wolf sentinel ⇢「andal, 93rd oneshots.」
Apr 5, 2023 15:06:31 GMT -5
Post by gunner, d9 ₊⊹ 👹 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 5, 2023 15:06:31 GMT -5
All the Capitol events have the same rhythm now: the drawn out entrance at the start, the light banter in the middle, and the all-out craziness when the end approaches.
Well, crazy is an understatement to describe a Capitol who lost all his life savings by betting on a slain tribute. I pick my flute of sparkling water with a gloved hand, and move away from the screen as Dorothy Hope dies. With a last name like that, it’s hard not to feel disheartened and crestfallen.
Hope dies and takes the essence of it with her.
Throughout the evening, I have played my part. I have talked in long circles, in coy tones, in accents that felt like sandpaper against the roof of my mouth, and in jargon I rarely understood, but as the lower districts started to plummet, I couldn’t help but flinch every time Autumn and Elm come on screen.
It’s hard not to feel the disparity. Of course, the career districts have been always been the stars of the games, but the way the applause differs between the ones given for Dyno and Karl — the former being a raucous cheer and the latter being a polite courtesy — I gnash my teeth hard at it.
I wonder how they reacted when I tore Elvena’s throat.
I wonder if they clapped the moment my arrow found Chiara’s body in the dark.
Exactly how many life savings did I tank? How many bets did they place on a sharp-teethed monstrosity from District Ten? The answer is not one I am particularly interested in, but certainly, the total amount would not had surpassed Katrina’s pot. Victors from District Ten made good miracle stories, rife with trials by fire.
Victors from the career districts, on the other hand, were deemed as their kings and queens.
Absently, I scratch at an itch on the nape of my neck. A second passes, then it returns. An itch like an incessant buzzing of a fruit-fly. My gloved finger returns to the spot, scratching ferociously, but it doesn’t go away.
I bite the inside of my cheeks, because room is suddenly too stifling hot and the heat passes over to my chest. I down my flute of sparkling water, groans at the aftertaste. “Mr. Mateo, please excuse me,” I tell my stylist, already rising from my seat.
It’s a long walk to the veranda of the villa the sponsorship party is being graciously hosted in.
Along the way, there are people who say hello and touch my arm in greeting, and it’s all awfully reminiscent of every church gathering ever, a twisted version of Sunday sermon as I forge on through posies of bluebloods, each one of them who likely betted against me.
Oh, you look better! Much, much better. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. They really fixed you up, didn’t they? I gnash my teeth and smile too hard.
The night air cuts me loose.
I all but collapse against the railing, the tension evaporating from my shoulders like rubber bands allowed to become lax. I pull in a deep mouthful of air through my nose, puffs it back out using my mouth. My gloved hands clench the steel railing, and my eyes open to a glittering expanse that is the Capitol after dark.
Most things blow here, but gosh, you can’t deny that view.
I remember I have been in the Capitol for a considerable amount of time because I recall the place where the style street is, a mass of signboards and sparkling buildings on the left where Chiara and I spent a day in.
Opposite style street is even more lights: Saturn City, where the parties go deep into the purple night and no one ever goes home.
It is all a far cry from frontier living. If this sponsorship event took place back home, it would most likely be in one of the finer pubs in town, the fancy ones where folk celebrates their graduation after-parties. I haven’t gotten around to mine, yet. And everyone from school keeps a wide berth away from the victor village because there’s a superstition going around that it’s haunted by Ansgar’s recently-dead ghost, so the new house’s out of the question.
I run my gloved hand over my face. My new face.
It’s awful how I keep forgetting that, but every day the reflection in the mirror becomes realer and the old photographs Ma kept of me become blurrier. I saw one picture where I was helping Lena bake and asked, who’s this other kid? Ma looked at me hard. I tried laughed it off as a joke, but she was wiping tears from her eyes a few seconds afterwards.
How does a victor find themselves again?
How does a victor survive the carnage and try to assemble their own pieces back together?
Mace and Saffron help, but only to an extent. I wish there is a universal guidebook to herd us through the aftermath, the time when the blood’s been cleaned off and yet your soul’s still smeared red, still harboring the shadow of a hungry, ferocious beast.
Moving on is easy to say, but near impossible to do.
It helps to know that there’s two other lives counting on you, though. That I got out and I can help them get out, too.
There’s a part of my memories I have been skirting over for the past few months, a scene of the final fight: Isabella on her last stand, fingers in a death grip around her glaive, wolves snarling at her back. Closing my eyes, I finally let myself recall it, submitting to the memory of cold rain and deep wounds, to the sound of a shivering Isabella saying, “this is all people are going to see when they look at you.” A monstrous boy, forged through violent means and made to do violent things, a thing of summer thrown to battle against a cruel winter.
“It’s not worth it, man.”
I open my eyes and turn on my heel, back towards the event.
“This is what we’re now.”
My gloved hands bury themselves in the pockets.
I will my spine to stand taller.
“And it’s what we’ll always be.”
I oddly find myself at peace with that for the first time in months. It won’t last, there’ll be days when the itch is so strong that it can't be fought off, but I made a oath in the arena to redeem everything wrong in this broken world and a Searley is not in the business of breaking their word. Instead we forge on, keep the machine running, keep the lanterns burning. I take a drink off an Avox’s tray as I enter the warmth of the villa again, and smile with too-sharp teeth at the first person in my sight.
“So, Autumn Oakley: what a pageantry she’s been putting on! And Elm, breaking that District Two’s leg—quite commendable. I’d wager a fortune that she could take out a career with ease.”
Gentleman wolf, boy demon, wolfing: they can call me whatever they darn want, so long as it keeps Autumn and Elm alive.
Well, crazy is an understatement to describe a Capitol who lost all his life savings by betting on a slain tribute. I pick my flute of sparkling water with a gloved hand, and move away from the screen as Dorothy Hope dies. With a last name like that, it’s hard not to feel disheartened and crestfallen.
Hope dies and takes the essence of it with her.
Throughout the evening, I have played my part. I have talked in long circles, in coy tones, in accents that felt like sandpaper against the roof of my mouth, and in jargon I rarely understood, but as the lower districts started to plummet, I couldn’t help but flinch every time Autumn and Elm come on screen.
It’s hard not to feel the disparity. Of course, the career districts have been always been the stars of the games, but the way the applause differs between the ones given for Dyno and Karl — the former being a raucous cheer and the latter being a polite courtesy — I gnash my teeth hard at it.
I wonder how they reacted when I tore Elvena’s throat.
I wonder if they clapped the moment my arrow found Chiara’s body in the dark.
Exactly how many life savings did I tank? How many bets did they place on a sharp-teethed monstrosity from District Ten? The answer is not one I am particularly interested in, but certainly, the total amount would not had surpassed Katrina’s pot. Victors from District Ten made good miracle stories, rife with trials by fire.
Victors from the career districts, on the other hand, were deemed as their kings and queens.
Absently, I scratch at an itch on the nape of my neck. A second passes, then it returns. An itch like an incessant buzzing of a fruit-fly. My gloved finger returns to the spot, scratching ferociously, but it doesn’t go away.
I bite the inside of my cheeks, because room is suddenly too stifling hot and the heat passes over to my chest. I down my flute of sparkling water, groans at the aftertaste. “Mr. Mateo, please excuse me,” I tell my stylist, already rising from my seat.
It’s a long walk to the veranda of the villa the sponsorship party is being graciously hosted in.
Along the way, there are people who say hello and touch my arm in greeting, and it’s all awfully reminiscent of every church gathering ever, a twisted version of Sunday sermon as I forge on through posies of bluebloods, each one of them who likely betted against me.
Oh, you look better! Much, much better. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. They really fixed you up, didn’t they? I gnash my teeth and smile too hard.
The night air cuts me loose.
I all but collapse against the railing, the tension evaporating from my shoulders like rubber bands allowed to become lax. I pull in a deep mouthful of air through my nose, puffs it back out using my mouth. My gloved hands clench the steel railing, and my eyes open to a glittering expanse that is the Capitol after dark.
Most things blow here, but gosh, you can’t deny that view.
I remember I have been in the Capitol for a considerable amount of time because I recall the place where the style street is, a mass of signboards and sparkling buildings on the left where Chiara and I spent a day in.
Opposite style street is even more lights: Saturn City, where the parties go deep into the purple night and no one ever goes home.
It is all a far cry from frontier living. If this sponsorship event took place back home, it would most likely be in one of the finer pubs in town, the fancy ones where folk celebrates their graduation after-parties. I haven’t gotten around to mine, yet. And everyone from school keeps a wide berth away from the victor village because there’s a superstition going around that it’s haunted by Ansgar’s recently-dead ghost, so the new house’s out of the question.
I run my gloved hand over my face. My new face.
It’s awful how I keep forgetting that, but every day the reflection in the mirror becomes realer and the old photographs Ma kept of me become blurrier. I saw one picture where I was helping Lena bake and asked, who’s this other kid? Ma looked at me hard. I tried laughed it off as a joke, but she was wiping tears from her eyes a few seconds afterwards.
How does a victor find themselves again?
How does a victor survive the carnage and try to assemble their own pieces back together?
Mace and Saffron help, but only to an extent. I wish there is a universal guidebook to herd us through the aftermath, the time when the blood’s been cleaned off and yet your soul’s still smeared red, still harboring the shadow of a hungry, ferocious beast.
Moving on is easy to say, but near impossible to do.
It helps to know that there’s two other lives counting on you, though. That I got out and I can help them get out, too.
There’s a part of my memories I have been skirting over for the past few months, a scene of the final fight: Isabella on her last stand, fingers in a death grip around her glaive, wolves snarling at her back. Closing my eyes, I finally let myself recall it, submitting to the memory of cold rain and deep wounds, to the sound of a shivering Isabella saying, “this is all people are going to see when they look at you.” A monstrous boy, forged through violent means and made to do violent things, a thing of summer thrown to battle against a cruel winter.
“It’s not worth it, man.”
I open my eyes and turn on my heel, back towards the event.
“This is what we’re now.”
My gloved hands bury themselves in the pockets.
I will my spine to stand taller.
“And it’s what we’ll always be.”
I oddly find myself at peace with that for the first time in months. It won’t last, there’ll be days when the itch is so strong that it can't be fought off, but I made a oath in the arena to redeem everything wrong in this broken world and a Searley is not in the business of breaking their word. Instead we forge on, keep the machine running, keep the lanterns burning. I take a drink off an Avox’s tray as I enter the warmth of the villa again, and smile with too-sharp teeth at the first person in my sight.
“So, Autumn Oakley: what a pageantry she’s been putting on! And Elm, breaking that District Two’s leg—quite commendable. I’d wager a fortune that she could take out a career with ease.”
Gentleman wolf, boy demon, wolfing: they can call me whatever they darn want, so long as it keeps Autumn and Elm alive.
