Hearts Above the Line // [ Shuchess? Dhiloh? ]

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

[googlefont="Sacramento:400"]

[presto] [/presto]

Duchess Grant cuz baby you're a firework She had failed, abjectly and objectively. For days after the reaping she had sequestered herself, even from her family. Food turned to ash in her mouth; no dark was ever dark enough. The only person she interacted with was the Grant Avox who left her soup and a stack of letters and calling cards. Normally Duchess would have been delighted by the correspondence. She would have sat at her desk beneath the bay window, ranking the letters in order of priority. She would have written back to the most important in her lopping cursive. She would have kept the wheels of society in Two turning. Instead, she tipped them into the waste bucket and laid down on the carpeted floor. On the fourth day, she awoke and pushed aside the curtains. The sun streamed pale yellow into her mourning chamber. She spent an unusual amount of time, even for her, preparing herself. She chose a conservative suit, spun her hair atop her head, and left all of her crystal jewelry in her bathroom. When she descended, it was already mid-afternoon and most of the house had dispersed. In the foyer, she left a note for her parents. For the first time in many years she walked without a purpose, without a destination. She surely could not return to the Training Center; that life was now behind her. She was no longer a Career. Having risen from her cocoon, she was now an adult. Whatever that meant. For the first time in her life, she was free to decide what to do with her time, what she wanted to accomplish, who she was. And she had no idea where to start. It was nearing the dinner hour by the time her feet took to the gates of the Training Center. She kept the tree line, chin ducked. As though there were any chance she wouldn't be recognized. She took a very small amount of comfort from the fact that she wasn't the only disgraced Career this year. She needed to find the other girl, to have an ally in her exile. Duchess craned her long neck, trying to sort her face from the crowd of Careers emptying from the Center. "Coward," someone tossed at her. Others snickered. Duchess flicked a flat gaze at them, willing herself to remain stone faced. As more Careers marched past, the whispers turned into a stream of judgment. Roll over and show me your belly, you worthless bitch, you traitor. Her breaths came too quickly; her ears started to go numb. All at once she felt like she was falling, twisting into nothingness. She turned away from the Center to face Shiloh Texeira. "I have to get out of here." template courtesy of ghosty

[Deleted]

s h i l o h.

Split, one, two. 

He had always been, split into two pieces, one half marble, one half feathers. His fathers always told him that, that in the making of his creation the gods combined two souls - that he was two of everybody around him. That he was double what anybody else could do, and he was. In his heart, he was one, two, Shiloh Texeira. And they said is for most excuses, that through colds and headaches and cuts and breaks he didn't need help or first aid, he only needed himself, because stripped of flesh and seams he would unravel a mass of Gods and there was no way to break a god, to kill a god. 

No matter how many pieces, Shiloh was still whole. But he was never one for testing fates, through sweat stains and spear shreds he was whole and he was strong and that was all he needed to know. All he needed. Himself. In the corner of his body, the absolute corner where the light is unable to pierce and brand, he is only that, Shiloh, only one body with a soul of two and a mass of two. The gods have forgotten their son, and he can't remember how to return to Olympus. 

There is no need for Olympus. 

As a kid, he was terrified of the seams shredding, the flesh of his back unable to cover the mass hysteria of internal screaming, the eternal writhing of two souls sown together. Cuts were severs, in youth, he was scared through the slips of his skin that his soul would flee away, that through an accident in training his second soul would free itself and create a second entity and his trainers would laugh, he rarely thought of them as fathers. He feared his second soul would be better than his first, and only one half of him would escape purgatory - he deserved gold. 

He was gold, for fucks sake.

A twin deserved nothing more than him, he was the origin, nonetheless. The beginning, there is no second without the first, and only the first can stand alone and the thought of a second body coming from his slowly became less of a recurring nightmare. Of the two, only Shiloh would stand ahead of that kingdom, for nobody stronger than the first could. And he deserved gold.

Of the district, only Shiloh could stand ahead of that kingdom, he knew. Nobody could stomach gold and feathers, lungs of metal and a mind of storm - he was two bodies, a laurel and gold. "I have to get out of here." 

Frantic eyes, bright against his of seraph beaches, he was still. One half marble, he always was, he's seen these eyes few times, training center mornings and soft sun light, and a district square filled up of stone and sharks. She is only half a soul, stuttering in motion and breaths, Shiloh is unmoved. A tide against a mountain - he is seraph eyes, staring eyes. Split, one and two, and the stitches of his back are tight in his stance, she is weak. His mouth is empty, where in his being is an attachment to morning rays embodied, this girl is not a soul of his, not a whole or the quarter she still possesses. 

But he is one half feathers, light and for a second there's nothing but stone, and another there's a quick in his gut. I've got somewhere else to be, and he'd be away, simple. But there is no kingdom without a following, there is no river without gold, and he breaths, "okay," he is one and two, marble and feathers and Shiloh and himself. Statue, and silence and a drawn breath, split, the weak can only survive. Only the strong rule,"there is a kingdom at hand to explore, Grant."

Marble and feathers, he felt no wounds.

"How far do you feel like running?"