Prompt : Hi! I have a Hayffie story prompt, and I would love it if you found the time to write it. I love the dynamic you write between Effie and her sister Lyssa in your stories. I was wondering if you could write a story showing their relationship overtime, from childhood to post-MJ? Maybe in the same kind of layout as 'Wishing on a Golden Star? Thank you!
This took me fooooorever ;) There is some hayffie eventually so I will be tagging that as well but it's mainly effie centric.
5 Moments between Lyssa and Effie and 1 with Haymitch
1.
At ten, Effie thinks the world of her big sister.
It doesn't matter that Lyssa is their parents' favorite – everyone's favorite – or that she wins more pageants than Effie can hope to rank in. It doesn't matter that she is allowed things Effie isn't because she's thirteen and already looks like a little lady and all the boys and most of the men look back at her when she passes them by on the street. Nobody ever glances twice at Effie but it doesn't matter.
Lyssandra is the best big sister.
Even when she mocks her for still playing with dolls and Effie immediately declares herself above toys – to her Mother's great satisfaction – and empties her bedroom of anything childish. Even when Lyssa prefers spending time with her best friends and forbids Effie to intrude on their pajama parties. Even when they fight because Effie wants to be her sister's best friend and do everything with her but Lyssa isn't interested in babysitting as she calls it.
She is the best big sister.
Because when their Mother is harsh, Lyssa is the one to do the comforting.
Effie has been biting on the inside of her cheek for the half an hour it took for dinner to end, knowing if she cried or let tears show in her eyes it would be worse – ladies never cry, Euphemia, eyes bright, chin up, smile on. She glances at her father from time to time but he didn't listen to the previous conversation or didn't care enough to give his input.
There was a beauty pageant that day and Effie stumbled on her heels during her artistic performance and fell. She got back up immediately of course but people laughed and she didn't even rank on the podium and her mother insisted she had brought shame on the family.
There has only been reproaches and snappish comments from then on.
Effie isn't hungry and the cheesecake doesn't look appealing. She is trying her best not to smudge it around the plate because she doesn't need to be told off about playing with her food on top of everything else. She will be grounded for the pageant disaster, she thinks, and right when she wants to go see a movie with her favorite actress too.
Silence is heavy and Effie hates silence.
Silence, she thinks, is a cold frightening thing. She imagines it's a sort of monster like one of those in the movies she is too young for but Lyssa sometimes lets her watch with her anyway. Silence has claws and teeth and an ugly grey skin.
"Do not daydream at the dinner table, Euphemia, honestly!" her mother snaps. "And do not slouch so. No wonder no one wants to give you a crown. When I think back about it… Oh, how humiliating with all my friends there to see you fail."
"My apologies, Mother." she whispers.
"Speak up, girl." Elindra scoffs. "Ladies do not mutter. Why can't you follow your sister's example?"
Lyssa looks up from the cheesecake she is slowly eating in small, proper little bites. Her blue eyes darting between their mother and Effie, not quite sure if she should be pleased by the compliment or sorry for her sister.
"She is young still, Elindra." her father sighs, finally cutting in. "She will learn from this mistake and never do it again. She won't embarrass you in this way again. Am I right, dear?"
There is some awkward affection in Tadius' voice but the defense is lukewarm at best. Effie understands only too well and is grateful for this small show of support anyway. You simply don't go against Elindra Trinket if you can help it.
"May I be excused?" she asks with her sweetest smile. She directs her question at her father rather than at her mother.
"Go." Tadius grants with a wave of his hand.
She doesn't need to be told twice. She doesn't run upstairs naturally – because ladies do not run and because she still feels unsteady on those new higher heels and she doesn't want a repeat of the afternoon's humiliating experience – but she walks fast enough that the maid she passes by in the corridor gives her a curious glance.
She busies herself taking off the pretty blue wig and carefully placing it back where it belongs. It's a difficult job and she knows most of her friends still have people helping them with that but Effie is responsible for her age and Elindra declared she was old enough to do this by herself. It is a show of trust and she is glad for it, at least her Mother thinks her trustworthy with the expensive clothes and wigs. Taking off the make-up is even more difficult and she often wishes you didn't need that many things to be beautiful.
Of course, she thinks, staring at her bare face in the mirror after fifteen good minutes of scrubbing at her face, when you look as plain as she does without beauty products, it is the price to pay to be gorgeous.
She climbs on her bed and sits in the very middle with her hairbrush, staring at the framed fashion pictures on the wall instead of doing what she is supposed to do and run the brush through her hair a hundred times. She is sure none of the models on the pictures ever fell.
There is a knock on the door and Effie bids whoever it is to come in because she knows the knock is only for manners' sake and they will come in anyway. Lyssa hurries in and closes the door behind her. She's ready for bed and thus shouldn't be wandering around in the corridors because ladies aren't supposed to parade in public looking less than their best.
Even at thirteen, Lyssandra is gorgeous. Effie eyes the long straight glossy golden hair with longing – barely dyed because her sister only needs highlights to look radiant – and slowly runs the brush in her own purple dyed hair a bit too briskly.
She hates her hair.
It's an in-between color of reddish blond and it coils on itself in wild uneven loose curls. Elindra declared a long time ago that they would be better off shaving her head and sticking to wigs but an eight years old Effie cried and raged and threw such a tantrum her mother relented and decided she would stick to wigs and they would only dye it for special occasions – dying it all the time would destroy her already awful hair.
This time, the special occasion was her birthday and she had been excited about it, hoping to be allowed out without a wig sometimes – except Elindra chose the color for her and Effie doesn't like it. Purple might have been the latest fashion but she wanted pink. A vibrant bubblegum pink.
"Do you feel better?" Lyssa asks, joining her on the bed and wordlessly snatching the hairbrush from her fingers. She's gentle when she starts untangling the purples curls and it's soothing so Effie relaxes.
Mother does that for Lyssandra sometimes. And they gossip about boys and the latest scandal at her school all the while.
She does it with Effie too when she wins and comes back home with a crown. It is a reward. A rare one.
"Mother hates me." she blurts out and the tears she's been holding on all day escape her. She starts to sob and can't stop. Even when Lyssa wraps her arms around her and rocks her she can't stop.
"Of course, she doesn't hate you, Effie!" Lyssa gasps. "Mother loves us!"
Mother loves you, the ten years old wants to retort because it is so obvious to her but she swallows the words back because she doesn't want to hurt Lyssa. She loves Lyssa too.
She cries and cries until her sobs turn to hiccups and her eyes feel swollen. She must be a sight. If their mother decides to check in before she goes to her bedroom… But Elindra never shows up and eventually, Lyssa nudges her back so she sits in front of her again.
Her sister is deft with her fingers and she braids her purple hair with efficiency.
"You should not worry." Lyssa promises. "You will win a lot more of pageants, I know it. You are lovely and smart and one day you will be the most beautiful woman in Panem and everyone will know it."
It's a lie, Effie wants to point out, and ladies should not lie. The most beautiful woman in Panem would always be Lyssa. As long as they lived, Effie would only be second best. It's something she has been aware of maybe before she even knew how to walk or talk.
She lets herself be comforted by the lie though because she knows Lyssa sincerely means it. Lyssa, like only popular handsome people could, does not care at all about her own beauty. She takes it for granted and doesn't particularly flaunt it in people's face. She is sweet and humble. That is why everyone loves her.
"Do you truly think so?" she whispers.
"Everyone in Panem will know your name." Lyssa promises, securing the braid. "And everyone will be in love with you. You will be a princess."
"And is there a prince like in fairytales?" she asks, forgetting to act like the grown up Elindra wants her to be for a minute.
"Of course!" Lyssa chuckles. "He will fall in love with you at first glance and you will live happily ever after and I will be the godmother to your children."
They get under the blankets without discussing it. They often share a bed when Elindra is in such moods so they can whisper secrets late into the night.
"It means you are the fairy then." Effie laughs.
"Being the fairy suits me." her sister decides. "I would like to be magical."
"You already are." she offers. And she means it.
2.
At thirteen, Effie's tastes in music is specifically meant to piss off her mother.
There is nothing she enjoys more than turning the volume up in her room, knowing Elindra cannot fault her for listening to the loud electronic beating sounds because it is the most fashionable band at the moment. To be honest, Effie doesn't like it. It's too loud and it doesn't sound like music should. But she forces herself to love it because all her friends do.
She lies on her bed and angrily sketches on her notepad, keeping an eye on the door in case someone opens it without warning – the knocks would have been swallowed by the music anyway – because she is supposed to work at her desk, back rod straight and not lying on her stomach on the bed like an uneducated ruffian.
Dinner shouldn't last much longer by her estimation. She begged to be excused mostly because she cannot bear to watch them all eat delicious dishes while she is forced to sip her soup in silence. It is her own fault, she supposes, she should have chosen the surgery instead of the diet but the prospect of being cut in with a scalpel or worse having devices suck her fat away is too scary to be properly contemplated.
Elindra is right though. She is too chubby and no matter how many hours she spends running on the treadmill or how much she resorts to a balanced healthy diet, she doesn't seem to be able to lose weight. Puberty, the doctor they consulted said.
Puberty sucks, Effie decided. Although she's grateful for the absence of pimples that seem to be the lot of most of her friends. Pimples can be hidden under foundation though. Fat, on the other hand…
She is not beautiful. That much is clear. She is chubby, her hair is ugly, her bare face is plain, and no matter how hard she strives to do it she just doesn't seem to be able to meet Elindra's expectations.
The arguments were endless nowadays. Not open confrontations that might have resolved things but side comments and harsh truths disguised as polite statements… Effie talks back – politely and always in a controlled way but she talks back. Her parents hate that. Lyssa was never so difficult is a recurrent tune now.
Lyssa, Lyssa, Lyssa… Some days, Effie is so sick of the name she cannot bear to look at her sister. Everyone compares her to Lyssandra and finds her lacking. Lyssa has a sweeter temper, she is more beautiful, she is kinder, she is more patient, she is a dream. Effie fights to emulate that behavior, putting on masks is easy nowadays, playing the part of the perfect little lady is ingrained in her. But it is never enough.
Even the boys she likes always end up falling in love with her big sister.
She misses her grandfather.
Everyone else seems to have mourned and forgotten him but her. The simple thought of him still makes her eyes burn and her throat close up but Elindra doesn't like mentions of him, Tadius simply doesn't care, and Lyssa, while sympathetic to her grief, always tells her he would like her to move on as if it is in any way helpful.
Her grandfather would never have laughed at her at the dinner table like her family did when she declared she was set on becoming an architect. That always was a hobby of hers, she has countless books about ruins and the evolution of buildings designing… Something her family has always dismissed. The books mostly come from her allowances or were presents from her grandfather.
Tadius cut her dreams to the ground.
She isn't clever enough.
The simple truth was put out there, on the dinner table, for everyone to hear. She is good at math, her father granted, but not good enough. She may have straight As in most subjects but her work isn't near perfect enough to hope doing something as difficult as tackling a career in architecture. She wouldn't go the distance. And if by miracle she managed it, she would never be the best and thus shouldn't even attempt it. She should listen to her mother, Tadius advised, find a good husband, settle down and start a family. All very proper.
She isn't good enough.
She sometimes wonders if that's what will be written on her grave eventually.
She's too busy getting the pleats of the dress she's sketching right to hear the door and she's still sprawled on the bed when it opens. She scrambles in a sitting position immediately, barely relaxing when she sees it is only Lyssa and not their mother.
Her sister shoots her a disapproving look at the lack of decorum, nudges the door shut behind her with her foot, and places one of the two plates she is carrying on the bedside table before walking to the stereo system and turning the volume down to a not deafening level.
"You should eat something." Lyssa declares firmly. "Starving is no way to lose weight. And I think you look lovely anyway. You have curves. It is not a crime to be curvy."
Effie fights not to roll her eyes at her. Lyssandra took to mothering her lately and it's on the tip of her tongue to remind her she's sixteen not sixty every time she does it. Her sister drags the chair from the desk and sits down to properly eat her own cake with her spoon.
Everything she does is perfect. Every move, every bite she takes… Everything is perfect and graceful and proper. Everything their parents could wish for.
And the fact she can eat everything she wants and never take a pound is the icing of the cake Effie won't allow herself to eat.
"Are you sketching one of your dresses?" Lyssa asks with an encouraging smile, hoping for a conversation perhaps.
It has been a long time since Effie last confided in her. Lyssa always smiles and tells her how wonderful her projects are but when Mother mocks them, she usually ends up agreeing with her.
If she cannot be an architect, she could be a stylist.
That's what she told her mother.
Who laughed.
Designing takes talent apparently and Elindra knows talent at first glance.
It is unnecessary to say she never saw it in her youngest daughter.
Effie believes her father more than she believes her mother though. And while she trusts Tadius to know what he is talking about with architecture, she refuses to grant the same courtesy to her mother. Her mother, she is determined to prove wrong.
Hence why she still sticks to eating disgusting soups and running for three hours every day. Fashion is a vicious unfaithful mistress but she thinks, given time, she can tame it. She can be famous.
Faced with her silence, Lyssa clears her throat. "You missed my big announcement… A friend of mother got in touch with her… He saw me at the last pageant we went to and… He is a stylist and he would like me to model for him. Mother thinks it is a great opportunity so I will take it."
Envy is an ugly thing. It twists the stomach and stabs you in the chest.
And yet Effie's smile is sweet and her jealousy easily hidden under fake joy. "How wonderful!"
Lyssa seems relieved by her reaction and relaxes a little, her own smile becoming less strained. "Perhaps I can show him your designs. He could give you some advices."
And most likely discourage me on Mother's orders, she thinks.
"Another time perhaps." she hums "It is a work in progress for now. Thank you though. It is kind of you."
"Of course." Lyssa answers, sounding happy. "It will be so exciting, Effie!"
"I am sure it will." she grins back.
She can't remember when putting on masks of cheerfulness became so natural even Lyssa couldn't tell when she's lying anymore.
Her sister used to be able to tell.
But then again, Effie also used to think Lyssa hung the moon.
3.
Effie is used to lurking in the backstage of fashion shows and people are so used to seeing her there that nobody pays too much attention to the seventeen years old. She helps sometimes, holding fast to a dress while a seamstress sews it right on a model or fetching accessories when asked. Mostly, she observes the way the prep teams do the models' make-up and she emulates it later on. She learns.
She loves it.
The whole atmosphere of fashion shows.
Everything goes fast, everyone is high on adrenaline – or other things but her sister strictly forbade her from talking to some of the people – and there is always some drama happening between models or stylists.
This show is a big one with several designer houses presenting their work and nobody said anything in front of her but Effie knows their mother is hoping someone will see Lyssa and offers her a better position. The house she is working for right now isn't as popular as their mother would have liked. Another thing nobody says but Effie knows is that Lyssa has been a model for four years and her career isn't what they hoped for. She is famous enough that people recognize her in the streets but she isn't famous enough to satisfy their mother's thirst for glory.
There are a lot of things nobody says and Effie knows. She has grown very good at reading people, at fooling them. She can switch personalities on command. She has a gift for it. She is popular because she can make herself be whatever the person facing her wants her to be. She is queen of her circle of friends at school. She is beautiful, she makes sure of it, even if that means spending hours applying make-up or styling a wig.
Elindra is happier with her nowadays.
The fashion show is huge and there are people running everywhere. Effie wanders from the corner reserved to the house Lyssa works for, keeping a keen eye for beautiful dresses. Her feet take her to the center of the room, where the most important stylist in Panem right now is screaming at a girl in tears. Faun Harwyn is an old man with blue dyed hair slicked back, amber eyes that must have been contacts and a bird of some sort tattooed in bright colorful ink on the side of his neck.
"I don't care you sprained your ankle!" the stylist was shouting. A circle was forming around him and the girl. "You are going out there! Where am I supposed to find someone to replace you now?"
Effie eyes the girl, decides her figure is similar enough to her sister's that something could probably be arranged and that if her mother were there, it is exactly what would happen. Except her mother isn't there and Lyssa isn't the only one with a figure similar to the injured model.
"I can do it." she hears herself say, as she strides confidently forward.
The stylist turns toward her and she knows she is supposed to look impressed and perhaps even a little bit terrified, like all the other girls are – and deep down she is impressed and terrified because Faun Harwyn is the fashion god and he has a reputation for being difficult and hard on his models – but, standing there, she simply looks calm and confident. She flashes him the blinding smile that usually dazzles men – although if rumors are right he has never been dazzled by a woman in his life – and waits for his judgment.
It is terribly risqué what she is doing. She could be about to be publicly humiliated. She is no one and there are a lot of gorgeous models around.
And yet her mask of calm confidence stays on.
He looks her up and down, turns away from the crying girl to circle around her twice. She can tell people are holding their breaths, not even daring to comment on her stupidity or her reckless bravery.
"Who do you work for?" he asks at last, looking around as if another stylist is going to appear to claim her back.
"You, it seems." she replies with just enough of insolence to be appealing.
"Cheeky." he chuckles. "Let's see how you walk."
A lifetime of beauty pageant finally pays off.
He barks at someone to get her in Idy's dress and people immediately start buzzing around her like flies. She's undressed and caked with make-up while other people switch her wig for another. The crying girl, Idy, is pushed aside and forgotten.
It goes fast, too fast for her to really register what is happening. She walks on that catwalk in a red and gold dress, she does all the right things, she commands all the stares and when she walks back out, the other models are eyeing her with mistrust and open hostility.
She doesn't care.
She's putting her own dress back on at the end of the show, listening to the other models' gossiping, when she feels hands zipping the dress up for her. She expects someone from the prep team but when she turns around with a genuine smile, a thank you on her lips, she finds herself facing Faun Harwyn himself for the second time that night. And this time she can't quite hide how intimidated she is.
"I am letting Idy go. Do you want her job?" the stylist declares.
"Yes." she answers in a heartbeat. "Thank you, sir."
He nods, studying her, his lips stretching a little. "I don't think you ever introduced yourself."
She hesitates for a second and then forgoes the formal Euphemia she hates and extends a hand. "Effie Trinket."
He doesn't shake it. He grabs it and covers it with his other hand. "I think you are going to be a star, Effie Trinket. I am rarely wrong in those matters."
Her smile is bright and spontaneous and his lips twitch before he lets go of her hand.
She hurries to the lobby where her mother is more than likely waiting for them, she's on a cloud and she doesn't think she has ever been so eager to talk to Elindra before.
"Mother!" she squeals as soon as she spots her talking with one of her friends. Interrupting is rude and her mother shoots her an annoyed and disapproving look. Her friend Stia smiles in that tolerant way old people have for boisterous teenagers. "Mother, did you see me?"
"You were lovely, Euphemia." Stia offers.
"We heard all about the injured girl but why did they ask you and not your sister?" Elindra scoffs. "No matter, no matter… You were lovely, indeed."
It isn't the open compliment she hoped for but she smiles all the same, too overjoyed to care. She's almost bouncing in her enthusiasm and she grabs her arm because she can feel Elindra is distracted and she wants her plain attention. This is her moment. She did something Lyssandra couldn't. She did it. And on her first try. "Faun Harwyn offered me a position, Mother. I am going to be one of his models!"
"Do not be ridiculous, darling, you misunderstood. They won't hire you." Elindra replies distractedly, her face suddenly lighting up. "Oh, would you look at that, I think they are hitting it off. Look, look, Euphemia! Your sister and Rufus Flavershym."
Effie deflates because there Lyssa is. Flirting with the most eligible bachelor in the Capitol, the most handsome too according to Capitol Gossip. The fact he is rich goes without saying.
"Did you hear what I said?" she insists. "I am going to work for Faun Harwyn's designer house."
"You do not have what it takes to be a model, Euphemia." her mother retorts. "You will never be famous."
She leaves without waiting for her mother or her sister. During the following days she refuses to listen to her mother's argument than she will never be one of the great and thus should be reasonable. She tells everyone she knows she will work for Faun Harwyn and the rumor spreads so fast and far that, in the end, Elindra has no choice but to sign the contracts allowing her to leave school and go work as a model – as Effie intended it.
The day of her first fashion show, nobody is here to cheer for her.
They're too busy celebrating Lyssa and Rufus' engagement.
She never congratulates her sister and when Lyssa asks if she doesn't approve of Rufus, Effie lies but doesn't ask for the details of the proposal. She doesn't even ask to see the ring.
4.
She thought it would take some time to get used to living alone but three days are enough.
As soon as she turns eighteen, the first thing Effie does is buy her own apartment with all the money she earned the previous year. She is famous enough that it is a lot of money.
She is more famous than Lyssandra ever was and she takes a lot of pleasure in that.
She's a rising star.
She's the face of Faun Harwyn's fashion house.
And the best thing is, she can do whatever she wants in her apartment. She lives on takeout food and classy restaurants, she walks around wearing what she wants, and she can have her friends over without asking anyone for permission. In the first week, she throws a party every night.
She is careful with her public image though. That's something Faun warned her about from the very first show. The Capitol is inhabited by wolves disguised as poodles, he told her, beware of the teeth.
She is careful with her public image but she lives in the moment and enjoys the fame. She's on top of the world right now and she is determined to stay there.
When someone rings her doorbell a week and a half after she moved in, she isn't really surprised to find her sister on her doorstep. It is rude to show up uninvited but Effie figures it's rudder to not have invited her in the first place.
Married life agrees with Lyssa. She's her usual radiant self, still more beautiful by far than she is. Still their mother's favorite because now she has the perfect husband, the perfect house and the perfect life but Effie comes close behind because everyone knows her name and she launches fashion trends.
She greets her with proper enthusiasm though, gives air kisses and ushers her in as if she's absolutely welcomed. Effie loves her, of course she does, but she prefers loving her from afar, where she doesn't have to be immediately reminded of why Lyssandra is so much better than she is.
"I love what you did with the place." Lyssa declared once she was given the tour. "Mother said it was lovely."
"Mother hates it." Effie denies with a bright satisfied smile.
Her apartment is vibrant with colors. They are everywhere. On the walls, on the paintings, in the curtains and rugs… Her family home is so aesthetically severe, she couldn't bear the idea of replicating it.
Lyssa smiles back. "She would. But I do love it."
There is a moment of shared complicity that reminds Effie of their childhood but it fades soon.
"Will you visit me soon?" her sister pleads. "You haven't seen the house yet."
Why bother when Elindra described every room in details? The mansion is huge, at the top of the hill, packed with staff and absolutely gorgeous.
"I have been very busy." she counters. "My apologies. Would you care for some tea?"
She hopes it would allow her a moment alone but Lyssa follows her to the kitchen and frowns when she realizes Effie has no maid on hand. It is a thought-through choice. She has a cleaning woman coming in three times a week – or more depending on her wishes – and she hires staff for parties but she doesn't want servants living with her. She's enjoying her privacy.
And if it means she needs to do some things by herself – like learning how to make her tea or heat leftovers, so be it.
Proper behavior would be to guide Lyssa back to the living-room but Effie feels like ruffling her sister's feathers and thus she sits down at the counter, forcing her to do the same. She doesn't think Lyssandra ever sat in a kitchen in her whole life.
"I saw your latest pictures in Capitol Couture…" Lyssa offers, after taking a polite sip. "They are a bit daring."
"Stelan took them." she hums, a nostalgic smile stretching her lips. They haven't broken up so long ago that it doesn't hurt yet.
"I was sorry to hear about the two of you. Although I would have liked to hear it from you and not read it in magazines." Lyssa offers, leaning closer as if to better hear the juicy gossips they usually keep from their mother. She brought Stelan to family dinners more than once. Their affair was public – she's too famous to keep something like that from the press and she was too in love to care – and so was their break-up. "What happened?"
He cheated on me numerous times and I grew too resentful to forgive is the real answer.
"We grew apart." she says instead. That's the official explanation. "We remain good friends."
"Oh…" Lyssa frowns. "Well. No matter. You will find better."
"I will." she grins confidently. "And what about you? How is Rufus?"
The question is polite. Rufus is nice enough even though he has a tendency to grope her at Sunday brunches. She simply doesn't like him. There is no real rational reason for it. He is arrogant, full of himself and too idle. In the short time she has known him he planned three different paths of careers and stuck to none. He doesn't need to work anyway, his family might be one of the richest in Panem.
As always when she talks about her husband, there are stars in her eyes.
Effie listens but can't help but feel that she and her sister live on two different planets.
5
"Here you are." Lyssa exclaims, closing the door of Effie's former bedroom behind her. Their parents converted their bedrooms as soon as they were out of the house. Effie's became a new guestroom and Lyssandra was turned into a brand new gym nobody ever use.
"Here I am." Effie sighs, perched on a trunk next to the open window, a cigarette slowly burning on itself in her hand.
She grew bored of the party downstairs, bored of the old men Elindra invited so they could fall in love with her and eventually propose to her, bored of Gloss and Cashmere parading around and of Elindra's delighted face at having snatched victors from that year Victory Tour's numerous events, bored of her mother's relentless hinting that she should cozy up to them because they might get her promoted at last, bored of the veiled comments that she should just quit because ten years of being a joke was enough and she would never be anything else than Twelve's escort.
"I thought you quitted." Lyssanda clucks her tongue as she comes to sit next to her on the wooden trunk.
"You sound like Haymitch." she snorts without thinking. She drank a bit too much and her tongue is loose, it is also why she chose to hide upstairs for a little while.
"Well, he is right then." Lyssa scolds her.
Out of sheer stubbornness, she brings the cigarette to her lips and takes a long drag.
"There are special circumstances warranting a smoke." she declares. "And if Mother tries to hook me up with another sixty years old man one more time, I might just smoke the whole packet."
"She is picking them older and older." her sister agrees, glancing down the window at the empty street.
"Apparently it is because I am getting older and older." she chuckles. "Past thirty nobody wants you anymore, don't you know?"
Lyssa laughs at that because their mother always was a bit ridiculous but it is growing out of proportions with age. Elindra is worried about her, that much Effie understands. She would like her to quit the Games, settle down, marry, have children… She insists Effie isn't happy, can't be happy living the life she does. She is right mostly but not for the reasons she comes up with.
There are two worlds in Effie life. The Games and the regular Capitol. Sometimes, she manages to forget. Often, she doesn't.
She wonders what it means that she feels closer to Haymitch, Finnick and the rest of them than she does to her family.
"It has been a while since you had a steady relationship." Lyssa ventures and immediately lifts a hand when Effie shoots her a look. "I do not mean to pry. I am simply saying. Why, I can't remember the last time…"
"I do not advertise my every affair." she retorts. "The press would have a field day."
She crushes her cigarette against the window pane and when she is sure it's off, she tosses it in the street. She toys with the idea of smoking another but eventually places both packet and silver lighter in her purse. She quitted, it is an occasional thing and it wouldn't do to cave to the urge too often. Like sleeping pills, it is a bit too tempting to give in.
"There are a lot of rumors though." Lyssandra observes carefully.
"There are always a lot of rumors surrounding celebrities." she replies. "How many of them are true?"
"Rufus says…" Lyssa insists.
"Rufus was a Gamemaker for ten minutes." Effie snaps. "Perhaps do not be so quick to trust his word. He does not know what he is talking about."
Her sister falls silent, clearly hurt.
She refuses to apologizes even though she is in the wrong and Lyssa doesn't deserve being snapped at. Her brother-in-law's jumping of careers had brought him to play Gamemaker for two years. He was stupid enough to be one of those that the Games don't sicken. He didn't quit out of disgust but because he was bad at it and Seneca asked him to step down behind closed doors.
Elindra was naturally crushed since she hoped having a Gamemaker in the family would make up for Effie associating the Trinket's name with Twelve.
"Why are you always so mean lately?" Lyssa hisses with uncharacteristic anger.
Effie isn't mean with her sister. Being mean would involve telling her about what her husband is up to behind her back. Rufus loves women, it has always been so. His time as a Gamemaker opened doors to him. Pretty victors and some of the escorts… Being mean would be telling Lyssandra that he cheats on her.
She doesn't and she won't because divorce simply isn't something that is done in the Trinket family and Lyssandra loves Rufus too much. She would forgive. Knowing would simply hurt her. And Effie doesn't want her to be hurt.
She warned Rufus. She warned him several times. All it has gotten her was being pushed against a wall, an ugly threat of having her exposed for who she was hissed in her ear.
She doesn't quite know what Rufus was talking about and she doesn't quite care.
Haymitch, she figures. She lets nothing else of her true feelings for the Games and the Capitol slip. But Haymitch is an obvious weakness. They've been sleeping together long enough, there have been rumors for long enough, that he is an obvious weak spot.
Exposing their affair wouldn't be the tsunami Rufus thinks it would be.
It would blow over really fast.
They were old news and not as scandalous as other affairs.
"Mother thinks you are bitter." Lyssa goes on. "That you envy me."
Envy the lovely mansion, the rich husband and the two spoiled sons…
"I envy you nothing aside for your naivety." Effie scoffs.
"What is that supposed to mean?" her sister scorns.
It means Lyssa knows nothing of the ugly truth behind the Games. It is just a reality show to her. She doesn't know what it feels like to get to know children and then send them off to die. She doesn't know what it feels like to watch them being slaughtered on a screen. She doesn't know what it feels like to watch friends being sold and other being crushed. She doesn't know what it feels like to look at a man she might be in love with and know he is broken beyond repairs. She doesn't know what it feels like to wake up gasping in the middle of the night because ghosts of children she had reaped come back to haunt her. She doesn't know what it feels like to cry in the shower because that is the only place nobody will hear her.
She doesn't know what it feels like to force herself to smile and laugh and look happy all the time.
It's exhausting.
And she doesn't know how much longer she can bear it.
"It means you should enjoy what you have." Effie sighs. "I do not wish to fight with you."
"No? And yet you refuse to talk to me." Lyssandra snorts. "We used to tell each other everything. We used to… I miss you. What did I do to you?"
Everything, she wants to say and yet… "Nothing."
It isn't Lyssa, it is their mother. Lyssa is just collateral damage. It is unfair probably and Effie should be ashamed of this petty resentment that still won't go away. It used to feel like the most important thing in the world and now it feels insignificant but she still can't let go.
"Liar." Lyssandra accuses.
Effie almost laughs at how accurate that accusation is.
"We should head back." she declares. She doesn't want this to blow up into something they can't walk back from. The one-sided rivalry has always gone unspoken and it is probably better this way.
She stands up but before she can take a step, her sister speaks again. "Is it him who poisons you so?"
"Be careful." she warns.
"Rufus says the rumors are true." Lyssa insists because she is clearly fed up and decided to force a confession out of her. "That you are sleeping with your victor."
"A lot of people are sleeping with victors." she snaps. "Trust me, you do not want to know."
"I do not care about other people, I care about you." Lyssandra shoots back. "Are you sleeping with that man? He cannot be good for you, Effie. Rufus told me things about him. He is couth and violent and he is a drunk."
"Rufus shouldn't talk about things he knows nothing about." she growls back, always defensive when Haymitch is dragged in the mud like this. "He doesn't know the first thing about Haymitch."
Lyssa studies her for a moment, eyes wide and growing horror on her face.
"You are in love with him." her sister whispers breathlessly.
Her first instinct is to snarl a denial but Effie is better than that. She remains collected, hides behind a blank mask of schooled features, doesn't betray anything.
"Of course, I am not." she spits. "However, he is my friend and I am sorry to say but your husband is an idiot."
"Do not talk about Rufus thus!" Lyssandra snaps, bolting to her feet. "Rufus is twice the man your victor is."
She laughs.
She can't help herself.
She bursts out laughing.
And she can't stop. She can't stop even when Lyssandra starts sputtering, demanding an explanation. She can't stop even when a pain erupts in her side. She can't stop even when she flops back down on the trunk without any grace because really…
"My victor…" she breathes out finally, between two hiccups. "… is everything your husband isn't. And I wouldn't have it any other way."
"He is nothing but a District dog." Lyssa sneers and she looks so much like their mother at that second that Effie feels nothing but anger and contempt.
"And yet he doesn't cheat on me." she shrugs, before grabbing her purse and leaving the room – leaving the house if she can get away with it.
Lyssandra never asks what she means by that.
Maybe she isn't so oblivious after all.
6.
"I demand to see her."
Haymitch is nursing a headache.
Lack of booze, lack of sleep and food, too many dead friends he doesn't have time to grieve, too many other friends he needs to protect, too many things to take care of…
He has no patience for the woman standing in front of him, golden hair loose on her shoulders, clothes dirty with the dust and ashes that refuse to settle in the streets outside, a spark of madness in her eyes.
"She hasn't woken up yet." he growls.
"No matter." Lyssandra snaps, jutting her chin higher in the same way Effie does sometimes. They look alike. Or they looked alike before his escort spent months trapped in a cell, he figures, because Effie doesn't look like Effie anymore. "I am her next of kin. I do not understand why you seem to hold all the power over her fate. Sister trumps boyfriend, does it not? Or is it different now that your little rebellion took over?"
She talks too loud and the guards in front of Effie's doors look at them with irritation.
He drags her in the room simply to avoid her getting arrested. Somehow, he doesn't think Effie would thank him for that when she would wake up.
"I'm in charge of her 'cause I can protect her." he hisses, closing the door behind them. "A word of advice, sweetheart, don't shout out your loyalty to the Capitol like that. You'll end up flayed in the streets."
The gaze the woman gives him is glassy at best, like she doesn't truly care about her fate. She walks to Effie's bed, takes in the numerous machines, and keeps a blank face as she studies her sister and catalogues injuries.
The sight isn't pretty.
Haymitch's heart clenches every time he looks at her.
It could have been worse, he tells himself.
"She's dehydrated and starved." he explains reluctantly. "She's got a couple of broken ribs. Her shoulder was dislocated for a while so it will take some times before she can use it properly. She was in isolation for weeks so they're concerned about her mental state." His voice falters and he automatically reaches out, his hand wrapping around her foot over the sheets. "They say it's okay she hasn't woken up yet. It's better. Her body can recover better this way."
"You did this." Lyssandra accuses. "She is in this bed because of you. You turned her against us."
He wants to say yes but it's too easy an answer. "Look…"
"Mother and Father are alive." she says, fingers brushing against the back of Effie's hand, clearly not addressing him anymore. "My sons are not. They were at the Mansion. Rufus was arrested by your friends. My sons are dead because of your war."
Haymitch's fingers clench on Effie's foot, ready to intervene if she tries anything.
Lyssandra's face contorts in anger. "I am glad you are alive but you are dead to me. I do not want to see you ever again. Your war killed my children. Your war…"
"It wasn't her war and she didn't kill your kids." Haymitch snaps. "She…"
"She chose you." Lyssa cuts him off. "You and those tributes. She chose the lot of you over her family."
"We are her family too." he snarls. He recognizes the mad grief on her face though and thus he swallows everything else back. "I know how it's like. You want someone to blame. She's not the one you should hate."
"Why not?" the woman chuckles bitterly. "She spent her whole life hating me, resenting me, so she destroyed my family." She shakes her head, looks at her sister one last time and turns around. "Tell her to stay away from us. We do not want anything to do with a traitor."
It takes everything he has not to follow her and shout abuse. He sits on the chair next to Effie's bed instead and he waits.
When she wakes up a few days later and eventually asks after her family, he doesn't tell the whole truth. He tells her about her nephews but he never tells her about Lyssa's visit.
She suspects, he thinks, a few times over the following years.
Her sister still refuses to say more than three words to her and he's the one holding her and piecing her back together every time Effie ventures to call.
As she often repeats – and lies to convince herself – it doesn't matter.
Family doesn't end with blood.