The more, the merrier? [the immortal frumtum]

[cici]

freya hanig

“Freya, I don’t trust her and I don’t think you should either.

“Thank you, Wesley. But we aren’t going to tear down every house and abandon Anabelle in the woods, just because you have a ‘feeling’ that she’s is a spy. I assure you, we have already done a security check; we went through all of her things when she arrived.”

“I’m telling you…”

“I’m sorry, I have a lot to take care of. I just don’t have time for this today,” I say, motioning Wesley out the door and closing it behind him. This is the third time he has come to voice his suspicions. A long-time wanderer, I understand his anxiety about living in a larger community. But unfortunately I don’t have time to be the mayor, a mother, and this man’s therapist.

I sigh and look down at the piles of birch paper on the table, on the floor, pinned to the walls. Where to even start? I can only hope for 5 minutes of solitude before the next person knocks asking miss mayor for something.

I sit down and start with the top of the papers: the new arrivals. There are 15 of them, which brings our census to… 243. I shake my head and push the paper aside, bringing my hands to my hair, my elbows to the table. This can’t be real.

I know this feeling all too well: that nagging feeling of guilt when you’ve created something so good and yet so bad at the same time. On the one hand, we’ve helped so many people create better lives. And on the other hand, it only takes one hovercraft to crush our entire reality. I know that it’s part of my nature to keep expanding and moving forward, my whole body on fire for freedom and justice. I would still be a slave to ignorance in the Capitol, had I not first posed the question of whether my life there was guided by any moral compass. I know that my instincts are to choose truth over peace, to choose righteousness over safety. But my beliefs have their roots in such strong a passion that I find myself having created a city before planning how to run it. That’s my problem.

Deep down, I know that paranoid Wesley is on to something. I know that his targeted suspicions come from the general fear that our community is unsafe. Because it is. And the bigger we become, the more that rings true. We started off as tiny huts and campfires, but as the winters drew on, our projects became more sustainable… wooden houses, boats, extensive gardens. And as these expansions wore on, I started to notice the two groups of thought that developed. There were those who became more secure. The passage of time shielded them with a false sense of security. More people started going out onto the lake, letting their kids run free, and introducing themselves to the newest arrivals.

Then there were those on the other side: the ones who grew more wary every time they had a new neighbor. These were the individuals who, like Wesley, began to isolate themselves from the others and forbid their children from wandering too far. I started more initiatives than I can count to make everyone feel safer. We perform a thorough intake for any arrival, we’ve camouflaged the roofs of the houses, developed an emergency tune for the mockingjays, and we cover the boats when not in use. We’ve done our very best to make this place wholly invisible to any hovercraft that flies by. But even I know it’s not enough to keep us safe.

This persistent worry that we are not in fact safe weighs more on my already heavy brain with every passing day. I stand up from my desk, determined to get a breath of fresh air. As I leave my home, I hear the pounding of hammers in the distance: the building of yet another home, yet another temporary fixture that could come crashing down at any moment. When I came up with this idea to build a community, I wanted to share the beautiful life that Rum Tum and I were living with the less fortunate people who were still trapped under the heavy hand of Panem. But the more that we built, the more that I realized that we are all trapped. We are all trapped in fear that tomorrow could be the last day that we know freedom. And that single thought is almost just as imprisoning as being a Avox to President Snow himself.

I take deep breaths as my feet lead me towards the dock: the only place I can seem to find some quiet away from my work. I remember when Rum Tum helped fix that dock. Fenrir was only three then. The moment his father was done, his wobbly legs launched him fearlessly into the water. I remember screaming and jumping in after him, while Rum Tum laughed. From day one, there was no keeping that boy out of the lake. Or out of any trouble, really. I guess he got that one from me.

I sit down on that same dock, taking off my sandals and dipping my feet into the cool water. How much simpler life was when we were just two. Now I feel personally responsible for not only a 6-year old boy but also 243 outsiders trying to define a new purpose. It doesn’t make it easier that we all come from such different backgrounds. Learning sign-language is one of the first steps of initiation here, with such a strong Avox community. It certainly takes time to learn, but one of the generous Avoxes, Darien, conducts daily classes at the lake.

The district runaways are the most helpful when it comes to work. Everyone brings their own knowledge of their own industry. The ones from the lower districts especially are well-acquainted with manual labor. It’s the runaway Capitolites that are the most work. They usually arrive with a false sense of reality and as much common sense as a rock. But at the same time, I remember what it was like to live in their world. Some of the other “experienced runaways” can be judgmental and rude towards the new arrivals of Capitolites. More than one person has asked me why we waste time saving them when they already have such dazzling lives.
But I try to gently explain to the others that even though they don’t live the poverty and suffering of the district people, they live a different type of oppression and deserve to be rescued from their false realities all the same. Granted, the Capitolites that end up here can be a bit of a handful at first, and even I have trouble keeping my patience. In culmination, we are a hugely diverse group of people, which certainly leads way to dissent… but also through the beautiful growth of understanding one another.

SPLASH! I flinch, nearly falling off the dock simply from the surprise. A few meters away, some boys have just jumped into the lake. Nothing to worry about. But my heart is still racing. Everything turns on the anxiety these days. I think it’s that guilt that tugs on my conscience… that weight of personal responsibility that I feel for all of these people. I feel like I have failed. I am sitting in the middle of a fully-functioning community and yet, I feel like I have completely and utterly failed these people. Because I don’t know what comes next. I don’t know how to keep these people safe if we were to be found out. I have created this beautiful place that grows like a balloon: bigger and bigger and bigger until one day it pops.

These last few weeks, the nightmares have come back. The more this worry threatens me, the more I start to remember all the pain that I’ve caused Rum Tum. The scars on his back still overwhelm me with self-disgust. I remember the days when I felt like everything I touched was brought to destruction, when I felt like this world didn’t want me to love or do good, perpetually imprisoned by its unjust rule-makers. Some days these feelings come up to the surface, and I fear falling into that hopeless pit again.

In my heart, I know that the only way to keep these people safe is to split them up into at least two groups, if not more. 243 is too big for a hidden group of people in the woods. But I can’t tell people to leave their homes and find new ones… how could I ever decide who stays and who goes? How could I do that to anyone?

I take my feet out of the water, starting to feel just a bit chilly. Bringing my knees to my chest and my chin to my knees, I close my eyes, wishing that Rum Tum were here to bring me back to the present. He’s always been good at that. It’s one of the things I love most about him. If I’m not stuck worrying about the future, I’m trapped in the past. But Rum Tum rarely lives in any other moment than the here and now.

Unfortunately, our days together have become fewer and further between. Once I began my role as mayor, Rum Tum passed along his building work and took charge of the freedom runs instead. I love what he is doing and support him with every ounce of my being, but my heart does break every time Fenrir asks, “when is dad coming home, mama?” It’s been weeks now and every day that passes, I worry more. I have always had confidence in Rum Tum. He is the most skilled and qualified of all of us to slip in and out of the districts. But he’s also my husband.
I remember when I used to live in the Capitol, where everyone had their faces glued to their phones. If I could only call Rum Tum… just once… every few days… for 5 seconds, just enough time to hear his voice and confirm that he’s still alive, how much better I would sleep at night. I miss him more than I can admit out loud. I miss having someone to bring me back to earth when my mind goes places. I miss having someone to talk to at the end of the day, even about the littlest things. I miss spending time as a family, Rum Tum’s gentle voice balancing out my sometimes all-too-stern instruction.

I know he will come back. He always does. The question is merely when. And for how long? I remember the last time he left. I almost wanted to tell him not to go, but I didn’t want to be selfish. I didn’t want him to resent me for holding him back. I didn’t tell him all the worries on my mind… I didn’t tell him how weak I feel, how incompetent I am. He asked me, “Are you going to be okay here?” Of course, I reassured him. I couldn’t say no. But the gap between okay and good is still a wide one. Am I okay? Sure. Am I happy? Am I at peace? Am I a good leader or am I just a fake face? Just a girl with ambitious ideas but no clue how to lead? Am I not just a car that keeps driving too far until it’s even further from the destination than it was initially? Am I not just a loose set of ideals, empty promises, and hope in something I can’t control? I wonder if God looked at his creation and asked, “What have I done?”

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

R U M  T U M

TMorning breaks through the set of cedars and I’m the first up. Getting up at sunrise when the world is still new gives me a sense of calm to start the day. I’ll sit by the embers of the fire pit and breathe in the smokey smell while the world still offers a chill, before the heat of the day has set in. It’s been weeks since I’ve set out on a trip toward six, and the truth is I got turned around a few times when some bad storms blew us off course toward the colony. Even after all the years I’ve spend reading the stars and tracing directions from the way shadows cast from the tree branches overhead, nature still has a way of showing us we’re not the ones in control.

First rule I teach anyone stepping out of a district is that their future, their life? No longer, and probably never was, in their hands. We’re bound together, better or worse, until we reach the colony. And all the miles that we walk, it only takes a freak accident or a few wrong turns to put an end to whatever history they were planning to write. It’s usually enough to scare some of the knuckle heads of their bad attitudes, and for some of the good ones, shuts them up the first few days. Of course, I let them know I’ve spent my whole life outside the confines of a district and made plenty of wrong turns, so maybe they needed to take it with a grain of salt.

Wandering taught me that – at least, was the first teacher to point it out to me – walking through unfamiliar terrain, the power of the unknown was greater than we’d ever be.

I’d picked up an older woman who didn’t speak much. I compared her to an owl, with big eyes and a way of trying to look bigger than she actually was. That and she didn’t seem to sleep much at night, always waking me to ask what’s that noise? The first week or so I’d humored it, telling her that I’d get up and give a look, most of the time finding nothing but crickets and darkness. Once I found a set of toads that seemed to be making most ungodly thumping. By the end of the second week, I let her know that she could always get up on her feet, take a flashlight, and get a look for herself.

It’s hard to let go of that control for them, I think. It’s like being reborn when they step outside of the districts. Whoever they were between those walls doesn’t exist anymore, at least, it won’t in the same way they’d always known. No one out here would care if you’d been the mayor, or some career that’d trained six ways to kill a man. They were stripped away to the fundamentals. How much could they listen? How could they express themselves? Could they connect with others in a way that was genuine?

It’s amazing how few people seemed to grasp concepts children could without much prompting.

You get too comfortable in seeing yourself folding into the picture of your life. You invest in whatever image brings that safety and security; all that you’ve worked for becomes wrapped up in the ephemeral. When that fades away, they’re left naked, in a sense. They can’t imagine who they’ll be in this new space, having to start all over again. How could they? They’ve lived in a world that’s always taught them the only way they’d ever be happy was to see how well they’d lived based on someone else’s standards.

Out here, under cloudless skies and flush with trees, you couldn’t hide from who you truly were.

Which isn’t to say that most people turned out badly. Just the opposite. They warmed to the freedom of starting again – that simple, invaluable chance to start over – and become the sort of person they’d thought they could be.

Accept the heart and listen to your head (and never neglect the gut). I’d tell the ones that trekked along with me. You’ve got to be smart to survive, but you’ll never be able to go it alone. Not long enough for any of this freedom to matter. That would be a waste, wouldn’t it?

When we approach the colony it’s midday, and I can hear the sounds of hammers going. Another house must’ve been going up, or maybe an expansion. Sherrie, the woman who’d been huffing and puffing alongside me, could hardly believe the sight of our little village. She tried to speak but couldn’t help but start to cry.

Most folks got a little misty eyed. I think when they’d heard about the colony, they thought it was some sort of folklore. That there’d been two fools who’d started the whole lie as a laugh, and after all these years, it’d be nothing more than a wide patch of earth with nothing to show for it.

But together – mostly Freya, but sometimes me – had cleared out the land and fixed up a set of structures that kept us safe. And we borrowed the power of what the capitol had forgotten, the diverse and beautiful set of minds that joined us to start a better tomorrow.

I spent a few minutes hugging Sherrie to let her know, you’re home now. Away from all the sadness that weighed on her. Gone from the oppression of a place that’d told her she’d never survive without them. In the fresh air of a space where she could finally discover her truth. It was my favorite part, hold them through that painful moment of saying goodbye to the person they’d used to be.

When she’d gone off to get settled into one of the living quarters and have a good long nap, I made my way toward the edge of a porch that I’d been dying to see for the three weeks I’d been gone.

“Freya!” I called out, hands around my mouth to get a good echo going. “Freeeeya.” I grinned and clapped my hands. “Fenriiiir.” I started my little coming home dance, shimmying my shoulders and stepping from side to side. A little tradition for the happiest of moments, getting to see the woman I loved, and my boy, after too long away.

“I’m home!”

elegant

[cici]

freya hanig

“Freya!” My legs spring me immediately up from the dock. I could recognize this voice in the middle of a crowded arena, in the middle of million-person choir. Weeks and weeks of on-and-off visits, never knowing when he would return, had attuned my ears to listening to that voice, to that call that I could hear from miles away. With my feet way ahead of me, I run towards this beautiful voice that I’ve been waiting for weeks (months?) to hear. I run past the gardens, past Wesley’s house, past Kira’s house, past the tiny meadow where the children play, past the monarch butterflies who seem to be on their own chase, and that’s when I see his dark head of hair. I sprint towards him as he stands there next to our front door, continuing to call our names unsuspectingly. Immediately, I tackle him in a surprise embrace from behind. Then I turn around him and plant a long kiss on his lips before wrapping myself around his robust form again with all of the affection I’ve been burrowing in my fragile little heart every passing day that he’s been away.

His clothes smell of foreign places, of adventures that I wasn’t a part of this time.

“I’m so happy to see you,” I say as I let go of him, running my hands over his arms, inevitably scratched up from the miles of thorns, branches, and who knows what else. I get a good look at this face that I haven’t had the joy of seeing for an immeasurable span of weeks. His hair has grown. I wonder how else he’s grown, what he’s seen, what I’ve missed. I wonder if he missed me as much as I missed him; I wonder if he feels more alive when he’s away. I wonder if he feels like he has more space to breathe. I wonder how many words we will have time to speak before he must leave me again to my own loud thoughts.

“Are you hungry? You must be. Sandra just brought us some nuts and berries. How long are you back for? Fenrir is at school but he should be back soon. Or we can go get him.” I have so many questions swirling in my head.

“Fenrir missed you. He’s doing so good. He loves to show the younger children how to skip rocks and build sandcastles. And he’s been doing so good with his sign language, you should see. He is always talking to that Avox, Sam. And in fact, they’ve been getting into a good deal of trouble lately. I had to sit down with Fenrir’s teacher last week. He just has so much energy, Rum Tum.”

The words start falling out of my mouth like a waterfall, but only because I’m trying to hide what it is that I really want to say to him: I missed you so much. Please, we need you here. I need you. I smile so wide that my tear ducts start running droplets onto my cheeks. I didn't want to admit how hard it was without him but the tiny waterfall from my eyes is enough to express that. I wipe them quickly away.

Still, I can't get myself to openly admit that tinge of resentment that keeps poking me in the head, that little unreasonable voice telling me that my work for this town is unsatisfactory when stacked next to what Rum Tum is doing. He owns the high-adrenaline rescue work, yet what have I honestly accomplished these past several weeks? Not much more than kept this place from falling to pieces. And only barely.

I want to believe that I can take care of this village we have, along with my son, and also my complicated self all on my own. But every time I try that, my weaknesses are as clear as the sun in the midday sky. The universe didn't wire me this way: to parent a child alone, to run a village alone, to write my overflowing thoughts in a journal rather than out loud to my closest companion.

And every time he leaves, I feel more alone, not only because of his lost presence. But also because every day that we spend apart, our shared adventures become fewer and fewer. Some women fear that their husbands will be swept away by the beauty of another woman. But I’m not afraid of any other woman. If anything, I fear the flicker of a shooting star or the towering peaks of the Rockies, a welcoming meadow of sunflowers, an ocean that rolls on for eternity. I know that whatever beauty Rum Tum sees in me doesn’t even come close to the miracles of creation that drag on for endless miles, the thrills of foreign lands and limitless surprises.

His work holds so much meaning. He is saving people from their lost and broken lives. And even though I’m so proud of him, there’s still a lump in my throat in knowing that I will never measure up to that. I could never ask him to stop doing what he does. Because I love him for what he does, for his courage and his selflessness.

“I’m so proud of you, you know?” I say, because it’s true. I remember when we were just kids running across the world without a destination. “You’re so strong... I want to hear about everything. Tell me all about the run, from the very start.”

And even as I speak, the lump in my throat remains. I try to swallow down the bitter feelings, but I don’t know how long I will get to hear his voice before it disappears off into the wilderness again. I don’t know how to tell him how much I need him, without asking for more than I deserve.

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

R U M  T U M

That kiss.

Freya’s lips pressed against mine and I close my eyes, forgetting the moment before when she almost knocked me over. More on account of my legs wanting to give out because I’m so tired, but because I just want to tumble down to the grass with her for a while. She’s soft and sweet like honeysuckle, her hands on my back light me up like the afternoon sun. I want to stay lost in this embrace, to measure out the moment so it gets filed away for when I’m out on a trek in the winds and rain, and could think about only this.

“I love you,” I whispered out, my hands around her waist, kissing her again, “Gosh I love you,” I repeated myself because I’ve been gone these weeks and she likely hasn’t heard it enough; I’d have to say it a hundred more times before I left again, enough for her to have a few for every day I might be gone.

I shivered at her touch, the hair on my arm spiking as she ran her fingers down them. These years haven’t been unkind to me, but I’ve met with my share of scrapes and bruises. I didn’t put much stock into it, so long as I could patch up what needed fixing. I liked to think it was the year or so I’d spent blind, never knowing if I’d see a damn thing again, that sweating the little things was a shallow understanding of the body, and beauty.

When I saw her a bit misty eyed, I couldn't help but swallow down the lump in my throat, too. She'd always make me feel that way, light on my feet and ready to tip over, whenever I saw her smiling like that.

“Food would be good,” I managed to get out as Freya started, already a freight train ready to leave the station. Fenrir was in school, which had taken extra pains to convince him was necessary, especially after revealing the sort of formal training that I’d had. He’d still get all of that, especially when he was old enough to start making long trips with me, too. But for now he needed the sort of teaching that these folks could provide, a proper understanding of maths and letters, of science and philosophy. He hadn’t been convinced, but then Fenrir had a bit of a rebellious sort of way about him. (Gee, who could he have gotten that from, I would tease).

Freya recounted Fenrir’s progress, and I nodded along. He’d talk to anyone about anything (and who did he get that from), and the energy of a lit firecracker, too. A tempest ready to spin himself up into a frenzy, especially if someone were there to wind him up.

I smiled through it, though I could feel a heaviness cross my chest. All those little moments that I was missing each time that I went out to get another districter. I’d think about him when I’d be sunning under a tree, thinking about how he’d be out on the dock fishing or listening to a story at night. Times that were fading fast enough, each year running on just a touch faster than the last. How much he’d grown from the toddler that’d spent most of his afternoons over my shoulder.

'I’m so proud of you, you know?' My ears perked up at the mention of it, and I cocked my head. She’d been running a mile a minute, only to end all of it with a compliment. She’d had a habit of winding up with excitement, only to give a flash of something else building up underneath. A sort of – but – that was coming, but never so up front as it was something that I’d have to parse out.

Her voice was soft as she finished, asking about how the run had been.

I scratched my chin and pointed over to where Sherrie had started to chat with a fellow in front of the makeshift infirmary.

“Yeah, Sherrie… she’s a good addition, I think. Grew up in six and is a nurse, so she’ll be able to help out with that sort of thing. Quick on her feet, single, so she might find someone here, too.” They’d left a note for us months ago about her, the folks on the network in the business of shepherding people out.

“She lost her family in something awful,” I said all quiet. “Said that things are bad in the districts, you know? Apparently someone set off a bunch of bombs in district six half a year ago. Blew up some of the hospitals. Fires everywhere.” We hadn’t talked much more about it, save that she said the folks that had mattered to her had been lost in the fires. She’d been one of the few with a night off when the bombs had exploded. If she hadn’t been, she said she’d have been standing in one of the operating rooms that was vaporized.

“Not too much in the way of trouble. Thought we might have come across a capitol drone but seems like a false alarm.” I looked back from Sherrie to her.

“Things okay here? Sorry if it took a little bit longer to get back. We got a little turned around in the storms.”


And how are you, I wanted to say, but was afraid it might’ve been too much too soon. Better to let things settle before pressing on.

elegant

[cici]

freya hanig

“I love you,” Rum Tum says twice, and my skin breaks out into goosebumps. His words are like a pitcher pouring out water into an empty glass, except that this empty glass is my heart, so long dehydrated of the affection that now fills it to the brim. He starts to talk about the newest arrival from District six, but to be quite honest, I’m more focused on the way his eyes light in his eyes when he talks, the curve of his cheekbones, the shape of his chin, his large hands, his assertive yet soft stance, the slight tilt of his shoulders, as if one side of his backpack holds more weight than the other. So much time has passed since I last saw this face before me, so much that I feel I have to reprocess all the tiny, insignificant details of his appearance that have begun to fade in the last weeks that he’s been gone. I hold onto those intricacies and bury them deep in my memory, so that next time I want to remember this moment, I can recall it in vivid detail rather than as a vague cloud of mere sensations.

It is almost unreal to see Rum Tum again before me. The joy that fills my bones with energy is one that I haven’t known for weeks while hunched over papers upon papers, listening to complaint upon complaint and trying to parent in between. I feel like some piece of me was missing, and I didn’t even know it. And here it is -- here he is -- staring back at me with all the energy and life that these last days have gradually begun to drain me of.

“Things okay here? Sorry if it took a little bit longer to get back. We got a little turned around in the storms.”

I realize that I’ve missed Rum Tum’s entire story, and considering I’m responsible for placing Sherrie in a position and helping her settle in… I probably should have cared. But time feels frozen. Rum Tum is home, and who knows how long this will last? I want to hold tight to this moment and stretch it out as far as it will bend. I don’t want to think about the reality of this moment ending, of Rum Tum turning back towards the woods for another run, of myself returning to my desk where I become a slave to the anxious worries that hang out there between the bottles of ink and the endless files.

“Things are great here,” I say, denying the weight of the world I was carrying on my shoulders only an hour ago. “Although they’re always better with you around.” I’ve started to forget about the worries that weighed on me so heavily before Rum Tum arrived. Because now all of the hope in my world is staring me right in the face. “Fenrir comes home from school at four,” I say, a grin working its way onto my face. “That means we only have two hours before we have to pretend to be grown-ups again,” I say just as I snatch a couple of blackberries from the bush next to me. “So eat fast,” I joke, throwing one his way while popping the other into my own mouth. “You’d better not be too tired to swim,” I say. “Come on,” I laugh lightly, running towards the lake and beckoning him along.

I crave the sensation of feeling free again. I don’t want responsibility anymore. I just want this exhilarating feeling of knowing that someone loves me just as much as I love them. Nothing else. Not now.

Rum Tum, do you remember when we ran free in the woods, when we curled up next to the fire before bed, telling stories to the stars with just one thin blanket to keep us warm? Remember when we hiked up mountains, our legs burning beneath us like fire? Remember when took some of the weight from my backpack and put it into your own, because you said that the strongest people were not the ones who carried the most on their backs but the ones who knew how much they could handle. Remember how we used to collapse the moment we reached the peak, lying there in the silence staring at the vast world of possibility that stretched further than our eyes could see? Remember that time you said, “I wonder how much we’ve seen.” And I said “Not enough.” Oh, and do you remember the first time you

Remember when we were content, just the two of us? I do. And sometimes I wish I hadn’t decided that it wasn’t enough for me, that I had to do something more… Everything is so much more complicated now, and for what?

As I finally reach the dock, I quickly strip my outer garments before diving into the chilly water, coming up to the surface to take a large breath and wait for Rum Tum. I smile and look up at the sun, spreading my body out on the water and letting myself float on this feeling of complete euporia, wanting it to never end.

Rum Tum is here. Rum Tum is home.

I love him.
He loves me.
We are safe, and we are together.

Please make this last forever, like it should have before.

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

R U M  T U M

Watch her eyes.

The nervous energy told a whole story if you learned to peel off what lay on top.

There’s something to the years that are bound between us that lays out ever wrinkle, every crooked smile, every tear, so that when you turn to look over your shoulder, a look can be more than a giveaway. That’s the secret to all those quiet moments in the woods, even when we weren’t saying much to one another. Staring off at the sight of a white mountain peak, you listen to her heartbeat against yours. You take in the fears, when the thunder rolls out overhead, and you have to plug leaks in a ceiling that wasn’t done just right. When hunger runs through a growing colony and people turn to us for some sort of direction.

But it’s those years that’ve taught me to see Freya as more than just the woman I love (though that’d be quite enough, too). To stay in love and stay together was discovering the world off balance and finding the way to right it again. It was to see that there may not have been an answer in the moment, but to lean in a little closer, to listen, and to feel.

Our hearts aren’t perfect reflections of one another. We’re not teenagers anymore, so I doubt either of us sees a sunset the same way. No matter how much we wish we could be those kids at the foot of the lighthouse, we’re older now, a son between us, and roaming days fewer and farther between.

These old bones haven’t changed so much, though. Still have the same sinews overtop, ligaments stretching and aching at the end of a long day. Same freckles and moles dotting along my shoulder, and down my back. I thought I’d be more afraid to get older, but Freya’s brought me more peace than I ever could’ve had out at the edge of the world. A slow and steady rhythm that pulses next to my own, someone to fall asleep next to, and when I woke in the morning, to wrap my arms around once again.

You breathe in all of that, ten years or more, and when her voice quivers, or she starts to hide behind what she’s said, you notice.

“All right, all right,” I agreed with her. Fenrir away for a few more hours meant that it was just the two of us, and it’d been too many weeks since I’d had that. Even back here, I was surprised a whole crowd hadn’t formed to ask Freya questions, or ask a favor of me. Could you fix up the windows, Rum Tum? What should I do about the stove? Could you help me move a set of logs? I trailed along behind her, and as she finished at the dock, couldn’t help but watch her strip away every piece of fabric before jumping into the water.

I pulled off my shirt and shimmied out of my pants, started with a laugh, and gave a yell before canon-balling into the water.

I spat up a mouthful across the waves and turned to face Freya. The cold had me swim closer to her, and I moved to offer an embrace so we could both float.

“Miss Hanig,” I put on my best capitolite accent and scrunched up my face, before dropping my voice lower. Softer. I embraced the drift of the waves. Marveled at the way the water clung to her hair and dripped down her cheeks awash in sunlight. “Freya.”

I think the greatest freedom I’d ever gotten, was knowing that our love was because of, and not in spite of, the world we’d created together.

“It’s nice to take a rest sometimes, isn’t it?” I whispered. “Been too long, I think. Especially at going it alone.” I didn’t want to press too hard or let on too much. “Things are always better when you’re around.”

elegant

[cici]

freya hanig

“Miss Hanig.” His eyes shimmer with the same humorous light that I first fell in love with. I roll my eyes and laugh a bit. So many years have passed since anyone has called me by that name and it causes me to begin wondering what of Miss Hanig still remains. That girl had so many thoughts and emotions pouring from her constantly moving lips like an endless river. If love were merely a noun, only a feeling, then Freya Hanig and her reckless words would still be running without direction. But because love is an active verb, a choice, and a commitment, the words that she -- that I -- once threw aimlessly like daggers have softened into something so much more intentional. The ears that were so attuned to listening only for the things which they expected to hear learned how to pay attention to the perpetually changing rhythm of the wind sweeping through the trees, or even the subtle drop in tone in Rum Tum’s voice when he was sad.

And it’s funny how love was never actually a choice to feel, but a choice to change. Because if I’m remembering correctly, this stranger in the woods first appalled me… his ragged appearance, his foreign tales, his desire to be free from the rest of the world running right up against my desire to save it. When we chose to love, we chose rather to grow to understand. Or maybe we chose to grow to understand and then to love. But either way, the two were never separate from another. Because now we have grown to know each other deeply enough to speak without many words, to mirror the traits that we fell in love with in one another. We’ve come to read through the different layers in each other’s eyes, to decipher the creases in each other’s smiles.

“Freya,” he says, softer now, and a shiver runs through me at the familiar sensation of his comforting arms as we float with the gentle pulls of the waves. It has been so long since I have felt him close like this, and it makes me question how close we still are. These months that we’ve been apart… has he changed? We both carry our own weight of past experiences with our own stories to tell, but our shared stories are what link us. What happens when our shared memories become buried under all the others? This city is built on our shared foundation. Well, what do we do when the foundation becomes invisible? When we’ve stretched this dream so far, our ambitions so wide, our borders so big, that we can’t remember that it all started from just these four intertwined hands?

“It’s nice to take a rest sometimes, isn’t it?” I nod, pulling in closer… but I don’t feel at rest. I feel anxious. I feel scared. It’s almost as if I can see the sun above me moving, slowly but surely, towards the horizon, calling the end to this moment and beckoning Rum Tum away again. “Been too long, I think. Especially at going it alone. Things are always better when you’re around.”

I feel a lump forming in my throat at the sound of those words. It was never difficult to activate Freya Hanig’s tear ducts. But Freya Tugger, for better or for worse, had tried so hard to be as stable and settled in her own skin as Rum Tum so easily was. I learned to take all of those overpowering emotions and put them somewhere else until they get lost enough to never find their way back into my head. But I could feel them all now, burning through my chest and screaming to be let out. My head is spinning and I’m trying to keep from doubling the size of this lake with all the tears that have been building up in me, all of the loneliness that I’ve been carrying, the self-doubt, the self-hatred, the fear, the anxiety, the worry, the stress, the monsters that Fenrir is afraid are standing outside his window, when actually they’re just trapped in the mind of his mother…

“You too,” I say, squeezing his hand just a little bit tighter. A wave splashes over my face and I thank it for hiding the tear that rolls down my cheek. “Things are better…with you too.” And because I don’t want to hold him back, because I don’t want my feelings to be the one to make his decisions… I thank the waves a second time as they splash over my face.

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

R U M  T U M

I wondered sometimes what it would’ve meant had we never come together. I’d still be out at the edge of the wastelands pressing from one place to the next. Directionless as the kid she’d met so many years ago. And worse still I might have still been pining for the world that’d I’d made in my head. The one where I made my way back to district eleven and the whole of my family welcomed me with open arms. Where my father made me one of his own, even if my other half was missing. And I’d have become a piece of something that seemed so distant and foreign, I wondered if I could’ve ever been a part of it at all.

Sometimes we have to take a chance, especially on each other. If there was one thing I’d learned over all this time, it was that if we never took a chance on ourselves, we’d never find the people that we were supposed to be.

And all the mistakes we’ve ever made, the years apart or moments when we’d been out of love with one another, they were bits of clay or glass. Ready to crumble down to dust as we forged a greater bond together. Not that it was ever easy to forget being in a shock collar being led around the capitol. But as dark as days were, I’d found the sun, turned toward it, embraced it, and it had led me here. I think much of the time we forget too easy how our mistakes and imperfections could be shined and smoothed into something wonderful.

‘Things are better… with you too.’ Her voice was quiet, and I could tell there’s a hundred thoughts between those two ears. Her hands brush against mine and I huddled close. Because Freya never allowed herself to settle, she was like the waves across the lake. Moments where the surface was calm, until the winds shifted, and, undulating across the surface, became ripples then waves. I think some much prefer the calm. Which could be nice for a while – being able to float, serene. But then you never learn how to ride the waves, or how to coast along with the current.

“Hey…” I lowered my voice and swam closer to her. “You know I’ve missed you, huh?” All the nights I’d looked up at the stars and though about seeing her face again. The stories that I’d told on the trail back here somehow all came back to Freya. The time we’d gone to the lighthouse and looked out on the world. Or the carnival where we’d sat high up in the air and told one another about our parents. There was an ease to all the stories, as though they too traced us from there to here.

There’ll always be waves that crest and come between us. Moments where I’m too distant, too drawn to the world beyond the colony. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t turn around again and ride the wave right back to her.

“All I could talk about was you while I was gone. I think they got sick of it.” Not that anyone would ever say, though I’d heard more than once how long my stories were. I couldn’t help but trip over one word to the next when I was excited. There was magic in being able to share a piece of what I’d seen with the others.

We needed some of those stories again.

“I know I need to spend more time here, with you.”

elegant