Note: Lysa, Maebh, and others were created by Amata le Fay.
Maebh Ardenne of District Nine was rigging her own noose when her last opponents' cannons fired.
Moments ago, the seventy-second Hunger Games were down to her, the remaining four Careers, and the boy from District Six. The Careers had found the Six boy, and upon his death, realized it was time for the finale, and a bloody split of the alliance followed, in which all of them died within minutes.
None of them knew that the last non-Career in the arena was about to kill herself.
Sixteen-year-old Maebh Ardenne was declared victor, and she wasn't sure she wanted to be.
.
In District Nine, Lysistrata Yun Capaldi shrieked happily at the television. Even her mother, the ever-stoic Mayor, breathed a sigh of relief.
Maebh was coming home.
Her girlfriend was coming home.
Fifteen-year-old Lysa didn't think much of the noose still hanging in the arena. Her love was coming home, and that was what mattered.
.
Maebh was still on the train pulling into District Nine when she saw the very-blonde top of Lysa's head racing through the crowd. The new victor hadn't stepped off the train yet when Lysa threw herself into her arms.
Maebh embraced her tightly and buried her face in Lysa's shoulder and thought that in those darkest moments in the arena, she'd forgotten the fruity scent of Lysa's shampoo, and how soft her skin was, and how they seemed to fit together perfectly despite a nine-inch height difference, Maebh the taller.
Lysa pressed frantic kisses against Maebh's face, and shifted her hands to Maebh's cheeks when she pulled back, running her fingers over Maebh's eyebrows, nose, lips, just to feel her, there and real and alive.
Maebh kissed her girlfriend's forehead, ran her lips down to the other girl's, and they kissed and the sighing crowd seemed even more distant.
She was home.
.
The Ardenne family moved into the Victor's Village and Lysa visited every day. Maebh was at the Mayor's house equally often, if they avoided the Mayor herself. But Lysa's father had always cared for Maebh, let Lysa bring her the extra food before the Games and visited her when she was reaped.
The two girls didn't actually talk much. Lysa never did, but Maebh was unusually unwilling to fill the silence. She wasn't quite the same as she had been before the arena, despite being the only victor who hadn't killed a single other tribute.
Her voice was still made of soft orange-pink shapes barely in Lysa's field of vision when she did speak. And they didn't talk about the Games.
.
The Capitol gave them six months of what could pass for peace.
Except for the way Maebh started to jump when people touched her, except for the flashbacks, except for the nightmares.
Maebh would wake screaming and Lysa would often be there to hold her, and Maebh would clutch her in her lap and not feel like the same strong, brave girl who had went into that arena. Lysa would run her fingers through Maebh's hair, strawberry-blonde, rumpled from sleep.
Maebh would eventually look at her with those big brown eyes and pet Lysa's hair back and say, "It's fine. We're fine. I'm fine. You're fine."
.
Then Maebh left for the Victory Tour, and like the last time she'd been to the Capitol, she did not come back the same girl.
It would be a shame if something were to happen to your dear Lysistrata, said the President in private.
And so it was that Maebh became another whore of the Capitol.
She did not tell Lysa. Lysa would not understand. Lysa was a child. And maybe Maebh had been once, too.
.
It was not enough. It would never be enough. There was defiance left in Maebh's eyes and when the name pulled out of the District Nine girls' Reaping bowl for the seventy-third Hunger Games was Lysistrata Yun Capaldi, Maebh screamed first.
"And the mentors for this year will be—"
"Me," said Maebh.
"Maebh Ardenne," mumbled the Mayor, Lysa's mother. She announced the other mentor and soon, her daughter and Maebh were off to the Capitol with the rest of the tribute team.
.
"You're going to win," said Maebh, gripping Lysa by the shoulders, while Lysa sat on her bed on the train and stared. "Lysa. You're going to win."
Lysa reached up and stroked Maebh's cheek, and Maebh thought, she knows. This was Maebh's fault, and Lysa was not meant to win, as Maebh wasn't, but Lysa's victory would be her fault, too.
.
Maebh did not sleep. She did not eat. She did not breathe, until they announced the victor of the seventy-third Hunger Games, Lysistrata Yun Capaldi.
She was sure she'd done half of the Capitol at that point.
The announcers called them "The Miracles of District Nine". Two District Nine girls had won back-to-back years, lovers no less, and neither of them had killed a single person.
But Maebh knew what Lysa's victory meant.
You will not do this to my Lysa, she told the President. What you did to me. You will not do it to Lysa. Are you listening? Not to my Lysa.
.
Things went much the same as they did in those six months after Maebh's Games. Then, the Victory Tour, and Lysa did what Maebh told her to and smiled for the crowds.
.
And they would have been fine, safe from the Reapings forever, if it weren't for the Quell.
.
The male and female tributes will be reaped from the existing pool of victors.
.
It was Maebh who panicked. Because she would be going back into the arena, not Lysa, because she would not let that happen.
So when the escort read with a sigh, Lysistrata Yun Capaldi, her name had barely left the escort's lips before Maebh called, "I volunteer!" with a raised hand, and stepped up to the stage.
Lysa looked at Maebh sadly, and Maebh gave her a grim, teary-eyed smile back. They had won, and now they would pay the price.
No one wins the Hunger Games, thought Maebh. And some part of you doesn't even survive.