Perspective [Vasco/Katelyn Blitz]

[charade]

k a t e l y n .

Now the skies have been blacked out
I’ve got to find my way
‘Cos it’s been raining but there’s a drought
And I’m fighting with broken bones

Why had she told him?

It would’ve been better to wear a mask, though it may not have been easier. But she couldn’t have held this in. It was like she’d told Opal. No more secrets. She couldn’t handle it anymore. Putting on masks, taking them off, smile for the cameras, cry when no one’s looking. Hold in the anger, break a plate. She’d survived the sixty-ninth games and she’d never quite turned off her fight or flight response.

Or maybe she had, and her years in the detention center, the years as someone’s project had turned it back on. Vasco wouldn’t be able to understand that, and she wouldn’t know how to explain it in the first place. He was cut from a different cloth. Vasco was a man that always held onto the hope of a better tomorrow, who saw the best in everyone. Katelyn had not known what hope was until she had spent a week hoping that everyone else in the arena died instead of her.

Vasco had walked into her life with a smile, with eyes that saw. From the first day, he’d treated her like a person; not as a mentor or a victor, a queen or a killer, not as a celebrity or a pariah. He’d just treated her like Katelyn. It was so damn rare. He’d offered the hand of friendship, of help when she’d returned home from her ordeal.

But was difficult for her to accept help. People had a way of letting you down in the end. Whether they stabbed you in the back or just withdrew until you had to wonder if you ever knew them at all. It was one thing to try to convince herself that none of this was in vain, that every bit of trauma she’d forged into armor meant something.

It was another thing entirely to hear someone say it. Everything he was saying, actually.

Yeah, she knew it.

Vasco had a heart for people he’d never met. She couldn’t afford to. Year after year, she was put into the same situation. Forced to assign value to children’s lives when they were all supposed to be equal. When given a scale that had to be balanced she’d pick her tributes over the others every time. They were more real, even if she only had a train ride and a few sparring sessions to get to know them. She tried. It was why she’d given Callum pointers. Why she’d talked with Perdita, however briefly.

But more times than not, she was unable to categorize tributes from the other district as anything other than an obstacle to be overcome. It was only when bother her charges were dead and gone that she was truly able to see them as people. That was sad, wasn’t it?

She had to focus on eleven, because if she didn’t then she’d be crushed by the enormity of what was happening to the rest of them. Or worse, she’d have to focus on herself. Vasco didn’t want to play their game and she would have commended him for that, if not for knowing that ignoring the game was deadlier than losing it. She’d ignored it when she was younger and she’d paid for it so harshly.

Why would you think you’ve failed him?

Because his father was six feet under, just like Arabella. Like the two Taylor sisters and Rex Antilles. Like Tamron and Carrita and half a dozen of Vasco’s family members. Because it wasn’t enough. Nothing she did was ever enough. Not for them, not for their families, not for the Capitol. And the words of encouragement she’d given Arabella and the fury she’d spat at Cyro in an attempt to get him to see his folly tasted like ashes in her mouth just the same.

Vasco said that she didn’t have to know, that she didn’t have to think that far ahead, but she did. Staying a step ahead, planning her moves in advance had gotten her this far. Trying to anticipate her opponents moves had kept her breathing. Being this strong, unshakable, furious force of a mentor had worked thrice, even if she’d been tempered with age like a blade on a blacksmith’s anvil.

Love wasn’t enough.

Not when the world was filled with hatred and a cold, clinical indifference.

You had to fight fire with fire, even if it meant you got burned.

Katelyn had felt alone for so long that even when she wasn’t it was hard to see. Hard not to feel like she wasn’t still in that place, bracing for the next hit. And some part of her still was. It was never over, not really. There were just calm moments in between the storms. Katelyn hadn’t dared to ask whether or not the Izars would want to help her; It wasn’t as though she regularly talked to them save Vasco, though she did routinely put flowers on all of their tributes graves. But as the saying went, it took a village to raise a child.

Even if it only took a slip of paper to kill one.

Katelyn put a hand over her face and scrunched her eyes shut, trying to block out the world in its entirety. He was too kind. Just that. Just kind. If she wound up playing a part in his destruction, she’d never forgive herself. She tried to take in what he’d said anyway.

“Thanks, Vasco. I mean it.” She said tiredly, hugging him again. She didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t know where to go from where she now found herself. Maybe adopting Xander wouldn’t be an insurmountable hurdle. But that still left the old woman. Katelyn sighed, the silence between them stretching. “She’ll be expecting updates as the months go on. I’m afraid I don’t know what I’m going to tell her.”

It wasn’t her only fear. A much more present, selfish and visceral fear pushed its way to the forefront of her mind.

What would Opal think when she showed up next year with a toddler in tow?

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

V A S C O

I leaned into the warmth of her hug. Maybe that’s why Opal had fallen for her – Katelyn gave good hugs, strong enough that you couldn’t be afraid she was going to let go – and I closed my eyes to take in the moment.

Part of me felt like praying. Not the set of prayers I’d say early in the morning at the foot of the porch, Uxue’s rosary beads split between my index finger and thumb. No, that was a way for me to settle the stiffness in my neck and the pain that collected behind my knee. This was – a wish, to whatever unnamed god existed that we could hold on. For her sake, that no matter what happened to me, she’d forgive herself.

We don’t teach each other how to forgive, least of all, how we’re supposed to forgive ourselves.

You have to fight against what the whole world has ever told you, namely, that we’re supposed to shoulder these burdens alone until they scattered down at our feet. Or, if we’re lucky enough, manage to pass them on. Think about the last time anyone ever told you that the grief you held in your chest was greater than what you could carry. There’s no way to hold it back, and like a rumbling train, it’s going to bring you along whether you meant to take it or not. Which don’t mistake me for saying that we’re victims – you’ve got to believe you have some sort of agency, hard as that may seem.

But sometimes it means looking inside and knowing when to say that this grief, this helpless feeling was a burden shared. And while we couldn’t have the answer, maybe not one that we wanted, didn’t mean we stopped ourselves from looking forward.

There would always be men like Snow to exact generational grief so long as we kept ourselves as part of the system that they’d created. He wasn’t even the source of it all, just the biggest example of how it served those who had power and destroyed those who had none. And all the advantages we’d managed through three, four generations could be taken away in an instant. Whole families decimated at the whim of a shadowy set of figures that knew nothing of our grief. People who either believed we were better off learning through suffering or enjoyed the result.

So what did I tell my best friend if it meant I wouldn’t play along anymore?

“There’s not much to tell for now. I’ll win re-election without any opposition. A few trips planned to seven, twelve, and maybe two. Start some more work programs. And if she wishes, perhaps Ms. Olivia can call me herself. I’ve been told I’m quite charming,” I pulled back to offer a grin.

“You worry too much about me, anyway. Which I love about you, Katelyn,” don’t lose that, I want to add, smile setting on my face, “Just remember that some of us are responsible for ourselves. Even if I might not act like it from time to time.”

elegant