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Post by Thalo December on Mar 10, 2013 22:17:13 GMT -8
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i thought of you and where you'd gone   ( AND THE WORLD SPINS MADLY ON )
She'd imagined a bit more life in this place. There weren't nearly enough people here to fill the emptiness in her chest that still left her crying at night. She missed her family terribly. They were surely very far away, traveling along the coast in warmer air. But the sound of the ocean struck fear into Thalo's heart now. The terrible storm still visited her nightmares. The roar of the waves had once been her lullaby, but now she was glad to be rid of it. The Base was far further north and inland than her father would have ever dared to travel. He'd always called the north a desolate, ice-ridden wasteland.
But he'd definitely pegged this place wrong. It was still early in spring, but some of the plants were beginning to come to life already. The gardens were filled with lines of tiny plants -- shoots that would someday grow tall and feed all of them. Even the wild plants were returning to life.
She would have been much happier with this job. The garden reminded her of her childhood when her grandmother had still be well enough to teach her how to coax a plant into growing strong. Most of it she no longer remembered, but the sight of sun on leaves still pleased her. No, she feared her job more than she could admit to any other Resident. The dark of the mines haunted her almost as much as the crashing of the sea. She longed to spend her days working under the sun. Her skin was pale as it was, but after only a few weeks in the mine, she'd grown lighter still. She wondered if, after a year or two in the mine, her skin would grow so pale she would disappear entirely in sunlight.
A chilly breeze brushed against her cheek. Thalo tugged her scarf tighter, but savored the feeling of the wind in her hair. She wondered what it was like to fly. The girl wondered a great many things at any given time. She had a perchance for pondering this or that, much of which had no bearing on real life. Here, though, there was a chance that she might actually find out what it was like to fly. There were stories that some of the Residents here had become so skilled at magic (a rarity she still marveled at), that they were able to morph their bodies into those of animals. A part of her found the thought frightening. But Thalo also fancied flying away from the danger and darkness of the human world. Perhaps life as an animal was much happier, with fewer cares and worries. Probably less wonderings, too, she decided.
The girl paused before the goat pen. There were only a few of the creatures living there, some had been eaten over winter. One of the ewes looked heavy with young already. Thalo didn't like the thought that the unborn goat might become dinner in another nine months.
TAG Open
LYRICS The Weepies
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Post by Alexander Lionheart on Mar 11, 2013 23:20:43 GMT -8
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Alexander shuffled into the gardens, still clutching desperately onto the pail of water he had carried all the way from the well. He always managed to fill it up too much. But he only spilled it once today, so he was doing much better than he had the day previously. Another stray lock of hair had fallen into his face, and he blew it out of his eyes in frustration. He needed to trim his hair, or something. It was a little ridiculous.
The boy began humming a tune to himself as he strolled out into the garden. He wasn’t sure where he knew it from, or if it had any words to go along with it. Nevertheless, the simple little tune always put him in the best of moods. However, Alexander stopped when he noticed someone new by the goat pen.
Well, she wasn’t really new. Alexander had seen her around the Base before. He’d seen her with some of the miners a few days back. When he noticed her with his goat friends, a smile burst onto his face. He hadn’t had much opportunity to make many friends, and this seemed like a wonderful chance. He skipped ahead, making sure that he didn’t spill too much of the water for the goats.
He nearly tripped over himself at the end, but he successfully managed to dump the water into the goat's trough and gently set the pail down against the fence. The new boots he'd received were too big for his feet. He secretly hoped his feet would inflate at night so they would finally fit properly. But that was a problem for another day.
"Hullo!" Alexander greeted. He hoped so badly that she would stay. So many of the other residents said he was just a kid, and that they didn’t have time to really chat. The boy thrived on people’s conversation—even if he could just sit wide-eyed and listen. For now, he decided to extend an offer of friendship to the nice looking lady.
He stepped onto the goat pen and reached out for the ewe, giggling when she chose to ignore his hand. "I’ve named her Clementine," he explained eagerly, nodding at the goat. Then he shrugged a shoulder. "I'm not sure if she already had a name, but I fancy Clementine." He turned his head toward the miner lady and grinned wide. Something about the way this miner looked at the goats made Alexander feel sad. Maybe she wanted a friend as much as he did.
"So... what's your name?" he inquired.
LYRICS. Swedish House Mafia
WORDS. 429
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Post by Thalo December on Mar 12, 2013 20:07:41 GMT -8
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i thought of you and where you'd gone ( AND THE WORLD SPINS MADLY ON )
She couldn't stop herself from jumping in surprise as someone came skipping up behind her. She turned to face the other and felt what little color her skin had fade from her face. At first, she thought surely she was seeing her brother Jory. But it was just an illusion, and it passed quickly. The boy before her was the same height and build that her brother had been when she'd last seen him (surely he'd grown by now), but his hair was curly and a tad lighter than her brothers. Without trying, though, Thalo felt at once fond of this boy in front of her. His body movements seemed slightly more like her youngest brother Sam than the middle-child Jory. Sam was always the kind, playful one.
"Hullo!" the boy before her exclaimed with a smile that was neither Sam nor Jory. He stuck his hand out for the goat to sniff, but the creature ignored him entirely, chewing some hay and apparently staring into space. (Goat eyes had creeped her out; she found their side-ways pupils very strange.) The boy explained about the goat in question. A small smile tugged at her face. "It's a good name," she replied quietly.
The boy seemed as grateful for her company as she was for his. Just looking at him filled her head with thoughts of her family, but not in a painful way. Without trying, he filled her with a sense of hope. If a boy so much like her brothers had survived the dark, dangerous world, then hopefully her actual brothers had too. "Thalo," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. A little louder, she added, "My name is Thalo." She managed to pull a small smile onto her face, although she worried it might look more like a wince. It had been a long time since she'd had reason to smile, let alone someone to show one to.
She could only barely remember that conversations required participation on both parties. It took a surprising amount of thinking to decided what to say in return. "Do you, uh, t-take care of the goats?" She blushed, but the color only faintly showed on her pale face. Now she sounded like she had some kind of speech impediment...
TAG yanni w/ alexander
LYRICS the weepies
INSPIRATION blood by the middle east
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Post by Alexander Lionheart on Mar 12, 2013 22:18:31 GMT -8
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Alexander grinned when the newcomer complimented the name he had chosen for his goat friend. He liked the name Clementine, too, but it was even better to hear that from someone else. However, his eyes grew wide with surprise when he heard the lady speak her name. She even smiled now! Well, it was sort of a halfway smile, but it was good enough for him! At least she wasn’t chasing him away in irritation like some of the other Residents. "Really? That sounds a lot like my mom’s name! Her name was Toula," he gushed. He nodded his head and chuckled. "Wow, it’s nice to meet you, Thalo!" Then he added, proudly and with a grin, "I’m Alexander."
He hopped atop the little fence and perched there, letting his legs dangle beneath him. He mouthed Thalo’s name silently a few times, and he committed it to memory. "You have a good name too, y'know," he thought aloud, this time not looking at her. And a nice voice, he thought to himself. He knew that he talked too much, but it was hard to hold back when meeting a new friend—one who could talk to him instead of bleat at him. He wiggled his foot at the goat as he thought about it. Clementine must have suddenly found him interesting, for she moved over and began nibbling on the bottom of his pant leg. Alexander laughed and made no move to stop her. She was so fickle today!
Alexander looked over at Thalo and nodded in response to her question. "Yes, ma'am! I think it’s the only thing I’m good at so far… I’m not so good at growing plants yet," he said, albeit a little disappointedly. He didn’t like letting anyone down, but it was hard to do good when he had been assigned a job he knew little about. But he told himself to remain positive—that meant that he had a lot to learn! Which meant more time with other Residents! He hoped that someone kind could help him learn the proper way to grow healthy plants and food. Until then, he didn’t mind tending to the goats, as long as he didn’t have to butcher them himself when the time came for it.
"How about you, Thalo?" Alexander asked curiously. He sort of knew the answer to his own question, but he didn’t want to assume. He thought he’d seen her with some of the other miners, but he hoped that she didn’t have to do that. She looked too calm and gentle to be given a job like that. "What do you do around here?"
TAG. Dark w/ Thalo
LYRICS. Swedish House Mafia
WORDS. 439
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Post by Thalo December on Mar 13, 2013 8:38:43 GMT -8
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i thought of you and where you'd gone ( AND THE WORLD SPINS MADLY ON )
His enthusiasm pulled a smile onto her face again, this time a more genuine one. She could tell she liked this boy already. Thalo knew they'd only just met, but she felt a different spark of optimism. If she couldn't find her own family, then perhaps there was a chance of finding a new one here...
"Alexander," she repeated his name, as if getting a taste of it. It was a good, strong name, and for some reason it sounded old to her. He complimented her name, but she brushed it off with a faint hint of a smile. Her own name had little meaning to her; it was just a label her mother had given her. Others' names, though, it was those that held power for her. They filled up her heart and haunted her thoughts. Thalo was just a word she answered to.
The goat suddenly became interested in the boy. It nibbled playfully at his trousers. The child giggled, and another true smile lit up Thalo's face. Oh, yes, she decided; she liked this boy. He was like a little ray of sunshine sent to Earth as a boy. Without fully knowing why, she felt at once fiercely protective of him, too. Perhaps it was how much he reminded her of her brothers.
At his question, she looked away, a shadow falling across her face. It took her a moment to respond. "I'm a miner," she said quietly. She didn't want to tell the sunny-haired boy about the terrifying dark of the mine nor the shadows she could swear were chasing her. Worst of all, she hated the way fear always seemed to be haunting her. There was rarely a moment when fear didn't well up in her chest. Back before the storm, she'd rarely felt any sense of terror. She could get dragged a ways out to sea and stay completely calm until it pulled her back in again. But now, the slightest shadow left her cowering like a kicked dog. She hated her cowardice, but felt little hope of every defeating it.
TAG yanni w/ alexander
LYRICS the weepies
INSPIRATION blood by the middle east
OOC :/ sorry it's so short...
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Post by Alexander Lionheart on Mar 14, 2013 12:38:01 GMT -8
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The way Thalo barely said her response—I’m a miner—gave Alexander chills. The smile slowly disappeared from his face, and only then did he realize what he had done. Her face had gone rather dark in the span of a few moments. Not only did she look scared, but she exuded an aura of fear, as well. The boy felt scared for her. Why did he even ask? Oh, stupid Alexander, why did he have such a big mouth? He didn’t like to make anyone dwell on awful thoughts like that. But even more than shame, he felt a huge swell of injustice at her answer. Why was someone like Thalo trapped in the mines? She seemed like one of those graceful birds, like a dove, that needed to be free. The boy’s eyebrows furrowed.
“That’s… That’s not fair,” he blurted, without really thinking. “That’s not fair at all.” He knew that everyone had a fair chance of getting assigned any of the jobs, but some people really didn’t belong in certain places. In the little time that Alexander had known Thalo, he already felt like he knew so much about her, just by observing her and listening to her voice. He knew that she didn’t belong in that dark, scary place—no one really did, unless they were there of their own volition. “It must be scary,” he breathed.
Alexander turned his gaze toward Thalo and found her eyes with his own. “I wish… I wish I could trade places with you, Thalo.” His bottom lip trembled at the thought—the mine seemed very intimidating. “I would do it, for you.”
For a few moments, the boy was quiet. He let his gaze return to Clementine, who had wandered off again. There was a slight breeze, and it felt colder than before. Alexander could hardly wait for warmer weather. His thoughts were still on the mine and the fact that Thalo was trapped inside them for the sake of the base. If only there was something she could take with her, to remind her of the life above the mine. Suddenly, Alexander had an idea.
“Oh!” he said, suddenly. He jumped off of the fence and turned to Thalo eagerly. “Oh, oh! Wait here for a second, okay?” With a smile, he jogged through the goat pen and searched the ground for the small trinket he had in mind. It was so cold, he wondered if they hadn’t grown yet, but when his eyes fell upon the golden petals of the familiar weed, he bent over and snatched it up from the ground. It was still spring, so the flower was small. The boy used to collect the weeds as a kid, especially during the summer when they bloomed like crazy, and he only had happy memories attached to them. Maybe Thalo could have happy memories to take with her into the mine.
When Alexander returned to Thalo, he proffered the golden flower-like weed to her and smiled. “My mother said these are called dandelions,” he said happily. He wasn’t sure if she already knew that fact, but he didn’t see the harm in sharing it anyway. “They always make me smile, so… So, maybe you could take this with you, when you work! Maybe it’ll make you smile, too!” He grinned in an attempt to lift Thalo’s spirits again. He didn’t want to see her so sad and scared—in fact, he wanted to protect her.
“Someday,” Alexander began proudly. “I want to learn the names of all of the plants.”
TAG. Dark w/ Thalo
LYRICS. Swedish House Mafia
WORDS. 594
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Post by Thalo December on Mar 14, 2013 20:12:23 GMT -8
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i thought of you and where you'd gone ( AND THE WORLD SPINS MADLY ON )
The boy's face fell, and Thalo again cursed her own fear. Just because she was afraid of the mine didn't mean he should be too. She tried to remind herself how she would have acted around her own siblings. She never would have let her brothers and sister see her fear. In front of them, she was strong and nearly fearless. She wondered briefly if her courage had left with them, fleeing before the oncoming storm.
"That's not fair," Alexander exclaimed. His sweet face twisted with the injustice of it. She again regretting having said anything. The last thing she wanted was the boy's pity. She was about to reassure him that, really, it was quite fair when he offered to trade her places. To her own surprise, Thalo laughed aloud for the first time in a very long time. She wasn't even certain why it struck her as so funny. Perhaps it was that she was so childishly afraid of the dark that an actual child was offering to trade her jobs. Part of it, also, was that her fear of the mine instantly abated some when she considered instead sunny Alexander stuck down there for hours at a time. If it kept the boy up in the sun, she'd take to the mine every day and not complain a word.
"It's not that bad," she tried to say, but she couldn't be certain the boy heard because he was darting away, asking her to wait a moment. He returned shortly with a little yellow flower in his hand. She smiled faintly down at it as he handed it to her. "My mother said these are called dandelions," he explained. Thalo examined the flower. "Hmm, dandelion," she repeated as if she had never heard of the plant before. In reality, she knew plenty about dandelions. Her grandmother had let them grow all over their yard when Thalo was young. When there were many, they would pick as many as possible and eat them as a salad. Years later, as her grandparents grew ill, she would sit on the steps and braid the flowers into her sister's hair. Staring down at it, Thalo rolled her fingers, making the flower twirl between them. Still smiling, she reached up and tucked it behind her ear. "Thank you, Alexander."
"Someday, I want to learn the names of all the plants," he said with a note of pride. She leaned against the fence behind her and watched him patiently. "I could teach you some," she said in her quiet voice. "My grandmother taught me some, like healing herbs." It was her turn to feel a touch of pride. At least when it came to herbs, she wasn't completely useless.
"Once," she began, a little surprised as the story came not only to mind, but to her voice, "my little brother became very sick. He had a terrible fever and couldn't eat much." Her voice became very soft, her blue eyes staring into the distance as if still seeing the scene within the ocean cottage. "I thought he was going to die. But my grandmother had only to pluck a few herbs and brew them into tea. She made him drink it every two hours, and he was all better by the next morning." She smiled faintly again. She remembered wanting to grow up to be her grandmother. So much for that...
TAG yanni w/ alexander
LYRICS the weepies
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Post by Alexander Lionheart on Mar 14, 2013 22:16:20 GMT -8
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He grinned as Thalo tucked the flower behind her ear. She looked so nice with it in her hair like that. He could hardly wait for summer. Alexander would take Thalo to search for dandelions as often as they could. Thank you, Alexander. She had sounded so much like his mother that his cheeks felt warm.
Her next tidbit came as a blessing to the boy. So she was a real gardener! At her offer to teach him some of the plants, he eagerly turned to her and smiled. He would be so grateful—he would have to think of a proper way to return the generous favor. “Really?” he blurted. He wasn’t even aware that plants and herbs could heal people. “I would be in your debt, Thalo!” He would be so lucky: knowledge from a real elder like that was hard to come by in times like theirs.
As Thalo began to tell her tale, Alexander took his place atop the fence again, listening very intently to her story. He could see the boy in his mind, though he had never met him for himself. Alexander knew what the sickness might have looked like—it was what took his mother, after all. He thought it was going to have a sad ending, but he was awed to hear about the power of the healing herbs. He was all better by the next morning. The words struck a chord in the boy, and he couldn’t help but gush in wonder. “That’s amazing…” he barely breathed. If only he had known about the power of plants before. He had so much to learn from Thalo. “Plants are like magic, then, aren’t they?” The smile returned to his face. How exciting! He felt especially lucky to have met Thalo.
More burning of his questions, however, came without much consideration. “You have brothers, then, Thalo? Or sisters?” he asked with a small smile. He guessed that she was the oldest of her family—she was so calm, and collected. Alexander would have liked to have a sister like her in his life, but he had no siblings.
LYRICS. Swedish House Mafia
WORDS. 355
ooc; short post is short ;___;
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Post by Thalo December on Mar 19, 2013 19:32:01 GMT -8
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i thought of you and where you'd gone ( AND THE WORLD SPINS MADLY ON )
Talking about her family filled her with a heavy sadness. Surprisingly, she didn't mourn her grandmother. She knew her grandparents were together now and probably in a far better place than she was. It was her father and siblings that tore at her heart. She knew -- just knew -- that they were out there somewhere, just beyond her reach. She wondered if they might have finally found their way back to the ocean cottage and were waiting for her... Or mourning her. In her first few months of searching for them, she'd returned to the cottage often, hoping to find them there when she returned. She'd long since given up on that, though. She wasn't certain if she would ever see them again.
Alexander's eager face drove her sad thoughts away. He seemed ready to burst at her offer. She smiled faintly and added a small disclaimer. "I don't know them as well as my grandmother did, but I know some." Thalo hoped he didn't get his hopes up too much. She wasn't knowledgeable enough to teach him to fend off terrible illnesses, but she knew which would help sooth a light fever or draw the sickness from a wound. If it came to a serious injury, she would be of little help.
The boy seemed thoroughly enthralled by her story. It felt nice sharing stories of her grandmother's skill and wisdom. "Herbs are like magic with very careful knowledge," she said despite not knowing much of anything about magic. She'd always thought magic was something that just happened without rhyme or reason, like miracles.
She glanced down at her feet, struggling to keep her sadness from showing on her face. "I have two brothers and one sister," she said in a quiet voice. "One brother about your age, one a few years younger, and my sister is only eight." Despite any sorrow, she smiled faintly again, remembering them with fondness, especially the youngest. Their mother had "died" shortly after giving birth to little Sophia. (With practiced precision, Thalo steered her thoughts away from the strange circumstances of her mother's death.) "What about you?" She imagined him at home in a large family, with many brothers and sisters for companionship. She guessed, however, by his eagerness for friendship that he was either an only-child or separated from said family.
TAG yanni w/ alexander
LYRICS the weepies
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Post by Alexander Lionheart on Mar 21, 2013 20:00:34 GMT -8
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Alexander listened to Thalo with worry—she looked so sad. He could see it in her eyes. He still felt guilty about stirring up thoughts of the mine, but now he felt worse by stirring up thoughts about her family. If she had a brother who was Alexander’s age, and two more siblings just a few years younger than that, then the four of them would have been close in age. Maybe even friends. He always wanted to be a part of a big family like that. He would have given anything to grow up with friends within his own family—it must have been fun.
He trembled at the thought of being separated from a relatively big family. Losing one person was hard enough, he thought. However, despite those dark thoughts, he was right about one thing—she was the oldest. And when a smile showed on Thalo’s face again, he felt a little more comfortable to initiate conversation again. “Wow,” he said. “Three siblings, and you’re the oldest.” Alexander thought about it for a moment, trying to imagine what life must have been like for them. He wondered what could have happened to separate such a family. Hopefully not the same reason that he was separated from his mother. “You seem like a big sister, Thalo.” He punctuated the thought with a giggle. “I kinda guessed it.”
He fought off his own sad memories when Thalo asked about his family situation. “I never had any brothers or sisters. I wish I had,” he explained with a tiny frown. He tried to make light of it, and he added, “My mother always said that I was trouble enough.” It was true enough, he supposed. Alexander and his mother had been on their own for as long as he could remember, and it would have been difficult to have even one more person traveling with them, especially after his mother got sick. He felt a knot forming in his throat as he thought about it. He felt a sudden urge to do something with his hands, so he played with the fabric of his shirt.
“It was just me and my mother until a year ago,” said he. He still remembered her cold, soft hand in his own after she had passed away. Her wearied, pale face sometimes appeared in bad dreams still. Had it even been a year? It felt so much shorter than that. Alexander didn’t want to look Thalo in the eyes for fear of crying. He couldn’t let that happen. “She got sick, you see… She said it was the radiation,” he continued. He still wasn’t even sure what that was.
He felt a single, warm tear trickle down his cheek. The boy hastily lifted his sleeve and wiped it away, pretending like he had only gotten something in his eye. Embarrassment flooded into his cheeks and he looked the other way. He needed to collect himself before he continued any further.
“Thalo?” Alexander began, in a small voice. “How come the world is like this?”
He wasn’t sure if anyone really knew the answer, but he thought he would ask.
TAG. Dark w/ Thalo
LYRICS. Swedish House Mafia
WORDS. 525
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Post by Thalo December on Mar 22, 2013 20:44:03 GMT -8
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i thought of you and where you'd gone ( AND THE WORLD SPINS MADLY ON )
Talking to Alexander made Thalo feel more like her old self: the version of herself who wasn't afraid of shadows or new things or every passing face. He reminded her that she had once smiled freely and laughed loudly. More than she missed her family or feared the quiet dark of the mine, she longed to be that person again.
Her lips twisted into a crooked half-smile -- when had her face last made that expression? "You seem like a big sister," he told her. She wasn't certain what attributes big sisters usually had standard or what made her so obviously a sister at all, but she took his comment as a compliment. She liked the thought that, even at a glance, someone knew her family existed. It made her feel as if they weren't so far apart after all. It also made her wonder, though, if so much of her identity was dependent entirely on other people's existence.
She'd been right about his family situation. She supposed having no siblings was better than having lost many. But when he began to speak of his mother, she wished instantly that she hadn't asked at all. Thalo didn't need his explanation to be able to tell his mother was deceased. "She said it was the radiation." He looked so desolate when he said it. She'd lost family members before: her mother, her grand mother, and her grandfather. But she could barely imagine what it was like to watch your only family slowly waste away. At least her grandparents had died in the storm, instead of the slow, drawn-out deaths that had awaited them before. Despite their absence, she didn't mourn her remaining family for dead; even if she couldn't find them, she knew they were alive somewhere.
She barely left him enough time to wipe it away before she took a step closer and pulled him into a hug. She had to step on to the bottom rung of the fence to reach him properly, but the embrace felt surprisingly natural nonetheless. She'd forgotten what hugs felt like...
His question sent a chill into her heart, and she leaned slowly away, looking Alexander in the eyes. How did you tell a child that all the world was in chaos because people generations ago had hated each other so much, they'd rather end the world than live in it together? How could you explain that every bad thing on the planet was at least partially man-made? She let out a quiet sigh, not out of sadness, but a heavy sense of acceptance. Thalo leaned against the top of the fence, resting her chin on her arms. "I don't think anyone knows," she answered. She refrained from adding that even if someone did know, they probably wouldn't be able to fix it anyway.
TAG yanni w/ alexander
LYRICS the weepies
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Post by Alexander Lionheart on Mar 24, 2013 17:01:44 GMT -8
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Pride only slightly damaged, Alexander rested his cheek against Thalo as she stepped up onto the fence to hug him. He tried to stifle his tears, and he ended up crying silently as he held onto her. The tears felt warm on his face. His lip trembled involuntarily as he sniffled. He hadn’t spoken about his mother to anyone on the Base—Thalo was the first person to ask him about it. However sad he felt, though, he was glad that it was Thalo that he opened up to first. Even though he had just met her, he felt like he had known her for a long time. Something about her seemed so familiar, like they had encountered in a dream, or something silly like that. It wasn’t until then that Alexander realized just how much Thalo reminded him of his mother. At first it was her name, and then her smile. But her gentle embrace made him cry even more—tears of sadness for his mother, but happiness for meeting such a kind person.
When she pulled away to answer his question, Alexander wiped his nose and looked up at her with shining eyes. He pursed his lips into a firm line; he had to stop crying in front of Thalo. He was supposed to cheer her up, after all. Upon hearing her answer, the boy simply nodded his head and turned his gaze to the distance. He figured as much. How could any of them possibly know the answer to such a thing? What could have happened to make the world such a desolate place? Alexander had his theories, but he couldn’t be too sure.
The wind felt cold on his back, and it ruffled his blonde curls. He shivered slightly, not knowing if it was the weather or his thoughts that sent a chill through his spine. Alexander instinctively rubbed his hands together to generate some warmth. He mentally scolded himself for leaving his gardening gloves by his cot.
“I hope,” he began, in a quiet voice. He paused to wipe his eyes again. “I hope that one day we can fix it.” Truthfully, he wanted nothing more than that. He didn’t want anyone else to lose someone to the radiation, or to hunger, or disasters. There were enough youths like him and Thalo out there already—no one else needed to lose their families. The death and desolation had to stop sometime, didn’t it?
With a glimmer of hope inside of him, Alexander smiled through his dried tears and turned to Thalo again. “I bet if we planted enough trees and flowers, we could make this place look better.” Perhaps not even just the Base, but the whole world, he thought. Alexander’s mother always taught him that trees were such a wonderful thing for the world. Why not have more? “We could plant them together!”
TAG. Dark w/ Thalo
LYRICS. Swedish House Mafia
WORDS. 479
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Post by Thalo December on Mar 24, 2013 22:00:07 GMT -8
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i thought of you and where you'd gone ( AND THE WORLD SPINS MADLY ON )
She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but more tears wasn't really it. Strangely enough, his tears made her feel stronger; like she didn't have the right to feel sad, when someone as sunny as Alexander was feeling that terrible. It was more than that, though. She'd never allowed herself to cry for her family. She had cried when she buried her grandparents, but not once for her father or siblings. Alexander's crying seemed to release some of the pent-up sorrow within her. She felt both grounded and somewhat lighter, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Part of it, she guessed, was that she felt as if she'd just found a new family. She was fond of the boy already, and she knew without a doubt that she'd protect him as fiercely as she would her actual siblings.
She thought maybe this was why the world was so terrible. Out of the darkness came genuinely good people. Thalo had unfortunately met a number of very bad people, but she had also had the pleasure of meeting good ones too. She thought that perhaps a broken world produced only two types of people: good ones and bad ones. There weren't so many shades of gray anymore. Whether this was an improvement, she felt certain it wasn't. A terrible world filled only partially with good people was not nearly so great as a thriving world full of medium, mediocre people. Or was it? Without having seen both sides of the war, she couldn't be very certain. She could only imagine.
She wanted to smile at his statement of hope. She wanted to be as positive about it. But Thalo didn't think there was any way of making the world better. She did, however, think that there were ways of keeping it from getting worse. His solution pulled a laugh from her. (Laughing was a strange sensation that she had nearly forgotten entirely. The sound of her own laugh sounded foreign to her ears.) Yes, a world covered in trees in flowers would be actually be better, she admitted. She realized that she liked that about this place: the trees. She had grown up near the ocean, where there had been very few trees. Here, though, there were trees a plenty. This far north, the grew large around, with thin, needle-like leaves. There were those with regular, flat leaves as well. She'd passed the edge of a forest on her way to the Base. It was massive and beautiful, and if it hadn't been for her hunger, she would have stayed happily beneath it's canopy.
"I would like that very much," she said in all honesty, smiling.
TAG yanni w/ alexander
LYRICS the weepies
OOC i'm not sure where to go with this. ideas?
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