Author's Note: This is a response to a forum challenge. Starvation: ONe Shot Hunger Games, March 2010 Challenge Prompt:Initiation
Check out the forum!
I don't own anthying you may recognize.
I snorted as our little group gathered around a table in a tucked away corner of the training center. We're hopeless. They have all these huge plans, the Victors unifying the Districts, starting a rebellion. Yeah, like that's going to happen. Finnick does well enough for a young guy, Johanna fights everyone even if she agrees, Seeder is too willing, and Chaff, well Chafe makes some sense.
"What's the deal with the lovebirds?" Johanna slipped into a seat on one side of the table, kicking her feet up on the table and letting her shoes fall to the floor.
"They aren't that bad." Finnick sat next to her. His other district member, Mags, mumbled something while nodding her head, I guess she agreed with him.
"She's a cute one if nothing else," Chaff added while setting a bottle of liquor between us. I always knew he was a smart man.
I poured myself a drink while I laughed. "You can look at her all you want. Plenty do. Just don't plan on touching.
Finnick chuckled. "I noticed she didn't take to well to me."
"They don't belong in our goup," Johanna snapped.
"Don't be so harsh on them, Johanna," Seeder told the girl with a gentle hand on her shoulder. Johanna simply rolled her eyes and shrugged out of the comforting grip.
I took another glass of the clear liquor Chaff brought. I felt the liquid burn down my throat as the fuzziness started to blur my senses. The ugly world we lived in seemed so much less…less..ugly when I looked at it through a drunken gaze.
The sad thing was, Johanna was right. Peeta and Katniss aren't victors like we are. They didn't have to leave everything behind for this life. They got to keep each other. We only got to keep ourselves and then what ever else we turn to. Chaff and I have our drinks. Johanna hates anything that exist. Finninck has sex. Seeder has her exercising. Ha.
That's just it, they had someone after wards. Someone to fall on after all the deaths. They weren't really victors in the same sense we are, Katniss was ready to be one but she saw another way. No they have never one the games like we have.
They have yet to be initiated into our so called 'elite' group.
You don't get initiated by the capital's throwing you in the arena, or crowning you, or sending you money.
The real initiation into becoming a victor is that last death in the arena, the one on one match where whatever is left of your sanity is killed with that person. They never had that. Their last shred of sanity walked out with them.
No, they can't hate the Capital like we do. They have never been real victors. They have never been initiated.