the start and the end :: Kate x Achilles

This hallway is a coffin. 

The shadows scatter themselves, pooling in the corners and clinging to their legs, dancing across the walls and hissing at the spots of sunlight that stand in their way. This entire building becomes a burial ground with every broken sunset, bodies wrapped in white suede sheets, buried beneath every false hope and lie that presses against their shoulders. 

Deep at night, she feels it too, scratching against her skin, carving gashes into the glass she takes shelter in. Since the age of fifteen she has taken the burdens of Styx onto her shoulders, growing strong beneath the weight, using it to anchor herself a position amidst the madness.

Whether that position was in between the sheets, or on a crown of melting gold, she used to not care. 

She used to not care. 

And then, she broke. 

Wordlessly, she turns to face Katelynn Persimmon, raising a finger to wipe the venom from her lips, metaphorically flicking it into the darkness that lapses against her legs, threatening to drown her with every movement she makes. The hallway narrows out in front of her, seemingly stretching for an eternity before it collapses at Katelynn's feet, turning to ice beneath the tribute who commanded it. She remembers those Games, watching the television flicker against an army of static, cutting and screeching with every swing of the tributes weapons. That was two years before Styx found her and yet she still remembers the other children gasping in awe when Margaret Dubois' body hit the snow, blood pooling beneath her. 

District Eleven's first victor in-

"I could have killed Katelynn Persimmon." She remembers saying it with confidence.

Five years later and that confidence hasn't waned. She watches as Katelynn brings a finger to the bridge of her nose, exhaustion lapping at her heels. Even when Katelynn turns and crosses her arms, matching venom with venom, fire with ice, her words come down like acid rain, washing away the blood that pools on the walls, staining the floors a deep hue of green. Achilles has seen it before, watched countless men make their way to the club, cracking under the pressure. In those cases, they take seats and watch a woman in a bunny costume wrap herself around a pole, feel her skin brush against theirs. 

Feel the blood rush up-
and down.

Katelynn Persimmon is no man, but she is broken all the same. That will not change.

"And yet.." She says, giving a mock wave of the hand as she begins to take steps towards the victor. 

"What has your trio of luck gotten you, Mrs. Persimmon?" 

It's a question thrown into the abyss, never meant to be answered, always meant to be considered. 

"A shattered ice queen." 

One step towards her, eyes looking her up and down, confidence pouring out at the seams.

"A pathetic demon boy." 

Another step. The hallway feels a lot shorter when it is ripping at the edges. She swears she can see the blood pouring from the walls, falling into the shadows. 

"And a drunk teddy bear who can't even mentor his own tributes, or so the rumor has it." 

She stops directly in front of the victor, locking eyes with her before cocking her head to the side. 

"And it looks like your luck just keeps going, what with two more sibling tributes, right? It's a shame Iain didn't make it home. A shame Weaver won't, either." 

She lets the words hang dead in the air, they cling to the skin of both of them. She welcomes it. 

"I want to know, Katelynn, do you feel safe behind those kingdom walls you've spent so much time building?"