terror made me cruel;

Task005 // The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree

Task011 // A Time and a Place

1920s

Task010 // Natural Phenomena

HAZE

“I guess looking after a newborn gave me some good stamina” Vix said with a shrug of her shoulders. “I’ve been exhausted since she was born, I don’t think there’s any changing that” she added. “What smart things do you recommend?”

“No,” she quickly said. “I’d love to come with you.” Miles and Auri, what better company could there be when she felt like she was falling apart, tearing at the seams? Both of them were grounding, soothing presences. “How’s he holding up?” She gestured at Miles. “This must all be so exhausting for him.”

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“He’s fine. It’s me who’s exhausted,” she answered with a laugh. “He’s still running off his high from sprinting around the train and being promised he could push the elevator buttons.” Auri was grateful that Miles was still too little to understand or remember why they came to the Capitol every six months, but she knew that would change soon. “How are you feeling-- new team and all?”

Viola nodded. “You don’t think the Gamemakers will give us another gloriously short two-day Arena where they destroy all of our hopes and dreams and twenty three lives in one go?” she asked. She forced a laugh, keeping it light, to show she wasn’t serious, that she was bummed about the previous Games but not too bummed, not so bummed that the twisting, churning feeling in her gut that she got whenever she thought about the Games could possibly be a reality. She moved to get the coffees, and then sat back down. “How long do you think we’re in for?” Viola asked the second question as she sat, casually, but Auri and she had worked together long enough that Viola knew Auri would pick up that she wasn’t talking about the Hunger Games themselves. She was asking how long Auri thought their tributes would last.

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“Thanks,” Auri said as Viola brought the coffees over. “I don’t know,” she sighed. She was predicting a longer Games in general, but there was no way to know that for sure if that would be true or how long their tributes would live if it was. “They seem tough,” she chewed over the thought. “And Vix has a lot to get home to.” She glanced reflexively down at Miles. She couldn’t imagine the torture Vix was going through being away from her daughter right now. “Something to fight for makes a big difference, but it’s not going to be easy.” She didn’t have to tell Viola. They both knew how hard it was.

“It was an accident!” he insisted yet again, but of course, he knew nobody was going to believe him. He’d spent so long not caring that now that he did, nobody thought he was telling the truth. The boy who cried wolf– or maybe cried stylist. All it did was contribute to the sinking feeling of wanting to quit. “They’re coming along, they’ll having something good. I promise. When have they not had something?”

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“I figured,” she answered Cade. “But I need to know it’s not going to happen again.” Whether it was an accident or not was mostly irrelevant. She wanted to believe Cade wouldn’t have missed Harley’s launch on purpose, but she also needed to be able to trust him to be reliable. “It’s not fair to the tributes,” Auri concluded, She didn’t want to berate him about it; she wasn’t his boss or his mother. “They always do,” she agreed easily, because it was true, Cade always did manage to present something nice. “I guess, that’s the part I shouldn’t worry about.”

Lyric’d been hanging out with a tribute, sitting and trying to work, when flick had urged her to take a step back. now she was in a corner, not entirely sure what had been building the panic, but glad her dog had caught it with enough time to spare that she barely felt it there before it dissipated. when auri sat over next to her, she looked up, ready to jump back into the mentor game.

“yeah…” she said, stroking flick with one hand as she tried to figure all of this out. how much was smart to tell her? she didn’t know who this was, although something in her brain dinged mentor, not escort or stylist. but that was tone. “what district do you work with? who are yours?”

“banshee’s great.” she said, which was as much nothing as it was something. until she knew how to play this, that was all auri was going to get.

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“Oh, I’m Six’s mentor,” Auri explained easily. “Auri,” she introduced herself. “So, Vix...” She extended her index finger to track the tributes in the Training Center, “and Ollie are mine.”

Auri stifled a chuckle at Lyric’s short answer and offered her a nod instead. “Well, that’s good.”  She understood Lyric’s desire to keep her cards close to the vest, but it was a strategy she expected more from Career teams than the outer districts. “I think Vix will be tough, but I have a feeling she’ll keep to herself as much as she can. I guess, we’ll see,” she shrugged.

As soon as the training centre opened, Vix was there, mainly because she couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she relived the scene at the reaping, Sam handing over the baby to some unknown figure, and her heart felt like it was shattering inside her chest. Where was she now? Had they fed her? Did they hum her favourite song until she fell asleep? Did they use the special cream on the rash on her legs? 

She had to get back, there was no other choice, so here she was, hours later, still fighting the same simulation, punching, kicking, over and over again until finally it fizzled, finally she’d killed it. 

“No human has that much fucking energy” she mumbled through heavy breaths, wiping the sweat from her forehead.

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“It doesn’t seem possible, does it?” Auri breathed. “The careers have all trained for this, so they’ve probably got more stamina than anyone else, but even they probably won’t bother to fight for that long.” It was impressive that Vix could fight off the dummy for as long as she had. She was obviously strong, determined. That was something Six could work with. “Don’t exhaust yourself too much now, though,” Auri cautioned. “Work smarter not harder, right?”

Viola had taken a seat at a table with a mug of coffee and a hope for some quiet. She didn’t want to be back here in this tower. She didn’t want to watch more children die. She didn’t want to get her hopes up again, only to watch them fall, to drown, to bleed, to burn with the bodies of the tributes that were her responsibility. She wasn’t supposed to feel the weight, she knew. She was supposed to feel purpose in their deaths, to believe in the mission of Panem. It would be hard to pull fake enthusiasm from a heart that had twisted itself once again into stone-cold jade with the snap of Harley Arrow’s neck.

She was lost in her thoughts and in the bitterness of the coffee, and almost missed the approaching footsteps. She let her face settle into a practiced smile before she looked up. 

“I was about to get a second cup,” Viola said, holding her nearly empty mug aloft. “Would you like some?”

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“I would love some,” Auri answered, sitting down with Miles in her lap. The toddler was moving a toy car over Auri’s shoulder, down her arm, and back up again. “I have a feeling we’ll be needing a lot of coffee to get through these Games,” she sighed. 129 had been such a short Games, that Auri could only imagine the Gamemakers would make this one last a bit longer, especially with extra tributes added to the mix. “I have a feeling we’ll be here for longer than a weekend this time around.”

Perhaps she finally understood it, now. 

It hadn’t quite registered in her mind up until now, why some victor’s went straight for a bar once they had touched down in the Capitol. Now though, she was itching for a drink, if only that would ease her up a little. Her hands were still trembling, and after dropping a glass on the train, she’d stopped trying to pick up breakable things. She needed the tremble to go away, at least momentarily. 

Her own name, in Allard’s voice, continued to spook around her mind. All the while the hushed gasps of the crowd in Thirteen sounded from every corner in the Tower. Jeannie was going insane now, she must’ve been. 

“Anyone up for a drink?” She schooled her shaking voice, speaking to anyone at all familiar in the crowd around her. 

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“That’s alright. I’m going to see if I can get him to go down for a nap,” Auri waved off the offer, scooping Miles into her arms to bring him up to the sixth floor. She’d heard about Jeannie’s re-reaping in Thirteen. The situation was unnerving at best, and she couldn’t imagine how tense it must have been for Jeannie herself. “You’re more than welcome to come up, if you want. I’m sure we’ve got something in the fridge.” If Jeannie was looking for the company anyway. “But if you’d rather stay at the bar, I won’t be offended.”

“She’s one of yours, right?” Auri asked, gesturing toward Banshee as she settled into a corner of the Training Center near Lyric. “What are your thoughts so far?” She asked. “I’m not trying to get the angle on you or anything,” she added, realizing Lyric might think so. “I’m just trying to feel out where Sponsors might go or how alliances might shake out. I figure it keeps us all from wasting time.”

“How are this Games’ designs coming?” Auri asked, sitting down across from Cade after an already long day in the Training Center. It was a pointed question, since Auri still hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to Cade about what had happened with Harley’s launch. “Are you planning on showing up to put them on the tributes this time around?”

“Yes, I’d imagine, too,” he mumbled. He carefully took a few small sips of the wine until he was able to tilt it, and take a gulp. “Do you think parents in Panem will care? The odds just got smaller for their own children if they’re Reaped.”

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“I think they cared before, and I think they’ll care now,” she said. It was a bit of a delicate question, but at least for parents in outer districts, the Games were often viewed as a death sentence. The addition of two more kids wouldn’t be the thing that made those parents panic when they were already scared for their own children. “But not because the pool’s gone from twenty-six kids to twenty-eight.”

“No. I thought the same. I remember all… this was a lot to cope with. He doesn’t need someone else making really awkward conversation with him. And even if I did, I doubt he’d remember it.” His own Ball was a blur of faces and names when he tried to recall the parts he spent out in the ballroom. “Do you remember much of your Ball?”

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“Yeah, I remember a lot of it. Like, I remember that it was the first time I ever wore a real pair of heels and trying not to waddle around in them all night. I remember a bobby pin kept jabbing me in the scalp, and I remember being freaked out by most of the Capitol food.” She’d forgotten most of the details like decorations or who she talked to, but those feelings stuck out to her even now. “I think this would be overwhelming to anyone,” she reasoned.

“Great.” Georgia rolled her eyes, annoyed at the slight inconvenience. She was trying to have a perfect pregnancy, do everything right, and clearly the bartender didn’t understand that. “Well, do you want it? I asked for it to be nonalcoholic.”

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“I just got a refill, but really, thank you anyway,” she told Georgia, lifting her own glass of wine back off the counter. “You should send that one back. Either have them remake it, or a soda’s a pretty safe option, if you’re worried about them messing it up again.”