Clair Mushroom, Victor
District One was beautiful. I wouldn't have wanted to live there, since it was urban just like the Arena, but it was beautiful to look at. The towering buildings were artistically wrought with tapering lines and gilt tips. The windows were full of rainbow glass-panes that sent colored shadows all across the polished stone walkways. If I lived there I couldn't imagine wanting to leave for the Games. I hadn't interacted with Quarla or Dionysus so the people- richly clothed, faces daubed in Capitol-style paint and makeup, jewels hung anywhere they could fit- looked at me with bored disinterest.
It was a cliché but true to call the people of Two stone-faced. A wall of silently seething citizens stared at me as I stood behind a podium spreading out the cheat notes I'd written to remember my speech.
"Citizens of Two," I started, my voice thin and timid and very uncomfortable as I tried to huddle behind the podium.
I shielded my face as something came flying toward it. A thin shell broke and a horrible smell washed over my arms. Peacekeepers rushed out of the train and aimed their guns into the crowd. Everyone hesitated as the citizens and Peacekeepers, both from Two, realized they would be fighting their own compatriots. I blurted out the concluding sentence to the speech and ducked back into the train.
Three was an unexpected riot of color. Giant flashing signs coated buildings top to bottom, blinking with different designs and information. It was the only District I'd seen so far that had its own monorail system separate from the one that ran to the Capitol. There were more vehicles in general, though most of them seemed to be driven by Peacekeepers or tourists. The people were mostly dusky-skinned with lovely shiny black hair. They all seemed impatient to get the speech over with, like they had projects they wanted to get back to.
I was excited to see the ocean in Four. I was excited to see the ocean. In hindsight I should have realized the District center would be in the District... center. Buildings blocked the view of the ocean and I had to make do with the slight saltiness in the air. Seven has ocean, too, I reminded myself. And I'd be rich enough to visit once I got back. Yeah... but it's not Four ocean.
I'd be glad to never see District Five again. It looked pretty much just like the view from the Arena except dumpier. The buildings were ugly, pragmatic lumps of often unpainted concrete and steel. Thick smoke stung my throat and when I went back in the train I had to shower to get the grime off of me. I couldn't imagine living there. No wonder Sky volunteered.
Six is probably going to look the same. Six looked the same. Wider streets to fit the fat eighteen-wheel trucks- which groaned just when they were driving and blasted screeching horns at random intervals- but the same soulless utilitarian landscape. And to make it worse, while the people of Five had been at least passingly interested in a foreign visitor, the Sixes were openly furious at me for killing Alysanne with Oaken. Their cold smiles and fake handshakes and backhanded barbs on how I'd 'won despite all sorts of moral dilemmas' showed me just how mean someone could be by being nice.
There was nothing to say about Eight. There was literally nothing worth commenting about in Eight. There were rows and rows of identical square factories each sprawled over acres of space. Around them were dotted little apartment buildings like identical beehives with identical rooms. The only thing worth saying about Eight was the word 'identical'. I faced rows and rows of identically-uniformed people giving me the same veiled distaste for not exactly killing Lacey but certainly abandoning her in a fight. Preparing for my tour I read that Eight has more than a hundred thousand people and while speaking I got a hundred thousand disapproving side-eyes.
It was a relief to reach the outer Districts with Nine. While it wasn't the same as home, the endless fields of Seven at last gave me the space I'd been lacking in the Arena and then in the train. I wished I could skip the speech and just go sprinting across the golden rolling hills. The sweet scent of wheat and pollen perfumed the air even in the semi-walled pavilion where I appeared. And I'd had nothing to do with Vulpes and Mattie's deaths. I could just give a boring speech to a bunch of people as bored as I was and go away.
Ten was a delight. I'd never seen a cow before. I had no idea they were so big! I felt bad eating steak after I'd just petted a cow but it was so good. There weren't many trees but it was still wonderfully open and grassy. It smelled like dirt and wildflowers. When the mayor greeted me I almost laughed I was so surprised by her adorable accent. A lot of the people were wearing overalls, which reminded me of home. I wished I could have snuck off the train for a few hours and brought home some souvenirs.
When I saw Eleven I cried. The fruit trees were shorter than the lumber trees of home but they were trees. Kids were up in the branches straining to get a look at me and I wished I was up there with them. Everyone looked nervous and skinny and I should have felt bad about it but I was entirely distracted by the trees and the shadows they left and the light shining through their leaves and their gentle movement in the wind.
Twelve was tragically beautiful. I could see what it should have been. The mountains were sublime. The trees on the sloping sides were endless and dark and deep. The soil was rich and should have been teeming with life. But the people... The people were hollow-eyed and sallow-skinned and bent over with hunger and exhaustion. They clung to life in a place that could give them everything they needed. Life was bleeding out of the lovely earth. Someone had broken this land. It should have been beautiful.
I saw my parents as soon as I got off the train. They were standing in a roped-off area right by the doors. I saw my parents and didn't understand how old they were. They hadn't been that old when I left. Why were my parents so old? They looked so frail. It was all I could think of as we hugged, me squished between them. Our family is frail. Our family is incomplete. They tried to hide it but I saw it in their eyes. No parent could do differently. They were walking home with the child they'd thought they'd lost. They were walking home without the child they'd lost.
The Victor's Village was as much a tourist destination as it was a prize. If Capitolite visitors came by I was expected to make an appearance, signing autographs or posing for pictures or guiding the honored guests around the District. I could live with it, though, since it meant the houses were picturesque rough-hewn log cabins with views of gentle forest slopes. I loved the pine scent of the exposed overhead beams and the smooth hardwood floors. I even liked the silly cutesy wood furniture that people in Seven never had in their actual homes. We only made that stuff to sell to tourists. What I didn't know whether to be happy or sad about, though, was that for the first time in my life I had a room to myself.
Before sunrise was a private and lonely time. Someone out at that time was isolated even from the sun and the morning birds. They were just beginning to sing when I reached the waterfall. Its thundering music sounded in the back of my head as I looked at it. I was an entirely different person but the waterfall hadn't changed at all. It had been here far longer than I had and would be after I was gone. It was part of the earth, like we all were.
I climbed its gentle slope and knelt at a flat stretch of land on the top. Supple grass bent under my knees, sliding against my skin. A chickadee called its searching five-note song. The river lapped in the rapids that led to the final drop, water showing white as it chopped over submerged rocks. I took down the collapsible shovel I'd strapped to my back and started to dig. The grass split around the shovel blade to reveal silty light brown soil.
"This a good spot, Oaken?" I asked, looking over at the little sapling I'd carried with me. Humans will bond to anything, even a three-foot oak tree. It wasn't really Oaken, of course. My brother was still dead and I was far from healed. I wasn't as far as I had been, though. At least I was ready to plant Oaken. Some of him was in the locket I'd placed in the sapling's highest branch, where every year it would grow higher into the sky. Some of him was in the ashes mixed with the enriched soil in the biodegradable bag around the plant's roots, waiting to be absorbed into it so he was part of it forever. On days when I wanted to be close to him I'd sit by the sapling and maybe sprinkle some water on it. As time passed I'd sit under its shade and climb its branches. Birds would roost on its limbs and woodland creatures would rest under its canopy.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. That's what they say. We all turn to ash eventually and the ash becomes something else. Sometimes I think life doesn't really end. It just changes form. Some days I'd ache for Oaken and want to be near him. Other days- more and more, as time passed- my own life would lead me forward and I would walk in the world knowing the tree would be there when I returned. That's what it means to be a twin. It meant two lives, separate and distinct, linked from birth by a thread that can be lengthened but can never be severed.
Seems like I just finished an SYOT and here I am again. Some of them blur together almost but this one was definitely memorable. I had a lot of fun exploring some different ideas and many of them turned out great. No Victor pleases everyone but Clair is far from the most controversial pick (for those of you who remember the glory (?) days of Shane v Rhoda or Volvo v Blake. I learned more about writing SYOTs and that's always the goal. I'll be posting my next one pretty much right now but don't worry if you get there late because the slots are full anyway. It's mostly people who were here anyway so basically see you there in like five minutes.