Hello ! This project is part of the SYOT Verses Victor Exchange event ! The lovely lady you're about to meet was created by Anya (glimmerglint on FFN; also the host and organizer of this lovely event) and adopted into my verse with her permission. You might recognize some of the additional characters here if you've read my other stories, though that is not necessary to understand this one. This was supposed to be a one-shot, but it.. sort of got out of hand, so I divided it into eight parts. I hope you enjoy ! And Anya, thank you for entrusting me with Icara, I hope I wrote her to your satisfaction ;-; (I love her a lot, if you can't tell hjfh)
i. THE VOLUNTEER
At fifteen years old, Lara was the perfect Career trainee.
Icara Slate knew what that looked like. It looked like clashing weapons and near-perfect test scores; blood in your mouth and fire in your dead-tired muscles and choosing to fight anyways because you know nothing else. It looked like crushing your peers under your boot as you climbed to the top, a hand offered in aid turned to a knife through the back in the blink of an eye. It looked like cutthroat discipline, unwavering focus, and razor-sharp instincts.
At fifteen years old, Icara Slate was not enough of those things, so she, suffocating her dreams between her teeth and plastering a smile across her face, told her mentors that she wanted to switch from the Volunteer track to the Academy trainers' track.
And she liked it, she really did. Her talents were better suited for this anyways, too easygoing where she should be competitive, patient where she should leap into action. The work itself was rewarding, just as rewarding as the pay (and Icara needed the pay; Academy scholarships were hard to come by and harder still to maintain). Whether at the Academy or during private training sessions, Icara pushed her students, drilling them with a passion she never found for her own training. Their milestones were a notch in her book, and at eighteen years old, Icara knew her place.
Icara trained her students to surpass herself, and surpass her they did. Model trainer, cultivator of model killers.
Lara was one of them; her family had hired Icara for extra sessions upon their daughter's request. The girl threw a javelin with more accuracy and grace than Icara ever thought possible, but more than that, she possessed an intense drive, a hunger for Victory that couldn't quite be taught. Enough to carry her through the Games? Possibly.
Apparently, the Selection Committee thought so too, announcing Lara Albani as the official female volunteer for the 163rd Hunger Games in front of the entire district — the first time such a young volunteer was selected over the older kids since the 74th.
That was already a bad start.
The fact that they'd even let Lara participate in the Selection Tournament had left a bad taste in Icara's mouth; the way she's annihilated girls three years her senior had bled malice through each person felled with her weapons, an irritation echoed by some trainers who hadn't agreed with the Committee's decision. Six months before the Reaping, and Lara's made herself an enemy of just about every student at the Academy aged sixteen through eighteen.
It was Icara she came to, spitting fury and curses, when her future district partner had threatened her with a knife in the gut before she could make it into the arena. "Save it for the Games," Icara hissed, but Alpha Terrero only laughed, mocking Lara for hiding behind "Miss Icky's" skirts. It was Icara who found her the day of the mock Games in February, stalking towards the infirmary with murder in her eyes and blood dripping down her bent nose. "Shouldn't you be at the mocks?"
"They Bloodbath'd me," she spat. "Alpha and the others, they fucking Bloodbath'd me, after Pyke told them not to."
Icara has never been quick to anger, but she longed to give Alpha a piece of her mind, or even the taste of a javelin point, the curved blade of an axe. But her logic tempered her ire. Icara knew a good trainer let their students fight their own battles; anything else would weaken Lara in the eyes of her opponents. Still, Lara needed to make it through the coming months in order to get to the Games in one piece, so Icara recruited the help of her fellow trainer, Cyrus Granite, and her own pair of friends to the task, keeping one eye on Lara and the other on Alpha. Every once in a while, Icara would get a grateful look thrown her way from Lara's mentor, though the Victor herself seemed on-edge having to deal with her particular fifteen year-old firebrand.
"It feels like a miracle that we got her this far," Dagmara Illura-Pyke said aside to Icara on both her and Lara's final day at the Academy. Icara agreed, and she sighed, heading off to collect her charge and muttering, "Of course I'm the one who has to deal with this," in a tone Icara didn't think she was meant to hear.
Her uneasiness increased exponentially when Icara caught sight of Lara later that night at the Academy's unofficial graduation party, the girl's face a mask of forced blankness and a plastic cup of what Icara hoped wasn't alcohol in her hand. "Hey," Icara said, appearing at Lara's side and steering the girl off towards a private corner of the Academy's halls where no one could observe their exchange.
Lara's hand clamped tightly onto Icara's wrist; her eyes met Icara's and she looked so damn lost that Icara couldn't take it.
"Look at me, Lara."
Lara blinked, moving her mouth as if to talk, but no sound came out.
"Listen to me," Icara insisted, her hand clamped on Lara's shoulder. "You can do this. I know you, and I know you can do this. You're gonna be the youngest damn Victor Two's ever had, yeah?" Whatever Lara was feeling caught up to her, beginning to leak out her eyes before she threw her head into Icara's chest. Somewhat startled, Icara quickly soothed herself into the role of comforter, running a hand through Lara's hair, telling her to "breathe, let it out. It's fine, no one can see us here." She dared to ask what was wrong, but Lara didn't answer, trying to choke her cries between her teeth, and for a heartbeat, Icara thought, Will she even make it through the Games like this? before forcibly replacing it with If Alpha makes it out of that arena, I'll kill him myself. "Lara," Icara said when the girl had finally calmed down, "this is your chance. Not everybody gets this chance, you know that, right?"
Furiously, Lara pawed at her eyes with her palms, nodding.
Taking a breath, Icara pushed away the fleeting ghost of past dreams of glory, focusing on the girl in front of her. This was her role. "You earned this chance. Now, what are you going to do with it?"
The water in Lara's eyes couldn't drown out the fire in her voice. "I'm gonna win."
Icara smiled. "Damn straight you are."
Come Reaping day, Icara felt a calm wash over her, a surety in her bones telling her she'd trained the next Victor. Whatever the Gamemakers had up their fancy sleeves, Lara Albani would go down in District Two's history, and it was Icara Slate who'd put her there. Whatever breakdowns or doubts Lara had experienced, Icara had quelled them; kind words and a shoulder of support worked wonders. Lara can do this, Icara thought, standing in the crowd of eighteens, the Academy girls casting horrid glares in their Volunteer's direction. I've never met someone who wants this more than she does.
She can do this, Icara thought as the escort dragged her glittering claw-like fingernails through the girl's reaping bowl, nothing more than a formality. This was Icara's last reaping; she'd be home-free after this, free to continue her stone-cut manufactured dream as an Academy trainer.
She can do this, Icara thought as a girl from the fourteens section made her way to the stage as her name was called, waiting with visibly-shaking hands as the escort called for volunteers.
As it turned out, Lara could not, in fact, do this.
Icara caught the girl's eye — her trainee, her prodigy, her friend — and her heart dropped. 'I can't,' Lara mouthed across the crowd of people beginning to mutter in her silence, and in the heartbeat before the world moved again, before the Reaped girl's trembling turned to real tears, before the backup volunteer could open her mouth, Icara spoke.
"I volunteer!"