death from above - nori + vera

v e r a .

"gimme just a little bit (more)
a little bit of excess"

Girls back home always said I was poisonous. I figure, why not lean into it? I should prove them right. They’ll love that — they’ll be glad I let them escape with their lives, even if I robbed them of a boyfriend or two. I flick through the book at the poison station, back to my competitors, hair pulled back. For the time being, all I really need to know about any of them is that they’ve all got the potential to kill me in any number of ways. I’ll ask Lucia what she thinks of all of them later, then get my own eyes on them. Me and my skills are my number one priority. How can I kill them? No matter what they throw at me, how can I do it?

To that end, poison seems as good a skill as any. I watched some of the unlucky sods use it last year, saw the green tints to the wounds they wrought. I liked it.

I gently shut my eyes. With them closed, I can nearly pretend I’m back home. It’s a Saturday, all of the yelling and growling and thumping around me is from my nieces and nephews play fighting. They’re playing too rough, and cuts on knees will need cleaning out before long. But my sisters don’t notice, because they’re too busy gossiping; that’s all the muttering I can hear underneath the sparring kids. I’m me, Vera, with my eyes closed, makeup still dewy on my cheeks, doing my best to find just one second of peace in the madness.

I only need one second, but nobody’s ever been that kind to me. At home one of the kids would start tapping me, yelling AuntieVeraAuntieVeraAuntieVera right in my ear until I answer. If not one of them, it’d be Mom with something that she needed doing — and as the oldest girl still at home, obviously it was always me that had to do whatever it was. She always stood behind me, arms crossed, pronouncing my name as chop chop. And if it wasn’t Mom, it’d be one of my sisters, whose good for nothing husband had done something to her for the millionth time.

Oh Vera, they’d say, it must be nice to be so unattached.

Anyways, here, it’s a scissor snip that snaps the air in half against the bare splash of back between my tank top straps. I open my eyes, slow, and look over my shoulder, fast.

Surprise! It’s not one of the babies of the bunch. Not the little one from Five, or the weird one that reminds me of Marceline. I’m looking at a girl my age, holding my hair in her hand like a medal. She’s pretty. Tough looking, but pretty. She must be from one of the more outdoorsy districts. I can find that out later though, because right now —

”What the fuck? Did you just cut my fucking hair?” I snap to standing, my chair screeches back behind me. I reach out to grab her by the wrist. ”Listen, I don’t know what they teach you in Nine or Eleven or wherever the hell you’re from, but that shit is not gonna fly. Oh, you’re so dead!”

I’m about to jump on her, yank her to the ground by her wrist, but a trainer runs over and hoists me away from her. I never started fights back home, I didn’t even fight with girls who tried to start on me. But those were always over stupid things. Boys. Rumours. My hair is something different. My hair is a very, very serious matter.

”Look, fine, I won’t touch her!” I break out of the trainer’s grip. Hesitantly he steps back, though I can feel his eyes on me still. Why me? Why not the wannabe hairdresser over here? Brows knitted together, I turn to her and sneer, ”What’s your problem? Is this some sort of psychological bullshit?”