope. I think you'd like that I spoke those words, Dear Penelope, I think you'd like that I spoke at all. There wasn't many things to say, but you always listened to those words despite how dull they came. You always listened dear Penelope, and I'm now listening for you with a broken boy. "But I'll show you the way." I'll be the lighthouse now and you be the boat, but if you crash it's not my fault for the rocks are large and my light is dim, but I'll show you the way.[/size][/blockquote][/justify][/color][/color]