Chapter Text
Reaping Day: Voltaea
“As always, ladies first!” Voltaea has to suppress a wave of nausea every time their district escort - Orville Straud - opens his mouth and lets his chirping, sickly voice ring out across the crowd through the crackling static of the speakers. Whoever sets up the stage each year has positioned them in such a way that since her last major growth spurt at fourteen, the largest and loudest of them ring directly into her ears. It’s worse now, with the issues from the fall - she has to dig her fingernails into the scar in her hand just to keep her face composed. If today really is the day, they won’t get anything from me.
She steels herself as the round, chirping, pastel-clad man stands up on his toes to grab a name from the reaping ball. He opens it. Looks it over. Just read the name. Just let it be done. There’s a distinct crunch of static as Orville cuts his mic suddenly and motions the mayor over for a second. Voltaea squints at his lips - it looks like he’s asking her how to pronounce the name on the paper. What an idiot. He smooths his tie out performatively before clicking the microphone back to life.
“Voltaea Amprole!” He says her name in such a strange, sharp staccato - emphasizing all the wrong sounds somehow - that she almost doesn’t recognize it as her own. When he speaks it's like every word he says has a chirp in it that doesn’t belong there, and his words come through his nose in a way that makes him sound like he has a constant head cold. She stands there thinking about how strange the man’s voice is until the crowd parts in front of her like she's carrying a plague. Shit. It’s me, isn’t it?
She won’t let herself slip. She breathes deeply. Calm . She hears every whisper from the crowd worm its way into her ears as she walks forward - the wind picks up from a whistle to a howl and rakes across the back of her neck like a static shock - her feet kick up a sharp patch of gravel that scrapes against her boots and makes her skull twitch. Collected. She hears Ohma’s sharp little sobs as she reaches the stage but can’t bring herself to look or even so much as blink lest she let the mask fall in front of everyone. Controlled. Voltaea feels her eyes scan the crowd as she steps onto the stage and Orville Straud grabs her hand to raise it above her head and prompt for applause - but she doesn’t take it in. She just loses her thoughts in the noise.
Her mind doesn’t wander back until the chirping, sickly-sounding man pulls the next paper slip from the ball - a boy this time - and one whose name she vaguely recognizes from her sister’s soft-spoken stories about school. “Coulomb Vexel” She recalled that Ohma was friends with his younger sister, though that girl would have only had a year gap with her brother as opposed to our five. Will it hurt her more when he dies than it will Ohma when I do? She watches as the boy - barely twelve - with the messy blonde hair and shaking hands walks up towards the stage and immediately trips on the ramp with a deafening clump - breaking into cloyingly crisp tears as Orville and the mayor help him up onto the stage. She closes her eyes then - between the shock-blonde boy on the stage and her sister in the crowd - she can’t parse the thoughts coming in between the sobs anymore. Not with that incessantly loud sunlight pouring into her pupils.
She hears the chirping man begin his sickly song again - he’ll be getting ready to move them off the stage soon, she remembers this from watching Reapings in the past. One last chance to see her family - to see Ohma - then she’ll be off on the cashmere-draped cattle cars to the Capitol. She can’t work out what anyone is saying over the growing drone of the crowd - rousing from their stupor once more to hug their living children and to forget the dead ones.
It’s not until she feels a slick, gloved hand clap her on the shoulders that she opens her eyes again and sees Orville’s round face and flapping lips come much too close for comfort . He’s practically pushing her off the stage - she still can’t work out what he’s chirping about. Moments later, they walk her through the clanging, half-corroded doors of District Five’s Justice Building. She remembers that Markus once told her that the entire building was repurposed from an old munitions factory sometime before even the Games themselves existed. Nowadays, he told her another time - more hushed, whispered, secretive - it’s just there to show us that we can’t fight back. As they enter, the drone of the crowd fades to a dull background hum and the Peacekeepers bring in their families. They close the doors behind them with a thunderous, clong . Deeper than a clang. More final.
She feels the room come back into focus as the doors close and the noise becomes discernible - she starts to feel out the melody of the room around her once more. There’s a low, thumping rhythm coming from below the floorboards - a boiler, maybe. It flows in time with the crackling hum of the overhead lights that hang far above on the vaulted ceiling of the main room. Little Coulomb’s bleak cries blend with the buzzing in her left ear to form the chorus - and she realizes she doesn’t hear Ohma sobbing anymore. Maybe she’s given up on me. Good. It’s better that way.
Voltaea’s thoughts are cut off when she feels the soft thump against her back and whirls to see the wiry, wispy form of her sister wrap herself around her legs. “V, I’m so sorry! I failed and I’m so sorry!” her voice has that static edge of sadness that makes Voltaea’s ears scream, and she bends down to wrap her sister in a hug - It won’t stop her this time, she knows it’s the last time.
Voltaea steels herself before she speaks - knowing anything she says could backfire and make the static turn to screams. “You haven’t done anything wrong, Ohma. This was just the odds. They’ve never been in my favor.” She shoots a glare at her parents with far more venom behind it than she intends - but the look clearly lands with her father who shrinks back, carrying Davo’s writhing, giggling form with a grim nod to Voltaea before turning away from his daughter for the last time. Of course he’s laughing. They’ll always give him space to laugh. A harder part of herself reminds her that the boy doesn’t understand, not really, anyways. It brings her no comfort right now.
Her mother stays put - without a word, six feet away - just standing there with that blank, guilty stare she always gives her on Reaping Day. Maybe with a little more contempt, today, or something else? Ohma manages to choke out some words again - but less staticy, less shrill. Good. “I didn’t finish your bracelet…” Voltaea has to stifle the sudden urge to laugh. That’s what she’s worried about?
“I still have your necklace, see?” Voltaea pulls out the lightning-bolt shaped pendant made of bent scrap wire from under the collar of her Reaping Day shirt. “They’ll only let me take one thing into the arena, anyways. District token.” She shuffles uncomfortably for a moment - trying to summon the most words she has in a long time. “Besides - I like this one. I was wearing it the day of the accident. Maybe that’s why I’m not dead yet.” She forces a smile that doesn’t meet her eyes. “Good luck charm?” Voltaea isn’t entirely certain she believes that last part, but says it anyways, as a question and a comfort. She owes her sister that much.
Ohma’s shrill little sobs come back in rhythmic time again, but quieter. Manageable. The girl wraps her arms even tighter around Voltaea, who she stays on her knees - afraid that if she tries to stand that the tiny, shaking girl will drag her back down anyways. She can’t afford an injury right now.
Voltaea’s mother had once told her that trying to hug her was like trying to hug a cable tower - all stiff and rigid, can’t she relax for a second? Ohma doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe she’ll find work in the wires too, one day - away from them - like I did. Her mind drifts with the thought - it brings her a degree of comfort. She thinks to herself that if her parents force her sister to go, to do what she did for the family. Maybe it would be okay. Her sister was softer than she was, prettier, more carefree - that could hold her back. She bites that thought down in favor of the more comforting narrative.
Markus and the others could take care of her. She’d be free, happy, away from them. She wishes for a moment she could have thought of this sooner, maybe brought up the idea with her gravel-voiced foreman so he could train her up early, get the fear of the winds out of her like he had with Voltaea. She notices her mother walking towards them then - her mouth opens as if she’s about to say something.
CLANG . The doors to the Justice Building swing open again - and every head in the building, from her sister to her mother to little Coulomb’s whole clan, turns towards them. This is not a planned event. She thinks back to past Reaping Days and comes up blank. Nobody ever goes into the building after the Tributes leave with the Escort. They just take them out the back to the trains when their hour is up, the building shouldn’t open again until tomorrow. She stiffens. The static rises in her brain. Plans don’t change on Reaping Day, it’s the same speech, the same schedule, the same sickly, chirping man in the ugly pastel suit. She has to dig her nails into her palm again to remember to breathe as the throng of white-clad Peacekeepers march into the room with a perfect, plodding, rhythm - another striking, sharper set of steps following just out of time with the rest. What’s going on?
The Peacekeepers part to close the door behind them. Clong. She hears the woman before she sees her. It’s a voice like velvet - soft and silken - that snakes its way up Voltaea’s spine. “Hello-o-o?” it's slightly smokey and singed at the edges with that Capitol affectation, but from her, it sounds like song. That’s when she sees Alara Vox in the flesh for the first time. She’s clad in the loudest blazer-and-skirt combo that Voltaea has ever laid eyes on - it seems to be spun in several different colors that do not match - and the shining material it's made of send clattering reflections off the buzzing lights overhead in a way that makes her ears ring when she looks at it too closely. She focuses on the woman’s face instead. Better. Quieter.
She watches the woman with the serpentine red curls and the loud blazer and the voice that swirls like a siren song as she scans the room - looking for something specific. It’s clearly not Coulomb, as when her gaze scans the corner of the room where he’s curled up in his mother and sister’s arms sobbing those sharp little sobs of his - she scowls, viscerally, as if his show of weakness is a personal affront to her. Why is she here? Doesn’t she always stay on the train? Aren’t we all supposedly beneath her? The static in Voltaea’s ears gets louder again - the chaos of the changes in the room’s rhythm threatening her the carefully constructed control she has of herself right now.
Alara’s emerald eyes finally meet her own and she sees something distinctive flare up in them. Recognition. She sees me. She stiffens, feels Ohma’s grip loosen slightly, breathes too sharply. Ethically conflicting, loud blazer, gossip hound, velvet voice, district pariah, Capitol queen, cold-blooded killer, clever victor. Voltatea is going through all the notes she can remember about Alara to prepare herself when she hears the woman snap her fingers with a loud crack, then a slight scape of her claw-like nails as they connect for just a moment in the motion. “ There you are !” Voltaea digs her own nails into her scar again to silence the shiver that crawls up her spine as Alara drags out every syllable of the word there like she’s savouring the very taste of it.
Click, click, click, click. Voltaea counts the sharp sound of Alara's crimson heels as she closes the gap between them. Ohma tries to cling to her legs harder as she rises to her feet, pinching her back into the practiced posture she uses to piece herself together under pressure. Her mother is frozen two feet away - breath shallow and ragged sounding - face filled with some expression Voltaea thinks might actually be fear. Her mother has very deliberately averted her eyes from the woman talking towards them. The click, click, click of the woman’s heels stop abruptly as she finally takes that grating green gaze off of her for a moment to turn it to Voltaea’s mother, sizing her up like an apex predator looking for its next meal. The single, silken, sentence that drips from Alara’s lips is laced with so much poison that Voltaea can practically feel it burning down her throat. “Teslene - you’ve aged dreadfully .” Voltaea feels herself smile a bit in spite of herself, but bites it back when she thinks better of it. Huh. That usually happens the other way around. She remembers a moment when her mother had told her that the way she wore her Reaping Day shirt tucked into her pants made her look like an old man and has to bite back a giggle at the tables turning.
Teslene Amprole’s face turns a shade of violent, angry red that neither of her daughters have seen her wear before. Where’s your composure gone to, mother? Voltaea notes it’s almost the same shade as Alara’s coiffed capitolian curls are - just a touch darker, like blood. She hears her mother’s breath come out in short scoff - but she says nothing to the siren singing next to her. Just turns to the girls - Ohma, really - she doesn’t meet Voltaea’s eyes even in these last moments. Whatever she wanted to say was gone the second Alara strode her way through the room in that sharp, clicking chorus of hers. “Say your goodbyes to your sister. It’s time to go. Now .” her voice is shaky until the last word. That one comes out sharp. Final. Another sound joins the song again - the shrill sobs of her sister.
Voltaea bends down and a hand on each of her sister’s shoulders - releasing her nails from her palm for the first time in what feels like eternity. “You’re gonna have to be strong without me for a while, okay?” she reaches up one hand to wipe her sister’s tears. “No more of this, not for me.” the sobs simmer back to a bearable point.
“Promise me you’ll come back? I know you can win… I’ve seen your notes, they’re really good! I was reading them when you fell asleep one night with the box open. You know so much - you just have to have a chance, right?” The static in her ear begins to scream at that pitch that drowns her thoughts out. I was supposed to protect her. She was never supposed to see that. She shouldn’t have to think about killing like that. Her heartbeat is too loud right now - she feels the baseline thrumming in her throat like it’s trying to force a scream. Voltaea doesn’t notice when she lets her hands fall from her sister’s shoulders in a slump and starts burying her nails into her scar again - the pain creeping up her arm like a live current to tune her brain back to the moment. Calm. She breathes, deep and decisive, until she feels the baseline retreat to a relaxed rhythm. Collected. She uses her free hand to smooth her hair back, centering her thoughts in the tightness around her temples. Controlled.
She doesn’t scream - she’s drowned the sound within herself again. Instead, she steels, and looks into her sister's eyes for what she hopes in her deepest heart isn’t the last time. “I promise. I’ll come back.” Voltaea’s words are the hardest she has ever heard - there’s real weight there this time. Unexpected. Her sister nods once. Understood. She isn’t sobbing, the static starts to clear. Unbelievable. When her mother puts a hand on Ohma’s shoulder to lead her away - she doesn’t fight anymore, just gives Voltaea a last, solemn wave before departing to the side door of the building where her father and Davo have been waiting for gods-know-how-long now looking gutless and guilty as always and make their exit well before their allotted time is over. Goodbye, Ohma.
When she looks back to Alara, she finds that glint in her eyes again - the one directed right at her that seems to just say I see you . Coulomb lets out a particularly pained squeal from somewhere behind and Voltaea feels her face contort - just a momentary lapse in composure - but it’s enough to send her nails even deeper into her hand to silence the static. Alara clicks a few steps closer - until they’re just about at arm’s length apart. Voltaea has to tilt her head down just slightly to keep eye contact because of her height, she’s half a head taller than the woman before her even with the advantage she’s getting from the heels, but she’s determined not to look a coward like her mother did.
Voltaea can feel that silken, snaking voice coil even tighter around her spine when Alara speaks - the sound is palpably stronger with proximity “So, tell me. How exactly do you pronounce your name? I can only assume Orwell has completely butchered the attempt.” Every word she emphasizes strums a chord across her spine. The shiver comes back, then a bang from the boiler below - lights buzzing - Coulomb sobbing. Alara Vox gouged someone's eyes out with those claws, do not show her fear. Her nails are tap-tap-tapping against the strangely shiny material of her blazer as she stands there with her arms crossed performatively - one razor-red eyebrow standing at attention - waiting.
When Voltaea finally speaks, her words come out sharp and striking - it’s the voice she uses when she’s trying to explain things to Jakobi while they’re working and Markus isn’t around to clap sense into the boy himself. A teaching voice, or her attempt at one. “Volt - ay - uh Amp - roll” she watches for any sign of reaction or response from Alara but sees none, not even a blink. Composed.
She decides to prod that composure just a little, though she isn’t sure what possesses her to think it’s safe to do so in the face of Alara’s feral-cat-like gaze. It’s something she does with Ohma a lot these days. She does this with Jakobi at work too sometimes too, for fun. She thinks he's best to mess with because he isn’t very smart and his retorts just make her laugh harder. " It's like familial bonding out here” , Markus had said when she first asked why everyone on the crew seemed to tease each other constantly. She used to take it too personally, he told her, “ it’s a game we play, Amprole, you just have to learn the rules and it’ll be fun for you too”. Her voice softens a little - this part took practice, or people took her words the wrong way - “you have to soften the bite in your words, Amprole, it’s just a tap not a boxing match” .
She finally speaks; “He was sort of close, with help, but he chirps too much - it makes his accent sound even stranger than yours does.”
The tap-tap-tapping of the claws is suddenly silent, though Voltaea can still see the woman’s hand shaking slightly after she stops. Alara throws her head back, curls cascading in crimson, and lets out a deep, genuine, cashmere-coated cackle that makes the thundering bassline of her heartbeat return to her throat in response. The static in her ears thins but her head still feels like it’s swimming in the sound. A sudden, striking, clap of Alara’s hands brings her up for air as the older woman tilts her head back to meet Voltaea’s eyes again. Alara lets out a deep, performatively satisfied sigh. Controlled .
“Funny and ferocious!” The note of praise in Alara’s voice wraps around her like a warm blanket. Voltaea feels the side of her mouth work itself into a smirk without her telling it to. She thinks I’m funny. “Darling, when I saw you walk onto that Reaping stage today I knew we were going to do great things together and you just keep proving me right.” She winks and Voltaea’s face feels like she just touched a live cable again - burning.
It's then that Alara steps closer, and leans in for a moment. She feels that silky voice slink its way inside her again and shudders. It's a whisper now, a single thread of confession coiled between them. “ I do love to be right.”
I don’t want her to be wrong about me, either. She feels her brows furrowing, her hands clench - starts to breathe into the rhythm of the boiler below again to calm herself. She doesn’t speak, though. Just lets the static silence hang between them again as Alara leans back to size her up with that cat-like gaze. Voltaea realizes that the woman’s right hand never stops shaking - it's a tremor of some sort - She recalls that Lorelai at work has one, from an old shock injury. After what feels like hours - Though the clock above the door says it's only been a minute or so of this - Voltaea summons her speech again. “Your hand” she gestures towards the clawed appendage with the constant tremor. “Did you injure it in your games?”
Alara blinks at her and cocks her head to the side. She didn’t expect my question. She smiles with every perfectly-sculpted tooth in full view this time, then shakes her head. “No.” Is her voice softer now?. Alara raises up three fingers - on her left hand, the one that doesn’t shake - and then puts one finger down. “Two more guesses.”
“I’ll need to think about them first.” The response is automatic, she surprises herself by speaking - though her tone is clipped and calculated. Thinking tones.
The grin hasn’t left Alara’s face. “I’ll give you ‘till we get to the Capitol, darling.” She raises a single, clawed hand to shake Voltaea’s own. The silken sound rings in her ears again.
She weighs the thought for a moment - listens to the song in the room once more to center herself - buzz. Sob. bang. Sob. buzz. Breathe, Voltaea. Then nods and take’s Alara’s hand. “Deal.” Her hands are burning hot. Voltaea feels a slight build-up of sweat on her forehead.
“Voltaea -” Breathy, soft, lilting - her name sounds like music in Alara’s mouth and she feels her head start to swim again. “- I’m terribly bored here, let's head to the train, shall we?” She doesn’t have time to answer before Alara is pulling her hand to lock the girl into step with the click-click-click of her heels. She almost follows without thinking when she hears the sob ring out over the buzz-bang-buzz of the building’s beat.
“Wait, what about Coulomb?” she manages to stammer out as the Peacekeepers by the back doors part to let them through. Alara whips her head to look at her - her eyes narrow, she’s not smiling this time.
Her voice has more bite, sharpness, when she asks “Who?” Voltaea motions to the group of blonde, bleary-eyed mourners surrounding the tiny boy. Alara rolls her eyes. “Gods above is that the weepy one in the corner? Please don’t disappoint me now by worrying about him when we have so much to accomplish.” She feels herself clench. I didn’t mean to do that. Shit. Before Voltaea can reply, her mentor speaks once more - this time in a voice that barks and demands attention. “Orville, when his time is up, see to it that the boy makes it to the train in one piece.” Voltaea looks over to see the chirping, sickly sounding man near the main entrance stand up suddenly - straightening his back in response to Alara’s command. She stops for a moment, mulling her words over as if to decide if she’s satisfied, then follows up with - “and if he cries on my good chaise lounge, I will kill you both!” She waves her free hand dismissively, but her words sound like a promise. Alara is already turning away from Orville before she can see his face explode into the same fiery red her mother’s had. Voltaea sees it, though. “Ta!” It’s the last thing she says until they get to the train in five minutes time - short, sharp and slicing.
She feels Alara’s nails dig into her wrist slightly as she leads them both out the back door of the Justice Building. Quieter than the front - more a metallic creak than a clang . Voltaea braces for the chill as the wind picks up, then tries to spin a tune from the whispers in the breeze and the click-click-clicking of Alara’s heels as the quiet, thumping rhythm of her own walking falls into place in perfect sync beside her.