broken hearts of { gold } // silk & ridley

If Coach Deluxe was familiar territory with an unfamiliar person, Ridley Le Roux is a complete inverse entirely. Your cousin from a branch of the family who had adapted to the bloodline instead of being born into it, yet one who had proven her mettle time and time again even before she'd been thrust into the arena and forced to kill three people to survive.

A shame that few amongst your family fail to see that. One regret you do have if you die is that you'll no longer be there to hold those that you can in line.

But regardless, it's been years since the two of you truly had a one on one sitdown. Never a fixture of your mother's mansion even before the Games, Ridley has since kept to herself for the most part - her own house in the victor's village, the Capitol during the summer, and who knows where else. What your cousin does in her free time isn't really your business.

But there's a familiarity and an understanding on her face when she enters - carrying a steaming hot mug of tea that both fits and seems foreign to her persona - that stirs dormant memories in your psyche - the same well-sculpted face with high cheekbones, the same long brown hair, and even though it seems that there is weight in the lines and scars etched into your cousin's body, it's the same woman underneath.

"I wasted too much time on feelings last time." Even the same sharp, succinct manner of speaking. "Better to jump right to the point."

Are you here to win, or to die?

And you respond with a smile, one that you always used to reassure each and every one of your younger siblings back home - kind, understanding, empathetic. "It wouldn't have been a waste," you respond, almost soothingly. "Emmett always did respond better in the language of emotions, even if he wouldn't admit it."

Even now, thinking of your little brother sends a pang through your chest that still stings even to this day.

"But you're right, feelings aren't really my forte like they were his." An understatement if you've ever spoken one - in the line of work you were being groomed for, emotions always, always, made life more difficult. "I'm here to win this, whatever the cost might be."

A pound of flesh, a liter of blood, even another stain on your soul - nothing would be something you haven't already done before.

"So, dear cousin," and here you look Ridley right in the eye, reassuring smile still on your face. "How would you advice I go about doing that?"

There's a hardness to Ridley that wasn't there before. No need to elaborate on before what - if there's any two people that know exactly as to that which is being referred, it is the two sitting across from each other on a speeding train, twin gazes broken only by rising steam.

And it reflects in her words - even as she speaks in a tone that is soft and steady instead of accusatory, there's no denying the weight in the words "You have no idea what the cost is." No denying the truth.

You're far from a paragon of virtue yourself, harboring secrets of varying levels of need-to-know. Some extend to the bloodline. Some, solely to yourself and your mother. Some that will die forever with you.

But in that moment, you believe Ridley - know that watching something take place and committing the very act yourself are two very, very different things - and even if you have experience, there was always a purpose. A reason. A vendetta.

What is the cost when the only reason is survival?

"I told Emmett and now I'm telling you - you have to know what you're fighting for, and it has to be enough." And that has never been in doubt, not once, not until this very moment - but that reason falls in the middle tier of secrets, the one where the need-to-know basis begins at Eurydice Le Roux and ends at Silk Le Roux. No one else can know - not Harper until it's his time, not your aunts and uncles, not even Ridley, the only lion that has proven her fangs in a generation and a half. So you think - there's practical, but what's not practical? What's genuine, not pre-scripted, coming from the heart instead of the head?

Too often, you find tributes that try ruling with one over the other, letting emotion or logic be the sole guide in their path to victory. But the victors - the victors always have a healthy amount of both. You cannot let the desire to win burn out your humanity, just like you can't let the heart bleeding all over your sleeve rob you of your common sense.

"When you've failed to keep your friends alive and you're bleeding out in the Arena and all you want is for the pain to end, what's going to drag you forward?"

And you think, genuinely think, silence falling between you as the rhythm of the train remains as the constant. A common ground, the anchor of not only head but heart as well-

"Myself," you decide after a moment, any sense of a smile replaced only with the grim expression of cold, brutal reality. "Everyone always says that there's someone else they're fighting for, some reason to live, but at the end of the day, only the very strongest bond would survive the brink of death like that." You pause, thinking. "The family would be devastated, I'm sure, but it survived losing Emmett. It survived almost losing you. I'm sure it could survive losing me, as well."

You think of stories of individuals selflessly putting themselves in danger to save others - a mother to rescue her children, an older sibling taking the punishment for a younger - and deduce that none of that would be possible in a Games. There's no way your mother can protect you, nor vice versa. There's no younger brother to take care of, only sweet-loving Coach Deluxe. No bond formed in two, three weeks can possibly justify throwing your own life away for.

So what does that leave you?

"At the end of the day, the only person that you can truly rely in the arena is yourself, right?" You look your cousin in the eye. "Even your friends and allies must all die in the end if you want to live in those conditions."