it hurts to see you burning, burning oh so bright. teddy.

It becomes familiar, part of her routine. Eleven years and she's a disappointment. Eleven years and she's a wreck. Eleven years and she's there, again, sobbing on the bathroom floor like a child. Eleven years and they bring back the wrong child from Ten, she doesn't speak to Ansgar but looks at him, once, Myara's murderer's murderer - it's all that keeps her sane. Death, it is an old friend that lives in her, as does life - in her beating pulse, in her dreams, in her daughter's eyes. 

Her old friend comes knocking and wraps himself around her throat to stop her screaming as Teddy from Six catches Emberly in a moment too late and plunges his sword into her chest.

She fights death. It's the same dance in a different ballroom. Used to heaving herself off of the floor, used to screaming at the television, used to throwing her glass at the wall and weeping as a canon blows through her core. Quinn screams back and her sobs cease, she swallows them back down and it hurts, it hurts so much to swallow her pain but she's had to stop being selfish. Tiny child, a ball of life, Saffron clutches her daughter to her chest and holds her tight, whispering lies into her tufts of brown hair.

Life chases away death but he leaves that ever-present feeling she won't ever, ever get used to.

Someone finds her staring at the wall, Quinn asleep in her arms, and gently pulls her daughter away. The victor protests, glazed eyes and empty mind, until she looks up to see Mace's soft eyes and the world is wrong, so terribly wrong, but she knows that they are safe for a while.

Emberly isn't. Emberly isn't safe and she never was and it is aLL HER FAULT-

The nightmares shake her to consciousness and Emberly's screams dance in her ears. Mace stirs, as does their daughter, and she clings to them both until the last canon fires and it's over, it's all over.

The wrong child returns, again, again.

Fury. 

Heads turn as she marches down to the Victor's quarters and her fists are white-hot, hammering on the door. The wrong child came home, god damn that girl from Four. Silence, her knuckles bleed at the feeling of wood on bone but it's the silver on her tongue that she's most frightened of.

Ansgar Todd threw a javelin in Jenoah's eye. Forgive, in fury. Forgive, in revenge. Forgive, in selfishness.

Forget-

the face of her darling Emberly's killer and the sight of her first flying into the side of his cheek, once, twice, shellshocked and she's crying, sobbing, hands falling back down to her sides again because god damnit, it's her fault.

It's all her fault.

"I'm-" she chokes at the crestfallen boy and his ghosts, "I'm sorry."

Forgive, forgive, forgive. 

(Ewe and Eye, her head sings. You and I, her old friend sings back.)

Forgive, forgive, forgive.

"I just thought..."

(Eye smiles, he hugs her, she sighs into him, crowds gasp and she's fourteen years old with a flail in her hands and a dead boy's  brother at her side.)

She swallows her pride.

"I thought that would make me feel a lot better. I'm sorry. I'm-"

Fuck, there's tears stinging against her bleeding knuckles and she can't bear to look him in the eyes - in fear she'll see a mourning child with 23 ghosts and a nightmare he'll never escape.

A reflection.

"I'll just go."

toss me in the ocean and watch me drown

oh, one man's smile is another man's frown

and you, you come undone, one by one

the river has run wild tonight

it hurts to see you burning

burning oh so bright