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Keep My Issues Strong // {D10 Tribs}
Sept 16, 2012 22:57:22 GMT -5
Post by Baby Wessex d9b [earthling] on Sept 16, 2012 22:57:22 GMT -5
for what it's worth, I have a slow disease that sucked me dry... I always aim to please
but I nearly died
Why was it that he kept repeating the same mistakes? Was is his personalized form of punishment, or did it happen to the other victors? He intended to askArbor, Topaz Klaus?Aranica when he had a chance. That just wasn't a question he could put to Julian, not knowing how much he tortured himself. Not knowing that it would be yet another hard conversation to have, when he didn't really want to talk about anything arena-related with him ever. again. He needed to find some more common ground with Ara, though. It wouldn't be hard - it had never once been hard. He just hadn't made the effort.
And this was the worst sort of effort.
He wasn't really entertaining the notion of asking any other victor how they thought they were atoning for the sin of living. That was ridiculous. He'd never put any of them through that, and besides, it would take the right words for it to even become a conversation, and he'd never had those. No. Mostly he just needed to think about something other than what he was doing, which was throwing his clothes from Ten into a suitcase, along with a few personal items and one more Capitol outfit for the day of the Reaping. That was it. He was a man on a mission.
But of course, Olive - the escort from Ten - had never been especially good at picking out Mace's good moods from his bad ones. Granted they did quite similar to the untrained eye. He rounded on her the moment she walked in, and demanded that she find every last personal item he had in the compartments belonging to Ten. He didn't wait to watch her scamper off, but set back to the task of emptying his sock and underwear drawer.
When he had finished, he slung his duffel over his back, even though it was meant to be carried, and stalked into the hallway. Olive was standing there, stiff as a board and pale. In the other room he could hear people moving around, quieter than the noisy pair of stylists. His tributes. It was the twist of the knife in his gut, the little bit of wind to fan the embers. He turned to Olive at the last moment, took a step towards her. She immediately back into the wall.
"There are lots of closets in this building, Olive. Reckon there's upwards of a thousand. Find it," he said softly, smoothly, mechanically. The only way a good threat could be delivered. And then his hooked his thumbs around the bag's straps and walked into the common area.
His dead grey eyes smoldered around the edges as he walked towards the door. His fingers trembled, and then shook so that by the time he reached for the doorknob, he had no strength in his hand whatsoever.
Looked it was like to do something talking.
Mace stretched his fingers, balled them into a fist as he turned around to his two tributes. "Thank you. I mean it, thank you. You made it easy for me to quit doing my job." Not that it would have taken more than a nudge, but damn if this wasn't the easiest exit. He would have rather had a pregnant tribute and one crippled by kindness. He would have rather had two cripples. Anything but this.
He drew himself up to his full height, fists by his hips. Pontificating wasn't usually his style, but short of being able to rage in front of Julian, this was as good as it got for him. "I got nothing else for you. No more tips, no more help. Wait, no, I got one," he said under false sarcasm. "Don't live for someone in the arena. Find someone out here to live for. That's the only fucking way out. How could you not to know? You don't love another tribute. Because your heart don't break in the arena. It stops beating."
The shaking, despite his efforts, had moved from his fingers. He felt the claws of the cold creeping up his veins, twining around his bones. It would reach his heart soon, start to screw with his palpitations if he wasn't careful. If he didn't find some way to get warm. Julian. He needed Julian. But first he needed to make his point. He took a deep, shuddering breath to ward of the frigid memories, but they came at him anyhow. Topaz in her wedding dress, Topaz killing Nash oh so slowly. Sundra and Aesop in the snow.
"You want to kill her?" Mace jerked his head from Damion to Lydie. "Or will you make your ally do it?" He asked, and without thinking jammed his thumb into his own chest. He hadn't been Aesop's ally at the end. No. He'd been his brother, and he had spread Sundra's cherry-colored blood across the crisp winter snow. He almost saw her, in polished reflection of the floor as he deflated, his shoulders slumping.
Mace gave one final shake of his head. "Whatever this is, you remember, you live for something - someone - back in Ten. Ain't nothing else that will save you. Not against a Libertine. Against a brother and sister. There's no sponsor in all of Panem that gives a rat's ass for any tribute from Ten. You gotta win because you want to make it home more than anyone else. You get it?" Because otherwise they'd both end up in the snow, in the sand, buried in seaweed.
But worse, otherwise one of them might end up like Topaz Ross.
banner credit: jurate
lyrics:placebo for what it's worth
lyrics:placebo for what it's worth
