A/N: This is a backstory I wrote for an Enobaria character I am playing in an Enomere (Enobaria x Cashmere- get on it!) roleplay. If anyone is curious the roleplay can be found on my tumblr, which is on my profile here. It is the prettylittleetc one and it is filed under RP. Otherise, just enjoy this one shot that was incredibely depressing to write. -Lu
When she was 7
Her father told her he hated her.
Or rather, he screamed it at her. It wasn't the first time he'd told her that, but it was the first time the words were accompanied with a beating so bad that the ringing in her head almost drowned out the words. As she clutched a hand to her bruised face she set eyes on her mother, who stood resolutely in the doorway watching the events. She didn't speak out or move to help her daughter.
They were a family of Careers, a family of Victors...a family of killers. It was second nature for her parents to fight, to use weapons instead of words. She'd watched their Games on her sixth birthday and afterwards she had looked at them with awe. She'd looked at her father as she stared stonily at the screen and then she'd glanced to her mother, who looked away, but not before Enobaria had caught the bright glint of tears in her eyes. She hadn't understood their reactions. She hadn't understood their pain. And before she was old enough to fully comprehend it, a hatred for them and the pain they had inflicted on her was already consuming her. She was already too far gone to understand their suffering and how it impacted on her own.
When she was 9
She had a baby sister.
She looked down at the sleeping baby with a tiny covering of dark hair and she wondered why anyone would bring such an innocent thing into such a cruel world. She looked around her as she stood in the kitchen alone, and she looked back at the baby which had been left in a bundle of blankets in the middle of the floor. She'd heard her parents leave.
Completely confused by the tiny human being in front of her she leant over it and stared at its face. It was so unbelievably small. Little fingers curled around with dainty little fingernails at the end of each. Feathery soft eyelashes, seemingly impossibly long brushed against her cheeks. Enobaria leant closer, transfixed by every minute detail of this little person who was apparently related to her. She leant so far over that a loose curl of hair escaped over her shoulder, brushing across the baby's fingers. Unable to take it back Enobaria held her breath as the baby screwed up its eyes and began to howl. She looked around in panic, terrified that her parents would return and yell at her for waking the baby, terrified that they wouldn't return and the baby would keep crying. She had no idea what to do with it.
"Shhh," she murmured nervously, stroking a finger along the impossibly soft cheek. As if startled by her touch the baby immediately stopped crying, her eyes flying open and blinking up at Enobaria with surprising clarity. Enobaria pulled back, suddenly feeling incredibly scrutinised under her sister's gaze. It took them several minutes of staring silently at each other before Enobaria built up the courage to reach out and gingerly pick the baby up. She tensed, waiting for the world to come crashing down, but the baby just wrapped three tiny fingers around a lock of her hair and pulled herself closer, as if she knew who she wanted to be with. Enobaria tucked her against her chest, looking down at the dark wisp of hair so like her own and instinctively began to rock her.
"Hey there little sister," she said softly. "Hey there Clove."
From that day on she was the only one to look after the baby.
When she was 12
She joined the adult class at the Academy.
Normally entry was granted at 15 but Enobaria was miles ahead of her class and she was bored. She sent knives lazily spinning towards the target wall, not paying attention to who was walking around her, and accidently managed to pin one of the mentors to the target by his sleeve. She froze instantly and waited for the knife to come spinning back and launch itself in one of her limbs, but the menacing man simply looked down at the blade with mild interest, plucked it from his sleeve and looked up at her. She stood frozen like a startled rabbit under his piercing blue eyes. That day he accepted her into the adult class. Domitius took an interest in her training specially and she never asked him why, though she wondered every day. The Academy classes had taught her to throw knives and to run and dive and fight, but Domitius taught her how to be ruthless. Domitius taught her how to kill. It began with deer and it progressed to other students at the Academy, anyone stupid enough to get in her way. Domitius was never kind to her, but she had never expected kindness. She wouldn't have known what to do with it. But he gave her encouragement and she could see it in his eyes that he was proud of her, and that meant more than any kindness ever could.
The day she killed her first deer she came home drenched in its blood. Her eyes gleamed with manic adrenalin that only a kill could inspire and her hands shook slightly as she opened the door. Clove was three. She sat in the middle of the floor staring intently at a beetle that was making slow progress across the wooden planks. As Enobaria watched from the doorway she reached out and flipped the beetle onto his back, giggling excitedly as its legs waved frantically in the air. When she looked up at Enobaria her eyes grew wide at the sight of the blood. She was only three but she knew what it was. In their family blood was no stranger. Enobaria picked her up, immediately covering her ragged dress in the sticky substance, and looked into her eyes. "I'm going to win the Hunger Games, Clove," she said firmly, then broke into a broad smile as she spoke the words aloud for the first time. Clove couldn't possibly know what the words meant, but she broke into a smile to match her sisters and patted her hands happily against the blood soaked into Enobaria's top. Her little hands came away stained in crimson.
When she was 15
She killed her parents.
It was an accident; an accident that she had played through in her head every single night since she was a little girl. The circumstances changed and the age of the people in the fantasy, but they always ended up dead. And one day it wasn't just a fantasy. One day she was holding the knife and he was lying on the ground bleeding from the gash in his throat where her impeccable aim had swung. His hand was still clasped in the claw like grip that had moments ago been around Clove's tiny throat. It took Enobaria several moments of watching the deep crimson blood pump from his throat until she blinked and looked around for her sister. She was six years old and crouched on the ground behind Enobaria, her black eyes large and staring at the dead body before her. It was the first death she ever saw and Enobaria hated herself for it. Without a word of explanation she picked her up and carried her from the room, but she could feel Clove's eyes fixed to the body of their father over Enobaria's shoulder. Again without a word of explanation she deposited her on Aelia's doorstep. The woman picked her up without a flicker of emotion, a consequence of a lifetime spent in District 2, and took her inside. Cato was there, leaning around his brother and staring at the blood spatter soaking into Enobaria's clothes with a gleam in his eyes that was deeply disturbing in an 8 year old boy.
When she returned to the house her mother was waiting, sitting in a chair in the darkened house and nursing the medieval old blade that Enobaria recognised from her father's Games. She glared at Enobaria with all the intense hatred of a lifetime of pain and suffering and disappointment. Enobaria didn't give her the chance to voice any of it. She launched a knife at her chest and watched as her mother's face froze in one last moment of surprise and something else...pride. She stared numbly at the two bodies seeping blood into the floor of her house. It wasn't lost on her that in the last moments of her life was perhaps the first time her mother had ever been proud of her eldest child. She hadn't expected her to have the courage to kill her. Perhaps she was even grateful.
When she was 17
She volunteered.
She didn't tell anyone. Not Domitius when she left him at her last training session before the Reaping. Not Aelia when she arrived at her house that morning to collect a ten year old Cato and his three younger siblings. Not Clove when she silently pinned her ebony hair out of her eyes and straightened the lace on her best dress. Not when she let her still tiny hand slip from her grasp as she ran ahead to join her friends in the eight year olds section. Not when she turned from her place with the older kids to look at her sister and caught her sharing meaningful glances with Cato across the crowd.
She was too young. No one expected her to volunteer. She wasn't eighteen and no one volunteered until they were eighteen. But before the last syllable of the reaped tribute's name had fallen from their escort's lips she was shouting out the two words and marching forwards. She heard the gasp from the crowd and she wondered briefly if any of them were Clove's. But when she sought out her eyes from up on the stage she was met with a manic grin and a pair of gleaming black eyes that told her she was proud. And she wasn't surprised. Enobaria should have known. She never could slip anything by Clove and killing was practically in their blood.
She had three people come visit her before she left on the train for the Capitol. The first was Clove. They didn't share many words. Enobaria just wrapped her arms around her little sister's tiny frame and told herself that this was all the reason she needed to come back. The second was Domitius, who glared at her in half exasperation and half pride. He gripped her in a brusque, strangely affectionate hug. "You have everything you need to win," was all he said in her ear.
The third person, or rather people, were Aelia and her four boys. She smiled at Enobaria in what she imagined was a motherly fashion and told her that she'd make her district proud. The boys all looked up at her in awe, all blonde hair and blue eyes. As they were leaving one suddenly detached himself from the group and dashed back to her. She looked down at Cato with mild surprise and he looked back at her with solemn eyes. "I can look after her...if you need me to," he said simply and for the first time Enobaria felt a flutter of fear at the thought of what lay ahead. But she managed to smile at the him. "Clove's lucky to have you," was all she could manage in reply.
When she was 18
She survived.
Her train pulled into the District 2 station and she heard the roar of the crowd even before she could see any of them. The mass of people and noise and colour almost overwhelmed her after the near silence of the Arena. She felt the pressure of hundreds of voices, and eyes, and hands raining down upon her back and she felt as if she was going to break apart into pieces.
She was their fiercest Victor yet. They loved what she had done. They loved the image of her with blood dripping down her chin and the body of a fallen tribute at her feet. She was a hero. And she was completely alone.
Every night she woke with the taste of blood filling her mouth, stifling the screams that tried to rip themselves from her throat. Every night she rose and paced around the house, using her persistent footsteps to drown out the deafening silence of the night time. Sometimes she would creep into Clove's room and use the sound of her regular breathing to drown out the memories instead.
Once she caught eleven year old Cato sneaking through the window and nine year old Clove helping to pull him through. They weren't quiet about it. Enobaria stayed hidden in the shadows and watched with narrowed eyes as they collapsed into a hushed giggling mass at the base of the window. 'God their starting young' was all she could think to herself as they climbed onto Clove's bed. But her concerns were eased when she watched Cato face Clove, sitting cross legged and a grin on his face. From then on, whenever she heard him sneaking into the house she would creep into the shadows outside the doorway and listen to the stories he told her. She would listen to his breathless excitement as he told her all the stories of the Academy and she smiled in amusement as she listened to Clove gasp and exclaim to truths that were greatly exaggerated.
When she was 19
She got called to the Capitol.
She went, because it was expected of her. And then she stayed because there was the scent of roses and a whispered word in her ear and she knew that Clove's life depended upon it. She stayed and did what they wanted and made sure she did it with a smile on her face. Inside she thought of a million violent deaths for every single one that laid a finger on her. Inside she thought only of the dark haired little girl and the blonde haired little boy that sat facing each other on the bed, whispering stories in the middle of the night.
She thought it would just be for a while, but then it turned into a few weeks, and then a few months. Just as when she was a child she turned inward to survive. She built up walls as strong as the stone of District 2 and she put them not just between her and her enemies, but between those that offered friendship- sympathetic Capitol citizens, her stylists, other Victors. She found that little spot of solitude that she had made within herself when she was a child, before she'd had a baby Clove to care for, and she withdrew to where it was safe and secure.
When she was 22
Her sister told her she hated her.
On one of the brief, rare visits she had been allowed back home she had walked through the door to be met with a knife spinning at her, missing her face by inches and lodging itself into the door frame. She followed the path of the knife and was met with a pair of furious black eyes.
"Get out!" Clove said in a cold voice. "You don't live here anymore."
It hit her harder than she'd thought it would. She knew it had been coming. Every time she came home Clove was more and more distant. She could feel the connection between them slowly tearing apart with time and distance and she'd been powerless to stop it. She couldn't tell a thirteen year old Clove the truth of why she went away. How could she? So she couldn't blame Clove for the anger and betrayal she felt. She thought Enobaria had abandoned her, preferred to spend time in the Capitol than with her at home, and perhaps it was easier for her to think that than to know the truth. It hurt Enobaria like hell though to see the complete hatred in her eyes and it reminded her of her father so much. It seemed their family was destined to always hate. To hate and kill.
When she was 24
She wanted to die.
She stood on the stage as a mentor and she watched her fifteen year old sister storm furiously towards the stage, marching closer to death with every step, it seemed to Enobaria. She wanted to die. She would give her life a thousand times over if it meant Clove could take those two words back and would never have to enter that Arena.
She tried to catch her eyes, to relay the horror she felt, as Clove joined Cato on the stage but her sister looked through her as if she didn't exist. And perhaps she didn't any more. Because how could she if Clove was killed? Everything would be for nothing and she would be completely and utterly alone.
Even Clove hating her was better than this.
But she was powerless against the forces of evil, as always, and she felt herself sucked helplessly towards the Capitol, feeling the hours tick by till she might have to say goodbye to Clove forever. She tried to talk herself out of it, to tell herself that Clove was as good as she had been, maybe even better. She tried to find the arrogance and confidence she had shared about her own certain victory and feel it about Clove's. But all she could ever find was blind panic and a heart wrenching, aching fear. Her nightmares started again but this time the blood filling her mouth was the least of her worries. She had to watch her sister die a dozen times every night, and in the morning when they sat opposite each other at the dining table she could only stare at her to make sure she was real.
She tried so hard to tell her the truth but Clove refused to hear it. The night before she went into the Arena she tried to tell her what it would really be like.
"It's not what you think. It's worse than Hell. Even if you win they'll never let you go."
And then later, when reasoning had failed, and she realised that this was all the time she was ever going to have, she resorted to pleading.
"I never wanted to leave you, you have to believe me. You're all I've ever had."
Clove glared at her tears contemptuously. "I don't need you. I've done just fine without you. And when I win, it won't be because of you."
In the morning it was all she could do to stay standing as she watched her walk so confidently away. She noticed the swift, secret smile she shared with Cato and her heart ached. It was the same smile she had given him when she was ten years old and he had snuck into her bedroom to tell her stories. She was the first mentor to turn away and everyone assumed it was because she was disgusted with the display of affection. Everyone assumed that she watched the screens emotionlessly because she was still the cold and uncaring bitch they'd always seen her to be. Everyone assumed that when she turned away from the screen as Clove's canon fired, it was because she was ashamed of yet another weakling tribute that had brought her shame. No one could guess that she was emotionless because she was completely and utterly numb. No one could guess that she wasn't turning away from just another tribute, but that she was turning away from the death of the little baby she had held and promised to protect. She was turning away from the death of the only person in the world she had ever loved, even though they hadn't always loved her back.