& Learn to Fly // [ Katelyn/Saffle/Ren ]

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

» arenaline rush «

I'd known this day was coming since her thirteenth birthday. Since that first puff of smoke, the first kiss of a needle. Even though the monster has never been mine, I still got it. I still craved the same things she did, like some jilted lover, like some unrequited crush. So when I say I'd known, believe me. I knew this day would come better than you, better than my parents, better than even her.

But I didn't know she would die in the snow.

I'm alone on a glossy white platform and I'm wondering if it's made of ice. I just walked across it, no slippage, but I can't be sure. This is the Capitol, after all. This is a mandate from President Snow. It could transform and take me with it, just like the snow buried her.

and Velocity Rush -

I'm not sure who says her name. It's echoing in the speakers, distorted, unrecognizable. But I know her name like my own, and my neck snaps. I step forward, glide across the ice, to the edge of the podium. With every muscle aching, close to breaking, I present the cover of City's first journal. "Thank you. This was hers, and now, it's yours." Those are the only sanctioned words. The Capitol baptized a lie. This journal could never belong to Katelyn Persimmon, nor to me. It was hers, and hers alone.

The Peacekeeper takes it away and I forget a corner of my soul.

» » » » »

The Mayor's home is roomier than I expected. I haven't been before, but everyone expects me to know my way around. I want to tell them: I didn't say goodbye, because we had said our goodbyes so long ago. But I don't know how to tell so I walk steady, lips between my teeth. It's not until I see Saffle in elegant relief that I recognize the circumstance: this is no private funeral, no genuine mourning. This is orchestrated and we are marionettes on a string.

I fold my arms around Saffle's slight form. For myself, for Elverum and Velocity, for the cameras. For something more. I don't know what to say, and I'm tired of having words stuffed in my mouth. For a moment, I just hold her, for myself, myself, Elverum and Velocity, the cameras. I breathe so close, I almost kiss her cheek - maybe I do.

ThePeacekeepers are ushering us forward and the ghost of Saffle's embrace is still in my arms. I reach for Katelyn instinctively. My words are for her, but I know they are not really mine. "There's nothing for us here." I drop my hand to meet Katelyn's. She is so tiny, so plain, so alive. I wrap every finger around hers, reaching for her pulse.

"I'm only loaning you the journal. Right?"

[charade]

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Katelyn

Persimmon

There were several districts that Katelyn had been dreading having to visit, most of which were middle districts. Eight was no exception. And yet it was, for it was the first place that an ally had come from. Had lived in until the fateful day where her name had been called the reaping. Velocity Rush. Twenty-fourth in the arena, but first in her families heart. Katelyn wondered if the same held true for the other twenty-two families. The mayor of eight had been gracious enough to open his home to the people that wanted an audience with her for the short time she had to talk. Once it was over, Fintermaelon would be preparing her for district seven.

Which meant that Katelyn wanted to stay a bit longer in eight if she could. The speech had concluded almost an hour ago, and after a small meal Katelyn prepared herself for the unknowable inevitability of emotion. Saffle, as the peacekeeper had introduced her had yet to say anything, but Adrenaline dominated the conversation, by virtue of her presence and because she was the first one to break the silence by pulling Katelyn into a hug and whispering that there was nothing for them. Katelyn figured Ren meant that there was no sense in drawing things out any longer than they had to. It was mainly for the cameras to lap up anyhow.

Katelyn felt a hand on her pulse and wondered what Ren wanted. She got her answer a moment later, though the book in question was already on the table behind them.  She had read through it of course, though many of the words were lost on her. It wasn't the City she had known. If she had known anything about her at all.  She broke the embrace and stared at the woman. "The journal's yours,"she stated."You need her more."she said as her mind turned to thoughts of a snow angel with a bloody halo begging her to make things quiet.

"Keep it."

made by anzie

[Deleted]

S Ä F F L E

(Idiot- idiot, fucking idiot, god how could somebody be that dumb?)

How could I be such an idiot? 

I couldn't sleep last night, my eyes tattoo'd with a burning abyss that is my roof in the dark. Fingers pressed into my corneas and- idiot the word plagued me, eating my sleep and cutting lines beneath my eyes. (It's okay, I don't need it.) This kingdom didn't fall because of them - Owen, Marshall, Axton, Elverum, my boys - it fell because of me, and I should've known it all along. I should've known in the smoke in Axton's dead eyes and the rot eating Elverum alive every minute I watched over him, "but you had to be strong, for them" they weren't strong enough. I tried to convince myself that, I tried to convince myself that Elverum died from that monkey and not from me suffocating his illness of life.

From the moment it was just him and I, I knew his blindness, his personal oblivion, yet I let him live through it alone. I was the Queen then, I was just the advisory, "but who's left to rule over?" It's only me now, in that dark it was only me and the whistle of the night from the hole in the wall and the moth eaten holes rubbing my palms. My kingdom has fallen, torched and pillaged, yet the Queen lived and may she rule alone.

Alone, it's where I was meant to be. 

---

Rush's arms wrap around me and my reaction delayed to the point of when my wrists lock around her back, she cuts the embrace and slides across my cheek. I've never liked hugging, but I've also never been overly affectionate to the point of clutching somebody I couldn't even remember the first name of. Bonding over dead siblings wasn't much of a great first impression either, but Rush is the closest I have to any recollection and I'm not sure if I want it or not. I wish Elverum meant as much to me as Axton did, that I could just bury him, smoke one and go to sleep the next day but these bags follow me and so does my brother's voice and I can't shake it- I shouldn't have let him go, I let go of his hand at one point, I let him go on that stage and I left him in that justice building and I left him in the snow and in that casket isn't a boy I stole from a hospital but a boy who's life I stole and-

"There's nothing for us here." 

The words aren't for me, and Rush picks up the crown bearer's hand and I waste in the background, alone hair unbrushed and I told myself I wouldn't smoke this time. Elverum hated the smoke and loved a Rush, so maybe I should give it a try, my hands caught in the thicket of my hair trying to kill the fire. Kill the smoke. I shouldn't have come, I didn't even think twice of showing for Elverum in the justice building so why did I come? I don't owe the crown anything, she's the new queen. I chortle looking at her - blonde, blue eyes like Elverum and I.

She can't do a shittier job than me at least.

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

» arenaline rush «

For a moment her eyes slip away, the way City's used to do. I fold my empty hand against my ribs, crossed the other arm over, until I am hugging myself. If Katelyn is not here, she is probably there, and that isn't somewhere I want to be. In between my place and hers, the notebook drops. The spine lands with a thud, the pages shuddering as they unfurl.

There is only one thing,

I stare down at the trap that is her handwriting. I know, just from the depth of the ink and precision of the letters, that this entry is early in the spiral. There's still a little piece of Velocity left. Or there was, an age ago. I pull myself back from the boundary I've crossed too many times as I nudge the journal with my toe. "It's not mine to keep either. It's on permanent loan." Which is better than being confiscated and quarantined, the way some of her journals are being displayed in the Capitol.

one thing pushing me

I draw in a deep, shuddering breath. It's not that it's too much; it's the opposite; it's not enough. Nothing was ever enough for City, and nothing she did was ever enough for me. Not even her death. I wonder if Elverum's sister feels the same, or worse, if the victor does, but I won't ask. Instead, I turn to study Saffle. She laughs without mirth, holds her tongue without peace. There is beauty in the tension that vibrates from within her. "We don't have to stay," I offer. "But there's nowhere else to go."

higher