𝐒𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄 || Narnia x The Hunger Games Crossover

Chapter Seven

A/N: Thank you all so much for the continued support of this story, every single comment means the world to me and I love you all endlessly!!

For anyone not following me on Instagram, I've been uploading a series of "Swanwhite Encyclopedia" posts with more information on the universe and characters that didn't necessarily fit into the text itself (with aesthetics and maps and tribute ID cards hehe) so check out @tricia_pevensie if you're interested in that! They will be collected along with fic trailers and other content in my Swanwhite highlight!

Happy reading~

xXx

CHAPTER SEVEN

Golden sunlight filtered through a rooftop garden several stories away across the street, streaking down through glittering glass buildings into wide avenues and parks below, and dappling Lucy's tear-stained cheeks as if mocking her, clashing with the despair churning black in her veins.

Her eyes had long since burned dry, embarrassment and despair staining white silk and stinging cold in the breeze against her neck, emptiness replacing the swirling sea in her gut, bare legs dangling between railing rods over the open air.

It shouldn't have been possible to feel so hollow in such a beautiful place, as if she were the only dark smudge against a bright cityscape, but she couldn't survive, not without sponsors, and who would sponsor her now?

Best case scenario, most of the gamemakers hadn't been paying attention. But some of them had. And tonight the whole city—the city she'd so dreamed of entrancing, the city that had belonged to her for one single instant under glowing street lights—would know just how badly she'd failed.

They would know the pathetic orphan girl in mud-stained cotton; a tragedy, a pity, a show.

Would it really have been so bad for this daydream to last a little bit longer?

The breeze tickled her bare feet and she pressed her forehead to the cool metal of the railing, gripping the bars with both hands, nails still rounded and polished from the Opening Ceremony. She'd taken special care to keep them nice throughout training, and only one or two had chipped from building traps and starting fires. Not that any of that work mattered now.

Nothing mattered now.

Behind her came a soft rap on the glass door, and she sighed.

Couldn't Digory mind his own business?

But when she wiped her face and glanced over her shoulder, it wasn't Digory in the doorway.

It was Caspian.

She sucked in a sharp breath and spun back around quick as lightning, pulling the loose collar of her flowing top to dab at her eyes, her jaw, her neck, impossibly rich fabric sliding over her face, but it was no use, the damage already irreparable.

"Mind some company?"

No taunt laced his tone, none of the exploitative edge she so instinctively expected. He made no mention of her appearance.

Lucy shrugged.

He slipped out and shut the door, much more gently than she'd done a few hours ago, and stepped over to lean his elbows against the railing, gazing down into the streets where cars ran like brightly colored toys eight stories below.

"Long way down," he murmured after a few minutes.

"It doesn't work," she rasped, and cleared her throat.

Caspian glanced at her.

She picked up one of her discarded boots and turned it over, black leather singed, littered with random scorch marks. "There's a force field about three feet down."