shadows and sand [Annie + Tati | VT]

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pearl mcclain d4 [ryan]
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over the moon, where all the wild things are

shadows and sand [Annie + Tati | VT] Jan 18, 2019 12:11:13 GMT -5

Post by pearl mcclain d4 [ryan] on Jan 18, 2019 12:11:13 GMT -5

Proud shouts from the billowing crowds of four cut through the silence when Annie walked up and off that train station.

People screaming her name and chanting Wander’s at the same time, as both of them were able to come back to them in more or less one piece.

Annie wasn’t expecting a parade, hell, she didn’t want a parade. She did not deserve to be celebrated for murder, she only deserved to live the rest of her life in silence. Silence that she had to kill for, but that would never happen.

Annie would have to travel to the capitol every year just in order to watch countless other tributes die before her eyes.

It was a thought that she tried to push out of her mind as they guided her to her new home.

Leon was quick with the tour, but made sure that Annie was comfortable as she thought about Wander and Angel.

Leon knew how much they meant to her, and to even think that she now had the opportunity to offer them a better life, Annie almost couldn’t wait.

But Annie had to be patient, and eventually, she could see her life improving before her own eyes. Time passed and the cold air snapped Annie back into the reality that she was now to be paraded around the districts like she was a hero.

She was far from it, but that wasn’t for her to decide. She knew that much. The districts would do what they will with the information that they are given, and her victory tour was well on its way.

Districts 1 through 3 all seemed to offer her the best that they could, her least favorite being three so far. The memories of the games seemed to be the most heightened there, especially since she ran into the twins.

She had to hold herself back from lashing out at both of them, so getting out of there as soon as possible was the goal in mind.

When Annie boarded the train back to four, she didn’t think about the victory tour, because how in the world were they going to top her first arrival back into her home district. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to calm herself, Leon and Cassius both prepping her for what to expect back in four.

They told her that it was going to be a Victory tour to remember.

And it was, because instead of somber attitudes, she was met with another roar of applause.

She had lived through it all, and so did Wander.

Both of them were celebrated in the eyes of the people living in the district, even though Annie was the one with the official title of victor.

There were speeches made, demonstrations to be had, but none of that seemed to matter because time seemed to stand still while Annie watched her people’s worry melt away.

District four was a proud warrior district, just like one and two, but now that they had another victor that came home, she could tell that everyone was even more determined to step their games up. The momentum she brought back was more than enough to inspire people to work hard in order to bring constant honor back to the district.

Or they would die trying, and that would have to be something that Annie was going to have to live with.

The demonstration went just like all the others in the career districts. Annie didn’t think that she would have to prove anything to the people she grew up with, but still, they wanted to see more of what Annie could do. This time she recreated her private training session, something that felt personal to her. After all, she wouldn’t have made it through the games if she didn’t have her mother on her mind. That’s what she told herself at the least.

She sailed through the hardest difficultly, like she had done this time and time again, and while she wished she could have stopped at any point, this was for her own district, so as much as she never wanted to have to kill again, she would do it just for them.

She owed them that much.

She walked out of the training center to be bombarded by a group of people that wanted to know even more about Annie. She sighed, answering questions and shaking hands like it was second nature at this point.

Someone had asked her a question about tributes that have come so far but fell short at the finish line.

She looked at them, ”They still fought with honor. Lux Pelotte was an outstanding tribute, just as Lavina Cheyne was as well, fate just had a different plan for both of them. ” She spoke clearly as they continued to whisper around her like she had just said something completely controversial.

She could understand her words about Lavina, a career that was a little too hot headed for her own good. Her placement wasn’t as good as her district counterpart, but Anduril Harvard didn’t do as well as he should have either, struck down by a twelve year old from ten. The year prior, Dymas Nyx made it to the top 8 but took himself out in a surprising twist that admittedly left a bad taste in Annie’s mouth. Eva Tidestone fell days before he did, but she did not train to go into the games like Dymas did. Annie knew him, she did not know her.

And then the tributes from the 77th didn’t make it far at all, a showing that definitely went down in infamy with the district as they couldn’t even get close to cracking the top 8.

The 76th was a great showing for the tributes from four on the other hand. Hero Maravey and Lux Pelotte both made it to the final days, with Lux making it all the way to the finale. Truly she was the perfect victor for four, something that Annie could never truly be.

At least that is what she thought.

She waved off any more questions, realizing that maybe she shared a little too much info with the people that were badgering her. She sighed as she began to walk away from them in order to clear her head.

She needed to be alone for a bit to clear her mind.

So she made her way to the sand of the ocean, and the feeling of the ground between her toes made Annie feel at peace. She thought about this place a lot in the games, because the smell was always something that she could focus on in the best way possible.

She would think about seeing everyone she loved here, waiting for them to come back and welcome her into their arms. It kept her sane day by day, and this was the moment she fought for.

She killed for even.

So found a spot on the sand that gave her the perfect view of the water as it met the sky in the horizon. The sunset seemed to follow quickly, and before she knew it, she had been here for a while. She wondered what Wander was doing right now, Angel, her Angel, Parson, Hellion, and all the rest of the tributes that were in the games with her.

She wondered if all of this was worth it.

A sigh left her lips as she hugged her legs close to her, the salty air enveloping her noise and causing her to relax.

Nothing could get to her here, that she was sure of.

She looked out into the distance and just thought about existing for the time being. She didn’t want to even think about the victory tour anymore, because the ocean was what she wanted to come back to.

So she tilted her head on the side of her arm and thought about how crazy her world was going to get.

And if she was ready for it.

D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]
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shadows and sand [Annie + Tati | VT] Jan 19, 2019 17:15:18 GMT -5

Post by D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza] on Jan 19, 2019 17:15:18 GMT -5

T A T I P E L O T T E

The arms of the ocean offer a cold hug; never so much a shoulder to cry on, rather a place that I can cry and not feel the sting of my own salt. It feels better disguising tears as droplets from the sea because that way, I can emerge from the blue and continue to put up the strong front I have grown into.

There used to be days where I would lay on the sand for hours. And when the tide came in, I didn't care. Part of me wished the waves would take me away.

But I am now defiant, and it has taken me to many places but it has never led me back home. It has shown me the generosity of a stranger, the complexity of nature and the stories hidden between lips which are only partially sewn shut. I was here by my own doing—breaking away from expectation forced me to grow up and take on the world alone; I realised that I'd rather face that reality in Four than in an arena.

There's a silence now. Without my family, I admittedly feel alone, but never lonely. I have to remind myself that leaving was for the best because it was, and I'd rather be here than forcing myself to emulate the madness in the world everyone wanted me to be. People are not meant to be void of all emotion; we are not supposed to be prisoners to a promise. We are supposed to be products of our own making, that way, when we look back in years to come, we can tell a story with heart and not just with our tongues.

Being destined to drown has definitely made me a product of my own making; from the pieces of a broken career I have managed to stabilise. There is stability in sincerity and independence, and there is safety in the pulling of one's own trigger.

If only Lux knew that.

I try not to tell myself that things could be different if I had said or done something. I could blame myself for hours about how I should have told her to come with me when I left, or how I should have volunteered in her place. I could tell myself how dirty it feels to betray one's own blood, to fight a single battle but lose a war. Everything amounts to nothing in hindsight, because what happened is what happened. When the stars align, it becomes impossible to fight with their power: fate.

Everything does happen for a reason, even if that reason is skewed, or doesn't make sense until something else happens. It is like how you do not know you are in love until your heart is broken—perspective is principal.

Perhaps letting go of Lux is what brought glory to Four today. We have another victor, albeit not the one I wanted, still a victor. I don't care whether her words are her own or penned by someone else, I don't care whether she is a career or unlucky, I don't care whether she won by fighting or just surviving; what matters is that she is here. One of our own, flesh and bone, still stands.

It would be a feat if I couldn't say the same about the other twenty-three.

A soft gaze becomes a sharp stare when I see the girl on the sand. Tucked up into a ball—surely she knows that closing your eyes is not enough to turn the world off, they will always be watching. She, too, has given up her life just like so many before: a sacrifice of normality, of privacy, of freedom to become something she never asked to be. I could rub salt into her fresh wounds and say that it shouldn't have been her, that my sister deserved it more, but I feel for her. She has paid a price, unforgivable as it is, and that will hang heavy on her soul.

Dying in the arena starts to become the easy way out.

"Congratulations are in order, but I can only apologise." I say, approaching her carefully. "It must be hard."

pearl mcclain d4 [ryan]
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over the moon, where all the wild things are

shadows and sand [Annie + Tati | VT] Jan 19, 2019 18:05:52 GMT -5

Post by pearl mcclain d4 [ryan] on Jan 19, 2019 18:05:52 GMT -5

The sand felt weird against her body, and maybe that was because months earlier, she had been rolling around in the artificial sand that covered the arena that was known as California.

A tacit thought really, as Annie had never heard of a place called California, or even figured what it could be. Maybe it was a city from a different time. A callback to a time before Panem was even brought to fruition. A life that was actually worth living.

She tried her hardest to focus on the waves as they crashed over and over again, the sand becoming two to three shades darker as the water ran through its grain. Annie wished that the water could run over her and have the same effect. Wash everything away. But it wouldn’t.

Instead all she could remember was the feeling of blood seeping down her skin as she tried to pull herself free from the spear that Bette stabbed into her.

Her cheek burned at the thought of her face ripping away from it, and while it had been months since she had even thought about any of her scars, that didn’t mean that she forgot about them.

To the naked eye, they were nothing more than blemishes, but that did not mean they did not hold pain to the wearer. Annie tried her hardest to not even think about the pain she went through, because it always sent her back to places that she didn’t want to revisit. She didn’t have a choice in the matter though. She would have to relieve it all again six months from now.

Hell, she couldn’t even look at a TV without it showing games coverage that she didn’t want to see.

She had lived through it, she didn’t need to be reminded of it every day.

But that is what this victory tour was? Wasn’t it?

A reminder to everyone that Annie prevailed, and that while the rest of the districts got to keep their fallen, Annie would still be paraded around, celebrated in some parts as a hero, and in some parts as a villain.

She didn’t have a choice in that either, which stole the agency that she fought for away from her, and she couldn’t even fight back because she would be cast aside by anyone that could stop her.

She did not own herself anymore, and that was something that she was going to have to get used too.

The moment she swung that sword, and sliced into Bette Sublino’s unsuspecting cheeks, she signed a contract that she could not renege on, no matter how much she begged and pleaded.

Ripred took control of the whole situation from there, and if Annie being a victor was her higher calling, then she was just going to have to live with it.

Even if she lost the person she was in the process.

And she didn’t even try to fight people off anymore.

She didn’t have the luxury, because one person could come up and ask a question, and then another, and another, until it would become more than just a question.

A statement, then turned request, then turned promise and so on and so forth until Annie could not think for herself anymore.

It pained her to think that everything from here on out was going to be decided for her, dangled in front of her eyes because she could not put up any objection. At least not for now.

She would have to go along with whatever was dictated to her, because if she wanted to stay in the good graces of the capitol, for years to come at the least, then she needed to be the model victor.

Someone who didn’t complain when a request was asked of them, someone who put her views and opinions aside to make sure that she pleased someone, someone who didn’t act like they fought for their life, and instead, fought for a chance to better their life.

It sickened Annie, to the core, and maybe that was why she found herself on this beach, trying to get the thought of the games out of her head once and for all.

Everyone was so proud of her, but no one knew what it truly meant to be a victor, and to make it worse, no one would understand Annie’s plight, because everyone got to live at the end of the story.

Her trauma would become nil and void, and she would have to beg people to understand where she is coming from. And deal with people who craved what she had received.

She prayed to ripred a tidal wave would come to sweep her out to the sea, drowning her in a dramatic effect.

But instead all she got was silence.

That was until she heard a voice cut through her thoughts.

She looked up to notice a girl who seemed quite familiar. The eyes and hair were very striking to say the least, and as astute as Annie was, she couldn’t place her finger on it quite yet.

She congratulated her, and then apologized.

Fitting really.

Annie wanted to shrug and stand up, walk away from the whole situation because at this point, she did not want people to patronize her as well as pity her for what she had been through.

Yes, it was hard miss, but Annie wasn’t going to say that right here, right now.

She didn’t even know who was watching.

Instead she looked up at the girl and met her eyes, the moment she did she noticed who the girl might have been. ”Hard doesn’t even begin to describe it.” Annie spoke clearly trying to think of what to say next.

This was not the best time to get tongue tied, especially when someone was expecting her to answer for herself.

”But I guess we all have our trails and tribulations we have to endure, don’t we sister of Pelotte?” Annie couldn’t help but sigh with relief once she realized who she was. The look in her eyes was the same as her sisters, and Annie studied the 76th in depth to make sure that she was ready for what was to come in the arena.

After all, Lux did set the standard high for any District 4 going into the games.

That was until Annie won the whole thing.

”I’d be shocked if you didn’t know my name, but whats yours? Unless you would like me to refer to you as Lux’s sister?” Annie was quick on the rebound question, realizing that if there was a time to even remotely try to have a normal conversation with someone that could at least sympathize with her, then this was it.

She just hoped that gravity didn’t push down on her, crushing her under its immensity.