I got a lump in my throat
Oct. 9th, 2017 05:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furgoodThey don't talk about what happened in the Capitol.
Artemeas tells her about Alternia. She tells her, occasionally reaching uncertainly for a word and then spelling it out with a frustration, about her rebellion. She speaks about her lusus and her heart and her time here. Meulin goes home the first day with a little wooden lion carved in careful semblance of Regulus and she sets in on her shelf among her trinkets and treasures.
Meulin tells her about Four. She expounds on fishing and makes a face when Art says she can't swim, won't swim, what kind of cat swims, and Meulin knows for sure that if her heart is a cat, it's one that would swim with her. Her heart is in the ocean. She teaches her new recipes, they teach each other, and when Meulin finds a bizarre bright blue pearl in their oysters for dinner, she gives it to Art to keep. Art puts it on her mantle, between her painted eggs and a drawing sent from a world away.
It's not like having a descendant. It's like having--a sister? One whose life mirrors her own in as many ways as it departs. It's like having someone who might understand because they think the same way, or at least more the same way than most.
Art does finally ask. One evening, late into the night when she finally puts her finger on the photo that takes up the very center of her bulletin board, a photo of Meulin among friends laughing and leaning in close to a white haired girl in the middle. Kurloz--it has to be Kurloz, it looks just like that strange boy who had played hide and seek in the Capitol, is draped over her, kissing her cheek
Meulin doesn't speak. But she rubs her eyes with both hands and Art pulls her in close to hug and it feels a little like it might have felt to have an older sister. Art talks quietly about her own matesprit, about the things he had done once that hurt her and Meulin doesn't know how she knows but it's a relief. It's a relief not to have to say that something went wrong. That she fell in love and love blinded, despite all the warning signs. That she trusted with her whole heart and it was used against her and what does it say about her? If she trusted someone who took that trust and twisted it, despite how sweet and loving and caring he was, despite how he never did a thing to hurt besides this one thing, it's still so much and it still hurts and it still makes her question her very self.
She likes it here because no one knows who she was or who she is and she can make it all anew, that she can erase her bad decisions, that she can smile without feeling pained. That the guilt at smiling doesn't plague her like it used to. Her worries, her concerns, they melt off her shoulders and she'll have to gather them back up someday, when she returns, but it feels so ...easy to let them go. To hold on to the good parts and exalt them and laugh over them, to talk up her friends to people who will never meet them and pretend that her life wasn't ruined by the person she loved the very most. No one here knows her brain was pushed to love something she hated, to praise the things she loathed, to defend the very practices she sought to end. No one knows that he turned her belief in the good in people, her second chances, her unshaking faith and gave it from her friends and family and District to the Capitol. She had been so very much herself, but not.
Maybe that's what had made it so hard. If she'd been unrecognizable to herself, it would have been easy. She'd been her, but morphed and twisted, laughingly embracing the ideals she'd been to the Capitol to overturn.
None of this is spoken. She just cries into her hands, a silent weeping and Art lets her, holding her loosely around the shoulder until she's exhausted. She sips a cup of tea that's gone cold and whispers into the cup.
"We were happy. I don't understand."
And Art kisses her forehead, soft, and it's not like--she wonders if this is pale. Listening like this. But Art doesn't try to help or pry, she just lets her be, lets her cry, doesn't judge her, she just is. And when Meulin lets out a shuddering breath and lifts her head, Artemeas gives her a fresh cup of tea and tells her about the mountains she's yet to wander into, about the cold and the snow.
It's absorbing. Art leaves that evening and Meulin walks over to the bulletin board and traces the faces there. She linger on his lips, on the stitches and raises her hand to the pin at one corner. It hesitates, brushing the painted cork background until finally she pulls back and leaves it.
As a memory, for a reminder.
Artemeas tells her about Alternia. She tells her, occasionally reaching uncertainly for a word and then spelling it out with a frustration, about her rebellion. She speaks about her lusus and her heart and her time here. Meulin goes home the first day with a little wooden lion carved in careful semblance of Regulus and she sets in on her shelf among her trinkets and treasures.
Meulin tells her about Four. She expounds on fishing and makes a face when Art says she can't swim, won't swim, what kind of cat swims, and Meulin knows for sure that if her heart is a cat, it's one that would swim with her. Her heart is in the ocean. She teaches her new recipes, they teach each other, and when Meulin finds a bizarre bright blue pearl in their oysters for dinner, she gives it to Art to keep. Art puts it on her mantle, between her painted eggs and a drawing sent from a world away.
It's not like having a descendant. It's like having--a sister? One whose life mirrors her own in as many ways as it departs. It's like having someone who might understand because they think the same way, or at least more the same way than most.
Art does finally ask. One evening, late into the night when she finally puts her finger on the photo that takes up the very center of her bulletin board, a photo of Meulin among friends laughing and leaning in close to a white haired girl in the middle. Kurloz--it has to be Kurloz, it looks just like that strange boy who had played hide and seek in the Capitol, is draped over her, kissing her cheek
Meulin doesn't speak. But she rubs her eyes with both hands and Art pulls her in close to hug and it feels a little like it might have felt to have an older sister. Art talks quietly about her own matesprit, about the things he had done once that hurt her and Meulin doesn't know how she knows but it's a relief. It's a relief not to have to say that something went wrong. That she fell in love and love blinded, despite all the warning signs. That she trusted with her whole heart and it was used against her and what does it say about her? If she trusted someone who took that trust and twisted it, despite how sweet and loving and caring he was, despite how he never did a thing to hurt besides this one thing, it's still so much and it still hurts and it still makes her question her very self.
She likes it here because no one knows who she was or who she is and she can make it all anew, that she can erase her bad decisions, that she can smile without feeling pained. That the guilt at smiling doesn't plague her like it used to. Her worries, her concerns, they melt off her shoulders and she'll have to gather them back up someday, when she returns, but it feels so ...easy to let them go. To hold on to the good parts and exalt them and laugh over them, to talk up her friends to people who will never meet them and pretend that her life wasn't ruined by the person she loved the very most. No one here knows her brain was pushed to love something she hated, to praise the things she loathed, to defend the very practices she sought to end. No one knows that he turned her belief in the good in people, her second chances, her unshaking faith and gave it from her friends and family and District to the Capitol. She had been so very much herself, but not.
Maybe that's what had made it so hard. If she'd been unrecognizable to herself, it would have been easy. She'd been her, but morphed and twisted, laughingly embracing the ideals she'd been to the Capitol to overturn.
None of this is spoken. She just cries into her hands, a silent weeping and Art lets her, holding her loosely around the shoulder until she's exhausted. She sips a cup of tea that's gone cold and whispers into the cup.
"We were happy. I don't understand."
And Art kisses her forehead, soft, and it's not like--she wonders if this is pale. Listening like this. But Art doesn't try to help or pry, she just lets her be, lets her cry, doesn't judge her, she just is. And when Meulin lets out a shuddering breath and lifts her head, Artemeas gives her a fresh cup of tea and tells her about the mountains she's yet to wander into, about the cold and the snow.
It's absorbing. Art leaves that evening and Meulin walks over to the bulletin board and traces the faces there. She linger on his lips, on the stitches and raises her hand to the pin at one corner. It hesitates, brushing the painted cork background until finally she pulls back and leaves it.
As a memory, for a reminder.
