By the time the Victory Tour starts edging onto the calendar, Theia Payne is firmly entrenched as a part of Antimony's life. They go shopping at least once a month, often patching in Lorcan, or one of the other prep team members to help with the highly important fashion decisions. Theia is also responsible for Antimony's talent, a surprising option that none of us expected but which Gloria declares perfectly acceptable and immediately makes all the necessary arrangements for: the high world of designer cats.

After the third time dropping by the Newen house and finding Antimony watching cat shows on TV, she admitted that she had always wanted a pet of some sort. The topic apparently came up during her next shopping jaunt, and Theia was delighted to call up her aunt in the Capitol who works for one of the genetic breeding labs. All of us enjoy the great satisfaction of watching our loathsome mayor forced to grovel after he tries to ban animals from the Victor's Village when he discovers the permit application, only to have a full-force Gloria crash his party.

Our tiny Escort reduces him to tears, has him revoke not only that ban, but also the rules regarding dress permits for victors' immediate relatives (so that all of Antimony's close family can look their best for their upcoming media appearances, of course), and arranges for builders to make several modifications to her house to make them cat-friendly, including a fenced and sheltered enclosure out the side which includes a small garden area.

The first cat arrives three weeks later, some pedigree breed with long ginger and blue-gray striped fur and tufted ears, who little nine-year-old Asta Newen quickly names Muffin. The second comes as a belated gift from Theia for Antimony's fifteenth birthday, a gorgeous silver-furred animal with a great sweeping tail and a love for hunting feathered toys on strings. A third custom-bred kitten is commissioned for arrival in seven months' time, which will serve as a nice news-piece between the Victory Tour and the next Games.

Theia, who owns one of her aunt's cats herself, makes several visits to the household to teach Antimony (and Asta, who simply adores the animals as well) all about how to care for them and brush them and doll them up for display. Not that they'll ever participate in shows here in Three, but it may give Antimony something to do in the Capitol each year once the unpleasant business of mentoring is out of the way. They get a fancy camera and take plenty of photos of Muffin and Quicksilver in bows and jewel-laden collars to add to the display for the Tour.

All three of Antimony's brothers start dyeing their hair again, as does her father (not that he seems to need it to prevent her panic attacks, but they treat it as a family fashion statement for the boys). Antimony and Asta (along with Theia and her artist sister Selena) also get onto the hair-dying trend at Lorcan's suggestion, and have their hair-tips dyed various neon colors. They try to convince Antimony's mother to go along too, but she is quite ill and even the attentions of the best doctor here in Three doesn't seem to help much.

Apparently there is no cure for years of breathing toxic gases that have poisoned her body. Well, there is a cure, but it requires multiple treatments in the Capitol, and comes with a higher risk of death now that poor Dona is so frail. I suggest during one of my bi-weekly visits that I could look into the paperwork required, but Dona cuts me off to raspily inform me that she'd rather be dead here in Three than go anywhere near the Capitol. I don't think she likes the cats either, or the clothes-shopping, or Theia. In fact, I don't think she likes me or Beetee much; we're Capitol sell-outs in her eyes. In fact the only thing she seems to like about her daughter's new life is the heated bedroom where she spends most of her time sleeping alongside her husband while their older kids run the household.

I shrug, give her less than a year to enjoy it, and leave her be. Beetee and I hole up for a week to finalize some picky work on some new, improved nano-cameras. By the time we emerge (with a working product, that Beetee goes to send the specs for), Gloria has arrived three days ahead of the rest of the team to ensure everything is in place for the beginning of the Victory Tour.

She supervises yet another round of clothes-shopping and hair dyeing (the clothing items will travel with the style team on the official train) so that all of the Newen family (minus the extensive 'cousins' who have been warned not to put in another appearance) will be suitably presentable. My parents and my brother Malcon are also instructed to obtain new outfits—my purchases from several of the girls' shopping jaunts I joined are considered sufficient along with the three outfits Lorcan has already packed for me.

I do warn our garishly-dressed Escort about Dona Newen's reluctance to have anything to do with 'them Capitol types' and Solen's (and most of the siblings) general disdain for the rules before she heads over to their house. I don't know what exactly she says or does, but when the Tour circus arrives, all eight Newens are present and presentable for the house tour.

Asta gushes adorably about her big sister's cats, Merc and Wolf show off their garish red and orange hair and joke about how glad all their teaching their sister to be tough paid off (Zircon steps in here to grab the twelve-year-old Wolf and dangle him upside-down, pointing out that Antimony never had any trouble beating him up) and Solen even manages a few stilted words to a camera that focuses only on his head and shoulders, avoiding showing the two mangled arms that prevent him from working. He and Dona agree to being in the background of some happy family shots, and as always, let Zircon and Cobalt step into the roles of parents to their younger siblings.

Antimony spends an hour or so demonstrating her cat-handling knowledge, and shows off the photo wall, which will be deconstructed and shipped to the Capitol as part of the tour. She also answers questions about her new fashion choices remarkably well, and I make a mental note to send Theia another thank-you gift for the coaching. Beetee manages to escape the horde with just one brief interview (as he wasn't the victor's mentor, he won't be joining us for the trip), but my household is also invaded to get the mentor's perspective on our new victor. One of the reporters who clearly knows nothing about my family history tries asking Malcon about hanging out with the kids next door. Despite being seventeen (and looking older after a recent growth spurt which pushed him to the same height as me, though stronger built through the body) my brother has always been a bit different. The minor brain damage at birth combined with a touch of a developmental condition has left him with roughly the mental capacity of a shy ten-year-old child.

He doesn't particularly like strangers, especially ones who ask him questions, and he tries to hide behind my 5'2" mother until the strange lady goes away. Not that it would help since he doesn't get along with any of the Newen tribe, who are loud and argumentative and don't fit in his nice orderly world with its clearly defined rules.

My father leads the reporters away to give his own observations about our new neighbours, and my mother nudges Malcon into his bedroom to get him calmed down. I'm left with a few minutes to catch my breath and ensure everything I need is packed away for the two-week journey.

It all seems a bit surreal, and even when I'm climbing on board the train, alongside a barely-recognizable Antimony whose neon-green-tipped hair clashes artfully against the fluorescent yellow and gold dress. My own outfit – an electric-blue shade that I originally considered painfully bright – looks dull in comparison.

Apparently, these bright colors are the 'in thing' right now (the bright orange jumpsuits the tributes wore in the arena are credited partly for this trend taking off, though I personally think that Gloria's wardrobe preferences may have had more to do with it). Each district is paired with yet another bright color, and a subsequent change to Antimony's hair dye job (I'm actually quite curious about the dyes they use, which decompose under a certain wavelength of light to reveal the original bleach job, which is then re-colored).

Twelve is as cold as I remember, with slushy gray snow muting the stink of the coal mines. Gloria and I sat down with Antimony during the last few days and helped her write simple speeches that would meet the required levels of Capitol approval without sounding too sycophantic. With a bit of practice, a cue card with a few of the key words written on it, and a box of some new pills that Gloria has wrangled out of a Capitol doctor, Antimony manages a presentable front for the first Victory Rally. Haymitch provides all of us with his usual drunken antics for entertainment during the dinner that night, and the young district mayor formally apologises for the display (he's only been in the job for two years, and still feels embarrassed by their only current victor's antics).

Eleven is much more pleasant and Antimony gets to indulge her notorious sweet-tooth on a wonderful display of honeyed fruits. She seems to like Seeder, whose motherly ways are always a calming influence, but she doesn't much care for rowdy Chaff or big, burly Tolby whose years of heavy eating and drinking appear to be catching up with him.

District Ten is also fine; Antimony's love for her cats apparently extends to some other animals. They set up a pen full of baby animals for her (and the rest of us) to play with, including an adorable little baby cow who snuggles up against Antimony's legs for a picture perfect shot. Luckily the listening camera crew don't catch the comment from one of our tour guides that these little baby animals will shortly end up on a dinner table like the one we eat from that night. I know that some people in the Capitol don't care for that sort of thinking, though it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Or Antimony, who our cynical guide apparently took a liking to way back when she happily killed, butchered and ate several large rats on live television.

Everything seems to be going suspiciously well as we re-board the train that night. The prep team aren't being too obnoxious, Lorcan has been talking Antimony through the thought processes of her outfits so that she has ready answers if asked, Gloria is helpful in her usual manner (Antimony's practice of tuning out the majority of Theia's chatter seems to have prepared her for dealing with our Escort). I'm actually enjoying being out of the city environment—all bad memories of my Games aside, there's a small part of me that still wants to be surrounded by nature once more, that our tiny greenhouse in Three or the new patch of garden beds outside Antimony's house doesn't ever really fulfil.

But all of this fades away as the train starts up and we begin the rumbling journey towards District Nine.

~xXx~

"They hate me anyway, so why bother," Antimony snaps as Gloria tries once again to go over the edited speech cards.

"It's traditional for a victor to specifically acknowledge their final opponent," Gloria replies with only a slight raise in voice pitch.

"What do you want me to say? She ran at me with a knife and was winning, but was too dumb to finish me off so I got her first."

"Because it is expected. And you can't say that. Remember what we worked on about being polite?"

"I don't want to be polite. They don't want to be polite. Just let them hate me and get over it. I would if I was them."

I close my eyes and rest my head on the table beneath my hands as their 'discussion' continues for another round. Antimony, while not as startlingly brilliant as some from our district, was smart enough to recognize from the start that Districts Nine and Six would not be pleasant for her.

Whatever was in the new pills Gloria got her seems to have done an excellent job of nullifying her usual docile state, and she appears to have reverted to something closer to her original antagonistic and stubborn self. Which means, for the districts where she feels most uncomfortable, she's decided to either stick with her generic script (minus the one minimal Capitol platitude that Gloria originally negotiated), or go for outright hostility as a pre-emptive strategy. She's also started showing more signs of irritation with her prep teams' antics, and with the fiddly turquoise collar she is currently wearing.

None of which is particularly helpful for getting her through this Tour without offending someone important or being noticed by the wrong people. As I don't trust the train not to be bugged (some of the other victors think that Beetee and I are overly paranoid when it comes to electronic spying, but I know what the technology is capable of and how easy and inexpensive it is to deploy) I can't exactly pull her aside and explain a few facts of life. I didn't bother to do so before the tour as she had been so docile and compliant in the weeks and months leading up to it that I genuinely didn't consider it a concern.

When Antimony takes a frustrated swipe at her bowl of cereal (only half-eaten, another point of contention that all of us are still trying to address) and upends it across the table I pull her away by the frilled collar and dump her into Lorcan's care to take care of the couple of milk droplets splashed onto her shoes.

Gloria is gone by the time I get back to the food compartment and a worker from the kitchen car is already polishing the table-top back to its usual fine shine. I give the man a nod of thanks and go knock on Gloria's door in the next carriage. It takes her a moment to answer as she's changing out of her soiled dress into another one that apparently clashes with Antimony's outfit for today (but she feels justified given the temper tantrum). To me they all clash, so I just nod and try to mollify her a little as she continues to mutter while doing up her two-dozen ribbon bows. She agrees to try cutting off these particular pills for a couple of days—I like seeing that Antimony still has that fighting spirit somewhere, but would rather not have her show it off here and now.

Lorcan seems to have her more under control as the train rolls into the District Nine station, and while she's scowling, she's at least not picking arguments with everyone around her. From my memory of my Victory Tour out here, the station backs on to the factory district, which is almost exclusively populated by the darker skinned ethnic group which both the deceased District Nine tributes belonged to, so I'm expecting trouble.

Instead, we're directed into a car for a trip out to the grain fields, where the fairer-skinned and haired population of Nine mostly reside. I get a moment alone with our tour guide for this district (the Mayor's son, as it turns out) and he quickly agrees to stretch out the time here as much as possible to minimize any awkwardness.

The open air gives me a chance for a brief conversation with Antimony, who has become reasonably adept at filling in the blanks in my conversation stammers. She's not happy, but she gets the hint that she can't just have it her way, and she delivers an acceptable, if unenthusiastic speech (which includes an extra sentence about Afifa being a strong competitor) to a surprisingly unhostile crowd. In fact, the only real anger comes from the family of the male tribute, and seems to be directed more towards the girl tribute's family than at my girl on stage.

I don't know any of the victors from Nine well enough to ask their opinion of the social dynamics of their district (and none of the four are from factory stock, so they may not know anyway), but if the close-knit family culture of the factory workers here in Nine is anything like some of the groups back home in Three, they probably preferred Antimony winning over a girl who turned on one of her own.

The pills (which apparently include an analgesic) start wearing off before the dinner is done, and the mayor's charming son ends up helping us carry Antimony to the waiting car because the pain in her head is too blinding for her to walk.

Gloria gets her some basic painkillers once we're on board, and by morning the antagonistic, aggressive girl has shrunk back to the mouse-like demeanour that has been the norm since her Games ended.

~xXx~

Cecelia personally takes charge of our tour in District Eight, and keeps Antimony engaged all morning with visits to some specialist dye factories and an hour-long rummage through their best clothing store. She seems a little concerned about Antimony's apparent detachment and I reassure her during one of several outfit changes that there has been some experiments with various mood adjusting drugs and to not take it personally. Boyd and Wilf join in for the dinner, their usual loud and slovenly selves, which drives Antimony further into her shell. She takes no part in the singing and dancing around her and is reluctant to even get out of her chair at the end of the night until Boyd unceremoniously dumps her off it onto the floor. Cecelia drags her fellow victor off by the ear for a pointless scolding while I help Antimony up and let her lean on me to the car. Luckily, with Seven being so far north, we have a full day and a bit of travel each way, which Antimony mostly spends sleeping fitfully.

District Seven has a simmering undercurrent of anger that's almost tangible during the Victory Rally (where Antimony delivers another meek, generic speech), though it doesn't appear to be directed at us. I'm at least comfortable enough with Blight to ask during the dinner, and get a tipsy recital of a string of work increases, forestry deaths and pay cuts that ultimately led to four popular individuals being hanged last week for a series of rebellious activities including stockpiling explosives.

He seems to be warming up to the story, getting louder and louder with each drink he puts down, so I redirect his attention to dessert, which derails him long enough to prevent him saying anything too imprudent.

Antimony apparently doesn't catch any of this; she doesn't even react when the large bowl of baked fruit crumble topped with an enormous dollop of ice cream is placed in front of her. I nudge her gently under the table and, after a few seconds of her brain re-engaging, direct her attention to the food in front of her. She eats mechanically, managing maybe a quarter of the dish to go with the dozen mouthfuls of the main meal she forced down.

Her ongoing lack of appetite and the fact she has lost weight since the end of her Games is one concern that none of us have found a solution for. Most of the different medicines she's used over the last six months helped a little, but after a few days without them she reverts to barely eating and tends to quickly shed the little weight she has gained.

This time Lorcan helps carry her to the waiting car at the end of the night, and fetches her some more painkillers and a dose of some over-sweet sleep syrup in the hope it will help. She certainly seems more lucid when she joins me for dinner the following night, still only picking at her food, but at least making an effort to talk. She asks for more of the drugs Gloria gave her at the start of the tour, just to get her through District Six.

Gloria hesitantly agrees to two more doses, and Antimony survives the ordeal with the home district of the ally who tried to kill her without a major break-down. She freezes momentarily during her speech when she makes the mistake of looking in the direction of Axel's family. It pulls me back to my own tour, how my mind went blank the moment I locked eyes with the younger sister of the boy I killed. But before I need to worry about rescuing her, Antimony shakes her head clear and finishes her last few lines. After some discussion with Gloria, she decided not to add any extra words in about Axel; he was her ally for so much of the Games, and she would have almost certainly died without him, but in the end he turned on her. By not mentioning him at all, she walks what appears to be the safest middle ground. Most of the district was never going to like her anyway as they seem to be as poor (or worse) on average as we are in Three and she cost them their year of free food.

I'm not sure District Six even knows how to throw an enjoyable party. Every year, they seem to be the most boring and stilted part of the Victory Tour, surpassed even by the rural districts who at least have some character, if not the wealth to put on much of a show. Only Kaylee makes it to the dinner (Dominic is 'unwell' apparently) and I make sure she doesn't spend any time alone with Antimony; my victor doesn't need any more ideas about drug dependence.

I can see the girl slumping again as we head for the coast, and my favorite district besides my own.

~xXx~

Diya and Sarnia meet us at the station to play tour guide, just like I did for them the year before. The two girls seem to get along all right; Sarnia is one of those determinedly cheerful people (at least, ever since the Capitol cured the disease that convinced her to volunteer for the Games) and ignores Antimony's reticence to give a slightly muddled recitation of some of the key features of the nearby hydroelectric plant and a more confident spiel about some of the local birds.

Instead of a tour of one of the plants, like I got on my visit out here, Diya instead directs us back towards the Victors' Village here in Five. Antimony brightens a little when both District Five victors bring out their cats. Diya has three, Sarnia one (plus a new designer kitten from the same batch as Antimony's which will be arriving in a month or two) and they spend the next few hours happily sharing tips, tricks and stories to help flesh out Antimony's talent. I sit and watch from the sidelines; they're cute I suppose, but I prefer playthings that can be dumped on a shelf for several months and ignored until I need them again.

We end up using Diya's house for a clothing change (an extra layer of cat hair is apparently not part of the planned look) and make it to the rally just before the scheduled start time. Antimony seems a little more with it today and her recitation of her speech doesn't sound entirely robotic.

I glance around the gathered crowd while she speaks. There's an undercurrent here too, I realize, as she wraps up her words and zones out back to her safe place while the mayor begins her reply. It's not as strong as what I saw in District Seven, not as consistent throughout the entire crowd. Here there are pockets, sections of the crowd where people are standing differently, paying the wrong sort of attention. There are looks between them, glances that turn to glares as the mayor starts speaking. The girl tribute's family doesn't look like they are part of it, but I see the same posture, the same anger in the faces of the boy tribute's cluster.

When the speeches end and the commemorative plaque has been passed over, I watch as those same pockets I identified give only a minimal burst of applause and stand staring for a moment longer as the general crowd starts moving away. The youngest of the deceased Kepler Anada's brothers, who looks maybe five or six, refuses to go and sits on the hard concrete of the square, bawling loudly for 'Keppy'. A lean man with dirty brown hair steps back to scoop the howling boy up. When he turns with the boy slung over his shoulder, our eyes meet for half a second and I freeze in shock.

He looks much older than I last remember him, much older than he should, his face roughened and tanned, his hazel eyes narrowed in a squint with deep lines around them. He's much thinner and wears a scrubby beard where he was always clean-shaven before, but it is unmistakably the man who I once considered a friend, who once kissed me on a dare from his friends, who was with me that awful night nearly a decade ago.

Royan Coulter, or at least the man he's now become, gives me the slightest of nods before turning to follow the boy's retreating family.