It's but an echo //Nightshade + Opal

She was sitting in the break room, located in the hub of the training center when he died. There was a cup of coffee gripped in her left hand and the fingernails of her right hand were drumming out a pattern on the bench top in front of her. Her legs were crossed in a relaxed manner, the pristine white of her body hugging uniform stark against the black bar stool she was perched upon. She wasn't the only one in the room at the time. A couple of her colleagues were there as well, reading the paper, making last minute bets, the regular games activities. As far as they were concerned it was a regular morning. As it was.

Peacekeepers are not allotted family in their job description. To become a Peacekeeper, one has to renounce the family they have as well as promise not to procreate. Therefore, they cannot be controlled by danger to their family members and they are meant to lose all ability of love. They are not meant to care for the people that they protect, they are meant to keep them in line and rule them with fists cast from iron.

So to all those present, that was not this particular peacekeepers' brother kneeling in the dirt. He was simply a boy from Eleven, just as she was a girl who had happened to come from Eleven as well. The only reason she might have to be upset about the current events playing out on the screen in the wall was a bet not working out, or quite possibly an odd sense of connection just because of the district he was from. Either way it was nothing that should really upset her. It had nothing to do with her.

As his cannon went off however, her fingernails stopped in mid tap and she placed the coffee cup back on the table. She stood and turned on one booted heel with a swish of her long blonde locks. Her shoulders seemed set, as if she was utterly certain of where she was headed. Her eyes were steel, empty and devoid of any and all emotion. There was nothing inside of her that was allowed to come out, to be removed from the emotional storage inside of herself. She kept a tight lid on it at all times.

She walked quickly, mouth set in a thin line, the moment the sword had fallen from the hand of her baby brother playing in her head again and again. She knew that he was dead in that moment, even if he had held on for a few seconds longer, just to say words that she already knew. Don't let her be alone. Of course. Nightshade had spent a lifetime watching over her little brother, making sure that he was safe and happy. Maybe in the last few years she had had to sacrifice some things to ensure his future happiness, but not again. His future was stomped out and she would not fail him again.

She took the stairs down two at a time, efficient as per usual. The loud speakers were giving a play by play of the fight that had just ended, the screens playing the same scenes again and again. She couldn't get away from them, the moment Potato Earnest had died, the moment she had failed her most important mission. It had been her goal since she was small to protect him from this, from everything. He was meant to live a happy life, a long one. He'd almost made it. He'd been reaped at eighteen, how dare he. How dare he.

She made it to the door of the person she'd carefully been avoiding for the week that she had been deployed here as security. She'd kept an eye on her of course, but she had not gone to speak to Opal Shore face to face. Opal Earnest now, her brother had foolishly married the girl before heading off to die. He'd always been too hopeful, too trusting. He should have known the aftermath of what his death would result in with a marriage. He should have thought about it.

That was what Nightshade had adored him for, his optimism. His baseless love of humanity, his hope for life and happiness. It had always reminded her that there was such a thing as innocence, as purity in the world. The Capitol had taken his and destroyed it piece by piece. The Capitol, who she'd given herself over to as a worker bee had destroyed the only thing that she held dear. Her mother and father were dead from the drought that she had not been able to solve, and death had managed to claim her brother in the end as well.

All that was left was the sad excuse for a victor that Potato had left behind, a girl who was more an ocean of tears and alcohol than a woman. Grimly, she took up a position in front of Opal's door, back straight and hands behind her back in the ready position. She stared straight ahead at the mirror in front of her, placed artfully on the wall. It was so obviously a two way mirror that the decorative frame surrounding it was laughable. However, the room had proven to be useful in some ways.

She'd caught a last glimpse of her brother from behind that mirror on the day that he left to go to the arena. She hadn't said goodbye to him then. She hadn't been permitted to. He was no longer her family after all, she'd renounced family the moment she had gotten her badge.

Now she was stood here, in front of the same doorway that he had passed through, that he would never pass through again. He'd asked them to make sure she wasn't alone but Nightshade was not going to let anyone in to see Opal Earnest. Not those fake looking plastic Capitolites with all their 'condolences' and purred compliments. Not anyone, even if Caesar Flickerman himself asked to be let in she'd spit into his perfectly coiffed hair.

As of this moment, Opal was the very last family that Nightshade had left.