#( digit. )

[twigelphineson]

Day After the Wedding, Outside the Training Room (@digitalrcge​)

There’s no reprieve after the wedding, after the Rebels’ announcement. Training continues as usual; Twig watches the doors close behind Harbor again. Today, though his hand is wrapped. When he makes a fist, he can still feel the sting, the bite of broken glass. In the light of day, he finds it difficult to meet anyone’s eye. While he can hope that the evening’s dramatic finish overshadowed his own dramatic display, he knows that Cyprian Stack, at least, won’t forget.

When the doors close, Digit is outside of the training room as well. Truthfully, she isn’t a Victor that he’s had much cause to cross paths with over the years. If he were to take a younger Victor under his wing, it was those who came out of the Games like he did: held up, beloved, swept into the whirl of the Capitol. Digit wasn’t that. And so Twig just—didn’t engage. If he needed something from Three, there was Silver, who Twig held in much higher esteem.

But maybe he could stand to learn a little bit more about being hated.

“Strange how everything just—goes on. No matter how hungover you are.” It’s a poor joke. He can’t cover how he’s feeling for shit, and he hasn’t been able to for some time. The train, last night’s announcement. It seems like nothing stops the Games. No matter how much you need it to.

[silverostro]

NPC HEADCANON ft. Auburn (the Avox), and kind of Digit ( @embersnpc. )

In a brief interlude after speaking to Slate, but before heading back down to where the sponsors and spectators often mingle to seek out any last minute aid for Zero and the others that they can, they stop back in Three. First, they make a point of collecting their most important notebooks, only a few, not enough that would make it seem strange that they’re carrying so many around. They take a half-finished letter out of one notebook, and leave it in Digit’s room, mercifully empty just now, despite most of the contents being no longer relevant given the way things turned out between them. Still, it only feels fair, knowing now they’re making the choice to leave her in a different sort of danger by not giving her what they know. If someone else chooses to tell her, they won’t fault them for it, but they can’t bring themself to go so far in their acceptance of what she did to them, in the understanding she wasn’t willing to offer them in return. Leaving the note feels like an ending to them, and it’s a relief, in a strange way, even in the midst of so much panic and uncertainty. 

Coming out of her room, Auburn is standing nearby, clearly watching them, a slight frown on her face, curious, knowing how things have been in Three’s suite since they were thrown back after their torture. They explain to her that it was time to stop ignoring the issue, because there are greater things to deal. They wish desperately that they could write now, but without that option, they do their best to carefully tell her how to escape anyway. They frame it as believing they must have left one of their notebooks somewhere while they were seeking out sponsors, tell her that Robyn might remember better than them, but they haven’t seen them since losing it. All they can do is hope that their message is somewhat clear in the look they offer, and the mention of Robyn, hoping that they can send them to her to give written instructions, if she doesn’t find them first. Silver thanks her for everything she’s done for the two of them, though, before they leave again to get back to work.

[dcwnhardin]

the middle of things, halfway thru the tea party  ( @digitalrcge​. )

A great deal of time has passed already without any incident at all, and it’s as suspicious to Dawn as he can tell it is for most others. Very few Capitolites seem to want to have the normal trivial chats about clothes he’s usually pulled into at these sort of events during Games season, and he’s oddly grateful for it. Tempting as it is, though, to make his home next to Slate for the entire party, he’s managed to make himself give Slate space, running through his own list of others that he needed to check on anyway after too many days spent neglecting care outside of Seven and Two. Having run through so much of it, though, Dawn finds his eyes attracted to a particular victor, a particular conversation needed. He does wish that Silver had taken up his offer to talk that he had extended when he dropped off the gloves he had made for them before jumping into this, but nothing is so simple. And unfortunately enough, a forced tea party is the perfect place to have conversations others would usually run from, given that he doesn’t have certain peoples’ inclinations towards physical restraining to force conversations.

So he makes the choice to steel himself, and approach, no real plan in mind for this one, not knowing her nearly as well as most of the people he attempts his more personal conversations with. And he has to admit that his own personal bias––watching Slate now, seeing how changed he’s been, how much has been taken from him, and having heard Robyn’s side of things already––doesn’t make it particularly easy to approach objectively. Still, he moves through the crowd towards her.

“Digit, I was hoping we could talk,” Dawn says, voice straight, no hint of the quiet sort of anger he feels just looking at her seeping through. He pauses just for a second, rethinks that as a starting point. This isn’t a choice, and he’s not going to give her the benefit of thinking it’s one. Things have gone much too far, and too many people have been hurt for the illusion of niceties. Some people need hard truths before they can even benefit from tough love. “Let me rephrase that. We’re going to talk now. Would you like to do that here, or find somewhere more private to sit?”

[silverostro]

morning, the third day after the reception, district three’s suite ( @digitalrcge​. )

They don’t know how long it’s been when they finally bring them back out into the world. Their mind is a mess of disparate parts, and their body has hardly stopped shaking since the first shock of electricity, feeling as if the current is lingering in their veins, constant. At least it’s easy not to struggle, to accept the way they pull them around with an entirely new sort of serene calm, as if the pain reaching its heights, accepting responsibility for things they didn’t do, was a balm for a mind on fire.

It’s just the beginning. All they’ve done is make certain that Silver isn’t going to stop until things change, or the Capitol is finally smart enough to kill them.

Shoved into the suite, Silver catches themself on the wall with their right hand, slightly less painful, to keep themself from collapsing immediately. Without anyone holding them up, though, whole body weak, it’s easier to let themself slide down to sitting on the floor, no real thought in their mind, but to stay here until they can work up the energy through the pain to drag themself to their room, start the slow process of pulling the pieces back together, hoping Zero or Citron don’t wander into the common area before they can do so.

It’s not Zero or Citron, though, who they see moving out of the corner of their eye. And it feels cruel to wish she would just walk by, to think that’s in the realm of possibilities from her––she’s proven it is, though––but they think they’re afforded that small hope, that they can get themself together alone, struggle through cleaning themself up, checking the empty spaces where fingers should be to see the stitch job the Capitol’s done, before having to try to think through the static, memories blackened at the edges, about what all of this means for them. For her. How the hell they’re meant to even look at her, yet alone work as a team now.

But it’s not a surprise that Digit doesn’t have mercy in this, either. It’s probably selfish to wish for it, anyway. They deserve what they’ve gotten.

They don’t trust their voice, and their mind is full of too much distortion to form a coherent sentence, so instead they raise their tightly bandaged left hand, the pain overwhelming still, and wave at her, as if it’s utterly normal for them to be sitting on the floor, slumped against the wall. Wave hello, show her a fraction of the consequences of whatever grand plan she had, show her that at least they’ve started their penance for years of doing so little. A lame, weak wave, only two fingers left to do so, ring and little finger, pain shooting up through their arm, before letting their hand fall back into their lap, wincing with the feeling.

[silverostro]

very late at night, a few days into training, district three’s floor  ( @digitalrcge​. )

Despite their best efforts at remaining calm in the face of the not insignificant instinct to panic, they’re well aware they’re doing even worse at that than they had been when their hopelessness had simply been backed up by arriving in the Capitol, plans failed, instead of concrete information of danger. They know they have to keep trying, and they keep telling others that in the face of this all they can do is try to set others up to make it further than they have, but even that feels a little pointless. It’s not something they’ve admitted out loud, but they can’t help but wish they had kept their head down, had held onto their safety for longer. Perhaps then they might have stood a chance at making a difference. Now? They don’t think that’s possible any longer, no matter what Blythe has tried to tell them, no matter if they’ve acted like they agree.

The moments outside of training aren’t easy, when they have to face Zero, try and fail to seem like they have confidence in the strategies they’re offering him, the potential alliances they’ve set up, the sponsors they’ve found. They already know they’re not going to be able to stop the Games. And they already know they damned Zero to a horrid fate the moment they asked him to help them on the train, perhaps even before.

Sleep is just as impossible as hope, but they feel restless, wishing the distortion in their mind would take over and make them forget all of this. Unsurprisingly, not even their own mind offers mercy. Still, they pick up their notebook, and wander out of their bedroom, mind too full, thinking of perhaps making a cup of tea, then taking it up to the rooftop, trying to find some clarity there.

Instead, they find Digit already in Three’s common area, and they feel guilty for the relief that it’s her and not Zero or Citron, despite knowing how much they’re failing her, too. “Ah, you’re still up. Simply can’t find sleep, or are you in the middle of some nefarious plotting?” Silver asks, trying for humor, not wholly succeeding.

[silverostro]

do you resent digit for winning?

“No, I resent that the Games put us both into a position we didn’t ask for with each other.” And it’s the truth, one they think she would likely agree with. There’s more to it, though, and it wouldn’t be fair to her not to admit that. Something that might come off as resentment to those who don’t understand fully. “That, and I worry sometimes that winning was just as bad as the alternative, for the image the Capitol chooses to paint of her and how she has to deal with it. But that’s not resentment. That’s something else entirely.”

[silverostro]

district three, right after the reaping for the 67th hunger games ( @digitalrcge​. )

They usually prefer to disappear as soon as the reaping is finished, head to the train immediately to get themself situated and prepared, instead of waiting in the hall, having to witness the direct aftermath, and make it all even harder than it already is. Better to leave that to escorts and peacekeepers. Except it’s not just their choice anymore, because against all odds the previous year went well, not much thanks to them, they’re self aware enough to admit, and now they’re a team. Supremely ironic, considering how much of a team they were during her Games, certain that if they had tried to help any more than the bare minimum they did once they realized she stood half a chance, she wouldn’t have survived. Like every other year. 

It’s already bad enough, the expert avoidance techniques both of them have adapted as neighbors, and they would feel just fine keeping it that way, Digit Copperforge seemingly the sort of person who can take care of herself, and them busy enough with work not to have time for worry even if they wanted to offer it. And they’ve never been known for working particularly well with others, they’re inclined to believe mentoring will be no different.

So there they both are, awkwardly waiting for their tributes to finish their goodbyes, and it feels more difficult than usual, with someone else by their side, to brush off years and years of memories of the routine, what comes next, watching more death, their mind having no mercy just now. Silver shifts uncomfortably, crossing their arms over their chest unconsciously. “The girl, she’s your age. Do you know her?” they ask, glancing at Digit.