Heartless ➳ Cato/OC

Bound

Chapter One | Bound

It is a cold night. Frigid, wintry air slips into the room from the open window. Outside, far below in the busy streets of the Capitol, people are carousing and cheering. It is an endless party, these cold wintry nights. The next Games are yet several months away, but they are still near enough for Capitolites to be excited in their coming. Even in the dead of winter, they still absorb themselves body and soul into the pre-Games traditions.

Two cold, calculating eyes stare down at the bustle of people. There is something equally frigid about this woman, in an almost flawless way. She is beautiful, gorgeous even, and yet there is spite in her eyes that makes her appear astoundingly ugly. Her lips are pulled back into a sneer as pale fingers tremble over the wisps of snowflakes that have begun to settle upon the windowsill. A ghostly glance is delivered to the clock that hangs just above the bed, and in a fit of fury her fist slams down on the small pile of snow that has settled upon the wooden ledge, making it explode into the air and blow away. She breathes in a lungful of winter air, fingers still clenched tightly. A strange anger shrouds her expression, crippling through her eyes with a lurch of rarely-seen sorrow. She is suddenly consumed by it, that grief, and it is raw and painful as it rears up within her, ticking along with the sound of the clock's hands as they continue with their cold countdown.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick -

"Good evening, my dear," a cheerful voice greets from the doorway behind her, and the sound of the clock is suddenly drowned out by the sound of her heartbeat, which begins to beat a touch faster in response to it. Sometimes she wonders how her heart could still be beating. Sometimes, she wishes she could tell it not to bother.

She lifts her head and puts on a smile. It is a deceptive smile, the sort that isn't easily understood, for it is difficult to know for certain whether it is borne of happiness or of spite, and that if by accepting it you are being fooled. She stands up, takes one more glance at the streets below, and then turns to the door. The man who waits for her smiles, bows in a way he probably supposes to be charming, and lets himself further into the room. He swings the door shut behind it. It closes with a tremulous quiet, but it sounds forcibly final.

He has unruly blue hair with matching eyebrows. Unnaturally long eyelashes surround soft brown eyes. There is a deceptive quality to those eyes, too; a certain hard edge that encases them and offsets what might otherwise be considered to be a gentle countenance. She doesn't look twice at those deceptive eyes, though. She doesn't care, and besides, she's already seen it all. Seen everything there is to be seen from a man of the Capitol.

"I hope you found the room easily enough?" she asks. Her voice is blank, almost. These lines are rehearsed. She's used them so many times that they now slip from her tongue like little drops of watery lies. 'Make yourself at home,' or 'I hope you find the night enjoyable'. They are all silly, foolish words that are used only the fill the gaping silences that creep up in the moments when her soul rebels against the cage it finds itself in; this song of liberty and of justice stomped down upon with such unforgivable force.

She moves to the Capitol man and immediately reaches for his button-down shirt, not waiting for his response. Removing the first button is always the worst. As she makes her way down the shirt, a methodical blandness takes over the initial shake of her fingers. It sinks into the cold curve of her mouth as she lifts her eyes to meet his.

"...I found the room just fine," the stranger belatedly replies, watching her with a hawkish quality that only makes his soft brown eyes all the more deceptive. He doesn't try to stop her when she tugs his shirt off and drops it onto the floor. If he finds this abrupt removal disconcerting, it isn't apparent on the planes of his face. This is, after all, the very reason he is here.