paper faces on parade [jedwin / masquerade!

[Wonder]

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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: 262px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px;] I am not the man I used to be. Shrill screams once again fill the harrowing halls of the Libertine household - between crying, howling, laughing, and singing, this was all very much the same as always. It was just a matter of being able to distinguish one from the other. That always seemed to be where I fell to a fault, ungracious and greedily hogging the floor space in my complete ineptitude to distinguishing my family's emotions from happy to sad. Though the two did seem to become synonymous with each other most often. I remember what Pen used to sound like singing through the halls, her siren's voice carrying through the floorboards mercilessly. We're having a party. A party. What was that all about? The creaking walls were filled with endless sorrow, not the best venue for a celebration and what for? To hide. How obvious was it to everyone what the Libertine family was trying to do, hiding endlessly behind the grief of two siblings that had been unjustly slaughtered. How unpractical. I wander to the shop floor, brushing gently against the mismatched shelves covered in a variety of generally useless items. Maps, crystals, ropes, any sort of knick knack that a customer of ours would need. Bright white lights shine through the sullied window grasping few inches of the store, but just enough to give light to the amount of care we took care, and the answer was not much. I don't remember the last time I'd taken a broom to the floor, cleaned the window. But it all changed so soon, this whole facade was merely an excuse to clean, sweeping ripped and ragged cloths across surfaces, setting aside shelves and dirt as to make room for dancers. What an ordeal, if only the confines of the shop did grow, if only I could - escape. If there was one thing I'd learned from my darling sisters, it was that escape was only achieved in a single manner. Hiding behind a mask made of solid white, it was the night to become a mystery beyond any of which my siblings had ever seen. What kind of man lived behind the mask of a rabbit, that was for me to decide. I could be any kind of monster or human being I wanted. Suave, sexy, mysterious, lurking in the corners and surveying the crowd as if it was time to take out a hit. Dancing wildly with the most simple of people, or the most curious of them all. We did have a reputation for the weird and quirky, did we not? The powder white suit feels as if silk along my sensitive skin, though I know it's nothing of the sorts, perhaps a cheap cotton, but it adds only to the illusion that perhaps someone of importance had shown up tonight. The true secret was, that a boy who hugged window sills could change who he was by simply putting on a mask. Tell me a better one than that. A glittering mask, bedazzled in every area possible with white stones, traced into the shape of a rabbit. I don't know any rabbit that looks quite as fanciful, but it was enough of a magic trick to change a boy into an animal, that I figured - why not? Pressing it to my face and instantly feeling the closeness and change that wearing a mask brings, it's hard to not notice how the white contrasts against my now grey looking skin. Who am I, now? "Who are you?" I whisper to my shadow, and then once again to my reflection in the mirror. "Who are you?" I drop the crystal prism from my night stand into my pocket and waltz out the door confidently, a good luck charm on a night of potential destruction and unpredictability. Come find me tonight, howling in the moonlight that drifts through a newly cleaned window. I feel the heavy thump of people talking, though I take to back door and swing around as to enter a guest, not a host. A host has responsibilities, and I, tonight, am just a simple rabbit, ready to be pulled out of a hat. The raunchy air is instant, feeling as if though mischief is threaded like braids, thick and hard to take in, it's a circus of hybrids between human and animal - it is exactly the kind of party a Libertine would throw. But am I a Libertine tonight? No, no I am not. Then, who am I? I let my self be infected by the feel of human beings, sweat alongside them, let their hands groggily touch my body as I touch theirs. It's a night where stars are colliding across a never ending sky and creating fireworks, a night of pure anonymity, that was the beauty behind a mask. The drinks seem to loosen the crowd a little bit, make them more at ease as the warm liquid fills our lungs and we lift them up cheering to - happybirthday cheers toanewyear tothelibertines hallelujah whatarewecheeringto - maybe that was the magic of it all. The drinks smell wonderful, but remind me of the harsh smell of peppermint. Triggering the thought of a small slip of a hand along my legs, and suddenly my legs are being touched, and my thighs - suddenly I'm dancing with a woman in a mask who I don't know - I wonder if I know her, and which Jorge would she like better? The rabbit or the lost boy gazing out the windowsill. Which Jorge did I like better? The moonlight glides through the window even brighter twisting across the tinsel lined on the shelves. Silver clashes across the walls creating a sort of light show on the dance floor, almost magical in comparison to the rest. This was what magic was. Slipping the crystal from my pocket, I walk over to the window and let the light shine across it. The rainbow instantly hits the ceiling above - how wonderful the moonlight was to create a new illusion. Stronger than ever before was the magic of the Libertine household. I can still hear her songs, and her screams. I can still see their limp bodies. But tonight, I am not the man I used to be.

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jör·je
(noun) /hohr-hay/
1. male, sixteen, district four
2. wanderlust wandering wayward halls
3. find him by the windowsill

“You're not sorry to go, of course. With people like us our home is where we are not... No one person in the world is necessary to you or to me.”

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[gamemaker kelsier]

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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: 442px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px;] per · se · us · ed · win · finch (noun) /purr-see-us edd-win finch/ 1. seventeen, male, district four 2. alcoholic, enigmatic, insane 3. born on the sea 4. mad as a hatter I am afraid, I cannot find us.

[/left]At first, he'd been rather annoyed with the scrap of paper that had been shoved into his guitar strings. It'd been a simple jaunt along the dock, his guitar should have been safe from harm, but it had been attacked all the same, and now he paid for it, trying to remove the crumpled paper that had been expertly weaved in. The words were swirling, beautiful things and Edwin seemed to know where they came from even before he deciphered the letters. Excitement had gnawed at him then, and a weird feeling had formed in the pit of his stomach. He hadn't been back to that shop since he'd spent those few minutes next to one Jorge Libertine.

It had been weeks since he'd been back. The Red Starr had made two extensive trips in that time. Yet, both times the plunder had been tallied and the list made, Edwin had shirked the duty of going to the little shop, something in him almost terrified at the prospect of going back there. So he'd made sure to delve into the reserves of rum in the back of his closet before even thinking of taking one step. The card said it was a masquerade, but Edwin had never been excellent at hiding his lovely face. They didn't have much anyway because the boys refused to fight to the death masked. So his costume was a mish-mash of items on board.

This included one pair of ripped pants with a belt of rope and a cotton shirt with a neckline so deep he wasn't sure it counted as a neckline. He was a castaway, and castaways don't usually wear shoes. So he was barefoot too. To complete the look, he'd filled his hands with salt water, and rubbed it through his hair, and then rubbed sands on his legs. It looked like he'd just washed up on shore, rolled off the beach and was ready to party. Which he was, you know, maybe he had just crawled himself out of the ocean, maybe it wasn't a disguise. AS per usual, the old guitar was slung over his back. Hair wet from salt and water, he slipped into the party as if he'd been there since it started.

Maybe he had been, he couldn't remember at this point. The dance floor was a mass of bodies moving as in sync as possible, masked faces and painted ones flashing by. The feeling in the air was euphoric, and it was toxic, bringing Edwin's own intoxication up by three levels. That, or it was just the punch, whatever it was, it was appreciated. Two full ventures since he'd been to a party like this, and days since he'd lost himself in a crowd. The problem was, he was easier to find than anyone else he knew, and it always happened too quickly. Once he had looked up, body moving to the music to see himself staring back across the dance floor, a carefully manic grin plastered across his face.

That had been utterly horrifying. He barely wanted to look in a mirror and see his face, let alone staring back at him across an abyss like this. So he tried not to see who he was dancing with, and let his body move against any that came against his, a neutral charge, he ave himself up to the crowd. For some time he let the beat of the music direct him, and he didn't know how long it'd been. He'd checked the clock three cups of something ago, and he'd already forgotten what it said. However, he could feel it in the crooked beat of his heart, he had found his bravery. He could go and seek him out now.

He hadn't seen the other boy watching at his window tonight when he'd entered, and with some sort of relief, he had been almost happy. His fingers were so excited to see the little boy Libertine again that they titched against his leg, drumming and spinning themselves about. Yet, he found him, at a window, looking out as he always was. He didn't know how he knew it was him. Something about the length of his legs, and the slender fingers holding the prism up to the light seemed to tell him. Butterflies danced like locusts around his intestines, he almost allowed himself to fall back into the crowd again, to pretend he hadn't seen him.

Bravery won out, and he found himself swiveling clumsily in front of the other boy, back thudding against the guitar with the movement. "Well, well, well," he said, voice trying to be heard over the music, "Here I thought you'd be back at your window Jorge, was wondering where you were." He felt nervousness coil through him, restricting him like a snake. Still, he kept it off his face well enough. He loved the feeling of fear he felt at talking to the beautiful Libertine. It was freeing.

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[Wonder]

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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: 262px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px;] Hidden among the crowd are the remainder of my siblings. We thrive on becoming a dwindling race, us Libertines, flying to close on to the edge of life and disaster that each day we take time to celebrate, to compensate all the time we potentially could have lost. The bottom of my stomach feels a little bit giddy, happy even. Despite losing two siblings in our short time, I know that in this crowd there is still a hundred more of us, the doors of our complex are always open, so as long as there are doors to open, there are new family members out there. How far do they come from? I wonder. The District must branch out far, I spend days walking the sandy shores and still only wind up within a mile of my household, locked here with silver chains, barred to the grounds. Adventure is out there I'm sure, there is space where time exists and yet I'm stuck, chained up, a prisoner who only sticks to where he was born. Often, I wonder what might be out there for me, if I dove head first into crashing waves, tasted the salt of the seas and let myself drown if I'd wash up on an island far away from here - how great that would be. Trapped in a place that I'm free to reign, a king to my own isle. But I'm stuck. Here. The humidity rises so quickly through the crowd of joyful youth. They dance so freely, no cares holding them down that it's mystifying to see. Sweat pours down the sides of their faces, what little skin is showing from under their golden masks is red with tiredness as they grow more and more flustered. How interesting a species is the teenage child. Unaware that time is just plodding around while they allow themselves to dive into rebellion. Wasting away so gently without a single care. I wonder. I wonder what it would be like to actually be like that, allow myself to be a consumer of that which disappears so quickly. I often have nightmares about how next year my name will be pulled along with another one of my siblings. Some parts of me believe that the world just wants to extinguish my family as a whole. The other parts of me know that that is the stone cold truth. The party rages on as I watch from my windowsill - the only place of comfort in a globe of unfamiliarity. Trying to spot my siblings by their figures amongst the crowd - I can't tell where or who they are, simply statues amongst a garden, much like the one the Learna perished in. How appropriate. Did Learna feel this trapped amongst the cement blocks? The sea was flushing in, the tides approaching and swallowing the sand. Lovers eternally bounded by the natural system they'd produced. "Well, well, well" I hear the voice but it is nothing but a noise blended in to the rest, how amazing the water was. What is might be like to be completely demolished, destroyed and swept away by the sea. To be able to travel the vast waters, breaking through the unknown, exploring that which is unmapped. A hollow bang comes from my left - the voice carries a guitar which he whacks to the wall, smooth. Hollow and calling out, the guitar releases sounds of pain and anguish, strapped to the boys back. Trapped. "Here I thought you'd be back at your window Jorge, was wondering where you were." My window - my home, locked here. I'm locked here, the statues behind me continue to bend at robotic beats, they continue with the music in their odd trance. Melodic, they move forward and backwards, exchange interactions. The boy in front of me - I know his figure quite well, and I fix my mask. There's nothing wrong with it, but suddenly it feels loose. I see his calloused hands, rough and worked. Edwin Finch stands before me. Peppermint breath pushing through my barriers, covering my in a violent love. The adventurer himself, seeking out the shopkeepers son. There is no advantage to him through this exchange. But what about me? I remember his rough hands clasping onto my legs, his soft spoken words. There is a light in his bright eyes, they must sparkle off the sequins embezzled into my mask. He knew me enough to pick me out through a crowd filled with anonymity, he studied me enough to know. A pirate. A mapmaker knew how to study and track. I was merely a treasure for the taking. "Edwin," I smile, heart pounding along to the loud bass that surrounds me. "welcome to our party. I hope you're enjoying yourself. Care to dance?" Oh Jorge, don't be so full of yourself. A treasure? Hardly.

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jör·je
(noun) /hohr-hay/
1. male, sixteen, district four
2. wanderlust wandering wayward halls
3. find him by the windowsill

“You're not sorry to go, of course. With people like us our home is where we are not... No one person in the world is necessary to you or to me.”

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-image: url(http://media2.giphy.com/media/tSQmK0avIeb7O/original.gif); border: 303045 solid 0px; width: 442px; height: 50px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 30px 30px;] here's a toast: to a prosperous year to our friends who are here may the splendour never fade! what a blessed release! and what a masquerade

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[gamemaker kelsier]

"TASTE MY DISASTER
IT'S HEAVY ON MY TONGUE"

I wonder if I could talk to him if I was sober.

I highly doubt it, I've never been very good at that sort of thing. Something about the way I was brought up, made to fear a woman's touch just because I was told I could break them if I pressed too hard. No one ever told me to fear boys, no one ever warned me about them. Why didn't they tell me about the curvature of their jawlines, about the way their shirts might ride up and show of bare skin? (Because it's wrong, Ed my boy, it's in the bible, they call it a sin.)

So's being a pirate, I think. I've sinned more times than I can count on both hands, but I have not been struck down with lightening yet. Maybe that's just because I'm not important enough to be noticed by any god. Maybe it's just because I'm worthless.

Since when did I decide that I wanted to fall for anyone anyway?

My mother always said that it wasn't something you just went out and decided to do, she said that it just happens. I don't think it ever occurred to her that I might fall for a boy who watches the world pass him by from a window seat, or that it would be a boy that I would fall for. I never got the chance to ask her about her views on homosexuality or even about first loves. I wonder if my mother might approve of me, or if she would clutch the cross she always wore around her neck and cry for the son that she lost.

It's a good thing I'm already an alcoholic so I don't have to think about these things for too long. I can't even remember the last time I was sober. The world is a haze around him, but it is a comfortable haze, a familiar haze. Why, I barely feel hazed at all.

I wonder if he realizes that even catching a glimpse of his eyes makes me want to abandon ship and stay in the moment forever.

I can't let him notice. I have to stay cool.

He asks me to dance, and I nod slightly, trying to remain cool, collected. The truth of it is that I am shivering and I think I might have been dusted with too much pixie dust. I feel like I could fly, like I could go cartwheeling out to Neverland. I take his hand then and pull him into the crowd, not even trying to speak, knowing that I won't be heard above the noise the crowd makes. His name sits on my tongue, silent, waiting, deadly.

If only I still believed in fairy tales, I might be able to trust that the way his voice wrapped around the syllables of my own name was a spell. However, I know how things are, I wasn't born yesterday. No one ever expects more than one night from me, no one ever wants one more. I am a faceless body in the crowd, just another book for people to close out of boredom. I suppose that is where the root of all this false bravado is. They won't remember me, I won't remember them, I don't have to be shy. Or maybe it's just the peppermint that taints my breathe and the fact that I have nothing else to lose.

The thing is, I really don't want Jörge Libertine to forget me. So I try and describe myself to him with every move I make as we dance and our bodies press together, as we converse in the most secret of ways. It's a conversation that screams, 'you had to be there'. There will be words that I will say to him later and even if I don't remember them, maybe he will.

So I lean in close and press my nose up against his bunny rabbit mask, I want to know what his eyes say, I want to learn how they sound. I barely know him but I have known him my entire life. I don't know if he knows me, knows what I used to be before I became this. I wish he did, maybe he could like me better then. However, I'm this, I'm a shipwreck, I'm looking for land, and the island I've spotted is paradise. So I open my big, fat mouth, and I say, "I like you, Jörge Libertine, a lot. Like, like-like you."

[presto]

I'LL BE SHAKIN' IT

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ooc: switched to first because I forgot. hehe.