|Busted/\Mirrors| [ros, stare, semp, mentor blitz]

[Rosetta]

Lethe had just started shampooing Eden’s hair when there was a knock on the door.

“Crap,” Lethe muttered under her breath and then gasped, dropping the shampoo bottle with a plop into the tub. Eden giggled as Lethe warned her, “Don’t repeat that word,” and then raising her voice, she called, “Please come in! I’m in the bathroom!”

Lethe had invited her two new corpses to her room on the train. “Come visit me on the first day of training,” she’d said hastily before disappearing into her own compartment because Eden was fussing and because Lethe couldn’t bear to look upon them when all she could hear was her own name, ringing in her ears. That’s all they were anyway. Names. Condemned to die. It was easier to remember them that way otherwise she felt their cool fingertips on her eyelids when she lay down to sleep, lips scraping against the skin of her ears, tickling her with the whispers of Saskia, Razor, Anya…

But, she was still a Victor, a Mentor even and as she saw her fellow Victors disappear with their own tributes, Lethe felt a sense of duty welling up so obnoxiously inside of her, unable to shake because you can’t give luck to people. You couldn’t teach it, you couldn’t gift-wrap it. You had it. Lethe had it. Did they?

Pulling the shampoo bottle from the soapy depths of Eden’s bath as Camalia licked Eden’s wet hair, Lethe again raised her voice, as if speaking loudly would mask its weariness, “You can come right in! Door’s open!”

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[semper]

when the north wind moans thro' the blind creek courses
and revels with harsh, hot sand,
I loose the horses, the wild red horses,
I loose the horses, the mad, red horses,
and terror is on the land

The soup from dinner was way thicker and richer than I’m used to. I was only able to take a few spoonfuls of it before I was forced to set the utensil down, worried that I would soon throw up the food. At home, in Five, my family wasn’t well off but we weren’t scraping around for scraps; we had decent meals and we experienced hunger, so I’m familiar with both. But I’ve never in my entire life had a soup that filled me up with just two or three sips.

I had ventured to my room after the meal but my thoughts were racing at an extraordinary rate. I’m so used to thinking of faerie tales and dragons and adventures, but this is not an adventure I would have ever wanted. I’m always perfectly content climbing into a tree and curling up on a branch to read a book. I miss those rotten books: the ones with yellow pages, faded black ink, and the covers so worn down that you can barely tell what’s on the cover. I miss the feeling of the soft leather beneath my fingertips and the sound that the pages make when I turn them. I miss all of that.

I gently knock on Lethe’s door, hearing her call out a few moments after I announced my presence. It feels weird as I enter her room but I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting. Perhaps some memoriam of her games? An “anti-Capitol” item? Her room looks an awful lot like mine but only bigger. I quietly head to the bathroom, finding her kneeling next to the tub where a soapy Eden is being licked by that lizard of hers.

I mutter a weak greeting, unsure of where to take the conversation from here. At some point I really want to ask her what she told my brother before she sent him off but I’m already almost sure it’s just along the lines of ”you’ll do fine, Haff.” I bite back a sudden surge of bitterness, choosing instead to ask her a much safer question. ”Do you have any books, by chance?”

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yea, the south wind sobs among the drowned creek courses
for sorrows no man shall bind---
ah, god! for the horses, the black plumed horses,
dear god! for the horses, death's own pale horses,
that raced in the tracks behind

A Gallop of Fire, Marie E J Pitt

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