Work Text:
Minx makes a beeline straight out of the ballroom towards her bedroom as the final members of the camera crew step into the elevator and the doors slide shut. She only waits until the number on the display of which floor they’re on changes from five to four before she is out of there without a word to the others.
She hated that, the welcoming gala for the new Victor. The entire day she struggled through conversations, driving out her act as different Capitol aristocrats came to get a glimpse of her like she was an exotic creature on display for them at the zoo. Dance for us, their amused eyes sang to her, dance for us and we’ll throw you a scrap.
And dance she did because she had no other choice.
Minx yells, she screams, she piped up in rage and they laugh at her for it. She’s no coward, she’ll stand her ground, but now toeing the line of defiance has become her prime time circus act. When she first came to the Capitol, when she was reaped and forced here she was so angry, so loud, such a little spitfire. She was oh so mad, and she wanted to show it, to kick and scream, to hurt them, but they laughed off her rage and they loved it. What threat does a 12-year-old girl from district 10 pose anyway?
And before she knew it, before she realized what was happening, that same brashness that started out as a fuck you to the Capitol became her shining act. She was beloved because she was loud, because she was angry. Did they not understand they were the ones she was screaming at all along?
So tonight they tried their best to get her riled up, to parade her around all hot-headed and irate. They had the audacity to find it amusing.
The click-clack of Minx’s heels echo down the hall as she storms towards her room, fury at the evening overflowing.
At least, only a small blessing really, but a blessing all the same, Minx wasn’t the shining star of the gala tonight. Eyes were still very much on her, but their focus has changed to the new member of the floor.
Technoblade is quite the luminary to them. He’s only thirteen, the same age she is, and he’s something so spectacular to them all. To Minx, though, something about the thought of him makes her sick. She knows she should be empathetic, he is only another kid like her, but she can’t be.
They may both be children, but they are in no way the same. Minx was forced to be here, dragged onto that train car and shoved into that arena kicking and screaming. She had no choice. And here he is, Technoblade the great, and he chose to be here. He volunteered willingly, trained to take part, reveled in it, dreamed of it, trained for the day. They are nothing alike, he relishes in all she hates, and for that she loathes him.
Minx flicks on the lights of her bedroom. She’s exhausted, she wants nothing more right now than to flop over and sink into the cushiony mattress of her bed, to sleep for a million years and wake up when this is all over, but she can’t. She’s caked in makeup, dressed head to toe in her costume. She’s going to have to change before she does any of that.
Minx steps into her bathroom and stands before her floor-length mirror, inspecting tonight's damage.
The sight of herself takes her breath away.
The girl she sees in the mirror is someone else, this is some other person, some other creature.
She loathes the sight of the being before her.
She’s wearing a dress far too skimpy for a girl who's only 13. The tight, black fabric shows far too high up her legs, far too much of her chest. It’s a horribly tasteless get up but something she’s doomed to wear.
She goes to yank off her devilish horns but one of her piercing fingernails gets caught in her hair. She tries to pull it out, but it only gets more tangled in there and she can feel the harsh pulling of her scalp as she desperately tries to get it out.
She wants to scream in frustration.
More than that, she wants to reach out in front of her and smash the mirror, ruin her reflection. She wants to beat that stupid mirror into a million tiny pieces, then crush it into such fine powder that she can no longer see herself in it.
How did it all come to this? How has she become so complacent, let the Capitol slip their wretched and defiling hands so deeply into her life that she’s allowed them to turn her into this thing, this monster? When did she give in to the pressure of letting them spin her into such a devil?
She hates this thing she has become. Her youth has become corrupted, torn apart by Capitol claws.
They’ve destroyed her nails, turned them into ten little, black daggers all polished and shiny. They’ve sharpened her teeth, turned them into pearly white razor blades. They can cut any surface, tear any piece of flesh apart. She can’t even bite her lip in small rushes of nervousness without drawing blood.
They’ve turned her into the very animal her name suggests she is.
The person she once was, the girl she came here as, is dead.
Rebecca is gone, permanently altered. She cannot be found under layers of makeup, beneath pointed nails and vampiric teeth. That girl is gone, she died at the age of 12 back in district 10 the day her name was reaped and now all there remains of her disrespected memory is Minx. That is all she can be now.
In the beginning, during her Games, Rebecca wore the façade of Minx only as a mask. She was truly angry, yes, but she also knew how to channel that fire to get what she needed and to act her way to the center stage. It was always just a way to protect herself, a way to call on everyone’s attention. That’s all it ever was supposed to be. But that purpose has changed. Now that the Games are over and she has won, she can no longer go on that way, Minx is no longer something she can just take off. She has been changed forever, mentally, physically. All she ever will be anymore is Minx.
At some point all of it has morphed from a charade to her inescapable reality.
They did this all to her without asking. No one thought to ask her if this is what she wanted. Maybe she didn’t want to be a content creator, a Twitch streamer, a demon by nature, but that’s all she has the choice now to do. All she can do is keep up the act of the easily-riled angry child from 10 who loves to scream at her chat and get upset at nothing.
Even the things they did to her body, the physical alterations, were against her will. She never asked to be given animalistic fangs, never chose the talons, but when she woke up after her Games, the deed had already been done and her fate cemented.
Rebecca was gone, Minx is here to stay.
So as Minx washes her face tonight, scrubbing away the bright red lipstick and the dark eye makeup, she thinks of her family. She tries not to think of them too often, for even a year later that pain is still too fresh. She misses them so badly, her family, her friends back in 10.
Tonight, though, she wonders what they would think of her if they could see her now. Would they even recognize the animal she has become? Could they even still love her as she is now or has she changed too much?
She prays they haven’t seen her, they don’t have much money and so Twitch is something they watch, but she fears news of her has spread to them. She hopes it hasn't. She doesn’t want them to know of the beast she has grown into, for only she can see the leash they so tightly hold her on.
It’s only as she turns off the tap and scrubs at her face with a towel that she realizes she has been crying. Before she only thought it was the sink water.
Minx only gets more upset at the sight of her tears. Even at the sight of herself now after she has washed all the heavy makeup off, her small and crying, she still doesn’t recognize the girl who peers back. She’s still this unrecognizable thing, still this monster even beneath. She'll never be able to get rid of Minx.
She hates herself even more for it, terrified of the thing she has become
Perhaps this is the price she pays for the fire-like entrance she made on the Capitol stage. She came in angry and rebellious and so they took that anger, took that rebellion and turned it into a joke so it would never be taken seriously. She can scream her lungs out and still no one will ever believe her. They've made her into a mockery.
It doesn’t matter how hard she tries, how desperate she acts, but it’s the way things are for her, her infinite limbo.
This isn’t what she wanted.