Day Twenty-Five: Bloodstained

Blood stained her hands.

Blood all over her hands, flowing like wine and forcing Circe to look down and accept the truth. That it was all her fault. That if now for her one of twenty-three boys and girls could have come home, could have been a Victor. A champion for their people.

Instead Four got the trophy, with one child home in victory and one in a box of dark wood. Not that Circe would call herself a Victor, because she was a victor. She hadn't been the best, the most deserving, the girl who'd needed to win. Maybe Alayne should have won, who needed to win to save her dying grandmother and had half the Capitol cheering for her until Circe had got the drop, weaponless, and beaten the girl to death with fists. Maybe it should have been Venus, with her gorgeously white smile and that stunning blonde hair and mannerisms that had every man between 13 and 30 in the Capitol sacrificing all their money for her.

Maybe Flotsam, a lost boy who'd just needed to find his way, except now he was buried beneath Four's earth.

Instead, they got Circe, and oh she was popular. The Siren of Four, and maybe that was write. Because she'd taken after the Ones, seduced and convinced and betrayed, until she crawled out. Everyone loved her, wanted to meet her. Said she was so pretty, said she was so talented for winning. But they never saw what she saw.

Because every night she'd scrub her hands raw with the pumice. Try to get the smell, the taste, the feel of warm blood lapping against her palms away. It never worked, and every time she held something the expected wet squish never came. Mags, Poseidon, Polybotes. They all told her it would go away, eventually, but how did they know when it wasn't their hands?

Blood stained the walls

The first time a glass of red wine came near her, Circe dashed it against the wall with a wail, because it looked so much like blood. It ran down the walls like blood against flagstones, the President smiled and waved one gloved hand and promised her that she'd be fine, so long as she helped on certain matters

And she tried, for four years she tried. Four years of Two and Nine and Five and One bringing home a Victor, four years of Circe smiling and grasping the arms of men twice her age and trying to convince them to sponsor. Four never got close, and one day Circe refused to follow the directions given to her by a pink envelope, outright burnt it. After all, they'd brought her nothing useful. It was all the news she needed for the President to summon her, to give Circe an offer. To warn her that if she didn't cooperate there may be unfortunateness in her future.

Circe didn't listen. Tiamat was round for dinner, he burnt the next envelope, and she promised herself that was the end of it. After all, he was above reaping age, so was she. What could they do to her, with no siblings in that bracket any more? She was engaged, happy.

When his little brother was called, when no volunteer stepped forward, Tiamat was at the station. Pleading with her to try, and she did. She went and apologized to the President, with a smile and a written apology and it seemed like he was happy. Cary would live, of course. She'd be rewarded for docility, and that was the thought that got her through busy days and nights.

Aurelia's knife had no such understanding. Leah lived, but Cary was dead, blood tracing down the walls of the cave. When she got home, there was a letter in her porch, a ring enclosed. Tiamat was apologetic, but given what had happened? Well, he couldn't put his family in any more danger, they knew Cary not getting a volunteer wasn't an accident.

When the President called, Circe merely smiled, and nodded, and agreed it was so sad what had happened. Such a shame. she left her wine undrunk, and he was gone before she could do more than bid him farewell after dinner and an enlightening conversation.

The wine ran down the walls again, but the glass stayed in Circe's hand. Progress.

Blood stained her dress

"Promise you'll run?"

Circe nods, and now Citrine's shaking her head. "Come with us! We need you back in Four, they won't..." "The Peacekeepers are out for blood. You need to get yourself to the Panem damned government. You know the way, get the kids to safety. Get your wife to safety, Furrier." The barks of rifles are getting louder now, Elise's scream of defiance echoing through an open window in the Control Center into the lobby they're standing in before another bark of a rifle. Abrupt silence.

"I've stuck my head in the sand before." It's true, they both know it's true. Rebelling had never been Circe's aim, Circe had always denied any chance at involvement. Then the Quell, then rebellion became more justified. Two suicides, Circe almost made it three. She wasn't going back, was never going back. That was why she hadn't stepped forwards when Annie was called.

She wished she could have, even in the seconds after, but instead there were glares on her, Lianne, Illiamna. Glares of disappointment, sighs of despair. Yet none of them, she knew, had gone up for Odair.

Those two were gone now. Who knew where Illiamna was, the poor thing had taken off after the Bloodbath, and nobody could answer where. Lianne was back home, and at this point Circe was grateful. With Leah, Lianne back home it was safer for Annie, safer for all of them. Which is why, when all these thoughts run, Circe continues. "I haven't fought in a good while. Expect I'll make a damn fool of myself. Besides, in this dress I'll slow you down."

Citrine lingers a second, glances at the five figures waiting anxiously by the entrance, three armed and two not, gives Circe an embrace. "Try not to die." Then she's off, and Circe takes position by the door, trident in hand. She's ready for a fight, knows it's her time. If she dies, but the group running live, then it was all worth it.

The first peacekeeper drops with three holes in his neck. A gurgle of terror, anguish, any other emotion he could muster, and then the body slumps to the floor, and Circe leans it up against the door. The second is similarly down, spurt of blood on her dress and it's stained. Shame. She gets another three before one enterprising officer gets the idea of coming up behind her.

A thud to the back of her head, and it all goes blurry. She can feel a trickle of liquid, and then everything goes dark.