well-alright // { jb | lex + hanaa }

[aya]

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i've been fighting in the attic with hungry ghosts
i've been busy in the common hall
ripping the plaster and sheets off the wall
i'll keep going if it takes all night

Without her life on the line this year, Lex Lionel isn't sure what drew her to the Reaping. Force of habit. Morbid curiosity. No one's ever been dumb enough to count on her for moral support, and it's not like she's got sisters to worry about. Somehow the ceremony is every bit the same as it was last year and as it was the year before (i.e. far too long, horribly dull, endlessly droning) but it has a different hold on her attention span. She doesn't pick at the loose threads on the end of her sleeve. She doesn't deconstruct and rebuild the podium in her head. She doesn't wish it was more exciting.

The names are drawn. She doesn't know them. And for the second year in a row, a second idiot in a row signs herself up. Even without her name in the glass bowls this year, it still stings a little bit. What had made her different from Jenny Sycamore or Lenox LaChance? This isn't regret for deaths not died, but anyone who's watched absolute strangers throw their lives away for one another year after year would be left wondering why they were never included in that exchange.

This year, she's not at her breaking point when she enters the Justice Building.

"When you think about what sort of deep shit you've gotten yourself into, remember that brave's just another word for stupid." Lex Lionel knows that about as well as anyone, all from first-hand experience. It doesn't feel out of line to come here and try to knock some sense into someone whose idiocy had already proven to be a danger to herself — not like Mackenzie would ever be blunt enough to call his tributes out for being morons, no matter how much it might encourage them to make better choices with death on the line. Lex, on the other hand, has no responsibility for them and frankly doesn't care about stepping on some egos.

"So what kind of wood do you want for your casket, dumbass?" She hadn't asked Diana, so she'd guessed silver maple. It seemed about right.

well-alright — spoon

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[ryan]

I haven’t even begun to process what I had done yet.

The motions swept me up and through me to the slaughter, but it wasn’t something that I was upset about.

Each year there was always something surprising in district seven, each person that went in had a story to tell, and I was no different.

Even though I knew my story could end in my death, I still felt like it was a story to tell. So that helped me as they escorted me into the justice building.

I had never entered such a place, because it was none of my business, an interesting tacit as I made it my mission in life to stick my nose where it didn’t belong.

---

The real question was, did it belong here? Did I deserve to be in this moment? Was this the answer?

I wouldn’t know until I am on the train, and even then, I couldn’t turn around. I couldn’t stand up and scream about how much of a mistake I made.

If I got the chance to come home, it would be with blood on my hands, or me in a casket. Just like Diana the year before me.

I made this choice, and I would have to lie with it, and still I didn’t feel like I was making the wrong choice. Even if people told me I was crazy for volunteering for someone who I didn’t even know, I felt like I was protecting a family that didn’t need to be ravaged. Not yet at the least.

My fathers lust knows no bounds, and so before the poison even entered the body, I threw myself into harms way in order to save her.

Selfless, selfish, and stupid, all in the same go.

---

Lex Lionel found her way into the building, which didn’t surprise me because even though she didn’t come home with the title of victor, she still came home.

She was a celebrity here if I had ever known what that word meant.

She was scarred and torn, but the look in her eyes told me she wasn’t here to offer any sort of condolences, she was here to do something else.

Anything else.

I figured as much.

”Throwing myself into harms way was not brave. It was right.” I crossed my arms as she tried to hold something over me, like I was a child compared to her.

Just because she was older than me, didn’t mean she was any the wiser, had she been wiser, she would have killed the girl from five within the first couple days instead of letting her be her undoing. Still, she got to come home, but the girl from Four went on to win the whole thing.

It wasn’t my place to say though.

”So you are saying that if someone volunteered for you, you would have fought them on principle? Being picked verse volunteering does not mute the gravity of the decision Lex…” I turn away for a second, trying to gather my thoughts.

”… I have my reasons. That’s all.” I don’t expect her to understand, and I realized that my words might have been too harsh, but I wasn’t expecting to be questioned.

Not when I already knew what she was going to say the moment she walked in.

”Something in Oak. I trust in your taste of type and finish.” I spoke calmly as I turned around and faced the girl who survived death.

Knowing well that my chances were slim.

[aya]

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knew this girl was out of any cause
after high school when they felt so lost
had a harbor pack of twenty-five
much too fueled-up but we stayed alive

The stubborn, self-righteous spiel about doing the right thing by volunteering deepens the irritated furrow in Lex's brow. Bravado she understood; this sort of idealistic conviction she'd never get. It had baffled her last year, watching Diana's heart lead her all the way through hell and into her grave anyhow. This year, it vexes her. She'd get it — maybe — if this had been some impulsive death wish. If it had been for close family, for someone significant — maybe. Lex Lionel has only laid down her life for someone she loves incidentally (and only then as a factor of luck) and still can't sympathize with strangers signing up to stab some other kids to death and get their skulls caved in out of righteousness.

"So you are saying that if someone volunteered for you, you would have fought them on principle?" She cackles in response to the question.

"Hell no, are you kidding? Some moron wants to bleed out into the grass in my place, that's their prerogative." It doesn't seem worth explaining to someone who won't understand the difference between honor — owing a fair fight to someone who's had your back through the worst week of your life — and whatever this girl's principles are that have her signing up for pain and heartache and — in the best-case scenario — a lifetime of reliving that trauma. If she wanted to be that moron for some stranger, maybe there wasn't a point.

"Being picked verse volunteering does not mute the gravity of the decision, Lex..." Decision? Two years ago, Lex Lionel did not get to make a decision. Someone had taken that agency from her, dragged her off to the Capitol, dropped her on the asphalt and told her to get killing. No one asked if she wanted to. No one gave her an out.

"...I have my reasons. That’s all."

With a sigh and a shake of her head, she pinches the bridge of her nose. "Oh, hell. I hope your reasons are 'I want to murder little kids for sport' or 'I'm suicidal'. Just tell Mackenzie up-front about it so he doesn't have to feel guilty when your bad decisions you killed."

And then she requests oak because of course she does. Of all the basic wood going through the Lionels' shop, oak is by far the biggest pain in the ass. It burns easily, wears out her tools, shrinks and warps and has a mind of its own, its heavy grain chipping and splitting just to spite her. Really, it sounds about right.

well-alright — spoon

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