{{Obstacles}} :Mentor//Rosetta:

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Onyx
Capitol Resident

1,169 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Jan 3, 2023 15:20:14 GMT -5

in between somewhere and nowhere

{{Obstacles}} :Mentor//Rosetta: May 24, 2012 12:32:51 GMT -5

Post by Onyx on May 24, 2012 12:32:51 GMT -5

Doing | Thinking | Consciencing | Hearing | Speaking

Do you want me to call you madam? I sneer, arms folded across my stomach as I regard the woman leaning on the bench I am sitting at. She is slightly silhouetted against the neon lights that form an artificial halo around her head. Ironic, that the only one who stayed alive could be given such an aura of death and heavenliness. Her breathing is strong and quiet, and she still has the District look about her. But what has victory done to her?

[/i] I imagine the turmoil inside her – guilt, loss, pain? A pang of pity throbs in my gut for Lethe Turner, because I think I would rather be slaughtered in the Arena than relive others being torn apart every year, and every night.

Nearby, the twelve year old girl crashes to the ground, her heavy sword singing as it spins away from her, and the Careers laugh from their ominous looking clump. I hear her cough as she scrabbles to her feet again, like a lamb on ice, and know it is a sob in disguise. Laugh now, but all but one of you is going to die. I am going to die…

This thought brings me back to my mentor. If she did it, why can’t I? Because, really, I don’t want to have to go what she goes through. I look her in the eyes, and she that she feels nothing towards me at all. Would she mourn for me, now there is no one left to mourn? Or would it just be a matter of ah well, there’s always next year, another hopeful to try and fill my footsteps. Perhaps she already favours Haff.[/i] My eyes prickle as I stare earnestly up at her, imploring her to take some faith in me. I am going to-

I know I’m going to die, but could you help me make it later? Everything is so alien here, so new to me. No one back in District Five will care when I die. No one will care about my feelings. Can I give them a reason to care? Could Lethe give me the time I need to show I could be remembered? It’s just a beauty contest.

I break the eye contact, while she still considers me curiously, and focus on the weapon I had been training with before Lethe called me over to say she would talk with me. A broadsword, it was too heavy for me to lift at first, and I threw all my height and weight behind it as I thrust blindly at a Trainer. It was embarrassing, and humiliation is more lethal than any weapon out here.[/i] A tribute with broken mind and morale is a tribute with an easily broken body. I was broken even before my letter was drawn.

But who am I to judge tactics? A helpless seventeen year old with shaking hands and a baby’s strength, while a Victor watches my every emotion. I am a runner. I am faster than time. But how can even eternity help Eternity, when everyone else is faster?

Awkwardly, I shift my sitting position, curling my long legs below my chair and taking the protest of my muscles as another sign that I am still alive. I suppose, I’m more of a survivor than a fighter. I can use a knife, I think,[/b] stupid words, as I realise once again I am talking to a fighter, but I’m happy for anything that will help me.[/b] Anything, please.

A half-frown creases Lethe’s eyebrows, but her eyes shine with some bitter amusement. Instinctively, I glare back, hoping that she will see that I’m strong. But I’m not a fighter. And I am going to die.

Ardently, I try one more time, please? Anything. Every second, I wish there was some way I could prove myself a little more.[/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify]

someday we'll be drinking with the seldom seen kid

Rosetta
Retired Staff

1,872 POSTS
last seen Aug 5, 2020 8:28:28 GMT -5

{{Obstacles}} :Mentor//Rosetta: May 25, 2012 10:31:04 GMT -5

Post by Rosetta on May 25, 2012 10:31:04 GMT -5

Lethe Turner
media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmarmbrDQq1qbee1s.jpg

[/IMG][/font][/size][/center]

Lethe knew it was her job. But that didn’t change the fact that she didn’t like doing it. The past tributes she’d had had to mentor all hadn’t been too terrible. Each stood out in her mind. Especially the girls, for some reason. Sundra’s quiet, light air, Ink’s sweet-to-sour switch that astonished ever her. They were each so different. And now, she was onto her third girl, one who shocked her more than ever.

The morning had, again, been stressful. With gold streaking the dark blue sky, banishing the night, Lethe rose, hearing her daughter call out to her. As usual. Lethe often mused why children rose so early, sensing the new day come upon them. Perhaps children were more insightful than adults. They knew life was not a thing to waste, and knew rising early was essential in living it to the fullest. They realized that it could be snatched away at any given moment.

“Mommy!”

Walking into her daughter’s room, Lethe smiled, the name sending jolts through her entire body. The name always did. It was her new name. Her mind recalled how when she first felt the stirring within her and realized that it would be so, there was dread pitting deep down, pulling sweat from her pores, trembling her lips and she couldn’t believe she’d been that stupid with his hands unzipping the back of her dress and her frantic fingers unbuttoning his shirt and that elation lightening her head, widened her grin, making her giggle…it all would lead to this.

Like some sort of cycle, though, Lethe was back to giggling, full of lightness, smiling down at her little girl as she helped Eden out of bed. Soft skin, bright, lamp-like eyes, pink gums that gurgled and laughed up at her mother and made her mother want to weep. Perfect, perfect she was. Moments are always moving forward, despite its occupants willing it to remain frozen and that moment with Eden huddled in her arms in the early morning soon passed. Nevertheless, Lethe could still feel her daughter’s heart-warming warmth against her body as she helped her dress, Camalia skittering excitedly around their pale legs.

That warmth was still stirring deep inside of her when she went down to see Eternity, her mentor duties forcing her so. Clang! She heard the training room before she saw it. She could already feel the sore limbs, sweat clinging to them, the gasping breath, the blazing eyes as swords cut through the air, smacking against one another. She could feel the thick terror, sticking deep in their throat, racing their hearts against one another and then there was confidence as the arrow hit its mark and the hands beat the air just as they imagined they would when they won.

It took all of her strength to step into the room and feel its judgment cling to her once more. Though none of it was for her, the weight was too heavy and swiftly, she made it to a bench and dropped down into it. Relax, Lethe.

She didn’t know who she was dealing with exactly until she called Eternity over. The sword clanged to the ground and the hair on the back of her neck stood straight up. Frustration. This girl hadn’t yet given up if she was so frustrated that she couldn’t do something. And that meant she was ten times harder to control.

And Lethe was right. Sharp like glass were her words, hitting her skin and causing her to grimace and look away from the girl’s face. Her hands fidgeted in her lap anxiously, mind reeling. What the hell was she supposed to tell this girl?

Accept it already. I can’t delay your death. Only watch, helpless, miles away.

“Please?”

And that stabbed Lethe even deeper, father and harder than any of her other words. The helplessness, the plead for help. The fact that she could do nothing. Lethe Turner wanted to curl up and deflect the pleading, deflect it all, curl up with Eden and Camalia and never have to do any of this again. Lethe Turner was powerless in the face of fate and it burned her, cut like fingernails on her face.

Hands twitching, Lethe made a point of sitting on them. No, she was going to break that habit. For Eden. And so, she took a deep breath, to settle the demons in her mind, in the monster’s mind and forced herself to again look at this girl, this doomed being.

“Please?”

“It isn’t about fighting,” she found her saying as a thrown knife across the room sent light over the walls. “Surviving is harder than that. Don’t…”

A girl’s blonde hair glistened in the sun, but her eyes were wide and blue, her body motionless as blood trickled from her head.

The sky blazed with light and sound and in the center of it, a blind girl stared out into hell before disappearing forever.

Metal flashed above her head, but it didn’t meet its target, because her knife did first. In his stomach. And he fell, fell, fell into the muddy ground to be devoured and her heart stopped. We were friends.

Weren’t we?

And Lethe heard the quiver in her voice, swallowing herself whole, as she finished the painful sentence, “become too attached to anyone. They’ll die anyway.”[/size][/blockquote][/color]

Last Edit: May 25, 2012 10:31:50 GMT -5 by Rosetta

^^Made by the excellent Shrimp!

Onyx
Capitol Resident

1,169 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Jan 3, 2023 15:20:14 GMT -5

in between somewhere and nowhere

{{Obstacles}} :Mentor//Rosetta: May 27, 2012 6:20:21 GMT -5

Post by Onyx on May 27, 2012 6:20:21 GMT -5

~~Okay omg that bit about Eden made me cry. Ew this sucks >.>~~

Doing | Thinking | Consciencing | Hearing | Speaking

The haze of foul perspiration that hangs in the air pushes down on my chest, making it hard to breathe and even harder to think of anything rational to say to Lethe. Her advice cuts into me like a knife, pulling me out of the trance that my thoughts had lured me into. “Don’t become too attached to anyone. They’ll die anyway.”

[/b] Yes, we’re all going to die. We’re all going to kill and die and go to some sort of Hell. Her blonde hair frames her face in an almost ethereal kind of way, her eyes watery and sad. I know he has gone through so much, and can’t bring myself to say these words to her. She was the small bird that wanted to hunt. It is something I could never be.

But could I tell her that instead? That there’s no point teaching me anything, I’ll just be another girl who is murdered and she’ll have to take that weight on her shoulders? No. I suffer inside every day, but it was suffering that I let affect me, so I could feel sorry for myself. Lethe’s pain is escalated so much, why should I make that burden heavier? [/i]

The noise in this room seems louder than possible. Multiplied inside my ears, every shout, cheer, crackle of fire, gasp of a bow, gurgle of boiling water and fearsome crash and scream of blade on blade assaults my senses so entirely that it is an effort to just stay conscious and aware. Is this what it would feel like to die? Can Lethe hear it too? Every day, her face, tone and words say to me.

I don’t want to die, but I want even less to keep on living.

But of course, I must force these images away, and tie on my bravest face with bounds that cut the rush of blood to my head and leave terrible rope burns on my spirit. “Okay, survival.” The situation has got very tense, very quickly, from my side. My face is flushed and hot, and my breathing heavy as lead, and Lethe still seems composed. But that’s not true, is it? Her hands leap in her lap. She is unable to look at me, and her lip trembles almost imperceptibly. A wave of maternal instinct washes over me for Lethe, and for a moment I have the impassable urge to fold her in my arms, and croon to her, promising her I’ll be okay, that I’ll come out again and she doesn’t have to worry. But I can’t, can I? Even taking away the fact that I won’t be okay, that I’ll probably be in bloody chunks on the floor of the Cornucopia as the first cannon blasts, for me, I have no right. Lethe Turner, the girl who cheated death and came out of that Arena still alive, is older and wiser than me, though I may be taller and bigger. And she herself is a mother, I remember, and cringe again at my own naivety. I should need her care more than she needs mine.[/i]

But it’s not me that needs a mother. I have gone so long without her, I am independent and determined. I was never held back by protection. But, as a result, I will keep fighting on to be remembered.

And Lethe’s face tells me she knows this will be my downfall.

I am going to die.[/size][/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify]

someday we'll be drinking with the seldom seen kid