from the rot ✿ d10 opening ceremony

R O Y C E

The stylists have created the story of District Ten. No, not their people, but what the people of Ten do and give. They kill, extract, and export their prize, the living animal. The portrayal made Royce sicker with every breath he took as Matteo, his stylist, pieced together the creation. When both he and Fayre appear out of their dressing room, Royce realized the District Ten’s true game that he would, thankfully, never be able to play.

Fayre is the catch and kill, the slaughter that District Ten is known to do en masse. She is the sacrifice made, and Royce wore the result. Tiny little flowers grow on him from head to toe, whether attached to the clothing, his hair, or his beard. His accessories are bones, his skeleton wearing itself inside out. He is the reward. Fayre Belanger is the cause of this effect.

Both of them wear the story of two tales on their sleeves. One, District Ten, where the workers must kill, skin, and extract every piece of the cattle in order to survive. Without the kill, all there would be are empty fields and broken bones. Death. Two, the Hunger Games which they themselves would soon take part, where their sacrifice meant the survival of the ones who aren’t corrupt in Panem, the districts.

They mounted the chariot as life and death, and Royce silently hoped that it would act as a good luck charm: one would end the games with life, and the other with death. That was the best case scenario, that is the only out for either of them

“Your beard looks ridiculous. I hope you know that.”

He nods, giving the flowers that dangled from his scruffy beard a fair shake. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

He looked ridiculous, and it was pretty damn accurate, because he felt ridiculous, too, finding it hard to stand with any sort of bravery.

They were both out of their comfort zone, as anyone from down in Ten would be. There is no such thing as comfort here, not when every step he takes is a transition from life to death. It’s not desirable to wear this trophy of flowers and bones when he can already imagine the screams of the sacrifices it will take to get there.