♕ mirror, mirror : lucy and saffron

I am-

I can't-

I won't-

I-

(Nothing is real. This is all a dream.)

"I'm going home, Saffron!" she shrieks, but I can't hear Lucy anymore. There is something about her - something I've seen before when she stoke those two lives only for a moment - that chills me to the bone. They have made her into their plaything. Holding that sword she looks like a knight, a queen protecting her kingdom, but she's not any of those. They pulled out the fire inside of her that I should have seen underneath her small smiles and hand-holding. They've turned her into a pawn, an inhumane machine of their bidding. Even her words screech in my ears, metal-on-metal, flesh-on-blade, and twist my reality into a robotic, dead world.

"It's just a game, that's all it is!"

Yes, Queen Lucy. (I wince at the thought of her name, her title, someone I protected and trusted and let go. I let her go, I let them take her, and now look what they've done. Look what I've done. I wasn't there to fight them off, wasn't there to scream at them to "Stop, please stop," (I beg her to find any compassion they may have left inside of her and beg them to switch her off, to give back my friend and only true companion) "Please, Lucy, plea-"

I scream again - one second, two seconds, three seconds, four. Five seconds, six seconds, seven seconds, eight. (Maybe she'll hear me, maybe, maybe it'll stop her, maybe it won't, but it's all I can do now, all I can muster.) I can only scream, and cry, and watch liquid mix with blood and my hand (my hands, my fingers, how am I supposed to steal her away now? How am I supposed to steal anything anymore?)

I can't. I simply can't.

I blink - and Lucy's not here.

"Give-" (I grit my teeth) "-her" (I raise my weapon) "-back!" (I throw everything I have, every furious atom blinding me from Lucy's face, hidden underneath my anger and rage and the blood that coats her face, to fight away the demon they've turned her into and save her from herself before it's too late.)

i think this is still a work in progress idk

This is a filler but DO NOT FRET I HAVE LITTLE THINGS WRITTEN ALREADY because i like to write little saffron-paragraphs when i can't sleep so don't worry we're all good

like so:

My body is a cage and I am trapped inside. It screams and cries to be let out, set free, for my soul to fly away and leave all the pain behind. My mind wanders instead, back to home, and I wish that it could be as easy as walking into those memories and letting them carry me away.

I wish that I could, that all of this could have been easier, that it wasn't my name called out across the District but somebody else's instead. (Not Paige, I think for what might be the final time. Anyone but Paige. But she's not here - she's safe. Safe from me, safe from Lucy, safe from anyone who could ever touch her because I'm here instead.) Maybe I wished the wrong way, maybe instead of Paige's name, fate chose mine instead. Everything comes with a consequence, and perhaps her life had to be switched with mine instead. Anyone but Paige - and if saving her has sent me to my deathbed then so be it.

ayeee more filler stuff

"Only cowards let others go home." she thinks about Jim and Storm and that thing about brothers etc tec

"And you're brave, Lucy. But so am I."

"You don't deserve to rule it."

We are not Capitol-born - not even from the higher districts. No, we are low-district scum to those who work to rule these kingdoms, each and every one of them, every single year for the rest of forever. Why we are even here poses questions in my mind, strung across a never-ending rope that loops around my brain. How did we come so far, and how did the Careers dwindle away one by one? How come they chose us? Did our talk of ruling together scare them silly, deciding to warp Lucy's mind beyond repair so she'd take us down? (A canon fires in the distance. Somewhere, someplace, lies my final enemy, alive and breathing. This is not the end - not yet.)

Neither of us are worthy to live, we're just as bad as each-other. Neither of us are the true rulers of this place. One out of three (three, only three of us are left now, soon to be two) shall emerge with fake glory and a crown of their fashioning placed on our heads. They will write our destinies, construct our actions, place every part of our lives to their decisions and their preference. Living, ruling, seems to be too much for the both of us.

Death is far easier. But who deserves to die, and who shall be burdened with the weight of living, of ruling under their commands, for the rest of the new forever?

"But then again, neither do I. Do I, Lucy? Do I?"

Her life isn't worth my hand. Her life isn't worth my life - meaningless, worthless, useless without my stealing, protecting tool. My god, how cheap they have made her worth. (It might break my hand, if she doesn't carve that out of me, too.)

"I hope," I snarl, any love or affection or friendship I ever held for the monster that towers above me vanished into thin, freezing air, "that after I die, you can live with yourself afterwards."

Rising from the snow (it hurts so very much to move, but I force myself upwards regardless) I shiver, huddling to bow before her as I laugh, an echo of her manic joy as she watched me crumble.

"It has been an honour," I seethe, spitting out the words from my bitter, blood-stained mouth as I rise, letting the sticky, sarcastic concoction that rose from my insides drip to the ground with a terrifying grin, "your majesty."

And laced with horrendous intentions and tear-stained teeth, I swing forwards with violent arms.

When I was a little girl (I still am, I'm still a little girl, who needs her Momma and her sister and to be tucked in at night and her hands) I used to play pretend with all the other children. I'd be the monster that snuck up behind them all and jumped, pulling frightening faces and growling to summon frantic shrieks of terror from the others. And then I'd fall back, laughing so hard the joy felt as if it were to explode from my sternum. We'd play hide and seek, monsters and heroes, tributes and muttations, too young to see the real damage inflicted in our games and imagination. We were learning that fear, and pain, was justifiable.'

But this isn't. This pain, this manic fear that courses through my body, the aching feeling I feel as I mourn for the hand that once guided me through life, isn't justifiable by anything other than silly little boys and girls with their silly little toys and machines making children scream and laughing at our discomfort. We are the grown-ups and they are the children, drowned out by a sickening upbringing to learn that the pain of others is ok. They had no parents to snatch their hands away and scold for pushing a child over on the pavement or making them cry. They did not learn that disobeying meant punishment in the District Square. They were given everything they could ever need - everything except reality.

And so they constructed this twisted version of reality - a reality that isn't even real. With their buttons and machines they built this kingdom and told us that we could rule it, and laughed at our hand-holding and promises of friendship. They kept me prisoner, turned my best friend against me, and now they want me to become one of them too? Never, I think, pushing myself forward against Lucy's piercing being. I won't do it. I shouldn't have said that, I shouldn't have told Lucy... that can't have been the last thing I...

But the last thing I said to Lucy wasn't that. Lucy is gone. Lucy is not here. They think they stole her away from me, when really, she wasn't here to begin with. I set her free, stole her away from my danger and the target on my back, let her spread her wings and soar from the birdsnest. I'll never stop, I promised. I'll never stop.

I swim in a pool of freezing air and self-hatred. The ocean pours from me, angry sobs leaving me the only way they know how to, because my best friend is dead and they've given me back her shell. She is safe, I sob. She is gone now. She is safe.

But she still looks like Lucy. And that makes this the hardest part of all.

"I never got the chance," I stammer, feeling the icy winds claw at the back of my throat and turn my lungs to ice and my heart to stone, "to say goodbye."

"Thank you, Lucy."

It hurts, all of this hurts, but it will be over soon.

"For being my friend."

But I promised to save myself, and I am not a coward.