Victor #55:
Name: Wiress Casio
District: 3
Age during Hunger Games: 15
Games: 055
Death: 113, Katrina
The first time Wiress has a nightmare, I'm barely asleep in our house at about 11:00 P.M. She has her room right next to mine and I run in as soon as I hear her screaming. I almost knock down the door in an effort to get to her, realizing that I'm scaring my daughter a little more, but I hold her in my arms before she pushes me away, lying with her girl in the dark of the night. "Mr. Casio, thanks for your help, but-"
"You'll stick with her for the night, won't you?" I complete.
"Yeah, that," she says quietly. "I'll take care of her."
I nod in understanding and let myself out, mindful of the even more fragile state of the most important girl in my world. Now wide awake I call up Beetee, Wiress' mentor for her hunger games. "Mr. Casio," he says, alert. "WHy might you be calling now?"
"You are her mentor, and I know that you're very concerned about her, no?"
"Y-Yes, yes I am. What is it?"
"Just a nightmare, Routa is taking care of her for the night. I've been checking out her hunger games, the files you sent me too, and I don't blame her for having nightmares. Lucky thing she got herself out of her locked room quickly, I'dve hated to see her starve...Beetee?" Faintly I hear snoring on the other end, and a whirring, and a muffled explosion. "I'll leave you to take care of that for now."
Placing the phone back on the rack I take to sitting on the luscious couch and watching the news dribble by in an aimless manner, falling asleep with the knowledge that Routa has my daughter in good hands.
When I wake up however, I find Wiress crying on the floor clutching a letter, Routa nowhere in sight. I rush over to her, hold her gently, slowly sing her her favorite song, one of Panem's few songs that was there before the dark days, and she calms herself down enough to join me in the song. "What can make me feel this way? My girl...My girl…My girl," she finishes, opening her bawling eyes gently, and falling into my hug. "Dad, I need to… Dad, Haymitch's mentor, it's Tody, and he's…"
"What is it Wiress?" I ask quietly.
"Tody Geredine died last night, suicide," Routa says bluntly, holding a tray of coffee and cocoa. I take my coffee without sugar when Routa gives it to me, but slight creamer always gets me up. "All victors are invited to the funeral, as per usual. I don't want to let Wiress go so soon."
"The letter was invited for her, so she should make the decision," I add in a quieter tone. I turn to my daughter and hold her hand as she shivers. "Do you want to go?"
She nods her head before she looks at the letter one more time. "Dad, the funeral isn't until a week from today, and I just want to...you know…" her unfortunate habit of trailing off has been worse since her hunger games, but i know that she wants to go by herself. "So, you and Routa can just… what do you say?"
I turn to look at an adamant Routa who I'm sure is about to deny, so I make sure to speak up before she does. "So long as Beetee is within your sight, I guess you can go. Routa, Beetee knows more about this than the two of us, so that's why I'm fine with her going." Complacent, Routa moves to the stairs, sipping her cup of tea after patting Wiress gently on her head.
"Dad, take me to..I'll just go on...I hope…"
"I can go with you Wiress," Routa gently offers. As her girlfriend I find that Routa is a bit doting, a job that honestly should be for the parents, but Wiress' spark for her matches my first love, and I really don't have much hostility for a girl that can make Wiress happy.
I turn to Wiress and shake my head. "I need to check in on the garden and help Beetee round up your inventions… every day there are more of them, are you sure they can't breed?"
Wires manages to laugh for a while before she nods in understanding. "Can I take...one of them...I should do this on my own but…"
"Take a peacekeeper, and even then stay to the main roads, they understand," i tell Wiress before she leaves. With a quick group hug, she walks out in a significantly brighter mood than before. Running a hand through my thinning hair I turn to the television, turning it on to show coverage on District 12's first victor. The cause of death-suicide by asphyxiation, hung in the rafters. The reporters make a callous joke about him suffocating just like his nephew, who perished in Hunger Games...fifty five...who fell to poisoned gases…
"I don't think District 12 would be happy to see Wiress," Routa says, turning off the television. "Panem knows what they'll do to her."
Wiress has always had her eye on chemistry, how the chemicals transfer electricity yes, but also how chemistry heals. She would have been a nurse had it not been for the Hunger Games. She specialized in gas. Wiress had three victims for her Hunger Games, one of the few victors to win by not killing at least one career, yet two of her victims were legacy tributes, Tody's nephew and one of the Loomis kids. The District 5 girl is a bit out of place when it comes to that.
"I'm going to check on my family, tell Wiress when she manages to come back," she tells me. I nod absentmindedly before pulling up one of the capitol magazines that is delivered to our houses once every month. Of course, the newest victor, Wiress Casio, takes up several pages, with information about her family. Routa and I are her only family besides the victors apparently, nothing is said about the mother who left her husband at the realization that she was a beard…
Eventually I get up and take a walk out in the village. There have only been three houses occupied in District 3 ever since the inception of the hunger games-we are one of the weaker districts in general. Old Burell is held up in his house but I can still see some kids wandering about his yard. It takes me back…
I find Beetee Latiers of Hunger Games 36 wrangling some of his microbots in his yard. I have only him to thank for bringing Wiress out of the Hunger Games. Seeing that he has most of his bots under control, I return to Wiress' house, greeted by one of Wiress' bots. I pat it where the head should be and fall into my usual arm chair, looking at one of the magazines reprinted in commemoration of Wiress' victory.
24 Fabulous tributes were voted in for hunger Games 25 in memoriam for the first generation since the rebellion. Maxwell Decostre, Samara Florair, Draco Runrick, Everenne Peak, Elias Figaro- Immediately I shut the magazine, looking to the mantle in desperation. I have no idea on what I could have done if Wiress died just like Elias almost a quarter century ago. Voted in just because of his idiotic father, killed by the eventual victor, just as gay as I am…
"Wait…" I hear Routa trill when she returns. "Shar… like Elias' boyfriend for the first quell?"
"Yep, that's my name," I say tiredly. "Shar Casio. How haven't you made the connection?"
"Wiress said her mother left her when she learned you had a boyfriend. Even if it was so long ago in the past. That's why you are so devoted for Wiress?"
"One hundred percent. I see a lot of myself in you, but I see a lot of Elias in her. Seeing her in the games was like seeing him in there once more, if she died, I'd have been alone, again," I chokingly reply. "Even then, I got Wiress back, but even then, she's less of who she was before the Hunger Games. I know we don't get along, but thank you for being with Wiress."
She takes a seat next to me, turning on the television, barely paying attention to what's on the screen with a blank stare. "You're a great father, you know? Her Hunger Games wasn't anything I've ever seen before, and you must have seen a bit in your times."
"She always had a hand in codebreaking, and it's lucky that she made it out of her cell before the rest. I ahven't seen a factory arena like her arena before. They've never been that expansive, for her four weeks I thought she was a goner," I reply.
"One of teh careers actually starved, didn't they? I suppose that they didn't account for that after breaking out. The tributes haven't had to escape a room before the the bloodbath in years prior, have they?" I nod my head no and she continues watching as several more tributes slip out of their temporary prisons. "Five deaths in the bloodbath, and five more deaths due to starvation and dehydration. A maze of vents and passages, no mutts, just a lot of chemicals… Lucky for Wiress I guess," Routa observes.
I don't reply for a while, just stare at the television for quite a while. It's showing the collapse of the careers, the District 2 boy being the sole survivor after his District partner fell at 15th to starvation. The odd thing is, no career made it to the top 6, the lowest placing for any career District yet. The screen cuts to Wiress' first kill, the 10th place survivor, the girl from District 5, suffocating on some poison gases. Then it's the victor's son, who managed 2 kills of his own before dying the same way as the 5 girl. Tody's nephew falls at sixth place, mercifully killed by the collapse of a smokestack before the poisoned gases were released, and all Wiress does for the last 5 days is camp, with the runner up, District 7's boy, clumsily falling off of a factory staircase.
"So much for a lucky games," I mutter to myself. I stand up, hearing the door click and Routa turns off the television before Wiress comes in, trailed by one of the gentleman peacekeepers. He salutes the household before moving off again.
"Dad, I got… it's just a little toy but I think…" Wiress begins to say. She runs upstairs, grabbing wrapping paper from the closet, and slamming the door behind her.
"Oh, Shar," Routa exclaims. "It's almost 11:00, shouldn't you be talking with Beetee?"
"Yep," I reply curtly. "Take care of her if she needs it." With a quick glance behind me I walk out the house and into the neighboring lot. I knock three times on the door, holding a magazine. The bespectacled maninvites me in, trailed by one of his robots that always seems to make a lot of noise. "I trust that you've gotten a letter regarding Tody's death?"
"Yeah," the middle aged victor replies. "Tody was a good guy. Come in, I suppose you want to talk about where your daughter is going?"
I step inside to his dark room, holding my breath before he locks his door tightly, and finally release it once he steps next to me. "First things first, I gave her permission to go with you to the funeral, and you alone. Second, I'm pretty sure she's a rebel just like you."
"Your observations are astonishingly astute," Beetee replies quickly. "But I trust you want in?"
"The Capitol took my boyfriend and my daughter. I only got one of them back, and not as safe as I wanted her to be. I don't care if it takes a century, but there has to be an end to this wretched scheme," I boldly declare.
There's a moment of silence while I gaze down on the second victor of District 3. Being tall in the relatively short District 3 always makes eye contact kind of weird, and Wiress takes after her mother more than me. Still, Beetee nods his head and holds out a hand. As soon as I take it, he says, "Welcome aboard, Mr. Shar Casio. It's about time we had a parent join us."
Hey Guys, Hopps here
I know this chapter might not make the most sense, District 3 is always one of the harder Districts to write about and Wiress is my second favorite canon character, so I hope I did her justice. Anyways, if you've read my now deleted Quarter Quell fanfiction, you may notice the return of one character...Shar Casio...boyfriend to Elias Figaro. Yeah He's kind of old in this time, and I'll revisit Elias when the time comes. Tell me thoughts on this particular chapter if you would, and the next chapter is yet another canon victor...so look forward to her
Hopping out
Hopps
