Hlenn Rambutan- Victor
My initiation was during the Victory Tour. It was morbid, but so was I. I felt like the others deserved it, too. It was hard to find privacy, since I was famous and all, so that's how a bunch of Victors dressed in inconspicuous black clothes ended up skulking in twelve cemeteries in the dead of the night.
Each cemetery had a section for Tributes. Some were just an unofficial area unmarked by any special decorations. Others had statues and signs and things like that. One's cemetery had a fenced-off section, but not every Tribute was in it. There were several missing, including Bronze, and I asked Blake about it.
"Either they weren't Careers, or they didn't do well enough. A warrior's burial is an honor," she said. Rose was there, of course. Her gravestone was tall and elaborate, and it was covered with jewelled roses.
That's kind of sad, I thought. Sure, her parents left roses, but they left fake ones. The jewels wouldn't wilt, meaning they wouldn't be visiting her grave often. They cared about appearances, not their daughter. Bronze's stone wasn't in the special section, but it was covered with real flowers and tokens in various stages of decay, meaning he had visitors every day.
Two's Tribute section was stark and ascetic. Each Tribute was marked with a marble bust with their name. Kio and Valerian were both there, though some others were missing, just like One.
"Even though he didn't ally with the Careers?" I asked Pray.
"He still killed," she shrugged.
I'd left a flower on Rose's grave, and I did the same for Kio. For Valerian, I popped off the rose head and left her the thorns. I thought she'd like that better.
Three was mostly urban, so their cemetery was small. Gidget explained that cremation was the norm, since it used less space. All the Tributes were present in their section. I hadn't known Coil or Martyna, so I hardly felt anything looking at the undecorated shelves bearing their names among the others. It was strange how it felt more intimate. The coffins were six feet underground, but staring at an urn, I was inches from a child's remains.
Four's cemetery was by the sea, naturally. I could hear the waves as I looked over the tiny plot of land. Four wasn't as rabid as One and Two, so I was surprised at all the missing names.
"A lot of us choose burial at sea," Careen explained. She pointed out at the ocean. "Antonia is out there, where she belongs." I cast her flower out into the surf, trusting it to find her.
Like Three, Five had a small urban cemetery. Many of the remains were in urns, and the plots were depressingly close together.
"It's not all kids," Sky said. "We just often bury people standing up to leave room."
I hadn't known Mark or Dina either, so I left them their flowers and we left pretty quickly.
Six's cemetery was dirty and soot-covered. The graves were small and flat, and the smoke in the air made me cough. I left Kaulan's grave quickly, leaving him with a poem I'd printed out, but I lingered at Adira's. As filthy as the cemetery was, my ally deserved my time.
She loved them, and look what they did. They couldn't even give her a pretty place to rest, I thought. She was so much prettier than this place, inside and out. But she was prettier than the Capitol, too. Better an ugly grave here than a palace there.
Seven's cemetery had no fences, and most of the graves were unmarked. There were trees and flowers everywhere, even right over the graves.
"Stone graves just take up space and disturb the earth. Better to plant a tree and nourish it with your own body," Hades said. Brad's grave already had flowers planted, and there was a sapling over Cloelia's. I would have planted something, but I didn't have her family's permission, so I just laid down a cut flower, even though it seemed wrong to add a dead plant to this green space.
It was almost funny that the Eight cemetery had mostly cloth flowers instead of real ones. Tillo had warned me, so I had silk flowers for Max and Isabelline. I hated that I knew so little about them. They were important, even if they weren't part of my story. I could only ask their mentors, mentors who would always carry them in their thoughts.
Ten's cemetery was the largest. They had very few Victors, and they were the most spacious and least-populated District. Many of the graves were homemade, with a lot of wooden markers in various stages of decay. Some were barely legible, which saddened me. These were children whose families didn't even remember them. Falcon's grave was bare until I put down a flower. Historia's was so full it almost made me happy. At least she had a happy life.
My last ally was the last grave I visited. Theo was smart, and funny, and loyal, and so many other things the Capitol wasted. All that remained was a cold stone marker with her name etched under her sister's.
They have the same grave, I thought. Isn't that convenient? When their parents want to mourn, they can visit both children at once. It was the kind of joke Theo would have made. It made my stomach hurt.
"That's how it is, isn't it?" Peppermint asked. It was the first time I'd ever heard her talk. "There's no getting away from it."
"Seems like it's always been near me," I said.
"We're all going to die," Gidget said. "But don't let it stop you from living."
Fifty-six Victors, all across the spectrum. Some hopeful, others resigned. Each had something to say about death. Each of us our year's representative of life.
I was too lazy to go through all my canon snarls for the exact number of Victors, so I picked a number that was pretty close. About one more epilogue chapter, and then we're done!
