Wish you were here {d11 victors}
Mar 15, 2019 5:56:50 GMT -5
Post by charade on Mar 15, 2019 5:56:50 GMT -5
KATELYN PERSIMMON
It was never a good sign when things were slow. Three days in with only two deaths? There would be hell to pay. She’d expected that maybe a fourth of the tributes would meet their ends; had hoped that while the large alliances were hacking away at each other, maybe, just maybe the tributes that had struck out on their own would be alright.
But she had never anticipated something like this.
Those bastards.
Katelyn couldn’t think of a single time that district eleven had ever had its tributes turn on each other. What would they be thinking back home? After all the stuff that Mayor Vasco had campaigned on, to see something like this…
A fight forced between their two tributes; during half of which they hadn’t even known who they were fighting. Not only could they not see each other through the sunflowers, something was wrong with Arianna. A game-maker trap perhaps? Tainted food? She had been floundering around like she couldn’t see, which with dawning horror, Katelyn had realized was indeed the case. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was also the throwing axes that Rex was chucking at her. Killing her with. Katelyn's heart was racing.
Her fucking weapons. The ones she’d used on the mutts, the ones that she had killed Chaske with. Rex had told her he’d studied, hadn’t he? After all, she was now and forever the first daughter of eleven. Had he been trying to impress her? Emulate her?
Fate had a cruel sense of humor.
Katelyn stood behind the counter, clutching a bag of icing, the cake in front of her momentarily forgotten. There was a lull in the fighting as the two tributes realized who they’d been throwing stuff at. Arianna signed something and Rex regretfully reached for a weapon. “Don’t you fucking dare,” she hissed under her breath. She knew that look. It was the same look she’d had when she agonized over whether or not to leave her legless allies behind her in the snow. When a person realized what the only mercy they could grant was.
“Don’t do it Rex, for God’s sake, do—“
The throwing axe lodged in her leg and she crumpled.
Boom.
The tears didn’t come, but Katelyn’s hands clenched the bag of icing so hard that it exploded, spraying maple flavored buttercream all over the counter, the cake and her apron. Her first year mentoring after her stint in the detention center, after whatever the hell they had been doing to her head for the last few years, and they’d done this.
She could still see the look on Rex’s face when he’d scarfed down the pineapple upside-down cake. Remembered futilely trying to coax Arianna out of her shell. The Taylor’s had lost a second daughter now, and Rex… a humanoid mutt, the same kind that had menaced the career from one the other day was approaching him.
Rex promptly collapsed to the ground as the creature advanced, letting it swing. There were tears streaming down his face, and he made no effort to defend himself. They’d broken him. Three days in and they’d broken him. Put him in a situation where he’d have to break his promise, one way or another. It had been a mercy in the end, putting her out of her misery. But now he wanted to be put out of his.
“GET UP!” she screamed at the screen in anguish, but he didn’t and the humanoid abomination brought its weapons together in a thunderclap that left Rex sandwiched between them, a spear protruding from his chest, and the chains wet with the blood seeping from his back.
Another cannon fired and a little square with Caesar Flickerman in it appeared in the bottom right corner as he gave his opinion on the fight. Katelyn barely heard him.
Without really thinking, she grabbed the cake she had been frosting and threw it against the wall with a wordless cry. What would be happening in district eleven right now? What would they think? What would they do? What could anyone do? This sort of shit didn’t happen in eleven. It never did. To districts like six or four maybe, but never to the community in eleven. They had more heart than that, didn’t they?
This is all my fault, she thought miserably as the cake slid down to the floor, leaving streaks of frosting in its wake. She slammed her fist down on the counter. I should have quit after Kirito. I shouldn’t have been so damn arrogant. Golden hair, golden touch, the tabloids had said. But that king in that ancient legend, hadn’t he destroyed everything he cared about?
Maybe they wouldn’t have come for me. Maybe I wouldn’t have been in jail, maybe they wouldn’t have fucked with my head. Maybe I would have been here, I could have been mentoring this whole time, gotten better, learned something. Stupid Kate. Stupid Katie, stupid, stupid, stupid.
I’m a curse on our fucking district, she thought as she cupped her face in her hands. Maybe they’d have been better off if I had fallen off the train platform with that…that…monster.
No.
No. No.
No. No. No.
She couldn’t think like that. Katelyn threw her mixing bowl at the wall, tears flowing freely.
Had she not done her part?
I tried my best, she screamed in her mind. I always do.
But the things she fought to protect, they always seemed to shatter to pieces in the end. Ever since Harbinger. They would not allow it. Would she be like Arbor then, burying tributes for twenty years before she got another miracle?
No, never. She couldn’t entertain that thought.
Yet for all her bluster in wanting to help other victors keep their heads above water, she was so terribly bad at taking her own advice.
Her boys were probably watching her, if they weren’t watching the screen anymore. She needed to say something to them. But her heart was breaking, and there was a fire raging in her chest. Katelyn threw her rolling pin instead. What she really needed was to get a grip, regain her composure.
A baking tray hit the wall instead.
When will I stop paying for this? Give me a fucking break, every time I pick myself up some other bullshit just knocks me over.
There were many people that cared about her. But sometimes she still felt so alone.
She needed to hit something. She needed to hold someone.
She needed someone to hold her. She needed someone to hit her.
She couldn’t do this alone anymore. Not without a partner. Someone to hold her head and her heart. Someone who understood her, who was there for her in that special way. Had her back, was there to pick her up when she fell. Someone like…like…
She grabbed the bowl of sliced strawberries she’d made to top the cake and almost threw it too, but the sweet scent stopped her. Her mouth opened and then clamped shut. Conversations at table side over pastry flickered in her head. Soft hands holding hers. Walking her home. Softer lips brushing her cheek goodnight. Looks that lingered just a little long. Knowing smiles. I think I’d be lost without you. A pang of stunned realization struck her heart. An ache, a longing regret threatened to tear every fiber of her being apart. Of a friend. Of a friend that could have been so much more.
Yeah, you fucked that up too, seven years too late to cry about it. You’re an absolute dumpster fire of a woman. So fucking focused on the Capitol and your boys and helping other people. You couldn’t see who was right there in front of you; helping you. Who was there for you. Who felt for you. You’re really fucking blind sometimes, aren’t you, you dumb fucking blonde?
There were tears rolling down her face, but she couldn’t feel them.
Katelyn set the bowl down and took a deep breath, steeling her heart. Now was not the time to get distracted by such thoughts. There were dead children and Capitol machinations to consider. A bitter sob worked its way out of her throat. There always were those things to consider, weren’t they? Those things that got in the way. Katelyn was her own worst enemy, she decided. And she had missed out on the best thing that could have ever happened to her because of it.
Perhaps in some way, this turn of events was meant to snuff out any lingering thoughts of defiance in her soul.
We own you, they whispered in the back of her head.
Better believe that the avalanche will bury you all, she whispered back. Things couldn’t continue like this forever, could they? How long before everyone had had enough? She had had enough. She was alive, but when, when in the last twelve years had she allowed herself to live? Katelyn did her best to collect herself and turned around, leaning on the counter for support as she looked at her boys through blurry eyes.
“So that happened,” she said weakly. “What the fuck are we supposed to tell their parents?”
table coding (c) ghosty
