~Insouciant~
Alma skimmed along the world's surface like a shining dragonfly, and Cirrus's curse was to dive deep and deeper still down into worldwaste pondmuck, searching for the answers. She'd find a shard of mirror or wave-polished pebble to see a glint of truth in, but it'd fade bitter away into the endless wash. You're not sure it's a curse to think, to wonder where the fish have gone? Well then.
District Five recycled everything. Electric power, brown paper, tired old jokes. School assignments. An essay, in fact. Cirrus didn't care about the other junk they gave her. How the Capitol Helps Us, The Benefits of District Specialization, she dashed off the mindless minimum and slumped home with her passing grades. One, though, was like crimson colors to cattle. She just couldn't let it be.
Would I Choose to Live Forever? To give to Cirrus Green?
They should've known better.
Cirrus filled six pages front and back with why ABSOLUTELY NOT. It wasn't absurd, wasn't laughable, was so unmeasurably more so. She knew what forever was at nine, and was willing to bet the teachers didn't think the kiddies would. 'Forever,' it began in a scrawl that managed to be indignant by itself. 'If you can think there is any possible answer other than a million repetitions of a mile-high NO carved through your skull, you are literally incapable of sentient reasoning, and I know what literally means. Forever...can you grasp that? I'm supposed to say yes, of course, because I'd save people from fires and stuff so it would be the Right Thing To Do, yeah? Really? The people I could help would be limited, my suffering limitless. What is wrong with you? Can you be so vastly ignorant as to...' It went on in much the same style for thousands of words and made her teacher cry. Not unsurprisingly, she got a failing grade. Like she'd care. But...Alma. Dear dull doltish dunce Alma. That goddamn pet.
Next year, Alma Green's carefully scribed work got pinned on the wall for its Cleverness and Sensibility and Aren't You Glad You're Not Like Your Sister-ness. It ran, 'I would choose to live forever so I culd save people from fiers and drowning and help them becuse I would not get hurt,' and continued to detail all the ways she culd help people.
Fuck that. Cirrus didn't skim the waves. If they weren't concerned with the timelessness behindafterduring time, she would be. They could bat their wings and buzz over the lake so they wouldn't wet their feet all they wanted. Cirrus was going in.