( dare i say come over ) ⸺ aspen cuel

[aspen]

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[align=center][color=#4a4e54][size=40pt]CUEL, ASPEN[/size]

[i] impression
[url=http://]ii. physical
emotional
[url=http://]iv. historical
relationships
[url=http://]vi. notes

[aspen]

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[color=#4a4e54]YOU'RE LIKE GODDAMN DYNAMITE
  aspen ila cuel    ( aspie, as, ass. )
  cis female    ( she, her, hers. )
  twenty one    ( born december twelfth, ages realistically. )
  flintlock lodge    ( sentinel of the foraging branch. )

[color=#4a4e54]LIT UP IN A PERFECT WAY
  in good health    ( no current physical injuries. )
  resembles clarissa muller    ( minor changes to height. )
  sounds like lennon stella    ( described as lower, breathy. )
  five feet, three inches    ( petite build, low weight. )
  fair coloring    ( blonde hair, brown eyes, fair skin; freckled face. )

[color=#4a4e54]YOU'RE THE MATCH THAT MADE ME STRIKE
  daughter of aidan & hazel cuel    ( both alive, on good terms. )
  two living older brothers    ( cedar, alder. )
  one living younger brother    ( ash. )
  one deceased older brother    ( hawthorn. )
  bicurious    ( sexually inexperienced, but curious. )
  owner of one canine    ( brad, six year old bulldog. )

[color=#4a4e54]CRAZY LITTLE RENEGADE
  physically difficult    ( fast, intelligent, high endurance. )
  mentally easy    ( pretends to be emotionally stronger than she is. )
  unwilling to kill    ( may do so if absolutely necessary. )

[aspen]

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[color=#4a4e54]
 

the eyes are the window to the soul, and regarding aspen, this couldn't be more true. not too big, not too small, they're proportional to her features, thin enough all the way around that they resemble almond's over any other nut. fair hair causes fair lashes, not blonde but almost there, a double layer shielding each optic, a little more blonde at the ends than the base. the same coloring applies to the brows above them, thinner but shaped well, a similar light brown shade. below the brows, and below the lashes, lie a pair of eyes that can only be described as cognac in coloring. dark around the edges of the pupil, reddish near the iris, dismissing them as brown might be a crime. the coloring is complex enough, gold bits sprinkled wildly throughout, that you can't forget it once you've seen it.

cont'd

[aspen]

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[color=#4a4e54]
 

cont'd

[aspen]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; line-height: 250%; font-family: karla; font-size: 6pt; letter-spacing: 1.5px; word-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"]tw for mentions of death, animal death, grief, depression.


you were loved, and that was something no one could contend. loved and wanted.


born in the middle of a december storm, you were the youngest of twins, preceded by two older brothers. hawthorn was four at the time, eager to be a good big brother; cedar was eleven months, making your litter irish triplets, and while a satiable baby, he was certainly noisy. your mother was a nurse, but she'd never given birth without another medical professional present, so as she screamed and writhed, your father fretted over her with wide, terrified eyes, doing his best to help his wife through it. alder came first, screaming and kicking, and when you followed sixty-eight seconds later, you didn't make a peep. your mother mused that maybe that would foretell who you'd be as people: alder would make a fuss, and you'd stay quiet.


your childhood was a good one, everything considered. it wasn't without its own issues and imperfections, but love ruled the cuel home. when you were six, your youngest brother was born, ash, and the family rounded out at five children, all within a decade of one another. your parents were childhood sweethearts, and even as the years went on, they adored one another. but you'd been born and raised in northern alaska, where there are more bears than people, and some days the sun never rose or never set.


the cabin you'd grown up in had two bedrooms, and sharing one with four boys hadn't ever bothered you growing up. by the time puberty had hit, you'd had so little emphasis on femininity growing up, you were appalled at the realization that growing up for you meant something else than it did your brothers— including the fact that you never got that growth spurt they had, leaving you easily a foot shorter than everyone else. still, you kept up, ignoring your mothers suggestions of more traditionally feminine activities in favor of keeping in stride with the men. you hunted, you fished, you cut firewood, you played football in the one month everything thawed out. you had to run faster, endure more to keep up with them, but doing so was never a question. these were your people, your tribe, and you proved a dozen times over that you were equal to them.


you were sixteen, when cedar got a girlfriend. it didn't last long, they lived a hundred miles apart and both had families to worry about, but when you took trips into town, he always snuck off to meet her and make out behind some tree. it occurred to you that this was normal for people your age, dating and romance. your entire life, you'd lived too far from anyone your age that stood a chance of attraction, and it hadn't occurred to you that it might one day be a reality. your parents were happily in love, hawthorn was always too busy taking care of you all, and cedar was the first one to make any attempt at love.


you were also sixteen when you figured out that maybe romance wasn't your strong suit. you thought a boy was cute at the market, you got up the guts to talk to him. he seemed to think you were cute too, smiling and leaning against a table, giving you this flirtatious look, and you reacted by getting flustered, turning and running off. this happened again and again, and eventually, you just sort of figured you weren't cut out for this crap.


but it turned out, everyone else was.


the greene's lived a two hour hike away. not close, but your closest neighbors. and the greene's had two kids: ariel, a girl your age, and cole, her brother, three years older than her. your parents got the wild idea to have a cookout one summer, just the cuel's and the greene's, and when you were eighteen, they made the hike to your house for a weekend. ariel and hawthorn hit it off immediately, smitten with one another. it wasn't like cedar and his first girlfriend, it was something softer and slower. he brought her food, he pulled out her chair, he held her hand while they walked. cedar was all passion, but what ariel and hawthorn had was love.


he talked often about love, about marriage, about building his own place in the halfway point between their homes so he and ariel could be close to their family, but be together. hawthorn loved her in the same way your parents loved each other, and he refused to marry her until he was confident he could provide a real life for her.


cedar, on the other hand, figured out why it never worked out with women. he never came out to the family, he never had to; when he introduced you all to his boyfriend, jesse, your mother told him to sit down and gave him a slice of pie. there wasn't ever any question as to whether or not hazel and aidan would support their children. they loved you all, and they supported whoever you chose to love, even if it was no one at all. there was never a pressure for you to find a husband or have children, and when your mother caught you eyeing up a girl at the market, she smiled and nudged you toward her. (as it turned out, you reacted as horribly to attractive women as attractive men.)


age brought security in who you all were as people, and when the five of you shared a bedroom, nothing went unsaid. you were a smart ass, but it was genetic. even mature hawthorn, and even timid ash, had tongues as silver and sharp as the rest of you. hawthorn did prove to be far more adult than anyone else, calm and composed, a third parent. cedar, on the other hand, always seemed to have a screw or two loose, presenting new conspiracy theories at dinner every night, a rebel who had no cause to fight, so he fought the world. alder was simply trouble, never bringing home a girlfriend but being more than willing to visit their bedrooms; he slacked off with work, found any excuse to do nothing. ash was the baby of the family, and perhaps due to the age difference, proved he was nothing like the rest of you. hesitant and nervous, scrawny and tall like a string bean, he always stuck his nose in a book over handling an ax.


you were all so different, but so alike, and when one of you was removed from the equation, it all fell apart.


it was a tuesday morning. you always went out in groups, and that morning, it was supposed to be you, hawthorn, and your dad. but aidan's back hurt that morning, and hawthorn insisted you'd be fine together. so you took the axes, you hiked out to go cutting, and it was supposed to be fine.


you struggle to remember how it all happened clearly. you'd been cutting, when she approached. a mother bear who couldn't find her cubs, who blamed you for it. you screamed, she charged, hawthorn intervened. he was always so brave, so willing to put his life on the line for someone else. he charged her with his own ax, and by the time you got your own in your hands, it was too late. you managed to kill the beast, but hawthorn had been wounded too badly, there was too much blood. your mother had taught you all first aid, you got the bleeding to slow, put him in the sled and hurried home.


he was in and out of consciousness. sometimes, he screamed and sobbed; others, he mumbled unintelligible words. three days passed, and no one slept. you all sat with him in shifts, crying quietly, and watched as infection set in and his nervous system shut down from the pain. by saturday night, he died.


you'd always thought about death so objectively. growing up, you knew it happened, knew it was a reality of the world you lived in. at least once a year, you attended the funeral of one of your parents friends or a neighbor. you always stood stoic and polite, lips pursed and eyes trained down, dressed in black. you'd never imagined that someone in your family could die, though; it hadn't ever seemed possible. but for this funeral, you weren't stoic and polite. you could hardly walk, you couldn't even brush your hair. alder had to half carry you to the grave, and as everyone spectated, you broke down for them all to see. screamed and sobbed until alder carried you out early, and for the next few days, you were intent to follow him. you didn't eat, didn't drink, didn't move. you curled up in bed and waited to rot away.


you picked yourself up eventually, knowing your family couldn't lose another child. you recovered, mended the hole hawthorn had left in your heart, but the scar never went away. hawthorn had never failed to make every member of the family feel important, he made you all feel understood in a way no one else could. he was the first one cedar told he was gay, the one who always helped alder clean up his mess, the one who made ash feel like he fit into a family that was nothing like him. he made you feel heard and equal when you struggled to keep up, the one who taught you how to swing an ax properly, the one who'd helped you tailor your hand-me-downs to fit your frame.


you tried to move on with life, but he was everywhere you looked. hawthorns bed, perpetually made. his clothes still in his dresser, perfectly folded. the half-written poem he'd been working on for ariel. the little ring he'd been working on making for her.


it was a tuesday morning, when everyone else was at breakfast, that you packed your bag and told them you had to go. they didn't question it, they understood. you promised to write, promised to visit once you got your footing. you told them you'd heard about a lodge to the east, flintlock; said you'd head there first, see what it was all about. they kissed you, hugged you goodbye, and you left with your dog and a duffle bag. you couldn't have stayed there any longer, and leaving was hard, but the ghost of hawthorn left your mind most days.

[aspen]

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[color=#4a4e54]HAZEL CUEL

[color=#4a4e54]AIDAN CUEL

[color=#4a4e54]HAWTHORN CUEL
she doesn't speak initially. sits quietly, eyes trained on her hands, lips parted but nothing escaping them. she tries to find the words to explain him, but she can't. minutes tick by before she swallows back the pain, throat tight with anxiety, and when she looks up, her eyes are watery. [color=#4a4e54]"he made everything okay, y'know?" she whispers, lips pursed, and another minute of silence follows.
[color=#4a4e54]"our parents loved us, they accepted us, but they were our parents. you can't talk about some shit with your parents. and with haw, you could, y'know? no matter what i said, what i did, i knew i was safe with him. every time i fucked up, he helped me clean up the mess, he did it with all of us. every time i had a nightmare, he'd sit up with me and talk about it. when i was sick, he'd go and make this long ass walk to get me my favorite soup. he loved everyone with everything he could, and i didn't deserve someone as good as him for a brother."
tears flow freely down her face. she isn't sobbing, her voice is untouched, but they flow like steady streams down her cheeks regardless. [color=#4a4e54]"it's my fault he died. he-- he did it to protect me, threw himself in front of that bear to save my life. if i'd been paying attention, or if i'd reacted faster, he'd still be here. but that was the kind of stupid love he felt towards everyone, get eaten by a bear love."
she's quiet for a while afterwards. that's all she can say while still holding herself together.

[color=#4a4e54]CEDAR CUEL

[color=#4a4e54]ALDER CUEL
there's a lump in her throat and she swallows it back; it's clear she doesn't enjoy describing her twin to strangers. [color=#4a4e54]"alder isn't like me." she says quietly, calmly. she doesn't enjoy this, but she's used to it. [color=#4a4e54]"i've grown acclimated to... a lot from him. he's not like the rest of us, he has a lot of anger and impulses, and he's bad at self control. he's charming, and he's funny, and he seems really great when you get to know him but--" she doesn't like to talk badly about him, but honesty has it's value.
[color=#4a4e54]"i've buried bodies for him. hawthorn and i, we've spent years cleaning his messes up. it doesn't take a lot to set him off, and when he snaps, he takes everyone around him down with him." there's a look in her eyes, too many memories to articulate. too many memories she tries not to remember. it's clear she loves her brother, despite his many faults. [color=#4a4e54]""

[color=#4a4e54]ASH CUEL
she smiles at the mention of her brother. lips curl, eyes brighten, narrow to an almost squint from the pressure of her cheeks. [color=#4a4e54]"i adore that kid." she says this with a warmth in her tone, and her posture is easy. [color=#4a4e54]"he doesn't belong in this family. i mean, he really should have been born to a bunch of scientists or philosophers or something, smarter people who could have fueled that big brain of his. don't get me wrong, mom and i have higher individual iq's than the rest of them combined, but ash is something else."
she readjusts in her seat, crosses her legs. [color=#4a4e54]"brains aside, though, i think we can all be a lot for him. me and the guys, we're go, go, go, and ash just isn't built that way. he's thoughtful and careful, he's got a big ass heart and he's really too good for this world. if i could do anything for him, i'd just lock him in a library and throw away the key-- he'd be better off there, away from this world."

[color=#4a4e54]""