Worth it | F.O.

XXVI

The sun had gone into hiding even before night had fallen upon those in the arena. Nivea had resigned to his fate even before the day had begun. And Crop, before the games, knew he wouldn't be coming home to his father. 

With night it all fell. 

A cool wind undeterred by trees that had once been brushed against her skin. Cool night air and smoke rushed to burn with every inhale. The clouds shifting and soaring high above appeared only as tumultuous waves on an uncertain sea. 

The boy stepping up beside her blended in with the night, blinking at the sea above as if it were some bad omen. In a normal world, it wouldn't have been. But here where sunshine once so warm and welcoming on chilled skin turned against them with a burning hate, nothing was as it seemed. 

Nothing was safe. No one was to be trusted. Every probability had the highest of chances at success. Nothing was good and nothing was evil. Everything was in that troublesome grey. The only evil lay in the eyes of those watching and smiling and controlling everything. 

None lived because they were determined to or resourceful enough. That wasn't why they truly survived. They died if the Capitol wanted them to. And they lived if the Capitol wanted. That was all there was to it. 

They were all nothing but toys in the hands of twisted children. 

Nivea breathed in cold fire so welcome from the heat that still enveloped their stone haven. “It's so… quiet.”

Crop asked with the flash of a glance, “And?”

She shrugged and said nothing more. It was odd. Or, at least it would have been if she didn't know why. If she didn't have an idea as to why, she'd have voiced it. She would have spilled secrets not - and at the same time so rightfully hers all the same - to share. The reason was a secret he wouldn't ever like to know and one she would love to keep for the rest of her days. 

This boy wasn't supposed to know of his ultimate fate. 

In the night the land before them was all lumps and miscellaneous shapes strewn about the floor of the swamp. In day it was a wasteland. It was, simply, nothing. And the security it had offered had been reduced to ashes alongside it. 

There was nothing for them outside anymore. Nothing but the way an anthem filled the air. The way light prevailed to cast its images upon the clouds of rolling seas. Only the faces of those whose cannons had sounded that day: the ugly male of one; the soft cheeks of Twelve. His grimace of war. His crooked smile of innocence. The world fell dark and silent once more and so they did with it down a tunnel of stone that had been their only savior but hours before. They sat side by side in the dark, echoes of heat still seeping from the crowding walls so jagged and sharp and beating back the chill of night. 

Nivea felt her heart turn unbearably nostalgic. She said to him, the cameras, and no one, “I made a bad first impression when we met, Ilanis. And I'm sorry.”

She wasn't apologizing just for that but she knew she might as well have gotten it out there when she could. 

He choked. “Uh… it's okay.”

It was a shit response. She smiled. 

“Okay.”

Nivea savored the moments they shared. She treasured every word and every grumble of an empty stomach in silence otherwise. Not even the chattering bugs that hadn't wanted to shut up the night before could be heard. It only further solidified her theory as to this calm, quiet night. 

The Capitol wanted to hear everything. 

Crop cleared his throat. “Well… I can take first watch if you want.”