[ catalysts ] - [ aza mattio kay ]

[✨ zozo.]

SAFFRON LOWE

I haven't said a word to Mace in days. I'm terrified that if I open my mouth fire will erupt from my throat and douse him in scorching rage - and then the other half of me doesn't care. The daughter of the sun cannot love someone so cold. I will destroy him until he is nothing but invisible evaporation but lately he has been so transparent in my life it's as if he were a stranger, consumed in his own grief that is slowly turning his body to glass. The only difference between myself and Mace is that I offered a hand to hold, to share our pain between us, and all I got was silence.

When their names are read I grit my teeth and do not take his hand, terrified of scalding his skin with my anguish. My own tremble by my side. Unable to breathe I swear that if my sister is summoned to the stage I will scream so loud the whole world will explode with me until there is no-one left but her and I. Ladies first! echoes through my mind and I hold my breath-

- and breathe out 6 years of terror housed in my lungs.

Simmering in relief, tears brim in the crevices of my skull and I exhale. She is safe. Forever, and ever, and ever. They cannot steal anyone from me any longer. I do not hear the boy's name and for a selfish moment I don't care, because Paige will never have to stand in those crowds again. When the reaping concludes and the crowds disperse, I do not turn to Mace even though my heartstrings are still bound to his frozen chest. The Justice Building swallows our latest sacrifice behind me and I run down the steps, pushing myself through the crowds in a desperate attempt to reach my secret keeper.

"Miss Lowe, you need to come with us-"

"Fuck off" I spit back before launching myself toward the last spark of light left in my life.

As we collide I whisper my love into her ears, explosions in my pulse hammering into her body. I don't care if she chooses not to hear me or if she tries to pull away. She is safe, and that is all I could ever ask for from this damned world we live in.

And then, after a while too long, I leave her to find her way back to our freezing household, facing the inevitable of meeting two faces for a short while before sending them away to die.

Twenty years have passed and I still hold no words of expertise to wash over their heads, nor promises, nor hope. Words have never been my strong point and lately I have found myself swallowing the absence of my father and what became of him and spitting out bitterness to those I despise. But these kids don't deserve hate - they deserve honesty and support and a shred of hope, if I can manage to muster up the courage to put my faith in our trembling hands and try and bring one of them home.

Window by my side, whiplashes of memory violent and furious in my head, I turn to face destruction in the form of two tributes and refuse to meet Mace's eyes.

"I'm Saffron," I introduce with a sad smile and a lie. "Don't worry. You're in good hands."

AND WE'RE BURNING ALL THE BRIDGES NOW
WATCHING IT GO UP IN FLAMES
NO WAY TO BUILD THEM UP AGAIN

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

LETICIA TIBIDEAUX

Petals plucked from daisies are bound together before being thrown down my throat. I'm choking—I can't breathe, yet as my neck tightens with the thoughts of pain to come, it loosens in this countable moment which will join the others on my fingers.

Burning sensations of fire surge around my body, intensifying with each step and jolt. It's all coming to me now, pain and fear: amplified for the whole world to hear. Tremors of my mind ebbing are played and replayed to hearts untouched by bare emotion.

They'll watch us.

24 of us forced into the same hell; each to fight different devils.

Footsteps away from home: where the story began. Born and raised with the dew at my toes, settled into a stable home with another's palm in my own. Our minds filled with dreams made of lace and lucid nightmares crafted from acid.

Home: not just a place, a feeling. And I'd give everything I own to stay there and become a cow farmer, because anything is better than this cataclysmic turn of events. I could have a husband, raise a family of my own and have a cow called Daisy who would be the milk to our cereal.

But here I stand, on a fault line, taking the impact of one earthquake and the next. This train is my only way out, but with the journey away from one woe sees the birth of another. Land dribbling past my eyes signifies the incoming of a place I've only been to in my imagination.

I fall into a seat and stare aimlessly at my reflection in the window. I look into my eyes and see smoke pressing into the corners of my mind, dragging me into sweet oblivion. Wires for hair scratch against my skin, skin bursting into life with the hurt from my unopened wounds.

Stitched up thoughts picked open by the entry of a survivor's face. Saffron Lowe: a reminder that there is a chance for girls from ten. Bells of hope ring in my mind but I signal them to stop, because there's no way my corpse can win a game of survival.

Mace Emberstatt: a spark in the darkness. Set alight and still burning, yet I don't dare to flicker my own dying candle towards his firework. The ground he stands on is made stronger by his presence, yet the fibres beneath my feet tremble with each breath I take.

"I'm Saffron,"  she smiles.

"Don't worry. You're in good hands."

My head remains lowered like I am an attendee of my own funeral. I pick away at my nails to cope with the nerves, and in the immediate silence that follows Saffron's voice: my words aren't strong enough to break it.

Instead, I pick my head up and give half a smile. But the movement of muscles in my face causes a flood in my eyes and the defence rebuilt come crashing down, the ash turning my tear drops grey.

Bullets of rain from deepened eyes ooze in a soft, but brutal way.

But I can't tell what would be worse: drowning in the oceans inside or dying of a thirst to feel something.

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

a note from the desk of

Mace Emberstatt

of District Ten

when you never thought that it could ever get this tough,
that's when you feel my kind of love

The names announced over a microphone fell on deaf ears, so absorbed was Mace in his obsession. Perhaps an ending like Lowe or Statt would have drawn some reaction - some recognition - from the victor. But the reaping gods were kind and his heart was hardened. He sat silently, passively, through the whole ordeal, his hands as empty as his heart.

Their processional is all formality. They might as well be strangers. The icicle aimed at his heart pushes a little deeper. Maybe they are.

Maybe they always have been.

Mace turns aside from the food, his stomach full of other things. Julian, Julian, Julian, his heart beats skip and stutter his ex-husband's name. He cannot seem to get control of his breathing or his heart rate, not knowing that the end of the train tracks lies a man who is also now a stranger. He is so desperate to see him, to have that first meeting done and gone, to scoop Juliet into his arms. He is so desperate to feel something other than distance and confusion.

When he makes the mistake of turning his grey eyes over Saffron, he knows both feelings acutely. He doesn't know if she's joking. He doesn't know if he should laugh or cry or rage or eat or just stay propped against the threshold, arms folded over his lean chest. For awhile, that's all he can do - decision made. Then his eyes are drawn away from Saffron-whom-he-does-not-know to another girl stranger.

She's crying, the color of her tear a perfect match for his eyes. He lets out a long breath, not quite a sigh, not quite a defeat. He walks directly in front of Saffron, the ghosts of their hands clasping in the shadows. The ice in his heart goes very still as he sinks slowly into the seat beside Leticia Tibideaux. From his pocket, he produces an embroidered handkerchief and offers it to her. "Saffron's right. We've got you, and for the next day until we reach the Capitol, it's just the four of us. We ain't got nothin' to worry about 'cept each other."

He tries to smile. He tries very hard. But it comes out as a grimace because the truth is: he is nervous about seeing Julian, but he is fucking worried - the sort of worry that chases sleep and sanity away - about Saffron.

[mat]

[googlefont="Kranky:400"]

rodrick benstaloe

Mama, Daddy, Rory, Rodney, and all the other residents of Ten are all pieces of sawdust in the distance as I am escorted away with the girl to start the journey to the Capitol. There is no final farewell. There was only two people sobbing and another staring me down like an eagle watching its prey. The last warned me that I’m not dreaming, and that I will actually die if I’m not careful. Dreams are full of falsities, and they want me to keep dreaming and never stop. For all I know, this Leticia girl could be a figment of my dreams.

I want to wake up. I want to skip the screaming of bloody murder. I wish that I could wake up before this dream turns into a real nightmare.

All of these people standing by me are enemies, and they are all waiting for me to break. They could kill me and I’d never wake up from this horrible dream gone wrong. Rip me away from the real world. Make sure I feel never become familiar with who my family is outside of my dream. They’re probably sad that they do not have the luxury to see me all the time or hear my voice every day, but they should be happen that I can see them all the time. I can listen to their soothing voices every day, but now I won’t be able to. I can’t wake up next to Rodney’s nice smile or push him off the bed because I need more space. I won’t be able to tell them that I am feeling okay.

I stumble my way up onto the train after the girl. She’s going to have to die if I want to live, and keep dreaming my dream in a paradise far better than I was before. I was practically the king of the castle, the center of attention, and now I’m just one of twenty-four fighting for the 71st Title of Sole Survivor. She seems like a nice girl, and she probably wants to move on with her life just as I do. But it’s my dream, so if I don’t win, it’ll end and nobody wins.

I stay distanced from the two victors and the girl, hoping that this ride to the Capitol isn’t just awkward silence. The female victor speaks up first, and I listen with the intention to not piss her or the other one off. She assures the girl and me that we’re in good hands, and I hope that it isn’t just another falsity. I’d rather hear the brutal and honest truth. I don’t question it. The man, who looks a bit older than the woman, reinforces her statement. The girl is in tears, and honestly I should be, too, but I figure it’d make me look weak. I can’t blame her, though.

”Well, uh, thank ya Miss Saffron. And you too, Mister Emberstatt. Y’all already seem nice n’ we’ve only been talkin’ for seconds,” I try and speak as politely as possible, but eventually these people both here and the other tributes are going to cause the eruption of the volcano inside of me, I just hope it’s not hot enough to cause permanent burns.

[✨ zozo.]

SAFFRON LOWE

Don't worry, I told them, but she bursts into tears the second I speak and it seems I was right to keep my mouth shut for all those years, because my words bite and sting and lie and cannot heal anyone. You're in good hands, I told them, but his shake and mine tremour so violently I feel blood drawing from the insides of my palms, more fractures to join the scars scattered across my skin. We are two halves of a fault line clashing and destroying and trying so desperately to fit together that the world around us is breaking, two tributes in our path and the victims of destruction.

We are standing in the middle of a crime scene pointing fingers at the Capitol and screaming murder of two children before they have the chance to fight for their life. Our cries will be drowned out by the roar of their empire and the screams of our offerings as they are slaughtered one by one, and I would hope that my words could bring one of them back home but the universe has granted me my last miracle and God knows I cannot string a sentence together to save myself, let alone these poor damned souls.

I watch Mace reach out to a stranger to console her pain and jealousy electrocutes my body. Shocks vibrate through my limbs and static dances on my tongue, ready to spit white noise out of my mouth the second my throat encloses from itself. He met her minutes ago and already her needs are above mine. Her pain is more important. It's stupid. It's selfish. But it still hurts like hell. Floods pour from her eyes and in them I see a ghost of a girl called Saffron Lowe.

Privacy lies on the other side of the carriage door and I want nothing more than to heave myself through it and shut this reality behind me, to be left with my thoughts and my gasps for air. I can comprehend my own pain like a subconscious tick and learnt to absorb the pain of the ones I love until it hurts a little less. But over the years I taught myself the art of tuning out the pain of strangers until they are nothing more than a name and Mace branded me inhuman for it. He forgave me, in the end, because underneath that ice there is goodness, kindness, patience. A fierce, fierce love - and I should not feel so sick at him choosing to share it with someone in more need.

I blink, swallow, and turn away from the crying girl. Because I am not what has happened to me. I am not the small child they want me to be, stuffed into bright colours and dolled up with frills and fastened with a fringe I outgrew years ago. I am not my failures, nor am I my ghosts. I am whom I choose to become - the sun, if I have to be, burning for those I wish to keep alive.

I will try, one last time, to keep their hearts beating.

It takes all of my oxygen to spark up conversation but words are a distraction I need to filter out the static filling my ears. "I guess we're the nicer lot of the bunch." You're lucky hovers on my tongue but I swallow it down because today they are far from lucky and I am not a liar. 

WHAT A SHAME WE ALL BECAME
SUCH FRAGILE, BROKEN THINGS
A MEMORY REMAINS, JUST A TINY SPARK

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

LETICIA TIBIDEAUX

A body lowered beside me. Fabric to fabric, I feel his clothing brush against mine but it brings me no life. I look to his hands rustling about: skin plated with iron. I can see it underneath, hidden under the unimportance as a guard for a soul. Through the skin and past the tissue: armour for rivers of blood.

From his fingers appears a handkerchief.

"Saffron's right. We've got you, and for the next day until we reach the Capitol, it's just the four of us. We ain't got nothin' to worry about 'cept each other."

I sniffle into it, drying the stale tears cried by my pallid eyes. I stain my vocal chords in the hope a note, a sound comes out—but still, I hoped the constant screams from the kingdom inside would be loud enough for someone to hear.

I just wish I wasn't so weak. All I can feel are the claws of fear cutting through my body and wrapping around my brain. They are choking the breath from my lungs and are leaving my body dry, desperately trying to save me from this.

And though it is a matter that holds no size or shape or name, it weaves into the hearts of all. An invisible matter trapped in a cage, drowned in blood with splintered adrenaline. It's inside me: I can feel it, and I can see the key hanging up on the wall—but despite the torture of it's wails and screams: I keep the metal on my tongue and refuse to swallow.

I wonder if it's the same for the other tributes.

Emptied suns move as Rodrick catches my attention. Bones sewn together to create intimidation, the face of a man who has risen from dusty land to reach the skies. Built like a warrior, yet still a bearer of the scars the reaping creates. Snatched from his home to leave a hole in stringed hearts, a hole made larger and larger as each day comes to pass.

A hole in a heart that will never be filled again.

"Well, uh, thank ya Miss Saffron. And you too, Mister Emberstatt. Y’all already seem nice n’ we’ve only been talkin’ for seconds."

His voice breaks the panes of silence like it's a natural ability. His voice doesn't crack or break or becomes weakened with the tension—it flows, like tears from eyes and bloods from wounds. And it makes me jealous that he's coping. Coping with obsidian misfortunes and iron horrors like it's easy.

Jealousy: counting someone else's blessings instead of your own. Jealousy can be the downfall of all empires and kingdoms. Set alight by that glimmer of hope I once had and left to burn into infinity. And it's that one spark which I'm going to have to use to burn my own bridges if I've got any chance in these games.

"I guess we're the nicer lot of the bunch."

The obligation for words to emerge from my mouth is painful. But they're just so powerful, more so than any other weapon my body possesses and I don't want to run the risk of making a mistake and looking foolish in front of the victors, the survivors, the winners —but I know I'd look just the same if I let silence consume me like wood on a fire.

Because it's with words I can draw people in, lull them until the bars around their hearts break as if made of thin strands of hair rather than reinforced steel. With these words I can draw a future crafted from gold and silver, and not be forced to settle with the treacherous paths of reality.

With these words, I can unlock anything. Because these words are my key.

"I've left my armour back in Ten. You've got to help me grow my own."

The roses of hope died, and in my palm lie the daughter seeds to be sown. I just need someone to provide the soil.

My eyes dry scarlet.

And for a moment, I take a steady breath and just breathe.

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

a note from the desk of

Mace Emberstatt

of District Ten

when you never thought that it could ever get this tough,
that's when you feel my kind of love

Rodrick's thick Ten accent is a balm to Mace. He knows that soon it will be gone, gobbled up by the Capitolite excess, smoothed over in favor of sing-song notes and vapid remarks. But for now, in this train car, it's the only voice that sounds real. Leticia still hasn't spoken. Both he and Saffron are speaking lies. Though nothing they say is untrue, they speak civilly, distantly. That is the lie, the lie of being a stranger to one another.

But he doesn't know how to tell her the truth of what she means to him.

"I guess we're the nicer lot of the bunch."

His smile comes and goes, just like the autumn one of them will not live to see. He shakes his head because that might be the first untruth he's actually heard today. Nice. What is nice? Ma hammered etiquette into his head but it was wrong to equate formality with kindness. Nice. He'd never been nice, and neither had she, until the winter divided them and now all they had was nice.

He gives up his handkerchief, ceding to Leticia who is already beyond his very limited reach. He sits a moment longer, letting her words and Saffron's mingle in the car. When he stands, he forces his shoulders back, lifts his chin, and lays the blanket of his grey gaze on the three of his companions. "We ain't just gonna sit here and grieve. Fuck that," he claims her words and they taste of icy tears. There's nothing left but grief, no one to declare the rejoinder and trudge alongside him in the snow. There's only these nice strangers in this nice train car going to the nice Capitol.

He's running the backs of his knuckles long his sternum, trying to ease the press of a glacier growing there. "We gotta do more. We gotta get angry. Are you angry?" His grey gaze narrows. For the first time in months, he lets his gaze go where it wishes, right to her. He waits. Are you angry, Saffron Lowe?

He knows the answer. He needs the answer.