Heathcliff Travers, District 2 [Done]

[Deleted]

H e a t h c l i f f T r a v e r s

{The tree has entered my hands,}
{The sap has ascended my arms,}
{The tree has grown in my breast-}
{Downward,}
{The branches grow out of me, like arms.}

{Age} 14

{District} 2

{Gender} Male

•••

What to do you do when a part doesn’t fit? Do you hide it away, or swallow it down to make it disappear like magic? The light of the world still shines, it can’t up like smoke or shrink like a violet in the sun. His heart beats twice, once for the question on his lips, a second for the secret. He turns inward, twisting—his shadow a long trail back behind him and twisted like a monster. In the mirror he sees, eyes burning and intent on wiping away what exists. To whom?

[/color] He wonders. A feeling that sticks on his skin like the hot sweat of the summer, he can’t shake. Still, his face is not the same, it is not anything more than an illusion. Locked away behind a strong chin and hard eyes, with short hair that could flow more effortlessly down by his shoulders if ever he could grow to that length.[/color] But with a gulp he buries it down, deep into his stomach. Hesitation, destruction, and demolition of the memory that distracts him from the task at hand.

Tight black stockings stretch across his legs, the same that lift above his head in impossible flexibility. But he can put his head down to the floor as he stretches, muscles contorted and body like a pretzel. In a second the music will play, and he will stand, arms extended and legs crossed. His chin tucked under, he will look to his partner or partners—because all want to dance with him, more grace in his feet than the clumsy boys that come to the studio—pleading they choose him but not. He would much be the one in the air, and at the center. His own hands to lay back behind his head as he looks out to the crowd. That is grace, that is beauty. Strength has its merits but no—a turn of his heel and he begins. Circle once, rhythm pulsing, swelling through his body as he steps along, soft steps thumping the hardwood floor. They watch him leap, legs forcing him in the air and back down to the ground. He is a bird in flight.

To know grace is to suffer in triumph.[/color] He enters a sur le cu-de-pied and holds. For all the talk of strength in this district, he can think of no more grueling exercise. From the time he could walk he has been dancing. Bruised heels, shins that burn like fire, all manner of stubbed toes have been his life. There is no pain as excruciating as to not thinking you can walk, only to enter the first position and execute another turn. He tears through all of it toward perfection. Another performance and a shower of applause greets him. The sound rings hollow in his ears as he stands and bends to take a bow. Success is not in knowing that he has performed well, it is the beat of his heart, fast and full, to tell him he’s done all he could. No wasted steps and no remorse over what could have been.

His face flushes red as he stands, face in towel, nodding at the compliments to his performance. Focused.[/color] The word makes his hair stand on the back of his neck. His foster mother would be proud. She is the voice in the back of his head, the hulking figure that shrieks at the children of the company, turning them into vicious machines. But he is more than a machine. He remembers her saying it was a double edged sword. You can feel the music, but you let it command you.[/color] His technique could be sloppy, uneven, and left her wanting. Her hand was harder on him than his “cousin”—his foster sister—Magdalene. She was all air, pretty and sweet. He had been lucky enough to be taken in with her after his parents abandoned him. He thinks about how weak they must have been to give him up. They didn’t deserve me.[/color] He tells himself. They didn’t deserve someone like me.[/color]

•••

A cold chill collects in the changing room. In front of the mirror he can see his body, blooming at the age of fourteen. He’s not yet a—man, is it? He’s not yet anything, though his body has taken the lithe form from the hours of practice. Strong legs growing thicker with each passing day; he wonders what four more years will bring. Above the waist he is thin but his mother says that comes with time. He inches closer to the mirror and lays a hand on the glass. What if he liked how he looked now?[/color] Skin soft and white, face without hair or signs of his sex—easy enough to conceal for an evening. He’s not pushed past the point of no return. He thinks he is strikingly plain, but at the least, a blank canvas. The world hasn’t left too many scars to be concealed. He clasps and unclasps his hands. Holding them close to his heart, Heathcliff smiles.

Grace is learning to live the life he has made.[/color] At the least he’s healthy, he thinks. They are fed enough, while kept under lock and key of a tyrannical foster mother. She wavers between her absolute love and devotion and a sadistic need to remind him he can never be perfect. He could be starving, or mutilated like some of the other careers. He could be pushed into training for the games and shunned for his ineptitude—and yet here he is, making a life out of something more. And she appreciates his potential, his ability to bloom even after being tossed away. He sees himself again. He feels his heart beat again, and thinks about the feeling he can’t shake. His body is a vessel—no, not empty, but incomplete. And while Magdalene and others have said it’s a phase, he prays that it’s not. He thinks that it would be wonderful to be out of the pain and to understand. To see something more of himself than the reflection off the dirty mirror.

They were no more than five when she’d scooped them up for the “dancer’s feet.” An inseparable pair, they’d been lucky she’d seen potential. Together forever. He’d never be separated from her, not as long as he lived. When all the rest had gone—his father at his birth and his mother when she couldn’t kick her morphine habit—she was still there. Inside the community home, the two had spent their days looking out the same window, on the same rusted cots, listening to the same staticky radio hoping that someone would come along and find them. He remembered holding her hand, sometimes even coming at night when he was scared, only to be calmed by being near her. Adopted, together they weathered the hours in the studio. While the gym was a part of their rotation, more hours were spent working across a hardwood floor than holding a blade. He admired his foster mother for this, sparing them the world of war for dance.

•••

He crosses his arms across his chest and stares at the ground. They had always played together, having no one else. There were others in the studio but they were his mother’s prize. Don’t associate with those that don’t appreciate you.[/color] He liked brushing her hair. He longed to have something so soft and so beautiful. When they were younger, he used to sneak and try on her outfits for dance. He’d admire himself in their little mirror, letting the light shine off sequins and seeing himself done up would feel beautiful. He remembers too when she caught him doing this, and he cried and cried, explaining that he was just experimenting. He begged her not to tell their mother and she, with all the earnestness of a sister nodded her head in agreement. She would never tell because they were together forever, and she would never hurt him.

Lipstick was fun, though not his favorite. She put too much on his lips, and never measured the eyeshadow the way that he liked it. They spent hours now at night, after their muscles made it sore even to sit in front of their mirror, doing up Heath in the pale yellow light. Why?[/color] The question hung in the air. To see.[/color] He would think. Because that was as far as he’d come—going from empty to searching, grabbing at those few morsels where he felt beautiful. He couldn’t explain the feeling, the same that gnawed at his stomach and made him stutter. His sister would be the only one that knew his desires, and even then they were nothing more than a pale shroud of smoke.

Disappointment is a word that does not exist. Not in her house. It is worse than death, the painful stare accompanied by a clicking tongue. How could he tell her, his mother, what was buried inside? Shame. That’s what was natural to feel at something so unnatural. She’d be right to say so, if she knew.[/color] And so he says nothing. They are happy enough, for now.

Grace—is understanding who, not what you are.[/color] He tucks away the thoughts and packs away his clothes. His mother will have critiques on his footwork and his sister will be waiting. He’ll bury all of it down, down, down until he’s dancing on top of it. Because whatever he feels will come in time. He has already learned how to fly.

•••

{Tree you are,}
{Moss you are,}
{You are violets with wind above them.}
{A child - so high - you are,}
{And all this is folly to the world.}

odair

{comments/other} A Girl by Ezra Pound[/color]
[/justify][/blockquote][/size]

[Deleted]

Finito.

[/size]

[Deleted]

You are now allowed to use this character on the boards.

If your character has a play-by, please register him/her with the Face Claim. Plotting opportunities can be found in Character Plots and open threads are listed in Open Threads.