If you see any errors in my story please let me know! I do not own The Hunger Games. This story is rated M and will most likely make some people uncomfortable throughout its duration, that is part of the intention.
Two weeks is a much faster turnover rate for a chapter than my previous seven month gap so here's to hoping I can keep up with this timeline.
I would like to say a quick thank you to SquiddlesScribbles on Fan-fiction for the sweet review. I agree that I am not one for stories with OC's however i'm so glad to hear that mine don't come off as awkwardly placed or bland. I felt like with the plot being in the capitol and only a limited number of individuals from the story residing in the capitol it was a must to insert some of my own. Thank you so much for the feedback!
I would also like to say a quick thank you to AmuroToru on Archive of Our Own for the continued reviews and feedback! Expect more Finnick and Katniss moments to come, i'm even dabbling with the idea of throwing one of the coming chapters in an existing victors view but we'll both have to wait and see.
I'm working on ways to really differentiate the games from the original story so bear with me. I've got a few ideas in the works.
Shameless self promo -
My instagram is carlisle_enlow
My cats, one of whom is actually named after Brutus, have their own instagram account breadandtoast
What a huge disadvantage. The tributes are rushing at her from all directions while she's struggling to figure out how to crawl down a giant geometrical fucking statue that happens to be made of gold.
She manages to slide down a panel to a lower layer, where she grabs a knife set, cutting her exposed arm on the shaft of a blade. A quick surveillance sweep informs her of the half a dozen heads that are about to be on her. Looks like the bloodbath is gonna have more participation than usual, although a few tributes are already lining the trees in escape.
She rounds around the cornucopia keeping an eye out for the lowest active side and a decent descending point. She doesn't want to sprain an ankle and get herself killed off so quickly. Any tribute that did manage to kill her would live out the longest most horrible life in the capital though.
There's a perfect grasping point wedged between gold layers that lets her curl her fingers underneath and gets her steadily on the ground just as the tributes are staring to reach her.
She first comes face to face with Glimmer. "The other side of the cornucopia has a bow with a shaft of arrows, hurry!" She has no idea if that's true but Glimmer goes away so it doesn't matter.
She drops one of her knifes while attempting to get another one out of its pouch. The boy from three informs her that he has allied with the careers and she recalls Cato's gung-ho conversation with the weak malnourished boy. Whatever he can do she wants no part of.
It's hard cutting his throat. The cuts are shallow and he's wiggling around screeching, it's much closer to a sawing motion than a swift kill and she knows he's still alive when Clove rounds the center statue and catches her in the act.
The moment they lock eyes she knows that Clove knows. She's out of the careers before she's in it.
Get out.
She ducks around a slower tribute that catches a knife to the face and trips right before another one can catch her in the face. She looses all of her own set in the fall and the only thing that stops the third knife from imbedding into her skull is a survival pack strategically placed between the tribute lifts that she grabs by the handle and swings to shield her.
She went from being surrounded by weapons, with a knife pack, and seven allies to defenselessly running through the tree line, carrying a leaking orange pack that had a small dagger stuck in the center, and having 24 enemies; or however many tributes were still alive after the next hour. She hopes that the boy from three is among the cannons that will soon sound out. Not because of any skill that the careers had hoped to leverage from him but because she doesn't like the thought that she'd left him alive with half of his throat cut out.
She'd killed people before. Citizens and tributes alike, however the citizens had been tied down and the tributes had been through a screen.
Seven cannons, one boy with black hair and grey eyes, and one maybe boy with a limp.
She runs longer and harder than any of her trainings with Brutus had permitted. When she can't run she continues to walk. In combat she knew that she had to stay in fight or flight mode, knew what was expected, but now she is more anxious than ever. Waiting. Wondering. Being on edge not knowing if she wants something to happen or not. It's new to her.
Her orange pack has some basic medical supplies, a sleeping bag, a strip of rope, a few strips of meat, and an empty bottle. Technically another empty bottle that the knife had embedded in and emptied. Great. Katniss had some basic understanding of medical knowledge from all the time spent getting treatment but that was the extent. She could start a fire, sure, but not without a kit. She didn't really know how to hunt. She'd be able to shoot an animal if the girl from one didn't have her bow. Then what? Cut it up and cook it till it was black? The careers trained in fighting not in survival. She was trained by career trainers and then by career victors. She was trained to be a career. And she blew that out the window. Careers had their own disadvantages.
The cannons start. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.
Just seven. Seventeen potential allies, seventeen guaranteed enemies, and a seven in twenty-four chance that the boy from three isn't bleeding from his voice-box anymore.
She'll have to wait for the faces to cover the sky tonight.
When she settles for the night it's high up in a tree. It's the first time she's climbed one but it feels natural for her hands and feet to grasp at. She takes the length of rope and fastens it around herself. She goes for equal parts sturdy and equal parts flexible. She wants to be able to maneuver out if met with another heartbeat but she doesn't want to fall fifteen feet either. It's all about balance, so she wraps twice, once around her upper chest and once around her hips. She packs the rest of her supplies in her pack and then puts in on backwards to cover her front. Her back is protected by the base, her legs rest on-top of the branch, her torso is covered by padded supplies, and her face protected from angled projectile launches. The only way someone could get her from this vantage point is if they started out above her or in a parallel tree.
The rope hangs long so she cuts away the tail of her apparatus and fastens it into a celtic knot around her neck. It only takes her half the evening to accomplish. A heart.
She wedges the knife and her hand between her and the sack. She won't let go of her only weapon.
When the sky grows dark a trumpet plays through the air. Everyone watches as the dead light the sky for the first time. Katniss doesn't have to wait long, the boy is the second to appear. He follows his district partner from three, then is followed by the boy from five, the girl from six, and both from nine. It's a small list with stronger contestants than she'd expected, leaving most of the smaller weaker districts alive and for the most part well.
She doesn't sleep much before waking in the night to the smell of a fire. The girl from eight has set up camp not far from her and is sleeping soundly. Katniss is removing herself from her sleeping bag when footsteps start to reach her ears.
The careers are on the girl quickly, but they don't finish her quickly. They take their time playing with her for several moments while Katniss slips from her sack and stores it away haphazardly in its containment bag. She won't be tied up if they spot her. She rests the sack on a branch and slips the knife into her belt strap while she works on the rope.
They are almost directly under her when she slips. Two strips of rope have her hanging just feet above their heads. Her pouch is still on the branch above her and she starts grabbing handfuls of her hair in her hands so that it can't hang down on top of anyone.
"Wait," The boy from four that looks strikingly similar to Finnick "Did you hear that?"
"I didn't hear anything."
"Exactly, theres no cannon. Who wants to go back and finish her off?" Marvel goes.
There are only three of them here, one from districts one, two, and three. Katniss lifts her face so that the sweat pouring from her forehead can trail down and be absorbed into her mask. She doesn't know if it's wise or not to split up bonded pairs.
The heart is so close it brushes against the doppelgängers hair. So easily mistakable for the fire headed boy in the capital who taught her the heart.
Finally a cannon sounding has them on their way. She doesn't waste time getting down and scavenging the body. If this girl had anything good, it was taken. She goes on anyway, not quite in the opposite direction of the victors but close enough that there is no worry of a repeat instance.
Two more cannons wake her up in the night.
The morning shows he no relief.
When she wakes she chews on a bite of dried beef. With no satiation to the hunger in her belly she goes hunting for the only thing she knows how, water. The air is dry and so is her skin. The pack grows heavier by the second and the thick jacket around her waist encourages her to dispose of the added weight.
By midday she heaves for breath with every step she takes and the sun has turned her skin to the most atrocious pink she's ever seen. She regrets placing the jacket on her waist and welcoming the elements rather than the unwanted heat.
She doesn't have words to describe how much she loathes Brutus.
She falls. Twice. Her body doesn't sweat. Even her mouth has stopped producing liquid that she can swallow for a moment of relief from the pain invading her throat cavity. She'd take a knife to the neck if it meant some fluid could coat her tongue.
