During the Party (@favathornewood)
There’s an impulse, at these kinds of gatherings, to cling to Fava’s side. They’re a team, after all. She’s the one person that they trust implicitly. And, well, they still can’t forget their introduction to the Capitol after their Victory Tour, when being off on their own was enough of an opening for Teal Pittsmith to pounce, like Hudson was the weak link caught trailing behind the herd.
They have just enough pride to not let themself. They and Fava are a team, but they’re their own people, as well. They have their own relationships, they’ve cultivated their own alliances. And they need those relationships to survive—and for Wren and Gage to have any chance of surviving.
Still, it’s a nice urge to have. To know, without reservation, that their place is at Fava’s side, and to want to be there. It feels like a far cry from the uncertainty that plagued them after the Games, when they didn’t know what was a show for sponsors and what was real. They hardly wonder that at all anymore, like the fraught situation they’ve found themself in has whittled them down to the bare essentials, left no room for doubt.
They hadn’t had any doubt in the Arena, either. That came later. But, in the Arena, it was because they didn’t know enough to doubt. Now they know enough to not.
They’ve made the rounds on their own. Long enough to feel comfortable drifting back to Fava’s side when they see her alone off to the side, like a welcome tether has pulled them back there. To check in. To let their guard down, just for a moment. “Staying out of trouble so far?” They ask, and it feels like it should have some humor in it, but they don’t know if they manage it.