come crashing down ; mackenzie / bambi

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

He'd been warned.

No, he'd been threatened. The head of the snake found him in his sleep and forbade this exact thing from happening. The streamers, the lights, the crowd of people cheering and holding up their glasses to him. This glory was meant for the Crickets and the Justices of Hunger Games' past. Careers. Proof of the Capitol's undying preference to the Upper Districts, if you want to call it that.

He smiled for the photographs and thanked those who congratulated him on his hard work thus far— not one, but two tributes in the final eight, (not to mention Denali Lyons.) His was the last fully intact District this time around, and Mackenzie was a rookie. It could've been dumb luck that he ended up with two competent pupils; all he'd really done was annoy people until they agreed to fork over their cash. But none of it was worth celebrating. Not really. Not with so many stipulations attached.

Not with the look Glamour Kinkade peered down at him with.

The sneer was enough to send him cold, and he did his best to shake off the chill that ran along his spine. If he'd done well to get his people this far, they would certainly pay for it now. The fur of his coat tickled the nape of his neck; he wished he could sink into it and disappear.

Where the hell did Stella and Teddy go? he thought, taking a seat in the VIP section in order to escape the merciless chatter of the Capitolites who had been following him around all night. He scanned the crowd over three times, and couldn't find either of them. He was in the middle of rubbing his finger along the rim of his wine glass when he heard the woman's voice.

"Congratulations," she said. Mackenzie realized with a start that he'd forgotten to keep up the facade of his enjoyment. He stiffened, correcting his posture and returning a crooked grin as he turned around.

"Oh," he said, locking eyes with Bambi Salcedo. The rumors of her affair with Justice Fray probably held about as much weight as the rumors which claimed Mackenzie was sleeping with his tributes. Then again, that Justice had certainly gained himself a reputation over the years.

Perhaps due to her closeness with Colt, Mackenzie had always felt he could trust her. Well, not trust her, of course. He wasn't stupid enough to trust anyone on the winning side of this 80-year-long war they were all helplessly fighting in. But he was comfortable enough around her not to bother feigning happiness.

"This is a bit ridiculous, don't you think?"

He stood and took a seat closer to her.

"The Games aren't over and either of them could die in the next five minutes, for all we know," He clenched his teeth together, mentally knocking on wood to make sure it didn't happen.

"I could do my job as perfect as possible, and I still lose. Someone still dies. Someone will always die. But, any excuse to dress up and get drunk, right?"

He held his glass up and offered her a humorless smile.

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

Losing herself happened suddenly.

At the start of her career, she was something the Capitol couldn't define. She was beautiful, but she was free — and she was strong, but she had a way of allowing herself to be so vulnerable that it was easy to miss her steel. Bambi Salcedo wasn't always a garden; her roses were once wild and guarded and all the more enchanting for it. And there was a time, when she was first finding her place among the elite, that she scorned the idea of being lessened. Of just being seen as Justice Fray's mistress, of being a pretty face that had no purpose, of being labelled and boxed and abandoned when the public finally grew tired of her.

She was hired for her looks, that much she knew,
but Justice kept her for her soul.

There used to be something good in her. Bambi held him as he cried, and she never expected anything more than he could offer — and he never asked her to be anything more than there, with him, just two people in a savage world that had become their homes. Her designs made it to all the magazines, her personality was lauded by the people. She told herself she wouldn't care when the fame became nothing more than a memory, when her complexities were just fun facts for an article on the last page; it was what she had always expected to happen. She had meant to live her life brightly, and quickly, and without shame.

The hunger made its home in her before she realized it was there. Her dresses became shorter, her voice more of a purr — and she made sure that she was pressed against Justice's side when the cameras were flashing. She stopped asking about his day, and she stopped wiping away his tears. When the rumors continued to spread, so did her relevance. She began to embrace what the Capitol thought of her. Something gorgeous, something starved for attention; and she never took the time to realize that she wasn't playing a part anymore. Bambi Salcedo was a gilded name, a woman that inspired jealousy and lust. She was a lover of all seven sins.

And when she was crowned Miss Capitol, life was never sweeter. All she could taste was the honey in her mouth, the sickly sweetness of her words. The people congratulated her, they loved her and they praised her and they lifted her up to the heavens, but behind her back all they could talk about was how fake she was. How she was a wolf masquerading as a lamb, how she had too many faces to keep track of. She pretended like it didn't bother her, like she didn't agree with them. Maybe she had compromised herself, maybe she had destroyed what was left of her innocence.

All that mattered beneath those bright lights was that she still had a place among the gods — that her seat was reserved in the VIP section and that her reign was still ongoing. It'd been months since she last spoke to Justice, since she had helped to design his wedding and left again once all the publicity had passed. She never bothered to call just to ask if he was okay, she never went into his dressing room just to hold him. And she was no longer who she used to be; someone sharp and unapologetic and content with fading. She was blinding now, but so hollow. Her dress was the colour of midnight and her lips were red as blood.

The innocent always suffered the most.

When she saw Mackenzie Pryce sitting just a few seats away from her, she didn't hesitate to make a gamble for his attention. He was the Capitol's newest golden boy, a mentor for the history books straight out of his own Games — and where once her heart would have ached, where she would have recognized the haunted look of his eyes and ran to his aid, all she could consider were the advantages of being seen with him. She'd swallow the boy whole if it would stop her starving. Her congratulations were a seductive whisper, and when he took the bait and approached her, she couldn't hide her smirk.

Perhaps he saw some remnant of her goodness, of who she used to be. His somber words flowed without guilt, without shame of their unique perspective. Part of her wanted to silence him, to remind him of who was in the room with them, but a deeper part of herself was thrilled by the conversation. It was impossible, after all, to bury every trace of yourself. "I don't know, honestly." Blame it on her privilege, the fact that she would never have to experience life from his point of view. "But— but it is difficult. All of this. Sometimes I wonder if the entertainment is worth all the bloodshed." The fact that she had to wonder was sickening.

Her glass met his, but she didn't match his laugh;
"Do you need a shoulder to cry on, Mr. Pryce?"

( dars )