holland

there is beauty in a dead thing // but i am not a dead thing

[alder-reid]

Lysander Vultur was dead.

Allegedly, anyways. It was a strange thing to wrap his head around, and he numbly watched the screen in the viewing room cover the simultaneous updates from the 111th and 130th Arena.

He’d wanted this, right? Even threatened it. But he’d wanted Lysander to have to unfairly face his mortality as a tribute did, to understand the fear, the agony, the heartbreak. A sudden, unexpected death felt like an injustice.

He dug his fingers into his temples, trying to sort out his tangled emotions. Was he thrilled he was dead? Angry? Or, was he really, truly, feeling nothing at all?

[hollandwestbrook]

Holland was watching the coverage and eating a donut, tearing tiny pieces off of it as it sat on a plate in her lap, putting them into her mouth, chewing slowly.

She knew she needed to eat something, but she was waiting to hear any update on whether Pluto was okay, and her stomach was in knots. “Kinda crazy,” she said, glancing over at Alder, who looked to also be going through it. “I thought he was a cyborg this whole time.” But it wasn’t Lysander she was really focused on.

[hollandwestbrook]

caroleyre​:

“What’s so intimidating about sex?” he offhandedly spoke, though his tone was careful, almost guarded. He knew what it was. But then he chuckled, feeling so similarly it couldn’t be said any other way than with a dash of healthy arrogance. “My sister, believe me, this is me addressing it so it doesn’t get weirder. If it can get weirder.” He grimaced, mainly to himself. Cringe. “Yeah, no, I think I’m into something else entirely, sorry.”

A sigh of relief as Carol admitted he was into something else, too. The weird thing about it, being unsure what his thoughts were and not being able to just ask him. Wanting to, but feeling there was a barrier to doing so. “Okay, so we can agree to never do that again? I don’t need it in my life but I need you in my life.”

[hollandwestbrook]

TASK 012 // SUPPORT PLANS

Holland will support her own tributes but if Hazel finds herself in a pinch and Holland has the means and ability to send something her way, she probably will. Not because she really likes Hazel — she definitely doesn’t — but because it’s Aspen’s little sister. As bad an idea as volunteering was for Hazel, she can’t help but think she might feel some relief if Hazel manages to emerge victorious from the Arena.

[hollandwestbrook]

plutodosimetre​:

“And is that okay?” Pluto asked, her lips pressing into a thin line, eyes softening. She knew the clinical psychology behind what Holland was going through, but she had a promise to live up to – she wouldn’t tell her to go to therapy, she wouldn’t try to psychoanalyze her. That was her vow. “I can only imagine how you’re feeling,” She said softly, walking carefully around the subject.

.

“Yeah, I don’t even know how I’m feeling. Sort of like there’s a storm of emotion in my chest.” She pressed her hand to it. “Weirdly, I’m feeling... relief? That it’s all in the past? But also like, it’s settling in that this is just life now. I’m always gonna live in the after.” The memory of Aspen with her always. The memory of the limbs as she sawed them from one another. So opposite, and yet intertwined in a way she detested.

[hollandwestbrook]

banshee-grove​:

“Anything,” Banshee replied meekly. She had never quite been able to feel comfortable in the squeaky clean, brightly lit Tower. Outside look different - darker, with more sporadic, flashing lights. She imagined the pavement was rough, something she missed under her feet. “All of it. The President’s mansion, what a house looks like here, a school, a… a cemetery, a market.” She crossed her arms and tilted her head down to force herself to stop rambling.

.

“So you thinking of going out there?” Holland asked, blunt, getting straight to it. “I’ll issue a warning: don’t get in anyone’s fucking car.” But she regarded her for a moment, then softened slightly. “If you want to see a Capitol cemetery, I can take you to one. Just promise not to get me in trouble?”

[hollandwestbrook]

caroleyre​:

“Yes, hot,” he concluded in a deadpan, as if he hadn’t had sex on sweaty old mats perfectly well before. Carol cleared his throat and nervously gave his shoulder a couple of scratches as he got closer to Holland, enough to look her in the eye but not stepping into her personal space. “Want to talk about murder or about how we hooked up? Or something else entirely as we bury the shitshows?”

“Careful, if you talk too much about us hooking up I’ll make you my next victim,” she said. She wasn’t necessarily embarrassed about it — that wasn’t quite it — but rather, she did feel... strange. “Look, Carol, you’re not my usual type. I’ll be blunt.” It had been good, but strange. Or maybe strange should come first. Strange, but good. Good? Okay. It had felt good anyway and yet had not fulfilled her.

[hollandwestbrook]

plutodosimetre​:

A warm chuckle came from the back of Pluto’s throat, given Holland’s rather pitiful excuse. It wasn’t like she was going to get Holland in trouble or anything of the sort. If favoritism from Pluto played a part with any of the tributes – past or present – it would certainly be reserved exclusively for Holland. The girl felt more like a daughter to her than her own – that was its own complicated can of worms to open on another day, though.

“Holland, darling, I don’t take you for a proud trainer,” Pluto said, her arms crossing over her chest. The amusement fell off her face and her brows furrowed down as she continued, “If you don’t want to tell me what you’re up to – are you at least okay?”

.

“I’m not up to anything,” she said, genuine though her voice wavered slightly from emotion. The fact was that she wasn’t really up to anything at all, but was rather hiding from lots of things. “It’s just been a year. You know?”

[hollandwestbrook]

TASK 011 // A TIME AND A PLACE

Result: 1990s

[hollandwestbrook]

caroleyre​:

“Who told you that? It’s true, you’re terrible company,” Carol deadpanned, and his eyes searched for hers. There was a sinking feeling in there somewhere. It was too on his mind not to come up. It only took a second of guard off. “So… you do want to have sex again, right?” he continued, serious and approaching the elephant in the room subversively, with a casualness he was actually squeezing out of deep lack of comfort. By the end of it, he burst into a chuckle. 

“Of course I do, I came to the training center hoping to find you and have sex on one of the sweaty old mats.” She was glad he’d addressed it, though, as it meant they could begin to clear the elephant in the room, shove him bit by bit away from them so there would be more space to just be friends again.

[hollandwestbrook]

plutodosimetre​:

“It’s just me,” Pluto assured softly, a tense, cautious smile cropping up on her lips. She crossed the distance to Holland, noting the near deafening sound her shoes made as it hit the floor. “I actually was going to check to see if there were any tributes who had snuck in - drew the short straw,” She joked giving a gentler smile, “And it seems I found one – what are you doing here Holland?”

“Ah, well, former tribute, guilty as charged,” Holland said, holding her hands up in surrender. In truth she’d gone where she hoped no tributes would be, and she’d been right. She had no purpose here nor task. “Figured I’d get a head start on... I don’t know. Next winter’s training?” A lame excuse that was meant to be seen as such.

[banshee-grove]

@hollandwestbrook​

Banshee stood at the edge of the lobby, looking out through the front doors at the bright city. Her arms were wrapped tight around herself as she bent her legs and sank down into a squat, still staring outside. She forgot there were chairs nearby, and that people might see her. When she heard someone close by, she quickly jumped up and then had to grab the wall for balance, still uncomfortable in her interview shoes. “Sorry, I just - I thought - I didn’t know if I might be able to see - Sorry.”

[hollandwestbrook]

Banshee had snagged Holland’s attention. Anyone who worked with dead things for a living was automatically of interest to her, and this was no exception, even if she was a tribute from another District. “See what?” she asked, recognizing the interest in the outside world that she’d had when she was in Banshee’s position. Same time, one year ago.

[hollandwestbrook]

caroleyre​:

A little eerie, and it made him sick to his stomach how distance snowed overnight between them, but he wasn’t going to comment on that. Instead, he tried for a small smile. Funnily, he knew too well what day it was and what it meant to Holland, and he did send her a text a few minutes ago, despite the three-month radio silence they both entertained. But here, he hadn’t come for her. Here, he came for himself. Funny how things tied up together. “I wrote you tonight. Happy one year of trauma, I said.”

He removed himself from the District Six floor with cattish tiptoeing and a strange, sobering pit in his chest, as if they’d gone too far joking. As if she was the oddest thing he’d ever done, tame and clumsy and new and frightening as it had been, despite all the fucked up and trigger warning and they’d-straight-up-call-it-abuse he’d had before. He’d fasted, almost accidentally, after that night. Took his time, relished in the weakness of distance, missed her, missed her, missed her. It was easy after a little and, in the Capitol, he found other games to play, but he still missed her, missed her, missed her. It was odd and scary how love and desire were not conjoined from birth.  Carol had to let that sink for a little.

“I know. I know I’m too late. Let’s hang out anyway.”

.

She had wondered if they’d spend the whole Games avoiding each other. Even now that Hazel was here and digging up lots of things that should have remained peacefully buried, she wasn’t able to approach him. She felt more than naked around him now, walking and feeding and cleaning up after Mia on her own like she had never belonged to both of them, only Holland.

She had wondered if they’d pretend nothing happened, but time would still tell. She hoped they would and hoped they wouldn’t. She was never too good at pretend, that was the thing, but she also wasn’t good at facing the past.

“Left my phone... somewhere,” she said, “but I appreciate the sentiment.” Not quite sure what to say to him. “You sure you want to hang out? I’ve been told I’m no good company.”

[hollandwestbrook]

TASK 007 // TAGLINE

[hollandwestbrook]

TASK 005 // THE APPLE DOESN’T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE

Holland killed her mother.

Well, she didn’t really. And she’ll maintain that she knew the trick the whole time, that it was a mutt and not her real mother. But she and her mother both know that’s not true, that she didn’t care and was willing to take the risk to kill her mother to save herself.

It may be because Holland is at her core selfish — which is possibly true! But it may also be that her mother never understood her, always held her at an arm’s distance, that in the Arena when she was soft with her, Holland knew that it couldn’t be her real mother, or that if it was her real mother, this revelation alone — this false softness — was enough for her to do what she needed to do. To kill her and deal with the guilt later.

Her father, on the other hand, was a wild soul, just like Holland. Someone who loved to get his hands in the gristled meat and muscle of an animal and bring life back to it. He taught her the craft she loves, and he taught her how to understand and tame herself. It was his loss that started the hardest year of her life, which ended with her own Victory and jail time. She wonders, if he’d been alive and the mutt had mimicked him instead, would she have ever been able to win?

[hollandwestbrook]

TASK 010 // NATURAL PHENOMENA

Bioluminescent Plankton

The cool one that kinda robbed the stars' magic and used it for the sea. (you're a genius honestly) and so so beautiful my eyes melt :^) You're rare to find, a real diamond or jade or amber. Like the waves you cohabitate, you fluctuate and are hard to grasp - however you dream of your own space, a place where you can feel at home. Sometimes I believe you have already found it but you're too oblivious to realize.

[hollandwestbrook]

“Training’s over,” Holland called behind her when she heard the door to the empty training center open and shut. It was after midnight, the interviews were over, and she was consumed by memories of the night of her own interview. The way things had gone from good to horrible. Life-changing. Life-ending. “You’re too late.”

[hollandwestbrook]

hazel-sawyer​:

Hazel nodded, more to herself than to Holland. This was an understanding – it almost satisfied her morbid curiosity about how Holland really felt about Aspen. If she even cared. Hell, it made her twist in knots that there was a part of Aspen’s life she couldn’t account for – a puzzle for which she was missing pieces. If only she could find them.

She swallowed hard, ensuring she let Holland finish speaking, truly attempting to listen to what the woman had to say. Hazel’s voice felt froggy as she sputtered for the right things to say, “Yeah, but you still do,” She fumbled, “That’s like – shit, dude, I don’t know I think that’s what matters at the very least? It’s not like –” A heavy sigh slipped away from her lips, “It’s good. Not good. But – it makes sense.”

Hazel allowed a second for her to sit on the thought before blurting, “ I think she’d probs miss you too, she was such a fucking sap, god.” The laugh that immediately fell after was involuntary but she felt a little lighter, “What were you guys even gonna do if you got out? I mean – Panem’s kinda fuckin’ huge.”

Holland wasn’t sure. She hadn’t allowed herself to think much about what she and Aspen would have done and what would have become of them. How they would have pulled it off, if they could have. It was easier to think of their journey as having gone the only way it ever possibly could have. That way, she hadn’t made the wrong decision in making Aspen come back to the Tower with her. “I don’t like to think about it,” she said, “it’s not real. It never happened.”