i don't want to be fated; i want to choose.

There is a gun in my stomach. There is a hole in my throat. There is a reason why every good thing ends with a forest burning. Your hand on my throat. None of that is good anymore. How could it be? I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m not even a girl.  I haven’t been a good one since I was a kid.  Not even then. 

— excerpt from There’s A Lot of Good Reasons to Go Out West by SK Osborn

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“Fuck if I know,” his laughter hovered ghostly into the air. “You’re young enough to be. And you died last, which felt like a redo of losing everybody. And, Jeannie – I don’t know, I’m not good with this shit, just take it and judge me for being an old sappy man, if you want, but take it.”

She felt her breath as heavy as lead in her lungs, then. This was more vulnerable than she was used to with Hunter, and she didn’t exactly know how to handle it. But at the very least, she could give him what he was asking her for. “I’ll take it. Don’t worry, I’ll take it.” 

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He swallowed dryly through the silence. “You’re not supposed to be a grown up,” he argued softly, always trying to adjust his tone for Jeannie. “You’re…” With one elbow prompted against the bar, he made his fingers circle in the air, as if trying to find the right word. There were no right words for a sister come back from the dead, for a teenager he doesn’t know too well, that’s the last chance at a family. “… my child.” It was ridiculous, and so he burst into light chuckle, but reiterated it either way. “My sister, of course, but my child.”

Caught off guard, she raised her head again, watery eyes fixing on her brother. He laughed right after he said it, and incredulously, Jeannie followed along. You’re my child. “What the hell are you on about?” Maybe it mattered, though, that he’d made her feel something other than sorrow for a moment. 

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“And, like, how would knowing more help in any palpable way?” It wasn’t that he didn’t care about history (though he didn’t). It was entirely that there was no point on dwelling on rotten houses and dead people’s lives of hundreds of years ago.

“Why does it have to help with anything?” she furrowed her brows. “Do you, I don’t know, read fantasy novels expecting them to help you somehow?”

“No, no,” he shook his head quickly. “If anything, you shouldn’t be too friendly with her. She volunteered not because she’s your friend, but because you’re a future sovereign.” He didn’t so much as pause; he was certain that soon enough, life and culture in Thirteen would return to normal. The sovereign would be respected without someone having to put their life on the line for it. “Knight in shining armor plays a little better than friends, don’t you think?”

“It’s...” It’d been both, she was pretty sure. Knox hadn’t just been her personal guard, but also someone who’d grown to be her friend after some time. But perhaps, it was true that the public would find knight in shining armor for the future sovereign a little less predictable and normal than a friend volunteering for a friend. “It might be true,” she slowly nodded. “But what’s the play, then? How do I talk to sponsors about this?”

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“Yeah, guess so. But I have the feeling they’ll find other ways to try to conveniently get rid of me.” He smiled, but he wasn’t entirely joking. “Sorry you’re still in there. I don’t know if they’d try that crap a fourth time, though. Apart from it being obviously rigged, I hear Radia’s pissed.”

“Nothing’s as convenient as the Games,” she shrugged, but it was gentle nonetheless. “Everything else is just messy.” Jeannie nodded a little. “I don’t know if they will, but if they wanted to, they could. Right? Next time might be in Eight. All chalked up to shitty, shitty luck.” Radia was angry, mostly about Battenberg interfering more than she’d already done when opening up Thirteen for reapings. But would that anger be enough to save her in the end? 

Ama hadn’t had much time to actually talk to the mentors on the floor, far more preoccupied with trying to create the most painless environment for the new tributes. Or perhaps the mentors hadn’t had much time to talk to her, given their new roles. It was an uncertain floor, to say the least, and nearly made Ama miss the hope and optimism that the Twelfth floor maintained despite the tragedies that occurred within their district. But change was good, surely, and taking time to change the tablecloth in the dining room of Thirteen’s floor gave Ama the opportunity she hadn’t realized she’d been looking for to talk to Jeannie. Instead of slipping into the corridor as she intended, Ama put down the crumpled linen in her arms when she spotted the young mentor. Hi, she signed. How are you doing? Ama knew that there was no possible good way to answer that question, not for mentors, not during the Games, but it was the only one she could think to ask.

@jeaninetwill

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He did not want to take it as seriously as it was intended, but he couldn’t dismiss it either. With a weak simper, Lysander flashed his eyebrows, as if to take distance. “Well, Jeanine, maybe focus on living first. One way or another, you got out. What happens next will happen regardless of obsessions and concern.” It was peculiar advice, coming from him, especially as the sort of Gamemaker he prided himself on being.

She hummed, faintly. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” Jeannie had no control over anything that happened to her, it seemed, so there was no way to argue with him on facts anyway. Besides, it almost soothed something in her restless soul. Whatever would happen, would happen. “Is this another lesson we’re having right now?” she tried to joke. 

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“I thought I’m giving you room,” he argued softly, shrugging as if faultless. “Trust, space, freedom.” But he was wrong. “If you need me around, you should tell me. I can’t read your mind, J. And I don’t know these things by heart.”

“I should want that,” she agreed, though her voice was scratchy and broke at times, as she grabbed her glass a little tighter. “I should need shit like that but lately- I just- I know I’m supposed to be grown up now but sometimes I just wish-” Jeannie shook her head to herself, burying her face in her hands with a drawn out, shaky sigh. 

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“Done and done leaves a lot unfinished, but I’ll let you have it, Jeannie Twill. I won fair and square, third or maybe fourth fan favorite to win… at best. Life is breezy. I’m having a blast,” Carol nodded along, the self-deprecation slipping almost unnoticed out of his mouth. He cringed in hindsight, after hearing himself say it. “It quite literally doesn’t matter if they’re gone now. What use would they even be of?”

“Like what?” She could imagine what it was, but he was a closed book about what was unfinished and still troubling him in this conversation. “No use,” she rolled her eyes. “It’s not about the use, it’s about the history. We know so little of what it was like before whatever climate catastrophe hit, or even what much of life was like before the Dark Days. I find it interesting.”

@jeaninetwill​

interviews were about to start, all the mentors were in the big menor box, grabbing seats and milling about, preparing for everything. Lyric gravitated towards one of the mentors her age, the one who just so happened to be a queen.

“want to get a beer after this?” she asked, sliding in beside jeannie. 

Surprised, she looked up, before her expression gave way to relief. “Oh, yes, please. I’d kill for something with an edge right about now, even if it has to be beer.”

It was kind of badass, the way she did it. He couldn’t deny that, though he wanted to. “Okay,” he said, forgetting his annoyance a bit, mimicking what she’d done, taking the fighting stance with the blade and then shooting forward, losing his balance a bit as he did so, too gung-ho.

“Yeah, probably not,” he said, “although I could always chat with Ash or Benny, you can chat with Alder.” He shrugged a little. “I do think they could be good allies.”

“I think they’re not too interested in what I want” she shrugged, but was happy to know at least one of her vices could be fed for now.

Jeanine looked sincere. She even sounded sincere. He wanted to believe her, he did, but was it really fair? For her to try to assure him of no favouritism? And for him to hold her to it? “But she volunteered for you,” Konner said, matter-of-fact and without accusation. “And she’s your friend, right? I’m just saying, if I were in your place, y’know.” But maybe the person who was supposed to be the future sovereign was better than that. Maybe Jeanine was a bigger person, made of nobler stuff. Or maybe not. Either way, who was he to judge? Not that he was judging. “Sorry, I didn’t mean– Yeah, okay, I- I trust you,” he offered, not at all convincing and not believing his own words.

She couldn’t help the guilt that momentarily swam in her eyes as he pointed out that Knox had volunteered for her. Roundabout way of saying that she had more loyalty towards her than to him. He didn’t say it with an accusation lingering, but she felt it nonetheless. “And she’s my tribute, now,” Jeannie replied, a firm tone in her voice when she didn’t let the guilt consume it. “As much as you are.” He wasn’t trusting her, and she didn’t want to be pacified. “It’s alright,” she muttered. “If you don’t trust me, I mean. I’ll show you, though, that I’m not abandoning you. Not now, not ever. Alright?”

“That’s a bit of a personal question, but, to be frank, I don’t. I don’t have the time to reflect on my own death when I’m always so busy building the scene of over fifty child deaths a year,” he answered, a bit of poison and self-mockery in there, not uncharacteristic as an attitude, but uncharacteristically frank about it. “Do you think about death a lot?”

“All the time,” she admitted without hesitation, quiet voice and a faint smile on her lips. “Can’t stop, actually. It’s something very familiar to think about, I’m sure you agree. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have death to obsess over.”

“I knew only what I wanted,” he admitted. “Not all sponsors have similar tastes. It doesn’t hurt to play the field, though. Knox, obviously, has a reason to really stand out. Should I ask you two wear friendship bracelets?”

“We don’t wear friendship bracelets,” she huffed, rolling her eyes in a way that wasn’t annoyed but amused instead. “Why, do you think that would help? Sell the volunteering more? Make her more attractive to sponsors, than military training already has?”