(no subject)
Once again the plot bunny has bit me and I was forced, forced I tell you! To spend some of my four hours in school today writing this little number. The characters once again belong to Cobalt Violet. (Except for Adaline, though she is related to Violet's character) Ah! but, enjoy!! And leave me a review!!
Title: What's in a Home?
Rating: PG 13 (for blood and death)
Summary: Sinn thinks back, and wonders where he belongs now that his family is gone.
He went back to Egypt every year because it called to him. The sandy, sun-so-bright-it-could-eat-you country constantly tried to reach out and grab him.
It constantly tried to drag him back.
So every year he let the hands grasp him, take him. Once the school term ended the clawing fingers held at bay by his will during the year latched onto him; clinging. And did not let go.
His will was worn out by then, stretched taunt, too thin from its yearly use of holding back the fingers. The yearning.
He broke. He always broke.
It’s not that Egypt was home, (though he supposed it had been once before it happened).
Now he didn’t have a home, just a place that held him and a place that would not let him go.
He remembers his life in Egypt, fragmented memories that he can’t completely grasp; that slide like sand just out of his reach and into the vastness of the ocean. Impossible to place one grain of sand for another.
The first memory he pictures is absurdidly happy.
(How could he have been that happy? He can’t even imagine.)
It is a simple memory, flashes of bright light fading the picture in and out. As if the sun was glaring at him; shining in his eyes trying to block his view.
(you can’t watch this you’ll ruin it. Disgusting thing! You have no right)
It is his sister radiantly smiling, she is so happy swinging him by his little hands down the market streets in Alexandria her white skirt billowing curling, caressing around her; kissing her legs.
He can see her so clearly (all black cascading curls, dimples, and warm eyes), though his younger self is not facing her. He wonders how this possible, how can he see her?
His curse gift.
They are laughing as they shuffle down the street, kicking up sand with their bare feet with every step.
She pauses by a fruit stand and buys an apple. Then she bends down to scoop him up from where he’d settled himself to play in the hot sand that the street was composed of. In her arms he feels bursting happiness, blinding smiles are exchanged - There is too much sunlight.
The bright-eyed, flushed, happy faced six year old tugs her hair, and a burst of laughter erupts.
“Kay!”
The sun is glaring bright and hot and eating him.
Another memory. This one is not happy.
(The sun does not try to block his vision. ‘He deserves what he sees’ it says. ‘He deserves it.’)
There is fire and screaming and it is scathingly hot. The smell of burnt flesh is on the air.
The child is running, stumbling. Sand caked in his mouth and eyes, settling in clumps in his hair and grounding in his cuts. It collects in his clothes; holding him down, trying to drown him. He trips scrapes his hands and knees (again), chokes on smoke, and looks up.
Everything is burning. His home is on fire, walls collapsing, smoke billowing in the air, the sand mixing in the flames, and the sun is burning, burning above;
Still smiling.
(Watch)
He hadn’t been there when it happened, he’d been building model castles with the sand in the courtyard that was hidden by the trees. Now he stumbles to the gaping hole, where the door had been to his home. He can’t see, but he knows.
“Mama!” She’s gone, the smell confirms this. (she had been locked inside the house and burnt alive)
There is a flash of blinding green light, so insanely bright; it imprints itself onto the insides of his eyelids so he sees it when he blinks.
And for a second his heart stops.
Stumbling around the side of the house he sees them.
The stuff his nightmares are made of.
His father is lying in front of them twitching. Their masked leering faces do nothing to muffle the laughter. His sister is on her side outside the circle. Her dress is redder then white now and she is not moving.
And he has seen this so he knows what comes next. Yet he does not close his eyes. (Punishment for knowing)
Green lights up around him, accenting the shadows, bringing out the masks, and making his hair stand on end.
And suddenly, despite the heat of the fire burning around him, it is numbingly cold and heartbreakingly quiet.
His papa is dead; eyes open to nothingness; to fire.
His sister is rolled over and kicked. And Kay watches as they hurt her, defile her, because he’s seen when he steps in and it is not now. (He cannot interfere; he is too small, too weak)
Pathetic how he can see these things yet can’t stop them.
They leave her there to bleed out; to die. (The house is dying behind him).
They pat each other’s backs as if - ‘Good job, good job you did great’ - it’s some game they’ve won; undefeated! ‘Did you see how I hit him. Did you hear her scream?’
The world is dizzy, narrowed down to his sister. He barely makes it to her side before one of them looks back and grabs him.
“Oh look, a little kid!”
He’s kicked and beaten, but there is no Green light. (no salvation, no blindness)
And he knows they will leave him bleeding and broken and dying on the ground.
Choking on his blood but not crying.
He does not deserve to cry. He does not have that right.
He crawls to his sister, and she opens her dark, dark eyes. (lashes fluttering.) A shaky arm wraps around him pulling him close to her, red clings to red. An even shakier smile dances across pretty pale lips.
“…Kay….”
The world fades to black.
His punishment is to live.
Enough of the memories. Because memories are just that. No need to revisit something that has already happened.
The past is frozen; you cannot change it. (or bring it back to life).
Still Sinn sometimes finds himself dwelling. Just during that quiet time of day when everything is still and the sun shines just right, reflecting off the crystals that sit on the tables (that were set up for his class the following day).
Sinn sits and reflects as the dust passes through selected shafts of light, leaving the rest of the room to live in grey shadow.
It is dusk.
“Sinn?” He looks to his right, towards the trap door that the students used to enter the tower if they chose not to go through the door; or if they were more daring than the average bear. Mars was half way out, his feet still standing on the second to the top ladder rung.
Silence.
“I was just worried because you didn’t show up at Annie’s for dinner like planned.” Mars was strangely subdued as if he knew the ambiance of the room didn’t wish to be disturbed.
Sinn turned back towards the window.
“I was thinking.” He replied quietly. A hand rested itself hesitantly on his shoulder, Sinn stiffened for a moment (a suspicious cat) then relaxed.
Wryly: “You must have been deep in thought to have missed supper.” There is worry and perhaps a little accusation in the tone of Mars’ voice.
“I was thinking about Egypt.” ‘About Adaline.’ But Sinn doesn’t say that part because Mars doesn’t know he has a sister - Mars doesn’t even know his first name.
“Ah Egypt, the world’s sandbox. You know, you still haven’t really talked about it.”
“What’s there to talk about - I go every year.”
“Exactly! You’d think there’d be something to talk about.” Ah, the every energetic nosy attitude Mars had was back, the grey, dim thoughtful atmosphere was broken.
“Egypt is just as I told you: Sandy and with Pyramids.”
“If it’s so boring why do you go back?” Mars asked dropping his hand and leaning against the window frame. Pushing his ponytail over his shoulder he raised and inquiring eyebrow.
That is the question. Sinn mused.
“It was my home for awhile,” he paused thinking before hesitantly continuing, “I suppose I go back to see if it still is.” Mars tilted his head and looked at Sinn for a moment.
“Was your home? What happened?” Sinn broke eye contact to look over Mars’ shoulder.
“I grew up. And when you grow up you have to go out and make your own home.”
“Yet you visit.” Mars was annoying persistant and Sinn knew he suspected something.
“I don’t have any family out there if that’s what you’re asking, now drop it. Hogwarts is where I am now and Egypt is where-“
..I..belong?
“So Hogwarts is your home?” Mars asked after Sinn fell quiet.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then where is it?” The hand was back on his shoulder, and Sinn gave it a glance, then turned to glare at Mars.
“I..I don’t suppose I have one.” Damn him for making me flustered, Sinn thought. (It’s the touching.)
“Of course you do!” The arm was now using Sinn’s head as an armrest, ruffling his hair.
“Oh really, enlighten me if you think your so smart.” Sinn pushed Mars’ arm off his head, and Mars walked around him, dropped to his knees in front of him and put his hands on the Divinations teacher’s knees. Looking into his eyes he quietly said:
“Your home doesn’t have to be a place Sinn. People can be your home,” A pause and something changed in Mars’ eyes in his countenance, and as that change occurred something lightened in Sinn’s stomach. “Your friends are your home Sinn,” Another pause and Mars seemed to steel himself, “I could.. I am your home.”
A smile lit up Mars face as he said this and Sinn bypassed the voice inside that was screaming: ‘Too close! Too close!’ He realized, and returned a smile to Mars, that the sports teacher was exactly right.
I do have a home.