confessions // shelby & artemis // 75th VT

Artemis sat perched on the edge of the permieter wall of the career centre, cigarette neatly resting between her fingers as she withdrew it from her lips, exhaling a trail of curdling smoke; her dufflebag- containing her centre uniform- lay abandoned on the concrete as she overlooked the city. She was supposed to be getting ready, or at least by now be ready, to perform tricks for the crowning victor of the 75th Hunger Games.

"What a load of bullshit..." she muttered to herself as she took another long, calming drag of her cigarette.

Victory Tours were always so- depressing. Not in the sense that they had lost another Games or lost a friend or another Career to some other tribute. Artemis just saw it as, repetative. Like a rehersed play everyone decided to perform  at random every couple of years; the mourning was plastic, painted on their faces like masks. Even some of her own sisters had been dry eyed when they had started sobbing as Shelby Levaine had made a speech about Cassiopeia.

Artemis had simply just rolled her eyes.

The icing on the cake was always when they bought the new found Victor to one of the dozen or so Career Training Centers so that maybe the fledgling tributes may show their proficiancy at stabbing plastic dummies; Artemis fucking hated it. She was not training so that she could jump through hoops to show someone who had actually killed that they were really good at shooting a non moving, non breathing, non living target; she was training so that maybe one day she could be the one touring the centre.

This year, she felt less compeled to just bend over backwards for her trainers out of respect and so she had feined that she was too upset to fight today and snuck out back; they'd pick up on it later, but she didn't really care. Cigarettes untucked from her jacket pocket, and tie quickly abandoned in the trashcan outside the back door, to find herself the peace and quiet, a world away from the excited chatter in the changing rooms- chatter which broke the facade that everyone was distraught about the Districts losses.

Inhaling, Artemis closed her eyes for a moment, lips pressed against the butt of her cigarette as she allowed herself to be still for a moment.; her mirage was broken a second later, when she heard the back door open. Unflinching, the blonde withdrew the cigarette from between her lips and exhaled slowly, eyes still gently shut as she allowed herself this moment before she even thought about conversating with whoever had just burst through the exit.