to walk among { lions } // av + rid

a v r i e l .

"They'll come at you
with their teeth
And their rhinestone
-covered sheaths"

Some of the makeup on his face comes away when he rubs his eyes, still aching from a sleepless night spent staring at the lamp in his train cabin.

Gloria opened a round silver pill box when she saw him in the morning, a glimmer of concern in that usually bored tone when she offered him some morphling, "To take the edge off," she urged him.

Avriel sighs and wipes his hand off on the underside of the skirt Robbie put him in because it's easier than admitting his mistake to his long suffering stylist team. It's pleated and moves around his legs a little funny when he walks down the aisle of the train, but Avriel doesn't mind it, it feels like extra armour.

He didn't take the pill, the last thing he needs is to be out of it for tonight's dinner. His heart races as he's escorted to the Le Roux residence, the invitation that had arrived to him while he was in three burning a hole through the pocket in his shirt.

There's nothing to be afraid of; he didn't kill them.

Julian and Emerson met their demises so separately, it must have hurt to watch. Avriel still remembers Areto's rage and then her grief, leaking out slowly over a period of days when Reese killed Emerson. Then he'd killed Reece.

He shuts his eyes, tensing as the blade of Reece's axe bites into his ankle again. Phantom pain shoots up his leg from the stump, even as the Nervalink chip in his brain tries to convince him that his foot is still there. His knee buckles for a moment and Avriel stops walking, breathing slowly as his team mills around him. There's a soft rattling on his shoulder and when Avriel opens his eyes, Scout is staring right at him, head pressed up against his cheek.

"I'm fine," he says, "Let's go."

When they reach the front walk, Avriel's escort stops. They all stand there in silence for a breath and then Anita dabs at the sweat on his forehead carefully. "You don't have to do this, Avriel," she whispers softly, "We can still go back."

He blinks at her and then nods.

Every part of him is screaming to go back, to get on the train and let it take him all the way to Nine. His house in Victor's Village is finally starting to feel like home. The day they moved in, a team of workers came and put a workshop up in the back, the floors are starting to scuff and Billie, Duke and him are supposed to go tree shopping when Av gets back to Nine.

He picks Scout up carefully and passes the little kodama to Robbie, hands only seeming to shake a little bit. "He needs his dinner at eight," Avriel says. Then he turns away and walks up the front walk.

When he gets closer, a figure moves out of the shadows and Avriel pauses, tensing slightly, foot sliding back instinctually. It's been months since the arena but his body doesn't know how to be approached anymore without choosing fight or flight. Nine days in purgatory and all his souvenirs are shit, excluding Scout.

"Avriel Baptiste. I'm afraid we haven't been properly introduced."

Ridley Le Roux holds her good hand out and Avriel's heart beats inside his throat, stopping any form of greeting from coming out. Ridley, the Le Roux who brought the family into the limelight, who just lost two cousins to the arena that Avriel just came from. Areto had been the one to kill Julian in the end and Avriel had spent all of his time in the arena with her, that had to sting, right?

"I'm Ridley Le Roux. The first lion you'll have to face tonight."

How many? he wants to ask, how many are there? His hand finds hers and he shakes it, tongue heavy and laying flat in his mouth.

Speak. Say something, Avriel.

"Hey," he says, "Thanks for having me."

Then Avriel drops her hand and steps back a little bit, skirt flowing like liquid around his legs as he moves.

"Nervous?" she asks him.

He opens his mouth, nothing comes out. He isn't sure if that's the right way to describe what he's feeling. It's a cross between that and the way he feels when he wakes up in the middle of the night and realizes that he's still safe. Some sort of panicked relief holds him, an oxymoron twisting his insides up.

"Nah," he tells her because that's the half-truth, "Are you?"

Why else would the victor be waiting outside in the dark? He stares at her for a moment. Those golden eyes are so much more alive in person than they seem on a grainy television. "Oh," he realizes belatedly, "You were waiting for me?"

Or she'd just arrived at the same time.

Ridley is hard for him to read. Her body language and formal tongue screams royalty at him. For a boy who grew up in the lower middle class, words and structure like hers are rare for him to come across. He's met countless people on this tour but it's still the victors that always throw him for a loop, he never knows what to expect. There's still that fear in him that they'll take one look at him and see him for exactly what he is– a coward.

Some victors have flat out ignored his presence in their districts, others have greeted him with kindness. Still, a few have gone out of their way to share their hatred for him. It's fair enough, victors get attached to their tributes and Avriel can't fault them for it.

Ridley lost two cousins to the arena, if anyone has the right to hate him for coming out alive, it might be her.

"Sorry about your cousins," he tells her, "Didn't really know Emerson but Jules... I mean Julian was kind to me."

Avriel still remembers the last time he'd spoken to him, hair slick from the spring he'd found, rain hitting the leaves of the ferns on the forest floor with a soft pattering sound.

"Peace," he'd said.

Avriel'd told him he looked like shit.

Then his alliance killed Blade the next day.

He bites the inside of his cheek hard, eyes on Ridley, palms clammy. The back of his neck prickles. Is someone watching them? He glances up at a window in the large house but whatever he thought he saw, it's already gone.

"Hey before we go in," he starts, dragging the subject away from the memory of Blade's dead body, "What's with the whole Lion thing anyway?"