A child for champions [Kay]
Oct 27, 2013 16:27:56 GMT -5
Post by pthalorarity on Oct 27, 2013 16:27:56 GMT -5
Through each regret and each goodbye
was a mistake too great to hide
Julian ran. He ran as far and fast as he could through the mountain paths of District Two. He stormed passed fellow runners on the trails and ignored any cordial “Hello”s and “Hey Julian”s that were called. Truthfully, most citizens were used to his hot and cold temperament and to see Julian Bryze storming through a run was nothing new. Today was different than the usual angst ridden tantrum however. Today the tradition of the Hunger Games struck his life again, taking another loved one, though in a way he had never suspected.
Clarity had trained beside Julian since even before the days of Midas Farrow. He had known her for longer than anyone and though they had been but cousins, she was far more like his sister. And now, just like Midas, the Games had taken her from him.
He had been shocked to find his cousin nearing the end of a pregnancy upon his return to his home District after the Victory Tour of the Sixty-Fourth Hunger Games. She had been in a state of denial and depression from the moment Julian had arrived that did nothing but spiral downward. He had known his cousin wasn’t stable, not that either of them ever really had been, but when her eighteenth birthday came and went and so did her last chance to enter a Games, Clarity had lost it. Julian’s dual Victor parents had certainly been tough on him, but everyone knew that his uncle was far worse to Clarity. He had shoved his insecurities of living in his Victor brother Serge’s shadow onto his only child who thus suffered the same fate under Julian…
Shunned by her father for disgracing his name in this unplanned pregnancy and no one to name as the father, Clarity had fallen into further despair. Julian had done his best to help her upon his arrival, but the resentment Clarity had been harboring for so long was finally unleashed and she estranged herself from her cousin as well.
It had only been that morning, but it seemed as if days had gone by since Julian received the call from the District’s hospital. Clarity stabbed herself in the chest with a knife she had stashed away immediately after giving birth to a healthy baby girl.“Her last wishes were that you take custody of the child, Mr. Bryze,” the doctor said over the phone.
“What!” Julian exclaimed in his fury and devastation. Nothing was making sense at the moment. Clarity… his Clarity, dead? A baby that was now supposed to be his? This wasn’t reality. He’d rather have been back in the arena than to hear anything else, so he simply hung up.
Without a word to Mace, he had slipped into his running shoes and was out the door. He didn’t know how long he had been running by now, but the call had been some time in the morning, and by the angle of the sun in the sky, it was well past noon. He knew his legs couldn’t bear much more, and instinctively they began to take him home. Not to his own mansion in the Victor’s Village, but that of his parents. He ran through the garden and burst through the front door. His mother called to him from the kitchen, knowing full well that it was her only son that had stormed into the house. Julian ignored the call however, heading straight for the stairs and bolting up to his bedroom. It had remained relatively unchanged aside from the lack of his belongings he had taken into his own miniature mansion.
He slammed the door behind him and collapsed to the floor, letting the room spin violently around him as his dehydration and the sickness of overexertion set in. Suddenly a strange noise filled the room. Someone was grossly sobbing. How disgusting, Julian thought, but there was no one else there. He lifted a hand to his cheek to find that it was not sweat that was staining his face, but salty tears that were flowing at a constant rate. Furious with himself for crying, Julian rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself onto his feet. It felt as if knives were being shoved into his calves as he stood wobbly, but pain had never stopped Julian Bryze before. He limped over to a photo on his old nightstand. It was of Clarity and himself when they were about fourteen. They were laughing in each other’s arms, both sweaty and mud stained after what was surely a rough training session.
Julian grit his teeth as his grip tightened around the picture frame. Why, why would she do this to him? It was all the Games… everything. Because he had won, because she had never had a chance, because it was all that mattered to her entire family, and now it left them both with nothing… No—not nothing. There was the child… now to be his child. Julian let out a roar of frustration and hurled the photo across the room and into a wall, shattering the glass as it slammed into the floor. Was this some sort of secondary punishment that Clarity intended out of spite? Did she hate him that much for having the life she thought she wanted? Or worse yet, did she foolishly believe that he would be a suitable parent for her now orphaned daughter?
Julian collapsed onto the floor once more. He curled into as tight of a ball as he could, and found that despite the need to cry, his tear ducts were dry. How long had he been crying today and not realized it? But there he stayed, dry eyed and exhausted in the same position and location when he had experienced his first major loss in life: Midas.
***
Pashmina sat across the kitchen table from her husband with her head in her hands. This family didn’t need any more loss, and her son didn’t need any more pressure on his life. Mace may have been in the dark, but she was full aware of the deal Julian had made with Snow and she could see every little bit that it was tearing away from him.
“Call the cowboy, let him know he’s here,” Serge said gruffly. He too was tired with worry. Pashmina gave him a sharp look to which her husband sighed. “I mean, call Mace.” Despite his general disapproval of the man his son had chosen to replace the hole that Midas had left, he knew that was who Julian needed most, especially now.
