you can always bleed a little more.
Memories do not always soften with time /
some grow edges like knives.
THE LACUNA / BARBARA KINGSOLVER
﹙ chapter twenty seven, act two ﹚
city circle, the capitol.
january, 73 att.
MARA HAS NEVER THOUGHT VERY HIGHLY OF HER HOME. She's not ashamed, not the way some Capitolites expect her to be whenever she mentions Eleven, but she's hardly proud either. She always wants to leave the bakingly hot fields and sweat soaked orchards while she's there, but starts to miss them the moment the train starts to leave the station. Counts down the days until she can again catch that first glimpse of neat little homes in Victor's Village, however much she may hate them. Now, as she endures the beginning of yet another never-ending evening, she longs for the warmth of Eleven. She can picture the cool water from the pumps, the gentle breeze just strong enough to make the day feel chilly.
It seems she only truly loves things once they're gone.
It's the end of January and the Capitol is still bitterly cold. Sleet, a miserable mix of snow and rain, fell from the sky for weeks and puddles in the streets. There are workers to shovel it away ─── who, she realises, are just as Capitol-born as the rest of the people here ─── but it's still everywhere. The poor winter is a good excuse to hide herself under coats, long skirts and sleeves. To leave behind the questionable outfits Antonia had stocked her wardrobes with, not suitable for a season where every inch of exposed skin is attacked by what feels like tiny needles.
She understands now why Johanna Mason still sometimes shivers. She's started speaking to the newest victor a lot more, over the phone since they're restricted to either their respective districts or the Capitol ─── and Johanna point blank refuses to go there. She doesn't mention the arena, neither of them do, but Mara begins to understand how cruel such a desolation was. She can avoid seas, but winter is always coming for Johanna. This is her first winter in the Capitol and she thinks the cold won't leave her for a long time.
And there is another thing that won't leave her: a shadow with the name of Septimus Pyre.
He has weaved his way into her life right under her nose ever since she blindly agreed to let him show her around the Capitol. He likes to walk with her, as he is doing now, to actively seek her out at events, to arrange extra time together which she always claims is spent. Mara does try to avoid him, choosing to attend an invite where she thinks he won't be ─── which sometimes does work and she gets a relieved evening, but mostly doesn't. A month into the new year, and she has seen him and his dark, slick hair more often than her own grandmother.
The dining room smells heavily of perfume, as if it's been soaked into the curtains and drapes, which cover the windows and the evening rain falling outside. It's not necessarily unpleasant, but it clings to the back of Mara's throat as she tries to force down what she's sure is the highest quality food. It all tastes like ash the moment it meets her mouth ─── for some reason, she's almost completely lost her appetite these days. The table is long and laden with food and every seat is filled with some high-ranking Capitolite, and since there's an unspoken competition to have the most victors at events, Finnick Odair is somewhere down the other end too.
She keeps her smile mild ─── having hardly enough energy to do much more ─── and her expression neutral, not betraying her thoughts. There are several things she has to do all at once; and they directly conflict with each other. The first is to form some kind of network, since she could only afford matches for Oren ─── her lip twitches at the thought of his broken body, the discarded matches on the ice ─── so she can call on such a thing for next year's tributes. The second is to obey President Snow and attend these invites to test for her desirability. Perhaps that is why she cannot stand when Septimus or anyone else even looks at her: what if they decide they want her? She has dreams of the sorts of abuse she could endure if someone just utters the word and sends the money. Even though no such thing has been done yet, her body is not her own.
Which brings her to the most personal one, that contradicts the rest. The third is that Mara must make herself appear undesirable ─── yet, all but obeying are going rather unsuccessfully.
There's a scrape of chairs as the attendees are done with vomiting up their meals to eat more and more, and the party moves into the soiree lounge. She still can't get used to the sheer space of the rooms, remembering five Caydens crammed into one large room ( and then only three ) and nor can she quite mimic their subtle movements when holding glasses of wine and, in the summer months, fans.
No, she is only graceful when there is a blade in her hands.
Septimus walks beside her as they leave the room, his arm sometimes brushing up against hers. She knows by now that it's customary for people who are close to link arms, and is aware that the time where she can feign ignorance is quickly running out. Still, she doesn't take the unspoken invite.
"Now see, this is for more intimate gatherings," he says to her, lips brushing against her ear. "It's for the civilised and high-society. I was surprised you got an invite, I'll admit, but no less glad."
Mara does have to admit she'd rather be here than at one of the raves for so-called commoners, as Septimus puts it. At least here, it is only Septimus who is too close for comfort ─── in those swaying masses of bodies? No, she'll take stuffy dinners over that any day. Part of her longs to point out that these commoners are far richer than anyone in her district, that they're the picture of the Capitol, but she bites on her tongue and swallows it back down. Hardly surprised when it bleeds.
"I'm very grateful," she lies through her teeth, simpering; and he chuckles, amused. Again, that wicked glint in his eye she can't quite trust. Nothing else about him has been too outwardly terrible, but still . . . the tension won't leave her.
"Of course, you beautiful girl. So good and . . . mature for your age."
She'd laugh if she didn't trust her instinct over a man who seems kind, too kind. After all, isn't he the one who told her that everything is a transaction? He clearly knows nothing about her.
Do something, her nerves scream as she sits and he mirrors her movements. The pill in her pocket, bought at the pharmacy, is a viable option. It'll get her out of this evening, at least, but it won't do anything to make her less desirable. She wonders if she should take it, just to stop all these demure nods and words of agreement. Small talk becomes gossip, and however entertaining it superficially is, she doesn't really care.
Her eyes glance at Septimus, who was already looking at her. Then widen dramatically. Mara turns her head so sharply her neck cracks, staring straight at the wall as if she has seen something terrible.
His gaze becomes confused as she turns back with a so obviously strained smile. The slant of his brows seems to ask if she is alright. "I'm fine," she murmurs breathily, then inserts herself into whatever conversation has been happening.
Mara had a small history with madness right after the games, but she was declared fixed before last year's games when she was told she was mentoring. She hopes that Septimus wonders if she is still a little mad.
Finnick Odair, who has watched the entire exchange out of the corner of his eye, frowns.
Of course, having a victor at an event greatly boosts status ─── they chose to be here? It must be special. But when there's more than one, it starts to appear somewhat engineered. Mara, who has no choice, comes as a guest, as invited. Odair was probably paid to be here, since he is worth so much more than her. For once, though, she thinks he has the worse end of the deal. However smug and pleased he looks across the room, every companion, every party, everything, must be exhausting.
He told her not to pity him, and Mara never thought she would. She doesn't. She's too busy with her own problems.
When Myrsine, who had previously been sitting next to her and chattering away, gets up to take a phone call, Septimus is quick and lithe to take her seat. He begins to talk to her, and she can barely understand the words. She sees his mouth moving, hears sound falling on her ears, but somewhere along the way it gets drowned out. She's a ghost; hardly here.
"Septimus," Finnick's cool voice cuts in, diverting all his attention to the sandy-haired victor. "How goes the gallery curating? Found an auctioner yet?"
"Not yet." His voice becomes a little strained and his jaw clenches. Nonetheless, Finnick offers him that signature grin ─── is it smug or sadistic? Who knows if he intended to land on such a tender spot for Septimus.
"What a shame," he replies, sipping from his glass. Septimus' gaze has slivers of nastiness in it coming forth to light, zeroing in entirely on Odair. A useful thing, for once, as everyone watches the silent standoff and not her faking a yawn as an excuse to cover her mouth and swallow down the pill. He sighs deeply, as if bored, breaking the little spell. "You'll get your big break soon, I'm sure."
"You know, sweetheart, I heard ───" He then turns to the woman next to him and makes some comment about a rumour he was told, and things go back to the way they were. Except Mara has to excuse herself soon, lest she throw up all over the guests. She starts with a grimace, then laboured breaths, which are picked up on by the woman next to her. She doesn't say anything though, averting her gaze onto whatever is being said.
Her signs of discomfort soon become very real as her stomach begins to ache furiously. "Apologies everyone," she says, standing up with a slight wobbly flourish, "I don't feel well at all."
She covers her mouth with her hand and runs to the nearest bathroom. Nobody comes after her, but she makes sure they can hear the retching.
Back in the lounge, they're quick to theorise. Something bad in the food? Delayed effects of the emetics that allow them to eat more? Could it be pregnancy sickness? Finnick shoots that one down, reminding them she is only seventeen. And he is the only one to volunteer to see if she is alright when she doesn't return for a while.
"You seem quite peachy for someone who's just thrown up." He remarks, leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom, arms folded over his chest. She wipes a fleck of vomit away from her mouth and something in his eyes softens. "Are you okay?"
"As you said. Peachy." She replies tightly, echoing his words, setting about cleaning up the mess she made in the toilet bowl. Then she swills some water to clean the inside of her mouth.
"You do this often?" He quirks a brow at her methodical, routine movements.
Mara stills. She does, actually. More so when she first got back from the arena and hardly did anything but drink and her chosen talent to show the Capitol, sewing. Those days were a dark, murky haze but she has not forgotten any of it. Nor how to efficiently deal with retching over basins so often it practically became routine. Isn't she pathetic?
"Only to get out of soirees." It's meant to be witty, but she comes across as hollow. She's betrayed her neutrality already. "I mean, what would you do to get out of this?"
Finnick tips his head back, a short, sharp exhale leaving him as he allows himself to think of it. "Anything. It's such a ───" his gaze snaps to her as he cuts himself off, guilty. As if he'd almost revealed a secret.
Mara quietly wonders if she has glimpsed a new side of Finnick, the one that reminded her during the interviews that he was only a child. The one that isn't all arrogance and seductiveness. Does he not want to be here?
"Then take me home." The words are coming out faster than her thoughts can catch up. "Tell them," she says as he frowns, "and we'll both be free for the evening."
So he does. Finnick Odair ─── of all people ─── was the one to help her.
⭒ ➷ ⭒ ➹ ⭒ ➷ ⭒ ➹⭒
city street, the capitol.
january, 73 att.
HANDS BURIED IN HER POCKETS, MARA KEEPS HER HEAD BOWED. There must be a limit, she thinks while walking and becomes more sure ─── there is a moment where every structure buckles too far and snaps. When the roof cannot take any more weight and caves in, just like her old home. When fathers turn to stone to numb their pain and there is simply nothing to do but scream and scream until her throat is raw. And, more importantly, how far is she from hers?
She balances upon an edge with a void in front of her and the world at her back. Something pushes her forward, and she may try to resist ─── but her strength is finite, and she wonders how much longer she has left. She swings violently between bouts of stability and plunges of despair. There are better points, moments where existing doesn't sap at her will to live. A few hours, one sunny afternoon, quietly sewing in the garden and not realising that twilight has now fallen. A few hours where she forgot her troubles, talking with a boy of bronze skin and sandy hair while he drove her home, with more ease than she expected.
But then they wilt, suddenly and sharply, leaving her more hollow than ever. The games left her temperamental, uprooted from her previous life, but this is more extreme than ever. Shame at how she spoke to Antonia and how it hasn't been the same with her since. Guilt for Sommer, silent Sommer, who died knowing that she had favoured Oren instead.
She walks towards a cafe somewhere at the end of the street where she is to meet Cashmere regarding some upcoming interview ─── she quietly dreads seeing her again and bitterly reminds herself not to let anything slip again. She takes a shortcut through a poorer area of the Capitol, reserved for the cleaners and such, but nobody seems to recognise her or care.
Trying not to choke on the fumes of petrol and smoke in the air, she is as quick as possible without actually running. It seems so empty, with the workday not yet over, just brick and metal and a lone binman sorting through the rubbish. The streets are so bare without the people and children clamouring and swarming about, as Mara was sure they would. It is not just Avoxes who run the city.
They'll be here soon, back in full swing, but until then it's quiet enough to hear ghosts.
Have you forgotten me? A voice, sickly sweet, whispers in her ear. Mara flinches, lashing at the air with a penknife she keeps up her sleeve. Sharp weapons, such as her usual knife that never quite warms to her skin, are forbidden at the Capitol ─── as Peacekeepers have forcibly reminded her. But they won't confiscate this; she bought it at a convenience store.
Hallucinations come and go, warping over time, but sometimes they take on the form of walking, talking memories. Jaya appears a milky white, blurry at the edges and hovering a foot in the air. She points to the wound on her neck, speckled with sand and blood dripping down her shoulders; as she speaks, small bubbles swell and burst. I haven't forgotten you, dear Mara.
"Go away." She seethes, glaring at her. The ghost covers her fingers in blood and smears it on Mara's cheek, which she wipes away. But she can still feel it there, and wiping becomes clawing, and next thing she knows, there is actual blood on her hands. Her voice is choked, and it sounds more like a beg. A melancholy, desperate plea. "Leave me alone!"
The binman, confused, glances over.
But she doesn't notice and the dead do not forgive. Jaya only laughs, high and cruel and cold, easily the most chilling thing she's ever heard. Bye bye, then. She fades into the background, where she haunts Mara still.
Her fingers itch for a bottle, and she temporarily placates herself with the thought of having one in just a minute. Just a minute, but she can't wait at all. Can she feel something inside her ready to snap?
Alec told her something to do about this, a few months ago, when he found her breaking down on the kitchen floor. To make a mental list of everything she knows ─── it might bring some sense of stability, he says, but she hasn't bothered trying until now.
The words are painful to force out, like needles in her throat, but she manages. "My name is Mara Cayden." That's easy enough to say; it's a simple little truth. Surely she can manage another. "I'm seventeen . . ." She realises she has barely remembered her birthdays, not that they've ever been much of a celebration. A lengthy pause where she figures out it was nine months ago ─── yes, her father had made a cake that day. It was lovely, sugary, and nice at the time, but not when it resurfaced a few hours later.
The list of truths grows more difficult to say. "I'm a killer. Four of them. Jaya. Mikayla. Amira. H─── . . . There are others as well. Sommer and Oren are gone because of me."
A deep, shuddering breath. Saying it for the first time makes it real, not just the product of grief. "My father is Alec Cayden. My brother was Lian. He died in the Games. My mother was called Sephone and she was executed for her crimes."
She's stopped walking by now, swaying on her feet as she drowns in her misery. Grief, strangling and rotten, holds onto her with a corpse's clutch and her nails leave half-moon imprints on the flesh of her palms. The cold nips at her exposed face and she pulls her scarf over her mouth and nose to try and keep it out. To hide herself. She doesn't have to look at the windows of the flats to know about the red marks on her cheek from the phantom blood, the horror painted on her face.
She looks anyway, disgusted by what she sees.
But as she passes the buildings, staring at herself as she goes through the motions of walking, she sees something that draws her mind away from such things. There, in the alleyway between two tenement buildings, is an unmarked package. A briefcase, if she looks a little closer ─── which she does. Temporarily pulling herself away from her grief, Mara gravitates toward it, head tilted to the side, as she crouches down and picks it up.
She gives it a cautious shake. The hard rattle of metal on metal. Mara is distracted for a moment in trying to pry it open.
"It won't work without a key," comes a clear, high voice. She wheels around but restrains herself from swinging it like a bludgeon or reaching for her blade again. Holding people at knifepoint whenever she's startled is quite a bad habit that she's trying to shake. Lucy, hair in two plaits running out of a bobble hat and down her sides, looks at her with an open smile. "I mean, you can try if you want."
"What's inside?" Mara asks, wary. She pulls her scarf down from her face but remembers who she is talking to ─── for all her pleasantries and innocence, Lucy is still a Snow. Someday, her blonde hair will fade to white just like her grandfather. The question is whether she's just as . . .
"A gift for a friend." She says smoothly, pale hands outstretched for it. Lies aren't the easiest to detect since they're all she seems to be hearing ─── if only Avens were here, he'd be wickedly sharp in such a place ─── but this one is obvious.
Yet, Mara realises she doesn't care enough to keep it from her. It's not as if she has any use for it or anything to gain from not giving it to her. "Strange friends you have."
Another lie. The subtext is there, hanging between the two. Something flashes in those deep brown eyes, something far less sweet than she lets on. "The strangest. Don't tell," she says, tapping her nose. "It's a surprise."
A conversation hidden within a conversation. Such is the Capitol way, and it's beginning to give her a headache.
She walks further, into more downtown streets, and pulls her scarf back up. She still sticks out like a campfire in an arena, but she keeps her gaze to the ground, not entertaining the looks she gets.
Cashmere is waiting for her in the cafe. A dainty bell rings as she opens the door and sheds her coat on a stand, grateful to be out of the cold. When she gets back to Eleven, she won't complain about the heat again. Mara orders the same as Cashmere, a small shot of espresso, and faces the blonde with a forcibly neutral expression.
"So about the interview," she laces her fingers together and rests her elbows on the table, a thoughtful expression on her face. "I mostly wanted to check that we don't contradict ourselves. My agent tells me they're pushing for a friendship between the two of us."
"Oh." Mara says tonelessly. "Are they?"
She chuckles gently, if a little sadly. "It's not as bad as you think. We just have to be seen talking, at bars or cafes ─── as such." She makes a motion with her hands around the room. Hands that have drawn blood. So have you, the ghost reminds her, but Mara didn't ask for the games.
Cashmere did.
"Hence . . . this." She mirrors the gesture.
Nodding, the blonde looks over to the server and takes her small cup of dark coffee. She takes it like a shot, tilting her head back and tipping it down her throat. Holding her own cup, Mara does the same, but chokes violently as the bitter liquid reaches her tongue and starts to burn. Well, burn isn't the right word, but it reminds her of when she had just started drinking.
And she stiffens, back to needing it again. Mara clenches her hands under the table, before reaching for a napkin to clean herself up. The coffee will probably stain her shirt as she spilled the rest; Cashmere hasn't stopped laughing. "Your first time ─── having ─── coffee?" She fits between giggles.
Mara would smile, but she has been fooled by this blonde before. "Yes." She says shortly. "Now, about the───"
"Excuse me, miss!" A high, summery voice interrupts; she looks up to see a camera lens in her face. "Are you Cashmere Ardor?"
Mara watches as her face transforms into a dazzling smile. "I am she."
Click! The picture is already taken. The woman behind the camera, though she looks more like a girl fresh out of school, lets it dangle on the lanyard around her neck and smiles a little too eagerly. Her painted lips almost spilt over her even, perfect teeth. Delighted, she clasps her hands together.
"What are you doing here? Especially with Mara Cayden, of all people? Could you give me any info? Our readers are always dying to know about you."
The girl is a reporter, no doubt, and new to the job. This must be her big break at the company she interns with. The survivors of public executions called games must be an exciting opportunity for her. Mara sheds some of her sorrow for venom, for claws that leave deep lacerations. "Go waste someone else's time."
Both gazes suddenly snap to her; she scoffs. "It's insider . . . mentoring stuff."
It's the reporter's turn to scoff. "The games aren't for another five months."
"For you, I guess." Mara responds breezily. "Please leave."
But as the girl asks again, becoming more and more insistent, she realises that the two are a similar age. On the cusp of entering the real world. This girl doesn't know, most evidently, how lucky she is. To have food and a paying job, to have her whole life ahead of her ─── to live. To love.
Mara knows that when her father and grandmother die, there will be no one left to love her. And she will be alone, in a luxurious house filled to the brim with ghosts.
She is seventeen ─── and she has not lived at all, nor will she ever. And this girl just keeps asking, carries on persisting. Maybe if she can get a good story, she'll get noticed at her new job; is that all Cashmere and Mara are to the Capitol? Stories of girls who managed to survive by the skin of their teeth, with knives welded to their hands? Tales that have been told and forgotten, to be replaced with new ones.
Resentment rears its ugly head. Her fury acts before her thoughts: she stands up sharply, jerkily, and her fist extends outwards. Knuckles collide with her face, and the girl falls back onto the concrete. Her tan skin is unmarred now, but she knows that bruises will arise later. But Mara has learnt that bruises are pools of blood, too, and she realises that she has drawn another's blood once more. She stares at her hands, which are now covered in a rich, crimson red.
They curl into fists. "What are you looking at?" She jeers at anyone who dares to look, at those who watch with shock on their faces. The disgusted glances. Though Mara is more sad than angry, glaring at them and the girl who has everything she wishes she could have been born into.
"We'll talk later." She tells Cashmere, "I have somewhere to be."
She slings her coat over her shoulders and leaves the cafe, that irritating bell clanging again.
⭒ ➷ ⭒ ➹ ⭒ ➷ ⭒ ➹⭒
mara's apartment, the capitol.
january, 73 att.
ANOTHER WASTED NIGHT. Mara is curled up on the couch, empty bottles around her, the proof of her weakness. In her numb haze, she watches some soap opera Antonia had always gone on about back before she ruined everything between them and never mentioned that incident again. Back when her bubbliness had been natural rather than forced. She swallows a lump in her throat as she stares at those empty, discarded bottles. She shouldn't be thinking or feeling ─── she certainly doesn't want to ─── but the escort's voice rings clear.
Please don't end up like Chaff.
She's hardly invested in the plotlines of the show, watching impassively as the wife is pushed down the stairs. It's more like background noise than anything, her interest evaporating as soon as she turned it on. Her hands tremble minutely, which she hides under the blanket. She could run and hide and lie, but not to herself. Oh, how Mara wishes the cold would leave her. How it seems to envelope her like water.
If she thinks about it too much, it's like drowning. Again, she tries to watch the television, but she hardly understands a word.
She buries herself further in the cushions and blankets until she is comfortable, and begins to drift to sleep, the show still playing. Before she can properly leave the world of the living, though, the phone rings. She jolts up from where she was sprawled, breath hitching and eyelids fluttering at the sudden noise. It takes a moment or two to realise what's happening.
This is unusual. Mara doesn't really know anyone here ─── all invites arrive in those poisonous, perfume soaked envelopes ─── and she hasn't had a friend since she was fifteen. There is no one in the Capitol who'd really want to call her, and given the time difference, Mercy and Alec would know not to call. Presumably, so would Chaff and Seeder, though it being either of them is even more unlikely. It would be the middle of the night for Johanna.
This might even be the first time she's used this phone in the hallway.
She takes the receiver and places it against her ear. "Hello?"
"Mara." The voice is easy to recognise ─── she'd know Finnick Odair's smooth tones anywhere ─── but she instantly notices that lack of . . . Odair to it. He doesn't sound teasing or exuberant or even seductive. She's only really heard him speak normally while he drove her back here the other day after the evening dinner. But this is much more sombre. The way he says her name makes her sad for some reason.
She purses her lips, but doesn't give any jests or taunts. She's hardly in the right state of mind to go back and forth with him, and something tells her that he isn't either. "Odair. What is it?"
There is silence on the other side of the line for so long that she thinks he must've hung up on her. "I was thinking," he says as she's about to put the receiver down; each word carefully and slowly said, "about yesterday. How we helped each other out."
"Right," she says, voice bleary.
"I─── it'd be a good idea if . . . what I'm saying is───"
"It's past midnight and I'm exhausted," she cuts over him, not noticing how this is the first time Finnick Odair has ever stumbled over his words, "get on with it."
"Right, uh, I have an idea. An offer. You told me that you fear your eighteenth birthday. I can help."
"Oh." She remarks, pressing the phone closer to her ear. Revealing that to him had felt right at the time, but his mention of the situation with Septimus has her skin crawling like live insects are trapped beneath it. "How?"
"We make sure you're off-limits." He says simply. Mara hears another voice in the background of the call, too muffled to decipher. Is it another of his friends, of the companions he takes? She realises she's beyond caring right now.
"We?" She doesn't follow what he's saying, until something clicks and it makes sense. Her mouth falls open and her free hand mindlessly runs over her braids. "Wait, wait, wait. You, Finnick Odair, want to be in a public relationship with me, Mara Cayden?"
"It wouldn't be real," he replies very quickly over the line. "Just for the Capitol, just for show."
Mara slides down against the wall, trying to wrap her mind around this. It's so random, so unexpected, and she can't fathom why Finnick Odair ─── of all people ─── would go out of his way to help her. There must be something in it for him. She may be repulsed Septimus, but he knows how these things work; everything is a transaction. This, for that. "Why?"
"I just said why."
"No," she reiterates, "why on earth do you want to do this? I mean, just the affiliation───"
She thinks of Septimus again, of what he has taught her. While he has not done anything too untoward ─── he has been close to her, but nothing more so far ─── somewhere in her naivety, she believes there's a chance she can repel him. That he'll lose interest before he can have her. But if Finnick Odair, the great, endlessly perfect Finnick Odair wants her, dates her, kisses her? Automatically, she'll be an object of desires ─── she'll be made desirable by him, without a shadow of a doubt.
"That doesn't matter." He says, voice haggard over the line. So there is something he's not telling her.
"I suppose it really doesn't, since I'm declining your offer." Mara doesn't elaborate, and hangs up.
𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 :
( 4,627 words! )
i don't think i can ever fully describe how much
i hate writing the capitol party / social scenes &
not just because it's a source of suffering but i
genuinely have no idea what the hell they'd say
or do! most of what i go off of is what i see on tv
and it's so awkward writing them😔 ── but we
get some more development w/ mara & finnick
helping each other so it's worth it 🤭
for those of you who might have forgotten, jaya
is the girl that mara killed in the bloodbath ( in
chapter 8 ). & she hasn't been mentioned much
since, so there's a moment of spotlight to show
that she is still a part of mara's ghosts though
they were strangers 😣and then lucy snow???
what on earth is going on with her and the case
she's being awfully secretive about??? huh ig
we'll have to find out!
& finally, cashmere and the unnamed reporter.
mara is pleasant enough with cashmere (she's
still a victor, still gone through horrible things)
but she's also a career──she chose this. while
cashmere is more a side character, she will be
used to explore the brainwashing of children in
richer districts and the consequences for it ──
hopefully doing her justice!! mara doesn't trust
her mainly because she got her to reveal smth
ages ago and then told finnick, rather than her
just being a career.
the reporter represents what mara could've had
were she born in the capitol. (&& she gets almost
ignored when cashmere gets all the attention //
another small element of the major racism and
colorism underlying the capitol). as well as the
nature of journalism previous hallucinations
that made her really snap.
and then mara turns down finnick's offer?? oh
did you really think it would be that simple??🤭
honestly congrats to anyone who got to the end
of this neverending author's note and thank you
for every read, vote, and comment 🥰