My bad, I know. I took quite a break from writing but i've been having a crazy last two months.
I'm still very motivated to write for this story... just slower than before. I have no intentions to not finish.
I thought I was going to make it farther in this chapter but I liked a couple of spots that I almost closed on before getting to the ending point that I just couldn't pass up.
Very small spoiler for this chapter- If you look closely in the movie and stop it on the crowd you can see Haymitch smelling a flower right after Katniss catches a rose.
Also, enter Peeta.
I do not own The Hunger Games. Let me know if you see any errors.
Half of her planned tributes ended up being reaped, one from each of the districts.
Heavensbee was being harder on her than she imagined. Bonded pairs would come as a set, a set that she'd designed, replacing one would leave her with an undisclosed dynamic. Just enough of an alteration to leave her at a disadvantage. She'd be up against tributes she'd hand selected fighting alongside tributes she knows nothing about.
The districts had no indications to her involvement in the selection process for tributes, or that one even existed. No one outside the game planners and the royal family did. He'd done this specifically to spite her. Had Heavensbee left all her planned tributes, she would have solid footing in the games regarding connections and bonds. Had he reselected all the tributes himself or made the reaping truly random again she'd be on level ground with them. Leaving just half ruins her advantage of knowledge and sets her back with the notion that she will still have to fight others she put there. This was an attack outside the arena. This was personal.
She trains alone until Brutus and Enobaria return.
She watches as the trains come in.
Cinna comes for her. He's been made the official capitol designer for the year, leaving a horribly unqualified girl in charge of district twelve. Together they discuss ways they will expand her brand.
Together they scrub the filth and grime from her skin, remove the hair from her body, trim the dead from her hair. In another room, in another building, in the same city Peeta is enhanced along with her.
He brings them chicken with chunks of oranges, cooked in a creamy sauce and laid on a bed of fluffy grain to eat, "They will find you despicable." finish with honey pudding.
They spend the night planning strategies. The game is just as much showmanship as it is abilities, it doesn't matter how well you hold a sword when the arena runs dry and you didn't catch the eye of the citizen willing to send you water. Getting money from the citizens was never going to have been a problem for her, but she'll put on a show anyway. A show for her fellow tributes. A show for the districts. Right now she's playing the games just as much as everyone else.
The opening ceremony is upon them before she knows it. Everything feels like it's moving too fast. She should still be training, still be planning yet she's looking through a glass a million miles away where everything is upon her before she can blink but the moment she tries to move it's through a thick fog.
Her chariot is smaller than the rest, still two draft horses are saddled to pull it along. Katniss tells the announcer to take her from the top of the list to the bottom, she always arrives last.
Her horses and chariot are black, a contrast to the the districts who all have matching white.
"Cinna, we need to make some changes."
"There is no time for making changes, the parade is going to be starting in less than an hour."
"We'll make time. How much can this horse handle?"
Katniss calls him Shaft. If he'd had a name prior no one corrects her. Smoke machines are added to his hooves and legs, the smoke will conceal them along the way. He's drenched in a thick liquid that's already been run through her hair. They're sure to make a show.
Marvel and Glimmer ride out first, white gowns blowing in the wind. They do a lap before being joined by district two. Cato and Clove, somewhere not far away Brutus and Enobaria will be watching their tributes on the screens, Gold armor adorned with winged helmets and swords crossed over their backs.
Katniss watches them as they make their lap, watches as district three joins them. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Marvel, Glimmer, Cato, Clove. She will fight alongside them, eat alongside them, sleep alongside them. One of them will accompany her back to humanity when the games finish. All volunteers, She knows nothing of any of them.
District twelve looks stupid. Lumpy paper turning them into spheres resembling chunks of coal. The silly girl who had volunteered for Prim, her original choice. The silly boy trying to comfort her by holding her hand. She almost feels bad for leaving them without Cinna. The crowd loves it.
District seven always looks stupid, dressed as trees.
The chariots all come to a halt. Two rows askew in-front of the presidential balcony, high class citizens and politicians sit nearby her grandfather.
Cinna helps her climb up her horses back.
Armor and chariots have been replaced with liquid and fire. She rides bareback, grasping at Shafts neck and mane. He take's it like a champ.
Her body has been covered in fine coal, a light grey covering her skin whole, creeping up the side of her face. Its darker on her collar bones, darker along the ridges of her spine, darker under her small breasts. Even with nothing Cinna has made something.
Her pigtails catch with the wind. Shaft runs harder, they enter the arena before the announcer can mouth her name. Full speed. They burst into flame, both bodies bare and burning, leaving nothing but smoke in their wake.
The audience throw blood roses for her, she catches one and weaves it into his mane. It's too much noise after all her time spent in silence.
She takes a lap, and then another. On the third she sees Haymitch in the crowd inhaling the scent from a rose.
Shaft takes her to the center of the tributes, rears up in front of her grandfather. Even from a distance she can tell he's pleased as he gazes down on her. She stands, tall and proud and bare on shafts back for the whole world to see. Flames eating her alive but leaving nothing to the imagination.
The screen splits between hers and her grandfathers face as he makes his standard speech, pausing when the crowd become unruly. She rides before he can finish, not waiting for the others to be dismissed.
A group of victors are gathered together, in wait for their respective tributes. She briefly wonders if the twins have allowed district one to interact with Slyth but she tosses out the impression with the turbulence it causes her to feel.
Cinna is all who waits for her. Flames extinguished, he promises Shaft will be taken care of and pardoned from any further parade activities in the years to come.
She doesn't hear Haymitch's uncomfortable mumbling about how truly still a child she is.
Days pass. She trains away from the rest of the tributes. Studies their techniques from a monitor. Takes note of who goes to what station, how well they do, and who is going to be a threat.
Marvel-spears, Glimmer-bow, Cato and Clove-everything.
Clove is impressive with her knifes, Katniss moves her to the top of her potential victors list. Her tribute from eleven, Rue, manages to impress her when she unarms Cato, leading him to start a fight with district three. She moves Cato and Glimmer to the bottom of her list. He's too quick tempered and her main weapon is a bow. Statistically in the past there has never been more than one bow and arrow at the cornucopia and she can't very well share it. Marvel moves up the list.
The girl from five is too smart, Katniss watches her play a memorization game where she matches every insect picture with its counterpart in under a minute. A hundred insects. Smart as a fox. A little like Dolly. Middle of the list.
Madge is another volunteer. Katniss takes notice of any volunteer outside one, two, and four. Volunteers have always proven to be note-worthy, she has a bracelet with human teeth reminding her of that. So far the only note-worthy thing about her is her status as the mayors daughter. District twelve has higher class citizens this year, a baker and a politicians spawn. For once Katniss can thank her luck, doesn't know if she could kill someone that looked so much like Gale. Bottom of the list.
There have been too many victors from four recently. Bottom of the list.
Eight. Textiles. both meek. Both unimpressive. It's no wonder that two out of three victors come from districts one, two, and four. Bottom of the list.
She's under no obligation to go through the typical tribute process so she adapts her own. Training less and socializing more. Every open moment of every day spent with Cinna. She hasn't spoken to her grandfather or cousin since the fight.
Today the tributes will receive their scores, through the screen they sit in their neat pleated rows. Katniss has time to spare until she'll need to start heading in that direction. Ramon has come to visit.
She welcomes his company, she's grown accustom to her family being evolved from misfits she's pulled together over the years.
"I've been meaning to come see you, what with the fight between you and Pestilent then the business of declaring yourself a tribute. You can see how it's been hard to hunt you down." Neither know when he'd picked up her hand with his weathered fingers. Neither mind.
"You've always been strong. Strong mind, strong body, strong heart. Worthy. I had to look away you know? Seeing you riding through the parade on the back of that stallion, not because I was worried for you, goodness I believe there may never be a day that passes where I don't worry about you my little spit-fire, but because you were completely bare! HA, what put it into your mind to ride out like that without an ounce of cloth? You nearly gave this old man a heart attack." She tries to dispute him, not because he's wrong but because her emotional state is a prepubescent being scolded by her father who just caught her in a heinous act.
They end up laughing most of the awkwardness away.
They talk for a while more. She helps him stand. He walks her to the tributes tower.
"Kitty-cat," He calls to her before she can walk through the training doors "I don't believe i'll be seeing much of you until your return. See to it that you take the best care of yourself that you can and i'll make sure i'm the first thing you see when you open your eyes upon your return. If you need anything, anything at all, while you're inside.. let me know. I'll tell your grandfather, and he WILL listen to me, I still have some pull over him you see. There is still so much you don't know, I promise to tell you it all one day." She tells him to stay, 'it'll only take a moment and then we'll walk back together' she says.
Revelation after revelation recently. Ramos has earned her undisturbed trust, she won't push for more than he gives.
The room is well lit upon entering, larger than her screens portray.
She has everyones undivided attention, not because they expect much but because she is royalty.
Bow. Arrow. Notch, twist, release.
Clean threw the eye of the roast.
"Send Heavensbee my regards."
Ramos is gone.
Marvel - 9. Glimmer - 9. Cato - 10. Clove - 10. All on the good side of evaluations.
District three, five, six, eight, nine, and ten are all unimpressive. She moves the boy from seven up the list. The boy from eleven gets moved above district four and right below the careers, even his district partner Rue isn't unimpressive. District twelve is at an all time low for scores. A two and a five. A volunteer receiving a training score of two.. Madge is one for the books alright.
"And finally, from the capitol, her royal highness Princess Katniss Snow. With a score of.." He sits taller, breathes in to steady himself. Katniss can see the invisible weight placed on him, she was close with Caesar. "Twelve." So much wonder and amazement lacing his voice, when he looks to the camera he looks to her. Alone. The first twelve in game history and not a single person to congratulate her, to tell her 'good job'.
She watches the other tributes, cheered on by their mentors.
Twelve eats cake.
Today is the last day before she'll be shipped off to the games. Interviews with Caesar, after which she will return to the castle for the night. This year is full of firsts. Her grandfather is hosting a party, victors, tributes, and high paying donors all in attendance. Inside she knows this will be his way of saying goodbye. Presents, parties, and meeting behind closed doors, that's what they've always been to each other.
She'll return to her chambers after she leaves. A luxury she hadn't anticipated allotting herself originally. The comfort of her bed, her room with a balcony view out to her own private woods.
She gets a package from Mr. Ridmen, inside is the gold mockingjay pin Cinna had gotten her along with a note declaring it her 'district, not so district, token'. Cinna takes it for safe keeping. She's tempted to do as he says, however that would leave her without an eye mask and that just wouldn't do.
The tributes have already been seated. She walks to the center stage, her interview is first. She always leaves first. Caesar compliments her attire, a grey long-sleeve bodysuit wish a grey tule skirt wrapped around her waist. Her legs are bare but by this point she's past shy. Tule eye mask.
They hold hands. Intertwine fingers.
"Princess every time you have set foot on this stage you've made history. A head game maker at age twelve. Announcing yourself, a capitol citizen, a royal princess, as a tribute. Today you made history once again as the first ever tribute to receive a training score of twelve. How do you made it all look so easy?"
"What can I say Caesar, Heavensbee should be the one being celebrated. He's the one who gave me my sore. Perhaps Heavensbee just understands who he's dealing with."
"I'm sure we will all learn who we're dealing with! Now Princess Katniss, I hear you haven't been training with the other tributes? Why would that be, do you have any intention of creating an alliance?" They'd already planned out what would be discussed tonight, a guideline of sorts. Just enough to make sure she hit a few key topics. Caesar was more than capable of painting her a rose tinted light.
"No need to worry Caesar, an alliance has already been established. I look forward to working with the careers this year! As for the training, what can I say? There is still so much left to prepare for my departure that hasn't been finalized. I'm just getting everything in place for the time i'll be gone, there is nothing to worry about."
"Even still, how can we help but worry? Right folks? After all you are my darling princess, our darling princess."
She finishes up her interview quickly. Goes to the far side of the stage away from the others where a large black throne awaits her.
She listens intently to each interview, paying every tribute avid attention. District one will focus on charming the audience as always, picking up every last straggler that may end up being a paycheck to their funds. District two strong and cocky, but not unwarranted.
Three is soft spoken, smart but not the kind of intelligence that will help them eat.
Fours tactic is a mix of one and two, strong and beautiful.
The rest are a shit show, as Johanna would say, with their half planned out identities and nerves causing them to word vomit all over the audience. The exception being the boy from eleven who is stupid in his own way, never uttering a single word, leaving Caesar to talk about all the great changes we're making for this 'once in a lifetime game'.
The girl from twelve talks about summer strawberries and she can't seem to give a real answer as to what made her decide to courageously volunteer in place of such a small girl. Before finishing, she mentions how she'd like to return to her district in order to reconnect with a handsome seam boy who happens to be the one bringing her strawberries.
Her district partner talks about baking sweet bread, doesn't blame his three brothers for not taking his place. He gets rather awkward when talk of woman come up.
"Come now! Strong, handsome, young man like you? Surely there is a lovely lady waiting back home. Spill. Spill! SPILL!"
"We'll there is one girl.." Caesar ushers him on with open eyes and flailing hands. So dramatic. "I saw her once, she had on a grey dress. Fancier than anything i'd ever seen. My dad told me she was a real lady. She's the only girl i've ever thought about, but she's not back home.. she's.. here.. I guess I've only ever saw her on the television of course, and now we're going to be in the arena together. Even her dress looks just like the one from back then."
She's all over the broadcasts. Her grey skirt and bodysuit. Her pigtails. Her freaked out face.
Someone has even managed to find a photo clip of her first ever public appearance. Five, with a grey tule dress and ribbons wrapping around her legs and pigtails. The night she'd danced with Finnick. This had never been publicized to the general public of the capitol so how come the districts seemed to know of it?
For goodness sake fix your face she tells herself. Even with the reminder she can't seem to get her mouth to close fully. Reality throws her pack to earth as a buzzer goes off, signaling the end to the interviews.
"Well Peeta, it seems you've followed in the steps of MANY men trying to catch the eye of our lovely princess." Lies, the only male who's ever shown an ounce of interest had been Gale. "BUT, as it stand folks... we are to be left with a cliff hanger."