twice is a {pattern} / lumiere jb blitz [annika/asha/lilith]

[lance]

Annika Lumiere

Getting into the Justice Building had been easy enough. 

A quick, friendly smile, a sweet, simple enunciation of her name - "Annika Lumiere, cousin." - and she was inside, pondering whether or not this mysterious boy was actually related to her, or if this was some wild, crazy coincidence. 

It certainly wouldn't be the first time - she vaguely remembered crossing paths once with a girl that carried the Fray name but lacked their blood - but something, some strange gut feeling, said otherwise. 

She had learned a long time ago to trust her gut. 

Though she maintained her facade of cheeriness with minimal effort, inside, her heart was pounding against her chest, fueled with a steady stream of nerves and worry. 

Would the boy be any wiser as to their relationship than she was? 

And if  they did share the bonds of blood that their names suggested, what did that mean for the family? 

Had one of her aunts or uncles sired a kid or two without the knowledge of the rest of the family? Was there some relative lost in the family tree from her grandmother's generation?

It was all too much to ponder at once. 

Eventually, she and her Peacekeeper escort reach a door. She takes a deep breath as one of the white-clad keepers opens it for her. 

"You have five minutes." he said in a gruff voice. 

Nodding her acknowledgement, she steps inside. 

The door slams behind her, but she hardly notices as she finally gets her first real look at the boy who shares her name. 

The first thing she noticed was the dark blond undertone to his hair - unseen on the platform - so much like that of Athena or Adonis. Blond hair, the key trait of the Lumiere family, of her family. 

The boy lifts his head up to gaze at her, and she matches his stare with one of her own, and - oh my god, he has my eyes. 

Blue eyes, a trait less common among her family, but still seen on many of its members nonetheless.

Members including herself.

They're locked like that, eyes unblinking, bodies unmoving, for perhaps thirty seconds, before she finally remembers exactly why it was she came in the first place. 

 "Hello, Asha." Her voice breaks the silence, soft and gentle, almost like a child in awe. 

She waits for another one, two, three seconds, before continuing. "I don't know you, and I don't believe you know me, either." 

Her eye contact breaks for just a second, dropping to his bandaged hand, before refocusing on his eyes. "My name is Annika. Annika Lumiere."

And just like that, the bomb was dropped. 

[kousei ♚]

a s h a

Her unquenchable rage reminds me leaves it's own special kind of mark; bruises on the flesh and lacerations on the mind. She's a howling whirlwind in her own right, tearing down anything in her path only to leave behind her own special brand of destruction. No dignity, no decency and no fucks given. I should hate her for the number of times she invalidated each episode to null so I would feel nothing. The sneers and scoffs at every violation of flesh and the eye rolls at every bloodstain I smeared across our family name in my rages; I swear half of them were from her.

My bandaged hand is pressed against my rib cage and I revel in the repeat thud, thud, thud that follows in every passing second. In the silence I am golden, left in the presence of me and my soft beating heart - it's not long before the whirlwind fades into background noise and then further into tiny obscurity. Still, the throb at the back of my head prevents her from being nothing - a whirlwind always leaves its mark after all.

Each passing second ticks with another heartbeat and the dull throb of ('Where is the method to your madness?') Before the door creaks open and my head rises to meet the intruder. Half of me expects my parents and the other half expects my sister to be at the doorway to leave more destruction in her wake.

I'm quickly thrown off by the fact this is a stranger to me, practically a phantom. "I don't know you, and I don't believe you know me either."

I simply shake my head, she knows me well enough to visit me before I touch a tombstone but not well enough to even shake my hand.

"My name is Annika. Annika Lumiere."

And just like that my heartbeat resumes.

"I- I don't have a cousin called Annika," my reply is instinctive, practically rushed from the tongue. "I only have a sister called Lilith." I finish. How I remember it, I don't recall having any cousins. But then again, I was never allowed to see the important people; madness is bad for first impressions after all.

"Unless you know my parents or sister, but chances are they never would've mentioned me," I stop, holding my gaze in her eyes that are practically a mirror to mine, "why did you come?"

My hand twitches but it doesn't rest against my rib cage, I can feel the rapid heartbeat with every passing second.

[lance]

Annika Lumiere

"I- I don't have a cousin called Annika," The boy's response is quick, almost rushed, as if he isn't quite sure how to put the words together properly. "I only have a sister called Lilith."

The name once again causes her mind to flash back to the fencing arena, to the rude, almost sadistic form of the laughing dark-haired girl that had claimed to share her familial ties.

"Unless you know my parents or sister, but chances are they never would've mentioned me," The boy speaks again, returning his own gaze to hers. "Why did you come?"

Again, she is silent for a moment, pondering the weight of his words. They never would have mentioned me.

Was he a secret bastard child? Was he deliberately hidden from the world in the hopes that a meeting like this would never occur?

But then she thinks to the girl, Lilith. Her sadistic nature. Her blatant denouncing of Annika as being of the bastard line, not herself. 

The whole thing was just getting more complicated with each passing moment. 

The boy's arm twitches. and at last her voice finds her again. "I have five siblings, Asha, and even more cousins than that." she begins. "The Lumiere family that I know is quite large, one of the largest families of the district. I took it upon myself to learn each of their names as I was growing up, memorize each of their faces, so I could know who I could consider family."

Her gaze drops to his hand, still twitching. "But I do not have a cousin named Asha, or a cousin named Lilith. And yet, here you are, sharing my family name and looking the part, as well."

She smiles, ever so slightly, before returning her gaze to his. "To answer your question, I promised myself that if any of my family were selected to enter the Games before myself, I would come and see them off myself." She takes a breath, before continuing. "And if that person happens to be a long lost cousin I've never met, well, then that still applies to you, as well."

Her primary objective - to see if this strange boy knew anything about their relationship - had failed. 

But maybe she hadn't quite lost the trail yet.

[kousei ♚]

a s h a

('Lilith would never let me down like this.')

But I was never the let down.

The hilarity of it all is not lost on me, seventeen years spent with a family and none of them give me the same sensation she does.

She gives me the sensation of staring into an broken mirror. Golden hair cascading down her face and down her shoulders, pointed features and blue eyes - the sight of her sharpens my mother from faded static to a front view. The similarities are all to obvious and I can't shake the feeling that I should know who she is. Not quite the perfect image (she lacks the madness) but still gives me the sensation of staring into what I would've looked like if I was born a female with a stable mind.

My question hangs in the air, as if she's at a lost for words. She should be, there is no cure for madness after all. "I have five siblings, Asha, and even more cousins than that." She begins and I raise an eyebrow. Implications are a powerful tool, and I don't think I like the strength of her implication. "The Lumiere family that I know is quite large, one of the largest families of the district. I took it upon myself to learn each of their names as I was growing up, memorize each of their faces, so I could know who I could consider family."

My hands rest against my knees, each finger tapping gently against my knee. I have a sister called Lilith and a mother or father who condemned me to a life of feeling nothing but I've never seen Annika in my life. Perhaps I've seen her and I just don't remember, I am mad after all.

"But I do not have a cousin named Asha, or a cousin named Lilith. And yet, here you are, sharing my family name and looking the part, as well."

"You look like my mother," I blurt out, staring her down.

('Lilith doesn't do this!')

I always did hate her.

"To answer your question, I promised myself that if any of my family were selected to enter the Games before myself, I would come and see them off myself."

Honorable.

"And if that person happens to be a long lost cousin I've never met, well, then that still applies to you, as well." She finishes and I sigh.

She has my last name and she looks like me, even more than the hurricane Lilith herself - it has to be true. To think that seeing your family off to slaughter others would be honorable. To think that I'm the only mad one here.

I begin to giggle at the irony, the one Lumiere I never knew existed is the one who has come to see me off. "Funny how you've come before my parents and sister, they hate me you know," I say before my head tips back in a borderline drunken laughter. "But that's fine, because I'm going now, I'll never see them again and they'll never see me again, probably for the best, I probably would have... snapped sooner or later." I let out another harsh chuckle, still grinning wildly.

('Lilith would never let me down like this.')

I am not a tragic tale.

"I was the best and they left me to feel nothing, but jokes on them because now I'm going to feel something," my head buries itself into my hands, stifling another bout of laughter. "I don't want to die feeling nothing Annika,"

I breathe in.

And out.

I lift my head from my hands. "I don't know what sense of Lumiere pride you and your family have but you won't find it with me because if I sleep in a tombstone they wouldn't get caught dead themselves visiting it," I breathe in, still grinning wolfishly, "talk to Lilith, she's the 'good one'."

('Lilith would never let me down like this.')

I'm not a let down, I swear, I'm just tired of this endless game of pretend.

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

       

Lilith 

Lumiere 

"Yes, I threw a shoe at his fucking face but I am still a relative to him. Let me in." The guard standing awkwardly in front of the entrance of the justice building was a pain in the ass. She understands his reluctance, she did create such chaos during the reaping after all. In each blink, she sees flickers, men in white-washed suits restraining her as she pulls an attempt to ascend the stage, her fiery cries sending crowds of people to the corner. She was the chaos and everyone else was frightened of her. That was one of the gifts that you attain when you wear the diadem on your skull. People part ways, create paths and a mere image of you sends terror into their hearts.

"You have to promise not to lay a hand on the tribute." A titter rose from the scarlet hues of her mouth at his words. The irony dipping from the guard's words was the reason of it. Not to lay a hand on the tribute. This is another gift of the diadem. It gives the owner authority and protection, shields him/her from danger. The most joyful part is that, the diadem does not entirely shield the owner, it compels other beings to shield its owner. Her so-called brother is attaining aspects of its power now.

And she can't permit that to happen. She needs to tear his walls down, every single one he has. Who is the most suitable for the occupation other than Lilith, the girl with venom in her veins and power in her tongue. She has limited hours to do that. She can't even lay a hand on him anyway so it is not going to a smooth occupation. Every time she muses about him, a fire is blazed in her innards and burns every nerve in her vessel. It's all very normal for her, to be honest. "Fine. I promise." If she was in her previous mood, she would have used her digits to remove the obstacle on her way. But, that had washed off her and she knows better.

Walking with a single boot is uncomfortable but she will be proud of that boot forever, because it had been used to throw dirt on him. Even the tiniest things matter to her at this second. Time is slipping through her snowy digits and so, she must hasten things. Her thoughts prevented her from scanning her surroundings and she did not even notice she had reached her destination, only knowing under the polished surface of a door is jeering at her. Shaking her head, as if to shake the crystallized thoughts, she prepared to open the door.

The whispers. Her concentration on the surroundings aided her to catch some of the words and a speech from a voice too familiar. It surfaces memories of golden streaks, porcelain skin and a liar. The voice recalled pictures of an intense fight, a laughter belonging to her and orbs of crimson on white skin. She felt a green vein appearing on her temples and her jaws tighten. That girl is in there. She can't recall her first name but her last one is glued to her mind, sometime that bothered Lilith for quite a while. The one from the prostitute line of the family.

The other voice doesn't fail to solidify her blood. "Talk to Lilith, she's the 'good one'." She opened the door, facing the two individuals who had managed to on the highest nerves she has.

"Family party?"

BY CHELSEY

Words:590