[color=b3b3b3][right][sub]TIMESTAMP: After [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5421264]Sweetness & Starry Eyes[/url]
Featuring: [color=BB986B]Mitena Strongbow[/color] & [color=fe6f5e]Penelope James[/color] 
Small FT: [color=b5392e]Forrest Proudstar[/color] [/sub][/right]
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[indent][indent]The sun was bearing down now with a great summer intensity and Tena basked silently in its glow. She had been floating in air for a moment after another tryst with her Stargirl but then reality came flooding back when she recorded a message from her cousin Forrest; Poppy was ready to meet and try again.

Despite the uncomfortableness of their first go at it, Mitena was not dreading seeing the pale brunette again, nor was she apprehensive. This was something that she wanted and in all fairness needed. Of all four offcomers that had arrived in Blue Hill the previous day, all of which carried with them a piece of her departed brother, it seemed that Penelope James carried the largest and under most fractured piece. She was a shard of glass with jagged edges, broken away the window that made her whole.

Tena thought back to Charlie’s book, his unfinished magnum opus. To read his words and thoughts and feelings, to see the crosses he chose to bear, was to understand and feel the crushing weight of the world. Yet amongst those clever turns of phrase and strong references to the greatest literary minds of all time, the constant levity and the love was brought by Poppy James. Whenever he mentioned the girl with the green eyes, the obviousness and deepness of his longing and love for her was crushing, like the compressing weight of the vast blue ocean itself. Over the last few days, Mitena had met both girls in the book. She had met Charlie’s true love and the girl he could’ve loved. It wasn’t hard to see why both enticed and enthralled him like they did. Given what she had witnessed and given what she now knew, the simple fact was Charlie was a teenage boy, confused, mentally and emotionally crushed by a world that didn’t want him and too blind to see those that really did.

Creator, she wished she could’ve been there for him.

Leaning back in the grass, Tena watched as Resi’s truck drove up the dirt road towards the Silverheel Ranch; her home. She had dropped Tal back at Adora’s, knowing this was something she needed to do alone. The Firebird was nowhere in sight so Jadyn and her boyfriend were also gone. They would be alone. The gentle breeze carried a strand of hair across her caramel face as the truck pulled up. Tena waved and took a deep breath.

Getting out of Resi’s truck, Penelope stopped at his window to look up at him. She was nervous. She didn’t know how this would fair. Mitena held answers like a knife and everytime she spoke, it felt like getting stabbed repeatedly. Resi’s words echoed in her mind as she intensely gazed up at him. [i]Truth always hurt. It always does but it also heals. More so when it is massively uncomfortable to hear.[/i] Poppy hoped he was right and that this would be good for both her and Tena. It didn’t change that she was scared. It didn’t change that she was tired. 

Time and time again, Poppy kept getting hurt by the forces of nature. Her father had told her and her sister when they were little that that’s just the way of being a James. The reason why he was given his nickname, Rocky, was because after everything he’s been through, after all the pain and trauma, pain that could easily make a man no longer want to fight, he was still standing. She remembered her father’s smile when he heard the nickname Mordechai gave her. Street Angel. While that nickname could also have negative connotations depending on what lore you base it on, he knew what Decky meant. Penelope was the deadliest girl alive, made for the streets but with the wings of an angel. Someone who was meant to absorb pain and help heal those that gravitate to her light. She was an angel to him, and to all her friends, and even if Decky and Charlie tried to protect her at the time from the beast that was the Southside, she was acknowledged as family. They saw her as one of them. Poppy didn’t understand her father at the time; but now she does. It was never Decky’s intention to shield her. He always considered her family. He always saw her as a badass. But he wanted to protect her heart, protect her angel wings, and protect her light because everyone around her needed her to fly. Everyone needed her to stand and fight because most of them barely had any fight in them. 

[color=fe6f5e]“Will I see you again soon?”[/color] Penelope called out to Forrest, knowing she had his number and that he would be coming to Edenridge in a couple of days. She needed to hear it from his lips though. That he wanted to see her again. She didn’t want to be the only one with this feeling. She wanted to be certain that Forrest enjoyed her company and even looked forward to seeing her again. Counting the days like she was going to. It was silly, really. That she wanted to hear him say it but she wasn’t going to act like his friendship wasn’t the best thing that she’s gained from her visit. It was and she would show him just how much her time with him meant to her.

Resi leaned out of the driver side window of his truck and looked down at the strange spirit girl that had been carried into his life on a summer's breeze. She stood looking at him with those big green eyes and he smiled, the wind lightly blowing his messy black hair around. [color=b5392e]“Sooner than you think.”[/color] 

He glanced over at his cousin on the nearby grass. Forrest always knew how to read her face. Tena, as honest and forthright as she was, always knew how to insulate herself, now to protect herself from the pain. Or at least she knew how to mask it but he could see right through it. She was terrified. He and Mitena were raised together, they had done many things together but this, this next part she had to do without him. He wasn’t a part of this particular story. Resi waved towards her as he started up his truck once again before returning his attention to Poppy. [color=b5392e]“Just remember Poppy, it hurts to heal but it hurts less when we do it together.”[/color] He leaned back inside of the truck and began to back away down the dirt driveway, leaving the field to themselves.

Standing there, watching Resi leave, Penelope used that moment to fix her hair, the wind having tousled it around in a natural wave of chaos. She ran her fingers through it and brought it to her side, letting it flow down her shoulder like a waterfall. Her eyes caught sight of her pale arm with a tint of red. Sunburnt. Sadness. Downside of being as white as snow. She should’ve applied sunscreen. She took a sharp breath in and exhaled with force. This was her moment with Mitena. This was their moment together. What brought them together was a common thread of Charlie but that didn’t define this moment. What would define this moment was Tena’s truth and Poppy’s truth, and their shared love for the boy who could’ve lived and been something amazing. A boy who was broken and sadly, and unintentionally, broke the people around him. Turning on her heel, Poppy grabbed onto the side of her dress and scrunched it in her hands, feeling the fabric as a way to comfort her. Trying to amble her way toward the beautiful, native girl, to hide her worry and show she was relaxed and that she totally got this, Penelope gave a shy wave. She stopped at the stairs of the porch and looked at the other girl for guidance who was sitting on a patch of grass. All she could muster up the courage to say was a simple, [color=fe6f5e]“Hi there.”[/color]

[color=BB986B]“Hi.”[/color] Tena smiled brightly. Confidence Strongbow. [color=BB986B]“Welcome to Silverheel. It’s nowhere near as big as the Coldwind’s place but what we lack in size we make up for in skill.”[/color] [i][color=BB986B]A sex joke Tena? Really?[/color][/i] Her mother had always liked to think of herself as a comedian despite being in the most unfunny profession in the world. Reaching her hand out, Mitena rubbed the luscious green grass in a circle next to her. [color=BB986B]“Why don’t you take a seat here with me? Let the roots grow where they may.”[/color] It was simple middle school stuff. Roots dig deep and then grow towards sunlight but here in this place it meant more. In this moment it meant more. It meant the conversation they were about to have, the relationship they were about to or perhaps not form. [color=BB986B]“Thank you for coming back.”[/color]

[color=fe6f5e]“Thank you for letting me come back,”[/color] Poppy returned Mitena’s smile with her own. [color=fe6f5e]“Oh, I can tell. Resi is very talented,”[/color] the dark haired girl innocently stated before registering the sexual connotations of Tena’s statement. [color=fe6f5e]“In cooking, I mean. Skilled in the kitchen,”[/color] she nervously chuckled, trying to fix the error of her naïveté. With quiet steps, she made her way beside Tena and took a seat, nestling herself on the grass. Like a little girl, she brought her knees up and hugged it, her flowy dress big enough to cover most of her legs. [color=fe6f5e]“He told me about Craven, and the Silverheel sisters. It was tragic, but a very beautiful tale. I’m glad he trusted me enough to share that with me,”[/color] Poppy admitted, hopefully displaying enough strength to show Tena she was in a much better headspace than she was in this morning. 

Tena smiled. Poppy seemed a lot more comfortable than the earlier part of the morning and her time with Resi seemed to have added some color to her cheeks. She would definitely have to probe her cousin later for the details. It seemed that perhaps Penelope had found a connection here at Blue Hill after all. [color=BB986B]“Forrest does tend to be a bit dramatic.”[/color] Mitena smiled as she brushed the bangs on either side of her face back. [color=BB986B]“Craven sounds so terrifying doesn’t it? I don’t subscribe to that belief. Resi’s father isn’t craven, he’s Wyatt. The same as my father isn’t craven, he’s James.”[/color] Her almond eyes surveyed the pale beauty closely, watching for any hints that she would ruin their second conversation like she did their first. [color=BB986B]“You know, it’s because of that lack of belief that I’m not Mitena Silverheel? I took my fathers surname when I was sixteen despite never even meeting the man. Charlie did too, if I remember right.”[/color] There it was. The first drop in the ocean that could cause a tidal wave. 

Charlie. 

It always came back to him.

[color=fe6f5e]“Mm,”[/color] Poppy nodded, revealing this wasn’t a deep secret to her. He wrote Strongbow on his papers. As much as Poppy wanted to ask him about it, they were juniors and that was the worst year of her life, even before the shooting. They didn’t really talk much and when they did, they fought. She remembered both him and Decky coming to her aid in the girls’ bathroom when Poppy was bloodied and bruised. She got in a fight with a girl twice her size because of the things she was saying about Charlie. She never did tell him what it was about. All they saw was their Street Angel was hurt and she might’ve been the cause of it. [color=fe6f5e]“James Strongbow. I know as much about him as Mama Rhonda would tell me. Charlie told me bits and pieces but he spoke in riddles. When it came to his dad, that was always a sore spot. If it wasn’t for his dad and the dark deeds people say he did, maybe he wouldn’t have to work all the time to try to pay for his mother’s medical bills, a roof over their head, and food on their table.” [/color]

She paused and looked away from Tena, staring ahead and thinking of the memories that felt like it was only yesterday. Memories that made her feel Charlie could pop up anywhere and say gotcha! Like his death and the shooting was one big prank. She really missed him. Both the good and bad. She missed him. [color=fe6f5e]“Charlie had a lot of pride and hated when my parents offered to help. Hated when I wanted to help. I noticed he changed his name but not because he told me. At the time, he wanted nothing to do with me but I’m no idiot. I listen and see. Hard to ignore Mr. Beau saying Charlie Strongbow-Decker, you know?”[/color]

Tena thought back to the book she had been sent just before Charlie’s death, the book of his life. It was his junior year that prefaced the end of it all, considering the events that occurred the first day of his senior one. Within those pages he describes the degradation of his relationship with Poppy and just how at fault he was. Beneath his written words was a hope to get back to the way things were but that hope was stained with a black mark. A mark of abuse as it seemed by that point her big brother was trapped in the throes of addiction. [color=BB986B]“We agreed to do it together. Change our names to spite those that looked down on us because of who our father was. It was silly really. Charlie and I only ever met one time and yet there we were, miles apart and changing our names. You know how he convinced me? He quoted some old book, like I knew what the hell it meant but something in the way he wrote it, I dunno it just swayed me.”[/color]

Mitena decided to take a chance and moved closer to Poppy. She reached out and laced her fingers with hers, bringing her small white hand into her lap and then covering it with her other free hand for comfort and security. [color=BB986B]“Poppy, I want you to know that I want to help you. Whatever it is you’re feeling, whatever it is you actually want, I want to give that to you.”[/color] She gently caressed the top of Pops knuckle with her thumb tip. [color=BB986B]“If you’ll let me.”[/color]

Poppy’s green eyes glistened under the beaming sun, cased in red and misted over, with more tears to cry. She thought she was running out of water but her heart was flooded by the rain of her soul. She couldn’t stop today. She couldn’t push this sensation aside and numb herself like she had so many times before. Unrestrained, the tidal wave forced her to shake as Mitena held onto her hand. [color=fe6f5e]“How do you know what you want, when everything you ever wanted… was in a boy? A boy you loved far too much for your own good. A boy that took a part of your soul with him, the moment he was shot dead in front of you by your father.”[/color] 

Poppy buried her face in her knees, against her summer dress, and let the fabric soak up her tears. [color=fe6f5e]“I hate him. I hate him. I hate him.”[/color] She muffled into her legs. [color=fe6f5e]“I hate what he’s done to me.”[/color] She brought her head up to catch Tena’s sorrowful gaze, [color=fe6f5e]“I can’t eat because I associate food with him. I can’t sleep on my bed because we used to spend the nights holding each other, a silent reminder that at the end of an awful day, we’d always have each other. I can’t look at myself in the fucking mirror because I hate myself. My dad removed all the mirrors because I broke my lamp against mine and almost used a shard to stab myself. I can’t look at every fucking person, every fucking street or tree or book, without thinking of him. I can’t breathe half the time and I only just started walking and not crumbling when a person says hello to me. Why the hell did I let him have all this… why did I give him so much of my heart when he never wanted me?”[/color] 

[color=BB986B]“Oh baby.”[/color] Tena pulled Poppy into her embrace as she choked back her own tears. The disconnect between their two realties was beginning to form a door that they both could step through. Mitena was finally getting a glimpse into Charlie’s world, Poppy’s world. He had really tied this poor little girl into knots and left her like that in the most horrendous of ways. This was not the girl that Charlie wrote about in his book, this was her ghost. This was a spirit left broken and shattered and her pieces embraced by mother death as a daughter. 

Holding onto Poppy desperately, their bodies trembling together in shuddered pain, Tena exhaled shakily as tears streamed down her face. [color=BB986B]“You need this. You need to let all of this go and let it out, scream your pain into the mountains and let it travel with the spirit warriors as a shield, protecting them from evil. Empty yourself into the land so that from it you can grow towards the light like a flower. You are strong and beautiful and you have suffered more than any person ever should.”[/color] Mitena gazed out across the fields of Silverheel as the black raven dropped itself down on a log nearby. Charlie was watching the seeds he had sown in both of them, the seeds of their sorrow. [color=BB986B]“Let the wind carry it away, Poppy.”[/color] 

Dropping her weight on Charlie’s sister, Penelope closed her eyes and listened to the whistle of the wind, the insects, like the loud cicadas, and the heavy breaths of the person she shared a small space with. She hadn’t even admitted these feelings to Shannon yet. Blue Hill was doing something fierce to her and she had yet to determine if it was good or bad. [color=fe6f5e]“That’s not true at all now is it? The reality of my situation is,”[/color] she sniffled and calmed her breathing, steadying herself, using the support of Tena to get back to her senses, [color=fe6f5e]“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights.”[/color] 

Gradually, she opened her eyes and her beautiful and bold greens that spoke of nature, sunshine and floral blooms found their way to the raven and she gave a weak yet knowing smile, [color=fe6f5e]“Hey ChooChoo,”[/color] she exasperatedly whispered. She couldn’t promise the bird she’d heal overnight. This would take however long it takes but she could at least take back her blatant lie. [color=fe6f5e]“Miss you.”[/color] Her voice quivered, desperately wishing this was indeed Charlie’s spirit watching over her. [color=fe6f5e]“Love you.”[/color] The stream came rushing out of her, watering her dress, Tena’s arm, and the soil she sat on. [color=fe6f5e]“So much,”[/color] she finished, choking back tears. So-fucking-much.

Tena rested her chin atop Poppy’s head as the girls watched Charlie’s raven together. Anyone else would say that it was crazy, that a bird couldn’t carry the soul of a boy. Mitena herself only followed some of her tribal traditions but there was something in the dark look that the avian creature was giving them. Something in his black eye that projected a warmth and welcoming feeling. From what she had learned of her brother’s life, it seemed a perfect fit for Charlie to be a raven. 

Towards his end, he sought to better the world by ridding it of himself. The raven was inherently a selfish creature. In some indigenous cultures, the raven was the creator of the world but did so out of vanity. He created the moon and the sun and the stars, not to grow life but to make a better one for himself. He was once a brilliant white until he flew through smoke and was burned black for his misdeeds. That was Charlie. Thinking he was doing right but never doing it for the right reasons.

[color=BB986B]“Bit on the nose, Charlie Jay don’t you think?”[/color] Mitena let a small laugh penetrate her tears as the bird watched them. [color=BB986B]“A Raven really? Is this an Edgar Allen Poe thing or is it because you thought it was cool that a group of them are known as an Unkindness? Honestly he’s such a dork.”[/color]

Cracking a smile, Poppy wiped her tears with her free hand, her knees and legs leaning to the side, against Tena. [color=fe6f5e]“He is,”[/color] she agreed. But he was their dork. Even with all that being said, both she and Tena needed to move forward. As beautiful and meaningful as the raven was to them, as symbolic as the bird could be, she knew it was more of a reminder of what was in the shadows of her own awareness. What she had yet to discover and the impending change that would define her future. Charlie was a guide to something. She didn’t know what that something was yet. She just knew he was pushing her forward to a destination unknown. 

[color=fe6f5e]“I have a feeling you’re not endangered after all,”[/color] Poppy chuckled to herself, thinking back to her conversation with Rhonda. [color=fe6f5e]“Mama Rhonda wanted us to meet. Sure she told a little white lie, saying the person who had his journal was threatening your life, but if she didn’t do that… I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have met you and all these beautiful people that make a small yet mighty village. This place is really something else,”[/color] Poppy glanced down at Tena’s hand, interlocking their fingers together. [color=fe6f5e]“I hope I can give you something back and that this isn’t one sided.”[/color] She looked deeply into Tena’s eyes, full of soul, full of hope, and full of wonder. [color=fe6f5e]“I don’t know what I can provide. Friendship? Maybe? Could we start with that?”[/color]

[color=BB986B]“I’d really like that Poppy.”[/color] Mitena looked down from Pops’ eyes to their interlocked fingers. In that moment they were joined together and maybe they always had been. The longer she spent with these Edenridge kids, the more the raven haired singer believed that something cosmic was happening. It was a sad fact of life that some people didn’t make it out of living alive and it was an even sadder fact that sometimes people were made to suffer so that others could benefit. Tena had once before entertained the thought but was now a little more sure, her big brother, Charlie Jay, had been placed on this Earth by the great Creator for a reason. Charlie was built to endure the greatest of pains, to bend and then break. He would break into a branching path that the people of Edenridge would walk on, guiding them to where they were supposed to be. As a human being, Mitena could not justify the actions that her brother undertook in his final hours but she could be comfortable in the fact that his purpose might have been to bring others together. Without Charlie, she would never have met Poppy James. She wouldn’t have met her Stargirl or Jade and Decky. She glanced at Charlie the Raven once more, and smiled. [color=BB986B]“Get outta here, shit-ass, can’t you see we’re having a moment?”[/color] 

He squawked loudly before taking off into the sky, joining an Unkindness over their heads.[/indent][/indent][/color]