The hope that bubbled up from Sapphire's Victory Tour stunt seemed to be evident only in other victors. Most people of Panem didn't know the truth of her blade brandishing, thinking she was just taking issue with small-fry horndogs, although many women tired of that applauded her on those grounds. The tour did hit some rough spots when she rode into some districts carrying a weapon much like the one she had killed their sons and daughters with. Whose idea was that? Probably Snow's. It seemed like his kind of heavy-handed assertion of authority.

I had out-survived the other people trapped in the arena with me. Most Careers aimed to out-fight them. Non-Careers not resigned to their imminent deaths also tended to have one of those strategies, but didn't overall favor one approach or another. Sapphire had the size and strength to use a big sword in a brute-force hack-and-slash manner; most young women would not. Since they were facing similarly heavily trained young men, those ladies generally defaulted to other tactics. Some wielded lighter and smaller blades with clever movements. The District Two female trend of throwing knives went back to at least Livia and Enobaria's success in the 55th and 62nd Games.

The Career districts had a sort of professional respect for the others' victors, and we didn't have as many grounds to complain, so Sapphire's stops in Four and Two went relatively smoothly. However, we sometimes banded together against the other districts rather than against the Capitol, which the Capitol must find awfully convenient. Often other people didn't realize things that seemed obvious to me.

When Sapphire came here and I subtly held one of the blue-tinted coins up for her to see, I became one of the few women she smiled at over the course of the Tour.

The victors' return home, the least conflicted part of the blasted ritual, often stood out. This year was no exception. It was particularly striking how welcomed she was amongst her fellow District One victors, and how much many of the District One kids admired them all. With both the victors and district commoners, this especially meant other ladies. Since the games were built around a gender divide secondarily to separation by district, it wasn't surprising to see a bit of that reaction.

After the 71st Victory Tour, life went on much as it had before including my Finn being taken away from the woman he loved. Finn told me some things, but thankfully spared me the worst of the details. Snow made Finnick put on a farce. The glib gossip media 'coverage' merely talked about how little Finn was putting on; they were more right than they knew. I could barely tolerate reading that, but I felt I had to remain aware of the official angle. Sometimes my obsessions could be rather dangerous.

Knowing the situation that produced those beefcake pictures of Finnick drowned any joy that could come from them. He was sent off to many women and a few men who at best lusted after him and at worst enjoyed torturing him, and the Capitol seemed to have plenty of people who combined the depths of both voids.

They wanted him, and I couldn't blame them for having functional eyesight, but for taking something, someone not freely given? That I wanted them on the bottom of the ocean for. Capitolites knew no limits on their pleasure, however much that came at the expense of pain in the Districts. That was how the whole country was run, just with this as one of the most visible apexes of it. What was supposedly the dalliances of the country's most eligible bachelors and bachelorettes was President Snow's forced prostitution racket, just another one Panem's dark secrets.

Sapphire put on a girlfriend act for Vulcan Steele, and Finnick undoubtedly put on a boyfriend act for some of those clients. Since those fuckers didn't know the bodies were not freely given, I wasn't sure how to feel about that.

Some took a sick twisted pleasure not only from forcing sex and particular acts thereof, but also extorting that from physical wonders rendered powerless by Capitol authority.

Gloss was one of the few other men in that trap, but there were several women besides Sapphire – the other District One victors Emerald and Cashmere, but also Stephanie from Five, and Winnow from Nine.

Cecelia Weaver and Rubeus London were relatively young, but both visibly and happily married back in their home districts. Some like me were too plain or different to draw the Capitol's warped interest in our bodies. I didn't see Enobaria – maybe her attitude would have been off-putting, maybe it would have been even more appealing to pretend to tame the beast. The same could have gone for Livia before her, but I wouldn't know, that being before my time.

Victors knew each other especially well, but Finnick was especially familiar with that small group of our small group. Their shared situation was often particularly shared, them being shipped off to the same orgies. That wasn't publicized, it being too close to the truth of the fellow victor Finnick really wanted to be with.

My first year mentoring was shaping up well – Titania seemed like she had the skill and attitude to take herself to the top, and plain enough to avoid paying one of the worst costs of victory. Johanna Mason, the female from Seven, stood out in a bad way. The arena had been dry scrubland instead of us in our wet element, so I had gotten a bit worried.

After Titania let loose on Johanna with a burst of taunting, my tribute took a thrown axe in the back. Johanna's skill revealed, she began to reveal it further. After that killing, she took on all three of the male Careers at once, and killed them all.

Everyone including Titania and myself had underestimated Johanna. In retrospect, her weak act in training and early in the arena had almost been laid on too thick, but I wouldn't have been the one to notice such things, and Titania wouldn't have been the one to heed such notices. Arrogance was often a Career tribute's downfall. Losing her from a distance would hurt, but not as much as losing Jacobus Ostia in front of my eyes and nearly losing myself.

Johanna's body would have been awfully appealing to Capitolites, but I never picked up any gossip about her. The initial, obvious, clear reaction was to be happy she was not debased in that manner, but my mind knew that Snow must have extracted a terrible price from her. Livia had been popular a few years ago. While she was only in her mid-thirties now, the Capitol appetite for youth strictly defined was insatiable. Come to think of it, continuing to look through the archives, there had been as little about Haymitch Abernathy as Johanna Mason. Pictures from before he became a wreck showed that while he was no Finnick, he had hardly hurt the eyes. Would Jo also be driven to drink by a hollow victory?