our infinite burden / ghost boys and the darlings day 1

[florentine, d4b ❁]

florentine. 

in hell my mother laughs as i drag my spoils along behind me. 

this is the way it goes, with me; washed up little wreck, dirty cheeks, hollow heart, but pockets full to overflowing, never one to go without, not really, thanks to the company she keeps. the only homeless girl with a diamond bracelet, the academy drop-out with enough lies to build a castle with, brick by brick, filling in the cement with possessions that i never managed to let go of. i tell myself a story, she would say, to make me feel better. 

for a couple of minutes after it all went down, my heart flickered as if gazing at it's own reflection. it was distorted in the stained-glass, difficult to make out. should i have fallen to my knees back there in the throne room, stood between the girls and their god-given crowns? i watched the kids flee, one by one, all of them turning on their heels, barely raising a hand to take what could have been theirs; so conditioned, they are, to accept less than nothing, so easy for them to walk away. i decide it was not my fault, in fact, better to bide my time, do not strike too early - let them run, let them hide. i have andromache and eulalie and our goblin hoard to manage. 

we encircle it like dragons, fierce, gold coins running through our fingers. it is funny how what is worthless changes - jewels and gems cannot help us, here, but nonetheless we lug the bulk of everything behind us. to put some distance between that throne room and ourselves, to give us space to figure out what we need, to divide things evenly, fairly. as if they would recognise fair if it bit off their upturned little noses. that way, if any of the deserting knights decide to return - stage a revolution, perhaps - we will be long gone, and all that will be left behind is the echo of our laugher. 

i am wondering if we have perhaps walked far enough when i see the light. my skin has been punctured; just a flesh wound, though, surely not deep enough for god to be throwing around death metaphors, not yet, on the very first day. my arms are tired from the weight of my new possessions, however, so i take the moment to catch my breath, to investigate, to follow the spark a little further. we have reached a clearing in the woods, somewhat ominous, where the relentless bracken and brambles turn to moss and clear water. it is a fairy garden, of sorts, complete with curious source of light. 

"look," i whisper. "stop, a moment."

they do, of course, because somehow - in a turn of events which is still difficult to believe - they trust me. everybody makes mistakes, of course. 



(florentine investigates the source of the radiant light)

vPd6nJoLqb1-20

[success]

1-20

[brad bradford ★ d5b [arx]]

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[attr="class","bradText11"]Mav and I are sitting by ponds full of colorful fish, moss squishing beneath our weight, frogs croaking out lovely songs. "Really, I'm okay. None of it hurts, like not even a little! Even this one, see!" I try to prove it by poking the little cut on my arm, only to find that it brings tears to the corners of my eyes. "Ow!" I chuckle; I'd lie and insist if the idea of telling a lie didn't make my stomach churn. "Okay, so, maybe this one does. But just a little." And even less when Mav starts to help me bandage it.

"Promise."

I'm looking at him in the way that will make people think we are weird again, I think. Whoops. (But also totally not 'Whoops.')

"I should probably try to catch bugs for this guy, right?" I change the subject to the frog I am calling 'Toad' because I named him before Mav had the chance to tell me that he was definitely a frog.

"Maybe I should- OH!" I reach over Mav for my fancy picnic basket and begin to line it with moss and dirt and sticks and stones and leaves. I give Toad's jar a kiss before releasing him to roam in his new home. And then I lean over the clear pools of water splashing a few droplets at Mav as I bend to fill Toad's old home with water for him. In case he wanted the throw a jacuzzi party for his frog friends. I even add the cool glass ball of smoke I found.

"Hmm. I feel like it's still missing something- ah!" I gasp and reach into my pocket, gently cradling the four-leaf clover and weaving it into the side of the basket.

"Done, perfect! Now we can-whoa!"

Mav pulls me behind a tree and holds a finger to my lips when I start to question him again, hushing me and gently turning my attention toward a group of girls gathering at the edges of a different pond nearby.

"No, wait, look-" I point and keep my voice low. Or try to. Coach says I am about as subtle as a horny bull dressed in windchimes seeing red. Which I think means I'm not subtle? "They look like they could use help, don't you think?"

"Hey! Hi!"

I shoot out from behind the tree we had been hiding behind. Well, I think I was mostly behind it, but looking at it now, I think maybe the tree was more Mav sized and not all that capable of shielding my big Brad shape. I think Coach was definitely right.

But that was only more proof of my qualifications!

"Do you guys need help carrying your stuff? Because, if so, I come to you with a super special offer! Hold on," I spin on my heels, dust bits of moss from my tunic, fuss at the seams coming loose in my shirt. And I smile at Mav, offer him a secret two thumbs up before I spin back around.

"My associates-" I pull out my biceps one at a time with a "BOOM!" and a "KAPOW!"

"-and I, Brad Bradford-"

I try to imagine myself as one of those cartoon hero guys who winks stars and has a smile that plays sparkly-shiny-magic audio as I stand proudly flexing. Maybe if I believe it is happening it actually will.

"-are here to help you with all your carrying needs! 'Brad Bradford (& Associates) Moving Services!' We carry stuff so you don't have to! And we do it with a smile! Well, I mean, I do. My associates can't do that, obviously."

I ponder for a moment, chin resting against my hand as I tap a finger over my lips.

"Oh! Oh!" I pull out Toad's jar of water and put the lid on so I can take it off again. As proof. "And we also offer jar opening services!"

"Oh! And this is my- my Mav!" I smile at him only now realizing I'd wanted to make him proud of me. I'm nervous, I guess. I can feel it brightening my cheeks, turning them all red. "He's basically, like, the coolest person ever." Which had nothing to do with carrying anything, but it was definitely important information, I think.

[andromache s. ⚔️ [d1b] sucy]

With my bucket over my arm, weighed down by the spoils of war, I bring up the rear of our three part procession -- staying put at the Corncucopia and leaving everything there where undesirables might come back to pilfer it would be a mistake. The others all ran, after all. They don't deserve to change their minds and come back when it suits them to take what they practically handed over to us. So we move. 

Everything has changed all over again. Did my mother see me? Did the cameras show it when my arrow stuck that girl from Three in the arm? Did they capture me fighting back against Tsiuri Dermott? After dragging my feet behind me throughout my time in the training centre, to perform like this when it actually counts is just what I needed. I stand up straight, and prop my chin up high. I wonder what the rest of them are doing. Are they making the most of their rural life skills out there, by pulling plants and setting traps for mutts? The image makes me crack a smile. What a waste of their dwindling days.

Florentine stops in front of me, so I do too, but only because I must. I roll my eyes, and I'm about to clear my throat and tell her what for when she drops her voice low and points out a glow in the brush. Careful to keep my balance, I lean in to look closer at it...

Throne rooms and sigils and fairytales, and now a magical fairy garden of sorts. The Gamemakers must plan on turning this place into a fairground or a resort or something next year, because this all seems like the sort of set dressing a Capitolite would eat right up. It's all wasted on me until I find out what any of it actually does. So I crouch down and squint to get a better look at the light --

"Hey! Hi! Do you guys need help carrying your stuff? Because, if so, I come to you with a super special offer! Hold on."

I come straight back up to full height. Out comes the gun show. What the hell am I looking at? I glance to Eulalie and Florentine, hoping my eyes get my question across: are all guys like this? If the answer is yes, then I'm very, very happy to have been kept in all girls' schools for all of my life. 

"Well... thanks Brad," I start, turning from my allies to my apparent movers, the movement slowed down by a mix of bewilderment and disgust, "But what's this seriously about? You think you can flex your way to the wealth or something?"

But I won't say no outright, even though I don't trust that this bachelorette blow up doll as far as I could throw him. I look straight back at Eulalie, then at Florentine's gashed leg. Maybe a pair of man servants isn't the worst idea right now. And if they try to steal from us? Well, that's an easy fix.

_{[ DARS ]}

andromache investigates the source of the radiant light

pZIGIcgLTi1-20

1-20

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

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[attr="class","mavText2"]Brad's kindness is the sort that begs for cruelty, like she can't help the way it infects her words. It's more than that, though, she's so accustomed to looking down her nose that she must be a career. Likely means the other two are no better, they tend to travel in packs. I can't imagine how crowded it is up on that pedestal.

My mouth floods with fear and frustration, both taste so bitter I can hardly discern between them.

"He just wants to help." I say though the bile. Hands clenched to keep the feeling of him slipping out of my grasp from playing across the nerves again. (you can't save him). For a moment I watch shadows slither under the crystalline water. My gaze keeps catching on lush green and dappled grass. It's all so beautiful that I'm sure it's hiding rot.

I untangle from the nihilism, focusing back on where Brad bares his neck to wolves with a smile. (and you don't care to save yourself) It's fitting we've found ourselves in a tomb of fairy tales. Brad spends so much of his time in them, seeing rose gold where there is only rust. How long until I can call that light defiant? Foolish. Dangerous.

How long until it gets him killed?

"But if you'd rather carry all this yourself," My gaze slides from the girl who spoke to the girl of snow soaked in crimson. The spoils of war were not won without violence. Fight meets flight. "be my guest." I shuffle a step closer to Brad, trailing a careful touch along his forearm. The pressure is not as gentle as my touches usually are with him, but he needs to hear the meaning behind my words.

"You girls get to hauling and my boyfriend and I will be on our way." Perhaps my disinterest would be more convincing if I could keep my voice from trembling. My eyes dart toward the forest, mapping an escape route. "Or you could let us make ourselves useful, we'll be a group big enough that no one will bother us. And we'll part ways when the day is over. It'll give her a chance to rest that leg."

I follow Florentine's gaze, distracted for a moment, "What are you looking at, actually?"

[mav looks for the fairy lights]
Tm1gDNshxc1-20

1-20

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

( eulalie blake )

"Do we really need to hoard all of this?" Eulalie can understand the logic: gather all the resources and move them to a safe location before taking the time to source through it all. What she struggles to understand is why. "Say someone tries to ambush us, I still like our odds. It's not like us to play hide-and-seek." Pretending that she's not the most lethal thing in this arena doesn't fancy her.

It's all said and done, either way. The girls have been dragging the massive pile of goods for almost a half hour, the crumbling castle and field of rubble fading far behind them. Florentine taking the lead doesn't bother her, so much as Andromache taking the rear doesn't surprise her. The strongest part of the monument is its center. Without Eulalie, the whole alliance would collapse, or so she has herself convinced.

The bubbling of a brook catches her attention, the telltale sound of frogs croaking in the distance. "If you expect me to swim and carry this, you're asking too much." She sets aside her portion of the wealth, crossing her arms over her chest as the girls take a moment to catch their breath and monitor their surroundings. Andromache seems distracted by a little sphere of light, bobbing up and down in the air, but Eulalie hardly pays it any attention. This place will have many wonders to discover, and they can wait.

The trick is to find the other tributes.

Kill them, get a crown, go home.

"Look. Stop, a moment."

Ever the perceptive one, it's Florentine who draws Eulalie's attention to the two strangers approaching. She has a brief moment where she considers taking out her axe, preparing for the ambush she's jinxed them to have, but she's barely even touched the hilt when she realizes... they hardly seem scary. The bigger one, a boy who looks like he could be from her home district, is all smiles and waves as he bounds over like a lost puppy. The lithe boy approaches with more hesitation, his gaze just as clever and calculated as any career on the hunt.

When he proposes his "moving services," all cheery bravado and biceps flexed, Eulalie just blinks. This... is not what she was expecting her first interaction with tributes after the Bloodbath would be. Either this is the most fascinating ploy ever thought of, or the guy is just genuinely as nice as he's acting. It feels almost tragic. Like gazing down at a mewing kitten stuck in quicksand. Andromache's instinct is to ask questions, which is wise.

But it's not Mr. Biceps who answers her, instead Clever Eyes takes the diplomatic approach and moves to the front. "He just wants to help." The tinge of fatigue in his voice makes it sound like watching after the big guy is a 24/7 task. He makes the mistake of titling the other stranger 'boyfriend,' and Eulalie makes the choice right then and there to make note of this. They're from the same home, they have an intimate connection, and they can be exploited.

To his credit: he's right. If a fight ensues, the two of them are as good as dead, so the only options left are simple. Either they keep dragging all of this on their own, or they take advantage of the manual labor being offered to them. "You make sense, at least. Moving in larger numbers will make the first day of travel easier." She spares a glance over her shoulder at the pile of glittering things that looms behind them, uncrossing her arms and turning back to Mr. Biceps. "We all have our uses. It's sweet that you've found yours."

This is as much of a confirmation as he needs to get started on carrying out his part of this one-sided deal. Eulalie strides up beside Clever Eyes, who has joined Andromache and now Florentine as they peer at the strange light coming from between the moss-covered trees. Eulalie leans in close, her voice just above a whisper. "When the day is done, promise me this. I will never see the two of you again." Her eyes flit just barely to the other boy, holding a pet frog in a jar and looking as if he's tumbled out of a fairytale.

"That one doesn't deserve to die painfully."

♦

eulalie investigates the light

ktAo2bcQxj1-20

1-20

[florentine, d4b ❁]

florentine. 

the bushes start talking, and when they do they have the voice of a teenage boy. 

immediately, i abandon my light, it's magic forgotten. they amble out of the bushes - there are two of them, the loverboys from five - and my body reacts before my mind catches up; knife out, heart perched on the back of my tongue like a choking hazard. 

something's not right, i think. usually an ambush doesn't start with loud greetings of hey, hi. usually, somebody with ill intentions is clutching a weapon, rather than a small, friendly frog. he offers his assistance and shows off his bicep muscles one at a time. i grimace, confused, because it would be much easier to swallow the idea of unprovoked violence than this show of off-putting chivalry. this kind of shit is why we need feminism. 

we can carry our own shit, i say, just as andromache questions their intentions. 

the smaller one appears and talks a little more sense. he, at least, has the self-decency to begin with a minor threat. he makes some valid points - moving in a bigger group would be safer, if i could trust any one of these four clowns.

i am about to open my mouth to speak again when the reasonable one points out the injury to my leg, and i shut it abruptly, unable to argue with the ugly fact of it. i didn't only stop here to explore. 

i wonder if these two worry that the other will cut their throat while they're sleeping. i doubt it. they are probably more authentic than every feeling eulalie and andromache have ever experienced, put together. 

eulalie accepts their offer, no doubt accustomed to using boys as slaves. it is decided, then, and i make no protest. pick your battles, i suppose. hand over the reigns when it doesn't matter, and snatch them only when it does. frog-boy and his boyfriend seem harmless enough. 

what are you looking at, actually? mav asks, conversationally, redirecting me to my original, abandoned task. 

i squint my eyes, trying to recapture the light i was tracing earlier. i find it, dancing somewhere between the water and trees. 

there, i say, pointing. 

i follow it, just a few steps forward, and the trees seem to twist and morph and grow until my eyes can understand what they are seeing. there, fixed within the trunk of a tree as though grown directly from the earth, is a face. it is not a human face, but it familiar nonetheless - it is serene, peaceful, and glowing in the dusk. beneath her - something so natural, so beautiful, could only be a she - is a pool of water that seems to sparkle. 

there's something in the water, i say over my shoulder, and then i realise there are expectant eyes on me, waiting for me to produce that something. 



(florentine collects from the fairy fountain)

j7LerWqxpg1-5

1-5

[brad bradford ★ d5b [arx]]

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[attr="class","bradText11"]"Oh, yeah, well, thank youuuu-" Hmm. "Uhhhmm-" I wish I knew her name. I should know her name. No, I do know her name because I perfectly memorized the first ten names and she definitely has one of them. And since one of those names is mine and one of those names is Mav's, so I've already narrowed it down to eight names, easy-peasy. Momma says it's just more polite to use their name if they use yours, but- Shit. Augh, no, no cursing. Even in thoughts, swears aren't nice. (Nah, it's alright. Someone told you they're badass once.) I blink because my eyes are stinging a little. And maybe because my ears are ringing a little. And maybe because my palms were sweating a little. Well, a lot.

(Don't you get it?)

"What, no, no way! Brad Bradford doesn't- I, no, I just thought it looked like you had a lot of stuff and-"

Something about her words—"We can carry our own shit."—just sorta aches. (Like a decade old bruise on the soul pulled to the surface.) "Oh, yeah. No, yeah! It's just a lot and-"

"He just wants to help."

And I think maybe I did something I wasn't supposed to. Said something that must've hurt someone. I try my hardest not to do that. I lean into Mav's grip on my arm and nod. "Y-yeah, yeah, exactly!" I look between all of them—Eulalie, Florentine, Andromache—Oh! "Andromache! Ha! Knew it, heh." I tap my brow, effectively sealing the names into the 'New Friends' category in my brain. Mav's grip tightens and I think it's because I'm still saying the wrong things.

Boyfriend? I'm watching him talk and I want the other words he is saying to make sense in my head, but my vision has narrowed to only him. (Isn't he amazing?)

Mav's always been brilliant. He doesn't even need a business card to convince them.

"We all have our uses. It's sweet that you've found yours."

"Wait, really? So I can- I'm hired?" I clap my hands together and hop toward the pile of heavy objects just waiting to be lifted off the ground. And then bounce right back to scoop up Toad's Basket Home. "Watch this, I bet I can pick ALL of that pile up with the help of just ONE of my associates!" I spin back toward the pile and take a few clumsy steps through the foliage before I realize I forgot something again.

"Wait!"

I rush back to Mav, press my palm to his cheek, squeeze at the back of his neck to pull him toward me so I can plant a kiss on his forehead. And then, maybe a little greedily, come back to add another to the top of his cheek. "Okay, I'm gonna go be strong and carry stuff now." And all with a smile that was starting to make my face so perfectly, wonderfully, contentedly sore.

[andromache s. ⚔️ [d1b] sucy]

Hm. Brad Bradford actually knows my name. It took him a while to catch it, since I’m guessing it was bouncing around the big empty space inside his skull, but at least he knows it. When he says my name, I nod encouragingly. Florentine is right. We can carry our own shit. But wouldn’t it be so much easier to have somebody else do it? We need to conserve our energy — her especially, the other guy, Mav, is right about that. I glance at Florentine, try to read the look on her face, but her expression is as inscrutable as ever. She still seems more interested in the water. Well, whatever. She’s from Four, so I suppose that’s to be expected. 

Eulalie joins us by the shore. Her whispered threat takes my second foot out of Florentine’s glowing dreamland. That’s the stuff. I catch Mav’s eye next, and nod my agreement, a curt, somber gesture. I wouldn’t enjoy killing Brad Bradford, I think to myself, as I turn away from the little group to hand over my rickety bucket on a string to Mr Muscle himself. He’s from District Five, as far as I know, but he’s as well built as any ripe for the Reaping Career boy from District One. Impressive enough, but not indicative of any real challenge, or of any fight at all. Where’s the fun in that? 

I don’t think he has a bad bone in his body, and in here, they’re the only ones worth having. 

Or so I thought and so I was raised to believe. Yet isn’t he proving me wrong right now? He’s helping us, and in return, we’re letting him live. 

“You can start by taking this.” I declare, holding out my bucket to Brad Bradford at arm’s length. I pivot to stand next to him to face the others rather than turning my back to him and take a moment to do a quick inventory count of everything I can see. If anything goes missing, I’ll know. “Hey, if you guys are done fishing, we should start loading Brad up. Right, Brad? Right, Mav?”

_{[ DARS ]}