small St★rs & | Steel | Bars | {Lulu, Matt}

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you were changing colors like the leaves in fall
i was saving up for the long winter
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The sensation of waking up once more in the Training Center of the Capitol was an unnerving one, and Topaz Ross did not welcome it as the first rays of sunlight peeked through the window, shining over the shimmering city outside. She knew she should have drawn the blinds before going to sleep; a hour or so more of rest would have been salvageable if she had. Damn sun.

Try as she might, she could not shake the feeling that because she was here, she would have to wake up, get dressed, refuse breakfast and argue with Carmel as she had every morning that one week, and head down to training. It was too easy to pretend that her time in the arena and the months following it had all been but a dream and soon she would be shipped off to the wildlife death trap for real, to eventually be ruthlessly slaughtered by a couple of tributes or some other calamity the Gamemakers had concocted. Of course, if she was going down she'd take a handful of them with her, but that was beside the point. The point was that a large part of her wanted it all to have been a dream. Because if it was, then Nash Harvey was still alive. Nash Harvey was just a floor above her, probably sleeping, and would be at training just like her in a matter of hours. Of course, at that point they would mean next-to-nothing to each other, but Tope didn't care. Just seeing her alive, breathing, moving...that would be more than enough.

Thoughts of Nash immediately prompted her to feel around frantically to make sure nothing had happened to the sleeping bag she was enveloped in. Though it always felt empty without Nash, she still insisted on sleeping in it every single night, regardless of where she was. Her bed at home had not been unmade since before the 56th Reaping; she simply slept in the sleeping bag on top of it. For a fortnight or so after returning home, going anywhere without it tucked protectively under her arm brought back horrifying memories of a pool of blood and a slashing sword and a forehead that glistened red with the word 'mine', but time had allowed her to be more comfortable with being apart from it. As the days went on, coping without her lost love became more bearable. Far from easy, but at least easier than it had been so close to her death. Topaz would live. She would miss Nash with every ounce of her being, but she would live. And that was what mattered...right?

Being back in the Training Center, though, was still more upsetting than the red-haired victor would have liked to admit. Sure, she had spent the vast majority of the months since she'd emerged from the arena in the Capitol; she preferred it there to District One, which had now come to feel like a place she hardly knew. Everything looked the same - new, fancy mansion in Victor's Village excluded - but nothing felt the same. Her parents now fawned over their champion of a daughter, claiming themselves responsible for every right move she had made during the Games. They had chosen to largely ignore the fact that she had been head-over-heels for another girl and then killed her, pretending not to notice the recurring haunted look in their child's eyes whenever the name came up anywhere, nor did they comment on the fact that she slept in a sleeping bag despite the fact that she had a bed with covers. Sapphire, however, had acknowledged Nash's existence more than once; it had been clear from the start that the younger Ross girl had not approved of the relationship. She tried to hide it, but Topaz knew her sister well enough to know it upset her. She couldn't tell if it was homophobia or anything of the sort - she suspected it wasn't, but couldn't be sure. But Saph had tried to probe her for information on the bond between the two a couple of times, always sporting a frown, and gotten angry when she refused to answer. Or as angry as quiet, introverted Sapphire could get.

So that among other reasons was why she would rather interact with doting, starstruck Capitolites over people from what she considered to be her past life. She had used some of her acquired riches to purchase an apartment in one of the finer residential areas of the city, although she tended to avoid it unless she was going home to sleep; the solitude of the luxury urban flat was too much for her to handle. She preferred socializing, and as a victor she had no trouble getting into all the most notable Capitol parties. Which she did, of course, because dancing and drinking and laughing about shallow things with shallow people dressed in obnoxious outfits gave her a chance to forget, if only for a bit. The parties, the events, the publicity - they were all distractions she welcomed, distractions she would take advantage of as her heart embarked on the next-to-impossible quest to heal itself.

It was inevitable that she'd run into past victors, seeing as she spent so much time in the place where they were all revered as superstars. They warned her to stay away from the city as much as possible, because even though she was only seventeen now, the older she got the more they could do with her. The most popular stories were of victors' bodies being sold for astronomical profits - there were plenty of Capitolites who would pay copious amounts to spend a night with a victor, particularly one so young and who looked like Topaz did. The Capitol made hundreds of thousands exploiting their victors in this way, and if the champions refused? Well, there were plenty of ways to break them if they did. But at the moment, Tope didn't care - she'd deal with that when it came. Right now, the latest way the Capitol was torturing her was by forcing her to mentor the newly selected District One tributes for the 57th Hunger Games.

What were their names again? York and...Anastasia. Yes, that was it. She was fairly certain they were cousins, if she remembered correctly. Almost like Aranica and Anani, although they were brother and sister, not cousins, and they had been reaped separate years anyway. They hadn't had to face each other in the arena as these two would. But from what she'd seen of them so far, Anastasia and York didn't seem to be too affected by that prospect. Although she probably should have learned by now to stop making assumptions regarding tributes, because it was so easy to be wrong about them.

Glancing at the clock beside her bed, she decided she should probably get up now; after all, she'd promised the tributes she would give them some semblance of training this morning. Why did they want her advice, anyway? She'd hardly used any of her own mentor's advice in the arena. Topaz was fairly certain it worked the same for everyone, Career tribute or not - you thought your mentor's advice would be valuable, but then your plate rises and you see the giant golden Cornucopia looming up in front of you and it suddenly becomes a giant free-for-all with no sense of order whatsoever. Screw remembering advice - you'd be lucky if you remembered who your allies were at the end of the Bloodbath. And then on the off chance you made it through that? Your gut instinct was what mattered most for the duration of the Games, whether it killed you or not.

Nevertheless, though, she had promised. And maybe she'd be able to help them come up with a strategy that would be somewhat useful. At least then she couldn't be accused of not doing her job, however horrifying of a job it was. Unzipping the sleeping bag, she swung her legs out of it and placed her feet on the cold hardwood floor, remembering to settle her precious bedroll snugly between her pillow and the headboard for safekeeping as she did every morning before leaving the room. And then she walked out into the hallway she remembered so well - and really wanted to forget.

She had to admit, though, it would have been worse if she'd had to sleep in her old room, the one that was currently occupied by Anastasia. The mentor rooms at least had a different layout than the tribute ones, so she wasn't taunted by recollections too much. Or not as much as she would have been, anyway. Walking past the dining area did bring back memories of her constant refusal to eat in hopes that it would prepare her for the hunger that was to come. How stupid she had been, not to take advantage of the food she'd had while she had it.

The sitting area was her destination, a place that didn't remind her of many things considering she had been far too busy to sit down during most of her training week in the Capitol. They had watched their training scores flash on the screen there, and seen recaps of the interviews after they had happened. That was about it. Regardless of the neutrality of the placer, though, somehow it still managed to bring up thoughts of the things she missed most. Nash's tousled, dark hair, her deep brown eyes, their hands interlocked, the feel of her soft lips against her own...because of this Topaz was seated on the couch staring straight into the crackling flames of the fireplace, very obviously distracted, when the tributes came in. "Hey, Topaz?" She heard Anastasia ask, tentatively drawing nearer to her. "...are you alright?"

The question caught her completely off-guard, and blinking a few times she turned her gaze away from the fire. It reminded her far too much of the inferno that had surrounded the pillars during that final battle with Takeba, anyway; she really shouldn't have been staring at it. Was she alright? How could she be alright, when Nash was no longer with her? When her life now consisted of nothing but drinking and partying and television screens and smiling for the cameras and family and friends that no longer understood her at all? "...am I alright?"