Chapter 12: Woof Rayon

In District 12, they are dazed.

The men in their miner's helmets and the frocked women – too many of them with stomachs out to their feet, and some with little ones already clinging to their skirts – just sort of stand there, emotionless and lethargic as Woof, the second Victor from District 8, reads his speech. The two families of the dead tributes are raised up on rickety platforms. He can't look at the family of the girl tribute, the one he killed as she had tried to make away through the wheat fields like the thief in the night that she was, though even if he did, he wouldn't find any grief there. Everyone just seems so…. tired. Like in just over a decade of Hunger Games, they've given up and come to accept that this is the way things are.

After the event in the Square, the Mayor gives him a tour of the mines, and also points out the high hill where construction of the new Victors' Village (happening or already finished in every district) is just about complete.

Woof wonders if the girl from here who won the year before last would have lived up in the Village on the hill, if she was still around, as he nods and tries to smile at the statue of Lucy Gray Baird in the district school play-yard. It was commissioned last fall, following Mags' win, and all the previous Victors are getting ones as well. Sadly, no one has seen hide nor hair of the girl with the beautiful singing voice in almost two years. Shame for her. If she knew how Victors were being treated now…

In District 11, they are boiling.

Not at him, more at the system he represents and his participation in the arena this year has helped perpetuate. Wolfmark Redpath, the dude who won five years prior, is actually quite pleasant – well, as pleasant as he can be, anyway. Savera, his mentor, whispers to him that with most people, Wolfmark comes off as blatantly hostile. With Woof, he's more or less just stiff. Awkwardly cordial. Woof figures it probably would be worse if he hadn't come across the boy from 1 raping Wolfmark's girl amidst the tall, tall grasses, her one arm nearly severed. Woof had snuck up behind the copulating pair and stabbed the boy from 1 through the throat. The poor, violated Eleven girl had already been too far-gone by that point, so Woof had held her as she died. It would be one of the few moments of humanity the eventual Victor would show in the arena.

In District 10, they try to be enthusiastic.

This is mostly Guernsey Hyde's doing, the sweet little special needs fellow and this place's only Victor. The giant teddy bear of a boy takes Woof's hand and eagerly drags him up one side of the district and down the other, babbling about all the things he's going to show him. Woof isn't sure how such an atypical mind squares all the good benefits, the pomp and circumstances, that will now come from being a Victor with the horror he and all the others had to endure to get there. Woof was free and clear of his first Reaping when Guernsey won, almost by accident. The slewing of that brute from 6 had seemed to disturb the boy, somewhat, but you wouldn't know it observing the 25-year-old who still presents like a small child. If there is guilt there, it's locked away, much like the rest of Guernsey's mind seems to be a prisoner in his own body.

Woof has to count him lucky.

In District 9, they are terrified.

Though for once, it isn't of him, it's for him.

The people of Nine are right to be afraid, because after the speeches, when Dell Fonio and the Mayor start to give Woof a tour of their wheat fields, the newest Victor has a panic attack. He runs clear in the opposite direction, an entire squadron of Peacekeepers trying to chase him back down. They don't have much hope of doing so. One of the reasons Woof won this past year is because he is fast. Growing up in the Red Light district slums back home, he had to be quick to feed himself. If you were slow stealing food, you were caught, and the Peacekeepers in Eight are a particularly vicious lot.

He doesn't stop until he gets to the train and locks himself in his darkened quarters, throwing the bed blankets over himself and mumbling. At one point, when he dares to lift the stuff off him and peek through the curtained windows, he can see Savera apologizing profusely to Dell on the train platform.

They pull out of District 9 without even seeing their Victors' Village or Dell's statue, and Woof is ever grateful for it.

In District 7, they are curious.

Woof supposes that it's because they don't know yet what it's like to have a Victor who actually had to kill people. Standing up on the stage with Savera and Acacia Ivy flanking him, Woof studies the pretty girl from District 7 who triumphed a decade ago by outrunning a single opponent. If Acacia feels any embarrassment from her people, she does a really good job of pretending not to notice it. And she's exceedingly kind and friendly as she shows Woof and Savera her own Victors' Village where she lives all alone. It's set on a river, flowing down from one of the logging camps where she works during the Games off-season.

Acacia asks Woof lots of questions, and he tries to be polite in answering them as best he can. He makes sure to convey to her Dell Fonio's best (the man from Nine had specifically requested it of him up on the Justice Building stage, before it all went to hell). Acacia smiles brightly when Woof relays this, and he can't be sure, but he could swear she blushes.

In District 6, they are hateful.

It's more emotion than the district usually hopped up on morphling and drugs has shown in years, because Snowdamnit, this was their year. Six is the only district other than Three that doesn't at least have a name to read off at the damn Reaping. Kia was the best tribute they had produced in years, since Train who was cheated by that flaming retarded boy from 10; finally, a kid of the druggee dens and inner cities was going to come back alive. Kia made the Top Three, within striking distance of tying and oh please God surpassing Train's showing.

But then the Gamemakers (that's what the contractors at Capitol Landscaping LLC had taken to calling themselves) had decided to try something new, after several days of Kia, Woof and the girl from 1 not moving from their crouched hiding places within the miles and miles of wheat fields. They had called something known as a 'Feast,' back at the horn called the Cornucopia that, even in its second year, was still a novel thing to behold at the launch site. Backpacks, food and weapons had been piled high on a table, too tempting to pass up. Woof and Kia had raced each other for it, and when they had inevitably gotten into a disagreement over a particularly colorful backpack, Woof had gashed her head against the side of the table before turning to face down the girl from 1.

In District 5, they are respectful.

Woof clearly notices how this respect doesn't extend to his mentor, Savera, and he wants to take the clear deference Shrimp Pescal is showing him and either shove it up his ass, or give it all to the girl who helped save him. He isn't sure which, but he's damn sure that no one should look down on Savera Inchcape just because she went into the Capitol Arena literally blind and climbed out again mostly through luck. She's a Victor, same as him, same as all the others, so who ruddy cares how she did it?

In District 4, they are sympathetic.

"How are you feeling?" Mags asks him gently, as they stroll along the beach at sunset, in that place where footprints disappear, Savera and a gaggle of paparazzi just a few steps behind them.

"It's…. a lot to take in," Woof chuckles behind a tight smile, glancing to the 17-year-old Victor from last year with red curls. The only other Victor who knows what it's like to be treated as a king – or, in her case, a queen – from the very start. And he's ever so grateful that when it comes to this Victory Tour thing, at least he wasn't the first. "Tell me what I'm supposed to do."

Mags purses her lips tightly, deep in thought, finally laying a soft hand on his shoulder. "Well, the only thing you can do is make sure that any children who come after you know you care for them. And that nothing's ever gonna change that. Listen to Savera, and keep her close – you two are going to need each other more than you realize."

Woof and Mags thus see the start of a beautiful friendship that lasts more than sixty years.

In District 3, they are forgetful.

They accidentally add a 'D' to Woof's last name, so that it comes out sounding like 'Woof Raydon,' thus taking his surname to be the equivalent of a really toxic chemical that the people in Six would have probably been glad to poison him with. Three also names incorrectly Woof's age (he's 18, NOT 14) and the number of tributes he killed.

"After he toiled in the arena for six days…" the Mayor intones.

"Seven days," Woof and Savera snarl at the same time. Both Victors of 8 know he hears them, but he just plows on with his speech.

The district even forgets to send a train to pick them up once the tour of the electronic works and the new, empty Victors' Village is over (though they are ingenious in trying to pin the blame on the engineers in Six, who totallly would delay the train on purpose out of sheer spite).

In District 2, they are steadfast.

Maximus and Hippolyta are polite and willing to help however they can, though Woof notices how Savera is cooler with the pair from Two. Woof has to appreciate Two's good sportsmanship, now that they are no longer the only district with multiple Victors.

He is given the usual tour of Maximus and Hippolyta's statues in the beginnings of what Maximus boasts will one day be a garden, the Victors' Village which Hippolyta promises will eventually be filled with love and laughter 'in every house,' and the foundational structure of a massive building soon to overlook the largest stone quarry. When Woof asks what it's for, Maximus hedges, saying only that it's a special 'pet project' of his.

If Woof hadn't been so tired, he might have listened to the alarm bells going off in the back of his brain. As it is, he doesn't listen to his instincts and for years afterwards rues the day he didn't think to go straight to the President with what he saw. Maybe then, the system of Careers might have been strangled in its crib. Then again, it may not have. Who's to say?

In District 1, they are cruel.

They pelt him with rotten fruit, for cheating their girl Sapphire out of a win that she deserved. They needed that win, to get past the nearly decade-long reputation that One is filled with cowards! Only Vulcan Bronzedrop seems relieved, and if Woof had to peg who is the least enthused out of everyone he's met on the whole trip, it would be the man from 1 who tried to run, was recaptured, and won the whole damn thing with a mere kick to the girl from Two's hoo-ha. And Vulcan might be a simpering weakling, but Woof has to admit he has guts for actually kissing Savera on the cheek in greeting. He should count himself lucky that Eight's first Victor didn't snap his wrist.

In the Capitol, they are awed.

Savera Inchcape and Woof Barton have now set the record for the fewest years between a district's wins – a mere three. It's a record that won't be broken for nearly half a century to come.

Woof is plied with good venison and wine, and the cream of the crop in the Capitol want to dance with him over and over and over again.

The one thing that sours the whole affair is when President Ravinstill finally emerges from the presidential residence to join the party, making special time to congratulate the newest Victor and his mentor. Woof doesn't like the way the aging codger is eyeing Savera like she's a scrumptious snack.

He insists on retiring to bed early in the Citadel Hotel, where he first stayed as a tribute before the arena. Woof doesn't even mind the bad memories of being here in the days before he was sure he was going to die. If anything, they help keep him up all through the night, as he sits vigil at Savera's bedside the way she once did for him.

He doesn't let his mentor out of his sight all night, and locks the doors to their quarters, just to be safe.

Back home in District 8, they are…. actually proud.

They cheer for him and Savera as they get off at the train station, and he cries gratefully when the parents and sister of Flossie hug him and grant their forgiveness. Flossie, his district partner who was wounded severely at the Bloodbath and later killed on the third day by flesh eating horse mutts that went on a stampede through the wheat fields. Woof is given a key to the district, and Mayor Ige presents the final design for his statue that will go up next to Savera's, installed last year – his is still in the process of being sculpted, but should be ready by the winter.

Then they stop by the district bank, where the Mayor presents Woof with a slip no bigger than a square piece of paper.

"And here…. is your Victors' card, Mr. Rayon. It will activate once you first swipe it. You can buy anything you want, as much as you want, from the Capitol, but be sure to spend in Eight businesses wisely."

Of course, Woof thinks bitterly. The Capitol probably doesn't want Victors' giving away their riches on charity, don't'chaknow?

A district-wide parade sweeps Woof along to the shiny new Victors' Village, set in a little grove on the edge of Eight's suburbs. Mayor Ige pauses them for a photo-op at the gates, in which he presents Woof with yet another key – this one the key to his new Victors' mansion. Savera gets her fun out of watching her protégé try and fit the key into the hole in each of the eleven empty houses. It's a rather pitiful guessing game, one in which Woof even tries to insert his key into Savera's door until she shrieks with laughter, "No, that's MINE!" (the only hint she gives), but it's all a good laugh. And when Woof finally turns the lock on the mansion just two doors down from his predecessor, he's grateful to her: not too close so that he doesn't have his own space, but not too far in case they need each other.

Mayor Ige finally leaves him with a laminated sheet of paper, filled with names and addresses.

"The contact information for your fellow Victors," he explains. "This will be updated every year with each successive winner, but you are permitted to talk to your brethren whenever you like. Just know that calls will be monitored, and there is a calling fee whenever you use an extension outside of Eight."

In the decades following, Woof becomes so grateful for that landline telephone, especially when his memory starts to fail. Sometimes, he'll ring up a friend without fully recalling who they are, but then he hears their voice, and something triggers inside of him and he's eighteen again.

But no matter how many years and memories pass away, he could never forget Mags. So it is that when, years later, he sees the District 4 Victor being interviewed by Flickerman, he cries, even though he still doesn't understand what they're doing there, up on the stage.