#embersteaparty

Every day seems to bring new whispers. Someone else has disappeared. Someone else has returned. Someone else hasn’t. So close to their wedding, and the chaos that came at its conclusion, they can’t help but feel that they bear some of the blame. They tried to play the Game, and this is what they get from it. The Capitol takes its cost; the Capitol still wins.

There’s another guilt there, too: that their victory with Fava put so many people in danger, people that they don’t even know. People that they never got a chance to really meet, and maybe now never will. People like Halle.

Back in District Twelve, Hudson watched the Games alongside everyone else, corralled into the town square by the Peacekeepers. But they tried to keep their head empty, their eyes turned away, tried to keep the horrors from sinking in. They didn’t commit the names of the Games’ architecture to memory—the escorts, the stylists—because they didn’t think they would ever need them. They didn’t think they would ever be reaped. Not from District Twelve, where their family was proud to not take Tesserae, not like so many of the rest. Not like Fava.

Even from across the room, Hudson can see that Pista looks tired. Drained. Hudson can relate: they were missing someone too, today, missing Cinna’s careful care before each and every Capitol event, making them into someone who could move in this world. “Pista—“ they say, not entirely sure where to begin, their tone softer, more serious than their words suggest. “Have you seen all the hats? I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many fancy hats in one place in my life.”

Every other year, Twig hasn’t minded the full slate of events and social activities that accompany the Games. For a long time, he even looked forward to them: his life in Seven had grown so small that it sometimes felt like he hardly existed at all in between the Games, like the Capitol just put him on a shelf until it was time to pull him out again.

This Games season has been different. They have less freedom to leave the Tower, to engage in the kind of gatherings where Twig usually thrived, greeting old friends and sealing new deals. This Games season has been different, too, because Twig hasn’t wanted to. Because it felt futile, even before the wedding showed him exactly how much.

He still has the mark on his palm, the bite of broken glass from the wedding, a reminder of what he’s already given up this year. He regrets it, but he’s not sure if he regrets it enough. He’s not sure if he’ll live long enough to reap the consequences of burning his bridges. If there will be more Games, more Tributes, for him.

This year already has a body count, after all, and the Games haven’t even started yet.

Tea doesn’t feel strong enough, but maybe that’s for the best. Better to keep his head, even when his head feels like the last place he wants to be. "Well this is—” he says, rolling the word around in his mouth “—quaint.”

There’s an impulse, at these kinds of gatherings, to cling to Fava’s side. They’re a team, after all. She’s the one person that they trust implicitly. And, well, they still can’t forget their introduction to the Capitol after their Victory Tour, when being off on their own was enough of an opening for Teal Pittsmith to pounce, like Hudson was the weak link caught trailing behind the herd.

They have just enough pride to not let themself. They and Fava are a team, but they’re their own people, as well. They have their own relationships, they’ve cultivated their own alliances. And they need those relationships to survive—and for Wren and Gage to have any chance of surviving. 

Still, it’s a nice urge to have. To know, without reservation, that their place is at Fava’s side, and to want to be there. It feels like a far cry from the uncertainty that plagued them after the Games, when they didn’t know what was a show for sponsors and what was real. They hardly wonder that at all anymore, like the fraught situation they’ve found themself in has whittled them down to the bare essentials, left no room for doubt.

They hadn’t had any doubt in the Arena, either. That came later. But, in the Arena, it was because they didn’t know enough to doubt. Now they know enough to not.

They’ve made the rounds on their own. Long enough to feel comfortable drifting back to Fava’s side when they see her alone off to the side, like a welcome tether has pulled them back there. To check in. To let their guard down, just for a moment. “Staying out of trouble so far?” They ask, and it feels like it should have some humor in it, but they don’t know if they manage it.

ROBYN GAZEL at THE SCARY BUSINESS TEA PARTY

ENTIRE ENSEMBLE: recycled (gasp!) and taken straight from their own closet for mixing and matching • HAIR & MAKEUP: Astraea •  MUST-HAVE TEA PARTY THING: macarons

AVEN ROSESAND at THE SCARY BUSINESS TEA PARTY

OUTFIT: straight from her closet; literally just lost her stylist yesterday • SHOES: neat white kicks she rarely ever wears • MUST-HAVE TEA PARTY THING: chocolate chip biscotti

PISTA CLEARMARK at THE SCARY BUSINESS TEA PARTY

JACKET: by a stricken Falto, with the District 6 prep team • THE REST: shirt, pants, and shoes from his own closet • MUST-HAVE TEA PARTY THING: a tall mug of caffeine to stay awake

GRIFFIN CRIPES at THE SCARY BUSINESS TEA PARTY

OUTFIT: recycled shit from years and years of Capitol events • SHOES: the same damn thing he wears every other day • MUST-HAVE TEA PARTY THING: Dawn’s Special Tea