Show me your ~sins~ [Aquinas & Malforce]

[kousei ♚]

AQUINAS KEENI

Sometimes prayers feel wasted.

My knees are red from scraping against the floor, my hands are like magnets together and I've been muttering for what feels like an age that will never end. No, not muttering because what I say has meaning. I've been begging, pleading for some way for him to come back no matter the odds.

He's my cousin. He's a disgusting, sinful boy. He's disobeyed him countless times and I shouldn't be praying for him, I should let him be judged justly by the elements of the arena.

Lust; we all saw what he did the night before. He fell to the seven deadly sin known as lust and he threw away his tiny little bit of purity in the dead of the night. He's not married to Henrietta Cheyne and he never will be. He's an unmarried kid, too young to tie the knot anyway. So what he did was nothing but fornication. Disgusting, sinful, I spewed my guts all over the ground when I saw it on the television screen.

Pride; we all saw it, the vain creature he was. He worshipped himself, saw himself as some kind of king, or worse yet a God. Disgusting, evil pride that shall could never be backed up. There is only one God you fool. There is only one king and that is the king sitting in the clouds above even me. He never realised that, no matter what I told him, no matter how many times I tried to drill it into that thick skull of his that he is not special, we are all equal in the eyes of the lord. "Fuck off kid, you got a lot to learn if you think some crazy man is watching you from the sky." He told me. If I remember rightly I threw my bible as him and he marked my eye. But I still pray for you brother.

Envy; does he want to win to live? Does he want to win to see his family again? No, he's selfish and wants the riches he sees all of those false kings and queens known as victors have. He wants a shiny gold crown resting on his jet black curls and a fancy throne and all the wine in the world just because he's seen other people with it on the television. I've seen the way he looks at likes of Soap, Crickett, I've seen them all, the way he licks his lips with hunger and lust for their riches. That's what drives him to win.

Wroth; we're all guilty of this because we're all angry. Four people I prayed and prayed for and four people that were snatched from the earth. That's four-

I open my eyes from my prayer and exhale...

Five Keenis snatched from the earth.

He's a disgusting human being: he's prideful, he's envious, he's wroth, he's prideful he's a sinner but when the spear glides through the air (so effortlessly) and enters his eye my heart sinks and my jaw drops.

Tick-tock.

The timer on his life's clock slowly runs quicker than the blood that gushes from his eye socket like a crimson fountain.

The timer runs out and his canon sounds the flood restarts. My trembling hands reach for the remote and hastily turn off the television so I'm staring at a black screen and the sound of a dead Keeni no longer fills my ears. My mouth opens and closes, my lip trembling so hard I have to bite it. ("You know you want to ask." Curiosity is my downfall, it's always been my downfall because it leads to questioning but the story of Job tells me it's not my place to question.

The silence is deafening so a poorly silenced scream begins to tear through my vocal chords. I won't ask. I prayed, I begged, I pleaded but it ended up being the same.

"Fuck," I exhale, staring at the ground over my shaking sweaty palms.

"No, no, no." I say through my weak voice.

I failed, I failed, I failed.

("No, he failed.")

No, don't say that - he didn't fail, I failed, I failed my family.

I think I gotta repent?

But, I've done nothing wrong... have I?

I shakily stand up, barely a thought for my own safety I'm stumbling up the stairs, desperate for some kind air, desperate for reprisal from the blood flood, the blood of a sinner, the blood of my blood; my family. His blood is my blood, the blood of a sinner stains that swamp floor because I wasn't good enough again - they were not worthy enough to be answered.

I'm asking too many questions.

I'm breathing heavily when I find myself in darkness.

My legs burn, muscles begging me for a rest, my lungs demanding that I stop. The all-too-familiar stuffy feeling hangs in the air; I felt it when Kitty died, I felt it when Willis took an axe to the face.

Where am I? I don't care any more because.

"Insanis is dead." I announce, the words dripping from my tongue like heavy venom; my mind sinking lower and lower.

Another wasted prayer on a dead sinner, another to flood to wreck my faith but I definitely won't ask - why?

[Python]

MALFORCE KEENI

She blew dust off of her bookshelf. There was an old diary propped against the wood, worn after years of neglect. The paper edges were still rippled from the morning she spilled lukewarm coffee in her lap. She remembered all of the curses she spat into the pages and the stains of her skirt, channeling unnecessary anger into entries where it was not appropriate. Inside, secrets about her past were buried between half-ruined pages. They felt thick like old parchment because the Keeni budget had always been weak. She curled into a lump on her mattress and opened the diary. It was time to reminisce.

Hidden between pages and pages about causing mayhem and complaining about her cousins, there was Keeni history. There was the legend of the twin dragons – Pyrian and Gypsy Keeni – who died in the Games surrounded by fire, one’s fangs sunken deep within the other’s back. Victors had a knack for killing her family members. Colgate did the same, ending the tale of Willis with an axe to the face. The exception was Kitty, who lost his head to his weird imagination long before he lost it in that arena. Malforce had missed that broadcast, but the Capitol repeated it enough times to seal it in her head like a brand. This Reaping was simply another layer of icing on the cake. More death to increase the fear that all of them would go extinct, including herself.

She pretended not to care.

Of the living, she would’ve chosen Insanis to be the reaped next regardless. His name suited his nature too well. Angry outbursts painted him red. She wanted no part of such unstable behavior, and instead of weeping at the inevitable loss she simply waited in her room. Obsessing in front of an old television was not how she wanted to spend her leisure time. Sooner or later he would die, and she would hear about it somehow. The Capitol would replay the death of another Keeni over and over again, emphasizing their curse and their reputation as both crazy people and failures. She never knew whether to be proud or ashamed of her family. They were an anomaly with a reputation that exceeded their capabilities.

After all, Keenis didn’t win.

Insanis would be no exception. One of these days he would make the history books and mark another grave, once again leaving the rest of them in the dark with a fearful wonder of who would be next. Malforce counted on aging up before she could be subjected to the death curse. She would not become another name and number to the rest of the country. She was more than just a Keeni.

Somewhere he was fighting for his life in a swamp, and she would not watch a second of it. She would keep herself locked in her bedroom and avoid television altogether, because she would rather bury her face in books than admit her terror. Her eyes focused on immature words scrawled across pages. The book itself wasn’t full, and she contemplated adding updates about the newest Keeni celebrity. She could take another glance at this three years from now and three more Keenis could be dead. They dropped like flies, didn’t they? Or so the Capitol would reiterate.

She slammed her book shut when she heard footsteps. Nobody was going to touch her prized possession if they came wandering into her room. Technically, the attic had a lot of junk that belonged to other family members, but it was also her domain. Her bed was here, her clothes were here, and nobody should come barging in. She probably could’ve taken Kitty’s old room, but what was the fun in that? She had already painted these walls black and made it her home. She didn’t want hand-me-downs.

As expected, someone rudely walked into her room without permission. Scowling, she directed the lamp light to their face. ”Learn to knock,” she snapped, diary now hidden beneath her pillow. She squinted in the dim lighting and recognized the face, wishing instantly that she could disappear. It was that faithful boy Aquinas, the one obsessed with dead religion. He carried a book around like it was an inhaler and he couldn’t breathe without it. Sometimes she wanted to burn it in a pit fire. The twins would’ve loved that.

It took her a moment to process his words. Insanis is dead. Well, duh. Every Keeni died in the Games. Then she realized he was not stating the obvious; he was referring to this moment, right now. Insanis was always dead but now he was actually dead, cannon blasting and everything. A casket would arrive at their doorstep within the next week. Another funeral would be held.

”Of course he is. Keenis don’t win,” she said bitterly. Of all the families, why had she been born into one with such an awful curse? She wondered how it happened this time. Stabbed in the back? Killed by a victor? Decapitated by a mutt? Or would this be a new one to add to the list? One could write a book about “creative ways to kill a Keeni.” She could write it herself.

She decided to find out for her own sake. She would sooner or later.

”How did it happen?”

[kousei ♚]

AQUINAS KEENI

He was so obsessed with judgement even though it wasn't his to pass. From the grave I can feel his judgemental gaze baring down on my back and I feel the pressure of his sneers and fists crush my spine.

"You shouldn't be standing here." He tells me and it's so true. Me being alive feels so wrong, so impure and unfair. Where's the fairness? It's not fair than I'm standing here while he's there dead. Chains of my last name latched around my ankles while his chains broke along with the spear that pierced his eye socket. It's not fair that he swung and fought and all I did was sit at home and pray. I prayed, oh how I truly prayed and prayed and I could've sworn it was working. I swear my constant praying had some kind of effect, it felt different.

Day 2 when he fell into a hole I immediately fell on my knees and began speaking to The Lord. He never spoke back but his actions speak louder than his words, I never questioned that he never spoke back because his actions were keeping Insanis alive. By his grace there were no vipers or nasty surprises waiting in that hole. I thank him to this day that the worst he did was catch his skin on the spikes of that weapon.

Day 3 when an impure Capitol construct shed his blood I immediately took the Holy Book out and began praying that he didn't get hurt any more. By the Lord's grace it was his ally's arm that was removed instead of his. I thank him to this day.

So what happened?

"You got too lax, your prayer was not worthy."

When I began praying I had so much optimism, I still do, but those words are a kick to my ribs.

I cannot protest, just stand and wallow in silence. I look up from the ground and find a light blaring down from me. As if my lord's angels have come to pass judgement on the living Keeni's after dealing with the dead. I recoil, squinting at the bright light that's such a stand-out contrast from the rest of this dark room. ”Of course he is. Keenis don’t win,” her words are heavier than Insanis' fists and I feel them in the depths of my gut like a boot against my ribcage. I wince, the print permanent but not quite everlasting.

It's not a voice from one of his angels. It's a person.

I recognise and put a face to the words. Malforce Keeni, a girl who I'm pretty sure was conjured up in the darkness because she sticks to this attic like it's her second home. Fair enough, I spend most of my time in my room but I know what I am doing and he knows what I am doing because I speak to him. I speak to him and his messengers who would test me. She talks so nonchalantly, as if she already knew but she has no television here, she was expecting this.

Malforce Keeni, for all I know she could be a sinner as big as Insanis but I can't help but be fascinated in her. Conjured up in the darkness she doesn't seem to care, there's no passion there. She didn't know him like I did.

As much as I hate to admit it, we're bonded by a lot more than living in the same house. We both are bound by the chains of our last names, every step we take, every time we turn on the television we hear the rattling of the chains of Keeni at our feet. Cursed, unlucky and broken, the shards of who we are seem to mix with the blood of Keeni's stained in their respective arenas.

Keeni's don't win. Those words seem so true now as much as I hate to admit it.

I step forward and the rattling of the chains of my last name around my ankles is loud and clear. Pause. I feel exposed here. She shines the light towards me, as if examining the sins hidden under my clothes but scarred across my body. I feel like squirming, standing here face to face it feels as if she's going to pass judgement on me. After all, it's not fair that I'm here still weighed down while Insanis gets lighter with each passing second. My gaze drops from the light and down to the floor where she cannot see my sins.

”How did it happen?” Malforce asks and I chuckle. Quickly, my chuckle turns into a full-blown laugh because it's slap-your-thigh and spit-on-your-neck fantastic. I look up and face her judgemental light because I deserve it.

"District Four's spear pierced his eye." I reply. My words are interwoven with my bitter laughs at the disgusting irony of the situation that a blind man stabbed Insanis Keeni in the eye.

Insanis would have laughed.

I take another step and the rattling restarts. "It's not fair that we're here and they're not," I sigh, at this point I don't even know if I'm talking to her or at her, "that's what the messengers told me just now."

The all so familiar pain of Insanis' fist blackening my eye resurfaces and I hear judgement from the heavens, so I sink my shoulders in acceptance. Their words are clear, their words are scripture.

Repentance is coming.