The Stars
Title: Rainbow
Characters: Faiz, Kallisto, Cuan, mentions of the others
Word Count: 1,075
Warnings: Mentions killing
Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.
Notes: Wow, the actual Games? Yup. Sorta. I couldn't really think of how rainbows would apply to this story...hope this works.
018: Rainbow
The Capitol was rainbow colored.
Syarnark came to this groundbreaking conclusion his first night there.
The buildings were sleet grey and the streets jet black, but beyond that there was little in terms of monotony of colors. Syarnark was used to the damp, gritty grey hues of District 3; this assault of color hurt his eyes.
It reminded him of the rainbow array of pixels on an advanced computer, one that flickered in a wild, shifting mass of color when he tampered with it instead of the black, white, and green screens on regular computers.
Every person from the Capitol was similarly dyed in reds, yellows, neon greens and blues, and every color in between. Their smiles were plastered on their faces - he wondered if it hurt to wear such painfully happy masks all the time - not that he was one to talk.
Their mentor had gruffly told him to "wipe that smirk off your face already" when they had disappeared from sight and were hidden within the metal walls of the train. But Syarnark could no more remove his smile from his face than he could, for instance, change the color of his eyes. It might be possible, but that would be more trouble than it was worth.
The people (though they looked more like statues than people but who was Syarnark to talk?) apparently liked that in a tribute, according to his mentor after conceding that Syarnark was just creepy like that all the time.
He understood. It did unsettle people after a while, but that was what caught Cuan's attention in the first place. It was the perfect rouse - no one could read his thoughts or intentions if he expressed none from the very beginning.
His District partner found him unnerving, though he paid her little attention not out of spite or pity, but simply because his mind was elsewhere. Him being Reaped was an unexpected development, certainly not beyond Cuan's expectations, but somewhat surprising nonetheless.
Even though he wouldn't have to worry about all that ever again, he still found himself running through plans in his head. Without him around Cuan would have to take up the slack in terms of technological tasks. Pyro was better suited to lookout or infiltration, given his aversion for blood and death. He'd be paired off with someone else, perhaps Matiy or Penka.
Cuan might find a replacement for him or he might simply wait until one came to him. That man was an enigma - his plans perfectly logical yet impossible to deduce.
He'd miss the carefree days of hanging with them all. It wasn't often that they all gathered together, but it was fun nonetheless.
Pyro would pick a fight with whoever could be provoked into one, Haakon antagonized him to no end, and Pyro would spend upwards of an hour simply glaring at Cuan for no reason at all. Matiy would make the stupidest comments that everyone forgave her for, and yet when they were all frazzled and out of control she made the most logical and effective conclusions out of them all.
When they killed on a job Pyro would still turn green and hate himself. Faiz would torment him or alternatively scold everyone else for a "messy kill". Sche would cross her arms and scoff or mutter about how Pyro and Cuan were too cuddly sometimes.
Syarnark would miss them. He had only said goodbye to Pyro, who he often traveled with and who many might have thought was his friend. It was simply too dangerous to interact with any of the others. While they were all comrades, it was highly likely that no one in the District knew all the members of their group.
It was their policy. They were not to know each other in the "outside" world. There were a few pairs - Syarnark knew Matiy and Pyro. Pyro and Cuan were practically connected at the hip. Haakon and Sche lived in the same building, but no one except for Cuan even knew where Faiz slept.
Syarnark wouldn't go as far as to say that this entire thing felt like a dream - because he didn't really know enough about dreams to claim that - but he was oddly calm.
He'd expected himself to be nervous by now - in the Capitol and on their District's floor. The lavish quarters were simply a way to sate his curiosity as he poked around the variety of devices he had never imagined existed.
He didn't know what he was feeling. Perhaps a bit antsy to know what terrain they would be fighting in - because it certainly was to be something completely different from his home in District 3. He wasn't shifting through the various skills that might be useful in the arena, mostly because he had never really thought about those things before.
"What can you do?" asked one of their mentors.
Syarnark shrugged and smiled, "This and that."
"You can be a little more specific, you know."
Because he was not going to tell anybody anything that might possibly connect him to everyone else back home. Their exploits were infamous, like a tale of the boogeyman except they were real. In District 3 they might have been feared but Syarnark knew that Capitol was much larger than them. Cuan knew that, too.
He'd die before he betrayed any of them - gladly die. What was his life compared to the survival of the whole group?
"I grew up in the orphanage," Syarnark offered. "So you know, that sort of stuff."
They weren't about to get anything more out of him. Anything he said might incriminate him.
He could wield a knife (why how you worked in the factory right?). He was comfortable in the dark (they often operated in the dark). He was a good pickpocket (but that was a crime and who would be stupid enough to admit to something like that?). Faiz had taught him how to kill without spilling blood, Cuan had taught him a wealth of knowledge, and Sche taught him to damn the world and only care about what was important.
Syarnark didn't know what he was feeling, only that for a brief moment before he went to sleep the second night he had spoken something softly to the room. It was so soft he barely heard himself say a thing - thought he might've been imagining it, even.
"I wish things could go back to the way they were."