Are You Prince Charming? {Lalia}

[gamemaker kelsier]

S P E A K I N G // T H I N K I N G

Cinder stared steadily at the other side of the carriage. It was painted a dark maroon, and it had been a job that the avox had completed a few months earlier. Her hands shook in her lap as she tried to keep her visage calm and unblinking. It was difficult as a cold fear washed it's way through her body, chilling her down to her core. Her fate was ahead of her on the road somewhere, and she was completely unaware of what it might be. She had been sent out her mistress's door with her small bag of clothing and her uniforms, she had just time to grab the animal residing in her pocket now as she was ushered out the door and into the carriage. They did not bother to tell her where she was headed before slamming the door in her face.

She wrung her hands with worry and self doubt as she thought about the past few weeks. She thought that she had been doing a good job of everything. Her master and mistress had seemed very pleased with her performance, and once the Master had even given her a nod of thanks. She had been with the family for quite a few years now and she had thought that they enjoyed her presence. But maybe she had been wrong, she was just a simple avox after all, and easily replaced. Biting her lip, she looked downward the way a proper avox should in the company of their masters. One of the daughters of the household was in the carriage with her, staring out the window in obvious distaste of having to share a carriage with a servant.

It felt like she had only been in the small compartment for a few minutes when it came to a halt. Hurriedly, Cinder scrambled for the door so that she could let the young Mistress out, and for her troubles she received a slap on the hand. "Stay avox, I'm just buying you a new uniform." Cinder sat back down onto her spot, trying to make herself appear smaller. She was bad with slapping, it made her feel terrible when she was hit. Terrible because she had not done her job properly, and because it hurt of course. Cinder waited quietly for five more minutes until the Young Mistress returned with a small bag, and they were on their way once again. This time the trip was roughly about eight minutes more until they finally came to a halt. Cautiously, Cinder reached for the door so she could go around and open her Mistress's, and this time she was not hit.

Cinder waited quietly, her eyes downcast as she listened for her orders. She did not look around her to find out her new scenery lest she earn another slap for not paying attention. Her bag was pulled from the bag hold by the driver and dropped at her feet. As son as the bag hit the ground, her Mistress began walking down a long path leading up to an ornate building. She hit the buzzer on the door, and murmured into, moving back to stand beside Cinder when she finished. Turning to her in what appeared to be slight annoyance, she finally decided to explain her situation. "You are being given to the Abattoir household as a gift. Do not dishonor us, and make it so the household appreciates what we have done." After she said so, she slipped a letter to give to the Abattoirs into her hand, along with a note telling what apartment was there's. Cinder stared at the girl only a little younger than herself in shock, turning her head and craning her neck as she walked away, back to the carriage.

The door in front of her opened slowly, and choking back fear and surprise, Cinder made her way into the building, finding the appropriate apartment quickly and efficiently. Shakily, she put down her bag and knocked lightly on the door, cringing at the sound it gave off. She watched as the door opened slowly, as if her knock had made it move, and when no one came to the door to greet her after ten minutes, she allowed herself to tentatively walk in. She crept slowly so to not disturb anyone with her sound, and almost jumped with surprise. When her Masters spoke of this household, they had spoken of strange ornaments, and riches beyond the wildest of dreams, but what Cinder saw surprised her even more. There was nothing to see at all. It was as if the Abbatoirs had bought the place and never furnished it because it was completely empty, no photos even hung on the walls.

Cinder crept through the place, wondering if she had found the right apartment. There were a few odd things here and there, such as a grand piano sitting forlorn and dusty in a corner, and on one wall there was a moose head, or at least what appeared to be one. But otherwise there was nothing but a few mattresses and the needs for a human being. But there was something that Cinder was used to seeing, and that was dust and dirt, a lot of it. it was something she could do, as she felt at home doing it, but really, what she wanted to do was sit down and play something on the piano while her new Masters were out. She just needed to ground herself a little tiny bit. So pulling Lion out of her pocket, he was no worse for wear, she sat down at the dusty piano, and placed him on top of it. Closing her eyes, she softly began to play a very old song that her family owned a vintage sheet music for. It was by a man named Debussy, and he had called it, "Claire de Lune."

[L△LIA]

This is our decision
To live fast and die young
We've got the vision
Now let's have some fun!
Yeah, it's overwhelming

The gilded elevator with the blindingly shiny buttons unceremoniously spits me out at the foot of a pair of ostentatious double doors that are better known as the gateway to the infamous Abattoir penthouse. Home. They rise up to touch the vaulted ceiling — the crowning glory of an obnoxiously beautiful entryway, artfully crafted from rhodium and what one might assume to be frosted diamond glass. It's all terribly imposing, making me feel dirty by comparison — not an entirely inaccurate assessment at the moment — and utterly unworthy of ogling its grandeur, which all comes together to cause it to be fabulously successful in its intent. With a messy grin of intoxication plastered unsteadily across my face, I take a moment to give an applause of appreciation to the repressed District artiste responsible for the triumph of architecture, very nearly thwacking myself in the head with the dented cooking pot I had forgotten I was holding.

A cooking pot has many uses, all of which are absolutely invaluable and not to be underestimated. In fact, to do so may very well be fatal and you wouldn't want to be caught making that mistake — oh, the tragedy! Besides being quite handy in the kitchen with the cooking for which it was so appropriately named, cooking pots also happen to make excellent weapons. Have a pesky mutt infestation? No problem! Get a cooking pot. A couple of famished teenagers seem to be bound and determined on hunting you down with intent to decapitate? Why, have I got the cure-all to your ailments! It's this astounding little invention called a cooking pot. Just keep an eye out — Ha! — for spears, those seem to be rather a bit tricky to fend off, no matter how trusty the blunt object of doom and destruction you've armed yourself with happens to be.

If a cooking pot is not readily available when imminent danger presents itself as your untimely opponent, I might also recommend shoes as a back-up plan of attack. Speaking of which, I would have sworn I had been wearing a rather lovely pair when I arrived at the party last night. Now where could those have got off to? That particular shade of acid green leather can't be found in just any —

The uncertain memory of chucking one during an over-enthusiastic reenactment of a Guard Granadillo encounter, and witnessing it collide with Devyni's rather unamused face, tumbles through my mind in a blurry haze. The specifics of where I lost the second one escape me, but it's not too difficult to imagine. I've always been something of a prodigy when it comes to putting puzzles together.

Instead of feeling remorse at the realization of my actions, I can't help feeling strangely empowered, wondering if that really was something like what it must have felt to be a tribute hurling blunt projectiles around for the sake of self-defense. It's all too easy for me to get caught up in tipsy moments and seesaw within them until I lose track of where the lines of authenticity are drawn. In fact, part of my costume last night was a necktie tied around my eyes as a blindfold and I tug it back down now, from where it had been pushed up around my forehead, dousing the world in darkness as I dramatically shove open the front doors, stumbling into the nearly vacant living room beyond. "I am Saskia, the mutt slayer!" I howl out like a battle cry to break the inevitable silence, raising my cooking pot into the air with one hand and beating my bare chest with the other.

At some point in the night I'd made an alliance with July and the small plastic lizard she had attached to her shoulder, trading her my shirt in exchange for an eyeliner pencil with which to scrawl SASKIA across my chest and LETHE on her cheek. I don't remember too much after that, except that waterproof eyeliner is not the same as alcohol proof and will smear if you're unexpectedly startled by the sight of Septima waltzing across the dance floor wearing a swan carcass as a dress and spill your drink all over yourself and a rather displeased Gaius. As a result, my carefully crooked lettering ended up smudged over more of my skin than originally intended, but was still mostly legible last I looked. "Saskia," dropping my voice to as low a tone as I can manage, I swing my cooking pot around in search of the moose head I know is mounted somewhere around here, "are you sure you're blind?" After hitting empty wall after empty wall, the metal clanging loudly with each collision, my fearsome weapon finally thunks against its intended target and I raise my voice back up to a more feminine pitch. "Oh Razor," a snort of laughter follows my breathy mock-swoon, "I'm starting to doubt it myself." Dancing from foot to foot like a hyperactive boxer, I proceed to repeatedly slap the moose with the cooking pot — left cheek, right cheek, left cheek, right cheek — before simulating the raspy roar of the spectators cheering and pumping my triumphant, mutt-slaying fists in the air once more.

The sounds of my victory echo arrogantly in my ears until I realize it's not an echo at all, but the hushed whisper of a piano's song winding its gentle melody down the hall. My mother once lied at a rather gaudy party — well, she does that quite often and even to say "often" is an understatement, but this particular lie was only once, I think — that she played piano. Oh! It was a fabulous story about how she'd played in her childhood and how the music accompanying the dancing that night was making her feel sentimental and by the time my parents arrived home there was a grand piano waiting to greet them in the entryway with the most excessively horrific bow tied around it that you ever saw! I'm not sure how they managed to move it into the apartment, seeing as how movers are out of the question when you don't let anyone into your home for fear of them discovering how utterly vacant your life is, but they found a way. They always find a way.

"Mum?" Part of me wants to call out further, asking when she learned, who taught her to play and if it was from a particularly important or interesting person, to find out if this is the first time she's ever made one of their stories come true or if I missed another scrap of accidental honesty along the way. Instead I follow the sound quietly, blindly trailing my fingers down the hallway towards one of the few rooms that isn't completely empty. My parents don't come home often, too busy gallivanting around to prestigious social events to bother, and their presence always sets me on edge, because they never never warn me when they're going to leave again. Without looking, I know the walls beneath my fingertips are completely white, as blank as untouched canvas. They could be transformed to be as vibrant as anything — all the potential in Panem is locked up in their unsullied surface — and in my mind they are: regal tartans and elephant skin, phosphorescent technicolor or translucent hologram projections. It's amazing what you can see when you close your eyes and don't acknowledge what's actually there.

With a deep breath, I shake off my hesitance, skidding and sliding my way into the room for a proper greeting. Abattoirs go big, even when they go home. So I fling myself in the general direction of the piano's bench, wrapping my arms around her and planting a kiss somewhere in her hair as my cooking pot trips haphazardly over the genuine ivory keys to interrupt the song. "Oh, it's just awful! I can't even smell you!" I exclaim in my best imitation of a Saskia-voice, sniffing the air with a wildly goofy grin on my face. There's a measure of truth to my jesting, however, that momentarily fades the smile from the corners of my lips and tugs my eyebrows together in perplexed confusion. The scent of my mother's flowery perfume really is absent and she doesn't feel quite right without it. "It's actually really hard to tell if you're there or not." I try to push my serious thoughts away, but the next line of quoted dialog pulls them all back despite my efforts — "Sometimes I think you've ditched me and I'm on my own again." — so I rest the back of my hand against my forehead, slumping back into the piano keys with melodramatic distress and a thunderous clang of inharmonious notes. Ducking my head down with a laugh, I reach up to pull my blindfold off while holding my cooking pot up between us for a moment of comedic emphasis. "That or another tribute's creeping around with me, just waiting to slip a knife in my ba—"

She is not my mother. I go as rigid as the taxidermied moose head adorning the wall in the living room, frozen in time with my eyes wide open. My grip tightens on my cooking pot with something that feels an awful lot like desperation and now I know that self-defense feels nothing like hitting Devyni in the head with my shoe. Everything around us is empty and exposed like a graveyard of bones — she can see all the nothing that's supposed to be so carefully hidden away — and each of the imaginary glowing rainbows and exotic animal pelts I conjured between here and the front door, every last one of them dissolves back into that undeniable, blinding white. I can feel the entirety of my fragile world of lies slipping away because of this one stranger and I'm suddenly painfully aware that this is how it really must have felt to be Saskia. In or out of the Games, one person is all it takes to destroy a life, because one witness is all it takes to demolish an empire of rumors. The deafening BOOM of a cannon must sound just like this terrible silence to the dead.

But what else can we do?
Get jobs in offices and wake up
For the morning commute?
Forget about our mothers and our friends
We were fated to pretend

[gamemaker kelsier]

S P E A K I N G // T H I N K I N G

Cinder let herself fall into the song, closing her eyes as the familiar melody calmed her. It reminded of her of her district's scenery, and she found herself thinking of it once again. How the world seemed to spread out around her, the wide vistas of the mountain ranges seeming to shout, "Hello Cinder, here I am, and there are you." It was home, and had been right up until she was twelve and stolen away. Unlike most, she had loved the freezing temperatures of winter, and the way her purple mittens looked under snow. She used to dream about going home all the time, and seeing her step-sisters, and step-mother again. She would constantly fret and worry about it, until these later years, when she was already beginning to forget the smell of her home. Lilacs and Lavender.

It wasn't like this house at all. A house that tasted of insubstantial shadows. She smiled at the mouse sitting contentedly atop the piano, washing itself. As her fingers led themselves along to the crescendo, she allowed herself to shut her eyes, feeling out each note. She opened her mouth slightly in a deep sigh of contentment, Her phantom tongue grazing her lips ever so slightly in that way it used to when she was happy. By now she had come to terms with the fact that she only had a stub in her mouth. It no longer bothered her that she could no longer proclaim her joy, only show it. It was funny how much people took words for granted when they still had them. She longed just to say the word, 'apple' again, let alone something exotic like, 'papaya.'

So immersed was she that when a pair of arms flung itself around her, she didn't notice until a cooking pot undid the melody, making the keys and song flutter to a stop. A kiss was planted on her forehead, and she sat stock still in surprise, completely unused to anyone touching her with affection, let alone a lovely kiss and a hug. For a moment she could almost pretend that the male voice belonged to her father, arriving home from a hard day at the mines. She shut her eyes tightly, and imagined the smell of home before the smell of boy and sweat overpowered the memory. With that, she was broken out of her shock, and quickly, before she could be hit for not being this boy's mother, she scuttled off of the seat, and crawled into the corner, leaving Lion to fend for himself on the piano top. She heard a plink, most likely meaning he had crawled into the piano.

From her perch in the corner, in plain site, she studied the disheveled boy, her eyes wide. He was wearing something rather ridiculous, a tie around his eyes, and LETHE across his chest. He was definitely not as prim as his old masters. Except their daughter had begun to enter her partying years. After years of studying people, she could tell, and probably rightly so that he was about her age, seventeen. She studied his face, what she could see of it, with confusion, he made joking sounds, but his face was not full of laughter, it was caught in confusion. She wished she could alert him to the fact that she was unable to speak, but everyone knew that was impossible. Especially if the person you were trying to alert was wearing a blindfold. She patted at her uniform pocket, remembering the letter. A flood of appreciation tore it's way through her, about how her masters had been sure to provide a means of communication.

She saw the boy begin to tug his blindfold up, and in fear, she covered her face with her hands, trying to make herself appear small, she curled in on her corner, hiding her body as best she could from plain sight. She pulled the letter out of her pocket, and held it out with her right arm, shaking obviously in her surprise at the master's arrival. She was unsure of the contents of the letter, but she had heard stories of avoxes who were used for things other than serving, such as harems. There had been stories circulating through sign among the avoxes about a harem. If you were hired there, or given to the master there, you were treated in likeness to a princess, and it was many of the female's dreams to be sent to this particular man. At the absence of anyone else but them in this apartment, Cinder could tell that she had not been sent to this man.

The reason she shielded her face were for two reasons. One, she was shy as hell, and two, because she was sort of afraid of that pot that was still in her new master's hand. She had also heard stories of a serial killer who had liked to torture and slowly kill avoxes. When he had been found out, not much happened apparently. It wasn't a crime to kill a slave or two. Better an avox than a human being. Even though she was a slave, Cinder took satisfaction in surviving and hoped she hadn't ended up with the crazy man either. Many people might say that her existence was pointless, that living this live was terrible. But Cinder had probably been raised to serve others, and she did it well. If she could have chosen to be avox, she might have, as long as she didn't have to have her tongue cut out.

She peaked through her fingers when her letter had still not been taken, at the boy standing before her. She was able to see his hazel eyes, and the way they stared at her in fear. A Capitolite afraid of an Avox, that might be the best joke she ever heard, if it weren't for the fact that the situation made her too scared to even try a strangled chuckle. She slid up the wall behind her, making the respectful sign of an avox to it's master before letting her eyes fall respectively to the floor. She held the letter out once more, willing him to take her information. Wishing she could tell him that she wasn't going to hurt him. Because that's what his face said, that she was going to undo him. An avox who could harm someone was a laugh, and this time a bitter smile did form itself on her downcast face. If her life was a fairy tale, this boy would end up being her prince who takes her away from it all, but maybe she'd be the one who rescued him in the end.

[L△LIA]

The music stops abruptly and my heart accompanies the silence with skipped beats inter-cut by a double-time race. My own fear echoes in my ears until I am deaf with it, but as the moment settles into awkwardness, this becomes irrelevant. This girl — this intruder — makes no attempt to speak, her lips drawn as I continue to gape in apocalyptic shock.

Cooking pot still in hand, my nerves twist through every muscle of my body until I feel as though I must be the flickering ghost of who I was just a few minutes ago. As I inch forward, improvised weapon held out to the side in an attempt to be nonthreatening yet prepared all at once, I am skittish to the point of being ridiculous. With a loop of no, no, no circling in my head, it's impossible for me to even consider a rational approach to this situation, so instead I jumpdancetwitch my way forward to snatch the letter from her outstretched hand before scrabbling backwards until I'm back-to-back with the wall on the opposite site of the room. The second my bare shoulder blades make contact, I sink down to the floor, curling into my knees as I try to stop the shaking that has overtaken me.

My very bones are trembling, my hands knocking into my shins so violently as I attempt to wrap my arms around my legs for support that I'll probably wake up with bruises in the morning. Even with the promise of an explanation grasped between my fingers, I can't focus on the letter, my eyes darting between her face and the floor, as though I might be able to make her disappear by willpower alone. No, no, oh Ripred no. "Y-you—" Vocal chords breaking into useless fragments, as if I've been struck by a second bout of puberty, I stutter and gesture my way into absolute incoherence in ten seconds flat.

As far as everyone other than my parents and I know, this is a home of ultimate wealth where one of the most elite families in all of Capitol society resides. Within these walls lie riches beyond even the capabilities of dreamers to fathom. Rumors about the extravagant lifestyle of the Abattoirs become social wildfire, scorching mouths and ears with jealousy as they're passed along and destroying the status of other socialite legacies by comparison. There are few who can challenge us as equals... but only because no one knows. Not a single soul beyond the Abattoir namesake has ever seen within this home, not until —

"Y-y-you!" My voice crescendos with rage only to be swallowed up by the unrelenting fear welling up in my throat. In a split-second I've dissolved into a sobbing wreck, my lungs torn apart until I'm gasping for air as I curl up against the ground, my limbs tangling into themselves as I shamelessly cry into the unopened paper gripped iron-tight within my fist. This girl doesn't yet seem to know that she is the destroyer of worlds, defeating a lifetime of lies simply by witnessing how white the walls surrounding the two of us are. No, no, no, my thoughts continue to wail, utterly useless as I dissolve into the kind of quiet that knows how to bring a kingdom to its knees.

[gamemaker kelsier]

S P E A K I N G // T H I N K I N G

She'd seen a lot in her time. Usually, people like to keep things locked up nice and tight behind their doors. They liked to keep their secrets hidden, and to stack their faces with so many smiles, no one would ever be able to see the horrible reality underneath. Everyone was like that, they didn't want people to see. Cinder understood that, but Cinder wasn't people. Cinder was 'the help', unworthy of even a capitol letter. So when people did things behind closed doors, Cinder was in the corner, there to pick up broken glass. Cinder was the one who saw what happened in the lives of the rich, because it didn't matter what Cinder saw. She couldn't tell anyone, and she could barely read or write. She knew her numbers, yes, but words were a different matter. Cinder Ash was a nobody here, a ghost, an ornament. She was a slave, somebody who cooked the meals and made sure everything was dusted. Nobody cared what she saw or didn't see.

Well, at least not until this moment. Stunned, she watched from the corner, just as she'd always done. Usually, there was someone else making someone cry, or at least a thrown piece of something or other that she could sweep up. Not once in her entire existence had she been the cause of anyone's suffering. Not once had she ever even registered in someone's mind, let alone been something to fear. A wave of guilt washed over her, as she watched the uncertainty in the boy's gaze go from confusion to fear. Did she look threatening? She hadn't meant to.) Her gaze fell to the pot in his hand, and instinctively, she cowered back into the corner, legs so weak from nerves that the wall became her source of gravity. She'd never been hit with a pot before, but then again, she didn't know this boy, he who held all the power. He could kill her and it wouldn't even matter. She was his now, it would be legal.

She shut her eyes tight again, wondering how badly it would hurt to be beat to death with a metal pot. She wouldn't be very pretty at all anymore. Once, in the games, she'd seen a tribute beat to death. The girl had her blood spattered everywhere, and by the end of it, she was unrecognizable. Cinder didn't want to die. She didn't mind it, working for others. She was comfortable, the occasional slap never did much harm. What was terrifying was she did not know this young man. He could be anything he wanted, while she would always be nothing at all. She was air, to be ignored, something to be used.He had a voice. She had strangled laughter and couldn't even hum anymore.

The blows never come. He speaks and she opens her eyes to see his wide with fear. That's when the confusion hits her once again, and she's thrown for a loop. Tears well in the corners of his eyes, and his knees give out under him. He could be crazy. She knows that, he could be utterly insane, and she could be dead within minutes because a cooking pot would make a wonderfully effective weapon. Instead, he seems to deflate, curl in on himself like an anchor that's lost it's ship. Unable to move, she sinks down to the floor, and waits for him to finish with the horrible sounds emerging from his lips. She's forgotten how to comfort properly, she hasn't seen her beloved ones in years. She doesn't know what protocol is. Does he even want her to hold him, to comfort, but what if he's one of those ones that can't stand the touch of 'the animals'?

As he finally dissolves into something called a small silence, she reaches a decision. Unfolding her small frame, she quietly inches forward until she sits in front to of him cross-legged. Making a soft cooing sound, she carefully rests a hand on his knee, and collapses her frame, making herself look smaller. Smiling softly, as if to say, 'it's alright', she disentangles the letter and presents it to him once more. Her nurturing side taking over, crazy person or no, she wipes a thumb across his cheek to try and clear the tears that still run away from him. He shakes underneath her hand, and she's amazed to find just how frightened of her he really is. She has never been the one in power.

[L△LIA]

Long minutes pass, although I can't even begin to say how many. The idea of hours begins to seem more truthful to my chaotic thoughts, but there are no sounds to mark the passage of time within this room. There is only the incriminating vacancy of once hidden truths.

I'm not someone who is supposed to be so easily broken. Usually I'm the one causing an uproar rather than being victim to one — regardless of how it is only my lungs that eke out with desperation and defeat in this moment. It's practically my hobby to dig up the shameful secrets of those around me, unraveling the lives of even my closest friends with carefully calculated whispers of things meant to be unspoken. Drunken parties are more often battlegrounds than not, an infiltration of enemy ground, even when I'm laughing and frolicking around with a cooking pot in my hand.

When she inches over to sit before me, I'm too self-absorbed to notice. Even her soft cooing, an attempt at comforting that is perhaps more foreign to me than her, is drowned out by the final dredges of my sobbing and an aftermath of scattered hiccups. Instead, it's the shy hand upon my knee that eventually draws my attention, warmer than an enemy ought to be and inherently more sincere than my mother's touch has ever been. Sincerity is uncommon enough to be mythical in this city and I instinctively flinch away, my insides coiling with confusion and the last swaying remnants of the liquor in my system. Still, there is something in the awkward slur of sound she releases into the air between us that calms me — however slightly — against my will. It's alright, she seems to say, despite remaining wordless, but that's only because she doesn't know —

But how is it that she wouldn't know? Anyone witnessing the the lack of luxury within the Abattoir home should know that nothing is alright here. There should be no awkward comforting, only the dramatic rush as she slips away to tell everyone she knows the godawful truth about my sham of a family. However, here she sits, carefully tugging the letter from my grasp as she reaches out to wipe the evidence of tears away from my cheek. If I believed in secret-keepers, perhaps I wouldn't fear her like I do, but I know myself well enough to be aware that there is no such thing. People cannot hold their tongues when it comes to something like this.

While the crying ebbs, the shaking does not. I am kite-heart in the middle of a hurricane, torn free from my tether and sent tumbling into the wind. When she unfolds the letter and presents it to me once more, it is compliance more than curiosity that causes me to read it. Maybe it's true that she doesn't know the power of what she has learned about me today, not yet, but with this knowledge she owns me. Or at least that's what my pessimism is telling me until my eyes skim over the words gift and, more importantly: avox.

A switch flips in my head and suddenly I'm starring her down, sitting up so we're face-to-face. "Avox." My voice is a hoarse whisper curling in the air between us, followed by a stray hiccup or two as I attempt to reconcile the idea with the marrow-deep sense of ruination that has consumed me. My tongue continues turning the word over within my mouth, twisting against my teeth and the roof of my mouth as though that might be where answers are found. There is a need to know writhing within me, raising my hand up until my fingers are shamelessly prying at her lips, saying prove it. Prove that you will never breathe a word of this to anyone, little secret keeper. Show me your own emptiness and then maybe I'll be able to find the courage to entrust you with mine.

[gamemaker kelsier]

S P E A K I N G // T H I N K I N G

Of course she had come to terms with it. It had been a few years now at least. To be perfectly honest, she could barely remember her time before this, whatever this was. It had begun to feel like a dream. She'd begun to forget what her sisters looked like. Her father's face, her dear, beloved father, his face was wreathed in shadow. She wouldn't be able to tell you if his hands were rough or not, she couldn't remember. He mined, she knew that, but what if he had been an overseer, rather than one of the men who dug? She didn't know. This life was what she had, it was everything that she owned, and it didn't even belong to her. So, it was all that mattered. Whether it was out of self preservation, or sorrow, she willed herself to forget.

It was difficult to forget, however, the way her voice sounded, or wonder about how it would sound now. It was hard to let go of the fact that she would never sing again, nor whistle. She couldn't even hum anymore. It was difficult to forget that she became a prisoner in her own head the day they took her tongue away. It was hard to let go of the weightless feeling inside her mouth. She barely liked to open her mouth to eat, let alone think about it. Her tongue, of course, was cut. Clean, smooth, and it was not horrid to look at, just a sad little thing. She knew what it looked like in other Avox mouths. She knew the sign language that was used between Avoxes. It had been over two years since she had last been able to freely speak to another Avox, and that had been them teaching her how to speak with her hands.

When her Mistress had found her waving her fingers through the air and creating stories with her hands, she'd threatened to cut them off. Animals don't speak, neither would Cinder. So Cinder had been tongueless for ages now. She understood, and she had come to terms with it. She just didn't like to dwell on it, or have to think about it. Always one to put others before herself, that had worked to her benefit. She hadn't had time to be sad about it, not when one of her ladies needed a meal, or her men's shirts needed ironing. There had always been so much to do to keep it out of her mind. That was the way she had liked it, too.

Carefully, she watches as the boy's eyes scan the letter, something in her softening now that he's stopped making those beautifully sad little sounds. (She can't make those sounds.) For a few minutes, before he seems to digest what is happening, he still seems utterly terrified, and he shirks away from her grasp. Embarrassed, her cheeks turn pink, and she tucks her hand underneath her, forgetting that she isn't supposed to touch unless they ask her to. (Like that friend of Mistress that would come around a lot, before.) So when his hands fly at her, she doesn't see until it's too late. Reflexively, her mouth tightens as he tries to pry them open. Panic, flies through her, and she scrambles back, hands searching for purchase in open air, desperation filling her up.

He's so lovely and perfect. So, horribly whole, and she has no tongue. For a moment, she had been glad. Glad that he thought she was one of them, that any moment she might open her mouth and speak, because she was disfigured. She had a wound so grievous, because she had struggled too much when they'd taken her apart. They had not only cut out her tongue, they had dehumanized her, and for a moment, this boy in the strange clothes had thought her an equal. She wasn't even human anymore, and he was going to see that. It was as if he were tearing her clothes off of her, even as she screamed 'NO' into his ear. He was going to see what she was, and she didnt't want that.

In an insane act of defiance, she thrust her hand out, shoving the boy in the chest. Surprised, her mouth popped open, reveling the emptiness inside. Instantly, she snapped it shut again, and slapped a hand over it. Over the hole, that disgusting, empty hole. Scuttling away, she wrapped herself up in the corner. Tears began to fall, unsteadily at first, and then faster. Of course she made no sound, but she wanted to. He would hurt her now, she knew. She'd defied him, and that wasn't allowed at all. Worse than that though, was the pain that rested in her throat, waiting to come up in a wail. She didn't want him to hear the terrible sounds she could make. No one should have to. She wrung her hand in front of her, the other still clapped over her mouth. Maybe he'd regain his senses and hit her with the pot now?

[L△LIA]

Striking out against my search for the truth that lies within her, defiant hands push out against my chest in desperation as she recoils away from me. My ribs seem to crash together just the same as when my cooking pot collided with the piano keys earlier, a terrible sound of chaos ringing out within the hollow places hidden behind my ribcage. Logic continues to kaleidoscope-shift beyond my comprehension, each hint of new evidence contradicting the last. Letters can lie, but mouths without tongues cannot and —

For the most fleeting instant she is frozen in shock at what she's just done and I swear I can see straight into her. However, it's not until her face registers the implications of her actions that her defiance begins to dawn on me. One moment I'm swinging on the brink of understanding her presence, a seasick pendulum timed to the possibilities hidden within her mouth, and the next I'm violently hurled back into confusion. It's enough to distract me from her accidental concession, jaw hanging slack just long enough to give me hope, but it is by no means a display of clarity. If anything, I am more curious than ever. She is the living ghost of a rumor, teasing me with gossip about every almost-maybe-uncertainty I've ever held within me. Malicious and saccharine all at once, I'm determined to solve her conundrum.

Yet, before any game of humanity can play out between us, there are other matters to investigate. She skitters into a corner before I can raise my hand to her lips a second time and my face hardens in response. Eyebrows pressing in on one another and lips tugged down into the barest of frowns, I can feel each crease of my face as it's slowly overtaken by a scowl, eyes narrowing as I zero in. Hasn't she realized? In this place, there's nowhere to hide, nothing to conceal yourself behind. It's just her and me and something awful that crept out of my closet in the dead of night to lie in wait for the two of us.

This isn't about defining what she is so much as it's about figuring out what I have left of myself. Despite the way her very presence has taken away a lifetime of rumored wealth, surely there is something of me that remains untouched by her existence within this room. Besides a grand piano, I must have something else of value to my name. Prowling forward, predatory as I creep toward her huddled form, I crouch down beside her, turning the tables as she begins to mimic my earlier crying.

Once again my hand rises up with the untamable desire to skim my fingertips across her lips, desperate to pry and know. More than simply glimpsing the emptiness within her, I want to stare it down until it becomes undeniable, burnt into my memory with such assurance that I can redefine courage for a new generation. Yet, as my touch brushes across the back of the hand she has clamped over her mouth, her tears turn to such a steady stream that they twist into the cracks between her fingers and into the notches of my own curious skin. As my fingerprints flood, I know that the secret keeps will not be unraveled by force.

Honesty is a fragile thing, so my touch twists off-course from my desire to brutally pry the shield of her hand away and I decide that if she is going to steal my wretched sorrow, then maybe I can borrow her compassion. With a sweep of my thumb, I wipe away her tears just as she had done to me. "You're a far more dangerous gift than that piano —" My voice is an aching whisper against the emptiness surrounding us, directed more to myself than to her as I glance down at the floor with bloodshot eyes and a twitch of unsettled paranoia. "— but hopefully you're quieter." Then I'm staring her down with twice as much force in my gaze as she hit me with earlier, my expressionless face betraying a measure of selfishness even as my fingers shepherd another salt-burnt tear from her cheek.

[gamemaker kelsier]

S P E A K I N G // T H I N K I N G

When an Avox was bad, they made a very clear message out of it. When Cinder was still waiting to be bought, or given as a gift, there had been a man who had attacked a Peacekeeper. First he had defied them by not going back into his pen like he was told. That was a normal thing, usually they resisted at first. So the punishment for that had been a whipping. She'd always hated watching those, but they had to. They were forced to watch them, because averting their eyes meant defiance. It could seem harsh, a whipping for being unwilling to go back into a cell, but no one wanted an unruly Avox. Avoxes had to be broken first. This man, that Cinder never even knew the name of, was not able to be broken. He was rejected.

So they made an example of him. Since he was so resolute, so unwilling to accept the life the Capitol had so graciously bestowed upon him, they broke him by force. Carefully, they tied him to a post and broke every single bone in his body. She still shook at the memory of it, it served well enough for a warning. It was like when mothers told their kids scary stories at night; be good or they'll smash you to smithereens. So Cinder had been good, for a long time now, she'd been very good. It helped that she didn't have a rotten bone in her body. It hits a kid pretty hard, watching that. Bones had cracked in her nightmares ever since. So she did what she was told, she worked hard, and she didn't look anyone directly in the eye because she wasn't supposed to. It had landed her here anyway.

Feeling sick, she couldn't help flinching when his gaze fell on her. Despite herself, a strangled cry slipped out almost languidly from behind her lips, tearing at the quiet sounds of the city outside. It was an ugly, horrible sound, nothing like the shattering rain he'd tossed out like a storm. Her's was the sound of an animal in pain, and it made her shudder despite herself. Her life was right in the palm of his hand right now. Resisting was death, and not resisting was death. She didn't have a choice, she was his to play with, and he knew it too. He'd see what was inside her mouth because it was his right to, as her owner he could do what he wished. It was the same as checking a cow's teeth to see if it was healthy. It didn't mean anything else to him, not like it meant to her. She was meaningless.

She felt his touch upon her skin, and fear coursed through her, making the tears come harder. She wasn't crying so much out of hatred for herself anymore, or even disgust. It was guilt, pure, untarnished guilt. She wanted to check for bruises on his bare chest. She wanted to apologize. Hand still firmly clamped over her mouth, tight as a vice, she unballed her hand which had made it's way into a fist. He was awfully close, but it really wasn't that awful, his stance was not half as pushy as it was. Still, uncertainly, she pulled herself in tighter when he came nearer. That stare was anger, hurt, rage, and so much sorrow, for a moment she wasn't sure if it was him she was staring at, or somebody else. The boy with letters scrawled across his chest, and no more pencil to write with.

She tried to calm her breathing, she shut her eyes, to try and stop, stop crying. She couldn't. The whole day had been trying, as if someone had stomped on her. Even her Mistress hadn't tried to pry her mouth open, she hadn't wanted to even see it. She felt a fingertip brush against her cheek. Eyes fluttering open, he was even closer, and his expression somehow determined. AS if he had given up, but not quite. This could be a game. She's heard horror stories of Avoxes who'd been used 'in that way', and then dealt with. She didn't want all the bones in her body to break, she was already someone's puppet. Invisible strings were enough. He wiped away another tear, speaking softly as he did so.

She still didn't understand, how she could be the threat. She was too small, too quiet, too defenseless to even do anything. Except of course, push him over. Slowly, she reached out, and brushed one small hand across his chest, fingers almost touching, but not quite. A fresh wave of hopelessness overwhelmed her, and the thumb across her cheek did nothing to help. How long had it been? five years? Six? She hadn't felt the comforting touch of another in so long. It had only been stinging slaps, shoving, and before that, her tongue being forcibly removed. No one had touched her so carefully in such a long time. Hand fluttering away, she almost reached up to push his hand away, and found that she couldn't. She couldn't ignore the only kindness she had felt in so long. It tasted too sweet.

The tears stopped, almost abruptly, like a well had run dry. She slumped lower with resignation, and let her hand fall with a thump to the floor, her lips uncovered. It didn't matter. She was his, he would do what he liked in the end. She was the goat, the cattle, the chicken. Her neck could be cut off tomorrow for sunday dinner, and no would bat an eye. If he wanted to see her mouth, he would have it. She didn't even shut her eyes, she wanted to see his disgust. Cinder opened her mouth, and a tiny squeak came from the piano.

[L△LIA]

Maybe I should be concerned by her compliance and the ease of my manipulative triumph, but victory has always been so sweet to me, regardless of the bitter means. If I spent my time worrying over the emotions of people around me, then I suppose I'd be perpetually haunted by every social massacre I've ever been the catalyst for. So this small defeat of her as she unhinges her jaw for me, her mouth falling to my will, is not such a tragedy in the greater scheme of things.

The way she cries out — so raw — is a white flag of surrender in the air. My skin doesn't prickle from the brutality of her voice so much as its very existence and the moment it rings in my eardrums, there's no going back. My life hangs on whether that sound is the beginning or the end of her ability to communicate. Even as her hand rises up to my chest once more, as though contemplating another rebellion, I can feel the future roaring toward us. It is a feeble foe; a slump; a fallen fist. It belongs to me. Completely.

Holding my breath, my hand doesn't leave her face as she bares her mouth to me like a dog laid belly-up. Submissive, yet fearlessly unblinking, we become an infinite loop of mistaken and failed humanity as she watches me watch her watching me. Then, there is the dark:

Her mouth is a synonym for my home, so vacant that one might question if there is life to be found there at all. White, white walls of teeth hold what little there is in and, more importantly, keep prying eyes out... until now. Such a sweet facade makes promises for what might be found within, but in the end there isn't much at all. Just the promise of silence. It's —

"Pretty." The word is a gasp of flawless amazement, eyes shamelessly wide as my nerve-battered heart begins to settle for the first time since encountering her. The hand resting on her cheek slips down to skim fingertips across her bottom lip, back and forth like a lullaby of quiet contemplation. Here is a mouth that can speak no evil; a soul that that can witness all of the most terrifyingly truths about me, yet is bound to never breathe a word. She is a myth made real. My pretty little secret keeper.

[gamemaker kelsier]

S P E A K I N G // T H I N K I N G

In confusion, she stared at him, his single word echoing through the room like a dropped coin still bouncing. Half of her was filled with a ridiculous rage; how could he call something so horrifyingly ugly, pretty? What did that mean, was he making fun of her? How dare he make light of her deepest insecurity, by calling it pretty? How dare he act like it was something beautiful? She wanted to shove him away, preferably out a window so right before he got squished flat he'd have time to rethink his life choices. Blushing angrily at the fact that he'd instilled such violent thoughts in her, she pressed a hand to his face in turn, fingers brushing across his lips, ready to push him off and away.

Yet, when she looked into his eyes, they weren't lying to her. His eyes could be amazing actors, but she doubted anyone could hide disgust so well. His fingers brushed across her lips, and for a moment, she was entranced but his touch. The last time someone had been so tender with her was so long ago. His fingers, they were Capitolite soft, it felt like being touched by marble. The way he had said it too, it had, for a short spark, made her feel as lovely as she used to when she had a voice and she could sing. For a moment, in the silence, coming from him as well as her, she felt like it was okay, it would be okay. She didn't have a voice anymore, but he had one. This was the opposite of hostility, this was...this was....she felt her heart run away from her beneath her skin.

There had been other people, young men and women who liked to make fun of avoxes. They'd stand around outside, sometimes near the food markets where the Avoxes bought their master's food. they'd stand there and yell cat calls at the girls, laughing when they blushed. She'd heard them say such horrible things about what they'd like to do with 'all that free space'. She'd seen things, and she knew. They'd yelled things, mostly pertaining to the fact that 'all avoxes were a bunch of dumb sewer rats mutes.' All dirt already from the Districts, lucky just to be in the Capitol. Lucky to be in the Capitol becasue avoxes couldn't be reaped. She was lucky to be unable to speak. Lucky. She was lucky, and she was pretty now.

Carefully, she pressed her fingers against his lips, as if to say, "No." She knew that what she was, was not pretty at all. There was nothing beautiful about her voice bing stolen from her, nothing wonderful at all about her lack of tongue. For him to even pretend that it was lovely, was a sin. She wouldn't stand for it. She was his avox now, yes, but she was not going to let him tell her such a big lie. Shaking her head in annoyance, she shut her mouth and turned her head away. It would have been better if he had just confirmed how ugly it was. Now her chest was doing weird things and her cheeks burned. His nearness didn't help, it felt like the apartment was too small of the sudden, like she couldn't breathe. She refused to believe him, but she wanted to. She wanted to know what it was like, she couldn't remember such kindness. Was he different, she wondered? Or was this another game.