always an angel, never a god. // roe v. arcadia. d4, day6.
Dec 17, 2023 20:53:38 GMT -5
Post by Cait on Dec 17, 2023 20:53:38 GMT -5
⋆ arcadia lumiere-fray ⋆
You know that saying, if you think about something too much, you’ll manifest it?
Yeah. That. Turns out you can’t just tell someone you never want to see them again, because the Gamemakers will just turn around, laugh in your face, press some buttons and bring you right back together again.
The two faces that have taken up every spare waking moment of the last week greet me again. Again! I’d know them both by the sound of their footfalls alone. I wish I didn’t immediately associate the rising sun with their presences – that ball of fire, engulfing the world on repeat.
Vin recognises me first. A memory of yesterday holds them in place. They forget how to move. I might forget how to breathe, for a moment, the terror of what’s to come gripping me tightly.
No. I’m not dealing with that. We’d said our goodbyes. That was supposed to be the end of our story.
Roe looks pissed, as usual.
And I’m just so
damn
tired
of the same washed-out faces.
I’m surprised, but not at all, when Sacrifice comes into view, looking the deadliest I’d ever seen her. Across the water, we catch each other’s gaze. I nod to her. Think about the few nights we’d spent sleeping in the same bedroom. Think about how I’d dragged her along with me on that very first day and then never saw her again. How I had hoped that would be the last time.
“I’d say it’s good to see you all, but… well,” you get the idea.
Because for as much as I respect Sacrifice in the way kin calls to kin; and think I hate Roe, though I’m starting to forget why; and think I love Vin, in an impossible way – I just really wish I’d never met any of them at all.
And the thought of that? Horrifies me. Confirms I’m not someone I recognise any longer.
I always believed that everything happened for a reason. That every person put in my path was a carefully sculpted puzzle to solve, or lesson to learn – and maybe that’s still true. But I don’t want those things anymore. I don’t want to get close to someone just for them to leave me. I was always the one in charge, abandoning sinking ships before they could take me down with them.
The Arena relinquishes control. In here, I don’t get to say when enough is enough. I don’t get to use people how I want, shape them into what I need them to be for me; I’m the one being used.
I know what I’m supposed to do. I feel the obligation weighing on me, two sets of Gamemaker eyes waiting for my hatred to boil over. Maybe yesterday, I would have struck Roe without a moment’s hesitation. But it’s exactly what the world wants me to do.
So, I won’t. I do what I do best instead. I talk to him. Try to understand.
“I really, really hate that you hate me so much. Do you know how many people hate me? Literally nobody!” Probably not true, but I like to live in a fantasy world where I’m everyone’s favourite person. If I was going to die in here, I would go knowing I’d done everything in my power to join the real-world view of me with the one the Games had created.
Yesterday, I had buried Tigs. Held Nessa’s hand. Kissed Vin. Made peace with people who loved me, and who I loved too.
Today, I hug Roe. Maybe it’s a gift from Tigs. Maybe it’s a memory of home, One and Twelve separated, intertwined. But I want my touch to burn him like Tigs’ body had burned.
I want him to feel something more than the familiar hate he’s grown up with for his eighteen years.