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Cuz Baby You're Dead to Me // [GG+Mace]
Jan 22, 2015 22:47:42 GMT -5
Post by Baby Wessex d9b [earthling] on Jan 22, 2015 22:47:42 GMT -5
a note from the desk of
Mace Emberstatt
when you never thought that it could ever get this tough,of District Ten
that's when you feel my kind of love
The stylists – a token from his usual team supplemented by Capitolite stylists with a vellum list of credentials – circled Mace. One held up a gaudy burgundy bolero. The other tsked, snatched it, and circled to the rack of clothes tailored just for him. Just so he could wear one outfit for a speech and a reception, paraded around like a prize pony.
Mace ground his teeth.
A third stylist (he’d taken to thinking of her as Mohawk, given her hairstyle) flitted into the room, waving something flat and square. They clustered around it, not bothering to moderate their voices.
“Have you ever seen a speech this short?”
“I didn’t want to share anything, but my. It’s hardly more than a few minutes.”
“Baby steps, I suppose.”
“At least he isn’t mute, like that other one.”
“Would be better if I was deaf,” Mace murmured.
The three of them looked up. Mohawk blinked slowly, languorously, and then waved a hand at him. Time was that he could have scattered them with a growl, with an icy look of his grey eyes. And while his stylists still sometimes indulged him, really the only person who feared him was Olive, and that was for transgressions long ago.
He’d lost the ability to threaten people. And he was more than okay with it.
“Let’s have it.”
“Do you want to practice?”
He shook his head, unseating the crown. They had put an unsettling amount of metal pins to keep the irrationally heavy thing steady. With one shake, it titled to the left. Mohawk cried something that might have been an obscenity, her nails raking over his scalp as she righted the crown.
“Maybe it’s best if you don’t speak at all.”
Tell that to Snow.
But it wouldn’t matter. President Snow had seen Mace speak half a dozen time over the past decade. He had to know that Mace wasn’t any good at speeches. Topaz was the best they had, but it wasn’t her anniversary. And unlike Topaz, Mace owed Snow a debt that was more than just his life. While the stylists twittered about how to better secure his crown, Mace flipped open his leather wallet. He flicked through the photographs, of himself as Julian as teenagers, of Kieran as a baby in Ara’s arms, of Julian at home in Ten, of Julian’s parents, and finally of Juliet and Mason, taken just days before, upon their arrival at the Capitol.
If he cost him a few words once a decade, it was worth it.
“I can’t wipe the melancholy off with foundation, you know.”
He looked up to find Mohawk, her eyebrows darkened to black, staring down at him.
Mace sniffed. “I ain’t sad.”
“Then what -” she tapped the crinkle between his brows “is this?”
“Just what happens when I get to thinkin’.”
“You don’t have to think so hard. We’ll take care of everything. Genevia? Let’s have some champagne. We need a few bubbles to tickle the grouch out.”
He made a passing attempt at explaining that he didn’t drink, but the words came out too softly, too garbled. He was still thinking about Mason and Juliet – would they remember this forced speech? Would they be okay in a crowd of Capitolites? – and the sharp pins in his head.
He wasn’t thinking enough about the reason he was here, ten years later, reaching for a flute in the hand of a dark haired avox, and then it was suddenly so cold, the air conditioning washing over him.
Or was it snow and ice?
Because he was certainly there, skating just to the edge of the floe, always inches from a watery grave, her grave. He was behind Sawyer – no, Mohawk – fighting – no, just standing – but then if he was only standing already with a crown on his head, why was she here?
He sucked in a sharp breath, burning his lungs.
Sawyer’s Viking pyre.
The coin from Aesop’s belly.
And Sundra Wie, buried in the snow.
He knew he would not find the longsword of Charas, but he reached for it anyhow. He had only a heavy crown and an empty scabbard, all glitz and glamour and nothing real. But he knew she was real. She was never the reaper in his dreams. If she had come for him, it was no longer a dream.
The shattering ofice crystal as a champagne flute from the hands of his stylist. The pieces of glass rattling around his skull.
"I'm not ready," he said, all heartbreak and sincerity.
Mace ground his teeth.
A third stylist (he’d taken to thinking of her as Mohawk, given her hairstyle) flitted into the room, waving something flat and square. They clustered around it, not bothering to moderate their voices.
“Have you ever seen a speech this short?”
“I didn’t want to share anything, but my. It’s hardly more than a few minutes.”
“Baby steps, I suppose.”
“At least he isn’t mute, like that other one.”
“Would be better if I was deaf,” Mace murmured.
The three of them looked up. Mohawk blinked slowly, languorously, and then waved a hand at him. Time was that he could have scattered them with a growl, with an icy look of his grey eyes. And while his stylists still sometimes indulged him, really the only person who feared him was Olive, and that was for transgressions long ago.
He’d lost the ability to threaten people. And he was more than okay with it.
“Let’s have it.”
“Do you want to practice?”
He shook his head, unseating the crown. They had put an unsettling amount of metal pins to keep the irrationally heavy thing steady. With one shake, it titled to the left. Mohawk cried something that might have been an obscenity, her nails raking over his scalp as she righted the crown.
“Maybe it’s best if you don’t speak at all.”
Tell that to Snow.
But it wouldn’t matter. President Snow had seen Mace speak half a dozen time over the past decade. He had to know that Mace wasn’t any good at speeches. Topaz was the best they had, but it wasn’t her anniversary. And unlike Topaz, Mace owed Snow a debt that was more than just his life. While the stylists twittered about how to better secure his crown, Mace flipped open his leather wallet. He flicked through the photographs, of himself as Julian as teenagers, of Kieran as a baby in Ara’s arms, of Julian at home in Ten, of Julian’s parents, and finally of Juliet and Mason, taken just days before, upon their arrival at the Capitol.
If he cost him a few words once a decade, it was worth it.
“I can’t wipe the melancholy off with foundation, you know.”
He looked up to find Mohawk, her eyebrows darkened to black, staring down at him.
Mace sniffed. “I ain’t sad.”
“Then what -” she tapped the crinkle between his brows “is this?”
“Just what happens when I get to thinkin’.”
“You don’t have to think so hard. We’ll take care of everything. Genevia? Let’s have some champagne. We need a few bubbles to tickle the grouch out.”
He made a passing attempt at explaining that he didn’t drink, but the words came out too softly, too garbled. He was still thinking about Mason and Juliet – would they remember this forced speech? Would they be okay in a crowd of Capitolites? – and the sharp pins in his head.
He wasn’t thinking enough about the reason he was here, ten years later, reaching for a flute in the hand of a dark haired avox, and then it was suddenly so cold, the air conditioning washing over him.
Or was it snow and ice?
Because he was certainly there, skating just to the edge of the floe, always inches from a watery grave, her grave. He was behind Sawyer – no, Mohawk – fighting – no, just standing – but then if he was only standing already with a crown on his head, why was she here?
He sucked in a sharp breath, burning his lungs.
Sawyer’s Viking pyre.
The coin from Aesop’s belly.
And Sundra Wie, buried in the snow.
He knew he would not find the longsword of Charas, but he reached for it anyhow. He had only a heavy crown and an empty scabbard, all glitz and glamour and nothing real. But he knew she was real. She was never the reaper in his dreams. If she had come for him, it was no longer a dream.
The shattering of
"I'm not ready," he said, all heartbreak and sincerity.
