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idksmtms · 3 months

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The Prettiest Trophy - Capitol Elite!Aegon II Targaryen x Games Winner!reader (Hunger Games AU)

Summary: You never thought you would make it out of the hunger games, but now you have another fight ahead of you. What do you do when one of the most powerful citizens of the capitol has chosen you to be his?

Word count: 3.5k

Trigger Warnings: 18+, she/her pronouns, AFAB reader, profanity, innuendo, Dub-con due to power imbalance, coercion too ig (???), some angst (reader talks about survivor’s guilt from the games), p in v s*x, unprotected s*x, oral f receiving, degradation (constantly referring to lesser status of districts), objectification and ownership, (please let me know if I missed any)

Rating: 18+, MDNI

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the House of The Dragon/Fire & Blood characters. I do not claim to own any of the House of The Dragon/Fire & Blood characters. I do not own any pictures used nor do I claim to do so.

Always appreciate comments, likes, and reblogs :)

AN: Aaaaa my first fic finally! Didn't mean to make it this long but I got a bit carried away! I hope you enjoy! (Side note: I was imagining his hair as the style in the black and white pic, just with Targaryen white, Side note 2: I def realise the references to the way Gollum talks about the ring, IT WAS ON PURPOSE)

You never thought you would leave the arena. Every second could have been your last and you still didn’t quite believe you had made it out, that you were standing outside the President’s mansion at a lavish party, dressed in silks and jewels. No one told you how to live after the games were over. It had taken you three days just to be able to get out of bed and move around again after leaving the arena. Being at this party? It felt like a betrayal to all the people who had died so you could live. You sipped from the sickly sweet drink that almost seemed to glow in the night, and looked around the garden.

Most people had finally left you alone thankfully, though you could still see eyes turning your way, whispers and conversations pointed toward your presence in the garden. At least no one was trying to force you into a picture like some capitol celebrity anymore.

People in the most lavish costumes customary of the capitol milled about, talking, whispering, cackling like witches in their modified bodies with their modified voices. It was a horror show. The gardens had been decorated with delicate yellow fairy lights strung up in the trees and over poles around the tables. You assumed they wanted to give it a warm and welcoming look with the yellow lighting but it only cast grotesque shadows on the building that was not only the backdrop to this party, but to all your nightmares. There were tables set up with stark white tablecloths draped over them, an area cleared away for a dance floor, and more noise coming from the entrance to the mansion. Avoxes walked around carrying trays of food and drink between their hands, heads bent low, and shame began to rise inside you. What were you doing here? Why were you forced to be here?

There was someone behind you. You didn’t know when you had become so aware of any presence, probably somewhere between fending off humans and wildlife alike in the arena, and you could distinctly feel someone behind you. A slight shadow fell over your shoulders. A small touch rustled the train of your dress. Someone cleared their throat. You turned around, hands quivering, and looked at the man smirking broadly at you. Your first thought, shamefully: was he even real?

His hair was so blond it was white, cut short and combed back so perfectly he could be no less than an aristocrat. He wore a suit of dark grey over a black shirt, one of the less eccentrically dressed people at the party. But his shoes were lavish. Black and shinier than anything you had ever seen, embroidered with gold thread, gold jewellery dangling from the laces and gems stamped into the fabric. Surely this man was of the richest of the rich, because even in the capitol people were wont to have shoes so lavish. You stared at his shoes for a good minute, whole body frozen, when he cleared his throat once more. You looked at his eyes. You couldn’t tell if they were more blue or grey, like ice had formed over a stormy ocean.

“And who might you be?” He asked, mouth still smiling, before he brought his glass up to his lips and took a drink while waiting for your answer.

“You don’t know who I am?” You asked, almost taking a step back. That couldn’t be true. Viewing was mandatory, your face had been plastered across every screen in Panem for weeks, it couldn’t be true that he didn’t know you. And yet… for a moment… it felt so good not to be recognised. You were just some other girl, lost in the crowd at a party, who hadn’t gone through what you had gone through.

“Well, I may know of you, but I don’t know you know you,” his smile had softened and he stepped closer until his elbow lightly brushed yours and you were both looking out at the party.

“I suppose that’s true,” you answered quietly, still watching his face. His skin was almost as dangerously pale as his hair, and sallow, like he was never quite in the best of health. Though you couldn’t deny the truth, he was a handsome man regardless of his slightly ragged appearance.

“Aegon Targaryen the second,” he held out his hand, running his eyes over your face like he hadn’t gathered enough of it the first time, “and you?”

“Y/n L/n,” you breathed out, reaching out an unsteady hand to limply shake his own. He gently clasped your fingers and brought your hand to his mouth, pressing his lips to your knuckles before releasing your hand. It was such an odd sensation, his hot breath brushing over the back of your hand, his fingertips slightly rough - but not enough to suggest any sort of manual labour - clasping the skin of your palm. Your cheeks went hot, the tips of your ears tingling, and you continued staring at this enigma.

“How has the capitol been treating you?” He asked, chugging the rest of his drink and depositing it on the tray of an Avox as they passed by like some well-practised dance. You didn’t want to reply. “Well, I suppose you haven’t had the time to truly enjoy it. At least, not the truly fun bits anyway,” he shrugged, tilting his head and looking at you like it was a particularly amusing thing he just said.

You couldn’t understand this at all. Who was this man? What was this interaction? What did he want with you? Why was he acting so mundane, like this was normal?! None of this was normal.

Noticing the look on your face, Aegon chuckled and reached forward to push some hair over your shoulder. It took everything within you to hold in your shiver.

“Ah, you must be confused about who I am! I shouldn’t have assumed you would understand the name Targaryen. We may be famous in the capitol but who knows what goes on in the districts,” you swallowed hard and nodded, trying not to flinch at the dig. “Our family works in all sorts of sectors, for example, my uncle Daemon is responsible for manufacturing arms for the state, my younger brother Aemond works under the president in some position or other - god knows he never shuts up about it - and my father currently runs the peacekeeper program. Of course I’m expected to step up to that eventually but- I won’t bore you with the details.”

You didn’t really consider that work. You had seen the way your parents toiled in the factory every day, had seen the way every member of your family slowly became a hunchback from their work. But you weren’t going to say anything to him.

“What does your family do?” He asked, and again you almost moved out of surprise. His face seemed so sincere as he watched you, waiting for an answer.

“I’m from District 8, so my parents work the looms,” you answered slowly. You almost sounded condescending, like you were talking to someone who couldn’t quite understand your words, but Aegon understood it was the shock of him speaking to you. After all, it had only been a week since you had left the arena, he understood how difficult it would be to gain your confidence. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t try. And Aegon was a firm believer that flattery could get you anywhere, especially a girl’s bed. So he decided to change course.

“Do you see that man over there?” He pointed discreetly to a spot just to your right and you shuffled back so you could look over without being noticed. You sipped from your glass as you noticed the man, an older gentleman wearing a full fursuit topped with a lion’s mane going around his head. Even his face had been painted with fur and whiskers to resemble a lion with the body of a human. You nodded to Aegon, turning away from the man. Something about that picture made you uncomfortable in a way you had never been before. “Well, rumour has it that he wears that entire get up, face paint and all mind you, every time he fucks.” You gasped, staring at Aegon with eyes so wide they started to hurt.

“You can’t be serious,” you whispered sharply.

“I am the most serious, dearest. Why would I lie to you?” He smirked, leaning closer once more. He draped his arm over your shoulder and you stiffened for a moment before continuing to listen to his next story.

You were slowly beginning to relax in Aegon’s company as he continued to chatter to you. He no longer asked questions or expected you to speak, just pointed out people in the crowd and made colourful commentary that had you hiding your face in his shoulder and giggling against the fabric of his suit. He gazed at you with sparkling eyes full of mirth and shared his ever-full glass of whatever drink they were serving at the time. You couldn’t help but be charmed. Maybe, just maybe, not everyone in the capitol was as bad as they seemed.

“D’you wanna go somewhere quieter?” He finally asked after completely relieving another stranger of their dignity. You took a moment to catch your breath and looked at him, at the sudden darkening of his eyes and the way his tongue poked out to lick his lips. He watched you like a tiger readying to pounce. You nodded without a second thought. Though he had made the party bearable, anywhere would be better than here. He smiled and reached down, sliding his fingers over your inner wrist, then your palm, then grasping your hand in his own. “Come on.”

Aegon led you into the house and up the stairs, nodding at random people (who sometimes you could barely recognise as people), skilfully dodging attempts at conversation. Up and up the lavish stairs you went before walking down a large hallway and stopping in front of a wall. Aegon pushed at the wall and it gave way, revealing a spiral staircase in the dark that led up into an abyss.

“Um, are you sure you know where you’re going?” You asked, pausing at the entrance to the rather dingy looking chamber.

“There are some perks to having been at the president’s mansion practically since I was born. One of those being secret access to the roof, now come on!” He dragged you into the dark and shut the door behind him, before ushering you up the first steps.

The staircase really wasn’t all that tall. In fact, you could see the top and light bled down from the opening. Your heels clanked against each step and you almost toppled back into Aegon more than once. Then you were at the top. Then you could see the whole Capitol. Oh it was breathtaking! The whole city, laid out before you like a miniature scene to play with. There were lights glimmering in houses and cars on the roads and life! There were signs of life everywhere. Oh you couldn’t believe it. You almost believed you could see to the very edges of Panem.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Aegon asked, and you turned to meet his eyes. Both of you had moved right to the edge of the rooftop so you could look out over the party, and he moved to stand directly behind you. You could feel his chest press into your back. The fabric of his shirt rubbed against the skin of your back and he was a solid pressure behind you, like the comfort of a wall at your back when you slept. “Hm?” He asked again, bending his head down to run his nose up your neck. You shivered, the light graze was just ticklish enough to start a spark inside of you.

“Yes,” you breathed out, clenching your hands on the concrete to stop yourself from leaning back into him. You didn’t know him. You didn’t really know him. You didn’t know him at all.

“You know,” he began slowly, hands going to your shoulders and turning you around to face him. “When I first saw you on the television, the day of the reaping, I knew you would win.” Your breath caught in your throat. Your mouth was so dry. You wished you hadn’t discarded that sweet drink so quickly. “And look at you now,” he leaned in closer, cupping your face to force your eyes to meet his, “you’re the winner, the greatest person in Panem, to come out of the districts anyway.” He gently kissed your right cheek, warm lips on plush skin, and when he pulled away the breeze cooled the hint of saliva he had left behind. “You’re the greatest treasure one could possess, you know?” He kissed your other cheek, firmer this time, like he was trying to leave the imprint of his lips on your skin. “Everyone knows the winner of the Hunger Games, and to say you own them? To parade them on your arm for everyone to see, saying you own the very concept of survival?” He seemed to groan in pleasure, and then everything was moving.

His lips were on yours, slightly wet and forceful. His tongue was delving into your mouth, tasting like sugar, too much sugar, and you wanted to pull back because it was so overwhelming and everything he had just said and and and… and it felt so good too. It was warm, and desperate, like no one had ever been for you before.

A hand moved into your hair and grasped the strands at the back of your head tight, pulling slightly to tilt your head back so you had to look up at him. He was almost leaning over you so your spine bent over the edge of the roof, and the skin of your back scratched against the unpainted concrete. He huffed against your mouth then pulled back, his other hand coming up to trace your mouth with his thumb. You stared into his eyes but he wasn’t looking back at you, not really anyway. He was watching his prize, the reward that no one but him deserved.

You whimpered, a small and pathetic sound that only seemed to make his skin hotter, and he let go of your hair to begin pulling the straps of your dress down your arms. It was a heavy thing, and it felt good to finally be rid of the weight, but you were keenly aware of the cold night and the party in full swing just underneath you. If someone in the garden decided to look up, they would surely see you bent over the edge.

“Wait-” you began to protest, but Aegon was past listening, past caring. He just shoved the dress under your breasts and down your legs, before grabbing your face and bringing your mouth to his own again. His hands travelled over your neck, then caressed your shoulders. He gently pressed the red indents the straps of the dress had left and you sighed into his mouth, leaning onto his chest. Your nipples rubbed against the fabric of his shirt and you gasped into the kiss before moving your chest slightly. The warm little tingles travelled all the way through your torso and you clung to his arms.

Aegon kissed sloppily over your cheeks, your neck, pausing to bite into it until you grunted with pain and pushed at his shoulder. He licked all the way down to your chest, his tongue warm and wet, then the slick trail of spit suddenly cold. Your legs felt unsteady, and you leaned back against the barrier as he began mouthing at your breasts, little circles of warmth formed everywhere he kissed, and then his mouth closed over your nipple and you clenched. It was so… weird. A wet suction formed over your nipple and it seemed to make the inside of your breast spark, your stomach jolt, and the space between your thighs tingle and turn to mush.

“Come on precious,” he mumbled against your skin, “you can be louder,” and he bit the flesh. It really was a live wire attached to your skin, so easy to spark, so easy to create a fire that spread all throughout your body.

Aegon was quicker with the other nipple, licking over it like a dog with a bowl of water, before making his way down to the apex of your thighs. He seemed to be in a hurry with the way he dove his face between your legs. A cry left your lips, loud and shriek-like, at the overwhelming activity. His nose slipped between your lips and pressed to your clit, his tongue out and flat and lapping against the sticky slick that covered the puffy folds that hid your hole. He was ravenous, pressing his face in in in until you stood on your tiptoes and half your weight was balanced against his face. The contours of his face pressed at your hole, his nose rubbed at your clit, and he moved his face back and forth so his tongue could poke inside of you then slip back into his mouth. He began speaking into you, rumbling words you couldn’t understand over the rushing in your head.

“Come on, cum on my face,” he huffed, grabbing your thighs and licking at your clit until it was puffy and swollen. “I wan’ you to cum on my face, give me what I want.” He pressed his tongue inside you. In. Out. He licked your clit. In. Out. He sucked it into his mouth, and your legs shook so much that you would’ve fallen onto the floor if you weren’t practically laying on the barrier already. It was a release. That’s all it could be called. Every muscle clenched then released. Even your mind felt like it had slowly been clenching and now it had been unravelled and was slowly dripping out of your skull.

“Fuck, that’s right,” Aegon mumbled as he pulled away, standing to full height and pulling your hips against his own. His hair had fallen forward into his eyes and his mouth and nose glistened in the low light, but he didn’t seem to care one bit. He had leaned over your body again, pressing his face into your neck. The slick on his chin stuck to your skin and squished whenever he moved. He humped into you a few times, grunting and groaning, before hurriedly reaching down and fumbling with his belt and zipper. You could hear the clanking of metal, the rustle of fabric, and then something warm pressing to your thigh.

There was no waiting with Aegon. His body simply didn’t contain the patience for it, and really why would you wait when the prize you had so long coveted lay bare before you, just ripe for the taking? A shift here, a push there, and he caught at your entrance. He finally pulled away from your neck and looked into your eyes. He caressed your cheek, and you could tell all he saw was a trophy he had just won.

Then Aegon pressed into you, and his veins rubbed at your slick insides, pressing against your walls and sliding against your own textured flesh and you were leaning back to moan into the night sky, chest heaving. He kissed your breasts and pushed into you again, his lower stomach pressing your clit. Again, he moved into you and the sparks flashed and you clenched around him, onto him, and he moaned against your ear, hot breath fanning the shell.

“Fuck yes, you’re my precious little thing aren’t you? Huh? You’re my special little prize?” His hips slapped against yours and the sound echoed over the roof. His mouth biting into your neck sent sparks through you. Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and oh god it was too much! You clenched onto him and screamed into his neck, open mouth pressed to the sweaty skin. You clenched and unclenched onto him as waves passed through you, melting your flesh and your bones. It was over too soon yet it lasted too long. He pushed once more, twice more, and you could feel him quiver against you, even as you tried to push him away from the pulsing flesh of your insides. You could feel the spurts inside you, hot and gushing. You felt it trickle out of you, slide down your thighs in warm rivulets and you shuddered.

Aegon still lay on top of you, huffing heavily into your neck. You didn’t know what to do, so you stayed still, waiting for guidance, waiting for the other shoe to fall. He slowly pushed up on his arms so his face hovered above yours, and he smiled a dazed and delirious smile. Was it always there, or had it just appeared, that insanity in his eyes?

“Oh my precious,” he sighed, cupping your cheek, “we have so much ahead.”

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austinbutlerslovers · 4 months

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Major Gale Fantasy Part II

Label Mature 18+

It’s Here! 🏆

I’m Going to Miss You Every Second

(*See Major Gale Fantasy Part 1 )

Summary With Gale training for battle as a war pilot on a military base far away from you in Iowa, his dreams of having you pregnant with his child before he deploys are dwindling. Letter after letter he receives from you revealing there are no signs of pregnancy from your last encounters together. With his hopes dashed and the stress of leaving to war imminent, you both cling to the hope that everything will turn out alright.

*Established relationship married

Descriptions withheld for suspense of the story

Inspo: The incredibly handsome and skilled Major Gale obsessed with impregnating you before he deploys.

Extreme historical inaccuracies, the military workings melted my brain …

Spelling errors repeat words grammatical mistakes but it’s a good plot 🤌🏼enjoy!

Special thanks to @jessica987 ✨ for recommending a follow up 💝

I’m Going to Miss you Every Second

It was a gloomy day on the air force training base in Iowa. Gale was the last returning from a ‘station scramble’ where the men worked to see how fast they could get up in the air and back down to the ground in an emergency attack. As Gale was an expert pilot he went last after all his men had cleared their flights.

As he was landing a giant streak of lighting cracked across the expanse of sky above him “holy hell” he said his voice modulated by the oxygen mask. It vanished followed by a booming thunder clap that rattled the windows violently rocking the cockpit. The wheels touched down as he pulled the levers decreasing the acceleration of the aircraft bounding down the runway until it slowed to a manageable speed. Sheets of rain began streaking down the windows as he navigated the large craft to store near the hanger.

His heart was still racing as he emerged from the cock pit heavily pelted with cold rain. The sound of the it almost deafening as he was greeted by the crewmen to check and refuel the craft and move it to lodging. One crewman stops to yell over the downpour “We thought you were a goner with that lightning strike!” Gale yells back “Not today! I’ve got too much to live for.” They flash smiles reveling in the camaraderie.

Gale is almost soaked head to toe as he heads the short distance for cover in the gigantic hanger. Some men are waiting at the entrance watching the rain some are sitting at tables playing cards and others are tossing a football back and forth through the giant space.

He shakes himself off as soon as he is saftley shielded under the awning. An officer is standing near the hanger door smoking a cigarette as Gale walks in “Sure is raining cats and dogs today” he says absentmindedly before taking a drag “You know what they say, when it rains it pours” Gale shoots back as he walks to the rear of the hanger. He heads to his locker there and removes his pilot jacket and cap hanging them inside.

Several officers are sitting at a table nearby reading news papers and listening to the radio. All the news papers have catastrophic titles about the war plastered in capitol letters across their front pages, more alarming is the radio loudly blaring information about all the recent bombing raids and attacks occurring.

Gale had been moved from his home base to this training station for 12 weeks now. It was imminent that he and his men were going to war, flying directly to Germany in the coming weeks.

A drill sergeant enters the opposite end of the hanger with a messenger bag he begins yelling the names of several officers until shouting:

“MAJOR CLEVEN GALE”

When Gale hears his name he heads over and collects his stack of letters. Each time he receives mail he hunts through the stack for your letter first, each time his heart drops dismayed not to hear the news that you are pregnant but happy you are doing well.

He walks back over to an empty table near the officers reading the news papers. He shuffles the letters in his hand one by one until he stops on the one with your handwriting his heart skips and he hurriedly sits down dropping his stack of mail infront of him on the table.

He flips your letter over and breaks the seal with his finger ripping it open sliding out and unfolding the piece of paper to read:

_________________________________________________

-Dearest husband,

Here I am darling, I cooked one of your favorite meals tonight, sundried tomato sauce with spaghetti pasta just the way you like it with lots of parmesan on all the meatballs. I can’t wait to cook for you again. I hope you are eating well you must keep your strength.

I miss the sound of your voice and wonder when you’ll return home to me. With just myself here I often think of what you do in your down time. I believe the only thing that compares to the happiness of holding you in my arms again is holding a little bundle of joy. I am writing this time to tell you that you’ll be a father. I am 18 weeks pregnant. Today is the first day the doctor heard the tiny heartbeat and I’m finally beginning to show, I know this means the world to you.

Sending all my lov - - - -

———————————————————————————

Gale doesn’t finish the letter he stands straight up and yells “IM GOING TO BE A FATHER BOYS !” The hanger erupts with loud cheers of all the men whooping and clapping for him. The men in his unit come running and jump on him hugging him slapping his back and congratulating him.

They all begin chanting “FURLOUGH FURLOUGH FURLOUGH ” he yells back “IM CHECKING OUT BOYS!” And starts running to his superiors office to request his furlough to come and see his woman pregnant with his child before he leaves to war.

Constant Cravings

It’s been two days since you wrote the news to Gale that you were expecting. It was already late in the evening, the mailman didn’t have any letters from the military base but you did receive letters from your friends and congratulatory flowers from your parents.

You stare out the window thinking of him wondering if he’s alright, wondering if he even knows. You place your hand on your belly feeling the now firmer underside swelling where the little baby is nestled, you rest your hand there lovingly.

You turn and head to the kitchen still feeling so famished after dinner the only thing you craved were spaghetti and meatballs you were cooking them constantly especially the meatballs with parmesan all over them you couldn’t get enough. You decide that’s what you wanted to eat again.

You bring the skillet out and place it on the counter next to the stove. You strike a match and place it to the igniter, a ring of fire flicks to life under the burner and you place the skillet on top. You pull the container of meat balls you’ve prepared for tomorrow out of the refrigerator and pour olive oil on the skillet before placing them on the hot oiled surface to cook .

You bring out the cutting board, the big wheel of parmesan cheese, and grater. You take a knife and cut a large slice of the Parmesan off returning the rest of the wheel back in the refrigerator and quickly check the meatballs turning them over with a spatula to cook evenly.

You then cut off a few thin pieces of parmesan cheese from the large slice to eat for yourself. You irresistibly pick one up and place it in your mouth on your tongue. It melts deliciously and you savor it before taking another piece and then just one more you crave the saltiness and the texture so much. You turn to check the meat balls they are golden brown you click off the fire.

You finely grate the remaining Parmesan into powder. You rinse off the cheese grater and cutting board setting them in the drying rack.

You set out a plate on the counter and transfer the meatballs over to it from the skillet placing the heavy cast iron into the sink to wash later.

You cover the meatballs in a large mountain of powdered Parmesan snow. When all is complete you stare at them proud of yourself and excited to eat what you crave the most.

You hear the sound of a car pulling up at this late hour the lights from the head beams flashing through the living room. Your brows furrow wondering who it could be you head to the living room looking at the front door when the sudden sound of a key sliding in the lock surprises you.

Your heart stops you stand frozen as the door opens and you blink in disbelief as Gale steps in. He is in uniform wearing his heavy leather brown and black fur lapel jacket. His thick blonde hair slicked with product but still strands fall perfectly against his forehead. He looks stunningly handsome you haven’t laid eyes on him in so long it takes your breath away. His flushed red cheeks and luscious pink lips form into a grin as his striking blue eyes light up with joy upon seeing you.

“C’mere baby” he says with his deep drawl arms open as you come wrapping you tightly in his embrace. He pets your head and kisses the top lovingly, your soft feminine scent driving him wild after being away from you for 3 months.

He’s holding you firm against his chest as you inhale him, he smells like rain and leather and birch bark soap relaxing you instantly making you feel safe in his arms. “I missed you so much Gale” your words softly muffle against his chest. “I missed you too doll “ he says tipping your chin up with his thumb and forefinger to look up at him. You gaze deeply into those big beautiful blue eyes staring right back into yours with all the love and tenderness in the world.

“Kiss me Ga...” you start to say his name as he’s already pressing his soft pink lips against yours. As your eyes flutter closed you feel the sexual charge in him as he’s pushing his lips more passionately against yours. You part your lips wider onto his licking at his tongue coaxing it out, he makes a small moan as he slides it in to taste your sweet mouth.

The sensations of your tongues twirling tantalizes his cock, his length already hardening as he knits his brows wanting to kiss you more but also knowing he needs to come up for air and tell you his news.

He releases you from his kiss and you stare at each other a little out of breath “I got your letter“ he says forming a grin from ear to ear across his handsome face. “They granted me furlough I’ll be here with you all week” you shriek in excitement “I’m so happy you’ll be home with me Gale!” You say cupping his handsome face in your hands.

“ Now…” he says stepping back “let me see my little bun” his eyes are dancing wildly as he peeks down at your stomach unable to contain his excitement any longer. You giggle at the nick-name “here’s your little bun” you say presenting your small round forming pregnancy to him.

A proud smile forms on his face and he immediately kneels down before you, finally reaching his large hand and placing it on your small baby bump. It warms his hand to the touch and melts his heart completely. He carefully places his ear against your womb and closes his eyes.

You look down at him and smile warmly, he’s crouched into you as he kneels because he’s so tall. You place your hand on his head lovingly and stroke your fingers through his gorgeous golden locks. He’s in bliss caressing your womb and whispering to the baby to grow strong for him. He kisses your naval and finally stands up tall gently pulling you to him by your waist.

“I’m so proud of you” he says planting a kiss on your lips “and I love you so much ” he says squeezing your waist on his last word, he stares into your eyes with complete devotion. “I love you too Gale” you say sincerely and place your hand on his chest over his heart as you gaze into each others eye.

Suddenly you remember the task you were performing before he surprised you “Come Gale, I made a little something we can eat, I was so hungry after dinner..I am always hungry now…” you trail off slightly shy to admit. Hes just pinches your cheek adoringly knowing your eating for two. He removes his jacket placing it on the rack near the door and takes your hand as you walk him to the kitchen.

The meatballs are sitting on the countertop in perfect display looking like a photo straight out of ‘The Housewife Magazine’. “I miss this so much” he says wrapping his arms around you from behind pressing his chest to your back and kissing the top of your head. You hold the front of his forearms wrapped around you as an idea forms in your mind.

“What if we eat the in the living room? No silverware, no plates just with our fingers “ you say giddily just wanting devour the meatballs as fast as humanly possible. “Sure thing sweetheart, why don’t you go sit and I’ll bring them over to you ” he says. You agree with a nod and he goes to wash his hands in the sink taking the plate on his way back bringing the meatballs to the living room coffee table.

You sit comfortably on the couch but instead of sitting next to you he kneels in front of you on the living room rug. With the coffee table on his right he turns to pick up a meatball from the pile on the plate and brings it to your mouth. You eat it from his fingers “Mmm” you say enjoying it. He brings you another as you finish chewing the first and then another.

You gently roll your eyes into your head the seasonings the cheesiness the saltiness satisfying the yearning from your stomach completely. He stares at you lovingly knowing that as he’s feeding you it’s for his baby too.

Hes always hungry for your food the meatballs smell delicious he tilts his head up and tosses one in his mouth. The ground meat you used is so succulent he eats several more. You lean forward opening your mouth and he feeds you the last one, the plate now completely empty.

You sit back with a smile on your face and pat your hand on your stomach “Thank you for feeding me Gale that was so unexpectedly sweet“ you say grinning cutely. It reminds him of his present. “I have a surprise for you!” He says squeezing your thigh lovingly as he stands. He takes the dish to the sink and grabs his keys from his jacket heading out to the car to retrieve it.

He returns a moment later carrying a giant teddy bear and a bouquet of roses. Your eyes light up it’s such a beautiful sight to see and he’s so romantic. He shuts the front door with his elbow and smiles as he walks over and kneels infront of you. “For my special girl” he says handing you the large bouquet, “Thank you Gale” your voice high and sweet as you place your hand on your heart to show appreciation.

You accept them and lift the flowers up to your nose instantly getting lost in the powerful scent of fresh red roses. “And for my little bun” he says placing the large teddy bear next to you on the couch. You giggle at the nickname again. He just stares at you now seeing how completely happy you are in this moment.

He places his hand briefly on your knee “I’ll put them in a vase for you ” he says gesturing as you hand over the roses. He heads to the kitchen unwrapping them, finding and filling a clear blue bubbled glass vase.

Placing the roses inside he sits back admiring his work. “Where would you like them” he asks. “There on the table is perfectly fine…” you say absentmindedly staring at the brown crushed velvet teddy bear with a big red silk ribbon on its neck. The first toy you’ve received for your ‘little bun’ is making you emotional.

“Honey how would you like to turn in with me for the night? I’ll shower and we’ll lay together in bed I need to hold you I’ve been missing sleeping with you so much”

“Oh Gale of course” you say realizing he’s been out all day on such a journey to get here and he’s probably so tired.

He comes over and offers you his arm helping you to stand you smile appreciatively. He wraps his arm around yours placing his hand on top walking down the hall to the master bedroom.

Lucky Lightening

He enters with you and gently releases your arm to begin unbutttoning the tight collar of his military shirt, you see him struggling with it as usual and tip toe up against him helping him pry it open. As it unbuttons he breathes a sigh of relief “What would I do without you?” he says flashing a flirtatious grin.

You trail your fingers seductively up his firm chest “You would handle it like the strong capable Major I know you that you are, but Im happy I can be here to assist you” you peek up at him through your lashes and he quickly captures his lips with yours thoroughly enjoying the compliment you gave him.

He pulls back to look you in the eyes “My favorite girl in the whole world” he says and quickly unbuttons down the length of his shirt, he smiles at you appreciatively before heading to the shower. You hear the water turn on through the closed door as you make your way to the vanity table across the room.

You slide your dress off with your brassiere and panties tossing them in the hamper. You grab your soft silk robe from its hook near the vanity placing your arms in leaving the front open loosly tied.

You look at all your creams neatly organized and pick the one labeled vitamin E opening the lid and collecting the cream on your fingers slowly lathering your abdomen. As you are massaging the cream on you stare at your reflection, the glow of the low lighting makes you look radiant you turn to the side wondering how big your belly will get.

You hear the shower turn off and Gale brushing his teeth you smile enjoying the sounds of having him back home. You finish rubbing in the cream sealing the lid as he emerges into the bedroom clicking off the light. The scent of his fresh pine birch soap fills the bedroom he smells wonderful.

You peek over at him, blonde hair slicked back dark and damp, shirtless with strong chiseled arms and perfect pecs twiddling down to that tiny waist of his with his tight abs, he’s wearing only his woven boxer shorts.

He notices you admiring him and comes closer approaching you from behind in the reflection of the vanity mirror. He immediately unties your silk robe and slides his hands down around your tiny baby bump. He kisses your ear as he stands behind you inhaling your scent, you smell much sweeter than he remembers and he’s enthralled by it.

He continues his kisses down your neck and onto your shoulder enjoying every touch of his lips to your delicate skin, silently obsessing knowing you are carrying his child.

He stares up at the reflection of you together his hands never leaving your womb. His voice rich and deep breaking the silent moment as he locks eyes with you.

“Can't wait till everyone sees how pretty you're gonna look all big and round” he says running his hands over the front of you. His lips fanning your ear “Everyone knowing you're my girl, the love of my life and that you're carrying my child inside of you …" he trails off unable to contain his arousal for you any longer.

His lips part against your skin as he licks and sucks his kisses onto your neck his large hands reaching and cupping your breasts gently squeezing them. They are so sensitive you part your lips and let out a soft moan.

He leans in again whispering softly against your ear “I can't believe I knocked up a pretty little thing like you.” Your eyes flutter shut as you are wet with arousal remembering how much you truly enjoy the feel of his cock inside you.

He turns you around pulling you to him pressing his hard length into your thigh kissing you slowly as he walks you backwards to the bed. He helps you disrobe and lays you down softly in the center. He places his hands on the soft inner flesh of your thighs and spreads them apart.

He pulls his boxer shorts off and locks eyes with you, holding the base of his cock in his right hand he presses the head on to your clitoris earning a beautiful moan out of you. He slides his cock head down your slick wet folds to your entrance and shoves himself home. His plump mouth opens and his cheeks flush red as he fills you up to the hilt.

His breaths are short and shallow as his swollen cock sinks in and slides out of you. His desperate loud moans begin filling the room unable to contain himself not having you for so long. He breathes out as he buries his full length into you pulling halfway out before plunging all the way back in, his hips smacking in a rhythm with yours. You moan in time with each thrust feeling like you will come apart at any second.

He quickens his pace pulling himself deeper into you with momentum. His hip movements strong and deliberate clapping against you as his cock head hits your cervix deep inside each time. His eyes dark and full of unbridled passion as they look into yours.

It’s all powerfully overwhelming: the way he stares, the way he thrusts into you hitting that perfect place, and the way that you just miss him so much, your body tenses and then trembles as you orgasm for him, waves of pleasure washing over you as your walls flutter tightly around him and you moan out his name, you can see in his eyes he felt you come undone, his release immediately following yours.

His hips jolt forward snapping into you as his body tenses and his cock throbs inside of you releasing all of his semen. You gasp and moan together from the feeling as he pumps his final thrusts into you.

He stills himself breathing heavily over you as you both come down from your highs. After a moment he gently slides himself out and falls back to the bed his chest rising and falling. You both stare up at the ceiling together panting slowly your faces displaying a mix of awe and satisfaction. Your minds both high swirling with serotonin thinking about what just happened. Your breaths finally calm as you lay next to each other. Gale already deep in thought.

“It’s kind of beautiful how I realized you were pregnant.” He says feeling a sudden clarity in his mind. “It was a real stormy night on the base, winds were whipping wildy. I was laying there and It was pitch black in the bunker after lights out. So I reached in my rucksack near my cot in the secret pocket and pulled out your panties.

“GALE YOU DID NOT !” You say in shock sitting up to stare at him “Yes I did” he says chuckling.

“Major Gale Cleven you are *such* a naughty boy!” You say grinning and lightly spanking him on his firm muscled shoulder. He quickly grabs your wrist pulling it over to settle you “cmon you gotta let me finish it gets really good” he says with a grin placing your hand on his solid chest.

“Alright tell me how you knew” you ask, scooting into place resting your head on his firm bicep. He places his hand down on your hip giving it a light squeeze pulling you against him.

“Well If the boys ever find your panties in my things I’ll never hear the end of that ” he cracks up.

“But as I was saying it was a real stormy night, everything on the base was jumping and creaking I couldn’t sleep a lick. So I lay there with your panties hidden under my hand flat against my chest just grounding me, cause I’m missing you every second im out there. I empty my head of all thoughts I was having except for being home with you and I guess it worked because I drifted to sleep and started dreaming.

I was back here at the house and you were just over there across the hall in our guest room. It was turned into a nursery just like we plan. I was resting with my elbow against the the doorframe peeking in you were infront of the nursery cot the baby was laying inside. You kneeled down to pick something up that fell and I saw that tiny little hand just reaching up for you over the rim of that cot and my eyes went wide it just knocked the wind out of me, you stood up blocking my view and trust me I was trying real hard to see that baby.

Thats when the loud hurricane alarms started blaring all over the base waking me and all the men up we prepared the base hunkering down and that wind ripped through so hard that night but the hurricane passed us right by. As it all died down we headed back to our cots everyone else cranky and tired but not me I had the biggest smile on my face, because all the times I dreamt of you that was the first time that you had the baby.

You take a moment to absorb all that he said.

“ Gale…that’s such a beautiful dream” you say overwhelmed with sentiment your heart swelling. You love this man so much you can’t even form the words to appreciate him.

“ I love you a Gale” is all you can think to say

“ I love you too ” he says tucking his chin down to peek over at you smiling. He reaches his long arm over and clicks off the light. You two shrouded in darkness hearing the soft patters of rain starting outside. “Mmm look at that the storm followed me home “ he says jokingly. “Oh I forgot to tell you the best part, that day I got your letter my craft was almost struck by lighting as I landed” he says casually.

Your eyes grow wide “ Gale that’s terrifying!” you say “ No no not for me that’ll always be a good luck sign because it was a surprise, just like finding out I’m going to be a father from your letter.”

He pulls you up higher on his bicep and plants several loving kisses on your forehead before caressing your jaw. He rubs his thumb playfully over your lips to make smile and you do. “Good night sweet heart” he says eyes heavy “Good night Gale” you say snuggling up on him. He places his large hand on your tiny baby bump “good night little bun” he smiles to himself closing his eyes. You stay awake a moment longer listening to his breathing change as he falls soundly asleep, you feel his calming heartbeat under your hand placed on his chest. You move it to place on top of his hand holding your baby bump. Feeling perfectly complete, you close your eyes and drift of to sleep.

~*End*~

Tags: @jessica987

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writesick-lover · 5 months

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Just One Date

Finnick x reader!

A/N: I honestly REALLY like this prompt and felt like it could work for Finnick! It's a bit too sudden, but I think that's kind of the charm of this whole idea, sudden, unexcpected but exciting ;) I might make a part two cause I think I built too good of a background for reader (at least in my mind) so please let me know how you like it!

Warning: a bit of swearing and mention of killing if you squint

Prompt: “I need just one date.”

“You think you can woo me with just one date?”

“Absolutely.”

➷ ➷ ➷ ➷

It has been years since the perfectly arranged hell for Finnick Odair had started. But who would have thought about it? That the Capitol's sweetheart, the youngest victor who stole thousands of hearts across the whole country, now suffered in the wealthiest part of Panem? Unimaginable. To be drowned in gold and washed in blessings, to wake up every day and have his plate filled with food and enough water to drink and bathe in, even for the whole day if he wanted but hate every single minute of it.

And though it was hard to grasp, that was Finnick Odair's case. Because Finnick dreaded every upcoming moment of his life since he was brought from his games as the victor, the survivor. The bloodthirsty drive to live, once warming his heart that followed him through each step in the arena, has now subsided, trapped by an iron fist of fear and desperation.

He could vaguely remember the first time those feelings had settled in, spreading through his veins like poison as he left his firts customer's bedroom, making him loathe every breath taken in and out by his body ever since. That's when he knew he would have thrown everything beautiful about his victorious survival just so he could live again. But that just wasn't the case for Finnick Odair, it simply wasn't his fate. And while his life was partially in his hands, he mostly felt like the blood of whatever part of himself he had killed was preventing him from moving on, from fighting. Maybe he grew tired of it. Maybe he thought he had enough of fighting for his whole lifetime.

He watched from afar, how fond the Capitol had become of District 12's star-crossed lovers, Katniss and Peeta. And for the first time ever since he was 16, something had awakened in him, a hope, that maybe this could be the end of his show. That maybe the citizens of Capitol had found someone else to watch and obsess about and he could finally be free. But that thing, that hope, was killed before it could even be aflame.

As he turned around from the glamorous couple, his eyes fell on the darkened blue ones, hidden like snakes in the snow made of white hair. The disgust, the abomination, the darkness screaming nothing but death brought Finnick to the harsh reality, once his gaze was met with Snow's. He was never getting out of this train. Not alive.

Until the spark inside him ignited again.

It was the meeting of the previous victors, one to which the new love-struck victors were not invited, yet they still happened to be the centre of its talks. Thankfully, the space was filled with only the comfort of people Finnick had known for a while and who had known him. There was a certain silent alliance the victors had built over the years. As he passed the familiar faces, sending polite smiles here and there, he caught a face that was very unfamiliar to him. You were new there, you have won only two years prior to Katniss and Peeta, the 72nd hunger games, which happened to be the opposite of the 74th year's sensation.

Finnick could remember meeting you in the Capitol, you're terrified tearfilled eyes meeting his, billions of questions behind them making his stomach turn there and then. But now you seemed just stiff, your guard high up. He would even go to the lenghts of saying you had an intimidating aura around you.

You could feel his stare burning your skin, so you turned around to face him, your mouth shaping into a genuine smile as soon as you saw him, your eyes sparkling in recognition. That's what he was talking about. All that pressuring shell fell right apart when you smiled or opened your mouth, earning you tons of sponsors back in your games. When you sent him your smile through your tears back then, Finnick could feel the butterflies rummaging through his guts. "Who are you staring at, Finnick Odair," Johanna's low voice beisde his ear made Finnick jump. "Johanna," he groaned, rolling his eyes as his right hand fell on his heart.

"The deceitful seemed to have caught you're eye, hm?" That was your nickname. The deceitful victor. Finnick remembered the talks once your games were over. You were called two-faced, a liar, and while some of the Capitol's people found this feature of yours absolutely unacceptable, others found it intruiging. After all it was thanks to your deceit, that you had won.

"They just seem rather... lost," he hummed, shrugging it off and turning to face Johanna fully. "Didn't expect you to come here,"

"Neither did I myself," she snapped back, looking behind her. "Blight dragged me here," Her piercing eyes slowly turned back, burning a hole in Finnick's face, the sole proof of the little affection the woman had towards him. "Charming. Make sure to say hi from me," Finnick grinned as Johanna scoffed, placing her hand on her hip and rolling her eyes dramatically. He could only nod, leaving the victor from the 7th District be as he made his way through the party again.

"They just did it right," one of the men in the group behind Finnick stated loudly, alcohol audible on his tongue by the volume of his voice. "Getting Capitol into their story, creating a perfect ballad except both of them survived to live the happily ever after," Finnick stopped in his tracks, the glass full of liquid spilling a bit on the grass under him, as he halted too quickly, not entirely sober either. He groaned as some of the drink got on his shoes but it didn't stop him from listening closely. "Do you get it? They are not harrassed by Snow or anyone, except the Capitol's undying obssession. They just continued to live in District 12, leaving as if nothing happened, as if they haven't just dismissed the whole history of the hunger games," a woman shrieked. Finnick smirked. Imagine leaving like nothing happened. That would be nice.

"That would be nice," another boy voiced the same thought. "To leave and spend your life with someone like that. They survive the games with you so you have someone to lean on, support, love, Capitol doesn't bother you that much, just to see what you already do naturally, it's-"

Freedom, was the word on Finnick's tongue. He didn't hear the rest of the sentence as it was drowned out by the sound of Finnick's blood flowing, his heart beating out of his chest as his eyes widened. Freedom, support, protection- no more abuse, no more hell, just peace. Finally, a bit of peace for Finnick Odair. His head spinned, his stomach turning from the sudden imagination, a certain heat spreading through his body, coming from his chest. The flame burned, burned in his eyes as he looked around, his eyes falling on you.

You were perfect. Capitol didn't have an exact opinion on you which was hurting your reputation as one of the victors. You could use some of those blessings Finnick was showered with daily. And he could use you. As his freedom.

His fast loud steps made you turn just before he stopped inches away from you, his feet rocking him back and forth for a while until he stabilised himself. You smirked as you thought about whether he was drunk, wanting to talk with you, but you were sure he had to be when his words hit your ears.

"Come on a date with me,"

You couldn't help but let out a loud snort, immediately clasping your hand over your mouth, the noise still audible. "What the fuck," your eyes landed back on his, the dark browns burning like two coals. "You're serious?" you stopped laughing, your eyes widening at him. "Yes," he nodded, falling silent again, waiting for your answer. "Why?" was another question that slipped out of your mind. You seemed to have caught him off guard, his right leg now tapping nervously. It was a good question. He didn't know himself, why, he just knew he was drunk enough to come up with such idea and sober enough to make it work. But he didn't think of you're answer taking so long. And you partially enjoyed it, finally seeing that confident Finnick Odair uneasy, his state suddenly depending on your answer. It made you wonder what was in it for him.

"Why not?" he finally spoke, voice raspy.

"Why yes?" you retorted back, making him roll his eyes. "We barely know each other, and correct me if I'm wrong, but this is actually about fifth time in our lives we even acknowledged each other,"

"So? Please, Y/n. I need just one date," he groaned, taking a step closer, you refusing to back away. It was always games, everywhere you went, the play never stopped.

"You think you can woo me with just one date?" you lifted your eyebrow in disbelief.

"Absolutely."

➷ ➷ ➷

>>part 2

⤞ My masterlist ⤝

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kemetic-dreams · 10 months

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Minnie Julia Riperton Rudolph (November 8, 1947 – July 12, 1979) was an American singer-songwriter best known for her 1975 single "Lovin' You" and her four octave D3 to F♯7 coloratura soprano range. She is also widely known for her use of the whistle register and has been referred to by the media as the "Queen of the Whistle Register."

Minnie Riperton grew up in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side. As a child, she studied music, drama and dance at Chicago's Lincoln Center. The youngest of eight children in a musical family, she embraced the arts early. Although she began with ballet and modern dance, her parents recognized her vocal and musical abilities and encouraged her to pursue music and voice. At Chicago's Abraham Lincoln Center, she received operatic vocal training from Marion Jeffery. She practiced breathing and phrasing, with particular emphasis on diction. Jeffery also trained Riperton to use her full range. While studying under Jeffery, she sang operettas and show tunes, in preparation for a career in opera. Jeffery was so convinced of her pupil's abilities that she strongly pushed her to further study the classics at Chicago's Junior Lyric Opera.

The young Riperton was, however, becoming interested in soul, rhythm and blues, and rock. In her teen years, she sang lead vocals for the Chicago-based girl group the Gems. Eventually the group became a session group known as Studio Three and it was during this period that they provided the backing vocals on the classic 1965 Fontella Bass hit "Rescue Me".

After graduating from Hyde Park High School (now Hyde Park Academy High School), she enrolled at Loop College and became a member of Zeta Phi Beta sorority. She dropped out of college to pursue her music career.

Her early affiliation with the legendary Chicago-based Chess Records afforded her the opportunity to sing backup for various established artists such as Etta James, Fontella Bass, Ramsey Lewis, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters. While at Chess, Riperton also sang lead for the experimental rock/soul group Rotary Connection, from 1967 to 1971.

On April 5, 1975, Riperton reached the apex of her career with her No. 1 single "Lovin' You". The single was the last release from her 1974 gold album titled Perfect Angel. Riperton's third album, Adventures in Paradise was released in 1975. Despite the R&B hit "Inside My Love", some radio stations refused to play "Inside My Love" due to the lyrics.

Her fourth album for Epic Records, titled Stay in Love (1977), featured another collaboration with Stevie Wonder in the funky disco tune "Stick Together".

In 1978, Richard Rudolph and Riperton's attorney Mike Rosenfeld orchestrated a move to Capitol Records for Riperton and her CBS Records catalog. In April 1979, Riperton released her fifth and final album, Minnie. "Memory Lane" was a hit from the album.

Riperton provided backing vocals on Stevie Wonder's songs "Creepin'" from 1974's Fulfillingness' First Finale and "Ordinary Pain" from 1976's Songs in the Key of Life. In 1977, she lent her vocal abilities to a track named "Yesterday and Karma", on Osamu Kitajima's album, Osamu.

In January 1976, Riperton was diagnosed with breast cancer and, in April, she underwent a radical mastectomy. By the time of diagnosis, the cancer had metastasized and she was given about six months to live. Despite the grim prognosis, she continued recording and touring. She was one of the first celebrities to go public with her breast cancer diagnosis but did not disclose she was terminally ill.

In 1977, she became a spokesperson for the American Cancer Society. In 1978, she received the American Cancer Society's Courage Award, which was presented to her at the White House by President Jimmy Carter.

Riperton died of cancer on July 12, 1979 at the age 31.

During the 1990s, Riperton's music was sampled by many rap and hip-hop artists, including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, A Tribe Called Quest, Blumentopf, The Orb

#african #afrakan #kemetic dreams #africans #afrakans #brown skin #brownskin #african culture #afrakan spirituality #riperton #tupac shakur #dr dre #a tribe called quest #the orb #minnie julia riperton #Minnie Julia Riperton Rudolph

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meshlasolus · 2 months

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The Winner Takes It All

Episode 10

Pairing: Finnick Odair x Tribute(OC)!Reader

Chapter Warnings: more death, more canon typical violence, some bonding between allies because they gotta survive this bitch as long as they can...

Chapter Summary: Danger lies in places you least expect it. Whether that be in the form of a small animal, or in a harmless capitol citizen. No one is safe from anything in the hunger games.

Word Count: 3.2k

howdy ho, pls excuse my laziness as of lately and enjoy some daily updates (i am not lazy i swear i have been launching a literal fashion brand ToT)

He snapped out of his trance when he heard the tail end of a half whispered conversation behind him. “I imagine with her it would be marvelous, she certainly has the stamina,” one of the men behind him chuckled, the one on his left nodding in agreement before slamming back his drink. “Not to mention the flexibility.”

Finnick was restless, watching the screen, as usual.

He’d only gone into the viewing party to stir some chatter, enough to get a sponsor, but then he’d been back on his couch, Mags close by in a chair that was far too large for a sweet little old woman such as herself. She did not care to move, either.

It hurt her, to know that all this work, all this dedication, and all this commitment to the girl that came here from four might be in vain. But she kept a smile of optimism on her face for him, because she hadn’t seen him care so much about something in a long time. He had almost been numbed to these occasions, dulled to their effects. She held onto the same sliver of hope that he had been clinging to, praying that he would not be crushed if she were to lose. She couldn’t bear to watch him go through something like that again. The first time being when he watched the girl from his district die in the arena beside him. They trained together, they were allies together, and they had known each other before the reaping. Just like you and Lukas.

Lukas, the dear boy with the longing for a loving mother. Mags hoped she gave him a taste of what it was like, to have someone wrap their arms around you and to be proud of you without any cause or reason. Lukas needed that. Lukas needed a lot of things. She hated the rules of these games, hated the games more than anything. That boy deserves to live, deserves to finally be shown respect from the one person he craves the most… but Finnick’s girl. One who also deserves to live, to come home and to let Finnick hold you in his arms. Mags would never bring it up to him, but she knows the glint in his eye is more than just the protection of a mentor. The look of genuine fear when he feels his prized girl may be in danger is not just one of sympathy for another tribute. He’s latched onto this one, she can feel it. She only hopes that when the time comes for one of them to die, that she will not have to face the streams of tears… her own or Finnicks.

She watches him, the way he studies your every movement when the screen returns to the career pack, now depleted to three careers and a district seven tribute. A wild bunch they are, but hopefully the game makers will not overestimate their abilities. Lukas may have killed one tribute already, but Mercedes hasn’t. Mags doesn’t think she even could if she tried to. She knows that Finnick thinks the same thing.

His smile when he leans forward is sweet, seeing her open the note she had crumpled into her pocket. She mirrors his smile on the other side of the camera, not even realizing it. His heart melts as she reads it, and rereads it, and then once more. She’s clinging to it, holding onto that little piece of paper. It’s the only communication she can get from him on the inside of this damned arena.

“We should save those, we need to be using this time to gather other sources of food before more tributes come back to the cornucopia.”

Lukas was taking the lead again, and for good reason. There was little debate when it came to who was pulling the strings of this makeshift operation. He’d been the most confident with his survival knowledge, although he lacked in combat from the other careers.

“He’s right, by tomorrow, the last tributes are going to try and find us. It’s best we stock up everything we’re going to need before that happens,” Lyra said, throwing on one of the backpacks, one of the smaller ones full of Kunai knives and hunting lures.

“I w-wove this last night, it’s n-not standard, but it should w-work,” you held up to Lukas the fishing net you’d conjured before you’d gotten so tired the night before. It was far smaller than what he was used to, but it would work nonetheless.

“It’s perfect,” he smiled, packing it up into another backpack, slinging it over his shoulder as he nodded his head towards the trail ahead.

You all were going to need to find a river, but luckily for you, Rodey had claimed to see one earlier yesterday, when you were all barely limping back to the cornucopia.

He was doing really well this morning, probably on account of the sponsor he’d gotten. A new pair of shoes to replace the ones that were torn to bits from running yesterday. His blisters were killing him until those new shoes arrived. Now he was chipper as ever.

“It was a bit further out, had a waterfall behind it…” he trailed, leading you all in a twisting and turning hike through the foggy forest of vines and trees that were tall enough to be skyscrapers.

The scenery was something out of an old adventure book, something of an era you wished was alive today. Something where the hero gets the girl, and the danger comes to an end. You don’t see that happening at the conclusion of your story. You see your picture in the sky and the boom of cannonfire, ringing out in your ears before it all goes dark. You just hope it won’t be too horrible, too violent or too messy.

By the time you reached the river, which was barely even a river, you went to the edge to stand by Lukas. You looked out to the waterfall that was sitting at the edge of the river bank, creating the endless flow. It was pretty, or it would be, under different circumstances. The other two of the group had taken off, finding bushes full of Echinacea flowers, and started harvesting those in case of any possible infections occurring in the future.

“W-what do I need to do?” You asked the boy next to you, helping him take the net out of the backpack and unfold it enough that it will work to catch.

“Not much. Can you stand in this shallow part over here?”

You used his help to step down into the water, the surface level barely reaching your hips. The coolness drenching your clothes was a nice contrast to the constantly warm and overly humid environment. You’d been feeling sticky and gross for the past two days, and this was like a little bath of sorts. It rid you of that nasty feeling, and for once, you were happy to be standing in water.

“You’re good?”

“Yeah, I’m g-good.”

He nodded, hopping in as well and handing you one end of the net, beginning to walk over towards the further side of the small river. It was far deeper on his side, but it didn’t deter him. He kept steady, opening the net and allowing it to start blocking the flow of anything swimming through. There weren’t many fish in the water, so it would take a minute of waiting.

Meanwhile, Lyra and Rodey had stuffed their pockets full of the flowers and other plants that may be useful to them.

“So, Mercedes,” Lyra began, looking towards the riverbank and seeing you splash your hair into the water. She found it amusing, considering she heard one of the boys comment about her lack of swimming abilities. Maybe they’d been joking. She was from four, so it didn’t quite make sense.

“What about her?” Rodey’s brows strewn with confusion, he turned to face Lyra completely, setting his backpack down for a moment to sit and rest. It had been a longer journey than expected to get here.

“You call her Mercy, right?” She asked, and he nodded in return. What was she getting at? He didn’t care to interject yet. “Do you think…?”

“Do I think what?”

She sighed, looking once more to yourself and Lukas, before settling her eyes on Rodey.

“Do you think she’s actually merciful? I have to think she’d kill either of us if she had to, but something tells me she’s not so sure of herself… She’s strong, man… she’s really strong. But she doesn’t exert it. When she fought me in training, it’s like she didn’t care if she won or lost.”

Rodey’s eyes found your smile by the riverbank, something sweet and warm and full of life, the exact opposite of what these games are supposed to be. You contradicted the meaning the capitol gave them, and he wondered if that would be in more ways than one.

“She hasn’t killed anyone yet. I think when the time comes she’ll do what she has to, but until then, I wouldn’t bet on it being either of us.”

Lyra nodded, seemingly having the same thought. Rodey likes you, he wasn’t going to say something about you that could get you killed before you had to be. That’s the game, but for as long as he can he wants to take a page out of your book, avoiding the rules.

Finnick was standing as straight and tall as he could, his confidence on the outside rivaling that which had been seen for years. The side of him that people knew and loved. His cocky gestures and snarky remarks, the slight arrogance and acceptance of man worship at his feet. It had always been a facade, but it was harder to wear recently. Now he did his best to show that he was back, his original self was on display for everyone to see.

He’d taken the day to become a little more serious about sponsors. So far, there was only one need of a Capitol gift, but as the last days roll around, he knows that he needs to start racking up the funds. You and Lukas have dwindling supplies, and soon, he’s sure the game makers will be using that against you.

Mags never felt herself useful for this sort of thing, she always sat quietly in the corner and tried to simply read the room, giving tips to Finnick if he needed them. She was so thankful to have him by her side. He was so much better at being the talkative presence in these Capitol functions. Especially ones that had so much riding on them. Today, yours and Lukas’ lives. Next year, another pair of tributes who will need the same supplies, sponsors, and supporters. It was a crucial part of the games, and now more than ever, Finnick sought after these wealthy citizen’s personal assistance.

He’d taken a break from circling for a moment, standing before the screen, watching you help Lukas with the fishing net. The water was shallow enough to stand in, and you seemed to be doing alright, the current of the stream not pulling or pushing you in any which direction. You’d even dunked your hair into the water, bringing some relief to your body, having thoroughly been exposed to the heat and humidity of this rainforest. Even though it rained often, it was still warm and humid.

You’d whipped your hair back over your head, splashing Lukas in the face. He playfully scooped a hand into the water and threw it up in your direction, and you laughed with a wide smile.

You were so beautiful, your smile was stunning. He was momentarily frozen in wonder… awestruck wonder. Like a moment where you gaze upon a magnificent sunset or a calming scene of nature. Something that you have to sit and admire for a second, because damn… you didn’t think anything could be so lovely without even trying.

He snapped out of his trance when he heard the tail end of a half whispered conversation behind him.

“I imagine with her it would be marvelous, she certainly has the stamina,” one of the men behind him chuckled, the one on his left nodding in agreement before slamming back his drink. “Not to mention the flexibility.”

Finnick turned on his heels, staring down the gentleman’s face, and acting as though he didn’t know what was going on.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” He played, tilting his head to entice some sort of response.

“Oh, nothing. We were just talking about how agile and athletic your tributes are. You must be very proud.”

“I am, and I’m going to do everything I can to keep bad things from happening to them,” he said with a sarcastic tone on the last bit. He knew that with the look he shot the man to speak, they would consider another topic of conversation.

Finnick only turned back around when they moved on to talk about other tributes.

What he’d heard pretty much cemented in stone what he already thought to be true. If you made it out of that arena, you’d be doomed to a life the same as him. Being called into the Capitol for nightly visits until they grow tired of you. It took finnick five whole years to become old news… he can’t even imagine how loved you would be for many years beyond that. You’d somehow charmed him without even trying, and here he was on a mission to save your life because of it. He couldn’t fathom how anyone could grow tired of you. There’s no other tribute, past, present, or even future that has a chance of beating you in sweetness and beauty. There’s no other tribute who has your compassion, your mercy… as much as he hated that nickname for you, he now found himself clinging to it in hopes of repeating it back to you.

The people around him continue to speak of you, and he knows that his selfishness will use it to his advantage. Your life out of the arena would be filled with comments like these, and the repercussions of them, the work and practical slavery of them, not one ever being your fault. But even through all of it, he still wants you to live. He wants you to come home and have a house across from his and beside Mags’. He wants to keep giving you swimming lessons until you feel confident to go into the water without him. He wants to teach you how to fish like he and his father used to do. He wants to take you into the market and show you all his favorite places to get food. He wants to watch you thrive and grow beyond these games and forget about all the bad things. His want for your happiness, his need for your presence to return… It's what drives him.

He doesn’t linger on the screen for too much longer before he continues making his rounds.

The looks on the other tribute's faces when you offer them a piece of split open fish is hilarious. You can’t help but giggle. You have to sit for a moment and think, because no, other districts probably don’t just tear open a fish and eat it. How strange, that the tributes can be so different in culture, but still all the same.

You’ve grown up eating fish, grown up being around the smell and feeling the texture. It doesn’t bother you because it is familiar, and mundane.

They eventually sucked it up and tried some, knowing that by tomorrow they would have to eat it anyway.

“It’s not terrible, could use some salt,” Rodey joked around, twisting his face into different expressions with every bite he took.

“My m-mama cooks fish better than a-anyone I’ve ever met. Bakes it with lemon juice a-and pepper.” You smiled, willing yourself to remember your mother and her home cooked meals.

She hadn’t been able to cook in very large quantities lately, one of the primary reasons you’d been hungry so often.The loss of your dad’s paycheck was bound to take a toll.

“Sounds pretty good to me,” He laughed, leaning his shoulder into yours playfully. His attempts at affection were becoming more pronounced as the day went on. Offering you his hand to step out of the river, handing you one of the blankets to dry off with, his lingering touches and prolonged stares that lasted just a bit too long. You didn’t mind it. He made being in this hellhole a decent experience. You’re going to die anyways, might as well enjoy the time you have left.

Out of nowhere, Lukas’ yell of warning stirred everyone.

“Lyra, watch out!”

But it was too late. There was a long and colorful snake that had just sunk its teeth into her arm. Lukas immediately grabbed one of the short swords and cut it in half, ridding her of the animal… but the damage had already been done.

“What was that thing?” She grabbed her arm in pain, writhing around on the ground after feeling the spread of its venom in her veins. It turned them dark, the webbing of black inky venom had already sunk too far into her system.

“Lyra,” Rodey tried to still her movements, her screams of terror going in one ear and out the other. Lukas rummaged through the backpacks, along with you, to try and find some of that healing ointment that the sponsors had given you the day before. You’d found it at the bottom of the last pack, turning around quickly and trying to help her.

“Hold her still,” Lukas told Rodey, opening the canister, and applying some of the medical treatment over the entry wound, but it didn’t do anything. She still shook like a leaf, and wasn’t stopping.

You knelt down and grabbed one of the bandage rolls from the same pack, trying to tie off her arm and create a tourniquet from it. The venom didn’t spread as fast, but it was still going, slowly reaching the top of her arm as it crawled over every vein she had. She had stopped screaming, but took your arm with her other hand. She pulled your forwards, and your eyes widened momentarily in fear.

“Take it off, please,” she cried, her voice now slightly hoarse from the screams. You shook your head, about to protest, but she nodded. “I’m one less person to kill. Take it off.”

You looked at Lukas and Rodey, and they looked upset, but didn’t tell you anything. They didn’t know what to say. They had been happy to have this girl as an ally, but this is the hunger games. All will die but one, and this is Lyra’s time.

You looked back to her, your eyes welling up with tears. With a heavy heart, you untied the bandaging, letting the venom spread quickly again. Her flailing movements and screaming returned, but you had to step back, turning away and ducking your head into Rodey’s shoulder to keep her out of your eyeline. Once again the screaming stopped, and you looked back… Lyra had a look of peace in her now still eyes. She was gone, and the cannon fired synonymously after. You didn’t stop crying, and neither Rodey nor Lukas said anything to you about it. You felt like it was you. You felt like you’d killed her…

That’s the thing about mercy. It isn’t always about showing restraint, or holding back. Sometimes, it’s about giving in, and letting things take their course.

tags(open): @thepassionatereader @i-voluntears @secretsicanthideanymore @mystargirl-interlude @c4ttheart @lilibrn

#finnick odair x oc #finnick imagine #finnick odair thg #thg finnick #finnick odair #finnick x reader #finnick x you #finnick odair x reader #finnick odair fluff #finnick odair imagine #sam claflin #sam claflin x reader #the hunger games #thg series #thg #katniss everdeen

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velidewrites · 1 year

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Summary: When 19-year old Feyre Archeron voluntarily takes her sister's place in the Hunger Games, she expects nothing but her imminent demise. But Feyre is a survivor, and as she is thrown into a battle between life and death, she discovers there are things worth fighting for.

Pairing: Feysand

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, graphic depictions of blood and gore, Feyre being sexy and unhinged, wait a second is that Rhysand? Is he also sexy and unhinged? AKA Feysand (literally) slaying the game

Read: Chapter I || Fic Masterlist || AO3

Chapter VIII: We Deserve Better

The arrow came out of the body with a loud squelch.

“Sorry,” Feyre patted the dead elk gently, its brown fur sticky with blood. “But you’re part of something bigger now.”

With a deep sigh, she rose to her knees and looked up to the sky. The sun cast its gentle light over her face as birds flitted somewhere in the trees above—the arena, it seemed, had returned to its original state from four days ago.

Feyre chewed on her lip, considering. The Hunger Games began with a warm breeze only to turn into scorching heat the very next day. She’d rather forget the fire that followed the day after, the raging flames that licked at her feet, threatening to swallow her whole. And then, the arena became a sea of snow and ice, with the cold arms of winter embracing it tightly until the sun had set over the horizon. Until Ressina’s body went cold as well.

It was all Feyre’s fault.

She should have known the hole was a trap—should have realised that generosity was a concept foreign to the Gamemakers, that the only reason they’d manipulated the arena to her advantage was to see their own agenda fulfilled. They’re going to kill her the first chance they get, Alis had told her. And they did. With Feyre’s help.

She didn’t let herself weep—not with the countless cameras on her, watching her every move. She wouldn’t let them see how badly she’d been broken. Not yet—not until she finished what she’d started.

Ressina’s dying wish was to kill them all—and Feyre would do just that. Every last one of them, every fat, Capitol pig, would fall to their knees with an arrow pierced through their velvet-clad chests.

Feyre had a bow now.

She’d returned to Ianthe’s dead body after she’d buried Ressina and freed it from the tight grip of her cold hands. Feyre did not dare to look at the girl’s face, knowing those glassy blue eyes, however cruel, were still wide open in shock. Lifeless.

Feyre could not breathe as she walked away from Ianthe’s body. She killed Ressina was the mantra she’d repeated with each heavy step. You avenged her. You did the right thing.

None of this felt right.

Ianthe was different from the Capitol. She had a name, a face, perhaps a family just like Feyre’s waiting for her return. Had it not been for the Capitol drawing her name at the Reaping…perhaps she wouldn’t have become a monster.

She killed Ressina. And then you killed her.

Perhaps Feyre had become a monster, too.

She gritted her teeth, reaching to the quiver strapped at her back. How was she supposed to exact her revenge on the Capitol when moving on from her first kill had proven so difficult? It was easy to plan for it—to imagine herself striding into that training hall again, Eris Vanserra’s cold, amber eyes dismissing her immediately as he turned back to the lounge and the sponsors feasting inside. She wouldn’t miss this time.

But to do that—to get the rare chance to come close with the Capitol again—meant that Feyre had to get out of here alive. And to get out of here alive…

Her throat bobbed as she drew her bow upward.

To get out of here alive, she needed to embrace the monster and hold onto it for as long as she could.

Her arrow shot up to the trees above and, a heartbeat later, was met with a loud squeal.

The squirrel fell to the ground with a quiet thud, a small pool of blood gathering around it. Feyre sighed again as she walked toward it. The poor animal must’ve known its time was coming—she’d caught three of its sisters only minutes earlier, their bodies still cooling a few feet behind her. She’d kept one of them for dinner later, had tied it into her jacket before shoving it into the pit of her backpack. The shredded, bloodied garment was of no further use to her, anyway—not with the summer day right around the corner. Hopefully, everything would be over by then.

Spring, summer, autumn and winter. What a cruel fucking joke.

The Gamemakers had a strange sense of humour, apparently—she understood the lush forests of spring, and the unbearable heat of summer, but engulfing the entire arena in flames for the autumn day was an idea only Eris Vanserra could have come up with. The Prime Gamemaker, from what Alis had told her, had been getting more and more creative each year.

Creative had sure been one way to put it.

There was no doubt left in her mind that she would not survive the next winter. With her flimsy jacket gone, there was simply no chance of enduring almost twenty-four hours of the penetrating cold, the kind that seemed to pierce her skin and settle deep inside her bones. There was not a single cave in the arena that could provide shelter warm enough to escape it. Feyre had no choice—she needed to work quickly to end this sick spectacle as soon as possible.

Another animal fell from the sky—a bird, this time—and Feyre kneeled to pull the arrow out before looking around the clearing again.

So much death stained the vibrant green grass around her—animals of all kinds, from birds to deer to the elk she had killed moments ago—prey she’d hunted with a weapon the Capitol should have never allowed to fall into her hands. They never intended for her to have it, she knew that—they would’ve left more of them at the Cornucopia otherwise instead of only burying one in a sea of daggers and swords. But the bow was hers now, whether they liked it or not—and with it, she would finish this. She would finish all of it.

And so, Feyre let their blood fill the air and sink into the ground. When the Careers found it, her message would be clear.

I’m coming for you next.

***

Laughter echoed through the lounge as Brannagh sliced the little girl’s throat.

Sprawled on the plush, purple cushions, Rhysand laughed with them.

“Brilliant, absolutely brilliant,” one of the sponsors commented, his dark eyes glittering under the golden light of the chandeliers. Someone hummed their agreement.

“Vicious, isn’t she?” another asked.

The man sitting beside him nodded eagerly. “I truly think she’s going to win,” he said, looking over the lounge, over Rhysand—as if awaiting his confirmation, his brows raised towards him expectantly.

He opened his mouth, but someone’s scoff beat him to it.

“That’s because you bet half your money on her!” the first sponsor said, and the lounge roared with laughter again. Had he not been trapped in a room full of the Capitol’s elite, Rhys might have sagged with relief.

“That has nothing to do with it,” the one beside him huffed, then turned to his right—to the tall man in a golden suit, lounging in his chair with a smile. “What do you think, Spellcleaver?”

The host of the Hunger Games turned toward him, waving a dismissive hand. His heavy rings glistened with the movement as he said, his voice rich and deep, “Patience, gentlemen. The Games aren’t over yet.” His strong chin pointed at the holo, set up against the large wall in front of them. “How many times had we been surprised at the very last minute?” he questioned. “Too many to count, if you ask me.”

Hums of agreement sounded through the room again. “Quite right, quite right,” someone mattered.

Helion Spellcleaver continued, “Take the sixty-sixth edition, for example. You all bet your cards on the District Two lad, did you not?”

The man beside him frowned. “I forgot what his name was.”

“Koschei,” Rhys supplied quietly. “Anton Koschei.”

The sponsor didn’t even glance at him. “That’s right,” he said, though it was Spellcleaver whom he addressed. “He made his way through, what was it, nineteen of the Tributes?”

Helion flashed him a grin. “And yet, when you all thought he was going to win, the girl showed up.”

Something like awe filled the sponsors’ faces, their eyes glazed with the memory—as if they enjoyed coming back to it, to the scenes from eight years ago, when the arena had become nothing but a wasteland of blood and fire. When one, lone Victor fell knee-deep into ash, her entire body shaking until the Capitol jet arrived to place a crown upon her head.

“She was spectacular,” someone commented. “What a show she’d given us.”

Another sponsor nodded. “Indeed. And the way she just stood over his burning body? I get chills—literal chills—just thinking about it.”

The sponsor beside him—the gambler—narrowed his eyes at the host. “Who are you betting on, then, Helion?”

Rhysand’s head whipped to Spellcleaver, the sponsor shooting him a curious look. He forced his features into cool indifference.

Helion angled his head, dark hair falling over his shoulder, “Now, now. I shouldn’t be out there broadcasting my expert opinions. I’d hate to spoil your fun.” He smirked. “I will say, though,” he mused, amber eyes flicking back to the holo, “that the stars shine particularly brightly tonight.”

Rhysand went completely still.

“Wouldn’t you agree…” Shut up, shut up, shut up, “…Rhysand?”

What the fuck do you think you’re doing?

Rhys waved a hand, letting that lazy smile tug at his mouth again. “It’s been so long, I hardly consider myself an expert these days,” he said, turning to the sponsors to offer a playful wink. “I prefer playing with the rest of you, since you’ve made it so comfortable.”

Everyone laughed, and his shoulders fell an inch. Distracting them had never been particularly difficult.

But Helion hummed quietly. “Too comfortable, perhaps.”

Rhys shot him a look, his eyes blazing with warning, but the host had already turned to the holo, joining the rest of their company.

What was that supposed to mean?

“What’s she saying?” a sponsor called. “Turn it up,” he said to no one in particular, and within a second, one of the Careers’ voice filled the air, still heavy with Helion’s words.

“…it’s not my fault you lost him,” Devlon barked.

A snarl. Brannagh. “Careful.”

But Devlon was anything but careful—he wouldn’t have joined those murderous twins otherwise—and so he took a step toward her. “It’s the truth, though, isn’t it?” he questioned. “If it weren’t for your sick obsession with Feyre Archeron, you would’ve had the good sense to kill him the second he asked to join us.”

Another snarl, this time from the brother.

“Keep your mouth shut, Devlon,” Dagdan ordered. “My sister has a plan.”

Devlon’s head whipped to him, his eyes dark. “Your sister is a child. And so are you. Open your eyes, man,” he told him, even as Brannagh’s hand curled around the knife at her side. “Only one of us can win this thing. You think she’ll let you live after she’s done with Feyre?”

The growl that left her throat was a pure, feral sound. “You fucking…”

“What? You know it’s true—you know I’m right,” he added, turning back to Dagdan. “Leave her while you still can, or, better yet—kill her while she sleeps. You’d be doing all of us a favour.”

“I’m going to murder you cold,” Brannagh promised.

One of the sponsors leaned in closer to the screen.

The camera switched to show Devlon’s back, and someone sucked in a breath at the sight of what he held behind it. At the sword, large and powerful enough to cut the girl in half, its hilt steady in Devlon’s tight grip.

Maybe he was careful after all.

Devlon bared his teeth. “No, you’re not.”

Dagdan’s scream rippled through the arena as Devlon’s sword slashed silver and red across his abdomen.

A few gasps tore from the audience, their eyes glued to the holo as the man fell to the ground, his guts spilling out of his body and staining the fresh grass. Rhysand’s blood drained from his body.

His sister was at his side in an instant, her own face white as death. Her hands shaking, she frantically pushed the organs in, as if she could somehow hold them in place until he miraculously healed. But Dagdan didn’t stop gushing out blood, soaking Brannagh’s hands, clothes, her long, braided hair as she leaned over him, screaming for him to hold on.

Rhysand’s ears started to ring, a foggy veil draping itself over his mind as her words began to lose all meaning and the bloodied shapes displayed by the holo all blurred into one.

“You can come out now,” he said into the icy forest, into nothingness, something like amusement creeping into his tone. “I won’t hurt you.”

Somewhere behind the trees, the snow creaked under a small boot. “You promise?” came the small voice.

He chuckled softly. “Yeah. I promise.”

The girl finally emerged from the shadows, a wary look shining in her eyes despite her young age. “You are Rhysand, right?” she asked, taking another half-step. “District Twelve.”

He nodded, offering her an encouraging smile. “And you are Nephelle.” District Six. Only twelve years old—three years older than him.

Something twisted in his stomach at that.

Those big eyes narrowed, assessing. “Are you feeling better now?”

He looked to the strange, grey paste smeared over his battered skin. “You did this?”

Nephelle nodded tentatively.

“Why?”

She shrugged, as if the answer was as obvious as the moon shining above them. “You looked like you needed some help.”

“I…” for the first time in his life, he had no idea what to say. His throat felt tight. “Thank you,” he managed to choke out.

Another, one-shouldered shrug. “It’s alright,” she told him, lightness creeping into her tone at last.

He knew it then—knew right away he would protect her. This little girl, so much smaller and weaker than him, who’d had every opportunity to kill him at his lowest, chose to save his life instead. Chose to stay by his side, hidden or not, until she could make sure he survived.

He would protect her. Until the very end.

A cold, slender hand on his shoulder snapped him back to reality—to the holo sharpening into Brannagh trembling with rage and agony as she held her brother’s lifeless form; to the sounds of her screams, promising Devlon the most horrid and painful death as the camera showed him fleeing the scene. To the woman that now stood behind Rhys’s couch, her long, crimson nails grazing his skin.

“Rhysand, dear,” Amarantha crooned. “Don’t tell me you’re scared?”

The smile he’d trained over the past decade came with ease.

He turned back and covered her hand with his. “Of course not.”

***

It was nearing midnight, and Feyre was starting to give up.

Her bait hadn’t worked—hadn’t lured anyone in, even though it’s been hours since she’d set it up—and she was pretty sure it would be gone by morning. The Gamemakers weren’t exactly known for their patience—they would move to clean up her mess as soon as the Capitol grew bored with her efforts.

She wouldn’t have blamed them. Almost an entire day had passed, and she was starting to get bored, too.

Perhaps there was simply no one left to kill.

She almost scoffed at the thought—but began counting nonetheless. Two cannons had been fired off today—one in the afternoon, followed by another only minutes after. She would find out who they were soon, from the holo the Gamemakers projected over the arena every night since the Games had begun.

Obviously, she was still alive. She had no doubt the Careers—save for Briallyn—were, too. Tamlin…hopefully, he was still out there. She wanted to see him again—thank him, for what he’d done a few days ago. For everything else.

Her eyes narrowed as her mind kept on racing—after Ianthe and Ressina…and the two Tributes from this morning…

Her heart stumbled over a beat.

Eighteen.

Eighteen Tributes were dead.

There were only six of them left. Six.

“Fuck,” she whispered quietly. “Fuck.”

Could she truly survive this?

The bushes rustled somewhere, and Feyre shot to her feet, pointing her arrow toward the sound a second before Devlon stepped into the clearing.

“Shit,” he swore, staggering back as if he’d hit an invisible wall. “Where did you get that thing?”

Feyre’s grip on her bow tightened. “Where are your friends?”

Something dark flashed in his eyes. “They’re not my friends.” Feyre scoffed, but his attention drifted elsewhere—to the bloodied ground beneath his feet, to the animals scattered around them—before finally settling on her. “I’m here with an offer.”

As if in answer, the steel of her arrow glinted under the moonlight.

“I should kill you right where you stand,” Feyre told him, and Devlon’s eyes widened.

“Wait!” he called, throwing up a hand—as if that would stop her. “Wait. At least hear me out before you kill me?”

“I’d really rather not.” Not with two long daggers strapped to his side.

He followed her gaze, and understanding finally shone in his own. Slowly, Devlon reached to his belt.

“Don’t you even try,” Feyre warned, her aim on him unwavering.

But Devlon loosened his belt, the daggers falling to the ground with it.

“Here,” he offered. “See? I’m unarmed. I won’t hurt you.”

“That gives me little comfort.”

The idiot had the nerve to take a step forward. “Please, Feyre. I left the other Careers.” His throat bobbed, the strong muscles of his neck shifting. “I…I killed Dagdan.”

Feyre went completely still. “You what?”

“I killed him,” Devlon said. “This afternoon. That cannon you heard? That was me.”

Feyre swallowed hard. “That means…”

Devlon nodded. “Brannagh is on a hunt. For both of us.”

Finally—finally, she understood. Almost laughed as she realised why he’d sought her out. “You want to join me?”

“The two of us can take her,” he said, eyeing the silver bow—still drawn for his head.

“I can take her on myself.”

“Believe me,” Devlon said, “you can’t.” He shook his head, dark hair ruffling over his forehead. Was that blood splattered over his face? She couldn’t tell in the dark. “All those deaths these past few days…most of them were her. She’s ruthless—and obsessed with killing you. She watches the broadcast every night, hoping you’re still alive, only so that she gets to kill you herself.”

Feyre’s blood chilled.

“Feyre, listen to me,” Devlon pleaded. “She’s crazy.”

“And after we kill her,” she began, surprised by how steady she’d managed to keep her voice, “What will you do?”

Another step forward. “I’ll leave. You won’t hear from me again.”

Bullshit.

He knew it, too. “Please, Devlon,” she almost rolled her eyes. “You and I both know you’re going to try to kill me as soon as Brannagh drops dead,” she said, but he was already shaking his head.

“No, I…”

She didn’t let him finish. “You were ready to get rid of me only two days ago.” Surprise shone in his stare, and she couldn’t help but offer him a mocking smirk. “Yeah, I heard you—all of you. I was hiding in the tree while you ordered the others to search the clearing for me.”

Devlon’s eyes were wide with shock. “Impossible. Tamlin…”

Feyre openly laughed now. “Tamlin had been manipulating you from the start. You think he wanted to work with any of you? He saw me that—and drew you away, told you I must’ve hid by the river. He was never on your side,” she practically seethed. “And neither am I.”

She aimed for his head again.

“Feyre!”

Do it. He’ll kill you if you don’t.

“Give me a reason, Devlon.” A chance—one last chance before she had to do this. “Give me a reason I should trust you.”

Devlon moved in closer—he was so close to her now that every instinct inside her had screamed at her to run. “You can’t possibly think you can survive this by yourself,” he said, then added quietly, “Survive her.”

Feyre’s jaw clenched. “That’s not a reason. And I think I’ll take my chances.”

She saw it then—saw the glint of metal at his back as he shifted, and knew it was time.

“You should’ve accepted my help when you had the chance, Feyre.”

Devlon pulled the sword from his back when Feyre’s arrow shot through the nightly breeze.

His mouth hung open as its sharp tip cut into his neck—so fast he didn’t even see it coming.

Feyre only approached him when his body hit the ground and stilled.

Fighting to keep from shaking, she pulled the arrow out. She’d missed—she was aiming for his head.

“I’m sorry, Devlon,” she whispered. “None of us deserve this.”

***

The heat was going to kill her.

She should’ve been prepared—she had known it was coming, and yet she’d been so preoccupied with hunting and her stupid fucking bait to prepare for it.

Now, Feyre was dying.

Somehow, it was even hotter than last time. The sun prickled at her skin, and stepping directly under it felt as though her very bones were being scalded. Every inch of her clothes was soaked with sweat, the small hairs atop her head nearly glued to her forehead, dripping with salt.

It made her wonder if the winter day was going to be worse, too.

With any hope, she would never have to find out.

There were five of them left now that Devlon was out of the picture—Brannagh still being one of them—and if today’s weather was any indication, more were about to die soon. From dehydration, if not from someone else’s blade.

Water—she desperately needed water.

Thankfully—thankfully—the river was nearby. She’d heard its sparkling stream around two minutes ago, the sound practically calling out her name. Perhaps she’d hallucinated it. In this heat, she wouldn’t be surprised.

Her legs felt heavy as she braced herself to step out of the shadows—she could see it now, only a few steps away, ten, maybe fifteen. The river stretched wide as it cut through the forest, separating the south from the east, its clear surface shimmering under the sun.

The fucking sun.

She forced herself to take a breath. Then another, and another. And when the air became too thick with heat to welcome it into her lungs again, Feyre stepped out into the sunlight.

Maybe death would be a mercy. Surely it couldn’t have been worse than this.

She tried not to faint as she approached the river’s edge—tried not to shudder as she imagined the cool water filling her lungs once again.

Without another thought, Feyre stepped into the water, clothes and all.

She dove underneath the surface first, gulping on the water even as it found its way into her nose—she didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was the fire in her chest slowly being extinguished, like ice over a pulsating bruise.

She’d emerged when her body could no longer handle the lack of oxygen, when the water seemed to push on her lungs, forcing them to shrink. With a loud, gurgling cough, Feyre shook her head and moved deeper into the river until the surface was at her hip.

That’s when she felt it.

Something tangled into her, like a sea of ropes wrapping itself around her, forcing her into stillness.

A net.

“Shit,” Feyre swore, but her leg only seemed to wedge itself further into it as she thrashed. “Shit!”

“Don’t bother,” a deep, silken voice reached her, calm like the sea on a clear day. “It’s no use.”

She saw his weapon first—saw the tall, forked spear she’d seen engraved into his suit that night at Helion Spellcleaver’s interviews—and the strong, dark hand gripping the steel.

“Tarquin,” Feyre breathed, relief crashing over her like a wave. “I got stuck, I—” she grunted as the current wrapped the net tighter around her. She reached for the man standing over the river’s edge. “Can you help me out?”

Something like pain twisted his expression—a momentary flash that seemed to vanish the moment it appeared. As if he forced it off his face.

“I’m afraid I can’t,” he told her, his jaw tight.

Feyre stopped moving.

“You set this up.”

Tarquin nodded. “I was inspired by your trap from the other day,” he told her. “We all heard Ressina’s screams.”

A choked sob broke free from her lips. “I—”

“We all do what we need to survive,” Tarquin said, as if his words were meant to bring any consolation. “I wish things were different, Feyre—I really do. Back at training…” his blue eyes closed for a moment as he loosed a breath. Remembering the few times they’d talked—the knots he’d taught her to tie to keep herself safe. “I think it would’ve been easy to be your friend.”

“Tarquin,” she whispered, the tears lining her eyes burning hotter than the summer heat, “it doesn’t have to be like this. Please, listen to me.”

Feyre, listen to me, Devlon had pleaded, yet she’d fired her arrow anyway—had killed him in cold blood. Why did she expect Tarquin to do any better? To be any better? Who gave her the right, after what she’d done?

But Tarquin…Tarquin hesitated.

So Feyre continued, her voice trembling, “There are five of us left. Five, Tarquin. We can all live, I’m sure of it, if we—if we all stand our ground, refuse to let the Capitol watch as we murder each other…”

She could practically hear Alis’s hiss at her words. She didn’t care.

“We deserve better, Tarquin,” she begged through the tears. “We all deserve so much better.”

Something flickered in his eyes.

You’re good at this, you know, Ressina’s bright voice crept into her mind.

Good at what?

Hope.

And then, it was gone.

“I’m sorry, Feyre,” Tarquin’s lips tightened. “There can only be one survivor.”

He raised the weapon above his head. Aimed it at Feyre’s chest the same way she’d aimed her bow for Ianthe’s.

Feyre closed her eyes and thought of her sisters.

Elain’s gentle hands as she brushed through her hair, untangling it after a long day in the forest. Her kind smile as she offered to wash her dirty, bloodied hunting bag. Nesta’s motherly frown as Feyre slumped into their iron bed, immediately losing herself in sleep. The thin, patched-up duvet she pulled over her body.

And then, a loud squelch.

Feyre’s eyes shot open.

Tarquin laid on the ground, his handsome face frozen in a look of sudden, unbearable pain.

Another stifled sound marked the sword being pulled out of his flesh. Blood spilled out of his chest—spilled into the river, staining the clear water around her red.

Feyre looked to the sword—to the strong, calloused hands gripping it—and stopped breathing entirely.

The weapon fell with a heavy thud as Tamlin rushed into the river. As he dove to free her from the net’s restless snare. As he grabbed her trembling body and carried her back to land, setting her down carefully.

He kneeled beside her, those emerald eyes searching. “Are you okay?”

“Tamlin,” Feyre breathed. “You’re here.”

A tentative smile. “I said I would protect you, did I not?”

Feyre lunged into his arms and crashed her lips into his.

***

The Capitol cheered with delight as the camera zoomed in on their kiss.

Tamlin held Feyre tightly against him, his mouth hungry and not leaving hers for a second, both of them content to let the world vanish around them.

Rhysand’s grip on the armrest tightened.

When they all left—when the holo had shut off, and he was finally, finally alone—only then did he ride down to the lower levels, deep beneath the underground training halls. He fought against the urge to check inside them—see if, by some miracle, she’d snuck out there again, preparing for the brutal arena.

The elevator pinged and Rhys stepped into the darkness.

Someone was already waiting.

“You requested to see me,” Nuala said, her voice like a whisper between the shadows. He nodded.

“I need you to pass on a message,” Rhysand told her. “Tell him there’s been a change of plans.”

Taglist (let me know if you'd like to be added!): @fieldofdaisiies @vulpes-fennec @houseofhurricane @reverie-tales @kingofsummer93 @melting-houses-of-gold @labellefleur-sauvage @shadowriel @captain-of-the-gwynriel-ship @headcanonheadcase @foreverinelysian @rhysiedarling @msfeyredarling @itisiyourfemur @to-read-or-to-read

#chapter 8/30 #acotar hunger games au #feysand au #feysand fic #feysand fanfic #feysand fanfiction #feysand #pro feysand #feyre x rhysand #feyre archeron #feyre acotar #rhysand #rhysand acotar #acotar fic #acotar fanfic #acotar fanfiction #acotar #a court of thorns and roses #my writing

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mxdnights0 · 4 months

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Aquaphobia Series Look After You

This is a Johanna and Annie fic (You can take it as romantic or platonic!!) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ANNIE'S POV

I remember the train. It was quick, speeding by all of the green hills on the way to District 7. It was quick, but it still took 8 hours to get there.

I'd been on my way to visit Johanna. She hadn't replied to anyone in a few days, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried.

If I had known what I would see when I got there, I'm not sure what I would have done.

Now, I sit in the front doorway, staring in confusion as I took in the once beautiful mansion, now completely dark and destitute. How long had my dear friend lived like this? “Johanna?” I called out, setting down my bag and looking into some of the rooms of her house. All the rooms were empty, looking almost as if no one lived here at all. She wasn’t there, so I climbed the stairs to her room. All it took was one peak inside of the door to see that Johanna was in there, and she probably hadn’t left in days.

“Oh, Jo...” My heart broke as I walked into the room and sat on the edge of her bed. She barely moved, but I could see where she was. “Annie, what are you doing here?” She asked, a bit of bite to her words. I understood though, No one wanted others to see them at their lowest, and this appeared to be Johanna’s.

“Jo, I’m here to help... Will you let me help you?” Johanna sighed, slowly sitting up. the comforter fell from her body, confirming more to me that she probably hadn’t eaten well in a while.. She looked too thin.

Her eyes drifted to my baby bump. I was about 4 or 5 months along now, so it was more noticeable than when she left. It seemed as though that sparked a small curiosity in her otherwise dull eyes. “How many months have you got left?” I only shrugged “I’m about.. Halfway through, I think? The baby will be here soon... But for now, I’m perfectly capable of being here and helping you out, okay? I want to help you.” I took her hands in mine. Cold. Too Cold. “Let me help you, Jo,” I said, holding her hands in my lap, trying to warm them. Johanna finally gave in with a small nod. I led her to the bathroom, not letting go of her. I knew what she’d gone through in the Capitol, and I knew what was about to happen was NOT going to help keep away any resurfacing memories. There was still something so off about her, but I knew that it wasn’t something she could control. It was the trauma shutting her down. I, of all people, would know how that felt. I led her to sit on the toilet seat before leaning over and filling the tub with warm water. A comforting haze took over the mood of what was so cold and so dark. The orange light of the vanity light shadowed over Johanna’s face, accentuating the dark circles under her eyes. She looked frozen. Almost as if she didn’t feel human anymore. I could sadly relate to that probably more than anyone else, if I was honest. Once the water was at a good level, I helped her stand, undress, and get into the water. I saw her fear, her panic. It was as if she were letting me see how she truly felt for once. Johanna wasn’t a person to show much emotion. She was always so angry. Fear wasn’t something I’d ever seen on her before, and my heart broke. “Johanna, It’s okay, I’m here. I won’t leave you, I promise. Just relax, we’ll get you right as rain.” I tried to reassure as much as I could, but there was still that internal fear that I’d never be good enough. Finnick had been the one to comfort people, I’d never been good at it. I wanted to get better. For Johanna, and for this baby. I sat on the edge of the tub, her hand still held tightly in mine as she tried to get comfortable in the water. “Are you alright?” I asked softly, running my fingers through her short hair, trying to get her attention. “Yeah.. It’s weird, I guess?” she answered hesitantly. “It's like a constant loop, but for the first time in weeks I just can’t seem to put it off. I fell into this cycle, and I eventually just couldn’t get out of bed…” She leaned her head onto my lap, staring at the tile wall. I nodded slowly. “I think I understand that, I wish you would have told me, though.”

“Sorry, Annie.. I just didn’t want to bother you with it, you’re so busy with the whole pregnancy thing, I didn’t want to add anything else to your plate.”

I sighed quietly, my free hand playing with the hem of my shirt. “You wouldn’t have bothered me, Johanna, I want you to know that I care about you. I don’t want you going through this alone, okay?” She just nodded again, sinking further into the warm water of the tub. “Come here” I said, grabbing the showerhead to wash Johanna’s hair. I made sure to have it on the lowest setting before guiding the hose over her short, spiky hair. The spikes flattened against her head as I ran the stream of water over her head. The hand she was still holding tightly to tightened its grip. I didn’t know the intensity of the torture she’d indured, but I knew it was bad when I heard her screams from my cell every night. I lowered the shower head so it was off her head, smoothing her hair back and out of her eyes. “Check in, are you doing alright?”

Johanna only nodded, not opening her eyes, her hand still holding onto mine like a lifeline. It was difficult, but I managed to find shampoo and wash her hair with one hand. If She needed to hold my hand to be able to do this, I wouldn’t ever make her let go. I rinsed out the shampoo after another quick check in.

After that, Johanna just went quiet. Johanna was never quiet before what the capitol had done to her. I was glad they were gone. That President Snow was dead. I only wish I could have been there to see it.

It wasn’t until hours later, when she had gotten out of the water, when I made her soup with the small group of ingredients in her almost empty kitchen that she spoke again. We were in the kitchen. Johanna was sitting at the table while I did the dishes after dinner. “Thanks, Annie. I know you didn’t plan on taking care of a baby when you came to visit.” I could hear it in her tone. She was trying to make a joke, but I could see the embarrassment in her expression. “Jo, I don’t mind taking care of you, I thought it was nice.” I started simply, wiping down the counter. “I was worried when you stopped responding, so seeing you alive was reassuring.” Johanna sighed quietly “I don’t know what even happened. I was feeling fine when I left the capitol, but when I got back to 7, everything just started to fall apart… is that normal?” “I would say nothing of the mind is normal, Jo. It's all so confusing, but with the right people, you heal. I wouldn’t say you can forget anything that happened, but it helps on the days where you feel that paralyzing feeling.” I hummed, putting away the last dish “If anyone understands you, It’s me. I promise you.” “How do you seem so okay, Annie? You lost your family, and you’re here consoling me, talking me through all of this.. Are you even okay?” I froze for a moment, not knowing how to reply to her question. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for the impact of what my answer actually was. “I don’t think I’m okay. I don’t think I’m anything of the sort, but I know you aren’t either. Sometimes, healing together is what helps, you know? I think healing alone isn’t actually healing, its self isolation. You make yourself think that you don’t need anyone else, that you can get through it on your own.” I felt my throat tighten at what I was saying “Thats what Mags had told me what it was like after her games.. She had gotten her heart broken in the Arena, and came home to her entire family dead.. No one was there for her, I didn’t want you to have to suffer the same fate.” Johanna stood shakily and opened her arms. She’d never been much of a physical touch person, so it surprised me, but at that moment I didn’t really care. I fell into her arms, feeling as though if I said another word, I’d cry. “Neither of us can do this alone, Johanna..” “I know, Annie… I know.” Johanna sighed, wrapping her arms around me tightly, resting her chin on my shoulder. “From now on, we’re a team, okay? You and I against the world.” I nodded “Why don’t you move back to 4 with me, Jo? Then you won’t be so far away, I have a house that doesn’t look dark and ransacked.. Did you ever decorate when you first moved in?” “That’s a great question, Annie. The answer to that is I tried? I realized I wasn’t good, and then didn’t try again.” Johanna said, laughing. Her laugh was like music to my ears. I hadn’t heard it in a while. “I think it’s a good idea, ann. I’ll move.” I sighed happily, hugging her as tight as I could. I knew not being alone would help her, but I think it could help me as well. With Mags and Finnick gone, I’d been alone with the exception of Katniss and Peeta’s visits, the occasional drop in from Mrs. Everdeen to check on the baby. I was glad to have a roommate.

“We’ll wait til morning for any more plans, Annie, you look exhausted” Johanna decided, pulling away from the hug and leading me to her room that we had cleaned earlier. “You don’t mind sharing, right?” I shook my head “I don’t mind at all” A little bit later, we were in bed, just looking at each other. “Do you ever miss them?” Johanna asked.

“Everyday” I answered simply.

“Have you found out what the baby was yet?” was her next question. “Yeah, I’m going to have a little boy” I responded

As the night went on, we asked questions back and forth til the early morning. When we had finally fallen asleep, it was in each others arms, the comfort of knowing someone there helping the nightmares stay away for once.

#the hunger games #mags flanagan #annie cresta #finnick x annie #johanna mason #finnick odair #Johannie #Johanna x Annie #Johanna Mason x Annie Cresta #thg fanfiction #katniss everdeen #thg series #hunger games #mockingjay #thg #thgedit

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madamlaydebug · 1 year

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REMEMBERING MINNIE RIPERTON

Photograph of Minnie Riperton with her daughter actress Maya Rudolph and her son Marc Rudolph.

Her fourth album for Epic Records, titled Stay in Love (1977), featured another collaboration with Stevie Wonder in the funky disco tune "Stick Together".

Riperton died of cancer on July 12, 1979 at the age 31.

During the 1990s, Riperton's music was sampled by many rap and hip-hop artists, including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, A Tribe Called Quest, Blumentopf, The Orb and Tragedy Khadafi.

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reasoningdaily · 10 months

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From left: Charles Turner, Timothy Catlett, Levy Rouse, Chris Turner, Russell Overton and Clifton Yarborough, attend the funeral for their friend Kelvin “Hollywood” Smith on Oct. 27 in Capitol Heights, Md. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

https://wapo.st/3PFKslz

Clifton Yarborough patted his chest as he turned his gray Honda into a narrow alley in Northeast Washington. “My heart racing fast,” he said. He eased the car to a stop and pointed to a garage behind a rowhouse. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s where it happened.” There was graffiti on the weathered plywood door. Otherwise it looked ordinary. There was nothing to indicate what had unfolded in the small structure 39 years earlier.

The alley in the H Street neighborhood is around the corner from the home where Yarborough, 56, grew up, but this is the first time he has been here since he was a teenager. He didn’t want to stay long. He put the car into drive and pulled away from the place where a 49-year-old mother of six from the neighborhood was found dead in 1984, the victim of a brutal beating and rape.

Then 16, Yarborough was the youngest of 17 people arrested in the case. He and seven other young men from the neighborhood would eventually be tried, convicted and incarcerated for a combined 258 years. Justice, it seemed, was served.

But the men have insisted all along that they had nothing to do with the rape and the murder. That they didn’t know anything about those crimes. That their trial wasn’t fair.

Kelvin Smith, who served 35 years before being released in 2019, died at home in October. Steven Webb died in prison in 1999 after a stroke. He had served 15 years. The other six men — Yarborough, Christopher Turner, Charles Turner, Timothy Catlett, Levy Rouse and Russell Overton — are now in their 50s and 60s.

They have completed their sentences and been released from prison. The final one got out just last year.

But this ghastly crime hangs over them. They are free, but not free.

What they want, they say, is for their names to no longer be associated with one of the most vile crimes in Washington history. And they want the government that prosecuted and jailed them to admit it was wrong for not sharing evidence they believe would have helped them prove their innocence.

All of the men now live in Washington or its close-in suburbs. They have jobs — forklift driver, maintenance worker, parking lot attendant, janitor, warehouse worker.

They have reconnected with their families and friends and are trying to shape a new life in a city and world that has changed immeasurably from the city and world in which they grew up. Their newly free lives are dominated by thoughts of what they’ve lost and what they can still salvage.

“What hurts is my character being slandered, that people say I would do such a thing that I didn’t do, especially to someone I knew,” Yarborough said. “Clear this. Make it be known we didn’t commit this crime.”

Rouse says it is hard for him to trust anyone. He was 19 when he was arrested and had a newborn son,whom Rouse wouldn’t see in person until his release in 2019.

“I wrote letters to him a lot, and when he grew older he would write me back, saying — Dad, I know you’re innocent and I’m always going to love you,” Rouse said. “It hurts me inside to know he had to go through that.”

Rouse says he and his 39-year-old-son are now the best of friends, making up for time they were apart.

Since getting out of prison, Rouse has focused on moving forward.Now a maintenance worker, he has completed computer courses from a career training school. He also counsels other former prisoners who have recently been released. And in September, he got married. “It’s wonderful, wonderful,” Rouse said. “Best thing that ever happened to me.”

But even as he looks forward, Rouse can’t let go of the past. “It’s important the truth comes out because they know they was wrong,” he said.

Charles Turner lives at brother Christopher’s apartment in Southeast Washington. He has a full-time maintenance job at the Martin Luther King Jr. library in downtown Washington. He’s determined to reclaim his time.

“They took 36 years from me, so I plan to be out here alive for another 36 years,” Turner said. “I’m gonna get those 36 years back.”

Turner, 59, said he feels cheated that he was locked up when his mother died and that he couldn’t say goodbye to her. And he laments never having children.

“Being locked up, they took my bloodline,” he said. “No one is gonna ever know I was even here.”

Christopher Turner, nicknamed “the Mayor” by other defendants, was the first to bereleased. He was given a shorter sentence than the others because he had completed high school and had no criminal record. In prison, he spent much of his time reading and learning about the law. While incarcerated and in the years since his release in 2010, he has led the effort to clear his name and those of his fellow defendants.

Along the way, Christopher Turner has also become an advocate for prisoners. He is on the board of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, which works to prevent and overturn convictions of innocent people, and Free Minds, a D.C.-based book club and writing workshop for incarcerated youths.

The men’s effort to continue lobbying for their innocence while reentering the workforce and reconnecting with their families and their city, Christopher Turner admits, is wearying.

“I know the guys are really tired,” he said recently over breakfast at a Capitol Hill diner. “We’re trying to move on with our lives. But this is still a fight we need to fight. As long as there’s air in my body, I’ll continue to fight.”

The men compare their case to that of the Central Park Five, the five teenagers from Harlem who were convicted of the 1989 rape of a woman and spent years in prison before DNA evidence and a confession led to their convictions being overturned in 2002.

But this murder occurred before the use of DNA in solving crimes began, and no evidence that can be tested survived. And unlike the Central Park case, no one else has come forward to admit guilt.

Over the years, the men have unsuccessfully appealed their convictions.

In 2017, at the Supreme Court, their attorneys argued that prosecutors violated the Brady rule by not turning over evidence to the defense. The court ruled 6-2 that the withheld evidence would not have made a difference in the outcome of the case. After that decision, the men were out of options.

But their attorneys and some of the most powerful law firms in Washington have stuck with them.

“I wouldn’t represent them if I thought they had any involvement in this whatsoever,” said Shawn Armbrust, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project and Christopher Turner’s attorney. She has been working with the defendants since 2005. “Our standard is — you can’t have any involvement in the crime. If we find evidence pointing to guilt, we’re done.”

But there are no legal appeals left to file. No courtroom arguments left to make. No witnesses left to cross-examine.

For the defendants and their attorneys, their only hope may be a presidential pardon. And that, all of them acknowledge is, a long shot.

Crime was a problem in Washington in 1984, especially in the busy, blue-collar corridor of H Street NE. Murders in D.C. were nowhere near the astronomic levels they would climb to in the late 1980s and ’90s, but they weren’t rare either.

Among them, one murder stood out: The Oct. 1, 1984, killing of Catherine Fuller.

Fuller was 49, Black, a married mother of six who lived a short walk from the alley behind H Street where she was found dead on that rainy October day. She had been beaten and sodomized with a pipe-like object. It tore through her intestines and abdomen, according to medical examiners. Her ribs were broken. Fuller weighed less than 100 pounds. She had been robbed of $50 and some jewelry.

Years later, her son David Fuller would remember her as “a loving, caring parent.” His mother, he told The Washington Post in 2017, “was the type of person who would go out of her way to do anything for you.”

The pressure on police and politicians to find the culprit — or culprits — was intense. The most promising information came the first day, when a street vendor who found the body told police he saw two men acting suspiciously in the alley, one with an object under his coat. They ran when police first approached the scene.

But there was little else to go by. Then a couple of anonymous phone tips. A caller referenced the “8th and H Crew” and mentioned a few names.

Three days after the murder, detectives, acting on the tip, picked up Yarborough. Then 16, Yarborough was a special-educationstudent at Eastern High School. His IQ was below 70, and he had difficulty reading. He was interrogated for hours without a lawyer or a parent present.

Yarborough said he told police he didn’t know anything about the crime, but he eventually signed a statement that provided some details and names. He would later say he signed the document because he was scared.

Despite the early leads, the investigation stalled. It was not until late November that a 16-year-old girl gave police the name of Calvin Alston, a person she said had talked about committing the crime. The girl later acknowledged being high on PCP when she was interviewed by police. Alston denied being involved but eventually gave police information about Fuller’s death and a few names, including Yarborough’s. Later Alston would testify that police threatened him with life in prison if he didn’t admit to a role in the murder.

The detectives brought Yarborough back in.

According to Yarborough, the questioning this time was relentless. He said detectives slammed him against a desk, injuring his knee, and held his head above a flushing toilet. The detectives denied those allegations under oath and said the injury was preexisting.

Eventually, Yarborough said, the detectives wore him down. He said they read a statement to him given by Alston and told him to corroborate it. Yarborough agreed, and his statement was videotaped.

“The homicide people interrogated me to a point where I wanted to do anything to get out and go home,” Yarborough said, sitting at a Starbucks across from a Whole Foods on a revitalized H Street that bears little resemblance to the neighborhood in which he grew up. “First they had to calm me down from crying.”

His attorneys would later argue that Yarborough’s testimony was coerced. The two lead detectives and a police officer who worked on the case either declined or did not respond to interview requests for this story.

Yarborough’s statement became crucial evidence that helped lead to the arrests and conviction of his fellow defendants and cemented the idea in the public mind that the crime was the work of a ruthless gang, the “8th and H Crew.” All of those charged, however, said there was no gang. Some of them didn’t even know one another.

Ultimately, 10 people were brought to trial in 1985 for Fuller’s murder. After deliberating for seven days, the all-Black jury found two defendants not guilty and six guilty. The jury told the court it was “impossible” to reach a unanimous verdict for Christopher Turner and Russell Overton.

The judge ordered the jury to continue deliberating, and two days later, the jury returned with guilty verdicts for both men. It had taken “40 to 50” more votes to reach a unanimous decision, jurors told reporters later.

Christopher Turner, then 20, was stunned. He was so certain he would be found innocent that he had turned down a plea deal that would have required him to serve just two to six years. Taking a plea deal for something he hadn’t done was something he objected to on principle, he said. “People still ask me, do you regret not pleading guilty and going on with your life? And my answer is no, emphatically no, I don’t regret it.”

David Fuller was 16 when his mother was killed. He knew a few of the defendants. Christopher Turner was three years older and helped manage Fuller’s go-go band. Yarborough was the same age and lived around the corner. Yarborough said he used to bring pies his grandmother made over to the Fuller house.

Fuller, who now lives in Missouri, originally agreed to be interviewed for this article but then did not respond to messages. The Post was unable to locate Catherine Fuller’s other children. But David Fuller talked about his mother and the case in 2017 for a Post story.

By then, he said, he had found a measure of peace with what had happened. “Even with loss you got to keep going,” he said.

And he acknowledged that some or all of the men may not have been responsible. “My heart goes out to some of the gentlemen if they were falsely accused, because they suffered,” he said.

Russell Overton, 65, folds his 6-foot-7-inch frame into an armchair in the living room of his 85-year-old mother’s tidy Silver Spring home. He has lived here with his sister since his release in March 2022.

Overton, the last of the men to be released, was the oldest of them when they were arrested. He was 26 then and had children. Now he is a great-grandfather and getting to know his family as a free man.

The adjustment hasn’t been easy. Overton still sleeps with his door open and wakes at every sound. He keeps his toiletries in a container on his dresser the way he did when he was locked up. He has a job at a warehouse where he is doing well but is still coming to terms with engaging in pleasantries and trusting people.

“What happened to [Catherine Fuller] was wrong. I’m sorry that it happened. Sympathy for her family,” he said in an interview, leaning forward in his chair. “But there’s no way I can have remorse when I never did have anything to do with it. I wasn’t no angel out there. I got in trouble here and there, but I didn’t do this.”

The system, he said, failed them all.

In 1995, while still in prison, Christopher Turner wrote to Post reporter Patrice Gaines, who had helped cover the original trial. He told her he wanted her to know he was innocent. Gaines looked into the murder and made discoveries that raised questions.

In 2001, Gaines reported that Harry Bennett, called as a witness in the case, told her he had falsified testimony to avoid a life sentence.Bennett said the prosecutor, Jerry Goren, “painted a picture for me. All I had to do was say yes.”

Gaines would also learn a critical piece of information never turned over to the defense. Three weeks after Fuller’s murder, a woman named Ammie Davis told police she had been in the alley that day shooting heroin and saw a man she knew named James Blue. She said Blue savagely attacked a woman and stole money from her in the alley. The week before the Fuller trial began, Blue fatally shot Davis. He died in prison in 1993.

The defendants in the Fuller case challenged their conviction in D.C. Superior Court in 2012 and learned during discovery that another key piece of information was never turned over.

One of the men who ran when police first approached the scene was James McMillan, a 19-year-old who was new to the neighborhood. Three weeks after Fuller’s body was found, McMillan was arrested in two violent assaults and robberies of middle-aged women in the neighborhood. But even though he had been identified at the scene by three witnesses, prosecutors did not share that information with the defense in the Fuller case.

Eight years after Catherine Fuller’s murder, McMillan would be arrested for the murder and forcible sodomy of a woman in an alley in the same H Street neighborhood. He is serving a life sentence in federal prison in Virginia. He declined through prison officials to be interviewed and previously denied any responsibility for Fuller’s death.

During the 2012 proceedings, Goren, the prosecutor, admitted that evidence had been withheld from the defendants. He testified that he didn’t pass on information about McMillan because he did not believe it relevant enough. He also said he didn’t tell the defense about Davis because he didn’t find her story credible.

Reached briefly by phone at his California home earlier this year, Goren declined an interview.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Frederick H. Weisberg ultimately rejected the bid for a new trial, saying the “petitioners have not come close to demonstrating actual innocence.” In 2015, the D.C. Court of Appeals confirmed that ruling. The Supreme Court decision in 2017 ended any hopes the men had of having their convictions overturned.

For some who have followed the case, the Supreme Court ruling was the culmination of a process that has been flawed at every step of the way.

“It’s reaffirmed for me that there are some deep systemic problems in the legal system and that those need to be fundamentally changed,” said Thomas L. Dybdahl, whose book, “When Innocence is Not Enough: Hidden Evidence and the Failed Promise of the Brady Rule,” tracks the legal journey of the Fuller murder defendants in the context of examining Brady disclosure requirements.

Dybdahl argues that even though the Brady rule requires prosecutors to hand over favorable evidence to the defense, they have little incentive to do so because they face little threat of punishment for not adhering to it.

The defendants in the Fuller case “didn’t want mercy, they wanted justice,” Dybdahl said. “Unfortunately, they didn’t get either.”

In 1985, Michele Roberts was a D.C. public defender representing Alphonso Harris, one of the men charged in Fuller’s murder. Roberts, who retired last year as the executive director of the NBA Players Association, remembers the “intense pressure on the government” to get a conviction. Her client was one of the two defendants to be found not guilty.

While her client went free, Roberts said the evidence withheld from the defendants would have been critical to the outcome of the case.

“If I had what we later discovered … all of them would have walked,” she said. “The most powerful evidence that you can present as a defense attorney, if it’s credible, is to be able to say ‘Not only did my guy not do it, but let me tell you who did.’”

John Williams, a lawyer with the powerhouse Washington firm Williams & Connolly who represents Yarborough and argued the men’s case at the Supreme Court, said one option may be available to the defendants to provide them some measure of justice.

Williams said he and the other attorneys are actively considering petitioning for a presidential pardon. It is a complicated process that could take years, and there is no guarantee they will be successful.

“Those are always long shots,” he said. “But these men are incredibly deserving.”

“They were wrongly labeled as murderers. The system still regards them as murderers,” Williams said. “I understand why they’re continuing to fight, and that’s why we are continuing to fight for them.”

In late October, the six surviving defendants wore suits to the funeral of their gregarious and fun-loving fellow defendant Kelvin Smith, known to all of them by his nickname, ‘Hollywood.’ On a breezy, sunny afternoon at a cemetery in Hyattsville, they walked past rows of headstones and markers to the gravesite. One of Smith’s favorite songs, “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by the Verve, played through a speaker nearby.

Smith was Christopher Turner’s best friend. On the day of the funeral, Turner said he thought about how little freedom his friend had been able to enjoy and how he wouldn’t live to see his name cleared. “I felt bad because I wanted him to have that moment,” Turner said.

On days when he struggles to find the energy for this fight, Turner said, he thinks about Hollywood and about Steven Webb, who died in prison. And he thinks about his fellow defendants and their families and friends, whose lives were forever changed by a horrific crime in a small garage in an alley in Washington almost 40 years ago.

“I’m not even sure what keeps me going,” he said. “I just know there’s a fire burning inside me to right a wrong.”

#DC #Wrongfully Imprisoned #Fake Evidence #No Rape #They served decades in prison for a crime they say they didn’t commit #Black Lives Matter #Six men #wrongly convicted of a rape/murder in 1984 #with no recourse with no DNA evidence available

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concealeddarkness13 · 11 months

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WHG 20 Background

So, I’m working on a story with @drabbleitout where Nesri was a tribute three years ago in order to help Triel rescue tributes from the arena. But some things went wrong, with one tribute (Ryker) getting killed, and another (Ives) becoming the victor and being trapped by the Capitol. Here are snippets of what happened during that Hunger Games. From Nesri’s POV. Tagging: @ratracechronicler, @maple-writes, @pen-of-roses, @drabbleitout (thanks for Ives!), and @grailfish!

During Training

That Ives dude was in the sparring ring, working on a staff alone, so I sauntered over to the ring and grabbed my own staff. When he swung his, I caught it with my own, grinning at him. He just frowned back at me before moving away.

“Hey!” I called before he could walk away. “You wanna spar hand-to-hand? I mean, we’re in the same district. We might as well stick together.”

He still thought that this was gonna be a normal Games where all the tributes would die a terrible death, but Triel had a plan and wanted to get a lot of the tributes out. But of course, he had been a sad loner, not getting close to anyone, so I hadn’t had the chance to talk to him at all. But that was gonna change now. I knew that he was a Synthetic, and he acted like that made him so very different from everyone else, but I didn’t see why he thought that. He was a person.

He turned back to me, still frowning, and I grinned and tossed my staff aside. “C’mon. It’s a great de-stressor!”

He walked back and picked up my staff and put them both back neatly, and I wanted to snicker, but that would be too rude. He tilted his head at me. “Why do you care?”

I shrugged, rocking on the balls of my feet. “You’re a person. Why should I not care?”

He frowned, staring at me with that intense stare that honestly made my skin crawl, but I knew that he wasn’t doing it to make me uncomfortable. “Because I’m not a person. I’m an experiment.”

I shook my head and punched at his face, starting the spar. But of course, he just easily dodged. “You’re a person. I’ve already seen you learning and changing, and I can tell that you care. You’re more of a person than some humans are.” I snorted and kicked at his legs, but he still dodged. Damn it! That was my normal strategy!

He just frowned deeper and punched at my stomach, but I could tell he was holding back as I dodged. Ugh. “I’m a machine.”

“Doesn’t make you any less of a person.” I dodged another punch, watching him carefully to assess body language. “You don’t want to kill anyone, do you?”

He grimaced, the first real emotion I saw on his face. “I’m built to destroy high-grade military weapons. I don’t want to kill innocent children.”

I nodded and moved in close so I could talk quieter. I had to focus to dodge, but I could still speak! “My employer is actually planning on having an escape from the arena. I’m her person on the inside. You don’t have to kill anyone. You can help us save more tributes.”

His eyes widened, and he froze, and I took the opportunity to tackle him to the ground and pin him. He stared up at me. “Really? There’s a chance to escape?”

I nodded and grinned. “My employer is very good. I have all the faith in her.” I hesitated and snickered. “And damn, you’re attractive, Steelheart. We’ll both be flirting with you.” I winked at him as he stared at me with wide eyes.

He didn’t speak again. I seemed to have made him speechless. So, I just let him up and patted him on the back before leaving to go recruit some other tributes.

I knew this was a dream. It was back in the Shades’ headquarters, away from anyone else. I had had my magic for years now, and Churi had taken special interest in me by now. I squeezed my eyes shut against the sterile white room, where Churi would come in soon.

And sure enough, the door opened, and I opened my eyes to see him standing there with a grin twisting his face. I glared at him and rushed him, to see if I could change anything, but he just grabbed me by the wrists and kicked me in the stomach, sending me flying back into the wall.

He laughed. “I heard you tried to escape again today. You know what happens to rebellious children.”

I screamed at him and tried to run past him, but he just caught me and pinned me to the wall with my back to him. And…and there was the knife. I squeezed my eyes shut as I started to cry. “Please. Please don’t do this.”

He just laughed and slashed at my back over and over, and I screamed and sobbed and begged, but that just made him laugh more. “You’re mine, Nesri. I made you into the weapon you are now, and you can never escape my grasp. Never!”

I woke up screaming and crying. As usual. But Triel wasn’t around to comfort, so I just curled up and held my head as I started to hyperventilate. My scars seemed to throb as I remembered that day. The day Churi had truly branded me. The jagged scar on my chest formed the word monster, and I could never get rid of it.

The door to my room opened, and I looked up, flinching. Was Churi coming to get me now? But…it was just Ives. I quickly looked away from him, trying to stop, but I was still hyperventilating and crying. He…he couldn’t see me like this.

He walked in and sat down on the bed but far enough away that he wasn’t smothering me. I looked up at him, but I couldn’t do anything but hyperventilate. “Could you breathe with me?” he whispered. “Try to time your breaths with mine.” He breathed in slowly, and it took me a bit, but I followed his lead. He breathed in and out slowly until I could on my own without a guide. He looked down, away from me. “Did you have a nightmare?”

I nodded, unable to lie to him and try to make it seem like it was no big deal. “Yes, it was about my past.”

He watched me for a while. “Do you want to talk about it? I noticed the scars on your arms.”

I flinched a little and looked away from him. “You’ve asked why the Capitol is so evil. And you’ve probably already seen why because of the Games, but they also steal children and hand them over to the Shades, and the Shades torture the children and give them magic. The magic’s really cool, but the torture to get it is damaging. I��I was able to escape. But there are so many kids still getting hurt. And I know I’m broken, but I’m trying. I can’t…I can’t let anyone see this. But you saw, and I’m sorry.”

He frowned. “What are you apologizing for? It isn’t shameful to have a nightmare.” He paused and said quieter, “Or a hard past.”

I sniffled and furiously wiped at my eyes. “I’m supposed to be the one who isn’t scared of anything. Who will fight anyone. But honestly, I’m fucking terrified of going back to the way things were before Triel found me and saved me. But I can fight. I promise. I’m not a burden.”

He blinked and hesitantly moved closer, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. I let him, leaning against him, and damn, platonically, he was solid and steady and very comforting. I relaxed against him, and he held me tighter. “You are certainly not a burden. You’re strong and beat me in sparring today.” There was a ghost of a smile on his lips. “And you’re helping to escape the arena. I’ll protect you from them, don’t worry.”

I sniffled. “Thanks. But my job is to protect you.” I took a deep breath and sat up. “Thank you. The Capitol has fucked up so many people, but I’m gonna fight back, and they’ll be surprised.” I smiled crookedly and punched him lightly on the shoulder. “See you in the arena.”

He watched me carefully for a bit more before he stood up. “See you in the arena. Be safe.” He nodded at me and patted my shoulder before he left. I just stared after him. He hadn’t treated me any differently. I didn’t have to worry about showing weakness around him, at least.

The Games had finally finished, and Triel, Shine, and the rest of the tributes we had rescued were hiding in an apartment to be safe from the Capitol. But some of them hadn’t escaped.

I stared at the tv and snarled when Caesar showed up. I threw a piece of popcorn right between his white, perfect teeth. Triel laughed and caressed my cheek as I leaned back against her. Shine was asleep on her other side. They had worked hard today, so they needed rest. Probably had done some all-nighters for a few nights now.

Triel wrapped an arm around my shoulders as I stared at Ives. He had stayed behind to protect us. They had dressed him up like a doll. He looked fucking ridiculous. And the woman beside him. Duras. She talked for him, pretending like this victory was hers. The bastard.

Triel glanced over at me. “I know what I want to do, but you were there when he insisted. Do you want to rescue him?”

I stared long at the screen. I wanted to. With all my being. I knew how it was to be at the mercy of the Capitol’s whims. Even if I had just experienced Churi and the Shades. But… “He wanted us to leave him. He begged me to not come back for him. And Shine is exhausted. We don’t have the resources to rescue him right now. And Churi is looking for me. It’ll put everyone in danger if we rescue him.” I grimaced. “It makes sense to honor his wishes, at least for now.”

Triel nodded and kissed my cheek. My cheeks burned as she smirked. “Okay. But later?”

I nodded. “I won’t abandon him to that. We probably should make even better plans next time though.”

Triel grinned. “You know me. I’ll have the best plan as soon as possible. We won’t leave him. I promise.”

#writeblr hunger games #whg #writeblr #bring me that horizon

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maytheoddshq · 8 months

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Nettle Gooseberry (she/her). Tribute. District Eleven. Twenty-five. Auli'i Cravalho.

Nettle was an average eleven girl in an average eleven family. Child number three. Then three of four, and then three of five. They worked on a farm, picking blueberries. There wasn’t school, but there was her ma and pa and siblings. She had good memories there, making moonshine with her two big brothers and naming a little sister Strawberry. And still, With so many kids, there was always tesserae bread and still not enough on the table. There were always berries to pick, but they were paid by the bushel and when she was small she couldn’t contribute enough to pay for her meals. Her parents were kind about it, of course, but she knew.

Nettle was eleven when she became the third of six, and sixteen when she found out she’d be the third of seven. And it was watching her mother’s worried face that made her know it was time to figure something out. She could find a job somewhere else, move out, stop taking food off the table. She’d have to figure it out.

The only issue was, she didn’t really know a way off the farm. Or, honestly, how to get a job. So when the truck came and they all loaded it up, Nettle snuck in back, staying on it.

She’d told her Pa she had a job interview, and that wasn’t exactly true. Instead, when the truck stopped and the driver came around back to unload the berries, Nettle stepped out, asking for whoever did the hiring. plenty of promises and pleading later, Joseph Appleseed took her on, promising to teach her to drive a truck. She was placed as navigator for one of the truckers while she learned. A girl called Bramble Berrybush.

The truckers had a simple job. Go across eleven, collect the fruit grown on every farm, bring it to the train station, where it would wind up in the capitol. It was a good gig, and a critical one. even if her truck buddy was a driver’s seat hog who didn’t seem to enjoy her company. Nettle heard from Joe's brother, Johnny, that Bramble had threatened to quit over not wanting a navigator. It checked out, the girl barely spoke when she tried to joke. Instead, nettle learned to roll down the window and watch the scenery, listen to music, and shut up. Even though they were the same age, they weren’t friends. They were coworkers.

She got good with reading the map. Or, reading was the wrong word, she couldn’t read. But she marked it well enough while prepping for each trip that she could use it to get where they needed to go. She learned how to drive the truck, how to wash it, how to repair it. And eventually, Bramble softened up to her. Maybe it was inevitable, with them sharing both a truck and a room. Once Nettle was cleared to cover the driving when Bramble got tired, they got bigger assignments. On their first big run going all the way out to one of the farthest farms, things started to shift. When she could see Bramble's chest rising fast after the first checkpoint, Nettle made jokes about peacekeeper breath. Instead of turning up the music, the driver eventually smiled. It was a good smile, too. After that, there was permission to chat. When Nettle passed out that night in the passenger seat, she woke up with Bramble’s jacket for a blanket. By the time they got back to dispatch, They were screaming along to the music together and laughing at inside jokes.

Nettle still loves pickups from that farm.

Soon, Nettle learned of another agreement between Bramble and Joe: Bramble was his smuggler. Notes, information. When it was clear that Nettle wouldn’t snitch on her friend, she was let in on it too. Their truck had a hollowed out bed, one perfect for a bigger load. Now that both drivers knew, it turned from pocket-sized things to bigger horizons. Drugs, mostly. Luckily, Nettle had grown a rapport with the peacekeepers that their routes frequented, greased by the fact that she was making enough money to occasionally buy ingredients for moonshine. She liked making it, it reminded her of her older brothers. And if she was joking with peacekeepers and passing out moonshine up front, they rarely checked what was in back.

It was a good life. Nettle had Bramble, and what more was there? They drove all of eleven, they sat under the stars on the hood of the truck. Wind in their hair, freedom in their grasp. Bramble was hers. They were best friends, they were family. Hell, with the amount they kissed, they were probably dating. Nettle loved Bramble, Bramble loved her. it didn’t matter what they called it.

And then Vox took hold in eleven, and that was perhaps the best thing to happen to them. There were new exciting ideas on the horizon. The drugs in the truck turned, sometimes, to weapons, delivered between certain sympathetic farms. They picked rebel names. Joe picking Barnebus, and the girls decided to share Cherry. They never did anything without each other, there was no point picking separate ones. Nettle watched as rebels took parts of eleven, and soon their routes changed. Sympathetic farms near the new border got droppings of food, medicine, weapons, even a few eleven year olds months away from their first reaping and trying to escape. Admittedly, kids had to be the rarest. But it happened more than once.

It wasn’t just music in the truck, now. On the longer stretches between peacekeeper checkpoints, Nettle and Bramble listened to Delphi and Pascal discuss a new world, a better world. And in eleven, doing what they were doing, it felt possible. Close, even. She whispered to Bramble about it at night, about an end to the checkpoints and the reapings and the terror of Panem. About the two of them raising kids who would never be reaped. One day, everyone would have it as good as they did, fearless and free. They just had to fight for it.

And they weren’t fighting alone, either. After 133, in came Delphi and Pascal, Meta Morphic and more. Chauffeur for Victors hadn’t exactly been on her bingo card, but it became a regular occurrence. The outsiders helped, became insiders. Documenting, broadcasting, fighting alongside locals. Fields got burned and people rose together. The truckers shuttled people through the smoke. The new arrivals left to the capitol or their home districts, but they always came back. Delphi brought chocolate, once, and it was the best thing Nettle’d ever tasted. When the world was better, she would always have chocolate within reach. It would be better soon. The rebels were stronger, louder by the day, or so it felt. Nettle could feel it vibrating in her lungs. Freedom felt like smoke clearing.

Nettle and Bramble were twenty five. Both of them would be twenty six by 135. Maybe it was that closeness that doomed them. The way they flirted with the odds. The twelve year old they’d saved from this very reaping the week before. Or maybe it was just the fact that they were such friends of Free Eleven. The bowl had it out for them. Somehow, it knew. Bramble got called first. And shortly after, because they never did anything without each other and because life wasn’t cruel enough, an already-crying Nettle got called too.

They were tributes. Both of them. Together.

Token: her keys + outgoing, funny, passionate - unserious, preoccupied, distractible

PENNED BY: RAINY

#thg rpg #thg rp #hunger games rp #hunger games rpg #accepted #nettle

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creativewritingpracticekc · 11 months

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Initium Novum - Hayffie

💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛

MINORS DNI - WRITING PRACTICE - NOT EDITED - NO TIMELINE

Warnings: PTSD, Nightmares, Depression, Undisclosed Pill Abuse, Alcohol Abuse, Angst, Death, House Robbery, cursing,

💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛

Haymitch knew he should stop talking, but he couldn't help but release everything on her. The years of anger, torment, and guilt made the words spewing out of his mouth that much more pronounced and painful.

The screaming match had started the moment she had knocked on his door in the middle of the night. Her bag with her and a tremble in her limbs. It escalated fast as they had screamed their past failings at each other. Who knows who had started it.

"It's all your fault." he spit, "You killed all of those kids, you focused on your riches and manners while Districts starved and rioted."

He couldn't even see her face through the fog in his mind. He didn't notice she had stopped moving entirely, her wild eyes glossy at his cruel words.

"I should have let you rot in that cell... I wish they had killed you."

The silence was tense as he blinked, his eyes focused, and he realized he was now alone. The sound of the door falling shut should not have been as loud as it sounded to him.

He grabs the bottle of white liquor from it's forgotten place on the floor.

Serves her right.

---

Effie tries to control her breathing as she flees District 12. Her heart shattering the rest of its emotional remnants as she quickly hops on the departing train.

She had no one.

She had been stupid and naive to believe her years of servitude made a difference. Furthermore, she was stupid to believe anyone cared for her.

Right after the war, she had attempted to group up with Johanna and Annie in District 4. Upon her arrival, she had a similar conversation to the one she is currently fleeing.

All your fault...

She cups her hands around her ears to attempt to block out her thoughts. It was futile, but she was crumbling.

Her family had been round up and murdered while she had been tortured in that Capitol cell. Her property and assets seized by the new democracy.

All your fault...

Her hands shake as she puts her keys in the lock. The dingy door needing a rough shove in order to open properly.

She quickly goes to find the pills she had left behind and forces a few down her throat. As she puts down the bottle, she notices for the first time that her items have been moved.

Her eyes fill with tears as she looks around her already shitty apartment. The entire place had been ransacked and robbed.

She let out a squeak as she looked up and realized what had been painted on the ceiling.

CAPITOL WH*RE

She throws her pills in the bag she's holding and begins to collect anything and everything she can fit inside it. A lot of her items had been broken and destroyed beyond repair, but it did make choosing a lot easier.

She tosses the key on the floor and simply closes the door behind her. She wasn't going to return here. Her heart raced as the pills started taking effect.

Running fast, she manages to catch up with the train as it begins to slow. Her legs nearly giving out as she jumps on board and slumps into an empty cart. Her eyes were no longer able to stay open for her, so she pulls her hat further down her face and rests against the seat.

---

He feels the guilt lay on him a week later as the pounding in his head increases. He didn't mean anything he had said to her. Not only that, but he knows he has to make it right.

"Plutarch...yeah, listen, is Effie with you? Is she back in the Capitol?" he asks after the man answers. He winces at the tone of his own voice, since it was pretty late into the night.

"I was going to ask you the same thing." Plutarch admits after a sigh, "After the break in, I assumed she had retreated to Twelve, but I haven't heard from her."

"The break in? What break in?" he demands, that certainly catches his attention.

"Oh dear.... Well, word got out where she was staying and with her being the last remaining escort..." He sighs, "What I do know is that she was seen two days ago getting on a night train, so she was alive then."

His heart catches in his throat. This was bad.

"Keep an eye out for where she was heading, would you?" Haymitch says finally.

Plutarch agrees and they end the call with that. He rubs furiously at his face before settling into a deep scowl.

Tomorrow, he was going to have an employee write the schedule down.

He hopes she continues with her travels, or he will have to hunt through Districts to find her.

---

She is thankful no one is in the cart with her as she wakes. Her heart beating fast due to the nightmare she had just woken from. She rubs the sleep from her eyes and recognizes that the train is currently in District 6.

This can do for now...

It takes a few weeks, but she begins to adapt to the surrounding environment. After a few bottles of hair dye and a serious cut, she begins to look like a different person.

She even manages to find a job cleaning the night trains. She is certainly grateful for it as it helps fund her smoke and pills habit.

Most of the time, she is pretty messed up while she is working. No one ever speaks to her when she does see them. When she's at home, in her dimly lit house, she escapes in any shred of bliss she manages to get.

She feels herself start to numb her internal wounds with the repetition. She knows it won't last forever, but she decides to enjoy it for as long as she can.

One night, about six months later, she is struggling to keep her eyes open as she wipes down the seats with the dingy rag they provided her.

In her blissful and sleepy state, she doesn't see the man with his head bowed in the next cart. When she does, she simply mumbles a quick "excuse me" as she passes. She almost makes it to the door when she feels a hand wrap around her arm.

Her eyes snap open wide as she darts out of the man's grip. She jumps a good two feet away from him before she registers he is talking to her.

"I'm sorry." the man says, "I'm looking for my friend, have you seen her?"

A picture is thrust in her line of vision. Her body having been mostly faced away from him and her eyes darting from his legs to the door. Pins prick her skin in a rush of feeling when her eyes register the photo.

That's me...

Haymitch...

She could hear it now in his voice, and she could smell his cologne. She simply shakes her head once more and forces herself to calmly exit the cart. Thankfully, he doesn't follow her.

---

Haymitch frowns at the interaction with the gaunt train keeper. There was something about her that made him analyze the situation over and over again until he notices the ride has concluded, back to the station in Six.

He steps off the station and notices the woman does the same. He ducks behind a pillar and watches her glance around before leaving the station. Against his better judgement, this time he follows her.

She unknowingly leads them out of the tunnel and into the residential area. He continues to follow her, wary of her suspicious behavior. As she passes a streetlight, she looks to the side of her, and Haymitch halts.

Effie...

She quickens her pace as she feels the hairs standing up at the back of her neck. Her hand moving closer to her purse, clutched against her chest.

He quickens his pace as well, fully intending on catching up to her. When he reaches her, he grabs her shoulders and spins her to face him.

"Effie…" He pauses, feeling the cold barrel on his temple.

""CP1, but at this range..."she grunts out, the drugs not allowing her brain to register the man attempting to grab her.

"Effie..."he tries again, he grabs both of her arms with his hands and looks into her dilated eyes, "Effie...it's Haymitch."

"I know." she says after a long minute of blinking, slightly lowering the gun.

"I thought I would never see you again." He admits, his voice catching in his throat.

She puts the gun back in her purse, simply turning away from him, and continues to walk home. Haymitch followed by her side, her quiet nature signalling alarm bells in his mind.

"Could we talk?" He asks as she unlocks the door to her house.

"Whatever." she stated, her voice sounding far away. She absent-mindedly fixes them both a drink. The white liquor sloshing in the small cups as she thrusts one out to him.

"Look, I'm sorry sweetheart," he says gently, taking the glass from her, "That stuff I said... I didn't mean any of it."

"I know," she says simply, draping herself along the drab couch, her eyes fluttering shut.

He pauses for a second, his brows furrowing as he notices she is deeply asleep. He grumbles as he collects all the pill bottles and liquor in the small house.

They were going sober, he decided.

He can't look at her as he goes through her belongings. He knows she will be angry with him when she wakes, but he can't let her kill herself any longer.

He thinks about how she looked when he first saw her. The sharp black bob, a stark contrast to the paleness of her flesh. The lifeless look in her dilated blue eyes that accentuated the deep bags beneath them.

All my fault...

---

She groans as she forces herself to wake from the horrid nightmares she was facing. The light in the house being too bright for her hungover head.

She almost hurls as she smells something cooking in the kitchen. Her heart skips as she registers that someone is currently in her kitchen.

Her steps make small pats in the floor, she creeps into the kitchen and lets out a breath when she recognizes the mess of dark curls.

"Haymitch." she breathes, "What are you doing here?"

The man in question whips around and frowns. His gaze studying her own.

"I met up with you last night," he says after a beat, "I apologized to you."

"Okay...what are you doing here now?"

"Cooking you breakfast." he grins at her, she hates that it makes her stomach fill up with butterflies.

"Haymitch, I don't want to eat." she admits, her head pounding.

"You will," he says simply, handing her a glass of water.

"Why do you even care?" she can't stop herself from asking.

"Effie..." he begins, "You know how I feel about you."

She rolls her eyes and makes to move away from him. His hands stopping her from going too far as they cup her shoulders.

"Effie, I love you," he tries again, firmer this time, "I love you, and I am so sorry for what I said to you. I... I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

Her motions still as her eyes search his own. She couldn't detect any malice or hesitation.

"Haymitch... I-"

"Don't say anything just yet sweetheart," he forces a grin, "This will take some time but just nod if you want me to stay. If not, I'll be out of your hair come the next bus."

She thinks about it for a minute, as much as her pounding head will allow her. Finally, letting love decide, she hesitantly nods her head.

That's all Haymitch needed to smile brightly at her and continue cooking their food.

I love you...

Fin

#hunger games #effie trinket #effie #haymitch abernathy #haymitch x effie #hayffie

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dinofelissnow1985 · 1 year

Text

Of Birds and Butterflies

by DinofelisSnow1985

Summary

Red is in a bad Place. He's gone through hell and now it's seemingly going to end. Alone in a dark alley.

But someone finds him.

Notes:

For captain_shitpost.

Inspired by Bright Eyes by captain_shitpost.

Chapter 1

This was the end.

He couldn't go on anymore.

It had been too long.

Too long without any food.

He had no sense of time anymore. How long was he lying here? In this narrow dark alley, filled with garbage? Well, at least he was where he belonged, he thought.

Why had it had to come to this kind of end?

He had managed - unintentionally - to hop into this alternate Universe and escape his asshole of a brother.

He had tried so hard, saved as much Magic as possible for his little Butterfly.

But it wasn't enough.

He had gone hungry for too long.

And his little Butterfly had paid for it.

It seemed like he was about to follow them pretty soon. He had been unable to move and look for something to eat from grief. And now he simply was too weak.

He still had his Ecto formed, the remains of his little Butterfly still inside his womb.

He figured it wouldn't matter anymore, he was going to dust anyways, could also go with his little Butterfly close by.

It didn't matter to him either if he was going to Fall Down from grief or dust from hunger.

Death was Death.

He felt the last bit of his magic fizzle out.

He put his hands around his belly, thought of his little Butterfly and shut his Eye Sockets.

He couldn't help the tears and the sob that escaped him before his mind drifted into darkness.

---

He remembered.

Not everything, there were blank spots in his memory, like something or someone had been purposely erased. Except a few fragments like words, spoken in a strange font, or impressions of a lab, tests and DT injections. Surprisingly were those memories more tinged with nostalgia and some kind of longing, like they were linked to some person he liked or cared for.

Where those blanks ended his and his brother's life on the streets began.

First they had tried their luck in the capitol, but the place had been and was still overrun with Monsters eyeing them for their EXP and Royal Guars who often snatched orphans from the streets to force them into the Royal Guard or slavery. Papyrus, as the little shit he was at that time, had liked the buzzing town and had been mad at him when he dragged them through Hotlands and further, until they reached Waterfall.

There they had survived by stealing and digging through the Garbage at the Dump and hiding in one of the many out-of-the-way caverns and changing their location regularly.

One day Undyne came to their rescue when they got attacked by a Gang. They both got long scars on their skulls and he lost a tooth.

Undyne had made an impact on Papyrus, after this first encounter he did everything with the goal of becoming a Royal Guard himself in mind. At some point Undyne became kinda impressed by Papyrus' dedication and started to train and educate him.

That way Papyrus was out of harms way and he himself could focus on finding a (or several) job(s) and save up some G until he could buy a house. Until then they lived with Undyne now.

Unfortunately Papyrus developed quite an attitude under Undyne's influence and started nagging him for being lazy or some other shit. The fucking beanstalk had no fucking idea of all the odd jobs he worked on while Papyrus was training and playing Guard.

Papyrus had been save with Undyne, no monster in their right mind would dare to even think about attacking the Captain. He on the other Hand had to fear for his own life on a daily basis while juggling his different jobs.

Eventually he could buy a house in Snowdin and Papyrus started sentry duty there.

A few years later Papyrus was promoted to be a real Guard, and promptly assigned him as a new sentry.

Somewhere along his way up the ranks he decided that Papyrus was not impressive enough a name for someone as great and terrible as him and took on the name Edge.

Edge also decided that his older brother didn't deserve being treated like a civilized monster and demoted him to be his dog. Or more like Edge treated him like one, changed his name to Red, put a collar with a tag on him, forbid him to sit on the furniture and gave him his food in a dented steel bowl on the Floor. At least he left him his room, except the times he felt Red deserved to be punished.

Then Edge would lock him up in the shed. After he learned that Red could teleport amd escape that way he chained him up to prevent this.

Edge beat Red up on a daily basis, as punishment, to vent some stress, when his LV acted up or just because.

The beatings were often followed by several rounds of painful fucking and over time he realized that his former love for his Baby brother had turned into fear and hatred.

By the time Edge became second in Command under Undyne, he had become a ruthless brute who hadn't said a single not-hateful word to Red in years.

After Red had fallen asleep a few times at Grillby's and had been home late Edge forbid him to go there at all.

Red went there anyways, to at least tell Grillby why he couldn't come anymore.

This lead to Grillby demanding that Red paid his tab, which lead to Red admitting he hadn't enough G with him and Grillby offering him an...alternate way to pay his debt. So, Red ended in Grillby's bed, sucking him off and getting screwed into the matress, until the fire elemental deemed his debt fully paid.

And the next day Red wondered why he couldn't unsummon his Ecto until he got home, went to the bathroom to take a quick shower before Edge would be up, and shedded his clothes in front of the mirror.

There his reflection had the Ecto formed and right under his stomach, inside a womb he didn't remember forming last night, floated a little upside down heart. A Souling.

Red was pregnant.

From Grillby.

...

Edge was sooooo going to kill him.

He had showered quickly and redressed.

Just when he had a hand on the knob of his door, Edge slammed his own door open and stepped out into the hallway. He had paused when he saw Red up and about and had asked what was up. Red had shrugged nervously and said he'd had a nightmare and hadn't been able to go back to sleep because of that.

Edge knew Red had nightmares and didn't question it.

In the following two months Red had been permanent stressed out because he had kept his pregnancy to himself and tried to protect his kid.

He had started to dream about butterflies, that's how he came up with the nickname for his Souling.

Sometime around the third month Edge noticed the little Butterfly when he attempted to fuck, or better rape, his brother again.

Edge had been furious.

He managed to land a hit on Red's skull with a femur attack that he used as a club.

Red gained a new crack, but could dodge the next strike and teleported away in a panic.

When he landed he found himself in the same house, but...it was empty. After that registered Red passed out.

When he came to he looked around and noticed...differences to what he was used to. There were no bloodstains on the walls, the whole place had a different color palette and everything was dusty, like nobody had lived in this house in years.

When he got up he searched the Kitchen for food and found three containers with Spaghetti in the Fridge and ate one. Since it was monster food it was magically charged and wouldn't spoil. He put the other two and the empty container into his Inventory before he carefully left the house. He found entire Snowdin completely deserted.

The same with Waterfall.

And Hotlands.

And New Home.

He scavenged the whole Underground for food that might have been left behind. When he passed the Judgement Hall and entered the Throne Room he found the King's flowers dried and wilted.

And then.

He checked the Barrier.

Only to find it gone.

Red couldn't believe it.

Monsterkind had reached the Surface here?!

This was too good to be true.

He had decided to rest up before going to the Surface. He was exhausted from his traveling through this Underground.

The view when he stepped out of the tunnel had been breathtaking. The sky seemed endless, bright blue and dotted with some fluffy clouds. Red had cried from the emotional overload of being pregnant and seeing the truly real Surface.

Beneath that sky he saw a stretch of woods, meadows, fields, some other mountains and several roads winding through the landscape. Near the foot of the Mt. Ebott he saw a Town and on the horizon he could make out the glittering and sparkling of open water under the sun. That had to be the ocean, the thought.

The Town was more interesting to him. Since he was a complete stranger here he needed somewhere to find a place for himself, scout out what was going on between humans and monsters and maybe find a job or...some other way to get by.

In the end his distrust of strangers in general and his rough and intimidating appearance, plus the fact that he was pregnant, brought him several rejections from the humans he asked for work.

He didn't trust the monsters because of his experiences back in his own Underground and feared they would try to hurt or scam him.

So, he scouted out different places to stay hidden, abandoned buildings, back alleys, etc. The first days he lived of what he could scavenge in the empty Underground, when this was gone he started to steal food and went dumpster diving.

But it was never enough and he became weaker and weaker over the course of two months.

Until he saw other people digging through the dumpsters he used to live of and with his magic shot because of the Souling he didn't dare to go near the place and went hungry for too long.

He felt his little Butterfly getting weaker and couldn't do anything about it.

Then he felt the small Soul shatter and with it his whole world broke down.

#undertale #underfell #underswap #sans au #pregnancy #child loss #hurt/comfort

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lythea-creation · 2 years

Text

Broken Toys - Johanna Mason x fem reader (Chapter 1)

Disclaimer: None of the story or characters of The Hunger Games belong to me.

Summary: After your parents died out of starvation, you were taken in by Rue's family living as her older sister. Out of luck you somehow managed to survive the 72nd Hunger Games, but who knew that the true torture was just about to start? As two mentors Johanna and you somehow seemed to come along right away and you managed to win her and Finnick over as friends. But just as your life appeared to work out, Snow had other plans with his favorite pawns. The question was not if he was able to break you, but after which rules you decided to play this cruel game called life.

Warnings: It's The Hunger Games. I think you know what you're getting yourself into. So I will save us the warnings for this story.

Word count: 2.708

Author's note: Feel free to check out my Masterlists and make requests. No reposting please! Reblogging, comments and requests are always appreciated <3 If you like the story/my writing, please don't be shy to say it via comments or asks! It takes you a few seconds and might make my day. It's the best appreciation you can show to a writer you like.

It takes about 2 chapters until Johanna appears in the story. But it should be worth the wait as the story has 29 chapters. Hope you like it!

----------

„Don't worry about it. I never wasted a thought about winning anyway”, I enlightened my mentor Seeder.

She looked at me sympathetically. “Don't say that. You never know what happens inside the arena. No one expected me to survive either”, she encouraged me.

“I don't have any useful skills.”

“Every district has their own advantages. District 11 isn't an exception. Maybe we are not great fighters or physically strong, but we are endurable. And you know a lot about different plants. You should improve your survival skills during training instead of your fighting skills. Use your talents”, she advised me before leaving me for the night.

The next days were nerve-racking. Although every day back home had been.

Stealing food under the eyes of the peacekeepers had not been relaxed and easy at all. And not always without consequences.

Therefore I was used to staying calm when it mattered.

At skill demonstration I only got a 6, but it did not matter anyway. I would not get any sponsors. I was sure about that. District 11 tributes were not exactly popular as we have been malnourished for our whole life. Considering that I was pretty tall, but still too skinny after the Capitol's feasts.

“I believe in you, (f/n)! You can make it out of there!”, Seeder emboldened me as I was standing in front of the hovercraft which would lead me to hell.

“Thank you, Seeder.” I forced myself to give her a small smile. “Maybe I will be lucky”, I considered holding the pendant of my necklace tightly.

Rue had given me the necklace as a present two years ago. It was showing a tree, resembling our district and our time together. She had said to me that we would be connected through the roots. As long as I wore it, she would send me new strength and luck. I clung onto that thought now.

Soon I was standing on the platform that would move me up to the arena.

Anxiety filled me. The environment of the arena would decide over my future, or rather if I would have a future at all.

Heat surrounded me as soon as I got to the surface. At first it was like moving through a portal into another world after being in the air-conditioned rooms of the Capitol. But after a few seconds I got used to it. It felt like summer at home.

Unfamiliar trees were gathered over the whole area around us.

My gaze wandered over the tributes surrounded the cornucopia. I knew that I would not stand a chance against them in a fight.

So as soon as the countdown was over I ran toward the forest. I did not dare to turn around.

Behind me the annual bloodbath had started. The cannon sounds erupted one after another.

When I was out of breath, I climbed onto a tree to rest.

How many had died already? I had not been able to count all of the cannon sounds as the adrenaline had taken over. Never mind! There were more important things right now.

What did I need to survive? Water. Water was definitely first priority.

I jumped from tree to tree until I had found one that was tall enough. At the top I could see the whole arena. No water in sight.

I climbed down again and inspected the ground. It was completely dry.

But there had to be water. Otherwise we would die too fast. That would not be entertaining enough.

Quickly I climbed back onto the tree to hide. The faint screams had stopped by now, along with the cannon sounds, meaning the bloodbath was over. Silence had settled over the forest.

Just now I noticed that the silence was unnatural. Back home there were always some kinds of sound. What about the insects, birds and other animals? Now that I thought about it, I had not perceived one animal. Neither had I seen any familiar plants. Was the only available food at the cornucopia? If that was the case it would settle my death.

I jumped from branch to branch, hoping to find water or possible food, fruitlessly. When the darkness clouded my sight I decided to call it a day and climbed as high as possible. No one would be able to spot me here, not even during daylight.

I was so used to sleeping on trees that I did not worry about falling.

The hymn started and with it the pictures of the deceased tributes. One of district 3, both of 5, one of 6 to 10 and both of 12. Ten deaths on the first day. Thirteen opponents still out there, willing to kill me.

I was not sure if Jack would kill me without hesitation. He was fifteen, two years younger than me. We had never interacted at home, but he was still out of district 11. I wanted to believe that he would not frivolously kill me. The other people of district 11 would not approve that either.

On the next day I had no success either. No water. No food. But also no encounter with another tribute.

I had seen the two careers of district one, but they had not noticed me up in the tree.

At the end of the day three people had died. Left were all careers, the boy of district 7, the girl of district 9, Jack, me and who else again? Not like it would make a difference. I could not kill anyone anyway. And if I did not find any water soon I would die of dehydration. Honestly I had already achieved more than I had expected.

I woke up when I heard a scream. It was a familiar voice, followed by a cannon sound. Jack.

I saluted to send him off to a better place. At least he would not suffer anymore, unlike me.

The sun was rising again. Panic filled me for a moment as I realized how close Jack's voice had sounded.

I concentrated on my surrounding and made out several voices. Luckily they slowly faded away.

When I felt safe enough, I moved on to search for water. I felt dizzy, but ignored it.

After a while I sank to my knees, frustration filling me.

Intuitively my hand moved to my necklace. Rue. I had to return to her. She was watching me right now. Probably her whole family was watching me, my family.

“Don't move”, I heard Rue whisper.

I complied and saw a tribute wander around, only a few feet away from me. “He will guide you the way to the water”, she encouraged me.

Silently, I followed him, still on my trees. And he indeed led me to the life saving liquid.

I waited until he had left before drinking eagerly.

Confusion hit me. Had I just talked to Rue? The dehydration really had had me in a strong grip to make me imagine things like that.

Skillfully I got back onto the nearest tree and searched for a good one as a base.

It took me a while, but I found a great one. I could overlook the whole area near the water from here. So I could safely make it to the water when no one was around. Though I was still worried about getting food.

Days passed with only two more casualties. The boy of 4 and the girl of 9.

When I woke up one morning, the earth began to shake underneath me. An earthquake?!

The water vanished into the ground and the trees fell one after another.

I quickly jumped onto falling trees, hoping that I would not get crashed underneath one of them.

The falling trees were forcing me into a specific direction until I arrived at the open area surrounding the cornucopia.

An arrow hit my leg making me crumble. I had been driven directly into the arms of the careers.

The girl of 1 approached me with her sword, ready to finish me off, but the boy of 2 stopped her by calling out for her. The other careers surrounded me.

“That's the girl of district 11”, the boy of 2 recognized me.

“Yeah. And?”, the girl of 4 replied.

“She might be of use”, the girl of 1 suddenly realized. “With the seeds”, she added.

Seeds? What were they talking about?

The boy of 1 pulled me onto my feet getting a hiss of pain from me. “You must have noticed yourself that there isn't any food inside the arena, haven't you?”, he questioned.

I stayed silent.

The girl from 2 sighed. “We didn't get any food either. Just damn seeds! But whatever we try, they aren't growing. Eating them raw isn't an option either. We tried that”, she informed me.

“So ... bothering to help us out? At least as long as you supply us with food, we won't kill you”, the boy of 2 tried persuading me.

“How many water springs do you know? The one I've used got destructed. Without water, no plants”, I clarified.

“Sure. We will get you some water”, the girl of 1 assured and walked off with the boy of her district.

The heat here out in the open was exhausting. The careers were obviously struggling, sweat running down their bodies. And you could clearly see that they were not used to starving for several days either, unlike me.

“Can I see the seeds, please? So I know how to treat them”, I requested.

The boy of 2 nodded toward the girl.

She handed me a small bag.

Their education on the different districts obviously had not been the best. I had no knowledge about such seeds. We had vegetable fields in district 11, but those looked like grain, district 9's specialty.

“I need some special leaves to make them grow in this area. They are not too far away from here. I can show you”, I offered.

The girl from 2 held her knife onto my cheek, cutting it in the process. “Don't try anything”, she threatened me.

“You guard the cornucopia”, the boy from district 2 instructed the two girls.

Then he moved his hand, intending me to show him the way to the leaves.

That they had believed my lie showed once again their lack of knowledge.

The boy took the bag from me.

I stopped at a random tree.

The boy eyed me suspicious. “Why do you know that you need exactly these leaves?”

“Because I know the seeds”, I explained.

I started climbing up the tree. That was my chance to escape. I could easily climb up to a spot where the branches would break under his weight.

He was waiting on the ground for me. Possibly he was not even able to climb up a tree properly.

I could just disappear. But that would not change anything. Sooner or later I would die. The possibility was high that the careers would figure out how to treat the seeds. Then they would wait until I had starved to death, along with the other two other tributes left. Another bloodbath between the careers and the games would be over.

But I did not want to die. I had made it so far. Now I wanted to return to my family.

My original family had died years ago out of starvation, but I had gotten a second chance with Rue and her family. They had supported me when everyone else had ignored me. No one wanted to look out for an orphan as everyone could barely effort their own family's survival.

I had survived by stealing and taken the consequences by the peacekeepers for that. When I had met Rue while picking apples, we had immediately come along. Since that day her family and I had helped each other out and grown close. Now they were not just Rue's family anymore. They were mine too. I did not want them to have to grieve over me.

If I won the games, they would not have to worry about hunger anymore. I could improve their lives significantly.

My decision was made.

Secretly I pulled the arrow out of my leg and jumped off of the tree, right onto the boy of district 2.

He did not have any chance to dodge the arrow that hit his head. A cannon sound erupted.

My hands were shaking badly as my hands were soaked in his blood. I had killed someone. He must have been more or less my age and I had killed him, without even knowing his name.

I took a deep breath. I could not afford standing around.

Quickly I grabbed the bag with the seeds and climbed back onto the tree, trying to ignore the blood streaming out of my leg.

When I was up as high as possible, I rested on a branch.

I had to take care of my bleeding before moving on. Otherwise I would definitely die.

I slipped out of my thin jacket that was supposed to protect me from the burning sunlight and used it to bandage my leg. Fortunately the wound was not too big, though it was pretty deep.

I heard a voice under the tree, but the sound was muffled.

Dizziness threatened to overpower me, but I did not dare to give up.

I recognized the voice as the one of the district 2 girl.

To my relief instead of searching for me, she returned to the cornucopia.

A few minutes later I heard two cannon sounds. Four other tributes than me left. I had turned this into an endurance game. I would have to find water though.

Reluctantly I forced myself to get up.

A few feet away I could see familiar herbs. Disinfectant herbs.

I dragged myself over there and used them on my leg. As long as I had not lost too much blood and was able to find water I would be fine for the next days.

The nightly hymn presaged the fallen tributes of the day: the girl of district 1 and both tributes of district 2.

I managed to find a new water source by following the girl of district 4.

Luckily my bleeding had stopped and thanks to the herbs I had not gotten an infection.

The days passed by and I felt myself getting weaker.

Battle cries resounded followed by two cannon sounds. Probably the two careers had fought against each other in their malnourished state.

From time to time I saw Rue again. Maybe my mind imagined her to be here to keep me sane.

Another cannon sound.

At night I found out that indeed the two careers and the boy of district 7 had died.

Seriously? I was up against the unknown person now? Though I did not plan to face them anyway.

But my plans did not matter as the rulers of this shitty game seemed to get bored and decided to send a freezing cold wave over the entire forest, enveloping it in ice. The only warm spot was the open area of the cornucopia. They wanted a showdown. And I had to comply as I would not survive such cold.

I got off of my tree, nearly slipping on the frozen ground.

When I arrived at the cornucopia, I was alone.

I searched the area to find at least a weapon, although I knew it was fruitless. I did not even have any fighting skills in the first place.

Relief filled me when I spotted the sword.

As I grabbed it I heard someone move behind me and quickly turned around. It was the boy from district 10. He had tried hitting me with a thick branch but out of reflex I had parried his attack with my sword, killing him in the process.

His blood tainted my body and the urge to throw up overcame me. Though I had not eaten anything in over a week. So there should not be anything left inside of me to do so.

“Ladies and gentlemen! The victor of the 72nd Hunger Games is (f/n) (l/n) of district 11!”

Next Chapter

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novaharpersworld · 1 month

Text

It was dark and the sun had fully set behind the high storied buildings of Aldersvale when Cresh Eson, Premier of all Soljoro, slipped past his guard, using a little confounding spell and taking the servant's stairs down to the old part of the Premier's residence that used to be the palace of the Tols, and pulled the hood of his cloak down further to conceal his eyes. He'd used a mirage casting to disguise his features so he could pass undetected among the people, appearing to any servant that happened upon him in those antiquated halls as just one more rich Publican off to a clandestine rendezvous with a lover--not exactly unknown and about which they had been trained to studiously see nothing.

He encountered no one, thankfully, the narrow halls so silent and still that every sound became magnified, a footstep or cough echoing, so Eson thought, like a majlock gun discharged at close range. He left the residence and stepped into the early spring air, cool with a gentle breeze. He was still in the Premier compound, an estate of respectable proportion surrounded by a high wall.

Moonrise was underway, the last light of the sun having vanished a little while before, the silver orb in the dark sky ascending over the Aldersvale skyline, ringed with haze from the ether discharge of the city's many steam clockworks, which never failed to make the air just a bit more humid than it should otherwise be. The Residence was at the top of Aldersvale, the capitol of Soljoro perched atop the Numarian plateau--a thousand feet high and nearly a thousand leagues across, it split the continent down the middle from the Northfelds to the Nebelheim steppes far to the south.

Right now, though, Eson was not interested in the spectacular views afforded him by his Residence, and he would have to climb to the compound wall's rampart to take in the view in any case.

He headed for the main gate and passed the guards, who cast him nary a glance. They only stopped traffic into the Residence and not out of it.

The streets were empty. He took in the cul-de-sac, on which several other buildings had been built. The Assembly building was only a ninety-two second jog away (so his aides told him) to the right, and next to it the Continental Parliment, where delegates from each of the nations of Numaria met to settle disputes and conflicts between Soljoro, Insturi, Noth, Vash, Zhaing-Shen, Gaelris, and the indigenous peoples of the Northfelds. And next to it, the imposing edifice of the High Bank of Rel with its tower spire and inset, opaque windows.

Eson kept walking down the cul-de-sac, his boots clopping off the cobbles. A thin steam haze had settled over the city now everyone was home with their hearths going, fuzzing out the street gaslamps dotting the sidewalks. He took a left and headed down a side lane. It was't exactly far to his destination, a little beerhall just outside the cul-de-sac called the Reveler's Hollow.

At the end of the lane, the insulated heart of power in Adersvale came to an abrupt end and the real world butted up against it. Eson paused as a horseless tram rattled past, and several pedestrians moved along the sidewalks, about business of their own. He ignored them and crossed the street, heading for the modest, squat building that housed the Hollow. Two dogs were barking back and forth across the city at each other distantly.

The bell jingled overhead as he entered, and immediately he cringed inside before remembering the mirage cast that disguised him. No one could tell the Premier of Soljoro had just walked in, and not more than a couple heads had turned in his direction anyway. The first step was to get himself something to drink.

Crossing to the bar, he was immediately hit with the sour smell of beer and the thick scent of cigarillo smoke. Two dozen customers sat at tables, or had withdrawn into corners where there were armchairs and copies of the Aldersvale News Journal for more intimate, detailed, political discussions. The yellow gaslight cast by the lamps sconced on the walls gave the place a warm, rich feeling, compounded by the velvet red curtains draped over the windows.

"I'll have a Vashian ice-wine," he told the barkeep, a woman of about forty. It was Eltha, Eson recognized her at once, but he was still keeping his cover.

"Right you are, sir," she said, turning to the ice box behind her and rummaging around for a bottle, grabbing one and a stein, and dropping them on the bar between them. "One ice-wine. That's twelve bronze marks."

"Open a tab, if you would."

"Sure." She shrugged and pulled a chalkboard with the names of the patrons with open tabs scrawled on it, and glanced at Eson with a crooked eyebrow. "Should I put down Cresh Eson, or something else this time?"

Eson started. "How did--"

"I'm your fourth cousin, I know your walk."

"Well keep it quiet, I'm here on business."

"Sounds serious," she said. "Name?"

"Bartanion Lestoria," he said and she snorted, scratching it down with a nub of chalk.

"Fucking terrible name."

"I'm only using it the once, it didn't have to be great." He leaned in over his ice-wine and lowered his voice. "Is he here?"

"Who's that?"

"Epiphani Ofaris."

It was her turn to look stunned. "The head of the--??"

Eson motioned for her to lower her voice.

"The head of the Artificer Collective, here? In my pub?"

"I wouldn't be asking otherwise."

"Haven't seen anyone who looked like a spell weaver so far tonight, but I don't even know what they'd look like. I've never even seen one."

Eson swiveled in his bar stool and skimmed across the crowd. Mostly young men, aides or interns at the Residence or the Assembly, relaxing or debating policy mostly. A few sons of the Seven Houses gambling and playong cards together riotously in the back. You never got lower class sorts in the Hollow, it was too close to the heart of power for that, and much too frequented by the elites to tolerate it.

Nothing. He didn't see Ofaris anywhere. Perhaps he hadn't arrived yet. He turned back to his ice-wine and found Eltha now at the far end of the bar getting refills for a highly intoxicated group of men. Alone, he popped the top of his ice-wine and poured it into his stein. Vashian ice-wine was a particularly rare speciality. Brewed by the Vash in the snow-steppes of Nebelheim, the ice-wine had to be brewed, bottled, and shipped at near freezing temperatures. A sustained temperature rise of even two degrees over ten minutes would spoil the batch and it would be ruined. Thus, it was expensive to ship and more expensive to buy. And all the more worth it.

The ice-wine frothed into the stein and the surface iced over. The metal of the stein frosted in moments. Eson listened to the icing crackle, one of his favorite parts of the process. Grabbing a spoon, he cracked the ice on the surface and sipped. It chilled him to the bone instantly, but the moment it reached his stomach, it warmed him to his core.

"Premier, I believe we have an appointment," said a voice next to him.

Eson started and turned to find a tall, thin man in a nice suit and cloak standing next to him. He carried a sleek walking stick and wore a top hat on his head, a well-trimmed salt and pepper beard covering his cheeks and chin.

Eson didn't recognize him.

"I'm sorry, I think you have me mistaken for someone else."

The man smiled, removed his top hat, and sat in the stool next to Eson, leaning his cane against the bar between them. Eson glanced at it and saw on the grip a sigil of an Amaranth tree whose roots went to the heart of the earth and whose canopy reached into the sky. The sigil of the Artificer Collective.

"Ofaris?" Eson asked. "How did you know it was me?" He's have to invest in a better mirage cast next time.

"You're not the only one who can use disguises, Premier," Ofaris said. "Was it a mirage cast? They work on most people, but not spell-weavers."

"Noted." Eson sipped his ice-wine.

"You arranged for this meeting through our usual back channels three months before our annual consultation," Ofaris said. "I can only assume this is a matter of personal importance."

"Yes, I had a question."

"Questions are good, but answers are better."

"Hopefully you'll answer, then. I know full well how reticent your lot are with answers."

"An accurate answer delayed is better than an inaccurate answer immediately given."

"Yes, that's the kind of shite I mean," Eson said. "Look, I just needed to ask--about the future."

Ofaris' entire demeanor changed. Once relaxed and easy going, now tense.

"We are strictly forbidden from revealing any knowledge we may have--in theory--of the future. You know this."

"Yes, yes, but your people have always pointed the right way for Soljoro in times of crisis before."

"Are we in a crisis now?"

"I don't know, you tell me."

"Clever, but it's not for me to say."

"Look, I don't want to know about the far future, I just want to know--my term as Premier is up in six months. I've got an election to run and I just wanted some advice."

Ofaris sighed. "What do you want to know?"

"Whether I'll win!" Eson laughed.

"Ahh," said Ofaris. "I should have guessed."

"Just tell me if I'll lose so I can choose not to seek a fourth term. Save myself some embarrassment that way. I'm not as young as I used to be, I've got a term or maybe two left in me, I have a few younger contenders eying the Premiership, and if I can just bow out gracefully, it would save me some personal stress."

"I'm not permitted to speak of such things," Ofaris said, shaking his head. "Only in the gravest of circumstances are we even allowed to consult the Weave, not for the personal egoism of career publicans desperate to save face."

"All right, I'm sorry" Eson said. He looked away and sipped his ice wine, watching the aggressive young men on the bar's far side whoop and jostle each other with the roll of the dice, cigarillo smoke curling around their heads.

Ofaris jerked next to him and as he glanced back at the Artificer, he saw the man's eyes gleam suddenly blue and shimmer in their sockets--and then it was gone.

"I've been Linked by the Collective," Ofaris said, as if nothing happened. "They seem to believe I should answer your question, but not here."

Eson sat up. "Lead on."

He picked up his stein to go, but Ofaris put a hand on his arm and sat him back down on his stool.

"You may want to brace yourself," he warned, his hand still on Eson's forearm.

"Brace for wha--"

The world dropped away with a gut-wrenching feeling of freefall. For a split second Eson lost all sense of direction, and then he blinked and found himself on all fours, gasping for breath, his face inches away from varnished mahogany floorboards.

He sat up on his heels with a groan and looked around. Ofaris was standing by an ornate desk across the room, behind which were floor to ceiling bookshelves crammed with texts and books and scrolls. The spell weaver no longer wore a fine suit but full length gray robes, and where he had had a walking stick he now held a staff.

Eson glanced to the side and realized he was in a research study of some kind. Contraptions and clockwork designs of all sorts were scattered about, and behind the desk was a huge gear tri-clock, three faces overlapping, measuring something that wasn't time as Eson understood it. The hands weren't pointing at the right numbers to be early evening.

"I apologize for the haste by which we arrived," Ofaris said. "Are you all right?"

"You could have waited just a moment for me to actually brace myself next time," Eson muttered, getting to his feet with a groan. "You didn't happen to transport my ice wine with us, did you?"

"Transported? We haven't transported anywhere. We're still at Reveler's Hollow."

"You're shitting me," Eson said. He pointed at the high narrow window behind Ofaris. "We're clearly not in the same place, just look outside."

He went to the window, but as he approached his pointing finger faltered. Outside was only a dimensionless pale void. There was no up or down, near or far, just an expanse of brightness.

"What the hell is this?" He turned to Ofaris. "I have half a mind to report you for kidnapping. Where the hell are we?"

"Technically we're in my mind," Ofaris said. "More technically we're in what might be called a circuitous quantum semi-dimension within the meta-mind of the Collective. Sort of a pocket where I store everything personal to my mind. Memories, experiences, personal histories, all the information I've read, every idea I've ever had. That's every book I've ever read on those shelves. We all have one."

Eson rubbed his eyes. None of that had made the slightest bit of sense. "I think," he said slowly, "I'm going to just say that we're in your mind."

"Fair enough. It's not entirely inaccurate."

Eson glanced around, still at a loss.

"You wanted to know of the future," Ofaris said. "The Collective has reached consensus on this. You are to be told."

"All right," Eson said, leaning on the edge of the desk. "That bad?"

"You will serve one term more as the Soljoran Premier, but you will not reach its fifth year."

"Dead? Or do I resign in disgrace? Not sure how that could happen, I keep my nose clean."

"Premier, I need to you take this seriously," Ofaris said, stepping closer. "The Collective is taking a risk in telling you any of this, and you can never tell another soul. The history of our world is approaching a great crisis, something that will surpass any other."

Eson frowned. "By Anistaru, you're serious. What crisis?"

Ofaris stared at him, and something in his eyes made Eson's blood run cold.

"Shatterpoint." Ofaris sighed. "We have no other name for it. We can see into the future, Premier, but we cannot see everything. At a certain point in the timeline, everything goes dark. An event horizon beyond which we cannot see."

"And you're saying this Shatterpoint is going to happen in my next term, is that it?"

"Precisely so. For years we have seen this drawing nearer and nearer, but we still don't know what it is. All we know is that every year our visions of the future cannot extend as far as they could before, and we estimate only a few years left before it overtakes us all."

"But there is a solution, surely. We can avoid it."

"The path is already in motion. The only thing we know is that the Weave becomes tangled, strands become severed, and the network collapses, in the future. Not here. There is nothing we can do. It is a future cataclysm echoing back to our own time."

Eson closed his eyes.

"Is it the end of everything?"

"We don't know. The Weave is damaged, huge parts of it erased or disintegrated in two years. We don't know what the fall out will be. It could theoretically erase our universe from existence, or it could cause chaos and destablization but leave our reality fairly intact. After all, our timeline has to reach that future in order to reach Shatterpoint. The question of time paradoxes has fractured the Consensus. I'm think we will be in for chaotic times, possibly even effecting the physical and magical laws of our world. Others think in more apocalyptic terms."

Eson sank down the desk and sat on the floor, rubbing his eyes as he processed this.

"And I don't see it through to the end."

"Correct."

"I see." Eson shook his head. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Everything you can. Stockpile supplies, run programs on basic aid and survival techniques for every single person in Soljoro. We must keep the population from reaching an exponential decline curve that could endanger our species with extinction."

"And I can't tell anyone about this?"

"Not unless you want mass panic and chaos."

"Fuck me. What am I supposed to tell my advisors and generals to justify these policies?"

"I never was any good with politics, that's your domain. I'm just the messenger bearing a warning. There is a storm coming unlike anything we've ever seen. If we wish our people to survive, we must band together, and we must cooperate with the Fae. It's only together that we survive this."

"That'll never sell, Soljorans hate the Fae! And they have a mutual distaste for us, so I see a hell of a lot of hurdles to your proposal."

"You must find a way, Premier. Or we are all dead." Ofaris raised a hand. "Brace yourself."

He snapped his fingers. The world jerked out from under Eson again and when he had exited the whirlwind he found himself on the floor of the Reveler's Hollow, having fallen off his stool. Eltha was overhead, but all Eson could see were her legs. He stared up at her as her mouth moved but he couldnt process the words.

"Cousin, are you all right?"

Eson reached up a hand and she helped drag him to his feet. He felt shakey. Glancing back at the bar, he realized that Ofaris was nowhere to be found.

"Cousin? Are you all right? Should I summon a tram for you?"

"No, no, I'm all right," he said, shaking his head. "I think I could use a walk to clear my head."

He patted her on the shoulder, then stepped toward the door.

"Don't forget your ice wine!" She said, handing him his stein. Eson glanced in it. All the ice had melted and it was ruined. He smiled and handed it back without a word, then went to the door and pushed it open.

"I'll send the bill for your tab to your residence, shall I?" She called out after him.

He paused on the threshold, propping the door open with his back, and looked at her.

"Yes, that will be fine," he said, feeling in a daze.

Then he turned and walked out into the dark, letting the door snap shut behind him.

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