[to history, paving a way for the currents] // kay - WE

[shrimp]

mace emberstatt
Down along the creek
I remember something

Six months since the world was split, then patched back together, and he wasn't sure how he should feel - how any of them should feel. It is rare, he knows, for a miracle to break through the earth, with rugged hands pulling at the roots. He can count them: A smile on Julian's face, the last one before the threads broke apart; the quiet nights spent with Saffron, the cicadas softly singing as the breeze blows in, gently, from the kitchen window; Kieran, leaving the reaping pool for the last time, announcing his future with a smile on his face and a band around his arm.

But when he fell, his kneecap hitting that marble floor, he had been so sure of himself.

Now, here, he perches on a bar stool. The counter in front of him has already been lacquered with liquor, the air filled with an indulgence only the Capitol could bring. He stirs his drink - an import to Eight, no doubt: a simple strawberry milkshake, coated with a cloud of whipped cream, shortbread stars sprinkled with sanding sugar, delicate strands of the richest chocolate. It makes the moment sweeter, as he turns to listen to the two beside him.

They bicker, just for a moment, like old times. He is brought back to that day on the platform, the sun beaming down on the four of them like a branding iron. Never would he have imagined, how their lives would intertwine, how a moment he can never take back would land him here.

Mace knows of Io's plans, of Calliope's journey. At the fork in the road, the land filled with the pains of the present, the thorns of the future, he has yet to settle on his path. Today, he chooses instead to breathe, to look at the landscape.

"A toast," he offers, a wry smile tugging at his cheek, "To changes hard-won."

---
715 - CR∑∑KS - Bon Iver
White Elephant 2018: Mace Emberstatt ↔ Io Wie

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

IO WIE
district five mayor

This part of Mayorship she might miss. Not the pomp and circumstance, the formal introductions and the stop-and-start of greeting someone you've known for over a decade but haven't seen in a year. But this, this person-to-person discussion, so much more authentic than any phone call, so much more powerful than any letter. She finds herself rising to the challenge of the current topic, whether it's the announcement of the Permit Office or the controversial Quell Games.

The slowly setting sun fills her goblet with rubies. The wine, bottled some eighteen years ago, has been re-labelled in honor of the occasion. Gold text scrawls CELEBR8! to cement their location, even though she's quite certain it wasn't harvested or processed in the district. And what, exactly, are they celebrating? The markets? The office? Ratmas? The return of twenty-four children?

It is a very good thing she made her announcement prior to the twist's reveal.

Mace lifts his milkshake in a toast. "To changes hard-won."

Generally speaking she's willing to give Mace Emberstatt the benefit of the doubt. But tonight, far away from home and knowing that she will not see him again for a very, very long time, she is not willing to be so generous. She sighs. "I didn't work hard to win any of this," she says slowly, quietly. To emphasize her point she glances at the festival tent where the Quell tributes will have their private dinner.

"A gift then?" Someone she doesn't recognize offers.

A gift dipped in bat blood poison and wrapped in sharp blades, perhaps. She waits, not because she doesn't have an answer, but because she needs to know where the others stand. This is dangerous territory they've ventured into, she knows, but she will seize the opportunities that come to her.