Cassius Teak styles for this life and the next (cassius_teak) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-01-02 10:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! interim, - capitol, x-stylist: cassius teak |
WHO: Cinna, Cassia and the body of Cassius Teak
WHEN: late winter, between the 55th and 56th games
WHERE: Teak Mortuary
WHAT: Cinna's lost his Daddy
STATUS: narrative complete
The hum of the sewing machine was white noise to young Cinna as he sat on the high aluminum stool, his head resting on the draped linen covering his father's chest. Maybe if he was older he would have expected this sooner, would have realized that his father was an old man and time came for everyone, not just the Tributes that he saw on television. But he wasn't older, he was not even 11, and the fact that Cassius Teak hadn't lived forever was so hard a blow he didn't think he could ever pick up his head. His head had rested there so long that it gave the skin beneath it the appearance of life. Like they might have both fallen asleep watching the Games with the sound off because his father hated the running commentary. He liked to play music from his stereo instead - bluesy saxophones, slow pianos and bass heartbeats - and for some reason, it seemed to transform the action in a way that Cinna only ever recognized when he was watching the Games at someone else's house. He didn't know how it was different, only that it was. He felt different now. "Cinna?" His eldest sister, old enough to be his mother, came over from the small table and he realized belatedly that the sewing machine had stopped. She slipped behind him and rested a hand to his back, her long, long painted nails scratching comfortingly between his shoulder blades. "You want to do this part?" He tilted his chin down so he could see what Cassia meant without moving his head up. She held out in her free hand a gold coin, her face a solemn mask he'd seen a hundred times before. She was so much like Dad. Cinna's little lips curved into a frown, but he nodded and picked himself off of Cassius' chest, holding out his hand for the coin. Plopping off the high chair, he went over to the apothecary cabinet and dug out from one of the drawers at his height the small kit his father had made for him. The strong gold thread, the hook-like needle. He'd only ever used it twice: this last year, when his father brought him to the Games and sat him down next to him as he closed Roan Elpis' wounds, as he plumped Lilac Soot's hollow cheeks, he showed him how to tuck the coin in their mouths and stitch them closed with hidden stitches. A coin to pay the ferry that would carry them home to Heaven. A fee his Daddy would need to pay too. Cinna dragged the stool from where it had been closer to his father's head, then climbed up to take his place atop it. Death looked so much different than sleeping and his bottom lip quivered as he tried to remember what his Dad would say at a time like this. "They're gone from their body but not gone at all," he said quietly, outloud, to himself. He stiffened his lip and put on a brave face as he leaned in to place the coin on his father's tongue tucked behind his teeth. The skin there was so cold, so dry. He sat back and started to thread the needle with the spun gold. He didn't remember why it had to be gold, Cinna thought. Looking up from his hands and his lap, he wished he'd paid more attention. His little brown eyes scanned over his face, his neck, his hair, the only visible bits above the linen draping, trying to pay as much attention as he could because what if he forgot this like he forgot being a baby? The thought made his face fall out of it's bravery and his lip quiver all over again. Cinna sniffed loudly, then leaned in as his attention was snagged on a detail. "Cassia?" he asked, his voice a little wavery as she searched through one of the apothecary drawers for buttons. When she looked up, she beckoned her over and pointed to a spot on his neck. She peered over his shoulder, following the line of his finger to a small, black mole not unlike most of the ones that populated his cheeks and neck and shoulders but for one small detail. She leaned in and with that long, painted fingernail, flicked the cap from the puncture wound off. The hand that had been set on his shoulder when Cassia had leaned over vanished and he looked behind him to see it was now clutched to her mouth, her skin suddenly ashen and her shoulders shaking. He looked back at the spot and peered in closer, staring at the mole with the small, dark scab over the top. It was hard to see, but it was there. He looked back at Cassia, her jaw trembling behind her hand as she took a step back. With a small, weak sound, she righted herself and gestured at Cinna. "Go and find your mother, BB," she beckoned him off the stool, her voice wavering. He hated when she called him that, Baby Boy, but from the look on her face, he didn't argue. With one more look back, he scrambled off the chair and marched solemnly out of the room. |