Sapphire Wolf

“You,” Banshee replied quickly. She realized how desperate and stupid she sounded as soon as the word came out, and quickly, breathlessly added, “Or anyone. Anything. Maybe.”

Saph raised a brow at the inaccuracy of her words before sighing. “Banshee, right?” she clarified, even though she knew it to be true, it was just an odd name, but maybe that was a thing for eleven, Sapphire wasn’t exactly common either. “Are you hungry?” she asked, because that’s where she was heading anyway, for food, something greasy.

Banshee had to talk to someone. She knew she did. This was a vast, slick building and she didn’t seem to know up from down. There was no dirt, no sunlight, no trees to mark how far she’d walked or when she should turn back. She’d been told something about a schedule on the train, but she didn’t remember much of it. Someone passed her in the hall, and she stopped, opening her mouth to say something. But the words caught in her throat. She didn’t know who this other person was, or what they might think of her voice, or how they might interpret her question. This was all life and death now, and not in the way she was used to. She said nothing, instead letting her jaw hang open a little as she stared at the person who passed.

Saph was going to continue walking, because this wasn’t her job, she wasn’t the escort, she wasn’t the friendly face her tributes needed, she was a mentor, albeit not a great one, but usually, she’d leave it at that. 

Reluctantly, she turned back around, watched as the girl stood there, wide eyed and lost, and rolled her own eyes. “What are you looking for?”

.

He looked at her like she’d grown a second head. “Speaking as someone who comes from a place in Seven that never sees the fucking sunshine, you definitely would not prefer Thirteen,” he pointed out. “It’s depressing. And while you or I could get through it, could you imagine all these people trying to cope?” He gestured to the Capitolites around them– which, to that point, might make a Games in Thirteen entertaining after all.

“I would” Saph replied stubbornly, because she absolutely hated fucking sand, the way it got into her boots and hair and she’d find it somewhere in her luggage weeks after, it was like a whole new form of torture. “I don’t know about you, but seeing Capitolites suffer is one of my favourite things in life”

.

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” he nodded. He appreciated her looking out, but he trusted himself to handle it. Taking the edge off of a night like tonight didn’t set him up for a bad habit, and he’d grown up around home brewed liquor stronger than the drinks they were serving tonight. “I’ll make sure somebody knows to cut me off before I start dancin’ on the tables,” he joked, because he clearly wouldn’t be doing that any time soon.

Saph smiled, happy to have given her warning, but left it at that, because she couldn’t be seen to be that caring, it would absolutely ruin her image. “You’re a dancing on tables kind of guy?” she raised her eyebrow.

Lara wasn’t trying to come off as conflictual. In fact, her tone was relaxed and her eyes were merely curious as she approached the mentor from District Eleven. “What if I told you I was offered a position in your district’s staff?” Surely, she’d turned it down, but the hypothesis was funny to her, considering their last interactions.

@saph-wolf​

Saph wanted to walk away, because the last thing she wanted tonight was to enter another conversation with Lara, one that would most likely end in some sort of vicious cycle. “I’d politely ask you to turn it the fuck down”

.

“Or maybe they’ll finally let some of us retire.” He doubted it. There were always upper district, devoted Capitol loyalist mentors retiring, shifting in and out of the job, but that was much, much more limited to mentors like himself and Sapphire. “Or they’ll let us go to Four again. That was nice.”

Sapphire laughed at that, a little exaggeratedly, but it was a funny statement, letting them retire, as if. “Four was fucking awful, I’d rather go to thirteen and spend my life underground than have to deal with all that sand again”

.

“Did it work? Did people leave you alone in there?” Gatlin asked, because he was starting to think people were more likely to follow him in then leave him alone. “I can’t stand it,” he admitted. It made him feel like an animal in a cage, and everyone kept expecting him to do tricks. “But apparently, if I tell them all to fuck off, the next set of tributes from Ten get screwed, so I’m drinkin’ instead.”

“No” Saph admitted. “But it got me away from the creepy old men for a while” she added with a smirk.  “Drinking is a good distraction” she nodded. “Just don’t let it become habit, half the victors around here are drunks because of that” Saph explained.

Gatlin shifted uncomfortably under the fabric of his outfit. It was hard to focus on anything but the itching of the thick scars that covered his back and shoulders, or the countless eyes that were watching him. He settled his nose into a glass of whiskey on the rocks as someone moved into the space next to him. “If you’re gonna try to give me your friend’s number or use the word farm anywhere in this conversation then this spot’s taken,” he warned the other person without bothering to look up.

Saph snorted a laugh before she sipped on her own drink, one of the stupid cocktails she’d picked up off a tray to avoid the crowds at the bar. “I hate farm talk” she hummed, sat in the seat anyway, crossing her legs. “I remember I hid in the bathroom for most of my victor’s ball, fucking weird having everyone just stare, right?”

“Gatlin seems nice?” He was tentative, as always, about a new Victor joining the fold, sizing up how he’d have to handle them as either friend or competition to his tributes. Often both. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

“He’s alright” Saph shrugged, remembering their brief interaction before he’d entered the arena. He’d kept her secret stash of vodka to himself, which she appreciated, so it could have been worse. “They’ll have to do another tower renovation soon, with all these new faces”

“What do you mean?” he inquired, but his attention was caught quickly by the book in her hands. “How can you be reading during the Games?”

“Let’s be real, the majority of the games is pretty fucking boring” Saph shrugged, tracing the title of the book as she spoke. “I can’t watch them walk the length of the arena over and over again non-stop, there needs to be some sort of rest-bite, no?”

“A drink! I could definitely use one of those.” Anything it make his day a little more exciting. Sure, he could just get himself a drink but it definitely didn’t feel the same as someone buying one for him. “Detective Macintosh it is.” He said he stood up and immediately started searching the room. He then looked under the couch and low and behold, there it was. He reached for it before handing it to the girl. “There be a hole in the couch or something. But I found it!”

Saph watched as he looked underneath the couch, she wanted to cut in and tell him she’d already looked there herself, but then he pulled the book out and she had no choice but to bite her tongue. “I swear someone took it from there and then put it back” she scoffed, because she hated being wrong. “I guess I owe you a drink so”

“Yup,” she let the p pop after having taken a sip from her glass of juice. “It’s home now, how could I not?” Home, now, as opposed to Eight, where she no longer stayed longer than two weeks at once during breaks. As opposed to Eight, where she could still feel her ribs and body ache all over sometimes. “I’ve never been to Eleven, how’re the breaks there? I mean, I sort of have. But I’d like to think the war doesn’t count as an accurate representation.”

“Your book?” Mac asked her as he looked around, seeing if it somehow fell onto the floor. “I’m sorry I didn’t take it and I didn’t see who did.” He told her before popping up out of his seat, his hands on his hips. “But lucky for you, they call me Detective Macintosh back home! I will help you find your book!” Was that a lie? Definitely. But, he really did want to help her find it.

“I mean I didn’t write it” she clarified, as if he might be dumb enough to think that’s what she meant. “But I bought it, so it’s mine, yeah” she added then, still looking through the sofa to make sure it hadn’t slid in further. “I’ll buy you a drink if you find it”

Allard was used to not sleeping, but he preferred to do it in the comfort of his own home. He had no appetite for anything, and the things that usually helped to boost his mood only wound him up. He felt like a tightly coiled spring. “Absolutely ridiculous,” he muttered as he set down his tablet on a table in a viewing lounge. The Capitol Gazette’s front page lit up on the screen with headlines about the presidential ball. “Did no one know it would snow?”

“All the technology they have, and they can’t predict a snow storm” Saph snorted, cracking her back as she moved from her spot on the lounge sofa, closing her book for a break. “You reckon they’ve run out of food yet?”