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PART I. Unbecoming of Age
. . i . .
August, 151 ADD
From the outside, the Academy remains unchanged.
Venatrix wonders how true that is. Based on the scant few facts she knows, the looks she's seen on her parents' faces after they return, she imagines it's a facade. But Venatrix hasn't been here herself in over two months. She spent one in the Capitol—the Games—the aftermath. Another, and then some, recovering.
(Bold statement.)
Truthfully, it feels longer.
"C'mon, honey." The light pressure of her mother's hand at her back guides Venatrix away from the main doors. There's a side entrance that trainers and staff and anyone with a place to be uses to avoid the rush of traffic of trainees aged ten to eighteen. Venatrix is familiar. They slip through the doors unnoticed, and she's thankful for it.
Heads turn as the two Victors stride through the halls, but Dagmara doesn't let them stop until they reach their destination—her new office. It's on the opposite corridor as the majority of the others, right next to Eridan's. As far as Venatrix knows, the other Victor hasn't returned yet either.
He pokes his head out of the door, all faded red and dark roots. "Hey, Venatrix!"
Shows you what she knows.
Venatrix waves; Dagmara merely smiles and shuts the door. "What are we doing today?" The two of them are alone. Somewhere out there, her father prowls the halls of the Academy, no doubt barking orders at the next class of trainees. As her former mentor, he should be the one doing whatever this is, not her mother.
But he's not. For good reason—the Academy decreed he's been barred from mentoring for the next few years. Some victories come far too late.
"Paperwork." Her mother quirks a smile when Venatrix groans. "It won't take long—" (it doesn't, despite Venatrix's lack of fingers on her dominant hand)— "and… we need to clear out your room."
The pen in Venatix's left hand stills, her jagged half-spelled initials staring back at her.
Dagmara folds her hands. "The publicity is important. As are these forms." She taps the paper again, and Venatrix finishes her signatures; officially registering her as a member of the Academy Staff takes more effort than she thought. As Venatrix checks off a box marked 'Did you win the Hunger Games?', she wonders if Alystra had to fill these out too in order to become a trainer. "The students need to see you looking proud and healthy, no matter how it feels on the inside." She collects Venatrix's papers, shuffles them together, and places them neatly beneath a turquoise geode paperweight. She stands, nodding for Venatrix to follow.
If Venatrix realized they'd be parading her around the whole Academy today, she would've worn something nicer. She frowns at her t-shirt and track pants, then shrugs. Or maybe not.
Dagmara doesn't have her do much more than poke her nose into some classrooms, stride around the training gyms with her arms folded and an emotionless frown plastered on her face. Still, the kids stutter and stumble at her presence, their newest Victor.
It's endearing at first. Eleven year-old kids stare back at her with stars in their eyes, eager to show off their skills (or lack thereof). Venatrix finds herself almost smiling.
Then, she spots Alystra drilling Arthur and Sanji in the main gym and nostalgia hits her like a brick.
That was me. Last year, that was me, and Agate, and Per—
They wave to her. She nods back, and there's no sign of a smile. Next year, it could be one of them who doesn't come back. It could be one of them who does.
Dagmara leads her from the gym outside to the shooting range, where a group of fourteens or fifteens fire arrows under Morwenna's direction. Eventually, it will be one of them, too. Two of them. Her mind drifts back to the kids from earlier. Them too…
"Hey-o, Trix!"
Iago. Venatrix blinks. Somehow, they've meandered back inside, where her brother's class has been running live training duels; he grins at her from beneath a padded helmet. It fades when he sees her face. "Weird to be back?"
Venatrix opens her jaw to speak, and only then does she realize how hard she'd been clenching it. "Yeah," is all she says. Her own voice sounds strange in her mouth; Venatrix swallows.
"Hm. Wanna have a go?" He holds his shortsword out to her, handle first. "Might make you feel better—"
"No."
Her father snatches the weapon from Iago's hand; Venatrix takes an unexpected step back, knocking into her mother's shoulder. She hadn't seen him here. Oberon's eyes flick between her and Dagmara, ignorant of the dirty glare Iago sends his way. "No weapons until she's ready."
He speaks to Iago, not her. That alone makes her want to wrench the sword from his grip and start swinging, her own hesitation be damned.
Fucking figures. They haven't had a real conversation since…
"What–what do I want to do?"
"...We'll help you figure it out."
(It's been over a month, and she's figured out nothing.)
"We're headed to the Volunteer barracks anyways," Dagmara states, cutting into whatever odd sort of tension now brews between them. Oberon shepherds Iago back to the rest of his class and their unashamed stares as Dagmara guides her away. "We'll restart your weapons training again soon." It's meant to be reassuring. "In private first, until you feel confident, and then you and Eridan will be working together…"
It goes in one ear and out the other.
She'll never fight like she used to, and there's no changing that. She doesn't need to—and she almost hates that even more.
Perhaps coming back was a mistake. This place built her and broke her as much as the people who ran it, and she's far from the only one. A place where people become monsters, or lose everything trying. Where the clang of weapons sounds more like home than hell.
(And 'Makers, how she misses the feeling of a sword in her hand.)
At some point, Dagmara stopped talking. They walk across the green in pensive silence, afternoon sunlight warming their shoulders. She doesn't chide Venatrix for her inattentiveness as she once might have, but Venatrix is too deep in thought to be grateful. Dread pools in her gut the closer they get to the dorms, and really, it's been there this whole time. Slowly, they've been weaning her off the Capitol meds, but that only makes her head ache more, her shoulder twinge sharper. It would've been stupid to fight Iago, she tries to tell herself, but still, she can't help but think that he was probably right.
It would have made her feel better, even if she lost.
…Maybe not then.
But even that would've been better than walking into the dormitories and seeing Percy's brothers.
Fuck.
Dagmara's hand tightens on her shoulder. In that moment, Venatrix wants nothing more than to shove it off and disappear down the mountain trail. But that's stupid, cowardly. She dips her chin in greeting to Hercules and Jason and darts after Dagmara to her own room. The door slams shut.
Her mother's gaze is sorrowful. Venatrix doesn't meet her eyes.
Instead, she drags the duffel out from under the bed and starts shoving sweaters and t-shirts and balls of socks into the bag. Calmly, Dagmara helps her. Muted yelling starts up from the room over, and Venatrix wishes so badly that it could be Percy and Lancelot's laughter instead, no matter if she hadn't been on speaking terms with him at the time. How stupid.
The yelling gets louder. Another door slams.
Dagmara's expression darkens; with a glance at Venatrix that says, "I'll be right back," she dips out of the room on the heels of the Silverhorns, however much Venatrix would rather that she leave them alone.
Instead, she's alone.
Instinctively, she collapses onto the bed. Her knees curl into her chest, fingers tracing the long neck of one of the dinosaur stickers Iago had pasted onto the wall ages ago. Her fingernail catches under the plastic, but she doesn't have the heart to peel it back. Colored scales blur before her eyes, and Venatrix turns her head, shoving her face into the pillow as her chest heaves with sobs that she forces herself to stifle.
For all she knows, one of the Silverhorn brothers could still be next door.
Dagmara apologizes when she returns. Almost an hour has passed, apparently. Venatrix hasn't noticed, hasn't moved. Dagmara's lips press together when she sees the state of Venatrix's room, exactly as she left it, and the state of her daughter.
Judging by the way she sits down next to Venatrix's head and strokes her hair, it's a state she knows well.
She leaves again, but she returns much quicker this time, Iago and Oberon in tow.
For once, they don't say much. Oberon gathers up items from her shelves; Dagmara collects her toiletries; and Iago raids her drawers, making almost more of a mess than helping, all while Venatrix watches with an unchanging face. Every muscle in her body tells her to move, to help them. It's her room, after all, her mess. For whatever reason, though, she can't.
They don't ask her to.
She doesn't even have the strength to growl at her father when he pats her on the shoulder in passing. She really should have.
(She should be doing so much.)
But being back here has drained her of all she had left. How ridiculous. When they leave, Venatrix finally sits up, wordlessly shouldering the bookbag she used to carry around to class. It weighs her down, but she trudges after her parents, Iago bringing up the rear.
She can't nap on the car ride home. It's too short; nevermind Iago's chatter as he fills her in on the rest of his day. Venatrix smiles along and pretends to listen, but she thinks he can tell. Usually, she gives input. Instead, she sits quietly through the ride home, through dinner. It makes them uncomfortable, Iago especially. Quiet was never a word that applied to Venatrix, and it still doesn't— this is apathy.
Her mother thinks it might be the medications making her this way. The only pill Dagmara trusts is an aspirin, but more than likely, what she doesn't trust is the Capitol's intentions rather than their technology—and she's right; look at the functional prosthetic Venatrix doesn't have.
But she hasn't lost control in a while.
(She hasn't felt like herself in a while either.)
She heads to bed early, or rather bars herself in her childhood bedroom and flops facedown on the bed. That amorphous lament tugs at her heart again, and Venatrix lets loose a sigh. It comes out as a pathetic groan. Someone has brought her bags up for her.
She didn't do enough today. Both Dagmara and Callithyia have warned her time and again to be kinder to herself about it— "You lived through an extremely traumatic experience, Venatrix," the older Victor often says, "it will take time to recover." —but the fact remains that moving her body has always felt good* at best, distracted her at worst.
Maybe tomorrow, she'll run, or lift. Maybe tomorrow, she'll pick up a sword.
Eventually, Venatrix's eyes drift closed, thoughts of fresh air and steel swirling through her mind.
A mistake—she dreams of the wolf again.
Or maybe she dreams of herself. It's never clear.
The first time she had this dream, she was still in the Capitol. It was just a fever-haze then, melded together with the rest of her trauma-induced sleep, her sedative-induced slumber. Her dream-body seems to recognize the familiarity, paws gliding over a well-known route, after a well-known scent. She never questions it, the hunt.
…God, it feels good. It always has.
Wind spikes her fur, adrenaline zips through her muscles; that pungent fear-scent floods her nostrils, and she salivates.
Her quarry swerves through trees, around bushes, but it won't evade her for long. That flash of red is a beacon. Her feet pound after the figure; a glance over its shoulder—(and for a second red streaks turn to brown curls)—and a shriek rips through the air at just how close the monster is.
A thrill surges through Venatrix's body, and she leaps. Her teeth flash. She buries them into whatever's closest, shaking her head to drown out the screams.
('Makers, does she scream.)
Red flecks fly from her mouth, blurring her vision. Wails of pain coat her ears like a liquid, but something's wrong—they're too familiar, too scared. That can't be right. There should be hatred—she remembers hatred in those clear eyes staring back, but these are brown. These are brown, and as she spits dark curls from her mouth, her sister's face stares back at her through a wave of agony but she can't stop—she can't—
She tips back her head and howls—
Venatrix jerks awake before she can scream out loud. At least she thinks so; no one comes running like they usually do when she screams herself raw from a nightmare.
She's too busy clawing her way out of the blankets and sheets to care. The minute she's free, she sprints for the bathroom; she barely makes it to the toilet before last night's dinner makes a reappearance. The light flicks on. It's just pasta sauce, not blood not blood not—
"Trix?"
Iago's sleepy voice melts into the air as another heave wracks her frame. Her shoulders shake with sobs even after it passes. "'M fine," she rasps. "Go back—go back to bed."
He does, but not before pushing the sweaty hair back from her face and pouring her a glass of lukewarm water, all the while blinking sleep from his eyes. Not before making sure her heart rate has calmed, breathing evened. Something stings in Venatrix's chest—he shouldn't have to take care of her.
She's too weak not to be grateful. Some Victor.
When she promises to head back to bed herself, Venatrix knows she's lying. She can't risk it—she's made so little progress. Undoing what she has done would be unbearable. So she waits. She intends to return to her bedroom, but her feet don't carry her there.
Instead, they take her to the closet in the hall. She stands, staring until her mind catches up, and she grabs a sleeping bag before carefully treading down the stairs. Some of the back ones creak, but Venatrix knows this dance well—too much noise is unforgivable. She's not sure what part of her heart guides her feet—wet socks and all—out to the backyard, the grove of trees she and her siblings used to play under. From here, the family manor is nothing but a dark shadow in the night, speckled with the glow of floodlights. Venatrix shakes out her bag, curling up at the foot of a tall oak.
It's lumpy. Uncomfortable. Cicadas chirp. Bats click, owls hoot, and wind tickles her face and every leaf in the near vicinity—it's not quiet. But it is alive. When Venatrix looks up through the branches, through the rustling leaves, the sky is clear.
This is the first time she's done this, but it sure as hell won't be the last.
In the morning, dew will soak her clothes. Shivers will wrack her aching frame and sniffles will drip from her nose, but for now, the stars and the fingernail sliver of moon wreathe her in calm.
For now, both Venatrix and her wolf can sleep.
A/N: Hello and welcome to the True Vengeance epilogue fic! :D First things first, if you haven't read that story, you probably should otherwise none of this will make sense. It's quite a long fic, but I think it's worth it..? (incredibly biased)
This story will focus on Venatrix's immediate recovery and the first year-ish of her life as a Victor. Originally, I had wanted this to be a shorter one-shot kind of deal, but there's a lot I want to cover here! I hope it will be fun to read, and I'm trying to write in a way that is a bit less dense and comes quicker (and in present tense !) so we'll see how it goes. I don't anticipate this project taking three years like TrV did. There will be three parts to it, but mostly because that seems to be how my brain is going about planning things.
I have a few chapters already written for this. However, I'm not sure when I'll be posting another because the SYOT Verses annual Victor Exchange event is coming up soon and I will be participating in that in July/August ! As of right now, the second chapter to this will probably be posted after then (and I will continue to build up my stockpile ehehe..)
Anyways, I hope you enjoy! I have also posted the first chapter to a short fic that will devote a small chapter to each of the tributes from the 151st Games called Obstacles ! See you in August-ish..!
- Nell