The Glory out to Hide // [Scorpion Reaping]

After the War -

No.

After the Labor, the world had been made anew. Nothing was as she'd left it, but then, she wasn't the same any more either. She wanted to go home. Only what was home? The rebels had been killed, captured or disbanded. Her feeble attempt at igniting old contacts stirred up only ash instead of flame. She needed help, but so many did too.

She slept outside for a week before the someone dragged her to a makeshift hospital, a glorified tent. "The supply lines are being established," a nurse with a vaguely Capitol accent informed her. "You'll have to be patient."

Scorpion laughed, her throat filled with gravel. "Medicine doesn't really work for me. Vodka, on the other hand...?"

The nurse frowned through her face mask. "You're hemorrhaging from the retained placenta. You could die." She dropped her voice, her accent a little thicker. "I'm supposed to ask if you're a rebel. But you seem like a nice girl who just got into a spot of trouble. Don't make it worse."

It took effort to bend her elbows, to prop herself up and load the full force of her nature into her grey eyes. She fixed the nurse with her best glare. "I could die, but so could you. VODKA!" She screamed.

She didn't see the nurse again. The next time anyone visited her in the crowded hospital tent, it was a pair of Peacekeepers.

"Come with us," they demanded.

She flipped off the aluminum blanket, blood seeping through the thin paper gown. One leg, then the other over the side of the cot. One of the Peacekeepers offered a hand and she took it. "Ah, such a gentleman. Here to rush me into surgery? Save my life?"

She found her footing and abruptly dropped his hand. "If you aren't going to render some aid, you might as well just kill me now."

They deliberated for a moment. "Give her some morphling. Now."

On the transport to the Capitol, everything turned hazy. The dirt, the dust, the secrets, the lies, the death she courted - all of it faded to soft blues and greys. And all the way, she left a little trail of blood drops, so she might one day find her way back to her lonely home.