The Queen
Meticulously groomed and wearing an elaborate yellow dress, Katniss, the true victor of the seventy-fourth Hunger Games, looks like royalty.
She gives Snow a steely stare, which he returns.
She glares at her own reflection in his eyes, angry at the monstrosity he has made of her.
When he places the crown on her head, she does not look like a sixteen year-old girl, like a princess.
She looks like a queen.
The sight breaks my heart.
Because even though the queen has her powers, she still has one fatal flaw.
The queen is still a piece in a game.
Well, today’s the last day of Quick Week! To see all of my Quick Week entries, click here. Thanks! :D
7. Quinn hopped up into the truck, trying to be graceful but finding it hard to do in a dress. After shutting the door, she placed her purse and a box neatly wrapped in pink paper next to her in the middle seat. Puck situated himself in the driver’s seat, holding a slightly wrinkled gift bag. “What is that?” Quinn asked curiously.
6. Rachel looked at the photo on her phone that she had snapped that afternoon, unbeknownst to the subject of the photo. It was a picture of Quinn, smiling fondly and looking incredibly interested in whatever she was looking at. Rachel knew she wasn’t supposed to butt in when it came to people’s personal lives, but she also knew that she couldn’t just let the two of them go on beating around the bush when senior year was going to be over soon. She decidedly sent the photo to two people and waited for a response. Quinn answered first: “Why were you taking a picture of me during glee club?” Rachel replied hastily, “You just looked so happy! And you have to agree that it’s a great picture of you.” “I do look pretty happy… When did you take it?” Quinn asked. Rachel grinned and wrote, “When you were listening to Puck’s solo.” It took Quinn a few minutes to reply again, and all she wrote was, “Oh.” Rachel was flustered now. “Come on, Quinn! Just talk to him! You know that song was totally for you.” “Rachel, stop butting in. And he didn’t even look at me the whole time.” “Exactly!” After that, Quinn didn’t reply again. Rachel was about break down and call her when she got a message from Puck: “When did you take that?” Rachel had to grin again as she wrote, “Today in glee, when she was listening to your solo. You were avoiding looking at her the whole time, so I thought you’d like to see that.” His only response was: “Stop butting in, Rachel.” Neither of them texted her again, and Rachel was upset all night that her plan hadn’t worked. It wasn’t until the next day when Quinn and Puck walked into the choir room hand in hand that she knew her plan had actually worked out after all.
5. Quinn was used to causing whispers when she went down the McKinley High hallway, for every reason from a pregnant belly under a maternity dress to an all-black outfit topped off with pink hair. This time was different, though. It wasn’t the first time she had rolled down the halls in a wheelchair, but this time it was necessary. This time she couldn’t walk. It was her first day back at school since the accident. She knew the routine: put on a brave face, ignore the stares and whispers, just keep going as fast as possible, hope no one gets in the way…
4. The boys were lined up on their stools, ready to sing, but as far as Quinn was concerned, the Lady Gaga number the girls and Kurt had done couldn’t possibly be topped by any Kiss song the boys could do. Puck started the song off, and even though Quinn had just decided that she wasn’t going to be impressed, she realized that he was looking straight at her. He was unarmed and vulnerable without his guitar and his typically provocative dance moves, just singing gently from his stool as if he did so all the time. Puck was singing to her. She didn’t know quite how to process it. She thought she would be able to breathe properly again when he stopped singing during the instrumental break, but it only got worse as he focused all his energy on staring her down, trying to convey everything that he would never be able to put into words. All she could do was stare back and cross her arms over her stomach where her nameless little girl had started moving around. She was almost unnerved by the situation; he could ask for anything right then, and she might have said yes. Quinn didn’t understand the song choice until Puck asked to be able to witness his daughter’s birth and to name her Beth. Quinn, speechless, could only nod. She didn’t want to name the baby at first, but now that she thinks about it, Beth is a lot better than Drizzle or Jackie Daniels.
3. Mr. Schuester announced that the glee club would be doing duets once again, but this time there was a twist: everyone had to sing with someone they had never done a duet with before. Quinn looked around the choir room, trying to remember who she had sung with before. Seeing that Quinn didn’t immediately look to him, Puck strode over to her and said, “What? You’re gonna pick someone else?” Quinn looked at Puck in surprise, seeing him try to play his anger down even though she didn’t understand why he would be angry with her. “I thought we had to pick someone we’ve never done a duet with before,” she stated tentatively. “Quinn, we’ve never sung together,” he replied, becoming calmer at seeing her confused expression. “Are you sure?” she asked. “I thought…” Quinn bit her lip, trying to remember when they had actually sung together in front of the glee club, but nothing came to mind. Then it hit her. “Oh, that’s embarrassing,” she said quietly. “What is?” Puck asked. “Well… every time you sing, I kind of sing along in my head, and I guess that makes me feel like we’ve sung together a dozen times. Gosh, that sounds even more embarrassing out loud.” Puck wore a serious expression for a moment, but then he smiled. Quinn laughed at herself, and then she said, “So, are you asking me to be your duet partner or what?” “Well, if I have to do this stupid assignment,” Puck answered, “I might as well do it with you.”
2. It was a gray Saturday afternoon, and Quinn sat under a blanket in her living room, listlessly watching an infomercial for a product that she would never actually buy. It was a holiday, but she didn’t feel that the holiday applied to her anymore. There was no word from her father, not that Quinn was sure she wanted there to be, and her mother was out doing who-knows-what. Just as the spokesperson on her television was telling her how she would get a second set for free if she called in the next ten minutes, her cell phone vibrated two times. She looked at the screen and raised an eyebrow, seeing that it was a message from Puck. It read: “Ready to celebrate Father’s Day?” In no mood for whatever he was up to, Quinn texted back, “What’s there to celebrate? My father disowned me.” He answered, “So did mine. Now let’s celebrate.” Before she could reply, her front door swung open. “Your doorbell is broken, so we just thought we’d come in,” Puck said unapologetically, making Beth giggle. Quinn’s mouth fell open, and Puck grinned. “Now are you ready to celebrate?” he asked. In Puck’s arms, Beth clapped her hands and nodded, and Quinn followed her lead, nodding too.
1. Quinn quickly took a seat at an empty lunch table, eager to open her newly received yearbook. She paused to run a hand over the smooth cover, realizing that she would be graduating soon and that this was her last high school yearbook. After a second of hesitation, she opened the book, set on finding a certain page. Any other year, she would have gone straight to her own picture to assure herself that it was still perfect, and then she would have headed to the Cheerios page to see herself smiling at the top of a pyramid. This year, however, she found the page she was looking for in a matter of seconds: the glee club’s page. A smile appeared on her face just as someone took a seat beside her, also looking at the club picture in the middle of the page. “We look like a happy little family, don’t we?” she said offhandedly. “Yeah, they really do look like family. Especially those two,” he answered. “Which two?” Quinn asked, frowning at the picture, not knowing who he was referring to. He used his index and middle fingers to point to the two people he was talking about, causing a tinge of pink to appear across Quinn’s cheeks. Puck had one finger on her picture, and the other finger on his own.
