black sheep {patricia/cricket} {VT}

[rook]

♕ { p a t r i c i a v a l f i e r n o} ♕
victor of the 68th annual hunger games

i will carry you and give you life
i will cover you and show you the way
it's a sequence that you never learned
it's a lesson I will never forget

I watch the rain dance on the glass pane. Part of me wants to smash my fist through it and stick my head out. I'd love to feel that wet wind, instead of this processed air conditioning. It feels like I'm breathing the Capitol's air. Resisting the urge, I leave my cabin and rejoin the rest of the team. Lethe should be here, but she's too pregnant according to the media team. Good, I don't want that fucking sket here. Bitch is everything I loathe. Well, she can stay at home and play at happy families whilst I do the dirty work, on my own. Again.

The trip to District Two is a short one. The Career Districts are pretty clustered together, so getting from One to Two takes hardly any time in comparison to the journey from Five. Despite the short distance, I still dwell on what happened in One for too long. The Millison family, most notably Diamond. I thought she would be more aggressive towards me, but she seemed to understand why I left Pearl. She's more similar to her sister than she thinks, despite wanting to appear a polar opposite. I hope I get to see her again, not just for Pearl, but because I think Diamond's actually a nice girl. Shame about the mother.

They offer me food, but my appetite is still lacking. I ate some kind of chowder or soup last night, and it's still in my system somewhere. The thought of anything solid makes me wretch. They tell me I need to take my meds though, so I begrudgingly swallow down some tablets with a glass of water, doing everything I can to keep them down in the process.

They announce over the intercom that we have arrived in Two. This is a true Career District, unlike One, which is more concerned with living in luxury than developing elite athletes. I gather my things and wait for the door to slide open. Again, I am nudged in the back by a Peacekeeper, sheepdogged forwards onto the platform. The crowd here are less excited than the mass in One. Maybe because they're more down to earth than the near-Capitol people of One. The applause is respectful, which is more than I deserve. Perhaps they acknowledge my achievement and commend it.

I step up onto the stage and give the same speech as I did in One. I tell them that Asa and Valerie's sacrifices were brave, but necessary. I do mention Asa's role in my victory, going as far as to call him an ally in the early stages, despite our tense relationship. Asa, who died before his time. He upped and vanished one night, abandoning us. Then, he was dead. I think back on him with no fondness, but some abstract form of respect. He could have killed me multiple times, but didn't. Same could be said about me, I guess.

"Panem today, Panem tomorrow, Panem forever." I finish, like an automated robot. I'm applauded, and shown off the stage by my company. Peacekeepers escort me to a carriage, opening the door and pretty much forcing me inside. I make myself comfortable in the seat, grateful to be in out of the light drizzle. Someone from my media team sits next to me, and signals for the driver to take us away from the Justice Building. Out the window, I watch the crowd disperse and vanish into the haze.

"Where are we going?" I ask, my eyes still focused on the figures in the mist, going back to their daily business. I try to imagine what that would be, in a District like Two. Back home our routines would be working for ten hours, cooking and cleaning for five and then sleeping the other nine. Here, I imagine it's different. I doubt most kids my age have jobs, instead they just train for a Game they know nothing about. The way they aspire to be in them makes me want to be sick. They have no idea what they're getting into. No idea.

There's a long silence, and I get no reply for a good ten minutes, until we are far from the centre of Two. We pull up at the Victor's village, which puzzles me. Who wants to see me? The door is opened by another Peacekeeper and I'm shown out of the carriage. For once, they don't man handle me, instead treating me with more respect. Something tells me that these Peacekeepers are more from Two, and so have more respect for Victors than the bunch the Capitol sent to escort me.

The Victor's Village here is much nicer than the one in Five. Someone here actually makes an effort to keep it looking pristine. Ours has been left alone - The grass overgrown, the statues tattooed in vines. I guess there are far more occupants here than in ours. Only two alive in Five, Lethe and myself. I don't even know the amount here, but I expect it's double figures.

"Miss Antoinette is expecting you," My representative tells me, leading me to the door and pressing the buzzer. I laugh. Of all the Victors who would want to meet me, the circus freak would be the last I expected. Cricket won the 63rd Games. I remember them well, specifically because she was so unique. That was, what? Five years ago? Ripred, time flies. I was only thirteen at the time.
"Fucking wonderful." I chuckle to myself, awaiting the fun inside.

i can hear you in the overtones
just an echo of the promise we made
change the future, we can travel time
or make us blind so we can never look back

word count: 921, graphics: rook
theme: night sky by chvrches

[L△LIA]

got a pistol for a mouth, my old mama gave me that
making my own road out of gravel and some wine
and if I have to fall then it won't be in your line
everybody's doing it so why the hell should I

The doorbell rings and she laughs, halfway upside down and halfway right side up in the middle of the living room. One leg is on the floor while the other reaches for the ceiling and as for the rest of her limbs... it's honestly a little difficult to sort out exactly what is happening. The answer is: nothing, really. This is just Cricket Antoinette's version of twiddling her thumbs.

Lazily cartwheeling back to her feet — or rather, both of her feet — she meanders into the hallway and toward the front door, a subtle, winding dance of silence in her steps. This isn't a girl to bother much with expediency and so the seconds tick away as her unwitting visitors wait outside on the steps for her to answer the door on her schedule. "Arbor!" They might even hear her gravel-hewn voice from the other side, tauntingly close and unhurried. "Here, kitty, kitty! Come say hello to our company."

Quiet continues to devour the house, although the curl in Cricket's smile is laced with confidence that her command is being followed and, perhaps — if someone was listening very carefully — it might be possible to hear the whisper of four feline paws descending the stairs from the second floor. A rough hum echoes up her throat to give a ghost of life to the deadened air, a small redemption in a house that might otherwise seem vacant. Despite the incoming evening, not a single light has been turned on and when she finally opens the door to Panem's newest Victor, it's only the bulb illuminating the front of the house that chases away the shadows.

"Hello." The word sounds simple coming from her red lips and a blind man might not think much of it. The two people standing before Cricket, however, have just been greeted by a girl answering the door wearing little more than fancy lingerie — a black satin corset with golden hooks, gilded lace ruffles that could almost pass for something like shorts if it were another hour past twilight, and what appears to be thigh high stockings layered over colored pantyhose with a pair of lace-up boots on top. Perhaps, because it's a little chilly out. "Lovely of you to come for a visit."

Standing at attention next to the carriage behind them is Firenze Delacroix, fresh out of the Academy and overenthusiastic enough about having been put on Victory Tour detail to have pulled Cricket aside earlier at the ceremony. "I want her back in one piece, Cricket," he had said, his lips pressing into an all too knowing line. False eyelashes fluttered in response like the memory of a butterfly she once knew, before she exhaled and incinerated it in midair. "Or else it's on you." Her lips pulled up at the corners in honor of his guts, terribly... amused.

Lacquered fingernails trill through the air as she waves at the officer in the white uniform, the remnants of a smirk clinging to her lips. "Don't worry," Cricket reassures the handler standing beside the red headed guest of honor, despite being greeted by a face that seems far less concerned than Firenze's had, "it's just a little get-to-know-you evening. We won't have any trouble taking care of ourselves." The smirk blooms into full force. "But we've already proved that."

Somewhere amid the distraction of polite greetings, Cricket's hand snakes forward to latch onto the other Victor's arm and by the time the last syllable has left her mouth, both girls have been pulled into the unguarded seclusion of the house. The last second stuttering of the Capitol representative looking for a goodbye, perhaps, is met by the face of a tiger, peeking out to see what all the commotion is about. What follows is less of a roar and more of a restrained question on Arbor's part, but it cuts the man short and the door clicks shut a moment later as the feline wanders back inside. Nothing to see there.

Despite the lack of lighting within the house, it's easy enough to catch on that all of the furniture on the first floor has been pushed aside and piled up against the walls, unused — maybe for years, judging by the dust. Whatever made the dark scuff marks scattered across the  floorboards, it likely has little to do with chairs, but perhaps something to do with the daggers jutting out of the walls here and there. "Just need to get my coat," the brunette says, pulling something floor length and velvet onto her shoulders, "we'll go right on out the back door. I'm a little impatient to get out of here. The wait was time enough."

[rook]

♕ { p a t r i c i a v a l f i e r n o} ♕
victor of the 68th annual hunger games

i will carry you and give you life
i will cover you and show you the way
it's a sequence that you never learned
it's a lesson I will never forget

The light drizzle douses my fiery hair and slowly turns it to rust. I run my hand through it, brushing the fringe to the left, which is how I like it. I listen for movement from behind the door - Footsteps down a staircase or the creaking of floorboards. I hear nothing, which is odd. I have found that living in a pitch black cave for nine days does wonders for your hearing, especially when your life depends on it. So to hear nothing is odd. Perhaps Cricket's not home. But then why invite me? I dare not glance at the man to my side. To show concern is to be weak, and I can't let the Capitol think that I'm reverting back to the girl I used to be before the Games. That girl is dead. Surely she is.

The door swings open, taking me by surprise. I blink awkwardly at the lady in front of me. She is more or less in her underwear, if not for a large pair of lace-up boots. She has a great figure, even more so now she is older. She was sixteen or seventeen in her Games, and I remember distinctly how flexible she was. I don't think Cricket is the type to let herself go, even after winning her Games. If anything, she's the type to want to improve herself further, such is the nature of Careers. I make a note not to underestimate her. She's probably twice as deadly now than she was five years ago. I'm hoping that's not going to be important.

"Hello." She looks at me, and then to the man next to me. I'm not sure if she was expecting me or not, her face is hard to read, with strong lipstick and dynamic mascara making her every expression powerful. I shuffle awkwardly. Cricket is the first Victor other than Lethe that I've met face-to-face post-Games. I find myself struggling to put myself in the same category as her. She is a deadly, talented killer, and I'm just someone who got lucky. Didn't get lucky, Trix. You make your own luck in life. I bite the inside of my check, chewing at some scar tissue with my canines.
"Lovely of you to come for a visit." She says, sounding genuine, but I know all about the masks we put on in front of others. I won't take anything she does for niceties. Even now, I struggle to trust people. That's normal, they told me in the Capitol, and I scoffed. None of this is normal.

I hate it, all of it. This is my punishment for being the red-haired rebel from Five. The girl who spat on Capitol dirt, who thought highly enough of herself that she could single handedly take down the regime. She was naive, perhaps in denial that she was being sent to her death. I think back now, and I see how stupid I really was. I got Leon to turn off their power, made it look like I did it on my own. I tried to be their enemy, and I succeeded. Now this is my reward. Being sent on my Victory Tour just four weeks after that final cannon sounded. Most Victors get six months, but me? Nah. I don't get any rest. I don't get to recover from the sheer trauma of it all. And why? To spite me. To teach me a lesson and keep me in line.

I need to find that girl from the cave again. She was good at surviving. Right now, I'm struggling, and we're only on the second District.
"Don't worry," Cricket smirks, "It's just a little get-to-know-you evening. We won't have any trouble taking care of ourselves."
My shoulders relax somewhat. What she has planned for us, I have no idea. Does she want to get to know me, or introduce me to the other Victors? I know Julian Bryze is from Two, and there are some older Victors from before my time too. Who knows? Cricket doesn't really seem that type though. She's not family orientated like Lethe, she's more of her own person.

"But we've already proved that." Her mouth twists and turns from word to smirk to smile. She's right, I can take care of myself. I didn't go through all the shit I did to get mugged in an alley. Besides, Five is twice as dangerous as the paved streets of Two. If we're going out, I'll be fine. Besides, I have one of the most deadly people in Panem with me.

She grabs my arm and yanks me inside. Taken by surprise, I stumble in from the porch, just as Cricket slams the door behind me. She dances away, vanishing into the dim light of her house. With light struggling to get through her translucent glass windows, and no lights on, it's pretty dark inside her house. I swallow hard, my chest tight. The dusty air makes it hard to breathe, or is it just my throat that's scratchy? I see a flash of silver in the corner of my eye, and with a shaky hand I flick the light switch on. I exhale, feeling lighter as I do.

"Just need to get my coat," Cricket calls, rushing about the house. It looks abandoned, with all the furniture moved to the edges of the room, piled on top of each other like renovators are expected to take it away. How can anyone live in these conditions? I remember who's house this is, and acknowledge that Cricket isn't like most people.

I feel a tingle of an electric pulse, artificial nerves telling my synthetic hand that something wet is brushing against it. I look to my left to see the biggest cat I have ever seen. At first I think it's a muttation, but then it doesn't seem to have multiple-heads, nor is it spitting venom at me. It's some kind of luxury cat, orange with black stripes. I should be afraid, the size of the beast - It's teeth and claws. Yet I'm not. I crouch down to it's eye level and hold out my real hand, letting it come closer to sniff me. When it's comfortable with me, I turn my hand over and up it's nose and behind the ears.

"We'll go right on out the back door. I'm a little impatient to get out of here. The wait was time enough." Cricket reappears, wearing a very long, broad, purple coat. Her confidence and demeanour radiates through the house. She's like no one I've ever met before. I stand up straight, still stroking the cat.
"Sorry, I was just saying hello to your-..." I pause, unsure as to what he is, "...Friend."
I don't want to call him a pet. He's too big and dangerous to be that. Dangerous to the wrong people. Maybe Cricket gets lonely, or feels vulnerable. Everything about her personality suggests otherwise, but we all have our weaknesses.

"Let's go." I button up my beige coat, and follow the Victor of the 63rd Hunger Games.

i can hear you in the overtones
just an echo of the promise we made
change the future, we can travel time
or make us blind so we can never look back

word count: 1177, graphics: rook
theme: night sky by chvrches

[L△LIA]

i wear my boots to bed
hang a cross up on the wall
to save me from a shallow grave
that wants to take us all

A switch is flicked and light bounces through the emptiness, brightening the marked gouges that line the edge of each doorway Arbor has claimed as his territory with a little help from his teeth. The newest marks are the highest up, like the height chart of a child's growth throughout the years. Five, to be exact. At the moment he's more interested in the newcomer than aimlessly sharpening his canines on the mahogany molding, licking at her fingers and reaping the rewards of being a four hundred pound kitten who never tires of being adored.

This seems to be a trait the feline has inherited from his mother, a girl grown into a young woman — five years past Victory and still a glutton for flattery. There are no such obvious marks for her upon these walls, but then again, there wouldn't be. The house is most often empty of her. Within the kitchen cabinets, the only food to be found is a dead fox Arbor stashed last week (it's beginning to rot, a sickly scent radiating out like the persistence of memory) and the bones of other hunting conquests past. Upstairs the bedrooms tell the same story as below. This may be a house, but it certainly isn't a home.

"Sorry, I was just saying hello to your..." The name on the deed to this questionable pile of bricks and marred mahogany returns to find that unspoken introductions have already been made in her absence. "...friend." Most people are struck with fear when confronted by a tiger that's at least three times their own weight and natural talent for violence, but perhaps that ratio isn't quite the standard in this case. There is, after all, some convincing film evidence in Patricia's favor that has recently come to light. "Let's go."

"Oh good! You've met Arbor!" Coming forward to join them, she crouches down in a swelling puddle of velvet to take the cat's face in both hands, smushing it forward and into itself as she tilts his head up to meet the red head's eyes. Despite being fully aware that he must look anything but regal at this moment, he endures the loving display of humiliation better than might be expected. "The big lug was a present for winning my Games, from one of the mutt engineers. Boring man. Only ever talks about love and genetic science. But you —" She shakes his head around until a small, almost pleading note of rejection slips from his mouth. "— aren't so hard to put up with."

Releasing her victim, who immediately leans forward to kiss the tip of her nose with his own in a stunning profession of Stockholm Syndrome, she stands up before shooting him one last look. "Are you coming?" Arbor blinks just once before promptly sauntering down the hall with regained majesty and onward into the kitchen. Walking right past the fox he just remembered having stashed away for a rainy day, he bites down on the handle of the back door and, with an experienced turn of his head, continues on into the night.

The smile haunting Cricket's lips isn't the same as the one she wore on the doorstep just a few minutes earlier. This one looks suspiciously like the expression the so-called boring Capitol scientist devotes to her in the form of that four letter word she has yet to wrap her limb-bending mind around. Not for him. Not for anyone. "Just follow the tiger," she says as if this is the beginning of their journey to the land of Oz. Like her smile, there might be some truth in that.

A switch is flicked and although the house goes dark, the night framed by the open door ahead of them is anything but. The city has turned itself on in a way that only happens after every good mother has put her children to bed, so that only the restless remain. "I hope you don't mind a walk — it's not a long one. This house is just so confining tonight and," something teasing slips into the gravel of her voice, "you seem like you could use some open air." Ahead, it only gets brighter.

[rook]

♕ { p a t r i c i a v a l f i e r n o} ♕
victor of the 68th annual hunger games

i will carry you and give you life
i will cover you and show you the way
it's a sequence that you never learned
it's a lesson I will never forget

There's a sharp pain in my chest telling me that the dosage of medicine is wearing off, but I'm long past being able to get more. To be honest, I welcome the pain. The stab wound was deep, narrowly missing my heart. Four weeks ago. It's been four weeks since Galaxy drove her blade deep into my sternum, but I'm the one still standing. The wound still stings like hell, and the amount of meds I'm taking can't be healthy. Still, the pain is a reminder. I don't need reminding of my time in the Games - That's not something a person can forget. It's more of a reminder that I'm still fresh out the Games. Still hurting. Still healing. They pushed me to this Victory Tour far too soon, squeezed me dry, used me again and again until I'm nothing but a shell. This is the second District, and there are Ten to go. I want to cry.

"Oh good! You've met Arbor!" Cricket comes over, kneeling down and taking the beast's entire head in her arms, getting all mushy with him. She must be either incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid. I like to think that somewhere in the middle is a good balance to live your life on. Looking down at the massive cat, I struggle to see anything more than that. A big, soft kitten. Arbor? The name's familiar, but I can't quite place it.

Rose and I never had a pet. The closest thing to it was a stray tabby, when we were living in the gutter. I think I was sixteen or seventeen years old, only a couple of years ago. Rose would have been fifteen? We'd been in and out of the orphanage for a few years, and I was looking for work. Who wants to hire a kid? Rose found an old feline living on the streets. His fur was shredded and his eyes full of loathing. He would attack me whenever I went near him, and Rose's arms were covered in raw scratches from where she tried to handle him. Like anything that got close to us, I forced it away. The last thing I wanted Rose to become was sentimental.

Why Cricket needs Arbor is beyond me. I suppose she could get lonely in this big old house, in this isolated section of Two. I don't know Cricket at all, but no one is flawless. She might be gorgeous and talented and deadly, but she has to have some kind of achilles heel. Everyone does. Lonliness. Loss. A fear of the dark. I swallow.

"The big lug was a present for winning my Games, from one of the mutt engineers. Boring man. Only ever talks about love and genetic science. But you —" She gets all soppy with him, and I screw up my face, "— aren't so hard to put up with."

She kisses him on his wet nose, before standing up to full height. I watch her with morbid fascination. She is impossible, like no one I have met in my life. Not even any of the Tributes in that cave were half as mad as she is. I try not to smile.
"Are you coming?" She says to the beast, who meanders down the hallways and nonchalantly opens the back door. I stand blinking as he vanishes into the darkness.
"Just follow the tiger."

Follow the tiger. What kind of fucking line is that? Is any of this even real? Part of me is convinced that I died in that cave and this is all some twisted dream. I sigh, following Arbor and Cricket out into the open air. Doesn't seem like I have a choice anyway. Cricket arranged all of this, so I'm obliged to obediently conform to her plans. What she wants to do with me, I don't know. Any other person would be concerned or afraid when one of the most enigmatic and charismatic Victors of the past ten years takes you on an evening out. I'm just-... I don't know.

I've been trying to be scared. My words to Galaxy in the end resonate inside of my head. I tried to feel something, but at the end of all things, I wasn't even afraid. I was just this thing that knew what it had to do. That's how I feel now, only I don't have a goal anymore. I have no direction. I just exist, going along with the flow of the Capitol's plans. It all just washes over me, like a lukewarm shower.

"I hope you don't mind a walk — it's not a long one. This house is just so confining tonight and you seem like you could use some open air." She says with an edge to her voice that grabs me. Open air? Of all the things to say, she's had a fucking dig at me about the Arena. Probing the beast to see if it bites back. I remember that she doesn't know me at all, and is more likely teasing me, trying to get me to relax and make light of it all. How can I? How can I take my Games lightly? I don't know what to do anymore. It's all so complicated and messy and I just want to go home and not deal with any of this.

"I'm not claustrophobic, if that's what you're suggesting." I say in as neutral a tone as I can manage, walking alongside the Victor. The tiger ahead leads the way, prowling through the night like a hunter. Are these his grounds? His terriroty? The lack of wildlife suggests so. The air has a certain chill to it. I wrap my coat around myself, wondering how the hell Cricket can go out in nothing but lingerie and a ringleader's coat.

"Where are you taking me?" I ask, my voice short.

i can hear you in the overtones
just an echo of the promise we made
change the future, we can travel time
or make us blind so we can never look back

word count: 978, graphics: rook
theme: night sky by chvrches

[L△LIA]

you wanna be a free bird
you wanna be a free lover, see
you gotta run from the shepherd
run, run away with me

Cricket Antoinette is entirely genuine, despite the way her perpetual showmanship often gives the impression that the act never ends. This is not a girl who believes in magic tricks. Deception is for people who lack both talent and the determination to recreate reality in accordance with their own rules. Hers may be a mouth familiar with fire and the taste of a blade, but nothing scorches her tongue like a lie. It's rare even for a joke to cross the barrier of her teeth and so when the words you seem like you could use some open air are spoken, it's not so much a dig as it is proof that the girl finally thought about someone else's feelings for once.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is more miraculous than any feat of sword swallowing or contortion she can perform.

Exactly where she's been leaving the teeth marks of her growth is anyone's guess, an entire city of doorways sprawled out ahead of them. Beyond that, the world. "I'm not claustrophobic, if that's what you're suggesting." Patricia replies, betraying little — if any — of the misunderstanding already threading itself through words and reactionary tones. The nuances of two strangers go unnoticed as the stars sneak into reflections off windows they pass and the tar black eyes of curiosity that peek out, multiplying each distant sun into infinity.

"It's not." The footsteps of the tiger leading them — past shop fronts and apartment complexes, dozens of street lamps and the occasional abandoned building — are silent, but the owner's click-click-click shamelessly along the sidewalks and echo out into the night. It doesn't sound accidental, despite the way her actual steps seem disinterested in straight lines. "I'm not either." She subtly winds and meanders, each step going wherever it pleases. Here and there. Back and forth. In and out of logic.

"Where are you taking me?"

One Victor turns her chin to face the other — a moon in motion — unable to see if sincerity hides in the shadows. The answer to the question seems too obvious; Cricket hadn't lied while extending her invitation for tonight. "Home." The other girl's question takes a turn in her mind, circling through synapses until the code cracks and reveals the source of confusion. "Just because that was my house, you think I live there?" Amusement crackles through the low alto of her voice. "I know we skipped the handshake and formal introductions earlier," with one dramatic stride she takes the lead and whirls around so they're face to face as she walks backwards, pace matched to Patricia's as she extends a hand and they continue on in a kind of traveling dance, "but I'm Cricket Antoinette."

The statement isn't loaded with any particular emphasis or sarcastic tone of disbelief, just the basic implication that: This is something that usually goes without saying. Hers is an arrogance that expects reputation to proceed her. It's not enough for the world to simply know her name — the syllables should carry meaning as well. This isn't just the Victor of the Sixty-Third Annual Hunger Games. Oh, no. This is a living legend and the striped peak of Cirque de la Mort's big top tent rises up from the edge of the city to testify on her behalf.

Brick and mortar falls away as the night and all of its stars are devoured by the blare of carnival lights. It's a new constellation, hi-jacking their senses with a dizzying rush of color and sound. Everywhere, the unrelenting chatter and jubilance of people. Everywhere, the tantalizing  scent of hot sugar mixed with things more forbidden. Everywhere, the promise of a dream in exchange for the price of a ticket. "Have you ever been to a circus?" There isn't a house in sight, but who would want to live their life in a box when this is what lies outside?

[rook]

♕ { p a t r i c i a v a l f i e r n o} ♕
victor of the 68th annual hunger games

i will carry you and give you life
i will cover you and show you the way
it's a sequence that you never learned
it's a lesson I will never forget

The night haze is purple, flecked yellow dots splashing the canvas. Shapes shift in and out of focus, blurs of blue, black, grey. These are cold colors, for the evening lacks as much warmth. I have learned to appreciate color, perhaps being blind for nine days makes everything just that much brighter now. There is barely a breeze at all, yet the air is so thin that my skin is white. I haunt the plains with Cricket, whilst our guardian takes strides ahead, stalking the evening. It is so still and quiet that I think I am swimming. It's not a lack of oxygen, or a drowning sensation, more that I am floating. Weightless in tranquillity. It's a weird moment that fills me with a strange sense of presence. I feel alive.

"Home." She breaks me from my surreal moment of belonging. Being out here in the open, enjoying the air and the freedom - It almost makes me think that I could be claustrophobic, or maybe I just enjoy the opposite too much. Fear's a strange thing. I am not afraid of confined spaces, I've been in a few since the Games, and I'm fine with them. Thing is with fear, is you know exactly what you're afraid of. You can't be unsure of it, it's a solid thing. Fear is direct. The night turns from byzantium, to tuscan, to damson, to black. I move closer to Cricket.

The buildings thin out as we traverse the plains on the edge of two, circling past a Career centre that looks more modern than any building you can find in Five. I have to give a lecture to Careers tomorrow afternoon, before we set off for Three. I have to tell them how great it was to be in the Games, and how they are the future of Panem. Those kids are at home resting their heads, dreaming of the day their names are Reaped. Dreaming of a sick façade. Tomorrow they get to meet a Victor. What a fucking honor. I dread it, already letting the anxiety get to me. I have no idea what I'm expected to say to them. Inspire them. Did Cricket have to do this? I expect she declined, her hands not tied like mine. The power she has. The freedom. It's something that a rebel like me can only dream of. The more obedient, the more freedom. Seems contradictory, but that's society down to a T.

The grass beneath my feet is trodden, the consistency wet and slippery. Mud cakes my boots as it wares out into a trail, leading away from buildings and towards something magnificent. I have no idea what it is. It looks so out of place, so alien. Some strange tent, huge in size. White and red and gold, twisting stripes up and up in a dome, pointing up to the sky like an accusation. Ribbons adjourn, arcing from post to post, circling around the community. People move around, laughing and drinking. Happy people. People unsuppressed and unphased. Lights and noise and energy radiating like some wonderful machine that spins and brings the night to life. The buzz and the energy warms me right up. I don't know what it is, but this whole place looks absolutely fantastic.

"Just because that was my house, you think I live there?" Cricket smiles as we approach the anomaly. Arbor's stride becomes more lax, and I realize this is his home. The other Victor's words register in my mind, and it hits me that this is hers too. This is where she is from. The circus. I watched her Games, I listened to the experts talk about her background. Gypsy tricks and caravan talent. Sword swallowing, fire breathing, juggling, knife throwing. They said she was an unorthodox Career, but a Career nonetheless. This is where the Victor was born, raised and forged. My eyes widen at the spectacle, and I forget myself. I feel so small, so out of place. Like china in a bullpen.

"I know we skipped the handshake and formal introductions earlier, but I'm Cricket Antoinette." She offers her hand. I shake it without hesitation. She could have been mean, or crude, or even polite. She has been none of those things to me. She has been nothing but herself, and it's actually nice to meet someone genuine, Victor or not.
"Patricia Valfierno." I smile, soaking up the atmosphere and trying to forget the past week. I deserve to actually enjoy myself for once.

The air is heavy with sweet scents, apple and sugar and caramel. The heavy cries of vendors promoting their foods take up the bulk of the noise ringing around the field. Eyes seems to move in our direction, murmurs begin, like a wave gaining momentum, and I feel uneasy. It's more at Cricket than myself, but I am getting a share of the attention. I draw closer to the other girl, feeling vulnerable by the amount of people here.

"Have you ever been to a circus?" She asks me as we approach the big top tent. Yeah, it's called the Capitol. I smirk, trying not to sass, instead shaking my head.

"No, I haven't."

And I'm lost, lost in this magic. This strange, alien place is worlds away from the Victory Tour, or the Games, or the hospital. It's new, it's fresh and amazing and I don't know what to say or do other than to cling to Cricket's coat like a toddler and follow her around. She is queen of this land, and it's evident. Evident in the bowing of heads and the cheering of her name. In the fire in her eyes. In the pride.

There is a beast prowling these lands, stalking the night and owning everything beneath the stars. It isn't the tiger.

i can hear you in the overtones
just an echo of the promise we made
change the future, we can travel time
or make us blind so we can never look back

word count: 965, graphics: rook
theme: night sky by chvrches

[L△LIA]

i have been waiting
for you to find
that all of this could be yours
be yours tonight

"Whatever you're imagining might be in that tent, I promise you, the truth is so much better."

Once there was a time when Cricket was laughed at and teased for everything she loved most about life — from the way her broken doll joints move so strangely to the fellow misfits of society she surrounded herself with. Despite the bullying, this was never a girl who questioned herself or flinched under the pressure of expectation. She has always known exactly who she is and what she wants (...although a certain Cornelius Bones might have just one small caveat for that statement). People seem to have come around to her way of thinking for the most part, but that doesn't mean she can't still tell the difference between someone who understands her and someone who is just playing along with popular opinion.

Either way, she'll accept the adoration and according to her mouth there is no differentiation to be made. Liking, loving, and conceding are all synonyms of a sort when the topic is up for discussion, but there is something in her unspoken heart that knows better. Whether the organ pumping her blood is the intelligent machine or if the credit is due to the one tattooed upon her chest is difficult to say, but the words would be wrong regardless. This is not a place for grand speeches and confessions; this is where people come to be shown everything they never before have believed to be possible and Cricket lives for the show, in every way imaginable.

The ticket booth is manned by a small monkey wearing both a monkey-sized top hat and a matching monkey-sized jacket with gold tasseled shoulders. Considering that not just any primate can pull off this particular shade of red, he looks quite dapper. "Good evening, Peri." Cricket gives him a nod and receives a polite hat tip in reply. "I see Samael finally took my advice and promoted you." A small, but slightly offended chirrup breaks the air and both heads tilt in its wake as the Victor leans in appeasingly, as if acquiescing that he deserves more than a formal greeting. "I'm very sorry I missed your congratulations party, but I was in the Capitol, you know. The Games wait for no monkey." The validity of this conversation may be highly questionable, but there is something undeniable in Peri's watchful expression as Cricket reaches into the pocket of her coat to withdraw a matching velvet bag. It clinks as she sets it down on the counter, obviously heavy with money, and the monkey immediately reaches both paws in to sort through the contents. "Oh, don't you rummage through that like you think I'm trying to pull one over on you! It's all real and you know it."

Straightening up, Cricket turns to her guest with a sigh and a roll of her eyes. "Samael has him trained to check for counterfeits. There was a little incident last year with a conman and some fake cash and he decided we needed a security upgrade of sorts. I don't really think it was worth the trouble, but Peri's proved to be quite talented financially."  With a shrug at the redhead, she turns her attention back to the ticket taker and arches an eyebrow. "Satisfied?" The monkey reaches beneath the counter and reemerges with two small paper tickets in its paws, handing one to Cricket before holding the other out to Patricia. "That's what I thought. Now you tell Samael that money is to patch the hole in the roof of Scar's tent — I'm holding you personally responsible, Peri." The reply sounds something like a reluctant well okay then. "We'll do lunch or something with Mac next week, I promise. I owe you one!"

This is the part where Cricket blows a kiss at the monkey, only to receive a tiny — slightly spitting — scoff in return for the display of affection. If any interaction thus far is to be believed, it is, perhaps, this one. The meandering Victor is too infamous for her easy endearment and disregard for time. A week could be a year, just the same as a kiss could be a final farewell. Even a monkey can figure that much out.

Tucking the ticket away in one of her extravagant coat pockets, Cricket whirls around to immediately link arms with her fellow Champion of Life and Death. "Now that that's settled," they're already walking away, as if the last few minutes weren't a circus act in and of themselves, "we have everything to do." Familiar faces shout hello and reach out for Cricket's free hand, but the walking doesn't stop. More kisses are blown (received with smiles instead of miniature scoffs) and the sound waves become a flurry of darling, yes, absolutely, tomorrow, next Thursday, tea, my dearest, supper, fantastic, oh! Arbor is around here somewhere, Patricia, yes obviously, this is the Patricia, there's no need to pretend to be blind, how lovely, alright, darling, this weekend, of course, wonderful, spectacular!

If any of the faces in the crowd stand out, they are nothing compared to the ones adorning the posters scattered around advertising the various acts that drew everyone here tonight to begin with. Marvelous Mac the Strongest Woman on Earth! grins deliriously from a picture of her bench pressing the resident animal tamer while yet another shows a young girl whose smile is masked entirely by a face full of bees. SEE THE AMAZING BEE BEARDER! it shouts, promising more than a thousand bees in action. Yet, a thirteen-year-old girl wearing a dress of stinger wielding insects is hardly the most dangerous act on display and they pass advertisements for Zombie Boy: The Living Skeleton!, Scar: The Pain-Craving Mutilationist!, and Wolfboy: Child of the Wild! Still more posters and hand-painted billboards crowned with electric lights are scattered around, scaring away the dark as the children allowed to stay awake far past their bedtimes point and squeal with excitement and a pair of lovers take turns eating a shared caramel apple bought from a stand twenty feet away.

"What do you want to do? Are you hungry?" A gaggle of shrieking teenagers barrel past them, caught up in a popcorn throwing war — girls versus boys and not a one of them looking like the clear winner. "There's nothing here quite like dinner, exactly," caramel apples, yes, popcorn, yes, fried cheese and peanuts, absolutely, "but that's hardly the point. Arbor is probably off trying to pick off one of the Geek's chickens again, which — don't tell him I said so," it's difficult to tell if she's talking about the Geek or his antagonizer, "but that's always entertaining to watch. Or, of course —"

She cuts herself off, because it isn't about the words. For a moment she just grins proudly at the faces looking back at them from the posters, a whole troop of strange, gorgeous misfits who have always been something like life itself to her. Even Peri would be able to see sincere evidence of a heart beyond the one tattooed upon her chest. "— there's everything else you could ever imagine."

[rook]

♕ { p a t r i c i a v a l f i e r n o} ♕
victor of the 68th annual hunger games

i will carry you and give you life
i will cover you and show you the way
it's a sequence that you never learned
it's a lesson I will never forget

The night is a heavy sheet over us. The only faces we can see are draped in a vail of moonlight, and with the fireflies that dance around curious souls, picking out their features. This harvest of people is unique. Old men, young children, witch doctors and voodoo dancers, all moving from tent to tent, turning this lonely field into a community, the which of like I have never seen before. The stars point down at us, as if screaming for people to look and pay attention to this wonderful and brilliant display of life. I wish they would. This should be what the cameras film, not me. They should show the circus of the night, and how it is so very, very human. Should. Should is a curse.

The blackness seeps through, edging around the reach of lanterns and fairy lights, soaking the grass and crawling everywhere, everywhere. My mind and core scream, but I swallow hard and dry. It's like a scratching at the back of my head, an electric pulse. Trigger. Fear. It's a certainty. You know it when it's there. You know it because it's such a direct thing. You know what it is, and you know everything about it that makes you so afraid. Fear is the one emotion you can't bottle up and push to the back of the shelf. It is, undoubtedly, the strongest emotion. I edge closer to Cricket as she strides through her homeland with a dark confidence.

A demonic creature, brown in color with beady eyes and a petite face takes Cricket's money. I am not sure what it is, but it seems familiar. I have seen similar things in the Games - Not my Games, previous Games I have seen. Those were bigger though, with longer faces and sharper teeth. I'm not sure if this is a muttation at all, or if it's a genuine animal native to District Two. I wouldn't know, as I flunked majorly at school. I skipped class to work on the streets, so we could afford dinner. I always made Rose go to her classes though. She'd know what this thing was. Cricket talks to it like it can understand her, and the way it responds almost makes me think that it can. The way it is dressed like a person, and given a job that a person would usually do. I frown. This is too surreal.

I see posters, ten feet tall, draped from pillars and on the sides of massive tents. They are brightly colored portraits, picturing the stars of the show. I look at them with enormous fascination. These people would be classified as freaks by society, forced out like they are sub-human. Beneath the Capitol's vision of what a person should be. But here, in a field in the middle of District Two, these people are celebrated. They're showcased as something great. This is a place for those who don't belong anywhere else. Perhaps I will feel at home here. I too am a freak. The freak in the dark, alone and cold.

I remember Cricket's Games. The Sixty-Third, five years ago. District Five didn't have a particularly successful Games. People described Cricket as a freak, because she could do such unnatural things with her body. Inhuman. The religious types would call her unholy, and the spawn of a dark entity. The more I think about it, the more I don't understand. The Capitol should have hated her, for she was a far cry from their idea of a Career. She was a perfect example that people come in all shapes and sizes, and that is never a disadvantage. There's a symbol of rebellion if I ever saw one. Yet they didn't. They loved her. Promoted her to the media. Hyped her. She was a Career, and a Career can do no wrong in the eyes of the Capitol. I wonder, if Cricket was from a lower District, would she have been celebrated so much, or hidden away like the freak she really is? I don't know if I'm annoyed or not.

"What do you want to do? Are you hungry?" Cricket asks me, after we have paid the strange, little, hairy gremlin that reminds me of Barnabas Stroud in a bizarre way. The question strikes me as ordinary, like it doesn't belong to Cricket. My estimation of people is often wrong. I thought Pearl was going to be a total asshole, but she was my best friend in that Arena. Cricket is kind to me, when she has no cause to be. I see her as an oddity, but the words she says are so normal.

Normal. What must that feel like? Normality. In a place like this, normal feels like a distant fantasy, but what's normal to me is completely different for someone else. In this strange, alien place, Cricket can find her normal. She belongs. Maybe belonging is normality. I crave that, just as anyone does. There's a fire in this girl's eyes that just confirms to me that this is her home. She thrives here.

"— there's everything else you could ever imagine." I catch the end of her continuous trail of words, overlapping and overflowing out of her big, red mouth. I blink, my eyes flickering from her face to the ground, and back to her again. Am I hungry? My hand trails to my stomach. No, not really. I have this sinking feeling in my gut, and I'm not sure if it's excitement or anxiety, because really the two emotions feel very, very similar.

"I wouldn't know where to begin..." I say, after a short pause. This place is so vast and diverse. There is so much to do and so much to see, and I hardly know what half the things are or mean or do or. This is Cricket's place. I feel like I should ask for a tour, like Diamond showed me around Pearl's room. Only this is one big room with no ceiling, or walls, or ghosts.

i can hear you in the overtones
just an echo of the promise we made
change the future, we can travel time
or make us blind so we can never look back

word count: 1007, graphics: rook
theme: night sky by chvrches

[L△LIA]

and i have been waiting
but you need a sign
that all of this could be yours
be yours tonight

Another hailstorm of popcorn rains down upon them and Cricket snatches a piece from the air, casually tossing it into her mouth. It's salt and sugar all at once, curling into the corner of her Cheshire lips. "Knowing isn't very exciting, but beginning —" One of the rollicking boys responsible for the edible war game surrounding them lets loose a cheer, his hands in the air as he claps for the two Victors. As if this were their grand accomplishment.  "— that I can help with. Just start anywhere. It's not as if there's any such thing as right or wrong."

Now, that. Right there. That may be the grandest accomplishment of anyone's life and, if nothing else, it's certainly worth the debate. Even Cricket Antoinette isn't so self-absorbed or naive as to not see how unsettled Panem's newest champion is, still caught up in the shell shock of the Sixty-Eighth and not knowing... clearly, much of anything. There must be something, however. Although it's not a particular secret that the girl from District Two has quite the difference of opinion with most of her fellow keepers of the crown, people never seem to talk about her grinning lack of guilt. Even when those questionable morals come up, it's usually masked by commentary as shallow as she seems.

How can she still waltz around wearing the dead Ripley boy's crown like a souvenir... even when it clashes with her outfit? How can she applaud the deaths of the Tributes she mentors, year after year... when they've failed her? How can she leave and leave and leave (a half-estranged sister, the rumored bones of a lover that rot with her neglect, a circus she headlines even on nights the spotlight cannot reach her)... and have anyone whisper a word other than welcome when she comes back? How can she bring a war-wounded Patricia Valfierno into this warped Eden of sainted monsters and artful violence... when she might close her eyes and flinch against it all?

Morality and time have never meant much to a girl who thinks herself able to bend her body in and out of anything. She wouldn't know how to be guilty over any of it, even if she wanted to — not the past, not the present, not the future. It's a strange confidence that allows her to stand here, arms linked with the only soul that has her the least bit curious tonight, letting out a little laugh of amusement at one person's expense or another before taking a step toward the entrance of the Big Top tent. The earth moves beneath their feet with a turn of inevitability and all the gravitas gravity has to offer. Despite Cricket's haphazard advice for life and the idea of beginning anywhere, there's a sense that this is always where they were going.

Beyond the stripes is a world of blinding dark and light. The audience is shrouded in a veil of shadows, wild with ten thousand temperaments of awe or fascinated disgust. It's difficult to see the details of so many varied faces, but there's little reason to care for them when the stage is alight. The Ringmaster of Cirque de le Mort, Samael Kain, commands center stage with his infamously mismatched gaze — a pale ghost polishing halos in one eye and a gouge of black pitting the damned in the other — and if such shocking alterations failed to capture the imagination, then his red harbinger of a mouth cannot fail. Charmed snakes writhe at his feet as he heralds the night's performers, hissing and snapping their jaws at a young boy circling round on hands and knees. The child is half-wolf, half-fallen angel, and chained to his master by more than the length of metal that scratches and clanks against the floorboards of the stage with his every movement.

Imprisonment doesn't have eyes like this. Samael reaches down to scratch the Wolfboy behind one ear and, if no one else, Cricket can see who truly belongs to who.

Ringing the edge of the stage, living curiosities wait their turn at the spotlight's edge. An inside-out man lounging on a bed of nails, black and white bones and brains where his skin should be; a grinning redhead bench pressing a giggling blonde trussed up in a straightjacket, handcuffs, and several rounds of rope; a girl hardly old enough for her first Reaping who must look twice her tiny size with the army of bees amassed over her entire body; a vision of stunning wickedness toying the edge of a blade across her skin without care for gentleness and more than a little lust for her own blood; someone as faceless as the chicken in their arms is about to be. They are the fiction of twenty-foot tall posters come to life and somehow even larger in reality than promised.

"Ladies and gentlemen or filthy whores and salivating pricks of glorious indecency!" The spotlight turns tricks through the pale horse of the Ringmaster's apocalyptic eye and it sees all. No face in this audience can keep a secret and so he knows exactly what it hides. "Whether you've come for a night of sweet amusement or to glut yourself on the vulgar pleasures of your wilder sides, you sit in wait for the show of the century! What a night waits for us all..."

Into the middle of this vision walks a tiger. He struts with lazy entitlement, knowing he's cutting in line and caring as little about imposing as his guardian might. A many-tongued whisper flutters through the air in response, both on stage and off, in a plague of curiosity exhaled from one gasping mouth into the waiting gape of another. At the back of everything, the mother of this mayhem turns to the living breath of indecision at her side and her eyes preach imagination. "Do you trust me?" The tiger waits for the answer, if the answer matters at all, but Cricket won't. Right or wrong, her mouth is already curling (in and out of that meaningless everything), a threat of salt and sugar all too close to an open wound.

[rook]

♕ { p a t r i c i a v a l f i e r n o} ♕
victor of the 68th annual hunger games

i will carry you and give you life
i will cover you and show you the way
it's a sequence that you never learned
it's a lesson I will never forget

Bright lights and fame are not something I have ever dreamed of. Having such expectation dumped on my shoulders is crushing. Fresh from a pitch black cave and into blinding lights. That's how it was always going to be. Celebrity status cannot be ignored, not even here. I thought, perhaps, that Cricket was going to take me to a show, so I could be a spectator, so I could be a normal kid like the other hundreds of young faces here. I could pretend that I wasn't the Victor of the Sixty-Eighth Hunger Games, just for a few hours. Maybe, just for one moment, I could be normal. Of course, I was naive to think that. I was naive to believe that I can escape what I am. Interesting, powerful, famous, to the eyes of Panem. I'm none of those things. I'm a wounded girl who got lucky. Nothing more than a street rat.

So when we step into the big top tent, and thousands of faces turn in my direction, I realize that I am nothing more than a circus attraction. What did I expect? I sigh deep, and my entire body just sinks. I'm a born survivor, cast out onto the streets at the age of fifteen and left to fend for myself and my younger sister. I did things I never thought I would, just to put a roof over Rose's head, and food in her belly. And all of that was before I was even fucking Reaped. I killed, no, murdered other people to survive. I'm every bit as vicious and ruthless as was made out by the Capitol, but now? Now? Now I'm just an attraction. Something for people to point at.

"Ladies and gentlemen or filthy whores and salivating pricks of glorious indecency!" Comes an edgy voice of power in this senseless world of chaos, where order is nothing but a wild fantasy. Masks and screams and my ears hurt, but I try and stay with it. The whirlwind of music, lights, cheering, screaming, bleeding, hurting, it all spins around and around, and I steady myself against Cricket, who stands at the eye of the storm, unaffected. No, she owns the storm. She is the stormrider.

Like the conductor of this black maelstrom, the ringleader runs his hand around again and again, the centrepiece of this nightmare. Anxiety cripples me, and with light comes the absence of light, the beauty in the negative, and I panic. It's too soon. It's too fucking soon for any of this. Pearl's painting, Diamond's words, the demonstration, Cricket's idea of getting me to relax. Doesn't anyone else see it? It's all one big fucking contradiction. It's all supposed to help me recover from my nightmare, but it's a part of it. The nightmare continues. I never asked for any of this, but here it is, and here I am.

"Whether you've come for a night of sweet amusement or to glut yourself on the vulgar pleasures of your wilder sides, you sit in wait for the show of the century! What a night waits for us all..." His voice is magnificent, magnifying, magnetic. It's so hot in here, I want to run out back to the fields. It was nice there, walking alongside Cricket. I was free there. Here I'm a Victor again, and I don't want that. I do not want to be this. I want to be Patricia. No one gets that. I thought they would, I thought someone would. But they don't.

"Do you trust me?" Comes Cricket's voice, and she extends a hand to me - An offering. Come with me, it says, come with me and I'll make you a star. I'll show you my world, my twisted, demented world where being the center of attention is everything. I go toe to toe with the devil, and her hand is extended to me, a black temptation.

Do I go on that stage, and go along with whatever perilous plan she has set in motion for me? Do I amuse her, and amuse this audience? That's not what I wanted. Don't you see, Trix, this isn't about getting what you want any more? Is it just that I have been given a life, but no longer on my terms? Can I ever be normal, or is this the kind of thing I'm expected to do, now?

"Not one bit." I say, taking her hand.

i can hear you in the overtones
just an echo of the promise we made
change the future, we can travel time
or make us blind so we can never look back

word count: 740, graphics: rook
theme: night sky by chvrches