eyesore, a study: pat/shade

None had ever been more aware of their own shortcomings than Nightshade. She knew what she was, where she'd failed time and time again, but there was strength in that and she wore it well. Some would say it was confidence that held her, body strung up so languidly against the railing like a marionette.

It was more the inability to tell when she wasn't wanted, or perhaps the knowledge was there but it simply did not matter to her. She'd grown numb to that feeling over the years, countless instances where people saw her uniform and decided they knew her based on her Peacekeeper whites. It was refreshing to be written off not by her clothing but her conversation topic.

Hypocritical perhaps when she had just done the same.

Maybe it had been a low blow to comment on her smoking companion's status but in her world, status was the driving force behind every waltz. It was important to stay on top of the rhythm so as not to lose the beat. She'd become a natural at it to the point where she hardly recognized that she was doing it anymore.

But there she stood, measuring just how far Patricia's head drooped from the weight of her crown.

It had been cruel of her to not just let her be a stranger on the balcony in peace, she could at least recognize that.

Nightshade leaned back and took a drag of her cigarette. She let the smoke sit in her lungs for too long and could feel the moment when it became nearly unbearable on her throat before letting it all back out.

She should know better than anyone the toll being a Victor took on the body. She'd seen Opal go through years of depression and had been there to care for her when she couldn't care for herself. Nightshade knew that their position was more a curse, a burden than a prize but she still couldn't help resenting them all as a whole a little bit. she couldn't help wondering why her brother had to die for one of them to live.

It was irrational to resent the victors, misplaced anger and she knew that. She couldn't help the way she felt though, couldn't help the way her gut twisted at seeing Katelyn's lips on Opal's cheek, knowing they'd share a bond that she never could.

It was easier to be out on the balcony, to watch everything from outside. The cold of the night could justify the cold she felt within, the muffled sounds of laughter as tinny as the smile she seldom wore. She often felt alone, here in the Capitol and out in the districts because in the end she didn't fit in anywhere.

She wasn't a victor, just a sister to a long-dead brother being replaced by a woman from her own district. She wasn't a Peacekeeper, a flesh-and-blood bonified tool sharpened by the Capitol but a scientist, a researcher. Her unit had dwindled down to just herself over the years as members had died or been resigned. She travelled alone. Her once-lover was dead, her son resented her.

She was created to travel in a pack but she was alone.

Normally hit too close to home.

Nightshade gazed at the victor and watched the end of her cigarette burn between her fingers. She didn't smoke often, just every now and then but it was comforting to do so, to feel the heat of its travel in and out of her, following the path of her breath. It made a good distraction.

She could make an effort with this woman, try and push the conversation but it seemed like a pointless venture. She'd already attempted small talk, she'd done her part.

The hall behind them was empty so Nightshade turned around to look out of the garden instead with the lonely victor, moving slightly closer in the process. She knew that the silence between them was hers to fill next but a lack of speech had never bothered her. Sometimes just being with a person was enough to slow the quiet aching inside of her though maybe she'd forgotten over the years that people tended to like the sound of a voice too.

But maybe if she listened, the victor would hear her bones whispering beneath her skin, "I am alone as well."

She could recall a time when the views that the Capitol offered had seemed exciting. Back when she was still young and freshly finished her training, she'd let the glamour and the technology sweep her off of her feet. Her unit had celebrated their graduation into the wee hours of the morning until a dull grey light from a sun threatening to rise had encroached on their fun.

They'd stumbled in and out of the clubs and even Nightshade, always so uptight and hardworking had loosened up for at least one evening. She'd danced until her feet bled and her unit mate, Henrik, had had to carry her back to the barracks. The memory was a fond one, she smiled briefly at a group in the distance, arm-in-arm and stumbling up the street.

That had been long ago, of course. That unit had all been reassigned to different districts, Henrick and Sylvester had both died in Nine and Lana had lost a leg in Six. As far as she knew, Astrid was thriving in Four. Nightshade simply wen where she was needed, using One as a base to stay close to her son and Opal.

She'd had friends, once, but no one wept for peacekeepers, not even their comrades. They knew what they were signing up for when they took their oaths. Nightshade wasn't any different from the rest of them, perhaps a little more reserved but not by much. To survive in her line of work, she'd had to close off pieces of herself.

Like a summer home, shuttered for a very long winter.

She hadn't been expecting Patricia to speak to her again, there'd been little chemistry in that first moment between them, but then she'd never met a predictable victor. Still, a part of her would have been content to stand there in silence beside her all night, lost in thought. There was nothing quite like smoking a cigarette with a stranger you didn't expect to meet again.

Perhaps Patricia felt the same because she spoke so simply of such personal things, it was as if Nightshade wasn't there at all. She could have been anyone, anything, a reporter for a gossip column or a high-up government official that suddenly knew much more about the victor than they had before, the woman didn't seem to care.

Or perhaps it was a joke.

Patricia turned to look at her fully and Nightshade gazed at her, head tilted slightly to the side and fingers on the base of her champagne flute, tapping gently. She prided herself in her ability to catch a liar in the act but Patricia was hard to read with such a blank delivery, so blunt and messy, a rock through a window.

She wasn't sure what she was supposed to react to, the news that the victor had tried to kill herself or the humour nestled carefully within. It was a strand of pain woven through a morbid joke. Nightshade couldn't help smiling a little at least at the statement because it was probably true, parties like the one they were at were ceaseless and predictable, the same thing year after bloody year.

She took another drag of her cigarette, cherishing the last few puffs she had left. "I've found more signs of intelligent life under a rock," she said mildly, "And yet here we both are."

Nighshade knew better than to ask about the overdose, though the detective in her was curious. What interested her more was the third message laying beneath Patricia's words, the subtle hint of the hope of an alternative activity. Of course, she could be misreading that.

"The night is looking up already," she said and stubbed her cigarette out carefully on the marble railing.

"You're looking to score tonight aren't you," she said and turned herself more towards Patricia so that it was easier to look at the woman, "Money for your tributes, of course."

It was an offhand feeling, almost a casual thing for Nightshade to notice that Patricia was beautiful. It would be a stretch to call the Victor pretty; she wasn't.

Perhaps it'd be taken for a cruel thought but everything that the woman had seemed far too real, too natural and for a long time now, a woman like that hadn't existed. Nightshade gazed at her for too long, eyes falling over a sharp nose, high cheekbones and a moody stare. She wanted to ask about the white hair but somehow she felt like it might ruin things.

A silly thought to have, that a question about hair colour could ruin a non-moment between two strangers on a balcony.

It was lovely anyway, whisps of it moved in the slight breeze, strands of smoke on a skyline far too bright for its own good.

She let her eyes wander over Patricia, noticeably so. The woman seemed to be all angles, a faceted thing. There was so much refraction she didn't know where to look and it all seemed done with an attempt to safeguard the shadows she carried.

Without her cigarette, she had nothing to fidget with and no reason to stay out on the balcony other than to continue hiding from her sister-in-law. Night leaned out over the garden, her champagne flute barely touched. It had been a long time since she'd last been allowed to be a stranger. With her name came the weight of her brother's death and an attachment to Opal that she wasn't certain she wanted anymore.

It was hard to tell if Opal still wanted her around either. It was no secret to her that everyone she'd loved in her life was either dead or kept her at arm's length. There was a reason for it, she was named for it.

"I'm Nightshade," she said, I'm poison, is what she meant.

Her full name reminded her of a time that was now hers alone, she was the last to remember it. With her brother and parents long gone, she was the only person left alive that knew what a hot summer's day was like in her childhood home, she was the only one who remembered the stories she used to tell her little brother in bed at night and it was a lonely thing to live that way. It'd left her a little bit colder than she'd meant to be.

"I'm not really anyone of importance," she continued after a short pause, "Just passing through really."

It was an odd place for a no one to be, she knew that but in the end, it was true. After a conversation with Opal she'd be back out to the districts. Maybe she'd stop by One to see her kid, but that was only if she had time.

"It seems cruel that you're working on your own," she tested, a slight question to her tone.

Had the victor come alone tonight?