//l e s s o n s/\l e a r n e d\\ {Arx/Spesh}
Jan 24, 2013 20:30:32 GMT -5
Post by Rosetta on Jan 24, 2013 20:30:32 GMT -5
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Lethe chewed slowly as if hoping that each contraction by her jaw, up and down, would give her some idea of what to say to the two children before her. It had been, oh goodness, four years? Four years or five since she'd sat alone, no District Five mentors to her aid and her entire body was a sinking pool, she was the quicksand, sliding down and down until she was a puddle of hopelessness. These condemned children had her now. But, four years or five still hadn’t taught Lethe to mentor the dead and dying. Tips? Ideas? Sayings? She had none. Nothing, but luck that was all dried up now, sweet on her fingertips.
Breakfast was as magnificent and rich as usual in the Capitol and though Lethe’s stomach had grown accustomed to the fare, she merely nibbled on butter bread, green eyes fixed upon the tribute seated across from her. The girl was young, but the boy was the age Lethe had been when she’d gone, just a year short of safety and Lethe recalled the cruel trick it was. Rather than grow closer to safety, age meant more and more danger, more and more names to be pulled. Cruel, so cruel.
Deciding that the time was ripe and Lethe had to say something, she swallowed and daintily dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin before saying softly, “Hi…I’m Lethe.” Her voice was weak, a shiver. Perhaps they remembered her. She’d trembled and cried on the stage, spoke quietly at her interview, received a mere four on her private training sessions, and dribbled through the Games, playing with dice. She’d struck true in the Bloodbath, but the day after, the mutt had just found Anya’s lovely face more delectable than her own. Saskia and Razor had been her saviors. Saskia was a mutt-killer and Razor was an actual killer and their soft words in the morning had freed her from her horrible, quivering, prison when she came to in the morning and found blank faces over her. That District Four boy…he’d faltered and she’d moved in. And Razor? Her knives must’ve hit him by accident. If anything, it was Camalia’s licks to the face that kept her conscious the whole time. And now, they sat before, more bodies, breathing the air that had already been sold away from them the second their names were called out in tumultuous voices. And they were judging her. Who was she, Lethe Turner, to sit before them? Perhaps they could smell the falsity on her.
Leaning across the table towards them, Lethe forced herself to clear her throat and take a deep breath. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” she said, licking her lips, “and I’m here to answer them…so…” Until that moment, she hadn’t lifted her eyes to the tributes, but now when she tried, she felt embarrassed to look…because of the train ride and Lethe swallowed.
She hadn’t meant to hear it. She thought that she might perhaps introduce herself while they were on the train, but when she reached the closed door, she heard them. She knew what it sounded like and suddenly, she felt her skin crawling and she broke out into a cold sweat because that had been her at some point and she’d giggled too and were they just as clouded in the head as she was? Oh, she hoped not. Don’t make the same mistakes I did.
Eden was beautiful as ever and Lethe knew that she’d be a gorgeous young lady one day. She loved her daughter and there were no regrets about giving birth to her. But, he was the regret…never called, never wrote…never cared and Lethe could already see the hands breaking apart as they always did in the Games…and what if…what if…
Lethe’s gaze dropped to her hands as she confessed, “I heard you guys on the train.” Heard and then back to her room she ran, pressing her head into her pillow as if to muffle the noise in her head because that self-loathing was creeping back into her, tearing apart her stomach, piece by piece, for making the wrong decision, the wrong man, the wrong time. The wrong time. “Look, whatever relationship you guys are forming, long-term, short-term, whatever, it, uhm, needs to end now,” her voice felt stronger than it had been before, confessing the sins she’d learned. “There’s no time for relationships in the Games. I know that. And if you…” she turned to Elodie now, “end up in a…bad way,” she chose her words delicately, “there’s nothing you can do. So, you guys need to stop that…now…okay?” And as if to reinforce that idea, Camalia, who’d been lounging on Lethe’s shoulder the entire time, skittered down her arm and licked each tribute in turn. As for Lethe?
She felt the locket on her chest, burning into her skin, burning its contents, a lock of Eden’s blonde curls and a picture of her baby, into her forever. [/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/color]