honeysuckle poison / andromache & camden * blitz

"You really think he's gonna get all full of himself now? I don't think so. I think he might be more dangerous now," I say, watching as the camera settles on Tide Evros' face. I scoot closer to the T.V. screen, narrowing my eyes to focus on the details of his expression. I can't tell a single thing. I realise a second too late I've somehow come back around to agree with Camden. Running was the best bet for some random girl from one of the lower Districts in this situation. I sit back, sigh, blow a stray curl out of my face. 

"Please." I roll my eyes. I want to protest, and remind her I've known her for so long that I know just what buttons to press to distract her and knock her unsteady for just long enough to cleave through her. But... that's A. probably a little much, and B. halfway to being a lie. For as long as I've known Camden, I've always been outshone by her. I've always been playing catch up. She's my mother's favourite out of all of my friends; Mom loves holding her up in front of me for comparison and critique. She never does it in front of Camden though. Whenever someone comes over, she transforms into the perfect portrait of a domestic District One goddess, who wields kitchen knives with deadly precision while she cuts up a fruit platter for her guests. So strange, how exact and surgical her blade is to this day.

One day I'll ask why she never volunteered for the Games when she was eligible. I'll ask one day, after I win, of course.

"Sounds like you're the cocky one. Watch your back," I tease. 

On screen, it's time for our reminders of the carnage we've just witnessed. Cameras pan over today's two other dead bodies -- Lucia Valentine and Nori Halliday. I wrinkle my nose. Nearly a whole team wipe out. Nori's last requests echo in my mind. She wanted to die beautiful, and not at the hands of someone who hated her. I could relate to that.

"Okay, but die by your District partner like Circe, or die by getting beaten to death by someone with a grudge like Nori? Choose. And no, you can't just say you'd do better and live."

Oh, Camden. I'm fully torn away from the action on screen now, driven to distraction by her answers. But I suppose I asked for it, didn't I? We're careers. Teasing each other is practice for the Games too; psychological warfare or whatever. A beat of silence passes. My breath falls on the blanket beneath me, failing to even cross the small space between us. 

"I think you're crazy," I say eventually. Come on, Andromache, think of something good. "The Games aren't just about winning for yourself. Becoming a Victor is for the whole of your District." I raise an eyebrow at her, put her loyalty into question. If Tide Evros gets home, there'll be a shadow cast over Four. Celebrations will be funerary in nature, with Circe Murdock's pretty little face on every banner, wreathed with coral and seaweed. "You're so selfish."

And maybe it comes out a little harsher than I mean it to. Maybe that's because I believe every word out of her mouth. When she says whoever she means it, and I'm included. But I smile, and I laugh, and I try to play it off as more teasing, more training room trash talk rehearsal.

I can't help wondering why though. In the privacy of my own mind, I turn the idea over. When the sour homecoming was over and done with, when the next year new kids were swept away to fight, would anyone remember the name of the Tribute who fell to their own partner? I don't think so. More likely, they'd be immortalised only in relation to the Victor who took their soul home, whose betrayal would no doubt be spun into some kind of redemption arc. That's the way it always went. We all dream of killing each other, then being redeemed. 

The question Camden asks is way easier to answer. Its very arrival, as a question, solidifies this back and forth of ours as a game. None of this will escape the four walls of my bedroom, not unless next year we're hit with some very strange odds.

"Oh, the latter, easily," I reply. I lay back a bit further against the cushions and smugly close my eyes as I elaborate, hands gesticulating. "Please. How tragic would that be? I carry you on my back for a few days, get real sappy with it, turn on the waterworks in the end. The audience would eat it up." 

The eye of the audience, my mother often reminds me, is god. How any of that would feel for me is irrelevant, especially in the case of a hypothetical. Camden is beside me, pretty face full of life. Nothing can change that in this moment.

"Okay, let's rear back on all this philosophy. Games romance? Would you do it?" I waggle my eyebrows, encouraging her to smile. "I think I would, but I'm limiting my scope to fellow Careers."