Wishing Something Bolder [Katelyn/Vasco]

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

v a s c o

You came for me in fast forward
On a claim for something ordered
A way through and past the history that held you
I'd tell my own story through you
Tell it loud to never lose you

The night after auction, when Yani had fought sleep so hard she’d drooped her head in the folding chair next to me, bonfire still crackling, and I’d had to whisper the sleep out of her eyes and practically carry her back to the cabin, I’d been struck by the cool of autumn’s embrace. I’d finished off the smoked sausage with rice and beans with a cup of coffee, more for the bitter taste than to keep me awake, but it’d done its job well enough. Midnight came and went while I sat in front of the little firepit beside my cabin, tucked between a folding chair and the red and orange flame.

I counted the stars up overhead, each pinprick of white sprawled against a black sky. Reminded me of eleven, so few streetlamps to break apart the darkness overhead, you could get lost watching the heavens dance. My Tía Xuxa used to talk about the witching hour, when the world grew still, and secrets revealed themselves. But it wasn’t the scary stories folks told about demons or dark spirits crossing over to torment us other people told. No, we’d always been raised that the spirits of those who’d gone had every right to still be here, and that no one could tell the truth like a ghost. What reason would they have to lie?

And when I was young, I used to wonder how they’d speak to us. Or if Gero would appear after he died to give me all the wisdom I’d missed when I’d been too young to really listen. It’s the fault of getting older, that you wish you could hear all the same stories over again to piece together the odds and ends you’d missed the first time. Here we are making a truth for our kids to miss, for all the edges to fray and come apart, too. But there’s so many of us, I have to think that they’ll get together and talk about us like we do of Gero and Xuxa and the others who’ve gone. We may have been scattered seeds across broken soil, but there’s vines and leaves growing, a whole lush garden there.

They speak to us, still, if we take the time to listen.

A chill swept through the space between me and the campfire, and I huddle a bit closer to the flame. I’m reminded of the fiddle I took out to play earlier, still untouched. I’d meant to share a song with the few on the grounds near us, but my talking got the best of me, and I’d forgotten about it entirely. I could spend hours getting to know the strangers who’d made camp next to us, sipping beers and talking about life in eleven. I wouldn’t have even noticed if someone had slipped away with our new donkey.

But now the rest had gone to sleep, and I was left in too quiet a silence. I pulled the fiddle up under my chin and lay a hand on my bow before starting out a low tune. I closed my eyes and pictured the last time Benat and I had played for our family. He’d been almost a decade younger but could spit out a tune as though he’d been playing it his whole life. We’d go back and forth, finding rhyme and reason together until our fingers blistered. He’d had all the best of eleven: the gentle heart, boundless empathy, and a way to keep people rapt on the words that he’d say. He would’ve been a good mayor, I thought, as just and fair as I’d tried to be.

I set down my bow and nod toward the sky.

As the fire crackled again, I sat back against the chair, and could hear the footsteps of someone sneaking out after hours, too.

“Katelyn!” I’d started to grin from ear to ear, “I hope my playing didn’t wake you. I feel as though I haven’t seen you in ages. How are you? I’m sorry – Yani’s been dragging me all over the fair, and I’ve been running around with Emma, and Sofia, too – I’d meant to call on your cabin the other day.”

I motioned to the chair next to me.

“It’s good to see you, old friend. Why don’t you sit next to me? I could use some company. It's just me and the ghosts, now.”

elegant

[charade]

k a t e l y n .

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

Autumn nights had always been her favorite.

Things like the leaves changing color, making more desserts with cinnamon and pumpkin and warming up with chai. Eggnog. She tried not to think about how winter was on the horizon, and made a mental note to buy a couple of new sweaters. She’d left her cabin with a backpack, heading to the bonfire that was the central draw of the area.

District ten had always been a relaxing place to visit. The people were earnest, quiet. In some ways ten reminded her of home. In others it was a different world entirely. She’d never gotten used to the smell of livestock, though she knew the scent of manure well enough.

The fire was large, and she saw it from a ways off. If she stared at it long enough, it started to remind her of the fires she’d built to keep warm in that icy hell. But she’d stared into the void plenty of times in her life and not once had she blinked.

Katelyn had entered a chapter of her life where she felt neither the weight of her years, nor the sting of a hundred ragged scars.

She could just be. That was a victory in of itself.

There was music; and she had to wonder who would be playing the fiddle at night, though in district ten, she would have expected it to be accompanied by a banjo or something. It wasn’t a knock; she enjoyed their style of music and had gone square dancing a few times.

But the music didn’t sound like ten. The tune sounded vaguely familiar to her; like she’d heard it before on a street corner or drifting out of someone’s backyard. It lacked a certain twang that was native to district ten. It almost sounded like home.

And it was.

Vasco. She returned his greeting with a small wave.

He was right. It did feel like ages. She’d been so busy, caught up in a whirlwind of things that needed doing, focusing on Opal. Worrying about Ky but not knowing how to approach him without making things awkward. Learning to live again. She smiled as she took a seat.

A warm smile, not a hiding the pain, toughing it out smile, just one without the strings of the past attached. It faltered slightly when he mentioned the ghosts, but she recovered quickly. She’d been “on leave” from mentoring to plan her nuptials. It was suspect that they’d given her a vacation if she was being honest with herself, and she found herself a tad concerned about what the Capitol had planned for the anniversary of her games.

But that was in the future, and she had had her fill of living in the maybes and dreading what was potentially around the corner. Living life one day at a time was something she should have started doing a long time past. She nodded at the bonfire and pulled a bag of marshmallows out of her backpack.

The simple things. It had taken her a long time to slow down and appreciate them. She tossed him a stick and a couple of the treats as she settled in to toast a few of her own.

“I’ve been good Vasco. Better than I’ve been in a long time.” She didn’t have to ask about the ghosts.

When you got to a certain age, everyone had some.

Still. The Izars had more than most.

She didn’t have to ask about them. But she was still going to.

“Any haunting you in particular tonight?”

elegant

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

v a s c o

You came for me in fast forward
On a claim for something ordered
A way through and past the history that held you
I'd tell my own story through you
Tell it loud to never lose you

Sparks popped out from between the cracks in the wood in front of us. I tried to think of the last time I’d seen Katelyn – maybe when I’d been tacking up the roof and tiling? Or was it the time we’d come across each other late one night and been whispering about the capitol’s eyes and ears sniffing around eleven? Funny how so much time could’ve passed between then and now that it felt a dream with both of us waking across the same moment. As it’d always been with Katelyn, no matter how far a step we’d been from one another, we found one another back in the same space.

“I’m glad to hear it,” I replied and took up the stick she’d tossed over in my hands. I took the marshmallow between the fingers of my right hand and pierced the glob of white fluff through the pointed end. I hung the marshmallow above the fire and let the orange and red flame lick its edges. “You deserve to have some peace. I’ll pray it stays with you.”

I prayed a lot these days. Before dawn, when the world was still waking, and I could watch the sun come across the garden to dry the morning dew. Or when the day had gone and I could see the men coming up from the fields, out toward the buses that carried them off to the most distant parts of the district. Sometimes when I’d closed the door to Yani’s bedroom so that everything she could’ve wanted would come true. Even when she dreamed about how far she could get away from eleven – away from what she knew.

Katelyn had been on my mind some mornings, too. She’d have told me not to worry about her, but I’d have hoped she knew better. I’d have marched out through the floods that’d swept eleven a few months ago if Katelyn had rung to say she needed me. It’s just what best friends did for each other. No questions asked, only that they knew they didn’t have to be alone, if they didn’t want to be.

A blue flame sputtered across the top of my marshmallow and turned the top to a crisp black. I blew across it and put my hand over the crisp skin to pull back and reveal the gooey white underbelly. I pulled some of it between my teeth and laughed at the long gossamer strands that followed. I wiped them out of my mustache and fixed another on the stick.

What was there to say that wouldn’t dampen the mood? Both of us could turn around and face too many ghosts. Too many we’d been forced to carry but now chose to hold onto.

“I hardly spend much time alone now, so it’s the only time they get to talk to me. An old man and his thoughts, eh?” I whispered. But wasn’t that where ghosts made their home? Back where we’d last left them, or where we’d tucked them last to be safe.

“Sofia reminded me today how long it’s been since I was her age. You know I used to have a motorbike back then? Terrible, ugly thing that you could hear a half-mile away. But God, I wanted to ride that thing to the edge of the earth. The sort of thing I imagine Yani to get her hands on one day,” I said. I could still feel how the dirt and gravel kicked up behind me, and the wind blew dust up so that I’d needed a pair of goggles to see.

“Tell me though. You're doing well, then?” I offered a change of conversation, so the two of us didn’t have to get weighed down by history.

elegant

[charade]

k a t e l y n .

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

She wasn’t certain that peace was something she deserved, not after everything she'd done in life, but it definitely felt good. Solace wasn’t something she’d ever considered either, though she was falling more in love every day the more she stayed away from mentoring. Taking some time for herself instead of trying to be who everyone around her needed her to be. It had taken some years to learn how to help others without sacrificing her well-being.

Vasco spoke, and she listened, her mind wandering the annals of the past. It had been a while since she’d thought about her youth. Vasco spoke of his youth with fondness, and she could just manage to picture him wearing goggles and hitting the town with his brothers. She wondered what it was like to have been a normal young adult.

Sofia was twenty-two and had the whole rest of her life ahead of her.

At twenty-two, Katelyn had been sending Drake Harvest and Desimae Warble to their deaths. Screaming at Rolf Parks to the point where the peacekeepers had had to haul her away before she started a fistfight with a tribute.

And then later in the year—

That night. The one that had taken her life down a detour she was still recovering from.

Half the time she felt simultaneously older and younger than her peers. She’d gone through so much in a short span of time, but she was so behind on regular experiences. Sometimes it felt like she had aged twenty years when she was seventeen. At others, it felt like she was still a teenager pretending to know what she was doing and playing catch up on life.

But for once, when someone asked her what was going good, she had a real answer.

“Well, as you know, I’ve been engaged for a year or two now. It’s been hard to set a date and place, especially with the Capitol breathing down our necks about televising it; hasn’t been something for the public to sink their teeth into since those kids from four and five got together.”

There was something off about that.

Katelyn had never been one for tabloids, but Beck had been a young victor she’d talked to a few times and Lysander didn’t strike her as his type. She shook the thought away and refocused. There’d be a small wedding in eleven of course. Opal deserved the world, and Katelyn had a few ideas concerning a flower arch and a small after party with a few good friends
.
It was likely that the media handlers would demand some kind of extravaganza in the Capitol that all the important people could be invited to. Maybe she needed to phone Mace about what he’d experienced when he’d married Saffron. Then again, the two of them were quiet victors that never gave the Capitol trouble. It wasn’t exactly the same story for her and Opal.

“There are only a handful of people in this world that I respect and well—“ Katelyn smiled wryly and debated toasting another marshmallow. She knew he wouldn’t say no, it wasn’t in his personality to say so. But she still felt awkward asking. Expressing positive emotions was still a relatively new thing for her. She fiddled absently with a candy.

“I’d like you to officiate. If it’s not any trouble, I mean."

elegant

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

v a s c o

You came for me in fast forward
On a claim for something ordered
A way through and past the history that held you
I'd tell my own story through you
Tell it loud to never lose you

The taste of smoke lingered between my teeth as I bit into one of the marshmallows. I chewed through the melted sugar and thought about how this should’ve been one of the happiest times of her life. This was the golden hour between before and forever, when they could revel in the fear and wonder of who they’d become. But then, Katelyn had been doing that for most of her life. Trapped by the bond of the capitol, she’d fought for freedom and come out the other side with scars. I wanted to believe most had mended, and those that hadn’t, we could patch up together. Or that with Opal the world had been made so much brighter, she’d not forget all the little things that’d mattered.

Nothing could be promised, at least not when the capitol demanded their waking moments caught on film and splashed across the television screen. Freedom couldn’t mean anything to them, aside from when they could forget the rest of the world existed. And maybe that was a small comfort, to know that Katelyn had found someone that could do that for her. I balled my fist and wiped away the remnants that had collected on my chin.

So much of what we knew had been manufactured and dressed as though it’d been the truth. Sparse glimpses or long shots of the sort of person these victors were, presented so that we’d decide just what names to call them. Love them, hate them, make a choice so that there could be a side. I don’t think the capitol would know what to do with themselves if they couldn’t label them so easily.

I’d told Sofia that when I’d met Saffron the word that had stuck with me most was lonely.

Someday, we’d raise our banners for them. We’d march on the capitol to nail our treatise to the wall. And we’d stand shoulder to shoulder so that our sons and daughters wouldn’t have to know such loneliness. I promised it to the stars under the fire that night.

“Katelyn, I – ” I paused, a whole hum passing through my body as though the stars above had decided to shine for us alone. My throat caught tight against the back of my throat, and I wiped away the sweat dripping from my eyes, clearly brought on by the smoke from the fire. “I don’t know what to say… and you know that’s not an easy thing to do to me. Of course. Of course I’d be honored to bring you and Opal together. ”

I turned in my chair and held out my hand for her.

“You mean so much to me, Katelyn, and I don’t tell you that enough. Or that you’ve helped me be better, too, that I couldn’t imagine where I’d be without you. Opal is lucky to have found you.” I said, hushed and remembering it was midway to morning. It wouldn’t last long of course, all the questions bubbling up to the tip of my tongue, “Will you be back in eleven then or is it off to one? Ah, too early to say, I’m sure. But – the bakery stays open right?”

elegant

[charade]

k a t e l y n .

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

Helped him be better? Saying that it was the other way around was on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it. He was right. When you trusted someone that much, it was inevitable. Marc, Lexi and City had changed her forever; and it was because she had trusted them, even though she’d only known them for a couple of days.
Vasco Izar she’d known for years.

“I and the bakery are not going anywhere Vasco,” she said with a light chuckle. “Opal is coming to eleven.” Her love needed a change of scenery. Somewhere far away from old wounds. Maybe she could even teach Ky and her to bake. It had been simple. Perhaps too simple, given the enemies she had in the Capitol. Given that the price of happiness included espionage in her home.

But Opal wasn’t a Capitol darling, not a victor that district one could be proud of. In their minds she wasn’t quiet enough to fade into the background, but she wasn’t enough of a problem to regularly make the gossip columns either. Opal wasn’t as charismatic or a successful mentor like some of the others.

To the Capitol, Opal shore just wasn’t good enough.

To the Shores, Opal just wasn’t good enough.

The thought of that filled Katelyn with fury.

Opal was everything.

But her district had Ridley Le Roux now, and the young lioness was a better fit for headlines ever since Justice had toned down his party-boy demeanor. It was a pity that they hadn’t talked more, because she’d seen the same pain hiding behind Ridley’s eyes that she’d seen in Opal’s a hundred times. When you’d been a victor as long as she had, you learned how to read people, and Katelyn knew a thing or two about lions and lambs.

Opal and Ridley were victors that came from prestigious families.

But they weren’t the kids their parents had wanted to win.

How fucked was that?

Katelyn set her skewer down and stared into the fire.

“Coming up on twenty years since my arena,” she began quietly. “I’m not sure where the time goes. Those kids will always be with me, but these days they’re just footnotes in the history books.” It was sick, really. There were eighteen year olds in the reaping who were born after she went home—just confused and frightened kids, just like she had been.

She fidgeted with her hands.

“I’m taking a leap of faith here, and I think it’s the first one I’ve really taken since the day I admitted my feelings for her.“ She stretched slowly, working out a kink In her neck. “It means a lot to me that you’d do this,” she said. “I don’t trust easy outside of the victors.”

But maybe it was time she changed that. She felt bonded to the other victors because of their shared trauma, because other victors were the only ones to really get it. But that didn’t mean other people didn’t go through things. The Izar clan had been tossed around like wood chips in a hurricane. Even families that didn’t lose children to the games were struggling.

Something needed to change, and somehow, Katelyn felt braver than she’d had since the arena, standing on the precipice of an uncertain future. No longer frozen by indecision.

“You’re a good man Vasco. Father, husband, friend.” Katelyn smiled gently, her eyes threatening to mist. “We can work out the details later. But for now—“ she reached into her bag and pulled out a bar of chocolate and a packet of graham crackers.

“For now, we can just be.”

elegant

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

v a s c o

You came for me in fast forward
On a claim for something ordered
A way through and past the history that held you
I'd tell my own story through you
Tell it loud to never lose you

There could have always been a chance that Katelyn wanted to leave Eleven. Whatever honey and milk our memories had been, she’d have the bitter remnants of those lost in the games to deal with. We could’ve been a constant reminder of what she had to relive each time she boarded the train home. Worse, that we’d been through a decade of unrest – from riots and explosions to fields burning, we were weary, and we were older, too. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d wanted a fresh start in one, away from all of us.

But then she said that Opal was coming to Eleven, and I unclenched my fists and exhaled out my nose so that all the grief I’d been ready to start scattered across the embers of the campfire. I couldn’t help but smile. The change would do all of us good. Opal could settle with her son, if he came along, and Katelyn wouldn’t be in that big house all by her lonesome. I’d have to get Opal something nice for when she came. Maybe fix a basket of fruits and spices, and tea, too. Tie it up with a nice ribbon and leave a note for her and Katelyn at the door for when they came back from the next games.

Another pop of embers kicked up from the fire pit.

“Yes, I’ll have to check on Wilson when I get home. Levi could use some new flowers.” I said quietly. We didn’t talk much about him anymore, it was true. But then I still thought of Raquel most days. It’d been twelve years and I could still picture the way she’d worn her hair to her reaping. I guess she was a footnote to most people now, but I’d never stop having things to write about her.

“Oh. Well, shoot.” I put a hand behind my head and smiled. If it wasn’t so dark, she’d probably have been able to tell I’d gone beet red. I used to think it was a low bar to treat people how they wanted to be treated, but outside of our slice of Eleven, I couldn’t be so sure anymore.

“Thank you, Katelyn.” I kept my voice low and shifted back against the edge of my folding chair. “I care about you a lot. I want to make sure that your wedding was something special.” Maybe Marisol still had some of her old jewelry she might be willing to part with for the wedding, I could see if Katelyn wanted something old, or borrowed, too.

I took in the silence when she’d finished. Somehow what’d been a roaring fire had slipped back to a set of flames licking at the edges of the wood in the pit. But then time got the better of us, and soon enough it’d be morning. Still – I didn’t dare get up from my chair to head back to my cabin.

I wanted to stay in this moment for as long as I could. To just bask in the cool dark of the morning with the sky shading to indigo above us. And to be seated next to Katelyn, even if we didn’t say much else to one another. That’s what I liked most. The quiet hours when the world fell still, and our voices cracked the silence like ice across a pond.

“I’ve got to get you and Yani together. She’s been asking about you Katelyn. She’s started on about how she wants to start working at your bakery or tend to your garden while you’re in the capitol. She says it’s to start making her own money but I think it’s just an excuse to get away from me and Emma.” And so it went. Teenagers, eh?

“She looks up to you a lot. She has good taste, I think.”

elegant