she's a rainbow

Ophelia watched the girl’s fingers idle at her neck, too distracted to catch anything that came out of her mouth. Ophelia was hungry too, but not that kind of hungry, the way Rue was. She could almost smell the desperation off the girl’s breath. Ophelia’s ravenous belly craved something a little bit more different than that of your typical meal. Catching the last few words of her thoughts, Ophelia responded, “Let me see what I can do.” After all, if she helped Rue out now, Rue could help her out later. But, maybe in a different way. She headed off towards the bobbies, nodding out at Rue to follow her. Her stride held up with confidence and perhaps, arrogance.

“Wha - ?” Rue’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates and her jaw went slack for the smallest moment before leaping forward, after the other woman, and yanking her back by the arm. “Have you gone absolutely round the bend? They’ll kill you and not think twice about it! You’re just a nasty old Wastrel, remember?” The bobbies were always vicious, but the joy made them ... terrifying. Remorseless. Laughing as they battered you to death. “A few apples aren’t worth it. Being hungry is better than being dead.” Is it?

His attention and his interest are piqued in tandem at the promise of a fight, though it is a halfhearted one, and one that wishes to avoid that which gives he and his boys such a delight. Gideon hops from his perch atop the wall behind, darting across the street so as not to be spotted; they would have little time to act - and how he loved to jump to action. “Two on five ain’t the best odds, still,” he muses aloud; if only the other Plough Boys had come along this morning, “But I’m a dreamer. You got anything to trade, otherwise? They’re stingy bastards, but no one can turn down a good deal.”

“I don’t think the bobbies would consider trading with a Downer,” she replies, a bit half-heartedly, glancing downwards at her torn, bedraggled clothing, the flowers woven into every rip and tear, “Isn’t the Village supposed to have everything you’d need anyway?” Eyes stay fixed, now, on the distant blue uniforms; they look more dull than she’d remembered before she left Wellington Wells proper. “I don’t remember what it looked like without the joy. They say it’s not much different, but I don’t know how much I believe them anymore. They said the Garden District wasn’t that bad off, too. But ‘m starving. Are you?” With that last question, she tosses a glance to the man, eyeing the parts of his leather jacket she’s sure shined, once upon a time.

Ophelia was in a hurry to move it along and ignore the morning rush of people as the beginning of twilight twinkled before the sunrise. The fog outside may be clearing up, but the one in their heads sure wasn’t going away. Her eyes ran over the district, nearly destroyed and in shambles before she laid her eyes on a girl blocking her path. She drew her eyes toward the Red Bobbies in front of their precious apple tree and rolled her eyes. Who could possibly be craving an apple when there was such a thing as yams? Peak season had just ended, but Ophelia had more than enough to share. Characterized by their yellow flesh and purple skin, her yams were her most prized possession and whoever came within the presence of them should consider themselves lucky. Ophelia has sworn her life and devotion to her precious sweet potatoes. “What could you possibly trade for apples?” She asked, genuinely curious, her eyes fixated on the girl’s bare neck. 

“Honey, maybe? One of the men at the old pub says he can make a wine from histopasma mushrooms. Maybe they’d go for that,” she muses lightly, fingers twitching by her side, by the soft flesh of her neck, longing for something, anything, in her belly. The youngest ones in the House are the first to have their rations cut. Rue is no different. “They just have so many. There must be so much more food in the Village. What can they possibly need a whole apple tree out here for, anyway?” It was days like this she wondered if she had done the right thing, leaving town and coming out to live among the flowers. She supposed she could go back at any point, really. If she decided to take her joy again.

But the Leader said it was poison, and she was better off without it. The Leader is always right. Even though her stomach doesn’t agree at the moment.

She stares longingly at the greenery just beyond the bars and uniforms; the House ran out of fresh produce last week, and so all they can do for the time being is imagine how the apples would taste. Scratching absently at one side of her neck, Rue hears the gentle shuffle of feet behind her -- she’d left just as the fog was clearing, and in only minutes the dirt paths would be as bustling as they get -- and begins to speak out loud to no one in particular. It’s a trademark of the Garden District, it seems. “Do you think they’d trade for anything?” she asks, referring to the bobbies who stand watch at the apple tree, “I don’t think I could fight all five of them alone.”