The World I Used To Know // greenbeads (Poria)

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Katelyn

Persimmon

On her way back to the training center from the tattoo parlor, Katelyn's eyes had been inexorably drawn to a store named Tributes and Tokens. The mannequin in the window was dressed in the same outfit that she and the others had worn in the arena. She was clad in a simple tank and jean combo with her bandanna keeping her hair out of her face, and she dared not wear more. Whenever fabric rubbed up against the tender skin it was like being set on fire. She mulled the store's contents over in her head, wondering what else would be found in a store that glorified the hunger games. Against her better judgement, she decided to check it out.

It was like walking through a mausoleum. A gaudy, colorful mausoleum. Shelves full of toy replicas of dozens of tributes. Under a banner that read "70th arenas under construction", sat a playset that looked horribly like the arena she had survived, complete with snowy hills and an ice castle. A small sticker near the bottom of the display proudly proclaimed that the throne could break apart and be put back together, unlike the real one. Something gripped at Katelyn's heart. It wasn't fear, or anger even, but she felt like she had just walked over her own grave. Everywhere she looked, she saw replicas and copies of things that held meaning to her. People that held meaning for her.

A rack of postcards was labelled "First To Fall" and Velocity stared back at her alongside an empty placard that read "Elya Johnwayne, coming soon!" The clothing display held a dozen gloves that looked like Mason Hammerfell's, next to a bucket of Marchello's coins. Katelyn's heart leaped up into her mouth. This was...sick. Wrong. Then she saw the row of bandannas. Without thinking she raised a hand up to her head and touched the one that belonged to her. It was still there, but the ones on the shelf looked so much like it, it was uncanny. Even more macabre was the assortment of edible snacks.

The sno-cone machine offered a variety of flavors including but not limited to Prism Punch, Levi Lemon-Lime and Wyatt Watermelon; and she hoped to God that the label was lying about being made with clean ice from the actual sixty-ninth arena. Beyond that she could see a ridiculous amount of candies named after tributes she didn't know. Semper Capone gummi hands, Haff & half chocolate/coffee bars, Baylee Spencer Bubblegum...Velocity's sugar cubes, "Feel that rush".

Katelyn was beginning to feel extremely ill. There was the sound of broken glass and she whirled around instinctively, reaching for a throwing axe that wasn't there with fire in her eyes and ice in her veins. There was a woman standing in the doorway of the backroom. A person she hadn't seen before, likely because they had been in the back. Perhaps she had dropped something? "Is this your store?" she asked smoothly, shooting the woman a calculating look.

made by anzie

[sbeeg]

Poria Rain
Tributes and Tokens

The bell attached to the front door rang but Poria barely heard it. She had a mess of a situation in the back room that would requite- Ripred save her- actual work. She had special ordered ten vases sculpted like Katelyn Persimmon's face, only she must have added another zero or the paperwork got messed up because now she had one thousand of them! What was supposed to be a limited edition, once in a lifetime opportunity that could be valued at millions, was now more junk to throw next to the postcards. Supply and demand, doesn't anyone else understand the concept?

She snapped open a box and yanked a vase out of the bubblewrap. Maybe, if she only put out and replaced it every time it was bought people would still desire it. Rather than having a huge display that is. They're not like dolls were people can walk in and say "I'll talk thirty!" Dolls are collectibles, vases are... well how many flowers can people own?

Wait... a lot. Maybe she should make a big display... and order a couple more victors' faces on them too.

The woman walked into the main store front planning to place one of the vases on the counter in a case when she saw a young woman walking between the rows. She had one of the Persimmon headbands on! On her hair! Before even buying it! What if she didn't buy it?! If there was one thing Poria hated most, it was people trying on accessories and then leaving them abandoned on the wrong display. Not that she did that at other stores when she shopped... not at all.

But that's besides the point!. Poria opened her lips, colored nightlocke violet today, to tell the girl to put the merchandise down when she saw her face.

The vase slipped from Rain's well manicured fingertips and crashed to the floor, leaving her with only nine hundred and ninety-nine in the back room. Blue eyes stared back at her, as cold as ice. Her blonde hair was brushed out of her face, and even thought her face was projected through pixels, or covered in blood and dirt, or down up in a stylists' vision- Poria knew.

"You're... You're," she wasn't sure what to do. Breathlessly, she whipped around the counter, her skinny body hobbling on chopstick thin heels. "You're... her!"

She wanted to hug her, to pull her into an embrace. She wanted to sniff her and sell a perfume that smelled just like her. But she was far above Poria. She was a Victor, she was a Goddess.

Not knowing what else to do, Poria fell to her knees and bowed forward, pressing her nose into the carpet. How else would she show the proper respect to a victor?

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Katelyn

Persimmon

To say that the woman in front of her was a sight was the understatement of the century. She was…hauntingly familiar. Certain parts of her makeup, hair, and the strange outfit she was wearing reminding Katelyn of tributes, perhaps one or two from her own games the previous year, and vague recollections she had of tributes from games past. It was hard to tell.

The hair at least, looked almost like a gaudier version of a style and color that belonged to some career that won almost a decade ago. Katelyn had seen her stalking around the training center once or twice. Peridot? No, that was someone else, and Katelyn knew who Opal Shore was. The name had to be a precious stone too though.

At any rate, looking at the woman was like looking at a handful of tributes and victors that had been slapped together to make some kind of brightly colored human mutt; and that was a dreadful thought in of itself.“You’re…her!” Katelyn pinched the bridge of her nose. The place looked like the frickin gift shop from hell, and the proprietor looked like one of the items for sale, albeit one that recognized her. Though that, Katelyn thought belatedly, should have been obvious considering the state of the store and that until the quell was over, she was the most recent victor.

“Yes, yes, I’m Katel-“ And then, the redheaded decided to literally prostrate herself in front of Katelyn, leaving the victor with a very blank look on her face that was seasoned with muted horror. “Er, please do- uh. Stop. Stop that. You can get up. Get up." She thought about hoisting the woman back to her feet but decided against it. If the mere sight of a victor could reduce the owner of the store to a lump on the ground it was extremely probable that touching her might make her suffer a heart attack or something.


Before the woman got to her feet however, Katelyn caught sight of a pair of glittering words on the woman’s neck. It was a name, that she knew she should have known. But she knew the name belonged to one of the older victors. In fact, it was probably one of the ones that had won before she had even been reaping age. Her eyes trailed down to the fresh ink on her arms and the other places on her torso where names were visible.

It was a vain hope to think that the woman wouldn’t notice them, but it was something Katelyn fervently hoped for anyway. “I’ll…take that as a yes to my question. This is your store.” She stated. One the one hand, she wanted to run away from the store as fast as she could, and on the other, she wanted to kick the woman in the shins and yell at her ; and if she had had a third hand, she would have buried her face in it.

For all of the vitriol she could have summoned smoldered but didn’t burst into flames; the woman reminded her of a puppy that was padding up for a treat, oblivious to the fact that the owner was angry about the hole in the flower garden. And Katelyn hated sad puppies. Anger, anger she could reserve for the paparazzi. This one deserved pity. And perhaps quiet, quiet disgust.

There was no reason to bark at someone who wouldn’t understand in the slightest about why someone like herself would be horrified and wroth at seeing things like this. But the truth was that capitolites adored the games, and this one was probably right at the top in terms of feverish love. Katelyn smiled thinly and tried to pull up some of her district eleven upbringing.

A quick glance over at the sno-cone machine again revealed some more flavor labels, such as Alexis Apple and Cinnamon, Daphne Date Surprise and the perhaps, aptly named Katelyn Persimmon, which was apparently flavored like her namesake fruit. It was still better than looking at the token replicas, which still bore an uncanny resemblance to the ones she had actually seen.

Once the woman had gotten to her feet, Katelyn’s eyes swept over her and then the store again. She was kind of at a loss for words when it came to this woman. “Well. You have me at a disadvantage. What's your name?" Given that the woman seemed like a harmless games fanatic, Katelyn decided she could stand to be polite.

At least until she figured out how to extricate herself from the store.

made by anzie

[sbeeg]

Poria Rain
Tributes and Tokens

With her nose to the rug, Poria thought even the floor smelt better with the Victor's presence. She just couldn't believe it- Katelyn Persimmon was in her store with her bandanna no less! A real live Victor! Poria hadn't experienced this since that night with Arbor Halt all too long ago. She really must ring him up and see how he is. She had ordered an entire case of liquor for him as a present but she never got to see him again.

However, Halt was the past. Persimmon is the now, and Poria lived in the now.

She struggled to her feet, her tiny golden heels protesting her weight being put back on them. Struggling to smooth out her blouse, Poria looked up at the Katelyn, admiring seeing her face right in front of her instead of through a screen. Fluttering her long, sequined eyelashes, Poria listened to the girl's voice ask for her name. AH! A victor asking for her name! Arbor didn't even do that!

Planting her feet shoulder width apart, Poria placed her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest. Raising her chin, to make her look regal and show off her Aesop penny necklace, Poria gave the girl a huge grin. Purple lips curled into a smirk and Poria tried to use her clearest voice when she announced:

"Poria Rain, at your service!" she stuck a hand out for the victor to shake (maybe she could keep some skin cells or something) when she remembered al the merchandise she had in the store room. "Oh! I have a shit ton of vases with your face on them, would you like one?!"


She couldn't give all of them away for free, but something inside the woman told her that if your face is on a piece of merchandise it was considered a discount.