ℙ𝕝𝕒𝕪 𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℙ𝕒𝕣𝕥

𝚂𝚝𝚞𝚍𝚢

"Your immediate focus should always be to know everything about everyone. About your district partner, about your mentors, about your competition. They are all vital to you, so don't discount a single one. Your mentor could give you life-saving advice. And even the smallest of tributes could turn out to have a trick up their sleeves."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Upon waking up, the first sight Delilah met was Caspian's cloudy eyes. It would be a lie to say she always loved them. When they first met, she thought them rather odd, so unlike the vivid blues and greens you typically found in District Four. Then she thought them dull, uninteresting... the eyes of someone who just faded into the back of your mind. But somewhere along the way, she found comfort in the grey of his eyes. The grey that reminded her so deeply of the clouds that often settled over District Four.

He was like that overall... someone she once upon a time paid no mind to, but somewhere along the way, Caspian Gilbert had become a comfort... a friend... someone she would happily wake up to every day for the rest of her life.

He had a face she could study for hours without complaint, whose every version since she started caring was burned deep into memory.... Whose every mannerism was something worth taking note of. Whose every twitch of the nose was something she could know about him.

Often she wished she could go back and slap her younger self. Knock some sense into the girl who never once looked this boy's way. The girl who ignored someone that would someday weasel into her life and only bring good.

Though... her younger self would have just slapped her right back. Her younger self would have plain and simple have reminded her of the most cardinal of rules. Given her a snobby "Well, you should have listened" to this exact moment...

Because now Delilah was being directly met with the consequences of noticing a boy...

Having to watch him look at her with that love-sick smile... those eyes filled with nothing but adoration, and just knowing that it was mirrored onto her face the moment she saw him. Having to know that he had sealed himself into her heart all those years ago, her vulnerable teenage heart... and knowing she was in his. Having to experience all this love... and knowing that it would all soon be ripped away...

Why couldn't you just listen?

She must have been frowning, for his eyes grew sad... almost as if just guessing what had brought her mood down. Caspian brushed away some curls that had escaped into her face, then he rested his hand against the side of her face, his thumb tracing a circle, "Was able to pretend for a bit... that we weren't here."

But they were... here. On an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, on a train that was taking them to the Capitol.... Where they would spend one week being introduced to the country before being sent into a game of life and death. A game where only one of them could get out...

Stop.

Delilah moved her eyes down, reaching out her hand to pull at the rope around his neck, pulling out a necklace from beneath his shirt as her fingers dragged to the pendant. A piece of blue sea glass in a shape loosely that of a shark tooth, wrapped in the wire it held to the thin rope. She didn't say anything, just fiddled with it.

Caspian smiled as she did, letting his hand drop down to the mattress while he watched her, "Remember how embarrassed you were to give this to me."

Her gaze briefly shot up in a glare to him, "I wasn't embarrassed. Awkward," she looked back down with a quick smile, "I was unbelievably awkward."

"Ah, yes. Just thrust it in my face and told me that I could stop staring into your eyes and just look at the 'rock' instead." He laughed, shaking his head, "Still can't believe you gifted me back something I gave you."