#lacuna chapter fifteen

[reneesbooks]

The Knight of Lacuna Lake - Part 3

this one's a long one so buckle up bitches bc it's all downhill from here

summary: Keelan attends Maura's birthday celebration (5.7k words)

intro post, part one, part two

taglist (ask to be added! <3): @serenanymph @lyssa-ink @oh-no-another-idea @lena-rambles @ashen-crest

There are 32 different places in the throne room where the royal seal has been worked into the stone. Keelan is convinced there is a 33rd, but he can't figure out where it is.

“Your Majesties, I beg for your assistance,” a reedy voice says. Keelan pulls his gaze away from the stonework and shifts it to Maura. She is perfectly upright in the simple wooden chair next to her mother's throne, listening attentively as the woman, a cobbler, spells out the economical impacts of the latest trading regulations on imports from Guildi on her small shop outside of the port city of Wareshead, and did Your Majesties know that Wareshead is the biggest importer—

“I believe I might have a solution,” Maura says, cutting the woman's ramble off. “If ports offer bulk pricing to smaller shops, like yours, who only serve smaller areas, would that improve your ability to turn a profit?”

“A wise idea, my princess,” the woman says, bowing.

“How would the ports make up their lost profits?” King Proteus asks, leaning forward in his throne.

Maura's eyes wander around the throne room. Keelan can see the wheels turning in her head, is familiar enough with the way her nose crinkles when she's thinking from three months of spending nearly every morning in the library with her. Her eyes light up as she lands on a solution. “Our Fierodian trading agreement includes incentives for ports who send regular shipments. If they offer bulk pricing domestically and begin building a larger market abroad, those incentives combined with new markets at which to sell should balance out any negative impact.”

“Well decided, Princess Maura,” Queen Rosaleen says, beaming proudly. “The royal scribes will have everything ready by tomorrow.”

The members of the court clap politely as the cobbler is escorted away by the guard. Maura bites her lip, stifling a yawn. Keelan checks the position of the sun through the window. It's nearing dinnertime. He shifts a little where he's standing, flexing his toes. He's been standing behind Maura's chair for hours now, but he's had plenty of practice with that. What's making his limbs tingle with anticipation is the fact that it's Maura's birthday. After the court is dismissed, there will be a grand feast and then a ball. Keelan has never been to a royal ball before. He's heard that they serve chocolate.

Plus, there is the chance that Maura will ask him to dance with her. Not that he's thought much about that.

“I think that is where we shall finish today,” the queen says. Keelan nearly bites his own tongue with excitement. “The court is dismissed.”

Maura turns to Keelan and makes a relieved face. He smiles and bows when she stands. “Would you like to go directly to dinner, princess?”

“I think so,” she says. He follows her towards the great hall. Once they are out of earshot of anyone, she moves closer to him. “I command you to sit at the great table with me.”

They pass by the steps to the library before can make his mouth work. “Maura, I don't know if that's a good idea. I am still only your shield.”

“Come on, Keelan.” She grabs his arm and gives him a pleading look. “It's my birthday. Why wouldn't you sit with me?”

He sighs. “Your father might not approve.”

In the months that Keelan has been Maura's guard, he has been completely unable to discern the king's opinion of him. King Proteus is a stern, generally unsmiling man. He only softens around his wife and daughters, but even then, he has a general presence of intimidation that makes the hairs on the back of Keelan's neck stand up.

“It's not his birthday.” He looks away and she darts in front of him, forcing him to meet her eyes. He inhales sharply, raising his gaze to the heavens. She is still holding his arm. “Please?”

“You're going to be the death of me.”

“Hopefully not.” She releases his arm and continues down the corridor. “I asked the cooks to brew some grapevine tea for tonight. Is there anything else they should add?”

Keelan has been getting better at hiding his feelings, but the blush still creeps up his neck. “That is more than enough.”

When they reach the great hall, Maura makes a beeline for the great table. The lesser nobles and aristocrats are trickling in, mingling with the foreign guests, finding seats and filling the cavernous hall with the sound of conversation and laughter. Maura skips up the steps to the great table, gesturing for Keelan to follow. She walks up to the closest guard. “Sir Keelan will be a guest of the royal family tonight,” she says authoritatively. “I will not need another knight to serve in his place.”

“Yes, princess,” the guard says, bowing deeply. “I'll fetch another chair.”

Before he knows it, Keelan is seated between Maura and Birdie at the great table, a steaming mug of grapevine tea sitting before him. He's on Maura's right while the queen sits to her left. Birdie is telling him about the last ball that they threw for Maura's birthday and how this will be her second ball, but all he can think about is how some of the lesser nobles are staring at him, whispering behind their hands. He's a nobody from a town that doesn't exist and he's sitting between the princesses of the kingdom, two seats away from the queen and three away from the king.

He's not freaking out about it.

Levi is on Birdie's other side, making sure that she eats the vegetables that pass by on platters and in soups as well as the little cakes that she keeps summoning. At one point, the pastry chef appears, red-faced and panting, and pulls Levi aside. Keelan can't hear all of what the pastry chef says, but when Levi returns to the table, he lectures Birdie sternly about how summoning pastries requires taking them from somewhere else. Birdie doesn't seem to be paying attention, but she stops summoning the cakes.

The food is much better than what Keelan normally eats in the barracks with the other guards—strawberries, sugared figs, hearty stews, and fatty meats. The grapevine tea is a little sweeter than how his mother used to make it, but the taste reminds him enough of home that he doesn't mind. Maura pulls him into conversations every few minutes, the topics ranging between the day's work, the court jester's jokes, and Birdie's antics. Keelan has to half-shout in order for her to hear him, but her smile is worth it.

A bard is brought in sometime around the fourth course (another stew) and the hall quiets so that her songs can be heard.

“My princess,” she says, bowing and adjusting herself on her stool. “I am honored by the opportunity to perform for you at your birthday feast. Do you have any requests?”

Maura glances at Keelan, then smiles at the bard. “What is your most requested song?”

The bard's eyes also dart to Keelan. “The Ballad of Keelan O'Leyne, princess. Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes!” Maura claps her hands. “Please, play it for me.”

The bard clears her throat and plucks a few notes on her lute. “The story of Keelan O'Leyne is a tragedy, one that shows us the bravery of a lone soul and the devotion of a grieving son.” Keelan's throat is tight but he does his best not to show it. “All who hear of his deeds will pray to the moons that they never cross him, for he is a knight blessed with the strength of twelve men.”

The bard begins a tune that is slow and sweet.

“Gather round and hear the song

of boys who become men—

though the night is cold and long,

the spring will come again.

Even though you are afraid

there's nothing left to fear

for the brave Keelan O'Leyne

protects us while we're near.

Come rescue me, Keelan O'Leyne!

Come rescue me, take all the pain.

Come rescue me, Keelan O'Leyne!

Come rescue me and bring the sun again.”

Keelan can feel the blush rising up his neck, but doesn't dare look at Maura to see her reaction to the song. Birdie is already humming along, splashing in her stew in time to the tune. He can see Levi start to sing along and wonders how many of them have already heard it.

“Long ago in verdant Leyne,

the flames were hot and high.

Everywhere laid people slain

by men who would not die.

All that had been left behind

was one boy and his sword

left with nowhere else to hide

and no one he adored.

Come rescue me, Keelan O'Leyne!

Come rescue me, put out the flames.

Come rescue me, Keelan O'Leyne!

Come rescue me and bring the sun again.

While the boy was creeping towards

the house the raiders stole

there he saw the evil horde

had took his mother's soul.

And he filled with angry grief

and burst into the room

slaughtered all the murd'rous thieves

became their final doom.

Come rescue me, Keelan O'Leyne!

Come rescue me, erase the stain.

Come rescue me, Keelan O'Leyne!

Come rescue me and bring the sun again.”

The majority of the guests are singing along at this point, enough that Keelan wonders how he hasn't heard this song before. Maybe because he rarely leaves the castle. Either way, he's still studiously avoiding looking at Maura.

“When the moons looked down and saw

the hero who had slain

the twelve immortal thieves of Cág

they gave Keelan O'Leyne

The power of a dozen men,

and bravery ceaseless

three months he walked, was knighted then

the shield of the princess.

Come rescue me, Keelan O'Leyne!

Come rescue me, you're evil's bane.

Come rescue me, Keelan O'Leyne!

Come rescue me and bring the sun again.”

The guests burst into applause the bard bows again, catching the coins thrown at her in her hat. People are shouting requests and Keelan can see Maura clapping out of the corner of his eye. He lowers his gaze to his stew and eats, hoping that nobody is looking at him.

The bard stays through the sixth course (tender beef and hearty stewed cabbage), playing a variety of songs, some of which Keelan recognizes. As the meal progresses and some guests start to get intoxicated, drinking songs are requested more and more. This is when Keelan is treated to a second song about himself—this one a rowdy, unfortunately descriptive number about how exactly he went about killing the Immortal Thieves of Cág, who were legendary outlaws that had been terrorizing the west. Keelan has no idea what they're talking about, but it has a nice rhythm.

Levi has to use magic to keep Birdie away from the cakes when they come out with the rest of the desserts and she pouts until Keelan offers her half of his slice of pie. Maura's favorite cook, the one who fed them sandwiches on Keelan's first day, brings out a small sculpture made of sugared buns. It's been shaped into a galloping mare—the mane and tail are dusted with extra powdered sugar to make them look white. Maura laughs with delight, jumping down from the high table to inspect it up close.

“You've outdone yourself, Stiofán,” she says. “It's beautiful.”

Stiofán puffs his chest out. “They're all filled with jelly or custard. Each part of the horse is a different flavor, princess. The heart is peach.” He smiles. “Your favorite.”

Maura hugs him tightly before excitedly pulling off one of the buns on the horse's chest. She bites in and the room holds its breath.

Maura throws her head back, making a sound of delight before shoving the rest of the bun in her mouth. “Delicious!” she says around a mouthful of bun. The court laughs and the servants begin to divvy up the sculpture among the guests. They come by the grand table first and Keelan is treated to the enormous selection of options: blackberry, currant, chocolate, apple, fig, peach, blueberry, and a few flavors he's never heard of. He decides to play it safe and get two chocolate and two blueberry ones.

They are indeed delicious and he has to keep a close eye on his extras so that Birdie doesn't sneak them off his plate while he's not looking. At some point, she stole more of the little cakes from the other guests and Levi is busy using magic to put them back on the correct plates. This leaves Keelan in charge of keeping her out of mischief, so he has been trying to convince her that by only eating her own desserts, she will tempt a good faerie to come to her window and give her a blessing.

“But what kind of blessing?” Birdie asks, crossing her arms over her chest. “Levi says there's different kinds based on the magic that you're using.”

Keelan coughs into his fist, seeing Maura's smirk out of the corner of his eye. “I'm not an expert, princess, so I'm not sure what kind of blessing the faeries would bring to a girl who doesn't steal other people's desserts. Maybe extra cake, maybe good fortune, maybe your hair will grow twice as long overnight.”

Birdie giggles. “I don't think it will be that.”

“Who's to say?” Keelan turns back to his plate to find it empty. “Birdie, what did we just tell you about stealing other people's desserts?”

“It wasn't me!” she protests, her eyes wide and innocent.

Keelan looks to his left to see Maura licking powdered sugar off her fingers, grinning smugly. “You should have kept a better eye on them,” she says. He laughs, unable to be upset when she looks so happy.

After the desserts are cleared away, the guests begin leave to get ready for the ball. Nobody at the great table looks in a hurry to leave, so Keelan nibbles on his last sugared bun and listens while Maura explains the finer points of ball etiquette. He isn't sure he's going to remember a single thing, but he's had enough practice being around royalty and other nobility. He's probably going to be fine. Probably.

When the great hall has emptied, the queen stands. “Well, my beautiful daughter,” she says, reaching down to touch Maura's face, “do you want to entertain any suitors tonight?”

Maura's ears go pink. “Momma, you said I was too young for that.”

Queen Rosaleen laughs, patting Maura's cheek. “You're absolutely right, sweet pea. Just teasing you as mothers are supposed to. Birdie, duckling, come along. It's time to get ready for the ball.”

“Are we going to dance?” Birdie asks, jumping down from her chair. “Sissy asked me to dance last year.”

“You can dance all you like,” the queen says with a soft laugh, “but Maura may ask somebody else this year.” Her eyes land on Keelan and crinkle at the corners. “Only Maura knows, I suppose. Let's go, girls.”

“Wait!” Maura jumps up from her chair and runs to one of the servants nearby. They whisper back and forth for a second before the girl brings out a large wooden box. “Keelan, since this is your first royal ball as my sworn shield, I made sure that you would have this.”

She opens the wooden box and lifts out a deep purple cloak, the color of the water-violets that bloom along the docks. Keelan's eyes widen and he reaches out to touch the fabric, awed. “Princess, I can't accept this.”

“You have to,” Maura says smugly. “It's your official dress uniform as my sworn shield.”

“The other guards don't wear purple cloaks,” Keelan says. “It's not a color to blend in.”

“You're not meant to blend in.” Maura unfolds the cloak all the way and holds it out to him. It feels soft as silk and has a surprising heft to it. Keelan swings it around his shoulders, fastening the silver clasp. Maura presses her hands together excitedly. “You look wonderful.”

Keelan's face heats up and he looks down, fiddling with the clasp. “Thank you, princess. I will see you at the ball.”

“Yes, Sir Keelan.” She curtsies to him and follows the queen out of the great hall. Keelan wanders slowly back to the guards' barracks, feeling his new cloak swing against his legs. Its weight is strange, pulling his shoulders down. He wonders what it's made of—it feels like silk, but he's only seen silk used for light dresses or shirts. His cloak is far too heavy for that.

The captain of the guard whistles when he walks into the barracks. “It's official, then?”

Keelan stares at him. “What's official?”

The captain gestures at his cloak. “The Queen's Knight. The one who wears the cloak made from water-violets. Haven't you heard the stories?” Keelan shakes his head and the captain sighs. “Are you going to the ball tonight, son?”

Keelan swallows the lump in his throat. “Yes, sir.”

“None of that,” the captain says, herding him towards the washroom. “You outrank me now.”

Keelan's head feels light as he's sat down in front of the polished bronze mirror and the captain starts smearing shaving cream on his face. “I'm not the Queen's Knight. Princess Maura—”

“Is the crown princess and will be queen someday.” The captain's hands are quick and sure as he shaves the barely-visible stubble off Keelan's face. “Since Queen Rosaleen never named one, the princess has the right to choose her Queen's Knight before she ascends to the throne. Making you her sworn shield was the first step to officially naming you her Knight.”

“I still don't understand.” The captain wipes off the shaving cream and pats something sweet-smelling into Keelan's jaw. “I've never heard of the Queen's Knight.”

“Likely because the last one murdered the queen he was sworn to protect,” the captain says, a bit sadly. Keelan's whole body goes cold. He heard the story when he was a child, but nobody liked to speak about it. Queen Rosaleen was young, even for a Raedoran queen, because her parents had been murdered in their sleep by their most trusted advisor. Nobody knew why—the man had been found dead at the foot of the king and queen's bed, his own sword through his stomach. Rosaleen ascended to the throne two weeks later. Keelan had never known that the advisor had been the Queen's Knight.

“I would never hurt her,” Keelan says.

“I know that, son,” the captain says, a little soothingly. “But some say the position is cursed. The first Queen's Knight was said to have drowned in the lake after jumping from the top of the mast of the queen's boat.”

Keelan shivers. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because she is putting a spotlight on you tonight,” the captain says, pulling him out of his chair. Keelan is shuffled back into the barracks, where the other guards surround him, helping him into a deep blue tunic with silver buttons. “You need to be ready for what that means—what the court will say about you. What the kingdom will say about you.”

“They're already saying a lot.” Keelan thinks of the two songs about him. “Who are the Immortal Thieves of Cág?”

One of the other guards snorts. “An old folktale. Likely an invention of the bards that you killed them.”

Keelan nods. The raiders had certainly died like men. They'd bled and choked and soiled themselves. The smell had been horrible.

One of the other guards fastens Keelan's cloak around his shoulders. The captain crosses his arms over his chest. “Alright, boy, listen up.”

Keelan's whole face goes red. “Yes, sir.”

“The Queen's Knight is the sworn shield of the ruling queen of Raedora. It is the most important positions a knight can hold. Do you have a title yet?”

Keelan shifts from one foot to the other. “Does Sir Keelan count?”

The captain sighs. “You'll get one when the princess announces you formally. She'll likely do it tonight, since she had the cloak made.”

Keelan curls his fingers into the soft purple fabric. “Is it really made from water-violets?”

“No,” the captain says, laughing. “That's from the old story about the origin of the Queen's Knight. They say he rose from the lake wearing a cloak of water-violets and knelt before the first queen of Raedora to offer his loyalty. The cloak itself is silk, nice and strong and thick, but it's dyed with water-violets.”

Keelan nods and walks towards the washroom again, examining himself in the mirror. In the tunic and the cloak, even with the mud still crusting the bottom of his boots, he looks like a real knight from one of the songs. He reaches up to pat his hair down. “I've never been to a royal ball before.”

“Of course you haven't, son,” the captain says. “Neither have any of us except to guard the doors. Good luck.”

With that, he's shoved out of the barracks and into the hallway. He takes a moment to adjust his tunic before starting towards the ballroom. He rubs his jaw, feeling the softness of his skin. Royal guards are required to keep a clean face, so he's never grown anything past tiny stubble, but the captain shaved him closer than he's ever shaved before. Keelan wonders if his razor is enchanted.

He is one of the first into the ballroom and ends up hovering awkwardly by the table covered in little snacks. He feels ridiculous and out of place, checking over his shoulder every few seconds to see if Maura has arrived yet. It's not necessary to look—they'll announce her and the rest of the royal family—but there is still that nagging feeling to look for her, to try to catch her eye before anybody else does, to make sure that the first face she sees when she enters the ballroom is one of a friend.

He has been standing there for nearly half an hour and is nibbling on one of the figs from the snack table when two young women approach him. One is giggling, shoving her friend forward, while the other puts up a whispered protest. The giggling one pulls the whispering one to a stop in front of Keelan and he bows politely. “Good evening.”

“Sir Keelan O'Leyne,” the giggling one says. Her voice has gone sultry and she bats her eyelashes at him. “My friend here was wondering if you would do her the honor of allowing her your first dance tonight?”

The whispering one turns bright red and dips into a low curtsy, avoiding eye contact. “Sir Keelan O'Leyne. It's an honor to meet you.”

Keelan blinks. “Um, the honor is mine, Miss...?”

The blush begins to fade from the young woman's cheeks and her eyes dart up to meet his. They're a pretty shade of blue. “Aoife, Sir Keelan.”

“Aoife.” He is spared of thinking of something satisfactory to say by the loud ringing of a bell. Everyone turns to face the raised dais for the royal family.

“Announcing Their Majesties Queen Rosaleen and King Proteus of Raedora, and their daughters, Crown Princess Maura and Princess Brigit!”

Keelan turns to the young women. “Excuse me.” He slips through the crowd as they applaud, trying to get closer to the dais. He can see the queen and the king coming out but not Maura and Birdie—

Maura steps out onto the dais and the breath leaves Keelan's lungs. He's frozen in place, near the front but not quite there, and yet there is nobody between them. Her hair is a golden braided halo and the graceful curve of her exposed neck disappears into a gown of embroidered blue silk that flows like water as she moves. She is the spirit of Lacuna Lake and Keelan is drowning in her depths.

Her eyes meet his and her smile pulls him out of the water. He can breathe and the queen is speaking now, thanking the guests for celebrating Maura's sixteenth year and wishing for many more to come. She says something that breaks through the rush in his ears—

“The princess will choose her partner for the first dance.”

Keelan inhales sharply. Maura's eyes have never left his. She is still smiling widely, smiles as she calls out, voice ringing like a bell— “Sir Keelan of Leyne.”

The ballroom is silent. His feet move, propelling him forward even as his brain is scrambling to piece together the eyes on him and the girl that had wanted to dance and the captain's warnings and the way Maura's skirt hangs from her hips. He bows and she curtsies with the grace of the fae, her dress pooling around her.

“Sir Keelan,” Maura says, and he raises from his bow, meeting her gaze again. “Would you do me the honor?”

He wonders if drowning men fall in love with the water as it fills their lungs. “The honor would be mine, my princess.” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “But I'm not a great dancer.”

Her smile sharpens. “Just follow my lead.”

She must have spoken with the band beforehand, because they play a song that Keelan actually knows. Leyne didn't have a lot of parties, but he'd been to enough to know a few of the more popular dances. Maura grabs his hand and he rests his other on her waist, his gloves unbearably thick. Her bare wrists are sinful and he has never needed religion less.

The crowd shifts a bit, murmuring at the rowdy tune, but Maura starts dancing before Keelan can start to get paranoid. They spin around a few times before breaking apart, coming back together, skipping around the dance floor together, and starting again in a new direction. It's upbeat, it's bouncy, it's nothing like what Keelan was prepared for, and it's perfect. He is a winemaker's son at the village festival, dancing with a pretty girl. She's smiling the whole time, her eyes on him even when she spins away. He doesn't know the smell of blood and the grey-eyed girl in his arms is free to come home with him and meet his parents and nobody would find that strange. He is seventeen and he is in love and there is nothing else.

The music ends and Maura steps away from him, catching her breath with a laugh. Keelan's cheeks hurt from smiling and he bows, feeling his cloak brush against the floor. “You honor me, Princess Maura.”

“Sir Keelan,” she says, lifting out of her flawless curtsy, “the honor was all mine.” She turns to the crowd. “Please, enjoy the ball!”

The band starts another tune and Maura takes Keelan's arm, leading him up to the dais. He's sweating and can feel the king's eyes on him. He feels more and less like the nobody's son that he is but Maura's bare fingers are resting on his elbow where only his thin linen shirt divides them and that makes him burn.

“Keys, Keys!” Birdie jumps up to grab Keelan's arm. Her hair is in two braids and she's wearing a pink dress that she's already smudged powdered sugar on. “I wanna dance, too!”

“Of course, princess,” Keelan says, unable to resist her. Maura doesn't release his arm.

“Mother, I wanted—”

“Sissy!” Birdie is pulling Keelan towards the dance floor. “It's my turn with Keys!”

“Your Majesty,” an important-looking man says. “I beg an audience.”

“One moment, sweet pea,” the queen says. “Birdie, don't take up Keelan's whole night.”

Maura's fingers leave Keelan's arm and he is dragged into a dance of Birdie's own creation. It involves a lot of spinning and makes him vaguely nauseous, but she's laughing, so he doesn't mind. When the music ends this time, Birdie is whisked away by Levi and Keelan is quickly surrounded by young women requesting a dance. The two from earlier elbow their way to the front and Aoife's friend shoves her forward again. She's blushing less than before and curtsies neatly. “Sir Keelan. I was sorry to have missed the opportunity earlier. I hope you are still available to dance now?”

Keelan can feel the eyes on him and thinks of what the captain told him. She's putting a spotlight on you tonight. You need to be ready for what that means. He puts on a polite smile and bows. “It would be my honor, Miss Aoife.”

It's still early in the ball, so the music remains upbeat and bouncy, assuaging any fears Keelan may or may not have had about random girls trying to get cozy with him. Aoife tries to make conversation with him, batting her eyelashes and laughing at nearly everything he says, but he politely thanks her for the dance and excuses himself when it's over. He wants to find Maura again, to see what it was she wanted earlier, but he keeps getting stopped every two feet by either another blushing young woman requesting a dance (he's too polite to say no) or some lord or another that wants to hear the story of the night Leyne burned (he's too polite to say what he really wants to).

The moons are high in the sky and Birdie has already been whisked away to bed by the queen by the time Keelan finds Maura again. She is standing at the same table he waited by earlier, munching thoughtfully on an apple tart. He feels his shoulders relax at the sight of her and makes his way through the crowd.

Her eyes light up when she sees him and she quickly wipes the crumbs from her fingers. “Sir Keelan. How have you been enjoying the ball?”

He shrugs, leaning against the table next to her. “It's not too unlike the parties in Leyne. The people are more important, but they still get drunk and dance the same.”

She laughs. “You were a popular dancer. I think I've seen you with seven different young ladies tonight.”

Keelan's cheeks flush and he reaches up to rub his eyes with one hand. “I felt bad saying no. I didn't realize they were all so...fascinated with me.”

“The tale of Keelan O'Leyne fascinates people,” Maura says. “A lone survivor of a massacre who single-handedly killed an entire band of raiders in one night? You must admit, it has a folktale feel to it.”

He tips his head to the side, ceding the point. “Still. It's strange to be the center of any kind of attention.”

“You get used to it.” Maura's voice betrays the slightest hint of sadness and when he looks over at her, he can see the tightness in her jaw.

“I'll have to,” he says, looking away and pretending he didn't notice. “I'm going to be your sworn shield for the rest of my life.”

He can feel the warmth of her smile even though he's not looking at her. “And my friend, I hope.”

“Yes, Maura,” he says quietly, so that nobody else can hear. “And your friend.”

She asks him to dance again at the end of the night, this time a waltz. His hands are sweating so much he thinks she must be able to feel it through his gloves, but her smile never wavers. He's not great at waltzing, so she takes the lead and he manages to not step on her toes. This time, there is no fantasy of a village festival in Leyne. She is the crown princess and she chose him, asked him to dance with her on her birthday in front of the entire court and her parents and everyone else, and she hasn't stopped looking at him since the music started. He is a knight in a cloak of water-violets and he would die to see her smile again.

As he bows at the end of the dance, Maura announces that the ball is ending and wishes all the guests a good night. As the guards begin to herd everyone out, she turns back to Keelan. “Would you walk me to my room, Sir Keelan?”

He swallows, suddenly painfully aware of her parents standing mere yards away. “Of course, princess,” he says, bowing his head. He follows her out of the ballroom. Once they are far enough away, she moves closer to him and he feels her hand brush against his.

“Thank you,” she says. “That was perfect.”

“Good,” Keelan says. “It's your birthday. It's meant to be perfect.”

“You didn't get me a gift,” she says, a little teasingly. “Did you forget?”

He adjusts his cloak when it catches on a potted plant that they pass by. “I don't know what I could possibly offer you that you don't already have.”

They make it all the way to her door before she speaks again. “That is a dilemma, is it not?” Her back is pressed against her bedroom door and she smiles up at him. “However, you did leave me alone for most of the night. I must ask for something to make up for it.”

“Anything,” Keelan says. Her smile widens and she taps her cheek with the tip of her finger.

“A kiss.”

He is drowning again even as fire burns under his skin. “Maura.”

“Just one kiss.” The tightness in her jaw is returning, sadness creeping in. “Just this once.”

He steps closer, feeling her breath against his collarbone. “Of course, princess.”

He leans down to brush his lips across her cheek. At the last moment, she turns her head, catching his mouth in a soft kiss that would bring him to his knees if he wasn't frozen in place. She pulls back after a moment, looking up at him through her eyelashes. “Until the morning, Sir Keelan.” He just stands there, dumbstruck, staring down at her. She bites her lip, smiling again, and stands on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I will see you tomorrow,” she says, a deadly promise.

He stands out there for over an hour after she goes inside before he can make his body work again. The walk back to the barracks is freezing cold.

[ilguna]

Lacuna - Chapters 13-16 (f.o)

summary: they say the odds tend to favor those who need them. well, they were wrong.

warnings; swearing. MURDER, GORE.

wc; 10.3k

NOTES; I give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

-- CHAPTER THIRTEEN --

If this is what it’s like to be dead, then you don’t want to be dead anymore. 

First off, it’s cold as all hell in here. It’s like when you were younger and your brothers would throw you into the frigid ass water for fun in the winter. Of course, you could swim back then. Like every other person in district four, you had learned to swim at the sprightly age of four, probably younger. You start young when it comes to knots, fishing and swimming.

By the time you’re seven or eight you’re basically blending in with the water. Most kids by then can swim like they never left the water, they’re fish themselves. You used to race the kids back home all the time to see who could swim fastest from dock to dock. And those were like a quarter to a half a mile apart each. Every single damn time, you somehow managed to beat them. The runner up would always be at least thirty seconds behind you. On good days, more.

Fishing? Well, if you’re old enough to hold a rod then you’re old enough to get your ass sat on the boat. You can surely get something caught on the line, and then your parents would reach over and get the fish off of the hook for you. Then, you throw the sucker back in, and the process repeats. Really, they’re doing all the work, you’re just sitting there to keep the rod from going anywhere when something does tug back.

And knot tying is easy. Clumsy fingers get better as time goes on, but you observe until you’re eight or nine. You don’t start the knots until you’re nine to ten because the chances of the kids fucking up a perfectly good line with a bad line, is more common than you think. Even the prodigies are prone to messing up on the simplest ones. It’s fine though, they’ll learn it in the next couple years of their life, and soon they’ll be doing it in their sleep.

When they’re bored, they’ll ask for a rope or a wire to mess with so they can fuck around and tie knots. Practice gets you everywhere in this day and age, so there’s no better way to do it than when you’re bored. If you can do it without looking, then god damn, you might as well be teaching the others. Sometimes, you still catch Reed looking down to tie them, and he’s been doing it for over ten years by now.

The room is cold, and it only gets worse as time goes on. Sometimes, it’ll ease up just a little bit, but that’s rare. Every couple of hours, you’re certain. It’s not a constant feeling of the warmth of a goddamn grizzly bear snuggled right up against your side. You wish it was though, then you wouldn’t be shivering and chattering your teeth. They hit against each other, and you think that you’ll bite your tongue or chip one of your many teeth.

Not to mention the fact that it’s wet. There’s always the sound of water running, every now and then you’ll get a drop of water on your forehead or something. Furthering the fact that you’re cold. Who knew a single drop of water could ruin the temporary warmth that you’d falsely given yourself?

You, you guess.

“I-I-It’s cold as b-buh-balls in he-here.” you mutter, going to turn over.

The stabbing pain in your lower abdomen makes your eyes snap open, a muffled scream tries to leave your mouth, but a hand reaches over to place it over your mouth. Your entire body begins to ache. From your neck to your thighs. The left side of your face is swollen and your nose is very much crooked. It’s throwing you off.

When you raise your hand to grab the arm, you see that your own are littered in purple, blue and black bruises. In a panic, you shove whoever it is off, as you desperately tear off the sleeping bag without actually ripping it.

You know who it is next to you. You can see the wide green eyes staring at you in shock. His blonde hair is stuck to his forehead like he just came through the waterfall a minute ago. He’s in nothing but his pants, probably letting his jacket and shirt dry. You can already hear him asking you what you’re doing and he hasn’t even opened his mouth just yet.

“Woah--” Finnick starts, the second you unzip the jacket, pulling it off, “Are you cold? You might have hypothermia--”

“It’s not burning!” you snap, pulling your shirt up, and only then do you slow down for a moment. To see the shirt wrapped around your waist and the blood seeping through along with the bruises blossoming across your stomach, “How many of my ribs are broken?”

“I don’t know.” Finnick sits down now, rather than crouching, “I thought you were dead when I found you.”

You look to him, squinting, “When did you find me?”

“The uh--the night that two had died?”

“Very specific.”

“A couple days after Allio had died.” he tells you.

“Three days?” you ask, you’ve barely been keeping track, and now that you’ve been out for fuck knows how long, this entire thing has thrown it off balance.

“Yeah,”

“Who died? I only heard one cannon.” you mutter, zipping the jacket back up, and you notice that the jacket isn’t very breezy in the back.

Motherfucker! He’s tied his shirt around your waist and gave you his jacket. He has to be freezing, and he’s doing it to make sure that you get better. Or Finnick has an ulterior motive, he’s trying to win you back after he pulled that ass move and left you behind.

Finnick’s face twists with worry the second your eyes turn on him, “I’m sorry, okay? I couldn’t just stay there--”

“Like hell you couldn’t!” you shout, shouting hurts your side, but it’s a dull pain.

“Playing pretend? Playing house? I don’t know how you lasted for so long.” he says calmly.

“It was going well until they fuckin’ figured out that I killed Allio,” you sigh, propping yourself up on the rocks behind you.

“You killed Allio?”

“You killed the girl from six?” you mock.

“And Thyme.” he tells you, moving away from you now, and before you can ask, he answers, “Mercy kill.”

“Who died after that?” you ask, running your fingers over your nose. You’re not too thrilled when it doesn’t hurt as badly as you thought it would. It means that it’s setting. Your nose is going to be fucking stuck like this.

“Guys from ten and three.”

You nearly choke on your spit, “Blaire? Blaire’s dead?!” 

“Is that ten or three?”

“Three!” you cry, you can feel the frown on your face before it’s even settled, “He saved me from Lennox. If it weren’t for him, I would have been beaten to death. But I guess he felt like he owed me after I saved him from starving.”

“You saw him a second time?” Finnick looks over his shoulder.

“The day you left I saw him down by the lake or something, don’t remember exactly. Spent most of my time at the pond-lake and he kept showing up. My little bit of company.”

“Leave it to you to make friends in everyone you meet.” he mutters, you glare at the back of his head.

“Leave it to the fourteen-year-old boy to bail on his first alliance to deal with the career pack alone.” you pick up the nearest rock and hurl it at the back of his head for emphasis.

He groans, rubbing it and giving you a small glance over his shoulder, “Like I said--”

“I don’t want another apology.” you tell him, “Or an excuse.”

He doesn’t say anything, staring off into the water.

“Anyone else die?”

“Boy from eight.”

“Any of those kills yours?”

“The girl from eight on the first day, Thyme and the girl from six. Then the boy from ten and also the boy from eight.”

Quick mental math tells you that it’s five. He’s killed five so far, the same as you. Ten people that were in this arena have been killed by the district four participants. Everyone back home must be thrilled. You can’t wait for people to ask you what it’s like being a murder. It happened to Mags, it’ll surely happen to you.

And your response? You’ll ask them if they want to be added to the numbers.

“Damn. You know mine already.” you begin to push yourself up, and with all the noise, Finnick turns.

“What are you doing?”

“Fresh air.”

“You’re going to get the bandage wet.”

“Then I’ll take it off, it’s bloody anyway.” you begin with the jacket.

“Wouldn’t be if you stopped moving.” he mutters.

“I’m going to give you a black eye.” you threaten.

“To go along with yours? Along with that broken nose?”

“Finnick I swear to god, I don’t have a problem with stabbing you to death in here.”

He laughs, “You’re weak. Probably can’t even hold your arms above your head.” it’s quiet for a moment as you debate if you’re willing to prove him wrong, he adds, “That wasn’t a challenge.”

“It’s about to be.” you tell him, grabbing the bottom of your shirt as you very slowly pull it off. It starts in your ribs, and then slowly travels to your shoulders. When the rim--is that the right word?--of the shirt hits your swollen eye, you wince. 

“We’re in the third week, I think. Six people left. Four if it’s just me and you.” he looks over.

Final numbers.

“Well, good.” you say, but it’s not good. You’re covered in bruises, broken bones and a stab wound in your stomach. You’re useless. Finnick could have killed you in your sleep and you wouldn’t have known. It would all have been done for you.

Once you start kicking at your shoes, Finnick realizes that you’re serious. He moves over, untying the boots and then helping with your pants. He carefully unties the bandage, since you hadn’t touched it just yet. And then he takes off his own socks and pants so it won’t get wet. Might as well come back into the little cave with dry things to wear.

It’s daytime, you can see it through the water. You put one hand over the stab place, passing through the water. It’s a little hard on the head, from the gallons of water hitting your head. But as soon as you pass through, you’re heading for the pond-lake water.

“It’s salt.” Finnick says as if you don’t already know.

You slip in, and you can hear Finnick splashing behind you. Probably worrying that you’re going to end up drowning or anything. You can swim even in the worst conditions, he can go fuck himself.

Despite this, he holds beneath your arms, helping you into the water slowly. You want to leave the second that the salt water enters the wound, but you push through it. He can clearly see how uncomfortable you are, but allows you to continue. He’s smart, knows not to try and tell you what’s best for yourself. You need to be up and on your feet, running around like you’re good as new.

Not saying that you want to kill off the last four, but there’s no way that you can stay in here for another week. Another goddamn agonizing week of eating fish, drinking iodized salt water and shivering in a sleeping bag. It has to end, you’re hungry, you’re tired, you’re absolutely exhausted to your very bones.

“Mac, Trink and Lennox and whoever the last--”

“Girl from five.” Finnick interrupts, and you nod.

“Girl from five.” you agree.

“What about them?” his hands are very gentle on your sides, and they eventually fade away in the water.

“They need to--” you try, but Finnick’s hand really is ripped from your arm now, jerking you harshly. You’re about to complain, until he’s pulled beneath the water, sending water flying into the air, “Finnick?” 

How? How has he--you’re standing in the water! You’re fucking standing in it!”

You take in a deep breath, even though your lungs complain, following Finnick under the water. And you see the crevice he slipped into. A ravine in the middle of the pond-lake, and it goes down a while.

He’s reaching up for you, pointing to his ankle, and then making a stabbing motion.

His knife is on the seafloor, so you grab it. Something is holding onto his ankle and he needs you to save him.

You return to the top for air, knowing that it’ll be your last for a few minutes, and then you dive down. It’s probably not smart to have the knife sticking out from your mouth, or for it to be placed there in the first place, but it makes it easier for moving your arms. Before you know it, you’ve hit the crack, and you’re getting closer to Finnick by the second.

You take it out of your mouth, offering the handle to Finnick. His fingers graze it, and then he takes it after. Your lungs are burning, and you wish you could stay, but you’ll only drown. He’s working at his ankle, as you’re swimming up and occasionally looking down at him.

Then, he gets free, and he’s swimming faster than you are straight towards the top. On the way, he makes you wrap your arms around his torso, before he continues. When you’ve broken the surface, he’s gasping for air, you have a pounding headache, and it feels like you’ll never be able to hold air ever again.

“We need to leave.” you tell him, taking his arm as you pull him back to the waterfall, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” he tells you, and hisses when you take his hand instead.

You pull it up to look at, tilting your head when you can’t see anything, but then you bring it closer, seeing all the little cuts on his fingers, palms…

“Are you using vines?” you turn to look at him, he nods.

“How’d you know?”

“Because Blaire had the same cuts.”

“Sounds like you and Blaire were getting cozy.” he mutters.

“No time for jealousy after you ran off with Thyme.” you tell him, “the cuts aren’t poisonous I don’t think. You’ll live.”

“Thanks.” he says, “Hungry?”

“I guess.”

It’s a bummer that the pond-lake time was cut short. You were really looking forward for planning out the future. What you want to do as soon as you’re better. Mags has to send shit now, you’re awake and there’s no better way to heal your wounds than when you’re cognizant. 

You’re ringing out your hair, which has grown a little longer in your time of being in the arena, when there’s a series of chimes, stopping you. Finnick looks to the sky from where he’d been staring off into the water.

“What the hell?”

“Congratulations on being the final six alive.” The gamemaker tells you guys, you feel like this is a trap, and you reach for Finnick immediately, he takes your hand, “There has been a rule change. If you and your district partner are still alive, then both of you may be crowned victors in these hunger games.”

You turn to Finnick the same moment he looks to you.

The gamemaker repeats what he says, as if you guys don’t understand. But you heard him the first time. A loud, crystal clear rule change. Who else would miss something this big?

“We can go home.” You laugh, grabbing Finnick, “Four more people and then we can go!”

“Only four?”

“Only four.” You confirm, pulling him closer.

-- CHAPTER FOURTEEN --

The rule change benefits two districts only. There’s obviously yours, you and Finnick are very much alive. District four has to be celebrating at this exact moment. Mox definitely cried when he received the news, and Reed was surprised. You can see it now.

This isn’t the first time the gamemakers have made this change. Every now and then, when there are districts with two people left in them, they’ll make this change. The particular district that wins, brings home their two kids. Celebrations are grand, bigger and better. And it’s expected that the winners are especially grateful. After all, you guys are supposed to be learning from your mistakes your ancestors made.

It’s only happened ten other times in the last sixty years. It’s not allowed during the Quarter Quells, at all. Because those are the special events. The twenty-fifth they chose the tributes, the fiftieth they got double the amount, and in eleven years there will be a third one. You’re just glad that you’re going to be a victor now. So they can’t throw a huge twist like six kids go in or something.

The rule change is never predicted, it’s a random choice. There have been times in the past where someone was able to guess that it would happen. People found out the system on why they did it, and started to find their way around it. After having the rule change twice in a row, the gamemakers realized that tributes were manipulating it.

They would choose the couples. So when everyone was beginning to cuddle up with each other—except for the huge age gaps like the twelve year olds and the fifteen—it became more common. Again, they figured this out and stopped doing it. Now it’s a once in a blue moon sort of thing.

You got really lucky.

You know that Reed is on the edge of his seat now. He’s cheering you on harder, telling you more advice, even if you can’t hear it. He has to be driving everyone around him nuts, even himself. He’ll be afraid to get on the boat to fish because he doesn’t want to miss anything important, like you or Finnick dying. Reed will be counting on Finnick to keep alive.

However, if Finnick were to die, it’s not an automatic crowning to district one—they have Trink and Lennox still alive, which is why there’s a rule change—they have to survive the other tributes. Kill one of them, Trink or Lennox, it doesn’t matter, then the rules will revert. There will be one victor only.

You could still very much win, it would be a lot more difficult. You’ll be fighting against the four others to make it home. Trink or Lennox would have to be the first to go. To even the playing fields, if one of them is dead, then they can’t team up against anyone. 

District One will probably shower the brats with all the riches they can afford. You wouldn’t doubt it if they got special treatment from the Capitol too. They have so many goddamn victors, it’s annoying. There are constantly houses being built for a new victor each year. They don’t win? No biggie, they’ll win next year.

Four won’t get the same treatment as one, or two. You guys will get the houses, the infinite riches and the celebrations the same as everyone else. But it won’t be as grand, it’ll be like the other districts. Four is a career but four is treated like it’s one of the rich districts but nothing important.

Anyway, the rule change is very important. Keep you and Finnick alive, kill the others and go home. You need to wipe out Trink or Lennox, either or, doesn’t matter. And the others will fall into your hands eventually.

“These vines are insufferable.” Finnick whines, you look from where you’re sitting to see that his hands are completely raw.

“Stop touching it!” You kick his arm with your foot, before going back to the fish.

“I can’t, it needs to be fixed.” Finnick mutters, you get up, yanking the damn thing out of his hands before throwing it through the water, “Hey!”

“Mags will send us rope or something,” you tell him, going to look at his expensive ass gift in the corner of the cave, “And then we can make a proper net.”

“Do you even know how?” Finnick puts his hands into the water to wash them off.

“Didn’t I tell you already? Blaire taught me how. I’ll be able to make a sturdy net with some rope.” You tell him.

You take a moment, deliberating if you want to go through the water or not. But the music from a sponsor makes your ears perk up practically, and you’re stumbling through the water, trying to keep your balance from the force of the water. 

Mags has sent a couple of things since you woke. The first thing is the cream for the wound on your side. You’ve been applying it every night, and it’s done it’s magic. It’s nothing but a bright pink scar now. She had nothing for bruises, or broken bones. So you’ve had to tough it out.

Finnick got his gift a couple days after he had left, sometime during the second week. You hadn’t even noticed it until you and him went back inside after the rule change. To see the silver trident staring back at you. Finnick was all smug talking about how it had to have cost thousands. All you could say was that he could have done just the same with a spear. But he told you that it wasn’t the same.

Whatever, both of you have your respected weapons now. He told you his technique on how he killed so many. You listened as he informed you of the net, that he would throw over the people, get them trapped and tangled. Then he would come in with the trident and kill them just like that.

Unfortunately, with that technique, it meant he kept losing the vine-nets. He’s made four, and he was on his way to making the fifth. Finnick wasn’t too fond of the idea of untangling the bodies of the people he killed from the nets. So instead he just let the gamemakers take them, because they’ll be able to cut it apart and take the body after that. Plus, he didn’t want to take the chance of the gamemakers getting impatient.

But with a rope, no more tiny cuts in the hands. It saves time, it means you guys can kill more people with the light through the waterfall technique. It draws people in, he nets them, kills them, and then the process repeats. But the nets took so much time to make that it would be hard to get two in a day.

Finnick splashes through the water faster than you can. On the way, he steps on the vine-net, and he hisses. Jumping on one foot for a second, holding the other he whines about the thorns. And then he continues, wobbling on his feet slightly.

“This is why you wear shoes!” You tell him, kicking the vines off to the side, away from where either of you would bother to go.

“It’s the hunger games, I don’t need shoes!” He tells you, grabbing the floating sponsor gift. He brings it all the way back over, being careful not to let it touch the water.

It would be fine, if it can float in the water, then it can sink or take in some. It’s probably waterproof, actually. But you can say that you’ve ever seen a gift sent when the tributes were in the water. This is a first for you.

Finnick stands on the rocks next to you, and carefully unravels the parachute, and then opens the lid. It’s a fairly big gift, so when it shows a shit ton of rope, you cheer slightly.

“See! Told you—“

Finnick tilts his head, pulling up the paper. It’s sogs a little in his fingers since they’re wet, but it would be the same for you. Going through the waterfall had completely soaked you like you were swimming in the pond-lake like Finnick had.

“It’s from our district.” Finnick tells you, moving it so you can see.

And clear as day, it says, “This will work better than vines, District Four.”

Tears gather in your eyes and you have to cover your face for a moment, “Just a second.”

“Don’t worry, I’m crying too.” Finnick laughs, and you move your hands.

He pulls out the rope, weighing it in his hands, “Can this stand four more?”

“It could stand the entire twenty-two had we gotten it at the beginning.” You laugh, he joins in.

You look to the water, there has to be a camera on you somewhere, “Thank you, it won’t go to waste. We love you, and we’ll both be home soon, I promise.”

Finnick nods along, “We miss you tons.”

“Can’t wait to start fishing again.” You snicker, and Finnick punches your arm this time, “No but seriously, thank you.”

You and Finnick slip into the cave, being sure to cover the rope so it doesn’t get wet. When you get inside, you unravel the coil, and grab your knife.

“Gonna teach me how?” Finnick asks, you grin at him slightly.

“Sure. If you promise to be a good sport about it.”

—

If Finnick says that it has worked four times before, then it’ll work this time too, if the others will take the bait. The singles are probably desperate to wipe out the doubles so they’ll be able to go home. It’s the same tactic that you were saying before. They’ll be able to make it home if the doubles are taken out because they can’t team up.

The fire is like luring them to their deaths, almost. The both of you are prepared to take them down, and they might be thinking that you’re stupid for even trying a fire in the first place. Wondering how you’ve managed to stay alive so long with such stupid ideas. 

Instead, you guys are clever. You guys have got everything on lock. The fire, the net ready and the trident and spears within grasp if necessary. Unlike all the other times though, Finnick has someone to help. All it’ll take is for them to get caught and for him to stab. There’s no reason for him to even bother helping you with the net.

You’ve made it big enough for them to get caught in, and you didn’t cut the string for the rim. You pull it shut, there’s no escape, and they're tangled in the mesh. Finnick can get them within a couple of seconds, send the body off, and stomp out the fire. Make a new net, rinse and repeat.

“How do you like your fish? Burnt or extra burnt?”

“Preferably not burnt.” You look over to see that they’re practically black, “Remind me why I put you on cooking duty.”

“Because you were wallowing in your own misery?”

“Y’know Finnick, it’s really not that hard to not be a dick.” 

“Some girls think it’s charming.”

“I’m not some girls.” You huff, “But I’m guessing Thyme was?”

Finnick rolls his eyes before shoving the burnt fish your way, “I didn't like her like that.”

“Try again.”

“You are jealous.” He looks smug, again.

“Were you jealous when I told you that Blaire, boy from district three that I was hanging out with for a week straight, no supervision. Just me, him, the vines and the water were together? Him teaching me how to weave the vines, me feeding him so he didn’t die? Were you jealous then?” You tilt your head, watching as the smug falls and turns into something else.

“No.”

“Your voice cracked. You’re a fucking liar.” You tell him, “And by the way, it’s your own fault that I had to make friends with other people while you abandoned me. Leaving me to the fucking hounds.”

“You managed it seems.” He goes to eat.

“That’s not the point.” You tell him, “Partners in crime. An alliance! We were in this together!”

“At least we’re in it together now.”

“Yeah,” you mutter bitterly, going to eat.

It has to be only five minutes of silence, before the splashing of water interrupts you both. Finnick jumps immediately, kicking everything out of the way as quickly and quietly as he can. You take one final bite, getting a mouthful before the net is in your hands.

“Dumbasses.” It's a female voice, but it’s not Trink.

“Who?” you mouth to Finnick, and he thinks for a moment.

“Girl from five.” he mouths back, and then shrugs, “Trink?”

You shake your head.

The splashing gets louder as time goes on, and then you can just barely see her silhouette through the water. Finnick nods to you, letting you know that you should do it.

You get a little closer, hands through the water and then you toss it. There’s a yelp, and you yank the rope, trapping her inside. Finnick goes through the water.

“Wait!” the girl screams.

“Who’s the dumbass now?” Finnick asks, and then the cannon sounds.

Crouching down, you cut the rope, “You can send her into the water.”

“The careers--” Finnick barely gets out, you grab onto the spear. Your heart is pounding in your ears when you stumble through the water.

It’s just Lennox in the water, and he’s bearing a sword. When he sees you, he hisses, “Bitch!”

He turns to leave, but you raise the spear, going to throw it. Finnick grabs your hand, stopping you, “Not today.”

“I can hit him.” you reason, and Finnick goes to your ear.

“They’re going to want a show.”

He’s right, Snow will want a show. So, you’ll just have to wait for another time to kill them. It’s a shame, because you could wipe Lennox right off the fucking map, and all you’d have to kill is Mac and Trink.

When Lennox is out of sight, you send the girl from five off. 

“He knows where we’re staying.” you lean into Finnick a little.

“He won’t come until he’s prepared with Trink,” Finnick tells you, and you watch as the girl gets taken away. You wonder how the family is taking it. If you make it, then that means on the victory tour you’ll have to see their families.

For you, five to six--you’re not sure if the five girl will count as the sixth, since you didn’t kill her directly, you just assisted--different families you have to face. Stand tall and bear your chest and try not to cry because you’re guilty to the very last cell. You killed their family. You killed that twelve year old boy from twelve.

You killed the girl from ten, the boy from eleven, Eytelle, the boy from twelve and Allio. And now the girl from six. You’ve got five deaths on your hands, and you’ll have to face them.

Is it even worth it?

Yes, it is. You’ve gone all this way, you can’t just bow out of it now. You’re almost done, three more to go.

“I’ll go make a net big enough.” you turn, leaving Finnick outside.

-- CHAPTER FIFTEEN --

The sound of a cannon jolts you awake. Finnick, who’s beside you, jumps three feet in the air as he suddenly reaches for his trident. He creeps out of the only sleeping bag that you have, and he goes to the water. Before he can cross it, you grab his ankle.

“You’ll get all wet.” you whisper.

“I need to see.” he tells you, but he knows you’re right. So he strips free of his boots, socks, jacket, shirt, and pants.

He leaves it in a disorganized pile off to the side. Out of reach of any water that might backsplash when he walks through. You watch as he winces at the cold water, before disappearing. The faint sound of splashing allows you to calm down a little bit.

It would be a blessing to get up and follow him. So he wouldn’t be going out there alone, you’d be right next to him in case there is someone else. Ready to pounce and strike.

They know where you are, so sitting here, inside of this cave makes you feel like you’re trapped. At any given moment they could show up and you would be fucked. Especially with Finnick gone, there’s nothing you can do.

Whatever you caught while being in here, it’s bedridden you. Getting up and around is painful. It’s hard enough to sleep at night when it feels like a thousand tiny needles are jabbing into your stomach. It took you over two hours to fall asleep, and you can take a safe bet that you only slept for a couple of hours.

It feels like it’s only been a couple of hours. You should be wide awake, ready to help Finnick if he were to call for help, but your eyes are drooping. Begging for another couple of hours before your body realizes you’re awake and starts the pain. You don’t close your eyes, laying your head down instead.

The spashling has long since stopped. It’s almost pure silence, except for the sound of cicadas and the random shuffling of leaves. The water is a constant, you’ve managed to drown it out by now. Not even background noise, it’s silence due to the consistency. However, you can hear the waves, coming up onto the shore of the rocks nearby.

You try to focus on them, hoping that there will be an irregular rhythm, but it turns out that they too have their own system. Before you know it, your eyes have closed on their own. You grind your teeth to keep yourself awake, it doesn’t work. Your jaw will go slack and it jolts your awake almost.

With a sigh, you push yourself up. Your muscles complain, and you’ve already stirred something in your stomach. Ignoring it, you begin pulling off your own boots, following with the socks.

You strain to hear any sort of sound that would indicate that he’s alive. Water splashing, heavy breathing, the trident accidentally hitting the rocks, but you get nothing.

The clothes come off a little faster now, socks, jacket, pants. You take a breather because the shirt is going to cause more pain that it’s worth. When you feel like you can tolerate it, two hands on the bottom of the cloth, and a quick movement. 

The stabbing appears, and the lines are blurred between your still very broken ribs or the sickness in your stomach. When the shirt is off of you, and you have a moment to breathe, nausea hits you like a truck. You place your hand on the wall to steady yourself, thinking that the cold will jolt your brain.

It works a little bit, but the idea of you puking is at the front of your mind now, unwillingly. You can’t puke, it’s taken you days to work up an appetite. Whatever you have has completely gotten rid of hunger, which is making you drop weight. Finnick can see it, you know.

He gets this worried look in his eyes each time he watches you get up and move. Or try to choke down food, even if it makes you gag. He probably isn’t on your back about it because he knows that you’re trying. You’re not trying to be bedridden, you’re not purposely starving yourself. He knows you want to live, and you guess that he’s waiting for the moment you give up.

It’s charming for him to be worried like that but it makes you feel like a baby. If you wanted to be babied, you would have acted like this since the beginning, even if you weren’t sick. Being incapable of taking care of yourself isn’t a trait that you want in here. Doesn’t get sponsors, at all.

As you get up, you feel like you’ve gained forty years of age. Your muscles are aching, everything hurts in general. The dizziness and the pounding headache comes back. Besides this all, you reach over for the spear, using it as a cane as you hobble your way out of the cave.

The water is cold, and once again, the force of tons of water hitting you nearly knocks you off your feet. On a regular day, sickness and injury free, you would be able to walk through this like it’s nothing. Look at what time has done to you. Made you the goddam laughing stock of the pen.

It’s still dark out, the moon is fairly high, you guess that it’s midnight to one in the morning. It’s an odd time for someone to die, unless Trink and Lennox we’re hunting down Mac or something. Could be the other way around and got himself killed. Mac killed one of them, got away. One of them died of the same sickness you have…

Possibilities are endless here. There’s hundreds of ideas they could have used on you guys. You just want to know what’s so special about midnight, if the gamemakers had done it. Maybe all of you are having trouble sleeping and this is their way of torturing you guys. Subtly, and with sacrifices.

There’s no sight of Finnick, anywhere. Even though you’re already soaking wet, you’re not too fond of the idea of going into the water. The night time is when the creatures come to life. If Finnick had gotten grabbed, then that’s it for him. You can’t go in to save him blind, the automatic right to the win would be given to District One.

You sit in the cold water, knees to your chest as you look over the water, and then the nearby trees. Then to the sky as if they’ll display whoever it is that died. You’ll have to wait tomorrow to see, unless that’s what Finnick is doing.

If he went to the cornucopia by himself then he’s stupid. You get the motive—he goes to see if Trink and Lennox are there, then comes back without being seen—but he’s half naked, soaked in water with a metal trident. The motherfucker is probably slipping and sliding out of his hands. 

You sit out there for another ten minutes, no longer tired, splashing the water onto your stomach every now and then to ease the pain. Eventually, you hear splashing that isn’t coming from you. Your eyes dart over, and you see Finnick, trident in hand as he wades through the water. He makes stabbing motions to keep the creatures away.

“Sorry, I didn’t think I’d be so long.” Finnick tells you, “But it’s hard to leave when they’re talking about an attack plan.”

You perk up, “You’re forgiven, what did you hear?”

“Well, Mac is the one that’s dead.” He tells you, but you guessed that already. The psychopaths from district one are smarter than whatever Mac did to die.

“That’s fine.” You tell him, “A bummer, he was nice. But fine.”

Finnick chuckles, he takes a seat next to you, and then presses a quick kiss to your lips. You scowl, because you’re not looking forward to him getting sick too. But really, he would have had to be sick by now if it’s contagious. What the fuck did you get sick off of?

“They want to attack in two days. Build up on body weight and all of that again. They don’t know if we’re the ones that are dead or killed Mac or whatever. Taking a guess it was Mac that died at least.” He informs, you nod along to it. 

“Two days to plan their murder, huh?” You quirk an eyebrow at him and he chuckles.

“Any ideas?”

“A few.” You admit, a small smirk coming over your face, “Remember how Lennox choked me?”

“Wasn’t there but yes.” He says, crossing his legs.

“And my last name is Gallows…” you trail off, splashing water a little bit.

“Uh huh.”

“What if we take that extra rope, tie it into a noose, lure him in and hang him?” You look over to see him with the same sickening grin that’s covering your face.

“Sounds interesting. Who’s luring and how are we hanging?”

—

Finnick has to watch you way more carefully now. One of your hands are either on his shoulder, so that you may catch yourself in case you stumble. Or it’s in the crook of his arm, where he’ll be able to swoop you into his arms if your legs buckle beneath you. The sickness is eating away at your muscle.

There are times when you’ll be standing, perfectly fine, and you’ll forget about the illness altogether. And then, your legs will give out, Finnick is diving across the room to catch you so you don’t snap anything like a wrist, trying to catch yourself. Your body will slump, like you’re lifeless, but you’re so very aware of it.

It’s scaring him now. He doesn’t think you’ll make it out alive, he thinks that you’ll die in here, from whatever you caught. You’re not hungry, you gag and throw up most of the food you get down. The lack of exercise is diminishing what little muscle you came into the arena with. There’s a high fever, you’re sweating almost constantly, but then the chills will swoop in out of nowhere. Not to mention the round-the-clock headache. 

You want it all to stop. You’ve never got this sick back home, it was the common flu that went around. Only the very, very poor, skinny kids would die to it, since their immune system can’t handle anything. But that’s hardly ever the case, even the poorest people in the district have a fair chunk of change to carry around.

If you’re going to die from whatever Capitol-altered disease, you’d just have it done in a snap. It’s been almost a week of you having it. And the fact that it had gotten so bad overnight is not a good sign. It was just earlier this morning, midnight when you were conspiring with Finnick on how to end this.

It evolved and it’s completely ruined your body within an eight to eleven hour time span. This means that today, tomorrow, or the day after are your final days. You die tonight, it just leaves Finnick to deal with the others. You can’t do that to him, you can’t send him home alone after all that has happened.

You’re not going to give this up.

“Eat.” Finnick shoves the fish into your hands and you take in a small breath, to keep your side from being stabbed. 

“Finnick this won’t stay down.” you tell him calmly, but you pick it apart anyway, using the water to drink it down.

And then you stop as you stare at the water, then back to the fish. There’s only really two ways you could have gotten sick. It wasn’t because of Blaire, he was healthy as fuck, and the only reason why he died was because he attacked Lennox while he was trying to kill you.

You couldn’t have picked it up from Trink, Allio or Lennox--assuming that it had some sort of incubation period--because that means they would have to be crawling with the disease too. From what Finnick has told you, they seem to be just fine. You’re the only one dying in here. 

Finnick is an automatic no, he isn't sick either and he isn’t catching it. Another reason why you couldn’t have caught it from the others, is because it doesn’t seem to be contagious through human contact.

Which narrows down the possibilities. You got it from eating berries and leaves, fish, or the water. You haven’t eaten berries and leaves in a while though, so those have to be out of it.

It’s the water and the fish, they have something to do with it. It can’t be an allergic reaction, because it doesn’t deteriorate the body like this. If it was a reaction, then you’d be breaking out in hives, through closing in and you’d been dead by now. Unless it’s a small allergy, but that’s not the case either. 

“Finnick, what are some diseases passed through water?” you ask, slowly setting the food down.

He tilts his head slightly, “Uhh, E coli, Cholera, Typhoid, Salmonella--? Why?”

Typhoid is the one you recognize, because of the few cases some of the neighborhood kids back home had. With the right treatment, they wouldn’t die, but for the few who let it go on for too long, or didn’t have the money to pay for it, their kids--or themselves--would die. 

“The symptoms to…” you lean back, “What’s the--?”

The headache seems to increase, stopping you from thinking any further. You press the heels of your hands to your temples to ease the pain. Of course, it does nothing, but it feels better than just sitting there. You clench your teeth and squeeze your eyes, rocking back and forth.

Think, think!

What the fuck is the cure to Typhoid? Hell, what are the symptoms? What’s it related to? How can you get it?

“(Y/n)? What’s wrong?”

Few cases back home. Parents who go down to the sea to collect water. Use for baths, and the kids accidentally drink it. It’s not the salt its--its the bacteria.

“Water,” you look to Finnick, “Have you been treating the water?”

His face twists, and then he pales, “I--I forgot once--”

That’s enough for you to catch it. Just a little bit of contaminated water will get it going. Your body has been fighting off this sickness for a week, and it took you this long to think it over. 

That’s not the matter, though. The matter, is that if you don’t get medicine, you’ll die from it being untreated.

“Mags, if you’re listening--it’s Typhoid fever,” you tell her, “Untreated it’ll kill me. Please, please send me something. Whatever it is that’ll cure it. One pill or sip is better than none, please.”

Finnick looks guilty, but you don’t care. It was an honest mistake, he didn’t know that the water was carrying the disease. None of you would have ever knew if he hadn’t accidentally skipped it. You’d still be up on your feet moving around like none of it ever happened.

This must be what he’s thinking, “Finnick, don’t punish yourself for this. Not now, do it later when we win.”

“What if we don’t win because of my mistake?” he asks, you point your finger.

“Hope. You have hope now, because I can’t carry it for the both of us. I forgive you, we’re going to win.”

Silence, as you wait for the sound of a sponsor gift. But the chiming never sounds, letting you know that you’re on your own. It must be far too expensive, or they just can’t hear you.

“We have better things to worry about, Finn.” you shake your head, “We need to do it tomorrow. We can’t wait until the end of the week.”

“I know.” he whispers, “Are you sure?”

“We have to.”

-- CHAPTER SIXTEEN --

There used to be a song that your mother would sing when you had caught the cold. It was more of a poem, but she would sing it like a lullaby to ease your headache and get you tired. It would always be the first couple nights of the cold, which are the worse days, and as it got better, she would stop. A bedtime remedy, to getting you to fall asleep quickly instead of letting you toss and turn through the night.

As you lay awake most of the time now, you think of it all the time. Reciting the words back to yourself softly. You can’t necessarily sing it without waking Finnick, so instead you turn it from a chant to a couple of lines at a time. You decipher the words, find meanings and then you’ll repeat it back to yourself when they make sense. 

It tires you out a lot quicker than you thought it would. Lately, it’s been working like a charm. Tonight, it offers no comfort though, because later today, you’ll be luring the last two tributes to their deaths. You’ll be using the last of your strength to win the games. If today doesn’t work, you give yourself permission to fall over and croak.

You’re in the final hours of your life. Finnick might be seeing it, but it’s not as clear to him. He’s not feeling all of it directly, he’s watching you pretend. He’s not seeing the way that you flinch and wince when his back is turned. If only he saw how much pain you’re in. 

The second you win, you’ll be fine. You’ll be on that hovercraft, they’ll be feeding you to doctors as Finnick has to watch. They’ll be hooking you up to water and liquid food, and medicine that stops the pain and diminishes the fever. They’ll be working their best to save you, because they can’t have a victor die on the craft. 

Finnick wouldn’t need anything done to him. They’d probably take him and marvel. They’d have to fix up a few scars but that would be it. There would be no reason to save him from anything. Unless something goes wrong today, he gets stabbed or something. Not going to happen on your watch, even if he doesn't like it.

The sun rises a little faster now, and you come to terms with the fact that you'll be working off of nothing today. There’s a few things to do to set up the scene, and then you’ll be able to execute it perfectly. 

“Finnick.” You nudge lightly, he opens his eyes slowly, “It’s time.”

“Did you even sleep?”

“An hour or two.” You tell him, “Woke up an hour or so ago. Not much.”

“Okay,” he says, you slip out of the bag first. Your muscles slowly stretch, making a low groan come from you. You’ve been stiff for long enough, your body thinks that you’re a statue.

Finnick slowly starts pulling out food, you make the last fire you’ll ever have to make in your life. When it sparks, your hands go over it immediately, the fever might be burning your forehead, fueling your headache but it’s also controlling the chills. The truth is, is that you’re cold as fuck. When you leave, the water will make it worse. But you’ll get there when the time comes.

The both of you heat up the food, watching as Finnick uncoils the rope, trying the noose. You don’t ask him how he knows to tie it, you just watch, and then you prod yourself a little bit. Taking in an assessment of how you’ll be able to turn your body.

Your ribs on your left side are still very painful, turning that way is like getting stabbed. It’ll take a while for them to heal, unless the Capitol has something for that, to get it to speed up and get placed right back where they need to be, not floating around in your body, causing more harm than good.

The bruises are almost gone, they’re just a very light purple now. Pressing on them doesn’t hurt anymore, it’s nothing compared to everything else that you’re feeling. Your body as a whole is weak, so there's no worry about specific knees or arms, it’s just the both of them. Not good, but you won’t have to catch yourself before you use the wrong one. You’re always taking a chance.

All cuts are now scabs, there’s a few more scars here and there, but besides that, you’re ready to go. Finnick finishes eating pretty quickly, you guys finish off all the food that you had set aside. You feel absolutely sick to your stomach, since it was hard getting it down in the first place. Overfeeding isn’t helpful by any means, until you’re trying to put on weight.

If you guys get hungry later on, it’s possible to grab something from the pond-lake or whatever. You’ll be inside of the woods, near the middle, but it won’t be that far from the pond-lake if lunch would be needed. But by the look on Finnick’s face, he’s not that hungry either. He stuffed himself just as badly as you had. 

He shoves everything into the backpack. The rope, what water you guys have, which he still looks guilty about. Small meaningless knives that you don’t need, the works. After that, he helps you onto your feet, you both take your weapons of choice, and leave the cave.

There was no point in stomping out the fire, you guys won’t be back. Which is why you guys left the sleeping bag, and all the other little things that came with the backpacks when you got them. For all you care, they can burn up in a blaze. The fire will put itself out before it reaches the water.

Finnick leads the way through the water. Instead of going straight out of the waterfall, a little to the left, you guys go right diagonally. If you were to go straight, you’d head right for the cornucopia. You guys want to do it in one of the big ass trees, out of sight of them in case they were to come looking.

You hold Finnick’s trident, as he holds the backpack above the water since it isn’t waterproof, and you guys don’t want the rope to get wet. You’d rather it be dry, it’ll be more harsh when it gets around Lennox.

“Almost home.” 

“We should have built a treehouse. I mean, it’s been a month, we had the time.” You laugh, he snickers.

“Gamemakers would have had a fire.”

“Wouldn’t have been smart. I’m sure that the tourists would have loved to stay in a personalized treehouse! Oh Finnick, do you think we have time?” You bat your eyelashes when he looks to you, he rolls his eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You can hardly stand.” 

“So? It won’t be so hard.” You reason about the hypothetical treehouse, daydreaming about having one. What would go inside, how much time it would take. How you would replace materials like nails with vine and all that. Or very thin rocks that you can hammer into the wood.

“No treehouse.” Finnick tells you, and then the both of you laugh at each other.

When you reach the land finally, you guys take the time to ring out your clothes. Then you continue to the place that Finnick had picked out last night. When you get to it, you’re thoroughly impressed to see that it’s a big ass tree, and there’s plenty of land around to run around in. This is a place you could build a house, raise a family and all of that.

Finnick unpacks the rope, you take it, throwing it around your neck to keep it from going anywhere. You tuck your spear between your pants and belt, with the blade down. You take your water and put it in your jacket, Finnick kisses you quickly, wishes you good luck, and then you turn to the tree.

Spear, rope, water, a good luck kiss. Now, to climb the tree without falling. Your body will complain and give you hell for this, but it’s all for the greater good. 

You climb the tree slowly, being careful of your left side. Right hand, left hand, right foot, left foot. Occasionally you’ll reach higher than you should, wobble, but catch yourself the next time around.

The spear gets in the way and you have to keep moving the water to where it needs to be. You take a break on the sturdy branches, and continue when it’s just enough to make it to the next one.

Before you know it, you’re at the one branch that stretches over Finnick below you. You wrap your legs around the branch, and even go as far as to tie the non-noose end of the rope to your body. Then, you strip free of the jacket, dropping it for Finnick. The boots follow, and you’re disappointed to see that he dodges where you tried to drop it on him.

“Pants too?” You ask, Finnick shakes his head.

You take a long drink of water, since the sun is in your eyes. And then you take another before dropping it for Finnick, setting up the scene where Trink and Lennox will come along just to die.

Lennox is going to be heavy, he’s had plenty of food to eat from because of the middle. He’s going to weigh what he normally did when he came in. Maybe a few pounds shorter. You however, aren’t at all where you need to be. 

The big breakfast helped, but it wasn’t perfect. You’ve got one, two, possibly three pounds more than you had originally. You’ll fail when it comes to pulling Lennox up with the rope using just your muscle strength. To actually hang him, he’ll need something to balance out his weight, almost.

He’s going to be below you, you get the noose around his neck, you yank and what? Choke him for a split second? Finnick will be fucked.

You didn’t propose this part of the plan to Finnick because you knew he would say no. He won’t ever say yes to something this dangerous and risky, which is the exact reason why it’s going to work. Risky, but odds in your favor.

“I’m ready.” Finnick tells you, you nod.

“Let’s do it!”

You cut yourself free quickly, then you measure out just about what you’ll need to fall through on this. Your eyes keep darting to Finnick, worried about when he’ll yell.

You drape the extra rope across the branch behind you, out of sight out of mind. The noose rope is shorter, but still long enough to reach Lennox. Finnick comes over now, standing right next to it, and nods up at you. Perfect length.

It’s going to get shorter though. You tie a constrictors knot, which will be impossible for the Capitol doctors to get off of you, but they’ll manage. They have to save you, and your leg if it’s possible. If there’s no reason to cut it off, then they can’t. It’s not a medical problem, it’s rope.

You dangle your leg, seeing how it reaches the same height as before presumably. Then, you draw some of it back up to keep out of sight of the others when they come in.

Just in time to listen to Finnick give a blood curdling scream. You clench your teeth together, eyes on the direction the others are going to be coming in at. Listening as Finnick continues to scream for your placebo self to wake up. Yelling for Mags to send in some sort of medicine, to save you.

“Please! Please!” Finnick screams, and at the first snap of a branch, your eyes flicker to Trink and Lennox, “No—!”

“She’s not dead yet?” You think you hear Trink ask.

You wonder if the Capitol can spare a false cannon to see what happens. If they’ll attack him immediately, like a bunch of rabid dogs.

“Leave her alone,” Finnick seethes, he’s crouched over, backing up which is drawing the others to walk over. You can see the smiles on their faces from here.

“I’ve got him.” Trink chirps.

“No!” Finnick lunges forward slightly when Lennox gets close to your body, you begin to lower the rope little by little.

Lennox jumps for your body, you can feel your heart pounding in your chest when you free the rope. Only to see it come up short.

“Shit.” You curse, and then you dip your leg over, getting it right around Lennox’s neck.

Finnick attacks Trink, who’s caught up watching the rope. She goes to warn Lennox, but Finnick shuts her up.

Before Lennox can do anything, you take a deep breath. Feeling the fear try to paralyze your body into rethinking this. You don’t let it, you throw your body the opposite side, to the left.

Lennox chokes, you feel the air on your skin as you watch the branch of the tree get further away. Until the momentum comes to a slow, and you’re dangling in the air by a rope from your foot.

You look to see Lennox, face turning purple as he grabs onto the rope to relieve the pain of choking, you curl your body slightly, pulling him up a little, and his eyes bulge. The sound of a cannon startles you, because it’s clearly not Lennox, who you’re staring at, and he’s staring at you. Still alive.

You go to yell Finnick’s name, but it gets caught in your throat. The blood is rushing to your head, the headache increasing in power. The pain just seems to skyrocket the longer you hang here.

“I’m alive.” Finnick tells you, and then you watch as his trident flies through the air.

It misses Lennox by an inch or two, getting lodged in the tree. You sigh, reaching for your spear now. You don’t want to get yourself free. You want to kill Lennox, and you’re sure that it will be a sight to behold, him hanging from a tree, with you suspending him on the other side, a spear through whatever you can get. 

With it in hand, you lean forward, your left side aches from the sit up. You and Lennox lock eyes, and he shakes his head slightly, beginning you not to even though his face is a deep purple and blood is coming out of his nose, trickling down his lips.

You draw your arm back, waiting for the rope to stop swaying, and then you launch it forward, the very last of your strength going along with it. You’re not even able to see if it goes through anything. The sound of a cannon gives it away.

“You did it!” Finnick yells, but his voice is drowned, you can hardly hear it.

You can feel your body relax, arms going past your head. You try to blink away the spots, but they don’t go anywhere. In fact, they take out your vision completely. 

—

I told her so, and if she say,

That she was wrong,

Then may it be,

A quick little bug,

That will come and go.

—

She will lay,

In clean, white sheets, 

A full tummy,

And a cup of tea,

She will rest,

And she will think,

How this will be,

The very last time.

—

But here comes grey,

Water-filled clouds,

She pulls on her shoes,

And her coat,

So that she may,

Go in the rain.

—

I will come,

To the porch,

To warm her of,

What may come,

She will laugh, 

She will splash,

But she won’t listen.

Then she will come later with;

Rain-soaked clothes,

Not feeling good,

And beg me to care for her.

(the poem is a circle).

--

LACUNA IS THE FIRST VERSION OF BELAMOUR

//MASTERLIST//

[kteabug]

just out of reach - m.list

Summary: Iwaizumi and Oikawa were always within arms reach of the other, but what happens when misunderstandings and unspoken emotions drive them apart? What happens when everything they thought they knew about the other ceases to be true and they are left to pick the pieces of their friendship up…alone?

Pairings: Alpha!Iwaizumi x Omega!Oikawa

Warnings: Angst, Slow-burn, Friends to strangers, Strangers to friends, Occasional smut, Mentions of depression, manipulation, gaslighting, anxiety, toxic behaviors.

Rating: 18+                     Tag list: Open (send an ask to be added)

Word Count: 65,660 (as of latest chapter)

Updates: Irregular            Last Updated: May 22, 2022

JOOR Headcanons

JOOR Playlist

JOOR - OC profile 1

JOOR - OC profile 2

JOOR - OC profile 3

JOOR - OC profile 4

Prologue: latibule

Chapter One: habromania

Chapter Two: eccedentesiast

Chapter Three: induratize

Chapter Four: eshajōri

Chapter Five: whelve

Chapter Six: waldosia

Bonus Chapter One: nepenthe

Bonus Chapter Two: acquiesce

Chapter Seven: setsunai

Chapter Eight: anaziphilla

Chapter Eight.Five: lacuna

Chapter Nine: rubatosis

Chapter Ten: retrouvailles

Chapter Eleven: sillage

Chapter Twelve: resfeber

Chapter Thirteen: kairos

Chapter Fourteen: selcouth

Chapter Fifteen: metanoia

Chapter Sixteen: petrichor

Chapter Seventeen: natsukashii

Chapter Eighteen: ephialtes

Chapter Nineteen: sciamachy

Chapter Twenty: saudade

Epilogue: ikigai

hq m.list

[purkinje-effect]

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 81: Cat’s Cradle

Table of Contents. Third Instar, Chapter 12. Go to previous. Go to next. TWs: Police interaction, more memory conflicts. No damn cat, and no damn cradle.

(As always, comments, reblogs, likes, etc. are all greatly appreciated!)

_______________________________

“[The painting] consisted of scratches made in a black, gummy impasto. The scratches formed a sort of spider’s web, and I wondered if they might not be the sticky nets of human futility hung up on a moonless night to dry.” -- Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle

'Choly's eyes combed the display cases in Grey & Gould. Uncertainty planted his feet. He chewed at his lips. On occasion he glanced up to watch Darryl counting his cash bonds on a banker's scale. Whatever the Hierosacristan had traded or bought, he couldn't identify just by scrutinizing what may have gone missing or appeared, and if she'd sold something, it may well have changed hands already. Spectating the broker's unique physiology conquered any lingering nosiness.

Darryl sauntered over to the counter again. His tentacles calculated by abacus and chalk. He reared up a bit to rest his front pair of hands on the edge of the display case, and turned the handheld chalkboard to 'Choly: $2850. I can give you Θ285 or ☼212.

'Choly gagged. The possibility boxed his ears, that he might have worked for the Corvega raiders at one-tenth the pay he should've. Assuaging himself, he remembered resale establishments bought at a steep cut.

"Sticks, the offer's ten-to-one for pulls. And... what, fifteen-to-one for caps? What do you think?"

Sticks could only be so attentive.

"Cash is barely worth the paper it's printed on." The ghoul strained civility. "That's… trade by weight? Reasonable. Generous, even. Mind you, almost nobody accepts paper cash in trades, but everybody in Ant takes aluminum pulls." Hands in his pockets, he straightened and glanced off at nothing in particular. "Stop making eyes at the pawnbroker. You're the one who wanted to finally cash in for pulls. He's got more important things to do than explain money to a crusty old Vaultie."

'Choly dreaded to think what color his face must have flushed under the cast of Burlington glass.

"--I, yes. Thank you, Darryl."

Darryl turned to scoop the pulls off the scale into a sack and loosed a pitying, unpleasant, phlegmy click. He placed it on the counter with a tentacle. Sticks elbowed 'Choly to take it. Darryl's dark unblinking gaze bored into him. It chewed him up that Darryl's mouth so teemed with prehensile tongues that the corners of his mouth could reflect neither a scowl nor a grin--though the speculation whether it once may have titillated the chemist.

"Thanks, Darryl."

Mumbling, Sticks patted 'Choly on the lower back to shepherd him along. Again, the mutant clicked at length at them.

Angel awaited them outside the shop. 'Choly's hand to its chassis beseeched it to lower its thruster force so that Sticks could spot him climbing atop it. 'Choly habitually went to open Angel's storage compartment, but stopped mid-motion clutching his folded-over paper sandwich sack of pull tabs. He reached under his bekesha-tulup and tucked the sack deep into his cardigan pocket.

It still nagged at him that his cane had gone missing sometime in the past day. Bea could have snatched it in spite as contraband. Yancy could have snatched it out of utility. And Sticks could have snatched it to sell for a quick pull tab, behind his back. But he had asked Angel if it had seen anyone take it--of anyone, the DIA Mister Handy with a Gutsy's sensitive extended range biometric sensors would have noted anything--and it had not seen a thing.

He took it as a strong contender for evidence that lacunae affected more than only himself here. The possibility of an extended phenomenon wedged in his throat. If memory issues could affect Angel, even in the absence of one of those radstorms everyone impressed upon him, he regrettably understood the Lane's distrust for robots. Artificial intelligence behaved far too unpredictably, and came housed in too volatile a body, to navigate via psychiatric practices which may no longer have been commonplace.

Maybe he misplaced the cane.

"Really, though," Sticks continued as they strolled the Concourse. "Most places in the Commonwealth, you'd be lucky to get eight caps for a hundred bucks. And he gave you ten pulls for a hundred. He didn't even charge you a trade fee. You probably have got him remembering me to thank for your great luck."

'Choly watched passersby sooner than look to Sticks. He didn't want to remember what he'd meant by that. It nettled him, to feel even more the outlier, between the Lane's temperament and Sticks's behavior in Billerica. Was he wrong to extend dignity to robots like Angel and Bogey? To these folks, robots in possession of something, his companion included, must resemble little more than glorified containers. He gagged again at the thought someone might glean that Angel contained anything more than circuitry and conduits.

"Luck has nothing to do with it." He sighed a little too hard.

"You think my skills are rubbing off on you?"

'Choly flinched at his lyric. His mouth became a thin line.

"Have you thought Darryl might appreciate that someone finds him handsome?"

The ghoul guffawed.

"You must think you're God's gift to ghouls and mutants." Sticks sneered. "He's swimming in all the ladies, I'll tell you. Gents, too, I’d imagine. Aren't I all the eye candy you need?"

The chemist stifled a chuff. A smirk stitched at him.

"Get back to me when you sprout a few extra parts."

Still, 'Choly liked the insinuation Darryl could be so right at home here. They passed Gate City Drugs and Burlington Glassworks, and he dismounted. He put his hands to Sticks's chest and fished for a kiss.

"Come on now. You know I kid."

Sullen, Sticks relented and pecked at him. He tugged down 'Choly's visor.

"Some days, I can never be too sure with you."

"...What is Darryl, anyway?"

Sticks withdrew and fidgeted with the frogs on his oiled longshoreman's coat. They approached the Food Court checkpoint.

"Why do you keep asking that? I've already told you I don't know. It's not like there's more than one of him around. He's just Darryl. Isn't that enough?"

'Choly supposed he had stuck his foot in his mouth back at Grey & Gould. It may have been his own hard-earned savings, but he regretted insisting upon handling that exchange himself. Sticks seemed to hate not being the one controlling transactions. First, the night with the Unfolded at Glenn Johnny's, and now this. He'd relinquish that responsibility in the future without argument, if it assuaged Sticks's nerves… and pride.

At the checkpoint, a pair of See's guards pored them over to ensure they had not somehow procured weapons within the Concourse. When the trio passed through the double gull doors, their focus lay not on food, but upon getting outside.

'Choly stiffened at his first time in the Food Court since the confrontation in the lease. Yancy and Bea had not fabricated their grievances: Liam had in fact erected the Gate City Blood Drive in the Food Court. One of GCC's nurses attended an autoclave as they passed through. No queue stood waiting there, but it reassured 'Choly to see the nurse had reason to sterilize the equipment fresh. The GCD's surety would pay for that traffic until he could collect enough donations to break even. He estimated two weeks' operations would yield what he'd need for the Satellites' Stimpak order, and another two might reimburse the Mayor. His shoulders softened, and he found himself smiling. Both his Melancholia and financial stability lay in his future.

He'd never noticed the Food Court's outer entrance until now. From their outbound vantage, more See's guards attended this checkpoint than any other. They prioritized yanking only the largest inbound population risks. The trio observed them confiscating a bandolier of frag grenades, and chastising its owner for attempting entry without unloading at the kiosk. 'Choly presumed the kiosk in this corridor was the weapons check for this end of the Lane, where people could pay to stash things with a likelihood of later reclaiming them from See's.

He decided he still trusted his luck with Angel's hidden compartment, sooner than volunteer any of his belongings to the Lane's mercurial cops likely cruising to fill contraband quotas.

They met a clammy, overcast autumn day. If eyes could ring as ears might, it would feel like this. ‘Choly strained not against the brightness of the outdoors, but against the shift in vibrancy. The visor could not limit his color perception, and tilt-shift fringe-blur struck him here with even greater intensity than in the shadow of the parking garage. He realized he couldn't recall the duration since his last exposure to natural light. He squinted and shivered cupping his fur collar to his face with both hands.

He popped a fresh Mentat under his tongue, only to chew it up instead.

"Do you suppose I should ride Angel out here?" he asked. "To vary our vantage? Between us, we've got nearsighted, farsighted, and hindsighted."

"I'm not certain you're using those terms correctly, Sir. But you know I'll gladly assist you. Do let me help. I can't apologize enough, that I haven't the slightest where your cane's gotten off to. Can I--"

"--Should I even ask which of us is which? ...Probably only should if you need to."

"I was just trying to be funny. Anyway, it's nice to get some fresh air."

"Ah, we're making small talk!" Angel trailed closer to 'Choly. "The Lane is unique in many ways, you know. For example, we're now about eleven feet into what once was Massachusetts. The building foundation straddled the state border."

"Four Corners." Sticks chuckled, lacking humor.

Contrary to their purpose visiting the Flea Market, the cinema beckoned 'Choly. He strolled around the corner to loiter beneath the drive-in theater screen still standing along the southernmost outer wall of the Food Court. He adjusted his visor as he peered up at the drama showing today. Although no horror film, the grainy, ancient, monochrome motion picture comforted him in this too-real outdoor color spectrum. The transitory reflex crawled his fingertips along the knobs of his Pip-Boy. He hadn’t much bothered with using the radio in their time there, but its display showed ‘Pheasant Lane Drive-In’ among available frequencies. He tuned the device accordingly, and was met with Vera Keyes’s smoky, captivating voice. A strange smile drew his face crooked as he glanced back up at the screen, able to follow along with more than lip-reading to go by.

“...That was a dead giveaway, you know, darling. Wanting us to die together like that. Dying together is even more personal than living together…”

The next 'Choly looked up, he found only Angel near him. His heart fluttered to have gotten separated so easily, and his eyes darted to locate Sticks.

"Worry not, Mister Carey. Mister Hawthorne is speaking with See's. I don't believe he shared your interest in the film."

‘Choly’s Pip-Boy continued to provide background noise…

“Looks like bits of ice.” “Wish they were.” “They're really nothing but a few pieces of carbon crystallized under high pressure at great heat.” “Quite so, if you want to be scientific about it.” “I’m a great believer in science.” “Like tears, for instance. They're nothing but H2O with a trace of sodium chloride.” “He likes you, but he hates the bracelet–”

…until he shut it off.

Five guards had circled Sticks near where they had entered the Market. Anxiety crept over 'Choly, identifying many people wandering the shack-like stalls carried various guns and knives. He felt so naked. Angel had none of its attachment weapons, and he didn't even have his cane. He couldn't risk giving away Angel's compartment by fishing out the Tryasovitsy--not that he could produce it at the speed necessary to defend himself with it. And he'd gotten separated from Sticks…

Sticks surely had done something to warrant the attention. The ghoul noticed that 'Choly finally noticed, and shot him a broad silent smile. Then he resumed chatting unhelpfully with See's.

The clouds held back no longer, drenching everyone and rendering the crumbled asphalt slick and muddy. His visor may not have done much for the light or vibrancy, but at least it shielded his glasses from the downpour.

"Mister Hawthorne advises that we not worry about it. But do we not worry about him or the weather? Ohh, do I loathe getting stuck in the rain…! There's a great din for me to filter out amid all these people, but I'm positive he said we must go to the West end of the Marketplace. He saw something right before he… erm, stepped away. I certainly hope there’s a roof, wherever it is."

Seeking shelter in the Concourse from the rain, the line of people stretched longer at the Food Court checkpoint. Perhaps Angel's presence could be all the bluff 'Choly needed, for people to steer clear of him long enough for him to look into whatever Sticks could've urged them to investigate. All the same, he loathed the ease with which they'd got separated. He had keys to the lease, but he hadn't been around people like this… Not since before… Too, getting back inside would prove an ass pain…

And yet, the silenced cinema persisted.

“Not exactly a day at the beach, is it, Sir?” Angel gripped his shoulders to direct his attention. "--Stars and garters, Mister Carey! There it is. Isn't it? Isn't it!"

The leather orthotic corset and a pair of matching arms hung in what looked to be an armor vendor's stall.

Shock and interest bolted from him before he could consciously omit them. Nearly stumbling, he ambled to the merchant: a bald ghoul in a fair isle turtleneck sweater and a mixture of leather and combat armor. To the ghoul, 'Choly couldn't help but worry how his gait must have looked without his cane, even with leg braces. There was no steeling himself against any hypothetical accusation he purposefully mocked anyone.

Thanks to the rain and the line to get indoors, people had crammed into any covered area. Many browsed the ghoul's wares to stay dry, regardless of their interest. The ghoul could identify 'Choly as a strong contender for a sale and closed the space between them.

"You've got a discerning eye. Looking to complete that set, I'm guessing."

Sputtering, 'Choly produced no meaningful noises. He bundled up tighter, but the cervical collar didn’t protect his cheeks from the chill of wet long-pile fur. Of course the person with the orthotics knows exactly what they are. And we've located it while Sticks is detained. It's all up to me... Fuck, it just had to be the whole goddamn reason we're here in the first place, didn't it. He'll be furious. 'Choly cleared his throat and patted at his cardigan pocket to reassure himself he at least had that much to go on.

"How… how much for them, then?"

"All three pieces?" His rasping thin voice barely cleared the sound of the heavy rain. He thought on it, eyeing 'Choly's legs. "Let me think on it."

'Choly's head sloshed. Angel squeezed in under the awning itself just to get out of the rain. The robot's presence drove several loiterers to adjacent stalls, and snared the vendor's intrigue. Choly's eyes begged it for solidity. When it remained quiet, he mumbled at his muddy dress shoes.

"I'm impressed. I wasn't expecting anyone to know what they were. The other pieces, I got lucky with leather salvage."

"I've got to know the in's and out's of armor. My family does ordnance control for the whole Lane. You'd be surprised just how many landmines you can still find littered around the ruins. Though, some have totally been there longer than others."

Sobered, he looked to the ghoul, struggling not to lose himself in following his deep wiry scarring and bone-deep patchwork omissions of flesh.

"So it really does have value as armor."

"Some of the best Stabilizing gear you can get. Lightweight, great energy resistance, exceptionally easy to layer. Quiet as a whisper, too, well-oiled. Worth every pull, I'll wager." He lost his humor in thought. "I'd advise against looking for mines unless you're trained for it, though--and properly outfitted. These Surgical Leathers might stop a stray bullet and stand up to a fusion cell, but it takes some real Dense stuff to safely handle explosives disposal."

He knew why the orthotics benefited him specifically, but in much the same way he'd been informed repeatedly that his Vault Suit provided more than mere standardized dress, he appreciated such thorough insight.

"Oh, I assure you, this is exactly what brought me in."

"I'd bet the rain did me a favor as well. Say, I pride myself in outfitting people how they’re best suited. What do you need the Surgical Leathers for, exactly?"

"You're being honest with me. I'll level with you. I'm not here for armor. I'm here for medical equipment."

'Choly relaxed a bit recalling that Bones had QUARPEL-treated his coat. He produced the dry Walden catalogue from his front hip coat pocket, unrolled it, and flipped to the well rehearsed page to point at the drawing of the product hanging before them.

"I'm here for them all the way from Concord, Massachusetts,” he continued. “I've searched everywhere for these things. Just the collar has curtailed my migraine. Just the legs have aligned my gait so I haven’t got to track how I walk, and can focus more on where." A dull rap of his gloved knuckles to his chest emphasized its composition. "I've given canvas a try, but what I’ve had of it couldn’t possibly compare, to be perfectly candid."

"Medical care…" The ghoul frowned in thought, eyeing the catalogue. "I really can't do less than two-fifty for them, for your health or not. Hours of restoration labor, you know.”

‘Choly’s heart constricted in his throat.

"And you've done beautiful work. I can tell. I… I didn't think you highball. With how versed you are with your inventory, I thought you'd… benefit from the extra information about them. This town once had a medical supply warehouse only blocks away from here. You're sure to put your hands on more in the future."

The ghoul exhaled his bated doubt that his potential customer had shaky faith in his expertise, and smiled.

"Well, of course I'm knowledgeable in my wares! Like I said, connecting specific armor types with people with specific armor needs is one of my… one of my greatest satisfactions with this job."

‘Choly smiled in kind. He burbled a shy chuckle as he fished out the dry sack of pulls.

“Two-hundred fifty, you said?” He stopped without unfolding it, and looked to the ghoul as his smile melted into a grin. “This is two eighty-five. What can I get for another thirty-five?”

“Seems the only other thing you’re lacking is some face protection. If the glasses aren’t for show, I’ve got some real nice goggles.” Remembering Angel was nearby, he glanced over to it to think. “That thing’s with you, then? Think it’d fancy a hat?”

“I’m quite fine without accessorization, my friend,” it replied. “All that matters to me is that you take care of my dear friend here.”

“I need them to see, unfortunately. And no, it doesn’t need a hat.”

“Ah, you’re the understanding type of machine. Not just the computating type.” He clapped his hands and rubbed fingerless gloves together. “I’ve got spindles. I can count out two-fifty no problem.”

“It’s no trouble. If all I walk away with is the orthotics, then I’ve achieved everything I set out to achieve by coming up here.”

“I mostly do this to help people learn what kind of armor best suits their needs. With Concourse regulations and See’s watching their backs 24/7, Laners might not need to bother with any, but we Satellites can use all the protection we can get. Even rarer types, like… this medical equipment!” The ghoul eyed Angel, then looked to ‘Choly again. “Now that you’ve completed your shopping list, where you headed next?”

“Oh, we’re here for the season. We just took a six month lease. I’m sorry. Where are my manners? What did you say your name was?”

The ghoul smiled wide and extended a handshake. As far as ‘Choly could tell, the gnarly fellow was in one piece, if only barely, but his grip was firm.

“Verity. Verity Royce. Of the Royces.”

“I’m Melancholy, and this is Angel. And that’s–” Recognition snagged him before he could point to complete the group introduction. He trailed off as Verity watched him expectantly. He shoved the sack into the ghoul’s hands, then flinched into feigning reading the Walden catalogue. “--That, that’s going to be our lease mission. Medical things. A drugstore. Yes, that’s exactly what I was getting at. Gate City Drugs. Of course.”

Verity’s smile withdrew in thought, and he shook the bag in a gentle rhythm.

“The Concourse sure has changed if they’ll admit a robot. My brother Gerald’s with See’s, you know. He keeps the mall safe, so he can keep all the Royces safe. Sometimes, I get to grab lunch with him, but it’s been a few weeks since he could break away from his duties. Or something.” His smile faded as he began threading twin check spindles with pull tabs from the sack. “I miss him something wicked. Don’t get me wrong, he brings in a ton of pulls to send home. Well, it hasn’t all been pulls. Especially lately. Without him at home now, it’s… easier to be tempted to bad habits, is all. He just doesn’t have to work so hard all the time. Does he?”

‘Choly could follow his approximate meaning and nodded to keep Verity distracted from his verbal flub. Verity straightened and stared off into one corner of the sturdy driftwood stall.

“A drugstore on the Concourse has surely got to be selling some fine candy. Most chems barely give a ghoul a buzz. Maybe things really are turning around. Maybe I should take up Gerald on his offer to pull some strings, get me on the force with him. I’ve resisted it for the longest. Never understood how Gerry could trust Laners–no offense.”

Heavy-lidded, ‘Choly held his hands up understandingly.

“Well.” Angel reached up to take the prize off the wall hooks. “I think that in your hands, this mall would surely be an even safer place to live.”

“What a nice robot.” Verity squinted, disarmed. “I can see why they’re giving it a chance.”

“Truest blue. Razve eto ne pravda?”

“...Mm, your guardian angel, Sir.” It turned slightly. “I don’t advise that.”

‘Choly could feel a rifle against his back.

“There you are.” When a See’s grabbed him by the arm, he presumed the woman behind him was, too. “Sneaky. You’d think it’d be easier to spot somebody with a big metal companion.”

“I paid for those!” The guard with the gun flanked him to take the other arm. When the guards wouldn’t let go, his eyes wilded in Verity’s direction. “You know what? You’ve done me such a fantastic service today. Keep the change.” As they dragged him out into the rain again, he called out, “Consider it a thank you!”

Confused as ever, Verity couldn’t tell whether he should wave in gratitude.

“Please unhand him,” Angel said. “Or at least state the cause for all this commotion.”

“First things first. We’re taking you two back to your pal.”

The moment they stepped within earshot, Sticks perked up. See’s wouldn’t let him move from his spot just yet.

“Oh thank fuck you’re done. Didn’t want to go back inside without you. I’m ah. Nobody thought it was important to inform me I’m not allowed out here.”

“Sticks has a restraining order on him,” another guard elucidated. “Several. You didn’t go pulling one over on Verity Royce on this guy’s behalf, now, did you?”

Aghast and indignant, ‘Choly could only presume this guard was Verity’s brother. Not that he’d be able to pick up on any family resemblance…

“No!” he sputtered. “No, of course not. We had legitimate business.”

“No,” Angel agreed. “It’s got nothing to do with that in any way. All he did was direct us to Mister Royce’s establishment. We’ve been searching for these for some time, you see. And we’d be ever so relieved to get them someplace safe and dry.”

“He did, did he?” The other guard beside ‘Choly rolled her eyes at Angel. “If you aren’t up to any funny business, you won’t object to running through Customs.”

“Oh, nooo,” Sticks blandished. “Of course not, ma’am. Standard practice, isn’t it? Anything coming in from the Market has to pass inspection.” The ghoul play-pouted as the guards escorted the three of them back inside as a group. “I’m wounded you’d think I’m up to anything at all, officer.”

‘Choly rolled his eyes under his breath, dreading what depth of scrutiny lay ahead within the strictest checkpoint on the property.

“When aren’t you?”

Go to Next »»»

[anghraine]

“the jedi and the sith lord” - chapter twenty

o_O

Last chapter:

If she’d know she could do that back on Tatooine—

Of course, she couldn’t do it back on Tatooine. Or now, for that matter.

Lucy scowled at the book. The thing she still didn’t understand was how you went around sacrificing your life force at all.

This chapter:

“I need to practice healing,” she said artlessly.

Behind his mask, he blinked. “What?”

“It’s not like there’s a lot of wildlife around here,” said Lucy. “I’ve tried to read the book and figure out the diagrams, but I don’t think I’ll be able to really understand unless I try to do it.”

chapters: chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, chapter five, chapter six, chapter seven, chapter eight, chapter nine, chapter ten, chapter eleven, chapter twelve, chapter thirteen, chapter fourteen, chapter fifteen, chapter sixteen, chapter seventeen, chapter eighteen, chapter nineteen

-

Vader had just stepped out of his ventilation pod when he found LX-3, of all people, waiting for him. Already annoyed with his foggy visions while in the pod, he glowered at her through his lenses.

“What are you doing here?”

Doctor Izahay, who had assisted him through today’s time in the tank, glanced from droid to cyborg, plainly perplexed. 

“I came to report on an unexpected occurrence,” Ellex said, and turned her head to stare at Izahay. 

“Return to the medical bay, doctor,” said Vader.

“Yes, sir,” Izahay said, with another suspicious glance at Ellex. She gave her a wide berth as she exited the room. Izahay was efficient and loyal, but not one to hide her judgment of any given situation.

Vader returned his gaze to Ellex. “What is it?”

“It concerns Miss Skywalker,” said Ellex.

Some small part of Vader felt a flare of satisfaction at the name, as he did always did. His name, no matter what Palpatine might pretend, even if it had lost all meaning for him personally. Someone, somewhere, had wanted her to know whose daughter she was. Owen and Beru Lars, he was inclined to think, and rather regretted that they had—obliviously—stood in the way of the Empire. 

A larger part of him was already alarmed.

“What about her?” he demanded.

Ellex said, “She requested that I harm her.”

“What?”

Anakin Skywalker had, despite his long-ago nickname, felt many moments of fear, dread, horror. But this nearly surpassed them all. Lucy had seemed relatively content for weeks, eager if impulsive in her training, no more than annoyed at the worst of times. That was the reason he’d lowered the guard on her. Was she trying to escape, after all, in a different way? Was it—

Recovering some fragment of his composure, Vader said, “In what way?”

“She said that it did not matter,” replied Ellex.

Vader considered that. He didn’t know whether to take it as a good sign or an even more terrible one. Only Lucy, he thought, could answer that question. 

“What did you tell her?”

“That I preferred to keep my processor and circuits intact,” Ellex said. “I did not suppose that you would tolerate such an action, sir.”

“No,” said Vader tightly. “I would not have.”

He found that he could extract no further information out of her, so he dismissed her, and headed towards the training room. It was only a little before Lucy’s appointed arrival, and sure enough, she showed up shortly thereafter, her omnipresent book tucked under her arm. She seemed hurried but no worse.

“What’s on the schedule for today?” she asked.

For a moment, even that seemed unanswerable. He simply looked at her, trying to think of some way to introduce the subject. Nothing came to mind.

“LX-3 told me you asked her to hurt you,” he said. 

At that, Lucy actually wrinkled her nose.

“I should have known she’d tell.”

“Yes,” said Vader. “You should have. What possessed you to request such a thing?”

“I need to practice healing,” she said artlessly.

Behind his mask, he blinked. “What?”

“It’s not like there’s a lot of wildlife around here,” said Lucy. “I’ve tried to read the book and figure out the diagrams, but I don’t think I’ll be able to really understand unless I try to do it. But I couldn’t think of anyone I could try it on, except myself.”

His dread dwindled; he couldn’t sense any deceit from her directly, or in the Force. She’d actually concocted this asinine plan.

“You thought you could sacrifice your life force to yourself?” 

Surprise radiated through her. Then she looked sheepish.

“I suppose that doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“No,” said Vader, “it does not.”

“I just didn’t think it through that far,” she admitted.

“Clearly.”

“I wasn’t going to have her really hurt me,” she said. “I just needed some scratches. Well, I thought I did. Now, I can’t see any way to try at all.”

She withdrew into a brooding silence, frowning at the floor as her mind jumped from thought to thought faster than he could follow it. For himself, Vader once again had no idea what to say. He had a vague idea that she should be disciplined for such idiocy—and for the alarm she’d given him—but he couldn’t see how. He didn’t want to alienate her just when he’d started making progress, and he could think of nothing but tightening the restrictions on her again. But what would that do? It was Ellex she’d gone to in the first place, and in any case, she was something like an adult.

“Show me what is confusing you,” he said at last.

Lucy brightened and pulled out the book, opening to an early page. On one side, he saw a diagram of a human or humanoid body with lines that might be veins tracing through it. On the other was a long block of text, which he scanned quickly. The lacuna must be adumbrated in concept prior to any supplementary action. 

What? No wonder she’d wanted to try a direct effort, even if the method she’d attempted was incredibly foolish. 

“Now you see the Jedi Order in practice,” said Vader.

“Oh?” 

“Clarity was often not their strong suit,” he said.

She sighed—sometimes he wished he could still do that—and closed the book. 

“I guess not.” Then she looked up at him. “So you can’t heal yourself with the Force? It has to be others?”

“As far as I understand,” said Vader. “At least, if you use the Light Side. I have … heard that some measure is possible with the Dark Side, but I don’t know the details.”

“Hm,” said Lucy. “Can you heal?”

“No,” he said. 

If he had any affinity for the power that kept Palpatine upright, he’d have used it on himself long ago. And if something happened to Lucy, saving her would likewise be beyond his powers, however great they might be otherwise. 

He asked, “Did you never considering going to the medical bay?”

“The med-bay?” For a moment, she seemed baffled. Then her eyes widened. “For practice, you mean?”

“You should have seen other patients when you were there,” he said. All the more after the battle, however quickly it had occurred.

“I was a little preoccupied,” said Lucy. “Anyway, I wouldn’t have thought that Doctor Izahay would let me.”

“Doctor Izahay,” Vader said, “will do whatever I tell her to do.”

“Right.” She dropped her eyes to the cover of the book. “You’ll tell her, then?”

“That depends on you,” he said.

-

To Lucy’s surprise, her—admittedly foolish—misstep of the morning seemed to pass without consequence. The dread Darth Vader, who was also the fierce hero Anakin Skywalker, just looked at her, then walked over to the table. 

“Put down the book,” he said, and picked up a long wire before turning back to face Lucy. “Focus on this.”

She raised her brows. Moving a wire around didn’t seem particularly challenging, but he usually had some other end in mind, obscure to her as so much was. Even though they were psychically linked or whatnot, which seemed unfair. She listened to him in the Force, but felt nothing other than methodical purpose above the subterranean anger and pain. She didn’t think he was angry at her, though, just … always angry to some extent or another. Maybe because of the pain, or some Dark Side thing. 

“I am waiting,” said Anakin, a familiar impatience touching his tone.

Dutifully, Lucy focused on the wire. She could feel it clearly in her mind, the length and narrow breadth and metallic sheen. Okay.

“Now,” he said, “bend it.”

She gave him a puzzled look. “Bend it? How?”

“You can move the whole, can you not?” he said. “Why not just half?”

But it was harder, like the precision work. Minutes ticked by, the wire vibrating in his grip as she tried to move it without moving the whole thing. The grip of his mind was even stronger than that of his hand, and certainly stronger than hers; the wire wasn’t going anywhere. And when she finally succeeded, only a generous person could call it success at all; the wire snapped right in half.

Lucy stared at the pieces. 

“Uh,” she said.

“Interesting,” said Anakin. “I had not intended that yet.”

“Yet?”

“I did intend you to learn to crush and break items from a distance,” he said, which sounded a little horrifying. “If you were, for instance, trapped in a cell—”

“A cell?” she said. “How exactly is that supposed to happen?”

“—then bending and snapping metal bars would be useful,” he went on, unperturbed. “But control is important. Bend this half”—he floated one of the pieces back into the air—“without damaging it further.”

All in all, she spent an hour that day trying to figure out how to move various parts of things without moving the whole, bending and stretching and crumpling them or hitting switches and pulling levers. It was at all points difficult, but she could see the why more easily than most of what she did, even if she couldn’t see the opportunity to use most of it here. By the time it ended, she felt wrung dry, but she still beamed when he handed his lightsaber over. 

It got a little easier over the next few days, though not by much. She thought it would always take more of an effort than most things. Her progress must have adequately satisfied her father, however, because on the fourth day, he took her to the medical bay.

Doctor Izahay glanced up as he entered, her expression shifting from preoccupied professionalism to alarm. Immediately, she hurried over, her gaze briefly flicking from Anakin to Lucy before returning to him.

“What has she done now?” she asked. “Or is it you, sir?”

“Nobody has done anything, doctor,” said Anakin. “Yet.”

Izahay frowned. “Then—”

“Miss Skywalker,” he said, slightly emphasizing the name (our name, Lucy thought), “is my apprentice.”

Izahay looked at her uncomprehendingly.

“She may, perhaps, have found a technique that can aid you,” he went on. “You are to give her full access to the patients.”

“Full access, my lord?” Izahay was already shaking her head. “But what if—is the technique validated by—”

“That is an order, doctor,” said Anakin.

Privately, Lucy insisted on thinking of him by his true name. But she acknowledged to herself that his tone sounded very much Vader in that moment.

Izahay swallowed. “Very well. But she will need to follow all hygiene procedures and limit interference to this … technique.”

“I’m right here,” Lucy said.

Izahay deigned to look at her again. “I see that. Do you understand?”

“Of course,” said Lucy. “I don’t want to harm anyone.”

“See that you don’t,” Izahay replied, then sent a slightly nervous glance in Anakin’s direction. “When should I expect these visits?”

“They will start tomorrow,” he told her, and that was that.

By the time Lucy arrived at the med-bay the next day, she was a little tired from the training with her father, but mostly eager to try to do something, and something on her own, at that. She ignored Izahay’s obvious reluctance, submitted to a change from Padmé’s clothes to white medical get-up, coiled her hair into a net and washed her hands with something that turned them red and stinging. Then Izahay gestured towards a line of patient beds.

“Take your pick,” she said.

Lucy scanned the beds; the patients were nearly all humans, and about half of them asleep, or at least unconscious. She didn’t really feel up to talking to anyone, with so much unspeakable, so she walked towards the furthest of the unconscious soldiers. She couldn’t deny that it seemed strange to be thinking about helping Imperial soldiers, but—well, she had to try to figure this out. And she’d rather not experiment on Rebels, even if it were possible.

She pulled a nearby stool over and studied one of the boards hanging on the wall, which listed each soldier’s injuries with scrupulous exactness. Okay, this one had only been shot in the shoulder—it looked just that bit too deep for bacta to reach.

Feeling a little silly, Lucy reached a hand out and held it above the man’s shoulder. But her theory that it might simply come out of her if the situation called for it was immediately proven false; nothing happened. Conscious of Izahay’s glower, she closed her eyes. How did you just go about giving up part of your life force? 

It’d help if she could feel it. She tried to meditate, ignoring the sharp medical scents around her, straining to feel the energy behind her breaths and pumping blood. But she didn’t feel anything except the Force, and for once, that wasn’t what she wanted—not wholly, at least. She had to give something up. How, though? 

After an hour of nothing, Izahay showed up to shoo her away.

“But—”

“Lord Vader gave me clear instructions,” said Izahay. “You are not to spend above an hour here, and at any sign of weakness your technique is to be immediately halted.”

Lucy nearly wrinkled her nose again. She didn’t see how much progress she’d make in an hour each day. But considering the whole death-if-you-do-it-wrong angle, she could understand why he’d be careful. She was probably lucky he’d allowed this much.

“All right,” Lucy said. “If he says so.”

“He does.” Izahay glanced down at the patient, someone called Lan Grenath. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” said Lucy.

The next day yielded no better when she tried to push some part of her spirit into Grenath. The Force swirled about her, easy to grasp at the moment, but it didn’t help her do anything. After that, Lucy tried reading the book again, focusing on the sections on the life force itself rather than healing, which she’d previously been more interested in. As far as she could tell, she needed to withdraw into her body (?) to attune herself to the energies within her (???), which she could then manipulate. At least, she thought it meant that. 

The following day, she didn’t even try to heal Grenath or any of the others, instead just folding her hands in her lap and trying to meditate deeply enough to banish everything beyond the limits of her own body. She even had to do her best to block her sense of her father, though she could still feel that he was out there, somewhere. And the day after that, Lucy managed to narrow the world down to her body, tuning out everything else and feeling something beat away within her, beyond the thump of her heart. Was that it?

The sensation quickly faded. But Lucy practiced it even after Izahay kicked her out, and between her training sessions with her father, determined to hang onto it. Yes, controlling objects from a distance and defending herself from blaster bolts were important, but this felt more important still, if she could only get it right. 

On her fifth day in the med-bay, Lucy managed to retreat into herself in the way she’d practiced, this strange other reality enclosing her in a comfortable pulsing darkness. Half-dazed, she reached her hand out again, not quite touching Grenath, and strained to find some way of passing that energy on. She couldn’t push it; she’d tried. But this form of healing used the Light Side, didn’t it? The Light Side didn’t like being pushed. 

Lucy hung onto the energy within her and reached for the Force, struggling to let both flow through her. For a moment, she just felt dizzy and confused, her mind tugging against itself—and in the next moment, it felt like something swung around, everything pouring through her body as if she were nothing but a vessel of the Force. As quickly as it had happened, the sensation stopped.

She looked down at his shoulder. The discolouration of his skin was gone. The tear left by the blaster was gone without so much as a mark left behind. Even an old scar several inches away was gone. 

Lucy didn’t dare risk Izahay’s ire by raising her voice, so she strangled the impulse and instead pulled her hand back. Walking over to Tisix, she quietly asked the droid to evaluate the injury to Grenath’s shoulder.

Tisix grumbled but complied, stalking after her and then stopping at the man’s side and giving a low whirr.

“There is no injury,” Tisix announced. “Is that quite all?”

Lucy smiled at nothing in particular. “Yes. I think it is.”

-

She raced into the training room that day, heedless of anything but not tripping over her own boots. Inside, she found Anakin methodically chopping a pipe into segments for no apparent reason, the red lightsaber flashing.

“Father,” she said breathlessly. “I did it!”

He extinguished the lightsaber before turning to look at her. “You did what?”

“I healed someone! One of the soldiers in the bay!”

She felt his attention sharpen, narrowing in on her.

“I’m fine,” she told him. “A little tired, but that’s all.”

“Good,” said Anakin. She wasn’t exactly sure which statement he was responding to, but felt too ecstatic to bother trying to figure it out.

“I did it, though! There’s not even a scar now.”

“Very impressive,” he said. 

Lucy grinned.

“All the more,” he said, “as you required no training in it.”

She thought about that. “It felt like I did, but I guess not. It didn’t come as naturally as some other things, though. I can’t wait to go back tomorrow—”

“Absolutely not,” said Anakin. “You’ll need to take several days to recover and replenish your life force.”

“But I don’t feel like—”

The mask seemed particularly relentless. She exhaled, but couldn’t feel too much disappointment in this moment. Instead, she smoothly transitioned from an explanation of how she’d finally managed to heal to her training of the day—which was mostly the same as the previous few days, except that Anakin had Ellex shoot her with two blasters at once, from varying directions. That way, she didn’t do nearly as well as usual at deflecting them, even with the Force flowing through her, though she was never completely stunned. As usual, however, she improved over the next several days, and Anakin let her return to the med-bay. 

Now, Lucy tried a patient with a more severe injury, one that had perforated his lungs. She wouldn’t be able to get her hand as near the injury as before, though she didn’t know if that actually mattered or just helped her direct the energies. It took multiple tries, but on the fifth, he seemed to breathe more easily, his features smoothing over, and on the seventh, a machine beside the bed started beeping. Izahay came running over.

“What did you do?”

“You’ll see,” said Lucy.

Izahay scanned the readings, her brow furrowing. “That’s impossible!”

Lucy, perched on her stool, just swung her legs back and forth, smiling as Izahay turned to her. 

“What did you do?”

“You’ll have to ask Lord Vader about that,” Lucy told her. She did feel a little light-headed this time, but no worse than that.

Izahay evidently did ask Anakin about what had happened, because he quietly congratulated Lucy again when she showed up for her formal training that day. She’d taken a nap and felt fine again, thankfully. She managed to deflect the blaster bolts from all directions and when he set the blue lightsaber on the table and told her to activate it without touching it, she managed it after several tries—it seemed to resist the tug of her mind somehow, but not indefinitely. 

Anakin took the lightsaber and turned it over in his hands, seeming almost lost in thought.

“The time has come,” he said. 

Lucy blinked up at him. “The time for what? Are you going to teach me something else?”

“Not at the moment,” said Anakin. He slung the lightsaber back on his belt. “I have seen the location of Jerjerrod’s and Varti’s private fleet. Meanwhile, Jerjerrod is preoccupied with the Emperor’s project. Varti has returned to Naboo.”

Something in him recoiled from the mention of that particular planet, though Lucy didn’t know why.

“Oh,” she said. “So it’s a good time to check things out?”

“Precisely,” he replied. “However, if I were to appear there in person, it would immediately raise alarms. I go nowhere unnoticed.”

“True,” said Lucy. “Well, you’ll have to send an agent.”

“Yes, I will,” he said slowly. “In a matter of this much importance, it would have to be an agent of extraordinary capabilities and dedication. One who could communicate their observations and actions without any possibility of detection, and respond to my thoughts and plans in an instant.”

She drew a sharp breath.

Back in the Rebellion, quite a few people had dismissed Lucy as a skilled soldier but not much else—good at flying and shooting, not thinking and plans. But she was by no means a stupid woman. 

Lucy met his gaze as directly as she could.

“You’re talking about me,” she said.

[kaorei-endgame]

Ranking of Resident Evil save room themes?

I got my first latte of the season, it’s chilly enough to wear pants indoors, #Streamtober started yesterday. LET’S DO THIS, NICK. >:O 

17. Resident Evil 6 Chapter Ends, All Characters: Back to the cabbage patch. None of you are valid, with your Netflix Original knock-off of some ABC knock-off of 24-ass soundtrack. Go suck a giraffe’s dick with an Ada clone, Jake Muller.

16. Resident Evil, Deadly Silence: What is this Resident Evil for Babiez? Nintendogz+ResidentEvilz? Imagine listening to this on the crappy DS speakers. Wasn’t there something creepy about Jill’s costume in this game, like you could tear pieces of it off, or am I just conjuring fall memories and combining them with how they went out of the way to add boob bounce to the REmake 15 years after the fact, and now Jill’s boobs on PS4 undulate languidly beneath her shirt like a pair of Dragon Quest Slimes yearning to be free. This track: aural despair, unleavened. A way to quickly induce nausea in dogs who have eaten chocolate or raisins.

15. Resident Evil 6, Ada Chapter End: Well, okay, this one is all right. The first fifteen seconds feel like a HiFi version of a track from those Playstation 1 top-down shooters where you played a murder clown or a pyro guy escaping a space prison where you were held for crimes you definitely DID commit. The little background jog kicks in soon after and look, I’m a soft sell for ululation, what can I say.** But it just all just serves to stir memories like embers finally gone to smolder beneath the fireplace ash, stoking them after all these years, reminding me what a weird psycho they turned Ada into in this game. I like reflecting on how people got so mad about there not being co-op in Ada’s campaign that Capcom patched in a partner but his name is like “TeamMate” or “Buddy” and he has no lines of dialogue and is never addressed in the story in any way and thus is either a figment of Ada’s imagination or he’s a real dude who’s just pretty quiet and ultimately drowned on that sub? Well, I guess life’s tough if you’re the (potentially imagination) friend of an ex-spy turned pod person.

**(i contacted my musician friend, Kylie, who confirmed that ululation  was the term i was thinking of, lest i second guess myself. at the same time, i’ll post her text here lest i misrepresent her words “Yeah, ululate as a technical term is vibrato using the tongue, so that would be wrong, but ululate as a descriptor refers to a sound that has a very pronounced waver between tones to it.” cool! i’ve often wondered if that’s the most accurate way to describe it. thanks Kylie!! :D)

14. Resident Evil Revelations 2: Claire gets the best costumes probably across the whole series and yet it feels like she’s gotten the least love of all the main cast. I never really got it, she looks good in denim, whether jacket or pant, and her Revelations 2 blazer does her all the favors. But now they’re remaking RE2 and they turned her face into this weird porcelain Precious Moments dol—MY BELOVED DAUGHTER. MY MOIRA. I SWEAR I’LL FIND YOU. FOR THE SAKE OF JBLL I WILL AVENGE YOU AND THE OTHER ONE.

13. Resident Evil 0: What’s with all the shivery whiney stuff. Like your younger sibling running nails down the chalkboard of your spine, like how the speed run of this game hinges on juggling an evasive bat with 5 out of the 6 flame rounds on hand, so try. Neither relaxing nor scary. Do I hear something like a bongo in the distance? That is the clarion call of Becky Chamber’s goose booty coming home to roost.

12. Resident Evil 7: I had a dream last night about this game. If you have phobias about glass and/or mouths and/or wasp genitals, I would skip this paragraph. I was in the house where you have to run away from the mom with the disgusting wasp hive vagina. Also—unrelated and yet somehow related, as dreams always are—I had opened a beer bottle in such a way that the stem broke. I had decided to drink it anyway and now, as I progressed through the house, I found that there seemed to be endless small slivers of glass in my mouth that I had to repeatedly spit out lest they cut me. When I woke up, my jaw was clenched to the point of soreness. Welcome to the family, I guess. Otherwise this save room music reminds me of the game itself: mostly dull and barely there.

11. Resident Evil Revelations: Item Box Music, only Save Room Adjcanet. Can’t disassociate this from the “swish-swish-swish-SHUCK” sound effects of navigating menus to equip Charge Shot 2 to my Shotgun. Not as pleasing or as integrated into my bone marrow as  the Resident Evil 3 equivalent, but I have probably played this game through thirteen or fourteen times at this point. Life is short and yet the strings of fate tug us the directions they will.

10. Resident Evil 5: Again, this is menu music. No save rooms at all in this game. Anyway I have no inherent memory of this song because I’m sure I’ve talked over it while upgrading my M92FS to 100 bullet capacity 110% of the times I’ve played this game. Exempted from higher echelon of rankings on these technicalities, but still A POOR PERFORMANCE INDEED for Not The Best Resident Evil Yet Paradoxically The One That’s Given Me The Most Joy In My life.

9. Resident Evil, Dead Aim

: Wow I almost can’t believe I don’t remember this despite playing this game enough to write a speedrun guide for it. Well, that was the style at the time. As was a bloated zombie corpse boss, I suppose (long before Left 4 Dead, those copy cats), whose weak spot was its exposed brain which, halfway through the fight when you’d done enough damage, would pop out and dance a sprightly jig on its brainstem every time you shot it. With the whisper of wind and rain and single intermittent synth I feel like I’m living in a cyberpunk future and not a game whose protagonist’s “””cajun””” accent is as questionable as its presentation of the antagonist’s gender.

8. Resident Evil, Umbrella Chronicles

: Hey now, weird bit of the creepy-freaky bass here kind of does put you in a certain headspace, but it’s not the headspace i remember of this game, which was basically unplayable in co-op for the final 3rd because a failed QTE would result in a hunter slicing away half your health. Good for an Into the Breach playlist to keep you focused on the action and stop you from trying to play it while also binging a Netflix show about werewolves that you didn’t really like anyway, and splitting your attention between visual mediums is just getting Good Pilots Killed.

7. Resident Evil 2: Ominous. Maybe TOO Ominous at points. Aren’t save rooms about being safe? I guess we could argue that because the save room reflects the lacuna of safety  BING BONG piano is the Try Hard version of video game music asking “you scurred yet?” Perhaps a novice mistake from a first-time director who would go on to do so many great things (well, RE2 among them, no lie). In a way, this fits with Rookie Cop Leon S. Kennedy, and anyway it’s so over the top I’m kind of okay with it. Most innervating when first heard on your way to equip a cowgirl costume for fast-firing six-shooter action. Guns suck, and cowboys too, but both are okay if we experience them in the abstract sense. This is what culture teaches us. Fan the trigger.

6. Resident Evil 4: A surprisingly gentle one, considering the series turn towards action from which it would never recover. I am transported to the early minutes of a horror movie where the audience knows something the protagonist doesn’t about the terror that’s about to befall them while they blithely pick up a desiccated nudie mag in an old shed on a haunted property they inherited from their estranged uncle, more focused on the “ballistics” before them than the axe murderer crouched in the shadows of disused farm equipment behind.

5. Resident Evil 3, Nemesis: More languid riff on 2. Strings get you shivery, and no more than a single BONG per two measures proves that save room music is as much about the notes you DON’T play. Two bongs to scare, but one bong to keep you on your toes, disallowing you from getting *too* relaxed by the soothing bleeps and bloops as you combine the 3 Gunpowder As you just found to make sure you have enough ammo to pistol-juke the so-called unkillable Nemesis. You’re not coward, but that doesn’t make you brave. Discretion is the better part of valor, they say, but that’s not taking into account that non-discretiony valor rewards you directly with a faster-firing pistol with critical headshots. :3

4. Resident Evil 1, Vanilla: Gentle, plucky strings make you question your memory, more familiar with later revisions than you are this one. How often was I in this place? Or does its primacy belie its immediacy? If I went to the strange, pointless closet around the corner from this medicine save room, would I find a broken shotgun I expect there, a round of magnum ammo, or simply the ghost of discarded aspirations masking as memories. I recall a time when it felt like time was enough, but then again, this was back when anything sub-three hours would get you the infinite rocket launcher, regardless of how many First Aid Sprays you used.

3. Resident Evil 1, REmake: High fidelity version of RE1’s gentle strings remind you of simpler times when your worst fears were zombies resurrecting into scarier, faster zombies with claws. What we wouldn’t give to go back to those days, and maybe tell ourselves not to take out so much student debt. Listening to this sends a pulse of gentle energy through my shoulder blades that makes me think “relaxation,” though I’m not sure my body understands the meaning of the word. A respite in trying eras, there is no association with the tension of shaving 15 minutes off your time to be competitive. “Safe Heaven,” they call it; a theme for a place that is not our own, but should be.

2. Resident Evil 1, Director’s Cut: Wow I did not expect music box chimes and tones stirs something ancestral in my blood. I’ve played the Director’s Cut far more times than the original RE1 and this is like coming home to a big house where I enjoyed an idyllic childhood, but I now know every box is filled with the creepy knife doll from Onimusha. Though these senations are foreign to me, something about them inspires a thirst for a homeland I never knew.

1. Resident Evil Code Veronica: The absolute chillest. In life, paths may wind, but the ultimate  The strings are tickling your spine. You’re so relaxed you feel like oiling your ponytail, and you could even take a nap in Steve Burnside’s arms without reflexively gagging. When you hear this, you are at peace, and the world seems like a place that can be kind. Truly, the Code is Veronica.

and don’t forget to vote in our poll on whether or not we’re playing Claire A or Leon A tonight!

[everythingjonsa]

Jonsa Fanfiction

Okay so I randomly made up a story for an ask that I answered today and I thought maybe I should better it an turn it into a proper fic. This is my first venture into fanfiction and I am a very impatient writer LOL!! So do tell me if you like it and how I should improve it. I said I’d never write fanfiction, but don’t they say Never say Never... LOL. Thank you @kitten1618x for thinking I should write fanfic. And @accuritefish for encouraging me to turn this into a fic. Love you all!!

SNOWED UNDER BY LOVE

 CHAPTER 1

 JON SNOW got out of his black and white Maserati, parked at a safe distance from the Book store he planned to pay a visit to. It was late August and the sun shone brightly in his eyes causing him to squint a little. He undid the button of his black silk shirt that he wore under his Grey Suit as he tried to read the name of the book store from a distance. Damn, he’d forgotten his glasses. After a lot of squinting he finally read the words painted in silver…

THE LITTLE CITADEL

Jon smiled slowly thinking how much Sam would’ve appreciated the name. He then braced himself for doing something he partially hated doing, but he knew it had to be done. One of the Hospitality companies he owned had bought all the three blocks adjacent to this shop for his new Hotel project and he needed to buy this store because it was facing the main road and was built on a prime location. The book store owner had turned away three of his employees politely and Dolorous EDD, his friend and the vice-president of his company informed him that apparently they all came back telling how it was such a bad decision to buy out her store. This lady had never lost her cool even once while talking to his employees and had them wrapped around her little finger in a matter of an hour; three of his BEST employees. Jon then suddenly remembered that he knew nothing about the lady who owned the store and had requested EDD to send him her file. He took out his phone, irritation creeping into him at this lacuna in knowledge. He always liked to do his homework before meeting his nemesis. And if this woman was half as good as Edd had heard she is, he was going to have to use all the tricks in his playbook to get her to agree to sell.

“EDD, you’ve not yet sent me this bookstore lady’s name and details..” Jon barked into his mobile phone irritably as soon as EDD came online “How am I supposed to convince the lady to sell her store to me, if I don’t even know her name?” 

EDD mumbled something about messaging him the details in just a while and Jon cut the phone with a huff as he entered the store. The store was bigger than he’d expected it to be. They walls were painted grey but everything else, especially the book shelves were all as white as snow. At the back end of the bookstore a beautiful weirwood tree with its fiery red leaves was painted artistically on the wall and suddenly Jon had to literally hold himself back from rushing to the tree and tracing it’s branches with his fingers. This Lady was definitely a northerner, Jon made a mental note. Could he exploit that connection? There was no one in Kings Landing who could know or appreciate the beauty of the weirwood tree like he could. Surely the lady and he had one thing in common, at least. As Jon slowly looked around, he realized that the book shop was so tastefully decorated that he almost felt bad that he was going to have to arm twist the owner into selling the shop to him. But he knew it had to be done. He was going to have to offer this woman a deal she couldn’t refuse.

Jon straightened the jacket of his steel gray suit and ran his hand over his curls which were tightly secured in a man bun of sorts. Jon decided to pretend to look through the collection of books. He had to buy some time till his office sent him all the details. He passed rows and rows of books stacked neatly in the snow white shelves. The children’s books section was the only one which had rainbow coloured shelves and a small play area where children could read and play. He imagined that a lot of book readings and story-telling sessions must happen in this very area. He paused when he saw the Harry Potter series and a sense of nostalgia washed over him. He picked up the first book in the series, Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone and many memories that were kept hidden on purpose, threatened to come back to him. What a positive impact this series had had on him when he was growing up! He felt so connected to the characters especially because there were so many similarities between his life and Harry’s.

His mother Lyanna Snow had been a single parent and Jon had never known who his father was. When he was 11, he was called a bastard by someone in his class and somehow the name stuck. No one befriended him. He had been alone and an outcast until the Starks had moved back to Winter-fell from Castle Black. Robb Stark strode into school like a rock star and with his good nature and drop dead gorgeous looks had become the most popular boy in school overnight. When Ramsey Bolton had called Jon a bastard in front of Robb, he got punched so hard in the face by Robb, that no one had ever dared to call Jon a bastard for the rest of his schooling days. For Robb stark had become his Ron and the Starks had become his Weasleys. Jon used to practically live in Robb’s room. Ned Stark and his mother had been classmates and had gone to Winterfell high together. So Robb’s dad and his mom doted on Jon. Arya had idolised him. She had mimicked everything Jon did which would amuse him greatly. Bran was too mature for his age, but Jon had loved him dearly and Rickon was everyone’s baby. Only Sansa had remained elusive and withdrawn from him. Jon squeezed his eyes shut to will these memories away.

“Why do you like Harry Potter?”

Jon was so taken aback by the sudden delicate voice that seemed to come out of nowhere that he almost dropped the book he was holding. A little girl of probably four or five was staring up at him with icy blue eyes from a little pink chair that she was sitting on. Jon cleared his throat and looked around to see if the parent of the child was around but it looked like the girl was sitting there all by herself. He was already slightly impatient with the amount of time EDD was taking to get back with the information. It was so unlike EDD. In the meanwhile he thought talking to this sweet child may just be what he needed. So Jon grabbed a bean bag that was lying nearby and dragged it near her chair to sit down next to her.

“I like Harry Potter, because it’s the story of an ordinary boy doing extraordinary things!” Jon replied almost extremely tempted to ruffle the girl’s curly mop of black hair which looked so much like his when he was a child.

“What is extraordinary?” The girl asked him with a slight pout that reminded him so much of a girl he once knew. Sansa Stark…..

“Well the dictionary meaning of ….” Jon started to say but caught himself when he realised to whom he was trying to explain this to. He smiled slightly at his own folly as he saw the little angel’s pout change into a brood, which looked pretty much like his own childhood broody pictures. He remembered Catelyn Stark’s words. “You brood too much, Jon Snow” So he crossed his arms and leaned forward slightly. “Well, extraordinary means when you do something that no one thinks you could’ve ever done.”

The little girl’s brain seemed to process this information that had come out of his mouth. She imitated Jon’s stance folding her hands in front of her chest and leaning towards him. “Have you done anything extraordinary?” 

Her question stumped him momentarily. Jon wondered how he was going to answer. Where should he even begin? Jon had lost his mother when he was just fifteen. Ned and Catelyn Stark had insisted that Jon come and live with them. Robb and Arya had had his things packed and brought over to the stark mansion before he could even say a yes. When he was 21, he had started from scratch with the Angel investment Ned Stark had made in his company eight years back. He owned more than thirty companies in the Hospitality sector today. He had managed to create, build and grow all his businesses into a massive empire worth $340 million. Jon had been lucky enough to appear in Forbes Magazine’s 30 under 30. But how does one explain all this to a child without sounding like someone who brags? He cleared his throat. “I’ve built a few hotels.. ummm… buildings… I mean errr.. Skyscrapers so I guess, I’ve done a few extraordinary things” He replied to the girl who was watching him with great concentration, not knowing if he was making any sense.

“My uncle can turn me into an airplane and make me fly!” The girl stated with obvious pride in her uncle’s skills and Jon instantly broke into a grin. “I think that’s very extraordinary.” continued the little girl, he blue eyes sparkling.

Thank you for the lesson in humility, love, he told her in his head. “And what about your Dad?” Jon asked without giving a second thought but the second the words came out of his mouth, Jon knew he had made a mistake. The child’s face fell like her favourite toy had been taken away from her, forcibly.  

“I don’t have a Daddy.” the girl looked like she was close to tears and Jon felt like he was the worst kind of monster. This was not a good state of mind to be in before negotiating a difficult deal.  Jon was at an utter loss for words.

“Mummy says she’ll tell me about him when I’m older” The little girl’s face lifted a bit slowly  “But I have four uncles, an Aunt and Grandma and Grandpa and six cousins. We’re a big family.” Her face fell a little again “But sometimes I wish I could call Uncle Robb “Daddy” just like Sarah, Ben, George and Lilly do.”

The mention of an��‘Uncle Robb’ did various things to Jon’s heart at once, none of which he was willing to explore at the moment. He’d lost touch with the only family that was truly ever his because of one single mistake that he had unknowingly committed. But he’d always sent them Christmas cards but never got a single one in return. Five years had gone by and he missed them every single day. He never had a father, just like this little girl and his heart went out to her. His palm automatically went to cup her cheek. 

“What’s your name, darling?” He asked her wondering if it was strange that he thought he could see so much resemblance between her and his childhood photos. It had to be the hair, he told himself. All kids with a dark mop of curly hair look similar.   

“Lyanna ” said the girl and Jon suddenly had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. ‘Uncle Robb’ first and then ‘Lyanna’ … this was getting ridiculous. The girl cheerfully continued “But you can call me Lya. That’s what Mummy and everyone in my family call me. I’m named after my grandmother.” 

Jon heaved a sigh of relief. The girl’s grandmother was called Lyanna. It had nothing to do with his mother’s name. The girl said she had a grandpa and a grandma. His mother was long dead. Jon smiled at the girl. “So what does your Grandpa call your Grandma, if both of you have the same names.”

“He calls her Cat!” Lyanna looked at Jon incredulously as though he was thick-headed or something and Jon felt like all air had beeen sucked right out of his lungs. He could not be hearing this right. It was impossible. He stared at Lyanna like she was probably not real, like he had conjured her out of thin air.  

Lyanna who was oblivious to the emotions that were going through Jon, continued talking while kicking her legs back and forth playfully . “My Grandma is called Catelyn, my ‘grandmother’ is called Lyanna and no one gets confused because Grandma Lyanna is in heaven. She doesn’t come to visit us, ever.” Jon saw it then, as clear as day. Lyanna was his spitting replica only with the exception of her blue eyes which she had no doubt inherited from her mother. The very thought of her mother, now made his blood boil and set his pulse racing.

For the sake of your good health Sansa Stark, he sent out a prayer into the universe, I really really hope this is not what I think it is.

Jon was now gritting his teeth to keep the anger that was exploding inside him under check. There was still a good possibility that he was over thinking this. “So, you have an Uncle Robb, an Aunt Arya, an Uncle Bran, an Uncle Rickon, a Grandpa Ned and a grandma Cat, who is the fourth uncle?” He asked her as gently as he could.

“It’s Uncle Gendry!” Lyanna exclaimed and then looked at him suspiciously, “How do you know all their names?” She asked him frowning at him with narrowed eyes looking very similar to her mother, he suspected. So Arya had finally come around and married Gendry. But he hadn’t received an invitation for the wedding. Why would Arya exclude him from her wedding? Why would Robb not tell him that he was now a father of four??  He glanced back at Lya who was still frowning at him and realisation dawned upon him.

Of course he got no invitation for the wedding or news of the births of Robb’s children. No wonder the Starks had shut him out. They were all hiding a secret. A secret, that had everything to do with him. Jon was so livid he felt his ears becoming hot.  Just then his phone beeped. EDD had sent him a message. 

“Her name is Sansa Stark. She’s 24, unmarried and a single parent.”

Jon kept staring at his phone unable to move a muscle aware that the little girl next to him probably thought he was mad and it was not going to earn him a first good impression if he was what he thought he was to her. So he smiled and sweetly asked her the last question that he thought was necessary. “How old are you, Love?”

“I’m four.” She asked inching her chair away from him and he instantly regretted the coolness of his voice. The math unfortunately fit perfectly in his calculations and once again Jon felt like he was being hurled down a cliff, rescued then hurled down again. 

His phone beeped again and brought him out of his trance. EDD had sent him another message.

“Ummm… Is this ‘your’ Sansa Stark?”

Jon shut his eyes in an attempt to get a reign over the various emotions that were raging within him. EDD sent him another message and this time he practically growled but he read it anyway. 

“Well, She is your Sansa. I double checked twice, so that makes is four times. Hence I took so much time. Jon……. You’re so fucked buddy!!!”

[vernicle]

Introduction to Judicial Review of Administrative Action in Malta

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Introduction to Judicial Evaluation of Administrative Motion in Malta An integral and pertinent section of administrative legislation is the judicial critique of administrative action. Judicial critique is the system by which a conclusion of a government section, authority or company, may well be reviewed and sooner or later annulled by the courts if it goes counter to the legislation.

The action is out there to everyone who is aggrieved by a government conclusion or action which concerns them. Posting 469A of Chapter twelve of the Legal guidelines of Malta is the operative article which grants these types of power to the courts. Nonetheless, even in absence of any these types of legislative article, judicial critique may well be claimed to be an inherent power of the courts on the basis of the doctrine of the separation of powers embraced by any point out which purports to be democratic.

Temporary Track record The doctrine of Maltese Judicial Evaluation of Administrative action is akin to the English doctrine on Judicial critique. This is so mainly because the basis of Maltese Administrative legislation is English Widespread Regulation. Even just before any codified legislation on judicial critique existed (1964-1981) our courts however asserted their power of critique of administrative action by relying on English Widespread legislation rules of judicial critique.

In fact, the Maltese judgement Lowell v. Caruana (1972) founded that English Widespread legislation is the basis of Maltese Administrative legislation in situations of lacunae. Posting 469A states: "Preserving as is in any other case offered by legislation, the courts of justice of civil jurisdiction may well enquire into the validity of any administrative act or declare these types of act null, invalid or without outcome only in the following situations: (a) the place the administrative act is in violation of the Constitution (b) when the administrative act is extremely vires on any of the following grounds: ii.when these types of act emanates from a community authority that is not authorised to accomplish it or ii. when a community authority has failed to notice the rules of pure justice or obligatory procedural needs in undertaking the administrative act or in its prior deliberations thereon or iii. when the administrative act constitutes an abuse of the community authority's power in that it is performed for improper applications or on the basis of irrelevant considerations or iv. when the administrative act is in any other case opposite to legislation.'

An administrative act or a government conclusion or action involves inter alia, the concern of licences, warrant, permits as very well as orders. Prescriptive Period inside of which to File an Motion The action against a government or other community authority is to be lodged in court inside of 6 months from the working day upon which the government conclusion or action is taken, or licence or permit is officially issued, or from the working day that the aggrieved discovered of these types of a conclusion.

Maltese Court Choices on the basis of Posting 469A In an action for judicial critique the court is empowered to impugn and declare null an action or conclusion taken by a government authority. Nonetheless, the court can not substitute its own conclusion with that of the government authority the place the conclusion of a government section has been annulled on the basis of unconstitutionality, extremely vires or illegality, the court can only get the government section to reconsider its action and choose an additional conclusion.

The court can in no way get the government section to choose a specific conclusion. As a result, the refusal of the Law enforcement Commissioner to grant a permit for hearth-is effective exhibit was quashed by the Court on the basis that he had centered his refusal on a new policy not nevertheless envisaged by the legislation. (1)A conclusion of the Board of Charm of the Scheduling Authority was quashed on the basis that it had imposed vague and unclear disorders on the applicant.. (two)A conclusion of the University Rector to refuse entrance to a student was also correctly annulled. (3)The study course to which the applicant had utilized for was topic to a numerus clausus.

The court observed that the standards upon which admissions to the courser had been to be made had not been promulgated as legislation, as was necessary by the Training Act. As a result, the contested conclusion was annulled as it had not been launched on any legal basis. Damages beneath Posting 469A It is attainable to declare damages beneath an action for judicial critique. Nonetheless, this is quite constrained.

Maltese doctrine excludes any declare for damages on the basis of psychological discomfort or distress. As a result, the only damages which will be granted are people which the applicant endured materially (this may well include loss of upcoming earnings) as a consequence of the conclusion taken by the government or community authority. The prosperous obstacle of a government conclusion or action does not automatically entitle the applicant to damages. Unless of course the government act is established to have been executed in poor religion or if it is established to have been unreasonable, then declare for materials damages will be prosperous.

As a result, whilst the conclusion of the University Senate to expel a university student in her fourth year of scientific tests was correctly quashed, her declare for materials and psychological damages was denied by the court mainly because the applicant failed to demonstrate that the University Senate had acted unreasonably or in poor religion(four). Dr Natasha Buontempo Edu. Cert., B.A., Dip. N.P., LL.D Author's Note: In my following article I will be dealing with the grounds of Judicial Evaluation of administrative action individually. Contents of this article may well be applied for academic reference only and may well not be reproduced without the author's consent.

(1)Socjeta' Filarmonika La Stella v. Kummissarju tal-Pulizija, Charm, 19/seven/1997.

(two)Fenech v. Awtorita' ta' l-Ippjanar, Charm, fifteen/twelve/1997.

(3)Attard v. Ellul Micallef, Charm, four/3/1998.

(four) Buttigieg v. Rettur ta' l-Universita' ta' Malta et. Very first Corridor Civil Court, 22/twelve/2003.

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[reneesbooks]

WIP Intro: The Knight of Lacuna Lake

genres: adult fantasy

Sir Keelan of Leyne did not plan to be knighted at the tender age of fifteen, but he was. It was a tragedy, in fact. For killing the raiders who burned his village and slaughtered his parents, Keelan was knighted by Queen Rosaleen of Raedora and accepted as a sworn shield of the royal family.

He spent his first night in the barracks stifling sobs with his pillow.

The songs all say that Keelan O'Leyne is worth twelve men in a fight, that he walked for three months to offer the old queen his help after his village was burned to the ground, that he is the new queen's most loyal attack dog, that Lacuna Lake is bottomless but if there was a bottom, Keelan O'Leyne would be there to welcome you to hell. The songs are wrong, of course. Keelan is a horrible swimmer.

What he is, however, is the Knight of Lacuna Lake, Queen Maura of Raedora's closest confidante and friend. After her mother and sister were murdered and her father died a week before her coronation, Keelan is all she has left. Morbhard is a city perched on the edge of a bottomless lake and full to the bursting with thieves, criminals, and secrets. It's his job to keep those things from destroying his queen, but sometimes it seems that the secrets in Morbhard's streets are leaking from somewhere closer to home. As Maura grows more and more obsessed with her dead sister's prophecy, can Keelan keep her from falling into the far more bottomless lake of her own misery?

themes: loving monsters, devotion, saving someone who doesn't want to be saved, unrequited requited love

this is a new project for May, a story about a knight in love with a magical queen who does his best to save her from her own destiny. influences from irish mythology/foklore and some worldbuilding in anticipation of a continuation of the story. my brain is rotting with thots about Keelan and Maura and i will be posting scenes of this wip throughout the month, possibly more if people seem interested. hoping to finish the month with a first draft :)

find tagged posts here

posted parts:

chapter 1: part 1, part 2, part 3,

chapter 2: part 4, part 5

taglist: @serenanymph @lyssa-ink @oh-no-another-idea @lena-rambles @ashen-crest @tragicbackstoryenjoyer @serpentarii @allianaavelinjackson

[ilguna]

Lacuna - Chapters 17-20 (f.o)

summary: they say the odds tend to favor those who need them. well, they were wrong.

warnings; swearing. HINTS AT CHILD PROSTITUTION.

wc; 10.4k

NOTES; I give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

-- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN --

The room is unpleasantly quiet as it has been for the past couple of hours. You’ve waited patiently for a doctor or something to come in and assess you, take in your mental state or whatever while you’re awake. So they know that you’re not going to attack the first person that comes in.

No one has come, and you’ve tried to keep yourself busy, but there’s not much to do. You know not to take out the needles and the cords but if it gets them in here faster, then you might take off the one that is connected to your heart monitor. If it flatlines, then that means you’re dead. They’ll come running.

You’ve looked yourself over already. Your skin is smooth, free of any sort of blemishes that might have occurred during your stay inside of the arena. Scars, cuts, bruises, anything broken. They got rid of the scarring on your fingers from years of fucking up with the fishing lines and pricking yourself with needles and the hooks. 

You’re free to move your body to the left, and when you do there’s no pain. Standing up, there’s a small sore area in your ankle, and when you look down, there’s no bruising, but there should be from the rope. You can picture the pattern of it now, dancing all around your ankle.

At least you’re able to walk on it with no pain. You move your head, neck, shoulders, torso, arms, wrists and fingers. Then down to your hips, legs, knees, ankles and toes. Your fingers move your nose, which is still tender, but it’s back in place, no longer settled in it’s crooked state. Any teeth that might have been broken are now back in place, and it seems they might have straightened your teeth while they were at it. When you run your finger along it, perfectly in place.

The ring from your mother is nowhere in sight. You’d had it on this entire time, your ring finger had swollen around it, rather than letting it slip off with the weight loss. You trust that they have it somewhere safe, they’ll give it to you later on.

Your nails have been cleaned of any nail polish and dirt. Your entire body is clean, actually. Which is what happens when you want a sterile environment to fix everything that had gone wrong while you were inside.

Tired of the waiting, and dying to see Finnick—wondering what they had done to him—you pull the electrical cords that are attached to suction cups from your chest and toss them to the side. You swing your feet, eyes on the door as you listen to the dull sound of the heart monitor.

The door swings open, and there stands your doctor, and Mags. Their panicked expressions relax immediately, and they come into the room a little calmer now. The doctor pulls out a clipboard from thin air, and you watch momentarily as she reads over it.

“I’m ready to go now.” you tell them, “Make me sit in this room any longer and I can promise you that it will not be pretty.” the doctor looks up, unimpressed, “I just came from the fucking hunger games, if you think that I won’t be able to get creative with the shit in here, you’re dead fucking wrong, doctor.”

Mags motions for her to hurry up, clearly not excited for what you have in mind. Or she gets that you’re anxious and you’re ready to get out of the sterile white room. Which is unexpectedly boring, nothing to do but listen to what used to be your heartbeat. Be left to your own thoughts for too long.

When the doctor is done looking everything over, she allows you and Mags to leave. Cleaning up whatever you might have messed up for her, especially the monitor, which has been blaring loudly for minutes now. Mags leaves you through the winding halfways, hand on your arm.

Elysia finds you two, and she looks relieved, “Not dead after all.”

You fight back the glare you want to give her, because despite being a Capitol citizen she’s so exceptionally rude. You’ve heard so much about some of the representatives that come from the Capitol. How all of them seem to have a stick up their ass or something about manners. And here you are, stuck with her. You haven’t liked her since the beginning, she’s negligent, and she doesn’t deserve to represent district four.

“Wouldn’t that have been a twist.” you give her a sour look, before down at Mags, “I’ll be seeing Finnick soon?”

“At the--” Elysia starts.

“Shut up,” you snap at her, “God, my fucking time in the arena was a vacation from you and your stupid fucking accent.” you let go of Mags as you turn to Elysia, who’s starting to look more afraid, “it’s your fucking faults that we have to fight to the death in the first place, you’d think you’d have more respect for a fifteen year old who just killed seven people. We provided you a show, now provide me with some silence, and fuck off until I actually have to see you for the ceremony or whatever. Bye.”

Elysia looks like she’s going to give you a piece of her mind, but there must have been a look on your face, because then she’s suddenly terrified, and she’s scurrying out of the hallway, away from where you and Mags are heading. You take her hand again, placing it on your arm and letting her lead you to where you need to be again. You don’t apologize or offer a snarky comment, because there’s no need to.

You’re sure that if Mags could speak, she would thank you for doing it. Tell you that you should have been a little bit bigger and threatening. If she’s lucky, then you won’t shit talk her in front of her own people tonight. Because that’s what's coming, the ceremony where Caesar will interview you guys, and you’ll watch a recap of the past thirty days.

For you, it might have been thirty, but for them it could have been two weeks, three weeks. The gamemakers make the time fly by a lot faster during the games to keep things flowing. Especially when there’s days in-between action, like there was with yours. You’re glad that there were only two mutt problems for you, and technically only two for Finnick too. You both had the bears, then you had the dogs and he had the thing at the bottom of the pond-lake.

You wonder if they’ll let you tour it by yourself. Go through and see the sites where your friends have died. Listen to them explain their deaths in detail, Blaire, Mac, Cass, Thyme, the careers… You wonder if they’ve put up a noose on the tree branch, with dummies to signify where you and Lennox had been. The placebo body in the leaves, and Trink’s body sprawled across the grass.

To go back and torture yourself to see everything in a beautiful scenery would be interesting. See where your mind would wander off to, and if it’d take you with, or put up a shield to avoid doing too much damage. As if it would understand that seeing certain scenes again, like district ten’s decapitated head, Lennox turning purple, the girl getting caught in the rope when Finnick killed her…

Mags leads you to Laurel, and Laurel calmly explains that you’ll be seeing Mags later. So, you hug her goodbye and you let Laurel lead you the rest of the way. Her heels click against the cement ground, and she begins to explain what you’ll be wearing tonight. You tune in and out, and after a while, she seems to understand what’s wrong.

“I’m not going to give you congratulations.” she tells you, fixing your hair from your face, “killing people is no feat. What is a feat, is getting passed today and the next few months. May you achieve peace in whatever way you can find it.”

“Thank you.” you nod at her, she tells you that she won’t be joining you for lunch, and leaves.

Somehow, her words were more of a gift than the congratulations that she withheld. She knows that the peace will be hard to get, that the nightmares will start plaguing you soon, quite possibly when you’re back home with your family, and everyone else you had grown up with. There’s nothing more terrifying than bringing nightmares from the arena back home. Sitting by hopelessly as your mind replaces the tributes you killed for the people you love.

Inside, you’re sat with your stylists, except for Laurel. They waste no time, jumping straight into them telling you that they’ll be getting you ready. You left the room earlier than they had expected, so it leaves you the lunch and then you truly have hours to get ready. They can properly take their time, rather than speeding.

They give you a fairly large amount of food, and you’re sure it’s because of how much you were eating inside of the games when possible. Your stomach must have shrunk a lot if it takes one serving of stew, two rolls and a handful of vegetables. When you were first coming in, you were eating as much as you could possibly afford. Three, four servings of stew, five bread rolls, more than just a handful of vegetables.

You’re not that hungry when you finish, though. Which is when they stand you up and bring you to your room. You strip free of the clothes that were laid out for you—what you had worn inside of the arena. Although, none of it is ripped, dirty, got water damage or whatever. It’s pristine, it looks just like it had when you went into the games. 

The jacket is first, then the boots, shirt, pants, bra and then your underwear. There is no shame in front of these people, you’re as hairless as you were when you had first gone into the games. 

“Wow, no scars! That’s fantastic!” One of the girls runs her fingers along where your ribs are, “You’re so lucky.”

The other girl nods quickly, “Very expensive! But anything for the victors.”

They take you to the showers, taking down your hair. The first girl, you think her name is Beth—she always says it so quickly, it’s hard to tell exactly—goes to work with the settings on the shower. While the other two scrub your hair and body. 

Beth and the other girl talk a lot more than the boy does. But he seems just as animated at they are when it comes to conversation. Always talking about what was going on, how they knew that you and Finnick were going to win. How excited they were when it was announced that two victors could win.

They split off when you’re out of the shower. The guy goes to work at your hair, Beth with your nails as the other does your makeup. You occasionally let in your opinion just to hear them marvel about how amazing and cool it was. They’re very considerate when it comes to mentioning certain things, like they don’t want to tick something. Laurel must have been specific. Or Elysia had gotten to them before you did.

You wouldn’t mind it from them, but Elysia should know better. Beth and the others don’t understand what it’s like to be in the district. Elysia comes every year, she sees the type of houses you live in, the jobs you work. 

At least with the others they’re nice. Elysia hasn’t cared since the beginning, so you’re not sure what she wanted from you. If she can’t show basic respect, then why should you? Let’s antagonize the girl that just came from killing seven people, as if that’ll go well.

Once they seem to be done with your hair, nails and makeup—which took forever since they had taken their time—Laurel comes in. She offers you a smile, before making you step into the dress.

It’s baby blue, and poofy and frilly. They’re playing up the girlish look again, but there’s no point. Everyone saw you, they heard your plans and watched as you deceived. There’s no one to pretend for anymore. The districts know your real personality, the only people that might eat it up would be the Capitol.

They give you white flats that are lacy on the sides. A few jangly bracelets on the wrists. Rings, earrings, necklaces, small anklet for the cuteness effect. Then they let your hair down to complete the entire look.

“Move around.” Laurel instructs you. You twirl, do a series of walks with different hand positions. You smile, and try to blush but the innocence of what you had before is absent. 

When she feels like it’s enough, she then stops you.

“Alright, curtsy a little bit, we’re going to try to win the audience over as much as possible.” she tells you.

You cross your ankles, two hands on the bottom of the dress as you lower yourself with a light smile. Laurel makes some adjustments while you’re down, but she compliments you when you stand. You look young, innocent and no one would believe that you had just won the hunger games.

She then launches into conversation with the other three as they lead you to where you need to be. You ignore conversation, watching the avoxes and the peacekeepers around the occasional corner. They mostly avoid eye contact with you, but a few will look you over, and be just as confused as you are. What are they looking after?

There must be some sort of rumor floating around now. It’s only a matter of time before it lands itself right in front of you. And then you’ll be able to see why people seem to square you up, and then deflate like they’re disappointed.

Is it tough? Is that what you’re known for? Was the stunt with Lennox enough to make a big name for yourself? They expect you to be all hard ass because you had been a traitor and you should have died in that arena time and time again, but you prevailed. You defied the odds, you were more merciful and merciless. You wonder what they call you, because it can’t be anything pretty.

You guys go up the elevator to the training center. This is where you’ll stand with your prep team and mentor and escort and everyone else. Finnick will be on the other side to greet you. It’s not uncommon for the Capitol to go wild at the reunions of victors.

Most of the time, the victors are friends, lovers or very rarely, siblings. Which is when the reunions are the best, since they’re crying and throwing themselves on each other. Though, there are the times when the tributes have heard of each other in the district prior to the games, the only real interactions they have with each other is during the training and all of that. Their reunions consist of nods and if the Capitol is lucky, they’ll hug.

That hardly happens, as usual the winners come from the careers. This will be the first time for district four where they bring two back. Your district will be excited, the Capitol people are probably excited as well. They’re so used to the other ones that outer districts—four and everyone else—are more exciting. 

They call you guys exotic and surprisingly when it comes to your answers. The careers are trained in how to act for years. For you guys it’s all improv, you have no idea what you’re doing which can be both a downfall or your ride. The only people that can truly direct you are the mentors. And even then, they have no clue what they’re doing.

Winning the games can be on skill or luck. The people who win on luck have nothing to offer for their tributes. People who win on skill can pass that down.

You and Finnick have a combination of both. Genuine skill of throwing knives, hunting and making fires. Basic knowledge on medicine in case one of you were to get sick—even though that hadn’t helped at all. And luck was Blaire saving you, and Finnick finding you, and being able to get that rope around Lennox’s neck, and being able to throw that spear into him even though you were hanging upside down, hardly conscious and swaying.

Anyway, Laurel and the others break off to change into their own outfits, leaving you standing there. Alone to your thoughts because there’s no one else to fill the silence. You spend the time counting the little things around the plate that you’re standing on. Which matches the flooring above you, presumably.

You brush dust off of nearby things and hold back sneezes when it wafts back into your face. Shifting on your feet almost impatiently, but you still feel worried that you might end up collapsing from the sickness that you had. It’s like a phantom, you don’t have it anymore but it feels like you do.

After a considerable amount of time, you can faintly hear Caesar’s voice and the roaring of the audience that comes with it. You make a little bit of last minute changes, dust of anything that might have attached itself to you. Watching as your hand starts to sparkle because of the stuff coming off of the dress. 

And then, you hear the prep teams get introduced. You turn to where you’ll be facing, taking deep breaths, reminding yourself that they are not the enemy. They’re just here for a show. They want to see you pretend to be excited.

Elysia is introduced, then it’s Laurel and Pleurisy. Louder cheering since they were the ones who organized the costumes that you two had worn. Then Mags gets some cheering too, you can imagine her waving now.

You stand tall, squaring your shoulders and placing a smile on your face already. It’ll widen into a grin when you’re above ground. 

And then the plate starts to go up, you catch your balance before you’re in sight of the audience. The lights make you squint for a moment, but your eyes get used to them quickly. As soon as you can see, you notice the audience.

The plate shakes from the roaring, they’re on their feet clapping, yelling, whistling—you can barely hear it all. It’s turned into a solid sound barely about to be distinguished.

You turn to the presence beside you to see Finnick’s white smile. A slow smirk comes over his face as he offers you one of his arms. You take two swift strides before you’re hugging him.

“Almost home.” Finnick murmurs into your ear, you laugh lightly.

“That’s what you’re worried about?” You ask, looking up to him.

“You’re not?” He asks lightly, eyes flickering to your lips for a moment, and then he moves right in.

He pulls you closer for the kiss, it’s a couple of seconds of sweetness, before the both of you are smiling and it’s ruined. That doesn’t stop you from hugging him a little longer though. Because you do have to admit, it feels good to be in his arms again. To see him alive and well.

He’s everything that you remember, and you’re glad that he’s constant. Nothing has changed just yet, and you hope that it stays this way.

After a couple more minutes of cheering, you and Finnick finally sit at the love seat. This year, it’s white, very faintly a shade of grey added. Over the back is a blue blanket, you can see the obvious display of the ocean on it. Just for Caesar, you run your fingers over the fabric, taking in how soft it is, before you sit on the couch.

Finnick pulls you into him, not offering you the chance to sit away. His arm is wrapped around your waist, ensuring that you stay there. However, with you leaned against him, the sparkles start to rub off. It’s fine, you think. It’s just going to look odd when the both of you stand up.

He has a tan shirt on, a watch on his right wrist—weird in your opinion—but on his finger is a ring with a wave on it. You hold out your hand to see your mothers ring on yours. Reaching over, you take his right hand, pulling it right next to yours. Then, you look up to Laurel to see her wink.

Solidarity. 

“We’re engaged.” Finnick teases.

“Shut up, you’re fourteen.” You let go, smiling at him.

“Won’t be in a couple years—“

“Then get back to me then.”

Caesar then introduced what you guys will be doing, a couple of jokes mixed in to make you feel comfortable. Everyone knows this part, your family back home will be watching this. It’s mandatory.

Finnick seems to squeeze you, he understands and he might be looking for that comfort too. So you offer your hand to him, he takes it gratefully and you’re squeezing there too. 

Reliving the worst part of your life is not going to be easy.

The first part you watch the reaping, and your half a second debate on whether or not to run. Then Finnick joined you a minute later. There you can see you two actually posed a genuine threat against everyone else in the arena.

The chariot ride was when you had a few sponsors fawning over you. How excited they were to see that district four had a couple of studs—thanks to the commentary, you’re not very thrilled. How you and Finnick were linked together and seemed like friends.

The training scores follow, with yours and Finnick’s ten, another tell that you two would be winning. The only threat all along was Lennox, and his stupid ten too. 

It moves on to your interviews, and they don’t forget to include the little hand holding when you and Finnick got back to each other. The audience sighs, and you watch as Finnick smiles a little bit.

Then it hits the arenas. Panning around the tributes, assessing their situations and positioning their bodies for the goals. You watch yourself get there first, and that is when you stop watching. Unfortunately, you can still hear it, no matter how loudly you recite the poem from when you’re sick. Finnick holds your hand a little tighter for all of it.

You feel relieved the moment he nudges you. But you can see that it’s the ending, you have to at least watch the ending. How you climbed up the tree, spear swaying in the wind. Finnick preparing the body, Trink and Lennox gearing up to hunt you guys anyway.

You getting up on that branch, cutting off the rope, telling Finnick you’re ready as you tie the constrictors knot. Holding the rope up high enough so that the others can’t see it. Then Finnick screams.

Trink and Lennox hadn’t hesitated when they heard the scream. They started running almost immediately, Trink reaching back for Lennox. They reach the place, and that’s when it all goes down. 

It focuses on Finnick mostly, but you guys are able to see when you skip the rope around his neck. You’re not too thrilled when they show you throwing yourself off, but cuts to Trink dying, a slit throat, and then she got stabbed through the forehead.

And then Lennox’s zoomed up face as the rope closed in around his neck and choked him. How he had reached for the knife but must have realized that there was no point, the fall would kill him. And you were dangling, staring at him horribly.

Finnick throws his spear, missing Lennox but landing in the tree. You hadn’t realized it before but you were breathing heavily, the cameras were able to pick up on it perfectly as you prepared and then throw the spear.

It ends with a shot of you unconscious, arms and leg relaxed, face red from the blood rush or maybe from the fever. A knife barely hanging on in your waistband. Then it cuts to Lennox, blood all over his face, purple, dangling just the same as you. It zooms out, letting you take in the whole picture.

Then the anthem plays and you and Finnick are standing. He holds your hand tightly, watching as Snow boards the stage with a couple of kids bearing the crowns.le scene.

It ends there, which is when President Snow comes in, and Finnick is helping you to your feet. Still holding onto your hand, like he’ll never let go of it at this point. Behind Snow is a couple of kids holding pillows with crowns on them.

This is when Snow first places the crown on Finnick’s head, Finnick tries to bare his chest like he’s proud but he wants to flare, you can see it. Next is you, and Snow offers you a small smile, you thank him for the crown. 

After that, there’s a lot of cheering from the audience. You guys bow a couple of times, and you’re careful to not let the crown slip from your head. At the chance, Finnick pulls you against his body, he kisses you again, for the final time in front of the audience.

Then, you guys are finally dismissed, a reminder for tomorrow’s interview follows, and then you’re gone. Elysia and the others take you to the president's mansion for the celebration. You can hardly act happy as you’re forced to take pictures and pretend that you’re having a good time. 

In the beginning, Finnick had gotten whisked away but a group of girls. So you’ve been wandering the part alone, faking smiles and trying to keep the conversations short. When you find Maga, you stick fairly close because people don’t bother to talk to her anymore, which is sad.

Finnick shows up some time after, but he’s not in the mood for talking. He holds your hand and looks distant, when you ask what’s wrong, he tells you that he just received some news from back home about his family. He doesn’t elaborate because you don’t ask. Finnick is genuinely upset over whatever it is.

The night wraps up soon, and you two are taken back to your floor in the training center. Finnick doesn’t ask to join you, he just does. When you lie down next to him, his head rests in your neck. It’s silent for a while.

And then he bursts into tears.

-- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN --

At breakfast, you basically have to inhale the food. Laurel sits patiently at the end of the table, but you can tell that in no way you’re allowed to take your time. When you’re done, you kiss Finnick’s forehead, and then leave him to deal with his own stylist.

The walk is brief, and soon enough you’re stopped in front of your prep team. They’re talking to each other, almost ignoring you as they get to work. Laurel leaves, and you’re left to your own thoughts for a couple of hours.

More specifically, last night. When Finnick had finally opened up about what had happened. Why he was gone for so long that night, and what’s going to happen from now on.

He was with President Snow for almost the entirety of last night. You had been with him for merely thirty minutes at the beginning, for the lucky few who got to take pictures with the both of you. A few conversations here and there, you and Finnick were attached at the hip.

And then he had gotten swept away with peacekeepers first, but later you saw President Snow with him. However, it wasn’t what you thought it was. It wasn't a friendly conversation of Snow showing him around and how he felt about the games. Snow had made a proposition, almost.

It wasn’t a choice, but Finnick had tried to make it into one by defying what Snow had wanted. He told Snow a flat out no, and told him that he didn’t have to and that there was nothing he could do to change his mind. Snow threatened his family and when Finnick called his bluff…

Finnick has no family to go back to in District Four. They’re gone, just like that and you can imagine how everyone at home is feeling. They know something went wrong if Finnick got his family killed just like that. And you can imagine that they know that he knows about it. Peacekeepers don’t just go into houses and kill people for fun. It’s on orders.

Finnick was going to try to keep it from you. Snow had told him that it needed to be a secret, but he knows that eventually the word will get out on why Finnick isn’t at home, enjoying his new house in victors village. Snow knows that you’ll find out one way or another, and it doesn’t even have to be from him. People talk and rumors spread faster than disease does.

If it weren’t for Finnick begging you to keep this quiet, then you would have caused a scene already. You would be planning to do it in today’s interview, but you can’t. Finnick told you that you owe him for keeping you alive, for saving you when he did. In return he wants you to be quiet and let this be on It’s own.

He’s afraid that if Snow finds out that you know, Snow will hurt your family too. Finnick believes that he won’t be able to live with himself. But you told Finnick firmly that your family is his family now. He can take all of his stuff from his own house and move it into your victor house. He doesn’t have to live alone, and you won’t let him anyway. 

He’s yours just as much as your his. Nothing he does in the Capitol will change your view of him. Or how much you cherish and love him. It won’t change the memories, it won’t turn them bitter. You know that it isn’t his choice, and if he could, he wouldn’t be doing it at all.

After the victory tour, Finnick will be required to be in the Capitol. The only times he’ll come back is when the demand for his body is low or nonexistent. The only other time is during the time for the games, since the both of you are mentors now. You fully intend to take over for Mags, and Finnick wants to have those couple of weeks with you.

Finnick will be sold around in the Capitol for desire. Snow just made Finnick into his own personal prostitute. Finnick was kind enough to inform you that he isn’t the first and he won’t be the last.  The only thing Finnick gets out of it is the money, which he’s going to have a lot of anyway, thanks to winning the games.In fact, you were supposed to be included in on it. Supposedly, if one person were to buy Finnick, then that means you would go along too, just double the price. The person buying wouldn’t have a choice, where one goes the other will follow.

Snow had thought that would make the entire thing better, but that’s where Finnick had drawn the line. Saying that Snow could make him his bitch, but lay a damn finger on you, and Snow would regret it. Victors honor. Snow decided that it might be a little too much, and considering that you still have family left, it would be difficult to pry you away from them.

Then he made some deals with a few people that would take Finnick right off the bat, and you nearly puked when you heard that most of them were your own sponsors. People who had cheered you on in the arena had done it so that either of you could be sold around for sex? And now that the option had presented itself, it’s perfect. They could take their grabs at Finnick as much as possible. Until he has to go home for good.

The demand for him will drop off for good eventually. If he’s only getting one or two requests a week, or even a month, Snow will probably let him go. After all, there will be new waves of tributes who could be seen as desirable as he is. 

You feel selfish for being disappointed that Finnick won’t be by your side when you have nightmares. That he won’t be there to comfort you when you’re in a state of panic. When your mind still thinks that you’re inside of the arena, and that broken plate was a warning that something was coming.

You won’t be able to return that favor for him. Instead, he’ll be waking up in some strangers bed every single day and night. They’ll be comforting him after he has a particularly bad nightmare. And after what had just happened, it can be a number of things. The games in general, something about you, his brain creating scenarios where he has to watch his parents and siblings die over and over and over. 

You love Finnick, and to know that he’ll be dealing with his own problems when he had the possibility of being able to lean on someone, is so agonizingly painful. You really hope he’s not beating himself up over the same thing. It’s a normal for boyfriends to be there for their girlfriends. But he can’t do that if he’s being sold around.

As long as he’s trying to be happy during his time in the Capitol, then you’re sure that you’ll be able to deal with it some. A couple weeks at a time, you think. Snow will let him come back every couple of weeks to see you and everyone else in the district. Then, he’ll be brought back to the Capitol, and the process will repeat.

Beth and them begin to wrap things up. The final polish and the drying of the nails. A few more dashes of highlight to make your cheeks pop when you’re in the light. Beth instructs you to stand a little taller, stop slouching. This time your hair is out of your face, but still curled. There’s a couple hairs here and there that hang in your face on purpose.

“Alright, we have to get out.” The guy grabs the girls, gives you a wave and then they’re out of the room, Laurel waits for them to leave, and then she comes into the room. A sand-colored dress is draped over her arm.

“A simple look tonight. We want you to be comfortable.” she tells you, unzipping the back and making you step into it again. After she’s zipped the back, and fixed your hair in the back, she turns you to her. Taking your hand to slip on your mothers ring, but doesn’t move her hand.

When you look to her, she’s serious looking. There’s no hint of fun--not like there normally is, it seems like Laurel is a very serious person--nothing like a joke, “I assume you already know what’s happening with Finnick?”

Frog in your throat appears and you swallow to keep from crying. You can’t mess up what they just did on your face, you’ll have to be out in the cameras in the next ten or so minutes. If this is a couple of hours of work, then there’s no possible way that they’ll be able to fix it in time.

You nod, and Laurel sighs, fixing the dress on your shoulders, “Pleurisy and I are going to try our best when it comes to keeping him from going around too much,” when you open your mouth to say something, she continues, “We’ve got the cash to do it. Thanks to you and Finnick, our lines have taken off. It’s the least we can do.”

“Thank you.” you sniff, she smiles a little bit.

“Ruin your makeup and I’ll kill you personally.” she pats your shoulder, before she leads you over to the jewelry.

Again, you load up on everything that she wants you to. When you’re done, you feel like you weigh ten more pounds. It’s a lot of jewelry, all to make you pop more on camera. She says that it’ll make you look like you’re enjoying yourself in the Capitol, that you’ve begun to buy things with your newly acquired money.

When she’s done, Laurel takes your arm and leads you down the hall to where you’ll be interviewed. Tonight, it’ll be personal with no audience to intimidate you. Just you, the camera men, Caesar and Finnick. That doesn’t mean you should exactly speak your mind though, the Capitol and maybe the districts will be seeing this.

Inside the room is where you see Caesar. He comes from where he’s talking to someone, to you. There’s an immediate hug, and then he steps back to look at you, “Absolutely gorgeous! Your stylist is amazing.”

“I know, I’m glad that she’s finally getting noticed for her work, as well as Finnick’s stylist, Pleurisy.” you tell him.

“Would you believe me if I said that I was wearing their work?” he asks, and then he takes a step back so that you can see. And you see it in the sparkles littered around, it seems to be a signature. Your past dresses had that effect, but they hadn’t came off when they were rubbed.

It seems like yesterday's dress was a one-time thing, “It looks great on you! The navy blue fits you.”

“I see we’re all trying for a theme.” Finnick's voice interrupts you two, and you turn to see Finnick in a black suit, catching the light here and there, he shines.

“Wardrobe malfunction! No time to change, though.” Caesar winks, and then he goes to take a seat on his single.

You and Finnick are on the loveseat after that. His left arm around your waist, right hand in yours. You can see the ring again, you hope that he keeps it in his time in the Capitol. It seems so close but truly it’s far. The Victory Tour will take a while, it’s not a couple day thing, celebrations in every place are going to be big. At least two days in each district, and more in your home.

The cameraman counts backward, you feel like you’re a robot when you smile automatically when it hits zero. Finnick squeezes you, and you give him a certain look to tell him no funny business. Not funny enough, he seems to be giving you the same look with his eyes, almost a plea to be on your best behavior. You nod, you never had any intention to do otherwise.

You owe him, or so he says. 

Caesar introduces you two as if the entire nation still has absolutely no clue who you are. You wave and smile, Finnick gives you a quick temple-kiss and then you’re right in to the friendly talk from earlier.

“So, remind your stylist’s name.” Caesar starts.

You mock an offended gasp, “You’re wearing her and you don’t know her name? Caesar!”

He laughs, “What can I say? I get around.”

Finnick laughs, “Are you wearing Laurel of Pleurisy?”

He thinks for a moment, “Laurel?”

You dramatically fall back, “He doesn’t even know. An upcoming famous stylist and he can’t even remember.” 

It’s all fun and games. Caesar is very smooth with his responses, charismatic. If he were in the hunger games he would have simply won over sponsors with his charm. You know you would have been convinced. It’s hard not to believe in someone who has so much confidence.

Which must be why the careers get so many damn sponsors.

“I have a few questions.” Caesar eventually transitions, you shift slightly against Finnick, squeezing his hand, “The first is, when did you know that you were going to turn against them?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

One simple deep breath, and then a wobbly smile to follow, “The beginning. During training and all of that. I wasn’t planning on keeping them around for long.”

Caesar nods thoughtfully, but it doesn’t end with you, “And Finnick, running off with Thyme?”

You can practically see the blood run from his face, “Ah--well, it wasn’t really running off. I had thought that she was going to meet us after the waterfall shortly after. The tension in the group was rising, I didn’t think it would be smart to stay after Eytelle had died.”

He’d made the wrong turn. You’re sure he’s only asking these questions because the Capitol wants to know, but either way it’s stressing you out. It’s giving you more to think about. You’ll have plenty of time to dwell over this when you’re trying to sleep at night, so why do it now too? In your small moment of peace.

The questions aren’t much lighter after that. Caesar wants to know all the details when it comes to Allio and then eventually Blaire. You tell him the truth, that you hadn’t liked Allio since the beginning, but the plan was originally to kill Lennox, then you decided to get rid of the guy that was more paranoid. You made a friend out of Blaire because he was kind and needed help. He was as helpful to you as you were to him. It was a mutual friendship.

Then came Lennox, saving Finnick from the monster in the pond-lake and getting sick. You had kinda seen the Lennox and Trink thing coming, they weren’t stupid and they were going to figure it out sooner or later. Finnick was an obvious choice, years of swimming in water and holding your breath came in handy. Getting sick was the worst thing that ever happened to you.

Finally, Mac, and then the stunt at the tree. You were worried for Finnick when he had left to check things out, of course. Relieved when he came back fine, and a little bit mad that he went down to the cornucopia by himself, where he could have gotten hurt. 

The stunt of the tree isn’t as easy to brush off. He gets into the little details. You tell them it all in order. The tree is the highest thing to hang from, and you chose to hang Lennox because he had choked you in the cornucopia. Also because your last name is Gallows, and since they were so fond of calling you that, you thought you might as well utilize the nickname against them.

You cut the rope for yourself, you knew you weren’t strong enough to pull him up by yourself. You explained how to tie the constrictors knot and how you knew to tie it in the first place. This is when you give a tribute to your family back home. Finally, you get to the part where you throw yourself off of the branch and hang in the air.

Caesar tells you a detail that you hadn’t realized, nor had anyone told you. That your left leg had dislocated when you had fallen off the tree, which you could have guessed if you’re being honest. You hadn’t heard it pop or anything because of the bloodrush to your head, the headache, the fever, the pain in all the other parts of your body… there was no room for your leg to hurt. It would have to get in line with the dozen other problems you had going on.

During all of this, Finnick is giving his side of things, but he’s mainly letting you talk. You’re sure he appreciates it, because he’s in no shape to be talking about all of this, with what had happened when it comes to his family. It’s just another bitter reminder that he has no one to tell all of this to.

Very last, the spear. You told Caesar that it should have fallen out of your belt loop the second you fell, but it was holding on by a thread it seems. You threw it to end Lennox’s suffering and also because the image of his purple face will be permanently embedded in your mind. There’s no reason to make it go on any longer.

Sprinkled in by Caesar are some cute questions about yours and Finnick’s relationship and where the both of you will be going after this. Finnick answers this part, feeling like he hasn’t talked that much, and says that you two will still be together. But his and your family back home will probably appreciate it if you two toned it down. To hear him talk about his family is painful, knowing that there is none. He says that he doesn’t want to be killed by your brothers as soon as you two get there, and he looks forward to meeting them. You can picture them laughing at the joke now. They’ll love Finnick, you know it.

They’ll never be able to repay the fact that he kept you alive when you were sick. When he had saved you from dying in the woods after Lennox had just nearly killed you. The second that you, Finnick and your family have a moment alone, you can almost guarantee that they’re going to thank him and welcome him to the family. Make him promise to buy you a ring at eighteen or some dumb thing like that. You’ll be married before you hit twenty.

Soon, it’s the end. Caesar says his goodbyes, and you’re standing up and off of the loveseat. Your farewell to Caesar is very, very brief, you push your way out of the room, out of the ways of the invading guests. Finnick follows behind you, you can feel his presence all the way to whatever room you end up in.

There, you take deeper breaths, pace around the room and wipe any straggling tears to make sure that your eyes don’t get any bright ideas. You manage to do it, the tears don’t come and Finnick says that nothing was smudged.

He knows you’re not alright, and you know he isn’t either. Him being there is enough.

As long as he’s always here.

-- CHAPTER NINETEEN --

The car ride to the train isn’t that long. You spend the time staring at the floor mostly, not too interested in the color fest that’s just outside the blackened windows. You’d rather try to forget that this all happened, but it’s going to be near to impossible. There are going to be reminders everywhere.

You say goodbye to Laurel and the prep team at the station. It’s short since you’ll be seeing them a couple of months later on—so it seems that Finnick might be leaving immediately after the festivities in Four—Laurel gives you a look, and then hugs you for the first time. After that, it’s a blur of the prep team and you’re on the train. No goodbyes to the Capitol citizens, you’re glad you don’t have to.

You hold onto the wall as the train starts moving. Finnick does the same so he doesn’t fall over. You watch as Elysia stalks off, clearly mad at you still. You’re fine with that, you hate her anyway. Mags gives you and Finnick a smile, holds up one finger, and then leaves.

“One day.” Finnick says for you, and you sigh, going over to sit on the couch, “Wanna watch reruns?”

“Of what?” You ask, turning to look at him, he makes a face.

“You know.”

“Absolutely not.” You snap.

“Not even the Quarter Quells?” Finnick asks, and you think for a moment.

“Do they have when Mags was in the arena?” 

Finnick perks up, and he starts digging through the cases of video. Of course it’s on a disc, and not an actual show. It’s from sixty years ago, or something. Mags was in the eleventh or something. Maybe not sixty years ago, but definitely fifty.

“Oh look!” Finnick pulls out a case with a big ‘ELEVEN’ written across the front. He puts it in and then sits down beside you.

Somehow, it’s better to watch someone else’s games rather than your own. It still has all the death and gore, it’s just not your experience. The rerun is clearly based around Mags, which means that this is the condensed version and biased to make Mags look good. You still get all the deaths but they’re not focused on as much.

You mostly tune out the movie, watching Mags was just a suggestion so you wouldn’t have to watch your own. Plus you weren’t really interested in the Quarter Quells because those are the worst games. They have the bad twists to them, which makes them desirable to the Capitol but terrifying to the districts.

You won’t have to deal with it. And even if you hadn’t been reaped for these games, in a few years you would have been out of the pool. You won’t have to do the Quarter Quell, but the kids to come might. Which also means that you’re going to have to mentor them. You and Finnick together, teaching the kids the best survival skill.

The Quell is only ten years away. It might seem like a lot, but the time flies. The more it gets closer, the more paranoid people are going to get of each other. Like during the twenty-fifth games when they had to vote up who they wanted to go. Neighbors turning on each other for the petty things. The victors dead now, must have drank themselves to death or something. As all the other victors do you ease the trauma after the games.

The second Quell was where double the amount of tributes go in. Forty-eight unfortunate individuals would be forced to go in. Two girls and two boys from each district. Haymitch from district twelve won that year, and you’re sure you’ll be meeting him soon. Courtesy of the goddamn victory tour you’ll be going on. Suddenly you’ll be a lot cozier with your fellow tributes.

It’s going to be hard to not home a grudge against the districts like one and two. There's going to be too many people to meet. Especially since the two games before this one, it was a brother and sister, both from district one. Cashmere and Gloss, which means they mentored Trink and Lennox, probably. 

You wonder if they despise you, or if they find the entire thing interesting. If they’re going to snub or welcome you in with open arms. After all, you gave the boy the worst death of them all, and Trink saw it happen. 

During the three hour recap of the games, you had the misfortune of watching it happen. You had just fallen off the tree, as Finnick was fighting Trink. Lennox had begun to turn a shade of red, and you were looking out of your mind. Just seeing yourself so pale, you could have been mistaken as a corpse.

Trink hadn’t seen the rope at all when it was first lowered. She had launched herself at Finnick, believing that Lennox could take care of the placebo body. Trink had a sword, swinging it at Finnick with little to no aim. Finnick was dodging them, but somewhere along the lines he fucked up the pattern, and she got the upper hand.

Hearing her district partner choking had caught her attention, your almost-dead body shouldn’t have been able to come back and get Lennox down. So, she originally had looked to where Lennox should have been, knelt over your body, but slowly looked up to find him over fifty feet in the air. 

That’s when Finnick had killed her. She was too distracted. It was supposed to be a quick glance, find out what state Lennox is in so she could finish off Finnick and then go to help him. The amount of surprise that must have gone through her body, you can’t imagine.

She had the upper hand. She and Lennox had the possibility of winning, and you and Finnick came out of nowhere, with this whole attack plan and ruined it all. Although, hanging upside down was in no way part of the plan.

You hope that the others don’t hold a grudge. You hope that you’ll be able to make a circle of friends who understand what it’s like to be inside of the arena. That share the same problems as you and are willing to share their stories with due time. They can be proud of it, or they can be disappointed and guilty, it doesn’t matter to you.

People who you can introduce to Finnick and they accept him immediately and understand when he has to go. You just want people that understand, because you can already see he looks of pity you’re going to get from people in the district. You’re sure that if the looks from them get too much, you’ll end up locking yourself up inside your house.

Avoid it all and try to sleep it off. Call it a big ass dream and let the Capitol laugh at you for being another weak victor who can’t take the win. Let them think that one of the other districts should have won. Or maybe Finnick will be one big distraction and you’ll be able to disappear without a trace. The Capitol will be too invested in the fourteen year old prostitute to notice his girlfriend has completely dropped off the radar.

At least you’ll have people to take care of you in that case. Your brothers would probably let it happen and insist that no one infringe on your wishes. That it is a time to be recovering over everything you had just done. The memories won’t wash away quickly, no matter how hard they insist. Everything will have to be done on your own time.

At least no one will hate you for killing your district mate. To have killed Finnick and having to come back to his family and all of that would have been awful. Just think, had you gone after Thyme and Finnick after they betrayed you like that, you wouldn't have been able to see that you could have kept your district mate.

Hell, you might not have even lived to see that point. You would have killed Thyme and Finnick and then later Allio. Lennox would have found that out, killed you, and they might have gone on to win the games together. The only people to kill would have been the girl from six, Blaire and Mac. That’s on the assumption you hadn’t formed a friendship with Blaire.

Or maybe you did, and Blaire would later die from his own injuries from trying to save you. To have the same fate for yourself. Dying alone in the woods, not even awake to feel the pain. Could you imagine what Mags would have felt like? Watching you turn shades of color that she hasn’t seen on a person before. The cannon finally signaling that you’re dead, and she brings home two dead tributes again.

Not everyone that you send out of district four is capable of surviving. Somehow, it’s always the youngest tones that are picked. Although, Mags was sixteen when she went in. Again, that was fifty years ago, and of course there are teenagers that go in some of the time. But it’s not the same because they don’t win as much as the kids don’t win. 

You and Finnick are miracles. There has been one other victor in your district, and you haven’t seen him at all. Let alone, heard about him. No one speaks his name, he’s either dead or a hermit in his house. No one visits him, no one goes in or out of the house. Soon, you’ll be living near him and you still won’t know if he’s alive. 

Think of it this way. Mags is basically the first victor in your district. This means that during her fifty years of mentoring, she had only one person come out alive from that. Na they don't even know where he is right now. You and Finnick are fifteen and fourteen. You guys are barely qualifying for teenagers. You guys are young, barely have experience, but just enough to keep you alive.

Mags can’t speak, due to a stroke or something. She’s old, she doesn't know how the new games work, except for the one dead tribute that’s still nowhere to be seen. Her practices are out of tune, they’re so useless but she doesn’t know what to teach the new ones. She tries her best with pencil and paper, but there's really nothing she can do.

Then it’s the sixty-fifth hunger games. The first drawn is a girl that looks too young to win. But she takes a deep breath and gets on stage without any sort of commotion anyway. She bares her chest, arms behind her back, standing tall and proud and as if she can defeat anything in the world despite her young age.

Okay, and then comes the boy. He still looks young, maybe the same age as the girl. He’s tall, and kinda muscular, and he walks up to the stage like he owns it. The world will Ben to his feet if he wants it to. He gets up on the stage, right next to the girl and suddenly they’re standing the same.

When they get to the train, they wave goodbye in a way that says ‘I’ll be home soon’. Because that’s what the Capitol took it as. You heard the whispers in the audience during the recap, and they were all so amazed how you two were so confident. A district that hadn’t had a victor in years thinks that they’re going to win.

Get inside the train, you make an alliance with Finnick immediately. Mags saw that, she isn’t blin. She saw how you two bonded instantly and kept it tight. She heard how you two analyzed the opponents, the people you picked out to worry about. How you two jumped immediately to get info from her, so,etching that most kids probably don’t bother to do anymore because she can’t talk.

They might use her as a prop to get those sponsors. Rely on her to make those connections and figure out the rest for themselves as if she’s incompetent or something. She lost the ability to speak, not to coach. She figured out the new ways to get sponsors, clearly. She made you act like a damsel and Finnick, courageous. 

She’s got two sparkling lovebirds later on. She sees that united front that you and Finnick were going for. When the both of you locked arms on the chariot ride to show that it’s the both of you or nothing. She no doubt heard about trialing, playing on those acts. How you managed to fool the entire nation and most of the tributes into your acts.

And then executed it perfectly inside of the arena. You did everything you could do in the most perfect ways in the circumstances you were in. You saved your ass in the cornucopia and gained trust from Trink when you killed the boy from eleven. You saved them from the bears, stopped Eytelle from suffering, and killed the boy from twelve. More trust points for you. 

You proved loyal when Finnick and Thyme had left. You didn't run off with them. You stumbled when you killed Allio, but you met Blaire which saved you in the end. You and Finnick survived in that cave for weeks, and managed to win because of it. You were sick and dying, and they definitely thought that you were going to drop dead, but you lived. 

The entire experience must have been nail biting for her. Watch as her two golden victors split up, making complete opposite decisions. You gain trust and Finnick kills people with Thyme. You nearly die, and Finnick has to stay in the cave alone. But in the end you two came together. The rules changed, and you two stuck together for it.

You and Finnick really were miracles when it came to winning the games. In the mess that you two created for yourselves, you should have stumbled and fallen. But you kept finding your footing, and it got you to win.

Mags is bringing home two alive tributes, rather than two dead. She can sleep just a little easier knowing she saved two. All the rest weren’t her fault, they just didn’t understand. They had probably succumbed to the idea that they were going to lose, so what would be the point of fighting? 

With this win, it just means she has to pass on the job. You and Finnick know what you’re doing more. You’ll be training the next tributes, and making them as capable as you can so that they win. Instead of Mags taking on the losses, it’ll be you two. It’ll be your faults for not training them properly. Either parent and family will come to you to blame or they’ll know you did everything in your power. 

“Dinner.” Elysia’s voice is dull at the door. You look up briefly to see her walking away, and then you see on the tv that Mags had just won. Finnick is asleep on the couch.

You shake him a little bit, it doesn’t take much for him to jolt awake. You explain to him it’s time to eat, and then the both of you go to the dining car. Only, there isn’t anyone there. People have clearly eaten, but you weren’t invited.

“Nice of them to eat without us.” Finnick mutters, but the both of you sit down, and start eating. The food keeps on coming until you finally call it. You’re still hungry, but you don’t want to eat anymore. You want to lay down and sleep all of this off. Like a bad dream.

Finnick follows you to your room, but it doesn’t matter. You don’t have a good view, you have this boring room. You take a shower and then change into a shirt and shorts. Finnick takes a shower too, and he joins you in the bed. By then, you’re half-asleep. Not worried about what’s to come because he’s next to you.

“I’m here.” You tell Finnick, pulling him into you, “Sleep easy.”

“I’m pretty sure the term is sweet dreams.” He murmurs.

“We both know that the dreams won’t be sweet.”

-- CHAPTER TWENTY --

You wake up on your own. The sun is streaming through the train windows. But it’s still moving, which means that you are much closer now. Maybe an hour and a half out. You need to get up and be ready for the cameras that await you. 

Every time you turn to look at Finnick though, you don’t want to disturb the peace. He’s very clearly tired, the night was in no way easy. He didn’t wake you up or anything, but just by his expression, the dreams haven’t been pleasant. 

How about this, you leave him here to sleep and you go to take a shower. Maybe it’ll wake him up on its own. If it doesn’t, then when you come out you’ll wake him up so he can also take a shower. It’s a simple plan and it’ll work.

You dig through the drawers for a simple dress or something for the cameras. Right in the front is a dress clearly from Laurel. She knew you’d want to look nice or the Capitol provided it because she’s upcoming.

You pull it out, it’s the same color of green of the outfit from the chariot ride. It’s paired with some white to make it pop a little more. You grab white flats that look all too similar to the ones you wore in the second interview.

The shower is quick, because there’s no reason to stay in there for too long. You leave your hair alone—as you did last night too—because it doesn’t look too terribly bad. Mags will correct you if she thinks otherwise at breakfast. If they’re there, that is, and didn’t eat without you like they did with lady nights dinner.

Once you have everything on, you do some twirling and walking around. As soon as everything feels fine, you dig through some drawers. You find the mother of all jewelry, mostly silver. 

A necklace, you skip on earrings, and a few bracelets. No rings from the drawer because yours is inside of the room. 

Speaking of which, you walk out of the bathroom to see Finnick sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face. When you come out, he sits up a little bit, “Wow.”

“Shut up, take a shower. I think we’ll be there soon.” You push his head a little bit, and he laughs.

“I’ll do it in my own bathroom. Even though I love the scent of raspberry and vanilla.” He snickers and dodges your punch.

“You have your ring?” You ask as you slip your own on your ring finger.

Finnick leans over to the bed stand table nearest to him. He opens the drawer and pulls out the ring, “Safe and sound.”

“Good. I’ll see you at breakfast.” You tell him, he pulls you against him for a kiss. You dodge them a little bit, and just when he’s about to give up, you kiss him, “Alright now go take a shower, stinky.”

He laughs, you follow him out of the room but split when he heads off for his own. The walk to the dining cart is relatively quiet. When you get inside, you’re not that surprised to find that Elysia and Mags are eating.

If you’re going to have to deal with her for the rest of your life, it won’t be like this. You’re not going to allow her to basically walk all over you all because you said a few things to her. She’s a grown ass woman, seriously get over it.

“Let’s get one thing clear.” You begin, taking your seat at the table, “If you’re going to act like this every single fucking time we have to be near each other, quit.”

She looks up, “Excuse me?”

“You told us about dinner after you and her had already eaten.” You tell her, “You think you’d know some fucking manners. As well as not waking us up to eat.” She opens her mouth, “And spare me the bullshit about wanting us to sleep in.”

You take your seat at the table, “We’re going to wait for Finnick to get here to continue.”

It’s not that you’re power hungry, it’s a matter of respect. If there’s anything you don’t need right now, it’s her being rude to you. You need her to be understanding because suddenly you’re under a lot of stress. If she knows anything about what’s happening with Finnick, then she should know that you’re in no state to fuck around with.

It’s your fault that she’s acting like this though, even if she was being annoying when you had first woken up, you shouldn’t have snapped at her like that. So, you’ll take the high road--even though she should have done that in the first place.

“I’m sorry for getting mad at you in the corridor, but we need to put that behind us. We’re going to be around each other for god knows how long. We don’t need this,” you tell her, and she nods.

“I accept your apology. And I offer you my own.” she’s quiet for a moment as she messes with a napkin, “I’ve been cold on this trip, I can see it. I’m sorry, it’s not the job I would have gotten. District Four is beautiful, but I didn’t want to represent at all.”

“Unfortunately, we don’t get to make those choices.” you tell her, Finnick comes into the dining cart after that, wearing a black vest with a white undershirt. Black slacks, and shoes. His ring is on his finger, and he wears a similar watch to the one he wore during the interview. 

His hair is how it is normally, a little curly from the shower, but it’ll find its way when it dries. He smiles at you, and then his eyes turn to Elysia, “Good morning.”

She nods at him, and he takes a seat near you. It’s mirrored the exact same way as it was when you were going to the Capitol. Finnick to your right, Mags to your left, Elysia in front of you directly. You drink your hot chocolate slowly, eating as much food as you can afford without feeling sick.

By the time you’re done eating, you only have ten minutes or so before you arrive at the train station. This is the last minute changes you make to your outfit. Where you help Finnick actually dry his hair and style it. Elysia comes down with a bit of simple makeup, highlighting your face for the camera. Some blush, and mascara, you think.

When you’re done, you’re placed in front of the door to the station. You watch as the walls come into view, and then it’s dark when you enter the tunnel. Finnick reaches for your hand, and you take it gratefully. Elysia and Mags position themselves behind you two, since the first thing that your district is going to want to see is you two. Not some person from the Capitol. 

The train stops, you catch Finnick from stumbling. When everything settles, the door hisses, and then they slowly open. 

The sunlight is in your eyes and you haven’t even stepped off the train. The sounds of your district cheering fills your ears, and you wince a little bit at the initial sound because they’re so many of them. The smell of the ocean is so very prominent, salty, representing your district as it should. You can feel Finnick squeeze your hand, and then you’re stepping off of the train.

When your eyes adjust, you’re met with everyone you’ve ever talked to and more. Front row is your brothers, standing tall, waving and cheering the loudest. Alyssum is on Reed’s shoulders, and Mox has his hand on her back to make sure she doesn’t fall. With their free hands, they wave excitedly, faces lighting up at the sight of you.

You nudge Finnick, and motion him to your family, and he smiles immediately. You watch as Reed does the ‘I have my eyes on you’ motion with his hand, but he’s laughing so it’s obviously a joke. Finnick’s hand is like steel in yours, you’re clearly grounding him. This is no place of fun, for you it is.

Elysia then comes around, and she leads you out so that you guys can get your places. However, you stop her before she gets too far and tell her to take Mags back in a car. You’re going to walk. If Finnick wants to join them, then he’s free to.

Finnick opts out, Elysia gets in a car with Mags, and you wave them off. As soon as you two have stepped off the platform, your brothers surround you. Reed passes Alyssum off to you, and she’s wrapping her arms around your neck already, squeezing tightly. Mumbling words about how much she missed you. While Mox is giving your boyfriend a talk.

“I would say no kissing but you guys have passed that point.” Mox gives you a pointed look and you roll your eyes. Finnick laughs, and then he sniffs, “Did I--?”

“No,” you tell Mox, passing Alyssum back to Reed, ignoring her cries of defiance as you wrap your arm around Finnick, “You’re okay, Finnick.”

People eventually air out, and it’s just you, your siblings, Finnick and Caspian. Caspian doesn’t say much, and you’re glad. You don’t want him teasing Finnick, or you for that matter. But something inside you tells you that you won’t be teased for a long time.

You bring Finnick to your old house, which is thankfully a good amount of distance away from where his place is. You ask Caspian to go home, telling him that you’ll talk later. For now, you need to help Finnick with whatever it is he needs.

The second you all are inside the house, Finnick breaks down on the couch. You spend the next hour comforting him, knowing that seeing his family not there to greet him at the station must have done a number. You know it would have for you.

“The peacekeepers…” Finnick trails off for a moment, trying to catch his breath, “They said that I’ll be leaving in two days for the Capitol.”

Your mouth falls open a little bit, “You don’t get to stay for the entire…?”

“The demand is so high--” he bursts into tears again and you’re wrapping your arms around him, squeezing tighter than you ever have.

When you look to Reed, you see he’s staring at you. And he also has some sort of face, like he’s suddenly realizing just how messed up everything is. That it’s not as simple as coming home and spending time with family. There’s more that goes into it.

“I’ll go with you.” you tell him.

“No!” Finnick yells, pulling away from you and grabbing your shoulders. His nose is red and runny, eyes bloodshot from crying for so long. They’re a little puffy too, “If you go then that means you’ll be there for a while. The men--they particularly like the girls. I talked to Pleurisy and they said that if you were included then that means you’d never see the end of it.”

“They’d slow down--”

“No! No, there would be more because there’s two of us. They’d want to see us together. I love you, so I can’t let you do this.” Finnick gasps, “You’re not going to the Capitol with me.”

Your shoulders slump, “You can’t just… stay?”

“They’ll find me. You can’t hide me and I can’t run. There’s peacekeepers outside your door waiting to make sure that I come out. The only way to get out of it…” he trails off, and you can pick it up, and he says quickly, “I’m not going to. But that would be the only way.”

Imagine your male victor who you’re going to turn into a prostitute, killing themselves to avoid it. What would be the option after that?

Your mouth falls open, “They’d go straight to me.”

And then his eyes widen too, and the both of you are staring at each other.

Suddenly you wish you had died in that arena with Finnick by your side. 

--

LACUNA IS THE FIRST VERSION OF BELAMOUR

//MASTERLIST//