Written for the Discord SYOT Verses Victor Exchange.
Thank you to Dawn for Madelaina. I will be publishing an after the Games and Victory Tour fic soon; be on the lookout!
Obligatory English is not my first language, so please be kind.
I
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Clipped wings. Corroded hope. Metal bars. Swelling loneliness.
Madelaina hasn't known anything else. Not for years, anyway. Once upon a time she would wander the expanse of forests in District Seven; dew seeping through the bottom of her worn shoes as she led her motley crew of woodland animals through the undergrowth. But that's a dream now β a memory fading with time. If she lays still enough, if she thinks hard enough, Madelaina can still feel the brambles scratching at her arms, and smell the fresh scent of pine drifting on the breeze. But it never lasts. Eventually, something will draw her back β a drop of water from the leaky tin roof, or maybe even the scientist himself β and the familiarity will be gone. All that is left is a longing deep in her bone marrow, stretching it's roots throughout her body.
It's one particularly dreary night that Madelaina realises what she has to do. Red is perched on her hand, the tiny robin all that she has left of the District she hails from, and her fingers gently stroke the top of his head. Rain drums on the roof above, a splashing sound somewhere to her left telling her that Veneri hasn't yet fixed that damned leak. And as she always does when she just needs to escape, Madelaina closes her eyes.
The memory is foggier than it ever has been. The smell of pine is faint; the scratches from the brambles don't sting as much. It startles Madelaina, just how much she has forgotten, and she sits up with a start, her mind and her heart racing.
She's forgetting. A barbed wire of fear wraps itself around her heart; tearing and constricting and β
Madelaina has to go back. She can't let her District Seven fade away.
Her father, her mother, the girl in the woods, Skipper the fox, and Cali the rat. Relationships that were once so personal, now relics of her past. Her heart hurts. Her head throbs.
And then it hits her. The solution to it all.
This morning when he had come to give her breakfast, Veneri had mentioned it offhandedly. Reaping Day β a day that goes hand-in-hand with a feeling of utter dread back in District Seven β now fills her with something close to joy. They ask for volunteers every single year. So far, there have been none.
She'll just have to start the trend.
When she's Victor, nobody can say no. She can return back home to her father and her woodland family, hiding from society by choice. Far away from this warehouse and this cage. Out of the clutches of Veneri Vonsettos and his failed science experiments.
When she voices the plan aloud, her voice raspy from disuse, it all clicks into place.
The next few days bleed together. But at least Madelaina knows there's an end.
The sound of a key in the lock wakes Madelaina on Reaping Day morning. She drags an arm across her face, squinting in the morning light only to shrink when she sees Veneri Vonsettos. But today he does not hold a tray; his eyes betray his impatience as he holds his hand out, beckoning her from the metal confines he keeps her in. The scientist's grip is tight on her shoulder, but it's quickly forgotten as he guides her from the warehouse and out into the brilliant sunshine.
She can see the tips of the trees from where they walk, the bulky trunks and snaking branches hidden behind the tall residential buildings. He did it on purpose, she knows, situating the warehouse so close to District One's forest. It could never compare to the one he snatched her from, but in those early days it was better than nothing.
"I want you," he'd said two years ago, standing on her doorstep. He looked out of place against the luscious backdrop, swatting away at the flies and bugs. Even Skipper the fox wouldn't go near him; cowering in the nearby bushes as though Veneri was a hunter, ready to strike at any moment.
Maybe he was right, Madelaina supposes, in a way at least. Veneri Vonsettos is far from a hunter, but he has the same calloused heart as one; uncaring who he breaks and who he taints. It's all in the name of science, he tells Madelaina in those first few weeks, I've heard stories about your family, and I want to see if they are true. He leads her out to District One's forest, and observes how she interacts with the landscape.
She doesn't know what he is looking for her to do, but when she doesn't perform he tosses her into a cage in the warehouse and he leaves her there.
During breakfast he doesn't say a word. He does not know her plan, and she does not tell him.
Let this be as much of a surprise for him than it is for the rest of the district β Madelaina owes him nothing.
"I volunteer!"
Madelaina's heart is hammering inside of her chest, adrenaline pumping through her veins as the crowd parts like the Red Sea around her. She pulls the robe that Veneri had her wear tighter against the chill that seems to have set in across the district, and tips her chin back. She has spent the last two years of her life at the mercy of another. Now it's time to forge her own path.
The girl on stage, a trembling sixteen-year-old, is the only one who looks relieved. The others all give Madelaina quizzical looks; their eyebrows furrowed and foreheads pinched. They're wondering why, she knows they are, and it's an answer that she can't give them. They'll all see soon enough when she wins and only steps foot in this district for the Victory tour.
They won't miss her.
Sure, she'll be their Victor officially. But she isn't one of them. They know that. She knows that.
They'll forget her, soon enough. Madelaina Vekros will be just another name scattered to the wind.
But for now they are watching. For now they are listening. Madelaina doesn't intend to put on a grand show for them; she's here to win.
She's here to go home.
In the chaos of their male tribute being reaped, nobody notices Red the robin landing on Madelaina's shoulder. Nobody notices her gently hiding him in her pocket.
"You're not from here, are you?" Those are the first words that her small district partner speaks.
The little boy, no older than fourteen if she had to guess, eyes Madelaina from the opposite end of the couch. He hugs his knees to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. His puffy eyes are a dead giveaway that he has been crying, and Madelaina wishes that somebody had saved him like she had saved the girl.
"I'm from Seven," she says, her voice light. The boy's eyes widen.
"Then why are you in One?" He asks.
"I came with a friend," Madelaina lies. He doesn't need to know the truth.
"Are you going to go back?"
Madelaina nods. "That's why I'm here." The unsaid stretches between them; if Madelaina makes it back to Seven, it will mean the boy is no longer living.
The boy shrugs. "At least you have a reason," he says. "Besides just having shitty luck."
Madelaina is locked in her bedroom when she sees the girl in the forest again. A ghostly figure all these years; an old memory in the vestiges of her mind.
She's watching the reaping recap, something that they hadn't bothered to do earlier. The day had been filled with food and light chatter. Her district partner, Calix, opens up a little once they get past that initial awkwardness. They're not a pair β not yet β but they talk amongst themselves as if they've always known each other. It's a little disconcerting to think back on it all; besides Veneri's fury during the goodbyes, everything has beenβ¦ chill.
As if she's not heading into a death match that she volunteered herself for.
As if Calix won't have to die for her to go home. As if she doesn't have to kill before she can see those forests again.
As if she doesn't know the girl reaped in District Seven.
It was dark when they first met. The sky was an inky black, stars poking through the gaps in the branches that criss-crossed overhead. Madelaina had been dozing by the fire, home alone after her father left on one of his beloved hunting trips. She had almost been asleep when the door was thrown open, smacking into the wall with a loud bang that startled Madelaina.
The girl, trembling in the firelight that clawed its way out into the darkness, stared at Madelaina with doe eyes; her ragged clothes cling to her bony frame, her hair matted past her shoulders, blonde but dirtied with mud and leaves.
Madelaina had guided her inside. Set her down by the crackling fire, chucking a few logs on for good measure. She'd given her new clothes, draped a blanket around her shoulder β the girl's skin was as cold of ice β and she had babbled as she combed through the girl's hair.
They had kissed later that night, too. Not too long before the girl had just upped and left, like Madelaina's mother only six years prior.
Madelaina can still remember how cold the glass was against her skin, eyes straining as she watched the girl disappear into the night.
She had searched β high and low, rain and shine, for the girl in the next few years. At ten-year-old, Madelaina was persistent, and that never really dulled. Even going on her sixteenth birthday, a few weeks before Veneri uprooted her, Madelaina had never given up hope that she would find the girl.
And here she was. In the worst place possible.
So why was Madelaina so overjoyed?
"Maivβ¦"
It's an overdue reunion.
Madelaina can't help herself. She leaves Calix by their chariot, heading over to where the blonde girl sits. She looks beautiful; draped in vines and leaves, her gown shimmering under the overhead lights.
At the sound of her name, Maiv turns her head. Her lips part, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. If they both weren't dressed to the nines, they might have hugged, but it's hard enough for Madelaina to even walk over, let alone Maiv clamber down from the chariot.
"I'm so glad you still have the robin." Maiv says. It's not supposed to be a funny statement, but the two of them laugh until they're red in the face.
When Madelaina's stylist comes to collect her, Madelaina's cheeks stay a fiery red shade. The chariot rolls out, Calix gripping Madelaina's forearm for dear life.
The roaring crowds don't pique her interest.
All she can think about is Maiv.
Calix asks Madelaina to ally that night.
They're both slumped on the sofa, their shoes and heavy headpieces discarded on the floor of the apartment. Their escort and stylist have long gone to bed; the floor-to-ceiling windows stretching across the far side of the room reveal only darkness. Madelaina thinks it would be nice to watch the sunrise from them, though nothing would beat being perched in the fork of a tree.
"Madelaina?" Calix's voice is quiet and unsure. He looks at her with those big doe eyes of his, wringing his hands as he carefully chooses his next words. "I know you're not actually from District One, but⦠we're still partners, right?"
"Sure we are."
"Do you want toβ¦" he trails off. "You knowβ¦"
A silence stretches between them. It isn't that Madelaina doesn't like Calix β she doesβ¦ probably more than she should, given that he has to die for her to go back β but if she's going to ally with Maiv lik she plans to, then is it the best idea to have him tagging along? Neither she nor Maiv are extraordinarily capable, but Calix is a kid andβ¦
He's a kid.
At that realisation, Madelaina can't trust her gut. "Sure," she says, even though she knows that it's wrong to give him hope.
She realises just how odd of a trio they are during training.
Calix practically bounces off the walls of the training centre; the shyness in him evaporating more and more every hour. Maiv and Madelaina watch him with amused eyes and smiles, talking quietly between themselves whenever they can. She's still shy, but even a few words a day is enough for Madelaina.
Over the three days they watch the other tributes mingle. They practice with weapons and test each other on edible plants. Calix accuses them both of cheating, then; "You know it all in your weird District Seven brains!" He protests.
"You say that like it's a bad thing, Calix," Madelaina giggles.
"It is for me!" His lips are pressed into a thin line, but his eyes betray his amusement. "If you two put your weird brains together and decided to poison me, I wouldn't even know."
"We're not going to do that," Maiv says. Her eyebrows are furrowed. "We'd never."
"I know." Calix nods. "We're a team."
He changes the subject, telling Maiv about a pastry shop he had loved back in District One.
He was so full of innocence. It makes Madelaina wonder; what would she and Maiv be like if they had never been exposed to the worlds they had dwelled in.
Even as a child, Madelaina's existence was dominated by the disappearance of her mother; there one day, and gone the next. To this day, Madelaina doesn't know what happened. Her father had told her when she was younger that she had gone to be a warrior for Maiv. Not her Maiv, but the one cemented in tales and legends. She'd wanted to believe it, and so she had, waiting for the day that her mother returned from her service. Her father was good with his words β so good that his stories about their supposed healing powers had travelled not only through District Seven, but also to District One and the ears of Veneri β and Madelaina had wanted to believe it so badly that she had.
She's older now, and she knows better. Her mother more than likely was not out in those woods. Alive, anyway.
Her father spins his tales, but dead is dead. Madelaina isn't a necromancer.
And Maiv⦠well, she should be dead. That night she stumbled into Madelaina's cabin was one of the coldest Madelaina can remember. She was so cold, so bruised. So fragile.
So broken.
They don't talk about that night. Even when Calix is safely tucked into bed, and they're lounging in the apartment for District Seven.
But they kiss.
"For good luck," Maiv says, the night before their private sessions.
Madelaina and Maiv score a six each. Calix scores a three. They watch it all together, and they're all happy enough about their scores. Maiv's escort shoes Calix and Madelaina off when the clock hits ten.
"You have a busy day tomorrow," she says. "Interviews are your chance!"
They spend the next morning getting dolled up. Madelaina's stylist presents her with a deep red dress, fabric pooling on the floor despite the extra height the heels give her. She doesn't get the chance to see Maiv before she heads out, but Calix looks dapper in his tiny suit and bowtie.
But the moment she steps onto the stage, in front of the roaring crowd and under the boiling spotlights, Madelaina shrinks. Everybody is watching. Her father. Veneri.
Those she knew in District Seven and those she caught the attention of in District One.
And she can't say anything. Her mouth remains shut for the majority of the interview. Until the host, a loud man by the name of Geronimo, asks her one question.
"We've heard whisperings that you and Maiv, the female tribute from Seven, have met before," he says. Madelaina nods. "Is it true?"
"Yes." She says. And she doesn't elaborate.
She's paranoid that they're going to find Red before she goes into the arena. Her robin sits contently in her shirt pocket for the hovercraft ride, Madelaina keeping him as obscured as she possibly can.
She convinces her stylist to leave the room whilst she gets changed into her arena uniform, switching Red from pocket to pocket.
"Only a few more minutes, buddy," she whispers.
She isn't sure if that is a good thing or not.
Her stylist returns, directing Madelaina over to the tube in the corner. For the first time, she's starting to feel nervous; drawing in a shaky breath as her platform starts to rise.
She's nearly there.
II
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For a few seconds, Madelaina thinks she has been taken back to District Seven.
It's the golden shimmer to the trees that draws her in. The earthy smell carried on the breeze. She knows it's the arena; the countdown and the ring of tributes make it very clear, but for a brief second she's home.
The familiarity of this place envelopes her. Red circles above. It's the forests from her father's tales; the way she used to imagine District Seven when she was younger. For a few seconds it's not dangerous. She's not fighting for her life.
And then the gong rings.
Madelaina has to rip her attention away from the shimmering trees and the stretching blue sky. She jumps from her pedestal, boots throwing up dust behind her as she sprints towards a familiar mane of blonde hair. She stops twice: once to arm herself with a hunting knife, and the other to grab a backpack.
Maiv whips towards her when she hears her approaching, a backpack sitting on her shoulders too. She's armed with a miniature hatchet, her eyebrows furrowed.
"Have you seen Calix?" She asks. Madelaina shakes her head.
Suddenly, something crashes into Madelaina's back. She falls forward, catching her chin on the edge of a crate. But there's no second blow; only someone writhing around on top of her and a slew of sorries.
When Maiv finally manages to pull Calix off of on top her, Madelaina struggles to her feet. She cups a hand under her chin, blood pooling in her palm, but there's no time for anything but running. The three of them take off, remarkably unharmed.
That is until a tribute skids in front of Maiv. The Six boy doesn't waste time in swinging his sword down, tearing open the front of Maiv's coat, catching her left wrist when she instinctively holds it up to protect herself. She's quick to respond with a swing of her hatchet, cutting into the boy's side. Heart nearly leaping out of her throat, Madelaina charges at him, pushing Calix behind her.
Her knife sinks into the flesh of his left shoulder, Madelaina quickly ripping it out. Taking a few steps back, the boy wobbles slightly. Madelaina wills him to go down; he deserves it for trying to kill Maiv.
But he doesn't. He comes at them again, a clumsy sword swing at the both of them. Managing to dodge it, Maiv buries her hatchet in the boy's neck.
Behind her, Calix wretches. Maiv retrieves her hatchet from the crumpled corpse. And they run again.
Thirteen tributes die in the bloodbath.
They stop a safe distance into the trees, gingerly pulling themselves through the branches to a position that they deem safe enough. Carefully, Madelaina bandages up Maiv's wrist; the cut is not deep, but she still can't help but worry.
Her chin stops bleeding somewhere between the fight with the Six boy, and them finding the tree. Calix apologises profusely, and Madelaina waves it off.
"I tried to slow down," he tells her, tying himself to the tree branch with a piece of rope Maiv had in her backpack. "I was just going too fast."
"I'd rather you were going too fast than too slow," Madelaina says. "We got lucky."
Her bottom front teeth hurt when she chews, but it's a small price compared to what others have paid today.
They make it three days in uninterrupted.
Madelaina is still sleeping when she hears the commotion through the branches. She jolts awake at the sound of raised voices, scrambling to untie herself from the tree. Maiv is scrambling beside her, but when they drop down it's too late.
Calix's scream almost shatters Madelaina's eardrums. He drops to the floor the moment the girl pulls her sword from his abdomen.
Madelaina sees red.
When the girl's canon booms, she's covered in it as well.
Maiv is stroking Calix's sweaty forehead, a hand on the wound to try and stem the blood. Madelaina joins in the effort, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes.
She'd known that this moment was coming; if she was honest, Madelaina hadn't expected him to even survive the bloodbath. But even so, the fear in his eyes shakes her to the core. She feels so helpless; just waiting for the booming of his canon. She feels awful for letting him suffer, but she can't will herself to hurt him. Even if it's for good.
He only outlasts his killer by a couple of minutes.
When his canon signals his death, Madelaina slumps down.
She wishes with every fibre in her being that her father had been telling the truth about her family's powers.
Oh, what a gift it would be to be able to bring people back from the dead.
Maybe that night with Maiv was just pure luck.
Calix had been running low on that recently.
"At least you have a reason," he'd said on the train. "Besides just having shitty luck."
Shitty luck is an understatement.
But she has her reason for outlasting him. And she will see it through.
The ant crawls over Madelaina's palm, tickling her skin in the orange light of the early morning. She and Maiv haven't said much since Calix's death; he had been the one to instigate most of the conversations.
The thunk of Maiv's hatchet hitting the trunk of a tree draws Madelaina's attention. She watches the girl carefully; the frown lines on her forehead more pronounced than they were before the arena. Her eyes are haunted, like they were that night.
Madelaina lets the ant run off her palm and onto the ground. She dusts herself up, walking across the clearing to where Maiv is stood. The girl hesitates for a second, staring at her hatchet in the tree.
Madelaina wraps her arms around the girl's skinny frame, and they hold each other.
They don't speak.
They don't need to.
The numbers start to dwindle.
There are six of them left by the time a week in the arena rolls around.
Besides their eventful third day, Madelaina and Maiv have somehow stayed away from the action. They cling to each other because they are all they have.
Sometimes Maiv will smile. Sometimes she'll laugh. And Madelaina starts to think that maybe she can heal. It's odd, but being in the forests and reuniting with Maiv⦠it has rejuvenated her somewhat.
She still feels hollow; she still longs fore home. But it isn't as bad as it was when she lived with Veneri, dreaming about the girl and the forests. Where everything had felt so out of reach, but now was all around her.
Madelaina doesn't need to close her eyes anymore to feel bark underneath her fingertips, or to feel Maiv's skin, hands warm and so, so far away from how they had been when they first met.
She can feel herself slipping back; Maiv not only encroaches on her waking hours, but her fitful sleeping ones, too. Just as she had before. Madelaina hasn't told her about the years she spent searching for her, but she thinks that Maiv knows about them anyway.
The girl from District Two who killed Calix has a sleeping bag in her backpack.
Sometimes, in the dead of night, Madelaina and Maiv zip it all the way up, and they kiss out of view of the cameras.
Madelaina claims her third kill on the eighth day. It's out of mercy, when they come across the wounded District Eight girl.
There's a deep gash in her thigh, and one across her abdomen as well. In her last moments the girl tells them about the mutts β a gaggle of faeries with a taste for blood.
"Watch out for them," she gasps, coughing up red-tinged spittle. "And please be quick."
Madelaina is. She draws her hunting knife across the girl's exposed throat. Her eyes widen, hands flying to the wound, but it's only seconds before they droop shut again, dulled and unseeing.
The canon booms.
Five left.
They don't see the mutts, and Madelaina is almost disappointed. Red has stayed faithful through this experience; the robin is good for moral support, but imagine what she could do with a faerie, too.
Neither Maiv nor Madelaina know who kills the other two, but suddenly they are in the final three and neither of them quite knows what to do.
Madelaina can feel it weighing on her shoulders the moment she hears the second canon of the night. Maiv seems to realise it, too, then, tensing against Madelaina in the sleeping bag. But neither of them say anything.
What is there to say?
Madelaina can almost taste her victory. In those few days between hatching this plan and going to the reaping, she'd imagined the scenario maybe one hundred times over.
And she'd be imagining it now if it wasn't for the body pressed against her.
She's lost Maiv before, but somehow she knew it would never be permanent. She had gotten through those years knowing that she might be out there. But after this⦠it was certain where Maiv would end up.
The only comfort that Madelaina can find is that they will both be in District Seven, even if one of them is in a coffin.
β¦it's not a very comforting thought.
Red circles above the clearing, tweeting out a stark warning before their final fight.
Both Madelaina and Maiv hear the footsteps shortly after, both hands curling around the handles of their weapons. They've barely spoken; they haven't made a plan of what they're going to do after this. But they work well as a team, and Madelaina doesn't want to abandon her now.
She can't.
Their final competitor is the boy from District Nine. He looks worse for wear; clothes torn, face filthy. The spikes of his mace are coated in dry blood. Madelaina's knife, and Maiv's hatchet, too.
Madelaina makes the first move. She lunges towards the boy, Maiv quick at her side.
Her knife slashes down the side boy's face, cutting him from his cheekbone to his chin. His elbow catches her nose, a crunching sound alerting her to the break before the blooming pain.
Madelaina stumbles backwards as Maiv strikes. She hears a scream of pain from the boy; the unmistakable sound of the hatchet tearing at flesh, but then there's a thud, and Maiv is crying out, too.
She staggers back from the boy, blood gushing between her fingers from the dents that the spikes of the mace made in her skull. Madelaina screams too, involuntarily, heart shattering into pieces as her lover falls into the dewy grass.
Madelaina snatches up the hatchet from where it has fallen into the grass. She wants to tend to Maiv, but she knows that she can't do it before she ends this. The boy has slumped against a tree, his breath coming in ragged gasp.
With a scream of anguish that hurts her throat, Madelaina buries the hatched into his chest with a frightening amount of force.
The canon is almost instantaneous.
Madelaina drops to her knees, crawling over to Maiv's crumpled form in the grass. She's still breathing, though it's shallow.
For the first time in the arena, Madelaina lets herself openly sob. She cradles Maiv's head in her lap, whispering comforts that she doesn't even know if the girl can hear.
The canon thunders; a voice declaring Madelaina Vekros District One's first ever victor.
But whatever life had sparked inside of Madelaina in the past few days has dimmed.
She is going back to District Seven.
But what has it cost her?
Songs: All or Nothing by the Dream Masons
Alligator Teeth by Mother Falcon