“Mortals forget too easily that divinity is not theirs to demand. To be remembered is a privilege, and to be immortalized is a curse few will understand.”
Prompt 129: AU Inspired by the Greek and Roman mythologies, where the Games take place in an amphitheater/arena turned into a labyrinth. How often do the games occur? Are there mythological beasts/mutts? How do Katniss and Peeta survive? Or do they not? What happens after they leave the arena? [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]
Rated: T (for now)
A/N: Not sure this fully constitutes as a fic so much as a playful little teaser. I must admit, writer’s block/burnout has got me in its grip right now, so while I have every intention of expanding this story, this little morsel is what you get right now. Hope that’s alright! Rest of the meal forthcoming, because I love this prompt and want to do it justice — anyway, enjoy! 😉
Sunlight and blood drip down from the iron grate that lets us look up into the arena, and the group of us below scream and cheer as a trumpet blares to signal that Clove has won her fight and her freedom. Cato, standing in the midst of the knot of us that huddle under the grate to catch a glimpse of her against the hot blue sky, raises his hands to catch the gold dust motes that fall onto the dirt floor, as though he’s standing in a cataract of water.
“Fortune be with you!” he shouts as loud as he can, though his voice will be drowned under the roar of the crowds.
“Fortune be with you!” all of us echo, knowing Clove can hear us in her heart if not her ears, wishing her luck.
We do not hear her call back “Fortune be with you all!” But we are certain she will, before she is taken away to be washed and dressed and released into the city streets of Rome as a free woman, and a monster slayer at that. At least, we assume that is what happens. We cannot be certain. That is only what they tell us. And even if it is a lie, it is a pretty one.
Cato lowers his hands. He is triumphant in his friend’s victory, as we all are, but I know he will feel the loss of her tonight. My hand finds Peeta’s and grasps it tightly, grateful that in eight years my love from Germania hasn’t been chosen for the Games. Some people are desperate to fight, come what may, death or liberation. Not me. Strange as it seems, I am almost content with the safety of our bondage.
But we are sixteen now. Any day Seneca could come down to tell me I’ve been chosen. Or Peeta. Cato. Glimmer. Thresh. Rue. Any of our friends still living.
Today the odds were in Clove’s favor. May they be in ours tomorrow. Whatever that means.
~
“Mel,” comes Peeta’s voice, low and gentle. His pet name for me. “Honeysweet,” he says. “It’s time to get up. The chariots are readying.”
Has it really been a week since Clove’s fight? Time passes strangely here, like an island Ulysses might have found on his journey home. But his time was many decades ago. Fewer and fewer monsters dare to run wild. Peeta believes they’re smart enough to realize what might happen to them if they come too close to the city. They don’t offer freedom to a victorious beast. Only fight after fight until there is nothing left but to die. I feel pity for them.
I get to my feet, and brush the dust from my knees. I twist my long, dark hair up into a braid. Peeta’s hands frame my slender hips, thumbs circling gently at my hips, my belly. In other circumstances, they might carry his child. We talked about that, once, on a moonless night when secrets seemed more likely to keep, curled up nose to nose on our bedroll. We spoke of farming land well away from the streets of Rome. Having a family.
“Do I pass your inspection?” I say softly. The sunlight catches at his hair. If it were not blasphemy to say so, I should tell him he looks like Apollo himself, gilt with gold.
Peeta takes my hands and turns me around, my homespun dress of faded red, now a drab orange color, clinging tightly to a body, that, though small, is too big for it now. But his eyes are dark with admiration and even desire. “Beautiful, as always, my honey love.”
I stand on my tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips, lips that gave me my first ever kiss, that worshiped my body with whispered promises, and still cover me in the sweetest touches of love and lust.
“You’re beautiful too,” I say.
“We’re all beautiful,” comes Thresh’s sardonic voice. He smiles a wry smile, close mouthed. “Let’s go.”
“You might have woken me sooner,” I say, as Peeta puts an arm around me and leads me to join the small procession of tributes that files up the dirt tunnel and out into the courtyard where the chariots wait, painted and gleaming in the bright sun.
“You looked so peaceful,” he says, helping me step up into the open back of the chariot. A guard comes to bind our wrists and hands to a set of hooks at the front of the chariot. We don’t resist. This is routine. Peeta and I continue talking as we are bound side by side. “I didn’t want to disturb you before I had to.”
I nod, grateful that my heart belongs to such a generous man. When we first met, we could not speak each other’s languages, and each thought the other looked so strange. But I remember, young as I was, barely eight, huddling with the boy my size as fights raged overhead, his strength becoming my strength, and mine his.
Now, my fingers flex and stretch and find his through the mass of black cords trussing us to the chariots so we don’t try to escape as we are paraded around the city. It’s a veritable weekly holiday, the choosing of the tribute. The crowds will get a look at us, old tributes and new, and decide who they want to be Rome’s champion—or sacrifice—for the week.
Peeta and I have often wondered why we have never been chosen. For a while it was our youth that made us unappealing, but now? Is it pity that stays their choice? You could not see the way we are together and not conclude that we are lovers. Our fellow tributes knew before we did that we loved each other. Fox, a girl brought from Peeta’s homeland, used to tease us about that, before she ...
As the chariots jerk and clatter, starting their journey down into the throngs, I feel the vial of nightlock poison, kept hidden on a cord around my waist, bounce against my skin. Fox taught us how to make the poison from berries, snuck in from the outside by helpful allies. There is enough for one of us, me or Peeta, whichever one might have need.
We do not know why neither of us have been chosen. We do not know if we ought to count it a curse or blessing. But we do know that if there is any life for us at the end of this Roman road, it must be together — or not at all.
