Eden Evergreen

‘     you really didn’t notice them?     ‘      helo pressed,  gaze still resting on the scarring of her knuckles,  too prominent to have gone unnoticed on hands.     when his eyes lifted to study her features,  noting the bemused line formed between furrowed brows,  he wondered if perhaps she really didn’t.

@razingeden  /  cont.

eyes    are      strained    ,             brows    furrowed    as    she    tries    to    ignore    the    throbbing    of    her    headache .             but    stubbornness    surfaces .               ❛      it’s    fine    ,             really .             i    got    this .     ❜

❛       careful    !      ❜                hand    moves    out    in    front    of    her    ,             to    stop    her    moving    forward    ,                   eyes    darting    down    to    the    forest    floor .              ❛       there’s    a    root    there .                don’t    trip .      ❜                   /          @razingeden         !

     She raises a brow, but takes note of his warning, stepping more carefully than she had done before. She didn’t have the same problems with the Chancellor’s son that everyone else had - the son should not be punished for his father’s sins and all that - and actually liked him most of the time. A little sheltered, sure, but heart in the good place.

     Leksa remains silent, listening, as the skaiplangona spoke her opinion. Forest hues cast down as callused fingers thrum along the wooden hilted dagger in her lap. A soft hum erupts to signify that she’d been listening. Slowly her posture straightens in her throne of twined branches. Her eyes slowly scrolling back up once the woman had ceased speaking. There is a firm nod of the heda’s head. “ You are wise. ” she acknowledges out loud. “ Perhaps the two of you will be able to convince your people. ” she slowly rise then, dagger slipped away into it’s rightful spot upon her body. “ I do hope negotiations continue to be peaceful. We will see how your people fair with us in close quarters for the time being. A test. ”

meme | send ‘you okay’ to find my muse on the roof | accepting

     She hears the footsteps approaching her before she hears his voice, and she sighs the spell of calm that had fallen over her is broken. She gets up from her lying position, arches and cracks her back, scans the edges of the camp for the guards on watch before turning her head towards him. She considers his question, honestly, and wonders how to answer. Does she spare him the pain of her own inner-turmoil, or does she douse him with it so that someone else may burn with her?

     “Am I okay?” she begins, and turns her head back to the horizon. She couldn’t look at him for long, couldn’t look at another member of the 100 she’d failed, again. Maybe she’d get over that, eventually, but probably not any time soon. “Well, let’s go over the facts; my sister keeps following me around looking for forgiveness and I can’t even look at her or my own reflection anymore - which is so great when you need to get ready in the morning, by the way - you were, you know - so many people, and--and the end of the world is quite literally on the edge of the horizon, and we can’t---we can’t even--.”

    Eden doesn’t know how that sentence is supposed to finish. She can’t concentrate on it because of the lump in her throat, or the way her heart is beating in her chest like it wants to escape - like she wants to escape. It was why she’d come up there, onto the roof of their ‘viable solution’. She’d needed some sort of an escape from the complete mess everything had become. 

          She doesn’t see them as just delinquents, just the lucky few who survived the landing, survived the mountain. No, now when she looked at them all she saw was the faces of her failure. Her astounding, monumental failure, glaringly obvious to anyone smart enough to put the dots together, simple as they were. She, a not-ineffective guard, was sent down to the ground with a hundred criminals, destined for death - why? She wasn’t there as a warden, as some might guess. No, she was supposed to be their guard, their babysitter, their protector, and she’d failed in all of that. She could barely look at them, barely push false niceties through her clenched teeth when ever they questioned her, cornered her. 

          She hissed as her wandering mind took her away from the task at hand, causing her to push a small shard of the shattered mirror in her room further into her knuckle. It was late, and no one was supposed to be awake, bar the guards on duty and she could easily avoid them even on her worst day. Which is what she was doing on her worst day, so far. She knew there could always be worse to come. And, as her gaze was drawn upwards to the now open door to the medical supply closet, worse had just arrived.

        Back on the Ark, Eden had never found it difficult to admit her own mistakes. She may deny her larger issues, but the little things she did day to day, fuck ups at work - she owned those. She knew to take responsibility for what she did wrong and to fix what she could. But this mistake? She couldn’t really take responsibility for the evils that were wrought upon the 100 -- no, it was less now, wasn’t it? Another mistake to add, perhaps - inside the mountain. 

        How was she to know that they’d be abducted? How was she to know that there were survivors not only above the ground, but beneath it as well, watching their every move? Well, she had known someone was watching them, and she supposes knowing those people were no more should bring her some small comfort but --- no, there were no more comforts for her, no more of her ‘usual way’ to get out of being the responsible ‘adult’ she was supposed to be when they first landed. 

        She failed them, her delinquents. She’d failed them and there was no fixing this, and so she was just running away from it, from them. Or at least she tried to anyway.

after the tactless words this girl had given her, on first impression, first meeting, regards to things she knew nothing of, luna was not impressed or readily willing to entertain her by giving her time. if it was the breath she took she would ensure a person with thoughts such as hers, was never touched with her blood. call it service to the world. luna didn’t have to look closely to see darkness in her, and usually she was empathetic to such things, but she was in no mood given the circumstances where her bones ached and her veins felt dry. she stood there before this girl and she kept her eyes directly on hers as she spoke. “then you will have no quarrels with stepping outside and letting the door seal behind you.” luna tells her, because if she distracted raven from her work or herself from the rest she was trying to get, it wouldn’t be luna that she was dealing with. 

had she not noticed that they would stop at nothing to survive, put a bullet in this girl’s head for breathing if she hindered their work here? right now, luna wasn’t entertaining her. had this been prior to the loss of all that she cared about then maybe she would have asked the child about her feelings.  not with the ugliness that had already come out of her mouth while luna sat in silence and prayer for her clan, her children. her eyes darted to john, knowing he was witnessing, to raven clenching her fist where she worked. “right now there is no fence for you. change my mind or don’t.” she didn’t move, because her presence would make the other move, and even with her bumping past her shoulder, luna merely moved herself silently to the other end of the lab to pick a new place to climb up and sit on the counter space, where her eyes could close and whispers could return to raven’s ear. 

    Eden hadn’t come into the room looking for a fight. Or at least, not intentionally. She’d ignored the constant thrumming in her veins, the insomnia; she’d taken walks to get rid of the excess energy she constantly had. Check the perimeter, check the rations, check the fuel, check the weapons they hadn’t needed since they got to the island. Shower, and shower again until her skin was rubbed raw; shower with the water boiling hot, shower with it freezing cold. Punch the bathroom mirror in, hide the evidence, wrap her own wounds.

   She didn’t want to be wanting a fight, but she needed something, anything, that would make her heart stop beating so loudly in her chest, something that would calm the incessant whispers in the corners of her mind. The woman who had become the unfortunate outlet of her anger had lost her tribe, her family, barely days, weeks ago. If anyone else should have been wanting something to hit, someone to blame it should have been her. But no, the grounder was calm, stoic and poised. It aggravated Eden as she watched the woman move away from her provocation and back into her fucking meditation. 

   Why can’t you forgive me? 

   Eden had to leave the room. Her breath came out harshly, but she refused to show any cracks, any weaknesses to someone who was holding it together so much better than she was. Her hand shook, and she threw it into the wall beside her, not thinking of the audience she had. She breathed again and walked out of the room, and out of the lab, tried to make it look like she wasn’t running away.