The dark gloves irked her. Too tight around her wrist and too loose around her fingers, she rather wished to plug them off—one finger after another—and throw them into a bin never to be seen again. Instead, her hands calmly folded the pair together as halls echoed along her steps and the grand ceiling loomed above her head.
Reaping Day Sixty-Five.
With a brutal consistency, the celebrations had always been the same. Every year, ever since she could remember. Her earliest memory, at age five, her brother had tried to fight her with a sword unpacked the very same morning from a gift basket and jabbed her cheek. It had grown pink almost in an instant, and turned into a grotesque mix of yellow and blue before the arena was opened that year. Albeit a faint memory, eroded from years of other events requiring her attention, she remembered the stinging pain in her cheeks and how the wet tears had dried as she clung to her chest.
There had been a tension in her chest not dissimilar to how she felt now. No one had pushed a toy sword into her face, but Virgilia's chest tightened with every breath they walked on. They. Before her, an Avox, who seemed swallowed whole by the round piece of fabric gripping their body. They didn't speak, of course they didn't, but the silence was deafening despite the echoed steps bouncing up toward the ceiling and crashing down into the empty hallway. An eerie feeling, as Virgilia remembered the halls differently. Life bubbled about as conversations grew into a drowning sea of rumours and speculation. But today, one day before the floodgates opened, the absence of noise seemed too worrisome.
It was a sea drawn back before the storm.
Officially, the training centre was closed to the public until the parade. Only Games personnel were allowed inside. Unofficially, that had included her, thanks to Plutarch's swift invite. He hadn't forgotten his promise, clung to her heart, as she had read the invite once, twice, thrice. She had decided to forget the white rose on her dress this morning, solely attaching it to her light coat and equally deciding to forget it in the car.
The public area was long behind them as the many twists and turns brought them deeper into the belly of the beast. Light remained everywhere, whether from the ceiling or windows, but she was not sure if she could find her way out again.
The imminent plain white door at the end of the hallway was unexpected. The avox moved to the side, all too silent, as their hands folded before their body and their gaze turned downward. She was not alone, no, but the pang of seeming-loneliness made breathing harder. The air was too crisp, the throat was too tight. Was this how he felt when visiting her? Led through a mansion whose paths he didn't know, and stopped by a door to knock on and see her? Was his heart equally beating so rapidly? Her fingers seemed all too hot as she knocked, but there was no time to await him appearing before her. She pictured his freckles up close, his curious blue eyes and the hint of his cologne lingering in the air.
The door opened by itself.
He wasn't right behind it.
Sometimes, technology was a hindrance in life. This was one of those sometimes.
Instead, Plutarch was down the steps and his broad shoulders were illuminated by a light source. He mustn't have heard her, not turning around, all despite the brief gust of wind of the door and the first steps she took along the stairs. Since the last time they met, the bits of blond hair had grown longer—long enough to touch his dark coat.
Something had taken up his attention, and that something seemed familiar the more she focused on it. Glistening blue, turning around and humming with the electric hologram that produced it. There were mountains and forest, water and beaches.
A map. The map. The very same he had drawn in the notebook. The very same that still lay hidden inside the mansion. It wasn't drawn in grey on white pages, but realised into a fully fledged hologram.
"Plutarch," Virgilia said. With as much formality she could muster, her hands folded before her. The last time they had seen each other, they had been filled with many mishaps. The softness of his hand. The brief warmth of his embrace. Were they anything more than friends and were she not married, seeing him might have filled her with the same giddiness than when she thought of him in private.
Maybe it did.
Hearing his name must have awoken him. Plutarch's head turned into the direction of the sound. His hands lifted from the map, touched the open button of his coat and tipped against it—smiling. It lasted, lingering about, not like a full, bright one, where his cheeks lifted to reach his eyes. Instead, it was a faint one, tugging at the corners of his lips as if uncontrollable entirely. "Virgilia. It's good to see you."
His smiles had always been contagious, but today especially so. Her lips pressed together in an attempt to maintain her posture. If she were to part them, surely, her heart would take the chance and leap out. Far too quickly was it jumbling inside her chest. So wild inside her, entirely, solely, and undeniably caused by the light's way on his face, how it touched his eyes with an intensity she had seen in him only a few times beforehand.
There were no guards about and time had been on her side, allowing her to contemplate her next steps long before she had entered the Gamemaker's room.
Plutarch's hug was warm and welcoming. His arms were rather strong, wrapping around her so entirely and keeping her close for only but a mere moment. But that was enough, more than enough, sensing an ubiquitous prickle spreading from her stomach as she felt him so close. Virgilia imagined hearing a pounding heartbeat—albeit it might have been her own. He was different from her husband, whose large but thin shape seemed so cold and empty. No, Plutarch didn't slip away from her, even when her chin briefly came to rest on his shoulder. He appeared ever so real, caught in the moment in the same way the sun warmed her face after clouded days, awakening her anew in a reality that grew dense and present.
They parted too soon for her liking.
His cheeks had flushed red, but she made the effort not to look too much.
"Is … is this the map?" Virgilia's voice scratched at each word as if the letters themselves had begun to stumble. She didn't quite hear herself, either, her heartbeat ringing inside her ears as her hands tugged into the fabric of her dress. Concentrating on the map was hard, her view firmly placed on its blue forests and cliffs. But her mind had other thoughts to swirl around. They were about the scent of his cologne, the touch of his hands, the embrace of his arms. She hoped he hadn't minded the hug, quite so different from the awkward stiffness of their hands together as their bodies had stumbled into each other last time. Surely, this shouldn't be an embarrassment for him, at least because they were so entirely by themselves.
"Yes," Plutarch pointed out the obvious. He raised his hand. It moved along with his next words as if they were back at the gallery looking at the paintings. "We have the Cornucopia right in the centre. See, there's still a forest terrain which might lead some tributes to believe they are entirely surrounded by green alone."
His hand moved to a larger metal object. Woods and bushes already crawled by the edges of the Cornucopia, but grew dense until thinning out once more.
"Those that survive the bloodbath will inevitably realise there's more than the forest," he said and made a gesture with his wrist. The map turned and moved close to the edge of the forest. "The cliffs lead to the water. Some paths are easier than others, but there's several beaches. Here's the surprise, however."
The map with lush trees and pretty beaches changed, giving way to an entirely different structure.
"We have smaller caves all across the island. They aren't for long-time hiding purposes—" Plutarch tapped on the artificial display and the waves moved, growing heavy and deadly as they flooded the caves. "The more days pass, the more water floods into the caves during nighttime. It's not a pleasant hideaway, but rather intended to be used as a short-time stay. Or traps, of course. Some of them are connected, too, and smart tributes will figure that out rather quickly. This is a secret; viewers are supposed to find out at the same time as the tributes."
Close by his side, she felt the fire of his gaze. A secret; one no one was supposed to know just yet. Shared by the Gamemakers and her. Involuntarily, her lips' corners tugged upward..
His voice rumbled as if at sea. Despite him surely having proposed this idea numerous times to other Gamemakers, engineers, or even her husband, there was pride and excitement buried within. As if one only needed to dive deep enough and find the most beautiful corals, he, too, could not hide the passion that swung along.
"What's this?" Virgilia asked and pointed to an area that seemed different from his drawing.
"This…" with a few gestures, he moved the map along to be close enough for her to see. There was no explanation necessary, but the silence weighed just as heavy. For a moment, she expected, no, hoped, he would explain so she would not have to mention it herself. Yet, here it was.
Virgilia, with all calmness she could muster—that is to say, fairly little—finally said: "It's—it is the waterfall I suggested."
She wasn't certain of his reaction. Plutarch swayed from one side to the next, his hands flat on the sides of his body and then clearing his throat. It didn't take him long to answer, but he had grown oddly quiet. Thinking of him with too much ego who didn't wish to admit he was inspired seemed unlike him. What else, then?
Finally, he said: "I liked your idea."
She grew conscious of her heartbeat. Of the long breath taken and how it filled her lungs. Her chest had been lifted, bursting as her heart rattled along. Virgilia let out her breath in the same way one would let out all joy and giddiness if they weren't in company, yet with her breath carried a few words, strung along in ways she wasn't sure made sense.
A thank you was what she had hoped to deliver and he didn't look at her half as confused as she expected.
It was a mere glimpse, but Virgilia was certain his lips had twitched into a smile. Whatever it had been, it was gone just as quick. What stayed was the warmth underneath her fingertips as they folded together.
His hand raised and the light tinted it in cold colours. The freckles on his hand had turned blue as he motioned along, swiftly guiding her along the waterfall both in gesture and with words. "There are only a few locations that provide drinking water to the tributes. The waterfall is one of them, but considerably important in the mid-to-late game stages when other drinking spots have been flooded by the salty ocean water."
With the flick of a hand, the water levels rose again, daring to erode the island entirely. Plutarch continued: "If a tribute is not careful around this part, they won't stay in the Games for much longer."
Each part of the arena coordinated with the next, establishing a larger structure at the hand of the Gamemakers. At his. Yet, his left hand traced along his other arm, sleeves moved upward to expose his skin, explaining some kind of tracking mechanism and how it aided in determining the tribute's health. She had gotten lost somewhere around measure the heartbeat, watching the freckles intermingle with the hair on his hand and arm as he gestured about.
"What—" Virgilia said and looked back at the freckles around his eyes, "What kind of tribute could… win?"
"Who do you think could win?"
Her view moved back from him to the arena, eyes widened and she rubbed the inside of her hands.
With the flick of a motion, the map zoomed out to the island itself, the crashing waters and the deep forests. Information about some animals were shown; small monkeys and colourful birds all over the map. It must be windy up on the hills and, surely, awfully warm within the woods. Each spot had its advantages and disadvantages. A warm forest was a place to hide, but one could be sneaked up on. The hills and beaches allowed for a wide view, but equally exposed any tribute who dared to enter.
"Every … element fits into each other, y—yes?" Briefly looking at him, Plutarch's brows raised and lips curled in the way of raising his cheeks. He was close enough for her to make up all those tiny wrinkles his lips moved into. There was the quickened notion of the left side that curled into something almost shaping a dimple.
"Tributes who can swim might have it easier with… with the rising tides and all." At her words, Plutarch gestured to draw her words into reality. Water crashed against the cliffs and swallowed the underwater caves. Previous drinking spots were rendered useless.
"What tributes can usually swim?" he asked.
"District 4 and… 6," she guessed and added: "Four because … of their fishing spots. Six has the lakes, right?"
"Yes," Plutarch was quick to nod, "The clothes carry weak floating devices, but swimmers remain at an advantage."
There was more, she gauged, from the silence that followed as the map rotated along.
"There's woods. Any tribute who can climb or… or hide well—I suppose they do well." Virgilia looked from the forests to the animal data. "All of those are quick animals, no? I've seen those monkeys on television once. I think they are fast."
His voice was soft, prompting in its speed and, yet, there was no urgency in demanding a fast answer: "What does that tell you?"
"Woods don't fit to beaches, but monkeys aren't common in our forests—I think. I—I don't know, Plutarch." A sigh, her hands undone, and she spun the map along herself. "The districts aren't clear. I suppose it's not about those…"
He didn't speak. The map buzzed about and she imagined his heartbeat, his breath, all audible in her imagination albeit there was silence. None of which she minded, no, it granted her room to think about his question.
"The winner might be a swimmer who is fast and … and they got a quick eye in the forests. They will need to be good at finding water spots or—or have many sponsors. If they can climb… I suppose tall tributes will have trouble in the small caves…" She finished, not convinced herself. "Was I right?"
Plutarch didn't shake his head. He didn't nod. No, he did something much worse: He shrugged.
"There's no right or wrong," he replied in his deep voice "I was curious about your thoughts."
"That's…"
Her brows stopped short of pulling together and looking offended. He had asked her a question, she had done all the thinking and—what was it, truly? Virgilia looked between the map and him. The cold blue spinning about, revealing more hiding places and spots of future fighting. The black and dark purple on his coat and shirt, fabrics wrapped around him and moving with every breath of his.
She frowned, initially, but settled for a measured smile, thin on her lips and looked back at his mouth.
"That's … kind of you," she said. And in a way it was. The quietness usually drowned itself with a busy mind. Too many doubts, too many concerns, too much fear, too. But it hadn't been the case here—despite the quiet. No, it wasn't the silence of indifference. There had been room to move within the absent of sound. Her lips tugged upward. "Thank you."
He was an odd man.
It was right there that she noticed it. Not directly, no, her view had returned to the map and all its many pieces of information which, surely, were a secret to anyone but those working on the Games. A brief moment, drawn to her by the reflection of the metal opposite on their side. His dark coat and her formal dress; their arms nearly bumping into each other. She had felt the friction of his closeness, the way he had looked at her and the scent of his aftershave. It had all been there, but she had refused for such matters to spin her mind when she had been solving his riddle.
They were close, and she was not at all certain whose fault it was.
But she knew it was hers when their hands bumped into each other, and she knew it was hers for not pulling away sooner.
One.
Initially, her mouth hung open, ready to apologise if he flinched away. But he didn't. Virgilia didn't dare to look over her shoulder and find his gaze or find anything but his hand. The air felt crisp with friction, light and heavy to breathe all at the same time.
Two.
She had seen the light hair on his hand and contemplated too many times about how it would feel. It was not as tremendously noticeable, but the thumping heartbeat and the motion of his hand took up too much of her attention.
Three.
The motion of his hand. How his pointer slipped around hers, how it paused right when it had reached her outer side. Stopping short from even one finger slipping between hers.
Four.
Her thumb caressed his finger. He felt warm, warmer than her, but not awfully so. His skin was smooth.
Five.
And she pulled away.
Her chest rose and fell in a laboured attempt at breathing. Her hand, still tingling with his touch, pretended to redo strands of hair that had surely gotten in the way.
"We—we should.. I should… I—" her mind was spinning and trying itself at words. Any words. Lips quivered in their attempt, bitterly staring ahead as she tried to fixate the metal as if it could offer answers.
"I offered you a tour." He tried. "We could walk."
"Yes." It broke from her. The relief she could cling to.
Virgilia slipped her gloves back on and followed his lead that climbed up the stairs. Plutarch's coat was almost unmoving, stiff, as he walked ahead, as if time had stopped existing around them.
The office overlooked the round Gamemaker room. But it wasn't the view that drew her attention. No, a collection of items as if washed up at the shore of the arena scattered the office. Photographs captured the woods. Long vines hung along the silver wall behind a glass construct.
It was his office alright, but not intimately so. There were no photographs on his desk. No personal notebooks. Almost as if it had been purposefully left too clean, too unlike him. Virgilia was glad for the gloves. None of it seemed personal, and, equally, her hands hidden behind the fabric were not personal, either. Her hand hovered along the cool silver of the table. Its edges were sharp as she touched the straight line, hand tracing along its geometric design until she stopped at the seashells on his desks.
Unlike the room, they were round and uneven, diverse in colour and spikes not sharp but soft. She hovered her hand along, wondering where he had picked them up. Were they real or an artificial construct?
"They are beautiful," Virgilia said.
Plutarch had stepped close, albeit keeping a distance between them, and lifted it unceremoniously into her hand. There was no touch of his that she could feel, no lingering fingers right by hers. The seashell felt dull through her gloves.
"Lift it to your ears," he instructed.
At first, she looked at him in a frown. At his gesture, Virgilia raised the shell to her ears and the whole world changed. She hadn't been to a real beach, ever, and yet the sound was unrecognisable that of waves by the ocean. All the beaches engineered by Capitol hands were too perfect, waves crashing in the most beautiful images and sounds. But the beach inside the shell was faster than that.
"That's the sound of the beach… the waves—crashing ashore," Virgilia said, a beat too fast. Her mouth widened into a gleam. It was best to place it back onto the table before it came crashing down.
Plutarch looked about, refusing to meet her gaze, and touched his jawline with that hand. Then, he said: "It's your heartbeat. The shell makes it audible."
She folded her hands before her, gloves hidden away in the same darkness as her dress, and stared at him as if his lips could elicit a better truth. As if the world and its reality could bend to what imagination promised to be better.
Her expression must have looked rather sour.
"But it sounds like the ocean, yes," he hastily added and bended the truth. "Quite a lot like the ocean."
Virgilia decided she liked it better as the ocean rather than her heartbeat. The ocean in her pocket sounded like freedom in her ears. Her trapped heartbeat was just that: trapped. Alone, only reflected to her and no one else.
He kept his hands in his pockets as they left the office.
As much as the Capitol was said to be the jewel of Panem, the training centre was its heart, beating to the city's rhythm and spinning about new stories that sought to capture the minds of the citizens. Every year, like clockwork.
The sponsor area was its grandest place, inviting the richest of the rich to participate in the Games. Its myriad of velvet sofas, wide screens and long marble walls lacked the busy chatter and clinking of glasses. Instead, avoces hushed about the places or stood in its shadows, watching Plutarch and Virgilia with their quiet mouths and piercing eyes.
There was something rather wrong about this place, as if its ceiling could not be high enough and its walls not further away from each other. Its vastness dooming to drown them both or collapsing together and burying them underneath the rubble. Its grandness did not match the tight feeling in her chest and Virgilia sat onto the pink velvet.
"It's beautiful," she lied and clutched the place where the rose usually sat.
Plutarch eyed her from the side, taking a seat on the same couch but leaving distance between them. The air felt tight there. Surely, if she were to come closer, close the distance and let their legs bump into each other, it would make the air ever tighter. Virgilia wasn't sure if it was his doing or hers.
"Have you ever been?" he asked.
"When I was younger," Virgilia said.
Silence carried her across waves of memories. Some like a breeze, cool water against the warm sun. Others embraced the boat and pulled it to the bottom of the ocean.
Whoever it had been, her, him, both, their legs bumped into each other.
She looked up, the sun warming the curling marble strands on their journey across the ceiling.
"My family used to take me along," Virgilia explained. "They liked showing their riches and gave my brother and I … accessoires from the games. He got a weapon. I got a dress. Usually, at least. He liked chasing me around here, but it looked quite different from today."
She didn't need to turn around to feel his gaze on her. Like the sun, accompanying the boat on its journey—steady were the waters as long as it remained in sight.
"I—I always thought the Games were about … showing off. Your riches. Your clothes. Your well-behaved children. I never thought much about the tributes… as a child, at least," Virglia continued. Her gloves moved along the seam of her dress, but the touch remained faint.
"And now?" he poked.
"Snows aren't allowed to wager." Her face turned into a grimace.
And that was that.
"What about you?" she asked.
"My dad was a Gamemaker. His dad was a Head Gamemaker," he said and shrugged. "I was here often and sometimes he took me along to the Gamemaking centre. I didn't like the Games when I was younger. I didn't understand, back then."
"What is there to understand?" she asked, quietly. Its purpose was evident, was it not? The punishment for the districts. Their rebellion had damaged the Capitol for years to come, had killed all those who had aided with their lives, who had held this country together. At least, that is what Virgilia had been told about the war.
"They are about control. We have to assure that the districts are too distracted with each other to form another uprising," Plutarch stated plainly.
"It's politics, then," Virgilia said. She knew awfully little about that. "So you are controlling them?"
"In a way."
"That sounds harsh," she said. It was a sentence lacking thought, truly, and on her way home it would stick in her head like the cloud moving in front of the sun. Something about it had seemed wrong, forbidden. A crass decision sailing too close to the turbulent winds. He could tell her husband or the peacekeepers, but she remembered it had been his fingers moving around hers earlier—he had bordered the forbidden, too.
"S—Sorry," Virgilia eventually spoke into the silence. "I shouldn't have said that."
Plutarch looked at her with what she imagined to be a healthy dose of unease.
Their footsteps were repeated back to them when they walked the hallway to its entrance. Producing its own music, two pairs of feet against the expensive floor. When the walls opened to its grand entrance, one pair died into quietness.
Plutarch had stopped. The tour had ended.
"This was … nice," she stammered. It was much easier said with distance between them than his closeness from earlier.
Virgilia thought to see something within his eyes, a recognition or surprise, but she was not certain what for. His hand—the hand—moved to his chin, and he nodded: "Hope you enjoyed the tour."
Only one answer was proper and truthful: "I did."
Silence embarked across the great hall, quiet and drowning all at once. Yet, her feet refused to carry her to shore at the hall's entrance.
Instead, Virglia's lips pulled into a thin line, its corners raised as she added: "A lot."
It was Plutarch who had to watch her leave, but it felt equally as terrible being the person to walk away. Perhaps worse, for her feet had to bring her all the way across and away.