count me to sleep with the ways to kill you {D2 Train}

[Arrows]

Alexander Chastmen

Laughter lifted by the lives of children. Golden gardens growing beside flowing fountains. These are normal visions of the future, normal dreams. Yet, they've never been the ones to visit me within the sheath of sleep. Hell stone and flames of fallen mortar shells have sewn the scenes of my mind. Blades burgeoning with blood while petrified petals of roses wilted from the weeping skies. All for a crown crested in euphoric illumination, hovering above the stained sins of the earth's crust. These have been the creme de la creme of my subconscious, the beating heart of my deepest desires.

Alexander Chastmen craves power.

I crave power.

There's no mirage of maternal misery when the archway of oak opens to the face of Mama. In fact, she seems to be succumbed by the opposite. She stands seemingly bathed in the beauty of pride, the diamond of the District. She holds me tight and I take in the sound of the heart in her chest which now beats entirely for my destiny. How far from her little boy rolling through the daffodils I've come. I kiss the soft edges of her cheeks.

If Mama is relishing in radiance, then Papa is erupting with absolute adoration. He has been given the greatest gift a parent of our District can be bestowed. He has been given the greatest honor a trainer in our District can be blessed by. From the seed of the sacrificial tribute the family emerges as a forest. Despite my finish, I've carved the name Chastmen into the stone slate of history. I am the first of our family, but now our name is immortal. However, its definition is yet to be born.

Recent history has proven to perish the powerful. One and Four the final fighters, the true careers. The crowns of District Two have rusted and the ones who sit on the thrones beneath them can only gorge themselves by playing Goddess in the Games that originally coronated them. Somehow, we've become pathetic and pitiful. That's not to say our tributes have been weak, oh no, they've still been fierce. But when you stop winning, you start losing like everyone else. If I die early, I become another failure, and I don't fail.

I hug my brothers confidently. I kiss Mama with certainty. I squeeze Papa's hands with power. When the door to the past closes behind its frame of dark oak, I'm not some scared child separated from my family. I'm a falcon finally free from the nest, talons sharp and fresh for the kill.

The child dies, the career emerges.

I find myself bogged down in the trials of trivialities that follow the final farewells. Aboard the train the escort almost never stops talking, perhaps they're just as desperate for a Victor as the District. After all, District Two is supposed to be a great District to escort for due to all of its success. Only, as everyone knows, that success has been silenced. I spend most of my time trailing my eyes along the sloping curves of creeks and the peaked points of midseasonal trees. I won't need these words in an arena.

I'm not surprised supper comes and goes without the faintest flicker of one of our Mentors. I begin to question whether we'll see them at all before entering the arena when supper finishes and we're excused. I walk back to my room alongside Gala, the tips of my fingers tenderly tapping her's as we walk. Since the Reaping we haven't even had a second to speak. It's alright though, we both already know what's going to be said.

I shower and change into some scarlet silken pajamas laid out for me before stepping back out into the rattling car. The soft swirling touches of candlelight have gone out in the other rooms leaving only the faintest veil of moonlight in the hall car as I rap my knuckles across Gala's door. Her figure appears only moments later framed in same set of sleep attire. My small smile mirrors the moon and I tangle a hand within my own.

In the final car of the train, I stand staring out of a window at the wavering world of night while still entangled in Gala's fingers. I trace a thumb across the back of her hand and turn my eyes towards her deceiving face of gentleness.

"A promise is a promise,"

My voice is little more than a soft sound above the rushing wind of the moving train.

"We stay with each other through it all. Then, we don't hesitate when they turn us against each other. Careers first, couple second."

The words mean more now than they did back then in those medical cots. However, I do mean them because we both know the truth. That tonight, once we leave each other and go to our bedrooms, we will be counting ourselves to sleep with the ways to kill each other.

[Cameo {RIP Charlie}]

Gala Thomas

A tap jostles at my door, with no confusion of who it may be tempting at my thoughts; thoughts that were just running wickedly wild with ideas of what the future may now pose. From the moment my mind set upon having a trainer, it had been glued to the now of being a career. When my foot splashed into the coliseum to battle against Mason, it had been trained upon being the best career I could possibly be against any and all obstacles to cross my path. Now that I’m receiving every career’s truest goal of entering a Game, it’s been in a whirlwind of a dreamlike state of what might possibly be ahead of me… Ahead of us, as I open the door to no other than Alexander himself.

Silence contains him as he captures my hand into his own, and travels over to the cushioned bench against the window of my train car with me in tow. He had been my sole distraction from training, while the main person keeping me enthralled in it more than ever. Together the Arena will be ours, with no concern over what the end of it may bring. There’s no question in our mind that purely one of us will surface from it with our breath still intact, though for some reason it doesn’t budge either of our hearts with fear.

“A promise is a promise,” he speaks with such calmness. “We stay with each other through it all. Then, we won’t hesitate when they turn us against each other. Careers first, couple second.” An agreement we made long ago flutters from his words. To anyone else perhaps those words would be knifes to the heart. In any other District lovers would be pleading with each other to allow a self sacrifice. But with us there’s no flinch to the fact of what has to happen, the ultimate battle between the infamous tiny couple.

My grin rises from the subtleness is held before. Through all of this his thumb continues to brush the back of my hand with such reassurance. “They won’t be the ones turning us against each other. They don’t have that power. We’ll make it to the end, and we’ll be the ones putting on our final battle. After how many we’ve been through together, I’m sure the kids back in Two will be drooling for this.” Eyebrows raise upon my features as I picture their crave, their bets forever changing with our equal score in fights against each other - it’ll finally be the deciding one.

Gently I rise from my seat next to him, and travel to the tiny fridge set within the room to spoil me. Two bottled beers, of an unknown brand, breach from it with excitement pulling at my heart. “Celebratory drink?” I offer rather rhetorically as I open them both anyways. It was always tradition with Matthew and Kyanite to celebrate with a couple beers after a fight. Now it should be tradition to celebrate with a few before war strikes upon us.