Cassandra "Sandy" Marko (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
justoutrunyou) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2014-10-02 04:10 pm
justoutrunyou) wrote in thecapitol2014-10-02 04:10 pm
Entry tags:
It's a symbol without meaning.
Who: Sandy and you
What: She's back from the arena and doesn't like what she sees
Where: District 12 common area.
When: After the arena
Warnings: TW: Self harm, child suffering, mentions of violence and death...all pretty standard hunger games.
The District 12 suite may have had plenty of residents but without Effie it seemed cold and empty.
Sandy had awoken to a clean room as she always did. Her paintings were removed from the walls and ceilings again.
Normally she would start painting right away, to get all the demons and nightmares out of her head. But today felt different. Today she rose and shuffled over to the mirror to see who would be looking back at her.
Pale and thin, the same way she'd arrived. Brushing back her bangs she saw the brand as clear as day. The Capitol logo, the perfect circle. A mark of ownership and weakness.
She hated it. It made her stomach twist with self loathing.
She brought her hands up and scratched at it leaving deep red marks through the middle. Something about the way it burned felt good to her. It felt like defiance. She scratched again, and again till the red grew darker and her forehead felt like fire.
She needed something more. Something that would really disfigure the symbol. Before she knew what she was doing her arm lashed out knocking a gaudy looking lamp from the desk. When it shattered her desperate fingers groped through the wreckage and found a long thin piece that came to a point.
Perfect.
With trembling fingers and wide eyes she pulled back her bangs once more and attacked her forehead with the glass, slicing clean through the circle from the top left to the bottom right. Then the opposite side making a perfect X. Then down the center of the X. Then across.
By this point blood and tears were running down her face and dripping onto the vanity. She had to grope for tissues to wipe it from her face but the thin paper wasn't enough though and she grabbed for a shirt out of her wardrobe.
With her tools at hand she resumed her work while her breathing became ragged and her skin darkened with flush. A shine of sweat mingled with the tears and blood as evidence of the effort it was taking her to continue. When the pain became more then she could handle the glass fell from her fingers and she let out a pathetic whimpering cry.
Looking into the mirror she saw blood and fear. She was looking into the eyes of the monster Penny as blood gushed from a stomach wound. She'd learned how painful and deadly a stomach wound could be, but once she'd buried the knife in Penny the first time she couldn't stop herself from doing it again and again. By the time she'd stopped stabbing penny she was covered in the woman's blood.
The memory faded and Sandy realized she was looking at her own blood, not Penny's.
She's gone...she can't hurt anyone ever again.
She would take a shower, clean her fresh wounds and pull a hat on to hide it from others.
She didn't deserve their pity or worry after so many failures.
What: She's back from the arena and doesn't like what she sees
Where: District 12 common area.
When: After the arena
Warnings: TW: Self harm, child suffering, mentions of violence and death...all pretty standard hunger games.
The District 12 suite may have had plenty of residents but without Effie it seemed cold and empty.
Sandy had awoken to a clean room as she always did. Her paintings were removed from the walls and ceilings again.
Normally she would start painting right away, to get all the demons and nightmares out of her head. But today felt different. Today she rose and shuffled over to the mirror to see who would be looking back at her.
Pale and thin, the same way she'd arrived. Brushing back her bangs she saw the brand as clear as day. The Capitol logo, the perfect circle. A mark of ownership and weakness.
She hated it. It made her stomach twist with self loathing.
She brought her hands up and scratched at it leaving deep red marks through the middle. Something about the way it burned felt good to her. It felt like defiance. She scratched again, and again till the red grew darker and her forehead felt like fire.
She needed something more. Something that would really disfigure the symbol. Before she knew what she was doing her arm lashed out knocking a gaudy looking lamp from the desk. When it shattered her desperate fingers groped through the wreckage and found a long thin piece that came to a point.
Perfect.
With trembling fingers and wide eyes she pulled back her bangs once more and attacked her forehead with the glass, slicing clean through the circle from the top left to the bottom right. Then the opposite side making a perfect X. Then down the center of the X. Then across.
By this point blood and tears were running down her face and dripping onto the vanity. She had to grope for tissues to wipe it from her face but the thin paper wasn't enough though and she grabbed for a shirt out of her wardrobe.
With her tools at hand she resumed her work while her breathing became ragged and her skin darkened with flush. A shine of sweat mingled with the tears and blood as evidence of the effort it was taking her to continue. When the pain became more then she could handle the glass fell from her fingers and she let out a pathetic whimpering cry.
Looking into the mirror she saw blood and fear. She was looking into the eyes of the monster Penny as blood gushed from a stomach wound. She'd learned how painful and deadly a stomach wound could be, but once she'd buried the knife in Penny the first time she couldn't stop herself from doing it again and again. By the time she'd stopped stabbing penny she was covered in the woman's blood.
The memory faded and Sandy realized she was looking at her own blood, not Penny's.
She's gone...she can't hurt anyone ever again.
She would take a shower, clean her fresh wounds and pull a hat on to hide it from others.
She didn't deserve their pity or worry after so many failures.
Lovely~
Compared to the version of her still starring at them from the TV Screen Sandy wasn't too bad. She was still too skinny and too tired looking, but at least there was coherency in her eyes.
The question had her in stunned silence. What would Shepard think of her if she knew she had done that to herself?
Worse still what would Shepard think of her if she lied about it?
Torn between the two horrible options she could not answer so instead looked away shamefully. "S-sorry." She stammered unable to hold Shepard's gaze for more then a moment.
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It had bled like hell, that much was clear, but it had been washed well enough, and the spots left behind on the bottom side of the bandage were orangish and watery. Head wounds, even small, unimportant ones, often did. She peeled back the tape and looked at it. The scabs were crusting red and oozy, slightly damp from being confined, proud-flesh just beginning to get itself in a snit around the edges.
She taped it back down with deft, sure movements, smoothly running her fingertips over the clean cotton as if she could protect the weakness by mere willpower. Liara had always said that she'd had a lot of it, after all. If only it were so easily transferred, like a talisman.
"No, I'm sorry. I should have looked after you. This was my fault," even a good commander made mistakes, but the best always took credit for their faults as well as their achievements, "Too wrapped up in my own bullshit, this time."
Next time, she'd make a point to kill Sandy first.
"Don't do it again. You hear me?"
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"I was just...so sick of looking at it. Knowing what they want it to mean. Everything that happened before the arena and then the arena itself..." she trailed off and swallowed hard.
"I thought it would get easier after the first kill but I lost it. It was messy and painful and I didn't even know him. He startled me and was trying to save me and I killed him."
the grammar in my previous tag suffered from editing :\
Right.
"Listen, it doesn't matter what they want. Especially when it comes to this," she reached up and tapped her own brand with one finger, then grasped Sandy by the shoulders, "They had to hurt you because they needed to feel powerful. Because they couldn't let anyone think they were weak, for even a second. But that's how it works, and they don't have a clue how weak doing this really makes them look. You should be proud of that scar; I know I am. There is nobody who can look you in the face anymore without knowing how strong you are. And that is going to scare the living shit out of some of them, but not me."
Naw it's all good~
The idea of her scar scaring people though? After feeling so scared so much she found herself wanting to know what it felt like to scare other people bigger then her.
And that thought scared her too.
"I don't know what happened after I killed him. Pruna was gone...everyone was gone so fast and I saw someone...someone I shouldn't have seen. Someone dead. I tried to kill them again and I guess whoever killed me was there."
Gently touching her bandage she bit her lower lip.
"No matter how ugly it looks when it heals...it's still better because I put it there instead of them."
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"Oh. Shit, Sandy, you were drugged," Now she's embarrassed, sitting back on her heels to run a hand through her hair, "My crew poisoned the water supply with psychotropic venom. You just got caught in the crossfire."
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"So...I wasn't losing my mind. I mean I was but it wasn't because I was finally broken I was just on drugs?" That was the strangest relief she had ever felt in her life.
Because it also meant the Capitol didn't know what she'd done and they hadn't brought that woman back from the dead.
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"So every time you kiss Thane you see things that aren't there and feel like you're gonna throw up?"
Sandy did not consider that perhaps Shepard had an immunity...or that perhaps Sandy had drank enough venom she was probably working her way towards death even before she was shot.
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"A lot of people enjoy altered states of mind-- but maybe you're not one of them," Look at that face, "It's not usually that bad, at the doses I get."
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"I know about people like, using weed or whatever. And I guess around here they got that stuff Morphling...so what happens with just a little venom then?"
Because basically Sandy had filled her belly with water to make up for the lack of food.
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"...I should probably be telling you not to do drugs, or that sex is deadly poison, right?"
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"With everything else I've seen and done in the last year and whatever months is sex and drugs really that horrible?"
It was the first time she'd had an honest laugh in weeks. It felt good.
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Alright, so she's a terrible role model. But then, what else is new?
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"So how old were you when you first got pregnant and died?"
Because if we were veering off into inappropriate territory Sandy decided to take a page out of Shepard's book...and probably Mindy's and Pruna's and go full speed.
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It's not that she disapproves, exactly, but even Shepard can see that it's probably not best to take the kid's hand and lead her into coping with morphling use.
Sex is... Maybe when you're older.
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"I don't think Pruna and I are ready for that sort of commitment." She joked trying to reach up and flick Shepard's nose in retaliation.
"And I don't think I'm supposed to take medication with that tea I use to sleep." she added remembering vaguely a warning Effie had given her once.
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"We decided to be girlfriends during her second arena. We thought maybe it would get us more sponsors. I dunno if it worked but...she's my best friend and when I thought she was gone forever I felt..lost ya know?"
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"I've never really practiced with the guns because we don't usually get them in the arena. But they've been giving us guns more often so I probably should." After a moment of silence she glanced up at Shepard. "Are you a better shot then Garrus?"
She'd been told of Garrus and his particular prowess with sniper rifles.
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But she had let him win that shooting contest.
"His fragile man-ego can't take the hit. And it's just so damn cute when he's happy," like a puppy, or...or something. shut up, "Besides, I prefer a shotgun, which is about as far from a sniper as you can get and still be firing a gun. I'd love to teach you, though. Even the Capitol isn't stupid enough to give us access to a firing range, but next time we've got firearms in the arena, let's make a point of it. Yeah?"
No way to do things legally? Do them illegally, and shine a spotlight on it. Fuck your rules.
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"Yeah!" She agreed enthusiastically. There were few people who could make Sandy forget about all the awfulness that was her life currently but Shepard was on that list. For a brief moment she was exciting again the way a child should be.
To be fair she was excited about a lesson that was supposed to be teaching her how to kill things more efficiently but she could ignore that for now.