A/N: I suppose that the first thing that I should mention to everyone is that this story is the third in a sequence of fanfics chronicling the tale of a young victor from District 4, whose journey begins in the fanfic Second Time Unlucky and then continues into Mentor before our young hero winds up here, at the beginning of book three. While most of the essential backstory for this fanfic will be explained in the first few chapters, I'd still recommend checking out those first two novels in order to get a more full understanding of the story.
Secondly, I would like to welcome back fans of the first two fanfics and fresh readers alike to Fight or Flight, and thank them for taking the time to click on this story and give it the time of day. For those of you who know my previous works, this story will be somewhat different from the first two titles, mostly in the sense that this story is going to be more of a passive journey than an active adventure, and that the layout will be less formulaic than the last. Chapters will come of varying lengths dependent on the situation, and there won't be any particular overriding plot, more several different things unravelling at once. Oh, and the twenty-seven chapter overview has been thrown completely out of the water. I'm expecting forty plus chapters for this one.
Of course, now I'm just dithering on, so I'd better shut up and just get straight to the point before I'm arrested for murder having killed someone from boredom due to this very long author's note.
I hope that you all enjoy the story :)
Part I - Life
Chapter One
PoV: Ludovic Robertson (17), Hunger Games Victor
District 4
11.00 am, Saturday 7th September, year of the 67th Hunger Games
The sun glares up at me threateningly off the water, my hands instinctively raising to the side of my face to protect my eyes. The water's fairly placid today, but even the usual movements of the water leave me alternating between being blinded and the brief interludes, ones that give you so much false hope, that come in between.
Plus, it doesn't help that I'm on a boat in the middle of the sea. I can't say that the rocking is going to do me any good, exactly. At least, not in that sense.
I'm in the western bay in District 4, on the relatively untouched side of the peninsula where my district resides. All the fishing industry is based out of the Docklands, which are located in the district's poorer, eastern half.
From where I sit, out in a boat that actually belongs to my best friend's dad, all I can see is the nice part of the peninsula. The light house at the southern headland of the bay, a lone tower looking out into the endless sea. Mostly for the sake of our fishing crews who often stay our past dark in the wintertime, when the nights draw in. Moving north around the bay is Victors' village in the south-west, the twelve luxurious homes spared for the few lucky sods from District 4 who have entered the arena, the torturous environment where the Capitol holds its deadly Hunger Games, and made it out alive. Beyond that in the centre of the bay is the mile-long beach that backs on to the district's most affluent housing - discounting Victors' Village, of course. My parents' house is there. Or, more correctly, my dad's house is. It's been over a year since my mother died now.
Moving towards the north-west of the bay, the cliffs start to rise up and the woodland builds up along with it. I like the woods, a lot more than I like most of District 4, to be honest. And as districts go, we're not even that bad. Still, whenever I need time to think or just want to get away from it all for a while, the woods are my go-to place. Unfortunately, I've seen a whole lot more of them lately than I may have liked to.
At the very northernmost point of the bay, however, is what grabs my attention at the moment, where the rocky headland juts out from the woodland, fifty feet above the water. Luckily, it's a drop that's unimpeded by anything and the water is deep at the bottom, otherwise my friends would be in a very sticky situation around about now.
The expedition was led by Dylan Cresta, who seems to have replaced what he lacks in height with pure courage. The guy seemingly isn't afraid of anything. I mean, any day out in District 4 inevitably ends up involving the water - that's just the way things are around here. So when we got seven of us in a boat together and sailed off into the middle of the bay, we were prepared for something. Still, the moment Dylan suggested diving off the headland half of us were down to our swimming trunks in no time, diving from the boat into the deep blue waters of the bay, racing to be the first one to take the plunge.
It was a battle that, inevitably, Finnick won. Finnick Odair, aside from being my best friend, is probably the most famous fourteen-year-old in the history of Panem, being the youngest person to ever emerge victorious from the Hunger Games just over two years ago. His short-cut bronze hair, sea-green eyes and tanned body are debatedly the most recognisable thing in modern culture, such was the Capitol's fascination with the guy. They were all drooling over him before a single weapon had been raised. Of course they were all going to support him in the arena.
So, of course, it's no wonder that this amazing physical specimen would have the athletic prowess to swim across the bay faster than a bunch of other teenagers his own age. He'd give anyone a run for their money.
They've been out there for getting on half an hour now, but I can still see that the four of them a hundred metres off having fun. Dylan, Finnick, and two of our other friends from school called Brandon Mullery and Maria Keller. Brandon, your average guy in District 4, only with some brains behind him. Maria, just a good girl who's up for a laugh from time to time. And they're certainly managing that now.
Unfortunately, I'm kind of stuck where I am at the moment because there's no wind at all so the sails on Mr Odair's boat are completely useless, and with all the strong guys gone (by strong guys, I mean Brandon and Finnick), we're basically dead in the water. Which I suppose isn't too much of a bad thing. At least I don't have to worry about watching where we're going, simply because we're going nowhere.
Of course, I wasn't the only one of our expedition that didn't decide that throwing myself of fifty-foot cliffs was the best thing to do. Sitting in the boat with me is Dylan's twin sister Annie Cresta and her friend Katherine Wright. I won't pretend that I know either of them overly well, knowing Annie through her brother who I've known for seemingly forever, and Katherine's been another face in the crowd at school for years. They both seem nice enough when I get a chance to talk to them. They're good-looking girls, too, which always helps. They both have slender builds, probably my height or a couple of inches taller (I have never been anything but short). Annie has long, wavy dark brown hair that runs way past her shoulders like my sister's used to, and has the same vivid green eyes as her brother. Katherine, who is slightly taller, has bullet-straight blonde hair that trails half way down her back, and blue eyes similar to my own. Actually, apart from the difference in hair length (my own mop of blond hair stops way before my shoulders), we don't look that far apart.
Getting fed up of watching the guys fall about up at the headland, I lie back on the seats of our small boat, staring up at the near-cloudless sky. There is almost no noise, only the occasional sound of water lapping against the boat and the faintest glimpse of the wind, punctuated by the splashes and cheering coming from my friends at the headland. All things considered, life could be a lot worse right now.
Annie's sitting on the edge of the boat, humming to herself, her back to the water. Katherine is lying back on her seat at the other end of the boat to me, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she struggles to read a book in the glare of the sun. I try to read the title of it, but the cover is silhouetted against the sun.
Over time, I hear the splashes from the headland becoming more and more infrequent, and assume everyone's either got tired or someone has gotten bored and moved away. I suspect the latter.
It turns out I'm correct when a minute later, a lone hand appears out of the water behind Annie, gets a handful of her green dress and pulls the screaming girl backwards off the edge of the boat into the water. In a split second both Katherine and I are bursting with laughter, and Finnick's laugh joins ours as he resurfaces a moment later, lying on his back in the water. Annie surfaces next to Finnick, her soaked dress billowing all around her, sodden brown hair falling straight down over her face. Glaring at Finnick, she pushes him away from her as he attempts to brush the hair away from her eyes.
"I don't need your help," she snaps at him. "It's thanks to you that I'm in this situation in the first place." Somehow, the fact that it's annoyed her makes it all the more funny, although I can see why she's angry. It was a nice dress she was wearing; it's a shame Finnick ruined it.
I offer Annie a hand back into the boat, which she accepts as I pull her in next to me, glancing over her shoulder to grin all too sweetly at Finnick.
"You know, if you want to get anywhere with girls, you've got to treat them right, not just dump them in the sea without notice," I tease Finnick. He rolls his eyes at me, and I smirk.
"You know fully well I could have anyone I wanted if I tried," Finnick says, hauling his semi-naked form back into our boat. "I mean, who wouldn't want all this?" He strikes a ridiculously provocative pose, the sort that he perfect to win sponsors back when he was in the Hunger Games two years ago. However, hear in District 4, all his poses manage to achieve is for Katherine to laugh at him. However Finnick shrugs it off and collapses into a seat next to Annie.
"Is everyone else on their way back now?" I ask my friends, remember where Finnick had appeared from in the first place.
"Take a look for yourself," Finnick says, nodding in the direction of Maria, Brandon and Dylan, who are swimming back towards the boat at a far more leisurely pace than the one Finnick managed just a minute or two ago. We only have to wait a few seconds for everyone to arrive again, suitably pleased by the morning's activities.
"So where now?" I ask everyone once we're settled back into the boat.
"I don't mind," Dylan says. "It's your birthday, after all." With everything that's gone on today, I'd almost pushed that to the back of my mind. I turn seventeen today.
"Well, I guess we'd better head back," I say regretfully. "I have a busy evening ahead of me, so I'm going to need some time to sort myself out."
By early afternoon we're back in the docks, and the seven of us go our separate ways, and I walk home with Finnick. We stop off in the town centre at my dad's stall in the fish market. I always take care to buy his produce when I'm in town. Since moving back into our old family house and leaving me living on my own, he's not wanted to touch a penny of my earnings, even though they are more than enough for both of us. At least this way, he'll accept some of my money, and I get something out of it, too.
It's weird as I walk home with Finnick to think that the further I walk, the more distance I am putting between the normal half of my life and myself, and venturing ever closer towards the more dominant, irregular half. On mornings like today, I can spend hours acting like your typical teenage boy from District 4; spending hours out in the bay with his friends during his free time. But unlike nearly all guys my age, my life just isn't quite that simple.
I reach my home and say goodbye to Finnick on the doorstep, stepping inside my home alone, to be greeted by luxurious, empty rooms, lavishly furnished to my taste. Money really was no object when designing this place. One of the few times the Capitol is willing to fork out large sums of money for the people in the districts, and it's not exactly for nothing, either.
After a long morning out in the sun, the first thing I need when I return home is a drink. I grab myself some juice from the kitchen and wander through to the sitting room on the other side of the hallway. I pace around for a while, planning what needs to be sorted for tonight before stopping still in front of the mirror above the fireplace in the sitting room, where I take a moment to look at myself.
I look pretty much as I always have done; short with a slim build, bright blue eyes and blond hair. Not silvery blond, not a dirty blond, just blond. It's been a while since I've cut it, so now it almost reaches my shoulders at the back, the fringe just in danger of covering my eyes. I should probably do something about it soon. Likewise the hair on my face. I'm at that age where my body can't quite decide whether it wants to let me grow a beard or not, so it's kind of settled somewhere halfway to give me this thin, fluffy moustache that seems to look worse the more that I look at it.
I decide that the next thing I need to do is have a shave.
Looking down from the mirror, I look at the mantelpiece just below it, the place where I keep my five most possessions, always there on show so that I can never forget them, as if I ever would.
The first is arguably the easiest to explain. A photograph taken four summers back, when I was just twelve years old. My family, standing together in front of our hose, where my dad still lives today. My dad, of course, is fine, and I'll debate that I am too, but my mother died last summer during the 66th Hunger Games. I was in the arena when she died, in the Capitol when the funeral was held. The fourth and final face in the picture is that of my sister Bellatrix, or Bella for short, who was aged sixteen at the time. When she turned eighteen she applied to be a part of the draft - a group of thirty or so young men and women with essential trades who are sent to live and work in the Capitol. I was told she was sent to the Capitol to become a fashion designer, although I was still surprised when she showed up in the Hunger Games nine months later as the stylist for the boy from District 12. But that's her job now - she's a part of the show.
The second item on my mantelpiece is a simple one - a small silver brooch that I gave Finnick to wear into the arena when he volunteered for the 65th Annual Hunger Games. A year later, it became my token also, as I followed in my best friend's footsteps and Finnick (then acting as my mentor) returned it back to me. Having reminded both of us of each other through without a doubt the most torturous ordeals of our life, the brooch has come to stand for everything that our long friendship means to each other.
The third object is the simplest of them all, and although it is only something that I have had for the past six months, it is too important to lie idly about somewhere. It is a faded photograph of a girl called Madelaine Harper, who used to live down in the docklands not far from where my dad worked. I say used to because she got reaped for the Hunger Games the same year I did. Being my age, I'd known her for years from school. She was one of the oldest and closest friends that I had. I was really close to her before the 66th Games. Loved her, even. It almost broke me when I was the one who had to ease her out of this life at the end of the Games. My stomach still ties itself in a knot when I think of that fateful day.
The fourth object comes, by extension, as a consequence of the third. It is a wooden carving of a herring gull that I made about four months ago. My finest work to date. After the arena, victors are expected to pursue a talent; something that they can show the public to prove that they don't just spend all their days sitting around twiddling their thumbs. I suppose a little craftsmanship never harmed anyone, anyway. It's actually quite fun at times, when you can get into it.
However, the fifth and final item on my mantelpiece is undoubtedly the most important, taking pride of place in the centre. A golden band two centimetres high and nine inches across, decorated with simple patterns for embellishment; a crown of sorts. I have only ever worn it once, when I was awarded it by President Coriolanus Snow in front of the entire nation. Carved on the inside of the crown is the one fact about me that everyone seems to remember.
Awarded to Ludovic Robertson of District Four, victor of the Sixty-Sixth Annual Hunger Games, aged fifteen years, ten months and fifteen days.
And that pretty much sums up who I am. A victor. A killer. A murderer. But more than that, a boy who's been flung into a world of fashion, celebrities and politics that he barely understands, where every person in that world wants to know his every move.
Such is the nature of the Capitol. It is one of the many drawbacks of winning the Hunger Games.
However, there is one true positive; you get to stay alive. A perk that only eleven living people can claim to have in District 4. And I'm one of them.
Living in Victors' Village as I do, I've gotten to know the lot of them; a whole group of people as broken and troubled as I am. We're a family of sorts; a family of murderers, misunderstood by society and those around us. We're like a large, dysfunctional family. But we all muddle through together, somehow. And they're a good lot, really. Once you get past the fact that they've all stabbed, shot, strangled or otherwise disposed of multiple kids in their youth.
I glance up at the clock in the living room. I only have a short while before the birthday celebrations are scheduled to begin.
Time to go and meet them all.
