CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE;
the kite

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"Vesper..."

     A gentle voice is trying to stir her. Her first instinct is to turn away; bury herself in the mud forever. That is where she is, and where she shall stay. It is over. He is gone.

     "Vesper... can you hear me?"

     Yes, I can hear you. But I won't listen. She doesn't know if she can anymore. She doesn't want to wake up. Even if the voice is welcoming, Vesper thinks maybe she doesn't deserve to be hearing its smooth tones. Whoever it is, is feels strangely warm and comforting. Like being wrapped up and cradled.

     "Mija."

     Vesper's heart stops.

She knows that voice like she knows her own reflection. Every warm contour of every syllable is like music to her ears. It is like coming home, and realising you were never really gone. Vesper dares to open her eyes, anticipating swampland — instead she meets a beige wall peeling at the sides. She feels the warmth of a blanket draped over her shoulders, slightly itchy at the sides but familiar. She must be in a bed. Turning slowly on the mattress, her gaze falls upon the figure sat in the chair across from her, the one that sucks the breath right out of her in an instant.

     Sitting right there is her father.

     Vesper blinks at him in disbelief. Her brain had almost convinced herself that he was a distant memory, so far away from her no matter how she tried reaching out for him again and again. But he is here, right now — she had forgotten how he moved. Apollo Alfaro has been reignited with some of his earlier youthfulness, his mobility that she remembers most fondly of all before they moved to Vagary. His eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles just like her, eyelashes catching on strands of cocoa hair flopping into them.

     He is here.

     But... if he is here, then where is she?

     "There you are," says Apollo with a gentle smile. "I was wondering where you'd gone. It's been a while."

     His hand reaches out and smooths itself over her head, softly ruffling her hair as he does, and Vesper feels as though she could crumble into him. I missed you, she thinks mournfully. I missed you so much. Suddenly she is a small child again — being woken up by her father on a sunny morning, aware of the world's troubles but far enough away that they felt untouchable.

Vesper must be dead. Surely.

Maybe it was always meant to be this way. Maybe she was always meant to come back to him.

     "You remember what today is, don't you?" her father asks.

Pausing for a moment, Vesper shakes her head. This is where the moment leaves her confused — everything feels so familiar, too concrete to be a dream. And yet she can't possibly be back, unless it were a dream of some sort. She watches her father stare incredulously at her with a twinkle of fun in his eyes.

"C'mon, don't tell me you don't remember!" he teases, the lilt of his accent dancing with his words. "You've been waiting for this for months. We made the kite and everything."

At this, he shifts his body to the side, and only then do the fragmented pieces fall into place — she is re-living a memory. A specific day in her life, Vesper knows, for she recognises the slightly shabby kite propped up against the wall. She and her father crafted it with painstaking care, using some thick cloth from an old sack which they even fashioned into the ribbons at the end. It stands as good as new.

Vesper relaxes well and truly into the memory — of being seven or eight years old, give or take, and wanting to go fly her special kite with her most special person.

"Well, what are you waiting for?"

Just as she remembers, Vesper is re-living Kite Day. As far as annual festivals go across the districts, they are somewhat rare underneath all the oppression, but District Six still manage to find time to be celebratory and roam free. It is cemented in a historical date for the district, on March 25th when years after the heinous war between the Capitol and the districts, Panem's transport system (mainly the railroads) was at last declared rebuilt and restored. In a rare show of thanks, they were granted a day off work by the Capitol for every March 25th — but for the workers themselves, it meant much more than that. The years of rebuilding had been harrowing and degrading, overworked by Peacekeepers and forced into dangerous conditions as they put their blood, sweat and tears into it.

     So, they re-named it Kite Day — not that anyone else outside District Six knew that. A seemingly innocent celebration, people all across the districts have their kites ready every March 25th, often prepared months in advance (although ready-made kites were always available to buy for a cheap price in city centres). And on this day, everyone would go out and fly these kites high in the skies, carried by the plentiful gusts of the season; complete with a ceremonial honking of ships in the docks at midday. Seeing the kites of their own creation carried weightlessly into the sky, untainted by the Capitol or anything laborious, was a sign of liberation and of freedom — something District Six was otherwise lacking all year-round.

     Of course, for Vesper as a child, it was just a fun day out. And on this particular Kite Day, she sits snugly by her father on the train to a nearby airfield, her face pressed to the window in careful observation of the outside world. What she missed at the time but now sees in the window's reflection, is her father's eyes crinkling in a fond smile at his daughter. It warms her from the inside out to feel it again.

     When the train stops, Vesper is the first to hurtle out of it. She hears her father calling after her — "Mija, not so fast! Look out for cars!" — but she ignores him, heading straight for the airfield with her kite tucked under her armpit. She is young and free, the gust sieving through her like she is weightless, and she thrills in the sensation of almost being carried away. Dots of other District Six citizens cover the empty airfield, and flying above them are dozens upon dozens of kites, all different shapes and sizes and colours. They dip and they dive with an energy that fascinates Vesper.

Eager to get tucked in, she positions her kite in front of her, ready to send it off. She chucks it out on the next gust of wind, expecting to see it soar — instead it plummeted to the ground in an anti-climax. Vesper frowns, tries it again and again, then frowns some more. She is holding the rim of the kite up to eye-level to inspect it when her father arrives behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

     "What's wrong?" Apollo asks.

     "It doesn't work," she grumbles. "It won't fly."

     "Sure it does. Here, I'll show you..."

     And so her father carefully instructs her on what to do, guiding her along — they face away from the wind, holding the kite up by the bridle. They wait patiently until a new gust of wind billows underneath it. Then they immediately let it go, intricately feeding out some line, and Vesper watches in awe as the kite — their kite, the one they made together — climbs up, up, up into the sky.

     "See? What'd I tell you?" he grins, entrusting the line carefully to her. "Now, you wanna make sure that's taut, we don't want it flapping about like loose string, okay?"

     Vesper complies and watches their kite swirl vivaciously above them, bursting with a life of its own.

     "Look at it! Its so high!" the girl marvels, grinning cheek to cheek.

     Apollo laughs, then adds, "If the kite starts to sink, lower it down a little bit so you catch the wind. Then if it nosedives, raise it up again."

     She only barely listens, for she is off like a shot — she probably would have learned it by herself anyway. Vesper has always been adaptable that way. She already has an eye for the kite-flying, quick at noticing when she needs to raise or lower the bridle. The little girl runs across the tarmac, which is quiet except for joyous laughter and the flapping of homemade kites.

And in that moment, life feels good. It feels really good.

Then she hears the hiss of pain from nearby. A sound that has recently become too familiar for her liking, Vesper whirls around and sees her father bent over. He tries to wave her off, not wanting to disturb her play, but it's too late now. She quickly reels in the kite and goes running back to her father with his hands on his knees.

"Are you okay?" she asks him, catching the kite as it floats down to meet her.

"I'm fine, little one... just my joints..."

"Do they hurt again?"

He considers this for a moment, then nods. "But I'm gonna be fine. Don't you worry about me."

"It's happening a lot lately," she frowns.

Sensing that nothing gets past his daughter, Apollo sighs deeply. He slowly crouches down onto his knees, even though it hurts him to do so, and brings Vesper closer to him by her hands.

"Listen, Vesper... I think things might be changing soon," he tells her. "For us. I don't know how or when, but it might be for the best if we want to keep going. You... you can see I'm getting sick, can't you?"

Vesper nods slowly. Seeming to confirm his suspicions, her father looks down at the ground for a moment, almost ashamed of himself for having to change the course of her life in this way.

"I thought so," he says. "And I don't think we can stop it from getting worse. I... I'm not sure it will be very pretty. But if I say it will be fine, then it will be fine — because we have each other. When we hold onto each other, we can get through anything in life... never forget that."

She stares down at her lap, tears prickling her eyes. She can't look at him right now.

"What? Mija, what is it?" he says softly, brushing her hair behind her ear.

"It's not fair. I wanna help you."

"I know you do."

At that moment, she starts to feel the past bleed into the present — she isn't so sure she is in the memory anymore, rather her head dipped inside it for comfort while the rest of her is stuck in the now. She can't let go. She just can't let go. Vesper flickers between her old life and her new one, stuck between the two.

"Papa..." she whispers, her stare still burning into the tarmac. "I just feel so helpless. I couldn't save you. I can't save anyone."

Not her father. Not Telle. Not Levin. Not Icarus. Not anyone.

"I should have been there, I should have tried harder to—"

"Vesper, look at me." Her father cups her face in his hands, bringing her stare up to his, and she is back into re-living the memory. Although in his nurturing touch, she isn't sure who needs to hear the words more, or which Vesper she is in this moment — the younger one who silently dreads the days ahead, or the one right now who has already lost it all.

Apollo's pupils pool with adoration, caressing her cheeks with his thumbs. "My brave, strong girl..." he says softly. "I know you're scared. I am too. But you can't save everyone. It is not your burden to bear."

It is not your burden to bear.

The words suddenly ring true to Vesper. As a child they never meant as much, but now they sow themselves deep into her heart, a long overdue epiphany finally sinking in. She has been lost since her father passed, and ever since she has been trying to find her way back — it had been eating her up inside. The most important person in her life had, in her eyes, slipped through her fingers under her watch.

     So when Icarus Brunel's name was called on Reaping Day, a young boy who she loved like a brother, she saw an opportunity. A sacrifice she knew she wanted to make and never questioned — her life for his. Of course it was always about bringing Icarus home. But deep down, in the darkest corners of herself, it was always about more than that.

     Because if she could save Icarus, then perhaps her father's death would mean something.

If she could save him, then Vesper wasn't entirely powerless. After everything, the world wasn't simply cruel and could just pluck people from her life. She wanted to think she could defy the odds; that she wasn't controlled by a higher power calling the shots on her life. When she had lost Icarus too, it had crushed that ambition, and the pain had shredded her up more than ever.

But now, her father's words wrap her up in a warm embrace, comforting her and telling her:

It is not your burden to bear.

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A/N;

let me introduce you to (arguably) my favourite chapter of iron — it is short and sweet, but very pivotal in vesper's character arc. if it was too cryptic for you, first off apologies, but let me break it down very quickly for you. this chapter is basically a blend of a dream and a memory from vesper's childhood, bringing her back to the moment she started to really worry about her dad. coming back to this moment after everything she has been through, especially losing icarus, and hearing him say "it's not your burden to bear" essentially comforts her because she has put so much pressure on herself and beat herself up for not saving icarus (or her dad), but this is him assuring her, "you did everything you could with the cards you were dealt. don't beat yourself up about it."

and with that, we only have five chapters left! can you believe it? hopefully they will come rather soon, but i need to do a bit of planning for the last few chapters, as well as just take a mini breather after these last super heavy chapters. although i'll admit, after chapter 24, i found this one kind of healing to write.

p.s. the song above, 'cottage by the sea' by lorne balfe is like this chapter's theme, i imagined it while vesper and her dad are flying the kite... i've been replaying it for months getting prepared for that moment and now it's finally here 🥹

p.p.s. it's extra special the day that this is coming out, because it happens to be my 6-year wattpad anniversary!

[ published: 13th october, 2022 ]

— Imogen