|
|
Post by ksenia on Jan 13, 2011 1:04:58 GMT -6
 -----------------------------------------------------------JANUARY, 2012. EARLY AFTERNOON. VALKYRIE PARK.
[/size] -----------------------------------------------------------[/color][/center] - - - IT WAS ODD, [/b][/font] being back in valkyrie. despite being gone for less than two years, it still felt unnatural. like she was walking in a dream. so much had changed, in both her and the town she used to call home. walking through the streets of valkyrie, it felt like a haze. nothing was like it had been. thousands injured, hundreds dead, and a city in ruins. it was amazing how much damage an hour of shaking could do. tragic, but amazing. horrid, but astonishing. if the bus driver hadn't specifically said they were arriving at the valkyrie bus terminal, she wouldn't have believed she were back. only the highest points remained unharmed. the untouchables that polluted valkyrie's inner circle had, as always, gone without a scratch. everything else, however, was in shambles. she had spent the first couple of days back doing nothing but wandering the streets, taking in every detail. it couldn't of happened. not here, not in her town. her home. everything felt too different. that was all she could think of as she wandered through the streets of valkyrie, california. she'd left jamie early that morning, scratching a note about meeting her mother for breakfast or something. he probably wouldn't read it, anyway. he'd been passed out on the couch when she slipped from their dank little motel room, fighting to wake. but he wouldn't. she knew that. when her partner was experiencing one of the nightmares he denied he had, he had to wake-up on his own. that was the trap - whatever he saw didn't shock him into consciousness. it kept him there, secured in his own mind. it'd become a habit to leave whenever she saw him having one. sitting there, watching as he clearly struggled, was paralyzing. she hated to see people she cared about in pain, at all. but when she could do nothing? no. just no. you can't even say anything when he finally snapped into consciousness. he denied these night terrors more than he denied anything. fucking frustrating. and there's little you can make excuses for when you wake up ten feet from the couch, slick with a cold sweat, and your blanket twisted around you twice. he stilled managed to, of course. she had long learned to pretend nothing happened. the minute she'd open her mouth, he would retaliate and they would get into one of many heated discussions. arguments, fights. that's what she called them. he insisted on calling them heated discussions. whatever they were, they always ended with ksenia ditching out and jamie beating another part of the wall. or some poor guy on the street. more than once, jamie had returned to their motel room, toting along some beaten and bloody victim. she had stopped getting involved with jamie's issues. you know why? because it happened the same every single time. read up again. that's what happens. the more often you pry, the worse the wall looks. if she hung around that morning, chances were he'd come back arrested. one day. so the only viable option is to disappear for awhile. and she'd been disappearing into the streets, exploring the damages. this couldn't be her town. her home. it just couldn't. it was an awkward thought, thinking of valkyrie, california as her home. her town. she had lived in europe for far longer. she'd even been in keizer for longer. yet, something about the charming setting made it feel like home. maybe because the three years spent here, nothing had happened. she'd won friendships, lost friendships, grew as a person. but nothing actually happened. no mafia discoveries. no pregnant ex-best friends. none of that. up until the time she was approached by her relatives about this new life of hers, nothing had happened. and that would be why it was so painful to see valkyrie in such a desperate, damaged state. it was not this perfect escape from reality anymore. her blue eyes scanned the cracked sidewalks as she passed. she crossed her arms as she watched, a grim expression expanding over her pale face. it was awkward thinking of valkyrie as her home, yes. but it was even more uncomfortable seeing, first hand, at what her home looked like. just the helplessness of some of the people as she walked by them. like they didn't know what to do with themselves. some had lost everything, others lost almost nothing. but it didn't matter. the quake had shaken the city as a whole, including all of its residents. as she wandered through valkyrie, not quite knowing where she was going, everyone she came upon had that same look to them - broken, and not quite sure how to fix it. look at valkyrie. it was broken, but who the hell knew where to start. something was missing here, yet it still felt like her home. scanning her surroundings, everything looked the same. just as beaten down as the building before. but it was still valkyrie, somewhere. she knew that. she sighed. softly. it felt good to be home, but part of her didn't want to come. she found out she was assigned back to valkyrie the very day of the earthquake. so, when the plane landed and she followed jamie onto the bus, she saw the news cast. the earthquake had altered her entire perspective on the situation. jamie had taught her to expertly prioritize. this was a family-related matter that could turn ugly very easily, not a visit home. but upon arrival at the bus terminal, and making her first stop her parent's home, that all changed. she, instead, found herself focusing on thinking of old friends and aquaintences. if they were okay. who had been affected, or who wasn't even in town at the time. everything she had initially wanted to avoid was now plauging her every thought. how nice. she sighed again. it would feel heartless to just distance herself from her parents now that she'd extended the white glove, but that's what jamie would tell her to do. he would eventually, she knew. but the longer he left it, the more conflicted she was growing. yes, she was here to do a job. but no, she couldn't just leave her home when it was in such shambles. fuck this. kicking at a rock on the sidewalk, ksenia pushed her hands into her pockets. jamie had a point, why he became the master of pushing things to the back of his mind. there was no way he could function if he was conflicted like this. the shit he'd be conflicted over made her issues look like nothing. and here she was, unable to see where she's going because she couldn't decide what to focus on. well, neither of the connolly twins had made a move. let's focus on her home. okay, cool. let's do that. decision made. until she got back to the motel and jamie attacked her again. whatever. she blinked in the sunlight, which had unexpectedly brightened her environment. the sun had barely risen when she'd left. now it was arching in the sky. for just how long had she been wandering around, thinking about nothing useful? hours? days? there were more people around her, many more. out living their lives like they had been all along. the time for looking defeated is saved for late evening and early morning. people had moved on for the day by now. i guess it's time to, as well. she sighed. again. her blue eyes told her that she'd managed to wander from her motel, a dingy little building in the middle of the shaks, up to the public park, which was somewhere near main street. a half-hour drive without traffic. she'd definitely been gone for much longer than she'd anticipated. and jamie was clearly still fighting himself, because she had yet to recieve a phone call or angry text. her rubber shoes crunching on the cool grass, ksenia wandered into the central of the park, mildly watching the running children and guardian parents. it was amazing what a little sunlight did. everything seemed more alive now that people were out living, despite their shambled surroundings. the park looked fine, though. it seemed less real here. she liked it. she smiled lightly, walking up behind a dark-haired little girl with some seriously startling eyes. pausing, she tilted her head to the side. she looked familiar, her laugh sounded like an echo in ksenia's memory. but really? now of all places? she'd done so much to distance herself from her old life. she stopped behind the bench, not wanting to go any closer. she hadn't seen carly sutton in over a year. a year and a half now, i guess. ever since she'd gone to moscow, she hadn't contacted her old friend and their colorful history. it got easier with time. but seeing her here, in the flesh, was nothing but taunting. jamie firmly told her to forget she ever had a life outside of russia. that's easy enough to do when you never had a life outside of russia, like captain orders over at their motel room. the heavens, or whoever, had a seriously fucked up version of karma. shoving her heart back into her chest, ignoring the pounding in her head, ksenia took a few steps closer. she played that same mild smile, hands casually pushed into her short's pockets. "this must be lily." okay good. that sounded a lot better than she felt. and she felt pretty damn terrible.[/size][/blockquote] ----------------------------------------------------------- STATUS, complete.
TAGGED, carly !
LENGTH, 1588 words.
ATTIRE, far left, black flip flops.
NOTES, ahh, i didn't know how to end it.
CREDITS, format and graphics to me.
lyrics to massive attack - "pray for rain"
[/blockquote] |
|
|
|
Post by caroline isabelle sutton on Jan 14, 2011 17:47:27 GMT -6
 VALKYRIE, CALIFORNIA, VALKYRIE PARK, MORNING, JANUARY 2012[/font][/center] -----valkyrie, california was in shambles. anyone with half a brain could see that this wasn’t the way a town should look or even how a town should feel. everywhere you went there was a kind of tangible desperation and depression that you could practically feel with your fingers had you put them up in the air. everywhere you went there were sad faces and even sadder stories. some of the things that had happened to people. you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemies at the highest point of your anger. the things that had happened and the things people had seen were written all over their faces. all of it, everyone’s reactions and emotions, couldn’t help but make carly feel lucky. for one thing she hadn’t been here at the time of the quake. the whole idea that she even could have been here gave her the chills. what if she’d been here? what if she’d died? what if lily had gotten hurt? all of those what ifs put her on edge. they frazzled her nerves. even though it hadn’t happened, the possibility that it could have? carly talked to her parents almost on a daily basis. she talked to her valkyrie friends on a daily basis and for the longest time they’d been begging her to come back. what if she had? what if she hadn’t been putting it off because her dance career was going so well? now it was like no problem at all. she could drop everything and come back now that something had gone wrong but when everything was fine with the world she had great reservations for leaving. she had to hope that los angeles could offer the same kind of dance career. but the second thing carly felt lucky for was the fact that no one she loved had gotten hurt or been lost. she’d had to attend a few funerals since coming back but it wasn’t anyone she had a big emotional tie to like her family or regan. she was lucky to have gotten out relatively unscathed for someone who hadn’t been in the quake and she was thankful for it. she was super grateful that she didn’t have to bury anyone close to her or sit at someone’s bedside hoping that they’ll wake up from damage done such a short time ago. she honestly didn’t know how other people could do it. how they could pull the dead body of their friends or family members from the rubble and still go on breathing. it was truly something to be admired even in such a trying time.
-----carly had yet to be tested in that way. and no, she didn’t believe in some higher power up there who was angry and vengeful enough to throw the worst at a person in order to see how they would come out in the end and whether or not it would make them a stronger person or just make them angry and bitter. carly wasn’t sure what she believed as far as higher powers went. heck maybe she didn’t even believe in them. what she did believe was that certain events happened at certain times. earthquakes occurred more often than people seemed to recognize it was just the ones where a population was located that seemed to be the worst. people had only a short time on the face of the earth and there were some instances when those times wound down for people who were familiar to others, making it seem like to one person everyone was dropping like flies around them. people sometimes didn’t do their job to the best of their ability of unforeseen circumstances come sweeping through leaving a large chunk of people jobless and in financial disarray. was that all the work of one person? carly didn’t think so. it didn’t so much seem to be like a series of coincidences either but then again that wasn’t where her expertise lay. carly was a dancer. she moved to beats of music and she entertained for a living, something that could be as fleeting as everyone else’s’ job. she knew that though she was popular amongst casting agents and though she was in the spotlight for now, one wrong move or one move too many or too few could change everything. she could be overexposed or underexposed. she could do something scandalous and be caught in that by paparazzi like, oh, say making out with someone behind a seedy bar she used to work at though she was then and still to this day, underage?
-----yeah there were a lot of things that had the potential to go wrong in her life and so far carly had been blessed in some way to not have to handle that all at once. not to say she hadn’t faced something like that before. for a girl of only twenty, she had experienced a lot that she would have rather not. she would have loved growing up as just another normal kid who lived out a normal teenage life before getting out of school and really getting into the heavy weight of the real world. bring it on. she would have loved that. but carly figured that since she’d experienced trying times at a young age and had come through them with a mature attitude, that maybe, just maybe, she could handle any obstacles in her later life with the same kind of civility and grace. after all not many hormonal, not to mention pregnant, teenage girls could sit around quietly while her peers practically put her in the stocks. she had been hurt, physically and emotionally, poked and prodded, bitched out and spat upon, and yet here she was no worse for wear. she was stronger, she had less of a tolerance for bullshit, and overall she felt like it made things nowadays easier to cope with. but who knows. she’d hit a golden streak as of late what with getting her daughter back, winning a dance competition, and becoming famous, so she hadn’t recently had a lot to complain about. her family had been spared in the quake and their new, humble shak home was currently under construction. she honestly had little to complain about, and so she didn’t. carly was thankful for all that she had. she would attest to that. there were very few lows in her life nowadays and the only ones of those were just pertaining to some of the opportunities she’d had to leave behind in order to come back. how many people could really say that was all they were sorry about?
-----she had been one of the lucky ones. she knew that, she wasn’t shy about it, and she knew that after everything with herself and her family was taken care of that she owed it to the people of the city she loved to try and make a statement. everywhere she looked as she walked down the street hand in hand with lily, she saw places that needed to be fixed, businesses that needed a helping hand, and people that needed the basic necessities of life. some might wonder if it was a good idea to subject a small child to such things, but believe it or not lily had seen a lot in new york. it was hard to hide a child from the evils of the world in such a cramped city, but carly did everything she could to let her see what there was around her while giving her the kind of mindset that “yes this is unpleasant but when i get older i can do things to help people like this and make them happy again.” it was the motto carly tried to live by and lily would grow up in the same atmosphere. so yes times were hard and lily saw that. but she was the resilient kind of child who could see someone asleep on the sidewalk and cover them with their jacket. she was a good kid and the things she saw didn’t seem to have a tenancy to mess with her head. they reached the park quickly and lily headed off to the playground to play with the other children, leaving carly in the dust to go find a shady tree to sit under. it was amazing how untouched the park seemed to be really. it looked here like the quake had never happened and with the exception of a few tent houses that had been erected for people without homes, this place looked like it always had. carly had been so absorbed in looking around the park that she’d almost missed out on the one familiar face she could actually pick out in this crowd. a face she hadn’t seen in what felt like years. at that same time lily came running back to her and carly scooped her up into her arms, looking over at the blond who had seemingly dropped off the face of the planet. ”yeah this is lily.” carly said with a bit of a furrowed brow. lily hugged her close, ever silent as she looked over at ksenia. ”lily this is ksenia. she was a friend of mommy’s. say hi?” lily gave her a little smile and a finger wave despite still clutching at her mother’s neck. carly put her back down and pointed her to the play set. ”go on and keep playing. i’ll call you when it’s time to go.” lily bounded off to the play set and carly straightened, turning back to ksenia. ”so how was space? or the black hole? or whatever place it was you disappeared to?”
--------------------------------------------------------
status • finished
words • 1649.
tagged • ksenly !
clothes • clicky !
notes • --.
[/font][/blockquote][/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify] |
|
|
|
Post by ksenia on Jan 26, 2011 0:56:27 GMT -6
 -----------------------------------------------------------JANUARY, 2012. EARLY AFTERNOON. VALKYRIE PARK.
[/size] -----------------------------------------------------------[/color][/center] - - - SHE TRIED NOT [/b][/font] to think about it. think about what? everything. the moment ksenia fell slave to her wandering mind, the moment everything would go south. very, very south. like...alabama south, where you sleep with your brother and sister and don't have any teeth. the moment she thought about anything, she would lose her grip on everything. that's the only way she had managed to get through the last eighteen months. compartmentalize; focus on the task at hand; forget everything - all very long lectures provided by jamie collins. she had done just that. it'd taken awhile, but it became natural over time. anything that made her heart ache, she taught herself to forget. ignore it. pretend it never happened. that's the way people stay safe. that's the way you stay focussed. that's the way you don't lose control. honestly, she spent more time not thinking about anything than...well, anything. it was a task that required constant attention. forget. ignore it. pretend it never happened. you have to. or you lose control, and everything falls apart. see, control quickly became a very important thing. with this new life, everything she did had to be pristine, perfect. no mistakes. you have to take a situation, assess it and react upon the facts. you can't let anything get in the way of that. if it weren't that way, she knew, jamie's body count would be vastly different. the people he would kill would be vastly different. if she, ksenia, ever lost her control, all the people she loved would die. no mistakes, remember. and how do you make no mistakes? control. total and complete control. over the situation, the people, and especially yourself. at the end of it, control was everything. nothing else really mattered anymore. it couldn't. if she could not maintain that perfect control, there would be nothing for nothing else to really matter. the people she loved, that was the only thing that mattered now. one wrong move, and the people in her life could easily be erased. dancing with the devil - her own devil, or the enemy devil, it didn't matter. that's what her life was now. and if someone she loved got hurt on account of her, who could live with that? it's all a vicious game that she'd always have to play. call it quits, someone dies. mess up, someone dies. the only way to keep playing, is to maintain that control. that's what it all comes down to. which, you can understand, is why these moments of peace were few and far between. it kept her up at night, worrying about the well-being of her loved ones. even the ones she hadn't spoken to in almost two years. she thought of them often. everyday, the temptation to just pick up the phone was there. pick it up, dial a familiar number, say she wasn't dead. apologize. she wanted to do that, even now. the earthquake was the only reason she'd let her parents back into her life. it was something that couldn't go ignored. as much as jamie protested, as much as everyone she dealt with told her it was a bad idea...none of it mattered. she wouldn't wait for a memo to tell them they were alive; she wasn't going to read their names in the newspaper. it's the confirmation that they're okay that allows one of these rare moments - peace. no dark hauntings lurking in the back of her mind, torturing her with the thoughts that someone could have died, just because she fucked up. it's a vicious circle within that vicious game. the obsession with control, the obsession over her loved one's well-beings...it made the peace all the more valued. she just knew it wouldn't last forever. not even close. she knew the circuit by now. the only times of quiet peace were when she knew someone was safe. the moments, the day, following that. but then something new would happen - it always did - and she would be back at square one. that's the way of the life, jamie taught her. but nothing new had happened, not yet. jamie had somehow managed to make the big bad bosses believe they were in valkyrie to stay. and since he can do whatever the hell he'd like, they bent and broke it to make it work. assignments came to them. targets were changed. responsibilities were more local, less dangerous. she didn't mind; pissed him right off. the past several weeks had been a nice change, something more routine. and her partner was getting restless. so it wouldn't be long until something happened, like it always did. or he went out and made something happen. enemy organizations were lurking in the shadows. too close for anyone's liking. that something was going to happen eventually, she knew that. but, right now...it didn't seem to matter. her family was safe...ish. she had no friends to worry about. it permitted her the freedom to access the growing pile of "think about it later"s (unlike a certain james collins, she dealt with it). but it still felt weird. it seemed whenever she reconnected with carly sutton, something had to get in the way. every single time, it was ksenia, too. nice feeling. it was different from last time, though. last time, she'd shown up in las vegas, at her hotel, because she knew carly would be there. this time, three years later, she wasn't coming crawling from anywhere. no real apology. it was family...let's call them commitments this time, not some petty high school drama. it was rather like seeing someone in another lifetime. keeping her hands in her pockets, the same mild smile on her face, ksenia tilted her head when carly spoke to her daughter. she'd been right there when everything first happened, probably been a lot of the reason it turned out so ugly. she'd also heard about carly getting her back. the bright-eyed little girl might have been in a couple of the shots ksenia had seen of carly over the years, even. what? you thought she hadn't kept tabs on her ex-best friend? ex or not, carly still fell in the category of 'loved ones she didn't want in danger'. smiling as lily waggled her fingers at her, ksenia watched as she teetered back off to the playground. she looked a lot like her mom. and her dad, but she wouldn't mention that. "moscow? it was good....good to be home." her words were awkward behind her accent. it was a struggle to find the right ones. "family obligations. a lot i didn't have control over. including when i left." her tone was oddly formal, like walking on glass. moving her blue eyes up, to look at the brances of the towering tree above them, she fell quiet for a moment. she hadn't exactly planned this one. "i heard you were in new york, dancing. what else?" same formal tone, cautious words. she'd known everything about carly when they were in high school. but who knows, people can change a lot in a year and a half. look at her.[/size][/blockquote] ----------------------------------------------------------- STATUS, complete.
TAGGED, carly !
LENGTH, 1198 words.
ATTIRE, far left, black flip flops.
NOTES, SO LATE. i apologize.</3
CREDITS, format and graphics to me.
lyrics to massive attack - "pray for rain"
[/blockquote] |
|
|
|
Post by caroline isabelle sutton on Jan 30, 2011 16:17:17 GMT -6
VALKYRIE, CALIFORNIA, VALKYRIE PARK, MORNING, JANUARY 2012 [/font][/center] -----people had been disappointing carly for a very, very long time. ksenia included. aside from her family carly had really gotten used to not trusting people and not letting anyone in simply because she knew that at one point the people she let in weren’t going to be there for long. she never kept anyone really close. she’d tried. back in high school she had tried to make friends despite having the entire town watching her to see when she or another member of her family would make some kind of mistake. the people of keizer must have thought that screwing up was ingrained in sutton blood. maybe they were right. after all it seemed like they were onto something. carly’s grandfather had been the biggest screw up of them all, even putting carly’s mistake to shame. he’d lied to the town and to his entire family and when he died and the real truth came out, everyone with a last name sutton had been devastated. their family had long invested in a company that had been nothing more than a sham. older sutton children had been able to get out but for a young couple like charles and emilia, they’d been left behind to stick it out in a town of people who not only pitied them, but had put them under the microscope. had they been given the opportunity to leave, god they probably would have. had their extended family members pitched in just enough to get the family out of town and to some place new then it probably wouldn’t have been so bad for the suttons over the years, but with the loss of their main income the extended family had bailed. carly didn’t even know if she had cousins, let alone who they were. after they’d left carly had never seen them again. technically she’d never seen them before since she’d been born after all the shit had hit the proverbial fan. the triplets remembered. they had been about five years old when it had all happened. they’d grown up for that little bit of time in huge houses and running around with their family members. they probably didn’t even remember it, but it was sad to think that at some point the family had been surrounded by a whole lot more people. not to say they hadn’t done perfectly fine on their own, bu it had to have been hard for charles to grow up away from such a large family setting. from what carly had heard, these familial weekly dinners had really brought everyone together, something had hadn’t been seen since the night ellison died.
-----yes ellison took the cake for worst family screw up, but carly always did play a close second. she liked to hope that maybe what she was doing now made up for everything she had done in the past. it was a nice thought wasn’t it? that being famous, giving to charities, and doing things for her family in order to make it up to them was enough to overcome the bitter spite felt by an entire town. she was pretty sure she didn’t succeed there but carly would always try. she would try even though she still felt the twinge of bitterness from the moment when her parents had signed away the rights to her child. she still tried to make up for the fact that she’d brought down months of anguish on her family even though they’d given her years of anguish without her daughter. it didn’t make things right. the fact that she’d been hurting didn’t make her family’s hurting any less. it didn’t and carly knew that. everyone in her family had done something wrong at one point or another. for nate it was leaving his girlfriend at the time to come to valkyrie when the family had first moved. for wes it was leaving billy behind on the docks when he’d left for his trip and for not coming back either. for carly it was the pregnancy and the wrong decisions that lead up to that. for charles and emilia it was not saving up over the years leading up to ellison’s death and for giving away their grandchild. penny, well penny was the only one who hadn’t done any major damage, but there was always time to change that.
-----but after all her mistakes and the mistakes of her family, carly had still yet to be surprised by someone. they all let her down in some way, shape, or form. she wasn’t holding out for someone either. that was the way to really just depress yourself. like those women who got dressed up every night and went to the bad in the hopes that mister right would somehow walk through the door and just know she was the one for him. life didn’t work out that way. you had to take what you wanted if you wanted it. like carly for example. she wanted to see her daughter, get to know her, and she got her back. she wanted to be a dancer, joined a dance competition, and she was now a famous dancer. there was little that she had experienced in life that she couldn’t get without trying. men? same story. if she had wanted someone all she had to do was try. it had worked for that collins guy back behind bad seeds so that was just another check under “you want it go get it.” she couldn’t afford to sit around and wait for life to come to her. she couldn’t afford to sit around and wait for decent friends either. ksenia had been a good friend in the times that they’d been on good terms. back in high school she’d been her best friend up until the baby scandal and then she’d turned on her so fast it made her head spin. she had become friends with her a second time after she’d showed up in valkyrie, asking carly for a second chance. what was she aiming for this time around? carly wasn’t sure if she could manage another round of i’m sorrys. what was that saying? fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me? fool me three times and i’m just damn stupid. that was the way it ought to end. carly wasn’t sure what ksenia’s agenda was as she showed up at the park but carly somehow knew it wasn’t going to be pretty.
-----honestly she didn’t even know if she should be exposing lily to ksenia. was it a good idea to introduce her to someone who was just going to disappoint her the chronic way ksenia had disappointed carly? she wasn’t sure whether to regret it or just pray lily forgot about it. if she never saw her again she probably wouldn’t ever remember the blond former friend of her mothers who showed up out of nowhere. with luck carly might not either. she raised an eyebrow as ksenia spoke, only half interested in what she was saying. maybe she came across as bitter or an all-around bitch but carly had given ksenia her fair share of chances. could you blame her for not caring about the person who she’d thought of for a second time as her best friend who simply up and disappeared on her? ”moscow huh? sounds like fun.” she turned away from ksenia to look over the park, her eyes scanning the small, bopping heads until she found lily. ”i don’t want any explaination.” ksenia’s voice was formal to match the bitter, agitated tone of her formerly good friend. ”yep. i won a competition a while back.” she didn’t offer her much more of a conversational bite than that.
--------------------------------------------------------
status • finished
words • 1328.
tagged • ksenly !
clothes • clicky !
notes • --.
[/font][/blockquote][/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify] |
|
|
|
Post by ksenia on Feb 1, 2011 14:03:28 GMT -6
-----------------------------------------------------------JANUARY, 2012. EARLY AFTERNOON. VALKYRIE PARK.
[/size] -----------------------------------------------------------[/color][/center] - - - IT WAS MUCH [/b][/font] more difficult than she'd anticipated, leaving everything behind. it was a lie, what jamie told her. it doesn't get any easier with time. in fact, she was beginning to find it more difficult with time. everyday was just another reminder how she'd probably never see them again. them, everyone she ever knew, ever loved. the first six months of this shitstorm were the easiest. the adrenaline rush of it all. this truth, this training, this grim news that she'd be cutting off fingers for the rest of her life. there was little time to think about everyone she left behind in valkyrie. it was the whole mafia thing that got easier with time. the more comfortable she got with the idea, the routine, the more she found herself thinking about everyone she had to cut out of her life. it was for the best, she knew. the people who made contact with old friends and family, someone always ended up dead. but that didn't make it any better. sometimes, she thought, it would be worth the risk. what could be harder than this? maybe it was a blessing in disguise, this earthquake. the town she once called home was in shambles. hundreds dead, thousands injured, and millions in damages. valkyrie, california no longer thrived like it once did. slowly, the citizens were putting their beloved home back together. piece by piece. downtown was first, refurbished to modern perfection. the valks were quick to retain its former beauty. it was the shaks, deep in the shaks, where you saw the damage. abandoned buildings and houses, sandboxes and chidlhood dreams shattered and left for dead. all that was missing were the bodies and the blood. valkyrie was in shambles, but an earthquake of this calibre was necessary for her to see her family again. that was the blessing. jamie was against it, still reminded her hourly that they should just clear out before someone gets killed. it didn't render with her. they would be in valkyrie, regardless. they were here in case their family needed help. that's what sakahrovs do for one another. she even could have avoided her family had this disaster not ripped through town. unfortunately, that wasn't the case. even a miniscule chance someone had gotten injured, she was at their doorstep, a ghost of the past. seeing her parents again, she hadn't been able to retreat back into oblivion. she couldn't, not now. she would have to, eventually. she knew that. at the back of her mind, she knew she was going to have to cut her family out of her life all over again. but not now. not yet. once she'd discovered the only damage was to the house, even that was minimal, she hadn't been able to tear herself away. but that's just it - all she was doing was seeing her parents. the "i missed you!"s and "is everyone okay?"s had stopped after the first week. the first dinner was good, like revisiting an old life. but now, it was awkward. she didn't admit it, but it was awkward. these were her family, the people she would never put in the way of danger. but they were still people she hadn't seen or talked to in over a year and a half. when is that ever natural? it took seventeen years for her to know her parents habits and mannerisms. her father, victor, remained as quiet and reclusive as he'd been for the past several years. but she'd forgotten how he moved when he was happy, when he was upset. her mother, stana, was skittish around her. she pretended not to be, but ksenia saw it. she watched her words, was careful not to get too close. she was distrustful, suspicious of the person her daughter had become. she didn't look at jamie, rarely spoke to him. victor pretended he wasn't who he actually was. ksenia was one things, the byproduct of the involvement in his family's bloodlines. he was kept updated on her, everything she did. jamie was someone else entirely - born and raised, with a reputation no one could ignore. that just made it more awkward. she didn't know her parents anymore; they didn't know her anymore. she would of hated it had she not missed them so much, loved them too much. she didn't want to let go, not yet. it was confliction. that's what it was. cutting the people she loved out of her life the first time was painful, next to impossible. it got tougher as time went on. then she pulls some back into her life, and she can't wait to get out of the room. it's like suffocating. if someone got hurt, she would never forgive herself. to keep them safe, you had to keep them at a distance. leave everyone behind, like jamie had. but she was weaker than him, more selfish. the thought of living the next sixty years without her family was even more painful, actually impossible. she would never get walked down the aisle by her father. she would never make her mother babysit her grandchildren. she would never get to attend their funerals. that's the life she invited if she cut them out forever. it was dangerous this way, awkward too. but it would get easier with time. that's what she told herself. she also knew it was bullshit. too many things had changed. her family was not one that could survive anything. the only thing keeping them together now was they were constantly shoved down the other's throat. she was conflicted. things would never be how they had been, when they were, dare i say, happy. and there was danger. she knew she had to eventually, but she didn't want to. not yet. she wasn't ready to face the music. she needed time to decide what she already knew she had to do. that was only the case with her family. her parents. when she'd cut people out of her life, she could count on one hand how many would be affected. who would be hurt. her parents, and carly. caroline sutton was really the only person ksenia considered a real friend, someone she wanted to keep in her life forever. it was different than with her parents. they had been able to become best friends again after keizer. it took time, but she knew it was possible. that could never happen with her parents. they had spoken to her the second she knocked on the door. had ksenia shown up at carly's hotel, she would most certainly be speaking to a slammed door. carly was a different person entirely, with a very different situation than her family. she missed her terribly, she did. but it was different. she knew carly would be hurt much more than her family. she recognized the tone in which she spoke to ksenia. she was angry, probably over it. but still affected. ksenia was. carly was different from her parents because she didn't know if she could cut her out of her life again. the answer about her family was one she didn't want to admit, but knew. this was different. carly was the friend she'd forced herself to forget about, to move on from. she hadn't approached her weeks ago because she knew what the answer would be. and ksenia knew, things would be icy. that's how they worked. she'd come crawling back for forgiveness last time. this time...she didn't know. so much time was spent focusing on other things, she never allowed herself to miss carly like she missed her parents. she told herself carly was dead, in another lifetime. tell yourself something that grim for long enough, you move on. the only problem was, if she were to see carly again, she didn't know if she could let go all over again. it made no sense to her, that logic. it wasn't even logic. had she done that with her parents, too, things would be different. tell herself they're all dead, and she'd be forced to move on. she watched carly from a distance for those years. read the articles about her victory, kept tabs on her safety. but she approached it like a research project, reading up on things she didn't know about someone who had died much too early. it made things easier. now that it stood in front of her, however, it was different. it's harder telling yourself someone is dead when they're in front of you, breathing. she kept her face stoney. she didn't know what to think. "that's a word for it." her tone remained formal, approaching cold. she knew carly well enough to know what it would be like saying 'hello' again. "i watched. the feed's terrible in my apartment, but you sparkled. congratulations." a crooked smile appearing on her face, one that didn't quite reach her eyes, ksenia titled her head as she watched her ex-friend. now she knew why jamie smoked so much. it gave him something to do when he didn't want to be doing something. she should let up on that, maybe start herself. "i'm not offering anything, carly. i'm in town for awhile, thought i'd take a stroll around the park, saw you and thought i would say hello to an old friend. that's all." her voice was genuine. it felt good to tell the truth, for once. she hadn't come looking for carly, wanting forgiveness all over again. she wanted to do that, deep down. but she knew it was futile. both of them had moved on.[/size][/blockquote] ----------------------------------------------------------- STATUS, complete.
TAGGED, carly !
LENGTH, 1603 words.
ATTIRE, far left, black flip flops.
NOTES, :]
CREDITS, format and graphics to me.
lyrics to massive attack - "pray for rain"
[/blockquote] |
|
|
|
Post by caroline isabelle sutton on Feb 6, 2011 9:30:37 GMT -6
VALKYRIE, CALIFORNIA, VALKYRIE PARK, MORNING, JANUARY 2012 [/font][/center] -----why was it that carly could never seem to have a real friendship with ksenia? time and time again they’d come close, so close, and then one thing leads to another and they were on bad terms again. the first time they’d met had been in high school. carly was a freshman but she was the popular type who’s hype from middle school had carried over into the high school where she’d become the leader of her band of cheerleaders. carly had been a nice, sociable person like she always had been. she was the type to mix and mingle with people and not push her boundaries. she was the type of person very few people disliked and she was perfectly fine with that. she’d met ksenia her first day at her new school. it wasn’t all that hard to pick her out of a crowd either. not that she necessarily stood out more than the rest but in a small town like keizer, any new happenings always went noticed. all she had to do was recognize a fresh face she’d never seen before to know that ksenia was a new girl in need of a friend. far be it from carly to be the one to distinguish who should be ksenia’s friends but she’d approached her anyways in a friendly manner and just kind of taken the young, frightened blond under her wing. it wasn’t long before people were starting to notice her in a different light. high school kids never took to anything new very well but the moment carly took an interest so did the rest of the school. it was a clueless moment of sorts. carly was the lead character minus the snootiness who had plucked someone from obscurity and thrust them into the high school spotlight. fun right? well it hadn’t been like she’d intended on putting ksenia on a pedestal for everyone to see. the people around her just tended to do that. anyone who carly sutton had singled out must have been worth looking in to right? either way their schoolmates had taken an interest and loved to watch carly and ksenia, the two new best friends, hanging out around school and after school when carly and cain hadn’t been hanging out together. but honestly other people’s opinions hadn’t mattered to carly. all she had seen was a new girl in need of a friend and after having talked to her realized that they could actually get along rather well. that is up until the whole popularity aspect had sucked ksenia in and she’d turned on carly just like everyone else had at the time of the pregnancy scandal.
-----it always seemed like every time carly came close to really getting the things she wanted, something interfered. in high school it had been an unwanted pregnancy. carly hadn’t expected to get knocked up. she’d been in an empty home because the rest of her family was old enough to work and with no one around to stop her at some point and say “look at the world around you. do you really want to be here?” carly went on with life just the way high school made it out to be. she partied. she was good at partying too. carly had learned early on how to mix good drinks and how to get really drunk, and when she was finally incoherent enough to think that experimenting with sex was a good idea, she wound up with child. not to say that carly didn’t love lily, she loved her so much the thought of losing her made it hard to breathe, but at the moment when she’d told cain that she was pregnant and he’d turned on her calling her a cheater and a slut, honestly the last thing she’d wanted to be was pregnant. she remembered that day so vividly it was like it was a recent event. she had pulled cain aside, told him that she’d taken a pregnancy test that came up positive, and cain had just given her a half smile and told her things would be okay. moments later, when carly was standing by herself, using cain’s words to psyche herself up, cain’s head popped up over the rest as he’d hopped up on a table and he pointed a finger at carly, accusing her of being a lying slut who couldn’t keep her legs shut to save her life. everyone had turned to look at her in disbelief, ksenia included, and when the people around her started accusing, ksenia joined it. to see the faces of people she’d grown up with, people she’d supported and been there for, glaring at her like she’d cheated on them…it had been heart breaking. but to lose someone she considered close, the person she’d grown to be best friends with over a super short period of time…that was the hardest.
-----carly could understand the appeal of joining in with the masses to spite carly. had difficult would it have been to turn away from the mob to support a friend? a person confident in their convictions and with strong will power would have been able to do so, but carly had known since she’d first met ksenia that there was a strong underlying sense of insecurity there. she’d had no choice but to go with the flow and hate her best friend like everyone else hated her. so ksenia joined in with the small-minded mass of the student population who had scorned her, spit on her, and called her names throughout her pregnancy. she’d watched as her best friend rose in the ranks and pretty much took her place on the scale of high school hierarchy. but it wasn’t like carly could have done anything about it. she was having that baby despite what other people thought and had her parents not given lily up for adoption without carly’s consent, she would have kept her little girl as well. she would have managed something. school where you were a social pariah was hard, but it wasn’t like it wasn’t manageable. had her parents not given her daughter away to strangers, had the town not rebelled against them, and had they not been forced to move, carly knew she would have somehow managed. of course that wasn’t in the cards now but it wasn’t like things hadn’t turned around for them. now carly was in a town that knew about what had happened to her and hadn’t turned on her, in fact they’d accepted her and some loved her more for it. she had her daughter back and she had a career she could be proud of. what wasn’t to love about that. despite having gone through hell, carly figured she came out the other side relatively unscathed. she was bitter about her old life to an extent, but as long as she never had to go back she couldn’t care less whether or not keizer even existed. her past was behind her, and yet her friendship with ksenia was still on the rocks.
-----maybe it was because she’d just up and left with no explanation or maybe it was some other reason entirely but carly felt like she was giving ksenia chance after chance which she then proceeded to just throw back in her face. this was an attempt at a third chance was it not? first had been when carly took her under her wing freshman year. second had been when she’d come to valkyrie and sought her out in her junior year. now this? carly had to wonder how many times she had to build up a trust with ksenia again for her to just blow it to smithereens. truthfully, though carly liked to believe the best in ksenia, that the first time had only happened because of k’s insecurities, she had to wonder when enough would be enough. maybe she was just a sucker or something. she tried not to let ksenia’s words effect her but something about the fact that she’d been keeping tabs on her, via the television show she’d been a part of, struck a nerve. one would think that should you see the best friend you walked out on without so much of a goodbye on television, that you would at least contact her to say congrats or let her know you were alive. you know, common courtesy or something. whatever. ”thanks” she said, successfully hiding what little emotion there could have been in her voice. ”well in that case hi.” carly never even turned to look at ksenia. she just continued to watch lily playing on the playground. she did however catch a glimpse of someone with a camera taking pictures of the playground. for a split second she felt slightly nervous but then she figured it must have been some paparazzi. the man didn’t stick around for long like a pap would. he simply snapped a few pictures and left which carly found weird but she wasn’t all too concerned. she’d met a lot of strange paparazzi in her day.
--------------------------------------------------------
status • finished
words • 1,551.
tagged • ksenly !
clothes • clicky !
notes • sorry for the lateness. got a burst of carly muse and had to jump on it.
[/font][/blockquote][/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify] |
|
|
|
Post by ksenia on Feb 6, 2011 22:21:01 GMT -6
-----------------------------------------------------------JANUARY, 2012. EARLY AFTERNOON. VALKYRIE PARK.
[/size] -----------------------------------------------------------[/color][/center] - - - IT WAS A [/b][/font] stupid idea, coming here. leaving the motel. wandering around. approaching the park, thinking about the park, walking to the park. seeing carly. approaching carly. talking to carly. all of the events leading up to this moment should never have happened. she understood that now. it was too much of a risk, attempting to reconnect with her like this. it did not take long for ksenia to figure out that valkyrie was a prime spot for criminal activity. its location in california, a direct route from los angeles, was perfect. she'd overheard enough phone calls to put the pieces together. waves had been made for months, maybe longer. the name 'giovanni' and 'corinthos' had floated into more than a few muffled conversations since she'd been here. now, normally, it wouldn't matter. the italians were like the russians, aware enough not to make a scene in the middle of the street. so much faith could not be put in the brazillians or irish, but they had never been her concern. she just joined the party late. how many times had jamie warned her to be careful? to shut up and not talk to anyone unless it was him, or that yuri guy he always made her work with. he had known more than a few russians to walk out in broad daylight, and not walk back. petty criminals were not above the age-old kidnap and kill. the russians did it all the time. "jumping on the opportunity" he called it. it took this, a fail reconnection and a re-jump of her logic, to realize that he wasn't just being jamie. it was all too much of a risk. she knew that, she really did. that phrase flowed through her veins more than blood did. it was all jamie ever talked about, even these days. don't involve them, they'll only get shot. that's the way they played the game, he said, the russians. don't hurt the target, hurt the people the target loves. when you live this life, you can't think of yourself as an asset. the only people who will be affected by your death will be your loved ones, if they know you're alive at all. no one else will care. if your loved ones, on the other hand, end up murdered in an alley way...well, the entire community is going to know. that was all part of jamie's speech about it. the "you're not important" one, chapter ninety-three. and the best way to remain aware is to pretend like you're playing against yourself. you never know, they could play it the same way. it was the best way, to tear off all connections until the target is standing alone. they'll be wrecked, everyone they ever loved is dead, no one else is willing to help them. push them well past the breaking point. keep them alive until they beg you to kill them, and then you push them back into the world. make them live with themselves. and that is when you kill them. in the same alley so many of their friends and family lost their lives. leave it a bloody mess, to send a message. that's how they played the game. and that's why you do everything in your power to make sure you don't become a pawn in that game. it haunted her sometimes, thinking of herself as the person in the alleyway, alone in the world. it's too much of a risk, because once it starts, it never stops. if it was her parents first, she knew carly wouldn't be far behind. she knew all of that. but, sometimes...it didn't matter. it's not easy to cut people out of your life. especially when you see them again. it was dangerous enough openly interacting with her parents. different, but dangerous. involved or not, they shared the sakahrov bloodline. you don't go killing a sakahrov to start a chain reaction of horror unless you're nearing the end, the target's life. say ksenia was the target, her parents, logically, would be somewhere before jamie. caroline sutton, however, is neither russian nor, apparently, important. she knew no one would blink taking carly's life. that was the life she lived, with these types of people. how many times had jamie not blinked taking the life of some meaningless citizen? he didn't care about them; they had no affect to the greater cause. that danger always loomed in her mind, all those months she spent away from valkyrie. but, remember, sometimes...it just didn't matter. no one can live their life completely cut off from those they love. she was slowly learning that. they would tell her different, she knew that. but they didn't have to live it. all of jamie's family was involved. all of november's family was involved. she was the odd one out, the one sakahrov with no immediate family on the phone. and, besides...they didn't have any friends. ksenia did. she had a best friend here, standing right in front of her. taunting her, showing her the concequences of her life. she knew just how dangerous it would be to even speak to carly again, as she was now. but it didn't matter. she really didn't care. an odd expression enveloped her face. this was like the issue with reconnecting with her parents - possibly lethal, probably didn't matter. her friendship with carly was not something she could just walk away from. they had too much history. too much...whatever. ksenia valued her as a friend above many others. and what had she done in return? ditched and followed the crowd because she was pregnant? she'd never spit directly on her, but she'd done nothing to help the situation. then appear out of no where years later, begging for a second chance? taunt them both with a possible reconnection, and then disappear again? halfway around the world, with no second glance? she'd felt closer to carly during their junior and senior year than she had anyone before. even her parents. there was no fighting when it came to her, nothing dramatic. she loved her parents simply because they were her parents. carly, she'd decided that. and while it was clear carly couldn't care less, her heart was continuing to ache. even seeing her again, it would be impossible not to include her in the equation. she had kept close tabs on her over the year and a half, watching as she won the competition, got lily back, thrived in new york. she watched it all. from a distance, a dark apartment in downtown moscow. it would be different from half a block away. it was a stupid idea, coming here. thinking she could casually stroll around the neighbourhood like some normal kid; thinking she could have a casual conversation with an old friend; even thinking she could do any of that. it was all too fucking dangerous. she knew that. believe me, deep down, she knew that better than anyone. but this is twice that she really didn't care. her own selfish reasons won over logic and safety. and she hated herself for it. being in her closest, well i guess old closest, friend's presence was more painful than leaving. coming to valkyrie must just have been a bad idea, jamie was right. fuck. no way was she telling him. keeping her hands in her pockets, she kept her eyes on the back of carly's head. could she sound more disinterested? she knew caroline sutton well. better than most. but that can only help so much when you're looking at their scalp. her voice was sound, almost bored. maybe she had truly stopped caring, moved on and forgotten all about the insecure blonde girl from years previous. wish said insecure blonde could do the same. knitting her eyebrows together, ksenia took a breath, remaining silent. one more word and she'd probably start crying. breath in, out. onetwothree. threetwoone. the same breathing she practiced when she was cutting people's fingers off. devoid yourself of emotion, act only logicially. it took practice, but you can shield yourself eventually. become a wall of stone. she should have brought sunglasses, though. the emotion drove from her voice, her expression. her eyes, on the other hand, held pretty little mirrors of tears. "you..." she stopped talking, in fear her voice would break. instead, she followed carly's head, to where she was looking. no more fear of her voice breaking. it didn't take long to realize how pathetic they could be. who is they? well, she didn't actually know. just someone whom she did not consider a friend. you don't haunch around a public park with a camera, dressed in black, if you're looking for a quick buck on celebrity sleaze. she'd seen enough paparazzi to know that. and he wasn't greasy enough to be some pedophile who ran out of junior's catalogues. narrowing her eyes slightly, she watched the man, his movements. nothing too out of the ordinary. slightly suspicious, perhaps, but valkyrie was crawling with those lately. he swooped in, clickclickclick, swooped out. probably nothing. but there was definitely a they worth investigating. she'd get ridiculed for being paranoid, obviously. but he got bitchy when she wasn't paranoid. hypocrite. "weather's about to change. you should probably head in." her thick accent all business now, comfortable in the familiar cold, ksenia distractedly pulled her blackberry from her back pocket. "i have to get back to work. it was good seeing you, carly. lily's adorable." eyes on the screen, thumbs typing too quickly on the miniscule keyboard, she turned away from her ex-friend. one thought of the potential danger that was most likely a waste of time pulled her forward, to take the first step. she took the second, third, then fourth. keep walking to not go back and break. "jamie, i have something we need to do..."[/size][/blockquote] ----------------------------------------------------------- STATUS, complete.
TAGGED, carly !
LENGTH, 1650 words.
ATTIRE, far left, black flip flops.
NOTES, okay ending?
CREDITS, format and graphics to me.
lyrics to massive attack - "pray for rain"
[/blockquote] |
|
