a hangman's knot | [d10 train]

[dars]

D U C H E S S

"I'm not too sure how this is all supposed to work," I said, trying my best to overpower the frown that kept trying to split my face. I put my hand on my chest to settle my nerves, locking eyes with every other person in the room: Blue the escort, the victor mentors, even my District partner. "But I reckon I'd be willing to do just about whatever it takes to live." Maybe that was obvious. There was a voice in my head telling me that everything was going to be okay as long as I was in control, and that's what I was listening to, desperately trying to maintain some semblance of control in a situation where I had none.

"My great great aunt was in the Hunger Games, way back when!" I said, hoping to sell myself to them, to show them there was something of interest in me, something worth a second glance, "Yara Ealey. My Momma's middle name is Yara for that very reason! Ain't that interesting? She got reaped with her boyfriend and they were gonna work together to make it to the end..." I kept my hands in my lap but with each passing second of me speaking with no one else having anything to say, I could feel the tension rising. It was like when I got a really tough question in the interview portion and I could tell the judges weren't impressed with my answer. Rather than just keeping my lips shut and moving on, I just kept rambling on and on, hoping someone would put me out of my misery.

Interview was always the hardest category and I could always feel the moment when I started to crash and burn. That moment was happening now, but maybe it was destined to happen regardless. After all, the entire ordeal was quite the strange phenomenon. I reckon I should have been panicking right about then. Anything else would've just been plain inhuman.

"Course, some crazy career killed 'em both almost right away... Y'all don't think that'll happen to me too, do you?"

[Gamemaker Lauren Kinkade]

It doesn't hurt me.
Do you want to feel how it feels?
Do you want to know that it doesn't hurt me?
Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
You, it's you and me.

Mace watched District Ten whip by, a blur in the windows of the train car. Trees, sky, fields... all of it sped down to its essence: mere colors swiped across the windows. He watched and he listened but he didn't hear much as of what Duchess Duchannes was saying.

Instead he was thinking about how he was almost not on board the train. The Keepers had lined up, guarding their pathway, when Mace had stepped aside from the tributes and Saffron to speak to the local baker about getting a cake made for Mason's birthday. It had only taken a few moments but by the time he'd turned towards the train, the Keepers had dispersed.

Not only that, as he boarded, a suited politician stuck her arm out before him. "Sorry, sir," she twittered in the way only a Capitolite could. "What's your name?"

"Mace," he spit out.

She glanced at him and then scanned her phone. "Last name?"

"Emb-Emberstatt," he stuttered, eyebrows drawing together.

And rather than apologize or acknowledge him, she tapped something on her phone and then lifted other arm to let him pass.

So now he sat and stared and wonder if he had become just a splotch of color in the district he called home. "She got reaped with her boyfriend and they were gonna work together to make it to the end..."

Mace squeezed Saffron's good hand tightly.

"'Course, some crazy career killed 'em both almost right away... Y'all don't think that'll happen to me too, do you?"

Finally he tore his gaze from the windows. There was only one tribute, slight as they came, in the car. He knew better than to try to track the boy down; if a tribute didn't want their help, it wasn't worth the wasted breath trying.

He shrugged. "Likely not. They sure don't make Careers like they used to," and he knew the second the words were out of his mouth that they were, typically, not the right ones.

And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.
If I only could, oh


running up that hill
-placebo-

[dars]