Ariadne leads her to the truth, always.
That is how she has come to this moment; two days before the beginning of the Tour, before she will be thrust back into the spotlight and hidden behind gowns and glamour and insincere apologies. The only way to survive is to ignore it, to pretend the day will never come, to wait in blissful yet poignant silence of an unchangeable fact.
She has lost the option of feigning innocence, especially in light of what occurred in her Games. Instead, they've decided to present her in glory and elegance, as a Victor at heart, a name and a face which commands both awe and respect. They've come time and time again to drop off different outfits, replace others – the sweet pink getup forgotten and replaced with some sort of shimmering midnight-blue gown, the white lace and olive ribbon removed from her closet to make room for a black-and-silver strapless number that screams of Lucius' knowing touch (he has avoided day-glow neons for the time being, a miracle indeed.) Despite such convenient costumes, Johanna Mason does not wish to hide. She will greet them with the biting force of her anger.
It is seven-thirty. Blight has warned that the prep team will arrive at nine. He promised to show up before then. He has to show up before then, if he doesn't want to arrive to the sight of a kitchen knife in Julia Cassius' neck. He might be a bit disappointed, although prep teams are a dime a dozen, but she thinks of the gravity of Lucius' frizzy pink rage and feels that it might be better not to take the chance.
She looks back at the bed. Ariadne's slight frame looks like a sailboat in the middle of an open ocean, a fan of bloodred tresses splayed out across her pillow. Her skin is milk in the lamplight.
She looks like her mother, Passopa. She's long gone, of course, beaten to death by Peacekeepers years ago. Ariadne was thirteen years old.
They were all forced to witness it in the town commons. Instructors were marched out of the school to watch. The Head Peacekeeper, Septus Bare of District Two, commanded the presence of the Mayor, a young Donner Silvus. He had been appointed by the Capitol just six months before, a reward for his avid scholarship and wealthy family connections. He was barely thirty, and his wife Natalia had very recently given birth to their first daughter. Peacekeepers manhandled him out into the commons. He tried to persuade Septus Bare to speak with him alone, but he was weak and unsure and young. He was instead grabbed by the shirt collar and threatened into silence. So he stood and watched, just like the rest of them.
Passopa and her husband were tied to a post in the middle of the square, both of them. Hands bound with ropes, they bowed their heads and rested on bloodied knees. It was a sunless day. Her hair was so red it practically glowed. Passopa Jay and Dannel Deucalion, Criminals and Traitors. It appears that illegal border trade is something of a common crime in this District. Allow me to show to you all the degree of tolerance with which this matter will be treated.
They were scourged and whipped. Johanna had been passing through the Square and was forced by Peacekeepers to stop and bear witness. She recognized Ariadne a few paces in front of her, at inner edge of the crowd. The girl with the red hair, the girl in her music class. She was the only piano player in the whole school. Her hands were delicate works of art, fingers like small dancers, flitting across the keys. Johanna could watch her play for hours.
They had spoken a few times, bits and pieces of conversation in between the monotony of their own lives.
"I like it when you play." She had said.
Ariadne had looked away. "I like it when you watch."
And then she watched them flog the girl's parents, abuse them until their screams were mere wretches and detached breaths, hard and strained and empty, until the red of Passopa's hair did not rival the red of the blood, until they were reduced from human beings to mutilated, writhing animals. Until they were bludgeoned by the hilt of the whip, until they were dead, she watched, Donner watched, and between the ax girl and the mayor boy, there was nothing they could do.
And when Ariadne Deucalion collapsed, Johanna Mason pushed aggressively through the crowd to catch her. They were all watching her. Septus Bare's white uniform was bloodied up to the elbows. He saw her, saw the girl with the red hair like that of the corpse, and said, Let that be a lesson to you all. Especially you.
Johanna could have killed him. She looks at Ariadne, asleep in her bed. Someday.
She remembers watching Donner throw up into his hand. The District waited in silence as he wretched and Bare laughed, as he heaved and Bare roared. As Passopa Jay and Dannel Deucalion lay bloodied and dead in the streets.
In the end, though, Donner Silvus did see to it that Ariadne was allowed to keep her house.
Johanna sits beside her on the bed, strokes her hair, and remembers when she was not so peaceful. When those eyes could barely remain shut for a number of hours, much less a night. When she would hold her with all her strength, if only to save her from the wracking sobs and infinite pain, thick and heavy and dark and dead, to free her from a prison of desolation, from despair, from open arms and curled toes on a high winter roof, closed eyes and frozen tears, Don't jump, don't jump, don't jump.
Ariadne, Ariadne, Ariadne, please, please, please. Get down, would you please get down? Would you please come back?
Johanna leans down, presses a kiss to the top of her head, smells the faint pine-soaked scent of her hair.
Would you please come inside? Would you come inside with me?
They were friends first. Or so Johanna would say. Ariadne would insist that they were never friends; that between those notes floating above keystrokes and the soft autumn brown of Johanna's eyes, they were never friends.
The first time they had sex, just two years later, it was because she had wanted to feel something. Her face was red. She was interlocked in some sort of deep ethereal space; Johanna wonders if she remembered that it was her hands on her body, and not some sort of blind abstract touch. Her hands clutched at Johanna's shoulders. Just do it, just do it, just do it. She'd arched her back, chin out, teeth gritted, spitting a slur of soft wild noises, physical pleasure and emotional pain, both undeniable, both inescapable. She'd cried in Johanna's arms afterward. She wasn't even sixteen.
Johanna fell in love very quickly.
Ariadne stirs, turning on her side in the direction of Johanna's touch. She runs the back of her hand along Ariadne's cheek.
It has been one and a half years since she was unable to sleep through the night. She no longer goes onto the roof.