you can always bleed a little more.

My bones are smouldering / 
and my knuckles are bloody. 
Forgive me. Forgive me. 

UNKNOWN / UNKNOWN.

﹙ chapter twenty five, act two ﹚

presidential mansion, the arena.
july, 72 att.

                    OF ALL PEOPLE, WHOEVER THOUGHT THAT FRIGHTENED LITTLE JOHANNA COULD WIN THE GAMES? Not Caesar Flickerman, who regards her like a bomb ticking away. His words may be pleasant, praising, but Johanna sees the reservation in his eyes. The veiled apprehension. He didn't think he'd be talking to her tonight, that she'd be the survivor of twenty three other tributes. There were times where she didn't, either ─── where she was certain she was going to die.

                    Johanna rips off her gloves. She scrambles up the ice; away, away, away. Fear, visceral and choking, claws up her throat. She is not weak but she is still human, and it's still entirely possible that she will die. Unprotected, her hands don't sing with pain from the cold. She cannot feel her fingers at all anymore. She has no knife to cut herself free. No shield to protect her.

                    Johanna has nothing, she never did. Perhaps that is why she truly starts to sob ─── why did it take the Hunger Games to realise that her mother was right?

                    It does nothing to change Mirror's expression. Johanna has been crying the whole time ─── though even if she knew, it wouldn't change anything. She is a Career, born and bred. Weapons don't hesitate at the sight of weeping.

                    But here she is, wickedly vicious as she was all along, with her forged victory. The audience doesn't quite know what to think of her. Some praise her, some are baffled, and some believe she cheated her way to winning. They're probably just bitter they didn't bet on her. She sees herself on the screens, and it's so strange to be the centre of attention, no longer invisible ─── and she soon finds out how suffocating it is. How there is no room for anything less than the image: hers is to be as victorious and gloating as possible, even if she's still frozen inside.

                    She looks different, too. Before, her prep team only ever made her into Beauty Base Zero. Simple and flawless, yet forgettable. But now that she is the victor, now that she is notable, they have carved and sculpted her face into something sharp and new.

                    She doesn't know whether to like it or not.

                    "My, my, Johanna!" Caesar says, rocking back and forth in his chair. His hair is thin and dyed a gaudy yellow ─── and he's such an eyesore she so desperately wants to punch him.

                    These mood swings grow more violent as the days pass from when the doctors meddled with her head. Though the games were the shortest in history ─── only three or four days ─── they still spent time fixing her into some semblance of a human. And she doesn't know what they did to her while she was drugged up on morphine, but it must've ruined whatever was left. After the ice gave way and she succumbed to the icy waters, her muscles never stopped contracting. It took them a while before they gave up trying to fix it.

                    She grinds her teeth into something resembling a smile. "Caesar." She says simply.

                    "I must say, you had us all fooled!" He claps, beckoning the audience to do the same. "And what a performance that was."

                    Johanna nods stiffly. Was it really always just an act? Her memories are hazy, frozen away in some dark little corner of her mind, but she remembers the fear. The consuming, choking fear.

                    "This'll be over quickly." The sword plunges down into the ice. Mirror is unfazed by her sobs as the edge of the blade slices Johanna's side. She tried to twist away, but it was not enough. Her blood spills onto the ice and sizzles.

                    The force of the push means Mirror can't wrestle it back out of the ice. She tries, straining, but her own readiness to kill means the sword is deeply nestled there. Cracks erupt around the ice because she spends a moment too long trying: Johanna curls forwards, open wound screaming with pain, and she grabs Mirror's ankles. The girl shouts in surprise, abandoning the sword in the ice too late. Johanna hits the back of her knee, hard, to make the muscles go lax for a moment and then pulls her ankles out from beneath her. Mirror shouts with rage as she topples onto her, and the weight knocks the breath from her lungs. They wrestle.

                   Mirror expects to be much stronger than her, but Johanna has been scaling trees and cutting wood with heavy axes her whole life.

                    Mirror grunts and knees Johanna, leg forcing itself onto stomach, and she yelps. The two wrestle on the ice, Johanna scratching and biting and pushing her fingers into Mirror's eyes. Dirty fighting, she knows, but adrenaline pumps through her veins and she becomes vicious to survive. The descent to hell, as they say, is easy. Mirror curls her fingers into a fist and punches, over and over, bloodying Johanna's face and pounding her head into the ice. Something similar happened on the other side of the lake just a moment ago. The Career reaches for the sword, ready to stab her, and she thinks this must be it.

                    Johanna has very little to show for her seventeen short, bitter years. Very little to show for the greatest performance the Hunger Games has ever had.

                    "Yes, I really did." She's supposed to play into a new persona, one who is pleased about winning ─── and while she can be proud of how her little plan really did work, she can't pretend to have enjoyed this. Not the way they did.

                    He shakes his head in awe, chuckling. "What do you plan on doing, may I ask? Go back to Seven? Pay us some visits every now and then? We'd love to see you."

                    Johanna smiles so tightly her lips start to split. "Maybe," she says non-committedly, "who knows? For now, Caesar, my performance is over. I've missed home."

                    That's a safe angle, right? The classic; a victor who has played their part and is now ready to rest. ( He watches, from far above, lip curling ─── she exposes herself by saying this, though they would always be used as leverage. Always. )

                    Caesar tuts sympathetically, a shallow imitation of the real thing. "I see. Well ───" he says, turning to the audience with an eager clasp of his hands, "─── before Miss Mason leaves us, let's remind ourselves of what happened!"

                    And on the screen behind her, the footage plays. There she is, dying in perfect pixels. They cheer and watch enraptured, as the feast commences on the screen. Not the bloodbath, she notes. Not any of the days before. No, all that interests the Capitol is when the girl shed her skin to become a monster.

                    Mirror's hand goes limp and she slumps to the ground. The short sword clatters to the ground. Her head, after all, is barely still on her shoulders, only a few sinews still connecting it to her body. It lolls forwards and her body collapses to the side, warm blood drenching her. It's the first time she's felt warm since entering the arena.

                    Kaia stands there, axe fresh with blood once more, which she then uses to cleave the ropes binding her legs apart. Eyes wide, almost quivering. Red splatters all over.

                    "Now watch this, folks!" Caesar says in a rousing voice, drumming his fingers on his knee. "The best part!"

                    "Th─── thank───" She scrambles up onto her feet, and Kaia's gaze is already darting around the rest of the Cornucopia. She doesn't even register that Mirror's sword has gravitated into Johanna's hand. Not until she steps forward and plunges it into her abdomen.

                    "I love it!" He giggles, and the audience erupts into cheers. "The genius, the backstabbing! The moment Johanna Mason went down in history!"

                    "What? What?" She asks, stumbling back, lips parted in horror. Johanna hollowly watches her for a moment, shedding a final tear ─── the cannon fires within moments, and she leaves two things with that broken body; the mask she's worn for the games, and the good parts of herself.

                    As Kaia stands there, the angle changes and she has a glimpse of the wicked grin slowly carving itself into her features. It's half obstructed by her ally's brunette waves whipped up by the wind, and it's the sort of horror Johanna would have pretended to shy away from. And truthfully, it does unnerve her, but it's better not having to mask everything behind sniffs and tears.

                    There's more necessary evils to be done. Romy, too far away to be threat, catches sight of her; brown eyes wide as he realises she is still alive, but his brief pause means Reeve has found the opening he needed and makes a grievous wound. The Careers have always been strenuously allied. Part of her pities him; red, red, red, everywhere as Reeve makes him bleed for the betrayal.

                    He only watches her as he dies, and just as realisation begins to dawn, his cannon fires and Romy falls backwards onto the ice, sprawled out in the snow.

                    Blight, her mentor ─── though calling him such a thing is a gross overestimation of the useless man ─── sits in the front row seats, and doesn't interact with the footage. In these past few days, he hasn't said much at all, just frowning and shaking his head ─── her tactics have revealed the full depth of his ineptitude. She was forsaken by him, ignored, and yet here she is.

                    Here she fucking is.

                    The tributes have been whittled down to three. Herself, Reeve, and Elias, who didn't leave Zure's side during training, and doesn't now. It makes sense to hunt him first. She's near enough to see Reeve grits his teeth and suppress something like a laugh. Why does he mourn her if he always intended to win? As he carefully, cautiously approaches, she follows and passes Romy's body. Johanna's lip trembles ─── even if he left her, even if he wasn't much, he was from home. Then hardens into a grimace. The axe was heavy in her hands as she killed Kaia, but it is now feather light.

                    "Oh, the tension. He really didn't know, folks. Not many of us did."

                    Johanna smiles and nods politely, but internally, she is fuming. Nobody knew. There was only one sponsor, an anonymous benefactor, and that was far from enough for a gift. It's insulting to pretend her victory hasn't emptied their wallets. To say they had a suspicion.

                    Reeve, a cloud of mist around his breath, heaves, and rams the spear into Elias' leg. Johanna rolls behind a loose crate, ready to let him do the bloody work for her. The other Career hardly fights back, but there is no cannon. Realising the boy playing god is distracted, she seizes her opportunity.

                    The axe is familiar in her hands, and familiar with the blood of tributes. Reeve leers over Elias. "It's over." He proclaims, a raw sort of laugh on his tongue. "I told you."

                    Johanna doesn't waste her breath on a one-liner. It's almost impossible to hold this advantage she has for very long. The first hack cuts easily through the thick coat, from shoulder across and down to his waist. Reeve arches himself, roaring in agony. "What?" And he sounds like a boy again, confused and alone in a strange arena. "Who?"

                    He, too, had forgotten her.

                    Johanna whirls it between her fingers and cleaves at his arm, the sharp edge deeply sinking into his bicep. He is quick to turn around, slackened expression turning to steel, but she is quicker. Before he can wrench his weapon from Elias ─── a distant thought by now, though he's still alive ─── he's exposed his core in twisting to reach for it and to not be caught in the back again.

                    She has not felt this calm since she was reaped. There's electricity humming in her bones, and for once she doesn't have to hold it back. A vicious sort of relief from letting it go. For some reason, while she makes Reeve bleed some more and hacks off his arm completely, her mind goes back to a cabin in the woods. The one her grandparents built, far away from the suburbs, the small patch of land owned by the Masons since before the Dark Days. All of a sudden it doesn't seem so hopeless to go back. Johanna has played the game, and she is winning.

                    The axe held high, she slashes him firmly down the middle. His body stumbles back a fraction before falling apart. Reeve dies as he was born: with a weapon in his hands, covered in blood.

                    She turns around, and brings it down on Elias' skull. Immobilised by Reeve, there's nothing he could do to stop her splitting his skull until the bone. The snow around them is not white anymore, but a deep crimson, and Johanna is decorated with it too. Splatters up her arms; some dry, some not. It could be four different people's blood on her, and her own. With an axe in her hands and an opponent who now knows the truth, Johanna becomes what she's been all along: a vicious, vicious killer.

                    The silence is too long.

                    "Come on!" She shouts up at the sky, deranged. They are watching her, she knows it. "I won!"

                    The ice of the lake gives way, and she falls down, down, down. An abyss greets her, and Johanna cannot fight nothing. She sinks further and further, the bleak light of above slowly fading away.

⭒ ➷ ⭒ ➹ ⭒ ➷ ⭒ ➹⭒

presidential parks, the capitol.

july, 72 att.

                    THE NIGHT SEEMS TO INFINITELY STRETCH ON. It reminds her of the arena ─── where the sky never changed from a bleak grey; stuck in limbo between day and night ─── but here she knows this is real. At least, as time wears on past midnight, some of the interest in her shifts to the party; it rages with heightened intensity ─── the music swells, the food tables are constantly replenished, and the vomiting cubicles are in more use than ever. Some Capitolites are so drunk they've forgotten why they're here.

                    At some point, during the early hours of the morning, her escort materialises from nowhere. Frantic, clawed nails grip at her wrist, dragging her along like one would a small child. She offers no explanation for where they're going, or why.

                    She's a mix between nervous and furious. "The crowning was supposed to be hours ago!" She frets, stalking towards the stage where Johanna's interview was held. She rips her hand out of the woman's grasp, but follows nonetheless.

                    "How could they just announce he was suddenly occupied? What do they expect me to do?" Her voice nears to a wail.

                   "Who cares?" asks Johanna, raising a brow.

                   The escort frowns, still unused to her no longer filtering her thoughts. "It's the President's fault!" She snaps, using one hand to keep her wig in place. They enter the backstage area, where the prep team is already waiting. "You were to be crowned after the interview, so imagine my horror when an attendant simply said he wouldn't be available for a while."

                    The prep team makes sympathetic noises, as if the escort is suffering the most. It takes them a fair few minutes of complaining together to get to work fixing any issues they see in her makeup in the three hours since she saw them last. Meanwhile, she gets lectured on the etiquette expected for such an important ceremony ─── good posture, correct enunciation, sitting without crossing her legs.

                    They don't see many faults in her appearance, so are soon dismissed.

                    As they leave, in comes Blight ─── still looking at her like she's not really here; like she is an imposter wearing sweet and sad Johanna Mason's skin ─── who stops by for a few more instructions, but she doesn't listen to him at all. What would he know? And then she's put onto a stage once more, but this is less of a spectacle. In the far distance, the first streaks of days are visible; spilling onto the canvas of inky blue, gradual shades of pink and orange slowly rise up. The first light seems to be another cause for celebration, as the drunken singing and dancing becomes all the more raucous.

                    But, as President Snow steps on the stage, a hush falls among them.

                    The only word that could describe him is cold ─── the arena comes to claim her in an icy wave. Already, she is tense. President Snow, from what she sees while he delivers a speech and she sits on her throne, is wearing a suit more valuable than half her town. Swirling designs on purple silk, the finest money can buy. A head of white hair, and pale, weathered skin.

                    With hesitant steps, she approaches him. Snow turns to her, a cold gaze masked by a smile, and a wave of blood seems to descend on her. She tenses, shivering ─── seeing flashes of a harrowing arena ─── before the perfume he's wearing masks it. His lips are puffy and slightly stained with blood. It's both curious and disturbing, and she prefers not to know anything about it.

                   "Congratulations, Miss Mason." He rasps, voice echoing around the parks. She wants to lean away for the fear of him spitting blood on her. Every fibre in her body is now on high alert, because something about him is so deeply wrong. "Your victory will be one we remember."

                    "It certainly will." There's been talk about how she has revolutionised the games. His expression doesn't change, but his eyes darken. She thought she shed her fear back in the arena, but it returns with renewed intensity. "Thank you, Mr President."

                    The Capitolites watch as the crown is lifted from the podium by hands that have done this almost fifty times before. President Snow crowns another victor, another child, and watches as she lets him place the elaborate piece of silver. The poor compensation for the games. It lays heavy on her head, and she wants to curl her fingers around the inlaid jewels and throw it away.

                    Johanna watches him as he places the crown, another victory for him, the first true smile she's seen all evening. On the screen behind that relays the events on stage to pixels for the rest of the world to watch, she sees herself truly becoming a victor.

⭒ ➷ ⭒ ➹ ⭒ ➷ ⭒ ➹⭒

presidential mansion, the capitol.

july, 72 att.

                    THE CHILL DOESN'T LEAVE HER. Johanna hides her shivers as best she can, works to suppress them, but there are still hooks in her skin dragging her back and she can't help it. At least she's not supposed to be staying still, so while the jerky movements are unnatural, they can be played off fairly normally. There are still tears frozen to her face. It's deeply unfair how they parade her, her victory, while pretending that the dead tributes never existed ─── no, suddenly it's all about her.

                    Her hands clench into fists at her sides as yet another Capitolite congratulates her. "I had an inkling ───"

                    "I'm sure you did." She half-snarls, moving swiftly away. As the night wears on, it becomes harder and harder to suppress everything with a smile. Wiping her face clean, Johanna forces her mouth into a straight slash, brows unmoving and expressionless, but her eyes reflect the empty pits of hell.

                    The night outside is cool and dark ─── she makes sure to stay inside, or else the chills might claim her forever ─── but inside is a whirlwind of strange faces, a long dance of adoration and glitter. She tries to keep in time to the mass of bodies, swaying with the music as she escapes the trailing hands on her body, but it's futile. She cannot stay hidden behind her invisibility any more: Johanna is an icon now, the picture of the Capitol's cruel games. It's her night, after all.

                    She hates it. The congratulations, the awe, the handshakes, the hugs. A few even try to kiss her on the cheeks. The splitting smiles, the placid grins. Enraptured, they quiz her on the feast ─── again, just the feast: she was nothing and nobody before that ─── asking however she managed to kill three tributes in the shortest games on record. Dredging up video clips of herself clasping Kaia's hand to get up, then driving a sword through her stomach. Creeping up on Reeve and butchering him before he could properly fight back. Splitting open Elias' head.

                    "It was a long time coming," she says evasively when they speak. The same, short answer.

                    Hands grab her, pulling her into conversations. She's been told she must let them. So when Finnick Odair saunters over to her, casually brilliant and holding almost as much attention as her, announcing they're to dance, she goes along with it. His hands on her shoulders, she keeps hers firmly by her sides as they dance, pointedly looking away from him.

                    "Oh see here, Mason, the party's for you." He tells her, flashing her a dazzling grin. It really is quite unfair how gorgeous he is, how he seems to be the brightest in the room. Johanna knows an act when she sees one, but some of this cannot be forced. Though he's easily the most attractive man in the Capitol ─── Johanna can sense the jealous gazes burning into the back of her head ─── she instantly realises she could never be attracted to him. Even without his notorious reputation, he's too much, too easy to lose.

                    And that makes it all so much easier.

                    "I know," she says sardonically, not pleased with this arrangement. She'd like to go home, and to sleep ─── though falling into another abyss unnerves her. She shivers again beneath his hands. "And I get to dance with Finnick Odair himself. Aren't I blessed?"

                    He chuckles, taking her by the hand and twirling her around. Johanna's not much of a dancer, but he leads and she follows. However, the little dance becomes more deadly as she catches sight of wooden beads around his wrist, and stills. She forces herself to carry on moving, to reanimate herself, but it's a moment too late.

                    He notices, but Finnick is very overt about it, tilting his head curiously. "You really are lucky. It's curious, you know ─── one minute, you're a quiet little thing, and the next, you're biting my head off."

                   "Such are the games." She replies. "Besides, I've been told what I can and can't say to a Capitolite. You aren't one, so it doesn't count."

                    "Maybe I'm the lucky one then," he muses, ocean eyes flashing. She can't tell whether it's amusement or flirtation. Neither would surprise her. His reputation, even known back in Seven as the poster boy of the games, doesn't do him justice. "Sometimes I envy invisibility. You overhear things and no one even knows."

                    But he knows. It didn't change anything when she overheard the Capitolite telling him that the arena would be a desolation; it was too late to train up for it. But didn't it give her some peace of mind? Would it really be considered cheating? She doubts, now that they've gotten their entertainment, they'd care.

                    She glances around, particularly to the dark-skinned girl watching them, then back to him. "I suppose you wouldn't know. Someone's popular."

                    "Indulge me," he says as they sway in time to the music, whispering in her ear. She fights the urge to roll her eyes. Who does he think he is? "Tell me something you heard. I have a penchant for secrets."

                    Johanna laughs airily, falsely. It doesn't suit her. "It wouldn't be a secret then, would it?"

                    Again, he studies her, and Johanna does everything not to jut her chin out defiantly. This isn't a test; she doesn't owe him anything. Eventually, he drifts away from her: "I suppose not. Welcome to the party, Johanna. It won't end."

                    And he moves on, dancing with the next person he sees. To everyone else, the picture of the charming, uncaring playboy. But Johanna watches him a moment more, and sees him studying her from over the Capitolite's shoulder. He knows. Something tells her Finnick Odair is used to knowing people's secrets. Before she can read into his expression too much, she turns away, pulled into something else, some other talk. Whether or not he suspects, she can tell it's better to stay off his radar.

                    And it goes on like this for hours. Though that fierce spark in her eyes doesn't waver, she can feel herself growing slower as there's another song, another dance, another talk. It all blends into one long blur, and Johanna gets more tired as midnight comes and goes and there are no signs of the party stopping ─── but she cannot just leave. They're celebrating her.

                    There are some other victors she speaks to, apart from the Capitolites. This year's mentors who must be present for the party, and seem to still have that special status. She can't be introduced to the old Career tributes, now popular victors, on their own, as they're always surrounded by Capitolites. They almost fit in perfectly with them, but in the end, they're still district. However much they may adore her, praise her, admire her, there is still some reservation. But given how they treat the earlier ones, it won't take long for them to get over that.

                    She shivers again. It takes everything not to let her deep discomfort present itself as a scowl. Is this what life looks like after the games?

                    She's introduced to Mags, a calm and old woman from Four, who seems nice enough, but only uses hand gestures to speak. She doesn't bother trying to decipher her miming, and when she sees Finnick approaching them ─── well, she leads her over to the food tables and before he can reach them, he's occupied with somebody else. But then there's Chaff and Haymitch, whom she meets while stumbling into their drunken, swerving path en route to the toilets. There's Cecilia, a sweet but sad woman in nunnish clothes ─── Johanna learns that she is a mother and this is how she must dress ─── whose eyes scream nothing but let me out of here.

                    And that most curious girl, the dark-skinned one with the locs half pulled up into a bun and a short dress that doesn't suit her in the slightest. She stands awkwardly in the corner, a drink in one hand and the other constantly trying to pull her skirt down a little further. Johanna vaguely recognises her, but the girl ─── they're about the same age ─── seems to be actively avoiding her gaze.

                    "Hi," she says, flashing her a slightly vicious grin as she approaches her. "Do I know you?"

                    "We've never met."

                    "That's not what I asked." Johanna tells her, tilting her chin out a little at the evasive response. Somebody who doesn't want to adore her and make her want to turn into a monster all over again? She could talk to this girl all night.

                    Her stance physically shifts, as if hit by a blow she wasn't expecting, and her eyes widen for a moment. She takes a sip from her drink, a little unsteady on her feet, and scoffs. "I'm Mara," she says shortly. "I won two years ago."

                    "Ah," Johanna clicks her tongue. Silence falls between them, and Mara makes no attempt to bridge it ─── in fact, she decidedly looks away, ashamed to be talking to her. "What, do you not like me or something?" She asks.

                    Mara finishes her drink and discards the empty glass on the floor. "Great," she says, "you're already as ingratiating as the rest. You'll fit right in here, given how unoriginal you are."

                    Now it's Johanna's turn to scoff. "I'm the first of my kind."

                    Haunted, Mara shakes her head. "Nothing is new, Mason, least of all you. You're only the first to succeed." 

𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 :
( 4,701 words! )
well well well johanna has gone and played the
game!! mostly told through flashbacks,, having
it written as its own scene just didn't feel right ;
so we move straight on to the victory party. lots
of really important relationships are set up! first
of all, snow & the capitol. need i say more about
the idolisation one way and deep mistrust going
the other? probably not.

second, finnick. they've got the unspoken i know
you were spying but who knows if they'll actually
mention it or just keep dancing around it? & i can
promise johanna hasn't got eyes for finnick in the
slightest ── in fact, unless plans change, ( which
they might ) she'll be heavily present in the third 
installment of buried bones!! 

then, mara. i promise once they're friends, which
won't take forever, they'll be unstoppable. power
duo. problem is, mara doesn't really like her rn ( 
a recurring theme with her to be honest ) but very
 soon🤞

thank you so much for all the support on inured
it genuinely means so much to me / see you all 
  next wednesday<3