guess who's back with another slightly odd and difficult to follow chapter for you all! this chapter is going to be the goodbyes (narrated by Cavandar Belle) and the train journey (narrated by Farrow Beaumont). i'm pretty sure Farrow's POV will be literally nonsense but it was a lot of fun to write. just don't take him too seriously. :3
also, i had a great character called Petra Leonhardt in the last chapter. remember her? the mentor for district two? she was meant to be my district two girl, but she got given back to kashew klick, her creator, and now she has her own story. it's called philophobia, and you should definitely read it because it's made of awesomeness.
anyway. this chapter. let's do it.
Cavandar Belle, District Eight Female
Reaping Day, 1.30pm
All my life, I have felt trapped. Trapped by the secrets I keep; trapped by the fence around my District; trapped by my parents' image of who I am supposed to be. Like a song bird in a cage, I have always wished to be free. I have dreamed of going to the places beyond Eight's factories, where no one cares who my father is or who I love or whether or not my parents should be proud of me for wearing that dress today. Just me, free to have an adventure.
And now I am leaving.
But, staring out of the window in a small room in the Justice Building at the blurry, colourless world beyond, this certainly doesn't feel like an adventure.
The door swings open and my mother appears, my father a little way behind.
"Cavandar..." Mother pulls me into a big hug, her eye makeup running down her face and onto mine. "My little girl..."
"Mum, I-"
"Darling, listen. You're pretty, you can win sponsors. Find a Capitol boy, my dear, maybe he can buy you out of it!"
"Mum, I don't think-"
"You can shine, sweetheart. Don't lose hope."
"I won't, Mum."
"I love you, Cavandar."
"I love you, too." I mean it.
A single tear tracks down my face. My mother is controlling and pressurising but I love her. So, so much.
I have to get back home to her. She tried for so long to get me, I can't take that away from her, too.
My father steps forward. "Come home to me, won't you, Cavandar?" I nod, afraid of my voice cracking if I speak. The dull light from the window catches on my father's wet cheeks, and all the colours that were left in the world seem to slip away. Dad never cries. Never.
The three of us look at each other in silence. There is nothing more to say. A Peacekeeper opens the door and my parents both give me one last hug and leave.
They are replaced by Brian.
"Cavandar..." he whispers. "Oh my-"
He is cut off by my lips on his.
"Brian," I whisper against his mouth.
"Cavandar."
We have been a couple for four months, although it feels like a lifetime. I still remember dancing with him in the glorious rain on my balcony, on our first date. His hands in mine, the rain pouring down, both of us laughing together. The lightning lighting our faces as we discovered each other, together.
He cups my face with his hands, kissing the freckles across my nose. More tears escape from my eyes, my emotions overflowing from inside me and spilling down my cheeks. This may be the last time I ever see him.
"I love you."
His brown eyes fill my world. He is my everything.
"I love you, too."
Gently, his hands come to rest on my shoulders. "Do you want me to tell Lacey?"
Something twists in my stomach at the thought of Lacey's face when she is told that I have been dating her brother for four months, despite her adamant objections to it right from the start. The idea of that being her last memory of me... It is as nauseating as Capitol perfume.
"I... I can't leave her with that. That can't be what she remembers me for."
Brian looks at me. "I see." His lips are twisted slightly, but he nods. "How about this: we'll tell her together. When you get home."
"I may not-"
His smile is rueful. How can a smile ever be so sad? "Well, there's your incentive."
Our foreheads touch. "I already have one of those," I whisper, finding his hands and interlacing his fingers with mine.
"Promise me, Cavandar. Promise me you'll come home, so we can tell Lacey together."
The door is flung open, and two gloved hands grip Brian's arms, tearing him away from me.
"Brian!"
"Do you promise? Cavandar?"
"I-"
The door slams.
"I promise."
Farrow Beaumont, District Nine Male
The Train Journey. 4pm.
"Are you listening, boy?" The weirdo escort peers at me from behind her mirror. "This could be important, you know."
I shrug. Nah, I'm not listening. The landscape flying past outside is more interesting. There's, like, miles of it. Miles and miles and miles and miles and...
Imagine how many birds live in that lot. Like... Wow. That's a lot of birds, man.
The escort person is still talking, and my frazzled-haired district partner is still listening and asking all these, like, complicated questions, but I just can't deal with that right now, you know? Their words run off me like rain water from the leaves of a tree. I am a rock in a river, and their seriousness is the water.
Yeah.
Urgh, they both sound so stressed. Like, urgent, you know? Man, this sucks. I don't want to be near their negatives vibes. Like a mountain, I rise above it, and like a stream, I flow away.
Unlike a stream, I walk to my quarters or whatever on the train. It's cold and, like, so unnatural it hurts my hair. Everything smells of whatever the opposite of nature is, and the air tastes of a serious lack of life. As if I wasn't, like, depressed enough. Ew.
Man, there's a window, though. At least there's that.
The glass of the window pane is like a cage, keeping me from where I belong: the woods. With my face pressed right up against the window like this, I can almost see the individual trees, each one a paradise of life for tonnes of birds and beetles and... Like... More birds.
Trees are so cool, you know, man? They know how to chill.
Back in Nine, they were my safe place. No matter what was going on - being told I had to, like, go to school, rants from my parents about the importance of education or whatever. All that - it didn't matter in the trees. All the stress faded into something as insignificant as a single leaf in the whole of the forest.
And, like, in the trees, they have my birds, yeah? Maverick, the one who pecks me; Raven, the dead cute little robin; and, of course, Farrow jr., the only son I will ever want. Birds are way better than humans, they're way more chill... Like snowflakes.
Yeah. Snowflakes.
"What the hell are you doing?"
What? Who is it? I peel my face off the window to see Miss Electric-hair-and-like-no-chill giving me this weird look. I turn my head sideways so I can see her aura better. And, yeah, it's, like, this beige colour. Man, that sucks. People like that turn your aura all muddy. They're so, like, stressful. It's making my hair hurt all over again.
I tell her this and her face does this weird twisted thing, like, I don't know, man, a rotted tree or whatever.
"You're going to die in the Games," she says.
"We're playing games? I thought we were, like, fighting to the death in this really unchilled way."
"I give up," she mutters, and the door slams on her way out.
Man, these negative vibes are really so bad for my chill levels. I can feel my aura getting all orangey already.