Cashmere Amorelle, 24
District 1,
She looks up at the reruns of the interviews that had just taken place, the edited version of what had really happened. Looking at the recaps, you could have overlooked the sarcasm present in the gushing soliloquies the siblings had performed. To any casual observer, the pair of them had looked like puppets on a string, clothed in ignorance to the fate that awaited the two of them. A frown tugs at her lips at this; nobody would feel inclined to take their situation seriously if they hadn't watched the live show - they never did. Everybody - the Capitol, the rebels - seemed all too willing to disregard the fact that she had been through the same situation as everybody else here, just because of where she originated from.
That didn't mean anything. She could feel emotions as much as everyone else, no matter what her upbringing was. She could still laugh and smile and become inspired by the world around her. Just because she was from the luxury district, it didn't mean that Cashmere felt any less serene whenever she got the chance to wonder through a beautiful garden.
Cashmere could still feel humiliation whenever she was dehumanised on television.
And she most definitely still felt fear at what her fate could be tomorrow.
I could die tomorrow. It was absolutely impossible not to feel terror at this idea. It didn't matter how much 'preparation' Cashmere had for this specific event, her trainers had been unsuccessful in beating out Cashmere's natural survival instincts.
She could be dead, packed up all nice and neat in a coffin shortly, and there was no way to sidestep that. Her beauty and charisma would no longer serve her well in the arena; all of that would be stripped away before the arena devoured her too.
Finally looking up from her manicured hands, she looks into the mirror at her dark blonde curls and wide blue eyes that had been painstakingly emphasised with eyeliner and mascara. She remembered all of the hours she had thrown away in order to illuminate and preserve that fragile image of beauty. It would do her no good now.
What a shame; all of that time had been wasted just so she could be seen as appealing - an object to be coveted and not as a human with feelings and needs and desires to be respected.
Cashmere was used to being seen in this light; she had been sold out to many of the men and women around the Capitol, but it still wasn't something that she could ever bring herself to embrace. She had never doubted this in herself, but it seemed that even her fellow victims were unaware of the masquerade that she wore as easily as the skin-tight dress that her stylist had chosen for her tonight. They thought that she was just as inhumane as the Capitol - the ones who had forced her into this situation in the first place.
All because she was from the Capitol's pet district.
She never had a choice in this, not if she wanted to break out of the monotonous lifestyle of District One. Neither of them had. They were orphans, the scum of the district that had been forced into training. There wasn't any point in risking the lives of children that came from respectable, decent families when you could use the community children instead.
It didn't matter a thing about what the television screens showed or the facade District One pulled up of attractive, healthy volunteers every year. Each one of those volunteers had no purpose outside of the Games, their only duty to Panem resting in the Games.
At that point in time, there had been nothing more that Cashmere had wanted than to escape the dreary, miserable life she had been condemned to, and the wealthy, attractive, happy facades of the previous victors had managed to sway her into believing that she could become someone great by winning the Games.
How she wished she could just be another face in the crowd now! It would have still been a miserable seven or so years of being overlooked, she would have forever been trailing in her brother's footsteps, but surely she could have endured that before the rebellion changed things.
Change. The thought is enough to send a shiver of anticipation through Cashmere, although she can't identify if it's from fear or excitement at the possibility of starting anew. It seemed like such an impossible concept to grasp, that she could undo the mistakes she had made.
Maybe I should join.
Cashmere knew some of the victors here were involved, they had to be. But for some reason, District One was out of the loop of things; none of the victors accompanying her took her suspicions with anything more than scepticism. After so many false alarms, Cashmere was in no position to blame them, but this rebellion was the first one that Cashmere had heard of and naturally, she had presumed it to be of more value and importance to everyone else.
After all, if news had reached her, it must be significant in some way.
The faint scent of jam tarts permeates the air and snaps Cashmere out of her thoughts, sweeping away thoughts of uprisings and replacing them with memories of when she and Gloss had been little kids again. She still remembered the fingerprints her tiny hands had made as she smeared the pristine windows of the bakery in order to gawk at the pretty cupcakes and pastries that had been for sale.
"Cashmere." The quiet, softly-accented voice of her mentor, Flore, reaches her ears, although she barely reacts, "We shall be convening in the main room shortly. I do hope you're ready."
She didn't even have to look up at Flore to realise what she felt towards her. Cashmere didn't need to see the tired, sympathetic look in her blue eyes or the fact that Flore was restlessly shifting her weight from one foot to the other to know; the hesitant, gentle tone of Flore's voice told Cashmere everything she needed to know, "Is there any other news?"
"I'm afraid not. Everything will proceed according to plan." Flore sighs.
"So there's no hope then for both of us then?" Cashmere's voice is shrill, looking straight into Flore's brown eyes pleadingly, "None at all?"
Flore's eyebrows raise at the implication, but she just shakes her head; a motion that is too exaggerated to be entirely genuine, "Everything will proceed according to plan." Flore repeats, her voice flat as she gives a narrow-eyed look of suspicion at her tribute, "The Capitol do not and will not make the same mistake twice. It would be advisable to head down to dinner now."
Cashmere's hopes fall at how quick Flore had been to detach herself from her tribute once she became aware of what could be construed as treasonous thinking, "I'll be there soon."
"Good. It is clear that you'll be needing the advice if you have any hope of surviving." Before Cashmere can defend herself against the thinly-veiled criticism, Flore has departed.
It was almost ironic that Flore, the victor that Cashmere had idolised the most, was now just another woman whose life had been warped by the Capitol until she was a puppet, just another reminder of how deluded Cashmere had once been.
The thought is enough to make her cheeks flush red for a moment before she regains her composure. Showing weakness would not do when impressing the Capitol, that had been a lesson learned when she was seven years old. They wanted strong, ruthless, level-headed killers. After all, it only made it easier to despise the districts for making their own flesh and blood this way.
There's the scraping sound of feet against carpet, but Cashmere resists the impulse to snap her head around, knowing that giving away the fact that she had heard them meant she lost the element of surprise.
You're not in the Games yet. She has to remind herself. There really was no need to be so antsy about all of this. You managed it once, you can do it again, Cashmere repeats those words in her head, deluding herself for a few moments with the child-like mentality that if she thought about it enough times, it would come true.
The imposing shadow cast across the wall alerts Cashmere as to the fact that the person strolling past is waiting for her and her head whips around from where she had been blankly staring at her own reflection, "Your dinner's ready."
"That's nice."
There's a smirk curving up her brother's mouth as he steps inside without asking for an invitation, "Not admiring yourself in the mirror again, are you Cashmere?"
"Why not? I might as well look good for tomorrow." She replies calmly.
"With everything else taken into consideration, I wouldn't make that your top priority." Gloss continues in a more serious tone, "It wouldn't do us any good to become distracted by anything so trivial. Remember what they said."
Cashmere nods, picking up on the implied message that Gloss was sending: don't disappoint our district. It wasn't anything you could forget in a hurry, not after you had that mantra drilled into you.
However, after everything she had witnessed over the last couple of days, she was in no mood to care about district loyalty. At a time like this, her district seemed more like a liability than something to be proud of, "Oh, I remember all right."
The bitterness in her voice is enough to make Gloss give her a strange look, "Are you okay? You seem tired."
"Tired?" Some of Cashmere's earlier fire returns as she looks straight into her brother's eyes, "I can't afford to be tired, can I? Not when we're so close to a new era."
"...I'm not sure I follow." He shuffles his feet awkwardly, frowning slightly.
"You know what I mean." Cashmere has to swallow, as if she could force out the next words coherently that way, "A rebellion, the end of the Games, of oppression."
Gloss rolls his eyes, "I wouldn't pay heed to that. You hear talk of a rebellion this and a rebellion that all the time."
"It's not a rebellion, it's a revolution!" She blurts out, "The revolution...there's talk about uprisings." The words flow out in a disjointed mess, her mouth stumbling over them in her haste to be rid of the treasonous hearsay, "You must have heard it - them - by now - "
"Cashmere..." His voice is assertive, eyes darting about as he makes cutting motions with his hands, but Cashmere doesn't even seem to notice in her haste to get out the words before she can really think about them.
" - there's hope, Gloss. Hope for us! We don't have to die in there! Don't you see? We can both live!" Her vision of a world where her and Gloss could live normal lives, without having to sell their bodies or send off two children each year to their death, have infused Cashmere with enough enthusiasm to make her bob up and down, a tentative smile on her face.
Gloss presses a hand on her shoulder, as if he could stop Cashmere's movements, "Cashmere, it's a lovely idea, but it's not going to happen. They failed once, they'll fail again."
"But Gloss, you can't want to go back - "
"I'm not particularly taken with the idea of going in again." He admits before his voice turns flat, "But even if I were to support this doomed cause, what would be the point? We could be dead tomorrow, Cashmere. Will the rebellion be effective enough to prevent that by then? Will it?"
Her eyes narrow, unimpressed with his defeatist attitude, "If that's what you're thinking, then there's no harm in supporting the revolution before we die, is there? It's a chance."
"An improbable one."
"But it's still possible." Cashmere implores, "Come on, Gloss, you can't want the alternative, can you? The Capitol will never let two of us win again, you know this."
"Yes? And the Capitol won't let either of us win if we're associated with the rebellion." His voice is strained, his patience having been worn thin by the prospect of facing the Games again and his naive sister.
For a moment, his eyes widen before they flicker away guiltily, "This is a Quarter Quell." There's an unreadable expression in his eyes when he turns back to face his sister, "If the Capitol gave me this opportunity to bring pride to District One for once and for all, I'd be insane to waste it." Gloss sighs heavily, showing more emotion than he had done before with that simple movement, "There's nothing I can do at this point, Cashmere." As he starts to head towards the door, her hopes are raised as he turns back around, "Unless you'd like for me to tell you that you shouldn't have followed in my footsteps."
Without any preamble, he turns around again and walks out of the room without another word or glance at her, turning a blind eye to how blunt his words had been, no matter how truthful.
While Cashmere was willing to admit that there was a small chance that he may possibly have a valid point, Cashmere figured that he had never been subjected to the feeling of inferiority that she had wallowed in on a regular basis as a child. He had always been the older, stronger, more experienced child, and while the feeling of being treated as second-rate had been demoralising, Cashmere would have made herself content with that life.
After Gloss had been chosen to volunteer, however, there had been absolutely no turning back, not like a life of working in the jewel mines had been much more appealing anyway. To refuse the offer would be to deny yourself one last chance at escaping the misery that awaited all of the other failed trainees.
If she was a more compassionate person, she would have realised that her brother had even less of a say in the entire situation; he had been the one that had been actively recommended for volunteering for this event, whilst she had impulsively followed in his footsteps to make something of herself.
It would never do in District One to be a shadow of someone successful. And look where she had ended up because of those expectations. If she had just managed to break out of the chains of society's pressure earlier, she wouldn't even be here.
Cashmere could still remember the exhilaration she had felt when she had beaten the chosen female to the stage at the tender age of sixteen. How certain she had been of her victory, defeated as she was by the harsh regime and indoctrination that she had faced back home. After her brother's glorious victory - by District One standards - with four kills under his belt and barely a scratch on his pretty little face, Cashmere felt compelled to upstage him. She had to reinforce the impression that District One were capable of producing victors twice in a row; a feat that had been accomplished by no other district up until the 67th Hunger Games.
Several days later - maybe no more than a fortnight - Cashmere realised that she should have heeded the warning signs she had gotten from Gloss's odd behaviour after his victory. The 'off-the-books' appointment neatly penciled in on one of the Gamemaker's calenders tonight prevented Cashmere from managing to forget her unofficial 'duties' she now owed the Capitol and everyone who desired her.
"Would you say that you're prepared?" The interviewer asks, making no attempts at masking his lust for the scantily-clad teen in front of him.
She just giggles and tosses her hair over her shoulder, revealing more of her chest that the gold dress did little to cover, "Yes Caesar, I'm very prepared."
He places one hand on her leg with a grin, "Looks like this one has some spirit, doesn't she?" The lecherous jeers and hoots from the crowd almost overwhelm his question. Caesar's hand slides up to her hip and lingers there a little too long before he grabs her hand and raises it in the air, "Well Glimmer, I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that I can't wait to see you in action!"
Caesar's interview with the last District One female tribute had been no different to when Cashmere herself had been competing in the Games. Despite knowing the consequences of portraying yourself as sexy to the Capitol from the start, it hadn't stopped her from encouraging her tributes to play up to that angle. Sacrificing your liberty for a couple of weeks a year wasn't much to ask for in return for being allowed to win the Games, Cashmere had always reasoned to herself.
The soft rapping of knuckles against wood makes Cashmere realise that her brother had never really disappeared. Her heart seems to skip a beat in anticipation, purely because of the fact that he had stayed.
Maybe he had come to comfort me? That was the thought dominating Cashmere's mind as she smiles at him, having missed the way his lips were twisted into a frown and the way he seemed hunched over, so different to the majestic way he had always presented himself, "Can I help you?"
Gloss nods solemnly, "I just," his voice trails off again, mind overwhelmed by some distant memory that Cashmere could only guess at before he blinks, "Cashmere, I've been thinking. About the likelihood of one of us dying."
She nods in response, somewhat unnerved at how easily her brother could bring up the fact that they would be dead soon, "So you've changed your mind?"
"No, not that." Cashmere's face falls at this, "But I'd...I'd appreciate your company in there, Cashmere."
"You already have that."
He gives Cashmere a small smile, "Remember when we were kids, Cashmere? When we used to go into the woods and build those tree dens, you recall? And you'd take it all seriously and bring your pillows and that pink teddy you loved and insist that we'd camp out there."
She still had that teddy; a small, fluffy bear with a goofy smile and bug-wide eyes, "I remember."
Gloss looks down, a slight tinge of pink appearing on his cheeks, "We could do that again, if the arena's right for it. Split from Enobaria and Brutus early, go away on our own and pretend we're kids again, just for a little while. Does that sound good?"
Cashmere's nodding vigorously now, "Yeah, I'd like that!" She doesn't have to fake the grin crossing her face, "I've missed doing them with you."
He gives a noncommittal grunt, his facial expression carefully guarded, "Good to see that you agree. We'd be stronger together."
The buoyant feeling coursing through Cashmere suddenly has cold water splashed on it at the bluntness present in his words again, the happiness she had felt at her brother's words soured by a wave of irritation. Why does everything have to revolve around your survival? Don't you live for anything else?
Cashmere doubted it; her brother had the Hunger Games forced down his throat ever since he could walk. Taking that away would leave him with nothing - no aspirations, no humanity and - sooner or later - no family.
"And just in case it really does happen?" She offers up tentatively, no longer enthused by his company. Now that the barriers were back up again, there was nothing that Cashmere could see him doing to make amends.
Gloss shrugs, unwilling to humour his sister as he had inadvertently done just moments ago, "It won't happen. People like them, they're no better than us." He backs away, shielding himself slightly behind the door frame, "You'd do well to remember that tomorrow."
Inclining his head in her direction, he disappears. Once the coast was clear, Cashmere lets out a disappointed sigh she hadn't realised she had been holding. For a moment, she had almost believed that her brother had came to wish her luck, or to say that he wished he didn't have to fight against his sister tomorrow, or anything. But that wouldn't happen, not since he had won. All she had gotten was that he'd 'appreciate' her company tomorrow, and that was probably only because he wanted a loyal ally with him.
She wanted his adoration, his loyalty, his undying love and compassion. Being 'appreciated' just wouldn't cut it for her. Why were they so easy to attain this among the Capitol, yet impossible to squeeze out of her own brother? And why, whenever he rubbed her up the wrong way, did it feel like he had hit her?
Cashmere supposed it was because of the memories she still held towards Gloss as a child, when they had both been fickle and oblique to the world. He would have never been so curt or blunt to her as he had been then. Although she would never admit this, there was still a small part of Cashmere that wanted the old Gloss back, the Gloss who would give her piggybacks and tie her hair to mimic the newest hairstyles on the television.
Nowadays, she couldn't even tell if he even considered her as a sister anymore.
Would it be too much for him to even pretend that he cared? Just this once? Cashmere thinks despondently, eyes stinging with tears that were yet to be shed. If there were any signs present of Gloss caring for Cashmere, they would never become apparent to her, so caught up she was in her own self-pity.
Why does my life have to be so hard?
As the axe buries itself in Cashmere's chest, she realises that her brother had been correct. Any rumours of a true rebellion were just that. Rumours. They must be if the supposed rebels had been so quick to turn on her, not even waiting for an explanation before they had attacked.
It was exactly what the Capitol would have wanted. Even when there was supposed to be change on the horizon, the divide between districts still governed the rebels' actions. How strange that the ones that were meant to be defying the Capitol were more willing to play by their rules than the siblings from One had been.
It made no sense that they were supposedly fighting for a 'noble' cause, yet were just as judgmental and prejudiced against others as the enemy were. Then again, maybe it did. People were always going to judge and belittle others before placing themselves on a pedestal; it seemed to be a delightful human flaw.
They were no better than the tributes from One or Two had been. In fact, they were worse. They had never been trained for this their entire lives; the ability to survive at any cost was something that they had managed to attain without the need for indoctrination or training, all within a scant few weeks. And even when they were facing those they had forged tentative friendships with
She had never even killed any of the other victors, the people that she had once been so friendly with. That wouldn't matter though; Gloss certainly had and nobody had ever taken a moment to consider what his sister was like. Who cared? She was just Gloss' sister, nothing more and nothing less.
And now the victors stood over the dead bodies of the District One siblings with no sympathy for their situation, miming the actions they had learned so long ago in their Games. Their masters would be proud.
They didn't even know that they were still jumping through hoops like prized pets for the Capitol, let alone be able to figure out how to break away from the game of charades they played.
Just as a side note, I haven't posted anything on this site in a while and this is the first time I've genuinely tried exploring a minor character, so all criticism is welcomed. Thank you for reading.