out in the blue {clover/charlie} blitz

[✨ zozo.]

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It's all fun and games raiding your arch-enemies ship with your best bird-friend whilst your sisters are sleeping until said ship actually sets off to sail whilst you're still on board.

"This was a bad idea, this was a bad idea!" crowed Parrot, the jolt of the ship sending a gasp out of Grace's lips and her adrenaline pumping. Captain Grace Sparrow had not taken into account that the Finch Brothers would set off sailing before the sun would make its entrance above the horizon lines - and now found herself inching further and further away from the Black Pearl and her slumbering sisters. Bad idea indeed she thought, frozen underneath a box of what smelt like shrimp - and Grace Sparrow was not one to admit there were faults in her plans. If only Ophelia was here to pick up her loose ends - how long would it be until she realised her precious Captains hat was gone? Or, more importantly (and Grace hoped that her sisters held this true), her littlest sister?

So, Grace had two choices. One: stowaway on board until the Finches eventually found her, held her hostage and lured her sisters as human bait (though the more she dwelled on it, Grace's mindset began to become convinced that they'd be grateful of her vanishing), or Two: find a way off this bloody ship - whilst having some fun - or so Ripred help her. Because she was Grace Sparrow: sometimes captain, permanent pirate, and ultimate mischief maker. And nobody knows how to vandalize a ship like Grace Sparrow.

Peering through a crack in a crate and letting Parrot hop around the outsides of their sanction before squawking a very quiet "All clear! All clear!", Grace inched herself out of her hiding spot, bag of food by her side and her trusty right-hand bird to guide the way, the red-head set off to cause some havoc and become District Four's most intolerable hostage yet.

At least, that was the plan. Until Grace Sparrow, caught red-handed and brandishing a too-big Captain's hat, walked right into the lines of Charlie Finch.

"Uh oh, uh oh," whispered Parrot from her shoulder.

Uh-oh indeed.

i am floating away
lost in a silent ballet
i'm dreaming you're out in the blue
and i am right beside you
awake to take in the view


ooc: wow this is shit i'm so sorry :c

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[florentine, d4b ❁]

[presto]

charlie finch
fourteen
district four

[/presto]

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ALL THE ROWBOATS IN OIL PAINTINGS

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Charlie Finch wasn't in a helping out mood. To be fair, the girl wasn't often in a helping out mood. Instead, her arms were crossed firmly over her chest and her boots were stomping too heavily on the decks. Jasper had told her off earlier that morning for clambering around too loudly while everybody was asleep, and Edwin had provided no comfort when she'd gone to him. The others were no use to her, so she'd gone down below the decks to sulk. In her mind, the withdrawal was a brilliant punishment for the brothers who had so blatantly wronged her - they would surely miss both her help and her affections. In truth, they were probably glad to see the back of her. At least the knots they tied remained tied when she was below the deck. Charlie had been hiding for a grand total of eight minutes - which seemed like hours in her flighty mind - when she finally emerged, her bottom lip stuck out defiantly incase anybody mistook her for being over the incident. She stood up, stretching her legs and eyeing up the largest stack of crates for climbing, when she spotted the girl. Anybody on a boat with a pirate hat in their hand and a mane of red tangles had to be a Sparrow. Charlie knew their kind. "Thieves and beggars, the lot of them," someone would shout as they sat around their dinners in the darkness one night. "They just don't know when to stop, no sense of right or wrong or anything of the sort." Charlie didn't think that sounded particularly bad - she herself could rarely see the boundaries between what was acceptable and what wasn't. Either way, the burning sense of loyalty she felt for her brothers reared up inside her chest. "You're on my ship," she said bluntly, standing between the girl and the steps so as to block her path free. Not that she'd live very long if she did get up on the decks. It was only now, standing up close to the girl in the dim lighting, that Charlie realised they were about the same height. Same tangled hair, same ever-present defiant expression and fierce eyes. She grinned suddenly and bounced backwards. "Are you running away?"

THEY KEEP TRYING TO ROW AWAY

[✨ zozo.]

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Grace had run away precisely twice in her lifetime. The first time, she was 8 years old and had had a fight with Liliana (what it was about she couldn't remember, but she could recall being so furious that she grabbed her backpack, stuffed some clothes, a juice box and a tuna sandwich in it and declared she was never coming home.) That escapade lasted about 40 minutes, before her Father found her by the marina docks, asleep with a pillow made of clothes, scooped her up in his arms and carried her home again.

The second time was with her sisters. And they'd never stopped running.

She could never run away from her sisters, despite how tedious her relationship with them could become. Often she'd thought about it, to run as far as she could and lift a burden off of their shoulders and give them one less mouth to feed, one less life to be responsible of. Grace could count the number of times she'd heard them wish she wasn't their sister on both sets of fingers. And sometimes, she'd scream it back to them. She might be a tyrant, spending her days driving them to their wits ends out of sheer boredom and a hint of cabin fever - but the thirteen year old could never truly abandon them. After all, she owed them her life. There were times when she would cry not for her parents lives but for the energy to live, and they would sit and hold her and tell her things would be ok again. And thanks to them, they were. She could never abandon them, not really.

She'd just do it for them instead.

Feeling the distance between herself and her sisters slowly stretch further and further apart with every second that ticked passed, the thirteen year old smiled at the girl standing in front of her. "Something like that" she replied, spying an oh-so familiar sparkle of mischief in the girls eyes that used to reflect off the ocean waves and fall into her own. With Parrot perched nervously on her shoulder, she held out a hand toward her confidently. "I'm Grace - you've got a nice ship here, pleasure to be aboard. And it's more of an adventure than running away" she noted.

"Want to come?"

thoughts
sounds
things
words
others

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[florentine, d4b ❁]

[presto]

charlie finch
fourteen
district four

[/presto]

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ALL THE ROWBOATS IN OIL PAINTINGS

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There was nothing Charlie Finch liked more than an adventure. Her adventures usually ended with trouble, or began with it. Today, trouble itself stood before her in the form of a sparkle-eyed Sparrow girl. On her boat. All ideas of family rivalries disappeared as the girl's heart leaped. She'd been bored, after all. There never was quite as many ways to cause mischief at sea, and the perfect opportunity had just arisen from the deep. Kind of. Running away was something Charlie had done twice before on notable occasions. The first time, she had left the parents who had bought her from her own in a flurry of rage. She'd slept in a graveyard that night, freezing cold and shivering until the morning sun light the world. When the Peacekeepers had come for her, she had ended up in the orphanage. The second time, she had followed Jasper's lead as he had taken them out to sea to fend for themselves and fight against the evil of the Sparrow sisters. Neither time she had returned, and this concerned her. As long as running away was reversible, she was fine with the redhead's presence. "Something like that," she replied in response to her question. "I'm Grace - you've got a nice ship here, pleasure to be aboard. And it's more of an adventure than running away." This pleased Charlie. Usually running away wasn't quite as much fun as it sounded, but adventures rarely failed to disappoint. She thought back to the last girl her own age she had spoken to, Nessie Libertine, in the Pawn Shop. They'd swapped wares and smiled, but unlike Grace she didn't have the kind of face that suggested swinging from the mast and endowing the rest of the world with their presence. "Want to come?" Charlie didn't hesitate. She clapped her hands gleefully, glanced behind her to check none of her brothers was watching, and held out her hand. "I'm Charlie. I like the ship - we stole it - but yours is better. Adventures are my very most favourite thing." She paused for breath, held out her hand to shake Grace's, and posed another question. "What do you want to do?"

THEY KEEP TRYING TO ROW AWAY

[✨ zozo.]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 000000; border: 7099ab solid 0px; width: 400px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 30px 0px 30px 0px;] The best type of adventures are in unknown places. I've spent years aboard vessels on the sea, but stepping onto the forbidden Finch Ship and I'm thrust into unfamiliar territory. This ship is foreign to me, she feels my uneasiness with my cautious steps and hears my thumping heartbeat. The boat encompasses your soul like the ocean, swallowing you up. She learns about you, all your fears and favourites things. Like adventures and orange juice and being alone. Or, Ripred forbid, dying at the hands of the Capitol. I've always carried out my adventures by myself, or with my sisters. Of course, ever since our great escapade to the sea began and I found Parrot he's been there too, but he's like a bit of me so he doesn't really count. The best adventures are into the unknown, with the unknown. I've been told not to trust strangers and most certainly not any member of the Finch crew, but I've never been good at doing what I've been told. One way or another, I was going to explore and adventure and cause mischief and havoc with my new stranger (and Parrot, of course.) After all, I always get my way. Charlie (who I think is perhaps my new favourite person) asks me what I want to do. A familiar feeling sprouts in my chest and blooms a smile across my lips, one that always leads to fun. "Let's sail away" I say quietly, well-aware that any moment I could awake the boys of this ship and end up as ransom (or worse, dead) in exchange for my sisters' debt. "That way," I whisper, pointing to an inhabited island in the distance with one hand and taking Charlie Finch's outstretched one with the other - our fingers interlocked with the promise of adventure and sewn together with a new-found friendship - tugging her towards the stern. "I assume you know how to steer?"

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g r a c e s p a r r o w .

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ooc; oops tense change[/center]

[florentine, d4b ❁]

[presto]

charlie finch
fourteen
district four

[/presto]

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ALL THE ROWBOATS IN OIL PAINTINGS

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I've only been with my family for a few years - the boys came together in the community home, sweeping me up in their fun and games. That's what I thought this was, at first. An adventure, the kind that would be wrapped up and finished by bedtime, and then followed by a vivid dream as I slumbered beneath the streets. Little did I know that the night we ran away was fraught with real life dangers. Perhaps, if I'd been aware, I would have enjoyed the ordeal even more. When I was a small child the liars who claimed to be my parents used to scold me again and again for ignoring their instructions. They were wrong (as they were in many things) because I gladly listened to each word that fell from their deceitful tongues and promptly did the opposite. In school, back when I attended a couple of times each week, the time out chair became my own. When the strange, forbidden girl before me looks at me with twinkling eyes and demands I go against everything I've been told since we first set sail, I jump eagerly at the chance. "Let's sail away! That way!" she suggests, grabbing my hand and pointing to a stretch of land that seems quite near, although I know enough about the sea to be sure that it is further away than we imagine. My heart skips a beat, bounding ahead of my mind in excitement. "I assume you know how to steer?" The girl isn't looking at me as pulls at my arm and leads me toward the stern. I swallow, my grin fading for a moment. "Of course," I lie, feeling the weight of the entire ship in my hands. I don't, because that never was my job, and they'd never trust me with such things. I'm the lookout - the thief, able to climb around and tie knots and yield a sword without hesitation. But manoeuvring the ship is surely within my capabilities. (I've seen it done countless times.) I grin wickedly, haul the helm around sharply and feel all the power in the world rush beneath my fingertips. "If we took the lifeboat, they'd never even notice it was gone," I suggest, eager to be free of any responsibility for my home. I shoot Grace my most devilish grin, and set determined eyes on the island we're headed for. It occurs to me that I'm a runaway, running away from the band of runaways she found after she left the only safe home she ever new. I laugh, because danger burns in my blood.

THEY KEEP TRYING TO ROW AWAY

[✨ zozo.]

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-image: url(http://i.imgur.com/cs71pUd.png); border: 303045 solid 0px; width: 500px; height: 10px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px;] g r a c e s p a r r o w .

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 000000; border: 000000 solid 0px; width: 348px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px;] We are not supposed to be doing this is my most favourite thought. Probably because I think it an awful lot, and Parrot barks it back to me as I giggle in delight and sway from deck to deck, sword in hand and Ophelia's too-big hat barely fitting on my head. It foreshadows fun, and the yells that follow, but winding up my sisters is my favourite activity so it's worth it in the end. We are not supposed to be doing this. The corners in the gap between my ears curves upwards towards my eyes, crinkling with glee. "If we took the lifeboat, they'd never even notice it was gone," the Finch gir- Charlie - says (my sisters didn't bother to learn most of their names, labelling her 'the girl' and nothing else.) But I have had the utmost delight of realising, with her wicked smile that could have been my own mirroring itself back to me, is just like us. Just like me. Damn Ophelia and her rules, regulations and ignorance, I've never had a friend that didn't own a beak and claws in my entire life and it's about time I had a change. In a selfish moment I curse her decision to take us aboard, to drag us onto the ocean and run away from the land. I know that we would have died (would we have, though? Or was it just the easy way out?) Was it not the longing in Ophelia for adventure that we all contain that dragged us off the shoreline and into a life of crime? I was so small, so young, memories of my life before our Father perished wash away with the tide and crash upon the rocks in my head that know of nothing but the ocean and tide. Perhaps I could have had a friend, back home. Maybe even two. Parrot is fantastic - if a little jealous of Charlie - but the giggles that escape my mouth as we hurry towards the lifeboats hand in hand fill up years of wasting away with no company except those with my own blood. "I think you're my new favourite person" I reply, untying knots and uncoupling hooks as we prepare to set sail. "Nobody has ever gone on an adventure with me before. Not a secret one, like this." Parrot flutters around my head, barking the odd, bitter "Nobody? Nobody! Nobody has ever gone on adventures with Gracey? Not Parrot, not Parrot!" I ignore him for the time being, tantrums were my speciality and not to be dealt with right now. Right now it was time for new friends, the top of the ocean, adventure and theft. My favourite things. With a light splash, the life boat hits the glossy blue surface. Sunlight dances in flighty shafts around the wooden boat as I throw a ladder over the side and turn to my fellow adventurer, offering my hand outwards not in friendship, but in courtesy. "You first, Miss Finch?"

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gra·ce
(noun) /grās/
1. female, fourteen, district 4
2. cheeky, stubborn, curious, cunning
3. mischief maker

“Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

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[florentine, d4b ❁]

[presto]

charlie finch
fourteen
district four

[/presto]

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ALL THE ROWBOATS IN OIL PAINTINGS

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A smile can say many things. It can say 'Jasper, you've slept it again and nobody's cleaned up,' or 'I do love you, you know.' A smile can be cruel; a taunt, a broken promise, a mocking grin. (The shout of 'I'm never coming back, not ever' followed by a flash of teeth and wild eyes.) It can hope or daring or glee - like the hidden ones Edwin and I share when a storm begins to brew or it is once again time to go out and do what we do best. Endless possibilities bloom from a simple parting of lips, the raising of eyebrows and glimmer of something that lurks in eyes like a secret code. When Grace Sparrow tells me that I'm her new favourite person, unties the lifeboat and tosses a ladder down to meet it, I smile. When she reaches out her hand and says, "You first, Miss Finch?" I positively beam. (I'm rather sick of boys, with adventures consisting completely of maps and swords and kicking at each other. It's much more fun to sail free with the wind in my hair and no numbers and figures to guide me. All I need is the salt in the air and the daring in my heart.) I nod to my brand new friend - perhaps she's almost as reckless as I - and ignore her hand. Instead, I leap off the edge of the boat, skipping the ladder completely and landing in the violently rocking lifeboat below. I'd like to have tumbled in, a perfect arc or a graceful summersault, but I might fall on my head. (Usually, I wouldn't mind, but today I have someone to impress.) I blink up, the sunlight very nearly blinding. "Well, come on then, Grace," I say with a laugh and a devilish smirk, "what are you waiting for?" Without waiting for her to make her way down beside me, I pull the string to start the engine and feel my heartbeat quicken as it purrs, glad to be alive again. I'm not particularly accustomed to having friends, but I think I like it quite a lot. (It's nice to have somebody knew to smile at who doesn't instantly dive for cover or begin an endless quest to stop whatever trouble I am about to cause.)

THEY KEEP TRYING TO ROW AWAY

[✨ zozo.]

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: c0c3c7; border: 303045 solid 0px; width: 450px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px;] grace sparrow. She is magnificent. Like stumbling upon treasure in a raid, or the possibility of the unknown at the bottom of the sea. I used to think that Ophelia was magnificent, with courage leaking from every inch of her and leadership her second name - but although Ophelia says she despises trouble, she's usually the one going about organising it. She doesn't encourage my adventures, only scolds at me like a child (and maybe I am a child but I think I grew up an awful lot when we sailed away from Mama and Pa, not realising I'd never get to see their graves again with a tongue still in my mouth.) Ophelia is lots of things, but the most important thing she is right now is not here. And I am here, and so is my new friend, and even Parrot too - and that is all that matters. Charlie Finch is like a wave the size of a mountain that threatens to sweep me into its embrace, except the glint in her eyes I've seen in only my reflection warns me that she'll sweep me into trouble, the biggest trouble I've ever been in - and I fall into the little boat beside her as quick as I can for fear of being left behind on this great adventure. (I thought my sisters would leave me behind when I heard them first discussing the prospect of theft back when we lived on the land, but now I've left them behind instead.) Parrot glides along the surface of the water, all colours and ruffled feathers, and I laugh. "What are you waiting for?" Charlie Finch had asked. I think I was waiting for this, for her, for today - but I just didn't know it beforehand. And then today arrived, and somewhere inside of me something nagged in all the right places and told me to hide away, and then another something told me to trust this girl, and another told me to jump off of the side of this boat and sail away on an adventure and I'll be damned if I let anybody ruin this for me. (Or for us? I think quizzically as I glance at the girl across from me - I've never been any good at sharing but I'm happy to share this day with her, and the next, and the next.) I have been pulled by the tide that is my life time and time again. From my parents, from my home, from my sisters. I grab her hand and cling tight, like she's an anchor that promises never to wash me ashore. "Aye, aye, Captain" I grin. "Lead the way."

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