Preserved Roses
Summary: In a world where magic exists, special people are born who can harness this energy. As the Dark Days dawn on Panem, the Capitol's living weapons are mobilized against the Districts. When one of them sides with the rebellion, the tides are turned and friendships formed from shared adversity begin to break down.
Warnings: Semi-AU, magic exists, war, war crimes, mild slash relationships later on
SYOT Info: See my profile for submission information. I accept submissions through PM only. There are 9 spots open and this is not first-come, first-serve. There are no Hunger Games yet in this world. The 9 characters must be 15-20 years old and are magic users recruited by the Capitol as children. Only Districts 2, 3, 4, 6 and 11 are open for submission. Again, see my profile for more information.
Notes: This chapter is temporary and a teaser. The story may not actually end like this. Maybe it will, though. Who knows.
"Pressed under every brief and fleeting dream,
The flower becomes a piece of eternity."
He doesn't look anything like how I remember him. In those days we were all young, I suppose, younger and full of tentative optimism for the future. We thought that because we held the power of the earth in our hands, we could rule the world. We thought that with power came the responsibility to use it justly, but all of that seems now like a product of our childhood, what the Capitol wanted us to believe and embrace.
Everyone knows that the rebellion is in its dying throes. There are no more men or women to fight. Everyone in this country, the Capitol too I suppose, is out of food and slowly starving to death. The fields are in tatters. Even if we drop all of our convictions at this very moment and go to work, there will be hundreds who die this year of starvation alone.
Some say that we brought it upon ourselves. The rebellion was doomed to failure from the moment of its creation. Maybe that is so, but addled by hunger and oppression, something had to change. Maybe all of these people really did die for nothing, maybe.
I almost expected to be struck down where I stand. Shadowed, bitter faces of people I once knew and perhaps even considered my family glared at me as I walked through the darkened halls. There are less of them now. I ignored the ones who are missing, focusing only on the uneasy path before me. The back of a younger trainee, an uncertain girl who could barely stand to have me at her back without bristling, led me forward.
Today is a day of peace. Just one day out of all these years of fighting. The rebellion's flames have waned, the embers are cooling and down in the Districts, everyone is wailing.
But today I am not back in the Capitol to face execution or to rejoin these people I once called my comrades. The threat certainly hangs over my head all through the journey here, through familiar halls now darkened and sooty, but no one has leveled their gun at my person. No one is willing to strike me where I stand.
I stared at the hollow eyes of someone I once laughed with during our childhood days. She is worn like the rest, her face creased so deeply it's a wonder that she could ever smile. She motioned to the door and let me inside.
That is when I see him, sitting alone on the edge of one of the low beds in what was once the boys' dormitory. The entire place is dim, dusty, and inhabited by a few scientists and former workers who assumedly had no where else to go. The rebellion has made an impact, certainly, though for how long it will last no one knows.
He turns his head to the door, ever alert, but his eyes are hazy and unsure, like he can't be certain that he is really seeing me. There is none of that desperate, vaguely hopeful, vaguely pained confusion that I last saw in his eyes. No amount of anger shows on his face as I walk closer to him. Like so many of the Capitol faces I have seen throughout the years, his features are sharp and streamlined. The mark of where we come from is in our bodies, always has been, but I wonder why it seems so much less vibrant now. When I look at him, all I see is the faint curiosity shining out of his eyes.
"...Do I know you?" he asks softly. His voice has always been light. Like a feather resting on a cloud in a gentle breeze, it is insubstantial, unreal. It holds no animosity anymore, no bitterness or despair. As I listen to these words, a flurry of memories come rushing back to me.
Memories of quick tempers and childish indignities, of a group of children who could work miracles but each lived in his or her own world, unwilling to let anyone else inside. It is as if none of this has ever happened and somewhere inside, deep inside, a certain something breaks.
My friends have died, some lay dying, and so many more who I will never know are suffering. I have seen them cry and burn with misplaced fury and indignity. They don't know where to turn anymore, but can't bear to say that deserve to suffer because we have lost and I would never tell them so, for it isn't true. I knew from the moment we stepped on the battlefield all those years ago that this was real, reality was this cruel and more.
But nothing really felt as real as seeing him smile emptily at me.
"What's your name?"
I have to turn away and hear his voice unwillingly.
"What happened?" I say hollowly. "Did they do something to him? I've heard about the hijack..."
"No," she said, "and yes. We didn't find out until after you left...by then, he'd already started forgetting."
"Forgetting?"
She nods. "Can you remember your fifth birthday?"
I frown and shake my head. "No," I say, "but isn't that perfectly normal? It's been years since then. There isn't much to remember. I had a good few years."
"None of us can remember," she fills in, "not that we don't want to, but we can't. It's not too pronounced for us. But for him, we started noticing when you left. He was forgetting simple things about his childhood at first, then he forgot how he met us. And you. Now he can't remember much of anything except the last few years or so."
I turn to look at him and see him holding a pale hand out, as if we are meeting for the first time. I reach out and take it in my hand and it is cold, freezing like he is already dead, but I see him breathing evenly.
"Hey," I say hesitantly, unwilling to let go. I know what happens when you let go. "I used to know you. Do you remember me?"
He blinks slowly and shrugs. But he stops to consider it, really think hard, and he is staring at me with those clear grey eyes and I can see a bit of what he used to be. "They all say that. You have pretty eyes. Maybe I know you. Knew you. Can you use magic, too?"
"I can," I say, but the words catch in my throat. I know what he wants to ask and I can't do it anymore, can't see it as a gift, can't see it as a miracle.
Miracles don't kill dozens of people in minutes.
"You can, too," I remind him.
"Yeah," he smiles. "I can still do that. Will you watch?"
I watch him twirl glistening drops of water in the air and turn it into snow that melts on my palms. And I sit there for the rest of the day until the sun starts bleeding into the horizon and know that this is the last time I will see him alive.
"I'm sorry it had to turn out this way," I mumble as I lean closer to him, our shoulders touching. The others have long left. The air up in these parts has always been thick and cloying, but now it is strangely airy, just the dust particles floating through the evening left. Maybe the fighting did more than I thought to this city. "I know you don't remember, but..."
"It's okay," he says. "I forgive you."
Again, just a temporary chapter. I would usually point you in the direction of the blog for my stories for end of chapter notes, but not for this one for now.
Fun fact? I only thought of this magic thing because I'm a huge science nerd and the impossible nature of some of the muttations bothers me. But with magic, anything is possible!
