A knife hummed in her hand, flowing with her movements. The glint of the silvery blade flickered in the low light of the walls, shone and reflected across polished glowing stone. The knife, poised in her hand a moment more, shivered and sent ripples of silver light to chase the deep blue that permeated the room.
The light stilled, and then cavalcades of silver filled the room in gilded glow, chasing itself through the long corridored walls.
A low thud. A knife shivered in a foam target.
"Glace?"
In the fading blue light, Glace could just make out a figure- male, slim- entering the room. Her hands went automatically to the next knife. Above them, with an automated click, blue lamps came on overhead.
"What are you doing here? All the main lights are off." The lamp, as if sensing his words, flicked off again. The walls still glowed with blue light, a shadow of what had been.
Silver flickered across the polished stones that covered the wall. A second knife joined the first with a muted thud.
"Glace- Glace, what are you doing?"
She paused. The knife in her hands shivered, before returning to her belt. Glace rearranged her loosening hair back into a tight bun, then looked up to them consider the man standing in front of her. The lamps overhead flicked on again to charge the glowing stones.
"It's the Reaping tomorrow."
With no further explanation percieved to be important to her, she pulled a knife from her belt with lithe movements. The lamp clicked off overhead, and deep blue light chased mercurial silver. A third knife embedded itself in the foam.
"Glace, I-"
The man sat down, leaned against the uneven wall of stone. Shards of silver glinted on his face as a fourth knife whistled through the long room.
"Glace." He murmured, voice breaking. His hair was strawberry blonde, shot through more recently with grey. "I- we- please don't do this."
Glace did not respond; she only tilted her head, with muscles trained to move with elegant precision. She picked a fifth knife from her belt. She inspected the blade for its edge, and spoke with a careful voice, edged with calm.
"I have been training for the Games. What else would I do but volunteer?"
"But you're- hon, you're- so small, you're so small, you're-" his voice cracked. "You're our little baby, Glace, please-"
The fifth knife came so close to his face he was startled from his speech. Its deviation from the course meant that it spun into the wall rather than connect with the target, lying on the ground next to it with the edge blunted.
"Don't be concerned, Dad." Glace said, with entire awareness that he should be concerned. "I've trained for this. I'm ready."
He shook his head weakly. "If this is about Rhys-"
The sixth knife went far enough into the foam to drive part of the handle into it as well.
"This is not about Rhys." Glace's typically calm demeanour turned to furious, fearful shaking, a tone so clipped that it could break.
Then she returned to the final knife in her belt, trailing her fingers along it before drawing it with automatic precision. She poised it in her hands.
"He failed." Her voice had not entirely regained its previous impassive tone. "I will not."
"You- but-"
"-I will not fail."
Failed and despondent, he left the room. Glace held the knife thoughtfully in her hand. The ultraviolet lamp flicked on overhead, and shards of silver light hit the black tiles beneath her, the stones beside.
They glowed subtly, casting conflicting shadows on a pallid face. She stared at the blade in her hand.
She wanted to stop. She wanted to sit down and never move again. She wanted- She-
She wanted Rhys back.
She tilted her head with elegant precision again. Want did not create action.
The seventh knife hit home in the center and stayed there.
It only shivered slightly.
Glace Gratton was submitted by MsAir- with thanks to them.
As ever, thank you for reading thus far.