They That Are Destroyed By Daylight.
Part 2.
Summary: Maya Ariou is the revenger of the 55th Games, and that is all to her name that remains.
CW: Gore.
A/N: Thank you so much to rising-balloons for reading over this fic and giving me advice for pacing! Your help was greatly appreciated - it wouldn't be the same fic without you!
Their grips on her arms are so strong.
Cold, too, if that wasn't enough for you. Gloves and fingernails bite into her flesh. She gnashes her teeth to prevent a cry from fleeing from her lips.
They wrestle her into the train.
"Don't touch me," Maya snaps. They don't respond. Only tighten their grip as if she'd never spoken.
"It's protocol, Ariou," the Peacekeeper scoffs. "After your spectacle."
"It wasn't a spectacle. It's only a spectacle because you called it one."
"Sure," the Peacekeeper responds. His grip on her arm tightens. "That's what we all saw."
"Hell," she snarls. "You made me do it! You all made me do it! You fucked her over, and now—"
His nails sink into her arm. He throws her into the carriage and slams the door before her. His helmet glowers down upon her. Maya swears he sneers.
She swears he sneers.
The train begins to move. The rumbles twist to the left and chug down. Down and away from One.
"Just watch me," Maya says. "Just you watch me."
She pushes herself up by the arm.
The train's chugs are too loud for Maya's comfort. Too noisy. Far too much like a crowd's sounds. Their cheers.
If she closes her eyes and peers, she'll see. Their laughter. Their rage. Their countdown.
In three! In two! In—
"Maya?"
Her District partner stares at her with terror in his eyes.
She blinks.
Her District partner stares at her with terror in his eyes.
It takes a moment to realise why.
"I don't bite," Maya offers, opening her eyes. "Just the Peacekeepers. That's all."
Her District partner eases up, a little. He's young. He cracks a smile. "Okay, yeah, I get you. They're like bears. Big and towering and dumb."
"Glad you understand."
Despite herself, her sight turns to the faded poster. Stripping away by the seams. She'd caught eye of it when they'd shoved her on the train.
Offhandedly, her District partner follows her gaze. He says: "That's the traitor Victor. Right?"
She can still make out the words on the piece. The 55th Victor. Involved in treason. Death row.
"She was, right?"
She looks back at him.
"Why do you care?"
Her District partner glances away. "I—I mean. I could ask the same to you. Seems like you care a lot more."
"I knew her."
"Oh," Her District partner says. It's almost comical how wide his eyes go. "I… I'm sorry, then."
"Forget it," Maya mutters. "It doesn't matter."
The poster's eyes bore into the back of her head.
"Doesn't it?" He asks.
She never responds.
His name is Lark. He's fourteen, and he shouldn't be here, not really. But ever since Levine Saros's death, funding had sunken in One's Academies. Till there were barely any volunteers left.
He could've been trained. For all Maya knows. But she knows he isn't: not with the way he was Reaped. Eyes wide, shaky shoulders, shying away from the gaze of One upon him.
Not with the way he grips her hand. Through the chariots. Clutching and clutching like she was the only lifeline he had left. It was only after she'd asked him that he'd let go.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, afterwards. "Didn't mean to do that."
"That's okay." Her eyes flit away. "Just… just don't do it again."
He nods.
Maya closes her eyes. She'd gripped her like that once. During their goodbyes.
Maddie's warmth wasn't desperate. It's okay, was what she'd said to her. Maya. You can let me go.
No, no. I don't want to. Please. You shouldn't. You can't do this, please! I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. Please don't go. Please don't go.
Her grip was desperate.
Just like Lark's is.
Maya's eyes flit back to him.
She holds out a hand. He grins. He grips her hand.
He grips her hand.
"I'm scared of them," Lark confesses to her.
Maya looks towards where he looks. A lanky Twelve boy's who's in his sight. And he looks towards Seven. Another lanky kid. And another from Two. And another from Four.
"They're going to kill me," he whispers. "Aren't they?"
"I don't know," Maya murmurs. She twists her butterfly knife between her fingers.
He looks exasperated. "Really?"
Maya looks back at him. "They're tall. That's all."
"Yeah, but that's an advantage. And, y'know, if they're trained, that's really scary."
"I'm trained."
Lark pauses. His eyes widen, slightly. "You… are?"
Maddie's words echo back in her head. Maya. You have to get away. Don't forget that you're Levine Saros's ultimate experiment.
Yeah, I know that. Got scars all over my body to prove it. But leaving? Like hell I'm leaving you here to rot.
I don't care how trained you are, Maya. You're not going to— please just go. Please just go.
"Yeah, Lark. I'm trained."
"Oh." Relief floods in Lark's eyes. "That's good! That means you'll protect me. Right?"
She doesn't respond.
"Right?"
She blinks. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah. Right."
He shakes his head. "I'm stupid. I should've realised you were trained. You volunteered, after all. Hey, why'd you volunteer?"
"Does it matter?"
Lark's look is downright incredulous. "What do you mean, does it matter? Of course it does!"
"..."
"Are you like, a classic Career? D'you wanna kill everyone till they're dead and wrangle the crown for glory?"
"No."
"Okay, okay. Sorry. Um, was it an accident? Okay, no, stop, that was stupid. Are you a vigilante?"
"..."
"Maybe? That has'ta be a maybe, right?"
"It's not important," Maya finally says. She pushes her foot off the wall, and stalks forward to the weaponry. Lark follows her along.
"Sorry, sorry," he babbles. "Shouldn't have pried. Anyway, what're you doing now?"
She picks up a blade. "Making myself a target."
The target's thirty meters away. A girl's practicing right beside. Shooting arrows off-centre.
Maya throws. The blade whizzes by the girl's hair. It embeds itself into the mark. Dead-centre.
The room falls silent. Till nothing but a hush's left.
Lark's jaw slacks. Maya tilts her head.
"It's a hair off. Could do better."
District Four is sparkly-eyed and terrified. A romantic, is what Maya understands, once she comes up to her and caresses her cheek.
She forces the flinch down. Four notices anyway.
"Oh, please. You could give me this, at least. You almost took my head off." Four girl drawls.
"I didn't, though." Maya replies.
"You didn't. That was kinda hot of you."
Her name is Lunaris. Her grin is infectious, and she's a powerhouse with a trident. They spar together, for the rest of the day; Maya lets it happen. The rest stare upon them both in terror. After night, she sits with her, as the lights spin. They burr a blue. Lunaris touches her cheek again.
You're so cold.
Her face shivers.
I don't understand what you mean.
Lunaris gazes at her. Her mouth's half-parted, like the crescent. Don't you?
I don't.
Oh, no, you do. A grin graces her features. You've lost something, Maya. Haven't you?
Does it matter?
Nah. Not at all. Just thought it was curious. How clear it was shining in your eyes. Her hand recedes away from Maya's cheek. But before it fully goes. Lunaris grasps her cheek and kisses her.
Maya doesn't kiss back. Lunaris's eyes flick up to hers. She licks her lips, tilts her head. Pass?
She is beautiful under the blue.
Maya shuts her eyes and exhales. Do you know how to turn it off?
Turn what off?
What I've lost. Shining in my eyes.
Yeah, I do. Lunaris's grin is easy. She taps her lips. Small price.
Maya stands. She kisses Lunaris back.
Nighttime's not easier. Not even when she has another body slumbering by her side. Maya thought that would ground her memories down. It'll root her here.
But her mind always routes back. To a silhouette in a prison cell, as cold as stone. To two hands locked upon the bars, arms that curve to the form of a child. To pleas and dreams leaking from the child's eyes. As she pled to the woman locked in stone.
I have a plan! Please, listen to me.
The woman always looks.
Maya wishes she could tell her to stop.
They interview her, with their bright lights glaring in her eyes. It is a spotlight she wants to bolster in and shut away. It is a light that gives her a headache.
It's all ceremony. Ridiculous ceremony, as it stands. Chant chant chant chant chant—so many questions Caesar asks, and the selfsame answers turn up her lips, again and again and again.
Till finally, Caesar ceases with his pleasantries and presses his lips together. Clasps his fingers together, easy, casual, as if he didn't have a case to crack. "Thank you for coming tonight, Maya!"
"I didn't," Maya says. "You brought me here."
A half-smile twinges her lips. A half-smile twinges Caesar's lips. A full smile drags across the audience's. They laugh, and the implication in her words remain unheard.
—chant chantchantchantchant.
"Well, that's because we love having you here. Don't we?"
The roars of the crowd's clear. The roars of the crowd would be empty, had they not seen her volunteering. Had they seen her here, with her old credentials on-blast: Maya Ariou, seventeen, Variable Two tonight for you; it would be dead silent, dead cold, dead and dead again.
"And let's not lose sight of the fact! You chose to be here!"
Her smile is plaster. "I have." And that is that.
"You achieved a Twelve in your Private Sessions. What did you do?"
Her answer is measured. "Nothing you won't see in the Games."
"Oh, how mysterious!" Caesar laughs. "That certainly reminds me of someone. Now, I've heard many rumours about your volunteering. Would you care to correct some of them for me? Does it have to do with your… former guardian?"
Discontent sloshes in the audience. They've banned her name in the Capitol, along with the cuckoos that reside in Victor museums. Along with the amalgamated necklace that wedges between her palm and her pocket.
"No," she responds, eyes narrowing now. Locking up now, turning cold now. "I am here for myself. She doesn't matter here."
"Why'd you lie?" Lark asks her, after. His eyes are wide without understanding.
"Because," Maya replies. "It's part of the show."
Before their launch, Lark confides in her.
"You know," he says. "I was sure you were gonna be the one that'll kill me when I saw you volunteer."
Her eyebrows arch. What? Why?
"I don't know," Lark confesses. "You scared me in the Reapings. That's all. But I know you're not, you know. Like that."
Like what?
"Like… like, you want to rip apart the world. But I know you're not. You're chill. You're Maya Ariou, badass an' take-no-shits and all that! You'll protect me."
He beams at her.
Maya finds the strength to smile back.
I'll disappoint you, is what echoes in her head. But she doesn't say that.
I'll meet you in the Arena.
"You'll protect me, right?"
Maya's eyes flick away from his. … I have a plan.
"It'll save us?"
It's for my sanity, is what she wants to say. But her lips grit around the it; and instead tumbles out a half-truth, half-lie.
For my sanity. I hope so.
His smile back is too bright and too kind for the Games. She wishes, for both their sakes, that it won't disappear.
The Games are expected. An Arena of slush and villages and rot. A name turns in her head: a cypress swamp.
The stink is what she notices first. Virulent and pulsing and burrowing in her nose with its fleshstains, as if it were a claw that desires her blood and their blood. Maya shakes her head. Shakes it away.
The countdown comes with the bristles of her opponents and their glares glued upon the supplies. Three. Two. One.
She leaps into the mud. It splashes against her camo pants, and her feet drive into the mud, and again, and again. She paces towards the bags, swipes two upon her shoulders, and whips her head towards the noise. The clash of weaponry and the laughs echo in her head.
The scent of burning flesh ricochets in her breath.
Her eyes draw up. A boy's screaming. His camo pants are in shreds - ripped apart by a stray blade, or maybe tattered on arrival - Maya doesn't know. She doesn't know anything except for the fleshscent that's burning in her nostrils. She doesn't know anything except that acid's eating his bare legs. The acid mud is.
Fuck. She looks down - her pants hold, but they're breaking from where the mud's touched them. Her soles hold, but they're destructing now.
She grits her teeth, and shuts her eyes. Not now. Damned if I die now. I haven't done shit yet. I need to—I need to put it in action—
"Over here, Maya!"
Lunaris's calling for her. Maya's eyes flick to the source of her voice - a way away, by the trees, and that's when Maya sees a path upon the stones and the moss.
She ducks through the mess of burning flesh and runs.
"For Arenas," Lunaris murmurs. "This is quite the unromantic one."
Maya doesn't speak. She trudges on, as the moonlight beats upon their backs. Beside her, Lark's clutching her hand.
He's shivering. "I think— I think eight died. Just like that."
The cypress swamp sticks in her head, as if it were a hanging gallow of wretched trees.
"We'll know for sure later," Lunaris hums. "Doesn't matter anymore, though. We're out of there."
They are. The swamp, as Maya's come to realise, is only a tiny part of the Arena. They've gone beyond the thick forests, and now they're upon a winding path. She isn't sure if it is where they should go, but paths always have purpose.
(Purpose. Isn't that what she needs?)
"What's that in the distance?"
Maya follows Lark's finger. There is a speck in the distance - a cluster. Of something.
She squints. "I… I'm not sure."
"It's a town."
Lunaris's teeth gleam in the moonlight. Her cheeks are rosy under the lights. "That's what Four's shantytown always looks like when I'm out in the seas. It's a pretty cluster of lights. That's what we're seeing."
"A town!" Lark exclaims. He looks between them, delight gushing in his eyes. "Do you think we'll see anybody there?"
"I'd hope not," Maya murmurs. The town's staring back at her, like a home away from the darkness, away from the world and their desires. Just like the one that she'd wanted, with—
She blinks. Don't think about now.
And so she doesn't.
Can't I dream, Maddie?
You can. But you should know what it means. It means falsities. It means delusions. It means heartbreak. It means annihilation. Do you want that?
There is a guillotine that stands in the centre of the village square.
It is a sickening sight. Maya swallows. She doesn't know why or what would have use of such a device.
Metal she can wield. So perfectly. A knife or a kukri or a kizlar; she knows it all. They thrum in her veins, not an extension of her, but of her. They are her, the metal and the bloodshed and the killing, and it is beautiful. But this?—
This is not the weapon she was expecting. A guillotine is not what she should see.
It was not what she had seen when they'd arrived at the village. Turns out, Lunaris had murmured, as she'd surveyed their surroundings, I can be wrong sometimes. Too small to be a town— too deserted to be a town— too rural to be town. Still, it was a place. A place they'd stayed in for the night.
But there was no guillotine until the morning after.
"Was this here before?"
"Why're you so hoarse? How fun," Lunaris laughs. But with her words is a razor.
She strolls up towards the guillotine. Her fingers flick past the wooden stand that holds it. She sits upon the plank as if she were just sitting upon a bar countertop. Crossed legs, a smirk upon her lips, eyes lighting up as she waits for the world to revel her.
A gleaming blade towers overhead, like the moon.
Maya's throat constricts. She watches, as Lunaris flicks her eyes at the blade, as if contemplating it. She watches, as Lunaris's palms press against the plank, as she pushes herself off it. As she kneels down.
She tucks her head upon the block, as if it didn't matter at all.
No.
"Stop that." Maya snarls. She grabs Lunaris and drags her out of the guillotine. "What are you doing?"
"What?" Lunaris giggles, though scorn burns in her eyes. "Won't you let a girl have some fun?"
A creak sounds from above. The blade falls down, smashing against the wood - against the block, where Lunaris's head was, moments ago.
Lunaris's eyes widen. Oh.
Maya exhales. She closes her eyes, as the machine creaks once again, and rolls its blade back up to its heavens. "That's why."
"You've lost them to the guillotine."
"What?"
Lunaris tilts her head and knocks her arm against the wall.
"The person shining in your eyes. Your loss, Maya. Remember? Didn't think that you'd so easily forget." A smile, half of one, not quite. "I've determined their gender. She, isn't it? And executed, probably. That's what I garner."
Her heart jumps. She swallows. Her next words come out moderated, but they're too hoarse. "What, then?"
"What then?" A laugh exits Lunaris's throat. "You tell me, Maya. I'm not the one that knows."
She stays still. She doesn't know why her mouth moves. She doesn't know why she speaks. But her words, unbidden, leave her lips.
"Her escape plans were found. She broke the promise she made to the Capitol. She died for it."
"That simple?"
Lunaris's even closer to her now. The back of Lunaris's hand caresses Maya's cheek. Then, quieter, as if she feared the world would hear -
You're not using what I taught you, Lunaris murmurs. She curls a strand of hair behind Maya's ear. If I look really closely. I can still see your tears.
(I can see your lie.)
It is quiet at night. Rather quiet, Maya thinks, as her eyes cast out towards the window, and to the darkness that ebbs in the horizon. Daylight's fading. Night's falling.
She's always felt safer this way. Ever since Maddie had given her that talk when she was barely nine and confessed her fears. Maddie had shaken her head, and reached out to clasp her hands, holding onto the bars. You don't have to be scared of the dark, Maddie had murmured. I was, once. But remember: it doesn't hurt you. It is not the darkness that hurts you: it is the creatures that lurk within it. So use it as your cloak. Wrap yourself in shadows. It is your shield. It is not to be feared.
But, and then her eyes cast away, out towards the bars and the gleaming shafts of silver that struck through the bars. Beware of the moonlight, though.
Lunaris gazes back at her.
"What are you thinking about?"
Maya shakes her head. "Nothing."
Lunaris goes up close to her. She strolls up, cocks her head. "Really?" she says, softly, ever so softly. "Aren't I trustworthy?"
"I don't know," she says, fixing her eyes upon Lunaris' glittering, silver ones. "Are you?"
She exhales, twists her head up till her chin's tilting up, so much of one that light glints upon her chin. She smiles, so broad of one that her eyes knit into squints. "Of course. Are you?"
Maya stays silent.
Lunaris laughs. "I believe you. So, pray tell." She says, softly, softly, smiley, coldly, "Why are you here?"
"For a reason," Maya murmurs.
"That's not much of an answer, Maya."
"Why don't you tell me first?"
Her eyes open. A glint resides in them, turning like candlelight.
"Why, I thought you'd never ask."
She slips back away from Maya. Her warmth leaves Maya's palm. She doesn't even realise it's there till the past presence of Lunaris's fingers tingle upon her skin, quiet, quietly, like a shimmer of stardust.
She slips away from Maya, and slips upon a tabletop. "I'm here for my idiot of a Dad," Lunaris says, idly. Her legs swing by the tabletop, but slower, now. "Keeps lyin' and stealin' shit. Keeps ending up in the slammer. We can't even give Mom a proper ceremony. I'm here for that. Ceremony for ceremony. Deaths for a death."
Maya averts her eyes away. "I didn't know."
"Yeah," Lunaris murmurs, her tone softer now, her eyes gleaming now. "Didn't think that you would. I mean, could you see it in my eyes?"
There's breathiness in her words. Desperation in her words. A hystericality.
"I did," Maya murmurs. She tilts her eyes till she meets Lunaris's. "You're not as good as lying as you think you are, Ris."
Lunaris laughs. She presses the back of her palm against her eyes, again and again till it's like the tears were never there at all. "Yeah, right."
Maya stills. She doesn't know what makes her move, doesn't know what makes her go up to Lunaris, till she's right in front of her. She doesn't know why she doesn't protest, as Lunaris's hands move to her neck.
She doesn't know why she doesn't protest when Lunaris kisses her for the second time.
(What if we were the last ones left?)
(Then we will kiss. Till the end.)
The next morning is the same, save for the footprints that track outside of their village house.
It is a set of them. Six pairs— and Maya's heart skips a beat. The only alliance that big was the pack that Two and Seven and Twelve decided to form.
She has no weapon. Her backpack's dull of supply. She closes her eyes and gnashes her teeth together. If only she had metal. If only, god, then she could—
Be rational. Maddie's voice echoes in her head, the measured tone she'd used on her, six, seven, as she'd sulked and paced round outside the cell, a scowl smeared across her lips for the words Ielron had thrown at her at school again. Keep your cool. No point in exposing what you can do, Maya, just because you got mad. Do you want to end up here next to me? It's not worth it.
But it was worth it for you! You killed him!
For me, Maddie had hummed. Not for you. Keep your head down. Keep your anger down. Let them forget who - what you were. That's how you'll survive One. That's how you'll survive the Capitol and their eyes. Controlling your rage's how you'll save your sanity. Understand?
She turns her eyes up at the footprints. She presses her eyes shut again. If she'd so decided, she could—
She can't.
Not now.
"We have to go," Maya hisses, as she shakes Lark awake, as Lunaris blinks awake. "There's somebody here with us. Go! We have to go."
"They were so close," Lark gasps, as he pushes his hand towards the fire that they've made. He glances up at Maya, then at Lunaris, and then back again, blinking all the way. "I can't believe that we aren't dead."
"It was just a close call," Maya says. She squeezes Lark's hand. "Nothing to worry about, okay?"
"Ohmigosh, your hand's frozen, Maya!" He grabs her hand - his hands are toaster-warm - as he pushes her towards the fire. "Get warm. Get warm. Please."
"I'm okay."
From beside her, Lunaris chuckles. "Were you always this cold, Maya?"
Her fingers dig into the snow. Maya shivers, but her smile grows upon her lips. The snow glitters back at her. So pretty. So beautiful. If she'd let her fingers spread, would the snow fall through like quicksand?
Maddie's sitting on a bench by the side. They are still within the prison walls, but at least it's outdoors.
"You never told me it was this nice!"
Maddie shakes her head. She glances away from her, and then at the blear-grey walls that stand all round them. "Yeah," she murmurs, softly. "Isn't it nice."
She's shivering lots. She's far colder than Maya is. That puts a frown on her lips - a frown that soon edges into a wicked smile - as she scoops a clump of snow in her hands, and presses it together.
And throws.
It lands on Maddie's shoulder. Maddie gasps, looking up. "Maya, what...?"
Maya grins. "Snowball fight!"
Soon enough, a wry quirk turns up her guardian's lips.
She blinks the memory away. She shakes it away, as if it were snow down her back. Away, as if it were nothing at all; away, as if it was never there at all.
"Yes," Maya says, quietly. She lifts her eyes to meet Lunaris's. "What of it?"
"You know," Lunaris murmurs. She tucks a finger under Maya's chin and lifts it up to meet her eyes. "Your white lies are improving."
A grin creases her lips. Pain creases her eyes.
Lunaris lets her finger go.
Maya shakes the memory away, as if it were snow down her back. But the moon scalds her neck, and her body, and presses that emblem of remembrance into her flesh.
Dusk falls. Dark comes, as it always does. Lunaris settles by her side, as she always does. Maya doesn't know why, but it has become routine: every moment at twilight, she'll be here. Waiting, smiling, talking, talking.
It is always about everything - everything that Maya had never cared to think for anymore. Lunaris is a reminder of her youth. Stories of the streetside. Stories of the quieter times. And sometimes, when she can't control herself, words leak from her lips and she cannot even bring herself to wish that they didn't.
When the memories come to her mind, all too clear, she couldn't let them disappear. Of the days she'd spent with Maddie. Of the secret words and the secret codes they've exchanged. Of their dream, that pulsed with so much freneticness, with so much energy, with so much possibility, and yet, and yet -
"You've never told me why."
Maya's eyes flick up. "Why?"
Lunaris smiles, a bit too easy, as she nudges Maya slightly. "Bout why you volunteered. C'mon. I shared my story. Only fair that you share yours."
"Can't you read it?" Maya says, quietly. "In my eyes?"
"Yeah." Lunaris tilts her head, leans back. "I want to hear you say it."
She shuts her eyes. Memory upon memory swirls in her mind. It's too fucking hard to forget. "It is for her. It's all for her."
"For what?" Lunaris asks, quietly. "For a ceremony?"
She thinks about before, not so long ago - not as long as she'd like to believe. She thinks about the metal bars that pressed against her palm, worn so cold by its cold, but she would always hope. She thinks about Maddie, sitting at the edge of the cell, not speaking, not moving, eyes faraway. She thinks about the words that had enunciated her lips, a promise that Maya meant to keep.
A promise that she is keeping, now, with her volunteering. With the knives that buckle in her belt, and the thrill that thrums in her veins, impatient, waiting, hungering, needing, soon, soon, we need, we need. You promised. You'll feed.
"Yeah," Maya murmurs, opening her eyes. "A ceremony. You could say that."
Ris's eyes shine.
"Do you love me?" was what Lunaris had asked her that night, as the silver light twisted upon her face, and a smile grazed her glinting eyes.
"I do." Maya said, quietly.
Another hand drew up her cheeks; another kiss was left on her lips.
The Careers catch up to them in the morning, just as they began to clean up camp.
"Go!" Maya snarls. "Get Lark and go."
Lunaris abides. She shakes Lark and grabs him by the arm, and she runs, away and away, down the cypress swamps and away. One last look's thrown at Maya's direction, and then - they're gone.
A girl from the pack begins to chase them, but Two boy whistles at her, and she stops there and then. "Don't bother with them. Let's deal with the lamb they've left us."
His eyes lock upon Maya's, and a grin begins to turn up his lips.
"Why," Two boy says, spreading his hands, sneering at her with the ferocity in his eyes. "What good does that do for you? Do you really wanna sacrifice yourself for them? We'll butcher you up. Showing what you could do in training was a bad move, girlie."
"Wrong." Maya's eyes glitter with a sick grin; the sickest feeling that turns in her stomach and chest, and it feels so fucking good. "It was part of the plan."
"Plan? What are you—"
Her swipe round his legs comes faster than he can think, and she grabs the knife from his belt as Two boy hits the ground with a furious roar. She rolls over his legs and springs up to a kneel, and the slash across his throat could not have ringed more beautifully.
Shock's assaulting his companions. That's enough.
A stab down at the boy behind her. One quick stab; two quick stab; three quick stab. Stomach, chest, throat: go.
Maya twists sideways, just as the screaming girl behind her barrels her axe into where she once was - the axe crunches the dead boy's head. It doesn't take a flick of her wrist to send the knife into the girl's side: and as she'd staggered, once, twice, Maya runs, one-step, two-step, swipes the axe from the body and buries it in the girl's neck.
Her decapitated head still registers shock.
Another moment; Maya swipes her knife from the girl's side. Another moment; another girl's there, just four steps away, standing before her and the dead, panting and sweating with wariness. Another moment; another boy's there, just four steps behind her, a machete in his fist, his expression contorted in madness, for how she'd murdered his dead friends.
Another moment; another exhale, a beautiful one, a brilliant grin ticking up her lips. Another moment; another exhale; three more words. "Bring it on."
They charge at the same time, screaming out the belief in their lungs. She ducks down, and buries her knife in the girl's leg, wrenches it in, till she screamed, till she sang. Down her leg buckled. Down Maya's hand went, to tug out that throwing knife strapped in by her boot.
Up it went, and up did it drive into Four boy's eye.
A scream could not leave his lips before she'd dragged down, a slice down his cheek and the screech against his skull was so clear, what a pretty ring, hoarse and pleading, oh, you could imagine its beg. Down and down the knife goes, slicing down his throat. Down, and up, and down again, till a hole's carved out of his voicebox. No song will he be able to sing anymore.
A smile turns up her lips.
Behind her, the girl lets out a helpless cry. Her eyes sting with the tears, sting of her dead friend's blood on her cheeks. Does it mix? Maya wants to ask, a fucked-up something curving her lips, The pain and the beauty? The death and the death? The traitor and the living? Does it mix?!
One step; another step, third step. A quick kill would be merciful. It was just unfortunate that they tortured her for so fucking long before they dragged her out and killed her. Under all those fucking lights.
She cups the girl's chin in her hands. The girl looks at her, glittering, sobbing, begging. She lifts the girl's chin in her hands and begins to cut.
When it is done, her fingernails are saturated in gore, and flesh is flabby against her hands.
If she let her fingers spread, would the blood fall like quicksand?
It drips so prettily. It is gratification in her chest. It is beautiful, far more beautiful than in her dreams of destruction, god it is beautiful.
Five cannons sound. A shout of horror rings across. The voice belongs to Twelve boy, running off into the bushes, towards the marshes, to the world where he'll be eaten alive.
Maya grins.
How lovely this is for a ceremony.
(Isn't that a familiar end?)
The Capitol stares. At this vengeance of a child, at this vengeance-made-child. At the being that they have brought into the Games; and oh, it fears. Oh, it revels.
"Thank god you're back," Lark gasps. He barrels into her, hugging her so tightly, and Maya stumbles a few steps back. Unconsciously, her hand raises to ruffle his hair, as he buries his face into her clothes.
He breaks away from her. His eyes are glittering with happiness. "I thought you'd died. When you said you were trained, I didn't think you'd be really, really trained."
"Well," Maya murmurs. "I guess I am really, really trained."
Unconsciously, her eyes flick up to Lunaris. Lunaris looks at her, her head slightly tilted. But her expression is unreadable.
It isn't that she was unemotive that made her unreadable. It was that she was so emotive: a thousand feelings flicks across Lunaris's face, and Maya could never tell what it is that she felt.
Maya swallows, slightly. Lunaris grins at her, all teeth.
"Incredible. How fun was it, decapitating them back-to-back?"
Lark gazes at her, shock in his eyes. Maya's suddenly too aware of the dried blood on her hands, a sanguine pit of a thing, half a dozen corpses' worth.
"What?"
"Stop playing, Lunaris," Maya hisses, shutting her eyes. "It's not funny."
"Oh, it is to me." Lunaris exhales, grins, presses her hands against tree bark. "So did you do it, or not?"
"Do what?"
"Decapitate them, of course," A tilt of a head, a meet of Maya's eyes. "Or were you merciful?"
Pain turns up Maya's mouth. "What do you think?"
Silence. Then—
"You'd never kill them so violently," Lark whispers. "That's what I think."
Quiet, quiet again. The smile on Lunaris's lips stay.
Maya looks away.
The rest of the night is quiet against the firepit that does not flicker.
All that drenches them is the moonlight. The moonlight that her guardian had so decried. Yet, as Maya runs her fingers over her own flesh, she doesn't understand, not quite, why this silver was a curse her guardian hated.
It gives falsities. It gives fakery. It gives transience. It is tyrannical.
Yet, it is not quite so. Maya knows. The silver is nothing but a dream. All that echoes back at her is the grooves that run down the trees, the suffocating bleakness of the marshes, and two people who are deader than the daylight that will shine on her face.
Do they know that?
(Does she believe that?)
Twelve boy makes her uneasy. That is what she knows. Maya knows he is in the cypress marshes, and yet - he isn't dead. But she knows what he'll want. It's the same as what she wants.
It's not long until they reach top ten. And after that - well, after that…
"We can rest for now, but we'll have to move in the morning," Maya says, quietly. "I don't want to risk us being hunted."
"How is it that they were just focused on us?" Lunaris says. "There are half a dozen pieces of meat out here. But I can't say I'm not…" A quiver of a smile curls up her lips. "... enjoying it."
"How're you enjoying it?" Lark asks, disbelief in his voice.
"How are you not?" Lunaris says. "We're the centre of attention. They're chasing us out of their ardent love and perishing pain. Nothing not fun about that."
She looks right at Maya as she says it, and Maya cannot disregard how she cannot read what lives in Lunaris's eyes.
After Lark falls asleep, she and Lunaris stay by the firepit. Dark in the night, with only flecks of flames rising up into the blackness, Lunaris murmurs a question.
"What will you do with the prize money?" Ris asks her. "If you win?"
"I've never considered that."
"Oh, c'mon. You can't tell me you haven't thought of that." A chuckle of disbelief leaves Lunaris's lips. "Well," she says, quietly. "If you do, Ariou. Care to spare some for my mother's funeral? I'll give you a kiss for it."
A laugh erupts from Lunaris's lips. A wistfulness turns in her eyes.
Maya doesn't reply.
Twelve boy stands before her, rage in his eyes, a knife shaking right at Lark's throat, and all Maya Ariou can do is watch.
Out of everything, she didn't expect to be woken up to this. Their fire's dead, with only the glint of sunlight dropping onto the coals. And Lark had been stolen from his sleeping bag, to, to—
"Don't come any closer!" Twelve boy screeches, and yet every note in his voice reeks of desperation. "Come any closer and I'll— I'll—"
"You'll do what?" Maya steps forward. "You wouldn't dare. Do you really want to fuck with me?"
"Maya, please—" Lark's gasping, his breath short in his lungs. "Please don't, he's gonna kill me, please don't—"
"Oh, I know you won't," Maya murmurs. She meets Twelve boy's eyes. "You want to fuck with me? Then please. Be my guest."
She holds his stare. Till finally Twelve boy lets Lark go, pushes him into the ground, and runs, dashing off and away into the cypress marshes again.
Maya stumbles towards Lark, and helps him up from the ground, her heart hammering too much in her chest. "Fuck," she exhales, "Are you okay?"
For a second, nothing but horror lives on Lark's face. But the horror breaks and his face gives way to relief.
"I'm—I'm okay. Y-you scared him off. Thank you," Lark whispers. He grips her hand, even tighter now. "Why is Twelve hunting us? I don't understand. Why us? An'—and I don't get it. Why's he so scared… so scared of you…"
"He's been hunting us," Maya murmurs. "For a while now."
"What?" Lark blinks in disbelief. "Why?"
"Because of me."
"Maya…" Lark whispers. His eyes squint, and it is without a doubt that Maya knows what he's doing: replaying her words, her threats, her anger. "What did you do?"
Maya thinks back to the Private Sessions. Her, facing up the Gamemakers, leering down at her. Her glare, turning up by her eyes. A snarl, curving by her lips, enough to look like a sneer. You know what I'm here for. I have a dream.
Her, pulling out a necklace. Cocking her head at their narrowed eyes, at the tensing Peacekeepers by.
Her, taking out a butterfly knife. Biting into the wood.
Cutting. Till not a cuckoo was left.
Till only a Stymphalian's left. The bloodthirsty kind, the vengeful kind, the rotting kind. The hunting kind, the killing kind, the undead kind.
You know who I am.
She thinks back to her volunteering. She thinks about ends.
"I did," Maya says, her voice measured, yet so impossibly quiet. "What I had to do."
Lark's eyes are wide with fear. "I don't understand."
"I don't care if you do," Maya snarls. "It doesn't matter if you understand. I killed them, Lark, okay? I killed them and I loved it. I loved every fucking second of it. I made them come to us. That was the plan. And that's why he's following us. Because I didn't finish the fucking job like I should've. So just go, why don't you, because I'm not the protector you dreamed of."
"No, Maya, you are, you protected me, you—"
"Go, before I kill you too, goddamnit."
And despite herself, her voice shakes. Lark shakes. And without a moment more's wait, he breaks away from her and runs for the marshes.
She should call for him. She should.
But his shadow's disappeared into the cypress trees, and even if she wanted to follow his footsteps, she knows this fact: he's gone.
And that is for the best.
"I wanted to dream," Maddie had whispered to her, upon a sonorous night, where the swish of the winds had left the midnight bells ringing. Her fingers reach towards her throat, as she tugs her necklace free.
It is a cuckoo bird, roughly made, and Maya stares at it with awe.
"This is a remnant," she had said, as her hands reached out of the cell's bars, to clasp the necklace around Maya's neck. "I hope it serves you better than it did for me."
"What can I do with it?"
"Anything. Reshape it, break it, abandon it… it doesn't matter. It's yours, now. You could kill the world with it, if you wished," Maddie had said, and gazed away towards the windows. "If you're willing to pay the price of that."
"No, I won't," Maya Ariou said. She pressed the cuckoo necklace to her lips, and smiled. "I'm a protector, I don't do that. 'Sides, I don't need to. It grants dreams, right? Then… I'mma hope we'll be free!"
Maddie had looked at her wistfully. Then - there was nothing at all.
"I'm leaving, Lunaris. Please don't follow me." Maya says, quietly.
Lunaris sits up. The only indication that she's surprised is the way her lips twitch: but that comes with a half-sad, half-smirk, sadly knowing. "Oh? Not caring to live out the last dredges of dream with me?"
"This isn't a dream, Lunaris. And it sure isn't something romantic. Haven't you seen the 55th Games? You know how well that turns out."
It is meant to be harsh, but she cannot help how her voice breaks on its syllables. And Lunaris takes note. She always takes note.
"Can't you afford me this?" Lunaris whispers. Her eyes shine so clear - and in them is a hurt that hurts to look at. So Maya tears her eyes away.
But then Lunaris smiles, an easy grin, and the vixen face comes on again. "Well, it's okay if you don't want that," she says, softly, and draws a finger under Maya's chin: it rakes her flesh, chill-cold, more than it should be. "Let me live, love. How many are left? Seven? Suitor pool's narrowed down for me. Maybe I'll find a man this time."
"Stop, Ris."
"Okay. Maybe we can do an exchange. I stop talking about men. You stop talking about leaving. What d'you say?"
Maya feels her breath hitch. She shuts her eyes. "Ris, I have to. Please understand. I'm here—"
"For her, yeah." Lunaris says. "I know. What's it with her, anyway? If not for the money like my grieving capitalist ass, then what ideology? Did she want you to kill everyone here?"
Stone silence. Maya presses her eyes shut. Don't think. Don't think.
"It… doesn't matter. Just don't follow me. Please."
"Why shouldn't I?" And with that, Lunaris presses an arm against the tree trunk. "Afraid you'll do something in front of me that'll terrify me?" And then, a whisper glides into her ear. "Afraid you'll lose the only connection you have? That you can't admit that you want?"
Maya screws her eyes shut. Be quiet, is what she wants to say, harsh and reserved, just as Maddie would've liked it to be. "Don't do this," is exhaled from her instead, and the tears that fall from her eyes are unwanted, but not unbidden.
"Afraid you'll kill me?"
"I'm not—"
"You are, love," Lunaris murmurs, quietly. She cups her hand on Maya's cheek. "You're horrified. Aren't you? You came to make the world a slaughterhouse. But you fell for the lamb along the way."
Her breath hitches. She can't speak.
"I know the facade you're building up. That stone face that takes and takes and takes. But you could never hide your bleeding fucking heart. Could you?" A breathy, soft, sad, ethereal. "When did you last cry, Maya? Was it too soon?"
Maya shakes her head. She casts her eyes away: away from Lunaris, away from the trees, away into the depths of the marshes. "Goodbye," she says, even as her voice breaks upon her words, even as her heart cracks at what it means.
But she has to continue. For the dead.
So Maya Ariou turns to the living, and says: "I hope we don't see each other again."
Two more she finds among the marshes. Tall ones.
It wasn't hard to make them suffocate in excess. They couldn't see her from above. A leap down their backs, a slash across a throat. Bringing the second to topple, screaming, screaming—
The acid ate his face.
What a glorious end.
(As if pain didn't explode in her head at the moment of contact. As if their dead faces hadn't looked at her with misery, their hopes and desires withered into nothing, as dead as the empty vessel that carries them to oblivion.)
(Isn't that a familiar end?)
One of them's hiding atop a cypress tree. She had felt their presence, for it had prickled upon her back, long before they even noticed she was here.
A throwing knife to the head.
He was dead so easily.
(As if a headache doesn't strike her the moment she strikes, for his eyes shone so fucking brightly. As if she didn't feel for his screeches, and his sobs, and his begs for mercy. He was only fourteen, a child, really, and what on Earth did he do to deserve her wrath?)
(Isn't that a familiar end?)
His body spreads out ahead of her in the ground, and all Maya Ariou can do is look.
All she can do is look, and stare, mouth wide, eyes wide, a half-gasp turning her lips yet not moving. A knife's planted in his chest, dead-centre. Like a shovel in a mound, like a shovel in a body in a mound, planted into the earth, a mockery of a renewal.
There is no question who had done this. There is no question who'd damned him, damned her, and the realisation is a hitch of a gasp in her throat.
I'm sorry, Lark. I'm sorry—
It is in this moment when Maya Ariou's sanity snaps.
She crashes down onto the ground, and her legs dig into the earth. It's her fault. Undeniably her fault, and so perfectly her fault. She'd done this; she'd orchestrated this; she was the one that came up with the plan. The plan, and now they're—
And now they're dead.
A choke moves up in her throat. I'm sorry, she whispers, again and again, and she doesn't know who she's apologising to, for, but she says it anyway. I'm sorry, Lark. I'm sorry. God, I'm so, so sorry.
A hitch; a gasp. Her eyes blur: her tears hurt. I'm sorry, Maddie, she sobs, and she can't fucking stop sobbing. It hurts. The guilt hurts. The pain hurts. The failure hurts.
(It was never meant to be like this. Lark wasn't meant to die. He was supposed to go, away from here, away from her wrath, and Maya doesn't know how he could've survived, not really, but he wasn't supposed to die here, die because of the plan.)
It was never meant to be like this. The Peacekeepers were never supposed to find out what they were doing. They were holding her indefinitely. They were never supposed to overreact. They were never supposed to drag her to the block.
Maddie was never supposed to be there. She was never supposed to make the deal. You'll save her. Kill me, instead. I renege on my deal.
The posters were never meant to plaster those words. Victor involved in treason. Death row.
Maya was the traitor, not her. Maya Ariou was the one who made the plan to escape. It wasn't. She never.
They were never supposed to execute—
A sob catches in her breath. She presses her sleeve against her eyes. No. No, she won't think of that today. No, she won't think about that now, not when, not when—
No. No, she will think of that. She is why Maya's here, after all. She's here to revenge. She's here to take back.
Those were the words that echoed in her head, once she ascended on stage. Those were the words.
Here's a new deal, Panem. You get me, for the price of Maddie's death. You'll get ruin and destruction, for the price of Maddie's death.
How's that sound?
Her eyes close; a blink, and she lets the tears shed down her cheeks, but she keeps the rage in her ears, the power in her snarl, keeps new ones from falling. "You scum," she snarls, under her breath. She opens her eyes. She opens her eyes, and she faces the Reaping square that grins down back at her. She turns her eyes to the crowd. Turns her eyes to the crowd.
Turns her eyes to the crowd.
You killed her, is what she wants to say. You killed her!
This is my revenge.
This is my revenge!
It's with a laugh that she volunteers. It's with a grin. It is with their fears, teeming to the high heavens, deeming what she did a spectacle. It is with the Capitol's eyes on her. It is with the world's.
So terrorised.
Why'd you volunteer?
Because, and she couldn't tell Lark then, for his eyes would flutter wide, and he'd stare at her in horror. But it doesn't matter now. His eyes are agape with bugs and dirtrot.
Because I was mad, Lark. Maya bends her knee and shuts his eyelids. That was why.
(Isn't that a familiar end?)
Twelve boy is next.
He's dead the moment her eyes raise to meet his. He knows that fact, as well, because he doesn't protest. His eyes are wide, yes, as she cuts into him; but his cry was not a protest. His sobs are frequent, yes, as she breaks him meticulously; but his whimpers was not a protest. His begs were loud, yes, as she slashed his jugular; but his screams were not a protest.
It's part of the show. It's part of her show, and that is what his body reads, once she lets it fall. Skinned through and rum-red all over; it is a pretty sight that rushes blood into her gut, that leaves her heart beating and her fingers trembling. That keeps a smile on her lips, however tremulously.
It's part of the show.
(Isn't that a familiar end?)
It is not so long until the Games whittle down. A cannon sounds, and then the next again; just one left, other than herself.
She finds her in the Cornucopia.
Fear dances in Lunaris's eyes. It's the same fear that pivoted in her eyes, twisting a cavalcade, when Maya had first met her in training: sparkly-eyed, terrified.
"Oh," she says, quite quietly, as Maya's steps drop against the Arena dirt. She glances up at Maya, a sad smile turning up her lips. "So that was why. Have I told you about my favourite lie?"
"Have I?"
"It isn't my father's. Telling me that he'd cut the bottles out of my life for his birthday. It was a pretty good one, though. His eyes shined. With so much sincerity. You'd have thought…" A chuckle passes Lunaris' lips. She shakes her head, as if shaking the memory away.
"But it isn't even a close contender for favourite. Your lie, Maya. That was the one I loved. So know," Lunaris whispers, her lips twinging with a smile, a razor, a razorish smile. "Your eyes shone so clearly when you said you loved me. First time I've been fooled. First time for everything, right?"
"I think," Maya says, quietly. Her eyes shimmer, as she turns them up to Lunaris's. "That you knew."
A breathy exhale, a chuckle again. A look up. "Of course I do." Her voice's soft - softer than ever before. "When have I ever been wrong?"
They're at the end.
There was a promise that they'd made in the tents together. Do you think we'll kiss? Lunaris had murmured to her. Twisted her silvery hair in her fingers; tilted her head sideways. At the end, I mean.
That only happens in dreams.
"We're here," Lunaris says. Her swagger slips in her eyes and stays as a grin on her lips. "What did I say again, Maya?"
If she doesn't look so deeply, then Lunaris's pain would not be there, twisting in her irises like a glittering prize.
Maya stands still. She doesn't meet Lunaris's gaze. "I'll concede," she says. "You're right. Dreams come true sometimes."
"Or they don't," Lunaris says, a smile on her lips. "You know that best, don't you?"
It is quiet. When Maya doesn't reply, Lunaris tilts her head.
"When your knife whizzed by my ear," she murmurs, a wistfulness tinging her words. "I thought it meant we were fucking soulmates."
(And picks up the sentence, as if it was a rhetorical question.)
Maya averts her eyes. "It wasn't fate," she says, finally. "I threw the knife to target you. You were supposed to come after me. Supposed to give me an excuse. That was that."
"That was that." Is that bitterness in Lunaris's words? Or is it nostalgia, wistfulness, a grimdark realisation? Then, a smile, light, turns up her lips. "Course it is. An excuse to snap."
"Yes," Maya says. "An excuse to snap."
"But I fell in love. Did you?"
"No. Isn't it your favourite lie of mine?"
"Yeah, well." A chuckle leaves Lunaris's lips. "There are tears in your eyes."
It's only then that Maya feels the wetness down her cheeks. She blinks, and they spiral down into the dirt, the glossy earth, broken and undeniably right.
"You were never good at lying," Lunaris whispers. "And let's be honest, here. I was never the best at dreaming."
"I know that." Maya replies. There is no moonlight tonight, not when the night is approaching its sunrise. "You're here because you can't."
Lunaris's grin only widens. Her despair only spirals in her irises. "Yes. I am. How'd you know that?"
"I could read it," Maya says, softly, "In your eyes."
"And you say we aren't soulmates." A laugh erupts from Lunaris's lips. It is only so full of happiness; of bitterness; of joviality; of desperation.
So much desperation.
But a mirror flashes in Lunaris's eyes, and her lips quirk again. And Maya's heart clenches, for this is the same gaze that burned into her in the guillotine; in the campfire night; in every moment the predator leapt out of Lunaris's psyche.
"Why'd you run Lark off, Maya?"
"I didn't. He decided to go."
"Lies again," Lunaris laughs. Her eyes are raptorial, now, and she steps forward, twisting her knife between her fingers. "Is it because you knew he'd die? Is it because you wanted another excuse?"
"No," Maya snarls. "You know damn well that I didn't want him to die."
"Didn't do much to stop it, did you?"
"No," Maya says. "But neither did you."
"Yeah," Lunaris says, tilting her head, swinging her knife a downward arc back into her belt. "You're right. Neither of us did. Guess we both knew that this would be the prettier end."
Silence.
"How're we doing this?" Lunaris smiles, takes her knife, spins her knife, as if it were a butterfly knife. As if, if it were here, the moonlight would catch its slivers and cut through the ground. Oh, how cold.
"Are we gonna fight? Are we gonna play a game?"
She goes up, quite close, to Maya. Her fingers graze upon Maya's chin. Her breath's hot against her neck.
"Are we gonna kiss?"
Maya Ariou shuts her eyes. It's too bright in the light: the rays are pounding against her head. It's giving her a headache. So much of a headache, yet it was a headache far stronger than the pains that have struck her throughout the Games. It was as if each and every one of them came to pound at a point in her head, going and going and—
Maya exhales. She blinks. Lunaris's still looking at her, her eyes gleaming -
With tears? With a plea? With a beg?
No. Quiet.
She is here for a reason; and that reason remains the same, from the beginning till the end. Death was her end. She was always meant to be here. Who her opponent was didn't matter: they were flesh-pieces, breaking from beauty, all to make her end. It was only unfortunate that she loved the last one left.
Her fingers tighten on the hilt. A push. A twist.
Lunaris gasps. Her eyes go wide. Her hand goes to her stomach that.
Bleeds. Bleeds and bleeds and bleeds.
Shock's in her eyes. Maya, why? Then, a half-smile, twinging by. Oh, that's poetic. Then, wistfulness. Poetic. Poetic.
Maya casts her eyes away. She doesn't stop the tears that leak from her eyes. Curving down her cheeks and splattering against her body, each drop burning like hellfire.
Lunaris's legs fold in from under her. She falls. Spreads across the ground, sprawled and gasping, red and red pouring from her stomach. Her hand doesn't move to stem it.
Instead, her eyes draw up to Maya's.
"Draw me a rose?" her lover whispers.
Maya stabs it in her throat.
A breath, another - none. A glisten of a tear drops down her cheek. The light in her eyes shutter out, one final time.
She collapses next to her, rather quiet. A headache sets in her skull. She doesn't know how she feels. She doesn't know how to.
Here's to your pretty end, Ris.
(Isn't that a familiar end?)
What'll happen if we can't get free, Maya?
Then I'll kill the world for tryin'.
She's the Victor.
This is no dream. She's avenged Maddie. She's left the world burning.
It's not pretty, though. Not as pretty as she'd like, in fantasy: with the incandescent aesthetic and the quart-glow fires and the cowering men. Not as pretty as she thought it would be younger.
It is without Maddie.
It'll have to do.
It is the end. They are all dead.
Maya Ariou sees daylight.
(The headache's searing in her mind. She can't close her eyes. The corpses' shines are so fucking bright.)
fin.