Just as the morning blizzard had ceased as if on cue, the playful atmosphere dissipated quickly. After Neysa crossed the finish line, the remaining tribute’s laughter halted as confusion struck. Our ornate sleds that mirrored our own had creaked and groaned, before the planks cracked loudly into the frost carried air. Plumes of gasps and yelps paired with the splintering of our sleds reverberated against the sculpted cornucopia. Digging my heels into the snow, the sudden shakiness warned me. And yet as my palms pressed against the metal rod supported plants to push myself upward, a loud crack sounded and sank me into the surrounding snow. My palms were met suddenly with cool metal that sunk with me, and for a moment I didn’t know where I was. Although the sudden fear of another bloodbath had constricted my throat and seized my abdomen, the pressure instead had shifted to my wrists.

For a moment- just the briefest, I was back to Two and twelve. My limbs weren’t as long or toned as before, when I looked at my wrists caked and fresh blood overlapped each other against cuffs. My vision was lopsided, and no matter how badly I wanted to scream, I couldn’t since I knew nothing would come of it. Just like with my wrists, no amount of tugging, bleeding, or bruising would work. Through the door, I lifted my head to a familiar voice. It was muffled through worn wood, but the octave and smoker’s rasp was enough to send chills down my spine, commanding me to lurk forward and strain against the stinging of my wrists to hear. “She’s just a kid-” one voice said exasperatedly. It was a cleaned voice that sounded younger and earnest. Although I didn’t know who it belonged to, hope surged through me. Maybe if I screamed once again he could save me, just try Dom. But when my lips opened, a whimpered croak sounded from my swollen, scratched throat. The grainy lower voice shot back, causing my mouth to shut like a fish and heart to race. “I know what I’m doing, okay. I’m just breaking her in, don’t talk to me like I'm the bad one.”

“You killed her dad and brought her back with you like some stray from the alleyway. Just admit you feel guilty, Thrax. You’re in over your head.”

“Maybe I do, but I don’t want her to end up like us. I'm protecting her from what’s out there. We all know what it's like on the streets at her age, that isn’t the place for a child.”

A wry chuckle slipped under the doorway with a scraping of stools against the frozen concrete beneath me. The voice pulled me closer as it grew louder. “Yeah, but you really think keeping a ten-year-old cuffed to the side of some rusty bed is? The girl’s hair is matted to hell. And we even have to take shifts watching her while she sleeps on the floor or needs to take a piss. Fucking Ripred, Thrax, she’s better out there than here. ”

Loud clanging caused me to jolt, my thighs and calves seizing as the gravel shouted at first. “I said I know what I’m fucking doing! If she runs away, she’ll just die in some alley like her old man. You really want that for her? She just has to learn this is home now. Then when she behaves and doesn’t run again, we can move from there. Hell, I think maybe next week she’ll be ready to have the cuffs off.”

Challengingly, a bitter laugh retorted, “like her old man that you killed? She looks dead anyway, that won’t matter. She needs protection from you like Ines needed.”

I don’t know what happened next, but judging by the shouts and toppling of furniture, it wasn’t good. Although my arms were spread in an uncomfortable manner, I drew my knees to my chest and bowed my head. My eyes squeezed shut while my breathing shook, humming to silence the noise. Yet humming and clamoring snapped like the crack of a whip, and suddenly my eyes flung open and body lurched upward. My legs and arms were sorely tensed, straining just like in my dream, yet instead of cement and bricks powdered sugar lined my sight. Not much time had seemingly passed, as allies trotted back to their belongings or helped each other out of their wrecked ships.

Fuck- it’s getting worse.

I just need to swallow it down my throat and let the acid corrode those memories away, just like what my team leader told me after pulling me aside one day at Townsend. “We all have our nightmares, but if you don’t shelve them when we need you most, you or a team member could be dead before you snap back to us.” Neysa didn’t deserve that, she didn’t deserve a liability. And if I don’t get my shit together, I won’t be able to return home and finish the job I started. Present in hand, the silver box dangled from a ribbon as Neysa jogged over to me with an award-winning grin. We mused and laughed for a second at Neysa’s victory, her playing keep away from letting me see what her spoils of war were. Apricot having slept on her sled had perked up at the sight of our arrival, barking with the eager wag of the tail as he nuzzled his snout against Neysa’s palms. There were no further instructions on the boards, only that we all agreed we didn’t want to find out what came next if we didn’t leave.

Although it was hard to tell time through the perpetually grey skies that reminded me of Two, enough time had passed where Neysa and I knew we had to find a place to settle down for nightfall. Far enough away so we don’t run into any of the others who ran from the Cornucopia like they had on the first day, but not close enough to find out what the crazed girl and the leader of the pack did during twilight. As Neysa and I pressed our sleds through the desolate tundra and into the clearing of the foxholes, a familiar sight greeted us.

Shy had been practically stomping, doing an odd dance while teetering his sled to avoid stepping into the foxholes, looking so annoyed you could practically see smoke spouting from his ears. Delroy on the other hand looked surprisingly lost compared to when I had last seen him hours earlier. His laughter and laxed smile was replaced with knitted eyebrows, with his hand rubbing the back of his close shaved hair. It looked much better than that boxed look he was going for before, the one he wore back on that fragrant rooftop garden that felt too warm to fit in a land of rime. With eager greetings that wiped away whatever troubles he had, we exchanged playful banter while we pitched a camp for the night. Shy had flopped down onto the snow without care, while Delroy had oddly patted out the snow as if molding a frosted bedsheet, which caused me to laugh softly while sitting down across the two of them. Sitting in a tented bowleg, my right elbow rested against my knee while my chin perched against a fist.

Hearing him tattle away memories from Eleven made me wonder what it was like to be sixteen there. I couldn’t imagine how relaxing orchards appeared, but the way Neysa and Delroy described it, it sounded like heaven from the ash of Two. Everything in Two was cold, manufactured yet worn. Although the summers could grow hot, there always was that morning chill. It was in the way we interacted with each other, with rare moments allowed once out of the eye of the watchdogs with guns that always patrolled. I blame the nearby peacekeeper academy that was rumored to be buried past the mountains on the horizon’s stretch. Maybe Shy felt the same way, since our silence spoke louder. “You as quiet as this one here? Nah, I bet not.” Delroy had toyed, mirroring my relaxed position however, having laid completely on the snow, as if he were manifesting it to have been a blanket. God, Vibes would have loved that energy.

“You’re right. I just didn’t want to make you too jealous, since some sponsor was sweet on me and gave us piping hot cups of apple cider after the bloodbath.” My lips curled in bemusement, amber eyes narrowing playfully to goad a reaction. Conceding as Neysa described the moment, that far away expression bobbed against Delroy’s Adam’s apple as he peered towards the sky as if summoning the memory himself. “I want to keep pushing for this - that we stand here, against the capitol - that maybe if one of us makes it out, we get to tell the truth, instead of just wearing a crown and smiling” he announced in a prophetic hollowed plea. Knowing the cameras were on us, I played it smooth.

Lifting my head off my hand, I urged him forth like a cat and a string as my pointer finger beckoned him. As Delroy shuffled to his knees, I swiveled my left leg around and crawled over to meet him. Once he was close, I leaned back on my heels, curving an espresso coiled lock behind my ear to avoid hitting him in the cheek as I whispered, breath warming the side of his temple, providing an intimate shot that I'm sure the audience would be intrigued by. “We have plans in store for that in Two Del, at least I and my academy do.” He looked at me intrigued, almost wanting to ask more, yet I pulled back onto my heels, winking as I spoke now loud enough for the cameras to hear me once more; “don’t think about it too hard.” I could tell Neysa and Shy looked confused at what had just happened, yet the night eventually waned down after another faceless anthem played.

Our routine synced while we rose as the dawn yawned across what was still to be determined was an actual sky or not. After readying our loot, with Apricot’s guidance, we pressed onward. We hadn’t noticed where others had gone, yet we didn’t want to run into anyone and find out the hard way. So we rotated out from the bonfire, treading the sides of the Cornucopia to check on the aftermath. Yet it was emptied. The planks had disappeared, and the silence that hummed was too intimidating to approach. I wanted to go and swipe what could have been left behind, as I always had done back in Two. But judging by the other’s reaction, I could tell it wasn’t a good idea. Walking past, Neysa filled Delroy and Shy in on the girls who had won the wealth. Some of them weren’t memorable, but the two of the four that were I wouldn’t want to cross again if it were up to me. And for all I knew, the crazed redhead probably would end up maiming the small one in her sleep. It’s a shame Twelve had wounded up with her and that tiny child from Three. They didn’t seem too bad from their interviews, but we’re all going to die anyway in a few days; better them than me.

Marching out of the open of the bonfire and into the cover of frozen trees, the air was still, as were our hearts. Today would be the worst day thus far. It should have been a happy one, since we’re finally united once more. But damn, it's fucking freezing. Colder than anything I experienced before, and maybe that's why the nights were getting harder to sleep through; why he kept closing in. Part of me was worried about frostbite taking away some of our fingers, but what came next was far more intimidating.

There they stood, the four we had been trying to avoid. They stood by the corner of a hill, with the girl from Twelve inspecting a translucent sculpture tree oddly. Pulling back and readying their weapons, we each closed the distance, discarding our packed sleds and readying our forces. Delroy had whispered to Neysa, too low for me to hear, while Shy’s voice never emerged. I haven’t heard him spoken at all since before this all started, and part of me wanted to continue our chat from the train ride. But he always locked his door when in the suite, for better or worse, since his stench was strong enough to deter me away. Maybe if we get through this, we still can.

Speaking up, Delroy was the first to approach as he slid his icicle club out his backpack. He offered a joke our way from the night before, before declaring this space for us, hoping it would deter the wealth from fleeing. Not waiting for an answer, Delroy charged forth, and with a roar he slammed the club into the girl from Twelve’s foot. Mona had screamed as her bone cracked, causing me to wince at the sight while pulling my own club forth. My whip tucked behind my back urged me to use it in that instance, but Delroy was too close, we were all too close and I didn’t want to risk hitting him, Neysa, or Shy.

A sword so beautiful any career would die for, pulled out from Mona’s back, her words biting back the pain that foamed out from her right foot. “You want a revolution?” she spat through huffed, fuming clouds, a blushing red creeping up her neck. “Maybe kill the one who spent their life training for this.” Twelve’s sword had risen, pointing the blade towards me, and I couldn’t help but laugh at her words to follow. “Not a girl from the Seam who the capitol couldn’t give two shits about.” Mona’s sword carved into Delroy’s puffed jacket, the exposed white inner lining drenching itself in blood that splattered onto the snow around him. The scarlet droplets caused my chuckle to retract into a grimaced sigh, the terror that haunted my nights' spindling fingers wrapping around my brain.

No- not now. I won’t let it be now.

Then the crazed girl from Eight swiped at Delroy with a javelin, nicking him in the right thigh.

I know it's not you, but reality blurs for the briefest moment. They swarmed you that day as I was too afraid to do anything but plead for them to stop. You didn’t have a chance, dad, no matter how hard you tried to fight; even when the knife plunged into your side. With your bad back, I was too young to have not realized the outcome had always been set.

“Are you that dense, Mona?” I shouted, readying my club as I prowled over, chin lowered and eyes taunting her. You were no different from the careers back at home. Sure, you didn’t come from money, just like me, but you’re really too stupid to see the bigger picture. That this is all just a rat race. “You really think Two is any different from Twelve? Wake the fuck up!” Swinging my club her way, I did what I know best. Try to kill and stay alive.

Maybe Thrax would be proud to know he left my mark, but in reality all he left me with was a drive to not die. A drive that fought to stay alive, until I can make it home, and see what I had started through. Your blood may not be spilling on ice today, but I’ll make it spill against the snow someday. And it won’t be a mistake, not like what you did with my dad. Not with how you handcuffed me against rusted metal and treated me. You cooed that I was one all this time, but you’re right; I’m just the biggest mistake you’ve ever made.

Because you raised me to kill, knowing one day I’ll turn on you. No matter how many times you grabbed my face, bruised me into submission yet returned it with hollowed praises towards your doll, you always knew we’d end this way. You weren’t meant to be a father; you don’t know how to love. The only thing you loved more than your cigarettes was turning me into a threat. So soak up your pride, roll in it like a pig in its shit as you place all your bets on me. But just know, these strikes are for you. And I won’t stop until you’re dead.

Domitia hits MONA WYATT with an icicle club/spiked blunt
14076 - broken left shin - 7.0 damage
LqQOP0flAAspiked blunt

"She’s not just a career.” Delroy spoke through the pain that coursed across his bicep, even with blood now gushing from his wound in a rivulet of red down his arm and snaking across his wrist. He could picture Ayena telling him to push out from his diaphragm and make the world listen. “It’s your mistake to put people in boxes and think that’s any way to live. Being from the seam or eleven – doesn’t define a person.”

Eight found his back. Her javelin cutting right through the goose down of Del’s jacket and leaving another open aired wound for the cold. He tottered in the ice with a hiss. Shapes blurred as he pressed through the pain. They’d live or die here, he thought, less real than yesterday, almost an echo of what surely awaited all of them between the trees. Little bodies ready to be dusted in snow and dragged away as though the cold world had always meant this to be true.

But then Dom spoke, her words blistering through the air, a clarion call to action. A rebuke of those too willfully ignorant or selfish to recognize what side they were on; Dom blessed these snows with a certainty they could never possess. Even as her curls tangled at the spray of blood and cut of an axe – she stood, unwavering, unbowed.

Del should’ve been angry. They blamed him for putting up a fight but would’ve just as easily run him through if he’d done nothing. But he smiled, warmed to the thought that they couldn’t know his struggle, nor did he need them to know it was true.

Six proclaimed he was giving the capitol exactly what they wanted, and maybe he was. Maybe this was enough to sow doubt in the start of a movement, to stand for those who he’d agree with and against those he did not, his fellow tributes. Three sniped that he was playing at being righteous. That whatever blood his spilled was a lie – especially if it meant his survival over theirs.

The rebel soldiers faced the same sort of abuse. He’d heard stories of how the districts came to give up on them, too. Making tougher choices as their war was lost. People felt better turning inward toward their own safety, rather than outward to helping those around them.

It’s Neysa who put them in their place – You need to learn the rules before you break them, right? A question that defined the rag tag troupe: four individuals cast to call for change even as they thrashed against a broken system.

“Damn. Straight.” Delroy offered his praise.

“We know what we want out of all of this. Do you? I’d rather stand for something than nothing at all,” Delroy called back to three. “You think you can just survive like the rest of the fat cat victors, go back home and sleep in a bed, make a pretty little life for yourself?” He spat out a mix of blood and spit onto the snow. “Makes sense. Klaus Goravich never gave a shit about making a difference for the districts, why should you?”

If he were back at Iris Gate, Ayena would’ve told him not to put up his walls and shut out their stories. Except there and then, he didn’t believe he had a thing to learn from these people.

“You and the rest of district twelve ought to worry less about what the capitol’s gonna do to the seam, and what people like me are gonna make of you when the time comes.” He didn’t stall, didn’t bother to let them lay another blow across his body. He knew that more of his blood would be spilled, that soon he could be as lifeless as his great uncle when the bullet had run right through him.

But here he found courage, shoulder to shoulder with those that dared to dream of something different, even if it meant going through the four that stood against them.

“HRRRNG!”

[Delroy attacks Mona with a swing of his ice club (spiked blunt)]
tbVfnBqsBuspiked blunt
[result:14126 -- DEEP GASH ON LEFT FOREARM -- 8.0 damage (Spiked Blunt)]

The flickering of Thrax’s home movies nip at my ears, reminding me of after the ugly yet before the downfall. A sweet brief period where I forgot where I was, or at least tried to. I was no longer chained up, and that room instead was transformed as much as it could be. We sat atop the mattress that was now pulled on the rusted bed, with a shaky night table holding up the reel that played against a black sheet hung on the wall without windows. The images were of movies I didn’t understand, perhaps I was too young to or too indifferent. Thrax would wrap an arm around me and kiss the top of my curled mane as if this is how it always was. He would describe the films in detail, reminiscing about his childhood, how he found this under the floorboards in his old house. I asked if I would be able to return to mine someday, when I could see my dad again, but he would say someday in a way that I knew meant never.

If I’m able to return to District 2, I hope I can sneak back into the abandoned building that held a warmth incomparable to anything I’ve ever had. Oatmeal won’t waft in the air. The scratching of pens against crossword puzzles from a book so tattered that every one had already been solved wouldn’t echo either. The answers were constantly crossed out, as if you wouldn’t have known, but he would ask me those questions while cooking every morning as if they were new. Only on rare days before when he would come back from the mines would he save up enough to buy a newspaper in hopes a new one would appear. If I was able to ever visit the place of broken windows that never fully shut, and even once they were there was always a draft, I would hunt for those newspapers that were hidden in the living room desk. I would walk up the creaky stairs that I once hid behind during that fateful fight, the one I would make the worst mistake I’ve ever made. And after finally retracing familiar yet foreign steps I have tried to erase for so long, I would open my nightstand drawer to find my only thing left of you.

It was from a time I had almost forgotten. I was seven then, dressed in a lilac tutu with puffs pulled to each side of my head carefully and streaked glitter across my baby fat cheeks. They called me a sugar plum fairy, although all I did was dance with a bundle of dried flowers that our school’s art department had to blow dust off of. Some of dad’s friends from work had daughters at our school too, but they were from well off places with most too snobby to want to play. The one whose daughter had played the lead had caught us afterward, having asked us to take a picture with his Polaroid of him and his daughter. And then it was our turn after some back-and-forth banter. Squatting from his former towering height, he would wrap his arm around my shoulder like those brief days with Thrax. After a kiss of a temple, the camera flashed to the word of a food I wasn’t particularly fond of, although we smiled just the same. I hope one day I can see your face again. I may not know where you are, but when I come back home I’ll find you, and I won’t make the same mistake as before. I’ll tuck you in my pocket and always hold you close to me. Back then, on that rusted bed and deflated mattress, Thrax would ask why I was crying when the best part of the film was up. I would stay silent, since all I could remember was the distant recital, hoping I could live that play one more day.

But this film wasn’t a kind one, it was another picture I wished I didn’t have to watch. Though now I’m old enough to star in it, playing the lead dad had always hoped for me. Like from the time before, the lines of the cast blur. The rivals spew lines that all sound the same from the few games I saw before. They claim we’re doing the same as before, but we’re all doomed unless someone shoves a crowbar in between the rotating film reel. Delroy had tried to, yet they wanted things to stay the way they always had and sliced his efforts away.

And yet, despite their ignorance he persisted, voice wired with pain, yet his eyes held a passion that inspired me. Cranberry had trailed down his coat, dripping hollowly into the snow by his feet. “She’s not just a career. It’s your mistake to put people in boxes and think that’s any way to live. Being from Seam or Eleven - doesn’t define a person.” I wanted to thank him, yet before I could, the film skipped over our scene. Two axes swing my way, yet it’s all happening too fast for me to keep track. The reel is skipping, the rapid thumping of the film slapping against the rickety oak table. Bending backwards, my left leg supports me and yet I wasn’t able to move just far enough away. The edge of the large blade slashes deep into me, trailing my lifeline across my face. It reminded me of Valentine in Two and the beautiful day I would give anything to live over once more. To be able to stand atop a worn building and watch the sunset I had always admired far away up close for once. It was a day that felt limitless, and sure death could lurk in the alleyways below since we were in his territory I vowed to steer away from since I ran away that day, but I had no fear that day; I was just sixteen for that day.

As I regained my footing and ready my weapon, a warm blade cut deep into the side of my neck, cutting past the scarf that a snowman had declared was a premature birthday gift. I felt the wetness stick the fabric against the flesh, hearing a thumped plunge into a mound of snow behind me of what I assumed had hit me just in time as Neysa spoke. She had reappeared from the sideline by the weapon, causing my hair to shake snowflakes as I whipped to face her way. I was afraid for a second that maybe she had run into trouble too, but I was thankful to see not a scratch was done unto her.

Maybe I should have been rueful, jealous even. But as they said at Townsend, you don’t leave your team members behind if you can. You’re a family and have to look out for each other until you’re no longer one. I flashed Neysa an approving smile as she spoke, proud of her to reclaim her truth. “Showing me up again like always Eleven?” I teased in a rasped alto at her impressive strike, my breathing heavy as blood seeped down onto the shirt beneath my steel jacket. Although I probably looked like a mad woman to be joking in a time like this, I would rather spit in their faces than let them see me cry despite how bad the inside of me wanted to. Yet Panem didn’t allow girls like me to be anything but girls who grew up too early, having to lay steel under the skin to protect them. I didn’t know what life was in Eleven, yet there was a silenced agreement between the four of us. No matter the district, this film always ends the same for kids like us; we’re all born to die to the entitled who stand before us.

Delroy holds the mantle of unity as he always had, questioning their entitlement directly. “We all know what we want out of this. Do you? I’d rather stand for something than nothing at all.” It brings me back to Townsend, having echoed the same words as I sat in the boss’ office in an interview to determine my future. Although you died for me dad, I won’t let your death be for nothing as Thrax always said. I would avenge you, and I wouldn’t let another kid die to his hands. And for those that I can’t protect, I’ll guide them far better than Bryze or Cricket could do. They waited for us to die, knowing the outcome for Two is always the same with Cricket even participating in the madness. Two corrupts everything it touches, and I won’t let the same trend happen. Things have to change so no more kids end up like Shy and I. We deserved to feel more than the numb steel we platted our bones with, and I sure as hell know Octavia won’t change a damn thing. Delroy echoed my thoughts before he struck their ringleader, a gash to match his arm painting onto hers.

I could have sworn I heard her whimper, although her dark eyes bore the same hate I was used to seeing from others. “Oh yeah?” Mona had rasped sarcastically, the rest of hers mocking Delroy. “And what’s gonna happen when the time comes? You and yours going to slaughter everyone who opposes you? Sounds familiar….” Resting my club like a laxed baseball bat against the side of my shoulder, I sighed impatiently while my bangs matted themselves with blood, vision slightly blurred from the paint that was far less glamorous than the red eyeshadow I was given for our chariot rides. Although I didn’t wear an armored dress like I had then, I spoke just as if I were. “Stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself, it’s pathetic even for Capitol standards.” Eye’s matching hers in disgust in a prowled amber glare, I let go of any pity I had for Twelve or for the small girl from Three. “Some of us have never had the luxury to, so spare me your melodrama for someone who cares.” They reminded me of the same girls from the academy. The ones who felt entitled to have it all, knowing no matter how they fall they always fell on top. So let's kick that chair out from under them and see how good they crawl like the rest of us have to.

Domitia hits MONA WYATT with an icicle club
14008 - miss - 0.0 damage
MJSh_Kha8Espiked blunt

accuracy reroll
14085 - broken tailbone - 6.0 damage
spiked blunt