So this is going to be a collection of one shots about the Careers (and yes, that includes plenty of Clato to fuel your little hearts desires). I'm considering adding onto "A Match Made In Heaven", but this is my priority right now. Thanks so much to my fabulous beta reader muentiger, and I hope you enjoy!
"Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts...perhaps the fear of a loss of power."
-John Steinbeck
Marvel was nine when he first learned the meaning of power.
He and his sister, Sapphire, were at the technically illegal pre-training center. He was acting cool and confident, even though he was tightly knotted inside as he gripped the spear. After all, he had only used blunt knifes and a sword before, weapons that he could keep in his complete control. But she had never been a good actress, and she was openly shaking as the trainer tried to get her to throw the knife.
"Sapphire, you are 10. You will enter the reaping in two years, and you will not disgrace this District," the trainer said sharply, bent down and glaring. Sapphire shook her head, the brown ponytails slapping her face.
"It's scary!" she protested, poking out her bottom lip in that way that makes everything go her way. It was the sole reason why she had convinced their father to not force her into heavy training until now, instead letting her slide by with lessons on poisonous plants and knot tying. But now the years had caught up with her, and she could not pout her way out.
She evidently did not see how utterly ridiculous she looked, a child of 10 with pigtails and a fluffy dress who did not even know how to properly throw a knife. The other Careers gave her looks of pure undisguised disgust as she continued to behave like a petulant child. No one in District 1 questioned training. Ever. Even the obnoxious little blonde bouncy one-Glimmer, he recalled-could defend herself rather nicely with a vast array of weapons. For once, he felt like the superior sibling.
Marvel pretended not to stare as the trainer hissed something and roughly grabbed her arm, dragging her outside. He feigned fiddling around with his spear, all the while edging closer to the door, trying to catch snippets of their conversation while staying far enough away to where it was not technically breaking a rule. He had always been a stickler for those.
"I'm not doing it!" the words had barely left his sister's lips when he heard the sharp, inevitable smack of the trainer's hand connecting with her cheek. He quickly slunk away, back in front of his target. Well, it seemed that his sister's days of getting everything she wanted on a gold platter (because silver wasn't good enough) were gone. He could not stop the smirk from twisting onto his face at the realization that they were now on the same level. No, no they were not. She was beneath him now, because she was playing on his playground. Seems her years of avoiding the training center hadn't worked in her favor after all.
He looked down at the spear in his hand, rubbing his hands over it. He closed his eyes, remembering his trainer's words: You know exactly what to do, Marvel, you just need to trust yourself. A surge of bubbling, red-hot feeling suddenly found its way into him, sliding down to his fingertips as he reared back, releasing the spear. He closed his eyes, not ready to see the spear clatter on the floor or the smirking faces of the other tributes-in-training at his failure.
Silence. He slowly opened his eyes to find them all staring at him, their faces twisted into something he did not recognize. It was not until he looked at the target and the spear lodged in it-bullseye-that he understood. Envy. Even Glimmer had stopped to raise an eyebrow at him, looking far too calculating for an eight year old ditz. He let a smirk grace his features for the second time again as he drunk it in, the feeling of total success. The feeling of being on top, of being envied. The knowledge that he was no longer the skinny, awkward boy to be taken out back behind the training center and put in stacked fights just so they could laugh at his failure. No, he was not that person anymore.
For years after, he longed for that feeling again. Craved it. It's intoxicating, the knowledge that you were the best, the one to beat. And, for once, the Games were more than just something he would rather not be apart of; they were something that could fuel him with a lifetime of that feeling. He quickly advanced with the spear, surpassing the oldest tribute in training and getting praise from even the most acrimonious of trainers. But it was in vain, for the awareness of the absolute power he could hold did not come back to him.
He would not feel it again until his name was plucked out of the Reaping Bowl and he walked onto the stage.
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