Fruition Of Lies

Misunderstanding

There was something before the Court, he remembered. Dick knew it was there, in his head, just like his name had been. He just didn't know how to find it. No Talon knew how to find it. It had been erased during the first procedure. But Dick was different. He was aware. His memory wasn't the thing that made him stand out. The blurry little thing he sometimes managed to find on good days -not that he had many of those. Muddled and gray, like a window on a rainy day. It was repressed.

No Talon was allowed to remember. Memories and the emotions tied with them only got in the way of the mission. It was not theirs to keep, so the Court took it away. But Dick's was a stubborn, persistent little thing, refusing to be erased.

He could still remember the smell of salted peanuts and buttered popcorn so well, that he could almost taste it on his tongue. The loud music and roaring animals as they chimed the bells around their collars together. He could hear the laughter of thousands as they took to their seats, voices filled with awe and wonder. Children's pointing fingers tugging on the shirts of their parents, trying to show them everything as they watched, wonderstruck. No matter how faint, he could still feel the joy that rang throughout the tents. But it was all covered in a white, hazy fog. The sounds blended together, creating a headache filled with bursting noise he wanted to forget. The pain would travel from the back of his head before settling right behind his eyes. Throbbing there for hours, taunting him with things he could barely reach. Some Talons had said his memory was a blessing, Dick disagreed. If you could read his mind, you would be in tears.

It was a curse. The climax of their flight, the emptiness and suspense held within the crowd, not one person daring to make a sound, for fear of disturbing their flight. He remembered clearly one instance in which his parents said it would ruin the moment. The sounds of the crowd. You always wanted them to be stunned into silence, holding their breath in anticipation. In amazement at how a simple human could do things like that. But that perfect moment they cherished so much left nothing but the snapping of a rope echoing throughout the tent. What a coincidence, Dick thought. Loving something so much only to be lied to, let down and discarded by that moment they held so dearly.

It was quiet for a few minutes after he remembered, no one quite believed their eyes. Time seemed to freeze at that moment. The image burned into his brain like an old photograph. Everyone had turned and thrust their arms out to him, eyes wide and pleading. The soft brush of his fingers against hers. His name, a breathless whisper on her lips. A reassuring smile painted painfully across her cheeks. Frozen

The flow of time is always cruel. It constantly moved forward, stopping for nobody and picking no favorites. Down they went, fast and hard. Down they went, bones grinding and shifting. Morphing into unnatural positions, even for them. The blood that sprayed across the ground as their organs popped and ruptured. The metallic scent that overwhelmed the area, leaking bile into the backs of many throats. The smell of death. He remembered it all. Down, down they went. His parents.

But it was still silent. The moment they cherished so much was still there but in a dark and twisted way. Nobody moved, except him. Bobbing and weaving between the shocked members of the crowd. Pushing and shoving, fighting with the arms that dared to grab him until he stood at the foot of the ring. Fresh, warmblood leaking into his softly padded shoes. His Mother had made them.

He remembered the screams. Loud and piercing. Horrified shrieks from children feeding off their parent's anguish as they realized what had happened. They hurt his ears, but everything was numb and shaky. His word was distorted, black fading in around the edges of his vision, threatening to take over. The blood was leaking too fast, he noted.

But the screams soon became a minor distraction compared to the real cries.

His own heart-wrenching sobs.