Hey guys, it's Tracee here! I know I've been gone for so, so long, and I apologize dearly for that. I'm working on chapters for 500YOP and BMO, but I found this lovely story in my doc manager, and I decided to post it. It was intended to be a multi chapter story, and it may still be, but I just didn't want this to rot in my files and thought you guys might appreciate this, because I love this writing in this chapter. Enjoy! :)
If you know anything of Caelinia's story, you know she faced serious abuse as a child. Just a heads up. This whole story as a whole won't be flowers and rainbows, and things can range from abuse to profanity to gore, etc., possibly.
A little girl sat on a swing, listening to the creak of the rusty chains as she rocked back and forth, ever so slowly. She hummed a little tune, coincidentally the anthem of Panem, under her breath as she pumped her legs back and forth in a smooth, even rhythm. The words started to flow from her lips; she was singing them in the town's children's choir at the gala. It would follow the spreading of the dead tributes' ashes and the selection of the tributes for the Thirty Second Hunger Games. She was only five years old and yet she knew every Victor of Two and their Games by heart. She could sing the anthem from beginning to end in her clear, sharp voice without a single falter. She could list every major weapon found in the Academy. She could apply the makeup herself now over the bruises that were less noticeable on her dark brown skin. That's why she'd picked the test tube she did from the sperm bank, her mother said. Because her luscious dark brown skin could hide both beauty and abuse better than the warm light brown tone that her mother sported over every inch of her body. Beatings were necessary for a healthy, virtuous daughter in the warped mind of Matuta Thatcher.
Caelinia pumped her legs a little harder, and her voice rang out a little louder. She giggled, the words and tune of the anthem whisked from her mouth, as she was catapulted higher and higher by the force of her own little legs. Soon her little periwinkle purple flats were flying off of her feet since they hadn't been strapped on tightly. Caelinia had forgotten to change her shoes. She could already tie the thick black boots her mother required her to wear outside. The little girl could do much without her mother's help; too much. She started singing the anthem again as she kicked higher still.
"Horn of Plenty for us all!" little Caelinia shrilled before launching herself from the swing. She tumbled through the air and landed on the sodden grass, wet from the snow melt. It was unseasonably warm for January in Two. The wet mud squelched as Caelina laid back, laughing quietly as she stared at the pale gray sky. She could see rays of the fuzzy whitish winter sun poking through the soggy-looking piles of gray fleecy clouds that hung on the horizon. She swore one of the clouds looked like a little duckie, like that one from the storybook that her shy, skittish aunt had brought over on Solstice Day. Caelinia loved the feeling of the glossy pages-
"Caelinia Elysia Thatcher," her mother's gaunt, hollow voice crackled from the doorway. Caelinia stiffened immediately. Her mother wasn't screaming. She was talking in a stern tone. Caelinia liked it better when her mother screamed; that meant that she'd be in such a fury that she'd start breaking things instead of hitting her. But when Matuta's voice was barren and deadpan, the little five year old knew instinctively of what was to come.
"Mommy, I'm sorry-" Caelinia began, crawling up to her knees. Her starchy white skirt had splotchy grass and mud stains on it, and her eyes were full of apprehension. She saw her mother's taut body stretched out on the doorway. Matuta's calloused hands gripped the transom tight, and her bare toes hooked around the threshold. Caelinia knew what would come next. Her mother would oblige her to come towards her. She would shuffle across the grass and climb up the two cracking cement steps that led up to the back door of their house. Her mother would step aside, Caelinia would walk inside, and Matuta would close the door. And then it would begin.
And so it transpired. Caelinia staggered to her feet and, keeping her head down as to not meet her mother's fearsome chestnut colored glare, she pushed herself forward across the grass. Her naked feet felt the sharp bits of loose cement bite at her feet, and she winced.
"Where are your shoes?" Matuta scowled, her brow furrowing. She removed her hands from the transom and straightened to her full, intimidating height.
"There, Mommy," Caelinia whispered, pointing over to where her expensive periwinkle flats laid strewn a couple of feet away from the small swing set, one of them streaked with mud. Matuta snorted like an angry bull.
"What did I say about wearing those shoes outside?" Matuta hissed, her hands fidgeting at her sides, wanting to reach out and discipline the girl now. But they weren't inside yet.
"I forgot, I'm so sorry Mommy-"
"What did I say about calling me Mommy?! You will call me Matuta, or Mother if you must! Strong little girls who go into the Games don't call their caregivers Mommy."
"But all the other girls at the playground call their...their...mommies Mommy!" Caelinia howled, and she started to tear up. "I want to call you Mommy! I want you to be like the mommy duckie in the book Aunt Matera got me, where the mommy cuddles the baby duckie and gives her warm milk and ties her shoes for her and plays with her-"
Her mother's hand was like a paddle, strong and tough, calloused from years of working in the dusty quarries before she inherited this land and its money from her great aunt. Caelinia usually kept quiet when her mother beat her; she had been taught to. If she had to cry, she would do so silently like a good little girl. But Caelinia couldn't hold back anymore. The other little girls at the playground had mommies that smiled and laughed and played with them. She wanted her Mommy to be like that. So she keened loud and clear, wailing vigorously. The next door neighbor's door snapped open as Caelinia yelped, "MOMMY, IT HURTS!"
Matuta deftly shoved her daughter into the house and shut the door behind her before turning to the perplexed looking neighbor, who stood on their back porch. The strong man, a quarry worker by the looks of him, had his arms crossed.
"I'm sorry Marc, she just fell off of the swings," Matuta said sweetly, striding across the marshy yard to pick up her daughter's ruined periwinkle flats. "She'll be fine, don't you worry, us Thatcher's have real tough skin and a great health, it's nothing but a little scrape..." She went on and on, and the neighbor had stopped listening a long time before Matuta waved goodbye and shut the door behind her.
Once the door clicked closed behind her, creaking just a bit, Matuta surveyed the kitchen around her. It was meager by a rich woman's standards, but spacious by the quarry girl's standards. Matuta had the means to renovate the entire moth eaten three story home and its several acres of half forested property from the inheritance, but she hadn't. She liked the musty smell and the lights that went out when it rained too hard and the faded fabric on the cushions. It gave her an erstwhile sense of the times gone by, when she had lived in this home with a man, before the rock truck had slipped off of the thin mountain path and before she had used IVF to give herself a strong, healthy specimen of a daughter.
Speaking of that daughter, she wasn't waiting at the scarred wooden dining table that sat near the door in the moderately sized kitchen. Matuta pulled back a chair, ignoring its screech against the linoleum, to look under the table. No Caelinia. She narrowed her eyes and stormed out of the kitchen and into the next room over, the living room. She wasn't sprawled out on the sagging sofa or crouching behind the patterned armchair. Matuta strode to the base of the stairs, her hand gripping the ornately carved oaken banister as if she were putting it in a stranglehold. "CAELINIA THATCHER!" the woman shouted, her thunderous voice reverberating throughout the dusty passages and rooms of the aging, hand built house.
Caelinia was crouched in her mother's closet, weeping quietly and snuffling as well. Her hand kept tracing the raw edges of the appearing bruise on her left cheek, where her mother had slapped her minutes earlier. It stung like all of the other bruises and scrapes and taunts. She spit onto her hand and rubbed the sticky mix of saliva and the mud crusted on her hand across her burning cheek. It didn't do much to soothe it, and when she heard her mother's footsteps approaching swiftly and sternly across the creaking floorboards, she buried herself underneath a loose white dress with a floral print across it that Matuta had worn during her pregnancy. She didn't realize that one of her bare feet was sticking out from under the lump of cloth she'd wrapped herself in.
Matuta's furiously searching hands swiped under the bed frame and under the covers and behind the pillows of her own bed. She tore apart the pile of clean sheets she'd gotten from the washer and dryer in the dank cellar before she'd discovered Caelinia laying, a mess, in the sodden yard. And then she tugged open the doors of the closet with a rough and quiet force, and her sharp eyes quickly closed in one the little dark foot protruding from an unnaturally swollen lump of clothes. Matuta's hands clasped around the tiny foot and she pulled, hard. Caelinia screamed as she flew out from underneath the clothes. Her mother hitched her over her shoulder and threw her down onto the bed while Caelinia wept.
"Be quiet, girl," Matuta implored as she fetched the belt from the depths of the closet. Caelinia shook her head violently and scrambled to her knees, falling off of the bed and trying to crawl out of the room. Matuta grabbed her by the back of her shirt, decorated with little calico kittens, and slammed her back onto the bed. She tore away the feather light fabric to reveal Caelinia's back. There were a few faint scars there; Matuta rarely was this abusive, but the near catastrophe of a scene that Caelinia had caused warranted more retribution than normal. Matuta drew back and snapped the belt across Caelinia's back.
The girl moaned loudly into the pillows, and feistier than ever before, she drove her little legs pawing into the air, swinging around like Matuta's leather belt, custom made in Ten. One foot dragged itself across Matuta's eyes, and she hissed and slashed the belt over the girl's back once again. Caelinia screamed, loud and high pitched, so much so that Marc opened his door again and strode rather swiftly to the Thatcher's front door. Matuta saw him approaching and, blinded by rage, she slapped the little girl before tossing the belt back into the closet and fixing her hair.
There was the sharp sound of the knocker slamming against the smoothly hewn wood of the front door, and Matuta galloped down the stairs and threw the front door open, grinning hugely as she leaned against the side of the door frame, looking just as she had a dozen minutes prior when they'd had a conversation outside. Marc's arms were crossed as always, and his almost disapproving stormy gray gaze met Matuta's falsely cheerful honey-brown one.
"What is it that I can do for you, Marc?" Matuta inquired, smiling sweetly still.
"I heard the scream," Marc said gruffly. "Peggy told me to come investigate."
"How is Peggy?" Matuta asked, cocking her head to the side. "I heard that she's trying to get that clerk's job for Jelman's Quarries, isn't that-"
"Ms. Thatcher," Marc told her, his rocky voice sounding like the crunch of gravel beneath a person's shoe. "Why was your daughter screaming?"
"Oh, I was putting the antiseptic on her cuts from falling off the swing," Matuta lied through her beaming teeth. "Real nasty stuff, and she's just so young she couldn't handle it. Believe me, when she's at the Academy, she's going to have a hard time with all the soreness and bruises."
"Sure," was all Marc muttered in reply for a moment before continuing. "I always thought your girl was a strong one, that she could handle stuff like that."
"Oh, she usually is, it's just the weather, and-"
"Matuta, you better be careful. We don't beat our children up here. You're not in the slums anymore; no one is. This isn't the Dark Days, where you can take out your anger on your children. If anyone catches you-"
"I haven't the slightest idea what you speak of, sir," Matuta barked, her voice steely and her eyes cold. She chuckled with hollow laughter. "I think you mistake me and my ancestors for simple savages, pleading for scraps from the oh-so hardworking quarriers." She stepped closer to him, and they were about the same height; Matuta was tall for a woman. "Just because my parents lost their jobs at the quarries before the Dark Days doesn't mean that they were rebels, or that they beat their children, Mr. Hemys. My parents were law abiding patriots through and through, not renegade swine like your parents pretended not to be."
Marc snarled at Matuta. "Don't bring up my parents. They died fighting in the Dark Days, you bitch."
"For the wrong side, darling," Matuta hissed in response, grinning deviously. "I know more than you think. Do you think everyone would let you stay on this street if they found out that Mirandus and Melopia Hemys were die hard rebels? My parents were loyalists, Marc, and they taught me virtues, darling. I would never beat my own daughter to a pulp without a reason, and I haven't done so even though you adamantly claim I have. They also taught me the difference between loyalist and rebel." Matuta put extra stress on the final word, letting it hang in the damp wintery air for a minute as neither of them moved.
"She's a nice little girl, my little Maggie says," Marc whispered as he turned to walk away. "Go easy on her, Ms. Thatcher."
"As if a rebel is one to give parenting advice," Matuta said, just loud enough for Marc to catch before he turned down the change of direction in the sidewalk leading away from the Thatcher's front door. By the time Marc was back in his house, feathers ruffled and stomach unsettled, Matuta was already back up in her room, standing over her bed, where Caelinia had dozed off, tired out from the terror of the day's activities.
"Wake up, Caelinia," Matuta snarled into the little girl's ear, her hot breath hitting the drowsy girl's face and waking her more so. "I just had a special conversation with Mr. Hemys, and he told me that he heard you scream. And he also told me that you've been talking to that little tramp rebel daughter of his. You've been such a bad girl, Caelinia. Such a bad girl."
Caelinia just whimpered softly into her pillow and braced herself for the vicious beatings that would begin at any moment. The next half hour was a stinging, burning, and fiery conglomeration of slaps and belt whippings and verbal taunts. Caelinia's soft groans and yelps of pain were muffled by the pillows that she buried her face in. Her cheeks her burning with embarrassed heat, because no matter how terrible her mother was, it was her mother. She trusted her and loved her despite the cruel things she did to her, the pain and terror she wrought upon her. She hated the pain, but her mother told her it was the right thing, that it was too the right ends, to toughen her up, so she believed it was. And she was embarrassed because her mother had found out that she had been talking to the Hemys girl and swinging with her in their own yard when she was busy trying to snag a politician or trainer or merchant to be her husband out at a dinner party in downtown Ridge. She stung with embarrassment because her mother had told her that she was a loyalist and was above scum like Maggie Hemys. But the girl was so nice and she was the one who would play with Caelinia. She didn't understand how such a funny little playmate could be a conniving little devil like her mother saw her. But she trusted her mother implicitly. She would never speak to Maggie Hemys again for as long as she was to live, she thought through the slurs of pain dominating her everything.
When Matuta had finally exhausted herself, she left the room without a word to go make a pot of coffee, blacker than Caelinia's rich skin, like she always did. She'd drink it straight from the large metal jug as she would watch the only thing the Two TV stations broadcasted: the replays of all the Games that they had received Victors from. As Matuta settled in the armchair to watch Romulus Armidale emerge Victor of the Nineteenth Hunger Games, Caelinia sneaked out of her mother's room and climbed up to the third floor, where her room was located in the dingy attic. She curled up on the cot, hugging the worn quilts and the hackneyed stuffed animals she'd discovered in some of the boxes up here close around her. As she was about to drift off to sleep, she heard her mother's voice carrying all the way from the first floor, discernible and crystalline in its clarity.
"You have your choir singing tonight at the selection of the new tributes; wash up and put on your choir robes!"
Caelinia shivered as she forced herself to withdraw from the cozy comforts that her bed offered. She stumbled down to the second floor and found the bathroom. She filled up the porcelain tub with chilly water; her mother wouldn't let her waste money on filling the tub with even half-tepid water. She slid in, quivering as her skin rippled with goosebumps. She dutifully scrubbed herself clean. She got a little soap in her eyes, and she huffed and blinked through the stinging pain until it faded away. Then she drained the tub and toweled off before standing by the mirror. She shakily drew out the palette of dark colored makeups, and she sloppily covered up the few forming bruises on her face. Most of them, on her back, would be obscured by her clothes. After doing that, she went trooping back upstairs, where she slid into the pristine white robe, mid calf length with short fitted sleeves and a tight neckline. Once she'd gotten all ready, she walked downstairs, where her mother was drying off the last of the dishes, already dressed in her gala finery. She'd paused the TV on the scene of Romulus facing off with his District partner, Strada, in the finale. Caelinia's eyes shone against the light emanating from the TV as she stared at the image of Romulus, grinning determinedly, as he stood over Strada, his sword buried deep inside her gut.
Matuta walked into the room and shut off the TV. Caelinia whirled to face her. Matuta strode past her and leaned on the TV, looking down impassively at her.
"You should remember that finale," Matuta said huskily. "Strada fell with humbleness and grace and in silence. She didn't cry or scream or beg like you did today. You should be grateful, like her Caelinia. You should follow the example that that smart girl set for you to follow."
"But isn't she dead?" Caelinia asked innocently, not understanding her mother's point. How could a failure teach her anything good? For death in the Games was failure, as her mother had taught her since inception practically.
Matuta snorted and her eyes danced with a dangerous light for a moment before she sighed, drooping. "If you were older, I would almost think you were mocking me. Sometimes I forget how little you are." Matuta reached out to pat Caelinia on the shoulder, but she shrugged away, her eyes full of fear. Matuta felt a pang in her chest and a sting in her ego, and she fumbled over words for a moment before finally settling on her default mode: impassively disappointed.
"You should let your mother touch you if she wishes," Matuta sniffed before walking towards the front door. "Come along, Caelinia. We have a gala to attend."
Matuta lead her little daughter down the dirt road and towards the nearby center of town. Their street was a rather wealthy one on the more rural outskirts of this area, and only prestigious loyalist families were really allowed to live her by unofficial local law.
Night had begun to set in, and lights blazed in the rocky mountainside ahead. One of the biggest cities in Two, aptly named Ridge, harbored Two's worst kept secret and the source of its infamy: the Academy.
The large building was perched above the city on the top of the Ridge, backed on one side by forest, met on the other by open air at the edge where the rock sloped down. Lights burned fervently from every orifice in the massive structure, and it outburned the collection of five hundred odd buildings down in Ridge proper. People were already dancing through the streets, whooping, spices and sweets floating through the air, when they arrived. The ashes of the fallen from the year prior, Jessenia and Giorgino, had been scattered throughout the city and across the Academy's grounds, and the festivities were in full swing. Those too poor or too lacking in social status to attend the gala at the Academy where the new volunteers for the Thirty Second would be picked celebrated the losses and the impending selections here. People from all over the District flocked here to do so. Matuta snatched up Caelinia's little hand and guided her through the throngs of people until they reached the edge of the city. There, jeeps were loading up with party guests, and Matuta hauled herself and Caelinia into the last seat. She held Caelinia on her lap tightly, almost affectionately to an outsider. But Matuta's hands were cold and abrasive, and Caelinia just shivered upon feeling her touch.
The jeep rocked across the steep, stony path that wound its way up the ridge to the Academy. Outside of the caravan of jalopies, Caelinia spotted bonfires blazing from nooks and crannies in the rough, eroded surface of the ridge. Even more Twos too lacking in some area to attend the gala flocked here, dancing and drinking and hooting with laughter around the soaring piles of timbers that they'd lit on fire. Caelinia watched in awe as one giant pyramid of logs crackled and collapsed, sending the dozen or so people skipping around it reeling back. It also sent a plume of thousands of red hot embers spurting across the dark gray heavens, and they were almost like flaming orange stars, sprinkled momentarily across the cloudy twilight sky.
"Momm-mother, look," Caelinia murmured, her finger pointing to the dissipating swarm of embers.
"Beautiful," Matuta replied with an easy smile on her face. "Ah, the Academy always makes me nostalgic."
It was an open secret to anyone that cared to peer into the social dynamics and rumors surrounding the Thatcher household that Matuta Thatcher was preparing her daughter to enter the Academy. She had given her all the right friends, girls higher up in the social order. The little girl was stronger and smarter and more hard working than most of her peers. And then there was the wisps of a child abuse scandal, but when one met the bright eyed, bushy tailed Matuta Thatcher that appeared to the public, well, the thoughts of those rumors burnt up from their minds like mist under a feverish summer sun. All of this stemmed from the Thatcher family's loyalist principles, as well as the fact that Matuta herself, years ago when the Academy was fledgling, had almost entered the Games herself. But she'd missed it the two years she was eligible to take the Tribulations, losing both times to Galadia Horace and Lorena Georgetown. Matuta was oddly satisfied when both of them died in their Games, and she knew she could've easily beaten Jaguar, not to mention Deana Mitchellson.
But Caelinia had been bred for this purpose, like a thoroughbred from Ten, which was only reared and pampered and beat into shape for a singular cause. And Caelinia would be doing much more than running around a hard packed dirt racetrack until her legs broke or she crossed the finish line.
Caelinia looked at her mother's sagging posture and fluid smile, and she was perplexed for a moment, then almost...relieved. She crept closer to Matuta's chest, and she felt her mother's heart thumping with excitement as the dirt path that scissored up the ridge's rubbly face faded into a smooth asphalt one. As they drove faster now that they were on a real road, and the jeeps' movements were less jerky, Caelinia smiled smally, clutching her mother close, and Matuta was to enamored with the memories flying around her like a torrent of sweet, intoxicating brandy that she didn't even think to resist.
By the time the jeep rolled to a halt, the memories were soon tinged by the last ones, of Matuta staring, slack jawed, as it was Lorena called up to the stage instead of her on her final year of eligibility. The cold returned and her daughter felt her heart beat return to its regular, uniform pace, which seemed a languid crawl compared to the drilling heartbeats that Caelinia had felt moments before. But the girl drew away and untangled herself from her mother enough to placate her, but not enough that she wouldn't notice the fact that Matuta got goosebumps as the driver beckoned them out of the vehicle.
A crowd of white robed boys and girls had collected near the vaulted entrance into the Academy. The half-frosted glass panes and roughly hewn stone walls were nearly uniform around the entire massive institution, and Caelinia was silenced from awe at the sheer size and enormity of the place. She saw dignitaries and Capitolites and even a glimpse of the aging Noor Tuskararus, Victor of the Fourth Games, quickly running out of the front doors and down the lawn to shoo off a group of laymen trying to light a bonfire too close to the Academy's property line. Caelinia turned to comment on the grandeur to her mother, her eyes buzzing at the conversation and the pretty lights strung up everywhere, but her mother had already faded into the social swirls of the crowd. She'd found one of her good friends and was grabbing a champagne glass as she engaged in conversation whilst entering the establishment. Caelinia turned to the flock of choir singers, and skipped her way over to their instructor, a wizened older man named Hetolius. The man stooped to catch Caelinia's face and name before checking her off on the roster.
Caelinia found one of her richer playmates, the niece of the Capitol Liaison along with her young sister, and the three giggled and the two other girls gossiped while Caelinia nodded along soundlessly, confused as to what was going on. Once the partygoers had mostly arrived and were filtered into the halls of the Academy, Hetolius lead his herd of white robed children down the halls. Through half open doors, Caelinia spotted weapons racks, mats being sanitized by janitors, and a few stray Academy students in their rooms, finishing up their makeup or hair or fetching their dates to the event. They all were dressed in the same maroon smocks with gray pants or skirts that they wore to every official event, including volunteering for the Games. A trio of older girls, around volunteering age, breezed past the procession. The Liaison's niece made a comment about one of the girls being too pudgy around the stomach, and her sister interjected that of course she had that fat, she was a Harrison after all, but Caelinia wasn't listening. Those girls were strong and beautiful and tall and talented, and they looked like they could kill everyone in the room without picking up a weapon or souring the mood. Caelinia's eyes shone with wonder as the choir marched to a backroom adjacent to the enormous Great Hall where the gala was being held. Usually used as a meeting area as well as the cafeteria, the Great Hall was retrofitted every Choosing, turned into a classy ballroom. The sweat soaked floors were cleaned and the food streaked lunch tables were replaced with rotund dining ones, and every Academy kid pitched in to help in some shape or form to prepare for the biggest event at the Academy. That was besides a possible Victory Tour banquet of course, where every citizen of Two was practically required by tradition to travel the Ridge to attend. It was the largest District celebration known to Panem.
Peeking around the door frame after wandering away from the knot of choir kids standing in the middle of the backroom, Caelinia had a covert view of the ballroom. A good two thousand people were packed into the spacious hall, dressed in their finest. Headmistress Florianna Urnston appeared out of the opposite wing, and Caelinia's mouth was open in awe as she watched her idol stand at the podium on the stage that had been erected at the head of the Great Hall. The wiry blond grinned coolly at the crowd, dressed in a beautiful maroon number that reminded the little girl of how Florianna had looked at her finale; slathered in her enemies' blood and gore. Caelinia didn't even really hear the words as Florianna greeted the crowd and talked about prestige and honor and the Choosing that would occur right after Ridge's own Children's Choir performed the national anthem, the Horn of Plenty.
There was a roar of applause as the three dozen kids, decked out in their impeccable white robes, strode out and took their formation on the stage. Caelinia was one of the youngest there. She stood near the front since she was shorter than a lot of the other kids. She felt two thousand eyes upon her, and she didn't squirm like some of the other kids as Hetolius brandished his slender conducting baton. She enjoyed the feeling of everyone watching her.
The words poured from her throat, her clear, pretty voice entwining with those of the other children. It blended perfectly, but at times the young girl's sweet tone outshone most of the others and was a little discernible. It wasn't her fault; her voice just wasn't the best at mixing when it went into the higher notes, and Hetolius wasn't going to fault one of his kids for singing well. Before she knew it the last wisp of the anthem's words were out of her mouth, and Caelinia wanted to resist as she was ushered off the stage. But she didn't, and traveled off with the other choir singers. They huddled back in the backroom, all watching in awe as the newest Victor, Tarquinius from two years earlier, walked out alongside their first ever Victor, the graceful Noor. Each had envelopes in their hands. Noor took to the microphone.
"After months of the Tribulations, our wide array of patriotic young men and women has been thinned to two deserving volunteers, who have been chosen to represent their District before all of Panem during the Thirty Second Annual Hunger Games," Noor announced into the microphone, her whispery voice sounding strange as it was projected throughout the giant, cavernous Hall.
"Ms. Tuskararus and myself are here today to present the names of the male and female tribute that will be entering these Thirty Second Hunger Games," Tarquinius continued from where Noor had left off with an easy smile. "Their sacrifice will be remembered and greatly honored. Now, presenting the tributes of the Thirty Second Annual Hunger Games!"
Noor ripped open her envelope and pulled out the small, stiff, waxy card. "ALSALLA UOXO!" she shouted into the mic.
One of the girls Caelinia had seen walk past her and the rest of the choir in the hall stood, grinning fervently as she glided to the front of the Hall in her maroon smock and charcoal skirt. Applause exploded around her. Her beaming smile and bright eyes were the only things that betrayed her emotion; her posture was as stiff as ever, and she was well mannered and curt as she accepted the card from a shyly grinning Noor. Then Tarquinius rended his envelope to bits, drawing out the card.
"Tiberius Sullo!" Tarquinius boomed, his loud voice carrying throughout the Hall with ease; he almost didn't need a microphone to amplify his voice.
The boy strode forward confidently, suave and brutishly handsome; he was sitting very close to the stage, as if he'd been expecting this. One of his friends scowled at him, and Tiberius chortled for a moment; it seemed that Tiberius's friend had also been competing for the slot. Tiberius graciously accepted the card from Tarquinius after shaking his hand with the same rough force that the Victor of the Thirtieth proffered. His grin, a snarl almost, was malicious and confident. Caelinia liked the girl much better, despite the fact that the Liaison's nieces were commenting on her poorly structured jaw, and on how dashing Tiberius looked in his one-size-too-small smock! Caelinia's eyes feasted on the careful, poised form of Alsalla. She had a feeling that the girl had a better chance than the menace named Tiberius. The vicious ones like him, over confident and rearing to go almost recklessly, rarely won.
As the gala continued on, Hetolius lead his choir outside and they waited on the lawn for their parents to pick them up. Caelinia and a good half of the kids stayed out on the lawn all night, waiting for the formal dinner to conclude so their parents would come pick them up. She played patty cake with a candlemaker's daughter and pretended to be Victors at the Victory Tour with the retired Head Peacekeeper's granddaughter until the Liaison's nieces stole them both away to chatter about the Games. The sisters were shunning Caelinia after she'd let slip that she liked Alsalla more as they exited the Hall, for only queer girls couldn't be fascinated with Tiberius Sullo. Caelinia didn't know what queer meant, but the one niece, the older one, was singing it whenever she came near, and Caelinia thought she sounded like she was making fun of her.
Finally, her mother left behind the gala, a little crestfallen over the fact that she hadn't managed to bring home a rich man to fondle and seduce. She and her daughter settled in the back of one of the jeeps as they carried the party guests back down the ridge's steep slopes.
"Tiberius is a handsome specimen, isn't he? I bet he'll do well, better than that girl," Matuta sneered out the last phrase. "I have no clue who the Uoxo's have a daughter in the Games. Doesn't Florianna know that clouds of possible rebel sympathies surround their family?"
"I liked Alsalla better. She was beautiful," Caelinia muttered in response, and Matuta looked at her, eyes narrowed.
"I guess she still is from our District, making a huge sacrifice and all," Matuta sighed, wringing her hands. "You're allowed to root for her. But don't think this means you can start cheering on the little tramps from places like Eleven or something like that."
"Yes, Mother," Caelinia whispered dutifully as the jeep rocked its way down the slope. "Anything you say."
When Alsalla died eleven days into the Games, and Tiberius was still in the arena, Caelinia sobbed alone in her room while her mother was out watching the Games at her sister Matera's house. She watched the replay, horrified as Alsalla, hunched over as she collected berries from a bush, was ambushed by the girl from One. She'd been unable to regroup with her other allies still in the Pack, and now she would pay the price. The girl, who'd deserted the Pack long ago, tackled Alsalla and stabbed her over and over and over until Alsalla looked as if she was wearing her ceremonial maroon smock. Alsalla struggled, but the One girl's advantage of surprise had won the fight before it had even began. Caelinia wept into her pillow as the cannon fired. If such a goddess in Caelinia's eyes could die so brutally in sixth place, what would happen to her if she went into the arena?
A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed this, and once again I'm so sorry for my absence. I hope to make some headway in my other stories before school starts back up, and I thought this would be a nice place to start. I hoped you liked the beginning of Caelinia's journey, let me know if you want more! :)
Until Next Time,
Tracee