Like One of Your French Girls // [Ewe/Zoya]

And you’ll never want to leave my side,
As long as I don’t break these...
Promises, and they still feel all so wasted on myself

Zoya's interest in the Games under normal circumstances was tentative at best. Yes, living in a Career district meant that she was expected to know certain things, and she did. She could name the tributes from Four for the last decade off the top of her head, which was hardly even a party trick along the coast of Panem. In truth, she cared very little for the tributes' lives, as long as they were not her own. She cared more about what they wore, how they were styled for their brief, bright point in the Capitol, and what the idiot Gamemakes made them wear into the arenas. The fashion peacekeeper really ought to fire to the whole lot of them, in Zoya's opinion. Except for the neon socks. Those were the silver neon lining of the past decade. The socks. Not the tributes who wore them.

And then Locust Lovelace had been reaped, and Zoya found that she could not resist.

The constant updates had annoyed her in years past, disrupted her summer business. But now, she was as bad as she clients, glued to the televisions, camping out in the Games Square. By the second Games day she was loopy from lack of sleep. She could have slept, could have found a safe spot in the alleys of the square and dozed. But she wanted to feel raw, exposed, outside of her normal life. She wanted to feel like Locust. Every little itch in the night could be an insect from the arena, every cough and rustle could be one of her allies... or one of the lowly contenders. Zoya stayed awake, watching the night sky, thinking that an anthem might appear at any moment.

In the morning, she allowed herself a few moments as an Albatross to wash up and pin her hair. And then it was back to the Square. The morning was still just beginning, but already the tributes had rearranged themselves. Death was on the tip of everyone's tongues. Zoya watched, entranced by Locust's deft movements, but even with her grace she barely left a mark on the gargantuan mutt. "It's not fair," Zoya mumbled with the crowd. She had never cared enough to dissent before, and found the feeling agreed with her.

With her arms wrapped around her ribs, Zoya paced in front of the television screen. The mutt was too much, too big, for so few tributes. Commentary from the Capitolite anchors streamed in, detailing the heft of the combustiphant. Zoya stared up at them with her glassy eyes, and hated them. The feeling was a block of ice in her chest as she decided she'd had enough. She would hear it the moment Locust won or lost. While the fight continued, Zoya threaded her way to the crowd, searching for a distraction. But Locust was everywhere. On every screen, on every lip, even reflected in the windows of the square.

But one reflection was not like the rest. Zoya frowned, her vision swimming for a second before she realized she was not staring at a window, but at an canvas. She edged forward, arms dropping to her sides, and leaned clear over the artist to admire the work. "You see her too," she said, staring into the sketched eyes of Locust Lovelace. Only then did she deign to look down at the artist, a scrawny boy she would have ignored under normal circumstances. "Can you draw anyone that well?"

Or are you just as in love with Locust as the rest of us?