A slight stir in the lone passers-by, who wandered outside of each bright storefront, caused a few heads to whip around inside the grand Capitol houses - or rather, mansions. A spectrum of pastels that were bricks, rainbows that were actually gleaming glass windows, the finest gadgets boasting in clear sight beyond them - that was the best way to describe them. Each curious citizen, peering out from inside the colourful structures they called homes, though many thought of them as palaces, gradually lost interest in time, as it was only an old man collapsing to the floor. Nothing to concern them, with their enviable statuses and mysteriously obtained riches. It wasn't hard to guess how they managed to get the best houses in the Capitol. Diana Lavelle sighed from the upstairs window of her flat.
This twisted place they called the Capitol, this twisted country they called Panem, she was meant to belong to it, love it, want to protect it. From those so-called ungrateful, undeserving and inferior districts. Diana's breathing quickened at 'so-called'. To even think such a statement seemed dangerous. She knew for a fact that if anyone gleaned the slightest inkling of what her deepest thoughts were, by the next day she would be sentenced to life as an avox, or worse, hanging from a noose. A gruesome image of herself, eyes glassy and half-open, limbs limp, dyed-purple hair tatty and forlorn, popped into her head, and she shuddered.
Because if she let something slip in front of the wrong people, let her opinions get into the wrong hands - it was a possibility. It could actually happen. And not only would there be horrific pain for her, but shame for her family. And she owed Candria, owed Flora, owed Ma and Pa, owed them at least a respectable sister and daughter. Owed them at least a living one.
With another shudder, Diana turned away from the street below her.
Of course, she was grateful for her job, grateful for her stylish flat, grateful for her place in society, but... she was also ashamed of it. If a District 12 child was to see what oppurtunities, what comfort, what contentedness she had, well... she could imagine the disbelieving, angered little eyes. That picture, that so frequently drifted across her thoughts, haunted her. Those people on reaping day... fearful, depressed, weary. It was enough to affect her for months. And working with tributes was torture.
However, she was payed well.
And the horrible truth to The Hunger Games was, no one agreed with them. Diana would watch them and drink too much wine at the celebrations and make the bets on tributes, only because everyone else did. Each person joined in with the sadistic spirit of the games only to fit in and save their own necks. A rebel would be killed, just like that. Everybody knew that. Even the smallest child, fighting for what was, and everyone knew deep down what really was, right, would be cruelly subjected to unthinkable things. If you were born in the Capitol, you had to be the baddie. You just didn't have a choice; it was, ultimately, you destiny. All the political leaders had made sure of that.
After her part-time job in a camera-studio at the other side of the city, Diana knew how the Capitol looked to the Districts on a television. There was no word too insulting to describe it. Only a century ago, selfish tyrants wasting resources and doing as they please, no matter who it cost, whilst others starved and were worked to skin and bone, it wouldn't be considered storybook stuff. Because it happened even then. On the other hand, there was a large percentage fighting to stop it. Those actually forcing it to occur were just ignorant, almost innocent. Or most of them, anyway. An it HAD BEEN considered WRONG. Now, however, there were the games. All that time ago, they would of been just so unjust and tremendously awful that no-one would be able to imagine anybody low enough to make it reality. But there were just too many people willing to make it reality and more, at the present. They were willing to let it shape peoples lives, dominate them. Quite frankly, it wasn't entertaining or amusing. It was terrible, horrific. To an outsider, it was incomprehensible.
What would Seneca Crane say to what I've just thought? That was the next thing that sprang, dangerous like everything else, into Diana's mind. It was a good thing she didn't let her opinions control her actions, or she'd be a dead woman. She was grateful and ashamed of that, too. The fact fed her certainty and doubt. And she knew that Seneca would either do two things. The first was this: crease the pale skin between his eyebrows, shake his head disapprovingly, and glare at her with accusation, but all the same keep quiet and press a finger to his lips. He had always had a soft spot or her. She remembered when she was just in her mid-teens, and he was in his late, and he'd come to her families home for a fancy dinner, with his own kin. They had kissed in a dark corridor, and though he was married now with several small children, Crane never failed to wink at her in the corridors of the remake center and the training center, and sometimes she caught him staring at her in large crowds. And she always wondered why he had fired Arian, one of his best gamemakers, whom Diana had briefly dated. Flora had smiled at her knowingly when she found out.
The second action would be this: stay true to his employer, master, idol, be loyal to his family and the Capital (at that, a vague, blurred image of Vergil Crane, Seneca's father and the ex-head gamemaker, slipped into Diana's mind) and make sure she was no longer in possession of her job, and any connections. But no, he would never give her up to Snow, the memory of that kiss still fresh in his mind. She shuddered to think of what his wife, Laelia, would say at that information. Or rather - do.
Sometimes she felt jealousy of Lae, which she tried to compress because of her equal hate of her. It wasn't linked to the other woman's marraige to Seneca - no, if anything, Diana felt just a little repulsed by the head Gamemaker. He enjoyed watching those helpless children get murdered. It was because of Lae's perfection - and happiness.
Of course, Lae's excellent taste in fashion was a key factor. Her disdain for all the hideous Capitol surgical treatments made all the difference; though her hair had been died a brilliant deep turquoise, and those breasts could not truly be that size and shape, she kept the atrocities to a near minimum. Perhaps it was because she was naturally gorgeous. Deep blue eyes that weren't hidden by vibrantly shaded contact lenses, a light tan that wasn't fake, that heart-shaped face that didn't cause her ears to look overly large. And a figure that screamed 'I starve myself!', especially when she wore dresses that didn't bother to hide much of it. However, Diana knew that fortune of Lae's was not what she desired.
No, what really was enviable was the clear joy that was Lae's to keep. She didn't just look good and know about it, she felt no unhappiness because she looked good. Her life was perfect - riches, fame, beauty - and she was free of the guilt that plauged Diana. Guilt, guilt, guilt. How could anyone just stand by, watch the Games, and not feel guilty?
The worst thing was, that the famous Laelia Gemelle Crane, so wanted by every man in the country, was the picture of innocence. Of course though she was shallow, a little dim (except when she was flirting), didn't even care about the Games, and had nothing particularly good about her, there was nothing particularly bad. No spite, hate, or selfishness. Well, there was the smallest dose of the latter, but still, you get the idea.
And it was obvious that she, Lae, would live like that for the rest of her days, and die happily. Probably long after Diana, because surely she would have been hanged for treachery by then.
NO NO NO! Diana slumped onto an elegant silvery couch. She could not think like that if she hoped to survive. And she had to get Lae, perfect Lae, out of her mind. She suspected that the woman in question was probably cleverer than most thought. But what, though Diana, had brought that thought on?
Instinct... A voice whispered.
Funny, that saying - speak of the devil, and he shall come. Because at that time it became true. Lae, Laelia Crane, walked along the cobbled street. Her beautifully tattooted fingers clutched bulging shopping bags, and compressed between her fur-coat covered shoulder and hair-concealed ear, was a stylish mobile phone. The latest, of course. Diana, sighing once again as she noticed a handsome and successful politician, flanked by several, muscled, bodyguards/peacekeepers, and a camera man, Camillus Merula, his eyes straying to the place where Lae's significant body parts were just showing - disgusting - turned away.
Or rather, she was going to, until Lae turned left, abandoning her bags to buzz for a flat in Diana's block. And it was in fact for her flat - Diana's. True, she had met Lae, and they were supposed to be 'good friends', according to the the media, as the spoke at public events, but... Why would Lae be coming to visit her? Releasing a third deep sigh, Diana shrugged on a fancy, carefully embroidered cardigan, so as not to be labelled as common, and headed downstairs to greet her visitor.
But why had Lae come?