Who will be my hero? [Esme+Simon]

[arx.]

Simon Karnes

I rub my calloused palms together in a feeble attempt to keep the cold from creeping from my fingers up my arms. The morning air is cold and just over the horizon the sun is rising. The orange glow illuminates the icy ground, the snow-covered hills, and silhouettes a few outlying barns against the gray sky. My breath billows out in front of me and then rushes behind me as I walk with my face buried as deep in the collar of my threadbare jacket as possible.

Winter days like this make me want to go home. Me and my older sister would bundle up in our warm clothes, yank the hatchets out of the ice, and split wood until the pile rose next to our tool shed. With our arms full of wood we would shove into the house, the smell of hot cocoa and peppermint flooding our nostrils. We would hand the wood over to dad at the fireplace where he had already had the beginnings fire started. Then mom's voice would ring through the house - "Hot chocolate!" - and all of my siblings would swarm to the kitchen, grabbing their mug and peppermint stick and carefully filter into the living room where the fire blazed.

We would sip until our bellies were full and our bodies warmed by the fire. The fact that our family was so functional was a miracle with so many kids in the house. And somehow, even if sometimes we didn't all get along, on those days, in those moments, none of us could muster the power to start bickering. It was blissful.

But the memory is a bittersweet taste in my mouth now, the bitter slowly overwhelming the sweet until I just feel like puking. I shiver but it isn't because of the cold; remembering the smell of her blood... That makes me shiver, my knees quake, my throat clench shut, my eyes burn with tears, my hands shake - I wish I could go back, wish I could control myself. The anger that lives inside me, always waiting to explode, scares me. I can never predict it. Even now, I'm sure the smallest thing - slipping on the ice, getting hit with a snowball, getting called back to the barn - would set me off. And I wouldn't remember a single moment of it. I would black out and hurt someone, something, everything.

I take a deep breath, letting the chilled air filled my lungs, and cool me down. Relax.

I kick my boots against the stoop as I come back inside where the air seems only slightly warmer than the outside air. I unlace my boots, unzip my jacket, run my hand through my hair, and make sure to unclench my fists before I make my way as quietly as I can through the house. The floorboards creak and as the sun grows higher and higher in the sky I can hear the old farmhouse resettling. I climb the stairs to my room, stair into the empty room for a moment, toss my jacket across the room, and make my way towards the bell tower entrance.

I haven't heard the bell ring yet, which makes me wonder if Odell has abandoned her post, though it is much more likely that she has just gotten sucked into a book. Or maybe she has grabbed as many books as she could and retreated to one of the warmer corners of the house. Whatever it is, she isn't there when I knock on the door and enter the room. I let the door swing open as I step over pile and pile of books, the smell of the books making me homesick again, bringing memories back again, bringing rage right to the surface---

I knock over a rather tall pile, the paperback and hardcover books crashing to the ground, sending what sounds like an echo through the house. I cringe, hoping I haven't woken anyone. I take another deep breath and pick up a book that had fallen across my foot. The title is nearly worn away, but it looks like a book of fairy tales. My mind reels as I try to remember the sound of my mother's and father's voices - I draw a blank. I feel guilty, angry, that I can't hear them telling me stories like they used to every night.

I throw the book.

It crashes against the far wall and makes another pile of books crash to the ground.

Stop it, Simon.

I pick up another book but make sure I open it this time and read the first line as quickly as I can, aloud.

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."

I slowly move to the ground, setting myself down amongst the scattered books. I sigh.

[cass]

e s m e r a l d a.

I’m not really sure how much time has passed since that small moment of paradise I shared with Simon. Nothing like that has come since and I’ve found himself holding onto those few hours with every essence of my being. But now, as the days pass by I’m finding it more and more difficult to conjure up a picture of his smile as he swims in that water, or as he pulls me in. I still remember every promise he made to me. Because without those promises I wonder if he’d have already left. It’s hardly easy and simple to say that we have a functioning relationship, but I don’t mind. We’re both broken, but this is real life and what I have with him is real.

I miss being by his side though; I still spend every night in the orchid, sitting beneath the branches of a tree, watching as the cool breeze allows the leave to move. In between the cracks, where the moonlight seeps through you can still see the stars. I’ve made a game from it, counting them all, as many as I can before the leaves cover them up as another strong gust of wind stirs them. Sometimes I wish I could be as brave as I once was, I wish that I could run to him, and grab him and drag him out with me. I want to lay my head on his lap and point to each star and tell him a story. I want to tell him that the one that looks like a cat is called socks, or that the three together is a heart. I want to tell him that somehow, amongst the shattered ruins of this miserable life we leave he’s made it into something good.

I want to tell him I love him.

Tonight the halls are eerily quiet. Your breath comes out white, and for people like me who don’t wear shoes your skin burns when you touch the concrete ground. Even in this weather I still refuse to wear shoes, they’re too constricting, I cannot feel the earth and this world. Papa always said that the best heroes listened to the world around them. But my need for this is a little less simple; there is something about feeling the world with your feet, knowing that the grass on your skin is just as alive as you are. It’s rejuvenating; it feels as though you can place your heart and soul into the world around you. It’s trust.

The air builds around me as I breathe in, the sting of the frost biting into my exposed skin. The rotten old wardrobe in the corner of my room contains few clothing items. You had no choice but to wear what you were given when you lived here. Besides, the few times I’ve had money I’ve preferred the company of books. Although I’ll never read one as much as I read that old tattered thing that sits under my pillow, hidden away so that no one can see it. The one with the bloodstains on the cover and on the pages of the first few chapters, where it has become so old that it has stared to flake off. No I can never stop reading those tales. They’re the only things that keep me from forgetting my parent’s faces, from forgetting those few happy years I had with them.

It never lets me forget that I killed that man.

Crash.

The sound echoes in the stillness of the orphanage. I freeze, alarm prickling at my skin, as my eyes widen with shock. The sounds rings again, and I creep forwards, listening as items fall and clatter to the ground. I’ve heard this tune so many times, I’ve broken it a number of times as well, as this raging warpath tore into my life. When I had stopped Simon from breaking things, when I had stopped myself from doing just the same. I hold my breath as I round the corner, the warm light from a room lighting up the cold corridor. Slowly I creep forwards, halting as someone begins to speak.

Slowly a small grin slips onto my face and my pace quickens as I peer around the corner of the door and into the room to see Simon sitting amongst the chaos. Of course. Of course, he was always surrounded by broken things, and mess. Perhaps that was why I was by his side, another broken thing. As his voice dies down I realise I know what book he is reading from. At first I’m hesitant to disturb him, sucking in a shaky breath I stay by the doorway, keeping myself wrapped in the darkness.

“To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night.” I speak softly, hands wound tightly in front of me. Staring downwards and at the ground seems like the best option at this moment. I’m hidden behind the wall beside the door, my gaze moves upwards towards the roof and I slip to the ground, leaning back against the cold concrete. The light from the room dances beside me, a welcoming, warming glow, but I draw my legs up, making sure that I do not touch it’s warmth.

”It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.” The words echo in the darkness. I don’t know why I don’t go in that room, I don’t know why I hide here, keeping this wall between us. I love him. Maybe I don’t want him to see that.

[arx.]

Simon Karnes

For one very long moment, there is only silence. Not like the beautiful silence of a spring day or like the terrible silence of death, but of something in-between. A silence both bitter and sweet, both forlorn and cheerful. Silence made for contemplation. Dust shimmers in the sun as it streams through the window, settling back to where it had been before I got here.

I stare at the pages, the lines blurring, the letters dancing across the page, my mind unable to put words and sentences together, unable to make sense of the book that sits in my lap. The silence, once equally parts bitter and sweet, is now a painful ringing in my ears. Blinding. All encompassing and threatening to swallow me whole and turn me into some spec of dust among the rest. And no one would ever know. And maybe I deserve that.

“To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night.”

And the page in front of me slowly becomes clear; the silence is broken. I gasp for air, only just realizing that I hadn't been breathing. Drowning in silence. It had been choking me out, holding me hostage, waiting to claim me as its own. But the dreadful realization that the silence had indeed been hostile, not friendly, didn't seem to matter now. What mattered was that the silence had been broken and the story was continuing. Flawlessly and effortlessly the words came, shattering the silence and bringing with it something blissful.

“It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.”

I should feel guilty. Or angry, as I always do. But instead I can only enjoy the sound of her voice. I don't turn around to peer at the doorway. If I look and she isn't standing there, then the fantasy is over and I go back to sitting, lonely, among piles of books. If I don't look, then I can go on believing she is really there, standing at the doorway. I close my eyes so I can imagine her golden hair and her deep blue eyes and her pale bare feet and her smile that seems to light up an entire room when it isn't hiding behind her lips.

I slowly close the book, running my thumb along its tattered and worn spine, sturdy and reliable despite its obvious endeavors through the years. If only I could be like this book. Sturdy, reliable, strong. Beautiful within. Something everyone wants to crack open, something everyone enjoys looking into. Every word in this book is certain and definite. I am only filled with uncertainty and weariness.

What are we?

Dysfunctional. Brittle. Broken. And yet somehow we are so entangled with one another that to untie the knots that bind us would take a lifetime. I'm sure of it. It's been weeks since I took her to the boat - since we've spoken - and all that time I have been attempting to untie the knots. I've gotten nowhere. I think perhaps I have even tangled them more tightly together.

I love her.

But I can't come to terms with it. I've read about love in stories, seen it in the eyes of my parents, and felt the platonic pull of it with my siblings. I know what it is. I fear it. Fear its power, its control, its tight grasp.

I've spent the past months avoiding something so inevitable because I know that giving in will cripple me. And in turn, it will cripple her. My love is deadly. And to have anyone snared in that wretched trap again ... I can't. But no matter how fast I run, how elaborately I hide, how hard I try to avoid it, I know there is no escaping it. But as long as I live I know I will try to.

Dysfunctional. Brittle. Broken. For as long as I live.

"Once upon a time there was a monster," I murmur, staring out the window, furling and unfurling my hands, a nervous jitter. "He lived in solitude in attempt to be valiant; he didn't want to scare or hurt anyone."

"One day he came upon a flower. It was bright and beautiful and something that he could not leave without. So with selfish fervor, he plucked it," I lean back on my hands, shifting to stretch my legs out in front of me. "But he didn't know how to care for the beautiful bloom, his monstrous tendencies often distracting him from the flower's beauty that had once so enthralled him."

"Within the monster's grasp, the flower withered and turned to nothing more than dust," I say. "The monster wept for days. The guilt he felt knowing he had destroyed something so wondrous consumed his dark heart."

I take a breath. I sit up, wrapping my arms around my shoulders. I stare at the ground in front of me, murmur the last bit of the story into my arms.

"He died mourning the flower."

[cass]

e s m e r a l d a.

"Once upon a time there was a monster," he murmurs.

He doesn't pretend to recognise my voice, in fact he doesn't greet me. He simply begins speaking after a long, silent pause, my words having fractured what little peace remained between us. I instantly know who he is talking about, I can recall the thousand times he has called himself a monster, from the night where glass split the skin beneath my feet as I chased him. I can remember my blood and the look in his eyes, and the way he had been ever so adamant about his dark and dangerous heart. He kept telling me and reminding himself that he was a monster that at any point in time he could snap like a rope slowly, but surely fraying.

I still don't believe him. There isn't a thread tied around my wounded heart that believes that who he is is evil. That the fact that we have both killed doesn't make him anymore villainous then I. I've killed, cold blooded murder. I see the stains on my hands more then I see the clean skin. No matter how many times I wish them it remains, an echo of the aftermath of the disaster I had created. Drawing my legs upwards I rest my chin on my hands, the coldness of the icy floor has begun to seep into each of my limbs and I can feel its numbing touch. Oh how I used to adore that wholesome feeling as I lay beneath the stars the coldness of the dirty ground sucking me in. It was just one other excuse to run away, to the world where I could not feel anything, but see everything at once.

Fractured light split the sky, a glimpse here and there of a world I wanted to be apart of and it was terribly beautiful how I was so called and numb, when right there was everything I had ever dreamed of. It was similar to this situation now. I was numb to it all and around that corner, in the light was everything I could have ever dreamed of. broken, brittle and ever so fragile but everything I wanted. There was a home waiting there for me, but just as breath seems to falter so does my heart. I'm scared, I'm scared to plunge myself entirely into it and give him my entire heart, even though I know I want to. Nothing good has ever come from my love.

"He lived in solitude in attempt to be valiant; he didn't want to scare or hurt anyone."

It's the same old song, but for a moment all I can see is myself. I was doing exactly just that, tearing myself away from the light and hiding within the comfort of the darkness because I thought I was a monster, because I thought that giving it my all to the person I loved was too much. Because I thought that giving away my heart was going to hurt him, that it was going to scare him. Perhaps it was not only Simon who had been avoiding me, perhaps I had been doing it as well. I can count, one two, three, four, five, each finger flashing in the darkness as I draw them upwards and extend my hand in front of me. One, two, three, four, five. I wriggle my fingers, that was the amount of nights I had walked down the empty halls of this orphanage and out into the garden. That was how many nights I had sat amongst the trees and allowed the darkness to seep into my veins as I watched the night pass. I hadn't gone looking for him.

Not even tonight had I set out along the path to find him, I'd simply ended up here.

"Within the monster's grasp, the flower withered and turned to nothing more than dust."

The words plucked at my heart, like an awkward rhythm on a guitar, like someone with unsteady hands trying to get the hang of a tune that shouldn't even be looking at. I felt out of it, as though this story was something that he and I shared, as though, in his case, I was the flower and he was the monster and he had decided to act upon his feelings and there I was dying under his touch. Did he think me frail? Did he think me so completely and utterly broken that I would die if I stayed with him? I was broken and damaged but I was not beaten. Why did he think so little of me? Why did he make this into a battle of his emotions and not think for a second how I felt?

I hear him shift, the rustle of his clothes on concrete as he moves and my chest tightens. Drawing myself in tighter I wrap my hands around my knees, wandering if he will come out here. But the rustling stops, and the ache in my heart eases, yet somehow the knot in my stomach does not wind and I look downwards, at the ground, disappointment making me bite my lip. "He died mourning the flower." He spoke the last line softly, as though defeated, as though some part of him was a child with a balloon and he had decided to let it go and was now watching as it drifted away. I stand up, a scowl tugging at my features. My toes dance at the edge of the darkness, the light a mere step away.

Facing the light I hold my hands by my sides, clenching my fists tightly. My shoulders hunch over as I glare the the wall past the light, still unwilling to step inside. "And when the monster died, it was that part of himself that fell. The monster inside of him was wiped away by his tears of loss, and it was he who survived. He was no longer a monster, having felt such loss and grief. His sense pain took away that part of him he had believed to be evil and he was healed once more." My breath billows before me, my hands slowly unclenching, as my breathing evened out. Why did he have to be a monster? Monster's didn't feel loss and pain and grief and sadness. But he did.

"As time passed the flower came about once more, as brilliant and beautiful as ever, because even when a flower dies it will live once more. A flower is strong, easily breakable and fragile, but strong, cut one flower down and as long as it has the love it needs another will grow back." Yes. No matter how many times you cut me down, Simon, I'll stand up again. You aren't the first person to knock me to the ground and you won't be the last, but papa and mama were fighters, and so was I. If I am that flower you so dearly mourned then you should know I am stronger then that. Just as I know that you are not a monster, not entirely, at least.

[arx.]

Simon Karnes

Sometimes when I feel lonely I will crack the door of her bedroom open as I pass by. I don't watch her sleep; I listen. I will stand outside of her door and just listen to her breathing - so soft and warm, a lullaby only I can hear. For me. I know it's creepy, but it's just a large enough dose of her to keep me sane.

And then she will roll in her sleep or startle awake from a nightmare and I will stand there quietly, my breathing low, and wonder if she knows I'm there. Some nights I am certain she knows I'm there. My palms itch to grab the doorknob, my heart aching because I know I can't. After a few minutes of just standing, silently, listening, I leave. My mind is either at ease with the sound of peaceful sleep swirling round or completely distressed with the sound of startled breath when I fall into my bed.

I hear her moving outside the door. The floorboards creak. Silence. And not the blissful kind. Like silence before a storm. I know I should brace myself. Or maybe I should stop her, though I doubt I could.

Or I could just let the impending storm carry me away, like a ship stuck out at sea. Maybe---

"And when the monster died, it was that part of himself that fell. The monster inside of him was wiped away by his tears of loss, and it was he who survived. He was no longer a monster, having felt such loss and grief. His sense pain took away that part of him he had believed to be evil and he was healed once more."

Maybe---

"As time passed the flower came about once more, as brilliant and beautiful as ever, because even when a flower dies it will live once more. A flower is strong, easily breakable and fragile, but strong, cut one flower down and as long as it has the love it needs another will grow back."

Maybe I should just let myself be swallowed by the angry sea and curse at the howling wind as I drown. Just let the rage run wild as I try to stay above water and attempt to beat a force of Nature. Sounds stupid and reckless and naive, but I'm already whirled around and glaring into the darkness beyond the door.

My hands shake. I curl them into fists.

"What are we doing?" I ask. "What have we been doing, what is all of this?"

"You think I don't know you're strong?" I chuckle, blink away impending tears, and shake my head. "You are probably the strongest person I know."

"But love isn't as strong as you think it is. It doesn't create some impenetrable shield or, or--- barrier that magically keeps you safe," I say, my voice growing harder, my head pounding, my heart racing like it were running for its life - thump, thump, thump in my ears. "I could love you with every bit of my soul, every inch of my body until my very last breath," I say, walking toward the door. "And I could still hurt you."

"You aren't a flower. You don't regrow when I snap your neck, Esmeralda! Do you hear me?!"

I pick up a book and throw it at the wall near the door frame.

"Huh?!"

"I snap just once and it's all over! I can't fucking do that again!" I run my hands through my hair, memories flashing in my mind. Waking up drenched in blood, my sister's dead eyes, my siblings crying and holding each other across the room, screaming. So much screaming ...

"Don't you get it? I ca-- I can't do it. Not again."

{ooc: el oh el this is like 2 months old idk what i'm doing}

[cass]

e s m e r a l d a.

I know that sometimes he stands out there. It's not that I can see him, I can just feel it. In all honesty I'm not even sure if it is him, just part of me truly believes that on the nights where the nightmares take over and I can't breath that the presence that hover's outside my room is him. He's like a guardian angel, there watching over me, but bound by some universal laws that say he cannot touch me. And in those peaceful moments I feel safe, there is not hint of the monster that hides beneath him, just as there is not hint of the beast that lurks beneath my skin. Because there is a monster here too, maybe not as untameable and reckless as his is, but one all the same. I do not know what level of control I have over this thing inside of me. There was no restraint, nothing holding me back when I killed that man. And just as nightmares and terror harasses him and corners him in his mind it does the same to me.

He does know that I love him, but he does not seem to understand the level of insanity there is behind those words. When I speak them I do not simply mean that with every thought of his face my heart aches. I am broken, I am damaged and so is my mind. He does not understand the lengths I'd go to stay by his side, to hold his hand and care for him. I do not care for broken bones and cuts and grazes. I do not fear death. I do not fear the way in which I might die.

I do not fear Simon Karnes.

His words bite, they're like a slap to the face. It's an echo of everything the Warden's say. The sound of the book slamming against the door frame makes me flinch. Pages litter the ground and from where I stand I cannot make out the words of the story that needs to be told. But it does not matter, for at this point in time the only story that needs to be heard is ours. I stumble backwards in shock, the air flaring with anger, a storm cracks, the air between us a howling tornado. For a moment I'm swept away in this moment, the ground disappearing to be replaced by the grass, soaking wet, the coldness seeping into my feet, numbing my skin. Water spills across my skin, plastering my hair to my head and I look upwards. Even as the lightning cracks across the sky and the thunder steals my breath I do not feel like I am in danger. The wind sweeps through the trees, gripping my clothes and body and pulling me forwards. I step closer to him, one foot, after another, into the light.

He says these awful, awful things. And he won't stop, but it reminds me if that day I chased him, feet cut and bleeding, not for a second scared of him, scared of what he could do. I see it though, as I step into the room and turn my head to face him. I see it, I see the way he's scared, the way the tears brim his eyes because I know he knows I'm strong enough. It isn't me who isn't strong, it's him. He doesn't think he's brave enough and strong enough to overcome him, he's drowning in his demons and he thinks he will hurt me.

But in this storm raging between us I do not see a monster. I see the moon and the stars and the trees. I see him smiling and offering me his hand. I see the first night we meet where we danced under the stars, I see the last time we held hands and smiled, in the pond where he promised he would never hurt me. Where he pulled me into the water and laughed, where the gentle rocking of the water tipped that little boat called Esmeralda.

"It's okay, Simon." Tears brim the edges of my eyes and I tilt my head towards him and smile. "It's okay, I promise, just like you promised." I step closer, "the first time we met you took off your shoes when I asked you to, then you asked me to dance and you promised not to step on my feet. You were the firs person to call me Esmeralda in ten years. You were my first kiss. Then after that I chased you through this orphanage with glass in my feet, I followed your bloody footprints and then, with you by my side, for the first time in ten years I visited my parents."

I turn my gaze away from him, quickly rubbing away the tears that have finally given way. "Do you remember when you took my hand and led me to out secret ocean?"

Closing my eyes I turn to him once more, offering him the warmest smile I can. "From the very beginning you said you'd stop running. I'm not running anymore Simon, just like I told you the first time we met. Every single promise you've made to me you've kept." Letting out a long sigh I brush a hand through my own hair, a quick grin flickering onto my lips as I meet his gaze.

Then all at once my gaze hardens and my smile drops. I raise a finger, before jabbing it into his chest. "In this world of ours all we have left are the promises we make. A promise is a promise. And I love you, Simon, with everything I have. To you that might not be enough, but for this-" I point to the space between us "-to keep you by my side, I'd be a hero, I'll be your hero, Simon."