death from above - nori + vera

[august vance d7b [Bella]]

n o r i - ♥ - h a l l i d a y

If I were a writer, I’d start keeping notes on some of the people I’ve met here. Seriously, you wouldn’t believe the looks of some of these Capitol types. Not even seeing them on TV every year prepared me for their space suit outfits, neon eyeliner, and cultivated blasé attitudes. Some of them had scary plastic faces, like they were botoxed into a constant state of surprise.

I would shamelessly admit that I’ve spent my whole first day in the training center just sitting in this corner, gazing up at the mezzanine, playing a game in my head I call “real hair, or wig?”

I’d put the tributes somewhere on a spectrum like rocks being tumbled–rough to smooth, or dull to shiny. The upper districts have that glow to their skin like they’ve never missed a vitamin. Meanwhile, us kids in the lower numbers look like we’ve been put to work and all forgot to wear sunscreen.

There’s one girl I just can’t place.

Thinking I’d go easy on myself on my first day, I ended up at the plants station. Now I’m snipping idly at some mustard greens with a tiny pair of garden scissors for who-knows-what-reason. To have something to do with my hands, maybe. It's impossible to focus on anything when I’m surrounded by twenty-three people who are practicing to kill me, with these bright fluorescent lights and clanging noises and a million shiny pointy toys and also her.

Just one station over, at poisons, she’s poring over some book, of all things. What they call a ponderous tome. Her ponytail waterfalls from an elastic at the crown of her head, coal-black hair that plays with the light when it moves, and she has smooth, glassy skin with a hint of blush on her cheek. Like a porcelain doll, I think, though I’ve only seen one once.

She might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen move.

Her hands are what really have me puzzled. Long-fingered, delicate as they turn the pages. No way they’re working hands. Not career hands, either. She has this look of ease like she’d couldn’t be bothered to kill someone, would rather have someone else do it for her. Could probably get anyone to do anything for her, too. She looks like a princess.

Are we really so bad off in Eleven that this girl from some unknown district can look like someone polished her with a special cloth every day, while I look like I just barely escaped a burning barn? I’m starting to feel like I got a raw deal. I bet they fed her the good stuff– tropical fruits and roast beef every day while I was licking the bowl from my salted potato water.

For some reason, the longer I sit here, the more I’m bombarded with mental images of her killing me. Those lovely fingers closing around the blade of a knife, drawing it close to my throat, her satin pink lips pulling back against her perfect teeth in a half-regretful smile. Or maybe a cruel one. Somehow that would be so much worse than being killed by an ugly, warty, unfortunate tribute from out in the boonies.

I don’t know if it’s because she’s standing so close to me, but the image is becoming more real with every second. I’m thinking please-oh-please lord don’t let this be the girl who takes my life.

I think I’m in love.

I think I’m terrified.

No. No. I think I hate her.

And soon enough my breaths draw shallow, my pulse quickens, my foot is tapping on the concrete floor. My palms dampen with sweat, tickling with that itchy feeling that tends to arrive when I’m thinking about picking someone’s pockets in the market square.

Only I’m not there, and these uniforms don’t have pockets. Just that sticky-fingered feeling is growing, prickling at the base of my spine, like standing on the edge of a cliff about to jump. Me and that feeling are like old friends: watching someone who has something you don’t, and wanting to take it from them because you know you can. Then the longer you think about it, the want becomes a need. You need that thing. You can’t leave without it.

Then it happens, a little push.

My feet close the distance silently, like sleepwalking, like I’ve done it a hundred times. My left hand floats into her ponytail of black silk, and it's the softest thing I’ve ever felt. Pinching two inches from the end, my right hand reaps the bounty of the soil. The sound of the scissors feels like releasing a breath I've been holding a long time.

Snip.

Holding the lock of hair in my hand, I think I’m a victor already.

[andromache s. ⚔️ [d1] sucy]

v e r a .

"gimme just a little bit (more)
a little bit of excess"

Girls back home always said I was poisonous. I figure, why not lean into it? I should prove them right. They’ll love that — they’ll be glad I let them escape with their lives, even if I robbed them of a boyfriend or two. I flick through the book at the poison station, back to my competitors, hair pulled back. For the time being, all I really need to know about any of them is that they’ve all got the potential to kill me in any number of ways. I’ll ask Lucia what she thinks of all of them later, then get my own eyes on them. Me and my skills are my number one priority. How can I kill them? No matter what they throw at me, how can I do it?

To that end, poison seems as good a skill as any. I watched some of the unlucky sods use it last year, saw the green tints to the wounds they wrought. I liked it.

I gently shut my eyes. With them closed, I can nearly pretend I’m back home. It’s a Saturday, all of the yelling and growling and thumping around me is from my nieces and nephews play fighting. They’re playing too rough, and cuts on knees will need cleaning out before long. But my sisters don’t notice, because they’re too busy gossiping; that’s all the muttering I can hear underneath the sparring kids. I’m me, Vera, with my eyes closed, makeup still dewy on my cheeks, doing my best to find just one second of peace in the madness.

I only need one second, but nobody’s ever been that kind to me. At home one of the kids would start tapping me, yelling AuntieVeraAuntieVeraAuntieVera right in my ear until I answer. If not one of them, it’d be Mom with something that she needed doing — and as the oldest girl still at home, obviously it was always me that had to do whatever it was. She always stood behind me, arms crossed, pronouncing my name as chop chop. And if it wasn’t Mom, it’d be one of my sisters, whose good for nothing husband had done something to her for the millionth time.

Oh Vera, they’d say, it must be nice to be so unattached.

Anyways, here, it’s a scissor snip that snaps the air in half against the bare splash of back between my tank top straps. I open my eyes, slow, and look over my shoulder, fast.

Surprise! It’s not one of the babies of the bunch. Not the little one from Five, or the weird one that reminds me of Marceline. I’m looking at a girl my age, holding my hair in her hand like a medal. She’s pretty. Tough looking, but pretty. She must be from one of the more outdoorsy districts. I can find that out later though, because right now —

”What the fuck? Did you just cut my fucking hair?” I snap to standing, my chair screeches back behind me. I reach out to grab her by the wrist. ”Listen, I don’t know what they teach you in Nine or Eleven or wherever the hell you’re from, but that shit is not gonna fly. Oh, you’re so dead!”

I’m about to jump on her, yank her to the ground by her wrist, but a trainer runs over and hoists me away from her. I never started fights back home, I didn’t even fight with girls who tried to start on me. But those were always over stupid things. Boys. Rumours. My hair is something different. My hair is a very, very serious matter.

”Look, fine, I won’t touch her!” I break out of the trainer’s grip. Hesitantly he steps back, though I can feel his eyes on me still. Why me? Why not the wannabe hairdresser over here? Brows knitted together, I turn to her and sneer, ”What’s your problem? Is this some sort of psychological bullshit?”

ELEGANT

[august vance d7b [Bella]]

n o r i - ♥ - h a l l i d a y

She ain’t happy.

”What the fuck? Did you just cut my fucking hair?”

When the girl stands, shouting, I see that she’s got a few inches on me. Tall and glowy– I could call her Lamppost. One of her hands seizes my wrist, her manicured nails pressing little pink smiles into my skin, and I wonder if she can feel my pulse lighting up under there. Hot damn, those fightin’ words came out quick. She’s screaming like a goddamn kettle.

”Oh, you’re so dead!” she shouts.

And I think, We’re all dead here, princess. smirking at the thought yet saying nothing, fingers clinging tight to my prize.

One of the trainers pulls her off of me, and I’m almost let down to have missed the part where she tried to kill me. How would she do it, I wonder? Claw my eyes out with those pretty fingernails? I think I could take her. But she won’t touch me, she says. We’ll see about that when she starts putting her reading into practice.

She’s asking what’s my problem, baring those shiny teeth. I laugh in her face: ”Ha!” Because isn’t that just a story too long to tell in the pages we got left. Which problem does she wanna hear first?

I take a deep breath, brushing the lock of hair lightly against my upper lip, where soft things feel the softest. The strands are smooth as glass, and their floral scent transports me for just a few seconds into a spring meadow back home, far away from here. Then I clutch it in my fist, for lack of pockets, and stare defiantly back at her, answering her questions in the order I feel like.

”Eleven. And I ain’t playing mind games with you.”

I shut myself up before I can start over-explaining. I don’t owe her any explanation. Like craving ice cream; you want it, you go get it. Nobody's gonna get it for you. But I swear I can feel her eyes on me, like lasers, warming me up so sweat starts to pool on my forehead. My mouth starts off on its own, biting back.

“You’re studying up to poison me, and you’re mad I took a little piece of your hair? What’s your problem? Got a stick up your ass?” I fold my arms over my chest and stand back to watch the steam come out of the pale little seashells of her ears.