VI.
Topher Westmoreland, 12
Applicant #24
"Is that your sister?"
Topher's not even sure where the words come from, only that they're somewhere in the vicinity. He hears them loud as day, like they were spoken directly into his ear. The girl in the row ahead of him, the one with one arm, definitely hasn't even looked in his direction. Not her.
The one sitting beside her, then. The one with the vibrant purple hair. It's just as bright as Noelani's is, the far away galaxy instead of the every-day sky. She's eyeing him up like he's a small little bug pinned to a cork-board, and he does everything not to shrink in his seat away from the gaze.
There's a boy across the row with purple hair too, although it looks like it's faded a bit. "Must be. Same last name and everything."
"Yeah, she's my sister," he offers, smiling. "Step-sister technically, but you know."
"I do not," the girl says, and turns back to the other girl sitting at her side. They go back to talking quietly under their breath, and he stares for a moment. They don't look like they know each other, but they're talking like they do. Perhaps he should have stayed closer to Noelani instead of charging off; at least that would have guaranteed some level of conversation on the journey to somewhere.
There's enough commotion going on but he hears a burst of it, just before he sees someone guide Noelani into a seat several rows up. There's no room up there for him to sit, not even close.
Guess he's stuck here.
It's not against his will. He's the one that wanted to come. Noelani had only applied because their parents had seemed so adamant about not letting him go off anywhere alone, not at his age. It's not like he had played concerts for bigger crowds than this, or anything. They still wanted him to have a supervisor.
There's a girl about his age looking back and forth between the two of them. It's not much, but he sees a little smirk grace her face before she pushes her glasses back up her nose and settles back into her seat.
He doesn't even want to know what that's all about.
The bus driver settles back into his seat so he does the same. At his back is only one more person, and he watches the hand of their prosthetic arm clench as they step into the aisleway. It can't be that nerve-wracking. It's only twenty-three other people and a driver; nothing to really be concerned about. He can't even imagine what's running through their head to look that anxious.
They make their way further, further. Topher can tell what's about to happen before it does. They lay eyes on him, and he gets it even though he doesn't want to. He's small. Smaller than most people. Unassuming. Not quite as loud or as bright as some of the people in the immediate area. Of all the people to chose he's probably the least intimidating, and one of the only ones still with a vacant seat next to him.
"Mind if I sit?" they ask, and he shuffles over to the window, patting the seat next to him. The boy across the aisle is eyeing them up too, watching. Topher doesn't even notice their odd, lurching sort of gate until they slide into the seat beside him, adjusting their legs into a comfortable position.
He's not sure what to think. Does he ask? Do you ever ask in a situation like this? Clearly the hand is one thing, but possibly the legs too?
He wants to ask more badly than he's ever wanted to ask anything, and clamps his mouth shut. He busies himself with pulling out some of his sheets instead, something to study while everyone settles down into their spot for the foreseeable future. He has another concert two weeks after they get back, as he keeps reminding Noelani. Just because she has nothing to do doesn't mean he doesn't.
When he looks back up, spreading some of the music sheets across the lap, purple boy and possible-prosthetics are talking quietly across the aisle. How did he miss that entire exchange? And why do they seem more keen to talk to each other than to him?
So much for being the best prospect, the least intimidating. Someone they've decided that conversing with a boy with a nose ring shinier than anything is safer than talking to him.
He almost wants to interject. Wants to insert himself. He's not sure it would even work. Neither of them are looking in his direction.
Neither of them really seems to care.
He lounges back against the seat and sighs, lifting up some of the sheets. He already has them practically memorized - he's not sure why he felt the need to bring them. To show them off? To prove that he had something of his own? To prove that he deserves this?
It doesn't matter. No one cares about that here.
He sighs again.
It's going to be a long ride.
Jupiter Valens, 14
Applicant #16
He thought he had positioned himself in the perfect spot.
There's only so many definitions of perfect, though, and his ended before he even got here. Finding out that there were no girls his age didn't exactly put a damper on things, though. Nothing would be able to do that. There were still plenty of options, girls back home to impress.
Only issue is that his options here didn't seem so willing to play along.
Kidava had seemed like a good option. She was cute enough, fifteen, sitting by herself. He would be fifteen in a few months - he could make do with that.
He came here for a few reasons, reasons that had led Franco to call him a ridiculous dolt when he found out, but what did his brother know? His brother was nearly six feet tall and has muscles to boot - something he wasn't graced enough to have yet. Of course his brother always said he would sprout up one day or another, the way he had, but he didn't want to wait all that time.
Maybe this little trip could help him be stronger. More impressive.
And, in a shocking twist of fate, Kidava Vaud hadn't shared those same reasons. Not even close.
The second she had started spewing off some nonsense or other about the Games - five different Games, in fact, from four different decades, he had very unintentionally tuned her out. The fact that she had that much information stored away in her brain was astounding in the first place, sure, but overwhelming for him.
She's in the middle of saying something, a spiel about a District kid he didn't know from a bloodbath he sure as hell didn't remember, when he starts literally crawling his way over the set of seats in front of him. Kidava cuts herself off, mouth hanging open.
"Alright, fuck you too," she says, and he offers a half-hearted wave behind him as he goes tumbling into the seat ahead of hers.
"Are you fucking serious?" Soran asks as he lands gracelessly on his legs, spread out over the second seat.
"You have two seats to yourself, dude."
"For a reason, dude," Soran fires back. "If you don't get off me—"
"Got it, loud and clear," he says quickly, and shoves Icarus' head to the side in the row ahead to vault past him. Icarus makes an alarmed noise; the little girl beside him looks up, half-amused, and Meliodas is chortling across the aisle like it's the greatest thing he ever witnessed.
Close enough.
He continues on with his climb forward. He can see Caiman a few rows ahead, he thinks her name is. Another fifteen year. Another possibility, if not for the fact that the girl beside her turns around with a look that he's surprised doesn't set him on fire in the next second. He hears that loud and clear, too. The commotion he's creating back here is not welcome up there. Got it.
He nearly plants his hand on a girl's head at the next aisle - she's hunched over in her seat, as small as she could possibly get. He retracts his hand and wobbles all in the same second, trying to keep his balance with his knees balanced precariously on the seatbacks.
"Ria, watch it, before he squashes you."
He wobbles again for a long moment before he manages to settle into a semi-comfortable position. Ria, who must be the girl trying to fuse herself to the window in her quest to avoid being squashed, looks like she's either about to flee the scene or wrap her headphone cords around his rather scrawny neck and hope for the best. He won't lie - she'd probably win.
He turns to the other voice, instead, the girl who spoke in the first place. Ria seems terrifying, for some out-of-place reason, like she should only exist in some liminal space that doesn't make any sense. The other girl is not that at all - he turns towards her and stops, kind of awkwardly, mouth slightly agape as whatever he was going to say very kindly fucks off into next week.
"Hi," he manages eventually, cursing his own stupidity. He only has a few short, precious seconds to recover here.
He sticks his hand out, hating himself all the while. "I'm Jay. And you are?"
She taps her pencil a few times on the sketchbook he hadn't noticed before, but doesn't lift a hand. "Noelani. Are you really Jay?"
"Jupiter. But I heard we had another, so..."
He trails off. He didn't think beyond this second. Normally he could turn this situation on its head quicker than someone could even blink, have someone eating out of the palm of his hand, but not her. Noelani has hair that almost looks like the ocean, and that's really all he can manage to think about.
She's also most definitely older than him, and no doubt taller. Curse his pre-pubescent life all to hell.
He tries to settle in a bit more, folding his arms cross the top of the seat. It's a good thing he has balance, above all things. This time he takes care to avoid Ria's head as he does so, whom Noelani seems ready to leap to the defense of. The two people in the aisle up are both staring at him, half-curious and half-amused. Waiting to see what will happen next.
"So," he asks slowly. "Mind if I stay here?"
"No," she says. "But Ria might."
God, this is going to be harder than he thought, isn't it? Ria looks up at him with a slight roll of the eyes, pressing her lips together. There's a million words behind those lips of hers and he's only going to hear maybe three of them, if that.
Those few words are going to make or break him right now.
He doesn't plan on letting them break him.
Caiman Mangle, 15
Applicant #21
From far away the complex doesn't look like much.
It looks like something, of course. Anything would look like something after the amount of hours they've all spent crammed in this bus together like sardines. There hadn't even been much to look at in all the hours of their journey. None of the land had been anything really worth looking at after they got not too far out of the Capitol. Then the mountains had disappeared and it had just turned into hundreds of miles of scrubby rock and the barest amount of greenery.
Nothing like what she lived in now. Out here there wasn't much one would want to go hiking through, and it appeared most of her companions felt the same way. At least half of them had drifted off at some point after the sun had gone down. She was stuck with her eyes glued to the horizon, looking for something. Anything.
Verity had noticed it first, a row ahead. From her slumped position against the window Caiman had watched the other girl sit up until she had finally felt compelled to do so as well. There was a little set of lights far off in the distance. Not a city. Not a District. She didn't even know what District they could possibly be closest to at the moment. One? Three? Even the outer Districts didn't look this barren, not even Ten.
She had fired off a quick message to her parents two hours ago, and almost felt tempted to send another. Was this not sketchy? No one really knew the bus driver, just that he looked like a fairly unoffensive older man. They had no one else with him.
She had been sketched out by the whole prospect of this since the second it got announced.
That's why she was here, wasn't it? Because she couldn't resist finding out what it was really all about.
It makes it worse that Verity looks so excited at the prospect of their imminent arrival, where she just feels apprehension. All of the horrors that this country has endured, kids just like them, and they still see it fit to send another group of them off.
It just doesn't feel right.
"What's with the face?" Meris asks beside her. "You look like you're about to throw up."
It's maybe the third thing Meris has said to her in the past four hours, maybe the fifth that she's said since the two of them would up sitting together.
"You're not nervous at all about who could be dealing with us the next few days? Or what we could be doing?"
"Learning about the Games, apparently," Meris answers, shrugging. "Not like you can change it now. What are you gonna do, tuck and roll off the bus and take off running?"
She's right. Home is far, far away. All her hiking in the past few years still hasn't taught her how to properly navigate her way through unfamiliar terrain, especially without a compass.
"I'm sure it's fine," Meris says. "Thought it does look a little bit like a prison."
A little. There's no barbed wire fences, at least. There is a line of fencing but also a huge open space that the bus drives through, and it doesn't look like there's a gate. Meris is right - even if one of them left, where would they go? Off to die in the desert?
Besides that the series of buildings is long and flat; without any lights illuminating the grounds she probably wouldn't even have been able to pick it out from the rest of the world. It's not so bad, though. There are windows everywhere. A long, winding main drive. There are even a few well-managed trees and shrubs lining the dusty road, clinging to the dryness of their home against the winds.
If prison's had a gardener, this would be it.
"Okay, okay, move," Verity says, so loud that half the bus must hear her. She pokes Damas' sleeping form in the shoulder and then clambers over him when he refuses to move, knocking him in the chest with her backpack. He startles awake, blinking frantically as she hits the aisleway running, fleeing for the door.
Trojan and Meliodas are the two that follow after her, the two that have been wandering the aisle the most.
The perils of long-legged people cooped up on a too small bus.
She waits for Meris to get up before she follows, forcing herself to take her time. There's no rush for any of this - whatever waits on the other side is still going to be there no matter how long she takes. There's an entire crowd behind her waiting to get off - she has no chance at being the last one.
Her feet hit the dusty ground and she exhales. The dust brushing against her cheeks actually feels good compared to the staleness of the bus, the scent of whatever snacks someone had managed to smuggle away in their backpack.
There's already a woman outside, a small group of others behind her. Caiman feels something in her relax at the sight of how calm the woman looks, like all the patience of an experienced mother as she stops before the lot of them smiling.
"I can't believe we have to do that bus ride again," Verity complains, looking up to the woman. "That was terrible."
"It's a good thing we've got a hovercraft planned for your ride back to the Capitol, then," she answers, and a few people behind her let out half-hearted cheers, made weaker by the exhaustion running through their bones. She nearly smiles before she remembers her apprehension. Her suspicions.
"I'm Renette Iravani," she answers. "One of your instructors and the person you can come to should you have any concerns or questions. I look forward to getting to know each and everyone of you individually - I hope that this can be a learning experience for you all, and a good time as well."
There's another little cheer at that. Caiman forces herself to take a deep breath so that her chest hurts less, so that her heart isn't thumping so hard.
There's nothing wrong. Nothing to be concerned about.
Renette smiles. "Welcome to the Fortuna Institute."
Damas Mancer, 13
Applicant #12
There's so many people he's not even sure to latch onto.
Verity had seemed like the safest option, but Verity also seems chatty enough on her own. She would make friends well enough. It appears that she's already integrated herself into a group of boys and girls alike and he can't force himself to walk over there and join their conversation. He thought it would be at least slightly easier to get started on this whole process.
No one really seems interested in him.
It's not a surprise. It's something he's grown used to, really.
He shifts his bag on his shoulders and shuffles his feet through the dirt, glancing around. The lights are bright but the area surrounding them is otherwise dark as ink; when he looks up he can make out more stars than he can ever make out at home. When he lets his eyes wander he can find Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, Cassiopeia, the summer triangle far to the east. The center of the galaxy is floating right above their heads and clearly no one is going to pay it any mind, save for him.
Why would they, though? Everyone is blending in amongst each other, talking or taking each other in. If they're not talking they're at least closer to someone else than he is, lurking at the back of the pack like the runt of the litter. He's definitely the smallest, too - even Verity has an inch or two on him, let alone the twelve year old girl who walks likes she's a giant with great big thundering feet.
He doesn't think Faye wandered out of one of the storybooks Cicero always read to him when he was little, though. He couldn't be that lucky, to even get one small reminder of his brother.
Maybe he shouldn't have come. Maybe Old Man Red who lives down the road all the way in the bush is right - maybe this is just death in disguise.
Filling out the form he thought three things: friends, maybe. Maybe not. Probably not, judging by his current status. If they're going down that track then this experience definitely won't make his life better. It won't open up the possibilities he thought would be here.
He's the only one hiding the third option behind his eyes. He can tell. No one else here looks like they're about to off themselves. Not even close.
He hadn't pulled Death from the reading he did the morning before he left, though. That's what Damas has expected, if he was being honest. An obvious sign of what was to come, of some sort of grand upheavel in his future.
The Hierophant had been the first card. That one, at least, had seemed obvious. The New Haven program was after all having quite a big effect on his current life and he was looking for a sense of belonging that didn't exist anywhere else for him. At least that was a card that felt applicable unlike so many of his other readings. Sometimes he pulled Temperance - sometimes he pulled The Star and wonder if anything the card told him would ever feel real.
Sometimes he pulled The Hanged Man and wondered if the universe was calling to him.
The second had been The Wheel of Fortune; change was coming, as if he hadn't known that. His mom had laughed in glee when she had shown it to him; she had never understood Tarot, had never tried to, but at his mention of it possibly bringing good luck had been as happy as a mother could been.
Nine years since Cicero had died, and she had finally started laughing again.
The third: The Tower. Damas still didn't know how he felt about that one. If the card was talking about this place, then collapse was imminent. They weren't often wrong.
If the card was talking about him, then he didn't get it. He wasn't sturdy nor stable. There was no risk of collapse when he was already on the ground.
"Hey, kid."
Damas looks up and fiddles with his hands at the sight of a six foot something man staring down at him. Man wasn't the right word; he wasn't all that old. Late twenties, perhaps, and his cheeks dimpled when he smiled, making him seem even younger.
The rest of the group had moved some paces away, it seemed. Perhaps they were following Renette inside - he wasn't tall enough to tell through the mass of them.
"I'm Nyko," the man says. "With any luck I'll be the one supervising you, so I thought I'd introduce myself early. How are you doing?"
"I haven't decided yet," he says quietly. "Do you think I should walk with everyone else?"
He's not usually so honest, not even with himself. But Nyko is a stranger, or at least he was. Maybe that just makes it easier.
"Do you want to?" Nyko asks.
He looks at the group, and then shakes his head. So much for his wishful thinking of making some lifelong friends, of finally having someone to phone on the weekends when he just wanted to chat.
"Then don't," he says, and shrugs. "Will you walk with me?"
He looks casual, something Damas wishes he felt. Every muscle in his shoulders is coiled tight like he's about to punch the guy, something everyone knows he'd never do. It's the fight or flight kicking in, his confusion in a situation almost completely unfamiliar to him.
"Sure," he decides finally. It's that or walk alone.
Nyko smiles and starts walking. He hurries to catch up to his longer strides, picking his feet up this time instead of letting them slide through the dust like before. It's easier to keep up that way.
If Death wants to be chosen, then it can wait.
For today, anyway.
And done, bitches! Now into the good stuff, in my eyes, or at least the stuff that was more exciting to write.
I can share the general layout of everything until the Games if you so wish; it's really not that complicated and/or different, but if you're interested, feel free to ask.
And because I forgot to mention this last week - a few friends and myself have started a little baby forum centered around SYOTS! If you're interested in joining or at least checking it out I'd love to see you all there; the link can be found on my profile.
Until next time.