D4 :: Taggerty Eames

[L△LIA]

Name: Taggerty Eames
Age: Sixteen Seventeen
Gender: Female
District/Area: District 4
Appearance:

Personality:

History:

Codeword: PRAISE THE LORDE
Comments/Other:

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[bg=000000][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,400,true][atrb=style,width: 400px; background-image: url(http://i42.tinypic.com/jgie03.png); background-repeat: no-repeat; padding-left:40px; padding-right:40px; padding-top:40px; border:1px solid #000000; -moz-border-radius: 25px; border-radius: 25px; opacity: 1;] Lord Tashington the snoremonster exhales like the snapcrackquake of floorboards being ripped up or the sound the sky will make someday when somebody breaks it — a great, guttural, apocalyptic sort of lung-destruction that echoes into the morning as everyone in the house wakes and she clings to the final dredges of sleep. I laugh, face still buried in my pillow as if I'm telling secrets to the bunched up cotton. For a few long minutes I stay that way, putting off the day and wondering if I could just stay here with Tash, killing all the hours of daylight to the soundtrack of her doggie-dreams. Then my dad walks down the hall, thumping his gentle-giant fists against the bedroom doors of each of us kids while yelling for everyone to rise and shine, even though he sounds about as awake himself as Big T over here. It's enough to wake the beast and the snoring comes to an abrupt stop as Tuesday morning becomes an undeniable force, ready to be reckoned with if I attempt to avoid it any longer. Gotta get up. Need to get dressed. Have to go to school. Things are easier if I break them down step-by-step, the rest of the day seeming less daunting when all I have to focus on for now is hauling myself out of bed and wrangling the madness of curls atop my head into a slim excuse for compliance. The second my feet swing over the side of the mattress to touch my toes to the floor, my not-so-little canine companion snaps to attention, ready to follow after me from my very first footstep. It doesn't matter that for now I'm only going to my closet, where more clothing is piled on the ground than hung up, because she acts like maybe that's an adventure in and of itself. Considering the perilous mess I keep within these walls, she just might be right. Tash has the kind of loyalty I wish people understood. I don't question her like I do everyone else, wondering what she might be saying behind my back — I just assume she occasionally goes aughwooo-ooo-ooooo and that's it. It's reassuring to me in a way that most things aren't and so I can't help feeling guilty when I leave her at home after breakfast, aching at the sound of her scratching from the other side of my front door as I walk away. "Sorry, Baby Tash —" I whisper as my footsteps crunch over the busted up cement of our front walkway, a last mouthful of slightly burnt toast blurring my goodbye into incoherence. Now that I'm out of bed and into clothes, this is the part where I'm supposed to head to school, but my feet refuse. Boots dragging heavier and heavier, I find myself doubling back when I'm only halfway to my destination, turning off the main streets and heading toward the parts of town that manage to stay shady even in the light of morning. Skipping school isn't outside the norm for me, but lately I've become absent more often than not. With a low hum reverberating through my lungs, the sound of searching inhabits me before I even admit to myself where I'm going. These are details I'd sometimes like to deny, but that doesn't stop a wicked grin from instinctively curling itself up onto my lips like finding an old bed. Sometimes as I make these early walks, I daydream about the girls at school getting in fights over who gets to be my best friend or my siblings duking it out to prove who loves me best. People fighting for my honor, for me. There's something romantic about a punch to the face and the way knuckle imprints leave little marks in evidence of someone who was truly there. I've only ever confessed that to one person and when he didn't call me crazy for it, that's when I should have known I was done for — a real goner, you know? Bastille reminds me of Tashington. Not because I believe he's unfailingly loyal to me, but because as I whistle into each dank alleyway I pass by, I keep expecting him to come running like a stray puppy. (Here, boy!) Honestly, I'd be lying if I claimed to know all that much about him, but his face was always reason enough for me to stick around. My friend Caly takes the occasional cheap shot at me he when comes up in conversation, giving me crap about that one time I confessed to her that Bast is totally a babe. And yeah, okay, he is, but it's not his stupid perfect skin that makes me want to skip my morning classes to go looking for him. I swear. Not that it hurts, but — Like I said, there's something romantic about a punch to the face and when I first met him he was as busted up as that sidewalk outside my house, the part that's more gravel than concrete these days. I probably remember the bloody, bruised up mess more than he does now, but that kind of thing just makes me want to know people. There were stories in the wreckage of him and I didn't actually need to hear them to know they were more interesting than my day to day life. Whatever had happened to the stranger who stumbled into me back then, there was no way it was on the same level as Thea and I smoking in the girls' bathroom at school and smirking to ourselves over it like we were really somethin' dangerous. Everyone else calls Bast The Ferryman like he's a ghost story and not just some streetrat with a lot of paper bags. (Every day we're stackin' paper... bags. Pick a bag up, drop a bag off — "don't look in the bag, Tags.") When I asked if I could help, wiping blood off his cheek with the cuff of my shirt sleeve, I thought I was signing up for something more exciting than running his errands. There was this dumb hope that maybe next time I'd wind up being the one getting punched and taking home stories to tell, but all I've gotten is more paper bags and scoldings to keep my nose out of them. One of these days I'm gonna stop being so obedient. I'm sure Bast thinks I'm the real puppy, following his promises and smiles around without question, waiting for the day when I get my reward — my own legend. That's all I've ever wanted, but I guess it's too big a dream to ask for. Even on the days when this city feels small, just a little collection of quiet breaths next to that big ol' sea, I'm not so sure I've got it in me to make a name for myself. There's something distinctly unmemorable about me and sure, okay, that's good on a lot of days, but when I stop and think about it... I hate it like I've never hated anything else. Average height. Mottled brown hair. Water blue eyes like everything else in this District. My teachers not realizing I'm skipping school half the time is a pretty sweet deal, but sometimes I think it's only Caly, Thea, and Tash that remember I'm here at all. Even Bastille forgets about me, I think, disappearing without a word for days on end before popping up again all — oh! Yeah, Tags. I guess I know you. You're that girl who runs those errands for me. Here, have a paper bag. Stupid Bast with his stupid face and stupid paper bags. It's like he can't trust me with danger and I don't know how to convince him otherwise. Before I met him, I used to think my girls and I were good at trouble. Back in the day when Caly, Thea, and I could while away infinite hours of daylight just sitting on a curb playing with lighters, I was pretty sure we were the new definition for tough. Maybe I was blinded by the tiny flames that always felt so much bigger in my hands, but we knew secrets the rest of the world couldn't handle. It's hard to find words for it now, but our footsteps whispered about it every time we broke into an abandoned building or climbed out a window. All the secrets to life were scratched into the soles of our shoes and I was content with that until Bast's blood and bruises began to make me jealous for an underworld I still don't even know a thing about. That's not to say I don't love the world we three hellions of the oceanic apocalypse have made for ourselves. I could be happy to just hang around listening to Thea singing and playing her guitar for the rest of my life, waving a tambourine around in the background, backing her up with an off-kilter beat and dancing with Caly until we're all completely lost in the moment. I could be happy... it's just that I don't know if that's the same thing as being content. Dark clubs and fevered parties in broke-down buildings feel like a kind of home to me — safe sins I'll never tire of — but I get so curious about things I've never seen, places I've never been, and people I should be too scared to know but want to meet anyway. I've been so lucky to grow up with Thea and Caly and keep them closer than my own blood, and yet I chase shadows. I see fire and can't help watching it burn. I daydream about broken bones and split lips and cracked skulls. I think to myself sometimes that there might be something inherently wrong with me for romanticizing these kinds of things... and the thrill of it still shivers through me. Even now, I find myself turning into an alleyway, the remnants of a shattered glass bottle crackling beneath my boots, and follow the sound of breaking into the dark. I am seduced by this small evidence of destruction, each sharp little fragment a piece of my aspirations. Exhaling, my imagination swears the silent release is at least twice as deadly as Tashington's apocalyptic snoring this morning. This is the great, nothing sound of danger. As if to prove me right, my eyes catch on Bast, perfectly quiet and casually leaning against the brick wall that rises up around us as though he knew I was coming. Like he was waiting for me. "Missed your face, Bast." The greeting comes out quippy and tinged with a contradiction of utterly genuine sarcasm as I approach, my prying eyes instinctively searching him for evidence of a black eye or new scars. I can't help it, not when the impulse is as undeniable a force as each new morning. Still, no matter how closely I look at him, all I can see in these shadows is my own desire to become legendary.

[L△LIA]

Odair

[✨]

I freaking adore you.

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