PRELUDE TO ECSTASY / PROLOGUE
whimsywitchess

❛❛ Achilles wished all
Greeks would die, so that he
and Patroclus could conquer
Troy alone. It took divine
intervention to bring
them down ❞

⋆｡˚✴︎⋆ ⚚ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

The Godkiller of Two; Anteros Ashborne rose from the smoking embers of his victory and found himself reborn.

Liberated, he stood as the lone conqueror upon the open planes of a battlefield, the flesh astride his knuckles split and the ichor of his final ally dripping from his canines. Adrenaline still electrified his veins as the fight sputtered out in his opponent's eyes, glorified by the lungs stammering beneath the heel of his boot. The haze of cinders and rubble obscured his vision when the valedictory canon sounded, the clearest thing in his field of view being the fresh blood staining his hands; Anteros could hardly even see the limp body at his feet, the loser of the game now transmogrifying into an irrelevant thing of the past.

He peered around at the destruction through the smog, the sole survivor ( if not perpetrator ) of the ruination that surrounded him, and began to laugh in the face of his own triumph.

The way he had been taught to see it, greatness was his birthright despite a humble upbringing as the son of two blacksmiths; that detail, however, finally became insignificant when the laurels landed on his head. He had been moulded like clay by his mentors at the Academy, his scholarship held over his head as though it were a guillotine to smooth over any schisms in his marble facade. Doubt was a weakness, and there was hardly any room for weakness if he was planning on becoming a Victor.

He can remember it all with familiarity, the lost feeling of being seventeen settling like a heavy barbell on his breastbone. His reaping had been the usual tauromachian clashing of horns, locked in a gripping death roll with other children who yearned for a chance beneath the spotlight, bloodsport as their sprawling red carpet. He'd be lying if he said that brawling with his self righteous classmates hadn't ignited a little satisfaction within him. Anteros had pushed his way to the front of the crowd, the first sample of victory saturating on his tongue, and stepped away from the sepulchral mountainscape of Two in search of the promised glory that sparkled in the Capitol skyline.

Be grateful, the words of his mentor, Julius Mountebank. People would kill to have this oppurtunity. This is a privilege.

He had believed him. Oh, every last word.

The taste of victory soon sours on his tongue. He gorges on success and can't stomach the vile aftertaste, ruined by his gluttony for triumph over all the people who had treated him like the street scum that he told himself he was not. His insatiable need to prove everyone wrong sputtered out faster than he could cope with the loss, an unfamiliar emptiness rearing its ugly head within him. Now, the cruor of his friends peel from the cracks between his palms and he feels that fabled flicker of humanity in his chest, the guilt crashing down on him with the divine might of a thunderbolt. He can't handle the consequences, unable to cower with his tail between his legs as every eye in the nation pins him down - the sentiment that this is all his fault echoes in his mind. Tortuous, persistent. Never ending.

Julius is there to anchor him, of course. When hasn't he been there? The Victor of the infamous 56th Hunger Games, idolised by the Capitol and revered in the eyes of every student at the Academy. Julius has always been the blueprint - he is the aureate design that every Career tribute should strive to be, the picture of excellence hung up before their faces as a constant reminder that they could always be doing better.

He had chosen to impart his wisdom onto Anteros as not only a mentor, but as a friend. Being taken under his wing was the greatest honour Anteros could imagine, sinking back into the comfort of his angel feathers as they plummeted further toward the hellfire heat of the sun. His solace was cushioned by his Icarian naïvety; by stupidity. Gullibility. The word burns upon his tongue.

Anteros had been taught that life as a Victor would change him for the better - it would give him the taste of divinity that he so desired. He was told that the Victor's Village was akin to the splendour of the Elysian fields, his childhood in the smoky back alleys of the city fading to nothing more than a discoloured sepia memory. He would never have to long for anything more than the picture perfect life the Capitol concocted for him within the dollhouse walls of his too-big mansion, every need and want now tangible. After all, he would never have to scrounge the streets for scraps like a mutt if he had the fortune of a Victor at his fingertips.

Anteros had been taught that life as a Victor would change him for the better. What reason would anyone have to lie to him? More importantly, what reason would Julius have to lie to him?

Porcelain boy, prodigal son. It's not long before he cracks under the pressure.

He doesn't like to talk about the incident. All that he can disclose is how his first act defiance ended with the killing of his sister, his sole purpose. The eulogy was merely the first syllable in his sentence and he finds himself forced to kneel before Snow, feigning obedience like a lapdog. He's condemned to taxidermy smiles and the life he leads is nothing short of a dressed up lie. In his moment of need, Anteros had felt Julius' heavy hand weighing down onto his shoulder and leant into the uncomfortable words he offered, falling back to him as vulnerability scraped his skin raw.

The raw romance of life escapes him now. He feels unreal, a changed shell of the gladiator he once was. He drinks 'til he's numb, says things that he shouldn't and regrets them come morning; he engages in the back-alley fighting ring down near his old home in the mining village - not for the money, but in order to feel something. He has become everything his sister once feared.

Anteros had even found himself laughing at star-crossed lovers from Twelve; a dry, bitter thing that hurt to leave his lips. ( Not out of humour - no, for he wasn't that sanctimonious little boy any longer - but out of pity. ) Now he finds himself facing the carnage of their actions, enraptured in the havoc that their honeyed smiles and entwined hands had wreaked across Panem. The 75th Hunger Games is beckoning him back into the scene of his own undoing, forcing him into the arena that had him condemned from the very beginning. Now, the battlefield wears a new face but the feeling from seventeen years ago still remains, dreadful and biting. Back into the belly of the beast he goes. . .

Anteros isn't the same Godkiller he had been all those years ago, no matter what they all have to say to dispute that. Survival seems intangible when the odds are stacking up against him, predator mutilated into cowering prey - it's impossible to overlook his faults. He stands on the precipice of a great battle, his eyes sweeping over his opponents, and realises with a heavy heart that they're all fighting a losing battle. This time around, they'll be knocked down like dominoes after all that wasted time clawing their way to the top. One by one. No tricks to save anyone's skin, no loopholes for any tragic lovers to tear into.

Julius reassures him. Though, instead of quelling the gunfire in his mind, it only stokes the bubbling fury inside of him. His eye twitches at the affirmations that are susurrated into his ear, his head aching at the insinuation that he'll be the last one standing.

His lip curls into a sneer. Liar, liar, liar. . .

Anteros has hardly lost anything before. He had been weaned on the belief that he should never settle for anything other than victory - but for the first time in his life, Anteros is determined to prove Julius wrong.

Even if it means that he dies trying. . .

ANTEROS ASHBORNE / Hugh Dancy

JULIUS MOUNTEBANK / Mads Mikkelsen

Bellona Ashborne . . . Kacey Rohl
Enyo Kilgore . . . Adria Arjona
Mason Feldspar. . . Laurence Fishburne
Clytemnestra Creedite . . . Dominique Jackson
Katniss Everdeen . . . Devery Jacobs
Peeta Mellark . . . Dane Dehaan

AUTHOR'S NOTE

dystopian hannigram we all say in unison

a hannibal rewatch inspired me to write this for no particular reason other than i love using faceclaims where the actors portray characters that are in a relationship (fanon or canon) because !!!!! omg !!!!! istg i have about five fics where this is the case i'm addicted

the end of this prologue kind of fell off i'm ngl i was running out of steam after the 1000 word mark but yk what i think i can accept that

DEDICATIONS

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