to see without my eyes | (winter fae) day 5

I did not see Will’s face when the anthem appeared.

Good.

With that last breath of relief that she was still alive, I let myself crash into a sleep filled with peculiar dreams and even curious nightmares. There was no telling if I was asleep or awake, all the senses so intense in their execution that my dreams and night terrors induced a feeling of being alive like never before. The colors so vibrant in an everchanging kaleidoscope with the faces of the fey hidden in the woods twirling about laughing madly as they morphed into flowers, frogs, and fog alike. At first beautiful with every graceful movement; creatures of elegant poise with charming laughter sweet like honey luring me into their world.

Soon the same taste of rotten decay from when I first bit the apple tainted all the joyous madness that was nothing short of amusing. The laughter became a mirror of my own haunted mania, all the lives that have been ruined because I believed the very best version of yourself could also be the worst. The ones giving into the devilish desire, letting your life be controlled by hedonistic wants and needs. The fabulous life of sin and self-indulgence was catching up to me but yet I still would choose to bathe in the horrors of the worst of nightmares.

I had no regrets in the life I chose to live and would do it over and over again every single time.

With that realization of my absolute fulfillment in life, my eyes shot wide open to a singular Fey hovering above my face. I may only be able to see only one, but their voices were plentiful as they urged me to follow them. The promised tales of all the apples I could eat, a place in their court where I could live out the rest of my days a queen of darkness and desire. Their words were leaking with poison, each word dripping their drugs into my bloodstream.

Still in an apple induced haze, I slowly take the pixies hand and let her lead me hand and hand to where my crown awaited me. The life I was destined to lead, the life of the queen, no…the goddess of hell and chaos alike. My destiny was right in front of me, I was never surer of anything as we glided through the arena on what I would soon come to realize were not exactly the promises I thought would be upheld.

With the rise of the sun came the dissolvement of the effects of the hallucinogenics and there has never been a time where I was more disappointed to be sober. I found myself back in the cornucopia without Thomas or Luna in sight. No, this was not part of the plan, what happened to the plan. Did I leave them? Did they leave me? Fragments of memories danced in flashing lights inside my head. Not enough to put the puzzle together and figure out how I landed here without my allies….and oh great, with Larissa Le Roux on a giant fucking bird-like creature.

I felt sober, there was never a sober moment I did not regret so I must have sobered up.

However, sobriety would not explain even in the slightest the ice covered, what I could only describe as frozen royalty in front of me. Eyes hollower than mine, skin glistering like a coat of ice covered her body but did not hinder any movement. Demanding we pay her a price and feed her. She wanted blood, the blood of one of us and that sure as hell was not going to be me.

Almost too lost in my confusion, I just was able to catch wind of Larissa attacking Elise…Elise?! Well, if the ice queen wanted death, she could have hers. There was no one I wanted to kill more in the moment. The girl from eleven threw a wretched party and needed to pay for her unforgivable actions. She escaped me in the bloodbath, she escaped me yesterday as we took mercy on her desperate ally, but she would not escape me today.

Today was the day that Elise Krane died.

"Oh Larissa, darling. I am going to have to politely ask you to fuck off and go kill someone else. If you want to feed the thing, may I humbly suggest the fruit? It really is exquisite." I slithered past my district partner. I was not going to have anyone else have this kill. It was not for the Fey Queen of my nightmares; it was not for the gamemakers, and it was not for the audience back at home. This was personal and I was doing it all for myself.

"One, two, Xaahira is coming for you ", I sang in a low toned voices as I twirled my blunt getting ready to swing.

table by dars

"It chose."

They were foolish to think it would ever fall to them in the first place. They were pawns in the chessboard that was this arena; the creatures before them were queens. The tributes were visitors in their territories. Pay your price, the queen had said. But what Larissa realized she must have meant now was this:

Prove yourselves as worthy.

Larissa stepped forward, away from Elise's dead body.

The wild had a pulse, a heartbeat. It was a system of direct connectivity- Larissa could not step on a patch of grass without the leaves in the tallest trees hearing about it eventually. It knew what it saw in those moments and, being honest, it'd probably been watching them for a lot longer than the last twenty minutes. In fact, Larissa had an instinct now even looking at the beasts that it was their magic that'd lulled her here. It was their trance, their empty promise. When Larissa looked up now, she could no longer see the ashes of the Capitol rising in the distance. Only birds hesitantly deciding to continue their songs now that the commotion seemed to not involve them, and once-green trees slowly withering to rot, and open sky.

"It chose for us."

She approached the creature, her breath hitching in her chest. She fell to her knees- respect given was respect earned, and though Larissa lacked her brother's overconfidence, she was aware that she, too, had been given a crown upon entering this arena. The golden circlet gleamed on her forehead and not the others- except Torian- for a reason. Right?

At the very least, she'd be getting another crown because of this place eventually anyway. So if they weren't equals at current time so what. One current queen to one future one, you know? When the beast did not attack her, she sniffled, annoyed at the tears streaking down her face, and snagged her consolation prize for not being deemed too weak.

She caught the creature's gaze and willed it a silent thank you for not choosing her, then she quietly stepped away, climbed onto the back of Icarus, and went to find her friends.