turn it into { gold } (vargen / ridley)

[Stare]

everybody thinks that they're gonna rule the world
i'm just gonna learn how to play it
give me all you got and I'll turn it into gold
let it go, let it go, let it go

If Ridley closed her eyes, she could almost imagine she was back in One.

The training equipment was better in the Capitol, but it was the same feeling. Pushing her body to its limits, swallowing the pain, drowning out everything except her heartbeat and her breathing. Some of the tributes had gone directly for the weapons, determined to gain some familiarity before they were forced to yield them. For someone who wasn't a Career, Ridley had to admit that it wasn't a bad strategy, even if it did feel a bit like cramming before a school test.

She had gone in a different direction, narrowing in on the pegboard on a far wall. Just like home. Now she felt a familiar cry in her shoulders and arms as she slowly, carefully, made her way up and over on the pegboard, sweat beginning to glide down her spine. Weaponry was all well and good, but Ridley knew how to use most of them already. What she needed to focus on was strength, agility, endurance.

After reaching her destination on the pegboard Ridley allowed herself to drop to the ground, stretching her arms up over her head and giving her muscles some much-needed relief. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted a figure nearby. She spoke without looking at them, instead reaching back until her hands anchored to the ground and her abdominals stretched blissfully in an arc above her. "You waiting on the pegboard or just spying?"

i'm waking up my soul to just who it wants to be
i came up through the rough and i changed it
i can't tame this heart, 'cause i know i'm living free
here we go, here we go, here we go


lyrics: running all night, zayde wølf

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

walking in my sleep
like the naked trees
will they wake up again?
do they sleep? do they dream?

Somewhere, in between the silver flashes of the second or the fourth thrown dagger, the mannequin’s bloodstained throat became my own. I jolted back as the blade embedded itself in between the bony seams, letting loose a rivulet of blood that pooled on its collarbones for a moment before overflowing upon the carpets in small trickles, their splatters watercolor-like.

This isn’t an omen, 

I told myself as I dislodged the knife,

this isn’t an omen. 

A droplet of the faux blood fell on my toe.

Sighing, I took myself elsewhere.

If I were back at home, I would draw a warm bath, infuse the waters with roses and the wildflowers my sister and I would have garnered from a hunt, and dream the world away. In these dreams, there would be faeries, with their wings spun from spider-webs and their laughter as sweet as ripen berries. There would be never-ending fields of lavenders, and ornate arches sculpted in gold, so savagely agleam and aureate. Death would kiss me, declare me his silver-haired bride, his devoted scythe.

I would rule, dance, and eat.

But here, there was only sealed walls and foul air.

So, when the girl rose upon a wall using only her strong hands and plummeted down with a dancer’s grace, I couldn’t help but stare. She moved and treaded carefully, as though every patch of land concealed a tripwire that would shower spears and swords upon her, like a feral creature in a barbed wilderness that had grown used to the hunters and decided to become one herself.

“Marveling,” I confessed after she took notice of me; secrets were a fool’s burdens. “That was impressive.” A tremor of recognition skittered down my backbone as I grasped who she had originally reminded me of: my sister.

“Vargen Forrester,” I told the girl;
my name wasn’t a thing to be hidden.

“Perhaps I’ll sacrifice you last, wolf-ling.”

feel it as the wind
strokes my skin
i am moved by the chill
hear the winter bird sing


lyrics: aurora — winter bird