I do not own 'Hunger Games' or anything related.
After enjoying what remained of my bottle (and the effects that came with it) and approaching the time that I would have to get back to work, I drank lots of water, took some medication that I never ended up using before, and had a proper meal. It felt good, getting actual food in me. It's just that I always go for the drink first, but this time I couldn't afford it. It felt like a long time since I felt really sober. I hated the feeling. The more I got, though, the more I questioned my decision about actually helping the tributes today. Well, I made a promise to them, and even though I didn't have a good track record for keeping promises, I intended to keep this one. To the best of my ability. After having a shower and getting dressed I got groomed. Later, I decided to join the crowd as usual for the chariot rides.
"Hey, Haymitch! Over here!"
Chaff had saved me a seat, beckoning me over. Now this guy actually was my best friend, that is out of all the friends I had he was my best. If there was one thing I looked forward to every year going to the Capitol (Aside from venturing to the different bars) is meeting up with all of my friends. Aside from Chaff there was Seeder, who was like a second Mom to me; Joanna Mason, who reminded me of myself when I was young, and who unlike most of us resisted the use of drugs to deal with the affects of the games despite losing everyone she cared about at home. Blight. Woof. Cecelia. Beetee and Wiress, nicknamed Nuts and Volts (Wiress, well, you could probably guess the reason, Beetee for how he took out the career pack and become victor). See, that's what me and my friends all had in common.
We were all victors.
No, victor's not the right word. I know that's what we're called, except I don't feel like a victor. Survivor might be more accurate. And so since surviving we all got together every year, supported each other (In my case, supporting involved a lot of drinking), and comforted any of us who had gone through a hard time, including losing any tributes. Mind you, the group of victors I hung around with all come from the non-career districts, and tended to keep separate from the much larger group that hailed from Districts 1, 2 and 4. Too many of our tributes we mentored, loved ones who ended up becoming tributes, or even fellow tributes in our respective games had died at their hands or the ones they mentored for us to truly get along. Mind you there was the odd Career victor I liked, like Finnick Odair.
It's funny that I had friends plural, when before the games, I wasn't exactly the most sociable person. Mel tried once to introduce me to his gang of other friends, but I wasn't interested in knowing any of them. Just him. Although funnily enough, when I first made contact with the different victors and joined this group, it was remarked that I was more sociable than Raybearta, who preferred to remain separate from the other victors.
I noticed Chaff was staring at me.
"What?" I asked.
"I don't believe it!"
"Believe what?"
He squinted his eyes at me.
"Are you actually…sober?"
"Oh. Um, well, more sober than I was this morning."
Chaff laughed.
"More like than you have been for over two decades! I haven't seen you sober during a Hunger Games since…oh!"
"Oh what?"
Chaff moved closer to me.
"So, these kids this year are something, am I right?"
Chaff had guessed it. The last time I was sober, at least for the start of a Hunger Games, was the 55th, back when I was trying to save a tribute. Course, I was still trying even after that, although I wasn't shy of having a drink while doing it. Chaff realised that if I was sober, it meant that I felt that my tributes this year had a chance.
Which was a problem.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I told him.
Chaff, unreadable, just nodded and turned back to the stadium. See, this was the one drawback. The invisible wall that stopped all of us victors from truly becoming friends. Because even though we all liked each other, and got along with each other, ultimately the truth was that we were competitors. Most in our group were mentors to the tributes in every hunger games, whose job it was to ensure the survival of their tributes, which brought them into direct conflict with each other. Even those of us who weren't mentors, or who were mentors who either stopped trying like myself or weren't in the right state to be of help to anyone, still owed some loyalty to their districts. In a way I think it's worse for those who have more than one mentor. Districts tend to have at least two mentors. Technically, they were a team, but it was more complex than that. In most cases each mentor would choose one of the tributes to prioritise, meaning that they were in direct competition with each other just as with other districts as well, having secret strategies and getting sponsors for each, and if the time came when their tributes were forced to fight each other... I think in that way I was lucky not to have a partner, although the worst part of my job (at least back when I tried) was choosing which tribute to save, deciding which one had the better chance of survival.
Soon the chariots started rolling in. I wondered how the kids had done. I know it wasn't fun getting waxed. I tried to fight off, but I was told off by Mrs Charm. I felt so unmanly with all my hair removed, yet here it was considered a sign of beauty. Course, I've seen what they considered beauty. Then of course there were the outfits. They tended to be miner outfits, too big for any of us. I found it especially amusing when Maysilee was in one of them, given that she was a merchant child who wouldn't have had to engage to mining work. One set of stylists tried to be clever by focusing on the coal rather than the job, painting the tributes naked black.
Not the best year, that one.
"Wait, what's that?" Chaff asked.
I heard screams from the crowd. When the chariot for 12 came in the tributes were on fire.
I was beginning to regret my advice to do whatever the stylists told them.
It took me a moment to realise that the fire was just an effect. Fire on black costumes.
Burning coal.
When the rest of the crowd realised what was happening, their screams turned into cheers. Soon everyone was cheering, probably for the first time for District 12.
Well, that left an impression. For the first time since I can remember from District 12. The fire in my that rekindled earlier was now as burned as bright as the fire on my two tributes.
That evening we celebrated our success. Effie and I got along for the first time in years. The new stylists, Cinna and Portia, kept us in order. She was more shocked than Chaff was that I was relatively sober, having never seen me as anything else before. Well, not in person at least. The kids had their first taste of wine (Which I realised too late was a mistake), when the cake was brought out and the girl noticed the avox.
"Oh, I know you!"
That wasn't possible. How could she know the avox?
I explained that avoxes are traitors. I know, I was surprised as she was to learn that there were those in the Capitol despite having everything in excess were dissatisfied with the rule. But there was no way she could know the avox girl. Unless…
I knew that she hunted in the woods, and if for reason there were fugitives there… No one could know that she hunted, as poaching was punishable by death. Even though she was already practically sentenced to death already this could cause problems for her if she survived, or at least for those back in District 12. The girl was stammering, and the wine didn't help. Alcohol could act like a truth serum, especially for a novice. I wouldn't have let her have any if I could have anticipated this! Thankfully the boy stepped in, saying she looked like someone called Delly Cartwright.
"Yes, that's who she reminds me of!"
The tension disappeared. We watched a replay of the games. I noted something I noticed before.
"Whose idea was it to hold hands?" I asked.
"Cinna's," The girl replied.
I turned to Cinna.
"Nice touch of rebellion."
Tributes, even from the same district, were after all meant to be competitors. I put a little emphasis on the word 'rebellion'. When the replays finished, I shooed the kids off to bed.
"The grown ups need to talk," I told them.
They left.
"So," I turned to Cinna and Portia, "What was the idea around the holding hands?"
"What, you think we're sort of rebels or something?"
I didn't think that. But if they seemed to oppose to capitol, it meant that I like them.
"It's part of a radical idea we have that we wan't to go through with you two. With your approval as Mentor and Escort to the District 12 tributes."
"Let's hear hear it," I said.
"Well, we were thinking of having them presented as a team."
"A team?"
"Well, why not? The tributes who win most often form teams."
Yes, that was true. The Careers even ate together at the gym where they trained for the games, unless that has changed since I was a tribute or the last time I quizzed the tributes on the goings on. No, it was unlikely to change, as eating together is a way to cement their alliance, even a temporary one. And that's the thing. The alliance always broke down in the end once they were the only ones left.
"So you want them presented as allies?"
"More than allies," Cinna explained, "like an actual team, whose team members care about each other, who do everything together, who genuinely enjoy each other's company. Even dress identically, I don't think that's something the other tributes do!"
No they don't. But there is a reason for it.
"You do realise that only one of them can survive, right? That if it came down to just the two of them, one would have to kill the other?"
"Well that would only happen if one of them isn't already killed. And if by chance they are the last two left and are forced to fight each other to the death, well, the audience will have no choice but to see this happy team tear itself apart, won't they?"
I looked at Portia, and it seemed that she agreed with Cinna's plan. What Cinna was suggesting, it was certainly rebellious, showing that tributes were more than pieces in the game makers, that they were more than just participants meant to kill each other, that they are human beings with real feelings and the Capitol would have no choice but acknowledge that these two team mates, even friends, were forced to fight each other to the death. Yes, it was rebellious. But there was some rebellion you could get away with. Raybearta wore a token on her games that would have gotten her shot outside of the Hunger Games, but she just presented it as a precious memento of her father (Which it was). But considering she was already reclined to the fate of death she got away with it. I turned to Effie.
"What do you think?"
Effie seemed even more shocked than me being sober that I was asking her opinion.
"You're the mentor," She told me, "It's your decision."
"True," I replied, "But you are the one responsible for making them presentable to the Capitol. How do you think it will go down?"
Wrapping her head around the idea that I valued her opinion, Effie thought about it.
"Well, as far as I know there's no actual law forbidding tributes from the same district to be wearing the same clothes. Nor are there any rules that prevent them from being friendly with each other or training together. And if it did happen if they were forced to kill each it would certainly cause emotion. It's certainly never been done before!"
Never done before. No, it would be new and different. The audience liked to watch something new and different. And I wondered what kind of emotion them fighting to the death would cause? I turned back to Cinna.
"Sure, why not?"
I wondered how the tributes would react to our radical plan. They would certainly object, given that they are competitors. Then again I have a feeling that the boy might be more willing to go along with it. I thought about what he said earlier, that the avox looked like someone they knew called Delly Cartwright. Somehow I doubted that she really looked like this Delly Cartwright. For one thing, there are no redheads in District 12. Also if I'm not mistaken, a Cartwright family runs a shoe shop. If that's so then the avox definitely didn't look like the girl their age that I've seen work there. It was almost as if the boy had covered for her. What I couldn't work out is why. Why protect someone who was ultimately your competitor?
After having what was probably the best sleep I've had in a long time, I got ready to meet the tributes in the dining room for breakfast.
"Remind me," I asked Effie, "what are their names again?"
Effie sighed.
"Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen."
"Right, that's it."
Even though internally I still called them the boy and the girl, I was gonna have to use their names as well. Can't just keep calling them 'Boy' and 'Sweetheart' for the rest of the week after all!
The girl was already there, helping herself to food. The boy joined soon after. After filling myself with several platters of stew watered down with my own personal flask, I got straight to business. First thing first, I asked them if they wanted to be coached together or separately, in case one of them had a special skill they didn't want the other to know about. The boy said that he didn't have any secret skills, but that he already knew what the girl's was, having eating enough of her squirrels.
Squirrels? That's right! Graian Mellark the baker used to buy squirrels from Everdeen when he was a kid! It sounded like he still had a taste for them even now, cooking them for his family. Mind you I'm pretty sure his wife wouldn't have allowed it if she knew where they came from!
The girl said that they could coach them together, and the boy agreed. Secondly, I asked them what they could do. The boy said he couldn't do anything unless I counted baking bread, which I told him I didn't, and then I turned to the girl, saying that I already know she's good with a knife. She surprised me by denying she was, but saying she could hunt with a bow and arrow. That didn't surprise me, as I knew those were the best tools to use for hunting. However, I was still disappointed that her choice of weapon was the bow and arrow, as opposed to the knife, which was mine.
"And you're good?" I asked.
She considered this.
"I'm alright," She replied.
The boy stepped in, telling me how excellent she was, how she can hit squirrels and rabbits in the eye rather than the body, and that she can even bring down deer. I stared at the boy. There it was again. I don't recall any previous tribute overselling the other's skills, even if they knew them, when they should be more concerned with selling themselves. I could see the girl also found his praise suspicious, asking what he was doing. Then the two go into an argument, a strange argument where each brought up the other's skills. I learnt that the boy could lift up to 50-kilo bags of flour, and that he came second in wrestling in the school competition last year. Now that was interesting. However, the boy didn't think it was much, and ended up getting angry, tell her that his own mother, when coming to see him after he was chosen, the time when you're supposed to say your final goodbyes, how much they love you or even encourage you, told him that the girl was sure to win. I remember Cleeva at school. She was a horrid cow even then, especially towards us seam kids. Mind you she tried to charm me after I became a victor and was single again, probably thinking it would be such a great thing marrying a victor. She wasn't the only one. One minute I was despised, now I became the most desirable match. Course, I turned them all away. Rather aggressively. They may have thought they would be getting a life of comfort from me, but I knew they were better off being as far away as possible. So no, it didn't surprise me that she had no maternal bone in her body, but to even praise another tribute, let alone a seam kid, over her own son, in front of his face?
The argument ended with the boy telling the girl how she would get so many sponsors, and when she denied this, saying that she would get no more than him, he turned to made and said that she had no idea, the effect she has.
She may not have any idea, but I think I do, if she's anything like her old man. It's hard to describe, though, the way people trusted him, the way he could easily make friends with anyone, how they adored him. He was the type of person who if he declared war on someone, then you would gladly follow him in battle. It's a lot like his singing. I still remember the first time I heard him sing. It was the first day of school. I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay with Ma and the baby, but Ma told me that I had to go to school and it was the law. She also told me that school will help me when I became a coal miner. So I decided I would go to school, because if I became a coal miner, then I could support Ma and my baby brother until he was grown up, so that we didn't have to live and rely on my old man anymore! When it was Music, I thought that music had nothing to do with coal mining so I wasn't paying attention.
Then I heard that voice. And I'm not making this up. But after he sang, the Mockingjays outside started singing in return. You could see the awe in everyone's face. Not me, though. I was probably the only one he didn't enchant. I laughed so loud it caused everyone to look at me. I noticed the looks everyone was giving me.
"He sings like a girl!"
I can still see the expression on Everdeen's face when I said that.
From that point on, him and me were enemies. Well OK, enemies might be too dramatic a word. We definitely didn't get along, considering that my comment didn't go down well. With anyone really. Maybe that's why I had so much trouble making friends. But that's the kind of effect he had on people, and from what I saw at the reaping, the girl had a similar effect. Of course, from the way she was glaring at that bread roll you'd think that the boy had insulted in some way, as if he was saying that people pitied her or something. The awkward silence went on for over a minute before I decided to break it, telling them not to underestimate their abilities but be aware of the limitations they might encounter in the arena. So I told them to keep their skills a secret, the girl to stay away from archery, and the boy not to show how much he could carry. They needed to save that for their private interview. I also told them to learn new skills from the different stations.
And then came the last controversial instruction. I told them to be at each other's side in public for every minute. As expected, this got a reaction, but I banged my hands on the table, told them it wasn't up for discussion, and to get out, and meet Effie at the elevator at 10.
I was probably a little harsh when I told them to get out, I know, but trust me I am friendly when compared to Ray! bearta. I could see that the girl had the most trouble with my latest instruction, but she bit her lip. As they went back to their rooms, I thought about my latest tributes. I assumed the reaping was the first time they met, but it seemed these two knew each other. Or at least they knew of each other, the boy aware of the girl's hunting abilities, the girl seen him in the market and aware of his wrestling. Well, that wasn't anything unusual. The girl's hunting abilities would have likely been well known in town, and the boy would also have been known if he came second in wrestling. As for seeing him in the market? Well, it would be hard not to have seen everyone else in District 12, and she would have likely known that he was one of the baker boys. No. It seemed to go further than that. What was it that the girl said to the comment the boy made about what Cleeva said about her being a survivor? Only because someone helped me. The way she said it to the boy, as if it was a comment directly towards him, that he was the reason she was a survivor. When she said that, his eyes darted to the bread roll she was holding. Bread. Was it something to do with bread? Working at a bakery, it made sense. Had the boy given her bread when she was starving, enabling her to go on? Somehow I doubted his family would have let him do that for free, as the girl would be too poor to buy bread, and he would have been punished severely for handing perfectly good bread for free. Perhaps it was stale? No, stale bread was precious commodity for family use. Maybe it was bread that would have been thrown away? Somehow I couldn't see this boy do that, and the girl would certainly not appreciated being given spoiled bread. Unless it was ruined, but on the whole still good to eat, such as being burnt for example, then this could have been given. A wry thought occurred to me about the possibility of the boy burning the bread on purpose, but I couldn't understand why he would do that for a stranger, especially if the consequence was getting whacked across the face with a rolling pin. I thought about how the boy helped me get washed, and how he covered for her last night. Maybe I misunderstood him. Maybe he's kind. I also wondered when this hypothetical meeting could have occurred. I knew exactly when. It would have been during that dark period of the girl's life, between the death of her old man and when she was old enough for tesserae.
Suddenly a wave of guilt and shame washed over me. If only I had been there. If only I had done something! I could have helped this family, supported them with the money I had instead of getting drunk in my house! What am I saying? I was just a stranger! Pheena and I only had one intimate moment years ago! And it's not like me and Everdeen were friends or anything! Even as adults, in the Hob when I was getting my latest batch of liquor and he would come in to trade, we may have exchanged the odd glance, but that was all!
That's all there ever was.
