den of lions | d1 train, 88th

[Stare]

There were some days when Ridley Le Roux was a leopard and some days when she was a corpse, but she was beginning to realize that there had never been a single day that she had ever been a lion.

The Capitol had yet to realize otherwise. They thought they could gut her, carve out her heart and string its broken pieces out for all of Panem to feast upon, but the truth was that she'd been hollow for a long time. On the days when she sat with one palm pressed into the earth just beneath Torren's statue there was sometimes a flicker of something that felt almost like peace, but most of the time she was consumed by a burning ache that had long ago incinerated anything vulnerable that her enemies could have preyed upon.

When the names were called, when Le Roux echoed twice in the square, all the cameras turned toward her, determined to capture a glimpse of agony. Ridley's expression remained as cool and unchanging as stone. Emmett's death had been all broken glass and agony, Silk's a burning resignation, but this? This was a stinging numbness that grated against her soul.

And she was done trying to save lives. Clearly, she'd only ever been capable of losing them.

So when Ridley entered the train car later, balancing a tray with three peppermint teas (three mugs were too many to carry by hand as she had done in the past), she was not gentle. She was not determined. She was not any of the things she had been with Emmett or Silk. Instead she narrowed her eyes as she lowered the tray onto a nearby table. "It's like a family reunion in here, isn't it? Funny, how this train seems to be the only place I'm ever visited by other Le Rouxes."

This is what I want.

I'm here to win this, whatever the cost might be.

Ghosts. So many damn ghosts.

Ridley turned toward Emerson and Julian, tilting her head and waiting for her tea to cool. "I'll give you two the same options I gave Silk," she hummed, her tone echoing against the emptiness in her chest. Today she was a corpse. "Do you want to win, or do you want it to be quick? And before you both jump to your answers, I want you to think very hard about the option she chose and where it lead her in the end."

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

weep for yourself, my man
you'll never be what is in your heart
weep, little lion man
you're not as brave as you were at the start

The journey was always quicker for District One.

And as their silver train phased through grasslands and hillsides, mottled greens and crisp browns, he watched it all flit by from where he had his forehead pressed up against the cool glass, taking in the smorgasbord of shapes that stayed, flickered, and then was gone, stayed, flickered, and then was gone. District One stayed, flickered, and then was gone. Julian looked over at Emerson and felt a pang in his heart at how one of them would never reach the gold-dusted halls of the Le Roux mansion again. There was also that other fork in the road, the idea of both never going back home.

They were a prince and a princess spirited away to a newer, grander kingdom that played by its own rules and echelons. And although they had spent their whole lives learning the etiquettes of this kingdom, his heart hadn’t left its place in his throat.

Julian thought of himself as the gentler half of a career. If everyone modeled themselves after Justice Fray, it would be, well, not so ideal. It would be a massive red flag, actually. Thus, he learnt how to be gentle. He was kind. He would not be cruel or savage for no reason, and his trainers have always chided him for it. But Julian knew he had the ruthlessness in him. He was not a stranger to the wild streak he was bestowed since birth. It would be easy to give into the instincts of a lion. What was hard, was being kind-hearted.

However, the lion would always be a hunter at the end of the day, no matter how tame.

That was why he told Paris he didn’t know who he would become if he won. A king, yes that much was true, but perhaps a broken king of scars and wounds, of cracks and ruin. They were all things he saw in Ridley when the door gently hissed open and she entered the car.

He knew his cousin was haunted; the bottomless depths of her eyes held ghosts of her victory. But it always surprised Julian how strong Ridley looked, too. No matter how haunted or hollow she looked, there was mettle in her spine and rise in her chin. Armored by gold, Ridley Le Roux was someone who Julian would not hate to become—broken, yes, but a survivor nonetheless. 

“Why thank you,” he offered pleasantly, crossing the room in one long-legged stride with a grin to accept a single mug and raise it in a salute before taking a quick sip from it. Hot. But not hot enough to chase away the cold that washed down his backbone at Ridley’s next words. Julian’s jolly demeanor faltered.

“Do you want to win, or do you want it to be quick?”

The answer rushed to the tip of his tongue in a heartbeat or less, but Ridley quickly stoppered it. Silk – the thought hurt, as always had. She was another heir. She was meant to survive. Most were disappointed by the stolen glory she couldn’t bring home but really, Julian was crushed by how he and her could never attend another dance again, him mocking all the countless suitors that came to preen around her like bejeweled peacocks, her telling him about the debutantes and all their stories brandied about in their grand circles.

I want you to think very hard about the option she chose and where it lead her in the end.

Slowly, with a new weight to his once light eyes, Julian answered, “after being chosen for this, I want one of us to win. I want to make my district – and my family – proud.” He knew it was an unkind word to use in front of Ridley. But, something about her tone demanded the truth and nothing but the truth from him, so he would speak only that. He also knew he said ‘one of us’. They all knew that there was only one gold-cladded crown to be won at the end of all the blood and gore.

Well, this was becoming all too melancholic way too quickly so, he added, “we’re Le Rouxes right? We got all the advantage. Damnably good looks, and always another one to take our place if we come back in caskets.” Julian laughed. But that little quip didn’t last long, and his expression sobered fast. When he spoke next, he was the prince born to command armies again. “We’re Le Rouxes. That means something. But out of us three, only one wears a crown.” His hazel eyes landed on Ridley, and his look held respect. “Tell us what to prepare for. The real ‘what’s.”

The journey was always quicker for District One, but it was the quickest when you were a Le Roux.

weep for yourself, my man
you'll never be what is in your heart
weep, little lion man
you're not as brave as you were at the start

lyrics: mumford and sons, little lion man.

[alex 🐺]

Cordelia had kissed her goodbye and Emerson could still feel the ghost of her lips along her cheek as she walked with her cousin towards the train, flanked by Peacekeepers. Their white uniforms were crisp in the summer sunlight, but Julian and Emerson—they were gold, baby. Untouchable, even with the weight of phantom crowns on each of their heads. Julian walked as if he owned the place, even if it was Emerson’s family name that seemed to roar the loudest. She walks alongside of him, her head held high because dammit if she didn't love an audience. 

She lights a cigarette as they approach the train station, daring the Peacekeepers to do something. They let her take one drag and then another, and she blows smoke in their faces before handing it over to the goon closest to her. “It might help you take the edge off a bit and do something about that stick in your ass,” she joked, slapping him lightly on the cheek with a smile. 

The false bravado tasted sour in her mouth but that’s all that she had left now. She had nearly broken under Mom’s gaze, her rage and grief ruins in her chest that would only crumble to ash the longer that she kept it in. But no one wanted to see a tribute plagued by ghosts. They wanted—no, they demanded the arrogance that District One always seemed to carry in spades. And Emerson would deliver. She would give 'em hell, like Mom had said. 

And now, on the train watching the miles stream by like a kaleidoscope, Emerson bites at the nails on her left hand, her right leg dangling over her left. She hadn’t said much to her cousin, not yet, at least. They circled each other like, well—like fucking cornered lions, waiting to see who would break first.

And then Ridley comes in with three mugs of what had to be peppermint tea and the tension that seemed to suck up all of the air in the room seemed to deflate. Only just, though.

When Ridley had come back from the games five years ago, Emerson wasn’t sure if she wanted to be her cousin or join in the chorus of her family members that whispered about her like she didn’t share their blood and their last fucking name.

Because Ridley wasn’t just a lion. She was a survivor, drenched in gold and carrying her demons on her back and yet she came bearing tea. She was such a whiplash that Emerson feels her jaw drop to the fucking floor. Because Ridley was calculating and calm and cold and she had proven time and time again in the arena that she was every bit a lion, and yet here she was with what looked like the beginnings of an afternoon tea.

"It's like a family reunion in here, isn't it? Funny, how this train seems to be the only place I'm ever visited by other Le Rouxes."

Ouch, Ridley, but she wasn’t wrong. And—and maybe Emie should have made an effort before this to—to do what? Talk to Ridley about Emmett, about Silk? And ask her what? “Hey cousin, tell me about the last weeks you spent with them before they died. Spare no detail.”

Emie wonders if Silk asked about Emmett on the trip here. If Ridley had long since grown tired of playing a poor imitation of Charon shepherding souls across the Styx.

"I'll give you two the same options I gave Silk," Ridley muses, like this conversation pains her. Like she was weary already and the games had barely begun. "Do you want to win, or do you want it to be quick? And before you both jump to your answers, I want you to think very hard about the option she chose and where it lead her in the end."

Julian answers first—his right, Emerson thinks. He’s older. She’s still digesting Ridley’s words, chewing on them and letting them marinate in her brain so that she doesn’t just blurt out the first thing that comes to her mind. She gets off of the tufted couch, the leather of her jacket creaking as she moves and grabs one of the mugs, the china warm from the hot water.

“We’re Le Rouxes right? We got all the advantage. Damnably good looks, and always another one to take our place if we come back in caskets.”


He wasn’t mistaken, they were damn good looking. But he didn’t have to be so damn crass about it. It was her fucking family in those fucking caskets, thank you.

“We’re Le Rouxes. That means something. But out of us three, only one wears a crown. Tell us what to prepare for. The real ‘what’s.”

She takes too large of a sip of tea and it burns her tongue and throat. 

“Yeah, Julian’s right, Rid. We have all of this fucking baggage that can either help or handicap us. So let’s take the control back. How can we do this? Together, I mean. Because that’s the only way, right?”

Emie looks at her cousins, swallowing deeply, feeling the breath descend into her lungs like a two ton bomb. She throws out the olive branch to Julian now, her cards on the table, because Emmett was the emotional one, Silk was the deadly one, and Emie—she had to be the strategic one to be able to do the one thing that her siblings had failed to do.

And the best play now was teaming up with Julian, despite what Mom had said about stabbing him in the back and making him a martyr. She had no stomach for deception. Yet. She was sure her mind would change in the coming weeks. 

If there was one thing she knew, it was this: a lion alone was an omen, despite the deadliness that isolation wrought.

A lion backed by a pride was a harbinger.

[Stare]

Once, when she'd had a shorter temper, Ridley would have snapped at them. We? Us? Together? There was never an 'us' for her until she was on that train, facing down another walking corpse. There was never a 'together' until she was needed, until she was useful. When she'd been on her own journey to the Capitol, days away from the Arena, there had been no Le Roux to give a damn about her. There had only been Torren.

And then Torren had been slaughtered right in front of her.

But Ridley didn't lash out. Instead she felt a frustrated sigh ease out of her lungs as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "Ripred," she muttered, half to herself and half to them, "you're all the same."

Because hadn't Emmett stood in the very spot that Julian stood now, insisting that he was going to make his family proud? Hadn't Silk looked at her the same way Emerson did, trying to forge some sort of alliance where there had never been one before? It felt like a sick joke, the Capitol's very own punchline to remind her that no matter how many years away from her own Games she was, she would never stop going into the Arena. She would never stop watching the bodies of those around her collapse. Ridley's fingers tightened around her mug.

She was going to take their pretty city and burn it to the ground.

But until that day she had the Le Rouxes to reckon with. Ridley leveled her gaze at Emerson. "You'll have some time, in the beginning, when there can be a 'together'. Torren could have stabbed me in the back when we met in the woods. Delaney could have let me be gutted alive instead of dragging me out of that river. But they're both gone now, and I'm here, and that should tell you everything you need to know about what 'together' means in the Arena." Her tone never wavered, but something inside of Ridley did. It was painful to speak about her friends as if they had been nothing more than bodies standing in her way, but she suspected the words were ones that Emerson needed to hear. It wasn't enough to be strong within a pride. In the end, she would need to be strong enough on her own.

Ridley's eyes flickered toward Julian, her golden hand lowering and tap tap tapping against the table. His words had brought to the surface the greatest illusion that both he and Emerson would face. For a fraction of a second, the part of Ridley that was still loyal to Pax's memory hesitated. But she was tired of speaking in metaphors, tiptoeing around the reality that she'd lived with ever since she had been taken in by a family of lions that didn't want her.

"This is going to be the third year that I say this. Try to be better listeners than those who came before you." Ridley paused, taking a sip of tea to ground herself. "You are going to go into that Arena and you are going to fight for the family. You are going to cling to our name and count on it to carry you through the pain. I am telling you now, it is not going to be enough." She let the words hang there for a moment, as if airing them out would ease some of the stinging betrayal. But for there to be betrayal there needed to be trust, and while Ridley had always been loyal to the Le Rouxes, she had never trusted them."When you fight, you fight alone. If you die, you will die alone. And if you think I won because of our family, you didn't watch my Games close enough. I didn't win because I was a Le Roux. I won because I wasn't one."

Another sip of tea. It warmed the metal of her hand, not that she could feel it. Ridley paused, wondering if she even wanted to hear the answers to her next question, before sighing again and looking between the two of them. "So tell me - who are you without the name?"

Victors? Or just more ghosts?

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

weep for yourself, my man
you'll never be what is in your heart
weep, little lion man
you're not as brave as you were at the start

Ripred, you’re all the same. That drew a laugh out of Julian because it was damnably true; they were all the same. Every Le Roux was modeled after the other with the same golden manes, the same wheat-bright eyes, and the same burning ambition to be grand. They weren’t individuals, they were a collective of lions, or as his father loved to call it, a pride. We keep our chins risen, and hold our heads as if we wear crowns. They were all the same.

And that made Ridley’s next words more chilling than they already were. But they rang true. She hadn’t won because she fought like a Le Roux, but because she fought like herself. Perhaps it was easy for her. His memories of Ridley were scarce, an older cousin that clung to the dark instead of the light the Le Rouxes bask in, but he knew she had never been a true Le Roux, whereas Julian was the epitome of one. The ancient blood of rebellious lions, it coursed through his veins and held up his bones that if he were to let go of it, who would he be?

“Who are you without the name?”

He stuttered out a reply, then caught his tongue.

Ripred, he was drawing a blank.

If he hadn’t been destined to be the prince of the Le Rouxes, who would he be? Simply another career with lofty dreams and stars in his eyes? Another boy that knew a few sword tricks?

“Going right for the jugular,” he muttered.

Who was he? Underneath the constant performance and the charisma wielded like a shield, who was Julian? He was a boy that loved to spend his hours inventing useless trinkets, such as handmade lamps for Sunny’s bedroom or little wooden figurines for Cathy to play with. He was a boy who wasn't good at painting but tried nonetheless, making grotesque artworks that Jackal often mocked. He was a boy always eager to play hero, recalling fondly all the times he used to swing around a wooden sword and challenge Larissa. He was a boy that played, frolicked, dreamt, and lived. He was — he was a boy.

And that wasn’t enough. Being just Jules wasn’t enough.

“I will always be Julian Le Roux,” he says, setting down the mug with a tick of muscle in jaw and then, slowly, turning to face Ridley. “The name gives me power because, well, and this may not come as a big surprise, but it’s all I’ve ever known and been, a Le Roux.” He folds his arms and holds his spine upright. “The Le Roux bloodline is said to be descended from heroes and martyrs. However, I’m not interested in being either.” No, he wasn’t. Julian could be a hero, he supposed, but the arena allowed none. Julian could be a martyr, he supposed, but arena had enough.

“Maybe there’s a different Le Roux, a lion that doesn’t bare their fangs all the time. We forget that a lion is more than an animal,” he pauses, his eyes darting between Ridley and Emerson before he says it: “the lion is also a king.”

Paris’ words, short but genuine, resounds in his ears. “Come back to me as a king, not a casket.”

So his answer to Ridley’s question, was that he was nothing without the name, just a boy. But the name shielded Julian and gave him power, enough power to try and be someone else, a new kind of Le Roux. And he knew how to take the first steps towards that.

“Ridley, I’m sorry,” Julian said into the quiet that’d descended upon them. “For how our family treated you.” He sketched Emerson a quick look. “It sounds hollow, saying it after all these years and only when we both are in desperate need of your help, but I take no pleasure in lies. Apology is yours to accept …” he trails off, tipping his head to one side. Or to deny. They all more than deserved it if she did. 

weep for yourself, my man
you'll never be what is in your heart
weep, little lion man
you're not as brave as you were at the start

lyrics: mumford and sons, little lion man.

[alex 🐺]

She can see the way that Ridley looks at her. It’s almost the same way that Mom looked at her—after Emmett died, after Silk died. Something like pity, something like scorn, something like hatred. Something like recognition because she has the same blonde hair and same eyes that Silk has. The same crooked smile and smirk that Emmett has. Had. Past tense.

Ridley looks at them and she sees ghosts, apparitions half-formed. She sees the next thirty years of her life spelled out for her in ichor and gold, in arrogance and strength. She sees a never-ending circle that had begun the moment she walked out of the Arena with Bell Hailsham's blood on her face.

She sees the name Le Roux and she doesn’t think loyalty or love. She thinks languish and loathe. She thinks they are the damned waiting for tomorrow. She thinks they are cold-blooded and unfeeling and maybe they should be, but they’re family. Despite what she thinks and despite her anger, simmering below the surface like an undulating snake waiting to strike. Ridley Le Roux wasn't a lion. She was a serpent. Deadly, calculating, precise.

"This is going to be the third year that I say this. Try to be better listeners than those who came before you." At this, Emerson throws the scalding cup of tea to her left where it shatters and breaks, dripping tea and ceramic onto the floor of the train car. Because how fucking dare she—

“Fuck you, Ridley! Say their names! Just because Emmett and Silk didn’t come home, doesn’t mean—”

Jules reaches out then, an arm on her shoulder, stepping in front of her, and Emerson feels herself calming instantly. It’s what Emmett would do in these situations, when Emie’s rage made her lash out like a wounded animal, a supernova erupting in a burst of chaos. Ridley seems content to ignore her, which is just as well.

"You are going to go into that Arena and you are going to fight for the family. You are going to cling to our name and count on it to carry you through the pain. I am telling you now, it is not going to be enough." She pauses again and Emerson bites her tongue, bites back the vitriol that threatens to spew forth. She swallows it like acid, cyanide in her stomach, glaring daggers at Ridley as she balls her fists at her sides.

"When you fight, you fight alone. If you die, you will die alone. And if you think I won because of our family, you didn't watch my Games close enough. I didn't win because I was a Le Roux. I won because I wasn't one." If Ridley’s mechanical fucking arm didn’t look so damn menacing, Emie would smack the fucking teacup out of her hand, but she nearly bites her tongue off with the force of holding back from her older cousin.

“Going right for the jugular,” Jules mutters, and the tension breaks, if only just. Because Ridley was right, after all, as much as Emie loathed to admit it. They had been bred into this, wearing their name like a cloak of armor, and the only reason that Ridley came home was because she had shed her name like a snakeskin, transforming into who she needed to be to win the games while Emmett and Silk had clung to their names and had fallen like the last forgotten gods of a crumbling religion.

"So tell me - who are you without the name?"

Julian answers first and Emie turns and stalks away, finding herself by the bar where she hops up on top of it, swinging her legs in the air. As if this wasn’t a conversation about life and death. As if they were just three cousins, catching up on the latest gossip. As if Emerson didn’t want to punch Ridley in the face the same way she had decked Icarus’s smug fucking mouth before she had left the Justice Building.

“I will always be Julian Le Roux. The name gives me power because, well, and this may not come as a big surprise, but it’s all I’ve ever known and been, a Le Roux. The Le Roux bloodline is said to be descended from heroes and martyrs. However, I’m not interested in being either.”

He catches Emie’s eyes then, nearly pleading with the force of his conviction and Emerson nods minutely, willing him to go on. “We forget that a lion is more than an animal: the lion is also a king.”

“Or a queen,” Emie adds to herself, gaze on her nails, nearly missing the apology that spills out of Julian’s mouth like lip service to the one person who could actually shift the sands of fate and guarantee that they come home. That one of them comes home.

She’s tired. Exhausted, even. Her anger burning out just as brightly as it ignited. Maybe Ridley was right—Emie was too busy thinking of them as a team, a unit, because that’s what family was. They were a pride, after all. They were proud Le Rouxs. Even with her family name stamped on her back and across her heart, maybe she really needed to think of herself as a lone lion. Isolated and cut off from everything else with only her skills and intelligence to get her through the Arena. But that—that goes against every fucking thing they’ve learned since they were kids. Ridley might be the outcast, but Julian and Emie—

“Ridley, you’re right, but lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice. We’ve got to do this our way, even if the odds were different when you were in the Games. Would you have gone into it with the same mindset if Harper had been in there with you too? Or Icarus?”

Emie jumps down from the bar, stepping closer to her cousins, forgetting for just a moment that Ridley Le Roux killed three people to stand where she stands today. Forgetting that she nearly exploded in a fit of rage just moments ago.

She opts to be demure, pleading, eyes shining as she looks from Julian to Ridley.

“You made it out when Em—Emmett and Silk didn’t and that totally counts for something because you’re here today with us and they aren’t, but we have to use our name to get us as far as we fucking can. We can't undo what happened with our families, but we can move forward. And whether that’s Jules and I together, or just one of us crawling across the finish line, splattered in blood and pearly white teeth gleaming like razors—then we can play it your way. Because we sure as hell won’t be the same when all’s said and done and the crown rests heavy on one of our heads."

[Stare]

Nobody can beat me. I’m still here.

Nobody can beat you. You're the strongest person I know.

Ridley watched Emerson's tea spread out from the broken fragments of her mug, finger tracing the scars above her wrist absentmindedly. She was sure if she went to some Capitolite doctor they could erase them, just as they had erased the scars on her back, but a part of her clung to the markings as a reminder of the first Le Roux that she had lost.

Would you have gone into it with the same mindset if Harper had been in there with you too? Or Icarus? What about Torren? Or Milo? Or Charisma? Or Delaney? Ridley hadn't gone in with another Le Roux, but she had gone in with people who cared about her. People who would have felt pain rather than relief at her death. She couldn't wash their blood off her hands. She couldn't rid her mind of their ghosts.

More and more each day, Ridley Le Roux felt like a death sentence.

She didn't accept Julian's apology. Instead she took another sip of tea and tried not to grimace at her next words. "Weaker tributes will be afraid of your reputation," she said at last. "Stronger tributes will either target you or ally with you. Viewers and commentators will care about who you're related to. The Gamemakers won't, so you'll have to figure out a different way to impress them." Her mouth twisted. "Play the part that they give to you, even if you don't want it. It helps to have them on your side in the beginning."

Ridley thought briefly about the severed hand that she'd gifted to her own Gamemaker, a promise disguised as gratitude. Play the part they give to you. How much longer could she keep up her act? How much longer could she wait before she ripped them to pieces, before she scorched everything that they held dear, before she tore down their foundation and watched them crumble? Patience, something inside of her whispered. Someday. Someday it will all burn.

She returned her attention to Emerson and Julian, lifting her golden hand pointedly. "Be prepared for loss. Be prepared for pain. If the name Le Roux is what can get you through those things, then maybe one of you will come home. But Emmett and Silk said the same thing, so it might be worth it to ruminate on some other reasons to drag yourselves out of whatever hellhole it is that they drop you in."

There was a long pause. Ridley refused to allow herself to imagine what it would be like for another Le Roux to win. She would not wind up at Opal's door again, blood dripping onto the floor and heart in tatters. But sometimes it was easier to lie to the condemned than face the brutal truths, so she offered them both an almost-smile. "And if one of you does come home with a crown instead of a coffin? Then we can talk about apologies."