entomb me /isabelle+av

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"What if
you're not
forgiven?"

He waits a few days after the ceremony to go back.

There's flowers on the grave when he gets there, three different bouquets all in different states of life. Avriel squats down in dewy grass and brushes some dead lilies to the side. He places the bundle of wildflowers he picked on the walk over between them.

Scout's still at home curled up in his sock drawer. Av's starting to understand its schedule.

Alone, he takes a slow, deep breath then leans back on his haunches. His arms are crossed, his gaze focused on the stone in front of him.

The inscription is fresh enough that nothing grows within the wells of the letters. Avriel can't help himself– he reaches out to brush his fingers over them. The cut is slightly rough.

"You worked hard," he says softly, "So you can rest well."

Then he runs his fingers over the numbers marking the year of her death, 88th.

There are twenty-two other graves marked with the same thing but it's just Fleur who has the burden of being the only one he can visit.

Avriel sighs and hangs his head in front of him, hands gripping his arms tightly. The nightmares started after the last of the pain meds they had him on in the hospital ended and they haven't let up since. There are shadows under his eyes but he can't sleep. In his dreams, the dark follows him home, eating Nine up until all that's left is him, alone in the dark. He dreams of the gentle sound of water hitting the sides of the canoe and Areto going cold in his arms.

Sometimes he's in the lake, half drowning again, eyes on Blade's body on the shore. He tries to reach her but the dream drags on, the beach gets further away and Avriel eventually gives in.

He wakes up, gasping for air at four in the morning with no hope of falling back to sleep. It's too late, the sun starts to rise so Avriel makes coffee and waits in dread for the sunset.

Rinse and repeat.

"Please, I don't know what I'm gonna do," he whispers because he dreams about the woods too, of the place between the pines where he buried his parents last year.

The Capitol was supposed to fix him, once he won it was supposed to all be alright and he was meant to be whole again, but he isn't. There are holes in his head, in his heart, he's still bleeding out.

Fleur gets to rest.

"So why can't I?" he asks her, tipping forward slowly on the balls of his feet. His forehead rests against the cold gravestone and he shuts his eyes, absently rubbing the scar on his chest.

[✨ zozo.]

b e l l e .

"in a dream
i was a werewolf
my soul was filled
with crystal light"

Since Andorra's been gone I've taken to digging the graves myself.

Only feels right. I give and the world takes so I take things right back, how it's always been. Dig a hole, fill it up, dig it back up again. Easier to hide the fact we dug up the kids' bodies if I was the one who made the hole, counting how many hundreds of spadefuls of dirt I shovelled out to count back down again when it matters. And I didn't want to dig them up, begged Vati to skip this graveyard, but he didn't listen. We didn't have the option of choice anymore, Andorra's spade in my hands and his body in the dirt.

He's the only body we hadn't dug up because we knew damn well he wasn't buried with shit.

That's the consequence of being poor - you're still the bad guy, even when you try to do everything right. I dug Fleur Adroxis and Avriel Baptiste's graves myself, refusing to look at the plain stone that marked where my brother lay resting. Dug Fleur's back up before the earth had time to rest. But Avriel's laid barren, empty. Thought about burying myself alive, decided against it at the last minute, moved on to the next grave in the dead of the night. But it gnawed at me, an empty grave and Fleur's gold earrings in the back pocket of my jeans, so the next morning I got up as the sun began to rise and left the house quietly.

It had rained two minutes before we got back. Washed away my sins, and I can still smell the damp sweetness on the pavement. I'd smell it on the grass if I could, but we're from the part of Nine where the front yards are just dead trees, broken furniture and orange dirt.

Something terrible warred inside of me, always, no appetite but a hunger to scream. I press my lips together and bury my fists into the pockets of Andy's old jacket, glaring at the pavement as I walk. The sunrise is the colour of fire - a warning, take heed. My insides feel scarlet, burning and furious. It's the grief, always the grief, and I know it makes me sour. But I'm so angry that we had to bury him. Angrier still that we hadn't not a penny to bury him with. And that some boy who was kinder and gentler than my brother ever could be got to come home and Andorra didn't.

I should have paid attention to the sunrise. So full of rage that I'm blind to my surroundings, entering the place on autopilot and half-asleep, and when the wet leaves crumble underneath my hand-me-down boots still slick with mud from the night before it's too late - he's seen me.

Him. The very body I was supposed to bury.

A little gasp, caught my the feeling of my heart in my throat. There's a spade clutched between my gloved fingers, one from the groundskeeper's stash I'd found three months ago. Qui ne dit mot consent.

He who says nothing consents, so I play our story rehearsed like a verse in my head. I work here. I work at the graveyard. I dig graves for a living - lead with that, it's not a lie.

Not quite.

Juste un petit mensonge.

"Sorry," whenever I'm scared it's impulse to speak the other language, so the apology is forced through my teeth in common tongue. Baptiste, it sounds so similar -- but we Sing's can never be too careful. One wrong move, one suspicious glance in our direction, and my brother and I are better off buried in the graves we dig up.

He looks how I feel inside. Like he's been fighting a battle his whole life - long before and long after he went into the arena. Sympathetic, and then the memory of Andorra's canon blasts and I'm just furious. White-hot grip on my spade, the sun rises behind us and casts a halo against his head. Some angel he is. Some devil I am.

Du diable, evil. I've heard it my entire life. Vati still says I speak in tongues, something hell-sent and diabolical, just speaking a language our grandmother taught me when everyone else cast me aside as a babe. He doesn't listen, just casts a look of disgust at me and doubles down on his prayers before bed. And I must look like something terrible, standing over a grieving boy with a spade raised in defense and rage in my eyes.

So I release my grip, stab the metal into the ground and catch my breath. "Sorry," again, lie. Lie like your life depends on it.

"Didn't mean to scare you."

Instead I tell the truth.

table credits to the talented elegant !

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"What if
you're not
forgiven?"

The grave beside Fleur's is empty, just a big hole in the ground and Avriel stares at it for a long time, the ends of his fingers going pink from cold slowly where they rest on his shoulder.

Mine.

That hole had been meant for him.

Crunch- Avriel pauses. Too early for there to be someone else at the graveyard but too late for the crisp sound of movement over fall leaves to be some nocturnal creature.

He tenses, curling in on himself the littlest bit more in the hopes that whomever is passing by will continue to do just that and move on. There's no pretence left in him, no energy to fake a smile, Avriel isn't like that. He shouldn't have to be anyway, not in a graveyard.

"Fichez-moi la paix," he sighs under his breath. Leave me alone– maybe it's too much to ask for.

"Sorry," a voice says and Avriel looks up sharply, pulling his scarf over his mouth in an effort to hide at least a little. It's hard these days. Some part of him figured that at least in Nine he'd go back to being a nobody but it's been impossible to go anywhere without being stared at.

He's complaining even as he kneels on his dead district partner's grave.

It's a girl with a shovel. He's never seen her before, or maybe he has, it's hard to remember. Things have been foggy lately, the lack of sleep is taking everything from him. Avriel stands. Her blonde hair reminds him a little bit of Aspen and he places his palm on the scar on his shoulder again.

Sunlight falls on her face from behind Avriel and the light seems to illuminate her features. This girl is far too pretty to be standing in front of Avriel with a shovel in her hands in a graveyard so early in the morning.

"It's fine," he says.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

"It's fine, you didn't," he lies. Everything scares him now. "I was just," he gestures at the gravestone beside him, "I was visiting someone."

There's a softness in her tone, a quiet that warns him she is supposed to be ignored and he recognizes it because the same softness lies in his.

"Sorry," he says, "Am I in your way?"