hai mươi ❀| you get a shiver in the dark
[It's late afternoon on Beaver Street, and Vietnam is collapsed in the hallway of 1762 in a deep red, shimmering pool of her own blood. There's an obscene path of it smeared and streaked behind her, trailing from the kitchen to the living room up to where she's stopped. Blood stains the carpet and some of the walls; it permeates the tiles of the kitchen floor, turning a deep carmine.
This is as far as she was able to drag herself. She's stopped now, and is lying on her side, one hand over the exit wound on her left side, in her lower ribs. There's blood running down her chin, in her hair, seeping out from between her fingers.
She doesn't look sad, or scared- she mostly looks angry. Furious. The least that Kakyoin could have done was finish her off; to leave her to die prone in her own blood like some filthy dog is a direct assault to her dignity, to her honor, to her deep-seated sense of pride. She is Việt Nam. She is the land of the dragon people, the ones descended from gods. She is the nation who struggled and fought for independence and identity; she is the one who contains within her both the harsh, unrelenting flood and the soothing sunlight that follows. She is a nation who has endured an insurmountable amount of bloodshed, of war, of death all around her- but she is no longer a nation here. She is human now, just as the humans who fought and died for her before. She is worth more than this; she is worth more than bleeding out in America's house of all places, and yet that is exactly what is happening right now.
Kakyoin has dishonored her, and in doing so he has dishonored her people. For that, he will pay dearly. Her eyes harden, her glare fixated on the ceiling light, the only place she has the strength to focus on.
She had tried to leave the house- dying even on the lawn is, in her opinion, preferable to dying in here surrounded by false photographs and all-too-real memories of America- but she seems to have resigned herself to her place now, as she can't bring herself to move another inch. She just wants it to be over; she wants to be able to open her eyes again tomorrow morning and be whole and uninjured once more. And then... Noriaki Kakyoin will be dealt with.
Right now, she just wants to die before America finds her.]
Bác Hồ... Tôi sẽ gặp bạn sớm.
[Vietnam knows that she won't see him, her venerated uncle- that death doesn't free anyone in Mayfield. There is nothing so kind as soft enfolding darkness here. But simply saying it is comforting in its own way. She breathes shallowly and thinks of warm rain, of summer storms, of water flowing through the Đồng Bằng Sông Hồng, of the roar of the ocean and the limestone peaks of Hà Nội, of shimmering black night and the scent of the jungle just before sunrise, when everything in it is waking up to face a new day. This brings her mind back into focus; perhaps she'll have a few more minutes yet.
She's not America; she's not afraid of dying.
Or that's what she tells herself.]
[ooc; Hover above the Vietnamese text for translations.]
This is as far as she was able to drag herself. She's stopped now, and is lying on her side, one hand over the exit wound on her left side, in her lower ribs. There's blood running down her chin, in her hair, seeping out from between her fingers.
She doesn't look sad, or scared- she mostly looks angry. Furious. The least that Kakyoin could have done was finish her off; to leave her to die prone in her own blood like some filthy dog is a direct assault to her dignity, to her honor, to her deep-seated sense of pride. She is Việt Nam. She is the land of the dragon people, the ones descended from gods. She is the nation who struggled and fought for independence and identity; she is the one who contains within her both the harsh, unrelenting flood and the soothing sunlight that follows. She is a nation who has endured an insurmountable amount of bloodshed, of war, of death all around her- but she is no longer a nation here. She is human now, just as the humans who fought and died for her before. She is worth more than this; she is worth more than bleeding out in America's house of all places, and yet that is exactly what is happening right now.
Kakyoin has dishonored her, and in doing so he has dishonored her people. For that, he will pay dearly. Her eyes harden, her glare fixated on the ceiling light, the only place she has the strength to focus on.
She had tried to leave the house- dying even on the lawn is, in her opinion, preferable to dying in here surrounded by false photographs and all-too-real memories of America- but she seems to have resigned herself to her place now, as she can't bring herself to move another inch. She just wants it to be over; she wants to be able to open her eyes again tomorrow morning and be whole and uninjured once more. And then... Noriaki Kakyoin will be dealt with.
Right now, she just wants to die before America finds her.]
Bác Hồ... Tôi sẽ gặp bạn sớm.
[Vietnam knows that she won't see him, her venerated uncle- that death doesn't free anyone in Mayfield. There is nothing so kind as soft enfolding darkness here. But simply saying it is comforting in its own way. She breathes shallowly and thinks of warm rain, of summer storms, of water flowing through the Đồng Bằng Sông Hồng, of the roar of the ocean and the limestone peaks of Hà Nội, of shimmering black night and the scent of the jungle just before sunrise, when everything in it is waking up to face a new day. This brings her mind back into focus; perhaps she'll have a few more minutes yet.
She's not America; she's not afraid of dying.
Or that's what she tells herself.]
[ooc; Hover above the Vietnamese text for translations.]