Pompeia Clacher [D2] (trajan) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-05-05 09:35:00 |
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"You're home." They're at the train station, and everyone who wants to stare could, but she just holds her mom tighter. --- "...hybrid grill, letting you use gas, charcoal, and/or wood. Over a thousand square inches grilling surface. You can set it to a fire you're more accustomed to, and it can go over a thousand fahrenheit, and everything in between. You got your ignition burner here, rotisserie system. Smoker box is here. You got ambient lighting. We customize the grilling surface to cut out patterns that let you cook meat or vegetables. This is a beautiful combination of brass and stainless steel, and you can customize it. Add more drawers. Make pizza. Thermometer is here." And she parrots this back to Brutus, Lyme, whoever she ends up having over for barbecue. For the time being, she just wants to know if she can stick a rock slab on it. --- Her brother finds her crying in the kitchen. She's just standing there, and she just can't stop crying, and she's making all the steak gross, and snot's coming out, and she doesn't get why it's happening or why she can't just stop. "Pei…" When he tries to say something at dinner, she glares at him, and they never mention it again. --- "Pompeia!" She doesn't turn. "Fuck you. That's my house. I should've gone instead of you. He should've won in--" --- Her eyes close and her breath catches as her hand moves up her thigh. Her back is against the stall door. She peers up at him. Later on in her life, when an interviewer asks if she's concerned that Cashmere and Gloss, and now her mentee might usurp her, make her irrelevant, she'll look incredulous that it's even a question. --- "I brought you a rock. Smoothed--" "I don't need it smoothed." "That one's all jagged and sloped." "I like it." "They're all sloped." "Maybe I like them sloped." "All of them?" "It's my rock garden," Pompeia tells him. "And house." He rubs the back of his head as he eyes her decor. Carver Arriola. Never trained. His job's in his name. He doesn't know the balance of a sword, he doesn't talk about the Games in his downtime. He never survived in an arena, never killed anyone, never watched training and doesn't want to. He didn't have to get fucking injections and surgery and protest that he's goddamn half-chicken to fix all the joints and muscles and whatever the fuck that had gone wrong. He doesn't mentor, doesn't get that worthless feeling, like a complete loser at watching another tribute die while he's surrounded by all this Capitol shit among the rocks and tanks to take home. His first words to her were, "I heard you like rocks…" which was such shit, it wasn't even a pickup line. He doesn't get it. He never lived it. He'll never understand. She loves that. --- The cannon sounds when the girl pulls back from the boy's throat, her mouth bloodied. Pompeia stills. Then she lets out a loud whoop as she clambers out of her seat and jumps into Brutus's arms in celebration. She clasped her hands on his cheeks and screams, "SHE DID IT!" in his face. --- They look so young, the tributes at the parade. They make her feel old. She must have said it aloud, since she hears Marcus draw in a breath through his grimace. She looks over in time to see him take a drink. --- He can be... generous. He had let her play with the weapons in his house while she had a child running around in hers. He had brought her back, and two others. Upon arriving, she got shunted off to him, rather quick. They came from different backgrounds, preferred different weapons, led different lives after winning, but they had seemed similar enough, so yeah. That's what happened. She looked up to him before her games, and briefly after. In between, it was just about getting the job done; she had to focus on that. It took a few months to adjust. He's family now, and her family invites his over for dinner all the time. Some Capitolites might say they're only in their twenties, so many people grew up with him and watched him grow up, letting him into their lives for a month of every year. That happened with all of them. That should count for something. He has experience. He knows to focus on the arena, and that they'll do everything in their power to take care of everything outside of it. He knows what has to be done to come home, and she knows he'll do it. He's not soft. She takes care with her words, struggling to articulate her thoughts while still being guarded, but she can only manage a forced smile and vague, flat responses to the mentoring situation and the quell altogether. She doesn't say he's an idiot, he made them look bad, he's smart and dumb for putting any sort of trust in the Capitol, and that she had offered, even if she couldn't bring herself to go back into the arena. And even though it was true, she most certainly was not going to admit that Enobaria was better-prepared, younger, and better than she was in her current state. She can't pick between her mentor and mentee, but had she been mentoring, it wouldn't have provided the drama they'd expect. "Come on," he prods when the camera is off. "That's like choosing a favorite wife." Florianus gives her a weird look. --- "Mom, I'm going to Tanaquil's." She pauses in chopping bell peppers and looks over to him. He's already headed out of the kitchen, towards the front door. She can hear it open. "Are you coming back for dinner?" Bursts of bullets answer her, along with the sounds of metal against rock and screaming -- familiar and unfamiliar, from the backyard too. Hand still on her knife, she's quick to turn towards where her son was, but she doesn't even get the chance to take a step. She thinks she hears a cannon boom, but she's still alive when a wall of fire hurtles towards her. |