day five, part one: shut up and dance
Never wanted to dance with nobody, not you -
Never wanted to dance with nobody but you -
(Never wanted to dance with nobody, but you wouldn't take no for an answer, you fucking bitch.)
In the early hours of the morning, as night extends her starry arms and the sun sits idle behind a wall of black, Velezen Vilarys stands in silence.
It's a new look for him, silence. Not one that he especially fancies, by any means, but one he won't deny is useful, especially so long as he's stuck here.
The arena isn't exactly a place for talking. Regardless of what his companions seem to believe, all the Capitol cares about is fucking action - they prize entertainment in the form of destruction, death, manipulation and all the chaos in between. Tributes without kills are ones that incite boredom, and while the four of them have done their best to keep things moving, he can't help but feel they're not doing enough. Not in light of everything else, especially since…
Especially since Velezen has no desire to really. As much as he feels compelled to display his anger, the stakes of survival have thrown him. He's more tired now than anything else –
Tired of playing games to appease a callous public.
Tired of sitting around and making jokes to detract from the reality of his position - and the demand that being a tribute entails.
Tired of jumping through hoops so he can make an impression, when all his efforts have done is mark his back with a target.
– and exhaustion is a feeling meant to take a toll.
(Action's something he was good at, once. But now, after Aurelio and all the months he was set to rot…)
(He's losing his ability to stomach murder.)
(… no. He's losing his ability to deal with loss.)
Theia.
Aurelio.
The parents who disowned him and the peers that exiled him. His beloved acolytes, in all their zealous glory. They've all fallen to the wayside on the path that he's taken - damned him with their betrayals or been damned by his decisions, either way they're fucking gone, and there's nothing Velezen can do about it. Now he's stuck in the Capitol's games, and he's expected to lose even more.
A shaky smile splits his face as he halts his pacing outside a closed door, the soft snores of his slumbering companions emanating from the small opening beneath it. Suddenly, he's overcome by the urge to laugh.
He doesn't, of course.
The whole point of taking shift tonight was to let his allies get some sleep, and Velezen's not about to try and disrupt that. Even though he's –
It's a fucking cycle. Everything about this place - about my life. Gods, I'm caught in a fucking loop, and I can't – I can't break free of it.
I can't make it stop.
– fine. He's fine.
Sighing to himself, Velezen turns away from the door and returns to his previous pacing, following the lines of the walls off in the direction of the door. He doesn't know how long he's been awake - seventeen, maybe eighteen hours in a row? - but it's long enough that it's making him go senile, which he isn't about to fucking have. He needs to stop thinking. Clear his head, be it by going outside to get some fresh air, or twiddling his fingers and counting the cracks along the oaken floorboards. Doesn't really matter so long as it keeps him busy…
So he drops his gaze to his feet and starts to walk. One lap around the cabin, then a second. Then a third, with his shoes scuffing marks into the already dirt-stained wood, leaving streaks along its surface. Velezen wanders down the back hall, out to the porch, past two locked doors and their designated bedroom before a noise catches his ear, and he's finally forced to raise his head.
"Velezen?"
He whips around just in time to watch a shadow emerge from the bedroom, clad in khaki shorts and a white undershirt. Blinking a couple times to clear his eyes, the haze around their body dissipates before re-solidifying, broad shoulders and a tall stature queuing him in immediately to the figure's identity.
Is it strange that he's happy to see her?
"Cordura," Velezen replies, the relief in his tone rather brazen. "Looking tall and deadly as ever. What can I do for you this fine morning?"
The Eight girl pulls the door shut before she steps out into the blueish light. Her arms cross over her chest as she leans back against the neighboring wall, dark shadows contouring her face. She cocks her chin up, her expression stiff - but when she speaks, her words are almost gentle, forward and without a trace of judgment.
"Why didn't you wake me?"
Velezen shrugs. "You're the one who said you needed your beauty sleep."
Cordura's mismatched eyes seem to sharpen as she leans forward to peer at him. "Oh? And when exactly do you recall hearing me say this?"
"This morning?" Zen asks, moving toward one of the tables so he can take up a seat on the edge. Cordura makes a noise and rolls her eyes, dropping her arms back to her side.
"Two days ago," she answers, pushing off from the wall. One foot steps in front of the other, and soon enough she's striding towards him, taking up residence next to his table with a discerning stare. "You know, when I got stabbed?"
"Well, maybe I just took the sentiment to heart," he snips back, doing his best not to appear rattled. "Either way, I don't need a lecture over something so –"
"Stupid?" Cordura offers, lifting an eyebrow. Velezen reaches out to flick her arm.
"Fuck you."
"Hah! You wish."
The Eight girl's stare persists a moment longer. Then, with a deep exhale, her posture relaxes and she turns to take a seat at his side, propping herself up on the edge of the table, her head turned in the direction of the doors.
After a few moments have passed, conversation weighed down by the silence that hangs like a shroud in the space between them, Cordura lets out a sigh. Her fingers curl around the edge of the brittle wood, hand close enough to Velezen's that he can feel the heat coming off of it. He watches as her teeth worry over her lower lip, biting down as her eyes dart to the side, unable to match gaze with his face. Her shoulders slump.
"Are you… okay?"
Zen shrugs again, not especially eager to divulge his feelings in such an impersonal setting. When your life is up in lights, there's no space for swapping secrets… especially when they involve things like–
"Yeah, I'm chill," he answers, feigning a smile and willing that his words sound true. "Struggling a bit with the 'Three AM' curse, but that's all. Just… a lot on my mind."
"Fair enough," Cordura concedes. "If there's any time of day that'll fuck you up, it's the witching hour."
"Yeah, tell me about it," Zen says with a snort. "If there was ever a good time to contemplate suicide…"
Cordura's mouth closes, her lips dropping into a half-formed frown. Velezen's jaw tenses and he's forced to suppress a shudder as he turns his head down, attempting to avoid the question she's no doubt turning over in her brain.
"Sorry," he mumbles. "Bad joke."
A sigh.
"Well… it's not like I haven't made similar comments." Cordura kicks her legs up on the table in front of them, stuffing her thoughts back behind a mask of seeming apathy. "I guess misery just loves company, doesn't it?"
Velezen swallows hard. At once, he feels acutely aware of Cordura's presence beside him, her soft breaths and the tapping of her fingers against the table wood, a steady reminder of everything he's been trying not to dwell on. Allies. Attachment. Betrayal, death and murder, things in which he has no choice. His tongue curdles inside his mouth as his lips part, Velezen willing himself to think of a response – a joke to distract them both from the topic at hand, something witty to lighten the atmosphere… anything beyond the endless quiet they have now.
But nothing seems quite right. He chokes out one meager, paltry, "...yeah." – and then his voice is gone.
The silence stretches on.
There's a brief lull in which Cordura's brow creases – and then, suddenly, she turns her head, the movement catching Velezen's attention. He blinks and glances over, following her gaze to the the open door at the front of the lodge, overcast by shadows in the shape of –
A person.
Zen lurches forward, only for Cordura's arm to stretch out and knock lightly into his chest, blocking him from trying to move. A frown creases her features. She tilts her head, looking over the darkened figure whose silhouette has overtaken the floor, then lets her eyes drift back to Velezen.
"Someone's here," she murmurs, half under her breath. "Someone's watching."
The words aren't loud, but they're loud enough to breach the quiet, and that seems to be all the incentive the figure needs. Once Cordura's words hit the air, the shadow begins to move, footfalls darting across the steps out in front of the cabin, pushing past their window and away from their camp.
"Come on." Cordura says, reaching down to grasp Zen's forearm and tug him upward, pulling him off in the direction of –
The glass on the back door smashes. Unceremoniously, a hand (pale, ghastly, illuminated by the moon's dim glow) reaches in through the gap, fumbling around the wood in search of a handle. Cordura wastes no time in getting to her feet, Zen quickly following in her stead only to step away.
"I'll get the weapons," he says as the door begins to rattle. "We can get rid of th–"
"Show yourself!" Cordura snaps, absolutely no chill left in her body. At her words, the hand stops moving… then begins to withdraw back through the hole it made, until it's vanished from sight completely.
Velezen looks to Cordura, taking in the start red that's colored her face, her anger overriding her senses. She begins to stomp forward, each of her footfalls a thud on the brittle beams under her feet, her shoulders drawn up in some poor attempt at physical defense.
"Cordura," he begins. "I don't think we–"
"Check the front," she responds stiffly. "I'll take the back."
Velezen's mouth curls downward, overtaken by a scowl. Still, given the situation he isn't exactly one to protest – even though he feels like he should. Going outside to look around when neither of them have a clue just who it was that was trying to perturb them, nor if said figure was actually alone just screams "bad idea." But when in the Hunger Games…
He heads over to their supply area and unshutters the door, reaching in to draw out the first weapon he sees – a dull and rusted rapier that may not be ideal, but ought to be menacing enough to do the trick. Velezen takes a deep breath in an attempt to steady himself, then backs away, glancing over his shoulder to the open entrance… and back down to the weapon in his grasp.
Killing isn't difficult, he reminds himself. It's just a fact of life. I want to survive, I have to get rid of the obstacles set in my path. Twenty-three other tributes…
(Eventually, he'll be pulling a sword on his own companions, instead of a simple intruder. But now isn't the time to be thinking about that.)
He turns.
Unsurprisingly, Cordura's already left. Velezen can see the back entrance hanging wide, door swinging on its squeaky hinges in the force of her embittered wake. Like before, the lodge itself is quiet – and despite the noise, Maevyn and Argenta don't seem to have woken, which he figures he should call a plus. Hopefully, things won't go poorly enough that either of them have to.
He takes a step forward, but before he has a chance to reach the exit, a second window breaks as a rock is tossed through, sailing through the glass with a fantastic crash and smacking against one of the tables, only to roll across the top. Zen looks to it, then the door… then back to the rock, which he starts to approach. He watches as it bounces down from bench to floor, clattering on the ground with little fanfare, beyond the ripping of whatever's attached to it – something that looks like paper, torn and fluttering.
Velezen grasps it between his fingers, tearing it loose of the stone and holding it up to the light. Even with the moonglow, the words are barely legible – but he can make sense of enough.
Enough to know that something's seriously off.
M-vyn
Meet at br—k by Bo-ouse ne-r W-ds. We n-d to t-lk. Urge-y. The d-l is m-sin-. Y–'re the only h-pe.
-Your Br–her of t– Moon
Velezen's brow creases. He turns the note over to look at the back, doing his best to examine it for anything beyond the obvious… but the rest of the paper is blank, save a small moon resting in the corner that looks to be a part of the stationary.
… didn't Maevyn's partner have dark skin? Their visitor from before definitely didn't, just based on what Zen saw of his arm. And with how close the Fours seemed to be, why would someone like Vyn's partner go through the effort of trying to break a door down in the middle of the night, when he could just as easily come to the lodge and talk without fear of being attacked? It doesn't make sense. Any of it.
This is a trap. Without question.
"Hey, Cordura?" He calls out, hoping that she's had the wherewithal to return. Yet there's no response to his call – no response even when he raises his head, turning back to the exit to check if –
The door to the supply room slams against the wall. A figure bursts free of it, two packs left on their back, their ghoulish appearance leaving no doubt that it's the same person who tried to broach the back door – the same person responsible for the note, for the shouting that Zen's now hearing in the bedroom, for the angry girl charging up the steps, not holding back in her vitriolic curses.
"GET BACK HERE, FUCKWAD!" Cordura shouts, but they're already off and running, fleeing before any of the group has the energy to give chase. Velezen's own feet sit dead inside their boots, even as he starts to run forward, charging after the figure with his sword swinging out, trying to strike at their back, their head, their shoulder, anything within stabbing range… but they're too quick.
They're too organized.
The figure darts over to the back entrance and throws themself through it, dashing away into the night. Cordura's hand claps down on Velezen's shoulder as Maevyn's voice pipes up behind them, almost plaintive as she asks what's going on.
Reaching down for the Eight girl's hand, Zen slips the note into her fingers, waiting for her to unfurl the paper. Though Argenta and Vyn are both behind them now, bombarding them with an array of questions, neither he nor the Eight girl deigns to speak, caught as they are in their half-formed shock.
"What do you think?" He asks after a moment, and Cordura wads up the paper, then presses it to her lips. She shoves it in her mouth and begins to chew, then spits the remains out onto the ground, stepping forward to crush it under her heel.
"That's what I think," she responds, turning her head away. "What she doesn't know can't hurt her."
And with that, Cordura turns to approach the others, soothing their questions with false platitudes of reassurance. Zen listens to her speak, listens as she pulls a story from her ass about a tribute too cocky for their own good who had the audacity to try and raid their camp for supplies (which is actually beyond rude, what the fuck?) until her voice fades into background noise and he's left to his thoughts once more.
Patron Midori has been avoiding her.
She's not sure when she realized it; maybe back when they left the camp, when he didn't so much as look at her before heading off toward Ailith. Maybe it was after they'd packed up and started to walk, doing everything he could to make sure there was distance left between the pair of them as he ran about gathering supplies for Elysia. And she's not going to say that she's upset about that… about the insinuation that Elysia, of all people, is preferable company to her (?!) - but it's definitely putting a damper on her mood right now. Like icing on a bloody shit cake.
Because abandonment is exactly what I needed tonight, she thinks, glaring daggers into Patron's back as she tries to keep pace behind him. Because I love a side course of snubbing with my daily exercise, and of course I'm stuck walking a five mile trek to fucking nowhere, with a whole group of allies that fucking hates me, because everything to do with the Games is fucking miserable and Taji just wants me to die, so why the hell not? Right?! Why bother investing or trying to make friends when all companionship ever does is bite me in the fucking ass? Fuck's sake, why do I even try when all I'm going to get. In return.
Is motherfucking.
DISAPPOINTMENT.
!?
… whatever. Whatever, she's fine, she's fucking –
fine, it doesn't matter what's wrong with Patron,
or what the others think of her, she's used to being alone –
used to pulling weight for herself, taking care of her own shit –
naturally, just like always, she's the only one with competence.
Nobody else can get her what she wants –
nobody else can… give her what she needs, prize her, show her affection,
make her feel like she's not just a useless waste of space –
she just wants to be happy, is that so goddamn wrong?!
And she can't even have that, because she's fucking worthless –
A piece of shit.
A bitch.
A greedy, megalomaniacal junkie that's never been cared for,
even by the people that claimed to love her.
All they do is abandon me.
All they do is write me off.
All they do is hurt me, and I should fucking show them –
I should show them, kill them all, make them hurt so I can feel SOMETHING –
The funniest part is that he's trying to act oblivious. Like he doesn't know why she's upset with him, because he hasn't done anything wrong, hasn't been looking sus for a day and a half, giving her these side-eyed little glances when he thinks she's not paying attention. Does he honestly think she's that stupid?!
… sigh.
She really wishes he'd stop making that face. Those… little sad, beady eyes, and that frown with the pinch in his brow, all pathetic and lost like a kicked dog. Fuck, just because he's pretty doesn't mean he has to weaponize it, and yet here he is, doing it all the same! Can't he just suck it up and get over himself? Can't he quit being a bitch and fucking stop, stop acting ridiculous, stop making her care?!
(She's not supposed to feel like this. Caring isn't her thing, never has been - not with Tamara, not with Taji… not with Patron, who she's only been using for the sake of getting ahead anyway. It's just plain stupid for her to take things personal, especially with someone that's petty enough he'd rather give her the silent treatment then try to talk shit out…)
"That's quite the glare you're wearing. What crawled up your ass and died?"
An elbow nudges against her arm, snapping Tati free of her thoughts. Tilting her head to the side, she can just make out firm arms, a tall stature and a mess of black hair - telltale signs of her so-called ally from District Two.
"Kellen," she greets in lieu of answering, trying to unclench her bitter teeth. At least I've got one person that's still willing to talk to me. Fuck's sake.
"Tati," he retorts, falling into step next to her, his own strides slowing so she can keep pace. "You gonna answer my question, or just leave me to guess?"
"Guess," Tati tells him, smirking as she cranes her neck up. Kellen snorts, pushing his hair back from his face with a calloused hand. He shakes his head.
"Classic."
"You know me," she says with a shrug. "Can't make things too easy for you."
"Then I guess it's a good thing I like a challenge." Kellen's eyes rove over her body, lingering on her face with unspoken question. After a moment, his lips curl, and his gaze slides from her over to Patron and Ailith, still walking together and muttering in hushed tones. "Though in this case, I don't think it's exactly difficult. Nine piss you off that bad?"
"I'm not pissed off."
Tati crosses her arms, not about to admit that Two's hit the nail on the head. That would mean that she's pinned her heart on her sleeve, and there's nothing she enjoys less than feeling vulnerable. Sometimes denial is a better option than admission, and in this case…
"Of course you're not," Kellen says, shaking his head. Tati glowers.
"I'm serious," she quips, unable to meet his gaze. "Sure, maybe I'm angry, but I'm not that angry. Patron can do what he wants."
"Can he now?"
Tati raises her middle finger, sticking it up at him before pointing. Kellen starts to laugh.
"Really?"
The question's rhetorical, but she decides to answer regardless. "Remember when I asked for your opinion? Oh, wait - I didn't."
"Grab a fucking chair and wait for me to care, Six." Kellen rolls his eyes, stuffing his hands back into his pockets. "You know, he and Ailith have been acting unusually close these last few days… I wouldn't consider myself the paranoid sort, but it does make you wonder..."
Shit. Is he planning to get rid of me? Turn the tables and kill me before I have a chance to strike back at him? Little fucking snake, is that seriously how he wants to play this?
"No," Tati says, firmly rejecting the idea. Her teeth worry at her lip as she turns away from Kellen, her mind kicking into overdrive. No, he wouldn't do that. This is Patron we're talking about. I mean – yeah, he's a bitch, but he's not the sort to go around making death plots. Especially not with somebody like Ailith.
(Besides, since when am I listening to Kellen? He's less trustworthy than Taji – even if he hasn't betrayed me yet! I'm not just going to believe the shit that comes out of his mouth, like some sort of gullible flunkie. I'm smarter than that. Seriously, I am!)
Her teeth grind against each other in circles, goosebumps springing up across her neck and arms. "When all this is finally over," Tati remarks offhandedly, "I want my fucking sanity back."
Kellen, still bemused, merely shakes his head and gives her a clap on the back.
"Hate to say it, but you may have to get in line," he quips back. Then, with nothing more than another sly smirk, the Two boy slips place her, pace speeding as he passes Tati by.
Tati huffs.
Keeping her eyes fixed on his back, she watches as Kellen makes his way over to Elysia, sidling up to the One girl with his usual, irritating surety. Tati, in an attempt to keep her cool and not turn anyone on to the fact that she's sulking, wraps her arms around her upper body before allowing her pace to falter. She's not sure if it's nerves, or loneliness, or insecurity, or (Capitol forbid) jealousy… but all of her anger is just bubbling inside her chest, pushing against her sternum with enough force that she wants to combust.
(The withdrawal probably isn't helping, either.)
Her feet begin to drag against the muddy ground. The soles of her boots suddenly feel leaden, misshapen and too heavy for her to carry. It's like she's wading through knee-deep water, the currents paralyzing her while they continue to numb her out.
She's losing traction. Amidst the stress and the tension and… and all this fucking bullshit with her allies and Kellen and people back home… Tati Terranova is beginning to crumple. She feels like a shell of herself; worn out and stretched thin, rife with anticipation over everything to come, and Taji – Patron – Tamara –
None of them are worth thinking about.
None of this is worth thinking about.
Tati's hand is shaking when she runs it through her hair, the badly-dyed strands hanging loose across her face, static from the constant wind. Try as she might, she can't force herself to still it, and after tucking the stray locks back out of the way, she stuffs her now-balled fist into the pocket of her shorts, unable to tolerate the sight of her weakness.
Isn't she supposed to be better than this?
Her slowed steps begin to speed again, but without any of the previous respite. Tati bows her head and shoves by Patron, by Ailith, past Kellen and Elysia and the whole of her ragtag group, uncaring for the words muttered behind her back.
She can't be here.
She can't do this.
She's trapped - trapped with no sense of direction, impounded by a world of fucking fiends that never saw her as anything but a problem, another loser on the fast track to nowhere. The truth of the Games is that she's not losing traction, she's losing her fucking self, and if she continues to bury her head in the dirt she'll be dead before she gets a chance to breathe –
(This alliance isn't worth dying for. Neither were Taji or her family or the slew of fake friends she'd tried to sustain. Sure, the parties were fun, and high helped to stop the hurt and the rage she'd nurtured since birth, but what did her vices really win her? What good was attention when it came with neither power nor respect?)
And then there's a hand on her shirt.
"Tati, watch it –!" Somebody shouts, grabbing hold of her without decorum. Then there are two hands, tangling into the sturdy, beige-toned cloth, hauling her back from the path. She can't even blink before she's caught, unable to figure out what's happening until the damage has already been done.
"What the fuck?!" Tati shouts, wire coiling around her feet, and snapping into her ankles. She pitches sideways, the arms that have imprisoned her slipping away in an instant, leaving her to flouder atop the forest dirt. Pain lances through her ankle, causing her lungs to stutter as she tilts her head up.
Her eyes fly wide as she spots the net hanging from the tree.
A hail of stones tumble down, smacking into the dirt where she had stood, their momentum enough to cause serious damage. Some are smooth, rounded and large, while others are jagged, pointed, primed to cause a bleed. One of them smacks into her shin and this time, her shout becomes a curse as the Six girl curls into herself, drawing her injured leg up toward her body.
what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck, her mind continues to hiss, every thought a litany of shock as she slumps back against Patron, who's fallen at her side, his fingers still caught in the sleeve of her shirt. Tati stares at him, her eyes wide open, and his mouth starts to drop, but whatever he's saying, she can't hear it. She can't. She…
"Why?" Tati questions, tears clinging to her lashes. "Why did you… what the hell did you do?! You don't look at me the whole day, give me the fucking silent treatment and now you're just gonna stick your bloody neck out for me and – and pull some shit like –"
"Saving your sorry ass?"
"Yes!"
Patron scoffs. "Well, excuse me for giving a shit."
"More like excuse you for being a shit, but fine," Tati snips, rolling onto her side and trying to push back up from the ground. "Apology accepted. Dumbass."
"Remind me again who it was that tripped over a wire," Patron deadpans. Tati sputters.
"That… that wasn't –"
"Children, please," the One girl begins, her feet slipping into the spaces between fallen rocks as she makes her way across the path. Tati's mouth hangs open as Elysia raises a hand, crouching down beside the sprung trap without a glance spared toward either of her downed allies. Drawing her sword from its place at her waist, she nudges the tip around the now-loose cord, tracing the line of it over to the side of the path. Her eyes turn skyward, glancing across the open net, the hanging rope, the mess scattered along the winding branches, certain parts left invisible from their current position.
"Whoever set this can't be far off the trail," she deduces, prodding a couple of the stones. Then, returning to her feet, she turns to survey the rest of the pack. "We're going on a hunt. Patron, you're with me. Ailith, Tati - you're with Kellen. We'll meet back here within the hour."
"Not to be a debbie downer," Tati says, finally getting back onto her feet and making to brush the dirt from her clothes. "But the last time we split up, Ailith got fucking wrecked, and I really value all my body parts being in the right spot. Can we maybe, I dunno… not?"
Elysia's eyes narrow.
"You're the one that wanted to be a Career, Six. Time to get your act together."
Shoving her sword back through her belt loop, she waves Patron over and turns away from the others, giving them a nice look at her retreating back. "If you see our little trapmaker, no fucking around. You attack them, and you strike to kill."
Tati's fingers brush along Patron's arm as he slips past her, too many things she wants to say, but none of which she actually can. She presses her lips together, swallowing her tongue as the Nine boy's footfalls slip off into the brush, carrying him out of her sight.
(For all her talk and all their banter… the only thing she really wanted to say was thanks.)
It's all been building to this.
The constant diversions. The bullshit with Venice. A couple of outliers forcing their way into her ranks, stirring up trouble with their words and their duplicity, their weakness causing a whole slew of issues that Elysia never wanted to deal with in the first place. Tatiana's frequent incompetence and Patron's isolation; she's not sure if their behavior was intended to serve as more of a ruse, or a distraction, but ultimately, it doesn't matter. She's been handed a situation, and now she has to deal with it.
Elysia's not going to claim she's happy about how things have turned out; nobody wants to get stuck with a traitor in their group, much less one as useful as Patron Midori. As much as she hates to admit it, the Nine boy has been an asset; he's smart, he's diligent, he's competent enough not to get in her way, unlike his little partner from Six… to lose him would put their group at a disadvantage. But what options does she have? If what Kellen told her was true, the implications are severe.
She's not going to risk the group's integrity.
No – she's not going to risk herself.
Elysia sighs. At least splitting up's given her one silver lining: containment. She's got the option of handling this on her own terms, without external interference. Maybe that will make it easier.
Without warning, her footfalls come to a halt, twigs crunching under her thick camp-boots. Her fingers tighten on the haft of the saber, knuckles white from the strenuous grip. Her hackles raise, but she doesn't turn – she doesn't feel the need to look.
She has Patron right where she wants him.
"You must think me awfully dense," Elysia's words are wry, half-rasping as they push loose from her throat. She swallows, thick, pushing aside the tension hiding in the hollow of her throat, her stiff jaw and sore temples. He can't see her concern – her uncertainty.
(To show weakness at this moment would be nothing short of unacceptable.)
"What are you talking about?" Patron asks, and she can just see his aggravating smugness. The way his eyebrow would start to lift, perfectly manicured and pristine. His crossed arms, his tapping foot, judgmental like all the girls from the training academy, wannabe-Careers that took pride in her shame.
Oh, I see the trainers will let in just anyone now? They'd say, tapping their little, manicured nails against their lithe-muscled arms. Beauty and strength rolled into a single package, and Elysia had hated them, how effortlessly they seemed to succeed, how little work they had to put forth to secure attention, admiration, status.
You don't belong here.
You're nothing, Ansaldi –
Nothing but a freak, and you have the gall to put yourself up here with the rest of us?
It's pathetic. How you posture. How you talk.
How you act, because everybody knows what you did –
EVERYBODY KNOWS, fucking everybody!
(You think the trainers can't see how you hold yourself,
can't see how you close your eyes and grit your teeth,
primed to spiral at the first sign of recognition?
Recognition for what you are –
what you did, did to Anka,
you're not a Career, you're a coward.
You think if you hide all the shame
like she hid her bruises,
that what you did will just up and go away?
You think if nobody knows, really knows,
the world will go back to normal and
the Games will win you reverence,
reverence when you don't even deserve
an ounce of respect, when you know that you're
a bastard and should be hated, should be
judged and scorned and reviled for your behavior?)
Trash.
Scum.
Liar.
Abuser.
(Take that sword and run yourself through.
Do it, it'll be so much easier –
so much easier than lying to yourself, because
denial is a river and you can only float in it so long
before everything sloughs off your bones
and you fall back into pieces –)
You could have killed her.
You could have killed her, you worthless. sorry piece of shit,
she was begging you to stop
crying and screaming and the whimpers
and you kept hitting kept watching
bruises pile up until she was purple and blue
and she couldn't breathe, she couldn't talk
couldn't fight but you twisted her wrist anyway
let her lie there on that fucking floor
while you tugged at your hair and smacked the cabinets
and cursed her for fucking existing,
for getting so close, for trying to help,
for being GOOD
when you were anything but?
THEY WERE ALWAYS RIGHT ABOUT YOU
THEY WERE ALWAYS
"Don't give me that," Elysia snaps, and oh, how her hands tremble, saber shaking like a fucking butterfly with a torn wing, caught in her poisonous hands. "The berries. Cozying up to Ailith. That shit with Tati, the look on your face when she called out your avoidance. I'm not an idiot, Patron."
"... Elysia, that's not what you think –"
"Oh, yes, do tell me what I think!" The dam bursts and laughter spills out of her, all her compartmentalized anger swirling starting to overflow. She's close to bursting at the seams – there's so much thought she can't contain it, but she's right, she knows she is, Kellen even confirmed it, and the traitorous rat is standing right there, so easy to attack, so easy to kill, they'd know it was her but it'd be worth it, having him – them – all of them gone, it'd be worth it, she can do this alone, she's done everything alone, ever since she was a child, left to her own devices and neglected by her deadbeat parents who never gave a fuck about her to begin with —
pullyourselftogether getyourselftogether notlikethisnotlikethis stop it elysia think about it stop fucking think !
"He saw you, you know," Elysia continues, finally giving him her notice. She turns, the tip of her saber pressing down into the dirt, and shakes her head at the Nine boy. "You think you're so clever, but cleverness is no good without discretion. I mean, did you really think you could hide the evidence? Your shady behavior, your cowardice, your undeserved frustration…?"
"I'm frustrated because I don't know what you're talking about!" Patron shouts, hands balling into fists and – she wasn't so close before, wasn't literally spitting into his face, but her weapon's on the ground now and she can feel the heat as she raises her hand to smack him, gripping his throat just like Ailith, like Anka, choking him like she chokes herself, smothered by her feelings, her self-hate, her inability to change, the cycle of bitterness never letting up…!
"Spare me the lies, you traitorous whore! I know she's your District partner. How long have you been plotting against us? Undermining our aims – my aims? Venice was gullible enough to fall for your… this… but I'm not so easy to fool. She's the reason you left in the bloodbath, isn't she? She's been setting the traps all along, and you've been doing damage control to keep us from working it out. Divert our attention so you could – poison us, is that it? You've been sorting the berries, so you've certainly had opportunity–"
"Can you shut up for one minute?!"
Patron stares up at her from the ground, his skin and clothes streaked by dirt, one hand wiping away the trail of blood leaking from his lip. Elysia's breath catches, seeing only dark eyes, dark hair, bruises and blood, dripping dripping dripping down her shirt, she's so still in her arms, so quiet even when she's screaming at Elysia, saying not to touch her, not to hurt…
"Kellen's planning to betray you - he's setting everything up so he can pit us against each other, and he's roped Tati into it, too. We're both at risk if we stay around them, and I don't know about you, but I'm not in the business of making gambles with my life."
"I thought I told you to quit lying."
Elysia's face twitches. Her nose… her brow, furrowing for a second before falling even, her mouth curled in spite while her teeth grind against each other. She steps back. Inhales, deeply, her eyes slipping shut as she breathes.
She turns. Retrieves her saber. Walks back to Patron and reaches down, beckoning him to right himself.
"I'm going to offer you a chance to make this right," she says, her outstretched palm remaining loose in offer. "One chance. If you take it, we can pretend that none of this… havoc… ever happened. Sound like a plan?"
"Do I have a choice?" Patron hisses, teeth bared like a wild animal. Elysia sighs.
"Of course you have a choice, Patron. You just don't like the options." Her fingers hook around his as he finally takes her hand, and she hauls him back onto his feet, her grip hold enough to feel crushing. "Kill her, or I kill you. The Games are made for survival of the selfish, so I assume the decision will be simple. If I were you…"
Elysia bites her lip.
"Let's go," she says, preferring to move on rather than finish her thought. She inclines her head toward the deeper woods, indicating that Patron should start walking. Much to her surprise, he does.
A tension hangs in the air between them, contorting and stretching like a misshapen tumor. Elysia can feel it festering, can see it in every tense line of Patron's muscles, his rigid back and stiff neck, head slightly bowed as he makes his way through the brush. The resigned slump of his shoulders is almost enough to make her feel sorry.
(She is sorry. Not just for Patron, but for all of it… all of them. Tati and Ailith and Kellen and hells, even Venice. Her sister and brother, the Lamottes, her Trainers. Ankara, the light that she'd blackened and burnt down the wick. She's the one that's selfish. She's the one that's a liar. She may claim differently, but she knows, she's always known. She's…)
(Broken.)
(She's broken.)
Whatever trust may have existed between them is gone, now; broken by her words, by her desire for confrontation and her inclination towards aggression. She could have confronted him without resorting to violence, if she'd really wanted to; but the fact of the matter is she didn't care. Violence is what she knows… what she's always known, a disease living in her blood since the day of her conception.
Rage is the pen that has written her story, and pain is the paper on which it sits. She will never be able to find closure for the past so long as she carries those feelings. Likely, she'll never find closure at all.
Elysia continues to walk, trailing Patron's steps with her sword hand poised to strike at his back should the need arise. Trees rustle at her sides, the leaves and needles tickling her skin, and while Elysia finds the atmosphere relaxing, it does little to combat her inner discomfort.
(She wouldn't say she's nervous, but there's a lot that could go wrong should she lose the upper hand. Everything in the Games is about power, and hers has been quickly fraying.)
They walk for five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. The forest passes them by, and suddenly, they are on a hill – standing beside a rocky outcropping, the sky blue as turquoise above their weary heads. Sunlight beats down upon their flushed skin, and Elysia feels sweat start to line her brow, trickling down the back of her neck, past the collar of her khaki shirt. Patron's steps slow, but he keeps moving. The outcropping becomes a clearing, which becomes more trees, rocks and flowers. Sooner or later, the path leads into an open glen, surrounded by bushes blooming ripe, rustling thorns and peeling bark, and that's when Elysia sees her.
"I knew you couldn't be too far," she says, apathetic at the thought of being heard. The girl's crouched upon the ground, stuffing fruit into her pack, but she stills at Elysia's voice, emanating such potent fear. She turns her head, starts to shout, but by that point Elysia's on her.
She doesn't stand a chance.
The One girl grabs ahold of her blonde hair, holding her saber against her neck. Slowly, but surely, she brings Nine to her feet, letting go of her hair in lieu of grasping her arm, digging nails in hard enough to leave imprints on the skin.
Nine shoves at her – shoves at her with elbows, the points jabbing into her stomach, forceful enough to make her wince. She rears her head back, tries to step on Elysia's foot, shakes her arm and shouts, shouts, shouts, calling her a bitch, saying she's a monster, if you're going to kill me, stop pussyfooting around! Where are you taking me?! Are you going to torture me? You – please, don't draw it out, don't do it, I won't fight. I won't fight, there's no need to make it long. Please… please, One, I'm begging you. I have family, I have – I don't want them to see me like that, like the boy from last year, it's just cruel. Please, I'll do anything, anything you want. Anything you say. Please.
"Shut up," Elysia says, drawing her blade away. When they've gotten close enough for the girl to see Patron, Elysia jams her foot into the back of the girl's knee, humbling her to put her at their mercy. She looks a wreck like this – prostrate before her partner and practically quaking – but when she raises her chin, she raises it high, tears shining on her cheeks as she looks into the eyes of her killer.
"... Patron?" She asks, and where her tone before was pointed, now her voice seems small. She starts to shift back, trying to get off her knees, but Elysia stomps down on her ankle, bringing her leg high before she lets her boot make contact, the resulting movement causing something to snap.
"Fuck!" Nine shouts, her palms braced on the ground as she falls forward. Elysia rips away the satchel on her back, wadding up the strap before turning the bag itself over, letting the supplies come tumbling out.
Nothing much of use. Some rope, an apple, a bottle of water. A dull dagger, that Elysia would rather not take chances with in a fight, but supposed could make do in a pinch. She sighs, and looks at her sword.
"Patron," she says, extending it to him by the blade, knowing that self-preservation will prevent him from trying to turn it on her – at least immediately. "You know what you have to do."
He takes the saber gingerly with both hands, doing his best to keep his skin from touching the sharpened edge. Elysia reaches down to confiscate the dagger, then allows the hilt to slip from her grasp, taking one step back and then another, the Nine girl staying still as a statue.
"Patron, you don't have to do this," she says, the words almost enough to make Elysia laugh. "We're District partners – there's two of us, and one of her, and if you help me up, then I can help you. I can help you like I did before, yeah? With the supplies, and – and –"
"Don't tell me you're going to listen to that," Elysia scoffs, shaking her head. "You can fight me, but I have years of training under my belt, Patron. What would you have? An unburdened conscience? An alliance with a little girl that couldn't hold her own against either of us in a fight, if we all came to blows? Be smart. This is a chance to prove your loyalty."
This time, Nine's head whips to the side, the tears out in full force. "You want to kill me, One? Fine. But if I'm going to fucking die, at least give me the decency of being on my f–!"
A metal blade plunges through her chest, entering one side and protruding out from the other, stained crimson by an excess of blood. Nine's shout becomes a strangled gasp, her mouth dropping open as she clutches at her breast, feeling over the blade and the hole and the seeping liquid like she doesn't understand what it is that's happened. Then, as realization begins to settle into her brown eyes, she wraps her hand around the sword and tugs on it, head bowed as she starts to gurgle, breath heaving as she tries to laugh.
"Are you... going to want this back, or... can I keep it?" The Nine girl asks between mouthfuls of blood, lines of scarlet dribbling out from her lips and coating her pallid chin. She raises her eyes to match Patron's, trying to write Elysia out of the picture. Elysia crosses her arms, but she doesn't protest.
(She can give the kid her last words. There's no reason to disparage the dying.)
"Patron… listen to me. You have to win. Nine needs the money. My brother..." She coughs, slumping forward against Patron's legs. The saber sinks deeper into her chest as she tangles hands into the fabric of his shirt, using his body to try and haul herself up, a trail of dark red painting rivers on the ground. A thin sheen of blood makes its way onto Patron's shorts as more of it spurts from her lips, her hacking only growing worse the longer she tries to speak. He tries to step back, but her hands are stuck to him, and though he looks perturbed, he doesn't seem to have the energy to pry them loose.
His eyes widen as her legs start to give, blonde hair hanging messy over her face. Her breathing slows, further and further, further still as he rips out the saber, and a loud squelch reverberates through the clearing as the blade rips free of her chest, Nine mirthful the whole way through.
"I can't believe... I'm gonna die... for s-smoking... a fucking joint." She laughs, a bemused smile on her face as she shakes her head. "Just... tell him I'm sorry. Okay?"
The cannon fires. The girl's body topples back into the dirt, legs still bent under her as her torso contorts into an unnatural position, head bent all the way back with two brown eyes left fixed and open. Red continues to leak out from the spot where Patron's blow punctured her lung, her formerly khaki clothes bathed entirely by stains. As Patron pulls free of her, the weapon drops from his hand, clattering lifeless on the forest floor.
Elysia's lips press into a line. She nods. "Well done."
"Well done?" Patron repeats, glaring with open disbelief. With one hand, he grapples at the bark of a nearby tree, breath coming in spurts as he tries to anchor himself. "That's all you have to fucking say, well done?"
"The first time is always the hardest," Elysia replies, parroting off what her trainers had always made a point of telling her in an attempt to settle him down. "I'm… sorry that it had to be done, but you made the right choi–"
"I didn't have a choice, you manipulative cunt." Patron spits, vitriolic even while he's breaking. "I didn't want to kill her – you fucking made me do it, and for what? Because you're too bloody intransigent to listen to anyone but yourself? Because it never occurred to you that maybe I never wanted to be here, not like the rest of you fucking psychos? I'm not a Career, I didn't sign up for this. I didn't campaign. Neither did she! My District took everything from me, and you're just going to stand there and… and fire off lines like this is a godsdamned reality show, not a gorefest where murder gets trussed up as competition?"
He shakes his head, his nails pulling pieces of bark away from the trunk, scrabbling relentlessly as Elysia looks on.
"No. No, no no… Leia… Leia was one thing. What I did to her… I didn't – she didn't die from what I did. Thomasin wasn't even competition, she was just a little kid. A fucking kid."
Elysia swallows, something stinging at her eyes. Unwittingly, she looks back over to the Nine girl's body, taking in the smallness of her frame, her short stature and her messy hair. Tribute or not, she looks younger now… too young for the Games, too young to be dead, really, it's no wonder she couldn't fight back against somebody older, taller, broader, trained…
"I… understand that it wasn't fair," Elysia murmurs, "for me to ask you to do that. But I needed to know that I could trust you. Now I do."
"Yeah?" Patron asks, snapping his head up. "Because all you've done for me today is prove that I can't trust you."
Elysia looks to her feet. "We should get back to the others. They'll be expecting us."
"Fine." The Nine boy pushes off the tree, stepping over the saber and turning his back, striding off in the direction of the treeline. "You know, next time you want someone to blame for your insecurities, why don't you turn some of that anger inward instead of projecting it onto everything in sight? Spare the rest of us from your self-pity."
"Patron," Elysia barks, somewhere between apologetic and bitter, but if he hears his name he doesn't answer.
He disappears back into a haze of twigs and leaves, and in his wake, Elysia finds only hollowness.
She's finally getting a chance to catch her breath.
It's a relief after everything that's happened – the last couple days she's spent running, how her pear has peaked when Twelve stumbled onto their camp and chased her back through the woods, hurling threats against her fleeing back. Between his pursuit and her own fatigue, Pangaea's sanity has been wearing thin; she's afraid if she pushed herself any longer, she'd be liable to snap.
(She hasn't yet, but that's a matter of sheer luck. And sheer luck never lasts for long.)
"Fifteen," Rhys murmurs as Pangaea settles onto the cabin step, pack still strapped across her shoulders. The wood is warm, half-bleached by the sun, and when her hands settle along the perch, she can feel it splintering beneath her thumb.
(Maybe if things were different, she'd have a problem with that – see it as a reason to complain rather than count her blessings. Pangaea's never denied that she was privileged; back home, the worst injuries she'd had to deal with were those inflicted by her peers, throwing wads of paper at her back in the school halls. Their words had hurt, but no more than the bruises she sometimes got falling off a horse, or tripping up at her dance recitals – and over time, the insults slung towards her started to lose their sting. She'd had nothing in her life she couldn't manage, nothing that really hurt her badly enough to leave her cast in scars the way Vukasin and Rhys and even Panno had seemed to be…)
(Regardless, she doesn't see it as a problem now. What's a splinter compared to a cut, or a stab wound, or a broken hand? Being pricked might hurt for a second, but it's nothing compared to the rest of what she's suffered. All the scrapes, scratches and bruises left from her nighttime falls… the imprint of Twelve's hands all along her body, scoring wounds into her flesh as he tried to snuff out her life…)
(Pangaea knows better than to dwell on the minutiae. The Games have given her a reason to be grateful, shown her the reality of hardship and strife. And even now, despite the pain that lingers in her heart, she knows her experiences have merely scratched the tip of the iceberg; the things that some of the others have endured… tributes like Rhys, who grew up impoverished, scrounging for scraps on their District's streets…)
(She realizes now that it must have been hell.)
(With that in mind, perhaps it's no wonder that her District hates her. Donovan O'Shea did nothing but take, throwing down dirt on the backs of those already left to it, and just like Capitol he'd tried to bury them alive. The people who lived in the lower sectors… paupers and rebels who had damned themselves out of nothing but want to survive… they cried and they bled and it was never enough, the same way Pangaea was never enough, because she hadn't noticed, she hadn't questioned, she hadn't fought and she hadn't helped, even when the world was falling to pieces around her…!)
(She understands, now, why Panno did what he did.
With the Rising Dawn, he was making a difference. Carving out a path for himself that adhered toward morals and generosity, rather than baseless wealth and selfishness.
She could have followed him, but she didn't.
She condemned him, she cut him off –
maybe it wasn't him that abandoned her, but her that abandoned him,
let him go and let him break,
using her last words before the arena to condemn him and everything he stood for.
It wasn't right.
It wasn't fair.
Nothing about the Capitol is fucking fair, and the more she hears of District Three, the more she realizes how much of Panem is tainted.
No, not Panem.
She is tainted.
Isn't that why they voted her in?
Because the child of a coward,
the devotee of a tyrant,
should not be considered anything
but a coward and a tyrant herself?)
"Fifteen," she echoes, replying to Rhys with a subtle nod, not so tired that she can't glean the word's meaning. A smile touches her lips as their eyes meet, her injured hand laid still in her lap, nestled safely between a splint of sticks, gauze and khaki fabric. Part of her feels bad for how easy it is to write off the cannon – no, not just the cannon, but what it signals, because she knows as well as anyone that it's nothing but a baseless death knell – but she can't deny that each one fills her with a sense of relief.
They may not be anyone's victors, but regardless, they're still alive. And being alive…
Being alive is a gift.
"That's a curious thing to smile about," the Three boy comments, a lilt of laughter behind his tone. Pangaea blinks before she turns to him, the motion allowing the sun's rays to dance across her muddy skin, all the grime from their days-long trek stuck in place across her body.
"It is," she agrees, still wearing her smile. Rhys leans closer, his gaze as teasing as his beguiling words.
"Don't tell me my cynical charm is starting to rub off on you," he jokes. Pangaea turns her face away, tucking strands of burnished gold back behind her ear. "What happened to the Capitol's sweetheart?"
"Left her behind in the rain last night," Pangaea answers, the brazen words sounding foreign when they leave her mouth. "Figured she could do with some deeper thought, after everything she said last night."
"Oh?" Rhys leans sideways against a post, crossing his legs one over the other. "So then, what's the verdict? She still believe in our witless Capitol?"
Pangaea laughs. "I'm not really sure she believes in anything."
"Well, I'd blame that bit on her parents. Not sure they ever gave her much choice in being a sheep, even after eighteen years."
"Eighteen years," Pangaea repeats, shaking her head. Has it really been so long?
So long that I've been stifled, without question or concern?
So long that I've listened to my mother's every command, never bothering to seek a path for myself?
Eighteen years, that's a life – part of one, at least, and I should feel like I've lived it. I should feel…
Sentimental.
Useful.
Convivial.
… something other than fucking wasteful. Something other than… failed, fake and fabricated…
(The only thing Pangaea O'Shea has ever wanted is to live.
She doesn't know why it took her so long to realize
that she could have been doing that all this time,
if she'd only had the courage
to act.)
"Is it weird," she starts, looking over to Rhys with chaos in her summer eyes, "that I still don't understand the purpose of it all? Of fighting and trying and dying and being lied to? Of my parents' dreams to make me a socialite, and raise me like I was a doll, never bothering to educate me on the things that really mattered because things were simpler if I was dependent, and – they loved me, I know they did, but I was never really a person before all this. I was just an object, some… hollow, brittle object living in a world constructed by other people, parroting all their ideals and beliefs… and I don't know what it was for, if I'm just going to–"
She covers her mouth with her good wrist, stopping herself from going any further. She's only uttered a few sentences, but those few sentences are enough to damn her. Pangaea's socialized with enough aristocrats to know that words hold the power to make or break a person's image, and once District Ten sees her being so candid… spilling her thoughts without a filter, without even a trace of real concern…
My parents, Pangaea thinks, and her stomach drops. Gods, what are they going to think of me? Everything I've said about them – everything I said, after all they've done, it's just like what happened with Panno… Panno and Padma and Mrs. Youssef, because she warned me about this, the power of consequences… if I make it out, there's no way they'd be willing to take me back. Not after I've disparaged them, and – and made myself –
"No," Rhys responds, seconds before Pangaea loses herself once more to a vicious monologue, her conscience warring with itself as she grows heavy from the urge to scream. "It isn't weird, and it isn't wrong to crave the things you never got. Aren't we all just messes clad in human skin, trying to find our place in a world that wasn't made for us?"
He reaches forward, one hand stretching out to touch the side of her arm.
"Pangaea, listen to me. Doubting yourself is natural, but letting doubt halt you in your tracks is a choice. You can either move forward or stay stagnant, but you can't have it both ways. Trust me when I say I've tried."
(He's confident.)
(Confident, in a way Pangaea never has been. Composed, pragmatic, even eloquent in his speech, his words as firm as they are flowery. She doesn't need to understand what he's saying to recognize that he's giving advice - speaking freely in the hopes that his experience will hold some weight, and the phrases he turns are so poetic that she almost wants to believe them. But she can't.)
(She just… can't.)
"I know you're only trying to help," Pangaea murmurs, scraping her teeth over her lip. "And I appreciate it. Really, I do. But it's not… it isn't quite that simple, you know?"
Rhys sighs, withdrawing his hand. "I do, actually. That's half the reason I ran away from the community home – half the reason I started doing dives in the scrap alleys and selling myself in order to gain worth. I know what it's like to feel lost, regardless of whether or not you can appreciate it."
"Rhys…" Pangaea's eyes widen, a tiny gasp escaping her. "I didn't – I never meant to insinuate…"
"Of course you didn't. Forgive me, your highness, for trying to ease the tension–"
"Rhys, I'm sorry," she says, cutting him off before any more damage can be done. Shifting her posture, she reaches out to grip his hand, her fingers curling around his and squeezing them tight so his hold can't be withdrawn. "I'm sorry. I didn't intend to be dismissive – I know that you've been through… so, so many things that I can't even fathom. And it's clear that you mean what you're saying, which I appreciate, I do, I can't tell you how much. It's just… right now, I don't know how to process… this."
"The Games?" Rhys asks, his tone still sharp, but less bitter, less rattled. Pangaea nods, squeezing her fingers around his once more, trying to convey as much gratitude as she can by means of a single touch.
"Yes. The Games."
Rhys drops his eyes, his head bowing just enough to shield his face from Pangaea.
"I had a life," he tells her, some soft, sad thing cutting onto his words, purging the stoicism and vitriol. "I had a home. Furniture, clothes, possessions I could call my own. People that wanted me and showered me with gifts, all these things I'd never be able to afford, and I – I got complacent. I started to feel secure, even though I knew there was a storm waiting around the corner. I fucking knew."
A crystal begins to form within the bloodshot sclera of his eye. Pangaea exhales and keeps holding on, anchoring him the best she can.
"It wasn't your fault," she whispers. "You can't beat yourself up for trying to have a life. Surviving isn't living, Rhys - it's not enough just to survive. You know that."
"... yeah. I know." He smiles, rueful. "But it's like you said – with all these problems, all this bullshit… it's hard to wrap my head around the stuff in my past."
He laughs then, airy and mirthless, a half-wheeze of disbelief as he cocks his chin up to stare at her.
"At least I'm still alive, right? Maybe that's what really matters."
Pangaea swallows, forcing her agreeable half-grin to remain. "Maybe," she concedes, finally releasing his hand. She's not sure how apt that statement is, but Rhys… he has a point.
He has a point.
(She'll never take life for granted again –
dismissal, mediocrity… with time, it can be weathered.
So can her insecurity and turmoil.
Feeling aimless is no reason
not to grow,
and move forward
with hope in her heart.)
(It's like Rhys has been telling her:
the world isn't going to change
just because a person wills it.
Change does not come from complacency
and reservation –
it comes from people finding courage
to stand up and spit at those who would silence them,
saying "fuck your rules
and fuck the odds" –
because life is too fleeting
not to take risks.
Maybe the risks
outweigh the rewards,
but how will she know if all she does is sit idle?)
(Pangaea O'Shea has spent her life sitting idle. If the games are to be her end, she won't spend her death the same way.)
16: Thomasin Bates, District Nine. Killed by Patron Midori.
A/N: Never Wanted to Dance by Mindless Self Indulgence.
Bigger chapter this time... hopefully it was worth the wait. Hold your breath, next one will be out in just a few...