A/N: Here comes Shadows's Sequel! Sorry for the long wait... I had writers block and couldn't write a decent paragraph for days. Anyway, enjoy!
Chapter 1
For some time on that fatal sunrise, there's only the fatigue in my bones, the faint lightening of the moonlit sky and Gale's warmth fending off the pre-winter, post-autumn chill. Then, as the sun starts to rise noticeably, there are trees, barely sheltering us with their long-gone canopies and bare, frosty branches, bleached pale from the cold, and then there comes daylight.
"We need to go now," Gale murmurs into my hair, slowly standing both of us up and brisk-walking me around a tree to bring the blood back into our legs. I wordlessly comply. We've been sitting here throughout the whole night and our legs have long since fallen asleep, while waiting for a dreaded dawn to break.
Today is the first day of the Victory Tour, the day when our victory comes to defeat us.
"It'll be all right," he says when the pins and needles stop, kissing my cheek. "We'll both be there for each other."
That's one thing I know for sure in this world, and it does provide a hint of reassurance.
We return to our two houses in the Victor's Village. Our families inhabit one and both of us the other, where our stylists and prep teams are just pulling up in fancy, sleek Capitol vehicles. We embrace briefly, exchange pleasantries and in we go to the house. Effie, who arrives later and right on the dot, is assigned to pick up Haymitch, who is probably passed out drunk in his own half-abandoned home.
Meanwhile, my prep team chatters happily about mundane matters as they rip the body hair from my skin, draw my eyebrows, and make up my face. I catch snippets of gossip about the Quarter Quell, rumours about celebrities with funny names and novel-length stories about feathery birthday parties, dead wrong fashion choices and the effects of our victory on their reputations. I don't hear anything important or rebellion-related, so I sit back, close my eyes and catch up on a few minutes of dozing.
The Victory Tour lasts about two weeks, including appearances in the Capitol and each district, saving ours for the last. There will be a celebratory dinner held at the mayor's house with some family and friends once we reach our home district, which is
Personally, I'm glad that we will go to the mayor's house, where my friend Madge Undersee, the mayor's daughter, stays. The only other place fit for the event, the Justice Building, is the place where only heartbreak happens, at least for me, and it shan't be the place where this half-happy, but still mildly pleasant, celebration is held.
But our schedule is too hectic to worry about that now.
By the end of the next week, we have been whisked through open fields of golden, ripening crops fit for harvest, vast expanses of green grass where cows and cattle graze and industry after industry, wearing what we're told to, eating what we're told to, doing anything we're told to. When we finally arrive at the sea-scented, well-off place known as District Four, I'm worn out. The balmy breeze comes as a relief from the ocean, bringing with it unfamiliar scents of kelp, sand, fish and salt and a whiff of freedom, even through the half-solid snowflakes that fall here. We pass by communities of flats and apartments, some small, some big, but all accomodating Four's fishermen who look up from their balconies as we pass.
When we stand before their crowd in their square and speak, I feel something more than mild stage fright. It's almost like the people watching us are tigers, crouched in the brush, waiting for the precise moment to pounce, and it sends a chill down my spine that seems too cold to be just the wintry wind. There's fire here, too, something that can't be extinguished by the seawater these people immerse their lives in every day. I voice this out to Gale as soon as we enter Four's Justice Building, and he agrees. So does Haymitch.
"They're waiting for you," our mentor tells us, back in the train after the dinner on the way to District Three. "You are the first real chance they've had since the Dark Days. Once they feel like you've given a signal, they'll strike. And strike hard." There is a dark euphoria in his voice as he says this, and for an instant I see the flame in him too. "There's an opportunity now, and all they have to do is amass in their square and throw live crabs at the Peacekeepers."
Hearing his words, I can already feel the excitement, the ecstasy building in the districts' atmosphere, and it's getting to me quickly. And although I do feel a little frightened, the outlines of plans begin to form in my head. I had felt fires in 8 and 11, too. There was desire in more than one districts, and where there's a will, there's a way.
"We'll wait and see, now," Haymitch continues. "We could set fire to this nation with a spark. After all, the Capitol's already slathered it with petroleum."