I don't trust myself to wake up on time to post this during the actual date so I'm technically posting at 1am on the 15th djkdsk
44 - Night 5, Day 6
Luxor Aricunai, 17, C-District 8
Night 5
They'd really gone and done it. They'd really exposed Calico's secret for all of Panem to see. And his father supported it the whole time.
Luxor sits next to Finn with his knees drawn to his chest. Neither can bring themselves to sleep yet. Luxor isn't sure he wants to by this point. With only five of them left, there's every chance that Gossamer might come after them and end the Games as soon as possible. There's every chance that Calico will die before them, ending the Games for them.
It sickens Luxor. He wishes this weren't the reality they'd been dealt.
He lays on the ground, salvaged sheet from the rubble wrapped around him. Finn lays across from him, their food nestled between them safely for later consumption. Neither has been in a talkative mood since the interviews concluded.
It's so surreal to think about. Less than a week ago, there was twenty-four of them. All alive, all making friends, all learning about each other. And now there's… well, five now that Croix passed. He's never heard of a Hunger Games that moves so quickly. When most get to five days, it's only a good quarter who have died. Mistakes aren't made with as much abandon, and half of the tributes never have the ability to sabotage the others. More so, he thinks with growing dismay, less than half only needed to die for this to end.
Five. Of those that have died, nine were kids from the Capitol. Nine who were allowed to survive. Now there's just three Capitol kids left. He looks to Finn, the other boy staring blankly at a tupperware container with their unfinished pasta. Two District kids left. It's either Finn or Calico who has to die now, and Luxor's not sure if his heart can handle much more of this.
Luxor rolls onto his back and heaves a sigh. It's almost strange, looking up at the sky now. The interviews had barely lasted an hour, but every time he expects to see the faces of everyone's loved ones staring back at him. The disapproval and the affection, the outrage and the mourning.
He wonders if he'll die. He wonders if his father will mourn him, or if he'll turn Luxor's death into a weapon against the Hemingways.
Luxor wipes at his face, at the tears burning the corners of his eyes. Does he even want to go home, if he lives? Can he even face his peers after all this? If it were just two kids from the Capitol, maybe it would be easier. You don't have to look at the families of the deceased every day when they're in a whole other District. They're not also Gamemakers like your own family, not people you'd see every day once you were forced to work with the Games staff for future Games.
A sickening thought passes him. If he lives, will he have to represent District Eight? Will he have to go there, almost every year, just to see two new kids being sent to their deaths? Will he have to work with Charlotte, knowing full well that she wanted none of this to unfold? Will they… Will they make him reap the to-be tributes if they don't bother to hire an escort?
He rolls over to his other side. He clamps a hand over his mouth. Don't throw up, he tells himself. You need all the energy you can get from that cold pasta. Luxor curls in on himself. He squeezes his eyes shut and forces himself to think of better things. Things like what Hira must be planning right now. Things like what Valerio is designing. Things like what Gemini is showing off on the runway.
Things like how Jarlos is coping.
His heart begins to ache as he thinks of Jarlos. Has Luxor even thought about him that much before now? Charlotte had told him to keep someone precious in mind to come home to, but has Luxor even thought much about anyone outside of the arena? With everything going wrong and all the chaos unfolding around him, has he thought of anyone other than his alliance? Than the secret he shared with Calico before tonight?
The tears start to fall again, and he stops himself from wiping them away. Crying over the possibility that he may not see Jarlos again… It's the least he can do after the selfish thought process he's gone through so far. Jarlos has seen sides of Luxor no one else has, and they spent so long tiptoeing around what to call their relationship; the fact that he's just forgotten Jarlos altogether is unforgivable.
Luxor presses his face into the sheet. Maybe he doesn't deserve to leave the arena alive.
A hiccup comes from behind him, undeniably belonging to Finn. He doesn't turn around, hoping he's mistaken, but another one soon follows. The hiccups turn into poorly muffled sobs. Everything that Finn's held in since the interviews is spilling over, and with every passing second he loses more and more control over his volume. Luxor chews his lip and sniffs. Finn halts his sobs—was he expecting Luxor to be asleep?—before he gives in again and lets another one slip.
Luxor rolls back over this time. Both boys stare at each other, anguished by the night's—no, by everything that's happened so far to them. The mere sight of Finn beside himself is enough to make Luxor let go of whatever was holding his emotions back, and soon enough he's burying his face in his hands and wailing in tune with Finn.
He misses his family. He misses his friends. He misses Jarlos.
Through his hiccups and sniffles, Luxor sobs, "You shouldn't be here. You don't deserve this."
"I—I ha—" Finn hyperventilates in an attempt to stop crying. "Lux—"
"She doesn't either," Luxor insists. "None of us do."
Finn wipes at his eyes so much that even with just the moonlight cast upon them Luxor can see how raw his skin is. Despite how close they are, separated only by supplies lined between them, both boys are so very, very alone.
His heart can't handle being pushed away, even if Finn is too kind for that, but Luxor sits up anyway. He picks up his sheet and walks over to Finn's side, laying it down beside him before settling atop it once more. Finn sniffs, barely making a move to get away, put distance between them, and Luxor covers himself with the sheet. They lay there, back-to-back, and exhaust themselves in a fit of gloomy solidarity.
Luxor doesn't fall asleep until after Finn does, the smaller boy practically passing out when his tears dry up. His eyelids are heavy, his breathing evening out. As the night carries on, unaffected by their outbursts, Luxor finally slips into a dreamless sleep.
Morganite Gardierre, 14, C-District 6
Day 6
"Hey, Morganite."
She looks over at him. After the attack on the cornucopia last night, neither of them had the strength to get up and move around. They'd crashed right there, exhausted and emotionally drained by their families' interviews. She can't say she's enjoyed his company, but Lola's conversation with Gossamer's brother last night definitely did prove a point.
His family explained a lot about him. And now he's aware of that fact as well.
"Yeah?" she wheezes.
"Do you hate Calico too?"
She stops and thinks for a while. Logically she should. He's broken the law, sparked what could possibly be a huge riot and outrage across the Districts. Not even his family is safe from his mistake. But that's what it was, when she boils it down to the essentials—Calico's mistake. Morganite's made plenty of those. Morganite was even admonished on live TV for them. Besides, if the Chambray they'd seen was Calico's true self during the Games, then it's not like he lied to them. Not actively.
Intentionally, sure. But not actively.
"I don't know," she says. Her face hurts when she talks, but at least it's not swelling as much as yesterday. Gossamer's tip to do a little bloodletting to reduce the swelling paid off. "Do you?"
He hums. "No," he tells her. He sounds tired, like he's been up all night thinking about this. "If anything, I respect him even more. Something like that isn't easy, and if he hadn't used his true identity as his private session display he could've gotten away with it."
"Didn't think you were capable of respecting others."
"Didn't think I grew up with something wrong with me thanks to my family, but here we are."
Morganite sighs. "Yeah… Some families really aren't great, huh?"
He snorts a laugh. Is she amusing him somehow? Before she can ask, he giggles, "Yeah. You really went to town with your mother last night, though. If I ever said half the shit you did, I'd get a flogging like that of District lawbreakers."
She can't help it. The image of Gossamer being chased down by his parents—what she imagines his parents to be like—as he screams obscenities is too amusing. She bursts out laughing.
"I'm serious," he laughs along with her. "You think even Raime Wormwood's brood is free of capital punishment? Bah!"
Gossamer tries to sit himself up, using his injured hand, and immediately hisses and flops back to the ground. The palm is a hideous shade of red and his skin is covered in blisters that have since gone hard overnight. The wound on his shoulder isn't bleeding much anymore, the blood drying and caking over his skin.
He tries again with his other arm, and this time he manages to sit up and stare out at the cornucopia. While the bodies had been collected, the blood hadn't been cleaned. Not enough time, maybe. Or maybe, since Elysium is being remodelled entirely, there's no point to cleaning something that'll be torn up. Gossamer sucks in a deep, steeling breath against the pain in his hand and shoulder, and he hauls himself to his feet with a drunken stumble.
"You went looking for us because you want to end the Games as soon as possible, right?" he asks out of the blue. Morganite follows his gaze, landing on the rack of swords inside the cornucopia. They must be his weapon of choice—or a weapon he's most experienced in.
She slowly sits up and says, "Yeah…"
He lets out a long, tired breath. "But you already have a District tribute in mind to win with."
Finn. Of all the tributes, she feels he deserves it most. She says exactly that as Gossamer keeps his gaze trained on the swords.
"It's not about who deserves to win," he tells her, voice empty of all emotion. Cold, hard fact, nothing less. "It's about who survives until the end."
"Maybe it should change," she argues. She's pushing herself to her feet now, swaying as her head spins. The bloodletting reduced the swelling, but it's definitely left her lethargic as a consequence. "Maybe the Games should allow people who deserve to win to—well, to win!"
Gossamer huffs out a weak laugh. He looks over his shoulder at her, and instead of the almost human expressions he'd worn during their time overnight, he now regards her with his cruel, signature smile.
"This isn't the Wormwood mindset speaking, sweetheart," he tells her. "It's life experience. And I learned it just after I reached your age." He begins walking to the cornucopia. Morganite stumbles after him. She has to get a weapon, maybe fight him off. He can't kill Finn! "The world doesn't operate on childish whims and hopes. It spits in the face of them, kicks dirt in their eyes and mocks you for even thinking something pleasant could happen. 'You expect kindness in this dog-eat-dog world? Stupid child,' it will say."
He picks up a sabre and gives it a practice thrust. The curved blade whistles through the air, and it satisfies Gossamer.
"Let's end it. Today." He turns back to Morganite, his injured hand limp at his side while his sabre is held in a nonlethal position. "We race for a District victor. I hunt for Finn. You hunt for Calico. We have at least some manner of decorum and honour the other's win if the cannon fires before we find our target."
Morganite stares at him, speechless. Her mouth opens and closes in poor attempts at saying everything that comes to mind. Gossamer just watches patiently, unmoving.
Morganite finally manages to squeak out just one sentence, her voice so weak that she almost thinks Gossamer doesn't hear her. "Please don't."
He just throws her a half-smile and turns in the direction of the city centre.
"I want this to end as much as you do," he calls back to her. Morganite can only whimper at the sight of his back, the distance between them growing. Not like this, she begs. Not Finn.
He disappears around the corner of the cornucopia. Morganite can't see or hear him. Her legs move on their own. All she can hear are the thundering footfalls of her boots against pavement, and she crashes into the cornucopia's blanket pile with a grunt. She grasps blindly around her, searching for purchase, before her hand is cut against something sharp.
Morganite zeroes in on the sharp object. It's a knife—a butterfly knife, knocked in a way that exposed the blade in her fall—and she grabs its handle without a second of hesitation.
She doesn't want to kill again. God, she never wants to feel another life slip through her fingers like water. But she can't just sit by and let Finn die, not when she at least has an idea of where Gossamer hid Calico. It'll be a mercy, she tells herself as she sprints, delirious, from the cornucopia. It's not murder if he's already dying, probably in pain. It's a mercy.
Morganite begins sobbing and stumbling on her way to the park as she repeats it over and over. It's mercy. It's mercy.
Here we go! One chapter left of the Games, and I think I'll make this QQ a pretty on-the-nose question!
QQ #39: Who do you think will win the race to determine the District winner? Goss or Morg?
We'll be back in a few more days, and then after that we officially post Meliora! Exciting :D