[D4] 75th Hunger Games Volunteering Thread

Curse Jinx

When she was a child, she thought herself a crow in the body of a girl.
And in softer dreams,
River Destin was nothing more than an illusion that she made up inside of her head —
a name given to a mother that flew away before Brooke could hatch from her shell.


She was choking on black feathers right at the start of her life;
unfurling wings that were just fingers wrapped in flesh —
and it’s a tragedy when something avian is trapped against the earth,
left to become fossilized.

They call her an omen —
like when the moon kisses the hollow of your throat.
Soft lips;
sharper teeth.

Her presence signals disaster —
her smile splits apart the ground,
and her song summons the rain to flood.

She finds comfort in things that shine brighter than herself,
clinging selfishly to warmth,
and she listens.

She waits —
she watches.

It’s easier when you convince yourself that you’re not human,
but she bleeds a red that cannot be hidden.

She was not born from the sky.
Birds are not her kin.

There’s salt on her tongue —
an ocean churning in the pit of her stomach.
She came into this world drowned.
Leviathan raised her in his image.

It is true that Fledger Rells existed.
Penelope and Learna Libertine were once living.

River Destin was real.

Brooke is the daughter of Death.
He’s calling her home on the wind,
so she wakes —
and falls down from her place in the clouds.

---

“Have you heard?”

they’ll sing your death if you listen to them )

“Cricket Antoinette is going to be a Gamemaker during the 75th Annual Hunger Games.”

That’s when the itch began — it coursed through her like a chemical fire, burning her veins black and staining the ivory of her wrists blue. Rumors are a common thing around the streets of Four, something that is to be found down every dark alley that has no business being explored, but it’s not often that your mother’s murderer has her name attached to the statement at hand. She hadn’t stopped to ask for clarity, though she became frozen in the time that was needed to steady her breathing. When a god’s name is spoken, it is meant to be heard — she’s learned not to question fate. Four tombstones have taught her that much.

A week had been spent sleeping with her back raised off of her bed, cheek pressed to the window and cold glass chilling her skin. The Libertines noticed a shift in her demeanor — her smile started to falter, teeth gnawing at her bottom lip in thought — but they had always left her to her own devices. Nessie took her in when her mother had no one else to turn to, hiding Brooke in her room for years and raising the girl all on her own. Shared dinners and baths in the middle of the night, whispered lullabies and a promise that, ‘Your mommy will come home someday.’


Eventually, her parents had found Brooke, their brows furrowing in confusion and their questions needing answers, but they chose to let her stay with the family. Broken things come together to make a whole, and she likes to think that they understood her pain. Both she and them have always had corpses following in their footsteps — and it’s comforting when you can be haunted together. Ghosts are not fickle creatures. They’re more than humans can ever be.

“You okay?” Nessie asked a few nights after Brooke had overheard the rumor, fingers combing through the younger woman’s tangled locks of ginger.

“Oh, yeah! I’m fine. I’ve just been thinking about some things lately,” Brooke had replied with a voice that was shakily at ease, peering over her freckled shoulder with a grin that was well-trained.

but she often wonders:

did they all have to suffer like her to achieve their craft? )

The days leading up to the reaping had been occupied by a longing; a burning in her calves and a twitching of her ankles — she wanted desperately to run away. Out of Hell or into the flames that were calling out her name, she wasn’t sure. She had never put much thought into the Games before, always trying hard to ignore the things that hammered at the steel of her spine and threatened her stability, but suddenly the thought of following the path of her parents wasn’t that bad of a destiny. When she found out that Cricket was waiting in the place that became the graveyard of the Destin-Rells bloodline, it felt like a piece of a forgotten puzzle clicking into place — and much as she tried to be rational, she couldn’t say that any of it was fair. That Cricket was able to gain everything from the death of her mother, while Brooke lost it all.

I want you to look her in the eyes
and tell her what her mother died for.” )

Cricket never told her —
she’s been waiting the last thirteen years to know.

She exhales, legs still shaking, but the burn has made its way to her arm. Bodies are gathered for the reaping, sweaty forms pressed together as the escort takes the stage alongside a monitor, and the citizens wait in anticipation for the quell to be announced for all to hear. She finds herself hoping that it won’t restrict her — feeling an anchor wrapping around her neck and weighing her down. She needs to get to Capitol. She has to find Cricket Antoinette and ask her. She’s tired of thinking that the woman will come and stop the hurting. Taking care of herself is nothing new.

The televised ceremony starts after the machine is prepared, showing Snow making his way across the stage and selecting the golden envelope that holds a history that has long been decided. He speaks, the escort drawing in an excited breath, and Brooke takes Isobel Krigel’s hand with a harsh swallow. “To remind the Districts that rebellion is punished and supporting the Capitol is rewarded,” he begins, causing her to lean in with a clenched jaw; “the tributes of the 75th Annual Hunger Games will be volunteers only.”

Her friend smiles at her, and she turns to face those beautiful eyes and that warm face, but it’s a swapped expression. Hers is colder than it’s ever been, features flat and torn, and maybe it’s true that there’s such a thing as a fate that cannot be escaped. Maybe it comes for everyone when it’s their time to fly free.

and she snaps the anchor's chain into pieces )

“I volunteer!” she calls out, removing her hand from Isobel’s, and she storms forward without looking back. Cricket’s taunting face is there in front of her vision, her mother and father frowning in the distance, but she knows what she has to do. Death places a pistol in her mouth and she catches the bullet with her teeth — a crack runs across her entirety, but she already knows what it means to break. The Games won’t steal her. They stole a father, a mother, a future — but not her. She’ll go willingly. She builds herself on the foundation of a woman that gave her daughter everything that she possibly could, and she wields that femininity when she takes the stage. She is not strong or talented, but her power cannot be questioned in that moment.

She's always known that this day was coming. She’s been digging her grave a little deeper with each reaping — but now it’s time to prepare herself for the burial. She’ll wear her curls as proudly as her mother had, slipping on a satin dress that would have been passed on to her in a different, kinder life — and she’ll finally be home. At least for a time.

— but it’s just a visit )

You come back or you don’t, but you never stay there. She’ll find the space that lingers between places, where a girl’s dreams live and thrive in a kingdom that’s built on a broken childhood. She’s raised herself well — Atlas had only been a mentor, and the Leviathan was never there when she needed him. She’ll find her independence when she looks Cricket Antoinette in the eyes and asks what her mother died for.

“My name is Brooke Destin, and I volunteer as tribute.”