beetles and benches. /meeka\

[Skylar]

Let's just say that maybe, just maybe, Luther Jupps wasn't ridiculous and full of illogical ideas that would never in a million years make sense to anyone but himself. If he were to be like this, maybe his life would be a little easier, maybe he wouldn't walk around talking to leaves, baskets, and apples, and maybe, just maybe, he'd have a friend or two. The broken nose that he'd acquired after tripping over a root had not helped him in the least, but, despite his outer flaw, he still had no friends and talked to inanimate objects. But, if we just imagine, that somehow he wasn't the nuisance that he is, we can all- Oh, what am I kidding? It's impossible to imagine Luther civilized.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's take a step into reality and face the fact that Luther was, not only, a nuisance, but he was proud to be one. And in itself, that made him even more disliked. Well, not really disliked, but ignored. He was the socially awkward outcast that was known for being weird. He had a way of doing things differently and turning something as simple as putting an apple in a basket into something that seemed impossible. It was Luther, though.

He sat on a wooden bench, hands folded in his lap, conversing with what seemed to be a beetle that was trying to find its home. He believe that each certain thing had a different way of talking and different personalities. Though multiple items of a certain thing would be equivalent to an identical personality. For example, seeing as apples tended to rot easily in the sun and turn brown due to acidic stuff, they had a sour attitude and would complain until they got what they wanted or needed. And sense trees in his eyes were seen as very old and powerful, they tended to be the peacemakers of the District [the peacemakers, not Peacekeepers, oh no, definitely not]. Beetles, though, they had a quick voice with high pitched timbres that never seemed to stop working.

"Well, to get to your home, ya' gotta remember where it is," he asked with a certain amount of emphasis at the end. Sort of redundant, no? Of course, there's no surprise that he said such a thing, for the already established fact that he was just about as normal as a giant ant invading the Earth. "Well, uh, duh. That's not really helping at all right now. I just need to get home and you most certainly are not helping!" the beetle said with a matter-of-fact tone in his/her voice.

He was surprised at the reply, for the beetle seemed to have been on friendly terms with him at first, but, in a way, it made sense to him because beetles got frustrated when they were being distracted, which Luther seemed to be doing. He was the sympathetic type of person, for he knew how it felt to be angered and to be teased, so he subtly stopped his talking with the beetle and watched it frantically scoot around in circles for some type of escape.

The air was beautifully winding it's way through the leaves, causing the closure of eyes and the stretching of arms. He wondered what he should do, for doing nothing was most definitely not in his line of vocabulary. He could run around and play tag with the trees, or he could paint with berries that always were generous enough to let him make paint of themselves.

Whatever he were to do, it would have to be very entertaining, as free time and an escape from his normal siblings were cherished moments of his life. His voice let out a string of meaningless lyrics that had nothing to do with anything of importance, and hoped that none of the thorn bushes would tell him to shut up, because he found that they didn't like his singing.

Eventually, he let go of all of his worries and insecurities about the bushes complaining, and sang at the top of his lungs.

ooc. so.. my mom.. i really do hate her and this post could be so much better if it weren't for her. i'm leaving you with almost nothing to reply to and.. i dunno. sorry!

[Meeka]

Livvy Mikesh

♣

It wasn't that Livvy's day had started horribly. No, in fact, before the disturbance happened she had been having a splendid day. Of course Livvy - or Olivia, Liv, (really whatever you feel like calling her) - is not your average, everyday girl. Maybe if the circumstances had been different, she would have turned out normal. But things happen, stuff goes wrong and in the end, nothing ever turns out the way it should. Maybe her life was an endless riddle of mismatches, as if the heavens above could not decide on what to do with her. Which would have been a comforting epiphany to have, in the case that Livvy was religious. Which she wasn't. So it was pretty much useless and a waste of time to believe in something like that.

On this particular day, late afternoon actually, she was nearing the end of her sleep. She always sleeps in the day as she needs the night to scavenge for food and plunder. Nestled between the thickets of a willow tree, its hanging branches successfully obscuring her from view, she had been peacefully sound asleep for the past five hours. On average she managed to sleep through conversations, even through children laughing or screaming. But it was this noise, so very different from anything she was used to, that startled her wide awake.

Dark brown eyes opened wide and for a second her heart rate staccatoed upon hearing the unknown sound. It was this very fact that caused her to lose her comfortable spot on the willow tree's branch. Her hands slipped across the wood, gripping as a last resort to the first thing she could find. Her satchel. Which promptly gave away also. With a scream of fear, she fell, hands outstretched, and off her branch and right into a bush.

The bush cushioned her fall, the thorns didn't. The sharp claws ripped into her skin and she retreated immediately, though some thorns remained nestled in her skin."Ow. Oh, damn it!" She gave another few profound words from her and then tugged at the strap of her leather stachel, ripping it from the thorned bush and into her arms. Seething, shaking and in an indescribable amount of pain, she moved out of the low hanging branches of the magestic willow and towards the perturbing noise.

She gave a shriek of inexplicable fear when she saw the source of the noise. A man. She managed to calm down somewhat and noticed that this was no man, but merely a boy. He was singing. It was not particularly off-key, but it definitely wasn't what she wanted to hear, not during her much-needed sleep. "You great big oaf!" The insult seemed adequate in her mind. "Can you do this in private and not over here!" So maybe those words coming from a tiny girl was not very intimidating, especially considering that he was four inches taller than her. With a flourish and another huff, she turned on her heel, ready to head back up on her branch and try to catch a remainder of her sleep.

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♣

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OOC: No, I loved it! See? I was able to do something with it.

[Skylar]

Luther Jupps

It's possible that Luther wouldn't have reacted the way he had reacted to the girl falling in the thorny bush if he was normal. Maybe he would've asked if she was okay, pull her out, comfort her, ya' know, the usual, but since he was a strange person in an even stranger world, where being normal was something that included training for killing people, he did the thing that was the opposite of what was expected. He sung one last note of a very useless song and morphed it into a throat-scratching, ear splitting scream. It'd happened before, falling in a thorn bush, except for him and not for girl that had fell from a tree.

His thoughts poured out of his mind and spilled on the ground around him. Nnnn. Leaves! They.. they're the things that help people, right? NO. Wait.. yes. YES. Oh my gosh what do I do! To Luther, leaves were things that had personalities that helped someone or something, and were always willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of someone who was in peril. For example, a caterpillar that very much lacked food could eat a leaf without worrying about being killed by it. "Leaves! Where are- Oh! There you are!" He turned his eyes toward the girl, who seemed to be tossing insults left and right. "Be right back! Gotta go get some green stuff." Green stuff. Funny. Of course, he had to complicate it, turning 'leaves' into 'green stuff', just so it make him look a little more intelligent, which had the opposite effect on him, seeming as if he had forgotten what they were called, despite the recital of the word seconds earlier.

He pushed himself off of the wooden bench. It was carved from a certain wooden log, the two ends of the log being left untouched. As he ran towards the nearest tree, or, well, the nearest one that someone hadn't fell out of, he wiped away tears as a cold gust of wind stung his eyes. Green. The color that he was searching for. There was so much of it! Which one was the nearest tree? Which one seemed the most giving? What if the girl was dead before he got back! Of course, the latter of the thoughts were the most illogical, though, for thorns, unless excreting a very poisonous substance or something, would most definitely not kill a girl. Or a boy, for that matter. He stood with his hands on his hips, a scratchy feeling in his chest that left wheezy little breaths to escape him.

Which to pick? Which to pick? It was times like these where having trouble choosing things were definitely not something that was needed. Each tree had leaves, each one would give him some, or so he thought, so what was the wait? Ah! Finally, he thrust himself forward, towards a tree that branched in a million different directions with just about all the leaves turned upside down. What did that mean? That it was to rain? Or so he was told, by his brother. His brother was much more normal than himself, one that got the job done and broke rules every now and again, no different from just about all the people in District 11. Hell, the Peacekeepers even broke rules sometimes, though they'd never get punished, for they were seen as the ones to enforce rules, not to break them.

His hands grabbed a leaf covered branch, gripping as tightly as possible without breaking it off, and slid his hands down it, the leaves falling as he did so. His hands were scratched, and for an instant, he thought that the tree had hurt him, which he instantly reacted to with a curse word and a scowl. "Bitch! How could you! Oh... wait.. I'm sorry. It's just.. I'll explain later! Gotta go!" His head was running a mile a minute and it didn't seem to be letting up anytime soon. Of course he'd stay true to his word, and come back and explain to him later, but for now, he had to go help that girl! She can't just fall and not be helped!

He scooped up the leaves and held the bundle like a baby as he ran back to the girl, who still seemed to go unnoticed by the others that was roaming the District, off work just as he was. Each step made a leaf fall, some steps made more fall as another, and by the time he reached the girl, he was left with just about none. Stupid wind! Can't you like, just, not blow for once! It was true. The wind always seemed to disrupt him when something was of importance. There was a time where he was talking to a girl, where'd he goofed off due to the dropping of apples, and dirt from the ground would repeatedly fill his eyes and mouth as he tried to speak. Of course, it had ended disastrously, but still, what would've happened if it weren't for the wind?

With what little leaves he had left, though, he threw them on the girl. They'd help her, he was sure of it! They always helped caterpillars and butterflies and birds and stuff, so they would definitely help her, right! Of course.

[Meeka]

Livvy Mikesh

♣

Now, as it is, there are a lot of strange people in District Eleven. The hard, manual labor gradually took care of even the strongest in the district. Livvy naturally shyed away from work of any kind, if it doesn't directly benefit herself. So although her hands tingled with desire to punch this stranger right into the easiest body part to reach, the far-off look in his eyes stopped her. It wasn't even that he looked mad and spoke like a mad person... it was the childish behaviour he was displaying. Just like it would be ethically immoral to hit the elderly, it was wrong to hit someone who appeared a child. True, even though his stature allowed the benefit of the doubt, he could hardly be any older than sixteen.

She was momentarily too dumbfounded to say anything - and chose instead to stare at him blankly. When he turned away, after muttering something about getting something green, she only sighed and chose to occupy the bench he had been using beforehand.

Some of the thick thorns were easy to remove, issuing only a faint whimper of pain and a grotesque grimace everytime she tugged one out of her skin. It was the thorns in her upper arms that seemed impossible to remove. In fact, one of the thorns was almost pushed entirely under the skin and the slightest movement caused her to cry out in pain. Great. Really great. Faint trickles of crimson etched pathways down her arm in angry criss-crossing patterns. She smudged one of the trails, gazing at the spot of blood on her finger with an uncanny amount of fascination.

The sun in the distance was already gradually sinking below the rooftops of the houses, casting the surroundings into a warm, healthy glowing red and orange. She relished feeling the rays of sunlight against her features, knowing quite well that once they disappeared, Earth would begin to plunge in temperature. The prospect of another nights worth of prowling around in the serenity of the night - another few hours plundering from houses and abandoned stands, scavenging from the orchards while outskirting Peacekeepers - just did not sound very appealing given the state she was in.

Then he returned. She had almost forgotten about the strange boy. In fact, she was feeling a little better now, with many of the thorns removed, the blood trails growing less thick by the minute. Then he had to return. To throw leaves in her face. Normally, she would have chosen this moment to retreat, sensing conflict and of course meaning to avoid it at all possible cost.

The fact remained that she could not and would not do anything to harm someone like him. The leaves, the few that were there, hit her in a type of colourful frenzy. She blinked past the various shades of green hitting her square in the face.

Then she turned her face skywards and started to laugh. It wasn't one of those girlish laughs that are mere giggles, the ones that most females tended to relish in; as though to laugh was embarrassing and had to be covered up. No, it was one of those rare, jubilant, full-throated laughs. One that was not accompanied by a string of girlish laughter. She laughed for what seemed a long time, until tears of mirth rolled steadily down her face.

When she was done wiping at them, she smiled happily at him. Maybe this was somebody she would not be afraid of hanging around? He certainly was not as threatening as any other men. He also did not seem quite normal, to put it lightly. But that's what she liked. Being a slight Xenophobic and generally uncomfortable around groups of people, she prefered the not-normal kind. "I like you," she finally stated. "What's your name? My name is Livvy."

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♣

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OOC: Ahh... Livvy is feeling strangely comfortable around him. Is Luther maybe a bit autistic? Or something else? He does seem like a child, I like that.

[Skylar]

Luther Jupps

No. Absolutely not. This.. just.. it couldn't happen! There's no way in the history of ever that someone could possible.. I mean possibly.. like me! I'm a strange, strange person and coming across someone that found me the least bit friendly or worthy of befriending throughout District 11 was something that was one in a million. One. In. A. Million. I mean, I talk to rocks and trees and leaves and bugs and rocks and wood and trees and leaves and dirt and leaves and rocks and the sky and the leaves and trees and wood and leaves and apples and baskets and dirt and bugs and- There's just no way.

Of course, I'm probably just wishing I had heard it. Of course I had. I mean, the last time I'd got close to having a friend was when I'd tripped over a thing of apples or something. To no surprise, the girl and I never spoke to each other again, but for someone to actually say the words "I like you" was something.. Something of a miracle. I mean, my family and siblings and family and stuff acted like they didn't even like me! Of course, he was the one that caus- Whoa. Who is interrupting.. Whoa. ed it.

-
third person
-

He was absolutely baffled at the occurrence. He'd just been told that someone favored his personality, of course he was! Sure, the person that had said it had just yelled at him for singing and he was the ultimate cause for blood to be streaming down her arms, but she'd said she'd liked him. There had to be some type of connection, right? Now that he thought of it, the girl did seem to laugh when he threw the leaves. So, being the person that he was, he stood, mouth agape, eyes wide, staring at the girl. No words exited his mouth, no sounds were emitted, nothing. Just nothing. A blank expression. Subtly, slowly, this expression morphed into a beaming, teeth revealing smile.

His thoughts were caught on the words, so much so that he completely forgot about the girl and realization that he might actually have a friend overtook all emotions.

ooc; so, it's time to go to bed but i absolutely needed to reply because you've been waiting to long and i know you wouldn't have procrastinated as much as me. sorry about the confusing switch to third person.