Chapter 40: Laurel Flamsteed

The Mayor of District 9 paused in his yearly reading of the Treaty of Treason to take a sip of water, before turning to the tail-end of his spiel and the true Reaping began:

"And now we read the list of past District 9 Victors….. The Victor of the 3rd Hunger Games: Dell Fonio!"

There was a healthy amount of applause and quite a few cheers for the district's very first champion, who had won in one of the very first contests. Balanced on his crutches, Dell smiled and waved good-naturedly. He was something of a living legend here, nearly four decades on; some of his peers from that time were already starting to have grandbabies.

"The Victor of the 23rd Hunger Games: Garner Sunnoria!"

Somehow, the reception seemed just as enthusiastic as it had been for Dell – never mind that the cheering was now being vocalized by less than a dozen people instead of over several hundred. You had to hand it to the Sunnoria brood – they were vivacious, and they were loud.

"The Victor of the 40th Hunger Games: Laurel Flamsteed!"

Uncontrollable laughter. It had been ever thus for the last five or so years since her name had been added to such a short roll.

Laurel hadn't even straightened to her full height out of the chair before she was sitting back down in it again; she wanted even more than her neighbors to avoid her brief time in the limelight, or at least shorten it as much as could be reasonably allowed. Her ears had long been trained to listen for the other sounds that cut as deep as the laughter – mainly the gasps and occasional scream of horror that almost involuntarily occurred when folks looked her way.

Even as she bemoaned it, Laurel couldn't exactly blame her countrymen for acting the way they did. In a country that placed quite a bit of emphasis on the surface qualities of physical beauty, brawn and brute strength, Laurel Flamsteed – with the entire right side of her face scrunched in and with skin peeled away so that it looked as though she'd had it burned or melted off in a fire – looked like the farthest thing from a Victor.

It was made all the worse by the fact that Laurel had looked like this before she entered the arena. At least if she had escaped with her life but only after encountering a Gamemaker firetrap, she might have an excuse that would garner (pun not intended) more sympathy. But no, Laurel had been deformed since birth.

Her mother Grove had been convinced that it was due to her amoral wickedness. That Laurel had sinned in the womb and thus been cursed to a fate of ugliness. Though all observances of religion that did not recognize the President as the one, true God was expressly banned, the Flamsteeds were still devout Protestants. There had been a time in Laurel's childhood where she could remember her father, Barley, being kind to her, but eventually his wife's stronger devotion to the faith had brainwashed him into rejecting his only child too. And then, when Barley had died a year before Laurel's very first Reaping, Grove had escalated a terrifying reign of domestic abuse all in the name of following the Gospel. Blasphemy was not to be tolerated…. which Laurel seemed to speak just by virtue of her existing. Her mother pounded into her an understanding of her unworthiness until she finally started to believe it was true:

"You are deformed!"

"I am deformed."

"And you are ugly!"

"And I am ugly…"

"And these are crimes for which the world shows little pity – you cannot comprehend it, my daughter! They revile you as a monster, hate and scorn and jeer, and rightly so!"

It had been a miserable existence – so much so that when Laurel's name was called during her very last Reaping, she felt a flash of relief rise above all the other jumble of emotions. Her mother looked relieved too, enough to praise the Lord openly while in public. Grove didn't even deign to say goodbye to her child in the Justice Building, and perhaps it was better that way.

On the train bound for the Capitol, Dell Fonio and Garner Sunnoria, her mentors, had been some of the first people to actually show her kindness. The first and only people to not immediately shy away whenever Laurel came into their sightlines. Laurel had looked at herself in the mirror enough times to know: yes, the sight of her could be a little jarring at first glance, so it was a credit to both the Victors of 9 that they gave away absolutely no signs of disgust on their faces. Looking her directly in the eye when speaking to her and maintaining eye contact was an exercise in fortitude of which neither betrayed any sign of strain. Laurel was ever so grateful for it.

The Capitol itself wasn't nearly so welcoming.

They booed and jeered and hollered and threw rotten fruit at her chariot rumbling down the Avenue of Tributes, a callback to how the tributes used to be treated during the first decade of the Games. For poor Laurel, however, who remembered how that girl from 10 eight years ago had been roped in while sporting a truly terrible name and she'd been showered with nothing but love, the experience of being heckled by the elite of the country rankled her. Dell Fonio, who had been brought up in that time when tributes were seen as prisoners and traitors rather than heroes, was Laurel's saving grace in trying to talk her down. He opened up to her in a way he had with few others, among those his wife and son, about his experience at being laughed at. What it had been like for him.

The analogy was close – closer than anything Laurel had heard from someone who was also different – except that Dell had something wrong with his legs. She had something wrong with her face. And despite the fact that neither affliction could be treated, Laurel was despairing enough to know which curse was worse.

The Careers let her know it, too. While in Training, the girl from 1, pretty as an angel (or, more accurately, a test tube baby, for practically every child in One was now being conceived in a lab), took to calling Laurel, 'Piggy.' By the time the scores were returned, the rest of the field, to a boy and girl, had joined in. Laurel pulled a 4. Dell and Garner both held her as she cried.

Caesar Flickerman was to be the last person to show her kindness before the arena. He didn't avoid looking at her when he spoke to her, and when much of the audience reaction during her three minutes consisted of horrified gasps, screams, people calling out, "She is rather hideous, isn't she?", Caesar actually pushed the limits of what could be called Capitol accountability by insisting his studio audience keep it civil. When the groundlings refused, an entire row of repeat offenders was thrown out. As Laurel would later come to hear, President Snow had not been happy about Caesar showing this kind of independence.

When it came time to do or die at last, the only comfort Laurel could find while being lifted into the arena was that at least the arena was just as ugly as her.

The Gamemakers and their subdivision at Capitol Landscaping LLC had built the battlefield on old swampland. When the gong sounded, the tributes had to wade through deep puddles of muck to reach the horn. Many got stuck in the goop and turned themselves into easy, sitting duck targets, but Laurel pressed on. The three feet she traversed to reach the nearest backpack and yank it from the sludge took fifteen minutes longer than it should have, yet with everyone also having a limited range of motion, she was able to squish away at an almost leisurely pace without fear of any other tributes attacking her.

Laurel had played the Games defensively, only killing when she absolutely had to with the awl she found in her backpack. Five bodies fell at her hand only because they had tried to attack her first, and after eighteen mucky days, the Crown was hers.

Her mother, enraged that the beast had come back alive, disowned her after the Victory Tour, hitching to Laurel's wagon just long enough to partially move into her mansion in Victors' Village. It was mostly a front – Grove actually lived in a small cabin that she built in her daughter's new backyard, even though adding additional structures to government property was technically illegal. There the elder Flamsteed woman remained, reclusively shut up until she would ultimately pass; though mere steps away, Laurel would never see her mother again.

Now, six years on, Laurel was fairly used to mentoring by now. She didn't even take offense when her girl, Kernel, requested that she only be coached by Garner. Dell had a better candidate in their boy – Miller Cornhusk was weeks away from turning 19, young, strapping and strong. He sneered at her when Laurel tried to at least shadow Dell, thus leaving Nine's extra Victor with absolutely nothing to do.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. As most of her tributes didn't want to have anything to do with her, Laurel often made herself useful by heading to the old Capitol Arena, now enclosed and more commonly known as the Sponsor Exchange. This year, that was where she found herself while Dell, Garner and their charges were several blocks downtown attending the Tribute Chariot Parade.

"Hello, Laurel." A soothing baritone made her spin around in surprise. Almost no one chose to actually address her unless they had no other choice.

It would seem that Chaff Silo, the huge buck who had barreled his way through everyone else just last year and only lost a hand in the process, wasn't about that. He held out his hand for her to shake. "Fancy seeing you here."

Laurel politely reached out to take the offered hand without bothering to check; when her fingers only brushed empty air, she shrieked and looked down to see it was his stump she had almost grasped. Chaff just let out a booming laugh. It was genuine enough that Laurel couldn't help but smile as well.

"Peppa and Seeder put me on this duty. What the heck do you do here?"

Laurel shrugged. "Rustle up some funds." A slight pause and then she floated, hesitantly, "You want me to show you?"

"That's the best ask I've heard all day!" Chaff quipped, slinging a friendly arm around her.

Despite being the newbie, it was always obvious that he was going to have more luck charming sponsors than she had in coming up on six years. Some of the biggest donors would have probably even been tempted to turn around and run away from Laurel if she didn't have a…. friend with her. And a hotter commodity, at that.

"You wanna get out of here?" Chaff finally asked, as they sat at the bar watching the overhead television screens wrap up broadcast of the parade. "Go for some gelato? Wolfmark recommended a place."

She was too stunned to even try and decline.

That night wandering the streets of the Capitol with Chaff and eating ice cream would turn out to be one of the happiest nights Laurel could ever remember. They arrived back at the Training Center half-drunk on just their laughing and took the elevator all the way up to the twelfth floor, snuck through the darkened District 12 quarters, and took the fire escape stairwell up to the roof. There, they finished their gelato while looking at the stars and all the light pollution from the other buildings in the city.

It was a time before Laurel caught on that Chaff was actually looking at her, and maintaining that gaze without turning away in revulsion. She didn't think even her mentors had stared at her that long.

"What?" she mumbled.

"Nothing. It's just… I don't think I've ever seen anyone quite like you."

Laurel's first instinct with a comment like that was to take it as an insult. In moments like this, her only defense had been to try and make light of it. "You got that right," she snorted.

"I don't mean it like that!" Chaff rumbled low, quite intensely.

She bravely turned to face him, her legs folded up to her chest as she hugged herself. "Then what do you mean?"

It was a time before he answered, lifting up the stump where his right hand used to be and studying it. "I know what it's like to have people call me ugly… just because of the color of my skin." He smiled at her ruefully. "District 11's never learned to get over itself when it comes to its blatant racism. It's even worse when you're an amputee."

Laurel peered at him, sensing a deep kinship, in spite of her well-founded distrust of most people. "What do you do? How do you deal with it?"

"Simple," he shrugged. "I just have to keep reminding myself that I'm beautiful." He turned his head to look deep into her eyes just then. "You do too."

A single tear was now blazing a path down Laurel's cheek. "Except I'm not…"

"Who told you that? Your religious zealot of a mother?" At how Laurel started, Chaff just chuckled. "Don't act so surprised. The Family talks, you know."

"And what do they say about me?" Laurel's tone turned sharp.

"Nothing that you should take any stock in. See Laurel, the key to accepting yourself is to always keep telling yourself that you're beautiful until you believe you're beautiful."

"But I'm…"

"I think you're beautiful. You are. You're beautiful, Laurel."

Laurel's eyes were as big as moon, sparkling in the darkness. "Did you just say you think I'm beautiful?"

Chaff's massive paw of a hand was suddenly brushing her cheek. He was leaning his face incredibly close to hers, and Laurel uncertainly eyed the path of his incoming lips, yet she didn't shy away, when his mouth sealed over hers. The force of his kiss made her skull tip back and she let out a gasp, her eyes still wide.

Though before long, despite the fact that her scars already nearly swelled her one eye shut, both eventually drooped shut.

It was the first time anybody had kissed her. And Laurel shocked herself with how she was enjoying kissing him back.

Chaff and Laurel finally broke apart. He was still gazing at her with something hardly anyone had ever thought to show her: love.

"Yes," he whispered solemnly in answer.

"Urrrrr…. UGGGHHHH! HUHHHH! ERRRRR! UHHHH!"

Laurel's grunts, moans and cries were loud and pathetic. But then again, she'd never had anybody actually want her enough to fuck her. And certainly not anybody who was a full five years her junior.

At least her maiden pussy was tight and wet and not the least bit ugly, as Chaff pounded her into the mattress of his four-poster bed in his mentor rooms on Floor 11. He seemed to be enjoying having her, at least, as he rocked and moaned above her, his handsome face buried into her neck. He was liberal in kissing her lips even though her deformity made it so that they were not nearly so full and inviting as they could have been. All Laurel could do was furiously rock her hips back, matching his every thrust while her nails dug and gripped into the toned flesh of his buttocks.

A particularly vicious slam from her partner caused Laurel to choke on her own breath. "Chaff! You beast!" And she slapped at his chest; he merely grunted into her shoulder.

It was volcanic, the way he finally made her cum, and she was stunned and immensely proud of herself that moments later, he did as well. The black ram tupping the white, defaced ewe. They lay together in sweat and bliss for close to an hour before they heard Wolfmark, Peppa and Seeder shuffling around in the hallway outside upon return from the parade. When the coast was clear and Laurel left, she kissed Chaff goodbye.

Chaff and Laurel would meet up many more times to shag during Training and then the Games. They were in bed together, Laurel furiously riding him, at the moment that Miller Cornhusk took down both Career boys by himself to win it all and become District 9's fourth Victor. Fantastic. District 9's shortest gap between wins, and Laurel had spent part of it fucking her colleague like a total slut. She was enough of a classy lady to at least act embarrassed about it, but if Dell and Garner knew what she had been up to that whole time, they had the decency not to say anything.

Gradually, Laurel found her way back to a place of self-worth. And even though she and Chaff were never intimately involved again, Laurel Flamsteed would love the handsome amputee from Eleven until the day she died.