A/N: Hi hi! Just a quick sidenote, turns out the FFN doc editor isn't such a fan of strikethroughs, so if you see anything that's [italicized and in square brackets], that's what that notates. Aight, nuff said, have a good read!

Icarus LaCroix, 18

District One Male

He folds down the collar of the bumblebee yellow shirt with a crisp snap, rolls each sleeve up just once with a practiced flick of calloused knuckles, the color of the perfectly pressed linen glinting in a reflection off of firefly amber irises, eyes narrowed but pupils dilated, swallowing up diameter with inky void under the bright lights.

Clean navy jacket slips on silently, rough fingers deftly sliding one delicate button closed, the fabric at the nape of his neck tickling the ends of golden curls that spill clumsily over his high, defined brow. He slides a golden cuff onto the cartilage near the top of his ear with a soft, satisfying click, the chain that connects it to the dangling cross earring sliding between his fingers like liquid.

The knots he ties in the laces of freshly polished shoes lay flat and symmetrical; the grin he plasters onto his face is lopsided. It is all meticulously calculated, the discreetly balanced composition of handsome and elegant and put-together yet still boyish and clumsy and rough at the edges. There is grace to the way he wears his own skin like a mask as he steps through the door and Sinclair attaches herself to his elbow like one last accessory.

He thinks maybe he is underwater because of the way the roar of applause sounds so distant and muffled to his ears, but maybe that's just years of conditioning; he's learned to filter through sensory input like a knife slicing through butter, to push aside what doesn't demand his sharp focus. Sinclair still clinging, barnacle-like, to his arm, he wades uninhibited through the thrumming sea of trainees, drifting across the wide annex and the scent of vodka and furniture polish and sweat masked by Capitol perfume.

He feels the music more than he hears it, steady bassline throbbing beneath him, vibrating up through the soles of his feet. His eyes lock with Eadlynn's piercing blue ones, the redhead leaning casually against the bannister near the bottom of the sweeping staircase, her face alight with amusement as she surveys the mass of teenagers before her. When she sees Icarus she seems to deflate slightly with relief, holding out a small hand to shake his larger one, both of their grips strong, as he steps up to stand next to her. With a glance toward the mentor, Sinclair drifts away into the crowd; he tracks her with his eyes for a moment for something to do.

"You wanna drop the bullshit lost puppy act already, or am I going to have to find someone else to mentor?" her voice cuts through his thoughts and he swings his head toward her, face falling into a split second of genuine surprise.

"How-" she laughs at him, raspy and deep, before slipping seamlessly into a soft porcelain giggle and a ditzy smile, and the sweet girl who went into the Games eight years ago is staring back at him again instead of the cold, sarcastic mentor he's become used to. She drops the persona again moments later, eyes rolling behind thick mascara.

"You get good enough at pretending, you start to see through everyone else. You're smart, Mr. LaCroix, but you can't let people catch you like that; you're too used to being ten steps ahead." a cunning smile drapes itself across his face as he leans further against the railing, relaxing his posture as he watches his former classmates dance and drink below.

"Don't worry about me, I know what I'm doing."

"So what's the plan, then, Mr. Independent?" he turns to face his mentor again, flashing a wide cheshire grin.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

Aoife Fantazes, 18

District One Female

She surfaces into wakefulness slowly, like coming up for air in a calm lake. She takes in a slow, deep breath suffused with morning dew and lavender, briefly nuzzles deeper into the soft mattress, shifts one leg into a more comfortable-

the pain lances up her spine, deep and aching and all too familiar and her muscles ripple with a sudden clenched tension, teeth pressing together as she bites back a groan and a whispered curse because she might be this broken twisted creature now but she is still, as always, a Fantazes and she doesn't have the luxury of being weak or giving in to something so disgustingly insignificant as pain. And isn't she just so fucking disgusted with herself because here she is and it's morning again and she is still this thing, this useless abomination of skin and bone and not enough muscle and colossal overwhelming nothingness. She keeps her eyes closed another minute pretends that maybe when she opens them they'll both see clearly breathes through the pain again wills the disgust and the pain and the doubt to stop pulling tighter around her chest wills herself to stop being herself.

Because maybe if she is made of clay and stone instead of skin and bone she won't be so fucking breakable maybe then she'll be what she is meant to be and isn't that just it, she should be a what not a who so that's what she becomes as she sits up and tells herself she isn't dizzy and pulls the straps on the leg braces a little too tight and turns as she [manages to drag herself piece by piece] walks out of the room so that her unseeing left eye doesn't see the crutches leaning against the opposite wall gathering dust [and guilt and the blood of her dead twin sister].

She paints expensive makeup over her scar and pulls on long jogging pants and tries not to let a sob catch in her throat when it makes her look far too much like Rodika except there is no light in her own eyes so maybe she looks more like Rodika did after they impaled her on a crimson pike and she makes herself stop thinking and focus on doing because if she looks the part and acts the part and builds up the walls in her mind high enough then she knows she will be better knows she will be perfect knows she can fix this isn't quite sure what there is left to fix.

Kjell is already waiting when she arrives, watching her from across the room with crossed arms, assessing her like some sort of specimen, not like he's undressing her with his eyes but like he's dissecting her with them, and she knows he's read her files but she didn't expect to feel so seen through, standing there in the empty training gym and breathing in the smell of old sweat and ever so consciously facing him straight on and bending her knees just the right amount and she hates knowing that he knows it's all a facade because she knows how Kjell Vandenberg works and she knows he's going to look at her under a microscope and correct every twitch of every [mangled] muscle until she's the picture perfect pristine statue of a Career because that's his style.

But she also knows that he wouldn't be standing in this room if he thought she was a waste of his time. Kjell is nothing if not bluntly honest, which means that for some reason he actually thinks she has a snowflake's chance in hell of coming out of that arena alive.

And she's unflinchingly aware that that's all the chance she needs.

Icarus LaCroix

Icarus stares at the tarnished gold ring, mesmerised as he rolls it across his knuckles over and over again, passing it deftly from pinky to thumb every time in the maneuver his father once taught him with a coin. Except now he knows that wasn't his father. The guilt on Daedalus's face is staring back at him every time he closes his eyes and he wonders vaguely whether they ever told Minos that the boy he was raising wasn't his son. Probably not, he decides; why would the man put so much time and effort into Icarus if he knew they weren't flesh and blood?

The sharp pang of failure, of not enough, of loneliness, strikes deep in his gut and his breathing hitches, the ring dropping to the marble tabletop with a harsh clang, spinning a few times on its edge before dropping to rest, an empty little circle formed to the shape of Minos' finger half threatening to swallow Icarus whole.

He jerks his head up, forcing his breathing back into rhythm, sees Eadlynn raising a single eyebrow at him as she continues to file her nails in what he can tell is feigned disinterest; after all, this is the first he's moved since sitting down on the train almost an hour ago.

He flashes her a tight smile and glances out the window, gorgeous red bluffs of rock formations starting to give way to signs of civilization; in another twenty minutes or so he knows he'll be able to see the gleaming skyscrapers of the Capitol as they close in on their destination.

His fingers find the warmed circle of gold again, rubbing it gently with the pads of his fingers, experimentally starting to slide it onto his own ring finger before he takes a deep breath, shakes his shaggy curls hard to clear his head, clenches his fist tightly around the metal ring.

"Hey," he asks softly, not looking away from the mesa speeding by beside him, "do you know if it's safe to open these windows?" out of the corner of his eye he sees Eadlynn shrug noncommittally, raising the other eyebrow as well this time.

"Dunno," she answers, "might as well try it; you could be dead soon either way."

The two of them share a humorless chuckle and he reaches up, undoes the latch, and raises the bottom pane of glass with a degree of hesitation. The wind buffets harshly at him, steals his breath, muffles his hearing, pushes his hair back, but there's no sudden blaring of alarms, nothing shatters, all seems relatively safe.

He palms the ring in his left hand and lets it hang out the window ever so slightly, hot summer air buffeting hard against his skin, pushing him back as it whips by. The moment his grip lessens on the ring it's gone, grabbed by the greedy, sucking current of wind, no more than a momentary glind of gold and then his "father's" wedding ring is no more, lost somewhere in the ever-changing dirt.

He doesn't need a token, doesn't need a reminder of what he's supposed to have left to lose. After all, it's been years now since he felt any connection to that home, since he felt much more than the driven emptiness that comes with knowing that the only one he can rely on is himself.

A/N: Hi loves I'm back! Congrats if you got through that chapter, it wasn't very long at all but it was quite dense and wordy; this is only the first intro, though, and I'm optimistic that my writing will improve as we progress. Anyways, what did you think of Icarus and Aoife? These two are among a number of tributes I like to personally refer to as my Glorious Bastards, and were submitted by timesphobic and Firedawn'd respectively, so make sure to give much love to Phobie and Dawn!

Signing off,

Mae xo