into our skin.

𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙡𝙮 𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙨 𝙨𝙪𝙣𝙠 𝙙𝙚𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙙𝙚𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙧.   creekside mud giving way under the weight of waif-like figure. with eyes solely focused on the waters edge and fingers doing their best to navigate what seemed like an endless amount of knots in peachy blonde hair frances nearly missed the sound of footsteps approaching, wet grass swallowing each and every sound only to regurgitate a much   softer   version.  

𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙤𝙥 𝙤𝙛 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙛𝙚𝙡𝙩 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚.   sunbeams landing on the same spot for hours as the young woman was lost in her trance, she would pay for it later   but that was alright   ;   there was always something to pay for, some mistake to make right, and if a few scalp flakes were the worst of it for the day she would gladly accept her punishment.      ❛   did  someone  send  you  to  get  me  ?   ❜      when she finally spoke it was to pose a question, a small smile offered as gaze finally fell upon the older man.    

                   x|| @headclouds​ liked!

    “ 𝓒uttin’ it a little close… aren’t you?” Kal asked as he looked over toward the Whisperer that seemed to linger a little too close toward the said borders that Alpha had established. Anyone that dared to cross ended up dead– or in their case… The start of another war. Something that the communities never needed but always seemed to run into. “Why are you out this way?” He hoped to at least get some sort of answer out of the woman– if not then he wasn’t too bothered about it anyway. Seeing their masked faces only brought trouble, the least he could do was to remain civil and hope that his actions would be mirrored.

𝙎𝙃𝙀   𝙃𝘼𝘿𝙉 '𝙏   𝙀𝙑𝙀𝙉   𝙉𝙊𝙏𝙄𝘾𝙀𝘿   .    rotting  flesh  turned  to  leather  now  so  comfortable  on  her  body  that  the  weight  of  it  no  longer  even  registered  .  it  wasn’t  just  a  uniform  ,  even  if  that’s  what  it  had  been  in  the  beginning                      now  ,  the  face  worn      over      her  own  was  as  much  a  part  of  frances  as  the  god  given  strawberry  blonde  atop  her  head  and  summer  freckles  dotting  her  cheeks  .  donning  the  item  would  surly  be  a  tough  habit  to  break  ,  but  she  would  break  it  nonetheless  .      

      CORALINE BEAMS, SIGNATURE SMILE stitched onto her face as she listens to the other woman talk. alden had warned her not to sneak into the cell, said they still couldn’t trust the masked strangers knocking at their door. but coraline knows that he’s forgetting he was an untrustworthy savior some years back. she was once a lost girl too. “WHOA ! you’re loaded. better not let april know she’s sharing tomatoes with someone else. she’ll be devastated.” she doesn’t mean to let the detail slip; she’s just so used to her daughter being there. she’s not too worried though – this woman came back for her son. april is safe here, even now.

     “yeah, my parents messed up on the birth certificate big time. one mispronunciation and caroline no more !” she teases. it’s different with frances; she’s not mr. bobinsky or miss spink, purposefully mispronouncing the syllables in her identity. “i don’t know about that,” she offers quickly, trying out frances’ name within her own mouth. “i LIKE it.” she wonders if alden and frances will be able to bond over being named outside of their generation, while they took care of the youngest generation at alexandria. “oh ! my sister made it for me. i can ask her to make you one, if you’d like.”

𝙏𝙊𝙊   𝙈𝙐𝘾𝙃   𝙄𝙉𝙁𝙊𝙍𝙈𝘼𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉   𝘼𝙏   𝙊𝙉𝘾𝙀   ,      curious  about  absolutely  all   of  it  ,  but  a  fact  first  ,  before  it  slipped  her  mind  ;      ❛   there  was  a  girl  in  my  class  named  caroline  ,  she  was      awful  ,  always  making  her  eyelids  flip  the  wrong  way  during  lunch  .  ❜  everything  frances  had  seen  and  done  since  those  days  in  the  cafeteria  and  still  the  thought  of  that  prepubescent  crackhead  and  her  wet  inner-lids  sent  shivers  up  her  spine  .  how  hard  would  it  have  been  to  eat  quietly  and  keep  the  inside  of  her  body  on  the  inside  ,  where  it  belonged  ?  hopefully  her  insides  were  outside      permanently      now  ,  just  like  she’d  always  wanted  .

       “YOU MUST BE NEW AROUND HERE.” she knows, of course, that the woman is a recent rescue from the whisperers, snuck in by a member of the hilltop with a bleeding heart for a mother separated from her son. coraline gets it – family makes you do crazy things. she sits down across from the other woman on the floor, careful to give her the space she might need. “i’mcoraline.” 

       she takes a beat here to study the red-headed woman in front of her; they look like they’re the same age. maybe, in another life, they’d have been friends, coraline thinks. maybe they still can be. coraline’s been lost plenty – she recognizes that wild look in her eyes anywhere. she takes a pause, playing with the string bracelet gracie’s recently fashioned for her for a few moments before she speaks again. she doesn’t know how long this woman’s been sitting in here; information takes no time to spread at the hilltop but sneaking in to see the newest refugee had taken longer than she’d planned. “do you need anything ? like, have they given you food ? water ? a washcloth ?”

𝙉𝙀𝙒   .      that  was  one  way  to  put  it  ,  although   unwanted   and   uninvited   were  both  far  more  accurate  .  despite  having  been  allowed  in  frances  wasn’t   quite   delusional  enough  to  believe  anyone  truly  wanted  her  around  ,  and  even  if  she  had  convinced  herself  of  that  fairytale  ,  the  secrecy  she’d  been  asked  to  uphold  surrounding  who  she  was  or  why  she  was  there  would  have  been  enough  to  burst  that  dreamy  bubble  .   on  the  bright  side  ,   frances  was  quick  to  discover  that  being  stripped  of  your  identity  stings  a  lot  less  the  second  time  around  .

         HE’S SAT ON THE GRASS, adam balanced on his lap as he does his best to shovel the liquified mixture of carrots and peas into the toddler’s mouth. he’s stuck doing the job usually reserved for earl, who’s had more than enough practice at the task, and each passing moment of adam giggling and spitting up his food onto his clothes is just another reminder to alden why he’s never tried to take over feeding duty. before he can begin bargaining uselessly with adam again, a shadow settles over them, blocking out the afternoon sun and causing both boys to look in its’ owner’s direction.

         alden’s heart drops when he sees it’sfrances; while she’s not new to the hilltop, alden’s made good on his word to avoid her. he’d almost DIED to protect her son, who’s still bouncing on his lap, currently transfixed with the buttons on his shirt, and he doesn’t regret it for a second. seeing her now, without the mask of another man obscuring her, she’s even younger than alden once thought. she’s barely older than enid was. still, she abandoned her baby at alpha’s glance alone. her people almost killed him. her people murdered his heart.

         he sets down the bowl of mush to pull adam’s hands away from his jacket before he loses another button to the boy’s grip, finally meeting frances’ wide eyes. “if you need something, you’ll have to wait.” he pauses, hesitant to continue as he turns his focus back to adam. he knows why she’s here; he has no excuse to be acting so indifferent. “or you can sit, if you want.”

𝙏𝙍𝙐𝙏𝙃   𝘽𝙀   𝙏𝙊𝙇𝘿   ,      he  wasn’t  all  that  appealing  .  the  little  piggy  nose  ,  the  incessant  and  meaningless  babbling  ,  the  fact  that  90%  of  the  food  meant  for  his  mouth  went  elsewhere                      children  in  general  weren’t  exactly  a      prize      ,     and  the  one  which  had  lifetimes  ago  belonged  to  frances  was  no  different  .          but   he      felt      different  .          he       (   ‘  adam  ’   )       was   somehow  better  than  all  the  rest  ,  a  beautiful  beam  of  light  incomparable  to  anyone  else  .  a  tiny      perfect      person  .  alpha  would  have  said  that  the  way  frances  felt  about  the  little  boy  was  nothing  more  than  nature  making  sure  she  wouldn’t  smother  him  in  his  sleep  ,  but  what  alpha  would  or  wouldn’t  say  was  no  longer  relevant  .

𝘼   𝙒𝘼𝙍𝙈   𝙒𝙀𝙇𝘾𝙊𝙈𝙀   ,      or  anything  even  close  to  one  hadn’t  been  expected  .  when  first  approaching  the  community  frances  knew  she’d  have  a  lot  to  make  up  for  and  that  building  trust  wouldn’t  happen  overnight  ,  but  much  to  her  surprise      most      of  the  people  within  well  guarded  walls  showed  her      kindness      much  faster  than  anticipated  ,  and  those  who  chose  not  to  had  a  perfectly  respectable  reason  .  unfortunately  that  perfectly  respectable  reason  was  exactly  why  she  needed  those  particular  people  to  warm  up  to  the  idea  of  her  being  around  .

; BIG MOOD