canyon wind- lamina x fem!oc

the card game

  A half hour after the shooting of the tribute, peacekeepers come and collect her. 

  Sylvia is talking to Lamina in a hushed voice, bringing her back down from the brink of a panic attack.  The door at the back of the enclosure opens, and several peacekeepers move in abruptly.  Sylvia looks towards them immediately, watching as they start yelling at the tributes to stay where they are with their hands up.  

  Glaring in their direction, Sylvia puts her hands up near her head, spread enough that the peacekeepers hopefully won't think she's reaching for something.  She nudges Lamina slightly, nodding at her arms, and Lamina puts her hands up quickly after that.  They stay sitting on the rock, watching the peacekeepers sweep the area with their guns, keeping their heads on a swivel. 

  They cross the enclosure, one of them directing two of the others.  She assumes he's some sort of commander.  

  "Take the body."  The commander says, standing near the bars and looking around the area with a general look of disgust. The two soldiers swing their guns over their shoulders, then reach down and each take an arm, beginning to drag the body off back towards the door of the enclosure. The commander's eyes land on her in his sweep of the enclosure, and he seems to think of something while he keeps his eyes on her. 

  "And take the broken glass away,"  He continues, nodding to another peacekeeper, who quickly does as he's told. "I don't want the Hunter getting any ideas."  He speaks to the peacekeeper but looks directly at her.  In turn, she levels her glare to stare dead at him. 

  Truthfully, the thought of taking one of the pieces of broken glass and stowing it away in her skirt somewhere had crossed her mind more than once in the last half hour.  But what would she do with it?  Slit her own throat? Kill another tribute?  Kill a peacekeeper with it, or her mentor? 

  No.  Realistically, there was little she could do with a piece of glass in her present situation.  But still.  Something about the commander being scared enough of her abilities to have tiny little pieces of glass taken away... it's satisfying.  Gives her a sense of pride, even.  She doesn't want the other tributes scared of her, but she loves the fact that the peacekeepers are. 

  When the peacekeepers finally leave the enclosure, doing one final sweep of the area, night is falling.  Somewhere beyond the buildings and bars of the enclosure, the sun is setting.  Sylvia stays sitting on the rock even though Lamina has long since calmed down.  She remembers the sunsets in the desert, the prettiest ones she'd seen throughout her life.  Out in the desert, there's nothing to block the sky.  No buildings, no tall mountains, no trees.  Something about it was freeing, being able to see the expanse of the land all the way to the horizon.  The only thing to possibly block it were small desert mountains, but even those were short in comparison to some of the other districts.  

  She looks up, catching the fading colors of the sunset.  Pink, purple, blue.  It's light, but it's nice enough.  Probably the nicest thing she's seen since coming to the capitol.  

  Abruptly, she remembers the sandwich in her pocket.  She had forgotten about it during the shooting, but suddenly, it's the only thing she wants.  It's easy to forget how hungry you are until you know food is nearby, and then the pain in your stomach becomes increasingly apparent.  

  Lamina sits next to her on the rock, and Treech sits across from her on another one.  Both of them have this distant, foreign look in their eyes, staring at the ground. But they look up abruptly at the quiet sound of the crinkling in her pocket.  Pulling out the sandwich and unwrapping it, she doesn't think twice about tearing the sandwich as evenly as she can into three pieces.  She puts one piece in her lap and offers the other two to Treech and Lamina.