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Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 0:28:28 GMT -5
Duality There are sixth breaths between the boy's words and the girl's response, and there is no such thing as a twelfth chance.
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Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 0:28:49 GMT -5
Her name is Alice. Or - Abbey? No. Her name is AddyAlexandraAlisonAllegra - Athena. Her name is Athena, and she is many things. She shares her mind with many things, rather - sees many things with many other eyes, knows many things from many old, odd brains. (Lives other people's long-gone lives in her waking, in her sleep - sees them and feels them, smiles with them and cries for them. She shares their beliefs and hopes and loves and has none for herself.) There are people and creatures and ghosts in everything, and they all have a memory to bleed into her mind like melted chocolate.
Her name is Athena, and she is not confused so much as her mind is in the wrong plane of existence. She is not mad so much as she is somewhere else, and she has no concept of normality as it is defined by the citizens of Isaara in her body's day and time and reality.
Her name is Athena, and she is the only un-lost girl in the world.
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Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 0:29:53 GMT -5
AliceAbbeyAddyAlexandriaAlisonAllegraAthena's head is Pangaea.
Athena does know what this means. One of the men she lived once - he was something clever clever clever, more clever than a squirrel, and she knows what she's talking about. (She was at one point in time in possession of a whole mind that only belonged to her - probably. She can't remember. Now it is scattered and fractured, drifting slowly like the continents.)
Her head is Pangaea. This is what she tells Seneka out of the blue one day. It goes like this.
Seneka is sitting in a corner of the library where no one ever goes, looking morose and frustrated and angry and wronged, and Athena stares at the space in front of his face for a good fifteen minutes before she wanders over to him.
He doesn't notice her until she speaks. He is in the middle of a hardcore pity-fest, you see, and the privileged Seneka doesn't notice crazies like Athena anyway unless it is to make a snide and biting comment about said nutter to his adoring lackies.
She speaks, though - and he looks up, and this is when she says with an unfocused lack of concern: "Your head is Pangaea."
Seneka is startled, but it only takes a moment for his default sneer to appear on his pale face. "What the fuck are you blathering about, Archivist?"
Athena just looks at him - and suddenly her big eyes are looking through him like she has unscrewed the top of his head and cataloged his every thought and hope and dream.
And then she tells him, "It's OK. My head is Pangaea too."
Seneka stares. He stares and Athena stares back, and they could go on staring forever except this is when Seneka bursts into laughter.
He laughs like - like he has never laughed before, excluding that one time on his third birthday when his mother tripped while carrying his three-tier birthday cake. He laughs and laughs, wheezing and red-faced with tears streaming from his eyes.
Athena smiles indulgently, pats his head, and walks away.
They kick him out when he can't stop laughing, but he doesn't care.
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Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 0:33:50 GMT -5
After the library incident, Seneka takes to going to Athena whenever he is feeling suffocated and wants to get away from his fawning groupies. This is the time of bitter cold, when the snow is dry powder on the ground and the lake is frozen thick.
This is the time of bitter cold and everything is frozen, but Athena is not everything or even really anything.
They are sitting on the stone parapets of the tower roof. Seneka is smoking a cigarette that burns purple smoke, and Athena is staring dreamily at the cloud-white sky. It will begin snowing again soon.
Here are the words that the girl's tongue shapes out of nowhere like an accident (but there is always a method to her madness - ): "Do you know how to make a god, Seneka Hart?"
Seneka exhales a cloud of violet smoke and watches it float away, bright and sheer against the thick heaviness of the cloud cover. "Tell me, Archivist."
"Believe in it. You believe in it like you believe in anything else, like you believe in death and money and your own superiority."
The purple haze snakes through the air.
"Gods are for idiots and Firestarters, Archivist."
"Do you really think so? I think gods are for humans, Mister S. Only, most have it the wrong way around - the gods didn't create us. We created the gods. We still do. We need them."
Seneka lets his head roll back and his gaze fix lazily on loopy, crazy Athena Archivist. "Who created the Crumple-Snort Flapjack, then?"
She blinks and looks away.
"A serious, sober little boy by the name of Irving Cricket wanted them very badly and secretly - secretly secretly secretly, secret like the Ministry's heliopath breeding program. He even kept it a secret from himself, and now they are entirely abandoned and lonely," she tells the blanket of clouds above them, and he wants to taste her soft, pale lips and see if the freedom of unreality is contagious.
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Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 0:36:28 GMT -5
Five days later, she finds him on the parapets. (Seneka tells himself that the warmth beneath his ribcage when she searches him out is fury. He is allowed to redefine reality to fit his own personal comfort zones.)
He is smoking again. He really has started to go through cigarettes lately. (He doesn't know why he smokes. Don't ask him. And don't even mention its original conceptualization by Firestarters.) And at first everything seems normal, but then he notices the strange dampering and containment of Athena's perpetual life-dream.
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Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 0:36:56 GMT -5
"You." It is an awkward jilt, a pause because he doesn't do this sort of tomfoolery. "You - are alright."
He cringes inwardly as his words hang in the air. He meant for it to be a question, but the words were alien and the end went flat and he is so far away from his comfort zone in this moment that the distance has to be measured temporally. In half-centuries.
And then -
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Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 0:37:12 GMT -5
Slowly, a smile washes across her face. (She glows like a lantern in the wastelands is his only thought, strangely poetic and eloquent and so true that sparks dance over exposed nerves in a figurative exposé on rawness. He wants to take a better look at this too-right simile scraping his rib cage, but then his personality's survival instinct kicks in and he reflexively flinches away from it.)
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Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 0:37:31 GMT -5
And this is something like a month later. Seneka has taken to spending time with Athena more and more lately without a real reason, finding the ingratiating brown-nosing of his friends exponentially irritating and lured helplessly by the constant lack of conflict in the utterly mad girl.
And here is the part that has him addicted: Athena is a mass of conflict and contradictions. In Athena, chaos lives calmly, accepted and - just accepted. Accepted without a batted eye or twitch of an eyebrow - and she is more welcoming and tolerating than Seneka (in his complete superiority to everyone else in the entire bloody world) has ever come within a mile of imagining.
Before Athena, he never thought to want to imagine such a thing in the first place. She is like hob dust - just a pinch and the blood is thrumming helter-skelter in his veins, and he is weightless and breathless and very probably slightly delusional.
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Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 0:37:53 GMT -5
He likes that she doesn't ask obnoxious questions. She doesn't pry or look at him like he is a murderer (because he isn't, and everyone else can take their glowering, condemning looks and shove them up --well.. Little boys don't fight wars. Little boys stay at school and play with toy soldiers).
So - this is something like a month later and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Seneka has learned nothing that he will admit, but his hard eyes are swallowed by humor in the face of Athena.
He tells her, "Archivist, every word out of your mouth is a bit of a mind-fuck," and doesn't let himself stare at said mouth.
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Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 0:38:13 GMT -5
There is silence for a few moments as Athena continues to waltz with what is evidently a Clododder in this dusty, abandoned room.
And now Athena curtsies to the empty space she has been dancing with. Her wispy voice threads through the gloom. "Seneka Hart, there is no wrong in refusing your name. Your father has been infested with Moffets, in any case."
Seneka stiffens and opens his mouth to slice her apart - to rip her into a thousand pieces, to try to strike at the vulnerable point he has never seen clearly - but in this moment Athena begins to twirl.
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Duality
Aug 7, 2009 16:46:18 GMT -5
Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 16:46:18 GMT -5
He is Seneka Hart. His name is very important, so listen closely. Remember it. Neither Seneka nor Hart, but SenekaHart; you must not leave off either his claim to individuality or his family name. Family is powerful and important and everything he believes in - he believes in everything a Hart believe in (shares their convictions and ambitions and cold obsessions and has none for himself). And it is hypocritical that he pronounces his first name so vehemently when everything he is is Hart, but everyone is allowed their delusions and self-deceits.
His are just larger than most.
Seneka Hart is the most helpless, useless little boy in the world.
(Little boys don't fight wars. Little boys stay at school and play with toy soldiers.)
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Duality
Aug 7, 2009 16:47:16 GMT -5
Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 16:47:16 GMT -5
"Do not," he hisses murderously, "ever create such a disgusting spectacle of yourselves again."
He is not a child anymore. He is seventeen years old, and even though little boys don't fight wars, he has grown into someone frightening in his own right.
"You are absolutely bonkers. I hear that your mum was even more nuts. That true? Good thing she managed to off herself, in my opinion."
There is a sudden and total silence from everyone within listening distance. This is - this is a line that no one has crossed before. This is a line that has never been an option. This is a line that Emily has just shot cattily and viciously past, knowing it isn't right and doing it just to vent her frustration.
(Seneka has considered this unspeakable option, but he is Seneka. He is allowed to. And it was only for a moment...)
Athena's face is bloodless in the wake of Emily's words. She is translucent-pale and -
She is suddenly not his Athena. She is instead a tall girl with a face carved of white marble and big eyes that encompass the universe, that stare through them all -
The quiet continues. Customers turn away, strangely engrossed with their food. There is no laughter.
"You met her dad once, right? What'd you say?"
Athena doesn't turn to look at Seneka. It makes what he is about to do harder. Air is thick in his throat, and his mouth drawls, "Complete and utter loony," without his permission. (But he has known it would come to this. He has known. He has known with his mind - he has to have known. Somewhere secret, he has known that he couldn't keep her. Right?)
And now not-Athena speaks, and perhaps she is in this moment more herself than she has been in years. Her voice is still dreamy and vague-lilting, but there is a knowing cast to her face that makes Seneka wish he - Nothing. Here are the words that fall from her tongue (the method - because Athena saw and acknowledged and wanted him to know but he failed yet again - ): "You created a god in me."
There is a knot in his throat that feels like devastation, and unspoken words float in the wake of her robes as she meanders away. She has not looked at him once. Here: you have forsaken me now betrayed me now abandoned me now like Irving Cricket and his dream and i won't allow you to matter to me anymore but i understand.
He is mute and still-faced and trying desperately to erase the past five minutes from history. When Emily moves past her bewilderment a minute later and laughs weakly - "What a little nutjob!" -
He leaves. Leaves leaves leaves and doesn't understand why he has just denied Athena in favor of Wiggins. (The answer: it is more politically advantageous. He is more completely Hart than should be possible and doesn't even realize it, so natural and him - he is Hart like it's his job, like it's his calling and his passion and his dream and his raison d'ĂȘtre.)
The obscene smear of his mouth twists -
There is no beauty here. Look away.
Look away.
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Duality
Aug 7, 2009 16:48:58 GMT -5
Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 16:48:58 GMT -5
He sits on the battlements and smokes cigarette after cigarette while watching the slow passage of the sun into the West. The sheer light violates his retinas agonizingly, but he doesn't blink until green and purple spots overcome the entirety of his vision and his eyes tear in self-defense.
(He doesn't want to stare at the archway. She isn't coming. He isn't waiting.)
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Duality
Aug 7, 2009 16:49:24 GMT -5
Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 16:49:24 GMT -5
When he runs out of both of his cigarette packs and tires of staring at the moon, he stands. His limbs are stiff and frozen, and that is the only reason his back is hunched as he slowly and slightly dizzily abandons his post. There is a throbbing headache in the base of his skull, and his eyes ache and burn like acid has been dripped in them lewdly. The wind has stolen all sensation from the rest of his face.
As he unsteadily descends the stairs into the castle proper, he wants -
He wants many things. He is Seneka Hart. He wants: money and respect and power and to never be prey and the delicacy of Athena's skin under his fingers. He wants: clout and skill and a reputation and to be remembered and Athena humming as she sews strange coins into the hem of her robe. He wants: confirmation of Sonambulist supremacy and the ear of politicians and strength and to get out of the war alive and chocolate and -
Athena.
In front of him. She is walking towards him, trailing effervescent fingers on the wall with her eyes closed.
"Athena," he doesn't say.
She hears him anyway. She opens her eyes and smiles at him, small and quizzical and polite. He stares at her because it seems to be his best skill - trying to speak but not quite able, flushed and hollow and only just now noticing that he is missing an essential piece of his instruction manual.
Athena tilts her head after a few minutes, the heavy mass of her daisy-strewn hair sliding across her shoulders. "You called me."
He doesn't know what she is talking about. He says, "Yes," anyway. It is all he can manage.
She looks at him for another moment before she suddenly nods and turns to leave, humming again. (It is always the same song. He can never quite place it, but he knows it in snatches and tatters and at his core like he knows how to make a god.) In this sudden lack of air: his right hand grabs for her of its own volition, and he is touching her now and she is looking at him again and he can feel the heat of her skin through the thick weave of her robe.
These are the words that tumble out of his mouth:
"Stay with me."
There are six breaths between the boy's words and the girl's response, and there is no such thing as a twelfth chance. He tells her to stay instead of asking - tells her with false bravado, like it is all a forgone conclusion because he is desperate not to lose her and this is the only thing he knows to do. (He is a Hart to his bones.) He tells her these three words instead of certain other three words, and her pale mouth is poised as if to speak as she looks at him.
And then for a moment - for three, four, five breaths - Seneka knows that all of Athena is focused on him. She is mapping out his soul and unscrewing the top of his head and cataloging his every thought and hope and dream. It is a strange, wonderful feeling -
But then: six. And she smiles like she doesn't know him, like she hasn't danced after purple cigarette smoke on the heights of the Tower or learned his smile or become sunlight in a dusty classroom or hoped.
A crumpled daisy falls from her hair when she walks away.
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Duality
Aug 7, 2009 16:51:10 GMT -5
Post by Athena on Aug 7, 2009 16:51:10 GMT -5
i won't allow you to matter to me anymore.
-fin-
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