Breaking Ground {Cass}

She was a pathetic excuse for a mentor. Even with her lack of care she was still remarkably better then both Topaz and Peridot. But in saying that both Peridot and Topaz hadn't helped her win the games, perhaps if she didn't help Septys he'd have more of a chance at victory then if he was poisoned by her aid. It was too late though, in a fit of desperation she'd wrangled together sponsors last night. She'd ran around the entire night, she hadn't slept in almost forty eight hours now. But it had paid off, in the end she'd been able to send her remaining tribute a medical kit and jar of tar. More then what Peridot and Topaz had ever done for her. Over twenty four tributes had died under her watch, and as much as she hated on her previous mentors they didn't have this score of dead underneath them. It was a constant point of anxiety, in the past few games she had gone to the point of ignoring the tributes entirely. She couldn't remember the names of the last ten or so tributes. And now, as Septys enters the final four she has come to scrambling around like a mad woman in some broken attempt to make small amends for her shitty job.

And if he won? She supposed it was her way of protecting herself. She had come to hate Peridot and Topaz, when she was bleeding from hundred of cuts, burnt and dying all she had had was herself. At least she had done him the bare minimum, at least she could validate his death, unlike Ruth's. 

Hell, by the 67th games she hadn't even glanced at the district one tributes. She'd raised money for the district eleven male. She'd done every single thing in her will power to assure his victory. She had tried the hardest she had ever tried, fought with everything she could to give him as many advantages as he could possibly have in that arena. Opal wouldn't have blinked an eye at the emotion of sabotaging her own tributes. Potato had been everything. He was dead. Even when she tried her best he had died. She didn't have her best to give to tributes anymore. She didn't love them with her entire being and heart, she hadn't married them, they weren't the father of her child. Her best was never going to be something she could give.

Bile rose in her throat and she harshly shoved her plate of food away. The fork clattered against the table, she turned away from the food disgusted in herself as much as her appetite. It was then that she saw the district eleven victor grab a bowl of fruit and turn towards Opal's table. Katelyn Persimmon. The victor of the 69th Hunger Games, already well known for the very fact that a games after she had another victor. A true success, there was a bitter taste to those words. What was the point of being in a career district of all districts and they still died. No wonder her family still denied her existence, an outcast even with that crown on her head. A failure even after achieving what they had desired for so long and her was Katelyn Persimmon, a young victor with Kirito under her belt and Harbinger in the top four. Potato should have been the one to stand in that glory, by her side.

She sat down, quickly introducing herself with an open hand. Knowing there was no way out of this, and knowing Mace would very much scold her for trying to avoid this, she hesitates for only a moment before returning the shake. She wasn't like most careers indeed. If Pyrite was in her place there'd be multiple district one Victors. 

"Opal Earnest." She states, before shrugging slightly, "like it's done much good to my past tributes." There is a tinge of sadness in her voice, as she averts her gaze from Katelyn. She wasn't like this girl, this girl was strong, she was a good mentor in every sense of it. She was a failure, with far too many dead children behind her, children she could have perhaps saved, but then she just has to see his face and she knows her best still isn't enough. She can't save them. "I think, he'd have survived had you been his mentor. Maybe you could have brought him home."

Opal was no career. She'd been taken into a family that thrived on the title, that had wanted the glory of one of their outstanding children to claim the crown. She had been a sour disappointment. Emerald should have been their victor, she was the Career they had wanted. Opal was nothing like her, even Argo had been a career, a tribute that would have been better to represent the Shore family. Both Emerald and Argo were the carers that her parents had raised. She'd been a career only in name, nothing else, she'd never trained hard enough, instead preferring the company of her plants. Her title as a carer had stemmed from the gold mine of the Shore family, in the belief that once you held that family name you trained and trained and trained. She had hardly spent a day a week in the training centre, her skills with weapons hadn't been all too great. Now, as the last victor of district one people called her a career, assuming that all district ones were, let alone a Shore child. That was not the case, at all. Even after winning no one in her family had really accepted her. And then, she had ditched the name.

"I was scared of the careers. I was never one, really. People don't know that, though. They take my name with the title and assume. I suppose it eases their minds, especially those of my family, they wouldn't want to believe that their one disgrace was better then Emerald or Argo." She smirked, remembering Pyrite's face when she'd returned home.

She smiled, slightly, as Katelyn spoke, it was different, it felt unusual hearing about Potato from other people. Yes, she had been to district Eleven and she now and often lived with Nightshade, Potato's sister. But no one from that district had much to say about him, he had lived on a farm, isolated from everything for almost his entire life. Until Opal had appeared in his life he hadn't even known the games existed, always escaping what would have been the district Eleven pre-reaping. She had been there, during the drought, she had ran through that district, remembering how to get to him exactly, until she had caught him, as he had fallen. She had nursed him back to health, saving his life. She'd saved him then, she had been there for him when he had lost everything. But then, in that arena she hadn't saved him. Not when she had promised to, not when she had given him her entire life and being. She wasn't a career. She didn't care about the districts that hated, Seven for Yaa, nine for Akasha, three for Drace. Xanthus had been her district partner, a real career.

"Yes, I did. The first time I went to district Eleven was on my Victory tour. I had ran away from the district square until I reached his field. He was humming and digging in the dirt and I just walked up to him and dropped down beside him." She looked down at her plate, a fond smile oner her face. That had been an amazing day, after all the pain and sorrow she'd found someone who hadn't know who she was, who had shown her his garden, someone who had shared the same amount of love for plants as she had. Those strawberries were delicious. "Up until he met me he hadn't even known the reaping had existed. Then his parents died in the drought and he was reaped a year after." How his world had crumbled in those few years after meeting her.

She turned to Katelyn, "do you think you're ever going to stop caring?" She had. She just didn't know how to suffer through it all anymore. Maybe Katelyn would understand when she had sixteen kids dead because of her, when her best was no longer enough. But then, maybe Katelyn wouldn't, maybe she'd bring her kids home. She was already a shining example of what a career victor should be like. An asset to her district.

She had both needed and not needed this talk between them. Her desire to avoid such a conversation stemmed entirely from her need to protect herself. Bringing it all before her, and laying it all out in such a reasonable manner made Opal feel particularly awful about her neglect. She shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with Katelyn’s comments, but part of her twisting with an admiration for the younger girl. At the same time, she couldn’t help, but pity her, some part of her assuming that one day she’d probably end up like Opal, Peridot, Topaz, Arbor, Lethe, Klaus, Aranica, Heron. The names went on and on. In the end the district one tributes deaths were felt most heavily by Opal. Back before her crowning it seemed that both of the previous victors had already ceased to care. It was great for them when Opal one, fresh blood, someone else to be the mentor, another reason for them to feel no guilt.

She wanted to tell Katelyn to say all of that when you walked to two graves every year. When you had to stand before your brothers grave, next to your parents and try to explain why you couldn’t bring him home. To look into parents eyes and say “I didn’t care”, because during those entire games you’d given your all to a district eleven boy, no less. To watch him die, and never see his grave, but instead, to see his face, the face you couldn’t protect, in your son. She missed him, with every fibre in her being. But she had decided to stop mourning him. There was always an ache in her chest, like a hole he had once filled, that would never leave. She had just learn to live with it.

She didn’t know if she could learn to live with the numbers as they increased. What happened when sixteen turned to twenty-four? If she gave it her all, and tried to bring them home and they still kept dying? How did you step over that, and think it wasn’t your fault?

"But I’d rather try and fail then give up and wonder if I could have made a difference later.” Sighing, she leaned back in her chair. the personal level if this conversation was unbearable for someone who was trying to escape it, as much as she wanted to try and help and think that she had aided them she couldn’t. No matter what she did it never seemed to be enough. Wasn’t there some point where you just had to stop? ”What are you going to do when your best isn’t enough? When you’ve given it your all and you still fail?” Please, answer me, Katelyn. Maybe this young girl from District Eleven knew what to say. Knew how to answer the questions she couldn’t answer herself. ”What happens when you bring one home and not the other? One out of two? Is that good enough?” The words almost sounded like an accusation. She bit her lip, dragging her hands off the table, before folding them into her lap.

Why did she feel as though she was being attacked? Everything Katelyn said sounded like the person she had tried to be before Argo and Potato. Back when she was that smiling, foolish girl that glittered for the cameras. Back when she left at mundane things and played with plants and danced. Everything she said and did, she was who Opal had wanted to become, someone who brought her tributes home, year after year, another child safe. ”Why are you even saying all this?” She stared at her lap, speaking softly, ”isn’t it better for you and your tributes if I just don’t care?”

Why try and help me?