QUARANTINE BIRTHDAY PROMPTS
SURPRISE IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!
Instead of running a prompt meme I went back to the old quarantine prompts from March and wrote a few over the last few days. I didn't get through all of them because I'm also working and doing a summer course, but I hope you enjoy the surprise anyway! :)
for anon: Lyme & Brutus, summertime bromance
If you've been here a while, you're going to know what an innocuous-sounding lighthearted prompt means. If you're new: my brain is chronically incapable of taking prompts at face value.
IN MY DEFENCE I did try! Here was my thought process:
summer -> not historically a happy time in D2, summer, what can I do -> fireflies! I bet Lyme never saw fireflies before the VV, she lived in the wrong part of the district -> hm when are fireflies around in that part of the country -> July 4 -> hm
Then I went to check the spreadsheet to see who wins what when to see when Brutus, Lyme and their kids all had a Reaping free -- the answer is NEVER. THEY NEVER DO. Literally until the war, one of them is always in the hotseat. So. We got this instead.
"but Lora," you might ask, "why not set it after the war when everyone can be happy?"
It's too late it's happening now just enjoy
Brutus’ girl has a tribute in the running for the second time, and so that night, once the sun sets and the cicadas take up their screaming from the trees, Brutus heaves himself off his porch and makes for the lake.
By now the train will be stopped around the curve of the mountains, the tributes alone in their berths while the mentors confer in the main car. This year it’s Emory and Callista, the tried and true combination of quarry pride and hint of madness that’s worked so many times before. With three District 2 wins in the decade already it doesn’t look good for the final year, but he couldn’t stop his girl from putting her name in any more than he could punch the moon from the sky.
It took him weeks to pull her out last time. He can’t imagine it’ll be any easier the second time. He hates that he’s already planning for how to manage Emory’s grief, instead of the welcome party, but ten years out has weathered Brutus like the mountain face that rises up in front of him.
At least the lake never changes, smooth and glassy under the moonlight, clouds reflected in its rippled surface. Reeds and water grasses break the mirror in sharp, dark spikes, and Brutus sighs and lets his shoulders drop a little as the trees break and the undergrowth turns sparse before opening up to rocky sand. There’s a dock, if you can call it one, creaking as it settles on the water, and it might be stupid but right now Brutus can’t think of anything better than stretching out on the wooden planks and feeling his weight rock gently back and forth.
It’s the opposite of District 2, grounded and rooted to the earth, but he’s not exactly grounded right now, is he.
He steps out onto the bank and instinct hits him like a spear between the shoulder blades. He falls back on his right leg, fists up, and the shape he didn’t even notice but the ever-present Arena brain still managed to pick up on unfurls. “Hey, caveman.”
Brutus hisses through his teeth. “The fuck you doing here.” He meant to make it sound nicer, put a bit of gruff humour to it, but tonight there’s no energy, not even for wariness. If she’s here to prank him may as well get it over with, he’s too tired to care.
Lyme’s a hulking shape in the darkness, just like him, and the way she’s got herself all crossed-arms doesn’t help. “Your girl’s in this year.”
“Your girl’s one year out.” If they’re spitting facts. “Thought you’d be with her.” First year out is a rough time, lots of residual Games-crazy bubbling up and leading to all kinds of backsliding.
“Calli put her on cat-watching duty,” Lyme says, and Brutus sputters a laugh in spite of himself. Smart move, actually. Give the kid a job to do, a real one where it matters if she slacks off, where living things rely on her. Good way to keep her head surrounded by so much death. People don’t give Callista enough credit. “I’ll head over later, but Nero’s with her for now.”
She’s still on the dock, and it might be big enough for a mentor and one kid but if the two of them try to squeeze in together they’ll have to cuddle. Brutus grunts and drops down onto the bank, sand and gravel cool beneath his thighs. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Oh, shut up.” Lyme drapes her arms over her knees and stares him down, her shining eyes relentless in the dark. “You know it’s her loss, right?”
Brutus scowls. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, asshole, if her kid loses, all you have to do is pull her out. You don’t have to take it on. That’s not your job.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Except she was there last summer when he lost, helped yank his head above water and got a concussion for her efforts. She might not be where he’s at but it’s only a matter of time: soon she’ll mentor again, and soon she’ll lose, and so will Misha, over and over again.
He can’t tell if he wants her to take the bait or not, but either way she doesn’t. And she’s younger and angrier and with a far worse temper, but for tonight she has a girl fresh out with her own mentor looking after her and a house full of cats to keep her safe, and apparently she decided it’s Brutus who deserves her time.
Fuck.
Lyme slow-blinks at him like one of Callista’s Games-damned cats, then looks away.
The firebugs are out, flickering in and out over the water and disappearing into the tall grass, and Brutus lets out a slow breath and watches them. When he was little he used to think they were magic. He thought if he caught one he could make a wish, like snowflakes. One night he took one of his mother’s canning jars and snuck outside, spent half the night chasing the blinking lights until he trapped one in the glass. He kept it by his bed and whispered dumb, secret kid-wishes to it for three days until finally it stopped, and when he tipped the glass over there was no more magic, just a poor, dead bug with its legs crumpled up toward its belly.
He can’t remember his father’s face, but that memory sears like hot metal. Brains are assholes.
Lyme stirs, stretching out her legs, and Brutus glances over at her to see her flick a pine cone at one of the glowing lights. “What are those, anyway?”
It’s such an unexpected question it knocks Brutus right out of his moping. “What? You’re kidding me.”
“No, I grew up by the fucking desert. We had coyotes and wasps the size of your palm, not magical glowing fairy lights.” Lyme turns her face up, and she looks younger without the scowl or exhausted cynicism twisting her face.
“Wasps the size of -” Brutus gapes at her, looking for the telltale sharp grin or exaggerated nonchalance that means she’s fucking with him, but she’s still watching the firebugs as if she’s genuinely fascinated. “Well that explains a hell of a lot about you. Are you serious?”
“Sure. I’ve been telling Misha they’re little baby demons. She thinks it’s great.”
In spite of himself, in spite of everything, Brutus snorts. “Of course you have. She’d love that. They’re firebugs, the lights are males looking for their mates. It’s all kinda romantic when you think about it.”
Lyme’s snort carries over the water, as he knew it would. “Of fucking course we’re in the middle of a giant bug fuck-fest. What else would it be?”
“Same with the frogs,” Brutus reminds her. Lyme’s grimace shouldn’t make him feel better, but it does, and if needling her pushes the shadows aside for a little while then he’s happy to grab the lifeline. “They’re either fucking or hoping to get fucked. And cicadas -”
Lyme reaches down and heaves a splash of water at him, even though the wave peters out far before it reaches the shore. “I get it, I get it! All of nature is one giant orgy and my ears are stuck in the middle. Fuck all this tree bullshit! You don’t get bug sex parties with rocks and sand.”
“Yeah, but think how much Misha will love it. Tell her they’re tiny sex demons and she’ll be over the moon.” Against all odds, the knots in Brutus’ shoulders loosen, and he flops back onto the ground and stares up at the stars. “This ain’t the worst.”
“Nah.” The dock creaks, waves lapping gently. “And hey, you never know, maybe she’ll win it.”
Here, with the fireflies and the cicadas and the stars peering from behind the clouds, he almost believes it.
for anon: angsty Lyme & Nero in recovery
warnings for mentions of past/desire to self-harm, past child abuse
She gasps awake in the middle of the night, flailing under her pillow and spitting curses when her hand comes up empty. No knives until Nero can trust her not to take it to her wrists, which is deeply hilarious underneath the part where it drives her up the wall. Her old man hated that she kept a knife because she slashed him with it. She’s pretty sure Nero would let her stab him in the shoulder if it helped her feel safe at night, as long as she didn’t turn around and try to carve up her own forearms a second later.
Mentors have weird ideas about priorities.
“It’s okay,” Nero says. Lyme swears again, digging the heels of her hands over her eyes. “You’re safe here.”
“How do you know it’s about being safe,” Lyme snarls, hearing herself and hating it, the shake at the edges of her words like a quilt with the stitches unravelling, but it’s the middle of the night and her bed is too soft and there’s nothing to hold on to, what’s she supposed to do. “How do you know I didn’t just murder a whole mountain of babies and that’s why I’m freaking out.”
He doesn’t take the bait. He also doesn’t answer the question, he doesn’t have to because it’s as obvious as it is humiliating: Arena nightmares have her clawing at her arms, not reaching for a weapon. She won the Games, they don’t make her afraid. She doesn’t need protecting from the ghosts of kids and teenagers she cut down on her path to victory, she’ll cut them out of herself one at a time. Or would, if he would let her.
“Fuck,” Lyme mutters. She pushes her fingers into her hair, twisting. Pulls hard enough to feel a jolt of pain, sharp and startling, and it brings her back. For a second she thinks Nero will scold her but he stays silent, watching. “This is so stupid. You know what I like? Arena dreams. Let me just … relive the stupid memories and fight through it. None of this symbolic bullshit.”
Nero reaches over and rests a hand on her ankle, not squeezing or gripping, and Lyme exhales. “I’m in a house,” she says. She knows what house it is - whose house - but she isn’t going to say it. Nero graduated mentor school, he can figure it out. “I’m trying to get out but I can’t find the door and every time I turn a corner it’s another fucking hallway. And there’s nobody home but I know I have to get out soon because if I don’t -”
She swipes a hand over her eyes. “It’s stupid,” she snaps again. “I won the Games, I have the highest kill count in the fucking Village, it doesn’t make any sense. There’s no reason for any of this now.”
Of course, now she lives in the most famous location in all of District 2. That probably has nothing to do with it.
Nero watches her, a quiet shadow at the foot of her bed, glowing softly from the light outside her window. “He can’t find you here.”
The snort is raw and ugly but laughter has power, even when it hurts. “Pretty sure he can. We’re not exactly underground.”
“Law says no family comes into the Village without the Victor’s say-so.”
Huh. They didn’t mention that part in the recruitment brochure. The part of Lyme’s brain not busy screaming and trying to build a fort around her bed made entirely of knives takes an amused second to wonder when they drop that bomb on parents, if it’s buried in the paperwork no one bothers to read or some statute signed years ago that they have no choice over.
Distant thunder rolls in the hills and heat lightning flickers red over the sharp black line of the mountains, and Lyme’s humour dissolves as quickly as it came. “Trouble with laws is the only people who bother to follow them are the kind of people who care about following laws,” she says dryly. “What are you gonna do if he shows up here, kill him?”
Nero blinks. “Killed mine, remember?”
Oh, yeah. He told her that before the Arena. She’d forgotten it amid the haze of blood and the drugs and everything else, or maybe he’d been telling her what she needed to hear to get her to trust him long enough to listen. She didn’t expect him to bring it up again now that she’s supposed to be sane. “You wouldn’t.”
Nero grins. It’s not a nice smile, and such a nasty look on the face of the man who bakes her cookies and wraps her wrists with such gentle care is jarring. “What are they gonna do, arrest me?”
Lyme sputters a laugh, tries to stifle it with her fist but it spills out like blood from a gut wound between clutching fingers. She actually doesn’t know, it’s not like they have victor law classes, but the thought of the Peacekeepers showing up to lecture victors on appropriate vs. inappropriate murder is suddenly hysterical. Murdering teenagers on camera? Good. Murdering grownups in private? Bad. See the difference?
The tired hits her like a wave, not the frantic, bone-deep exhaustion that comes with knowing it doesn’t matter, sleep is out of the question and there’s nothing she can do about it, but quiet and cool relief. Lyme grabs her pillow and crawls to the far end of the bed as Nero stretches out his legs onto the mattress, drops her pillow onto his knees and collapses. He combs his fingers through her hair and she sighs, shoulders dropping.
She dreams of the house again. But this time she draws tinder and flint from her pockets and burns the whole damn place down to ash around her.
In the morning she has a crick in her neck, pins and needles in her arm and - for the first time in weeks - a clear head. “I want eggs,” Lyme says without opening her eyes.
“Sure thing, sweetheart.” Nero ruffles her hair, and Lyme snorts and heaves her pillow at his head to hide the grin.
for
kawuli (and
anastasia010 sort of), who wanted the D2 victors stuck somewhere
Brutus wakes up in the middle of the night from a dream of being eaten alive by ants. Bit old to be having Arena dreams, he chides himself, and he punches his pillow and flops back down, arms crossed -
-- only to bolt back upright as fire races across his back. “Fuck!” he shouts, scrambling out of bed, feet tangling in his sheets and sending him crashing to the ground. The itch spreads to his shoulders, skips down to his thighs, and worst of all, right between his ass-cheeks.
Which is how Brutus finds himself at three a.m., half-naked in his bathroom, twisted around on the bathroom sink and gaping at the splash of red blisters across his back and shoulders. “What the fuck?”
Priya, the Village doctor, pronounces it henpox, which is the most humiliating fuckin’ name Brutus has ever heard of, then makes it worse by telling him most people get it out of their systems in childhood. “Don’t feel bad, this is pretty common with ex-Careers. You spend less time at school than your peers, and the Centre is a highly sterile environment with its own built-in quarantine. Stuff like this happens more than you might think. The good thing is, once you have it, it’s likely you won’t ever catch it again. Bad news is, it’s highly contagious, so unless everyone else in the Village had it when they were kids, they should keep away.’
Brutus scowls. “Then where the fuck did I catch it? I haven’t done an orphanage run in months.”
Priya presses her lips together, and for a second he thinks she’s angry until he clocks that her eyebrows are all wrong. She’s not frowning, she’s laughing. “What,” Brutus says, flatly.
“Well … you’re not the only one. Callista and Artemisia have also come down with henpox. Can you think of anywhere you’ve been in the last few days where you might have been exposed?”
Brutus blinks. He, Calli and Misha don’t exactly go to the same dinner parties. They were all in the Capitol over the weekend making a splash with some sponsor favourites, but they were never -
“No,” Brutus says. Too fast, Priya’s mouth twitches, and he groans and flops back onto the bed. “Oh, fuck me, no.”
Frangelina Duncan. One of District 2’s most reliable - and voracious - sponsors, and one who happens to be on both Callista and Misha’s regular lists. Not his style usually, but she’d hit him up near the end of the weekend, and with Brutus looking to put his name in next year he didn’t think he should turn her down.
“The Triple Crown,” Brutus says, mostly to himself, and hopes to the mountaintops Priya isn’t up on the gossip-rag lingo. “She really went for it.”
Priya coughs delicately. “I’ve asked Odin to set up a quarantine in his home since it will be easiest to take care of you if you’re all in one place. Luckily there are some here who did have henpox as children, so they’ll be able to keep an eye on all of you.”
There’s a decidedly amused tone to her voice that makes Brutus crack one eye and glare at her. “Who?”
“Really, I don’t know how none of you ever had this before, it’s not that big a deal,” Devon says cheerfully as he slathers horrifying pink liquid over Brutus’ back. “I got it when I was, I dunno, five? I was itchy for about a week, I got to stay home from school and my mom gave me oatmeal baths and scratched my back with mittens on. It was great.”
“Yeah, great,” Petra says tightly. Callista has draped herself over the back of the sofa in a sports bra and shorts with ‘CARNIVORE’ (a gift from Misha) printed across the ass, while Petra sits behind her with a tub of cream and Peacekeeper-perfect posture. Devon offered to switch but Petra waved him off, jaw taut. “I was the last one to get it so everyone was already busy. I scratched myself until I was bleeding trying to make it stop.”
“It’s not a contest, darling,” Callista says, turning her face on her arm. “We’re all very grateful for your childhood suffering. Very apropos. Your sacrifice then makes you a hero to us now.” Petra reddens further but doesn’t try to argue.
“Meanwhile I am itching to death,” Misha points out from her position across the room, sprawled on a divan in front of the fireplace. “I see how it is. Victor hierarchy at its finest.”
Devon snickers at her. “Calm down, Mish, I’m almost done. Brutus has more surface area than you. But if you’re good and patient and don’t pick at it I’ll let you have a popsicle.”
That can’t possibly work. They’re grown-ass adults with a kill count between them that’s higher than Petra and Devon’s ages and probably catching up to Brutus, are they really going to be reduced to bribery with children’s frozen snacks - but then Misha squints at him, face mashed into a silk pillow, and says, “What flavour?”
“Attagirl,” Devon beams.
“No.” Brutus glares at Callista, then turns and shoots one each at Devon and Misha for good measure. “Absolutely not.”
Callista stretches, lazy and catlike, somehow managing to look glamorous despite the spots of lotion all over her skin. “We’ve been here for days, and we’ll be trapped for at least a week. If we can’t go outside and spar, the least you can do is stop denying us solid entertainment.”
Oh, they want entertainment, all right. Odin’s enormous television with every channel the Capitol has to offer and what does the hive-mind of evil decide they want to watch? Splendour in the Quarries, an absolutely awful pile of tragiromantic shlock about a star-crossed miner and a girl from the ‘good’ side of town that stars a capitol actor very clearly attempting to impersonate Brutus. “Yeah, and that’s the one we need to see? Pass.”
“But boss,” Misha says, all wide-eyed innocence like anyone with sense wouldn’t go running for a knife at that expression, “Petra hasn’t seen it.”
Years of training and situational awareness and he’s still too slow to realize she timed it just as Petra walks in with a tray of cold compresses tucked under one arm. “Haven’t seen what?”
Callista snickers into her arm like she isn’t the elder in the room and finally Brutus sighs. “Looks like we’re watching a movie.”
Near the end of the week Devon catches them sparring, having pushed all the furniture against the walls like they’re here for the monthly signing party. “That can’t be good for you,” he says, frowning like someone’s disappointed mother. “You’re supposed to be resting.”
It’s the first time in the whole damn week Brutus has felt like a human being and not a giant, itching slug, mostly because Callista is the master of the sneak shot and Misha has never fought fair the entire time he’s known her, and the two of them together makes for one of the hardest workouts he’s ever done. Or maybe it’s the fever and fatigue and the fact he’s eaten nothing but protein shakes for days because the sores on the inside of his mouth make food a torture, but whatever. Brutus loves sparring with his kids, it’s a highlight of his week, but there’s an invisible choreography, not only in the rhythm of their moves but the way the fights will end. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to fight two people happy to kick the ever-loving shit out of him.
He has one arm pinning Misha’s shoulders from behind and Callista’s legs locked around his waist, and Devon’s words are like a shock of cold water to the face, jarring him out of the flow of the fight. Even if it is just a ridiculous grappling match on the floor. “It’s fine,” Brutus and Misha say at the same time, and Misha glances back and shoots him a grin. Callista uses the moment of inattention to flip them both to the ground; Brutus keeps forgetting she won half her fights from the waist down so she could keep her hands on her blades.
Devon clicks his tongue and shakes his head in exaggerated motions. “Well, I’m not going to fight you, but Petra’s not gonna like it.”
Brutus freezes, and even Callista falls quiet. “That girl does scold with a vengeance, doesn’t she,” she muses aloud. “This was fun. I would rather not spoil the mood by having my ankles gnawed on.”
Misha sighs and wriggles out of Brutus’ arm as he lets her drop, and Callista unhooks herself in a serpentine twirl that makes Brutus’ spine ache just looking at it. By the time Petra shows up they’re sitting on the couch like good, responsible adults. Adults afraid to get lectured by a girl barely out of her teens, but at the end of the day they’ve all suffered worse indignities.
When Priya finally announces them free to go, Brutus could climb to the top of the trees and sing the victory theme himself. He’ll have to do something special for Devon and Petra for putting up with all their bullshit for nearly two weeks, but for right now all Brutus can think about is outdoors and fresh air and maybe even - shock of all shocks - heading down into the heart of Career-town to grab a beer with some actual new faces for once.
He’s on his way back to his house when his danger senses tingle and he throws himself into a roll to avoid a tackle from Misha. She skids, feet slipping on pine needles, but catches herself and slips into a fighting stance, grinning. He doesn’t need to turn to know Callista is behind him doing the same. “You wanna tell me what this is?” he asks, even as he bends his knees and slides one foot back.
“We were interrupted last time,” Callista says. “I never like to leave a fight unfinished.”
Brutus snorts, and the stupid thing is, as infuriating as the past week was, the close quarters and the hovering and the Games-damned itching and Calli and Misha ganging up on him every two seconds, when it comes right down to it there’s no one in the Village he wouldn’t trust to spend ten days locked in a house together. Not that he’ll ever admit that out loud.
“Interrupted me kicking ass, you mean,” he says, and flings himself forward.
for multiple anons: Victor Alec, with Nero
this one decided to be wholesome? idk
It’s funny, all the little things they don’t prepare you for. Like how everyone’s house looks different. Alec isn’t sure why he thought everyone would have the same architecture, except that a lot of the homes back in the Peacekeeping village where he grew up were prefab designs, and the way each family made them their own was through paint or window decorations or gardens.
But no, everyone in the Village has their own house, their own design, and it makes him wonder who’s behind it all. Obviously the mentors aren’t architects, they’re not sitting there in the days before their victor wakes up sketching out blueprints and ordering materials, but someone has to be doing it, and he’ll eat his artificial arm before he believes these are Capitol builders. The whole place feels Two, from the warm wood to the limestone to the open porches that wrap around the front of almost every house. They don’t look like the place he grew up but it feels like home, with all the love built in.
He likes to stroll around and check out the houses, trying to guess who lives there without Emory telling him, but with fall in full swing and the weather at its crispest, the risk of getting caught is higher.
Which is how he winds up running into Nero on his front porch, a knife and a block of wood in his hand and a pile of shavings at his feet. “Hey, kid.”
“Hey.” Alec hopes Nero doesn’t notice the way his weight immediately shifts in case he needs to run, except he immediately flicks the knife closed. Nero is technically connected to Selene and Claudius through the mentor line but Alec hasn’t met him yet, or heard anything about him, really. But being neighbourly is important and he was technically spying on his yard, so instead of fleeing Alec says, “Carving?”
“Yup.” Nero holds up the wood and turns it around to show a pair of wide eyes and a swept-back head that Alec realizes with a start is the beginnings of an owl. “You wanna try?”
Alec is still getting used to the whole ‘make, don’t break’ part of being a victor, but carving looks satisfying, and the more things he can learn with a knife that aren’t slicing through someone’s skin or searching for the vitals sounds good to him. He’s not banned from knives anymore, just not allowed without supervision, and Nero is even Emory’s senior in the Village hierarchy. “Yeah, okay.”
Nero produces another knife and a chunk of smooth white aspen, hands them over with a wink, and goes back to work. Alec turns the wood over in his hands, tracing the grain. Maybe he’ll make a cat and give it to Selene. He slides open the blade and places it against the edge.
Stops. Pulls back, heart tripping in his chest. Tries again, placing the point of the blade against the middle of the block, ready to start digging. Again he stops. Again his chest twists in palpitations. Alec huffs a frustrated breath between his teeth, flips the knife into the kill position in case that helps.
It doesn’t. No matter what he can’t mark the surface. Once he does it won’t be wood anymore, it will be the start of a sculpture, and if he makes a mistake it will be there, carved into the surface and staring at him and Nero and whoever else comes to laugh at it, and why did he think he could do this -
“It doesn’t have to be anything.”
Alec’s head whips up and he turns to stare at Nero, back of his neck reddening in humiliation. How long was he watching? But Nero only tilts his head back and forth, one ear to one shoulder and over to the other side, so the tendons in his neck crack. “You don’t have to make something that looks good. You don’t even have to make anything. Just start carving and see what happens.”
It’s the same advice Emory gave him about cooking and finding his talent, learning the joy of immersing himself in a skill he’s bad at without the pressure to excel, but it’s one thing to watch Emory hide her grin over burned pancakes or have to say with a straight face that maybe the leftover pasta sandwich was a better idea in theory than in execution. In the end, the worst case is a meal that doesn’t taste great, and he’s still learning. But if he messes up here, what is Nero supposed to do with a messed up block of wood? He can’t use it for anything or turn it into something functional. As soon as Alec puts his knife to it he’s dooming it to the compost heap with his inexpertise.
Nero watches him for another moment, then slaps his knee and stands up. “New plan,” he says. “Leave that, come with me.”
They loop around behind Nero’s house, around the path and through the trees, and finally Alec frowns. “This is -”
“Yep,” Nero says again. He takes the porch steps in one go and knocks on the door, then calls, “Misha, borrowing your clay!” A vague, affirmative shout floats out from inside, and Nero tosses Alec a thumb’s up.
Artemisia’s shed is a scatterbrained disaster. She has a full metalworking studio inside - her actual official talent - but boxes pile the shelves and stack in various corners and Alec is pretty sure there’s a mock human skeleton over in the back. Nero apparently has enough knowledge of The System (as Misha calls it) to zero in on exactly what he wants, grabbing an airtight tub and hauling it out over his shoulder.
Nero directs Alec out to the picnic table behind his house, and follows a few minutes later with a tarp, a large bowl of water, and a another container under his arm. After they set up he plops down the tub, pries off the lid, and reaches in to hand Alec a lump of something cool and smooth.
A distant memory of grade school stirs, and Alec squints at the beige lump in his hands. “Clay?”
“Yessir.” Nero dips his fingers in the water and starts working his own chunk of clay, rolling it over on the table and pinching it with his fingertips. “Can’t mess it up.”
Alec swallows hard. He wets his fingertips and pokes the clay experimentally, feeling the surface give just slightly. The other box Nero brought out is full of brightly coloured cookie cutters, rolling pins, and wire cutters, just like when he was a kid. He presses both thumbs into the clay and pushes down until two divots form in the surface, then rolls it out until they’re gone.
Alec laughs, breathless, and wets his fingers again.
Emory finds them later, coated to the elbows, half a dozen ugly bowls and misshapen lumps lining the table’s edge. “Oho,” she says. “This looks fun. Mind if I join?”
Nero nods at her, then picks up one of the lumps. “This one’s you.”
Emory regards it with seriousness. Alec waits, holding his breath: it’s absolutely nothing like a person, no arms or legs, not even anything resembling a face, but he thought about Emory while he worked it, using strong, purposeful motions. “Captured my essence,” she says, straight-faced, then grins and sets it down with a reverent little pat.
Alec beams.
for
rey_of_sunlight and
penfold_x: Eibhlin learns Claudius is dyslexic
This is the one I thought would have a more dark/sad tone to it BUT NO it's a FULL-OUT COMEDY, I do not control the mood
“When I took over as caretaker of Odin’s library, I admit I expected it to be more of a responsibility,” Eibhlin says.
Claudius tilts his head. He’s gotten used to the non sequiturs that aren’t - there’s a perfectly logical train of thought that led her here, it’s just that she didn’t bother to say it out loud. Asking her to follow it back so he could trace it would only be a waste of time and a surefire way to set off Eibhlin’s irritation. “Oh?” he says instead.
She’s been puttering around for the last hour, pulling books down and examining the spines, thumbing the pages, placing them back on the shelves, while Claudius sprawls on the sofa and tries not to watch her too obviously. He’s not sure she remembers that she called him here, but it won’t kill him to chill for a while until she brings herself out of whatever sucked up her attention.
Apparently, Odin’s library. “I had expected to field requests to borrow materials at regular intervals,” Eibhlin continues, a frown line puckering her forehead. “At first I thought everyone was respecting my transition, but we have long passed the need for such social niceties. Could it be Odin kept a private collection rather than a community resource? My research into Village habits would suggest that inimical to the communal culture.”
Inimical. Claudius adds that to his mental lists of words nobody this side of the mountains would ever say, but at least the meaning’s easy enough to guess in context. “I mean, no, people could borrow them if they want to, I’m pretty sure? It’s just … I dunno, books. Not really a key interest of most people here.”
Eibhlin turns to face him, tilting her head to give him a flat look over the rims of her glasses. “I was endeavouring to avoid engaging in stereotypical discussions, yet here you are.”
“It’s not a stereotype!” Claudius spreads his hands. “Or - okay, I guess it is? But this one is true. We can read, like for work and stuff, because we have to. But I don’t think too many people sit outside with a book for fun, besides Odin. Well, and Emory, I guess, after he taught her.”
Eibhlin, who had a stricken look like Claudius just moved all her equipment three inches to the left, jolts upright. “What do you mean, Odin taught her?’
“She couldn’t read,” Claudius says slowly. He’s not sure where this is going but he feels the electricity in the field and fights the urge to toss away his sword. “Before the Arena. Odin taught her after she won. That was way before my time, but I guess they thought it would make me feel better.”
The book in Eibhlin’s hand snaps shut with a thunderclap and a cloud of dust. Claudius swings his legs down onto the floor, fully ready to make a run for it. “Make you feel better about what,” Eibhlin says, enunciating with razor sharpness.
“About sucking at reading?” What in the seventy-five Arenas is going on here? “I’ve always sucked at reading, I dunno. Emory never learned, but I’ve just always been bad at it. I can’t make the letters sit still. I’m better with music, I’m just dumb with words.”
Eibhlin lets out a noise pitched at a frequency that could probably attract muttations from a mile away, a red flush spreading up from her throat to her hairline. “Excuse me,” she says finally, fingers digging dents into the hardcover, “I have to go.”
Claudius stares after her as the door slams shut. “This is your house.”
Brutus is enjoying a quiet afternoon on the porch swing when his inner alarm bells start ringing, and he looks up to see Eibhlin marching up the path like someone lit her little boots on fire. “Oh boy,” he mutters under his breath and sets his beer aside. “Hey bug, what’s up?”
“Why did no one inform Claudius of his dyslexia?” Eibhlin demands.
Oh boy. He’s not sure what made Eibhlin decide that one of the Village’s most infamous killers is in need of her personal protection, but now that she’s got the bee in her bonnet there’s no stopping her. Unfortunately for the safety of the Village, Brutus doesn’t have the first clue what she’s on about. “Dys-what-ia?”
Eibhlin draws herself up again and looks at Brutus like he stepped on her favourite book. “You, too? How is it you are so versed in advanced psychological therapeutic techniques but you are not aware of basic learning challenges?”
At least by now Brutus has a working plan for how to get Eibhlin off the fast track to fury town. “You wanna back up a step and tell me what the fancy word means, or are you gonna call me stupid some more?”
She wilts a little, and clears her throat. “Dyslexia,” she says, slowly and clearly, though unfortunately that doesn’t help him. “A reading disorder. Characterized by difficulty spelling, sounding out words, reading quickly, reading comprehension, pronunciation - not all these things at once, but these are some of the basic components. Claudius mentioned that when he attempts to read the letters appear to exchange places with one another, or ‘swim’. This is a classic symptom.”
Brutus tries to follow that, really he does, but eventually he gives up. “Eib, I hate to tell you, but that’s just the way it is out here. We don’t have the fancy schools that teach you to read good and fast when you’re teeny. Our spelling is shit and half the time we fake it and the letters do that thing. It’s annoying but it’s just … life. Doesn’t make us stupid, we’re just different.”
And now she’s looking at him like he’s the book someone stomped on, and Brutus does not like this conversation anymore. “You?” Eibhlin says, white-knuckling her book for all it’s worth. “The letters swim for you?”
“Pretty sure they swim for everbody unless you’ve got Three mega-concentration,” Brutus jokes. Or he tries to, but Eibhlin has gone paper-white except for two red spots on her cheeks.
“I don’t believe this,” she says. “I can almost condone the institutional murder but I draw the line at functional illiteracy!”
She turns on her heel and storms off, leaving Brutus to stare blankly at the path and its wake of disturbed leaves. “Good talk,” he says to the air. He shakes his head and goes back for his beer. And, on second thought, maybe three or four more.
Claudius is trying to figure out whether he should leave or if Eibhlin still expects him to be here when she gets back like a weird failure of object permanence when the door bangs open again. “Snow on a cracker!” he bites out. “What is going on? Are you mad because I can’t read?”
Eibhlin sets down the book on the entryway table, then crosses the room and sits next to him. Her movements are short, precise, practiced, like she’s holding a thunderstorm inside her body and if she moves too suddenly it will explode through her limbs and ravage the house. “It has come to my understanding that your education has been deficient,” Eibhlin says.
Claudius sighs. “I know that. I only went to school half days because of the Program and after twelve I didn’t go to school at all. But that’s not -”
Eibhlin shakes her head, and something about the look in her eye, the way she resolutely stars at the wall across from them, makes him fall quiet. “Not that. There are basic facts about your brain that you were not made aware of that made you feel as though you are deficient. Not only you, but Brutus and countless others as well. This is unacceptable. But since we are unlikely to pass sweeping district educational reform so soon after countrywide upheaval, I will start where I can.”
It’s like he’s trying to run down a hallway but someone keeps yanking the carpet every three steps. “Eib, I’m trying, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She sighs, short and gusty. “I know. But you helped me, and I am going to help you. For now, I am going to read to you. Would you like to choose a book, or should I?”
“I - no, you choose.” At least he knows better than to ask questions. Eibhlin chooses a book, Claudius fluffs the cushions for her, and he curls up on the far end of the sofa to listen to her read.
for anon: bb Misha in the Program
When the pretty people with the shiny hair and white teeth showed up and set up tables in the gym, Artemisia thought the posters were stupid. Nobody looks that happy to be running around throwing balls at each other or climbing ropes. People just don’t smile like that, ever, unless they’re conning you, and Artemisia knows how to smell a con.
She says so to the pretty lady with the thick braid and the smooth skin and the lady laughs. “You think so?” she says, and hands Artemisia a piece of paper. “See if you can spot it.”
Turns out the pretty people were right, because after one day of free food and high places to climb and run fast and balls to throw at people as hard as she can and nobody getting mad when some stupid boy gets in her way and she pushes him to the ground, Artemisia is grinning every bit as big as one of the kids on those stupid posters.
“What do you think?” asks one of the ladies. Her name is Brooke. “You going to be back tomorrow?”
Artemisia’s grin is going to break her face in half. “Oh yeah. Big time.”
The games are fun and Artemisia runs faster than everyone else and she can throw the ball harder than anyone else and climb higher and jump farther and everybody else is slow, slow, slow. Balance beams are boring when you’ve been sneaking across rooftops but it’s fun when you get cake at the end. It’s also fun when you get cake and other people don’t, and you get to eat your cake right in front of their faces and if they don’t like it they can try to take it from you but they can’t because Artemisia fights better than they do, too.
She doesn’t really care about the rules. Sometimes the trainers tell them all to do something but it doesn’t sound fun, so Artemisia sneaks off and does her own thing instead, climbing into the rafters and dropping crumbs on people’s heads or sneaking over to the far side to steal all the other team’s balls and hide them when they’re not looking. The trainers sigh at her but who cares, she’s here to have fun and be the best and if they don’t like it they can backhand her.
Nobody backhands her, so they must not care that much.
Artemisia is twelve when Gloriana Donne twists her arm after a sparring match. Gloriana has jet-black hair and warm brown skin and green eyes with gold flecks that you only notice when you’re up close, like on the ground trying to grind each other’s faces into the mats. “Why are you even here?” she spits. “You don’t even care about the rules or anything. You’re just here because you’re bored or whatever, you’re not even trying. Do you even care about the district?”
Artemisia laughs in her face. “The district? What did the stupid district ever do for me? I’m not here because some boring person on the TV tells me stuff about people who are dead, I’m just good.” She gets in close. Gloriana still smells like sweat from their fight. It makes the hairs on Artemisia’s arms stand up and her blood sing. “If you don’t like it, beat me.”
Gloriana’s eyes narrow. She doesn’t step back. “I don’t have to beat you. We’re almost at Residential now and you’re not gonna make it if you keep bullshitting your way around everything. Oh, you don’t feel like playing the game? That’s fine, you’re good at dodgeball and running sprints so who cares? You don’t have to pay attention in history or listen to the trainers because you can swing a sword. Yeah, whatever. Wait until Residential. Everybody will be good at swords, and nobody will care if you can run fast or play dodgeball or win Survivor. If you don’t give a shit, nobody’s going to give a shit about you.”
It feels like Gloriana kicked her feet out from under her and knocked her flat on her back outside the mats, lungs screaming and solar plexus aching, but no way is Artemisia going to give her that satisfaction. She steps as close as she can, their faces almost touching, and never lets the smirk off her face. “You do, or I wouldn’t be in your head,” she says, and twirls away.
But the next day at training she starts four fights and breaks four bones and a trainer has to pull her aside. There’s blood ground into the lines of her knuckles and the ridge of her fingernails. “What’s this, then?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.
Artemisia tosses her head and meets her stair and doesn’t blink. “Just because I’m not serious doesn’t mean I’m not serious,” she says. She curls her hands into fists. She didn’t break Gloriana’s arm but she did pick the fights where she could see them. “I’m going to win. I’m going to win everything.”
The trainer cocks her head and fixes Artemisia with a long, level look, then snags a peach from the bowl and tosses it to her. “Prove it.”
Oh, she will. Artemisia tears into the peach and rips a bite out of it like a wolf and lets the juice dribble down her chin.
Instead of running a prompt meme I went back to the old quarantine prompts from March and wrote a few over the last few days. I didn't get through all of them because I'm also working and doing a summer course, but I hope you enjoy the surprise anyway! :)
for anon: Lyme & Brutus, summertime bromance
If you've been here a while, you're going to know what an innocuous-sounding lighthearted prompt means. If you're new: my brain is chronically incapable of taking prompts at face value.
IN MY DEFENCE I did try! Here was my thought process:
summer -> not historically a happy time in D2, summer, what can I do -> fireflies! I bet Lyme never saw fireflies before the VV, she lived in the wrong part of the district -> hm when are fireflies around in that part of the country -> July 4 -> hm
Then I went to check the spreadsheet to see who wins what when to see when Brutus, Lyme and their kids all had a Reaping free -- the answer is NEVER. THEY NEVER DO. Literally until the war, one of them is always in the hotseat. So. We got this instead.
"but Lora," you might ask, "why not set it after the war when everyone can be happy?"
It's too late it's happening now just enjoy
Brutus’ girl has a tribute in the running for the second time, and so that night, once the sun sets and the cicadas take up their screaming from the trees, Brutus heaves himself off his porch and makes for the lake.
By now the train will be stopped around the curve of the mountains, the tributes alone in their berths while the mentors confer in the main car. This year it’s Emory and Callista, the tried and true combination of quarry pride and hint of madness that’s worked so many times before. With three District 2 wins in the decade already it doesn’t look good for the final year, but he couldn’t stop his girl from putting her name in any more than he could punch the moon from the sky.
It took him weeks to pull her out last time. He can’t imagine it’ll be any easier the second time. He hates that he’s already planning for how to manage Emory’s grief, instead of the welcome party, but ten years out has weathered Brutus like the mountain face that rises up in front of him.
At least the lake never changes, smooth and glassy under the moonlight, clouds reflected in its rippled surface. Reeds and water grasses break the mirror in sharp, dark spikes, and Brutus sighs and lets his shoulders drop a little as the trees break and the undergrowth turns sparse before opening up to rocky sand. There’s a dock, if you can call it one, creaking as it settles on the water, and it might be stupid but right now Brutus can’t think of anything better than stretching out on the wooden planks and feeling his weight rock gently back and forth.
It’s the opposite of District 2, grounded and rooted to the earth, but he’s not exactly grounded right now, is he.
He steps out onto the bank and instinct hits him like a spear between the shoulder blades. He falls back on his right leg, fists up, and the shape he didn’t even notice but the ever-present Arena brain still managed to pick up on unfurls. “Hey, caveman.”
Brutus hisses through his teeth. “The fuck you doing here.” He meant to make it sound nicer, put a bit of gruff humour to it, but tonight there’s no energy, not even for wariness. If she’s here to prank him may as well get it over with, he’s too tired to care.
Lyme’s a hulking shape in the darkness, just like him, and the way she’s got herself all crossed-arms doesn’t help. “Your girl’s in this year.”
“Your girl’s one year out.” If they’re spitting facts. “Thought you’d be with her.” First year out is a rough time, lots of residual Games-crazy bubbling up and leading to all kinds of backsliding.
“Calli put her on cat-watching duty,” Lyme says, and Brutus sputters a laugh in spite of himself. Smart move, actually. Give the kid a job to do, a real one where it matters if she slacks off, where living things rely on her. Good way to keep her head surrounded by so much death. People don’t give Callista enough credit. “I’ll head over later, but Nero’s with her for now.”
She’s still on the dock, and it might be big enough for a mentor and one kid but if the two of them try to squeeze in together they’ll have to cuddle. Brutus grunts and drops down onto the bank, sand and gravel cool beneath his thighs. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Oh, shut up.” Lyme drapes her arms over her knees and stares him down, her shining eyes relentless in the dark. “You know it’s her loss, right?”
Brutus scowls. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, asshole, if her kid loses, all you have to do is pull her out. You don’t have to take it on. That’s not your job.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Except she was there last summer when he lost, helped yank his head above water and got a concussion for her efforts. She might not be where he’s at but it’s only a matter of time: soon she’ll mentor again, and soon she’ll lose, and so will Misha, over and over again.
He can’t tell if he wants her to take the bait or not, but either way she doesn’t. And she’s younger and angrier and with a far worse temper, but for tonight she has a girl fresh out with her own mentor looking after her and a house full of cats to keep her safe, and apparently she decided it’s Brutus who deserves her time.
Fuck.
Lyme slow-blinks at him like one of Callista’s Games-damned cats, then looks away.
The firebugs are out, flickering in and out over the water and disappearing into the tall grass, and Brutus lets out a slow breath and watches them. When he was little he used to think they were magic. He thought if he caught one he could make a wish, like snowflakes. One night he took one of his mother’s canning jars and snuck outside, spent half the night chasing the blinking lights until he trapped one in the glass. He kept it by his bed and whispered dumb, secret kid-wishes to it for three days until finally it stopped, and when he tipped the glass over there was no more magic, just a poor, dead bug with its legs crumpled up toward its belly.
He can’t remember his father’s face, but that memory sears like hot metal. Brains are assholes.
Lyme stirs, stretching out her legs, and Brutus glances over at her to see her flick a pine cone at one of the glowing lights. “What are those, anyway?”
It’s such an unexpected question it knocks Brutus right out of his moping. “What? You’re kidding me.”
“No, I grew up by the fucking desert. We had coyotes and wasps the size of your palm, not magical glowing fairy lights.” Lyme turns her face up, and she looks younger without the scowl or exhausted cynicism twisting her face.
“Wasps the size of -” Brutus gapes at her, looking for the telltale sharp grin or exaggerated nonchalance that means she’s fucking with him, but she’s still watching the firebugs as if she’s genuinely fascinated. “Well that explains a hell of a lot about you. Are you serious?”
“Sure. I’ve been telling Misha they’re little baby demons. She thinks it’s great.”
In spite of himself, in spite of everything, Brutus snorts. “Of course you have. She’d love that. They’re firebugs, the lights are males looking for their mates. It’s all kinda romantic when you think about it.”
Lyme’s snort carries over the water, as he knew it would. “Of fucking course we’re in the middle of a giant bug fuck-fest. What else would it be?”
“Same with the frogs,” Brutus reminds her. Lyme’s grimace shouldn’t make him feel better, but it does, and if needling her pushes the shadows aside for a little while then he’s happy to grab the lifeline. “They’re either fucking or hoping to get fucked. And cicadas -”
Lyme reaches down and heaves a splash of water at him, even though the wave peters out far before it reaches the shore. “I get it, I get it! All of nature is one giant orgy and my ears are stuck in the middle. Fuck all this tree bullshit! You don’t get bug sex parties with rocks and sand.”
“Yeah, but think how much Misha will love it. Tell her they’re tiny sex demons and she’ll be over the moon.” Against all odds, the knots in Brutus’ shoulders loosen, and he flops back onto the ground and stares up at the stars. “This ain’t the worst.”
“Nah.” The dock creaks, waves lapping gently. “And hey, you never know, maybe she’ll win it.”
Here, with the fireflies and the cicadas and the stars peering from behind the clouds, he almost believes it.
for anon: angsty Lyme & Nero in recovery
warnings for mentions of past/desire to self-harm, past child abuse
She gasps awake in the middle of the night, flailing under her pillow and spitting curses when her hand comes up empty. No knives until Nero can trust her not to take it to her wrists, which is deeply hilarious underneath the part where it drives her up the wall. Her old man hated that she kept a knife because she slashed him with it. She’s pretty sure Nero would let her stab him in the shoulder if it helped her feel safe at night, as long as she didn’t turn around and try to carve up her own forearms a second later.
Mentors have weird ideas about priorities.
“It’s okay,” Nero says. Lyme swears again, digging the heels of her hands over her eyes. “You’re safe here.”
“How do you know it’s about being safe,” Lyme snarls, hearing herself and hating it, the shake at the edges of her words like a quilt with the stitches unravelling, but it’s the middle of the night and her bed is too soft and there’s nothing to hold on to, what’s she supposed to do. “How do you know I didn’t just murder a whole mountain of babies and that’s why I’m freaking out.”
He doesn’t take the bait. He also doesn’t answer the question, he doesn’t have to because it’s as obvious as it is humiliating: Arena nightmares have her clawing at her arms, not reaching for a weapon. She won the Games, they don’t make her afraid. She doesn’t need protecting from the ghosts of kids and teenagers she cut down on her path to victory, she’ll cut them out of herself one at a time. Or would, if he would let her.
“Fuck,” Lyme mutters. She pushes her fingers into her hair, twisting. Pulls hard enough to feel a jolt of pain, sharp and startling, and it brings her back. For a second she thinks Nero will scold her but he stays silent, watching. “This is so stupid. You know what I like? Arena dreams. Let me just … relive the stupid memories and fight through it. None of this symbolic bullshit.”
Nero reaches over and rests a hand on her ankle, not squeezing or gripping, and Lyme exhales. “I’m in a house,” she says. She knows what house it is - whose house - but she isn’t going to say it. Nero graduated mentor school, he can figure it out. “I’m trying to get out but I can’t find the door and every time I turn a corner it’s another fucking hallway. And there’s nobody home but I know I have to get out soon because if I don’t -”
She swipes a hand over her eyes. “It’s stupid,” she snaps again. “I won the Games, I have the highest kill count in the fucking Village, it doesn’t make any sense. There’s no reason for any of this now.”
Of course, now she lives in the most famous location in all of District 2. That probably has nothing to do with it.
Nero watches her, a quiet shadow at the foot of her bed, glowing softly from the light outside her window. “He can’t find you here.”
The snort is raw and ugly but laughter has power, even when it hurts. “Pretty sure he can. We’re not exactly underground.”
“Law says no family comes into the Village without the Victor’s say-so.”
Huh. They didn’t mention that part in the recruitment brochure. The part of Lyme’s brain not busy screaming and trying to build a fort around her bed made entirely of knives takes an amused second to wonder when they drop that bomb on parents, if it’s buried in the paperwork no one bothers to read or some statute signed years ago that they have no choice over.
Distant thunder rolls in the hills and heat lightning flickers red over the sharp black line of the mountains, and Lyme’s humour dissolves as quickly as it came. “Trouble with laws is the only people who bother to follow them are the kind of people who care about following laws,” she says dryly. “What are you gonna do if he shows up here, kill him?”
Nero blinks. “Killed mine, remember?”
Oh, yeah. He told her that before the Arena. She’d forgotten it amid the haze of blood and the drugs and everything else, or maybe he’d been telling her what she needed to hear to get her to trust him long enough to listen. She didn’t expect him to bring it up again now that she’s supposed to be sane. “You wouldn’t.”
Nero grins. It’s not a nice smile, and such a nasty look on the face of the man who bakes her cookies and wraps her wrists with such gentle care is jarring. “What are they gonna do, arrest me?”
Lyme sputters a laugh, tries to stifle it with her fist but it spills out like blood from a gut wound between clutching fingers. She actually doesn’t know, it’s not like they have victor law classes, but the thought of the Peacekeepers showing up to lecture victors on appropriate vs. inappropriate murder is suddenly hysterical. Murdering teenagers on camera? Good. Murdering grownups in private? Bad. See the difference?
The tired hits her like a wave, not the frantic, bone-deep exhaustion that comes with knowing it doesn’t matter, sleep is out of the question and there’s nothing she can do about it, but quiet and cool relief. Lyme grabs her pillow and crawls to the far end of the bed as Nero stretches out his legs onto the mattress, drops her pillow onto his knees and collapses. He combs his fingers through her hair and she sighs, shoulders dropping.
She dreams of the house again. But this time she draws tinder and flint from her pockets and burns the whole damn place down to ash around her.
In the morning she has a crick in her neck, pins and needles in her arm and - for the first time in weeks - a clear head. “I want eggs,” Lyme says without opening her eyes.
“Sure thing, sweetheart.” Nero ruffles her hair, and Lyme snorts and heaves her pillow at his head to hide the grin.
for
kawuli (and
anastasia010 sort of), who wanted the D2 victors stuck somewhere
Brutus wakes up in the middle of the night from a dream of being eaten alive by ants. Bit old to be having Arena dreams, he chides himself, and he punches his pillow and flops back down, arms crossed -
-- only to bolt back upright as fire races across his back. “Fuck!” he shouts, scrambling out of bed, feet tangling in his sheets and sending him crashing to the ground. The itch spreads to his shoulders, skips down to his thighs, and worst of all, right between his ass-cheeks.
Which is how Brutus finds himself at three a.m., half-naked in his bathroom, twisted around on the bathroom sink and gaping at the splash of red blisters across his back and shoulders. “What the fuck?”
Priya, the Village doctor, pronounces it henpox, which is the most humiliating fuckin’ name Brutus has ever heard of, then makes it worse by telling him most people get it out of their systems in childhood. “Don’t feel bad, this is pretty common with ex-Careers. You spend less time at school than your peers, and the Centre is a highly sterile environment with its own built-in quarantine. Stuff like this happens more than you might think. The good thing is, once you have it, it’s likely you won’t ever catch it again. Bad news is, it’s highly contagious, so unless everyone else in the Village had it when they were kids, they should keep away.’
Brutus scowls. “Then where the fuck did I catch it? I haven’t done an orphanage run in months.”
Priya presses her lips together, and for a second he thinks she’s angry until he clocks that her eyebrows are all wrong. She’s not frowning, she’s laughing. “What,” Brutus says, flatly.
“Well … you’re not the only one. Callista and Artemisia have also come down with henpox. Can you think of anywhere you’ve been in the last few days where you might have been exposed?”
Brutus blinks. He, Calli and Misha don’t exactly go to the same dinner parties. They were all in the Capitol over the weekend making a splash with some sponsor favourites, but they were never -
“No,” Brutus says. Too fast, Priya’s mouth twitches, and he groans and flops back onto the bed. “Oh, fuck me, no.”
Frangelina Duncan. One of District 2’s most reliable - and voracious - sponsors, and one who happens to be on both Callista and Misha’s regular lists. Not his style usually, but she’d hit him up near the end of the weekend, and with Brutus looking to put his name in next year he didn’t think he should turn her down.
“The Triple Crown,” Brutus says, mostly to himself, and hopes to the mountaintops Priya isn’t up on the gossip-rag lingo. “She really went for it.”
Priya coughs delicately. “I’ve asked Odin to set up a quarantine in his home since it will be easiest to take care of you if you’re all in one place. Luckily there are some here who did have henpox as children, so they’ll be able to keep an eye on all of you.”
There’s a decidedly amused tone to her voice that makes Brutus crack one eye and glare at her. “Who?”
“Really, I don’t know how none of you ever had this before, it’s not that big a deal,” Devon says cheerfully as he slathers horrifying pink liquid over Brutus’ back. “I got it when I was, I dunno, five? I was itchy for about a week, I got to stay home from school and my mom gave me oatmeal baths and scratched my back with mittens on. It was great.”
“Yeah, great,” Petra says tightly. Callista has draped herself over the back of the sofa in a sports bra and shorts with ‘CARNIVORE’ (a gift from Misha) printed across the ass, while Petra sits behind her with a tub of cream and Peacekeeper-perfect posture. Devon offered to switch but Petra waved him off, jaw taut. “I was the last one to get it so everyone was already busy. I scratched myself until I was bleeding trying to make it stop.”
“It’s not a contest, darling,” Callista says, turning her face on her arm. “We’re all very grateful for your childhood suffering. Very apropos. Your sacrifice then makes you a hero to us now.” Petra reddens further but doesn’t try to argue.
“Meanwhile I am itching to death,” Misha points out from her position across the room, sprawled on a divan in front of the fireplace. “I see how it is. Victor hierarchy at its finest.”
Devon snickers at her. “Calm down, Mish, I’m almost done. Brutus has more surface area than you. But if you’re good and patient and don’t pick at it I’ll let you have a popsicle.”
That can’t possibly work. They’re grown-ass adults with a kill count between them that’s higher than Petra and Devon’s ages and probably catching up to Brutus, are they really going to be reduced to bribery with children’s frozen snacks - but then Misha squints at him, face mashed into a silk pillow, and says, “What flavour?”
“Attagirl,” Devon beams.
“No.” Brutus glares at Callista, then turns and shoots one each at Devon and Misha for good measure. “Absolutely not.”
Callista stretches, lazy and catlike, somehow managing to look glamorous despite the spots of lotion all over her skin. “We’ve been here for days, and we’ll be trapped for at least a week. If we can’t go outside and spar, the least you can do is stop denying us solid entertainment.”
Oh, they want entertainment, all right. Odin’s enormous television with every channel the Capitol has to offer and what does the hive-mind of evil decide they want to watch? Splendour in the Quarries, an absolutely awful pile of tragiromantic shlock about a star-crossed miner and a girl from the ‘good’ side of town that stars a capitol actor very clearly attempting to impersonate Brutus. “Yeah, and that’s the one we need to see? Pass.”
“But boss,” Misha says, all wide-eyed innocence like anyone with sense wouldn’t go running for a knife at that expression, “Petra hasn’t seen it.”
Years of training and situational awareness and he’s still too slow to realize she timed it just as Petra walks in with a tray of cold compresses tucked under one arm. “Haven’t seen what?”
Callista snickers into her arm like she isn’t the elder in the room and finally Brutus sighs. “Looks like we’re watching a movie.”
Near the end of the week Devon catches them sparring, having pushed all the furniture against the walls like they’re here for the monthly signing party. “That can’t be good for you,” he says, frowning like someone’s disappointed mother. “You’re supposed to be resting.”
It’s the first time in the whole damn week Brutus has felt like a human being and not a giant, itching slug, mostly because Callista is the master of the sneak shot and Misha has never fought fair the entire time he’s known her, and the two of them together makes for one of the hardest workouts he’s ever done. Or maybe it’s the fever and fatigue and the fact he’s eaten nothing but protein shakes for days because the sores on the inside of his mouth make food a torture, but whatever. Brutus loves sparring with his kids, it’s a highlight of his week, but there’s an invisible choreography, not only in the rhythm of their moves but the way the fights will end. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to fight two people happy to kick the ever-loving shit out of him.
He has one arm pinning Misha’s shoulders from behind and Callista’s legs locked around his waist, and Devon’s words are like a shock of cold water to the face, jarring him out of the flow of the fight. Even if it is just a ridiculous grappling match on the floor. “It’s fine,” Brutus and Misha say at the same time, and Misha glances back and shoots him a grin. Callista uses the moment of inattention to flip them both to the ground; Brutus keeps forgetting she won half her fights from the waist down so she could keep her hands on her blades.
Devon clicks his tongue and shakes his head in exaggerated motions. “Well, I’m not going to fight you, but Petra’s not gonna like it.”
Brutus freezes, and even Callista falls quiet. “That girl does scold with a vengeance, doesn’t she,” she muses aloud. “This was fun. I would rather not spoil the mood by having my ankles gnawed on.”
Misha sighs and wriggles out of Brutus’ arm as he lets her drop, and Callista unhooks herself in a serpentine twirl that makes Brutus’ spine ache just looking at it. By the time Petra shows up they’re sitting on the couch like good, responsible adults. Adults afraid to get lectured by a girl barely out of her teens, but at the end of the day they’ve all suffered worse indignities.
When Priya finally announces them free to go, Brutus could climb to the top of the trees and sing the victory theme himself. He’ll have to do something special for Devon and Petra for putting up with all their bullshit for nearly two weeks, but for right now all Brutus can think about is outdoors and fresh air and maybe even - shock of all shocks - heading down into the heart of Career-town to grab a beer with some actual new faces for once.
He’s on his way back to his house when his danger senses tingle and he throws himself into a roll to avoid a tackle from Misha. She skids, feet slipping on pine needles, but catches herself and slips into a fighting stance, grinning. He doesn’t need to turn to know Callista is behind him doing the same. “You wanna tell me what this is?” he asks, even as he bends his knees and slides one foot back.
“We were interrupted last time,” Callista says. “I never like to leave a fight unfinished.”
Brutus snorts, and the stupid thing is, as infuriating as the past week was, the close quarters and the hovering and the Games-damned itching and Calli and Misha ganging up on him every two seconds, when it comes right down to it there’s no one in the Village he wouldn’t trust to spend ten days locked in a house together. Not that he’ll ever admit that out loud.
“Interrupted me kicking ass, you mean,” he says, and flings himself forward.
for multiple anons: Victor Alec, with Nero
this one decided to be wholesome? idk
It’s funny, all the little things they don’t prepare you for. Like how everyone’s house looks different. Alec isn’t sure why he thought everyone would have the same architecture, except that a lot of the homes back in the Peacekeeping village where he grew up were prefab designs, and the way each family made them their own was through paint or window decorations or gardens.
But no, everyone in the Village has their own house, their own design, and it makes him wonder who’s behind it all. Obviously the mentors aren’t architects, they’re not sitting there in the days before their victor wakes up sketching out blueprints and ordering materials, but someone has to be doing it, and he’ll eat his artificial arm before he believes these are Capitol builders. The whole place feels Two, from the warm wood to the limestone to the open porches that wrap around the front of almost every house. They don’t look like the place he grew up but it feels like home, with all the love built in.
He likes to stroll around and check out the houses, trying to guess who lives there without Emory telling him, but with fall in full swing and the weather at its crispest, the risk of getting caught is higher.
Which is how he winds up running into Nero on his front porch, a knife and a block of wood in his hand and a pile of shavings at his feet. “Hey, kid.”
“Hey.” Alec hopes Nero doesn’t notice the way his weight immediately shifts in case he needs to run, except he immediately flicks the knife closed. Nero is technically connected to Selene and Claudius through the mentor line but Alec hasn’t met him yet, or heard anything about him, really. But being neighbourly is important and he was technically spying on his yard, so instead of fleeing Alec says, “Carving?”
“Yup.” Nero holds up the wood and turns it around to show a pair of wide eyes and a swept-back head that Alec realizes with a start is the beginnings of an owl. “You wanna try?”
Alec is still getting used to the whole ‘make, don’t break’ part of being a victor, but carving looks satisfying, and the more things he can learn with a knife that aren’t slicing through someone’s skin or searching for the vitals sounds good to him. He’s not banned from knives anymore, just not allowed without supervision, and Nero is even Emory’s senior in the Village hierarchy. “Yeah, okay.”
Nero produces another knife and a chunk of smooth white aspen, hands them over with a wink, and goes back to work. Alec turns the wood over in his hands, tracing the grain. Maybe he’ll make a cat and give it to Selene. He slides open the blade and places it against the edge.
Stops. Pulls back, heart tripping in his chest. Tries again, placing the point of the blade against the middle of the block, ready to start digging. Again he stops. Again his chest twists in palpitations. Alec huffs a frustrated breath between his teeth, flips the knife into the kill position in case that helps.
It doesn’t. No matter what he can’t mark the surface. Once he does it won’t be wood anymore, it will be the start of a sculpture, and if he makes a mistake it will be there, carved into the surface and staring at him and Nero and whoever else comes to laugh at it, and why did he think he could do this -
“It doesn’t have to be anything.”
Alec’s head whips up and he turns to stare at Nero, back of his neck reddening in humiliation. How long was he watching? But Nero only tilts his head back and forth, one ear to one shoulder and over to the other side, so the tendons in his neck crack. “You don’t have to make something that looks good. You don’t even have to make anything. Just start carving and see what happens.”
It’s the same advice Emory gave him about cooking and finding his talent, learning the joy of immersing himself in a skill he’s bad at without the pressure to excel, but it’s one thing to watch Emory hide her grin over burned pancakes or have to say with a straight face that maybe the leftover pasta sandwich was a better idea in theory than in execution. In the end, the worst case is a meal that doesn’t taste great, and he’s still learning. But if he messes up here, what is Nero supposed to do with a messed up block of wood? He can’t use it for anything or turn it into something functional. As soon as Alec puts his knife to it he’s dooming it to the compost heap with his inexpertise.
Nero watches him for another moment, then slaps his knee and stands up. “New plan,” he says. “Leave that, come with me.”
They loop around behind Nero’s house, around the path and through the trees, and finally Alec frowns. “This is -”
“Yep,” Nero says again. He takes the porch steps in one go and knocks on the door, then calls, “Misha, borrowing your clay!” A vague, affirmative shout floats out from inside, and Nero tosses Alec a thumb’s up.
Artemisia’s shed is a scatterbrained disaster. She has a full metalworking studio inside - her actual official talent - but boxes pile the shelves and stack in various corners and Alec is pretty sure there’s a mock human skeleton over in the back. Nero apparently has enough knowledge of The System (as Misha calls it) to zero in on exactly what he wants, grabbing an airtight tub and hauling it out over his shoulder.
Nero directs Alec out to the picnic table behind his house, and follows a few minutes later with a tarp, a large bowl of water, and a another container under his arm. After they set up he plops down the tub, pries off the lid, and reaches in to hand Alec a lump of something cool and smooth.
A distant memory of grade school stirs, and Alec squints at the beige lump in his hands. “Clay?”
“Yessir.” Nero dips his fingers in the water and starts working his own chunk of clay, rolling it over on the table and pinching it with his fingertips. “Can’t mess it up.”
Alec swallows hard. He wets his fingertips and pokes the clay experimentally, feeling the surface give just slightly. The other box Nero brought out is full of brightly coloured cookie cutters, rolling pins, and wire cutters, just like when he was a kid. He presses both thumbs into the clay and pushes down until two divots form in the surface, then rolls it out until they’re gone.
Alec laughs, breathless, and wets his fingers again.
Emory finds them later, coated to the elbows, half a dozen ugly bowls and misshapen lumps lining the table’s edge. “Oho,” she says. “This looks fun. Mind if I join?”
Nero nods at her, then picks up one of the lumps. “This one’s you.”
Emory regards it with seriousness. Alec waits, holding his breath: it’s absolutely nothing like a person, no arms or legs, not even anything resembling a face, but he thought about Emory while he worked it, using strong, purposeful motions. “Captured my essence,” she says, straight-faced, then grins and sets it down with a reverent little pat.
Alec beams.
for
rey_of_sunlight and
penfold_x: Eibhlin learns Claudius is dyslexic
This is the one I thought would have a more dark/sad tone to it BUT NO it's a FULL-OUT COMEDY, I do not control the mood
“When I took over as caretaker of Odin’s library, I admit I expected it to be more of a responsibility,” Eibhlin says.
Claudius tilts his head. He’s gotten used to the non sequiturs that aren’t - there’s a perfectly logical train of thought that led her here, it’s just that she didn’t bother to say it out loud. Asking her to follow it back so he could trace it would only be a waste of time and a surefire way to set off Eibhlin’s irritation. “Oh?” he says instead.
She’s been puttering around for the last hour, pulling books down and examining the spines, thumbing the pages, placing them back on the shelves, while Claudius sprawls on the sofa and tries not to watch her too obviously. He’s not sure she remembers that she called him here, but it won’t kill him to chill for a while until she brings herself out of whatever sucked up her attention.
Apparently, Odin’s library. “I had expected to field requests to borrow materials at regular intervals,” Eibhlin continues, a frown line puckering her forehead. “At first I thought everyone was respecting my transition, but we have long passed the need for such social niceties. Could it be Odin kept a private collection rather than a community resource? My research into Village habits would suggest that inimical to the communal culture.”
Inimical. Claudius adds that to his mental lists of words nobody this side of the mountains would ever say, but at least the meaning’s easy enough to guess in context. “I mean, no, people could borrow them if they want to, I’m pretty sure? It’s just … I dunno, books. Not really a key interest of most people here.”
Eibhlin turns to face him, tilting her head to give him a flat look over the rims of her glasses. “I was endeavouring to avoid engaging in stereotypical discussions, yet here you are.”
“It’s not a stereotype!” Claudius spreads his hands. “Or - okay, I guess it is? But this one is true. We can read, like for work and stuff, because we have to. But I don’t think too many people sit outside with a book for fun, besides Odin. Well, and Emory, I guess, after he taught her.”
Eibhlin, who had a stricken look like Claudius just moved all her equipment three inches to the left, jolts upright. “What do you mean, Odin taught her?’
“She couldn’t read,” Claudius says slowly. He’s not sure where this is going but he feels the electricity in the field and fights the urge to toss away his sword. “Before the Arena. Odin taught her after she won. That was way before my time, but I guess they thought it would make me feel better.”
The book in Eibhlin’s hand snaps shut with a thunderclap and a cloud of dust. Claudius swings his legs down onto the floor, fully ready to make a run for it. “Make you feel better about what,” Eibhlin says, enunciating with razor sharpness.
“About sucking at reading?” What in the seventy-five Arenas is going on here? “I’ve always sucked at reading, I dunno. Emory never learned, but I’ve just always been bad at it. I can’t make the letters sit still. I’m better with music, I’m just dumb with words.”
Eibhlin lets out a noise pitched at a frequency that could probably attract muttations from a mile away, a red flush spreading up from her throat to her hairline. “Excuse me,” she says finally, fingers digging dents into the hardcover, “I have to go.”
Claudius stares after her as the door slams shut. “This is your house.”
Brutus is enjoying a quiet afternoon on the porch swing when his inner alarm bells start ringing, and he looks up to see Eibhlin marching up the path like someone lit her little boots on fire. “Oh boy,” he mutters under his breath and sets his beer aside. “Hey bug, what’s up?”
“Why did no one inform Claudius of his dyslexia?” Eibhlin demands.
Oh boy. He’s not sure what made Eibhlin decide that one of the Village’s most infamous killers is in need of her personal protection, but now that she’s got the bee in her bonnet there’s no stopping her. Unfortunately for the safety of the Village, Brutus doesn’t have the first clue what she’s on about. “Dys-what-ia?”
Eibhlin draws herself up again and looks at Brutus like he stepped on her favourite book. “You, too? How is it you are so versed in advanced psychological therapeutic techniques but you are not aware of basic learning challenges?”
At least by now Brutus has a working plan for how to get Eibhlin off the fast track to fury town. “You wanna back up a step and tell me what the fancy word means, or are you gonna call me stupid some more?”
She wilts a little, and clears her throat. “Dyslexia,” she says, slowly and clearly, though unfortunately that doesn’t help him. “A reading disorder. Characterized by difficulty spelling, sounding out words, reading quickly, reading comprehension, pronunciation - not all these things at once, but these are some of the basic components. Claudius mentioned that when he attempts to read the letters appear to exchange places with one another, or ‘swim’. This is a classic symptom.”
Brutus tries to follow that, really he does, but eventually he gives up. “Eib, I hate to tell you, but that’s just the way it is out here. We don’t have the fancy schools that teach you to read good and fast when you’re teeny. Our spelling is shit and half the time we fake it and the letters do that thing. It’s annoying but it’s just … life. Doesn’t make us stupid, we’re just different.”
And now she’s looking at him like he’s the book someone stomped on, and Brutus does not like this conversation anymore. “You?” Eibhlin says, white-knuckling her book for all it’s worth. “The letters swim for you?”
“Pretty sure they swim for everbody unless you’ve got Three mega-concentration,” Brutus jokes. Or he tries to, but Eibhlin has gone paper-white except for two red spots on her cheeks.
“I don’t believe this,” she says. “I can almost condone the institutional murder but I draw the line at functional illiteracy!”
She turns on her heel and storms off, leaving Brutus to stare blankly at the path and its wake of disturbed leaves. “Good talk,” he says to the air. He shakes his head and goes back for his beer. And, on second thought, maybe three or four more.
Claudius is trying to figure out whether he should leave or if Eibhlin still expects him to be here when she gets back like a weird failure of object permanence when the door bangs open again. “Snow on a cracker!” he bites out. “What is going on? Are you mad because I can’t read?”
Eibhlin sets down the book on the entryway table, then crosses the room and sits next to him. Her movements are short, precise, practiced, like she’s holding a thunderstorm inside her body and if she moves too suddenly it will explode through her limbs and ravage the house. “It has come to my understanding that your education has been deficient,” Eibhlin says.
Claudius sighs. “I know that. I only went to school half days because of the Program and after twelve I didn’t go to school at all. But that’s not -”
Eibhlin shakes her head, and something about the look in her eye, the way she resolutely stars at the wall across from them, makes him fall quiet. “Not that. There are basic facts about your brain that you were not made aware of that made you feel as though you are deficient. Not only you, but Brutus and countless others as well. This is unacceptable. But since we are unlikely to pass sweeping district educational reform so soon after countrywide upheaval, I will start where I can.”
It’s like he’s trying to run down a hallway but someone keeps yanking the carpet every three steps. “Eib, I’m trying, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She sighs, short and gusty. “I know. But you helped me, and I am going to help you. For now, I am going to read to you. Would you like to choose a book, or should I?”
“I - no, you choose.” At least he knows better than to ask questions. Eibhlin chooses a book, Claudius fluffs the cushions for her, and he curls up on the far end of the sofa to listen to her read.
for anon: bb Misha in the Program
When the pretty people with the shiny hair and white teeth showed up and set up tables in the gym, Artemisia thought the posters were stupid. Nobody looks that happy to be running around throwing balls at each other or climbing ropes. People just don’t smile like that, ever, unless they’re conning you, and Artemisia knows how to smell a con.
She says so to the pretty lady with the thick braid and the smooth skin and the lady laughs. “You think so?” she says, and hands Artemisia a piece of paper. “See if you can spot it.”
Turns out the pretty people were right, because after one day of free food and high places to climb and run fast and balls to throw at people as hard as she can and nobody getting mad when some stupid boy gets in her way and she pushes him to the ground, Artemisia is grinning every bit as big as one of the kids on those stupid posters.
“What do you think?” asks one of the ladies. Her name is Brooke. “You going to be back tomorrow?”
Artemisia’s grin is going to break her face in half. “Oh yeah. Big time.”
The games are fun and Artemisia runs faster than everyone else and she can throw the ball harder than anyone else and climb higher and jump farther and everybody else is slow, slow, slow. Balance beams are boring when you’ve been sneaking across rooftops but it’s fun when you get cake at the end. It’s also fun when you get cake and other people don’t, and you get to eat your cake right in front of their faces and if they don’t like it they can try to take it from you but they can’t because Artemisia fights better than they do, too.
She doesn’t really care about the rules. Sometimes the trainers tell them all to do something but it doesn’t sound fun, so Artemisia sneaks off and does her own thing instead, climbing into the rafters and dropping crumbs on people’s heads or sneaking over to the far side to steal all the other team’s balls and hide them when they’re not looking. The trainers sigh at her but who cares, she’s here to have fun and be the best and if they don’t like it they can backhand her.
Nobody backhands her, so they must not care that much.
Artemisia is twelve when Gloriana Donne twists her arm after a sparring match. Gloriana has jet-black hair and warm brown skin and green eyes with gold flecks that you only notice when you’re up close, like on the ground trying to grind each other’s faces into the mats. “Why are you even here?” she spits. “You don’t even care about the rules or anything. You’re just here because you’re bored or whatever, you’re not even trying. Do you even care about the district?”
Artemisia laughs in her face. “The district? What did the stupid district ever do for me? I’m not here because some boring person on the TV tells me stuff about people who are dead, I’m just good.” She gets in close. Gloriana still smells like sweat from their fight. It makes the hairs on Artemisia’s arms stand up and her blood sing. “If you don’t like it, beat me.”
Gloriana’s eyes narrow. She doesn’t step back. “I don’t have to beat you. We’re almost at Residential now and you’re not gonna make it if you keep bullshitting your way around everything. Oh, you don’t feel like playing the game? That’s fine, you’re good at dodgeball and running sprints so who cares? You don’t have to pay attention in history or listen to the trainers because you can swing a sword. Yeah, whatever. Wait until Residential. Everybody will be good at swords, and nobody will care if you can run fast or play dodgeball or win Survivor. If you don’t give a shit, nobody’s going to give a shit about you.”
It feels like Gloriana kicked her feet out from under her and knocked her flat on her back outside the mats, lungs screaming and solar plexus aching, but no way is Artemisia going to give her that satisfaction. She steps as close as she can, their faces almost touching, and never lets the smirk off her face. “You do, or I wouldn’t be in your head,” she says, and twirls away.
But the next day at training she starts four fights and breaks four bones and a trainer has to pull her aside. There’s blood ground into the lines of her knuckles and the ridge of her fingernails. “What’s this, then?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.
Artemisia tosses her head and meets her stair and doesn’t blink. “Just because I’m not serious doesn’t mean I’m not serious,” she says. She curls her hands into fists. She didn’t break Gloriana’s arm but she did pick the fights where she could see them. “I’m going to win. I’m going to win everything.”
The trainer cocks her head and fixes Artemisia with a long, level look, then snags a peach from the bowl and tosses it to her. “Prove it.”
Oh, she will. Artemisia tears into the peach and rips a bite out of it like a wolf and lets the juice dribble down her chin.