six feet under | stella x finley

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alex 🐺
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Pronouns: she/her
last seen Sept 21, 2024 9:49:56 GMT -5

a la folie

six feet under | stella x finley Sept 9, 2018 13:06:02 GMT -5

Post by alex 🐺 on Sept 9, 2018 13:06:02 GMT -5

s t e l l a ;

Her legs carried her there without much thought, fingers clutched around the tarnished gold triangle necklace - her talisman - the weight of her past sitting heavy in the space between her breasts. She sighed, head ducked low to weave in and out of the crowds. Head down, she thought she could blend in with the crowds, but her black outfit was too normal, too demure for the extravagance of the Capitol. Her face was free of makeup and she needed this moment to breathe. Thank fuck she wasn’t stopped and she felt all the better for it. This was not her time to be on display. This was no time for theatrics. This was no time for drama, even as the city around her breathed it in like everlasting air.

A quick kiss to Ex as she abandoned her apartment minutes earlier lingered on her lips and she savored the taste, the memory. Another crutch and Stella was selfish enough cling to her until she was thrown away like yesterday’s news. Stella wasn’t an idiot (hadn’t she proved just that in the Arena?) but she knew the moment a new Victor was crowned, she would lose her life raft, the storm surge threatening to overtake her just like her nightmares.

I don't belong to anyone, but everybody knows my name.

They had unveiled the exhibition just days ago to much fanfare, a party attended by the Victors and the Capitol elite and Stella had not had a moment to seek him out. Wrapped around Ex, she had felt safe and secure - a cocoon of armor wrapped in a silk dress and six inch heels tall enough to make Stella weak in the knees. She would pay her respects alone.

She needed to see him. She needed to see him one more time. He deserved more time. He deserved the world and Stella had given him only darkness. A shell of an ally fighting her own battles and she had left him alone.

Her lambs had been killed and she was not strong enough to shoulder the weight in silence - Gabriel did not make it past the second day and Cassia - strong, sassy, smart Cassia - lost a hand before she lost her life. Failure. Failure. A few broken bottles and smashed lamps later, her temper had faded. Failure. Failure. Failure. Their deaths weighed heavy but none as much as the crown she carries around. Like a stone around her neck, like the emptiness of stale air, like broken wings snapped in two, she was not quite whole. She would never be whole again.

And the chaos in the museum conceal fact that Stella's brows seemed to never cease furrowing in anxiety, or twitching with guilt, or that there seems to be a persistent despair in her eyes.

She knew the tributes had a one in twenty-four shot of coming home, and those odds were bleak at best. Nothing was expected of her. Everything was expected of her, but District Twelve would have no joy this year.

Stella, she had hope and she was holding onto it with everything in her so she didn’t completely submerge into thick, red pain already leaking in her heart. (Hope breeds eternal misery, is that how it goes?) Too late for that. Her silence the past week has buried itself deep in her chest, an ache that would not subside. She had hoped that this would be a balm on her wounded heart.

She thought she had been rid of the nightmares, but even waking up in a cold sweat with a body next to her could did nothing to shake the images of Euley and Aeson, battered and broken and fighting. The Games had brought them back to the forefront of her mind and even Ex knew better than to attempt to bring peace to the blonde.

I don't belong to anyone, but everybody knows my name.

Her footsteps were loud and she released a sigh she didn’t know she was holding in. Their exhibit would be near the back - the newest of the Games and the least shrouded in mythos. She scrolled through the list of names on the tablet at the wall and waited for him to burst forth in color but not quite in life. Not quite whole. She lowered her gaze and did not meet the eyes of the Tributes who had died for her to guarantee safe passage back home. But then there he was - a familiar head of brown hair and her heart dropped in her chest.

What the fuck was she actually doing here? Was she seeking solace? Peace? Penance for her guilt? Forgiveness for her sins?

Visions of the Arena flashed back through her brain and Stella gasped, clutching her head in her hands and screaming silently. Call it what it is - this is not a rebirth. This is destruction. This is a reckoning wrapped in filaments of gold, muscle, and bone. This is the striking of a hammer on malleable lives. This is the desecration of a temple so beautiful that it was destined for a short life. This is the sacrificial lamb ready for the slaughter. This is the beginning and the end of everything.

Her heart drummed in her chest as she rose to full height and faced him. Finley. Silent tears falling down her face. Her ribcage was the wrong size for her her lungs, her heart pushing frantically against the bones that sat too close. Her heart pushing blood to a skull and a body full of poison, insisten murmurs of those lost crawling through her ears and never leaving her brain. Euley said she would not carry her but Stella was weighed down with their deaths, dead corpses trailing behind her, bloody steps of iron and bone as she fell apart.

”Fin,” she breathed, hand reaching out to what? To the image? To the boy whose life she had sacrificed? To her friend? To her hope?

Her legs stumbled backwards and she hit the wall, collapsing as she exploded in on herself, tears streaming down her face. Heart never quite whole breaking open as the concussive embrace shocks her system. She really should not have done this alone, craving Ex’s touch now more than ever.

She was not strong enough for this. She would never be strong enough for this. Arms on bent legs, Stella sat on the floor, eyes upwards watching Finley as he smiled. A smile she did not deserve. She swears she will shatter gold like glass, break silver whole like hollow bones and burn bleached white black as iron to survive. She knows this now.

lyrics in italics by billie eilish

Last Edit: Jun 27, 2021 17:54:09 GMT -5 by alex 🐺

the smell of night, inhaling stars.

d6a georgie cham 🐢 frankel
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call me jaded

six feet under | stella x finley Sept 11, 2018 14:25:42 GMT -5

Post by d6a georgie cham 🐢 frankel on Sept 11, 2018 14:25:42 GMT -5

”How can anyone find love amongst all of this madness and death? He must have been something special.”

Finley Combes’ death was not a prolonged one, there was not much to it for the coders to incorporate into the hologram. Already on his last pint of blood, Raven Sayer opened the tap on his leg with the spear and that was the end of that. A little bit of sadness and a dash of home life yearning, they had become common traits in the code. Nothing exciting or gory for the programmers to play with, he was just like any other ’good’ tribute from the back burrows of the Districts.

Just two kills to his name, the third with the District four classed as a void. They would be memories implanted into the code, talk of their names to spark a tear in the frame or a recollection speech. Hours of footage watched over and over, just to get every piece of detail perfect. Even those who spent just minutes in the arena have had every fine element reviewed and reviewed.

”There are people waiting for me, there is a promise trailing behind me. Please just let me run far away from here.” Every tribute carries a theme through the arena with them, Finley was this promise to his family…another common tale of the tributes long gone. Talk of two sisters to be added to the code, rarely was their names spoken but a whisper of a Quinn and Piper have been played back through the videos. It is unlikely any family member other than victors will ever come face to face with these holograms, but no detail can be missed to ensure the precise personality.

Every movement mirrored as well as all the facial expressions, if only they could enter the mind of the tributes. Only the feelings displayed can be duplicated, not the true ones contained within. Just one of the major constraints with the project, they have so much to work with from the footage but it just half of it. All the finer pieces hidden away from sight so many tributes have displayed some spectacular scenes of emotions but there are some that have kept it away from the audience’s view. A difficulty overcome during the bespoke project, it will just have to be something amended when the technology advances in years to come.

There is luck with Finley Combes, a tribute with a connection to his games’ victor. An ally from the start, there was so much to work with between Finley and Stella Blakesley. Even after the premature deaths of their original allies, both of which Finley responded to perfectly for the programmers to engineer into the hologram.

Six nights spent together, and Finley would wake on the seventh morning alone, just two more days to live and the last words to his ally "I'll make a fire, lets settle for the night" were lost in the icy wind. Their expected reunion has been written up and buried into the code, it is just the matter of when that will happen.

”Fin.”

Finley’s hologram sparks as clear as when he was alive His beige long sleeved t-shirt torn with the eight days of stress and tainted with blood of his own and the others he encountered. His black dungaree snow trousers hang from one shoulder. There is a shiver in his body, as if he still stood on the high peak, in one hand he still holds a ski pole, an added prop to add authenticity for each games’ arena theme. A smile arches on his lips, an exact replica of one displayed in the arena.

”Stella Blakesley, victor of the seventy-eighth games.” A very automated response, the programming starts to string everything together, this is the first time the hologram has been interacted with properly, it will take awhile before things feel natural. ”Victor…” The hologram flings its arms up into the air. ”Stella you came back, I thought you said you were going to run away from me in the morning…”