Chapter 24: Transience

June, 151 ADD; Reaping Day

His wife was taking an unusually long time to get ready.

Oberon had done a pretty good job of corralling the kids (just Venatrix and Iago, he reminded himself; it's really been almost a whole year, hasn't it?) this morning; it was the most subdued he's ever seen either of them on Reaping Day, though he could understand it.

He'd been relieved when Venatrix chose to spend her last night in District Two at home rather than at her Academy bunk, though he wondered if Iago had anything to do with that. In celebration (could he really still call it that?), he'd made her favorite for breakfast: french toast with candied berries and a light dusting of powdered sugar on top, though she'd only cleared half her plate.

Who could fault her for being nervous? He'd certainly been. Still was, if he thought about it too long.

It's fine. She'll be fine. She's ready for this.

She'd passed her final test, after all.

(He really did hate the killing test, hate that he'd had to put his daughter through that particular hell. But he couldn't deny the necessity, the effectiveness; it gave Two an edge that the other Careers didn't have, as far as he could tell. Trixie would need that edge, where she was going.)

Since graduation, she'd seemed to sink back into the somberness that had taken over her since last summer, reflected in her succinct tone whenever they spoke, as if she'd already begun putting up the mental walls she'd need to perform in the arena. The time with her brother and her friends had been good for her, he felt, preventing her from slipping into the black hole of grief — he could hear the two of them chattering away in the kitchen over dishes — but the hour had come for her to confront her fate head-on.

She'll be fine. He and Dag would make sure of it, whatever it took.

Speaking of, they'd need to leave for the Justice Plaza any minute, and his wife was nowhere to be seen. He glanced up the staircase then at his watch before deciding to retrieve her himself. "Dagmara?" Quietly, he pushed open the door to their bedroom. "Dag?"

Dressed in her Reaping Day finery, she lounged on the neatly-drawn covers of their bed, flipping through a leather-bound book; she looked up at the sound of her name.

"You look nice."

Her smile was subdued. "Thanks. You too, honey."

Adjusting his collar, Oberon rubbed a hand over his face to brush away any stray hairs from when he'd trimmed his beard earlier; as her eyes flitted back to the book, he recognized it.

How it took him until now, he didn't know; he'd spent hours pouring over the pages of the now-weathered sketchbook back when he'd been filling them in. He'd made a gift of it for her fortieth birthday, copying ink renditions of important photographs in an attempt to capture the phases of their life between leather binding. He'd even got the kids to help too; they'd had fun creating ridiculous poses for him to sketch. That was the only time his stupid little Victor's talent ever mattered, when he used it for her.

Drawn in by the memories contained within the book, Oberon took a place at her shoulder, peering at the contents. If he'd been aware of his appearance under her gaze, he was even more self-conscious about the drawings. He hardly considered himself an artist; looking back at the sketches made him cringe, though his wife insisted she loved them — hence the book.

They both let out a laugh as Dagmara flipped the page to a drawing of the kids, a bushy beard scribbled onto Venatrix's chin courtesy of Bellara; the result of him stepping out of the room for one second.

"Bell-ARA!"

He recognized the shrill tone of his eldest daughter's voice as the one she reserved specifically for Bell; the infectious giggles of her sister followed like clockwork. "You look just like Uncle Duncan now!"

"Dad, she ruined it!"

"Come on, Bell, that's not nice," he admonished.

Bellara's pout was merciless, and she knew it too. "It was just for fun."

He could never stay mad at her. A flailing arm shot under his nose, reaching to rip the page from the sketchbook; Oberon hastily batted it away. "Hey— Trixie, stop that, this is for your mother. You can each draw something else, okay?"

Though, perhaps that had been a mistake since the three of them had collaborated on a stick-figure bloodbath scene of their parents in the arena (again, Bellara's idea).

Dag skipped over that one, landing on a page featuring the kids stacked in a three-person pyramid with Bellara at the top; that had been a difficult one to draw as they'd kept falling over, forcing him to improvise their positions. "Their poses are a little wonky, but—"

"You got her smile perfectly." Dagmara's voice caught in her throat, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, planting a kiss on top of her head (carefully, to avoid mussing her hair). She clung to him for a minute, taking deep, steadying breaths. Her finger traced over Bellara's face, and he forced himself to look, his chest tightening at the fact that their daughter and her smile were confined to a transient existence between photographs and video clips and paper-thin sketches.

God, I can't do this again. He knew the thought echoed through his wife's mind as well by the way her fingers laced through his.

We won't.

There will be no District Eleven Victor this year. Not if Venatrix has anything to say about it.

It was set at this point. Venatrix knew what she had to do. And it wasn't just her angle; he knew she wanted to. She was too much like himself for her own good.

Reaching over his wife's shoulder, he skimmed through the pages until he landed on the drawing of the two of them. So young, they'd been, just after Dag's Victory. He had an arm around her shoulder, similar but so different to how they stood now. In the photo, the smile that had floated breathlessly across her cheeks seemed to carry the weight of the world at the same time, but he hadn't quite been able to capture it in ink. "We'll get one like this with Trixie after she wins, yeah?" Dagmara nodded, a quiet exhale. "We should get going," he sighed, catching the gaze of his watch.

Passing him the sketchbook, she stood from the bed to retrieve her shoes. Gently, he replaced it on the bookshelf on the wall right next to a heavily-worn copy of Dag's first novel, the one she'd rewritten to hell and back. His eyes trailed over the array of photographs they kept in view, half-consciously searching for the one to match that sketch.

It… wasn't there.

Frowning, he scanned the shelves again, this time coming up with only a blank frame, covered in a thin layer of dust. Uneasiness creeped up the hairs at the back of his neck. Whoever had removed the picture had done it a while ago; how had he only just noticed?

It wouldn't be the first time he'd found something out of place; even here, the Capitol was always watching. A distinct memory resurfaced: Venatrix, only a toddler at the time, digging a fork between the slats of the wooden kitchen table one evening and dislodging a wafer-thin electronic device; she'd destroyed it in her energetic rampage before either he or Dagmara recognized the bug. Shouldn't we of all people deserve some fucking privacy? he thought caustically, popping out the back of the frame to inspect it for listening devices with only a hint of paranoia. A certain undercurrent of mistrust always ran between the Capitol and her Victors, but this was District Two for fuck's sake, not Nine or Thirteen.

"Honey? What are you doing?"

No bugs, as far as he could tell. He held up the pieces of the empty frame. "It's gone."

"What is?"

"The photo." At her confused look, he elaborated. "The one of us after your Victory."

She shrugged, halfway out the door. "We can get it reprinted when we get back."

"Dag—"

"What?" She gave him a pointed look. "We really have to go now, we'll be late." From downstairs, he could hear the kids calling up to them.

"Did you take it out?"

"Why would I do that?"

Wilting under her stare, he replaced the empty frame on the shelf, shrugging weakly. "I didn't quite get your expression right in the drawing. I wanted to… I haven't seen you smile like that in a while."

"It's been a while since I had a reason to," she murmured.

His head snapped towards her; he felt like an idiot for being unable to hide the hurt in his eyes.

Dagmara sighed. "I didn't mean it like that." Of course she didn't. Why would either of us have a reason to smile just yet? "It's just everything lately, since Bell…"

He met her silently at the door, letting her wrap her arms around his waist and press a light kiss to his forehead.

"Let's just focus on Trix now, okay?" she said; the daughter in question yelled up to them again, her shout sharply reminding them of the time. "There's gonna be hell to pay once we get to the Capitol."

Oberon hummed in agreement. There always was.

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A/N: Today is a special day.. happy birthday Venatrix I love you ;-; I've updated the blog with a drawing of her ! (': I think you'll be happy to know that this is the last chapter of Part I here. We'll be getting into the reaping ceremony next chapter to celebrate Bellara's birthday (19 Oct), isn't that exciting ? :D Idk, I'm excited ;-; It's fun so far (:

(...If anyone's curious about the answer to the question from last chapter... It was Toxic by Britney Spears. Yes, this is canon; No, I do not take criticism; and neither does Iago c: )

I hope you guys have enjoyed Part I here. I never really expected it to become a novel in its own, but here we are ;-; Hopefully Part II will be enjoyable as well ! Alright, that's it, see you guys on the 19th xoxo

- Nell