we had a promise made. { 75th victor au }

[shrimp]

         anise 
                 himura . 

DAY EIGHT -- PHOSPHORESCENT ORCHARD PRIME

"I've always been partial to tea."

It's a simple response, loaded perhaps, but for once she can't help but smirk (she knows at least someone must appreciate it, whether he be sitting at home in front of the television or she be looking onward with the most dramatic of eye-rolls). And then she lunges, her axe digging into Cassiopeia's stomach, a scream echoing in her ears as the girl stumbles back, blood bubbling, laughter gurgling.

"Of course you are!" Laced with venom, Cassiopeia continues. "You seem the type too, me I never took a fancy. Bad trip. But, you know what you don't seem the type to be? The one to volunteer. If your name got pulled- sure- hell even someone you cared about I could maybe see you volunteering but- volunteering just because you can?" She lunges, fire racing up Anise's arm as she clenches her teeth and softly groans, taking two steps back and holding the axe up in a defensive position.

"I just don't get it."

---

74TH GAMES -- DISTRICT TWO
Words pull her back to smooth floorboards and the flowers in her windowsill. The tea boiling on the stove, father's assistants helping him spar in the backyard. Her sisters finishing their homework in the living room. An empty room with incense burning. A fridge that's beginning to empty and muffled conversations, hidden in her father's study. He tells her everything, but not this.

For months she spies assistants speaking to him with a softer voice than usual, ragged looks in their eyes and hiatuses that last longer with each passing day. Their regulars show up every afternoon, but she finds that fewer curious eyes walk through the door. The half-glances in the hallways turn into whispers, strange looks that aren't fear, aren't hate or even malice. Something she doesn't truly understand until she's looking death in the eye as a girl on a bicycle bleeds out in front of her.

She makes smaller amounts of rice. It's been a year since his last assistant visited - she saw him a couple of days ago, wiping his brow at the exit of the mines. Another had coffee with her last month in her new Peacekeeping uniform, about to be shipped off to Eight. She thanks her, tells her to keep her chin up - there'll be more pupils when spring rolls around and parents begin panicking.

"But we're not that type of place," Anise responds. The typical answer, the traditional answer. Her father would have smacked his former pupil upside the head if he was here for this conversation. Their center isn't for murder and glory, it's for protection, it's for growth, it's for-

"Anise let's cut the horseshit. We both know that it doesn't matter." She hesitates, seeing the look in Anise's eye.

"What doesn't matter?" Her eyes narrow.

A sigh. "It's not important. Just supply and demand. I shouldn't have said anything - look, I have to go - they're shipping out in a half hour and I need to be there, okay?" The peacekeeper turns to leave. "It was great to see you again. Send your family my love. I'll see you when I get back."

Anise nods, tries to smile. But she doesn't move even when the girl disappears from view. Her tea goes cold.

---

Anise grips her axe tighter, stares at the blonde with daggers in her eyes.

"You don't have to get it."
It's not yours to get.
It's not yours to tell.

"You're right, maybe I don't..." Cassiopeia flexes her fists, gripping her sword with more security. "But you know what I do understand? Me and you? We're just the same now." She flies forward and Anise feels a blade buried in her chest. Her heart screams, and the only thing she can do is gasp. The two remain there for moments, days, centuries, she can feel the life pouring out of her.

"Maybe," she says. Hoarse, but firm. She grasps the sword, yanking it out of her body with her vocal chords seething.

"Or maybe we aren't at all." She strikes forward, and she sees Raven Barker screaming as the blade hits true. Blood gushes, splatters onto Anise's face. Cassiopeia manages to scramble back, stumbling as if she's drunk on death. Her breaths become cackles, hyena-esque and chilling. Or perhaps it's just the blood loss that's making them shiver.

"Don't you see!!" Cassie shrieks, desperate to prove her point. "Ha..ha....We're both human!"

It happens so fast, but Anise has lived and breathed with a fencing sword in her grasp, the weight permanent in her hand, an extension of her arm. She knows that she can't dodge fast enough before it cuts through sinew, tissue, bone. And it cuts true and clean - for a moment there's nothing and she wonders if she was wrong, if her calculations were mistaken. But that's just it -- there's nothing there. And then the pain arrives as gravity takes hold, her center of mass tilts and she crashes with a yell. A screech escalating in a crescendo.

She tries to breathe in out in out but it burns more fiercely than she's ever felt - worse than the crunch of her leg (her only leg, now) as it split, worse than her own throwing axes puncturing her thigh, and for a moment worse than watching Gabby slip away with their fingers interlocked and guilt settled deep within her ribs. But there's a larger game to play.

Cassiopeia Shaw must think the fight's over by now, that she's won, that tomorrow will be a new day. Experience would tell her such. Cassiopeia Shaw knows many things. But she does not know Anise Himura.

So she rolls, grabbing the axe that had fallen from her finger tips and hurls it with all the strength it can muster. In another life, desperation nipping at her heels, she misses. But here, with a thump and a boom, her target rings true.

All her energy spent, Anise collapses back onto the ground, arms spread apart, leg extended. She pants, feeling the heat slowly leave her body but even though her mind screams for her to get up, to fix her leg to do something to survive, she can only think of her father, knowing that everything he's taught her has led to this mess.

To save him, to save everything, she broke all of the rules.
What must they think of her now?

"No. We're not."

---

Fragments remind her of Riven, direct her towards the wheelbarrow as she drags her lower half along. Across the field she spies what was once her limb, already the color of death. She can hear Gabby criticizing her, asking why she didn't just draw another fucking sword? But she has bandages that she wraps tightly around her stump, which burns even more now that her adrenaline's run out. She spends a half hour just gripping her leg, waiting for the pain to disappear. And eventually she sets it aflame, lighting some sticks to cauterize, to render permanence into her body.

The prosthetic takes longer: measurements that can only be guessed at, anatomy lessons she can't recall under duress. So she goes for simple - a silver peg leg with enough support to get by. It's not comfortable, but it gets the job done. She strips off the useless armor, trims the pants where they've been cut through. Step-by-step, she sews herself back together.

The whales nip worryingly at her skin. She just breathes. Tries to think about something else, but the chills keep coming and the pain keeps throbbing so she draws herself a quilt - a palette chosen by shoving her fist into her wheelbarrow and pulling out what was left - she draws shaky peonies whose atoms disintegrate and wilt into a puddle. She tries drawing her fencing swords five times but they turn into balloons and float away, or render themselves as cardboard, or grow legs and try to attack her (she cuts it in half with her axe before it can do much).

Twelve feet away, Cassie is finally lifted away. The wind blows into Anise's hair and causes the leaves to fly in a miniature twister. It reminds her of the birds, of Eva Hope and a technicolor nightmare. She closes her eyes. She draws her sword one more time before deciding that Cricket Antoinette doesn't want the expected.

So fine, she'll do the opposite. She draws brutalism, anger scribbled and spiked, all power and no technique. She holds up her mace.

Gabby would have been so excited. She laughs.

When she allows herself to walk again, it's slower than before - she hadn't realized that was possible, but a peg leg and a five-day old broken leg don't work very well together. She draws a cane to steady herself, adds a balloon to the wheelbarrow so that she can pull it along a frictionless path. Her foot takes her in one direction, but she can't tell which way. All the colors are blurring and her eyes hurt. So she sits, slumping against the sturdy trunk of a magenta-hued tree. Death drops down and punches her in the face.

---

When she jolts back awake the anthem is blasting as triumphantly as ever. Thunder screams through the air. She forces herself to crawl forward, uses her staff to climb back up to a better vantage point. Cassiopeia glares at her again, but it's hollow, empty. Anise realizes that besides her name, there's not much that she knew about the other girl from Two. What she was like, what her friends thought of her, just that she was a Career. And Careers were never something to make a fuss over.

She fades and is replaced by Castor Karmichael, the girl with the eyepatch who attacked them the second day. The second set of twins. She seemed honorable, and knew when to end a fight. Anise hopes she went quickly, but knows that she must have gone down swinging. They all did.

Lucas O'Hara is the boy from 9, and he stares down at her with the slightest of smirks. Was he like her at the end? With everyone he knew just a whisper in the wind? She wonders why Eden hasn't visited her yet, why Kyros hasn't made a sarcastic comment. Perhaps one drunken conversation and half-assed pledge to ally doesn't mean much when you die five minutes into your own personal hell. For what it's worth, he too knew when to call it quits, when to spend your time lying in a garden. For a moment she think she's wading in the shallow end of a pool.

Salome Izar. Molly's ally, her family a household name. Star-shaped sunglasses and La Cucaracha. If Gabby was a hurricane Salome was a firestorm: opposite, but with the same effect. Maddening. She feels the rush of air on her face, hands gripped onto handlebars as her crane floats gently onto the ground, feels the nudge of a noot noot as it asks for her wea-

She turns to find it nuzzling against her side and knows that soon, it must be time. Up above the anthem fades and she knows that had anyone died it would still be playing. She turns to it, rubs its head and scratches behind where its ears would go as she thinks about the three left. Saummerand. Shelby. Tamron. Two enigmas and a teddy bear.
Droplets begin hitting the ground, gigantic and menacing. But there's nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. She stays put. Slowly, she drowns. She holds onto the noot noot, for there's nothing else she can do.

---

Some time that night, there's a shift in the shadows and she awakens, arm removing itself from around the noot noot as she spies something flinging itself towards her. Quickly, she grabs her staff and smacks it on the underside. Legs flailing, it crashes against the ground and tries again, but wraps around her staff. The noot noot pokes it with its head. Something rings.

Confused, Anise stares at the lobster and picks up the phone on its back, slowly raising it to her ear. A familiar conversation that brings the scent of mint and cilantro back into her nostrils. Awkward, quiet. Tamron. It's difficult to hear amid the thunder, and difficult to concentrate because of her shaking frame (the quilt's long gone soaked), but it's audible nonetheless.

-.-.-
"What was she like?"

"She was...kind, generous... My lifeline."


"And Gabrielle? From 4?"



"I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"It wasn't my place to ask"

"Wasn't mine either."



"A hurricane."


"We'll have to live for them both, then."

"I guess so."

-.-.-

And then a message not meant for her, from a girl from five who's been a ghost for days. "I was your knight. And you - you were my very best friend. This was how it was supposed to end."

And then one closer to home.

"D-don't... worry,", a rasp, "I'd--"
"I'd... wait f-forever..." a cough, blood "if y-you... asked... me t-to."

She throws the phone, its cord stretching. The lobster furiously clicks its claws at her. Gabby's pocket whale thinks they're playing fetch and brings the wretched thing back to her. Quietly, she stares at the plastic. Minutes pass, Gabby must have died three times already. Slowly, she puts it back to her ear.

"Anise, I..."
"for w-what it's w-worth... I-I'm glad... it was y-you."

She bites her lip, closes her eyes, removes the piece from her ear. She knows what comes next, but this time it's a whisper. She feels weights on her shoulders as the mansion comes to her doom rescue, as the noot noot nudges her onto the ledge and her staff prevents her from slipping back down to the ground, now flooded up to her waist.

"I'm glad it was you, too."

---

DAY NINE -- STILTED MANSION PRIME
The floor hurts, but the morning hurts worse. Surrounded by a sea of crayons, Anise slowly hoists herself back up. She thinks her stump's burning, and figures she has about an hour before the main event begins. Removing the prosthetic, she grabs a crayon, reinforcing her "good" leg, sturdying her staff. The pocket whales help her fill her pockets with crayons and they move, the noot noot gently nudging her on her way.

Around her, armordillos scale up the walls and across the ceilings, scrambling for the rooftops. She'll get there in her own time, but first there's something she needs to do. Somewhere she needs to go. Cricket Antoinette has run the show for more than a week. Surely she should be fine with holding onto her power for an extra half hour.

The chlorine hits her nose with a pang, and she makes her way to the water. She dips her good leg in, sits on the edge. The mosaic sparkles, the light even brighter than the first time they arrived, with panting breaths and relief spreading from ear to ear. Color shifts and changes - the room's more rainbow than azure now, but the quality remains. Salty, humid, healing. She closes her eyes and breathes, feeling the air rush through her lungs and into her bloodstream. She hears the clicks of the whales, the glass thumps of the noot noot, the clacking of the lobster.

Remnants of a screaming match, a kiss stained with saltwater. A farewell. She smiles. "バカ."

She puts a rose in her hair (small and pink) before heading up, and discards her clothing to make anew. Black pants, gray tank top, a cloth vest as blurred and soft as the sword she drew in the garden. Her tattoos are plainly visible - the roses have all but washed away in the tempest, but Gabby's eulogy sticks to her like glue. She tries drawing armor again, but they decide to become italian-futurist sculptures instead (in a fit of frustration, she draws a fitting pedestal in which to showcase them: a trash can). She looks out the window, and all she sees is sky against sky, soft ripples in the water. "Is this what the ocean is like?" she asks someone in particular. She fights against the notion that one day she'll get to see it for herself, instead reattaching her prosthetic. Each step sends needles shooting up her thigh.

Behind her she senses a presence, and turns to see a giant lion made of leaves; it pushes her along - she's running late after all - but not angrily, taking care to never trip her up on a staircase. She climbs, she walks across a hallway whose sounds rise in pitch 88 times, through the greenhouse where she spent a night in memory with Tamron Rhodes and scales up the walls. She wonders what would happen if she took her hanglider and sailed off into the horizon. Death, probably. As if it wasn't waiting for her up on the roof.

And it is. Shelby, Saummerand, Tamron. Seems like she's the last to arrive, but there's one last trick up her sleeve, before she forgets. Azure coats her mace, lighting the way. Around them, a coliseum of fish, whales nestling close to their young.

The calm passes. They attack.

---

DAY NINE -- CORNUCOPIA PRIME
Saummerand strikes first, a weapon much like Castor's on the second day glistening with a brilliant green. Shelby Leviane joins him as they rush forward, knives sailing swiftly towards her direction. Anise dodges one, feels another scrape the side of her thigh. Tamron seems to glide next to her, silent allies in a war that can't be won. But his shuriken rings true, as the four exchange glances and blows, blood beginning to drip onto the roof tiles. She wonders what District 2 must think, when she digs her mace into Saummerand's calf, blue searing into his skin.

It doesn't matter, she supposes. Whatever shock they must have had over so-called betrayal must have evaporated the day before with cannon fire and a lost limb. She gave him a chance all those days ago, the moments flashing back to her. And while he must have proved himself in that haunted house he would not get the same opportunity again, not when last time-

There's no point in thinking when there's a knife that sails towards your eyes. Anise rolls, her peg-leg straining. Ragged breaths, she regains her balance just as Shelby Leviane turns, the reaper walking in her shadow.

“You should have killed me then.” A step back. “You should have killed me then, Saummerand. This is your mistake alone.” And as swiftly as the fight began, it ends for the last reminder of the mountain breeze, of the sound of marbles rolling along the floor and Riven Fowley driving a spear into another's next. And with cannon-fire, Anise is the last witness.

They shift positions, 2-on-1, and the fight resumes. Her fire goes out at some point when she smacks it against Leviane's torso armor and she wonders what gave her the drive again, what changed between the day they struck Raven Barker down and this moment, when there's enough drive but not enough fury, blades flying into Anise's shoulder, brushing past her ear, straight into Tamron's chest. As he collapses the tiles vibrate and loosen and Anise looses her grip, skidding to the rooftop's edges as she slams her staff into terracotta. Death lurks with the gentle nudge of a pocket whale, the slightest movement of a swordfish to support once more.

Moments pass and the world is quiet. Shelby keeps his eye on Tamron as he struggles. Eventually, she turns to Anise.

“Do you know what his name was?”

"Tamron," Anise responds, quietly. "His name is Tamron."

Their fight is long, seconds dragging as they exchange blows. Anise knows enough about knives to block a few that sail towards her core, the weight of her mace comfortable enough for swings to ring true. It's a rigged fight, perhaps - if she was in back in Two, watching silently in the Square, she'd say for sure that Shelby Leviane would be the victor. The odds were just in her favor. And in another world, she must be. Anise knows that Shelby Leviane deserves to leave this arena.

But today, the odds shifted, ever so slightly. A few good hits, the weight swinging in the right direction, the wind blowing just soft enough for a cannon to fire. With her swing following through, Anise feels Gabby's splint weakening, crackling and finally falling to pieces beside her. She leans on her staff as she breathes, in and out. In and out.

And then she looks at Tamron, sees his lungs rising ever so slightly.

When he sees her, kneeling beside him with blood trickling down her cheek, he slowly reaches into his pocket to reveal another whale. "Take care of Crusader."

"Don't let the Capitol take him away again." It's a statement she would expect the sound engineers to blur out, one that's surely caused President Snow to lean forward in his seat. And at first, Anise doesn't respond, fingers tracing his wounds, analyzing where they've landed. There's no way he'll survive another few minutes. She looks back at him, a morose nod as her pocket whales break free of her jacket, swarming around Crusader with what seems to be relief.

Tamron chuckles weakly. "Hey, don't look at me like I'm dead already."

Anise almost snorts before regaining her composure, victory still light-years from her mind. "I'll look out for them. Tamron, thank you."

"Thank you," he whispers, his eyes already fluttering. "I'm just glad I could...could help you." Anise thinks back to a night spent among mint. More than you know, Tamron. Much more. He continues. "When I see Gabby, is there anything you want me to tell her? My memory's not the best, but I'll try." Anise smiles slightly, leaning forward as her hand softly grabbing Tamron's wrist.

Sorry, it looks like I've missed the train. "Tell her she's an idiot."

Tamron laughs, his chest tightening with each breath. "She's an idiot. Got it." The pocket whales turn from each other to the boy dying beside them, licking at his cheeks and nuzzling against his skin. The two laugh with each tickle. "I think I'm already in heaven." Minutes pass, she feels the heat leaving his skin, turning clammy.

"Anise," he says. "I think I have to go. I think it's time"

"Tell Fallon..." She hesitates, not quite knowing what to say. "I wish I met her."

Tamron pauses, tears beginning to glisten in his eyes. "You would have fallen for her immediately. I know I did."

Anise smiles. "I know."

The boy from 11 reaches up, his hand touching Anise's cheek. "I hope I don't see you for a long time, Anise Himura. You better be old and wrinkly the next time we meet."

Anise nods. "My wrinkles will have wrinkles. I promise."

Tamron chuckles as he settles on the ground. "Perfect."

They end the games together, breathing in and out, feeling the oxygen flow through their bloodstream, up the synapses and into life.

:{ end of Part One }: