come our way [[ Roost: Avriel ]]

He was going to take the early train home.

The platform was supposed to be quiet at six in the morning, after parties still raging out in the centre, his suitcase was scheduled for a pickup. Theo's body was waiting for burial in cold storage on one of the refrigerated cars, slowly decomposing.

"You can't ignore an invitation to The Roost," Gloria's hand on her chest in abject horror just seemed like melodrama.

"Why?" Avriel asked. The summer was already starting to turn, he wanted to get back home.

"You just don't snub a Crowe, Panem's Sake, it's just not done!"

"I won two years ago Gloria, she's a little late."

All he'd wanted was one last journey with his aunt. The train left this morning without him, his luggage and Theo travelling ahead of him as if cargo was all she was. His belief system, built so carefully was burning low, charred, black and dense at the core.

He can't bury Theo in good conscious all while his parents lie there in the woods, unmarked.

Avriel has to tell Billie and Duke the truth.

So he was going to get on that train, be home by the next morning and meet them at the station.

But now he stands behind a curtain at centre stage, a mic clipped to the lapel of his jacket. Sardonyx is speaking, voice settling over the whole room like honey. Avriel used to watch her on tv sometimes but only because his mom would have the tv set to that channel.

The crowd outside gets louder, she's ramping them up. For a moment he feels as small as he did two years ago, hands shaking, he grabs his own wrist to stop it. Av isn't sixteen anymore, he's been doing this shit for a couple years now. A crowd's just a crowd.

"AVRIEL BAPTISTE!"

The curtain opens and Avriel steps into the light, gaze trained on the back wall of the studio over the heads of the audience. There's a bottle in his hand, a ribbon around the neck of it. Gloria had insisted that he couldn't go to see Sardonyx without an offering, as if she was more god than woman.

"Hello," he says and gives the crowd a brief wave, "Been awhile."

The audience roars in excitement, screaming so many things at him that it's hard to actually pick anything clear out from the sheer mass of sound. Avriel chooses to ignore it. He crosses the stage to where Sardonyx is standing, and hands her the bottle.

"Nine's Ginger-Fireweed kombucha, brewed this past spring."