Arachne Kentwell

Victor of the 66th Annual Hunger Games. Most comfortable with a butterfly knife in hand and wearing an oversized flannel. Haunted by a boy named Justice.

[mayhawblossoms]

Elias had heard little whispers echoing through the empty floor, but he hadn't paid much attention to them. It was more so about how close they seemed to be getting, rather than the contents of their words. Even with that warning though, it did little to keep him from jumping at the other woman's words, shrugging away from her direction as she snapped at him.

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't think this was an off limits things, and the doors weren't locked to the rooms, so I assumed we could wander as long as it was in the building common areas..."

He wanted to get up instinctually to leave, but she was in between him and the elevators, and he wasn't sure where else to go without passing her and giving her a wide berth. Still, he stood to show her his intention, trying to keep a kind expression.

Glancing around her face, he tried to think of where he knew her from as a sense of familiarity grew in his mind. She wasn't one of the tributes, considering he had watched all of their reapings on the way here, but she didn't seem to be some Capitol person, because he had never been bothered to know those people besides the really important ones. Perhaps she was a stylist, or a mentor, or a victor, but he couldn't pin point it for sure.

[hcwdiditend]

"God, what are your mentors and stylist and escort doing?" She scoffed, her displaced anger still evident. Logically the boy had done nothing wrong. However, her mind lived in a near constant state of illogical. It was completely illogical to see Justice standing just to the side of the boy. It was completely illogical to be angry at the boy just for being in a public space. It was completely illogical to snap at him. But here they were.

"Stop looking at me like that." She huffed, though it wasn't aimed at the tribute, but at the smirking ghost who hovered near his shoulder. "It's the middle of the night," this to Elias, "you have to be up at like the ass crack of dawn. You're supposed to be in bed sleeping, not down here."

[mayhawblossoms]

Despite the long train ride that got him here, the many teary goodbyes, the complete barrage by stylists and escorts, and the fact that he was in the Capitol, Elias still felt numb to the whole situation.

He just wanted to go home, or at least be in an area that felt familiar. Even the windows in his room didn't offer any reprieve, showing a world of glittering lights and gray concrete. The only trees he had managed to see were delicate little things with flowers that had to be genetically modified to be that bright, and those kinds of trees just weren't common where he came from.

So, in the dead of night, wanting any semblance of comfort, he found himself going down the elevator of the Capitol building where hopefully no to a few people were wafering around. There was a section of the main floor that had a little atrium, with decorative ferns and mosses and a juvenile maple. Trying to find solace in it, he sat on the edge of the wall that held the soil, bringing his knees up to his chest. It wasn't until he could get a deep breath in that he took in his surroundings, making eye contact with someone else that had wandered down here this late.

[hcwdiditend]

She couldn't sleep. Never could when she was in the Capitol, but especially couldn't now that her own district partner's little brother was in the games. What had the little shit been thinking? She had run away from her own floor, tried to hide and sleep on District One's floor, but that hadn't help. So she'd thrown the covers off, pulled on the flannel that was easily two sized two big and headed down to the lobby.

It was only as she stepped off the elevator that he appeared next to her. She thought she was alone on the main floor at this late hour and so instead of snapping at him, she carried on conversation in whispered tones as she wandered around the silent floor. He wasn't bothering her now, wasn't making her look insane.

But soon enough she found that she wasn't alone and she froze, meeting eyes with one of the tributes. "You're not supposed to be down here at this time of night." She snapped, irate that she wasn't alone and yet hopeful that he hadn't heard her talking to Justice, the ghost of her dead district partner.

[hcwdiditend]

She fidgets as she stands on the stage. It is hot and this dress is ridiculous with it’s layers of pink chiffon and glittery tulle. She itches her upper arm where a piece of glitter in the tulle is scratching her arm. She yearns for her tank tops, flannels and skinny jeans. There is no place for such clothing according to her stylist, not on the reaping stage, not in the Capitol. Joke’s on the stylist, Arachne won’t even make it to the Capitol wearing this damned dress. It’ll be tossed out a window on the way through the Nut. 

She moves towards one of the chairs when she feels Enobaria’s hand at her back, urging her towards the chairs set up, one for each of them. She is almost in a daze as she dose so, her feet moving though her mind doesn’t seem to connect with the movements. A year ago today Clove’s hand had shot up into the air with a clear ‘I volunteer as tribute’. A year ago today, Arachne felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. She had to keep her niece alive. But she had failed. Today she has no stake in the matter, except for the two little slips of paper with her own handwriting on them. A boy named Evander Mason and a girl named Beatrix Dale, two chosen at random from the eighteen year olds at the Academy. It didn’t matter, they had volunteers she was sure. 

Arachne continues to fidget with the layers of her dress throughout the escort’s speech and the mandatory showing of the Capitol video. She has torn a piece of the tulle and now is working on shredding that piece into even smaller strips when she feels a hand atop her own. Her gaze snaps up to look at Enobaria only to realize it is not Eno’s hand atop her own. Her gaze is returned to her own hand, finding nothing there. Justice to calm her nerves she is sure, but she shakes her hand and the feeling away. She does not look for him. He is dead she reminds herself. 

The girl volunteers and Arachne pays her little mind. She will be the girl’s mentor, but she will push that off on Eddie. She does not want to go to the Capitol anyway, but is being forced. She needs a glass of wine, or something harder. The escort’s hand is still in the boy’s bowl when a voice calls out ‘I volunteer as tribute’. And she knows that voice. It’s the same one that haunts her, belongs to the hand that had stopped her tearing at her dress just moments before. Her gaze snaps up to see the young man as he saunters to the stage. She is thrown back nearly a decade. 

She stands on that same stage. Hair pulled back in braids. Black skinny jeans and a flannel that’s easily two sizes too big hanging around her shoulders. She’s just volunteered. She is grinning. It leaves though the second she hears Justice’s voice ring out through the District Square. No, this was supposed to be her turn. She couldn’t go into the arena with him. Her heart is racing. She prays someone else will kill him, but even that thought kills her inside. She can’t imagine a life without him. Why did he do this?

“Welcome!” The escort exclaims into the microphone. “What’s your name young man?” Arachne is suddenly lost in her own mind, her own memories.

‘Justice Shade.’ 

‘Welcome Justice.’ The escort pauses as if listening to something and then glancing to Arachne. ‘Do you know Arachne?’ The cameramen move in, one aiming at her, the other on the escort and Justive.

When he glances at her, there’s a look of betrayal on her face, but also hurt shines behind her eyes. 

‘Yea she and I are… we’ve been partners for years.’ 

She fells as if her heart is shattering. Fuck you, she mouths to Justice.

Gladly, it is mouthed back with that stupid smirk on his face. He thinks this is a game, but she is pissed. Her chest hurts. She wants to scream and yell at him. But she can't. This is their first impression for the Capitol. 

“Lazarus Shade.” The alteration to what she so clearly remembers, drags her back to the present. He looks so much like his brother though. He was barely to her shoulders when she and Justice had gone into the arena. But now, he stands head and shoulders taller than her. He is a spitting image of Justice and it sends her heart racing. 

“Lazarus Shade!” The escort repeats as she steps back to take both his and the girl’s hands. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you your tributes of the 75th Hunger Games!” There is thunderous applause, but it is drowned out by the sound of her heart beating in her ears. 

He takes her hand and raises it high. She wants to kill him where he stands, but she can’t. She won’t kill him. She snatches her hand away and stalks towards the Justice Building. 

There is a clatter as her eyes drop to her hand, feeling again that ghostly touch, only to see blood on both her hands. Her chair tumbles backwards as she stands abruptly, wiping her hands on her dress and fleeing towards the building behind them all. Enobaria is hot on her heels, but much more graceful in her exit. But she doesn’t want Eno. Eno had to know and Eno didn’t tell her. 

Arachne does not slow in her steps, even as her hands reach behind her to unzip the awful dress which is left somewhere in the Justice building as she flees through it in her slip and towards the train. She does not care if the Capitol cameras see her next to nude. She ignores Enobaria’s voice as she calls out for her, quick to disappear onto the train and lock herself in her own room. She doesn’t know if Enobaria is stopped, only that the older victor does not come to find her and she is left alone to sob into the pillows on her bed. 

[xdecadencex]

Cashmere hadn't even been in the Capitol for an hour before getting a call from Snow. She hated the man, but more than that hatred was the protectiveness she felt over those she cared for. Gloss, their parents, Arachne. She knew what happened to victors who stepped a toe out of line. She'd been gone for a few hours and returned back to her own floor, high tailing it back to her own room where she could shower and decompress.

However, when she entered her room, she found she wasn't alone. Most people would've gotten yelled at, at the very least for just taking up residence in her room. Ara was another story. She sighed softly, reaching behind herself to shut the door behind her, locking it as well. "Don't you have tributes to mentor?" She questioned. Her fingers moved around to the back of her own neck, unclasping the necklace there and tossing it to the top of her dresser. Her earrings were the next to go. Then the rings around her fingers. And finally the bracelets. With each piece, she deflated a little more.

"I don't care. You know that, Ara. I need a shower before I can be any company though." She kicked out of her heels and moved towards the bed. "If you're gonna take over my room, at least unzip me?" She turned her back to her friend, pulling her hair around her shoulders.

[hcwdiditend]

Arachne frowned at the mention of her tributes. "Justice's little brother volunteered." She whispered. And therein lay the real reason she'd ran away from her own floor and her own team. She'd killed Justice and now was responsible for keeping his baby brother alive. Lazarus had only been nine when she and Justice had volunteered. He had still been in the basics of training and now here he was, fucking volunteering. She'd just lost Clove. She was still haunted by loosing Justice. She couldn't loose Lazarus too.

But when Cashmere said she could stay, she melted a bit. Some of the apprehension that settled between her shoulders dispersed. She could breathe a little easier.

She scooted to the edge of the bed and reached to the zipper, pulling it down carefully. As she did so though, she frowned, her fingers tracing over the outline of what appeared to be a bruise on Cash's shoulder. "Cashy..." She murmured, brows knitting together. "I'll fucking kill him. Who was it?" She demanded, anger flaring back into place. It wasn't the first time she'd threatened to kill a sponsor, and she knew he was a sponsor, whoever he was.

[hcwdiditend]

@xdecadencex

Arachne didn't want to be here. Not with Cato. Not with Eddie. Not with anyone. Clove had died the year before. She'd had to go on Cato's victory tour with him. She was over it. And if that wasn't enough. Justice wouldn't leave her alone.

She couldn't be on the second floor, just couldn't deal with the familiarity, the memories, the haunting of everything from the past. She'd already shed the stupidly girly dress her stylist had forced her into for the reaping - since when did she wear pink? - and pulled on a familiar flannel that hung big enough on her frame to almost be a dress. Before Eddie could stop her, she'd disappeared from the second floor and made herself at home on District One's floor - specifically behind the closed door of Cashmere's bedroom.

Arachne had helped herself to a platter of strawberries and a bottle of wine undoubtedly left out for One's team in the lobby, glaring at an avox who looked as if he might try to stop her. Now she laid across Cashmere's bed with what remained of the strawberries beside her and the half empty bottle of wine on the other woman's nightstand, a glass of the red liquid in hand.

The sound of the door opening didn't phase her. Green hues merely swept up to meet brown. "Can I sleep here tonight?" She asked instead of greeting Cashmere. It wasn't even afternoon yet.

[rcsitastark]

ALYCIA DEBNAM-CAREY as Alicia Clark Fear the Walking Dead - S08E12