wasps in lavender ; aspen & willa

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

Being here is a difficult transition.

Consider it like the shift of going from two weeks of strength conditioning into a full month of endurance training. It's enough to twist your stomach into a solid knot. And if that doesn't do it for you, the cramps will haunt every step you take for the rest of the semester. Trust me on that. Life has a neat way of knocking you flat on your ass. I've been there before. Professor Locklear always liked to say suffering builds character. Makes us tough.

For all the advantages I have, I can say none of them came to me kindly.

Mackenzie and Jacinta ran through the numbers with me that first night in the Capitol. When I struggled to understand their meaning, they put it into more simple words. "You're a contender." Which, I'll admit, I had already been aware of. Simply for the fact that I'm an incredibly stubborn, prideful person — and in any fight, I'll always bet on myself — but the fact still stands. I don't need a sheet of statistics to tell me that I'll give my all.

I just do. The world's a scary place, but there's no reason to just lie down on the tracks and let the train run you over. That's never been my style. I stand up, find my footing, and I brace for impact. It's all I can do. Swallow down the fear, turn it into fuel, and just go after it. I've had my fair share of broken bones. Hurts like a bitch, but the key is patience. Breathe. In and out. Don't sweat the things you can't change.

"Fuck me," I mutter under my breath as I stomp out into the hallway. Here's the thing. I know the right way to go about this. My whole life, people have been lecturing me about what to do when I feel the anger setting in. Right now, right here, I can talk you through as many stress relief exercises as you could hope for. I'm just saying... sometimes it's not worth it. Like when you're eighteen, only a few months away from being out of the reaping.

Ready to graduate, and start your life, only to get completely fucked. Of course it pisses me off. Don't get me wrong, I'm sucking it up. My mentors tell me that aggression can only get me so far in the arena; that I can't go into this throwing punches at everyone who pisses me off. Sheer power can only do so much. Work smarter, not harder. Whatever. I've been listening to the combat trainer go on and on about ridiculous, fancy techniques for the last hour.

I'm frustrated. He's clearly never been in a real fight in his entire life, and yet every movement I make he finds something to pick at. Really, I'm trying not to take it personally. I don't need his validation. And as much as I'd like to introduce my knuckles to his jaw, a little voice in the back of my head reminds me that any kind of enemy will put my life at risk here. An even quieter voice says, 'Twenty-three people want me dead. What's one more?'

After finishing up at the water fountain, I swipe a layer of sweat from my forehead and watch as the doors to the training floor glide open. An unfamiliar girl walks into the space with me, looking as if she's one strong gust of wind away from not being a threat these Games. I mean, seriously, it's kind of upsetting. And I feel bad, writing her off so casually, but I blame it on the adrenaline. I'm just looking for any excuse to be upset.

Maybe if I'm angry on the behalf of someone else, it'll be fine. We'll go with that. "Hey!" I shout at her more harshly than intended, so I quickly raise a hand to wave at her and put on an intense smile. It's a rocky start, but I'm trying. "Name's Aspen. And you?" My cousin insists that I need to learn how to speak with more social grace, but then I just feel shitty not being myself. Which just makes me scared that I'm gonna get myself killed.

"You need any help? Because, uh... I do! Let's train together!" I'm not a fan of lying, but also I'm not tactless enough to just flat out tell her that she looks harmless. And if I've learned anything, trusting these trainers will only get her killed. Surviving takes experience, and if she's supposed to have a fighting chance, I need to get involved. That's what I tell myself, at least. Maybe I'm just as helpless as she is.

"And, no, I won't be offended if you need me to teach you how to climb a tree." I grin awkwardly, stifling a low chuckle. "Um, that was me telling you I'm from Seven. Ha."

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

Willa Copeland had never really been much on faith. Not many from Six were, she supposed, which made sense for a place that valued science so much that it had become the District's industry. But there was something there- a question, maybe- that she hadn't thought to ask before. A lot of questions: dozens of them, lined up for so long that they folded into one another, grew entangled and intertwined like vines wrapped around twisted tree limbs. It made it completely impossible to figure out which came first, which she needed to know the most.

She thought she might believe in a higher power. Workers of miracles, explanations of the unexplainable. That was the one take away from everything, from the past year of life that she lost and for the next fifty she was about to lose as well: she thought- well, she was pretty sure- that she had faith where there was none before. Faith that there was something out there with a plan.

Now, before you go and make your assumptions, hear her out: Did she think she believed in a higher power? Yes. Did she consider herself devout? Anything but. No merciful god would have kept her asleep for so long. No merciful god would allow a world like this one to prosper, and yet it continued to anyway. Yearly, children were murdered while the masses praised them for their sacrifices. Who were the gods in that situation? The Capitolites tossing the children into the lion's den, or the children themselves? She closed her eyes to consider it.

She didn't feel particularly god-like. She only felt alone. And she thought there were worse things she could feel.

"Hey!"

She flinched, then silently cursed herself for doing so. She didn't stack up; they could all see it. She was among the few weakest, she came from a middle district that had just gotten a victor, and even if the rest of them didn't know it, she'd been asleep for over half a year immediately before this. If the gods were real, they existed not to reward those devout in faith, but to punish those who weren't. She crossed her arms over her chest.

Willa Copeland was feeling godlike today, herself. And she'd do a better job than the rest of them, once she joined their ranks.

The voice belonged to a tall, athletic-looking girl, with blonde hair, a pinched nose, pointed lips, and noticeably large eyes. She was well-toned and held her chin up while she strode over to me, her eyes sure in a way Willa's would never be, so long as she lived.

"Name's Aspen. And you?"

It took her a moment to remember she was supposed to reply, too cerebral for her own good, that girl from Six.

"Willa."

She cursed her voice for being so gentle. She cursed her hands for not knowing how to wrap themselves around the hilt of a knife correctly. She cursed her body for failing at the things she should have succeeded in, based on how brilliant her mind was. A waste of potential, a bright young mind extinguished before anyone ever got to bask in its beauty.

"I'm just from Six," she explained, a kind smile playing itself across her features. When she was younger, she'd always thought, if she could choose a home for herself, it would've been somewhere in Seven, where the trees grow tallest. There must have been hundreds of different kinds of birds she could draw there, nesting in the pines, resting in the oaks, hunting in a grove for worms and beetles. She'd been working on her application for the student exchange program when everything went black. They told her after they woke up that the boarders had closed again for the foreseeable future. Though she guessed it didn't matter- she wasn't ever going to live long enough to see the trees, anyhow.

The girl was being friendly, for whatever reason. It wasn't like Willa was an ideal friend. Maybe she wanted someone who was a slow runner so she could run away safely when the time came for it. Maybe she just wanted to be nice. Either way, it was more than Willa would have expected. She decided she was grateful, her shoulders dropping and her back becoming less rigid.

"Can you show me how to climb a tree, actually?" There wasn't much she could do by way of survival, but at the very least, she was small enough to not worry about her weight snapping the limbs as she grabbed for them. Maybe if she could climb high enough, the other tributes wouldn't be able to reach her and she could just wait it out up there until they all died. Besides, at least once in her life, Willa wanted to see what the birds saw.