Mors Tua, Vita Mea [Babe / Francisco]

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

francisco de soto

I've lived my life in the sun
I've lived my life so hard
I lived my life and I'll die
'Cause everything dies
But it don't seem right

He is tired.

Now and again, the rocking motion of the train causes Francisco to slump forward and then lull against the glass of the windowpane. He closes his eyes for a just a second, ready to dream, only to snap his attention forward and shake away the sleep. He looks about the cabin of the train car, now empty, peacekeepers gone to other cars or watching the doors of his own so that he’s left with the velvet seats and plush carpeting and not much else. But he prefers it this way, the easy silence that envelopes the train car aside from the clanking of the rails or the whistle of the train.

Francisco had spent the past year out among the districts. Shaking hands with mayors, checking the barracks of peacekeepers, and discovering the crumbling state of each of the districts on his long walks. He’d not heard a word from the president but then this came as no surprise; they had never so much as spoken unless he’d been addressed and only in passing. This had been the story of anyone that had been selected to carry water for the greatest dictator the world had ever seen.

And for a while, he’d believed that was his rightful place.

The dark days had shown the brutality of man and the cost of war. He had been a general fighting alongside men who’d been blown to pieces. He’d seen towns burned out and the bombs that they’d dropped on district thirteen firsthand. He’d rallied men and women to burn the old artifacts of history that could’ve preserved those in the districts because of the threat that they posed to the capitol’s power. Watching the flames disintegrate the old world had licked the vengeance clean off his bones. He had done what was necessary to secure a fragile peace.

They’d have never understood it – the districts, the sympathizers, any of the people who had wanted peace before peace had been won. For even in victory over the rebels, eradication of what was most precious to them had been necessary. He could not let who they had been survive so long as who they were destined to be was still so weak.

It came as no surprise he’d been tapped as a Vice President, not to him. The loyal soldier. The first to defend the president’s name. The man who had seen to it a list of names was kept, and all that was left of those who were written was the fine black ink on the page. This was justice, and it was mercy. To forget a new world and a new world order meant consolidating power into the hands of the few against the mob of the many. Those with vision who could lead out of the darkness.

He placed a cigarette into mouth and lifted a lighter, his hand shaking. He glanced over his shoulder and forward again. Flicking the lighter alive, he sat, breathing in a taste of the tobacco.

But he was tired.

Of the inconsistencies that he observed – those awarded with contracts, power, fame, infamy – it showed no order, no merit, only the whim of the president. That any criticism was met with silence or obliteration. They were children being taught a lesson; the new world order was still fragile so long as one dug deeper below the surface.

He’d made the mistake of questioning the games, of how after five years they had gone stale. What more could they teach the districts by killing their children for sport? Did it not make sense to create work camps for families, to restrict their right to choose, and to only breed the fit and the strong? The games were a wasteful expense of peacekeeper resources, especially those who had fought and died for this country.

And when it happened he was met with only silence. Rather, he was told, if he didn’t like how things were done, he could leave.

So he did. To the outskirts of the districts on assignment. Never once did he get the call to return, that he was needed on any matters of business or politic. He had always been a window dressing. Someone who could lend authority to the cause with his background. And now, six years on, he was worth a warm bucket of spit.

But worse, as the months and years that had gone on, he’d shed allies and friends like feathers from a bird’s plumage until he was bare.

It had been a month since he’d hardly slept, suspecting that his decision to return to the capitol, met with an ominous silence had meant to him he would not return. And even if he managed to set foot inside he’d hand over his resignation to disappear as soon as he’d returned.

But he knew.

He knew that he was a dead man.

His attention turned to the sound of footsteps at the door, and he could feel his heart begin to thump in his chest. He did not cower, did not shrink in his seat. He’d faced death many times in the war. Now it was time that it finally came for him.

“Oh.” He said as the door opened and revealed not an assassin, but the victor of the 3rd hunger games. He had no hatred for the child. Only pity that he’d spend his life consumed by whatever the capitol could want.

“I had thought you were someone important come to see me.” He said, shifting in his seat. “But why don’t you come and sit down anyway, next to me?”

elegant

[gamemaker kelsier]

b a b e .

"Please don't
leave the table,
I'm still eating"

They need a win.

Coming up on year six of the culling and folks are starting to lose hope. Babe can still remember what people were saying in the streets when they announced the first one, 'No way they gonna do this for real, you know how mad that is?'

Now it's been six years and Babe has met two more like him, Mo, just a sweet fuckin' kid and Terra, certified badass babe out teaching littles how to kill each other quicker.

He runs a hand over a stubbled jaw and grins a little at his reflection. Babe is nineteen years old now, same age as Cy, his older brother was when he died. Next year he'll be twenty, officially older than Cy ever got to be. The thought lays like a worry against the back of his skull, an unsolved problem to chew on. He doesn't know what else to do but make note of that.

Babe leans idly against the train's bathroom counter, fingers digging under the lip of the sink in search of a gift. Six years since the first reaping and Panem has finally given in and begun to fluff up their ranks with Districters. Didn't take much to get a rebel onto a guard squad, took even less for her to hide something for Babe.

"What're you even gonna do?" Burma had asked him.

"Remind them," he'd said.

This isn't natural, none of it is, the train rides, the stadiums and the ashes lining them. As the years go on, folks have stopped fighting, stopped questioning. Babe sees it in the way the guerrilla cells in Nine have begun to go silent. There's less unity and more just groups looking out for their own people. A couple of months back, a cell even fought with another over territory and Babe can't even blame them for that.

Nine is starving.

Turns out that when you don't bring a victor home, the Capitol isn't so nice. After a year of living pretty easy, the grain and produce being shipped into Nine was reduced by half. Prices have gone up and up for a sack of flour, a loaf of bread is double the price it used to be and since they closed half the factories, no one's got work anymore.

People have started looking forward to the reaping, kids have been following Babe around in the streets for months now asking for advice on how to be a killer.

On how to be a hero.

"Babe, Babe!" they call out, "Teach us like how Terra does those Ones and Twos!"

But he doesn't have the vocabulary, he doesn't know how to tell them that the way to win isn't killing but just to be the last one standing.

He isn't good at that bullshit, he leaves it to Terra.

Babe's better at this kind of thing.

He slips out of the bathroom, then down the train, eyes forward. Dining car, he remembers the order from the list, then Car C. Babe moves through them silently, knowing he has mere minutes to traverse the train before getting caught. He should be afraid here, if they catch him outside his path to the toilet, it won't look so good.

They might kill him if they catch him but Babe's faced death enough times now, he knows how to keep his fear in check long enough to complete his work. He spends a little bit of time tucked between the seats in Car B, pulling himself along slowly beneath them as a set of peacekeepers play cards a few rows away.

They're meant to be on guard but for so many, the war is long over and the Capitol holds absolute power. To them, there's no one insane enough to keep fighting, at least not on the train. They have a false sense of security and Babe lets them. He plays docile for the cameras, then points a gun down a dark alley the same night.

He finds the Vice President right where he was told he'd be, tucked away in first class surrounded by luxurious velvets and a private cabin. For a moment, Babe just stands there outside the cabin door, gaze fixated on the distorted shape of a man behind the facetted glass window.

Everyone knows him, the president's right hand man, responsible for causing so much grief in the districts even after the war. Babe recognized his insignia the first time he saw it again. The man's troops had been there the day Adroxis Ammunition was stormed for the final time and Babe lost everything.

Maybe Francisco had been there too.

Then, he hears a door rattle on its track a little ways away and Babe reacts. He slides open Francisco De Soto's cabin door and slips inside, locking the door behind him with a resounding thunk.

For a moment, the two men stare at each other. Babe's never seen De Soto up close in person, only ever on official propaganda and from afar at a few events. He looks tired up close, older than the posted propaganda portrays him as, and maybe a little heavier too.

"Oh."

Babe tenses, eyes on De Soto's hands but the Vice president makes no move to reach for a weapon. He doesn't view Babe as a threat but why should he?

The Capitol won the war years ago.

He ignores the invitation to sit beside the official and sits down slowly across from him instead. A myriad of emotions filter through him and Babe clenches his jaw, struggling to keep composure now that he's actually here.

"You know who I am then?" he asks after a few moments, "Then you must also know that I'm not supposed to be here... But you're not worried, huh? Guess I'm losing my edge."

Then Babe reaches into the chest pocket of his jacket, eyes on his enemy for a reaction. He makes a show of it for a moment and then finally pulls out a carton of cigarettes and an old lighter.

"Mind if I smoke?"

He lights up anyway.