#pb123

He’d spent most of the party so far hanging out with Rory, but she’d wanted to spend some time near the pool so he’d branched off, not particularly interested in swimming. First of all, he couldn’t swim, but even if he wanted to, the nasty, long scar across his stomach from the Arena already made him uneasy to look at when alone, he wasn’t sure he could handle everyone here seeing it too. So drink in hand, he tugged his hoodie closer around his shoulders and leaned up against the wall, surveying the cacophony of activity across the ballroom. This was so different from his last ball- before it was so proper, so esteemed, but it seemed like the addition of pools and more casual wear to the mix reduced even the most prim Capitolite to something reminding him a bit more of rowdy teenagers.

A pool party! The Capitol really was trying to push home the beachy feel of the arena weren’t they, not that Sirena was complaining. She was perfectly happy to spend what would usually be a rather dull night conversing with sponsors in a pool instead. 

Zirconia loved a good party. She loved to social climb. She loved to look glamorous. And for the first time in this god-forsaken ordeal of a Games, she finally got to do all three things at the same time. She was several drinks in, hips swaying to the beat as she held up her most recent choice in drink (a “twisted starfish”, according to the bartender, but it had plenty of liquor and matched her hot pink bikini, and that’s what mattered) above her head as she bounced through the crowd, a second a charitable gift for the next important person she might bump into.  Fortunately, she was able to free up that hand quickly, nearly running full-on into another person. Almost immediately, she thrust the drink into their hands. “A gift from Miss Panem to you!”

Hyacinth had been with Emilia when Maverick had gone after Abel but once she had caught wind of what the chattering of the Capitolites was about, Hyacinth had moved through the crowd as fast as she could. By the time she got back to the pool the boys had gone their separate ways. Spotting Maverick disappearing, Hyacinth took off after him with Erebus. “I’m going to fucking kill him...” She growled.

The landscape of her skin was one riddled with scars. The offer came time and again throughout the years to use capitol technology to smooth it out, but that hadn't seemed right. In her swimwear, the multitude was on display. The arena, the rebellion, the self-imposed. The eyes of sponsors, stylists, and escorts lingered on them. Questions came from the bolder and awkwardness from the meek. Eventually she grew tired of it and when someone asked her about a white t-shaped scar on her hip she said, "Shrapnel from the bombings," and then gave him a forceful shove into the pool. For a second she froze, concerned her anklet would zap her, but nothing came. "Now fuck off."

A pool party was not his definition of a fun time, not with so many people around and the scars that licked up his back and around his abdomen. Scars that matched the ‘T’ branded into his wrist. Scars that marked him as a traitor, a rebel to the nation. But sponsors were more necessary than ever before and that meant his attendance was required especially with Emilia unwilling and unable to speak with the sponsors, something he’d prefer she didn’t have to deal with anyway right now. He knew her emotional state hung in the balance from second to second, her usual cool façade crumbling under the weight of everything this year was throwing at hem. 

She was done. She couldn’t do this anymore. It one more person tried to touch her stomach, or tried to congratulate her on trying to continue to have a life - as if being pregnant would be the end of her life, as if the twins that grew within her weren’t wanted. She was likely to snap. She’d already snapped at Zirconia, she didn’t need to snap at a sponsor, or break down in front of everyone. So she’d set out to find her husband.