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Satisfaction feels like a distant memory (parts I & II)
Fandom: Kingdom (Hunger Games AU)
Cast: Mara/Deon (part 1 has a Lynn cameo)
Prompt: 31 days “They looked at each other, baffled, in love and hate.”
Suggested song: Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine?
I wrote this in 2 hours? XD
I
Another victory tour, another worthless victor joining their bloated, miserable ranks. Mara Thompson, victor of the 70th Hunger Games, sneered at the video screen still airing the replay of this year's games— if it had been her in the arena, that scrawny geek wouldn’t have survived the bloodbath of the cornucopia.
“Getting your game face ready for ’71?” Lynn teased, twisting the screen dead and padding back to the couch Mara’s bloodlust had won the family. Her cousin could afford humor— at least for a few months before the agony of Reaping came again.
Mara’s had been wrung out of her at the tender age of 12, her skewer sinking deep into guts of her first victim.
Still, she allowed her lips to curl into a careless smile, easing the corners of her harsh face. “What use could I have for that lout? His tribute died the same as mine.”
“His tribute did survive longer,” Lynn pointed out, with the conviction only a 17 year old who hadn’t lived the games could bring.
“This time, maybe.” Came Mara’s sneer of a reply, her fingers flexing, overworked joints cracking. “But the kid is still dead, and his parents suffered two days longer than my girl’s did. Better to suffer no false hopes— we both knew going into the games those kids were marked for death. Every day your worthless Tribute survives, that hateful hope rises more and more. Just makes the inevitable conclusion all the worse.”
Lynn was use to her cousin’s bitterness and only shook her head with a faint disapproval. “They said the same thing about you.”
“And I was just a lucky fool. What business did a 12 year old have of winning the games?”
Mara’s breath caught in her throat.
Skin recoiling against the damp soil and stifling stench of blood soaked mint.
The world soaked in miasma, both manufactured and nurtured by Mara’s particular talents.
A bright light crashing through the stillness, ropes snaking around her exhausted, trembling limbs.
The agonizing sway as the helicopter lifted her from the arena
Was she dead? Had the nightmare finally crumbled?
Could she rest now, breath slipping away as a siren roared--
She came too, gasping in shock. Lynn was shaking her violently, her cousin’s eyes loomed huge and white clad in her pinched face— guilt weighing heavy on the teenager even after all those years. But those games hadn’t belonged to Lynn, even if it was her name that had been Reaped— those games were Mara’s, and there had been no possible way she would have ever allowed her cousin to die when there was an ounce of blood left of Mara yet to spill.
“Just breathe, coz,” Lynn leaned her forehead against Mara’s, which had gone cold and slick in an instant of remembered horror. Mara obeyed, just the once, letting the softness of Lynn’s herbal shampoo wash over them both. The 70th Hunger Games were long since won and had no business in her life anymore.
There was one last Reaping left, and then Lynn was safe forever from Sunset’s awful games.
Mara let her eyes flutter closed; she knew Deon would face the uncertainty for years to come, burdened by too many sisters with so many years left, countless chances for them to be Reaped for any wrongs he might do.
Not that Mara would breathe a hint of sympathy for that ass.
No, it was better to concentrate on these next few months and that last Reaping, and then there was nothing Sunset could take from her.
And for the first time in ages, Mara’s smile burned with hope.
II
A week later, and Mara was summoned to Sunset City, sequestered for the long and ghastly train ride in a locked cabin with only a static trimmed video set for company. To say she arrived in the city in a foul mood was stretching the truth to a mild platitude— she was tense and ready to kill anything that snapped out of place.
Which made it inevitable that the first Victor that crossed her path was the winner of the games that had followed hers.
Deon surveyed the Victor’s ready room, his lance nonchalantly swaying at his side, his porcupine quills for hair as stiff and hateful as ever. She was unsurprised by the slow, mocking leer that twisted his face as his eyes discovered her in the darkest corner— it was an expression she was use to, for all the years they had been tossed together, the youngest Victors who had defied the odds and survived.
She might have thought Sunset would want a love story between the two, but Deon, was all noxious swagger, Sunset girls swooning off his muscled arms in droves. She had quickly learned that leer was all show and none of the hateful feeling that swirled in her murderous guts, heating her blood and making her mind recoil at the horror that her body was attracted to a sleezeball like him.
“I see they dredged the bottom of the barrel,” She hissed, stretching from her seat just enough to drag her flask of vodka back against her chest. While their drunkenness was legendary amongst the Victors, she was sharing none of this brew with him— at least not until that leer lost the fraudulent intent and settled into an honest smile.
His nose wrinkled, eyes flaring with a glint of interest— as if he had caught the scent of $500 scotch instead of the astringent cut of a vodka with only the fleetest of distilling. He made no step closer, settling his hip against the edge of the bar crammed with brews to tempt a Victor to loosen their tongue. That was why the two always brought their own— who knew what the keeps tossed in those drinks?
“Why save the best for last?” His voice held the same faint slur she knew her own bore— as usual, she wasn’t the only one who had begun the careful process of getting sloshed on the train. Although she doubted he used the alcohol to control the trainsickness that always made the trips to Sunset particularly awful. HE had the constitution of an ox, and besides, it wasn’t the type of things they asked one another, two murderers their world embraced as heroes.
A hundred stinging quips pressed against her throat, but she settled for a simple dismissive snort. “Admitting I’m the best between us finally?”
He scowled. “You know that isn’t what I meant-”
“And yet here I am, the first to arrive, clearly the best by your estimation.” She waved the flask, smug and poorly disguised want at war on her battle hardened face. And then the lance was falling, she noticed, a half second before her eyes caught Deon as a blur of rippling muscles and sun kissed skin streaking towards her.
She braced her arms, just enough time before he was on her. There was no warding or blocking when Deon was in this sort of temper— she held onto the flask for all she was worth, at a profound disadvantage with her one arm to his two and not quite drunk enough to engage dirty tactics in the battle.
Which was, of course, not why it was a losing battle. The heat of his skin burned a fire across her own and the lurch in her breath had nothing to do with this skirmish and everything to do with the hand that was dangerously close to her breast. Mara let the flask slide through nerveless fingers and used her bare feet to push him back, a clear and far too speedy surrender for the uncertainty in his alcohol shining eyes.
“Fine, it isn’t as if I don’t have another.” She huffed, crossing her arms against her chest and trying to ignore how the hateful man had affected her once again.
Her admission did nothing to lower the suspicion in his eyes, but he shrugged and tossed back a healthy gulp of the awful brew he had somehow captured mid fall. He might be drunk, but Victors never forgot the reflexes that had saved their lives. “Surprised they didn’t steal the flasks off you like they did last year.”
She mirrored his shrug. “It helps to have reached majority finally.” Mara turned to dig through her bag for the next flask— she had enough wits about her to save the better tasting brews for after Deon had stolen a flask for his own amusements. Once the metal was clasped by her eager fingers, she paused, squinted up at him as she realized he hadn’t moved since she had spoken. “Did the vodka pickle your brain?”
“You turned 18?” He face was oddly pinched, as if the words had cost him greatly to grit out. She frowned— the vodka hadn’t been that bad for his voice to have gone that hoarse after one swallow.
“I’m not even a full year younger than you, idiot.” She sniffed, twisting the flask open with well practiced motion. “And they left my entire stash alone this time. Guess Sunset doesn’t care if legal Victors are dragging in booze, only the minors.”
The vein along the side of his throat was pulsing— she knew well enough to control the itch of her fingers to caress it, or her mouth to follow suit. HE had other pursuits, and purple haired Victors clearly were nowhere on the list for all the hints she’d left these last years. She wondered what had him this bothered, but dismissed it as none of her concern— after all, Deon was a profound jerk. Why should she care what had gotten him so worked up?
“I always forget you aren’t the same age as Lynn.”
Mara’s nose scrunched. “She’s still a baby…” she began, then let it fade out into nothingness that only another pull of wretched vodka could fill.
He remained where her feet had pushed distance between them, but there was something almost soft about the expression Deon turned on her. She had little defense for THAT, and hated him all the more for what it did to her pounding heart. “This is the last year then?”
She couldn’t trust her throat to make human sounding noises and nodded, shortly.
With great care to keep his person from encroaching on her space, Deon settled himself on the very edge of the couch. She raised an eyebrow at his antics, but had gotten over the accidental insults he occasional gave when he allowed his obvious distaste for her to show. “Mara...” His voice broke, stiff and yet yielding all wrong around the edges, an echo of the same half hearted hope it had carried when his boy had lived a day after hers had been slaughtered— but the arrival of two chattering Victors into the room pressed his mouth closed, and the haughty swagger she so loathed returned.
Deon’s game face was on, and that meant whatever confession he was about to say was long forgotten… and it was probably for the best. He hadn’t had nearly enough to drink for the truth, and Mara had had enough of his sultry lies to last a lifetime. She excused herself once the gathering of Victors reached a large enough number she wouldn’t be missed… and tried to ignore the heat of his eyes following her escape.
Cast: Mara/Deon (part 1 has a Lynn cameo)
Prompt: 31 days “They looked at each other, baffled, in love and hate.”
Suggested song: Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine?
I wrote this in 2 hours? XD
Another victory tour, another worthless victor joining their bloated, miserable ranks. Mara Thompson, victor of the 70th Hunger Games, sneered at the video screen still airing the replay of this year's games— if it had been her in the arena, that scrawny geek wouldn’t have survived the bloodbath of the cornucopia.
“Getting your game face ready for ’71?” Lynn teased, twisting the screen dead and padding back to the couch Mara’s bloodlust had won the family. Her cousin could afford humor— at least for a few months before the agony of Reaping came again.
Mara’s had been wrung out of her at the tender age of 12, her skewer sinking deep into guts of her first victim.
Still, she allowed her lips to curl into a careless smile, easing the corners of her harsh face. “What use could I have for that lout? His tribute died the same as mine.”
“His tribute did survive longer,” Lynn pointed out, with the conviction only a 17 year old who hadn’t lived the games could bring.
“This time, maybe.” Came Mara’s sneer of a reply, her fingers flexing, overworked joints cracking. “But the kid is still dead, and his parents suffered two days longer than my girl’s did. Better to suffer no false hopes— we both knew going into the games those kids were marked for death. Every day your worthless Tribute survives, that hateful hope rises more and more. Just makes the inevitable conclusion all the worse.”
Lynn was use to her cousin’s bitterness and only shook her head with a faint disapproval. “They said the same thing about you.”
“And I was just a lucky fool. What business did a 12 year old have of winning the games?”
Mara’s breath caught in her throat.
Skin recoiling against the damp soil and stifling stench of blood soaked mint.
The world soaked in miasma, both manufactured and nurtured by Mara’s particular talents.
A bright light crashing through the stillness, ropes snaking around her exhausted, trembling limbs.
The agonizing sway as the helicopter lifted her from the arena
Was she dead? Had the nightmare finally crumbled?
Could she rest now, breath slipping away as a siren roared--
She came too, gasping in shock. Lynn was shaking her violently, her cousin’s eyes loomed huge and white clad in her pinched face— guilt weighing heavy on the teenager even after all those years. But those games hadn’t belonged to Lynn, even if it was her name that had been Reaped— those games were Mara’s, and there had been no possible way she would have ever allowed her cousin to die when there was an ounce of blood left of Mara yet to spill.
“Just breathe, coz,” Lynn leaned her forehead against Mara’s, which had gone cold and slick in an instant of remembered horror. Mara obeyed, just the once, letting the softness of Lynn’s herbal shampoo wash over them both. The 70th Hunger Games were long since won and had no business in her life anymore.
There was one last Reaping left, and then Lynn was safe forever from Sunset’s awful games.
Mara let her eyes flutter closed; she knew Deon would face the uncertainty for years to come, burdened by too many sisters with so many years left, countless chances for them to be Reaped for any wrongs he might do.
Not that Mara would breathe a hint of sympathy for that ass.
No, it was better to concentrate on these next few months and that last Reaping, and then there was nothing Sunset could take from her.
And for the first time in ages, Mara’s smile burned with hope.
A week later, and Mara was summoned to Sunset City, sequestered for the long and ghastly train ride in a locked cabin with only a static trimmed video set for company. To say she arrived in the city in a foul mood was stretching the truth to a mild platitude— she was tense and ready to kill anything that snapped out of place.
Which made it inevitable that the first Victor that crossed her path was the winner of the games that had followed hers.
Deon surveyed the Victor’s ready room, his lance nonchalantly swaying at his side, his porcupine quills for hair as stiff and hateful as ever. She was unsurprised by the slow, mocking leer that twisted his face as his eyes discovered her in the darkest corner— it was an expression she was use to, for all the years they had been tossed together, the youngest Victors who had defied the odds and survived.
She might have thought Sunset would want a love story between the two, but Deon, was all noxious swagger, Sunset girls swooning off his muscled arms in droves. She had quickly learned that leer was all show and none of the hateful feeling that swirled in her murderous guts, heating her blood and making her mind recoil at the horror that her body was attracted to a sleezeball like him.
“I see they dredged the bottom of the barrel,” She hissed, stretching from her seat just enough to drag her flask of vodka back against her chest. While their drunkenness was legendary amongst the Victors, she was sharing none of this brew with him— at least not until that leer lost the fraudulent intent and settled into an honest smile.
His nose wrinkled, eyes flaring with a glint of interest— as if he had caught the scent of $500 scotch instead of the astringent cut of a vodka with only the fleetest of distilling. He made no step closer, settling his hip against the edge of the bar crammed with brews to tempt a Victor to loosen their tongue. That was why the two always brought their own— who knew what the keeps tossed in those drinks?
“Why save the best for last?” His voice held the same faint slur she knew her own bore— as usual, she wasn’t the only one who had begun the careful process of getting sloshed on the train. Although she doubted he used the alcohol to control the trainsickness that always made the trips to Sunset particularly awful. HE had the constitution of an ox, and besides, it wasn’t the type of things they asked one another, two murderers their world embraced as heroes.
A hundred stinging quips pressed against her throat, but she settled for a simple dismissive snort. “Admitting I’m the best between us finally?”
He scowled. “You know that isn’t what I meant-”
“And yet here I am, the first to arrive, clearly the best by your estimation.” She waved the flask, smug and poorly disguised want at war on her battle hardened face. And then the lance was falling, she noticed, a half second before her eyes caught Deon as a blur of rippling muscles and sun kissed skin streaking towards her.
She braced her arms, just enough time before he was on her. There was no warding or blocking when Deon was in this sort of temper— she held onto the flask for all she was worth, at a profound disadvantage with her one arm to his two and not quite drunk enough to engage dirty tactics in the battle.
Which was, of course, not why it was a losing battle. The heat of his skin burned a fire across her own and the lurch in her breath had nothing to do with this skirmish and everything to do with the hand that was dangerously close to her breast. Mara let the flask slide through nerveless fingers and used her bare feet to push him back, a clear and far too speedy surrender for the uncertainty in his alcohol shining eyes.
“Fine, it isn’t as if I don’t have another.” She huffed, crossing her arms against her chest and trying to ignore how the hateful man had affected her once again.
Her admission did nothing to lower the suspicion in his eyes, but he shrugged and tossed back a healthy gulp of the awful brew he had somehow captured mid fall. He might be drunk, but Victors never forgot the reflexes that had saved their lives. “Surprised they didn’t steal the flasks off you like they did last year.”
She mirrored his shrug. “It helps to have reached majority finally.” Mara turned to dig through her bag for the next flask— she had enough wits about her to save the better tasting brews for after Deon had stolen a flask for his own amusements. Once the metal was clasped by her eager fingers, she paused, squinted up at him as she realized he hadn’t moved since she had spoken. “Did the vodka pickle your brain?”
“You turned 18?” He face was oddly pinched, as if the words had cost him greatly to grit out. She frowned— the vodka hadn’t been that bad for his voice to have gone that hoarse after one swallow.
“I’m not even a full year younger than you, idiot.” She sniffed, twisting the flask open with well practiced motion. “And they left my entire stash alone this time. Guess Sunset doesn’t care if legal Victors are dragging in booze, only the minors.”
The vein along the side of his throat was pulsing— she knew well enough to control the itch of her fingers to caress it, or her mouth to follow suit. HE had other pursuits, and purple haired Victors clearly were nowhere on the list for all the hints she’d left these last years. She wondered what had him this bothered, but dismissed it as none of her concern— after all, Deon was a profound jerk. Why should she care what had gotten him so worked up?
“I always forget you aren’t the same age as Lynn.”
Mara’s nose scrunched. “She’s still a baby…” she began, then let it fade out into nothingness that only another pull of wretched vodka could fill.
He remained where her feet had pushed distance between them, but there was something almost soft about the expression Deon turned on her. She had little defense for THAT, and hated him all the more for what it did to her pounding heart. “This is the last year then?”
She couldn’t trust her throat to make human sounding noises and nodded, shortly.
With great care to keep his person from encroaching on her space, Deon settled himself on the very edge of the couch. She raised an eyebrow at his antics, but had gotten over the accidental insults he occasional gave when he allowed his obvious distaste for her to show. “Mara...” His voice broke, stiff and yet yielding all wrong around the edges, an echo of the same half hearted hope it had carried when his boy had lived a day after hers had been slaughtered— but the arrival of two chattering Victors into the room pressed his mouth closed, and the haughty swagger she so loathed returned.
Deon’s game face was on, and that meant whatever confession he was about to say was long forgotten… and it was probably for the best. He hadn’t had nearly enough to drink for the truth, and Mara had had enough of his sultry lies to last a lifetime. She excused herself once the gathering of Victors reached a large enough number she wouldn’t be missed… and tried to ignore the heat of his eyes following her escape.
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