JAIME LYON, D2 :: FIN

get me out of this place before i cause more damage
a small price to pay for building houses out of matchsticks
and when things get too hot, you've got me to blame
for every fire that breaks out in every lover's name

( a g e ) seventeen
( g e n d e r ) male
( l o c a t i o n ) district two
( s e x u a l i t y ) heterosexual
( o c c u p a t i o n ) career prince, professional badass

so don't forget, we've got unfinished business
stories yet to unfold, tales that must be retold
and i regret not knowing when to put an end to all this madness
keeps me wanting, keeps me wanting more

( b i o g r a p h y )

sell me out, i'm yesterday's old news
phrases left on paper, black ink bleeding through
the pages where we made our history
call me foolish, I feel helpless

A Lyon always pays his debts.

How many times have I heard those words? They've been drilled into my head, into my siblings' heads since before any of us were old enough to understand them, but I've always been an exception to the rule simply because I've never been indebted to anyone. I owe the world nothing. If anything, the world owes me a debt for putting up with its nonsense for seventeen years.

[/i] I haven't had the easiest road to travel, but I'll be damned if I let anyone tell me I haven't come out of it ahead of the game. Motherless children aren't rare in Panem, even in Two, where I've been told we're blessed with an ideal existence (I could question whether ugly, stone-gray scenery, freezing winters, and a military stiffness to the very air we breathe could really be called "ideal," but Father tends to glare when I get lippy and I'd honestly sooner save myself the sermon)[/i], but when you're left a half-orphan at such a young age it's relatively easy to move past it. I barely remember my mother, to be truthful. She died when I was six, before Joffrey was even walking or talking yet, and over the years she's become nothing more than a blurry almost-memory preserved in photo albums that collect dust on the shelf and half of a name that I'm supposed to live up to.

She had yellow hair, the way all of us do, and bright, emerald green eyes that I always remember looking very kind - kindness is the greatest weakness, and maybe that's why she's dead and all the rest of us are still alive. The Lyon clan holds no place for kind people.[/i] People always prattle on at social functions how much Circe and I look like her, the twin embodiments of Joanna Lyon living on in the world with our flaxen curls, verdant eyes and delicate, high-born features. Much to my own chagrin simply because it isn't too fun to be a boy with a girlish physique, we're even both built like her, all lithe and willowy and tall with a sort of inherent, predatory grace in our movements, Lyons lions on the prowl. I finally passed my sister in height when we were about fourteen, filling out to a solid six feet of height and a sort of wiry strength that no one would expect from looking at me. But that's an advantage, I soon realized. It's a lot easier to put a knife in someone's back when they're not expecting it, and after a lifetime of tossing sharp things around I've gotten to the point where beggars and kings alike could fall beneath my power.

I had a knife in my hand when most children were still holding toys. It wasn't anything to complain about, just the way things worked in my family. What else is there to be expected when your father is a retired Peacekeeper, a stalwart Capitol patriot who would gladly sacrifice his flesh and blood for the glory of his great nation? Yes, as far as he was concerned there would be a Lyon in the games one day, and all of Panem would hear us roar. From the time Circe and I first started toddling we were pulled headlong into a world of propaganda and the prospect of glory, and we naturally ate it up. We may have been spitting images of our mother, but our ruthlessness, razor-edged intelligence, and unquenchable drive to win was all Father, every inch of it. We were the Golden Children, not just because we were the first but because in our father's eyes we embodied everything a Lyon should be. Then again, it's not like we ever had much competition. Tyrion's a dwarf and Joffrey's a simpering little brat who cries every time he stubs his toe. But nonetheless, the limelight was a place the Circe and I came to flourish within, learning to use our perfect faces and perfect personalities and perfect everything to our advantage.

Somewhere between toddlerhood and the early years of primary school, I came to the realization that I had the power to make people do whatever I wanted. I was an angel-faced little boy with a perfect smile and a way of speaking that was eloquent beyond my years, but the real ace in the hole was that no one expected me to be a manipulative, amoral, smarmy little son of a bitch with less than no moral compass. After all, I was what, five? And I knew how to make friends in high places early on. I was the kid who was always putting an apple on the teacher's desk on the way into class. A little smile here, a little flattery there, and they'd turn a blind eye to the poor little half-wits who would stumble in from recess with a black eye and stories that no one who mattered would ever believe. Jaime Lyon hit you and stole your lunch money? Now, Timmy, it's not good to lie. Tell me what really happened. Meanwhile, I was out in the hallway sneaking into the teacher's lounge to buy sugary soft drinks from the coveted pop machine with poor Timmy's lunch money, a shit-eating grin on my devious little face. Circe and I always had a deal of sorts with these types of things. We'd cover for each other, be a trustworthy secret-keeper for our less-than-moral adventures, and in exchange we would split the profits - I'd give her half the bootleg soda bought with dirty money if she'd give me one of the homemade cookies she demanded as tribute from some kid in exchange for not beating the living daylights out of him. I'd smuggle the trinkets she'd snatched from the other children home in my backpack as long as she agreed to let me have the extra-large pack of crayons. We were a well-oiled machine, the self-made king and queen of the playground with a much larger realm spread out for the taking in our not-so-distant future.

In all reality, everything I did, everything I've ever done has been accomplished on the motivation that it was probably something I shouldn't do. Pushing the envelope has always been my mode of operation, a whole life of walking the fine line between what I can get away with and what I can't. So far, I haven't found anything in this world I can't pull off. I've got just the right combination of charisma and malicious intent to make the world my oyster, and my main source of entertainment has always been looking for a limit that I'm starting to think doesn't exist. I convinced a few of my lackeys friends to sneak some weapons out of the training center and start up a fearsome Career gang because it was something I shouldn't have done. I hung Joffrey off the top railing of our grand staircase by the back of his underwear because it was something I shouldn't have done.

I started sleeping with my sister because it was something I shouldn't have done.

Or at least that's how it started. I had always thought Circe was beautiful, hell, everyone in the District thought so, but there was no sort of earth-shattering, bone-shaking fatal attraction that wracked me when I looked at her, or when I looked at anyone for that matter. I've never loved anyone quite as much as I love myself. We were walking home from "training" - otherwise known as a friend's house party - one late night when we were fifteen, leaning against one another for support and trying to laugh away the haze sitting on our heads from the cheap wine coolers someone had convinced their older brother to buy. I cackled and swerved and said Circe. Circe, you're really pretty, and she flung her arms around my waist with a giggle and said That's because I look just like you. And then it hit me. I've never loved anyone quite as much as I love myself, and what was Circe if not simply a female version of me? Looking at her was like looking into a mirror at a certain angle, so that you see yourself but just a little differently. So maybe the fact of the matter was that there in that dark street with no one around, I kissed her because it was something I shouldn't have done, but the two years of carefully kept secrets and wrinkled sheets and shared looks that no one else can translate that followed it have a different motivation entirely. I'm not quite sure what it is, because the whole ocean of things I don't want to touch that could break over my head if I tried to explore it is one of the few things in the world that truly frightens me. It's just easier to write it off, to write us off as nothing more than teenage rebellion and surging hormones and scandalous taboo when in reality we both know there's something far more dangerous and complicated lurking beneath the surface, but yet another one of the tested Lyon mottoes happens to be If we don't talk about it, then it isn't real.

Someone told me once that I was a bad person, and I thought I would laugh until my lungs burst before I managed to choke out a Thanks for the insight, Captain Obvious and go about my business. I've seen far too many of the tragedies that happen to the good people in the world for me to ever be one of them. The way I see it, there are two paths to take in the world: the high road, and the path that leads to victory. And while there might not be an actual throne at the end of my path for me to sit on, somewhere in the Capitol there's a crown with my name on it that I fully intend to have. And why shouldn't I strive for glory? After all, when you play these Games, you win or you die.[/blockquote]running from lions
like a deer caught in the headlights
never felt like such a mistake
running from lions, i won't know what hit me

( c o d e w o r d ) odair

( f a c e c l a i m ) viggo jonasson

( s p e e c h ) 910F0F
( o t h e r ) A62714
( m a i n ) CCA633
( e m p h a s i s ) E0C253

( s o n g ) running from lions - all time low

( p l o t s ) jaime in charade's lannister plot

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