fenta nyl | capitol | fin

tw: drug use

"Well," she starts. "It's like a nom de guerre," Phaedra says, laying on her back and staring up at her bedroom's ceiling.

"What is?" Acedia says next to her, rolling onto her stomach to look at Phae with her eyes narrowed. Her eye shadow was bright blue today, clashing horrible with her green eyes. Phaedra didn't say anything about it. Acedia always wanted to stand out, even in the worst of ways. 

"Fenta Nyl. It's like, well it translates to name of war, but you know, it's a stage name. No one named Phaedra Nolan ever took the Capitol by storm."

"No one named Fenta Nyl did either."

"I could be huge, Ace. We have all of the product we need from Six and then we can just—cut it with some of our own stuff and everyone would go apeshit for it. My uncle has the connect to the Gardner family. Its one hundred percent legit. They supply and we sell and everyone's happy."

"How do you think you can just—waltz into the Capitol's most elite parties and start slanging your goods? The Peacekeepers would be up your ass so quickly."

Ah, Ace was always such a doubter, wasn't she? Phaedra, no—Fenta sits up, squaring her shoulders. She might as well start getting used to the name if that's who she was to become.

She had already been thinking of ways to transform herself. Her hair was a technicolor rainbow of blues, purples, oranges, and pinks. Tattoos that sparkled iridescent shimmered in the sunlight. She had spent all of her money from bartending on the modifications and maybe they were last season, but she'd make them in again. Once she got to the top. Because from there, she would influence everything. 

"I may or may not have bribed one of the Peacekeepers that does security in Saturn City to slip little Miss Ariadne some of the madma," Fenta smirks, her blue eyebrows wiggling suggestively. Ace sits up at that, spinning to the massive screen that took up the entire southside wall of Fenta's small downtown apartment. Advertisements for ZeusTV and Wilder's new album were splashing across the screen, three-foot-high letters flashing bright. A breaking news alert beeps loudly in the corner and the small picture-in-picture shows Ariadne stumbling out of one of the clubs in Capricorn Cove, her hair a mess and her mascara running down her face.

Capicorn Cove would be a great place to move once they had everything set up—

"You didn't! Oh my god, you're like serious about this."

"As serious as a heart attack, Ace. We can be great! Think about the clothes, the money, the parties! Don't you want an exclusive invite to the party after the 88th? Avriel is going to be there! Along with his entire entourage and who knows who else. We have to go, and this is our ticket in."

Ace narrows her eyes momentarily before throwing her arms around Fenta. "Just promise me one thing. When you're rich and powerful and have boys and girls hanging off of you, you can't forget me."

Fenta smiles, breathing in the scent of Ace's hair as she grins into her shoulder. Of course, she wouldn't forget her. That would be stupid.

---

Fenta sighs into the blue drink that she was nursing, blinking lazily as she watched the last people filter out of her Saturn City apartment. They were thirty floors up and it was pouring rain, the sounds of the water hitting the windows was calming. Leaning back against the couch, Fenta gnaws the inside of her cheek. 

She hasn't seen Ace in weeks and the radio silence is deafening. It wasn't like—ugh, okay it had been one small fight that had turned into something completely different and—

She was alone, truly, for the first time in months. It's a strange realization to have, especially since this whole thing was being around people.

Sitting up, Fenta strides to the safe she keeps behind the ridiculously expensive painting that Stella Blakesley had got her as a housewarming present. Honestly, a Victor buying her gifts, she would never get over it.

Entering in the combination, the door swings out towards her—money, drugs, necklaces and jewelry, a gun. She swore she would never do this—sample her own product. But it had just come in from Six and—hell, now was as good a time as any.

And it was new stuff. A downer, rather than an upper. Something to even out the clientele when they had gone too far over the edge and needed something to calm their racing hearts. 

Taking a deep breath, she dips her pinkie into the small baggie and inhales sharply, closing her eyes. The effects are almost instantaneous and it's all she can do to seal up the baggie and slam close the safe, shoving the painting back into place. Stumbling to the couch and spinning before she lands face first, all Fenta can see are Ace's piercing green eyes as tears fall from them before she turns away and then everything fades to black.