count my cards, watch them fall | d12 train
Oct 18, 2018 18:25:21 GMT -5
Post by alex 🐺 on Oct 18, 2018 18:25:21 GMT -5
s t e l l a ;
And yet so long after the Games, the darkness followed her. It had been two years - two years of rebirth and stillness. Two years to take a breath and reset. Two years to grow up. Two years shuttling back and forth between the Capitol and home. A year by Ex’s side and she dreamed of many more. “I’ll still be here when you’re ready…” Her cool voice trailed after her, the night wind carrying it towards her. Stella’s step wavered for a moment before she continued walking back towards the train. And away from her. Away from the only person she ever loved who had yet to die. That was nearly six months ago. A lifetime between them.
Stretching a leg out on the plush leather couch, Stella looked up, the gilded carriage yet another prison for the next few hours as a sigh escaped her lips. Her arms were crossed on her chest as the train carried them deeper into Panem and closer to the Capitol.
She was not never ready for this trip, her second sojourn to the Capitol to mentor tributes, to anger Snow, to dazzle the Capitolites. The simple fact that she was returning to the Capitol, that she was mentoring two new lambs for slaughter - two new tributes, she reminded herself, the morbidity of her thoughts bringing a dark smile to her face - was not enough to make the nerves in her stomach quiet. The promise of Ex and the dread of the killing. But they could survive. They could do the unthinkable and survive. But they wouldn’t. She knew better.
The butterflies taking flight as they had during this same trip last year, Cassia and Gabriel swapped out for Carter and Hell (and didn’t fate really have a field day with that one?) and Stella sat up quickly, chewing her lip. A hand through her hair. A fake smile adorning her face, her cheeks pulling taut at the thought of the mosaic of a girl she had been crafted into. Whole, alive, broken, damaged.
A split calculation, a control of her own body, of her limbs once more, and she is moving forward. Her jaw is set, chin jutting out. There’s something bubbling in her veins, an itching anger that probably has nothing to do with the Games looming and everything to do with the woman waiting for her. First things first, though.
She moves silently, the train car empty, stalking to the bar and pouring a glass of bourbon, reaching low to extract a tumbler, two ice cubes, and retreating to the window. She’s staring fixedly out over the scenery blurring past, the glass raised to rest just near her chin.
She hears them enter, their voices trailing through the train in awe. In terror. Stella can’t tell the difference. She doesn’t turn to them. Just takes a slow sip of her drink, the ice clinking in the silence of the car, and then rests the glass back against her shoulder.
Aranica would no doubt be along soon - Stella would not have to handle the tributes on her own, thank Ripred. A hope speech, words of wisdom - she had none. But she had hope. Tiny tendrils of a happy ending. Of her lambs for slaughter coming home. She has hope and she's holding onto it with everything in her so she doesn't completely submerge into thick, red pain already leaking in her heart. (Hope breeds eternal misery, is that how it goes?)
She stays silent, a panic attack rising in her lungs. Nothing is expected of her. Everything is expected of her. The world leaves an ache in her chest, so often sometimes Stella almost forgets to put a smile on her face. A heaviness falls into her limbs and she gets the urge to tear the feeling out from behind her ribs. The chaos in this moment helps conceal fact that Stella's brows seem to never cease furrowing in anxiety, or twitching with guilt, or that there seems to be a persistent despair in her eyes. She knows the tributes have a one in twenty-four shot of coming home, and those odds are bleak at best.
Nothing is expected of her. Everything is expected of her.
She turns to them, glass still raised to her shoulder, like a weapon, a prayer.
“What do you need from me? You can be as honest as you want or we can make this trip to the Capitol in silence. I’m here for you.”