eyesore, a study: pat/shade

[gamemaker kelsier]

n i g h t s h a d e .

"I hid my deepest feelings
so well I forgot
where I placed them"

Enchanting, is what they'd most likely call it later on in the papers.

The Varda estate was done up in its usual glamour, if not more so. Nightshade couldn't remember the last time she'd actually attended one of these things, most likely a decade ago when Opal was still going to the Capitol before her long absence. Still, not much had changed about it, just the people, those on the screen and off.

She was leaning on the railing of the upstairs hall overlooking the grand ballroom below. It was a much better vantage point than the busy floor beneath where Capitolites swooned over Victors draped in whatever finery their stylists had sewn them into for the night. They were easy enough to spot, always able to draw a small crowd of admirers whether they liked it or not.

Nightshade rested her hands on the railing and gazed down at the District One Victor, eyes on her every move from the moment Katelyn Persimmon kissed her cheek and left her side to the second she began to engage with Nico Thorne. She was quite literally radiant in a dress that shimmered gold from neck to ankle. Nightshade waited for something to stir within her, that old familiar ache perhaps but she felt nothing at all.

Time truly did heal all wounds.

If she was here to find Opal, she was in no rush to bother her until later. She knew this evening was important for finding sponsorships for her tributes and all she was truly expecting from her sister-in-law was an angry yowling at anyway. She'd known she'd be in trouble from the moment she'd sent Valerian to her doorstep.

But she didn't regret it of course. Nightshade could and would do what she had to in order to protect her child, even if it meant the destruction of every other relationship in her life.

There weren't that many to begin with after all, Vervain had told her so. He was dead now so perhaps his opinion didn't count.

An Avox climbed the stairs towards her to her right and Nightshade watched their approach, gaze steady, unflinching. They carried a tray with a single flute of champagne, a celebratory drink for the opening of the games. She accepted it with a gentle nod of her head to thank the Avox for their gesture but she didn't drink, just held the pretty cut of crystal carefully.

Of course, she could blend in if she wanted to, but there were things about her that marked her as less of a frivolity than some would like at such an occasion. Dressed in black from head to toe, her outfit crowed comfort rather than glamour. While she didn't wear glimmering diamonds, her silhouette drew the gaze due to the pieces she wore, all gifted to her over the years by an exasperated Sardonyx Crowe.

She was a quilted fashion statement, a patchwork of brand names.

Nightshade left her view of the ballroom and made her way down the hall to a set of french doors that were already opened onto a second-floor balcony. The party continued out into the sprawling garden below but most were inside to great the influx of Victors still arriving.

The balcony was quiet but for one other person. Smoke rose above them slowly, the lack of a breeze refusing to take the delicate cloud away. Night moved to the railing a little ways away and set the crystal flute down on it, hand digging in her pocket for a silver tin of menthols embossed with her name that she always kept handy. She'd received the case after being promoted from a private to a lieutenant almost twenty years prior.

She lit up and took a long drag of her cigarette before turning to lean her back against the railing. Her gaze was on the hall she'd just come from, always half-searching for a tail out of habit.

"I thought you'd be down there," she said after a few minutes of silence, "Don't Victors normally travel in packs?"

[rook]

patricia valfierno

I used to be really good at being false.

I could change personalities like masks, hiding my face from the world behind psuedosmiles and personas. Tricking men from their coin was easy, and so was getting away with it, wearing a guise of innocence for long enough to just slip away from danger and away into the backstreets. I was so good at it that I forgot who I really was, living in some dream world where I could pretend to be anyone. Maybe it was easier to imagine myself in grand parlors such as this, rather than homeless, bare-foot in the mud and starving.

Well, now everyone knows who I am. Who I truly am. They saw it dripping red from the end of a blade, green eyes in the darkness. A killer.

And now I can't wear masks, can't fool anyone. They see right through me, like some ghost of a girl who drifts between sponsorship gala's, smoking cigarettes and looking for something stronger than nicotine - seclusion perhaps.

The polished white marble pillars and gloss floors are too harsh, and the rabble is too loud. Shrill laughter rises above the murmuring of Capitol busybodies, all trying to get their five minutes with a Gamemaker, or a Victor, or someone deemed important. Large ornate rugs are sprawled cross a grant hall, with tables and chairs neatly propped up in rows. Some are occupied, but most are empty as the guests of the Varda Gala seem happier on their feet and conversing with each-other.

"I just don't see it, the girl is a waste of good coin." An honest looking man with a neat moustache and clean-shaven chin shakes his head at me - He's not the first person to, either. Tonight has been slow.

"I'd rather give it to the Johnwayne boy, he at least has something about him." His tone is confident, and his eyes read me as I sigh. He takes my slumped, defeated body language as an affirmation and smiles.

"Look, just give her a chance, that's all I'm asking." I raise my voice a little, not enough to cause a scene but ample to get his attention.

"She's a little rough round the edges, and she's got problems, sure. But Lysander is dangerous, trust me - I've seen her fight."

I haven't.

"And she's going to go far."

She isn't.

"And when she does, you'll regret not sponsoring her."

He won't.

But I have to try.

He shakes his head again and sips at a floater of champagne. And try as though I may, he doesn't believe me. Despite my best efforts to help a girl who barely deserves it, I'm left standing alone in the middle of this ballroom with nothing but my thoughts punching down at me. You've failed her.

I look around at Katelyn, Harbinger, and Kirito, who have few problems impressing Capitolites. District Eleven's famous treble are revered, practically celebrated. Even Beck seems to be doing well, for someone who's first year it is getting sponsors. Then there's me, with all the charisma of a wet fish, stinking up the joint.

At least I'm here, which is more than can be said for Lethe. Nothing ever changes there, I guess.

My skin crawls as another herd of dead-eyed Capitolites wade towards me, wearing their own masks of flattery, fawning at the chance to speak to me. I wonder what they're like when they get back to their luxury apartments, and they take off their makeup, and turn the lights out. Are they just as afraid of the world as me?

Fuck, I need a smoke.

I wave away the entourage and trudge through the hoard of people chattering about which Career tribute is going to go the furthest, or who wore the best outfit in their interview, or whether Arabella Shirley is a dark horse to win. The same old same old.

Maybe I'm not good at this. I'm just too much of a bitch for people to want to help me - To help my tributes. I can't do what Katelyn does, and put on a brave smile. Maybe once, but I've forgotten how. People look me in the eye and they see exactly who I am, and they'd rather shake their heads and help someone else.

It was the same back then, on the streets. It's the same now.

I find a lonely balcony and do what I always do - spark up a cigarette despite promises of quitting. Just when my chest pains were starting to get better, too. Shame.

I take a few enjoyable drags and let my thoughts stew as the night air brings out goosebumps on my pale arms. The smells of a city's fumes and exotic foods waft up high above the hive of activity below. The nightlife scene is in full flow in celebration of the Games starting, and huge fifty-feet screens showing the highlights of the Bloodbath illuminate the otherwise dim streets below - red and pink shadows casting over the thousands of people queuing for nightclubs and bars, like little ants so small I could step on them from up here.

I notice someone joining me, and do my best to ignore them as they too take out a lighter and start to smoke. I glance over. It's a woman, maybe my age. Dark eyes, sleek dress. Her eyes aren't quite so dead as the rest of them. She looks normal, not extravagant or false or plastic like the other Capitolites. Her hair isn't pastel pink, or a sickly lime, or an annoying cyan - it's black.

I look away, not wanting to be rude. Maybe she owns this place.

She says nothing for a long while, and the silence becomes uncomfortable for me - as if she's opened the door and stepped into my own personal five minutes of peace, and just stood there.

It was nice while it lasted, I guess.

"I thought you'd be down there," Her voice cuts through the crisp air, and my eyes meet hers as she gestures down at the crowd inside.

"Don't Victors normally travel in packs?"

I think of Katelyn, and how close by Kirito and Harbinger were. I think of Jacinta and Mackenzie, Stella, Analita, and the other recent Victors, how they're all so close. I think of Mace and Saffron, their child doing wonders for sponsorship. It's all so fucking perverted and weird. Like a popularity contest where if people don't like you, your tributes suffer.

Who have I got? Lethe, ten years in mourning for her daughter - and that's it.

But what does this woman know of it all? Clearly more than me.

"Normally." I say staring out into the great expanse, repeating her word so delicately, letting it hang on my lips for the briefest of seconds before suffocating it in cigarette smoke.

[gamemaker kelsier]

n i g h t s h a d e .

"I hid my deepest feelings
so well I forgot
where I placed them"

None had ever been more aware of their own shortcomings than Nightshade. She knew what she was, where she'd failed time and time again, but there was strength in that and she wore it well. Some would say it was confidence that held her, body strung up so languidly against the railing like a marionette.

It was more the inability to tell when she wasn't wanted, or perhaps the knowledge was there but it simply did not matter to her. She'd grown numb to that feeling over the years, countless instances where people saw her uniform and decided they knew her based on her Peacekeeper whites. It was refreshing to be written off not by her clothing but her conversation topic.

Hypocritical perhaps when she had just done the same.

Maybe it had been a low blow to comment on her smoking companion's status but in her world, status was the driving force behind every waltz. It was important to stay on top of the rhythm so as not to lose the beat. She'd become a natural at it to the point where she hardly recognized that she was doing it anymore.

But there she stood, measuring just how far Patricia's head drooped from the weight of her crown.

It had been cruel of her to not just let her be a stranger on the balcony in peace, she could at least recognize that.

Nightshade leaned back and took a drag of her cigarette. She let the smoke sit in her lungs for too long and could feel the moment when it became nearly unbearable on her throat before letting it all back out.

She should know better than anyone the toll being a Victor took on the body. She'd seen Opal go through years of depression and had been there to care for her when she couldn't care for herself. Nightshade knew that their position was more a curse, a burden than a prize but she still couldn't help resenting them all as a whole a little bit. she couldn't help wondering why her brother had to die for one of them to live.

It was irrational to resent the victors, misplaced anger and she knew that. She couldn't help the way she felt though, couldn't help the way her gut twisted at seeing Katelyn's lips on Opal's cheek, knowing they'd share a bond that she never could.

It was easier to be out on the balcony, to watch everything from outside. The cold of the night could justify the cold she felt within, the muffled sounds of laughter as tinny as the smile she seldom wore. She often felt alone, here in the Capitol and out in the districts because in the end she didn't fit in anywhere.

She wasn't a victor, just a sister to a long-dead brother being replaced by a woman from her own district. She wasn't a Peacekeeper, a flesh-and-blood bonified tool sharpened by the Capitol but a scientist, a researcher. Her unit had dwindled down to just herself over the years as members had died or been resigned. She travelled alone. Her once-lover was dead, her son resented her.

She was created to travel in a pack but she was alone.

Normally hit too close to home.

Nightshade gazed at the victor and watched the end of her cigarette burn between her fingers. She didn't smoke often, just every now and then but it was comforting to do so, to feel the heat of its travel in and out of her, following the path of her breath. It made a good distraction.

She could make an effort with this woman, try and push the conversation but it seemed like a pointless venture. She'd already attempted small talk, she'd done her part.

The hall behind them was empty so Nightshade turned around to look out of the garden instead with the lonely victor, moving slightly closer in the process. She knew that the silence between them was hers to fill next but a lack of speech had never bothered her. Sometimes just being with a person was enough to slow the quiet aching inside of her though maybe she'd forgotten over the years that people tended to like the sound of a voice too.

But maybe if she listened, the victor would hear her bones whispering beneath her skin, "I am alone as well."

[rook]

patricia valfierno

Below in the square, a lone tree stands - it's roots squared off by stone slabs, which are part of a larger mosaic design of the Capitol emblem. It looks so out of place, planted amidst all this concrete and twisted metal. It's the closest thing to nature the people here know, and in that I draw some form of solace. For all their wealth, they'll never know what it's like to stand in a forest, breathe it in, feel your lungs stretch and your chest feel alive.

Between drags of my cigarette, I watch the blinking red lights of cranes on the skyline as the final shades of daylight finally slip away. The outlines of the giant towering buildings fade and blend into the black, and only the yellow squared windows are left to describe their form.

Some reach so tall that they look as if they might pierce straight through the sky, into something else. They are grotesque displays of human engineering, like each one was built to be taller than the last. The largest of all of them stands as prouder a victor as any of us, reaching high up into the night, a giant middle finger to all of Panem.

Rows of golden lights burn into the darkness, stretching out to the black horizon. The amber glow almost makes the city look like it's made of gold. Flickering streaks of magenta, or bright white catch in the corner of my eye, and block text scrolls past LED screens at a hundred miles an hour, so fast that I blink and miss the message.

Above it all, the searing low din of vehicles and machines, all screaming together in coarse harmony. There are no birds singing here, or crickets chirping. Just the grey sounds of progression for progression's sake.

There's so much noise, everywhere.

Sometimes when I'm at home, I like to walk past the woods and away from the reservoirs, over grassland so far from the District centre, until I am alone on top of one of the many rolling hills. I'll sit and listen, and I'll listen, and I'll hear nothing except the breeze in the grass and my heart beating gently inside my chest.

But I'm not home, am I? And this place is such a crude juxtaposition that my stomach churns and I force more smoke into my lungs to disguise the taste of my disdain.

Looking down at the crowds of people waiting to funnel into the obnoxiously loud and bright nightclub basements makes me tingle. I have this sick urge to just get fucked up, forget it all for one night and dance to shitty music and feel something other than this.

I lost control before, and it almost cost me everything. Why does some part of me want to do it again? The fact that it's even a question I'm asking myself is terrifying.

I flick the stub of my cigarette off the edge of the balcony, watching it's faint orange glow fade away into nothing.

"Three years ago last week, I overdosed on painkillers." I say suddenly to my silent partner, as I stare out into the lights, pretending that they're stars.

"I was clinically dead for two minutes." I say, the doctor's voices still so clear in my head, "And I can say with the utmost confidence, that during those two minutes..."

I turn to face the woman.

"There was more life in me than there is at this party."

[gamemaker kelsier]

n i g h t s h a d e .

"I hid my deepest feelings
so well I forgot
where I placed them"

She could recall a time when the views that the Capitol offered had seemed exciting. Back when she was still young and freshly finished her training, she'd let the glamour and the technology sweep her off of her feet. Her unit had celebrated their graduation into the wee hours of the morning until a dull grey light from a sun threatening to rise had encroached on their fun.

They'd stumbled in and out of the clubs and even Nightshade, always so uptight and hardworking had loosened up for at least one evening. She'd danced until her feet bled and her unit mate, Henrik, had had to carry her back to the barracks. The memory was a fond one, she smiled briefly at a group in the distance, arm-in-arm and stumbling up the street.

That had been long ago, of course. That unit had all been reassigned to different districts, Henrick and Sylvester had both died in Nine and Lana had lost a leg in Six. As far as she knew, Astrid was thriving in Four. Nightshade simply wen where she was needed, using One as a base to stay close to her son and Opal.

She'd had friends, once, but no one wept for peacekeepers, not even their comrades. They knew what they were signing up for when they took their oaths. Nightshade wasn't any different from the rest of them, perhaps a little more reserved but not by much. To survive in her line of work, she'd had to close off pieces of herself.

Like a summer home, shuttered for a very long winter.

She hadn't been expecting Patricia to speak to her again, there'd been little chemistry in that first moment between them, but then she'd never met a predictable victor. Still, a part of her would have been content to stand there in silence beside her all night, lost in thought. There was nothing quite like smoking a cigarette with a stranger you didn't expect to meet again.

Perhaps Patricia felt the same because she spoke so simply of such personal things, it was as if Nightshade wasn't there at all. She could have been anyone, anything, a reporter for a gossip column or a high-up government official that suddenly knew much more about the victor than they had before, the woman didn't seem to care.

Or perhaps it was a joke.

Patricia turned to look at her fully and Nightshade gazed at her, head tilted slightly to the side and fingers on the base of her champagne flute, tapping gently. She prided herself in her ability to catch a liar in the act but Patricia was hard to read with such a blank delivery, so blunt and messy, a rock through a window.

She wasn't sure what she was supposed to react to, the news that the victor had tried to kill herself or the humour nestled carefully within. It was a strand of pain woven through a morbid joke. Nightshade couldn't help smiling a little at least at the statement because it was probably true, parties like the one they were at were ceaseless and predictable, the same thing year after bloody year.

She took another drag of her cigarette, cherishing the last few puffs she had left. "I've found more signs of intelligent life under a rock," she said mildly, "And yet here we both are."

Nighshade knew better than to ask about the overdose, though the detective in her was curious. What interested her more was the third message laying beneath Patricia's words, the subtle hint of the hope of an alternative activity. Of course, she could be misreading that.

"The night is looking up already," she said and stubbed her cigarette out carefully on the marble railing.

"You're looking to score tonight aren't you," she said and turned herself more towards Patricia so that it was easier to look at the woman, "Money for your tributes, of course."

[rook]

patricia valfierno

My dry attempts at humour usually go one of two ways, and so I stand across from this mysterious woman, waiting for her to either frown disapprovingly, or laugh. At first she does neither, staring at me, her face concrete and unwavering. I hold her gaze, waiting unless she slowly teases a smile from behind her smoked veil. Her eyes are dark stones shimmering in the neon pinks and florescent yellows of the Capitol skyline, her skin pale in this light becomes a canvas for the spectrum of advertisements polluting the starry ocean above.

"I've found more signs of intelligent life under a rock,"

I smirk, scanning the streets below again for a break in the flow of ants, for anything irregular or notable. Their routine is terrifying to me, and it shocks me just how much time people have on their hands to waste. At this hour nearly every citizen in District Five would be sleeping, getting in their rest before another hard day of work to keep all these fucking lights and commercials and nightclubs going. Those people down there likely have never worked a day in their lives. Not real work.

I peer over the railing, the cool marble pressing against my bare forearms as I lean my weight on it completely. The wind in my snow white hair is the only real thing I've felt in days. I hold onto it.

"You're looking to score tonight aren't you?"

I turn and raise an eyebrow. I didn't realise my outfit was that inviting, but my self-awareness is usually through the floor.

"Money for your tributes, of course." She finishes, and for a second I think that her pause was deliberate.

"Yes."

I respond bluntly, taking another drag and staring at my feet. Trying to score money. Failing to.

She is taller than me, which is some achievement - With heels she seems even more of a looming presence. She is naturally beautiful, and there's a seriousness in her face that is almost captivating. When she dares to try a smile, it's barely more than a flicker on her face, a dare for me to try harder.

Do I have the energy to try? I'm tired from the private sessions, the therapy, the hours of watching the Games, and after all of that the public begging for sponsorship. Can I really be bothered to entertain this woman's small-talk? She could just well be another socialite looking to be seen talking with a Victor. Another gossiping member of the aristocracy who would sell anything I say to the press and land me in more trouble.

Put Rose in more danger.

And yet, she doesn't look like any of them. Her hair isn't rainbow cotton candy, her face isn't streaks of golden eyeliner and plum purple lipstick. She doesn't look like she's from here. Maybe she is just trying to be polite.

I'm sick of not being able to trust anyone in this fucking city.

"Who exactly are you?" I ask firmly.

[gamemaker kelsier]

n i g h t s h a d e .

"I hid my deepest feelings
so well I forgot
where I placed them"

It was an offhand feeling, almost a casual thing for Nightshade to notice that Patricia was beautiful. It would be a stretch to call the Victor pretty; she wasn't.

Perhaps it'd be taken for a cruel thought but everything that the woman had seemed far too real, too natural and for a long time now, a woman like that hadn't existed. Nightshade gazed at her for too long, eyes falling over a sharp nose, high cheekbones and a moody stare. She wanted to ask about the white hair but somehow she felt like it might ruin things.

A silly thought to have, that a question about hair colour could ruin a non-moment between two strangers on a balcony.

It was lovely anyway, whisps of it moved in the slight breeze, strands of smoke on a skyline far too bright for its own good.

She let her eyes wander over Patricia, noticeably so. The woman seemed to be all angles, a faceted thing. There was so much refraction she didn't know where to look and it all seemed done with an attempt to safeguard the shadows she carried.

Without her cigarette, she had nothing to fidget with and no reason to stay out on the balcony other than to continue hiding from her sister-in-law. Night leaned out over the garden, her champagne flute barely touched. It had been a long time since she'd last been allowed to be a stranger. With her name came the weight of her brother's death and an attachment to Opal that she wasn't certain she wanted anymore.

It was hard to tell if Opal still wanted her around either. It was no secret to her that everyone she'd loved in her life was either dead or kept her at arm's length. There was a reason for it, she was named for it.

"I'm Nightshade," she said, I'm poison, is what she meant.

Her full name reminded her of a time that was now hers alone, she was the last to remember it. With her brother and parents long gone, she was the only person left alive that knew what a hot summer's day was like in her childhood home, she was the only one who remembered the stories she used to tell her little brother in bed at night and it was a lonely thing to live that way. It'd left her a little bit colder than she'd meant to be.

"I'm not really anyone of importance," she continued after a short pause, "Just passing through really."

It was an odd place for a no one to be, she knew that but in the end, it was true. After a conversation with Opal she'd be back out to the districts. Maybe she'd stop by One to see her kid, but that was only if she had time.

"It seems cruel that you're working on your own," she tested, a slight question to her tone.

Had the victor come alone tonight?

[rook]

patricia valfierno

Nightshade, huh? Sounds like a flower, or some exotic and dark perfume. It suits her. It suits her mystery and grace.

"I'm not really anyone of importance, just passing through really."

Sounds like something someone important would say.

I wish I could trust her. She seems genuine, but so does everyone who wants something. She's incredibly attractive and naturally beautiful, and that's half the problem too. The way the moonlight catches the profile of her face could be an oil painting hung somewhere momentous. Like the many portraits lining the red floral hallways of the justice building back home, or the glaring likenesses adorning Snow's mansion. She has a similar face to many of those I've seen immortalised in oil.

A low beat rumbles through the vast stretch of air beyond the balcony, the nightclub's erupt into life below and some awful music starts to climb the skyscrapers and bleed into my ears.

"It seems cruel that you're working on your own," She says over the noise of it all, and I almost have to wince to catch all of what she says, but I understand enough to nod in response.

Why do you care? I want to say, but the words catch in my throat as something burns inside my head and tells me to stop being so fucking defensive for once in my life, and to give people an actual chance.

I relax a little.

Cruel isn't really the word. I'm not being forced to do this. I could easily take Lethe's path of no involvement, hiding away in her ivory tower, refusing to help, refusing to move on with her life.

I shouldn't judge. She's lost more than I could ever imagine. Still, it's been eleven years since Eden. She still has Phelix, and he needs her. She still has tributes, and she can't keep leaving them to me, because I don't know how much use I really am given I'm helpless to stop them from dying every year.

"Someone has to." I admit.

I run my fingers through my platinum hair and let the breeze run over my scalp. I want to ask her why the hell she is talking to me, why on earth she wants to speak to an old, forgotten murderer. Hostility is my defence mechanism, and although I'm not being attacked, her eyes are like daggers and for some reason I can't quite grasp, I feel vulnerable.

But I swallow my discomfort, and although I am relaxed against the balcony railing, cigarette in hand and looking every bit as devil-may-care as usual, but I feel every bit not myself when I speak my next words.

"You have a pretty name." I say, taking another drag and bathing in it.