Chapter 1: Silenced

President Matthias Atkinson rose bright and early one morning. Checking his calendar, he saw that today was September 10th, AP 124. The 124 he understood—124 years since the founding of Panem—but what did September 10th represent again? At 84, he was beginning to grow worried that his age would make him forget things.

Oh, Reaping Day. The Gamemaker changes it each year to confuse me, he remembered, his fears of losing his memory subsiding.The president rose from his bed and unlocked his windows. Peering through the peephole of his door outside, he saw a young woman with blonde hair—quite an unusual hair color for someone in the Capitol—and a male Avox, his hands behind his back in a submissive position. The president unlocked the door and allowed them, immediately closing it as they entered.

"Coriolanus was a wise man indeed, at least in terms of management of the state," Matthias declared, more to the woman than the man. "But his paranoia about being poisoned was quite unfounded. Augustiana, should you become president one day, let me reassure you that there is no need for you to go about poisoning yourself, making your lips all swollen so that other people can't do it to you first. All that is needed are loyal allies and tight security measures. Snow was quite rash and quite paranoid about this sort of thing, though. But despite his fears he was also quite authoritarian, quite iron-handed, and quite a memorable leader. Learn from him, Augustiana Snow."

Augustiana nodded respectfully. She was used to this sort of thing from the president of Panem. Her grandfather, the infamous President Coriolanus Snow, had died shortly after the Victory Tour from the 75th Hunger Games had ended. He had accidentally overdosed on the poison he used regularly to develop an immunity to other poisons—a simple and tragic mistake that many political analysts had private admitted to having seen coming, although Snow's habits with roses and poison were supposed to be a secret from the masses. Augustiana's parents had decided that politics was not for them. Not wishing to end up the way President Snow had—dead in a way that fulfilled everyone's expectations and remembered only by the Districts for tyranny—they had passed the torch to their daughter, seeing it as the duty of the Snow to continue producing presidents so long as they themselves weren't at risk of being assassinated.

But at the conclusion of the 75th Hunger Games Augustiana had only been 7—too young and inexperienced to rule. Of course, Panem was nominally a democracy and not a monarchy, so she couldn't just run because Snow had been on the "throne" before her. But as the only remaining Snow that wasn't dead, imprisoned for life, or cowardly, she would inevitably have to enter politics to continue her family's legacy, especially since Snow had eliminated most of the political competitors from other families. With such a sparse political climate, Matthias Atkinson had run unopposed in the election (open only to Capitolites) and after a few vague promises everyone knew did not have to be kept, he was in office. But Atkinson had been an ally and close friend of Snow's, and he too wanted to see his descendants prosper over Panem with an iron glove—the expression he used to describe Snow's rule. So he had taken Augustiana under his wing, allowing her to accompany him on nearly all of his presidential duties, constantly giving her advice on what to do the day she would run for president, hoping that she would be as good of a President Snow as her grandfather had been.

But until he died, Matthias told her, he would remain as a sort of "regent" over her (apparently this was a term used during a "dark ages" prior to the Dark Days of the rebellion when power was held by a ruling family). It had been ten years since he had taken Augustiana under her wing, and although she was 17 now she was still unconfident in her ability to be the ideal President Panem needed. And so when Matthias gave her advice, she kept silent, not out of fear he would grow angry or hurt her if she spoke but because she wanted to remember what he said.

"An excellent listener you make. But your speaking skills need more work," Matthias said, as if he were a teacher overseeing a student's journey to perfection—and indeed, Augustiana thought, that was exactly how he saw it.

"I'm going to meet with Seneca. I have a very interesting idea for these Games, and I want him to implement it." Turning to Festus, he added, "Festus, my lad, I need you to select the clothing you believe is appropriate—remember the importance of this meeting!—and fetch me the long-distance walking stick." Festus, the even more silent Avox, selected the clothing. After Matthias had dressed himself (he insisted that he wasn't that old) Festus went off to go find the walking stick.

"Festus' absence is not required for me to tell you this, but I believe that it is time to develop your public speaking skills. I have grown tired of your disdain of speaking. I know that in the past I taught you to value instruction and become a good listener, but I did not anticipate you to be so quiet outside of my instruction. So for this Games I'm going to have you recite the speech welcoming the tributes to the Capitol, the one I would normally say." Withdrawing sheets of paper from his pocket, he gave them to her. "Memorize this. It is poor form to be seen reading off of the paper by your audience."

"I can learn this quickly," Augustiana reassured him, hoping that this would send him off faster. She treasured those rare moments when he allowed her to be separated from him. She heard a knock on Matthias' bedroom, most likely Festus trying to get back in to give the president his cane.

"Indeed you can. But socializing with Avoxes has rendered you unaccustomed to long periods of speaking. So I would suggest reciting this, perhaps to them while they are forced to remain silent. A fitting reversal of roles that you will soon have to undergo. But enough about that; I'd best be going. When I return I expect you to have it almost thoroughly memorized." Matthias opened the door for Festus, took his cane and hobbled out of his mansion, escorted by more Avoxes. When the president was gone Festus closed the door and smiled, placing an affectionate hand on Augustiana. She smiled back and spoke:

"If he'd had known how much I talk to you, he wouldn't dare call me silent," she said to him happily. Festus signed in reply that only he knew how she truly felt about this, and since he was an Avox he would never tell a soul everything she told him. The other Avoxes knew, but he was the only one that cared.

When Augustiana was 12 her parents gave her over to president Matthias, who had been in office for five years and knew enough of politics to teach her everything that her parents had wished her to know. Confident that she was in good hands, her parents left her life, never to return again, abandoning her to a man that wished to groom her as his heir to the presidency, desperately trying to preserve the Snow bloodline in the political world of the Capitol.

Augustiana could really care less how "great" her grandfather had been; he had died because he was an idiot. While the thought of the power she could hold was alluring, and the idea that she could finally instruct others to shut up and listen while she barked on and on at them endlessly was very appealing, she didn't know if she had it in her to be authoritarian and cruel. Matthias had shown her how to avoid being assassinated, to study the body language of what people said, explained the complexities of the shady deals people in power had to engage in, and other such things, but he had never taught her how to break away from her conscience and the sense of morality imbedded inside of her. He assumed such a thing would come as naturally as it had for Snow. But she was not her grandfather.

Her relationship with Matthias was not, nor had it ever been, romantic or sexual in nature—he had never even touched her as far as she could remember. Instead he saw her like a non-biological daughter of his, and a student to impart as much knowledge to before he could meet an untimely death—although Augustiana failed to see how one's death couldn't be considered "untimely" past 75.

Festus, the only Avox that was her age among Matthias' collection of mute servants, was her only companion—although given their attachment to each other, "companion" was an understatement. She was never quite sure why he allowed the two of them to have a relationship, but most likely it was because he did not wish for her to kill him in revenge if he had Festus executed for any reason. Or maybe, sometimes they would joke, it was because Matthias felt sorry for her, having been born into a family that had forced her into this situation, and him consenting to her relationship with Festus was his way of giving her a life outside of the political one she would be forced to enter soon.

And then they would laugh, reminding themselves that Matthias wasn't human. How would a machine like him understand the feelings and desires of a human like her?

Lacking vocal chords, Festus' laugh was silent, of course. To some people it would seem eerie or weird, but Augustiana loved it because he was the only one that would dare do something like that in her presence instead of acting like an obedient servant.

Festus, for his part, loved Augustiana, too. Alone together they were equals, not a future president or an Avox; just 2 people in love, forced together by cruel overlords. Both silenced by people that thought of themselves as their masters, one figuratively and the other literally. Among the people they knew, they were the only ones that saw each other as human beings, not as creatures or things with a specific task that they did or would soon do. But today was different; if Augustiana just sat around and talked with Festus (anything further was out of the question; there were cameras in every house, and Augustiana did not want to be caught in a compromising position) than Matthias would find out when she didn't have her speech memorized.

"As much as I hate it," she told Festus, "I actually do have something to do that's relevant now, not in the future. Could you believe Matthias was actually able to think of something?" she asked jokingly. Festus grinned.

"He wants me to memorize some speech to tell the tributes when they enter the Games. If I don't do it now he'll know, so you just sit there for a minute while I memorize it, and then when I'm think I'm ready I'll say it back to you." Festus asked her with sign language why Matthias had wanted to tell her only after he had to go and get his cane.

"I think he didn't want to offend you by talking about the physical act of speaking," Augustiana replied. Festus rolled his eyes slowly, open and closed his silent mouth, and then rubbed his eyes in mock sorrow. Augustiana tried not to laugh at all this, amused at his way of expressing things without words. She could tell that Festus was sarcastically remarking that he would cry if he heard someone talk about speaking. Since he hadn't been born deaf and had to learn sign language from the other Avoxes, Festus was fond of using exaggerated facial expressions and gestures to get a point across to Augustiana.

"Seriously, though, I have to memorize this," Augustiana told him. So Festus took the speech after she had memorized part of it. She focused on him the whole time, and when she got a part right he would give her a thumbs up, a thumbs down when she messed up completely, and when she stopped and went blank he did some silly charades to act out what she had to say next.

It took about 20 minutes, but Augustiana was able to memorize the speech well enough to appease Matthias.

When they were done, Festus asked her what she thought Matthias' idea for the Hunger Games was. This was the first time either of them had seen him go to Seneca Crane himself to demand a specific motif for the Games.

"I don't know. Probably something about how glorious the Capitol is, or why all those savage tributes should turn to them for everything, or that they can't beat them or something. It's always the same." Festus replied that he wouldn't know, Avoxes never really watched the Hunger Games.

"Yeah, you're lucky. Matthias makes me watch them with him every year. He likes to point out to me which ones are "rebellious" or whatever. Or as I like to call them, the humans. The ones that do their damn hardest to make sure that they don't become cheap pawns for entertainment. Of course, I don't see many of those, and the ones that I do are always big disappointments. Katniss Everdeen from District 12 was one of the worst. You know how she won?" Festus made the biggest frown he could possibly make, widened his eyes, shrugging his shoulders and throwing up his hands, looking like an idiot about to say "I dunno!" in a dopey voice. But Augustiana felt passionately about this so she didn't think it was funny.

"She and her district partner Peeta had this whole 'in love' angle. Totally fake, but of course the Capitol ate it up. They ended up in the final 2 together—don't ask—and then they were about to feed each other nightlock. That would have been awesome because then there would have been no champion. They were about to eat it at the same time when guess what? Katniss shoved hers in Peeta's open mouth! He looked surprised she had done that to him let me tell you, and as he was dying from the nightlock—she forced him to swallow it—he kept looking at her, like he expected her to back off or eat them with him. But nope, she had left him to die!"

Festus tried to argue that maybe she had been planning it all along, and that the Hunger Games forced those situations on people all the time. Or at least that's what he assumed, he told her, since he had never really watched them much.

"No, that's not how it worked. If she had planned on killing him from the beginning then she would have somehow let the Capitol know. I think they would have liked that, too, actually; the fatal temptress or whatever, except Katniss wasn't pretty enough for that. She was from District 12, you know, so she probably had other priorities. I think it went like this: right then, when Seneca announced that one of them had to kill each other, she knew she had 3 choices: let Peeta win, let herself win and kill him, or let themselves both die. The first option was out, because who wants to die? Nobody. She probably figured that if she let both of them die then the Capitol would do something awful like hold another Hunger Games, like a do-over or something, or maybe just kill some random people or their families for the actions of the 2 people that they couldn't control. I would have liked that, but that's not what she did. Instead she was a coward and decided to just lie low, being like everybody else and lose her humanity to the Capitol! She could have sparked quite a fire, but she didn't want to light the match. She was scared of the flames."

Festus replied that it was best not for her to look for heroes on TV.

"But where else could I find someone to look up to? I know that sounds kind of silly since I'm probably too old for a role model, but what I mean is I want somebody that can rescue me, and save me from the fate of having to be a cruel, heartless monster like Snow or this orderly, detached…I don't know what Matthias is, but I don't want to be like him, either!"

Festus pointed out that if someone defied the Capitol and started rebellion, they'd probably end up killing her just because her last name was Snow.

"I'll be able to manage. I'm fine with not being President if it means the world is a better place. But that'll never happen. Most of those tributes are cowards or cold-blooded killers, whether they win or not. And if they had a shred of dignity before the Games then it gets taken away from them. For the most part they deserve to die."

Festus scowled and shook his head; he apparently didn't agree.

"Except for a few of them," Augustiana added. "Like Rue. I wish people like her would win once in a while." Festus still frowned.

"Fine, fine, they're all human beings. Except us," Augustiana declared. Festus hated the cynicism she exhibited on occasion. He looked at her pleadingly, begging her to hold on to at least a small scrap of dignity, at least for his sake.

Augustiana sighed. "It's hard to be human when the Capitol is breathing down your back."

AN: Sorry that was so long! I know some of you didn't really care for it, I just wanted to give some backstory to some OCs. I promise once the tributes show up they'll leave the spotlight, for the most part.

To clarify what's going on here: This is an AU in which Katniss won the 74 Hunger Games the way Augustiana described, rather than winning it with Peeta. We'll get her own POV on this later, I promise. Also, President Snow died from taking too much poison in an attempt to try and make himself immune to it right after the 75th Games. Since Katniss and Peeta never sparked a rebellion, the Quarter Quell was something different (you'll see later), and it went smoothly. Also, Seneca Crane is still alive and the head Gamemaker because he was able to pressure Katniss into not starting the spark of a rebellion.

Please give me some feedback on Matthias, Augustiana, and Festus in a review! I'm not the best with OCs, but these 3 seemed to come to my head pretty quickly.

The form will be on my profile, past the bio. Ignore the poll, it's for another fanfic (I'm writing 4-5 different things at once! I really shouldn't have done that, but I can't stop now!) Please send the forms for the tributes via PM, NOT REVIEW. The sponsor system will be in the next chapter since the form was unintentionally very long.