A/N:
For Rowan (come burn with me) in the Back to School fic exchange for Caesar's Palace. Also for Elle (ExeliaWave) - Happy (late) birthday :)
Prompts:
"I guess without you, I'm nothing." ; Help I'm Alive by Metric ; daisy chains ; "Sometimes I think it'd be easier just to die." ; glass.
oOo
The tracker-jacker venom is engineered specifically to cause hallucinations and be agonisingly painful, Glimmer remembers while her mind is still unclouded by a haze of pain. The large, golden wasps weren't all that common in District One, but they'd learnt about them all the same. And if there were any of those special healing leaves around, if so much venom wasn't already inside her, she could almost fix herself up. They'd studied herbs and plants at school and at the Training Centre, even though the wasp-like creatures weren't used in the Hunger Games very often, mostly left abandoned in the outskirts of poorer districts, districts less favoured by the Capitol.
But for all her beauty, wealth and status, Glimmer's body is no less susceptible to the venom than that of a lesser tribute. The poison, injected by so many stings into so many different parts of her body, spreads quickly and turns her blood to liquid fire, agonisingly painful, burning her up from the inside out. The inferno in her veins is so much richer and more vibrant than blood: - such a fitting end for a girl like herself, someone so vivid and vibrant, someone who matters - it pumps to her heart and tears it open, letting her most precious memories free and fresh as they were on the day they were made. It's as if the venom is compelling - no, ordering her to relive them; so she complies, because it's not like she really has control of her own body any more, is it?
oOo
Glimmer is six years old when her older sister by three years, Crystallite, first takes her to the park. She holds tightly to Crystallite's hand when they cross the streets and marvels open mouthed at the large buildings and ornate structures built along the roadsides. Their older brother Pyrite walks alongside them and snorts derisively every time she pulls on Crystallite's hand and points out another wonder; but this doesn't stop her, because somehow it's never been so exciting when she goes out with a nurse or sitter. Maybe it's just because her siblings are taking an interest in her for the first time; it's hard to tell.
When they reach the park - which isn't very much, really, just a few trees and a lot of land covered sparsely in green grass - Pyrite leaves them with strict instructions to sit down somewhere and stay there. Crystallite just scoffs at him - they're three years apart, too, so she's used to him - and pulls Glimmer over to sit with her friends, who coo over Glimmer's blonde waves and big eyes and argue over who's lucky enough to sit next to her. Later, they thread daisies together to make chains and limp little bracelets and circlets, but Crystallite tells her that they can make really big wreaths if they do it properly. It's enthralling to a four year old, and Glimmer is entranced.
She spends the afternoon picking them daisies - the biggest, fullest ones with almost no petals missing - and they reward her with a small crown that's just big enough for her head, call her a champion daisy picker. Glimmer decides then and there that when she grows up she will make these crowns for a living and wear one everyday.
Pyrite just laughs when they tell him. "Crowns are for Victors, Glimmer," he says, and knocks hers off her head. "You can't wear one until you've earned the right to."
Then and there, Glimmer decides she will be a Victor and earn the right to wear a crown; when they leave the park, she takes only a small daisy chain bracelet to remind her. Her short-lived dream she leaves behind in shards in the dust, just like the crown.
oOo
She starts attending the Career Academy of District One that same year. They teach her about plants and poisons first, and when she gets older she starts learning to work with weapons, mostly light blades and hand-to-hand combat, since she's too little for heavy weapons like spears. Her training partners are a boy named Marvel and a girl named Verity, since along with her they are the most keen of their entire group. Her whole family is proud of her, even Pyrite; she is quite proud of herself; she has a good relationship with Verity and Marvel. This part of her life stays basically the same for the next ten years or so. She likes it.
oOo
Glimmer is thirteen and a half and the one of the prettiest girls at her school. She's also training hard for the Games - it's a deadly combination. (Her parents are still proud, as is Crystallite. But she no longer has a brother: the Games stole him the year before last.)
After school one day, Glimmer walks home with Gleam, a nice guy who lives close to her. Glimmer is pleasantly surprised when he kisses her, and not only because it's her first; she's beaten all her friends - who are really more like (mostly) civil competitors than proper, supportive friends - including Verity, who's usually first in things like these. Glimmer does her best to remember it because of this, but now, almost five years later, all she can recall is that it was quite awkward and she spent the entire time wondering why he tasted like limes.
(That's not what she tells her friends, though. If she said that, they'd just laugh, and she'd probably go down considerably in their esteem.)
Verity and the rest of her friends are gratifyingly jealous. The next day, at training, Glimmer spars with an slightly older girl who's one of the best, and beats her. Despite her brother's absence, something she often feels strongly, it's a good year.
oOo
The Capitol, Glimmer decides when she arrives, is futuristic. Immense glass towers that are almost too tall seem to touch the sky; the paint on buildings, whether pastel, bold or fluorescent, never seems to peel or become discoloured; the entire city is busy and bustling, and just being there is an out-of-this-world experience. The training centre turns out to be one of those too tall towers - but of course, District One's floor is not anywhere near the top. District Twelve may have the tranquility of a close to hand rooftop garden and a no-doubt stunning view, but Glimmer and Marvel are not in the Capitol for the sights and food and experience. They intend to be the entertainers, and as Academy Trainers told them time and time again, distractions lead to failure, and, naturally, failure is tantamount to disgrace.
District One does not see things exactly eye to eye with fellow Careers District Two. A dead tribute, girl or boy, - a failure - is not necessarily something to be proud of; more like
a final defence, to be kept private until the last possible moment and mentioned sparingly only when it is possible for a gain or profit to be gleaned from it. But of course, Glimmer reassures herself, she will not be a dead tribute. There is absolutely nothing for her to worry about, not if she plays her cards correctly and times things right.
(She reassures herself of this partly because it's essential her confidence must be kept up, but also because it helps to talk to herself and there's precious little else to say.)
A day and two evenings later, Marvel catches her as she heads to the lift. Stops her, casually blocking the way. Frowns. "What are you doing?" he asks. "We've got training tomorrow, and they," he jerks a thumb at the living room on his left, presumably where their mentors are, "will just send you back out, if that's where you're planning to go. I've tried."
She raises an eyebrow at him; like hell he doesn't know what she's doing, disappearing at night to cosy up to Seneca Crane even though the mere thought makes her stomach roll, and getting Cato to help her with the sword during training, letting him get far too close. Anyway, Cashmere's confirmed a rumour that Seneca Crane will be spending a night in the Gamemakers' rooms, which are situated on the floor just below - far too good a chance to be passed up. "I'll see you tomorrow, Marvel," she says quietly, and when she pushes past him, he doesn't stop her, just turns to watch her down the corridor to the left, and mutters something like,"Why not pick me?"
She makes sure not to look back or show any sign of hesitation. "I haven't got a choice now."
(She blanks this night from her memory, and the one which she spends with Cato. None really bear thinking about.)
Her last night in the Capitol does not go exactly according to plan. She'd imagined spending a night in her own bed, for once, getting a good sound night's sleep to be ready for the Games in the morning. But somehow, inexplicably, she finds herself drawn to Marvel's room. Marvel is leaning on the wall outside, waiting.
"Crane again?" he asks sarcastically. "Or is it Two this time?"
"Neither, actually," she answers, and almost laughs at how quickly the frown disappears from his forehead. "You busy?"
"No," he says. "But why? You said you hadn't got a choice anymore."
She meets his challenging stare with one of her own, softened by a shrug and then a smile. "I don't. But I still choose you."
Her last night in the Capitol does not go according to plan, no, but it is one of the best upset plans she has ever made.
oOo
The bloodbath is nothing like they told her. It is hectic and loud and Glimmer escapes death by a hair half a dozen times, if not more; in fact, if it wasn't for Marvel, who'd speared the boy from Eight for her, she'd have lived less than ten minutes. Even leaving that aside, Glimmer doesn't have time for spectacular kills to make her District proud - she just slashes and cuts at fellow tributes and hopes. However, it seems to pay off, and she kills three people before it's just her fellow Careers and Peeta Mellark left at the Cornucopia.
They hunt that night, find the girl from Eight and a boy none of them recognise. Cato plays around with the girl for a bit, taunting her, terrifying her, but leaving Peeta to finish her off. It's nothing compared to what he and Clove do to the boy, though; eventually Glimmer just stares at the bloodied ground next to him, instead of turning her face away, and hopes the cameras don't pick it up. She'd had no idea that so much blood could be inside one body, and she's not completely sure she wants to see where it comes from. Once it's finally over, she goes into a bush to relieve herself, and among other things, throws up, because seeing something so sadistic in real life is absolutely nothing like seeing it on a television screen at the Training Academy.
The next day is, while not exactly boring, - because the arena, when any minute there could be a freak accident or mutts released or even just a split between allies, cannot ever be boring - uneventful. They all spend the morning picking over the supplies and helping the boy from Three build them into a pyramid, but it does not take seven mostly hardworking people an entire day to set up camp, no matter how big that camp may be, and by late morning they are drawing lots to see who will go hunting that afternoon and who will stay behind on guard. Eventually, District Two, Four and Twelve go, leaving Glimmer and Marvel behind with Three.
They sit by the lake, weapons by their sides in case of attack, and skip stones. Marvel can get six in a row consistently, but after a series of miserable threes, her stone skips eight times before sinking, and though he laughingly claims it's a fluke, she refuses to believe him. After he gives up and declares her the winner, they sit in silence for a while, because the more she talks to him the more she doesn't want to kill him, and she half hopes he feels the same way.
"Do you ever think about death?" he asks out of the blue.
"That's talking - and thinking - like a loser," she says automatically, parroting what they've been taught since children. Then, "We're not going to lose, Marvel," even though it's a blatant lie and she doesn't even know why she says it.
He sighs. "Sometimes I think it'd be easier to just die. It'd hurt less."
She wonders whether he has left words unspoken, hopes he hasn't. The last thing she needs are complications of the sort he insinuates, not in the Hunger Games. So instead of answering, she looks for a distraction, any distraction. The light glints off Marvel's spear onto something she hadn't seen. "I guess so," she says hesitantly, then to quickly change the subject, she points to the daisy. "Look."
He follows her gaze with his own. "What - oh."
She checks the sun - it's not high in the sky like it would be at noon, but sunset's still hours away, and they have time to kill. "We used to make chains, as kids." She picks a couple, and starts threading them. "See?"
He raises his eyebrows, but follows her example. "How old are you?" he asks, a grin taking the sting out of his words. "Eight?"
"Got any better ideas?"
He doesn't, so gives up and starts braiding some together. Later, Glimmer goes to check the perimeter, and he checks on District Three, just in case. He's quicker than her, and when she gets back he's finished making what seems to be a circle, albeit slightly lopsided.
"It's a crown," Marvel tells her. "For a Victor."
She frowns. "I'm not a Victor."
"You beat me when we skipped stones," he says firmly. "That's a victory, just a different sort."
She feels a pang in her stomach, remembers her now-dead brothers words. Crowns are for Victors. You can't wear one until you've earned the right.
She accepts the crown without anther word of protest.
(Glimmer wears the crown the entire afternoon, even when the rest of the Careers return, and Clove laughs. And when they go hunting that night, she leaves it just outside her tent, which is next to the supply pile. Katniss blows it up a few days later.)
oOo
Glimmer is ... something. She doesn't quite know what anymore - it's getting harder and harder to think, let alone move - but it could be something like ttthhhiiisss, perhaps. She certainly feels that way, her mind stretched and elongated painfully until thoughts and words are longer, somehow. She's almost spiralled into insanity but not quite, and things are getting fuzzy around the edges and blurring in the centres. Her clarity fades, everyday memories becoming distorted; she doesn't know why she feels so lightheaded and floaty, except that perhaps it's just the calm before the storm.
This thought is remarkably clear. It resonates within her. Calm before a storm. Storm, she thinks, storms hurt. Storms are blustery and rainy and tear down dreams. Storms can fell even the strongest of trees and buildings. Storms takes lives in the blink of an eye one day, and return for more the next. Glimmer has dreams, a life to live. She doesn't want it ended so suddenly by this most brutal of storms.
So she screams, or tries to. Screams for Marvel, for Cato, for Clove, even. Screams because even if she has to die, she doesn't want it to be this way. Screams again for Marvel - was he lying, everything he'd said about looking out for her? Then she loses her grip on sanity and everything flashes into technicolor and she can see things that are impossible: large orange-tinted bubbles and fluorescent green birds with gigantic beaks and tiny bodies, purple beefaloes and blue hued foxes and many other things, all endeavouring to trample or stab or suffocate her. Glimmer shrieks once more, a long, high-pitched scream, for Marvel, for anyone. She wonders if this is what madness feels like. Should she have mocked the crazy Victor from Four like she did? Beneath her the forest floor shifts and rolls like the deck of a ship, like quicksand it tries to suck her in.
She stops screaming. It's over. Like glass, her world shatters.
oOo
Thank you to Liz (xXElizabethPotterXx) beta-ing this, even though you're from a totally different site, and for letting me drag you here just for this. :)