a beating heart | d11 train

[sbeeg]

Will you, won't you want me to make you

Kass' heart is still pounding as they settle into their seats in the dining car. Seeing little Manwe step up to the stage had made her brain short circuit. The Rhodes didn't deserve that kind of drama and for once she wasn't going to make fun of Katelyn for decking out a Capitol spread with homemade goods. If anyone needed a cookie and a second to themselves it was Harbinger.

Revan looks touch enough and it was kind of him to interfere but kindness doesn't bring you home.

The girl looks broken. Belle Jaune had shouted for someone before being pulled from the stage. Was it a brother? A boyfriend? Whoever he was, he meant something to her.

The grief Belle felt now would either propel her to a crown or shatter her, she wondered which one it would be.

Kass grabbed one of Katelyn's cookies from a platter and stretched out in a booth with her boots up on the table top. It felt good to be out from under Lt. Harlow's gaze and she had given him stern instruction not to touch her stuff while they were in the Capitol. Not that such an order had ever been honored before. He was probably already poking around their houses. Kass shifted thinking of the small bag sitting in her sleeping compartment packed with her clothes but also her picture of Killian she had yanked down from the mantle before Harlow could see it. Killian had been the thread that led her home, and if Belle or Revan wanted to do the same they better kick their asses into gear.

"So, are you two planning on dying or living?" she asked through a mouthful of cookie.

lyrics from Helter Skelter by The Beatles | table by griffin

[Cato]

Revan Antilles

Nobody even came to say goodbye. I guess that's okay though. Just means I don't have to worry about them since they didn't even care to talk to me. Sort of sucks though. But my family is probably in shock. They probably don't understand. Why would anyone volunteer for this? Hell, my brother did. For a Rhodes. I'm not even sure if I care about the game and fortune potentially waiting for me. At first I wanted to simply die, to pay the price for betraying my friend, but now I don't. I want my family to see me walk home as a victor with a crown on my head. I won't even let them in my home since they didn't even care to see me off to my grave.

I step onto the train, and at first it doesn't seem like much. But once I look around I'm completely taken by surprise. It's huge and fancy, and like nothing I've ever seen before. And then it makes me mad. The Capitol has so much. They're so rich. They never go hungry. They never had to betray a brother to have food. They never had to suffer like I have. Yet I push it all away long enough to sit down and try to just enjoy the moment. I have quite the future ahead of me, and I need to make sure I stay calm. That's when Kassandra starts talking. She's eating a cookie, and she's the youngest of the victors by a lot. She asks if we want to live or die. Of course the answer is easy. Everyone wants to live don't they? I do. I pick up a glass filled with water and take a drink. "I'm going to live." And that's all anyone needs to know.

District Eleven

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[d4 Panda Scope [Gayton]]

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B e l l e  J a u n e

♫

Gaston never spoke to me about his opinion on the games. I always assumed it was similar to everyone else. They suck. But now that I'm on this train and I see these people, I could of been wrong.

This train was the only place I had ever been that reminded me of Gaston's house. It was flashy and extravagant. It was too... clean. It was just a train, but was cared for more than half of the populations homes.

And these people reminded me of him. Wealthy and self-important. The escort, I got. They were raised this way. But the victors, I don't think Gaston knew any of them, but they'd get along. I didn't know anything about them, but I knew they were born in the same place as I was. They experienced, to at least some extent the traumas that come hand in hand with living in District Eleven. 

Yet here they were, indistinguishable from a Capitolite. One of them, with enough audacity to ask me if I planned to live or die. What was that supposed to mean?

Revan wanted to live. I didn't know.

"Is this living, for you?" I asked. "Escaping poverty and hoarding money while the rest of the District wonder if they'll eat tonight?"

I paused for a moment. 

"I don't want whatever the hell you call what this is," I turned to Revan, "But I will see Adam again."

[charade]

k a t e l y n .

"I wish I was just as strong
as I make myself out to be"

It was hard to believe that it had been six years since Rex Antilles had volunteered for one of Harbinger’s many brothers. Harder still to believe that Revan all grown up had decided to follow in Rex’s footsteps to a tee. That was the problem with volunteers. They were brave.

They were always brave.

But Belle was too, despite having no say in the matter.

“Oh, I like this one,” she remarked offhand to the other victors in the car. “Almost as sassy as you Kass.”

She grabbed her platter off the capitol buffet spread and put it in the center of the table.

”You don’t want to be a victor? That’s good. You shouldn’t.” There was a lot to unpack behind that statement and it was more than could be said during a single train ride. At least there would be time in the training center to get to the heart of things and hopefully bring one of them home.

She could have been catty, snapped about how Kirito ran a clinic and she gave free meals to those in need, but the children in front of her did not deserve her ire, it was Harlow and that witch in the Capitol that did. Katelyn stared at the small pineapple upside-down cake, as well as a plate containing red velvet cookies.

She’d asked around as she did every year, wanting to give the tributes a taste of home.

For most, it was the last taste of home they’d ever have.

“If you want to live,” she said, looking at Revan, “And you want to see this Adam again,” she turned to look at Belle, “Then you would do well to listen to us. We sat where you are once, and then we bled and killed and cried. We came back.” She took one of the cookies and bit into it, wondering if she should have whipped the frosting just a little bit more.

Kids.

Being a mentor had been a lot easier ten years ago when most people saw the three older victors as a beacon of hope instead of relics of a bygone golden era. It was easier when she was in her twenties and still full of fire instead of mellowing out at thirty-five.

Hell, the current generation of tributes hadn’t even been born when the three of them had been reaped. On the other hand, Kass had only won five years ago, but Capitol media had been quick to move onto Ridley, Beck and Shy.

Proper career victors.

Katelyn supposed it left Kass with more in common with her and the boys instead of her peers. “You can hate us if you like,” she continued. “But we’d prefer to spend this time together getting to know you and answering any questions you might have about the games.”

elegant