birthday boy's birthday bash | lucky's bday

I'd been to four before, but I don't remember their boys being so long. He's none of those riptides and more its syrupy sunsets. A pretty smile that betrays none of the churning depths. I admit thinking of Fours in watery metaphors is a bit banal, but fitting in the case of Lucky Nachtnebel.

Cool name, by the way. The kind I'd keep in my pocket for later. If I wasn't, you know, gonna die in a few days. That thought keeps creeping into the back of my mind, like my brain's a pincushion for the macabre. It's all too real without the apathy awarded by acrid smoke. If I keep telling myself I don't care, maybe one day I'll manage to make it true.

Must suck to have your birthday in the training center, but at least he gets to turn seventeen at all. Anxious fingers have torn the invitation into multi-colored shreds, shoved into my back pocket like the world's saddest confetti. It's a terrible idea to attend an upper district's birthday bash, so knew I couldn't miss it the minute I'd found the paper peeking under my door.

In spite of all these attempts at normalcy, he'll probably attempt to kill me some day. Might be worth trying to make myself less... stab-able? Dunno how I'm supposed to do that, but a birthday present seems like a good start. Even if it's a handmade card with a shitty gold-fish drawn on the front.

Happy Birthday, My Condolences!

Is all that I can bring myself to write.

I waffle outside the doors to the pool room for a while, wondering if I'll survive the embarrassment. There is a chance this is all some evil scheme, but it's a lot more effort than it's worth to worry about that. Secret party or not, murder in the training center would be cliche after last games. I know it's a different building, or whatever, but I'm still worried this place might be haunted.

"Or do you just have no friends?"

Oh, well this was the worst possible time to enter.

I wonder if it's possible to cringe so hard you die?

The door creeks on fresh hinges, and that feels a little cruel. I almost consider turning around and marching right back out the door but they've already seen me and I feel like it'd be even more of a thing then.

It's the girl from Three - not the crafty one. This one has a winter's glare, bright and blue and below freezing.

I miss Wen, she'd know what to do. Well, she'd probably start a fight but at least that's something more than standing in the entrance way looking up to where Lucky lauds over a desolate kingdom and back to the girl who can probably see into my soul.

"Is this a bad time?" I hold up the card, which flaps pitifully in the damp air "I... like made this so... you know what, I'll just leave it here. I can go."

marceline jeon .

"thought i was the only one,
turned out i was everyone"

In her fifteen years of life, Marceline has been wrangled into attending a multitude of parties. Most of them have been weddings, or first birthday celebrations, or baby-showers-turned-engagement-parties. Family occasions that she had no real choice over going to or not. Something like this, a teenage birthday party, is something far outside of her scope, and normally, back home in Eight, she wouldn't have gone.  But nothing here is normal, and she's certainly not in Eight. When she received her invitation, Marceline's first instinct was to fold the paper over and sentence it to the waste basket, which she did, and that was where it stayed. Over the next couple of hours, however, an unfamiliar feeling had started needling at her -- the fear of missing out. 

In a handful of days, she'll be dead, and there'll be no more parties then. Her family isn't religious in any way, and Marceline isn't sure if she believes in an afterlife or not, but if there is one, she likes to think it's peaceful. That is to say, she likes to think she'll be alone, with nobody to bother her, which also means nobody to invite her to any ghost parties. Her older sisters are on her mind; at her age, they used to sneak out at night, and come home giggling and smelling somewhat of perfume but mostly of alcohol. She remembers, because she used to lie there, pretending to sleep, wondering if that would ever be her.

Of course, it hadn't been, though it could be tonight.

Her escort, probably feeling sorry for her, had acquiesced within a day of her arrival, and fetched Marceline a crochet hook and various balls of yarn, which Marceline told her them wouldn't be able to wind down and sleep without. Last night, after the idea of the big anti-Marceline coalition forming at the swimming pool got in her head, Marceline stayed up for an extra couple of hours making a pair of moss stitch crochet handwarmers from a light blue yarn. Looking at them now, she wrinkles her nose. She could just put them on, pretend they were her own, seem like less of a try-hard, but didn't everybody deserve something nice on their birthday? She turns them back and forth in her hand, looking for a dropped stitch or a loose end to disqualify them as a gift but, of course, finds nothing. Resigned, Marceline makes her way to the pool.

The smell of the pool is the first thing that hits her. It takes her aback, from all the way down the hall. But she likes it. She likes the pool smell. How useless, considering her bathtub is the deepest thing she's ever been in. The idea of swimming appeals to her; of being totally submerged and weightless. Capturing that feeling in a tin tub is near impossible, but before her growth spurts she managed it a couple of times. She rounds a corner, and sees a girl slip through a creaky door ahead of her. Marceline sucks in a breath, holds it for fifteen, then lets it as she spurs herself to keep moving. Keep walking. Open the door.

"...they keep the generic swimming uniforms in the closet over there. But you don't have to do that, you could just dip your toes in or something." 

...And breathing is possible again, only so that she knows she looks normal in front of her fellow death fodder that've already arrived. A Three girl. Ten girl. The birthday Four. 

"Hi," she says, greeting the room more so than its occupants. Her tongue is heavy and unruly in her mouth, so she smiles, closed lipped as always, instead of saying anything else just yet. Marceline spies the gifts table and beelines for it. She places down the gloves, and spins around to face Lucky, making "eye contact" with his very, very high up eyebrows. "Happy birthday. Handwarmers. For training." 

x y l i a
fray

Xylia loved any chance to look good.

Of course, she always looked amazing, but a chance to really show off her finery and Capitol appeal really got her heart pounding. The moment her ally had left her District Suite a note, she couldn’t help but smile. He would be seventeen, practically a baby, and what better way to celebrate your impending death by reminding yourself of what would most likely be your last birthday?

Not that Lucky thought so. She was sure he thought he would win the entire thing. Little did he know that she had plans to take him out. Ally or not, she was already plotting for his untimely death. But tonight was a celebration! So regardless, Xylia put on her best red swimsuit and cover up, painted her lips to match, and stalked to the pool room where the festivities were to be held.

”This was brilliant, by the way,” she smirked as she placed a hand on her ally’s shoulder. The perfect opportunity to watch and observe. To see where the other tributes drifted, who their friends might be, and where their weakness lie.

”These better be the fun type of drinks,” she said over her shoulder as she whisked away from Lucky. Carefully, she selected a drink and began watching as the other tributes came in. Each one of their movements noted to analyze later.

Even her allies.