Avoxes have existed since the beginning of Panem, for one hundred and thirty seven years before the Dark Days rebellion began. People in future years, decades after the beginning of the New Panem, look back and think that when the Treaty of Treason was signed, everything sprung into existence. The Games were the Games they were in the later decades in their minds; the Capitol was a place of utter luxury and decadence; and Avoxes were convicted by the thousands. Avoxes were convicted by the thousands, but they'd lived for over a century before the Games began. Their use was only proliferated after the Games.
Fiyera was an older woman, around forty, with mousy brown hair already going gray and rough olive colored skin. Twenty years before the Dark Days, she'd stolen from the home of a Peacekeeper in her District, Thirteen. The Peacekeeper reported her, and she was taken to the Capitol along with other criminals. She was given the choice between being shunted from Panem and into the unforgiving wilderness, or staying in the Capitol and serving as a slave. She chose the latter like many, and they tore out her tongue and gave her medicine to dull the pain and a set of red robes. Twenty one year old Fiyera strode through the streets of the Capitol in a herd of Avoxes, being prodded forward by several Peacekeepers, to the market.
A man named Ventius bought Fiyera for a purse worth's of lamnai Fiyera was his. Fiyera was lucky with her owner; he was a simple artist with a kind wife and a daughter with a good disposition. Many Avoxes were bought and brought to brothels or taverns or dumps, but Ventius Uson lived in a rich penthouse that was in need of a maid to clean it. Fiyera quietly took to her job but would often lament to herself in her head. She had stolen from the Peacekeeper to support her crippled mother, Ashla, and her younger brother. Hussen would have to start working at only 14, which was unusually early before the Dark Days. Before the rebellion, most people had a problem with the government because they were not represented in the Capitol's legislature; crime and poverty were at all time highs and the Capitol had an executive and legislative branch. Then the Districts bit the hand that fed them. The Concilio was disbanded and Gaius Snow took power as the dictator and poverty and crime exploded. Fiyera watched all of this happen as she aged, watching Ventius and his wife grow old and senile and their daughter leave the home and make a life for herself. Then the rebellion happened, and everything imploded.
Dariana Uson joined the Peacekeepers and died in the bombing of a training facility on the edge of the Capitol's lands. Ventius fell ill, and his wife left him to save herself as bombs rained down on the Capitol, taking Fiyera with her. Mrs. Uson died only days later in a surprise attack, and Fiyera barely survived. She nursed herself back to health and found herself wading through a crowd of distraught Capitol survivors in her Avox uniform, her blood blending in with the outfit. She was taken away from the lines of Capitol citizens and to the Presidential mansion. Wild crowds of protesters frothed at the front gates, and inside hundreds of men and women had assembled. Fiyera, along with 23 other homeless Avoxes, their masters killed in the rebellion, watched as the Treaty of Treason was drafted and rebel leaders signed it. Fiyera and the others slept in the gardens as instructed and laid in wait for the task that would be set for them.
On July 1st, Fiyera had been laying in the flower beds for two and a half weeks. She and the others flocked inside as a Presidential announcement was made across Panem to all.
"The rebellion is crushed; the war is over," Snow boomed. There was a smattering of applause, and then he pushed forward. Fiyera watched with awe and a tinge of apathy as the power hungry man plowed forward. "To pay for their crimes, a competition called the Punishment has been put into place. Twenty four children between the ages of 12 and 18 will be brought to the Capitol. One male and one female will be selected at random at a Reaping in each District. These twenty four children will be brought to the Capitol, and here they will fight to the death until only one remains."
In hours, the Avoxes found their purpose. They were the be the personal servants of each tribute in the Capitol. The uprisings and utter hatred that frothed from the Districts and even some Capitolites clouded the nation, but one week later twenty four tributes were chosen to come to the Capitol. Every child in each District had their name in once. There was an equal distribution of tributes by age; five twelve year olds, 4 thirteen year olds, 3 fourteen year olds, 2 fifteen year olds, 5 sixteen year olds, 2 seventeen year olds, and 3 eighteen year olds. Fiyera herself was assigned to District 9, one of the hotspots of the rebellion. She rode on a train to the District, which was still smoldering and trying to reassemble.
Fiyera and her partner, Hartlett, waited on the train with 9's two mentors and two stylists. The Escort dragged a weeping 12 year old Barnaby Stillson and a shaking 16 year old Naya Qalib onto the train. Barnaby screamed and kicked as the Mentors tried to calm him down, and eventually Peacekeepers sedated the small boy. Naya huddled close and ignored everyone, holding herself close. Her left leg was totally wooden, splintery and barely kept together. She began to cry and hobbled off to her room, leaving everyone else sitting in the dining car, astonished.
"Avox," Naya's Mentor, Hermes, barked. "Go comfort the girl."
Fiyera crept quietly down the hall. She pushed open the door into Naya's bedroom; the door didn't make a sound. She was sobbing quietly into her pillow, her entire thin frame shaking with tremors as she weeped over her misfortune.
Fiyera tapped her on the shoulder, and Naya swiped her fist forward, slamming it into Fiyera's nose. She didn't make a sound as her nose cracked and blood poured out. She sat on the foot of the bed with a pitcher of water and a glass in hand, ignoring the blood gushing down her face. She poured a cup for Naya and set it on her bedside and walked out. Eventually her nosebleed stopped, and she cleaned herself up and then headed back to the dining car.
In the Capitol, while the young ones like Barnaby were placated by the day they spent there, doing whatever they liked before they were taken to the arena, Naya stayed in her room and refused to come out until Fiyera rapped on the door and gestured that it was time for her to go to the hovercraft in the center of the Capitol and be lifted out to the wilderness. The Capitolites had hurriedly erected an electric fence around a four by six mile oval of land. They cleared a small circle in the center, leaving it just tilled dirt, nothing else. They placed twenty four metal pedestals around the edge and put several weapons such as swords, throwing knives, daggers, and spears, along with a crossbow and a mace. Fiyera watched from the Capitol as Naya was walked out to her pedestal by a Peacekeeper. The Peacekeepers stepped back, and a man stepped out into the clearing, holding a microphone, two Peacekeepers with guns around him.
"Welcome, tributes," the man growled. "I will count down from sixty. Once I reach zero, you may step off of your pedestals. You will fight to the death until only one of you remains. If you leave the pedestals early or attack me, these Peacekeepers will shoot you."
"Sixty. Fifty Nine. Fifty Eight-"
poppoppoppoppop
Everyone gasped, one girl screaming bloody murder, as Barnaby was cut down by the Peacekeepers. He'd leaped off of his pedestals right as the man started counting; he had been so nervous he did not listen to the man's instructions. Everyone cowered on their pedestals, many weeping or shrieking, as Barnaby convulsed and died. A gunshot rang, and everyone screamed again, thinking someone else had been shot.
"When a gunshot goes off, that means someone has died," the man added. "Fifty Seven, Fifty Six, Fifty Five..." Fiyera buried her face in her hands as Hartlett, startled, stood up and left the room where all of Nine's staff for the Punishment sat. Barnaby's Mentor and Stylist, Graciella and Bauble, departed as well.
"Five, Four, Three, Two, One."
Naya leaped off of her pedestal and hobbled away into the forest, moving awkwardly on her wooden peg leg. All the other tributes headed in, and the first Bloodbath ensued. All three eighteen year olds (the males from Eight and Ten and the female from One) had formed a pact to fight together, the first alliance. They were all rebels in the war and knew how to kill. Some kids grabbed weapons and ran as the three began to slaughter as the girl from One slammed her spear into the seventeen year old girl from Six. Everyone scattered, flustered, as the three spread out and hunted down the other kids. They were the only three willing to kill except those who retaliated in self defense. The boy from Five got lucky and managed to hit his knife in the boy from Eight's stomach deep enough that it killed him. The boy from Five was then quickly decapitated by the boy from Ten, who had two swords.
By the time everyone had dispersed, thirteen more tributes were dead; thirteen gunshots had rung out throughout the day. As night fell, the anthem of Panem played for all to hear, and the face of the boy from One filled the sky. Fiyera was still awake, waiting for them to show Naya; they hadn't shown her since the very beginning when she'd run off to hide. Next, the girl from Two, both from Three, both from Five, the girl from Six, both from Seven, the boy from eight, Barnaby, the girl from Eleven, and both from Twelve were in the sky.
After the haphazard start to the Games, the other ten tributes fell into their places. The girl from One and the boy from Ten split and went their separate ways the next day, but moments after their parting, the girl from One turned and stabbed her former ally in the back of the head with her spear. He fell, and a gunshot rang. Ambiance from One seemed to be the clear winner. The other eight remaining tributes hid in the forest, scared for their lives. Naya found a small stream and drank freely from it before hiding in a clump of bushes. By the end of the day, Ambiance had also hunted down the girl from Four and had done her in as well.
After that, the Games came to a standstill. The girl from Four had wounded Ambiance, and she stayed in the clearing to nurse her wounds. The other seven tributes hid; Naya and the boy from Eleven were the only ones smart enough to search for food and water.
By the fifth day, these tributes' ignorance started to show. Ambiance had not treated her wound correctly, and it was infected, and she had no medicine to heal it. Her leg hurt so bad she couldn't bear to stand and fight. By the end of the fifth day, both the boy from Two and the girl from Ten were dead from dehydration, and on the sixth day the boy from Six also died from dehydration. Ambiance had no water either, and the combination of infection and dehydration took her out on the seventh day. That left the girl from Eight, Naya, the boy from Eleven, and the boy from Four. All four of them had found water, but none of them knew edible plants and insects well enough to try out the foods in the forest, and none of them had food.
What happened next was why the Punishment became known as the Hunger Games.
Three weeks passed, three grueling, terrible weeks as the tributes couldn't move, locked down to the ground by the hungry claws of starvation. The boy from Four was the first to go on the twenty sixth day, and on the twenty ninth the girl from Eight died. That left Naya and the boy from Eleven, Parish. Neither of them could move, not to mention kill somebody else. Only time would tell which one would survive.
On the thirty second day, the boy from Eleven died from starvation, leaving Naya the sole survivor. She wept with joy as the claw of the hovercraft descended and rescued her. Naya Qalib of District Nine had become the first Victor of the Hunger Games, and she would be the only Victor to never have to kill another tribute. Fiyera wanted to feel some kinship with the girl, but she didn't. At least she was happy her girl had come home.
After her Coronation, Naya went straight home. Fiyera came with her as a gift from President Snow along with a nice metal prosthetic leg that wouldn't break like her wooden peg leg had on the twenty first day in the arena. Fiyera and Naya rode home together, and Fiyera wrote on a napkin I am happy that you are safe.
"Thank you," Naya says with a cursory smile, and Fiyera sighs inwardly. At least she'll be spending the rest of her life with Naya; maybe they'll get to know each other better. Fiyera had accepted her fate as an Avox and had never thought of escaping; all she wanted was a family and to be accepted and liked by her master, almost like a dog. Fiyera was stubbornly loyal and was happy when Naya asked her to come live with her in her family's shack while the Victor's Village, where Naya would live, was built.
Once it was done a week later, Naya had grown accustomed to having Fiyera around. Naya was a nice girl like she had been before the Games; the only thing that had changed about her was that she ate more than she should; by the time they moved into the Victor's Village two weeks after her Games, she weighed thirteen pounds more than she had before she went into the arena. She almost never stopped eating and drinking; she never wanted to feel hungry ever again. Naya had only seen one death. She'd come off relatively clean. Therefore, her years in the Victor's Village were nice and rather happy.
Fiyera stayed in the shadows, watching happily as Naya married when she turned eighteen to a childhood friend named Samson Huntington. They had two daughters soon after the marriage named Jane and Carrie, and Fiyera became integrated into the family as the help. She was the midwife at the births of Jane and Carrie, and she babysat the kids when Samson was at work in the fields (he still worked even though they didn't need the money; he wanted something to do) and when Naya was busy with Victor things like visiting the Mayor or the public. Fiyera always came to the Capitol, however, with Naya when she would Mentor. It was their tradition, and over the years the two became friends. Not best friends, but they agreed with each other and got along well enough. Fiyera was content with her life; she'd gotten an easy-to-live-with Victor and good treatment, and even a friend, out of the first Punishment, the first Hunger Games. Fiyera was lucky; after her, Victor's Avoxes were rarely treated as nicely. After all, after Naya, every other Victor would have to kill.
A/N: Here is our first Hunger Games, or the Punishment. I hoped you enjoyed reading about Fiyera and Naya. Each Games will be their own oneshot. Please review with your thoughts if you would be so kind.
-avoxesz