❝I'd rather die kind and forgotten than be remembered for being brutal.❞
( *undergoing slight formatting tweaks & adjustments -- the story itself will otherwise remain readable and unchanged! )
⠀⠀⠀⠀ Had Bellamy not volunteered, he wouldn't be sent o...
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( ミ☆ ) EIGHT golden chariot
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⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀When Bellamy was thirteen, he'd gotten his foot snagged in someone's snare beyond the Wall. It looked and behaved like a bear trap. It even bit like one, too.
⠀⠀⠀⠀It hurt like Hell, and he tearlessly cried and clawed at the dirt for maybe a full minute before he got a literal grip and, just as his mother had once shown him, tore off his shirtsleeves in preparation to compress the wound. He ended up stuffing some of the loose fabric into his mouth and biting down so he wouldn't scream — a safety precaution, as the wolves that populate the woods around Nine were probably fond of thirteen year-old boys as food. Even still, as Bellamy used a knife to wrench his foot free from the metal beast, he let out a strangled sort of cry that sounded a lot like he was choking on blood instead of his emotions.
⠀⠀⠀⠀It sounded eerily similar to the suppressed choking noise he makes now.
⠀⠀⠀⠀His prep team — a trio of quirky, rainbow coloured Capitolians readying him for the Opening Ceremony — either don't hear him, or they choose to ignore him. Given that plucking tributes of body hair like turkeys every year and ridding them of flaws is their job, Bellamy supposes they must be used to kids like him fussing. And he sure is making a fuss alright, wincing and whispering curses in forbidden Spanish anytime another wax strip on him goes RRRIP!. Just yesterday he was sitting in the bathroom at home, frowning and internally complaining about his mother giving him a haircut. Oh, how meek that now seems in comparison! Back then, he remembers thinking he felt like a Capitol robot getting preened for television. And now he's actually here. Now he actually is.
⠀⠀⠀⠀In an attempt to filter out the noise of his prep team fluttering to-and-fro, gossiping about him in their pompous Capitol accents as if he isn't right in front of them, Bellamy thinks about other things. Like that snare that could have very well gotten him killed if he hadn't been prepared, because at least that pain taught him a lesson — to be careful, cautious — meanwhile... What? What does all of this teach him? Patience? Tolerance? Certainly not confidence with the way his prep team are going on about him. One minute they called him "A handsome young thing" and by the next, he was "Simply atrocious."
