``forever after days }{ rade ]

forever after days
stand and make myself a crown
to the table i step alone
hold my own above the ground

Of all the greetings he could've received — a thrown punch, a stream of curses, silent despondence — never did Arbor Halt imagine he'd hear Katelyn Persimmon laughing. Unamused, hollow laughter — fitting — but it chilled him all the same.

"You tried. You told me this would happen and I did it anyway."

He met her gaze again, in time to see her stealthily clear the tears from her eyes. His heavy heart pressed harder against his ribs, and harder still as she explained how she hadn't even had a hand in it, how he'd been on his own from the day he'd killed Chloë Angor. Arbor's tribute.

She invited him into the suite — apart from the spoons and mixing bowls and pile of cinnamon that occupied the counter, it looked much the same as District Twelve's, the same as District One's, as Four's, as Ten's. In eighteen years occupying the tower, it occurred to him, he'd only seen half the Training Center. He seated himself in silence, not sure he was able to work out how to impress upon her the illogicality of blaming herself for Harbinger's victory in one breath and describing how she hadn't been able to help him in the next.

It wouldn't make a difference anyhow. Grief and guilt did not follow logic.

"You want to do something? Then... then listen. I just- I- I can’t. I can’t do this. I-"

Arbor Halt often struggled to find the right words to say, had spent the first half of his life with useless eyes, never knew what to do with what he felt. But he'd always, always been a good listener. He could do that much for the mentor that was breaking in front of him.

He knotted his own hands together, not knowing what he ought to do with them. But his voice was sturdy and sure. "I can do that," he assured her. "And you can do this."

You can get through this might've been more accurate. Arbor knew better than anyone that there was nothing to do. Year after year, it was all he could do to grin and bear it. The forced smiles almost came easy by now. Katelyn didn't need to hear that, though.

As it was, his stone heart dropped and splintered to hear the young victor admit out loud: "I'm scared."

Scared. Arbor Halt wasn't sure he'd been scared for another person in his life. Or at least not in his new life, the one that started when they'd removed the bandages from his eyes and placed the golden crown upon his brow. Worried, maybe, but scared? That was a level of empathy too advanced for the likes of him.

"If his heart gets shattered there’s not a damn thing I’ll be able to do to put it back together."

That isn't your job, he might've said, once upon a time. When he was trying to convince himself of it. But Arbor Halt knew otherwise. Arbor Halt had been the one to find Ara on the floor of the Training Center, thirteen years old and curled up around a bottle of rum, face puffy from tears. He'd been the one to brush the small galaxy of white pills from her hair, to gently coax her death grip off of his leg so he could hold her until she stopped shaking and sniffled herself to sleep.

He'd been the one to offer a hand to cling to on that reaping day, and on each reaping day for years after that. To look in on her, make sure she was still breathing. He wasn't exactly sure when they'd switched roles, but for awhile she was the one to look in on him, instead.

They hardly spoke anymore. He wasn't sure when that had happened, either.

He swallowed the lump in his throat.

"No," inside his head he agreed with her, "you won't." He swallowed that, too.

Still he leaned forward, supposing he ought to reach out, maybe — to offer her a hug, he thought, even though he was years out of practice and wasn't quite sure how that'd work sitting down, anyhow — but she sank back into the cushions, away from him. He leaned on his knees instead, listening intently as Katelyn went on.

"And then there’s Carrita. I look at her, and all I can think is that this girl is younger than Saffron was. That she’s about to be thrown into an arena where every tribute is bigger, stronger and more skilled – have you seen the careers this year? Or the tributes from seven?"

He frowned. Arbor Halt had mentored two tributes younger than Carrita, girls both. One had finished third. "She's older than Ara was," he murmured. Too young for what lay ahead of her, to be sure. Too young for the aftermath.

Truth be told, Arbor didn't register the Sevens as a particularly large threat this year, but Katelyn's concern did not surprise him. Not after she'd fought within inches of her life with District Seven for the crown, not after Harbinger had done the same one year ago. If his memory served — which it often did not — Kirito had taken down one of the four representatives from that district during the Quell. It would take a terrible mentor not to find that particular bit of knowledge worrisome, but Katelyn Persimmon was the best he'd seen. Of course District Seven was on her mind.

"Worse still, if Kirito’s sanity manages to stay intact, even if a miracle happens, then it means that that little girl is going to die."

He tugged at his beard, opened his mouth, shut it again. No, he shouldn't — "What do you suppose will happen next year, if Kirito gets his miracle?" Nothing good. Aranica's punishment was immediate. Arbor's took a decade. And as Cedar's first reaping crept closer and closer, the pit of dread forming in his stomach grew larger and larger. Somehow, he suspected, a nephew was not enough penance paid.

"I just wanted to help them. I never wanted this."

Arbor shook his head. "No one wants this. Even the ones that think they do." Not even the Capitol's darlings were immune if they didn't perform at standard. Protected, sometimes, by the state of their own districts — but the fact of the matter was that just last year, even Cricket's sister had her name drawn from Two's big glass bowls. Was there a warning that said do better less subtly than 'Halcyon Antoinette,' than 'Sapphire Ross,' than 'Michel Krigel?' If there was, the seasoned mentor didn't know it.

"I wish I could tell you that things look up." There was a sadness in his voice he tried to clear with a cough. Arbor Halt should know better by now; sadness was unshakable. "They don't. It doesn't get much easier from year to year. It becomes familiar, and that's about it."

"But you remember how the Games were, being all on your own. Having to figure everything out on your own. Were you scared then? I was scared then, I think. The Capitol was unfamiliar and confusing and loud. I don't think my district partner even spoke directly to me until that fight on the last day." Arbor had hated Blue Killio for that at the time. Eighteen years more experienced, he didn't blame her quite so much. He wouldn't've talked to him, either.

"Twenty-three die," he reiterated, recalling his message from their conversation last year. "Extenuating circumstances aside, you'll always lose someone. That doesn't mean you haven't helped them."

"Playing Charon might be a shitty consolation prize, but you still help them, Katelyn."