Post by L△LIA on Oct 25, 2018 10:51:44 GMT -5
Mere months ago this kind of pacing sent Denali to a psychiatric facility, but her family isn’t allowed these kinds of concern now. The way a life is lived falls secondary to whether or not it lives at all and so she prowls unchecked. Fingertips tracing the walls as if this were absentminded, in reality it’s as if she is searching for secret rooms and trap doors - pushing softly at bubbles in the wall coverings, sneaking peeks behind picture frames, and tipping candlesticks over. Any promise of escape is acceptable. She would take any other option than the singular pathway she has been set on and its brutal end. Volunteering does not mean she wants this. Pausing at every doorway, unable to deny the flicker of hope that it might lead somewhere new this time around, disappointment presents her with the dining car. Again. Only this time her District partner is present and the mood that fills the room could certainly be described more strongly than disappointment. “Cheer up buttercup,” she says, voice flat. Her own heart can’t settle on what it feels and so her emotions wait, bottled and undeclared. Blank. Fingertips trail down the length of the buffet table, pressing on a stack of small plates as if they might be hiding a button before sighing and plopping a handful of cookies onto one and taking it to her less composed counterpart. When she sits down beside him, sliding the plate over as if bribery could comfort him, she doesn’t think about how sugar might not be the type of sweetness he actually needs right now. These habits of a mothering older sister come automatically. “You want some hot coco? With a little cinnamon in it? Tastes like Ratmas morning. Nothing bad happens on Ratmas morning.” |
