#fullmetall

"Yeah?" It's a relief to hear that, really. The kid has been through so much - of course, everyone does, with the games, but that's no reason to discount any of it. She may not have been there, but from what Arista says, he's been stubborn from the start. They both know those are sometimes the ones you really need to keep an eye on. "I'm happy to." Sadie's smile is always warm. Warm in that way that maybe a mom or a grandma would look when seeing you for the first time in a while. The victors are her kids, really - her and Matton never had any, never wanted to put kids in the position of having the capitol in their lives, and it's probably too late at this point. But she doesn't mind. She has her victors, and she has Ben's niece and nephews. She has a family. That's all she needs.

Going home can be almost as intimidating as the victory tour. If not worse, maybe - on the victory tour you talk to crowds of strangers. You'll never see most of these people ever again. When you go home, you have to face the people who know you. Who love you. Do they still love you? Has their view of you changed, having had to watch you do awful things, having had to watch you struggle for survival and be nationally humiliated? You have to look them in the face. You have to go home and see what they'll say to you. These people are important in your life.

It's fucking terrifying. Arista had hardly been able to sleep the night before worrying about the look that would be in Rylan's eyes when he saw her again.

Okay, maybe she's being a bit jaded. Maybe this isn't that funny. But, oh, there's something in her that just fucking loves an opportunity to savor something like this, to bask in the discomfort of someone so firmly in the seat of privilege. Maybe she shouldn't be laughing at the sight of a capitolite getting dragged through the mud by the others. But it's so fun to watch them tear each other apart for a change.

"Come on." There's a wicked grin on her face, glancing over at him with shining eyes over the rim of her glass. "This is fucking hilarious. You can't tell me it's not." She could laugh at this sort of shit all day. Cruel, stupid assholes turning on each other, getting their poor little feelings hurt. It's better than television.

"I'm not stopping you." It's as close to an invitation as he (or most anyone) could get from her at the moment. Sitting on a bench in some tucked-away hallway (she's been trying to work her way through this stupid fucking maze of a place, finding areas no one else goes where she won't be told she's breaking the rules or needs to go back to whatever they're having her do now), elbows resting right on the tops of her knees, hunched over and staring at the spot where the wall meets the floor. Zoning out? Dissociating? Deep in thought? It's anyone's guess.

But now there's someone else here, and she looks up, shifting a little closer to the end of the bench either to make room for him or avoid touch. It's strange, how it feels like it was almost easier to talk to him when they were both in the capitol and suffering. At least then they could stand in the corner and let out some of that bitterness together. There are no ridiculous crowds of capitolites to criticize here.

Everything since the rescue has felt like a blur. Pulled out of that little room, rushed to a plane, into another place with flourescent lights and solid walls, grey this time, poked and prodded and administered drugs and medicines and hooked to IVs and bandaged by doctors whose faces she doesn't recognize wearing clothes she's never seen and it's all such a blur. Everything feels dulled in comparison. There are few things as vivid as pain.

Rylan and dad are dead. She's half expecting this to be a dream, she'll wake up and be back in that room, the door will open, and the pain will continue. If it weren't for her eye movements she might look catatonic.

Ed is here. There's that little bit of recognition somewhere in her eyes, looking at him, like trying to make out a light in the distance on a foggy day. Ed is here. Rylan should be with him. Rylan and dad are dead. She can't tell if this is real.

Arista, the victor who was always there in her community, mentor for 20 years, one of the staples of nine on and off screen, always willing to talk to any of her fellow victors. Always trying to be there somehow.

It can come off as a bit much sometimes, all her checking in, she knows that. Arista knows she needs to get better at letting it go sometimes when they push her away. It's just hard to know sometimes, when they need space or when they're pushing her away out of some sort of self-sabotaging urge - sure, there's types, but no two tributes are the same. This is only her second victor. And it's so hard to just sit there and let them go through it. That's the whole reason she got into this, because she couldn't just sit by and watch. There has to be something she can do.

She just needs to get better at accepting that sometimes the something she needs to do is leave them some space.

Katrina outright snorts. "Oh, sure. Right there with you. Who can't take this seriously?"

The capitol is both the most serious and unserious of places. It's impossible for a victor to really live a free life there. Everything is always monitored, every step seen, nowhere anonymous, a point of attention and gossip and opinion every single place you go. There are rules to follow. Spoken and unspoken. Consequences if you don't. If you don't take those consequences seriously at first, you'll surely learn to.

At the same time, there are people all around you dressed like childrens' drawings. Like fucking birds. There's people who dye their skin purple.

There aren't many times Katrina would really call any of the victors lucky. But at the moment, she's inclined to agree.

She's seated on the floor, against the wall. Staring at her hands as she rips a piece of paper into progressively smaller and smaller pieces. None of her whittling supplies are allowed. The ones Blight gave her are at home, in her house, right where they were left on that morning before they went to the capitol for the Quell. Will she ever see those tools again?

At least his mentors - alright, well, one of them is off in the capitol, but the other one is okay. Maybe he's not all that lucky. Who knows. Katrina has never felt lucky, only ever cursed. This is another case of that.