atlas hands | {teddy/mackenzie} blitz

I'll     take     my     bow
I  won't  make  a  sound
I        whisper        truce
as the ashes hit the ground

A tired boy stepped down from an expensive train, onto a meager platform, in a pale district of concrete and wood and the strangely familiar scent of the mills.

It smelled like paper, this flammable town.

Jacquelyn had already made the schedule overtly clear to him, but she decided to go over it yet again as a couple avoxes unloaded their luggage. He looked the part, with the heavy fur coat Colt Royale had designed; the Sunglasses were part of the Salcedo Summer Collection, they told him. But he didn't feel regal, at least not enough to watch someone else carry his suitcases when he was perfectly capable. Apart from the scar on his hand, the Capitol had erased every mark and scar the arena and life before it had given him; he was almost disheartened when he first discovered the birthmark he and his sister shared had been removed. They had both always sworn it looked exactly like a swan due to it essentially being made up of a small blob being connected to a slightly less-small blob by a thin line, but in truth, they didn't look like anything.

It was something they'd invented together, though, the Mark of Pryce. There was now just a smooth patch of completely healed skin on his foot where it had once been.

"I've got these," he said, smiling sheepishly at the avox as he took his bags from her.

"Mackenzie, she has to bring those to your room while we prep you for your speech later."

Jacqueline seemed unamused; Mackenzie considered it a job well done.

"Then you can prep me along the way."

His sentence drifted off, lilting upward and into oblivion as he noticed someone standing in front of him. It took a moment for the face to go from vaguely familiar, to someone important, to victor, to Teddy Ursa, but he got there. He offered a smile; that's all anyone seemed to want from him anyway. Maybe he was too preoccupied with keeping himself distracted to bother with the sort of formal greeting Teddy must’ve been expecting.

"Hey there, stranger," he said, nodding to Jacquelyn, "Teddy wants to walk with us. Don't you, Teddy?"

He patted the lone victor of Six on his shoulder, and began walking without waiting for an answer.

Maybe, just maybe, if he kept the charade up for long enough, he could pretend he wasn't terrified of being here at last— of being in her home.