lover/fighter - Finnick Odair

Chapter 17 - Just a game

Rhea squeezes her eyes shut and wishes that she were anatomically able to do the same with her ears. Agnes and another one of the group are in the middle of ... "performing" some currently popular pop song. It can't be described as singing, it more closely resembles a musical rampage. The playback is almost completely lost in the howling of the two, while they create a canon of absolute disharmony in completely different keys.

While Rhea tries not to pull a face, the two seem to be entirely absorbed in their show. With imaginary micros, they put on a thoroughly stupid dance routine, while the rest of the troupe even cheers for them. The overall impression almost causes physical pain.

Within the last few hours Rhea has been tortured with quite a number of things and her nerves are already pretty strained. She wonders if she has underestimated Daphne, and herewith she wants to take revenge for the action with the mini-avalanche.

In fact, it's not quite like that. None of the Capitolites realized who ruined their afternoon, but nevertheless Daphne's motives are definitely of a vengeful nature. She has never liked Rhea, it has always disgusted her that someone so far below her considers herself so superior. She used to ignore it and instead gloat over the fact that Rhea can never reach the same social standing she is at, no matter how successful she may be.

Right now, that's not enough for her. Not enough with her showing up here and disrupting her vacation. The thing that really annoys Daphne, that infuriates her, is the way Finnick seems to prefer Rhea's company to her own. Rhea Lafey is a nobody and yet dares to try and take her property away from her.

Daphne didn't wait a second to complain, but her anger only increased when she was told that this nonentity's word should weigh more heavily than her own. She would have loved to throw her out and let her freeze to death in the snow, but throwing a tantrum now would only prove that she really can't match her.

But when she caught them together again after the disaster today, her patience came to an end. She will be rid of Rhea tomorrow, but before that she will make her suffer once more. She may think she's smarter than everyone else, but Daphne also knows Rhea's weak points.

And so it comes to pass that they are now sitting together in various states of drunkenness while Agnes and her singing partner work their eardrums. It all started when Daphne decided at dinner, as a way to make up for a ruined day and say goodbye to Rhea, to sweeten the evening with a few games. It was a clever move to involve Rhea personally in the matter, because that way she had no choice but to bend to the will of her oh-so-generous hostess so as not to appear completely ungrateful.

It had started harmlessly, with a drinking game or two and preparing the mood for the main act. And then the endless torment began, when Daphne picked up an empty champagne bottle and announced the start of a long and gruesome game of "Truth or Dare." You'd think they'd all be out of that age by now, but with everyone else the excitement was enormous. With everyone except Rhea. And Finnick.

You'd think at first that a party game for drunk teenagers wouldn't really pass for punishment. However, Daphne knows full well from their shared past that there is nothing that rattles Rhea Lafey more than when you get too close to her, both physically and figuratively. If you dig deep enough into her personal life, you quickly realize just how soft she is underneath the hard shell she loves to show people.

Unfortunately for Daphne, the evening has not yet been as successful as she had hoped. Due to the random line-up with the spinning bottle, she hasn't gotten around to using her weapons yet, and her group of friends are unfortunately completely incapable of figuring out how to break Rhea down.

Rhea has managed to get through the evening quite well so far. Despite the unflattering rules, she is one of the few who is still fully clothed and not yet drunk off her ass. She's not stupid enough to get involved in the dares, especially since most of them involve Finnick in some form, and stays on the safe side with truth most of the time. The majority of the questions were about trivial stuff anyway, the first kiss, the worst date, nothing really creative. Many questions about risqué practices in the bedroom, all of which Rhea could truthfully deny ever having participated in. When Agnes set the tasks, she was even willing to take a dare, because apart from some joke calls, and stupid posts on social media platforms that Rhea either hardly uses or not at all, there was nothing to fear from her.