heave, ho, heave, ho // [Lalia]

The wind whips my face mercilessly with salty spray and rough sand, each blast burning at my skin. It is strange that something so abstract, so light, can be so powerful. I hunker down into myself more, hearing only the roaring of the wind in my ears and the beating of my own faulty heart. I am to be a rock. Emotionless. Powerful. As strong as the mountains and as untamed as the seas. Here upon the sand, I am but a speck to be whisked away. I should not be here, but there, dictating the fates of twenty-three other tributes with a swing of a sword, a jab of a lance, a toss of a knife. I am as fierce as they come and something to be feared, but I will never win their support here. Here, I am a Career, a trainee, no matter what rank I am. I am expected to be ready when my time comes, but I have been ready all my life. There comes a time for action. I let that time slip past.

I don’t even manage to make a noise when a blur enters my vision before it is knocking me sideways onto the sand. It’s instinct for me to roll with the blow, my momentum forcing me onto the top of the heap. My mouth is opened in a half snarl and my eyes are narrowed into slits as I look down to the person I straddle, my hands tightening on his wrists. For a moment, I am frozen. Recognition hits. My mouth drops into a flat line and my eyes open to a normal level. I am a mask of indifference. The tension in my body fades in an instant. Harper. Of course it’s Harper. No one else has the gall to even talk to me, not to mention tackle me in broad daylight. He seems to have no sense of self-preservation most times. I raise an eyebrow at him just slightly before tipping sideways to lay next to him in the sand. With my arms crossed behind my head, I lean back and let my eyes slip shut, accepting his company without a word.

Harper is a creature of strange habit and pleasure. The habit he maintains is one of constant bothersome presence while his pleasure is being such a nuisance to others. He speaks with plump lips curving upwards into a semblance of something suggestive and provocative, each syllable accented with the flick of a wicked tongue. His eyes, however, dull with every spoken word. The blue in them seems to have seeped out little by little each moment we have spoken, leaving them a flat grey slate. If the eyes are the window to the true soul, then I wonder what is truly left of the blonde-haired boy cushioned upon my stomach. Harper is the kind of opponent I wouldn’t want to face in the Arena because there is something mysterious lingering just below his skin and just out of reach. His every move drips with enticement to the world, but I am left standing along the sidelines wondering what kind of creature he truly is. Surely, he isn’t a human. I don’t like the uneasiness he leaves sitting in my stomach every time he tries to will an emotional outburst from me. The emotions are easy to keep at bay in front of others by now, but the sheer curiosity bubbling under my skin makes me feel nauseous.

He flutters his eyelashes at me coyly, trying for the seventy-fifth time this month to illicit some kind of emotion from my. I blink stoically back, raising an eyebrow in mocking at him. He is nothing if not incorrigible. A flicker of disappointment flashes behind those slate-grey eyes before he is upping his game. This is how it has always been since he realized I existed and that I had something for him to gain pleasure from. He makes an opening gesture to try and bring forth an emotion. I deny. He tries again. I very clearly point to the sign hanging on the wall that says ’Emotions are out. Please check back later.’ He tries to break down the wall instead, but there’s still nothing there for him to find. It’s a silly dance we have, him the aggressor and me the victim. I am not a victim except if by choice. I find entertainment in our game, like chess. It is move after move, one trying to outsmart the other. I’m winning. I always win. Harper presses his face into my stomach and nuzzles, earning another raised eyebrow. I hold back the smirk that wants to play on my lips, saving it to infuriate him later. ”How's life, Sugarplum? Doesn't your day just feel so much brighter with me around?” I let my eyes linger on his face for a moment before closing again. Slowly, I wet my lips, licking across the chapped skin and feeling the burn of salt.

“You seem to have some kind of mental disorder. I tell you, obsession is quite a serious matter. You might want to see a doctor about the one you seem to have with my functioning. I’ll indulge you this once, but you really must break your habit. It’s unhealthy,” I murmur, mouth moving lazily against the air. My lungs fill with salt as I breathe in, feeling Harper’s head bob with my exhalation. “My life is routine. You know that. You appearing to attempt to entice me to have a catharsis is just another piece of said routine. There’s no extra light by what I can see that comes of it. Check your wattage. You’re not as luminescent as you believe.”

”Oh, just shut up and love me.” He breathes the words with all the weight of a feather and all the attitude of an heiress. My lips tilt upwards in a slight smirk at his acting, watching as the heiress persona comes to life in his batting about at the clouds as if he is their ruler, their god. He’s high-strung on delusion, but he knows his own insanity just as well as I know mine. There’s no faking inside of himself. Harper knows exactly what he is, just as I know exactly what I am. I am a Career, fine-tuned to destroy all those who would dare stand in my way. I know my purpose in life better than most people know the palms of their hands. They all see me the same, however; blind, soulless, pathological liar. The same words Harper accuses into the air as he declares my life is woe and woe alone. This routine I have built, from the very moment of my realization of my potential, is not woe but focus. No one trains themself so completely as I do. No one goes to the lengths I do to be the strongest, the best, the most remorseless. When it comes time to step upon that pad and hear the countdown, I will have no qualms with my role. I’ll just have a weapon and a purpose.

Harper calls me out on my wall more than anyone else. My doctors have accepted my void of emotion and marked me down as psychotic. I know they’ve told the trainers at the center to keep an eye on me, watch my every move, make sure I don’t kill anyone. The trainers, in turn, have learned to harness my blank slate. They’ve spun a tapestry of me, a work of art. I’m a hunter, a specialist in survival and slaughter. I’m a power untapped and waiting to let go. I won’t kill anyone here. It would be a waste. There’s no bore in knowing one’s true potential and harnessing it. Harper is wrong. He has become a constant though. He shows up after my training from time to time, pulls me along to eat somewhere. Some days, he forces me to come to his family’s pawn shop and shows me the things they’ve collected from poor people and the Ripleys. He’s someone who is there, though I wonder when he will tire of trying to crack my shell with his flirtations and touchy-feely tendencies. A kiss is blown in my direction and I raise a hand to swat it away just to spite him. My eyes flicker up to the clouds, head shifting a little sideways to try and see what he is seeing. I breathe out a little in exasperation, letting my eyes narrow on his face at his insult. “How cute. If anyone is a unicorn here, it’s you. One with a very small horn, no doubt. The apocalypse is strikingly not frightening if you’re a leader of it, you Harpie.”

Mother was frightened that there was something wrong with me at a very young age when I would watch the Hunger Games and refuse to speak to her ever. I absorbed every word she threw at me, every syllable she spoke, but I refused to reciprocate. Even then, I didn’t really need her. I was invincible. I could break my arm and not feel the snap of bone. I could burn my hand and not feel the singeing of flesh. I could cut my cheek and not feel the stab of pain. Pain was nonexistent and, as such, I didn’t need the coddling that every child did. I was better. Without a thought, I carried on without the need of affection or love. My father kept busy with work and my mother kept busy with watching me, hateful eyes cautiously waiting for me to strike. She used to be frightened that something was wrong with me. Now she’s simply frightened of me. Most people are, now. I’ve got eyes like slits and inky hair that covers my face and long fingers with jagged nails. I’m lethal looking. I’m feral and dangerous and just waiting to snap, in their eyes. It isn’t time.

I ignore the kiss thrown back at me, watching through weary eyes as Harper twists around until he’s cushioned and curled up upon my chest, closer now as he speaks. “I highly doubt that, princess,” I mutter, lips curving into a wry smirk. Harper, in no doubt his sister’s sweater, looks more like a girl than a man. His lips are plump and he pouts them unconsciously. His hair flutters about in bleached waves. He’s ridiculous if he thinks that anyone would believe him. The sound he makes next however is simply lewd. My muscles tense in a gut reaction I’m not expecting because nothing makes me move so involuntarily as this. This is new and decidedly not a part of my routine and I don’t like it in the slightest. I have half a mind to hiss at him in response, but I bite it back in favor of pushing him off of me quite unceremoniously. My body loosens slowly, arms coming up to cross behind my head again in an attempt to retain my normality in an outward appearance. I feel strange inside and it makes me nauseous with just the though. When he speaks again, my narrowed eyes shift to look at him from the corners, vision blurry at this angle but just enough to show me his melodrama once more. This time, I really almost do hiss, but it comes out as more of a dull breath of a command. “Desist, Harper.”

The only ‘emotion’ I have ever outwardly shown in public has been during training. Fighting is a brutal savagery if practiced at the right level. Rage is something inherent in true battle. The swing of a sword holds behind it the strength of a lion letting lose all aggression. The swipe of a leg has the force of a hurricane bursting open. The key to battle isn’t to void oneself of all emotion, but to harness the strongest ones until they no longer look like emotions, but perfection. When I lunge and pierce and swing, there is fear not because of the contorted wrath carved into my face, but the utter passion behind the attack. I do not show real emotion. I don’t have it.

Yet here is the uneasy clench in my gut as Harper laughs with pure, unadulterated glee. It’s something I’ve never seen in him. In this one moment, he is more real and authentic than I have ever seen him for the simple fact that he isn’t trying to entice, or seduce, or provoke. His head is thrown back and he’s rolling across the ground with the sheer force of his mirth. My eyes are narrowed in thinly veiled loathing as I watch him. For days, weeks, months, he has tried to elicit a reaction from me without fruition. All it took was one breathy noise from his lips and he got his wish, an involuntary movement of my muscles that set my routine from scheduled to off-track. He can hardly speak he enjoys it so much, this response at last from my unwilling body. Harper is buzzing, staring me down as he practically sings his victory. ”Caught you, Andy-darling.” I breathe out slowly, gathering what little patience for his childish antics I have left before I am cut short by that sound again. My stomach clenches uncomfortably and I sit up, quickly removing myself from the situation before he can laugh or speak again. The sand slips under my feet as I walk away, allowing the frigid water to lick at my heels in an attempt to soothe my boiling anger.

The moment my back is turned to him, I drop my attempts at keeping my anger off of my face. I let my lips sink into a fierce scowl, muscles straining with the effort of holding such a foreign concept like emotion. My eyes are narrowed, but wildly darting around the beach before me, looking for something to take my rage out on. There is nothing. There’s not a single thing with which to alleviate my stress. The muscles all along my shoulders feel tense in a way I've never felt. This isn't anything like the tension from a good training session. It’s white hot and uncomfortable and persistent despite my attempts to roll it away. My stomach rolls in mutiny to add insult to injury. This isn't supposed to happen ever. My body is traitorous and I want to peel back my skin. I could probably do it. I wouldn't feel the pain, just the pressure of blunt nails digging away the flesh that crawls with discomfort. I can practically feel it squirming as Harper calls across the beach in mocking.

I pace away until his voice is muffled by the rising winds. The sand strikes my face and lashes out at my exposed skin, wearing it down little by little. I don’t feel the stinging pain I've been told I should, but the pressure of hundreds of tiny particles hitting me. I’m numb to the block attempts at evoking a reaction. That’s how I always should be. I shouldn't be able to be cracked. I sit down slowly, stretching out my legs in front of me to rid myself of the cramping that has come from my outburst. The water is coming farther up the beach, but still I lay down within its strike range to let it kiss across my ankles. I don’t feel the cold much, just as I don’t feel heat when I burn. The pain simply doesn't exist. There’s no reaction to bring about. Instead, I lay myself back and shove my hands below my head again. My eyes close slowly, tension fading out of my body as I focus only on the routine sound of crashing waves and striking winds. It’s not a perfect rhythm, but it’s constant. It’s a give and take that continues no matter what. My muscles all but turn to liquid as I finally let go of my anger. This cannot happen. If these were the Games, that could have been the one movement that broke my chances of success. I cannot let that happen.