devon mercier { d5 } 1st games fin

devon mercier { d5 } 1st games fin Aug 29, 2019 21:31:50 GMT -5

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Post by calla on Aug 29, 2019 21:31:50 GMT -5

d e v o n .

— noun; a ribcage of bird bones and daisy petals, the damsel in distress. lips that taste like bubblegum, skin that smells like honey. rosewater. sweetened words and soft hands. a chorus of promises, cowbells in lieu of windchimes. broken dolls and healed homes.

you're some kind of inconsistency, the flaw in a system filled to the brim with bloodlust and brutality — a side affect, perhaps, from the absence of tragedy, something hidden away by the flowers woven into your scraped knees. it's the consequence of being raised away from rebellion, in old lace and fine china, five feet above everyone else, balancing the prestige of a family and the legacy they left to their daughters.

you're one of three, the feeling of self-sacrifice, taking the fall and setting yourself on fire just to be someone else's diversion. you're the gauze over bullet wounds, dispensable, wanting to feel like you're a part of something. like you're in on the same secret everybody else is. because you're too different, too caring, too scared, and you listen to your heart when you should be listening to your head.

but there's a beauty in being soft, to fitting yourself to someone else, molding an image of what they need from crushed glass and using your own hands to smooth down the jagged edges. there's a beauty to the things you inherited; your father's healing hands, his bleeding heart, his way with the animals. because once the livestock started dying he took in everyone — the rebels, the soldiers, the nobodies, even the men in white who stormed down the streets, patched them up in the basement while you changed the water and sat up near their heads, brushed their hair back and watched the white of their eyes roll back.

the one who eventually comes for you is one that you saved. a bullet graze to the temple just down the road. it wasn't lethal, just a warning from the locals, but he had been in hysterics by the time you dragged him through the back door, all wild-eyed and frantic and young-looking.

but now he still recognizes you and it still doesn't make a difference, he grabs you over your sisters' screaming and your father's pleas, kicks them down as you remind yourself of how his hands had clutched at yours so differently the last time you met, when his blood was on your hands, when you thought things could finally be different and he thought he was going to die.

it's fitting, you think, that man and animal are so similar when they take their final breaths. there's no loyalty then, no ulterior motive, just survival and desperation and fear.

lots of fear.