the northern wood, day 6

She finds herself trapped in the between.

The smell of sponge cake and death mixes in the air, equally as sweet and calming as it is rancid and upsetting. Has Cordelia finally caught up to her, slicing open her abdomen with the same axe that won her the Sixth Hunger Games — or does Eulalie simply need to wretch? Is that Florentine calling out to her, or has her great-grandmother truly risen from the grave, hellbent on hunting her down? Is Andromache calling her name out of concern, or is her district partner cursing her very existence?

Eulalie is half rabbit, half panther.

Coming to terms with the prey aspect is a new, and strange feeling. Every image seems to shift and blur, melting where it stands and becoming something far more terrible. The tree she climbed is impossibly tall with branches that cover the sky, and then it's a train that keeps speeding upwards, higher than the clouds. The silver locket dangles above her, and then once her fist closes around it, it's the same bloody camera Cordelia pulled from the corpse of the boy from Ten. She had butchered him to pieces.

Her own face is reflected back to her in the lens, the warped image of her allies faintly speaking in the background of the glass. "Eulalie?" It's strange to hear them talk as one, the laughing snarl of her great-grandmother becoming Andromache's sweet smile, Florentine's clever eyes staring straight into her soul. "Will you float on the clouds with us?"

She catches her breath like a bullet between her teeth. Her pulse slows, her head lolls to one side. That doesn't mean her heart isn't still racing with adrenaline; that doesn't mean her body isn't still wracked with shivers as she imagines the ghost of the woman she idolizes the most closing in on her. Part of her is still there, in the chaos, fearing for her life.

But the other part is right here, in this strange kind of reality: a sixteen year old girl sitting with her legs crossed on a soft cloud, surrounded by two strangers who have become fast friends. There's a shadow behind her, one that knows that neither of them should be trusted, and that neither of them can survive if she intends to win the crown. That shadow feels far away. Like she has to lean forward, peering over the edge of the cloud, to see the ruins beneath. Wyverns breathing fire, ghosts going to war against the living.

Holding her gaze forward, she focuses on what is in front of her. Two companions who have never failed to support her — who accepted her back into their ranks despite the intervening hands of fate. For all the reasons she has given them to hate her, for all the ways they both could have turned on her and done her in, here the three of them are. Wind in their hair, the smell of sponge cake and the downy softness of clouds all around them.

Eulalie reaches forward, grabbing hold of them both like she had during the storm. For all her harsh edges, for the surface of a girl who will stop at nothing to win the Hunger Games, let the inner self be true, too. She reached for them for a reason, just like she does now. She likes this place better than the place she is used to, that wicked place of steel and blood and a heart splitting at the sinews. She stretches out her legs, relaxing.

She doesn't notice the way her thigh moves across the exposed edge of her axe, but she holds the gazes of her allies intently. This time, she will not hide one half of herself in favor of the other.

"I wish we could stay here. Together."