the size of the fray :: [ calliope + io + mace ]

[L△LIA]

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old innocent lies came to mind
as we stood, congregated, at the firing line

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"Connecting you with Mayor Wie, please hold. Hello? Mayor Wie, you have been connected with Mayor Bloom. Please hold." The operator does not pause long enough for either of the women to get a word in. "Connecting you with Mayor Emberstatt. Hello? Mayor Emberstatt, you have been connected with Mayor Wie and Mayo—"

"Uh-huh, great! Thank you, Gretchen! We’re good here," Calliope cuts her off impatiently, rolling her eyes at the same repetitive script that accompanies every. Single. Conference call. After the other joint phone calls she’s had this week with the officials from Weights and Measures, she doesn’t know how many more times she can handle the words please hold, you have been connected with...

"Yes, Mayor Bloom," the operator replies curtly, sounding equally exasperated over Calliope’s habit of interjecting. There’s a small click! as she disconnects and both of them breathe a sigh of relief.

Leaning back in her chair, Calliope kicks her shoes off and rests her feet on the edge of the desk. "Hey, strangers." As per usual, she hasn’t slept in days, but the underlying exhaustion is such a constant in her voice that she forgets she used to sound any different. There’s always too much to do and not enough time, especially now in the uncertainty of re-election as she scrambles to see if she can fix just one more thing, complete just one more project, chip away at just one more injustice. She forgets her own life. It’s been a while since Mace or Io spoke with her outside of official business. "How are... things?"

third of may / ōdaigahara fleet foxes

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[Gamemaker Lauren Kinkade]

It doesn't hurt me.
Do you want to feel how it feels?
Do you want to know that it doesn't hurt me?
Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
You, it's you and me.

Mayor Bloom.

Mayor Wie.

Mayor Emberstatt.

Somehow the names twisted up and sounded foreign to him. Still he pressed the earpiece to his head, breathing heavily over the receiver. Bloom, Wie, Emberstatt. He felt the space between each connection, between each memory. There were other names in the sharp gaps of the conference call. Names he would never forget.

"How are... things?"

For a split second he thought about asking Calliope about the girl from Seven. But then, that conversation hadn't gone overly well with Io. Maybe some things were better left forgotten. Maybe he should learn to keep his mouth shut. Except wasn't that what his critics were always complaining about? How little he spoke?

He frowned, and it tainted his voice. "'Bout the same. I was wonderin' if we'd get to talk again, all of us. D'ya have a phone somewhere else, Io? So we can still be in touch?"

He asked, and it was only later that he considered the possibility that maybe Io Wie didn't want to be talking to Mace Emberstatt and Calliope Bloom. Maybe she wanted to live a different life now, and that's why she wasn't running for Mayor. Maybe. Too many maybes and too many old names come back to haunt him.

And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.
If I only could, oh


running up that hill
-placebo-

[dars]

[shrimp]

"How are... things?"

"'Bout the same. I was wonderin' if we'd get to talk again, all of us. D'ya have a phone somewhere else, Io? So we can still be in touch?"

The smell is, well, kind of gross. But if she doesn't get caffeine in her system before the next two hours she knows she'll have another night falling asleep at her desk. Truthfully, she doesn't know how the other two do it - they always seem so put together, tired but not as much as she is. Downtrodden, sometimes, but not as stomped over.

She's not jealous, she's just...

"Ow, fuck," she mutters.

"Sorry, made a coffee, it's too hot."

Placing the saucer down on her desk, long stained with rings upon rings of coffee, she sighs.

"Still working out the kinks. I submitted all of the paperwork, but I'm waiting to hear back. Worst case, I'll try talking to Lethe." As much as she thinks a clinic should have a phone line, apparently Capitolite officials who've never stepped foot in her District still need to decide on it, to grant her the opportunity.

She tries not to think of the travel request she's submitted, either. If she brings it up, who knows what they'd do. Spiteful creatures, they would probably deny it just to fuck with her.

"Calliope, you doing alright? I've heard you have some competition."

[L△LIA]

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Now, back in our town as a castaway
I'm reminded of the time it all fell in line

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"Well," a wry laugh thrums across the line like poor reception, "we can't all be as beloved as an Emberstatt."

The truth is: it still stings — hearing his voice, his steady breathing. She doesn't know if it will ever stop feeling unfair, if she'll ever be able to forgive him completely, despite knowing that she should... that his brothers probably would have forgiven her own by now. As it is, the best she has been able to do is not hate him, to accept his attempts at kindness, to care a little about his life for reasons she can't articulate.

"I dunno. Ada seems fine, but it's weird to have someone campaign against me this year. Last time nobody really took me seriously. Now it's all... my own words, repeated like accusations. She's not who I wanted to fight, y'know?"

There's a sigh as she picks at the phone cord and twirls it around her finger. "Maybe I should have done like you guys and stepped down before getting stepped on," she tries to make it sound like a joke, but it doesn't quite get there. "Worst case and I'll just barge into Teddy's house. He's a good kid. Nice. Even when people don't deserve it." Maybe he's even nice enough to let her crash on his couch if she ends up homeless in a couple weeks.

third of may / ōdaigahara fleet foxes

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[Gamemaker Lauren Kinkade]

It doesn't hurt me.
Do you want to feel how it feels?
Do you want to know that it doesn't hurt me?
Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
You, it's you and me.

Unlike so many things across long distance wires, the sting translates. He leans back in the leather Mayoral chair, casting his gaze to the ceiling. Beloved. He wasn't exactly sure what it meant - extra loved? loved by whom? by everyone? - but it was enough to hear Calliope's laugh, and to know that things came more easily to him. Had, in fact, ever since he'd returned from the arena.

But that didn't mean he didn't suffer for them plenty too.

He twisted the line through his fingertips. "Kieran seems fond of Teddy too." It was the easiest part of everything Calliope had said to respond to. He massaged the plastic band for a half second, and then managed to drop a few more words like stones. "I ain't not runnin' because of the competition, just to be clear. I'm tired, Calliope, that's all. I admire your energy and I think District Six would be dumb to pick someone over you, after everything you've done."

Tired. Tired of fighting, tired of claiming a spot owed to someone else, tired of righting wrongs.

And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.
If I only could, oh


running up that hill
-placebo-

[dars]

[shrimp]

"we can't all be as beloved as an Emberstatt."

She laughs politely - part of her thinks that if it were just the two of them she'd actually snicker or snort. But she knows that bitter tang at the end of a syllable - for the longest time she'd tried to stave it off by focusing on the present, by the destruction that had rendered 10 with acrid plains and sick beds, by the election results that caused the media to run a series on the three of them, turning policy into a circus act.

It took a while to accept that she was angry at Mace Emberstatt. Beyond angry - furious wasn't even close. And that she was absolutely justified, but at the same time she absolutely was not.

It took a while to accept that perhaps part of the reason she always wore that brooch was in spite, a protest not only to the Capitol but Emberstatt himself. You don't get to forget her, not this time, not ever.

It took a while to accept that, at the same time, she liked Mace Emberstatt - a lot. She liked how he thought, she liked how he cared, she liked his sweet tooth. And that it was okay to like a man who had killed her sister, but it was not okay to forget that he did.

She sits in contradictions, picking at her nails.

"Well, I'm exhausted," she chuckles. "It'll be good to focus on helping one aspect of the district instead of every facet."

Silence, before she continues, the smallest of admittance in a recorded call.

"I think it's good, Calliope, that Ada is there; worst case, sounds like you can count on her."

"I do hope they keep it, all the good things we did. I know we didn't solve everything, but what we did solve worked, you know?" Even if their role is merely pomp and circumstance, facades of a machine, what they did matters. It has to.

[L△LIA]

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as if it were designed
painted in sand to be washed away

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"Ugh. I didn't —" Calliope cuts herself off, swinging her feet off the desk with a muffled THUMP as she plops her face down gracelessly on the surface of the desk. I didn't mean it? Lies. She did. But part of her doesn't want to mean it anymore and it makes the idea of the sentiment feel almost genuine somehow.

The lacquered wood is cool against her cheek as she stares blankly into the shadows trying to swallow up her office. Well... not hers. It just feels that way, the same way if feels like maybe she really was joking when she tried to make a crack about Emberstatts versus Blooms, Emberstatts versus Wies. What she said wasn't untrue. Even after all these years it's not something any of them are able to treat lightly, so she doesn't know why she tried.

Tired? Same.

Exhausted? Absolutely.

I admire your energy — She might laugh if she weren't so worn out, but somehow it's not a joke any more than her own attempts were, so it's good that she stays silent.

Part of her is positive that Mace and Io and smarter than her, regardless of the grade point average she used to pride herself on as if it were the only thing she might ever need. "Maybe," she murmurs, mulling over thoughts of Ada and the attack tactics of her speeches, always speaking as if she and Calliope are on opposing sides, "she doesn't talk like we want the same things, like she thinks I've done anything good." Then again, Ada is a teacher, trained to nurture the District's best and brightest... whereas Calliope is a champion for the losers and the hooligans, for the junkies and the factory workers, for the kids who wonder if they might be better off dead than to live out the downhill future that Six offers the Less Than Perfect. Or at least she tries to be.

"Some of it will get undone," she thinks of the crates of medicine that she sets aside for the Rebellion each month and the people who will inevitably die without it — how it'll be Ada's fault the same way it was Calliope's fault when that little girl died during last year's penicillin production failures. Accidental. Unintentional. Completely due to one of Calliope's decisions, although no one thought to blame her for something that seemed so far beyond her control. "Here, at least."

Picking at the crack in her desk where she smashed a baseball bat against it that first night of being Mayor, she presses her lips to the evidence of her achievements and tries to reroute her mind back to the positivity she had intended when arranging this phone call. "But that one thing is a pretty big deal, Io. It's like... Kieran turning nineteen level of big deal." Lifesaving level.

third of may / ōdaigahara fleet foxes

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