Enobaria
The screen shows a face much tougher than I feel inside. The painted blood running down my chin and white dress are supposed to remind the audience of my feats in the Arena. Biting. Tearing his throat open with only my teeth.
The harsh wind whips my hair into my face, but instead of brushing it away I can hear my stylist cheering excitedly for the ragged look it gives me.
I don't hold a speech, because I don't know what to say. 'Sorry, District 7, for ripping your friend's throat out on live TV.'
The reception I receive here is colder than in the other districts, which really shouldn't surprise me. After all, this one (whatever his name was. I hadn't bothered to learn it before, and now I didn't want to.) was the closest District 7 had ever come to victory, and it had to sting to watch their only chance at fame and glory slip away in the last round.
The tribute's family sits in front of me on the stage, and I try to avoid their eyes. This becomes very difficult when my escort waves a young girl from the family onto the stage to give me a gift.
The girl walks very slowly, and tears stream down her face. I can tell from the way my escort Andronicus is having a slight breakdown that this wasn't quite the dignified gift-giving he had been planning for. He has just started to tear out bits of his long, green eyebrows when the girl reaches me.
I look above her head, which isn't difficult considering her height, trying not to see her red eyes and running nose.
In her hands, she holds a bundle of tree branches. A poor gift from a poor district, I think, but I accept it anyway. My hands must have become very cold from the wind, because she quickly pulls her hand back when it accidentally brushes mine.
The girl walks back the same way she came quicker than she walked on to the stage. I hold the bundle in my hands and turn towards the audience, when I hear a sudden and ear-splitting scream.
My blood runs cold, and I instantly drop the bundle to cover my ears. No one else seems to react, and I can see whispering all around me. Somehow, the screaming ends, or rather it turns into the sharp first notes of the national anthem. As I lower my hands to pick up the bundle again, I am very quickly rushed off the stage by my escort, who now only has one eyebrow.
"Can you believe the behavior of that girl?" Andronicus says angrily. "Who does she think she is, to mess up an entire ceremony like that? Honestly!" He throws up his hands, exasperated.
Asina shakes her head. "I have no idea. Don't they teach these children manners?" Several others nod their assent. I empty my glass of wine, focusing on that and trying not to think about the crying girl.
"She really should have tried to keep it in. At least until no one is there to be bothered by it." Asina continues.
"It was her brother" I say, the alcohol slurring my speech a bit. "The one who I-" I clear my throat. "The one who died. I saw her on the recaps, after I won."
Asina looks very confused. "What do you mean?"
"Well, she's sad." I say, not quite sure what is unclear to her. "Her brother died, so she's upset."
Andronicus waves his hand dismissively. "She should be used to it by now" he says, and now it's my turn to look confused.
"The Mason family is…" Andronicus explains slowly, with a smirk on his face. "Well, let's just say that the odds are very rarely in their favor."
Asina stifles a laugh. "That's the mild way of putting it." She pushed her bright red hair behind her ears, and leans forward over the table towards me. "One of them gets chosen almost every year. I'm surprised you haven't heard of them. It's a running joke in the Capitol" she says and laughs.
I feel sick thinking of all the times this girl has been seated in front of a new victor. How many times has she said goodbye to another member of her family, knowing that they won't return? At least in District 2, one of them usually returns.
"And they're all pretty weak", Asina says as she pours herself a drink. "I think this is the farthest any of them has ever gotten."
Fortunately, the discussion is ended by the main course being brought in. It's a roast pig too big to be found in nature, lying on a bed of mashed potatoes and vegetables. Asina and Andronicus start talking about the Arena, and I am very grateful for the distraction that heaping food on my plate brings.
I move my food around on the plate a bit, making shapes in the mashed potatoes. "You should really eat it" someone says, but the question of who it was doesn't seem important enough for the effort of lifting my head. "I've been told that you haven't eaten anything at the other districts, and it's starting to show." He sighs. "You're turning into skin and bones. Not very attractive."
I'm about to reply, but instead I just fill my glass again.
It's true, I think. I haven't eaten. I don't particularly want to, either, but I still put a fork full of food into my mouth.
But suddenly I am not biting into a piece of roasted pork. I am biting and tearing at his skin again. I feel his breath on the side of my face as his screams almost deafen me. My mouth fills with blood as the skin finally breaks, and the smoky meat only tastes of iron.
I gag, and spit out all of my half-chewed food. The conversation goes quiet around the table, and I can feel everyone looking at me. I laugh. I try to make it sound casual and joking, but the edge of hysteria to it removes any illusion of humor.
"I wonder who cooked that pig" I say to no one in particular. "It tastes like shit!" I put down my fork and drink deeply from my glass of wine, while an avox comes to clean away the remains of my dinner. There is some nervous laughter around the table.
"I guess even the nicer districts are still barbaric at heart" Asina says. "Though I didn't think their manners were this bad in-" The scraping of my chair interrupts her as I stand up.
"I'm not hungry" I announce to the avox. "Bring some wine to the train, I'll drink there."
I leave the room without speaking to anyone.
When I leave the justice building, I see that I am shaking. My mouth still tastes of iron, and I lick my shirt trying to get rid of the taste.
When I get to the train, I find several bottles of wine on a desk in my room. Good. I want to make this night disappear as soon as possible.
Neither the wind nor the hangover really goes away for the rest of the tour. After the mishap with the girl from 7, the gift-giving has been ousted from the program along with the speeches I never held.
It's odd. This is what I have been dreaming of for as long as I have known what the Games are. I watched my brother before me go on the tour that I am now on, and I envied him and all of the others from our district who now live in the Victor's Village.
I had trained for this since I was ten. We got two days off from school every week to practice our weapons, and survival, and every one of those days, for seven years, I imagined this moment. I saw myself majestically sweeping across the stage in a gorgeous dress, while waving at the adoring crowd.
I did not imagine myself trying to keep warm on a windy stage while trying not to think of the video playing behind me, of me stabbing a young girl to death. Trying not to hear her pleading for mercy as I killed her.
I couldn't have imagined the cries of the girl's mother, as the last agonizing minutes of her daughter's life was played over and over in slow motion.
As I practiced with my weapons, I saw noble swordfighting, and me throwing spears with perfect accuracy. I didn't see myself bashing a twelve-year-old boy's head in with a rock, after failing to get any of the weapons at the Cornucopia.
I played the victory tour over and over in my head. Me; beautiful, powerful, glamorous, radiant. Not like this.
Not pale and worn out, despite the make-up. Not with bags under my eyes from not sleeping. My ribs shouldn't be visible through the sheer fabric of my dress, and my elbows should not be this sharp. I should not be shaking with exhaustion just from standing up for an hour. I shouldn't have extra hair growing all over my body, to the distress of my stylists who can't seem to wax me often enough for their liking.
I shouldn't be shivering all the time, from either fear or the cold that follows me everywhere.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.