Neil Perry is a liar. But it really isn't his fault. His been raised on them after all.
"You'll be fine," His mother says pressing a hand to his cheek, "It'll almost be like a vacation."
"Make us proud son." His father says, his back turned away from him so Neil won't see him cry.
District 7 may be a large place, but the woods are deep and dark and people cling together within them. They share secrets. They tell lies.
And the people who bid Neil farewell in the room in the Justice Building are not his parents.
His parents are next door bidding goodbye to the child they are allowed to acknowledge. Everyone knows, and Neil is the star of their charade.
It all happened, Neil supposes because of the crippling labour shortages in 7, that and the Hunger Games. New mandates were introduced claiming that all couples must have at least one child and couples with more children would be rewarded with extra rations. Any who did not comply to this rule would be severely punished. Suddenly couples who, for one reason or the next, could not have children were suddenly desperate. That's where Neil came in.
He knows it's not his parents fault, either set of them, they were all just trying to survive in anyway they could. He watches them out of the train window, all four of them as they wave and cry in equal measure. They won't reach out to each other, just go home, shut the blinds and prepare for the almost certain death of their children.
The Capitol escort is...chirpy. Flighty and awkward looking like a baby bird pushed out of the next too soon she coos and chatters to them while they wait for their mentors to arrive. District 7 is lucky in a way. No one would ever call it a Career district, that's for sure, but it's looser regulations with children workers and the nature of the work they do has lead to an above average number of Victors. This means Neil and Alani ("Just Lani", she whispered after her name was called) will each get their own mentor.
"You too are very very lucky. I mean think of how many districts have only one of two Victors to go around? A few years ago I was stationed in District 12, not nearly as charming as 7 I can tell you. So dirty! But yes, District 12 for years they didn't have a mentor of their own, constantly having to bring them in. Now they have that boy, Charlie, and he's as brave and handsome as you'd please but so young. No experience at all, not like your mentors. And look at that! Here they are!" Flara jumped out of her seat and made a grand gesture for said mentors to sit. "We were just talking about you!"
Neil restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Clearly Flara had a very loose definition of what 'we' meant. Kit, in his early twenties with dark skin and piercing eyes, and Elma a middle aged lady with a slim face and long greying hair. If Neil hadn't known that they were Victor's he never would have guessed that they would have been capable of killing anyone. But they watch the Games in school so Neil knew that Elma could break your leg without trying and that Kit had the highest body count of any Victor from a non-Career District.
"So." Kit says tenting his fingers and gazing at them, "Which one of you is coming home?"
"Kit, stop it." Elma says, "What Kit is trying to say is that obviously in the best case scenario only one of you can win. So with that in mind we can either train you individually or together. Obviously each one has it's draw backs, if we train you together you get advice and help from both of us. If you train seperately you can keep your strategy hidden from one another and will thus have advantages once you get into the games. Comments? Questions? Yes? No? No. Okay. Answer." She rushes through this speech briskly and Neil has the overwhelming feeling they've given this exact same talk to every tributes they've ever mentored. Lani shifts uncomfortably in her seat and Neil's skin crawls slightly, like he can feel all the dead tributes who've sat here.
"We want to be trained together." Lani says finally, her voice strong and confident. Then she falters and looks over at him, "Right Neil?"
"Yes. Absolutely." He confirms nodding rather more forcefully than necessary. Elma and Kit exchange a glance but it's hard to tell what it means.
"Alright then." Kit says, then to Elma, "Let's go with how close-knit and quaint we all are in 7. The sponsors will like that."
"Oh absolutely" Flara trills, "I mean look at them! They could be brother and sister!"
If there's one thing, one single thing Neil has learned from his childhood in 7 it's that children should never be underestimated.
"Do you remember?" Lani asked, whispered over the dining table while the adult were discussing something off to the side. Neil nods.
For years he had thought it was simply some dream he had as a child. One where his name wasn't Neil and he lived in a house that wasn't his and had parents with different faces than the ones he knew. It wasn't until years later when, while waiting for his mother to come pick him up from school, he caught sight of the dark haired little girl from his dreams. Neil was four. Lani was two. They both remember everything that happened that day.
"Should we tell them?" Lani asks, it's days later as they're standing on their chariots waiting to be paraded through the City Circle. Their costumes, Neil is fairly certain, are supposed to have something to do with pinecones, though he thinks they look more like brown lizard scales.
It's not until they're outside, in the roar of the crowd that Neil replies, "No. Don't tell anyone." And despite the horrible lizardcone costumes Neil seems to catch the eye of a few with his blinding smile and trustworthy face. Though when he watches it on the replay he thinks his smile looks so forced it's almost painful. People in the Capitol don't seem to notice things like this, they've never been trained to lie only to be lied to.
It only seems to get better at the interview, his persona as the loving and charming protector of Lani further solidified. "You must be very tightknit in District 7," Caesar asks, "I've never seen a pair of tributes as completely intertwined as you and your charming partner."
"Oh yes," Neil says, cheating out to the camera and smiling like Kit taught him. "We're all one big family." That one only counts as half a lie.
Two nights before the Games Neil turns 19. Kit somehow convinces Flara to let him take Neil to the bar in the training centre. Tributes are banned but somehow he smiles prettily enough and she relents. But she does write him a note and make him carry it with him in case anyone asks which makes him feel like a little kid with his address pined to his coat in case he gets lost. It also doesn't do anything to make him standout less, understandably most of the Victor's know one another. There are only 35 after all.
"What do you want?" Kit asks, Neil balks slighty, he's never really drank before except for one time hiding behind a storage shed with some of the laborours kids. It had been something brown that had burned his throat all the way down. He had liked it. It tasted like freedom.
"Uh, something strong I guess?" He sits on a stool to avoid hovering awkwardly. Kit claps him on the shoulder goodnaturely and orders two of something Neil's never heard of. He also orders lots of water and a basket of some sort of twisted bread.
"Don't want to be hung over on the last day of training. That's not a good strategy for anyone." Kit says shoving it all towards him. Neil remembers once when he was little he heard a rumour that in the outlying districts people used to volunteer for the Games so they'd have good food to eat before they died. Neil hadn't believed it, even during the middle of the winter when his mother added wood chips to the oatmeal and his stomach growled incessively, that anyone could ever be that hungry. But now, as he eats the bread twists, made savoury with herbs and garlic, he knows that if he had known the food would be this good maybe he'd have done the same.
"Who's the kid?" Someone asks comimg up behind Neil and surprising him so he ends up choking on his bread, the alcohol and water left untouched to the side.
Kit claps him on the back until his stops coughing, his eyes watering and streaming down his face. "Sorry." The newcomer says. It's Charlie Dalton. He remembers him from the Games of course, but his father had been invited to the banquet at the mayor's house on his Victory Tour. Neil remembers catching a glance of him as he went into house looking sullen and scared. Not at all the heroic Victor with a sword Neil had remember watching on tv and then secretly emulating in the woods, a broken fence post serving as a sword.
He doesn't look like a heroic Victor now either. He just looks tired and grabs the seat next to him. "Neil, this is Charlie Dalton. Charlie this is Neil, it's his birthday."
"Oh, well happy birthday then. Hoping to join our noble ranks?" Charlie asks gesturing at the barkeep for something.
Neil snorts, "No, not really." Kit rolls his eyes, it's obvious to everyone that Neil's going to do anything he can to keep Lani alive but he knows Kit is just dying to talk it out of him.
"Good plan." Charlie says knocking back half of the alarmingly blue drink he's ordered. Which pisses Neil off more than it should seeing he knew he wasn't coming out of the arena the moment they called his name after Lani's.
"You're shorter in person." Neil says just to be a little bit vindictive. `
There's a long pause as Charlie surveys' him and Neil starts to worry. He's just insulted someone who's killed people, who's killed mutts and maybe snarking at him wasn't the best idea.
"I like him." He finally says, more at Kit than Neil. "He's got fight in him."
Years later Neil was surprised Charlie had never said I told you so.
"Well I'm going to head to bed. Charlie can you bring Neil back up to our floor?" Kit says about an hour later rather abruptly in the middle of a conversation about swords versus axes as an arena weapon. Neil wants to protest that he's not a child and doesn't need to be shown back to the floor, especially seeing as all he has to do is get in the elevator and press 7.
"Yeah, yeah can do." Charlie says mouth full of bread (they've worked their way through 3 baskets). He swallows sharply, Neil can tell by the way he eats that before he was a Victor, Charlie never had enough food to eat and he hasn't quite caught up with that reality yet. "So, your district partner. You're in love with her right?"
"Not exactly."
"You're in love with her and she doesn't feel the same way?"
"She's my sister." It hang there in the air, so dense and huge Neil could practically reach out and touch it. There's someone else at the end of he bar but he doesn't exactly seem to be listening. Besides, he's already told one person, if Charlie wants to tell his tributes to exploit this he doesn't see the difference that another two tributes will make.
"You have different last names."
"I'm adopted, we're not supposed to know."
"What were you both in the children's home and adopted by different families?" Charlie asks.
Neil looks away, things are different in other Districts, he's always known this but the idea that there are unwanted children in other districts is pratically laughable. "No, um, my parents- that is my adoptive parents - they couldn't have kids and it's a law in 7, you have to have at least one child. So they bought me."
"They bought you?"
"My parents- my biological parents - they were poor and they already had 5 kids. I was the youngest after Lani and my parents wanted a boy." Charlie was starring at him dumbstruck, "What?"
"Just, I though my childhood was messed up. Does that happen a lot? Kids being...sold?"
Neil shrugs, "Occasionally I guess. But, we don't talk about it. I mean Lani and me have barely talked about it and I've never said anything to her brothers. They have to know though, I was 4 so they were...9 and 11."
Charlie shoves his drink at him, "You need this. Seriously, drink it."
For something so colourful it's surprisingly strong and it burns all the way down and into his stomach. "God, I can't believe I told you all that." Neil says looking down at his hands. It's not just because for all he knows Charlie could exploit all of this to bring his own tributes home, it's because he's never sat down with someone and put it all into words.
"Maybe we knew each other in a former life." Charlie puts forth leaning up on his elbows. "Anyways, I should probably head to bed. You too, training scores in the morning. Best not to be hungover for that."
The polished elevator doors ding open and someone walks out as they're trying to walk in. Neil recognizes him right away, it's Steven Meeks youngest Victor ever. "Hey. I was just coming down to get you." He says to Charlie eyes softening around the edges.
"Yeah, sorry I got caught up with Kit, and uh, well this is Neil Perry he's one of Kit and Elma's tributes."
"Hello." Steven says sticking his hand out, "I'm Steven Meeks." Which is a bit redundant because everyone in Panem knows who he is.
"It's my birthday." Neil says stupidly, feeling the need to justify himself even though he's almost certain they're the same age.
"Oh. Happy Birthday." He says awkwardly, because it's hard to congratulate someone on being older two days before they're being sent into an arena to die. It's really not much of a consolation to be slightly older than everyone else.
He ponders this in the elevator ride back to the 7th floor. He also ponders Charlie and Steven in their reflection on the front of the elevator door. They're holding hands, Steven's thumb running over Charlie's knuckles affectionately. At one point he props his chin on Steven's shoulder whispering something Neil can't hear but that makes Steven grin stupidly. It's not a thing you see in 7, sure you hear about girls who like girls and boys who like boys but it's generally something you're expected to grow out of. You grow up and you get married and you have children to keep the population stable. It's selfish to do anything else.
Only sometimes Neil thinks he'd like to be selfish like that. Sometimes.
Finally the door dings open at the 7th floor. All the lights are off and Neil realizes how late it must be. "Well, uh thanks."
"Sure, " Charlie says, "Anytime," like there's going to be a next time. He turns to head to his room. "Neil! Don't let anyone tell you what you're doing is wrong. Okay?"
"Yeah, sure. Okay." He stares at the elevator door long after it clangs shut and continues it's ascent up to 12. Sighing deeply Neil turns and fumbles towards his room. Lani is alseep on his bed, her dark hair covering her face, she was probably waiting up to tell him something. He considers waking her up but decides against it, falling into bed beside her fully clothed. His mind, which was spinning only moments ago in the elevator suddenly seems to go blank and he's asleep.
Lani gets a 6. He gets a 5. Neil pretends it doesn't bother him.
"Don't worry about it." Kit says, "Those are pretty decent scores for a couple of non-Career kids and since you're going to be a team we might be able to rustle up more sponsors than you would alone."
That last day Elma forces Lani and him to the table every two hours to down as much protein and carbohydrates as they can without getting sick. "You will undoubtably loose weight. Don't give me that face Lani this is your life at stake so shut up and eat your chicken." Long gone is the warm charming Elma replaced with the Victor who broke a boy's femour by stomping on it. Neil's jaw aches from all the chewing and his stomach turns each time she ushers them back to the table.
"You'll thank me when you're not dead. It's not called the Hunger Games by accident." She says self-righteously while rebraiding and pinning Lani's hair. She makes four braids and then wraps two around each other on each side of her head. It reminds Neil of the pretzel bread his mother used to buy him after the final exams each year. Birthday's were never very important to his parents, but final exams always were. A chance to say how proud they were of their son. Neil's stomach turns, and it's not just from the food.
Later Lani corners him in the bathroom while he brushes his teeth. "Don't think I don't know what you're trying to do. I know Kit and Elma are pretending they don't know but it's obvious you've all talked about it."
"Wha?" Neil asks toothbrush sticking out of his mouth.
"You're going to sacrifice yourself. Even if we made it into the top 2, not that we will, but you'd kill yourself so I could win." Lani says, there's no question in it. In the mirror, there faces side by side Neil can see how simillar they look. She's not that young, 16 going on 17, but she looks like she's 14 years old. "Neil. Your dad is the foreman, you're important."
"You're important!" He shouts, "Don't let anyone tell you you're not important! No not let them convince you that you deserve this somehow. Do not." He gathers her up in his arms. Her head fits perfectly under his chin. "Just let me be selfish. Let me do this for you."
"Okay," Lani says, "Okay."
Neil hates his stylist. He doesn't even remember her name but he can't help but feel a deep sense of loathing as she roughly dresses him in the clothing he'll be wearing in the arena. Like he's a store window dummy, his arms bent at angles they should never be and he worries he may end up being injuried before he even gets into the arena. She pulls his coat on, it's white and warm so snow for sure, and zips it up sharply the teeth of the zipper nipping him on the neck. He wonders how many dead tributes this woman has dressed. Whether that's made her hardened or if she's always treated them like corpses.
She leads him to the tube and adjusts his gloves one final time before stepping back. Neil wishes Kit or Elma could be here, one last word of advice before he's sent to the slaughter. But he's being pushed up, up, up before he can consider what more they could have told him at this point.
It's bright. Blindingly dazzingly white. The circle of tributes and the Cornucopia are set in a valley with mountains on all sides, unimaginatively high. There are trees on the slopes, that'll be good. Lani's a climber, if she hadn't been reaped she would have been a scout for sure. Cutting off sections at the highest points and predicting which way trees will fall. He glances around the circle of tributes. He recognizes a few from training. The pretty girl from 10, the prettier boy from 5, the pack of Careers, and Lani of course.
She stares back at him, "Ready?" She mouthes. Neil nods and turns away to figure out which way they should run, Lani is faster, she'll come to him and then they should head-
Suddenly there's a loud bang and Neil almost starts off his plate before realizing that it wasn't the sound of the gong. It was the sound of something much deadlier. The girl beside Lani is gone. Just gone. A large dark wet smear is left on the plate and Lani's entire left side is coated with blood. She screams and the sound intermixes with the gong.
Neil pushes off his plate and into the snow, but it's less like the snow in 7, which is hard packed into trails and more like jumping into knee deep mud. He half runs half wades to where Lani is still suck, immobile on her plate. Blood drips off her jaw and onto her coat and there are chunks of flesh stuck in her hair. "Lani! Lani! Come on we have to move!" He janks on her arm and she topples off her plate and into the snow. The cold and the fall seem to jolt her out of shock and she's up and wading through snow faster than Neil can keep up with.
They plow through the snow going up and up and up for what feels like hours. Neil glances back at the Cornucopia once or twice. The ground is spotted with bright stains of blood, behind them Lani's own trail fades from red to pink. She grabs a handful of snow and rubs it over her hair, throwing the stained ball to the ground. "Don't want to attract predators." She says and then grabs another handful and holds it out to him. Neil pauses, years of his mother telling him not to eat snow drilled into his mind. "Neil? Water is water. Eat it." So he does, biting into it and relishing the feeling of icy liquid on the back of his dry throat. Lani smiles at him approvingly shoving a handful into her own mouth and Neil has the uncomfortable sensation that he may not be looking out for her as much as she is looking out for him.
Though later when reminscing about this moment he would only concentrate on the fact that his mother had been right.
They keep climbing, up the mountain for a long time and then up into a tree. Neil first because Lani has to instruct him, he's strong but the muscle memory is missing and once or twice he almost looses his footing 60 feet in the air. They settle into a branch that's as thick as Neil is tall, the trees in the arena are unnaturally huge and he doesn't quite feel safe in it but it's the best they've got. Lani presses herself tight against Neil's side, half for warmth and half for comfort as the anthem plays followed by the day's dead tributes. 11. Almost half of them dead in 24 hours. Neil shudders slightly his stomach rolling when he remembers soon he'll be one of them.
Lani snuggles closer into his side and Neil has a sudden rush of rememberance, a long forgotten token of his rewritten childhood. He kisses the top of her head and rests his chin against it knowing that it's worth it if he can keep Lani alive even for a few more days, a few more hours, because when you love someone even a little time is better than none. Neil attempts to sleep but even with Lani pressed up against him he's freezing and can't manage to drift off, too much adrenaline coursing through his blood stream. So he sits and waits.
Until he's not. Suddenly it's day and he's running down the mountain, the dark whip of Lani's hair bounding ahead of him. "Neil! Come on, we're going to miss it!" She shouts darting around trees kicking up wet snow with every step. Neil turns dazzed, frantic and unsure of how he got here but Lani's out of sight and he forces himself to chase after her despite the nausea and fog lingering in his mind.
Lani is crouched in front of dead boy, Neil can't remember what District he was from. Maybe 12. "Quick, quick." She says grabbing the pack that's half dangling from his one arm an arm jutting out from his back. Neil catches a glint of silver, looking up he catches a glance of the parachute, the most beautiful axe he's ever seen attached to it floating down softly to land beside the dead boy. He holds it up reverently, back home it would be commonplace but in the arena it's a godsend, the handle smooth and polished the blade new and paperthin at the edge. Deadly. Neil swings it experimentally a few times. Perfect. "Come on," Lani holds out her hand, "Let's get out of here." She shoulders the backpack and they leave the body for the Hovercraft. It scares him how little he feels about the reality of his current situation.
They climb back up into a tree but it isn't the same one from before. Neil waits until Lani's settled in digging through the backpack and pulling out supplies, some rope, a flare, two cans of some sort of meat subsitute. She pulls a handful of snow off the side of the tree and sucks on it thoughtfully while surveing their new found supplies. "You've forgotten haven't you?" She asks without looking up.
"Yeah."
"It's getting worse." She says sounding much older than 17 even if she still doesn't look her age. "It started on the first night, I couldn't remember how we had gotten into the tree, then the next day-"
"The next day!" Neil says much louder than he really should. "How many days has it been?"
She shrugs, "Maybe 3? There are 8 of us left...maybe 7. There's a big pack of Careers 5 I think, then there's one or two other tributes left. And then us of course." She pauses, finally she looks up at him. "You told me all this you know, before you forgot again and you'll need to tell me when I forget."
"Okay. Okay I promise." He grabs one of the cans of pseudo-meat and pops the top. They eat in mostly silence the sounds of the Hovercraft filling in the place where their thoughts used to be.
The next few days are garbled and confusing. They both forget more and more, sometimes only a few minutes, sometimes for hours. One particularily horrible instance Neil had been walking through the forest looking for any edible plants when suddenly the feeling of distortion filled his mind and he was running. The pain in his chest and the pumping in his legs tell him he's been running for a while but when he looks over his shoulder he sees nothing. He slows to a jog but doesn't ease up his grip on the axe, when he pulls it to shoulder height, waiting for any attacks he realizes it has blood on the blade. Suddenly a bear comes crashing through the underbrush, it's only a cub but the dangerous look in it's eye tell him all he needs to know. It's a mutt. So he runs and runs and runs half wanting to climb a tree and half afraid to climb one and loose Lani. For one terrifying moment Neil considers it's possible she's already dead.
Ironically when he was a child Neil told himself to pretend he was running from a bear and if he slowed down he'd get caught. Now that it's actually happening though Neil finds bursts of speed he never in a million years would have known he could possess. He could kill it, if he was standing still he could kill it, but now. Suddenly there's a dark flash in his peripheral vision and he dives to avoid it. It's the girl from 2, her dark red hair dancing as she attacks the mutt cub with so much glee, so much complete and utter joy that it terrifies him. Suddenly Lani's at his shoulder, her one pretzel braid gone completely and her neck tender looking. "What the hell is going on?"
"There was a fire. We're with the tributes from 2 now."
"What? How long?" Neil asks half watching as the girl from to tears apart the mutt, it's like someone from 7 who's lost a limb to a logging accident. You want to look anywhere but their stump and find you can't. Lani clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
"I remember just before the fire. That was about 2 days ago, I forgot again and we were teamed up with Jotham and Leonie you had to fill me in. They don't have it. They aren't forgetting."
"Which means it's probably environmental, they wouldn't have just injected it into some of us. I mean they could have...but I don't think so. They gave that drug to everyone last year." Last year had been particularily horrible with the tributes going insane from sleep depraivation. They had announced that the isomnia had been induced by a drug introduced to the tributes along with their tracking chips.
Neil glances back at Leonie. "Sad isn't it?" Lani asks the dark ends of her burnt hair blowing in the wind. Neil raises an eybrow. "What? No one is born like that. They're not just trained with weapons, they're trained in other ways too."
Leonie bounds up to them, the bottom half of her coat stained with blood like she's taken a bath in it. "Ready to go Bambi?" She asks letting them follow her the spear dangling almost delicately from her fingers.
'Bambi?' Neil mouthes.
"Something to do with deer. Don't ask." They walk, down, down, down, towards the Cornucopia. Neil hates it feel too exposed but Leonie is unrelenting in her pace and the bloodstains remind him maybe she isn't to be messed with. "There's only us and Lux from 1 left. The tributes from 4 died in the fire, and I don't know what happened to the other guy. Jotham probably."
At the foot of the Cornucopia Neil can see Jotham, standing sentry weaponless yet incredibly deadly. You wouldn't guess from looking at him, he's lanky like Neil but not tall with bright yellow hair that stands up at odd angles like he's constantly pulling a hat off. Kit had laughed when the recap showed him volunteering in 2, land of giant killing machines. Neil and Lani hadn't been laughing though when during training he had paralysed one of the fight trainers.
"I lied" Lani says lowering her voice, "Some of them are born that way. Jotham's a freaking sociopath." Which is clearly evidenced by the bloody dead thing laying at his feet. It's a deer.
"Dinnertime Bambi." He says brandishing a bloody leg at Neil and grinning like an overgrown schoolboy. Neil stops himself from cringing and takes the leg. "Bambi and Bambi, how cute."
Leonie eventually lights a fire and roasts chunks of the deer speared onto sticks. Neil watches as Lani tears through chunks of meat, "What?" She asks mouth full.
"Remember how Elma made us eat all that food before we came in?" They both laugh, those were the good old days, eating chicken and fish and pasta until their jaws ached. It suddenly seems less funny though when he examines her face, the way her cheek bones jut out unnaturally and the skin stretches over them. They've been here for almost two weeks but it feels much shorter due to the memory loss. It also feels much longer when Neil tries to remember the training centre, the reaping, his life before. It all seems laughable, that he tried to hard to please his father, it was always coming down to this. Him and Lani and a dead deer and two people who could kill them without so much as a second thought.
"I'm going on sentry duty, who's coming?" Leonie asks brushing her hands off on her pants. She's not that tall, and if Neil didn't know who she was he'd say she was pleasant looking. Someone you wouldn't mind getting to know better.
"I'll go." He says reaching up to pull his hood over his head only to discover it's no longer attached to the back of his jacket. Something must have happened in the last period of forgetting. Neil pretends it doesn't bother him, feeling like his life is being lived by two different people. Pretends that feeling isn't familliar.
There's a rustle, the kind that could have been a person or maybe just the wind in the branches of the impossibly tall trees. Leonie squints, "I'm going to check it out. Stay here." He watches the retreat of her dark red hair, like a flag, like a riding hood into the tangle of branches. Neil swings his axe absent-mindedly, the weight of it oddly comforting, something from home to keep him safe. The sleeve on his jacket begins to ride up slightly, going to tug on it he suddenly stops. On his arm written in what can only be dried blood he's written '1 and 2 still allies'. He stares at it for a moment and doesn't know whether to laugh or cry because he's gotten himself into it and he can't even remember what it is.
Suddenly from the underbrush he hears the unmistakable swhing! of a blade slicing through air and the following thunk as it hits something solid. That sounds was his lullaby, only when he was young the thunk came from the unyielding trunk of a tree, now it comes from the body of a tribute. The canon follows like thunder following lightning as Leonie crashes back through the trees. "That twat from 5." She says answering the question Neil knows must be written on his face. There's only the trirbutes from 1, 2, him and Lani left now. Final 6.
He didn't even notice this time. The fog that normally fell and then lifted with the forgetting confused for weariness. Neil's suddenly blinking in the sunlight alone in a clearing. He checks his arm. No message. He doesn't have a pack, no food, no supplies just his axe. The Gamemakers have probably split them up an avalanche or another fire. "Lani!" He calls as loudly as he dares. No reply. Of course. Sighing Neil turns and starts to head up hill, he hates being down by the Cornucopia where the land was so low and the snow so deep. Up higher he can see more and the snow is more densely packed and easier to walk on.
Suddenly so loudly and bloodcurdlingly that birds fly up in flocks from trees he hears it. "Neil! Neil! NEIL!" His feet go on autopilot running towards the sound, up, and up, and up, and up. He bursts through the trees following it, dodging branches and stumbling over roots until Lani's voice is right there.
Only she's not. He turns in a circle. No frightened, wounded, or dead Lani. Until it comes again "Neil!" but it's not beside him. It's coming from above. Neil glances up. A jabberjay, proud as can be sitting on a tree limb screaming with Lani's voice. A distraction. A ploy. Neil's running again before his mind catches up with his legs, because the Gamemakers never do anything by accident. They were leading him away from Lani. So he runs, down, down, down, half running half falling down the slope of the mountain. He reaches the Cornucopia only to hear the canon boom.
When Neil wasn't Neil, or rather before he was Neil he had lived in a house in the middle of the woods. The woods were dark and deep and scary. Not-Neil had a sister too who was brave and kind and true. They used to tell stories in the house in the woods. Stories to keep out the dark. Stories of girls who were brave and kind and true with boys who were strong and noble and good. The girl in red and the huntsman. Together they could defeat the Big Bad Wolf. Together they could do anything.
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
When Neil finally comes to, fighting through the fog all he can see is red. Red on the ground, red on his hands, red leaking out from the bodies of Leonie, Jotham, and the unnamed tributes from 1.
His screaming mixes with the trumpets.
The drug induced haze is too much like the feeling of forgetting in the arena. After the first hysterical screaming fit in which Neil almost bit off his tongue they leave him. He doesn't have any major damage other than one long dark scar that slices across his face. Mostly they seem concerned with pumping him full of nutritional suppliments and erasing the damage the arena has done. On the outside at least.
Kit comes first. "Hey kiddo. Nice job out there." His eyes tell a different story though, because he's always known hasn't he? Known who Lani was. Secrets don't discriminate. Rich, poor, labouror, manager, scout, it all gets around in 7. Elma is marginally more cheerful chattering about all the lovely parties he's been invited to already all the lovely sponsors who sent him his axe.
"Aren't you excited?" He tries to shrug before he remembers he's been tied down. A Victor yet still trapped. He doesn't even imagine it could get worse. It does of course, it always does.
Charlie comes three days in. He's been crying, his eyes bloodshot and sore looking. Neil remembers the boy they took the pack from. For the first time he feels guilt and it's for someone he didn't even kill. Charlie doesn't ask any stupid questions though, doesn't tell him it'll get better, doesn't tell him he's lucky to be alive. He just tells him the truth. "Before I went in. Steven...Steven told me that I needed to have something to come back for. I had him. You need to find what you've stayed alive for, the thing you didn't even know you were surviving for. You'll know it when you see it. Trust me."
When he leaves Neil cries for the first time. Long weeping shuttering sobs. His only comfort that he's saved Lani from this fate.
By the end of the week he's both desperate and dreading to see his Games during the interview. He wants to, needs to know what happened. How everything unfolded start to finish. How if he can see Lani in the ways he's forgotten it's more time he'll have had with her. That she won't be dead, not really until he sees it, truly sees it. That he won't have killed anyone until he sees it.
That's when it begins really. With Caesar Flickerman ending the recap with a dramatic shot of him from above, the bodies around him creating a flower, a sun, a star with him at the centre. He's a star. Neil Perry from District 7.
Then the parties come. For almost 3 months they keep him in the Capitol and very quickly Neil becomes an actor. He learns not to let it show on his face when the beautiful shiny people of the Capitol disgust him either with their grotesce body modifications or their love of the Games. He learns to dance and how to flatter a lady. He learns how to fake a smile and how to hold it long after his jaw hurts. He practically weeps with relief when Elma says the Capitol is satisfied for now. He can go home.
The moment he's off the train he heads deep into the woods. Going home and not going home all at the same time. His mother but not his mother opens the door in one jumbled tangled of paradoxes. "Can I come in?" Neil asks voice softer and rougher than it had been in the Capitol, "Please?" She hesitates, the door half open, half closed.
"Yes. Alright." She says finally relenting, the door opening. Now that it's real, that the moment he envisioned for months is happening he panics.
"I should," He starts, "I should just go. Sorry I shouldn't have-I mean just wanted to-I need to." He turns, heart hammering so hard it hurts. She calls out to him, his other name, his real name but he just keeps running. Because he's not that boy anymore and it's no longer than simple.
While he was in the Capitol his parents moved into the house in the Victor's Village. It's too big, too clean, too new, too much for three people who spend most of their time avoiding each other. His mother especially seems frightened of him. When the nightmares start no one comes in to soothe him he just screams and screams and screams. His father just gives him hollow glances on the rare occasions he is in the home. He knows Neil knows and that he wanted to die in the arena. Neil's betrayed him, his perfect son. They love him though, they love him so hard it hurt all of them, knocks the wind out of them and leaves them bleeding because they don't know what to do with all their shattered edges. He loves them but can't forgive them and they feel the same way. It's a relief really when Neil goes on his Victory Tour.
It starts in 12 and he spends most of his time at Charlie and Steven's house. Charlie comes gallavanting out the front door and envelopes him in a lopsided hug. "Well if it isn't the wonderboy from District 7!" Their house is the only one occupied and the whole Village gives off an air of death despite Charlie's obvious attempts to be welcoming. Inside it's filled with things, blueprints and models, diagrams and what Neil can only assume are half finished inventions. They flock the house like a strange pack of small animals. Charlie deftly navigates his way over them, "Steven! Neil's here!" He shouts up the stairs before sitting himself down feet proped up on the kitchen table.
"How you holding out?" He asks suddenly serious.
"Surviving."
"You remember what I told you, okay?" Charlie's the same age as him, maybe younger but at times like these he seems so old, Neil wonders belatedly if that's how people see him now. An old soul. They sit in silence until footsteps on the stairs breaks them out of their stupor.
"Hello Neil." Steven says always polite, "Sorry about the mess."
"We're designing a new mine shaft." Charlie says proudly.
Neil doesn't even know what a mine shaft is. "Oh." He says stupidly looking over a blueprint and pretending he can see any sort of design.
"Did you buy bread?" Steven asks. "It was on the list."
"What list?" Charlie pauses, when Steven gives him a withering look and holds up a slip of paper " Okay, I'm off to go buy bread. You two crazy kids don't have too much fun while I'm gone." He gives Steven a peck on the cheek and then he's gone.
"Neil, what do you know about District 3?" He asks sitting down in Charlie's chair. "Probably not a lot I'm guessing." Neil shrugs, he knows they're factories, electronics, technology things for the Capitol mostly. "In 3 there's an academy. It's sort of like the academies they have in 1, 2, and 4, or so I've heard only they're not for training for the Games, they're for gifted children. When I was 10 I started at an academy. They said I was a prodigy, wanted to put me in an advanced program. Only the thing is if you're in the advanced program the District becomes your legal guardian. My parents signed me off into the care of the District and I haven't seen them since. For a long time, a long time I resented them, hated them for what they did to me. But Neil, they were doing what they thought was right. Though they were giving me a better life. Maybe they did. If I wasn't in the academy I probably would have died in the arena. I wouldn't have this," He gestures around vaguely but the true meaning of this is clear in the tenderness of his voice. "Just, I know it's hard to forgive them. But maybe you should try and understand them first."
Steven's words echo in his mind for the rest of the Victory Tour, up through the districts he goes. Some are better, some are worse. For one horrible moment in 8 he swears he sees Lani in the crowd, he doesn't know whether he should be relieved or disapointed when a second glances proves it to be someone else. At least a hallucination would keep him company. Kit's normally witty banter seems smarmy and Elma overbearing after weeks together on the train. In District 4 he breaks off by himself.
District 4 is both exactly what he'd imagined and not at all what he'd thought. The white sand beaches, the beautiful people, the endless blue-green water seem like they come out of a Capitol television program. But the people, the almost melodic sounds of their voices and the overwhelming penetrating smell of salt surprise him. He wanders around keeping to back alleys in the small coastal town and avoiding large groups of people. His skin feels too tight and hot but he relishes the feeling. It's nothing like 7 and it's defintely nothing like the arena.
He ends up completely and utterly lost along the shoreline, pants rolled up shoes in hand. Neil wanders along the seashore until day begins to turn into night and he know that Elma and Kit will be out searching for him, he's supposed to be giving a speech to the good people of District 4. They won't mind not having to pretend that they care about him. He's doing a public service. Neil's pondering all this when he almost walks into a boy sitting crosslegged at the very end of the shore, just far enough away that the water doesn't reach him when it laps up onto the land.
"Sorry," Neil says "Don't let me bother you." The boy looks up and Neil's breath catches in his throat. It's Todd Anderson, the Victor from 3 years ago, an absolute beast in the arena with his crossbow. He stares up at him. "Sorry, I'll just-I'm going. Sorry I didn't mean to bother you." He turns to head the opposite direction suddenly feeling absolutely stupid for wandering alone in a district he doesn't know. Kit and Elma don't even know where he is. Frantically he steps out of the surf pulling his pant legs down and stuffing his feet into their shoes.
"It was the snow." The voices catches him like burrs on a coat. Slightly froggy sounding, or maybe that's just how people talk here, all the salt making it's way into their vocal cords. Neil turns and looks at Todd. He doesn't look like he remembers, all death and danger. His fringe falls into his eyes and he looks almost scared.
"I'm sorry?"
He reaches up and flicks the hair out of his eyes, "They put the compound, the one that made you forget, in the snow. Only the tributes who ate the snow had any memory loss." The voice is flat, like he's memorized it and is now repeating it, but his eyes say something completely different.
Neil feels all the air rush out of his body. "How did you know that?" He asks shakely, his tongue feeling too large for his mouth.
Todd looks back out at the sea. Like this isn't important. Like he hasn't just handed Neil the missing piece which explains everything, every single thing that happened during his Games. "I watched you a lot. Sorry about your sister by the way." he pauses, "You had the same eyes." He replies answering the question Neil never asked.
"Oh."
"I guess you'd better be going."
"I don't have to." Neil watches as the words leave his mouth, it can practically see them floating in the space between them and he has the urge to shove them all back into his mouth.
Todd looks up at him, his eyes blue-green-grey, like the sea, like the sky, and smiles slightly. "Okay."
Neil smiles, a full proper smile that'd time in the Capitol had almost made him forget. He sits down in the sand and watches the sea with a boy who he's only just met but he feels more complete than he has in years. They watch as dark clouds billow and group on the horizon, a storm yet to come, but here everything's calm.
It's the beginning of the end.
A.N. So...yeah, apparently this is a three-part mini-series now. I just feel like the whole story of what happens with Neil, Todd, and Ginny was too beautifully tragic to leave alone.
-C