Don't Let Go [South]

You've got a lot of nerve
I've got a little time
So try to make it hurt
It's nothing that I
Haven't heard a thousand times

Most people would be slightly alarmed to be woken up by a lynx growling at them and cuffing them irritably over their head with a large, furry, very clawed paw. But then again I'm not most people.

Lola fixes me with an absolutely filthy glare when I sit up in the nest of blankets we share, yawning blearily against the impassive form of dappled fur and eyes that shine amber at me through light that filters in around the heavy draperies. Oh no, the light... Mumbling a string of curses not nearly appropriate for the "family friendly" environment I live and work in, I grope around in the weak light for wherever I've left my watch before giving up after a few seconds, fumbling instead for the curtains and yanking them back to reveal... a full performance space. Damn it all. Lola seems to look at me with something equating to smugness as I all but flail in sleepy panic and dive into the corner for the pile of my slightly wrinkled performance clothes, settling back into the blankets and crossing one paw over the other. You'd be hopeless without me, human. Completely hopeless.

"Yeah, yeah. Spare me the Mama Lynx act," I mutter, struggling with my boot for a good thirty seconds before I realize that I'm trying to put it on the wrong foot. I'm not sure why Cricket insisted on the stupid costume in the first place, something straight out of an old circus movie - white jodhpurs, black boots, some weird shirt-vest-tie number that has about a million buttons, an obnoxious red tailcoat that I love purely because it's so obnoxious, and for the love of Ripred, the damned top hat - that makes me really glad that I only seem to catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror when I'm hanging out in Felicia's dressing room. The gleam of Lola's eyes practically cackles you look ridiculous, but the amusement quickly turns to a growl and another paw swiped at my head when I try to slide a collar and leash around her neck. "Lola, come on, don't make this harder than it has to- Ow! Hey, no, bad girl, no! No! Not the face!"

Five minutes, a brief tussle with a very irritated lynx, and a handful of band-aids later, I crawl out of my rather peculiar dwelling with a very surly Lola in tow. You'll pay for this, human. You'll pay dearly. The other kids don't say much about me and Apis living in the performance space and I'm thankful for that (it gets tiresome having to tell the same sob story over and over again and the sympathetic looks always make my skin crawl), but it doesn't mean that I don't get weird looks from the patrons. And who wouldn't look oddly at a six-foot-six kid in a red tailcoat hopping out of the lynx enclosure with a wild cat on a sparkly pink leash following along behind him looking murderous? I guess I can't blame them. Pulling Lola along with me despite the malicious amber stare I get in turn (I'm going to wait for you to sleep tonight and then hack up a massive hairball on your face), I head for the main stage, raising my wrist to check my watch only to remember that it's still sitting somewhere back in the gigantic cage I call my home. I sigh. Overslept, no watch, mauled first thing in the morning, Ripred knows what mayhem Apis is off getting herself into, and I may or may not have missed Felicia's big new trick that I helped design. It's going to be one of those days.

But my day gets measurably brighter when I spot a telltale flash of blonde hair and a shimmery dress a few yards away, willowy limbs stretched out and exploring the crystalline planes of a large glass box that currently occupies the main stage. A mischievous grin stretches its way across my face and I reach down to let Lola off her leash, knowing she won't stray too far and there are no spectators around to be alarmed by a free-roaming lynx. Being massively tall doesn't do much for my stealth skills but a measurable amount of career training coupled with spending my days with one of the feline world's stealthiest creatures is enough to let me creep up behind the smaller form and lunge, wrapping my arms around her waist and picking her up off the ground, twirling in circles. "G'morning, sunshine! Ready for the big show?"

Felicia's one of those people who just glows. She's got a smile like a sunbeam and a laugh like springtime and I think that those things coupled with our shared daredevilry and general love of mayhem are what makes us the best of friends. But even through that radiance that's become her trademark over our years together I can see that shadow that flits over her face when she looks at the hulking setup before us, a flash of unspoken trepidation that's gone almost as quickly as it came. It's odd because Felicia is fearless in a way I've never been - but that's okay because fear is the sweetest indulgence and is more electrifying-exhilarating-wonderful than any drug or vice the world could offer -

When we first came here
We were cold and we were clear
With no color on our skin
Till we let the spectrum in
Say my name and every color illuminates

I laugh when Felicia strikes a pose with her nose in the air like the pampered Career princess I know she's not, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. Laughter and Felicia go hand in hand in my world, it's one of those solid facts of life that's as unchanging as the north star or the tides that supposedly wash along a shore I've never seen. Laughing with her is as easy as breathing, so maybe that's why it's a little harder to breathe when she's not around. That makes sense... sort of. She snatches my hat away a second before I realize she's even moved - quickness is something that her natural talent and smaller size give her and her training has only helped, leaving her as a sparkly red blur up against my delayed efforts to grab the headwear back from her as she peeks curiously inside of it. "So where's the rabbit?"

"Lola ate him," I drawl in response, trying to sound irritated although the smile tugging at the corners of my lips betrays me. "Her diet includes rabbits, raw steak, and little girls in sparkly dresses who steal my hat."

Lola glances up at me boredly from where she's still winding in and out between Felicia's legs, and I could swear I see her roll her eyes. As if, human. I'd eat you before I ate her. You have far more meat on you than she does, and besides, I like her. Felicia has always been faster than me but that doesn't mean I'm slow - despite how much I hated it my years of forced training allowed me to develop a similar if somewhat less-agile set of skills to those my escapist friend uses on a daily basis, and I manage to dart my hand out and almost succeed in snatching the hat back, grinning smugly even though I'm still empty-handed. "You're losing your touch, Miss Vaine. You'd better be a little bit faster than that getting out of that trap unless you want to get that pretty dress wet. You look nice, by the way."

I feel worry shoot through my mind in an icy spike when I see something deep and brooding settle into the lines of her face as the corners of her lips tilt downward. As much as I know that I can tell Felicia anything and vice versa I can never fight off the feeling that the two of us are living on a tightrope around each other - trapped in the most delicate of dances for fear of destroying the things we know in favor of the things we can't quite place. She's pretty, exceptionally so, and although I've told her this before in the same offhanded manner as I just did, I can't help but worry that one day I'll say it and it will cross that tipping point into the realm of something I can't define and there won't be any going back. As much as I crave danger and change I crave the consistency of everything that is Felicia even more, and imagining messing it all up... It's unpleasant, to say the least. Which is why I nearly sigh in relief when the hat settles back onto my head and I see that the object of her gaze isn't me so much as it is my newly-bandaged injuries. “Looks like Lola’s already in a bad mood. Promise me you’ll be careful tonight? You’ll be of no use to me during tomorrow’s show if you’re bleeding to death.”

"Lola's always in a bad mood when I try to put her leash on," I say offhandedly, waving a hand dismissively through the air. As if to attest to my claim Lola pauses in her roaming to glare at me (try to put that contraption on me again and I will end you) before continuing in her careful pursuit of a rat lurking around some nearby trashcans. I smile with a heavy dose of mischief and adjust my tie in the reflection of the glass, pulling my sleeves down to cover most of the bandages. "And you know I'm never careful. Where would be the fun in that? Now come on, Felicia the Magnificent, you've got a show of your own to worry about."

It's almost comical how easy it is for me to carefully place my hands on her waist and hoist her up onto the platform (she's always seemed larger than life but as of late it's become clearer to me just how small she really is), clambering up alongside her in a few seconds' time and muttering through a wide, painted-on stage-smile as the audience begins to trickle in. "Okay, just remember, if something goes wrong, pound on the box three times and I'll get you out. You've got this, Felicia. Knock 'em dead."

A few more moments' pause before I take center stage, whipping my hat off and making a theatrical bow to the audience before stepping aside to let the show's real star make her entrance."Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, thrill-seekers of all ages, step right up and be amazed by the mind-boggling feats of escapism performed by Panem's most talented, not to mention loveliest, mistress of evasion..."

We've been each other's introduction and assistance from the very beginning, the only support on a stage in front of crowds that range from adoring to hostile, talking each other up for the patrons but always, always ready to be there if one of us should fall from the pedestal the other has placed us on. It's more than glamour and makeup and flash, even if that's all that everyone sees. It's trust. The deepest, most grounded trust that two people could ever have, the knowledge that someone is there who will never let you down. Above all, that's what Felicia and I are to each other. Something solid in a world as fluid as the water sloshing around in the crystalline tank beside me. Something real.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce to you the one, the only, Miss Felicia Vaine!"

And in a life full of smoke and mirrors and circus tricks, something real means more than anything else.

You're the northern wind
Sending chills down my spine
You're like fallen leaves in an autumn night
You're the lullaby that's singing me to sleep
You are the other half, you're like a missing piece

Felicia has more stage presence and showmanship in her pinky finger than I have in my whole body, but I guess I'm okay with that even though I wouldn't be so accepting with anyone else. I'm as competitive as they come, but she always finds a way to be the only exception to so many things in my mind. I don't mind her outshining me because she outshines all of us and it's a beautiful light to bask in. The little girls in the audience ooh and ah at her sparkly dress, babbling excitedly like she's a princess come down from her ivory tower just for them. Something in the corners of her mouth transforms her stage smile into something a little more real at the sight, and I feel myself grinning more in response. Felicia always did have a soft spot for the smaller kids, sneaking her most ardent young fans free cotton candy and signing autographs. Those little girls in the crowd would die to have her as a big sister, something other than a made-up idol in a flashy costume to be fawned over and adored, and something about the tenderness that lights up her features makes me think that maybe Felicia wouldn't be too opposed to having a little sister to shepherd around. Well, I'll happily loan her Apis for the day. That should get it out of her system.

One of the stagehands makes quick work of binding her hands and feet with the same ropes she's slipped out of a thousand times, tying them tight enough to make the escape a feat but not so tight as to hurt her at my mumbled request. Felicia and I are always the ones to patch each other up in the terms of our silent contract of friendship - I've helped her ease the sting of countless rope burns and pulled muscles just as she's been the one to bind up the worse cuts that I can't take care of myself after several of Lola's more violent mood swings. But it falls to me to actually help her into the box just as it falls to her to help me hold up the hoops that Lola will jump through in a few hours' time. We are the last thing each other sees before commending our souls to practiced feats of danger and just the tiniest, most thrilling bit of fate.

"Show 'em what you're made of, kid," I say in a peppy imitation of Cricket's voice, squeezing her shoulder reassuringly before lowering the surprising weight of the glass lid, leaving it peeking just slightly open as I indicated in the trap's design. They'll never see it in the audience, but it will make it much easier for Felicia to get out. And maybe I would see her pull the lid shut tighter than it should be, maybe I would stop the whole thing and make readjustments and on with the show, maybe I would do many things I should have, except for the fact that at the exact moment the chains begin to rattle and the trap begins to sink, I spot Lola trying to sneak out of the performance space with a vindictive look on her feline features. Told you that you'd pay, human. Good luck doing your show without the star.