With thanks to Glassgift for your review of the last chapter.
Y 184-09-01 T 18:14:05
Day 2
Training had taught her to only emerge as the light faded, and so she did. Tributes, reduced to their primal desires of food and water, became little more than animals- in the dark, even their shadows would scare them, and Glace would be left the sunset to roam the land as she chose. And, while she was loathe to leave behind her discovery of the mysterious computer banks and hatch at the very top of the arena, there was nothing she could do with them.
Well, not alone, her treacherous mind supplied. If you told someone, if you were to just, for once, share yourself with someone, you could reveal this. Maybe, just maybe... Do something with this.
She shook her head furiously. What would she do with that information, with that clearly forbidden place, if she was to share it? Make herself a rebel? Make herself a target? She had to stop thinking such matters. She was a Career. She was in control of herself, of her own mind, and of her own actions.
Still, her soul yearned to find someone, to talk to them about what she had found. But she tightened her mind, her face, her soul, because she knew what she was feeling was only a manifestation of the hole Rhys had left in her life, and she did not wish to indulge her mourning by projecting her feelings onto something entirely irrelevant.
The glistening Training Centre seemed in the orange sunset to be liquid rather than glass as she exited it cautiously. Victory Walk and the Cornucopia, cleaned of bodies but not of bloodstains, stood empty and enticing. But Glace did not trust the silence. Careers were trained to always post a lookout on the Cornucopia in case of people attempting to take goods from it- she wasn't sure what was left of the Careers after she had enticed Theon into killing Sheen, but she had no intention of taking chances. Besides, she had equipment enough- her throwing knives were ready in a webbing-adorned belt, with a few ration packs and water bottles in a slim backpack over her shoulders. It wasn't a lot, but if she was careful she could probably make them last a few days, maybe a week- long enough for the dust to settle in the arena and the alliances and killers to reveal themselves. By then, Glace would be ready to make her own moves.
If she could figure out what to do with her newfound knowledge of the arena, and her compulsion to share it, that is. She grimaced at her unwanted thoughts, then schooled her expression back into place before she could show too much. Cameras were everywhere, and while she cared little for sponsors, or for the vanity project of the Capitol that was the Games, she had been trained sufficiently to act like she did.
She tamped down her own insecurities about what she had found, and focused back on the task at hand. She was as silent as possible when she crossed behind the Training Center and back around- she might have been trained as a Career, but she was slight, and she didn't believe she stood much chance against any tributes that might get close enough to warrant hand-to-hand combat. Her skills lay in her knives and her aim, and did not trust any other fighting technique other than that which would cause her least pain.
The sun was lowering in the sky and her footsteps fell in time with her lengthening shadow, equally as silent as her double. Glace walked through a side street, then out into a square, blinking where she now stood with the reddening light almost directly in her eyes.
The square held four long slashes of orange-silver light, which as Glace looked at them became clearly water features, laid parallel to the building facing them. The long, thin basins of water, rushing from one end of the square to the other, lowered as the obsidian-paved ground lowered, swirling in four paths down glassy jet tracks, turning from straight paths into curving paths, until they reached a swirling black pool of water. Lit within the depths of the whirlpool was the outline of an eagle, holding arrows in both clawed hands. On each of the four water tracks swirling into the pool, a word was written in glowing letters, just as the ground began to lower and the water tracks coalesced.
The words, when read together, said 'Per adua ad astra'.
Glace did not know what it meant, but it sounded appropriately Capitolian- the seal of Panem in the depths of a swirling whirlpool seemed ironic to her, but she did not have anyone to comment that sentiment to, other than the bristling camera eyes of a thousand thousand Capitolians.
On the other end of the square, in front as Glace walked through a narrow paved walkway in the middle of the water features, was a fountain. But it was not merely a fountain, not truly- it was propaganda, and it was such that Glace had seen it before, on television, before her eyes as she drove from station to Capitol to helipad.
The water features fed into one long rectangular basin, perpendicular to the others lying parallel to the building opposite. This basin, black-paved and lined with strips of white lights, formed the base for the fountain. Built upon foundations of obsidian stone, the carved marble surface stood out against the dark backdrop. It was something Glace had seen before- it was officially known as 'Post Tenebras Lux', and unofficially known as 'The Starving Statue'. That being said, the second title was only repeated in hushed tones- the authorities had caught onto the name a long time ago, and execution was the response to the name, even in District 1.
Carved in marble, stark against the obsidian foundations, a young girl stood in a tattered dress, her cheekbones hollow, a gas mask hanging loosely in her thin fingers. She was, to put it starkly, starving. It was a sight rare in District 1, but not unseen- in the Capitol, the image seemed stylised, and that was probably due to the fact that a starving child was mythological to them- an impossibility in their comfortable lives.
She looked up with marble, sunken eyes, even in stone glistening with hope, at a man, wearing a suit, holding her small hand in his, holding out bread in the other hand. Glace had heard, from varied whispers, that the statue had once been of President Sanchez, but as long as she had known the statue had been the visage of President Snow, benevolent, parental in his stance to the starving child.
She knew, because enough videos had been sent from the Capitol about it and its origins for her to remember it precisely, that the statue's name meant 'darkness to light'. The statue was built first in the wake of the Dark Days; built as a reminder, to the Capitol and the Districts, of who had suffered most from the rebellion, and who had offered mercy despite it all. The child, starving and blighted by war. The adult, paternal and forgiving, offering benediction and bread.
Glace walked past the fountain, swirling with water turned black by obsidian tiles. Seventy-six years later, and the Starving Statue was the entertainment of the masses, the benediction for the war forgotten in the thirst for punishment. Many Capitolians had died- less than the District citizens, but better publicised, and the Capitol was glutted with light and food but they had not forgotten the horrors of their past, what might happen if their delicate status quo was broken by the Districts once more.
Fear was a better motivation than any reward, and the Capitol brought the punishment to the Districts in both forms.
Glace stared up at the kindly face of President Snow.
And she turned away, walking into the Presidential Mansion.
Can you hear that? That's the sound of my hand screaming from my mock exams. I have one left tomorrow, and then I'm free. Unfortunately the last one is the shortest time limit and the longest writing piece, so this is going to destroy me. So I'm not sure if I'll have one out tomorrow, but after that my mock nightmares will be over. This will probably be the last time I slow writing down, because if I stick to the writing schedule I should be done before my actual AS exams roll around.
Also- if I took as much interest in memorising real history as I do making up Panem history, I'd be doing a hell of a lot better in my history exams.
As ever, thank you for reading this far.
