a/n: I was looking through my files and just found this from a while ago. Enjoy!
Both her parents are victors. And everyone knows, at least in District 1, that if you're the offspring of a pair like that, you will be, too. And if not, shame on your family. Glimmer has no other siblings, so the spotlight is always on her, and she knows it will be again when she wins the Games.
The reaping goes well and quickly. No one dares to challenge her for the volunteer spot, so she shines her megawatt smile at the crowd, at her mentors, at her escort, and at her mayor. Not at her new district partner, Marvel.
She only smiles at people who matter.
Glimmer's not shocked by how beautiful the train is. District 1 is almost the same, with all its shining furniture, and its bright lights, and luxury items produced in the factories. The only thing that's different is the food, the food she's never allowed to have ("it'll make you chubby") but she's so used to not eating it that she doesn't, even when Marvel stuffs his face with cheesecake.
She's never had cheesecake before. Or any other kind of cake. To be the victor, she must have the perfect body. And she didn't have birthday parties anyway, those were all spent at the training center.
She spends most of her time talking to her mentor, but then she goes to the bar part of the train and drinks.
She'll like it when she's the victor, she thinks. This, every day.
Maybe she'll even have a proper birthday party in the Capitol when she wins.
Glimmer's eyes meet Cato's for the first time while they're preparing the chariots and he smiles at her. But she can tell the difference between smiles that are real and fake, and so she smiles back, but she gives him what he gave her, because he doesn't matter.
Clove looks small but deadly, and the only other memorable one would be the volunteer from Twelve. But Glimmer shakes her head, because an act of bravery doesn't mean you're brave.
She's mad when Fire Girl gets an eleven, but Marvel doesn't care so she does the same. Their mentors just encourage her to be even more provocative and sexy to gain more sponsors, and she's happy to agree.
It's all she knows how to do anyway.
But when she shimmers on her see-through gold dress and high stilettos, watching her own face disappear into someone else's as her makeup gets done, she's not sure that's all she wants to know how to do.
She goes out there anyway, smiling and waving and flirting with the crowd and the world, and no one can phase her.
This is what it's going to be like when she's Victor, she thinks.
The time before the countdown is filled. When they take her ring with the spike, she swears up and down that she didn't know about it, when in reality she'd been saving it for Clove, the little brat who thought she was the shit and that Cato really loved her.
Bitch.
Glimmer's hair is tied into two braids on the sides of her head, making her look more innocent than she really is, and she vows to let it down once in the arena. She can't afford to look innocent.
But she's excited, of course she's excited. Her favorite part of the Games has always been the bloodbath, and she can't wait to actually be a part in it.
She feels a flicker of fear as the clock ticks down, looking around the semicircle and finally acknowledging that this is the moment. Her moment that she's been waiting for her whole life.
So why does it suddenly feel so scary?
She kills three people at the bloodbath. Two girls, one boy. One of the girls had blonde hair identical to hers, and she shivers as the red blood stains the pretty ponytail. But she feels powerful. Beautiful. In control. And so she smiles, because that's all she ever wanted.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, Glimmer?" Her mother placed another weight into her hands. "Try this."
"Why do I have to train like this every day?" The weight was heavy, even in her toned but small nine-year-old's arms. "I know it's for the Games, but I don't understand why I have to be the best."
"You have to be the best because you were born to be the best, you understand that, right, Glimmer? You are the only one who can do this."
Glimmer nodded slowly. She knew that night would include a clip of her mother's Games, which she was shown whenever her mother felt vulnerable.
"So you will be." Her mother exited her room. But she stopped in the doorway.
"Or else."
After the bloodbath, she, Marvel, Cato, and Clove somehow manage to let District 3 and District 12 (both boys) into their alliance.
Glimmer wants to snap their necks. They don't matter. She doesn't smile.
The first night Cato kisses her as they're lying side by side, and she welcomes him. He'll keep her alive.
She wakes up in the middle of the night and sees him kissing Clove. But she falls back asleep. They don't matter. Screw the alliance, Glimmer operates alone.
But she doesn't really. Something holds her back from exiting the alliance on the first night.
The second night, Cato welcomes her into his arms as they fall asleep, and so she pretends to look and feel comfortable when really, his muscles are too sharp and big and not...natural. But he's a career, so her eyes find the camera and she sleeps peacefully.
The next morning she's awakened by everyone tripping over her, and she struggles to stay alive when she treats her Tracker Jacker burns. She wonders why the rest of the Careers don't try to find her again. The cannon never boomed for her.
Glimmer spends the next few days cleaning her nails and scraping dried blood off her skin, and killing three other people. She laughs gleefully, thinking of how angry Cato and Clove are that she's taking all of their kills.
The cannon booms twice, and she barely has time to peek and see Marvel and Rue both dead, the little girl covered in flowers. Her stomach twists in an odd way that she knows isn't normal and so she steps away.
Then she sees Fire Girl, and so her natural instinct is to shoot. But so does Katniss, and Glimmer barely has time to dodge before shooting the fatal blow, and the Girl On Fire has been extinguished.
She wonders how upset the boy from 12 must be now. She doesn't know anything about love, or how it works.
When it gets down to six of them-her, Cato, Clove, the girl from 5, the large boy from 11, and Lover Boy, Glimmer decides to go hunting. She quickly takes out Clove in the meadow, shooting from behind.
Her stomach does that weird cramp thing again when Cato rushes to Clove's side, pleading with her not to let go. So she steps away again.
After Clove's last words ("I promise"), she sees the boy from 11 but decides to let Cato take care of him. She knows that he wants to take him out, and she doesn't really want to get her hands dirty.
And sure enough, that day, the second cannon booms.
It's like she's a machine now. She finds 12 in a cave, slowly dying, and she's not sure if it's an act of pity or impatience, but she shoots him quickly through the heart. The girl from 5 she finds in the same meadow as Clove, and just for fun she leaves nightlock for her to find.
The sound of the cannon is music to her ears.
She's getting cranky, hiding away in a cave and waiting for Cato to finish off Thresh. She braids her hair again and makes herself look pretty for the cameras, and once she hears the cannon she comes out.
"Well, would you look at that?" asks Glimmer in a sing-song voice, walking seductively toward her old ally.
"I'm sorry it had to come to this," says Cato, pulling out his knife.
But Glimmer is faster. He's dead within seconds. But she keeps going. Stab, stab, stab. All her anger. All her happiness.
His last word is "please", and so she cuts off his head.
In the hovercraft, she doesn't talk. At all. Because she finally has what she wants.
But the wine doesn't taste as good as she thought it would, and neither does the food, and victory isn't as sweet when you actually live it.
She has clients, too, and they're not nice. She sometimes cries herself to sleep, but then her mentor introduces her to drugs.
She smiles at no one, because no one matters anymore.
The parties never end. The food never ends. The perfection never ends. The clients never end. She's Glimmer, the Victor, all day, every day, and the thought that it will be like this forever both makes her happy and makes her confused.
And hey, she knows this stuff's not good for her, but neither was the Hunger Games, and she's still alive.
Right?