District Two Masonry

district two → masonry

“our nation would be nothing without district two’s superb stonework. it builds and fortifies our cities and its citizens are known individually for their strength.”

I read TBOSAS over Christmas and I gotta say the film deprived us of some very funny classmate dynamics

delicate → lamina

lamina!tbosas x reader

notes → in which you get to live a soft, domestic life with lamina. cottagecore lesbians trope and not ashamed. feminine intended reader

warnings → short, but her tag is so bare i needed to do something about it. not edited & uploaded via iphone.

     lamina’s thick, red hair combed through your fingers as you parted it into three separate sections, beginning the works of a braid. both of your schedules had finally aligned, allowing you to spend your free time with the girl for the first time in a while. wind blew in from the open window, causing the dainty curtains to flutter, and the cool draft gave you goosebumps. lamina was humming a familiar tune, an old generational lullaby, as your finger got to work, expertly twisting her auburn hair into a simple but classy braid. these days were the ones you cherished the most. serene, intimate, nothing but tranquil as lamina and you simply focused on your eternal love for each other. 

     the two of you were patiently awaiting the baked goods lamina had made to finish cooking in the oven. it was rare that lamina and you ever got to enjoy sweets, as the ingredients were very hard to come by. knowing how much lamina loved to bake, though, you had saved up to buy everything she would need. lamina must have been keeping track of the time, because as soon as you finished with her hair, she sprung up, walking over to the oven. as she pulled the assortment of sweets out, carefully placing them on the countertop, the aroma filled the room. it was mouthwatering, sickeningly sweet, just like lamina. it wasn’t a bad thing, being overly sweet. if anything, it put you into even more of a sugar craze. you couldn’t get enough of her and her baking.

     in total, she had made three short of a dozen shortbread cookies, even though they may have been slightly out of season. you would eat anything she made, though, knowing she did it all with love. while she tended to her sweets, you snuck outside the back door, allowing your bare feet to connect with the grass. there was a patch of daisies out back. small, white flowers that you plucked individually, cradling them in your palm as you slipped back inside. lamina had displayed her cookies on an old, plate of china. the lone dish had been an anniversary gift to her parents. rimmed with gold paint, with small, orange flowers embroidered on it as well. lamina beckoned for you to sit, but you were on a mission, walking up behind her. the girl was confused, but trusted you enough that she wasn’t bothered. you took the daisies, weaving them into her braid as a final touch. you couldn’t help but smile at your handiwork. the white of the flower was a gorgeous juxtaposition against her auburn hair.

     “beautiful,” she grinned at your compliment, cupping your face with her hand. grabbing one of the cookies, lamina held it up for you to try. you didn’t hesitate in taking a bite, groaning in delectation as the flavor overwhelmed your senses. lamina never missed when baking. it was her passion, after all. and she was yours.

✨mr krabs i have ideas✨

festus with tanners mentor!girlfriend makes my brain tingle because there’s so much there

arachne and her being so happy they get to work together because they both got the 10s. controversially i am an arachne lover so childhood bestie!arachne is everything to me. they could never make me hate her. 😔

festus and her being there when arachne dies at the zoo and (according to book canon) walking home with clemmie and coryo after she’s taken by medics. festus proposes they all go to his apartment but when they get there he bursts into tears and mentor!girlfriend has to send clemmie and coryo on their way and ushers festus inside and stays with him.

later trying to convince festus to create an alliance between coral and tanner and festus teasingly telling her that he could think of a few ways she could convince him

her and festus being together at the arena but went their seperate ways to talk to other mentors and gather information. bombs go off and chaos ensues as they try to find each other

i have so many festus thoughts but im just going to leave this here and not be annoying

SpongeBob! You popped the fuck off with this one! (Also not annoying at all pls send me all your festus thoughts) also also sorry this took so long I finished uni for Christmas and have been in every day since oops, I really enjoyed writing this though. More festus to come ⁎⁺˳✧༚

- you and Arachne are basically siblings the way you grew up together

- I’m talking inseparable : born within two weeks of each-other and grew up as next door neighbours, walked into the academy on your first day together holding hands, sat next to each other at lunch every day, had joint birthday parties every year, etc

- no one could tear the two of you apart

- well, except a pretty determined festus creed, who laid eyes on you the second you walked into that classroom at 6 years old and knew he wanted to be your best friend instead

- Arachne, ever the social butterfly, was quick to attract a large group of friends around the two of you, which gave festus the perfect chance to get to know you better

- as the years went by you and Arachne stayed best friends, but if anyone asked you to name your closest friends, festus creed would also be on that list

- he was ever so charming, and a good listener (though only when it came to you) and when everyone seemed to move at Arachne’s beck and call, he would wait for yours to do anything

- it was sweet, in its own way, and it’s one of the things that drives the two of you to end up together

- like, obviously, festus has had a crush on you since he was a boy

- but you finally start to realise you like him back when all these little things start adding up

- he looks at you for your reaction whenever someone says something, he sits or walks or stands next to you at every chance he gets, he brings you the homework when you’re sick, he carries your bag around for you, he pulls your chair out for you in the canteen

- honestly the list goes on and on

- but the thing that finally gets the two of you together is when you and Arachne have a fight

- it had only been something stupid, but because everyone was Archane’s friend before they were yours, they take her side

you’d been sat on the steps outside the academy, eating your lunch alone in the sunshine while everyone else had gathered at your usual table. Though you knew you were still welcome there, you didn’t want to have to deal with the silent treatment from Arachne (and therefore everyone else) while she built up the courage to admit she was wrong like she always eventually did when it came to you. It was peaceful away from the noise of the canteen, and you found you didn’t mind being alone - at least, alone until the sound of someone running down the steps and right towards you, reached your ears.

Festus Creed took a seat right beside you, his lunch tray in hand and his backpack in the other. “You didn’t show up to lunch. I was worried sick.”

“Me and Arachne had a fight, a squabble really. It was literally over what we thought one of the answers were on the history of Panem homework.” Festus laughed as you did, swapping half of his orange with half of your apple slices. “She’s upset with me though, so I figured everyone would be upset with me.”

“Well, if it makes you fell any better, I think she’s upset with me now as well.” You looked at him confused; your confusion only growing as a smile curled on his lips. “I don’t think she’s too fond of the fact that I am oh so fond of you.”

you lean in and kiss him before his words can truly settle inside of you. but hours later, when they fully do, all you can think about is how you can’t wait to kiss him again sometime.

- when the reaping finally roles around, you and all your friends having to take on the role of mentors for the tributes, you and Arachne get the boy and the girl from 10 and it couldn’t be more perfect

- well, it’d be more perfect if you didn’t have to be mentors at all but, you know what I mean

- the two of you basically plan for your tributes to team up to fight against the other tributes because obviously 🙄 but all that goes awry when Arachne’s tribute kills her

your first reaction is complete stillness and silence. from the moment Arachne’s girl reaches through the bars of the zoo and stabs her right in the throat you have been completely silent. you couldn’t move, you couldn’t think, you couldn’t breath, you couldn’t scream. Total nothingness. you could only watch as Coriolanus ran forward, bravely pressing his hands against the wound in an effort to save your best friend. You didn’t even manage to get the words out to thank sweet Sejanus plinth, who dragged you to the floor and pressed you under him as peacekeepers rain bullets at the rouge tribute. Even when the gunfire stops and Arachne lies too still for a living person, even when Festus takes you from Sejanus and thanks him on your behalf, even on the walk home sandwiched between festus and Coryo, who’s hands are still covered in the thick of Arachne’s blood, you can’t seem to find the words. It’s only on the doorstep of festus’s apartment - the smell familiar and warm and welcoming - when things seem to catch up to you.

before he can even unlock the door to let you, Coriolanus, and Clemensia inside you’ve burst into hysterical tears: sobbing, gasping, wretching at the thought of what you’ve lost tonight. Festus sends Coryo and Clemmie on their way and ushers your inside, through the house and right to his bedroom, where he guides you to sit on the edge of the bed and kneels before you, hands cradling your face. “You’re okay, you’re okay sweet thing, just breathe.” His grip on your face tightens ever so slightly when you don’t seem to calm down, but it only helps to ground your more. “Breathe with me okay? You’re gonna be okay, sweet thing, it’s all gonna be okay.”

- you sit front row of her funeral beside Coriolanus and selfishly wish you had festus at your side instead

- when festus makes his way to his seat, which he finds is right behind yours, he reaches his hand between the gaps in the chairs and connects it with yours

- he holds your hand the whole way through the funeral and after, until the two of you end up in bed that night and he finally lets go to hold you fully, pressed against his chest as he cradled you to him

- when he wakes up the following morning however, it’s like he’s with an entirely different version of you

- it’s still you, but you’re cold, refusing to cry or grieve or do anything but focus on the games - all you want now is to get things over and done with

- winning doesn’t matter and you don’t really care what happens to your tribute, you just want to go home (which was concerning to you because physically, you were home)

“you need to convince Coral to partner up with Tanner.” you’re sitting at your dressing table as you to speak to Festus, him in his uniform on your bed as he waited for you to get ready to go and bond further with your tributes for the day. “He doesn’t stand a chance alone, he needs the help. Coral does, hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they won.”

Festus only wiggled his eyebrows at you, meeting your gaze in the reflection of your mirror. “Well, sweet thing, I’m sure I could be convinced…” Festus is quickly quietened by your hairbrush smacking against his chest. “I was only saying!”

When he sees you try and smother the smile that tries to form on your face he stands from the bed, crossing the room, and wrapping his arms around your shoulders, speaking to your reflection. “Everything is going to be okay sweet thing. Trust me. In a week from now all this will be behind us and we can get on with the rest of our lives. You and me, a house somewhere in the upper city, two university degrees, other things. Whatever you want will be ours.” Your hands reached up to hold into his arms that wrapped around you, squeezing them lovingly as your stoic composure quickly dissolved. “But if what will soothe your roaring mind right now is an alliance between our tributes, then an alliance you shall have, sweet thing.”

You lean into his hold, titling your head to press a kiss to his clothed arm. “I love you, festus.” It didn’t matter that you knew he wouldn’t say it back just yet, he had always had a hard time verbalising his feelings, because you knew that he loved you, you could feel it right in this moment more then ever before.

- and then, only hours later, the trip to the arena came, and with it, the attack from the rebels

- festus had left your side for approximately 5 seconds, going to drag coral away from Tanner and the boy from 7 (who you hoped were all planning an alliance) when the first bomb went off

your ears ring with a shrill noise that only further disoriented you, your view blurry as you looked up from the rubbed floor of the arena and into the flames. the blast of the bomb from behind you had sent you flying forward, yet, you couldn’t see festus anywhere. smoke filled the room and rubble littered the floors, pieces of the ceiling and walls falling into the centre of the arena in the aftershocks.

you try and stand but your legs fail you and your arms shake with the effort you used to try and push yourself off of the floor. Rubble is falling closer and closer to you with each second, you can’t hear or see anything to anyone, let alone festus, and you’re sure that this is how you’re going to die.

just as you’re about it close your eyes and accept your fate, a shadow emerges from the ashes, running in your direction and yelling what you think is your name. it’s only when they grab you by the arms and hoist you up that you begin to see and hear properly again. “Coral.” You whisper, reaching out and caressing their face.

they seem unfazed, wrapping your arm around their shoulder and holding it against their collar bone while the other wraps tightly around your waist. “your leg is injured, so I’m going to have to drag you, okay? It might hurt.” your barley feel the pain in your leg and if you were any more conscious you might be worried about that, but right now all you can think about is how they came and saved you from the rubble. Coral could’ve ran, for freedom, to leave you for dead, for whatever. but they hadn’t, and a part of you didn’t really understand.

“you saved me.” you whispered, only loud enough for them to hear as they continued to drag you through the arena and to the exit. “what about you’re friends?”

“they’re fine.” they answered, helping you through the barricade and ever closer to safety. “so’s your little boyfriend. they all got dragged out by peacekeepers pretty quickly. we were too far in the destruction to be found as fast.”

you hear him before you see him. festus creed is calling your name in a wretched cry, sobs accentuating everything that came from his mouth. and when you catch sight of his frame, he’s being restrained by two peacekeepers, who seem to be insisting that he can’t go back in there, that’s they’ll find you but he needs to wait out here. before you can call out to him, Coral does so for you. “they need help! their leg!”

all eyes turn to you. you and the tribute from four gripping tightly onto each other, covered in ash and scrapes, hand gripping hand. it’s something festus never thought he’d see and it has him questioning everything he’s ever known. maybe the people from the districts were just like you and him. maybe everything he’d been told was wrong and it was silly to punish children, like himself, for the crimes of their fathers.

what he does know for certain is that he’s never run so fast in his life. he reaches you before the peacekeepers can and tears you from Corals hold, thanking them profusely even as peacekeepers drag them away to go with the rest of the tributes who made it out alive. he grips you with a strength you didn’t know he had, a hand cupping the back of your head and holding you tight against him. “I thought I lost you, God, I thought I lost you. I though you were…” he can’t say it, can’t bring himself to speak it out loud less he makes it come true. “All the rubble and the smoke and the fires, and when I tried to search for you they dragged me out. They told me I couldn’t go back in for you: I would’ve gone back in. I never should’ve left your side, what if you’d-“

He shakes his head, pulling you out of the safety of his hold so he can cup your face, thumbs runnings cross your tear-stained cheeks as he looks at you. “Never leave me. Not like that, not ever. Please. Promise me.”

He’s never sounded so pleading, so desperate, and he’s never wanted for anything more in his life. “I won’t, I’m sorry, I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay.” You’re a blubbering mess in festus’s arms, gripping to the back of his red blazer like your life depends on it. Your cries only worsen as the ringing in your ears starts to fade and you start to feel a throbbing pain in your leg. “I’m sorry. I love you, I love you.”

“I love you too, I love you too, I love you too.”

- festus follows you to the hospital and everywhere else after that

- but like seriously

- he already knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you and the attack in the arena only solidified that idea

- the hunger games are over and Lucy grey is crowned their winner within the week

- festus proposes the following morning

Will u be writing more coral x fem reader stuff?

yes, i definitely plan to! life is a little busy right now, which i hope compensates for my lack of writing. expect more of coral soon or in the distant future, we’ll see!

Reflecting Light

Once the annual Reaping has passed, and summer rolls out, Winter is the next toughest part of the year—another season of survival. Fortunately, best friend Treech knows exactly how to brighten up the stormy days.

Treech X Lamina | The Hunger Games

IT’S RAINING, just as it was the day she met him. The clouds are so thick you could just reach up and eat them—they do nothing to quell the rumbling in Lamina’s stomach; unfortunately, tesserae doesn’t do much to quell an appetite.

School’s out for the day—mostly everyone has left, besides the few troublemakers that still roam the halls, trying to escape detention. Perhaps, to them, Lamina looks the same. Or at least she hopes she does; it might keep them off her back. She watches as they jostle around by the door, trying to shove one another out into the heavy rain, thunder rumbling every few seconds. They laugh and shout as boys typically do, the way her cousins do when she sees them.

The sound of new footsteps growing closer prompts Lamina into action, turning her head. Newly-cut hair tickles her neck, but it’s forgotten quickly when Treech’s sharp, cheeky grin comes into sight.

“Thank goodness,” Lamina pushed herself off of the wall. “I was starting to think you were going to ditch me.”

“Ditch you?” He gasped, as though it were a crime worth the punishment of a hanging. “How dare you think so lowly of me.” He swung a heavy arm around her neck, pulling her along to the door where the boys are still shouting. As it always does, her heart speeds up ever so slightly at the chance of an altercation, but it doesn’t matter now that Treech is here—he’s popular within the small school.

She grimaces as the first few drops hit her face, and then all at once as Treech throws them out into the weather, at its mercy. Its cold texture shocks her at first, but Treech just laughs, as if there could be nothing better in the world than to be exposed to the elements, feeling life itself. Perhaps, though she’d only realised it now, he always had been that way.

“Oh—no, let’s go back inside—” she tries, resisting against his hold. “We’ll wait the rain out.”

He’s stronger than he looks, she’s always said so. Tall, firm around the shoulders when he swings her over his shoulder. In this last year of school, it’s like he’s shot up at a thousand miles a second. Lamina yells in surprise, protesting.

“Don’t be a baby,” he calls. “What’s a bit of rain?”

“What will your mother say?” She rolls her eyes playfully, “when you return home with ruined clothes?”

“Not much!” He bounces down the steps of the building, Lamina jostling at his shoulder. She can’t help the laugh that escapes. Treech’s hand on her ankle, just over her boot, holds tighter on the last, steepest step, the other hand he has raised to her hip holding her there.

This isn’t helping the accusations she thinks to herself, flexing her hand against Treech’s neck. My mother will never let this go.

Another part of her brain whispers, do you want her to?

No. She isn’t sure she does.

She’s shaken to life when he suddenly leans forward, hands releasing her. Lamina’s boots crunch the gravel and stones. They’re on the Main Street now, through the town. And she’s drenched from head to toe. A glance up at Treech shows her that he is, too. What were this morning dirt-brown curls, shiny and soft, are now flat against his head like a wet dog, his jacket dripping water. He still beams at her, and snatches her hand.

“Come on, then!” He calls, yanking her into a run with him. “I got something for you!”

She pants with exertion, trying to keep up with him. He doesn’t let go of her hand, warming it up. “Like what?” She manages. They fly past people on their work breaks, sitting outside their stores. They fly past the peacekeepers patrolling, who simply follow herself and Treech with calculating eyes. They shoot past the barbed-wire fences separating the soggy, dirty woodlands from the town, and the people working out there, axes coming down every few seconds, the people slick with rain and sweat.

She tries not to think of the future. Of what will be for her and Treech in only five months. A torturous summer, a lifetime of work. Another Reaping. If they can make it this final Reaping without being called up, they’ll be safe for the rest of their lives. Just let them turn eighteen, after the Reaping. They’ve been lucky since the Reapings started, just before they turned seven years of age. Luck has been on their side, mostly. Ten years, no calling their names.

Lamina hopes with all her heart, so hard, that it physically aches.

Treech finds a spot just behind a building due for demolition in a couple of weeks. There are no peacekeepers this far out of town, there’s nobody this far out of town, especially not in this weather. You’d have to be insane, she thinks.

“What is it?” Lamina’s brows raise, staring Treech down. His own eyebrows jump, a sly little grin coming to his face; it fits him well. Tanned hands dig around in the pockets of his pants, until finally he pulls out a small, white package.

“What is this?” She snickers, in a way she only does around Treech and her family. “Some sort of deal?”

“Only just,” he shrugs his shoulders, gesturing for her hands. She holds them out without question—trust came easily between them. He tipped the package until two little things fell into her palm.

Her eyes wide, Lamina can’t believe it. “No. Way. But—how did you get these?” The two small, wrapped candies are a delicacy she only had the luxury of tasting once, in a memory before the war, before the first games.

He winked. “Well now, I can’t go ‘round just telling anybody the tricks of the trade, can I?”

She rolled her eyes, a smile betraying her, and moved to pull her hand away. Treech’s larger one shot out, clasping hers closed around the candy.

“What, changed your mind?”

“Don’t I get a reward for my hard work?” He asks, not shy in the slightest.

She scoffs loudly, shoving him away softly. “My presence is enough, don’t you think?”

They sit, knees knocking in the rain, eating stolen candies.

Anything for one another.

Summer comes around much too quickly. School ends, the weather ramps up and sooner rather than later, the days are scorching.

Lamina knows, this is where things begin to head downhill.

Working in the woods is torture, in the heat. Peacekeepers guard the place, and have it surrounded. No breaks are to be taken unless they say so. Her skin is burned and sore before she knows it, and she hasn’t talked to her friends even once in the last two months. The shifts are exhausting, and prompt no want to so much as visit anybody quickly. It’s tedious, tiring work, but she becomes quick with an axe before she knows it, as if it was second nature. There’s always the fear of striking herself, something she tries to not think of before bed at night. But it never comes.

The Reaping is approaching. Only a matter of weeks away. And she prays to whatever is up there, whoever it is that her grandmother prays to, also, that she will be kept safe and granted this final wish.

Two months after the start of working long days, Lamina finally catches a glimpse of Treech. He’s just a few yards away, swinging that axe into the base of a tree with another guy on the opposite side of it. Under the unforgiving sun, his tan skin shines with sweat. He’s built up more muscle than he had at school, but the little amount of food everyone receives even after working isn’t enough to build up the way anyone should in District 7.

A peacekeeper notices she’s stopped working, and yells, jabbing her in the neck with the end of his gun. The altercation causes people to look and stare, until she raises her axe on sore arms and brings it down once more, splitting wood over and over again. People go back to work, but she slows ever so slightly, looking to her left.

Treech, dark-eyed, sleeves rolled up, watching.

He looks away before she can smile.

Reaping day comes around.

And the world comes crashing down.

Her name, the mayor calls.

Treech’s name, last.

He doesn’t look her in the eyes.

She can’t stop the crying.

She can’t believe their luck.

Or rather, lack thereof.

It happens quickly.

A long trip to the Capitol, embarrassed on live television. A capture in a zoo enclosure. A mentor in red shows up for one of the tributes, a Lucy Gray Baird. Where is Lamina’s tribute, she wonders? What about Treech’s? Don’t they care?

It’s the first night in the zoo that he talks to her.

“I’m sorry.”

The whisper comes when everyone else is asleep, the zoo empty of visitors, the night cooler than it gets in the district.

Lamina turns her head, aching on concrete. At her side, Treech is watching her. She’d been watching the starry sky, wondering if it would be the last time she saw them ever. Who knew; maybe she could win this thing.

Her eyes burn with tears again, throat closing up. And she nods.

“It’s okay.”

He reaches for her hand, and she lets him take it.

“I’ve got your back, alright? You can trust me.”

They meet with their mentors the next day. Treech has a girl who is soft-spoken and almost kind. Lamina gets a harsh boy, who smugly states, “You will win, Lamina.”

But not for her sake.

She can’t stop crying in there, either, under the judging gaze of her mentor, who runs through a list of everything she can do to win this game, including a detailed plan of which tributes to take out first—Dill, an ill girl who coughs through the night; Wovey, she’s young, an easy target. And then the ones to look out for—Treech, he says, but she knows he won’t touch her; Coral, who has been eyeing her up already, looking for her weak points.

They’re led back to the zoo straight after the meeting. Visitors come and go—Lamina almost wished they’d stay, and make the day last longer, to avoid the games tomorrow morning.

On the edge of sleep, she can’t quite grasp what is is that’s happening when peacekeepers burst into the zoo and demand they get in the truck. Panic strikes her so firmly in the face that Treech has to pull her along into the vehicle, by the hand, like they’re back in school.

They’re shown the arena they are due to fight to the death in from tomorrow morning. It’s huge, and she tries the best she can to take in all the places she could hide—there aren’t many. It’s one big, open space. She feels more hopeless and desperate than ever.

“Hey—lumberjack,” the girl—Coral, Lamina remembers her as—calls over to Treech. “Come here.”

Treech nods his head over to her. “Lamina—”

“No. Just you,” Coral says firmly. She eyes Lamina up and down. “Just you.”

And now she wants to scream. Wants to tear down the arena inch by inch with nothing but her hands, even if they bleed. Wants to shoot the peacekeepers away, wants to pull Treech back to her and demand he doesn’t let her go.

But, wishes aren’t granted when you’re from the districts. She should have been used to it by now.

People are watching them when Treech abandons her, walking over the Coral.

That’s when the bombing starts.

‘Rebels’ she hears a peacekeeper cry. The arena begins to fall to pieces and she can’t believe her eyes. Dust, fire and sparks fly up from everywhere, making it hard to breathe. The dirt in her eyes stings and burns, and she stumbles for a second, rocks and pieces of rubble hitting her skin, hurting her. She can’t see anyone, but she hears him.

“Lamina?”

It’s a loud, terrified shout of her name, and it hurts her a little bit more.

Treech shouts again, less sure this time. In a way, she’s glad he’s worried. On the other hand, she’s just as scared for him. At least he isn’t dead.

Someone picks her up from the floor with such vigor that it makes her dizzy, still unable to see. People are shouting and crying all around. All she does is hope the person pulling her along is someone good.

It’s a peacekeeper. He shoves her back into the wagon, falling into Dill, one of the other girls. One by one, the tributes are rounded up again, and taken back to the zoo. Treech is the last to be put on the wagon, heaving for breath. He blinks wide-eyed at Lamina, wiping his hands across his face, trying to get as much dirt off as he can.

She’s hurt. Physically, it’s easy to deal with the pain. More than once she’s fallen in the woods and had more splinters than she can count stuck in her hands. But emotionally, she’s scared. Treech has willingly offered himself up to another group—an alliance, she wants to call it, without a second thought. They’re supposed to be partners—if not district partners, at least friends.

That night, Treech sleeps away from her, on the other side of the pen.

And in the morning, when the games begin, he doesn’t talk to her. She cries the whole way to the arena, trying to hold it all inside, but she’s loud. Reaper, one of the boys, keeps glancing over at her, and she’s terrified. He’s sizing her up for the kill, she knows he is. He’s bigger than her, a lot stronger, and he hasn’t shown one bit of weakness this whole time. Coral grins cruelly when she meets Lamina’s eye, and again in the arena, when the countdown begins.

The bell rings, signally the start of the end. It’s a bloodbath already, but a sudden determination has struck her. She will not die here. There’s a small axe relatively close, at the bottom of the pile of rubble the others are climbing up, striking one another for the best weapon. She’s trying to ignore the district 2 boy, hanging from a rafter. Is he still alive? She’s not sure. Maybe he escaped last night in the bombing—she didn’t see him back at the zoo.

She’s got her weapon, and she gets out of there, climbing a broken beam all the way to the top. There’s a good vantage point up here, where she can watch the other tributes, the whole arena, and see who’s coming.

It’s a long, slow game.

Up from her height, she watches people die, just glad it’s not her. It’s awful to see, of course, but she thinks the more that go already, the more chance she has of getting home. They’ve all noticed her, sitting and watching, but nobody has approached, not yet. She keeps note of Treech guiding his little group away from her where he can, and wishes she could laugh. He’s abandoned her, left her to fend for herself, but tries in his own way to help.

Whatever was the point?

A day passes, and then the night, and before she knows it, she’s tired, thirsty and starving. Nobody has sent anything yet. Nothing at all to anybody.

But plenty have died.

Eventually, when she thinks she might be safe, Coral comes for her. Mizzen, a small, skinny boy, comes from one side, climbing up, and Coral the other, approaching her like a trapped animal. Treech and another boy watch from below.

She tries her best.

She hopes her family know that. She really, really fought to the end.

When Coral strikes her the first time, she’s stolen of breath. Lamina drops her axe, her heart plummeting in shock. This can’t be happening, surely? This isn’t the end, right? Treech wouldn’t leave her up for the kill, would he?

Oh, but he would. Lamina gasps, trying not to scream. Her betrayed eyes drop down to Treech as her hand shakes violently, trying to push down on her bleeding stomach, punctured from Coral’s weapon. Treech has turned pale, his eyes so wide, looking at her and away, at her and away.

Coral strikes her again, in the chest this time, and Lamina shouts, her whole body weak and shaking. Coral pushes her off the edge of where she thought she found safety, and she plummets toward the ground, dizzy and tired.

It doesn’t take long.

Her last thought belongs to Treech.

for @lofhdfn who requested the Treech and Lamina fic :)

‘It doesn’t take long’ hurt me icl. It took a while to get this out, I rewrote it a couple of times but I think I’m fairly happy with it, now. This is more of an interpretation story, I didn’t want to make anything too set in stone in case it didn’t go well or didn’t work with things I planned while writing it. I did take a bit out, but I tried to include as much angst as I could while still showing how they cared for one another.