paulo vulpes (n.): latin; "little fox"
She's always been soft-spoken. Slow to anger, never one to speak up.
She's an observer, she supposes. More interested in watching conversation than partaking in it. There's a word for that, she thinks—wallflower. It's far easier, she believes, to learn about people from their mannerisms and body language than it is from their words, because people are liars.
District 5 is always overcast, the atmosphere thick with smog from the factories and power plants and laboratories, and the people dress in drab, greyscale clothing. Her hair stands out against the ashen shades of other people's, as bright and as coppery as the inside of a wire. She's skinny despite the District's low poverty rate, and she's freckled despite the constant lack of sunlight. She's intelligent and observant and would probably make a fantastic engineer or scientist, despite the boring, monotonous life of each of those career paths.
But then her name booms across the square on the fateful day of the Reaping, and over the polite applause of her district she feels a pang of regret, much stronger than the fear that courses through her veins.
She'd prefer monotony over certain death.
Her district partner is a year younger than she is—awkward, feeble. He won't make a good ally, that's for sure, but she's kind to him anyway because if they're both doomed for death, there's no point in showing hostility.
Their mentors are both on the older side—District 5 hasn't had a victor in well over a decade—but they both won their Games with intelligence and cunning, exactly how she thinks the Games should be won anyway, so she takes their advice and even though she knows she won't win, she decides that she'll try her damn hardest to survive for as long as she can.
Training is a bore. The tributes from 1, 2, and 4 hog the weapons the entire time, and she wants to scoff at their idiocy. They seem to be the same every year—egotistic with the belief that they will make it far on weaponry only, completely ignorant to the survival stations. She thinks they're probably intimidating to most of the other tributes, especially the hulking blond boy from 2 (he has anger and possession issues, she thinks, if the way he guards his sword and his district partner is anything to go by).
She remains silent, doesn't even speak with her district partner, as she does what she's best at. She analyzes.
The girl from 1 acts stupid and useless and pretty, but her green eyes gleam with hidden malice, and her fingers twitch like she can't wait to get her hands on the mace she's been eyeing the entire time.
The boy from 2 thinks more with his muscles than he does with his mind. He's terrifying nonetheless, slashing his way through dummies and trainers with practiced ease. But he cares too much about his district partner, that much she can tell. His eyes are constantly flicking over to her, and he glowers when the boy from 1 moves a little too close. She thinks this could be his undoing.
The boy from 3 is small but definitely intelligent, spending almost all of his time alone at survival stations. She can't see him killing anybody, but outsmarting someone—well, he may stand a chance. She wonders briefly if she should ally with him, but decides against it.
The boy from 4 thinks he's stronger than he is as he tries, and fails, to keep up with the other boys in his alliance. She can't see him lasting long.
The girl from 7 is determined for sure, strong enough with an axe but ultimately unprepared and probably too daring and impulsive for her own good. She'll probably try to attack the Careers in the bloodbath.
The boy from 10 makes her unreasonably sad. She hopes for his sake that he makes it as far as he can with that leg, but she doesn't get her hopes up.
The little girl from 11 is quiet but swift, breezing through the ropes courses and watching the other tributes almost as analytically as she is. At one point their eyes meet, but they turn away without so much as a smile.
The boy from 11 is huge and quiet, never straying too far from his district partner. He'll make it far, she knows he will, as his size alone could give the boy from 2 a run for his money. Maybe an outlier will have a victor this year.
The pair from 12—she won't analyze them individually, because they're so attached at the hip that they might as well be a single being—are the most interesting to her. The girl is stronger than she looks, that much is for sure, volunteering for her sister and putting on a brave face for all of Panem. She won't count her out. The boy reminds her slightly of the one from 2. He cares about the girl, watching her longingly with gentle blue eyes. He's in love with her, she decides without a doubt, and she finds herself feeling bad for them.
Fate can be so cruel.
The interviews are torture. Never before has she needed to talk so much.
She's placed in a bright turquoise dress that supposedly will contrast her hair color and make it appear brighter, with her hair done elegantly and her makeup subtle. She's never worn makeup in her life.
Caesar Flickerman hides something. She knows he does. Maybe he hates the Games just as much as she does. Or maybe she's overanalyzing.
She answers his questions as best she can, taking her mentors' advice and giving him just enough information to know who she is, but not enough to reveal her strategy. She is intelligent and mysterious, but timid enough that she will fly under the radar of the stronger tributes. She is proud of her performance.
When the boy from 12 professes his love for his district partner, her gut twists unpleasantly.
She was hoping that for once, she'd be wrong.
It's chaos.
Blood is flying and children are screaming and weapons are clashing and the only thing on her mind is run run run run run.
She dodges tributes left and right. She watches the girl from 7 approach the boy from 1, but he cuts her down without even blinking. The boy from 4 is already down, blood spilling from a wound in his abdomen.
She freezes for half a second when she sees a knife fly through the air, nailing her district partner directly between the eyes. He goes down, convulses, stills. The girl from 2 stands several yards away, smirking maliciously at her kill.
She feels like she's going to be sick.
She takes off toward the woods, grabbing a small backpack as she goes. She bursts through the tree line and sprints as fast as she can, unbothered by the branches whipping against her face and the thorns snagging on her clothes. She's made it maybe a hundred yards before she collides with something—someone.
Her heart stops in fear because oh god could this be the end already, but she relaxes slightly when she sees that it's the girl from 12, looking equally as terrified. They stare for a fraction of a second, both skittish before coming to a mutual understanding, turning and taking off in opposite directions.
She has a feeling that 12 is much like herself.
Eleven tributes die on the first day. Thirteen remain. She decides not to sleep, instead exploring the new terrain.
She hears footsteps, a stampede. Hollers and cries of glee are tossed into the air, and she knows exactly who it is. She dives behind a tree just as the Career alliance bursts into her line of vision, laughing as if they're having the best time in the world. She supposes they are.
One thing surprises her, though—the boy from 12, tagging along behind the group.
She frowns at this. What is he doing? Surely he didn't lie about his feelings for his district partner—his eyes were too genuine, too pained. So he must be doing it to protect her. A stupid plan, really, but she supposes one will do anything when they're in love.
Tributes dwindle one-by-one. The girl from 8. The girls from 1 and 4. The boy from 10—she respects him for surviving as long as he did—is the last death she's seen in a while.
She's been surviving mostly off of the plants she learned about in training. Her backpack contained night vision glasses and an empty water bottle, and with the help of a purifier sent from her mentor, she was given a source of water. Overall she's been doing okay, proud that she's made it as far as she has without needing to kill anybody.
The nights are growing colder.
She nearly dies one day.
She's at the lake, filling her bottle, when she hears a shout from behind her. It's the remaining Career pack, the pair from 2 and the boy from 1. They're yelling about finally having another kill and you can run but you can't hide!
She tries anyway.
As she's running a knife whizzes past her head, followed by a frustrated growl from the girl from 2. She runs in zig-zag, knowing that a straight path will mean death for sure. Still she can feel them gaining on her, and her breathing falls out of rhythm.
She takes a sharp left, leaping over a boulder and diving around a fallen branch before an idea overcomes her. Closing her eyes and already regretting what she's about to do, she drops her night vision goggles before tossing her water bottle farther away. A red herring.
She ducks behind a thick tree and tries to steady her breathing, tries to remain silent. Sure enough, the Careers follow not far behind, but they stop. The boy from 1 points out the goggles, and the girl from 2 finds the bottle a few yards away, in the opposite direction from where she hides. They follow the bait, and she takes her chance.
She dashes away as silently as possible, careful not to leave a trail. She isn't sure how much time she has before they're after her again.
At night she thinks about the pair from 12.
The boy wasn't with the Careers anymore, meaning he either escaped them or was kicked out. She assumes the former, as she can't imagine they would kick him out of the alliance but still let him live.
She thinks she might have seen the girl a few days ago, up in the trees. She isn't sure though. All she caught was the end of what appeared to be a dark braid before it disappeared amongst the branches.
She hopes they've found each other.
She's hungry.
Plants and berries can only sustain one so much, and without a steady source of water she isn't sure how much time she has left.
But then she sees it, the Cornucopia, shimmering under the afternoon sun in all its golden glory. The Careers are there, a mountain of supplies occupying the ground.
With them is a small boy—the one from 3? He appears to be digging and planting, and she's confused until she sees him scoop something out from underneath one of the platforms they rose into the arena on. The bombs! He's making a minefield!
God, what's he doing? She shakes her head at his naïveté. Surely he doesn't believe they'll spare him after he's finished, does he?
She watches him plant the bombs, memorizing the trail and the pattern as she does. She needs food, and this is where she'll get it.
But how?
Some idiotic tribute lights a fire, sending a smoke signal up into the sky. The Careers notice, naturally, and take off for the source. They leave the boy from 3 to guard the supplies, and she can't believe her luck.
She approaches from behind, as far from 3 as she can. He holds a spear but she knows he can't throw it far or accurately, but she is still careful. He's survived this long somehow.
She turns to check her surroundings, to make sure that nobody is watching or following her. She's terrified of the boy from 11, as he seems to be a wild card, and she hasn't seen him once since the Games began.
What she sees, though, is another smoke signal. And her jaw drops, a smile splitting her face as a silent laugh racks her shoulders. So that tribute wasn't idiotic at all. It's a trap.
She forces the smile off of her face and dances around the mines. It won't be long until the Careers realize what she already has, so she can't waste any more time.
Thankfully she kept her backpack when she ditched her supplies, so she stuffs it full with dried fruit, jerky, even a couple of knives. The boy from 3 is still completely unaware of her presence, and she manages to escape without bringing attention to herself.
When she makes it back to the forest she sees the girl from 12, bow in hand and arrow poised to fire. She's aiming for the Cornucopia. Maybe she knows about the minefield as well.
She stops to watch the scene play out, slinking farther into the woods so not to be caught up in the inevitable blast. She feels bad for the boy from 3, as he'll either die in the explosion or at the hands of the Careers, but the sympathy is short-lived. He did this to himself.
The arrow flies true, tearing a bag of apples. The fruit tumbles downward, landing on the mines and setting them off in the most glorious chain reaction she's ever seen.
That must be how 12 received such a high training score, she thinks as she backs even farther away. Archery.
The other girl has been blown back by the explosion, and lies unmoving on the ground. She finds herself silently rooting—no, begging—for her to get up, to run, to escape while she can.
She does, her dark braid flying behind her as she dives into the clearing, just as the Careers burst from the trees.
District 3 is killed, but she saw that coming, anyway.
The boy from 1 and the girl from 11 are dead, too, meaning there are six left.
She just might win this.
Water. She needs water.
They'll have it at the Feast, she knows they will. There is nothing she needs more desperately, if her cracked lips and dry mouth and constant state of fatigue are anything to go by.
An idea overcomes her and she finds herself hoping that the pair from 2 have ditched the Cornucopia after their supplies were destroyed.
The odds are on her side, as the area is completely deserted. She crosses through the clearing and slips inside the golden horn. The darkness and the silence are a bit unsettling, but it's the best strategy.
And so she waits.
At dawn, the table rises and she grabs her bag and she runs. She doesn't want to be caught up in any sort of brawl, and makes it into the woods just as 12 sprints into the clearing. She wonders what could be in her bag, why the boy isn't with her.
For some reason she decides to watch from the coverage of the trees. The girl from 2 follows close behind 12 and she wants to scream for the latter to just turn around! but she doesn't and so her life is almost ended by a knife.
She surprises her by dodging though, firing an arrow that pierced the girl from 2's arm. She's unphased though, throws another knife, clips 12 in the forehead.
She thinks 12 is dead, until suddenly she and 2 are grappling. She sees 2 ultimately win the brawl, taunting the girl beneath her and brandishing a knife like the sadistic little psychopath she is.
Suddenly movement to the left catches her eye. It's the boy from 2, watching the scene intently. He's so focused on the two girls that he doesn't seem to notice the boy from 11 stalking toward them, emerging from the field of wheat.
She doesn't know why, but she's compelled to help 12. She knows that if she does nothing, the girl will die. Then 11 could kill the girl from 2, and then the boy from 2 could kill the boy from 11—hopefully in a bloody duel that leaves him injured and weak—and it would just be down to her and the boy from 12 and the brute from 2 and maybe she could win this thing.
She really, really doesn't know why she does this.
She sprints toward the boy from 2, makes sure her steps fall extra loudly when she passes him, and she's satisfied when she hears him shout for her. He takes off after her, distracted from the Feast at the prospect of a kill.
He's yelling at her, taunting her, gaining quickly—she's going to die she's going to die she's going to die—when a scream pierces the air, pained and desperate and terrified.
Cato!
It's his name, she remembers. She hears him stumble behind her, gasp sharply, realize his mistake.
And then he's not following her anymore, turning sharply on his heel and barreling away, shouting a name back, and his voice is even more broken than the first one.
When she's sure he's gone she approaches the clearing again, watches what happens next.
12 and 11 are dashing away in opposite directions. A smaller girl—District 2—lies broken on the ground. She must still be alive, though, because she hasn't heard a cannon.
The boy from 2 shouts her name again, sliding onto the ground beside her and gripping her hand and pleading with her to stay with me please I can't lose you please stay with me just stay with me!
She feels slight remorse. Maybe he cared about her more than she originally thought. But then she remembers that the girl from 2 killed her district partner in the bloodbath, so she justifies the guilt she feels with the thought that she's helped to avenge the younger boy.
Her chest still feels empty as she runs away.
11 dies next, no doubt at the hand of the boy from 2.
She's going crazy, she's decides. Absolutely crazy.
She's seeing things. Really seeing things. Her district partner, the girl from 2, the boy from 11, they all haunt her dreams and she wakes up terrified every single night, to the point where she hasn't slept in days.
For the first time in these godforsaken Games, she wants to die.
The lake has dried up. Food is scarce. Her supplies from the Cornucopia have diminished. She's alone and she's scared because she knows the boy from 2 is out there somewhere, angry and heartbroken and ready to kill the first living thing he lays eyes on.
She doesn't know where 12 is, but she assumes they're together and that the audience is rooting for them to win and oh god, she really just doesn't stand a chance, does she?
No, it's the delirium talking.
She's starving and she's thirsty and she's hot too hot from the sun so she's going crazy. She can still win, can't she?
No.
No, she's going to die. One way or another it's going to happen.
And it's going to happen soon.
That night she dreams about her district partner again, glowing in the sky with blood dripping between his eyes. He tells her to give up, she's as good as dead anyway, what will she even do if she lives before he turns into the girl from 2 and reminds her that she isn't the victor that anybody wants so why doesn't she just give up while she can.
It's true, really, she thinks as she wakes with a start, shaking and in pain. She isn't bloody and soldierly like the boy from 2. She doesn't have a lover like the pair from 12.
She's just smart, plain and smart, but apparently nobody cares about that.
She dazedly follows the pair from 12 the next morning. She doesn't know why. Maybe she just wants to be reminded that there is still hope for some, that happiness isn't just a distant memory.
They split up, and she follows the boy because she's always been the most curious about him. She's always wondered what it's like to be in love, and maybe she can learn from him.
He walks with a slight limp which she's pretty sure he didn't have before, picking berries as he goes.
Berries.
She's so hungry.
She follows a safe distance behind him, gathers berries for herself, not even bothering to check if they're safe. They're so large and round and tempting and she is so hungry.
Eventually he makes his way back to the girl and she hides behind a tree, staring at the berries in her hand. In her state, she can't remember anything from training, if they're safe or poisonous, but who cares? She's going to die anyway, she's not the victor they want, she is smart and plain and only smart and plain and she doesn't care anymore.
She eats the berries. They're bitter but they're juicy and her thirst is momentarily quenched, but then she hears the frantic screech of the girl from 12 as she berates the boy because that's nightlock Peeta you'll be dead in a minute! and then she collapses as the poison fills her system. Maybe she's not as smart as she thought she was.
Not strong. Not brave. Not even smart.
Just plain. Plain, plain, plain.
The cannon fires.