"Oceans"

A/N: Hello and welcome to another episode of "David experiments with form and structure in his intros in a hopefully comprehensible way in order to stave off insanity." Enjoy!

PS: This is a bit on the shorter side b/c I cut the mentor POV from this one. It just felt like it didn't really add anything worthwhile, and it ruined the flow of Arno's POV, and also the D4 reapings don't have anything notable happen during them.

~If I should die tonight,

may I first just say I'm sorry,

for I never felt like anybody~

Arno Dupont, 18
The Morning of the Reaping

Nothing is true.

The first half of that familiar phrase has sent me to where I am now. The training center is nearly empty, just a few bored stragglers hanging around the outskirts. The victors are gone too, getting set up for the reaping that will take place in just a few hours. Ainsley was here earlier, getting her own last minute reps in, but she left a while back without so much as a word to me. I'd like to get to know her, to be friends even maybe, but that stopped being an option long ago. My path is set in stone, and in the Hunger Games just as in life there are no barriers or rules, no truth. I don't have room for friends where I'm going.

Elise promised to meet me here before the reaping, but something is holding her up. Not that it matters, I have nowhere else to go. The Hunger Games have consumed my life, because it's the only way to regain what I've lost. If I can just win the Games, I can fix everything that's been broken. For me, sure, but that's also for Gilbert Delacroix, for my name, and maybe most of all for Elise.

We were both eight when we met for the first time. She had those wide, bright hazel eyes that lit up in that special way that let you know that this was someone different. Her brown hair bobbed up and down in its ponytail as she drummed her hands on her desk and hummed some made up song to herself. Later that day, I stole her pencil hoping that she would notice and come talk to me in order to get it back. I never got a word out of her though, she didn't even seem to notice. But when the bell rang and everyone left for home, the pencil was gone.

The next day I snuck by her desk again, but this time I wrapped a slip of paper around her eraser. I don't remember exactly what I wrote, but Elise does. She always says that she'll never forget, and then starts laughing hysterically. But I have an ace up my sleeve for those moments, because when the school bell rang again, and I thought that she had either not noticed or willingly ignored me, I was walking home and found a slip of paper crumpled up and stuffed into the bottom of my back pocket.

'Use that big mouth of yours to talk to me next time.'

I lost the note a few years back, but the words are seared into my mind still even all these years later. We became friends after that, and best friends not long after. At some point 'best friends' morphed into something more, but I can't pinpoint when. I just remember one day sitting on a dock, staring off into the ocean, her head resting on my shoulder, and realizing that we were something special together. That I didn't have to act any certain way around her like I did with everyone else, even my own mother.

Things were easier then, and I wish that I could go back and freeze time at that moment, capture that evening on the docks or any of the hundreds of days like it and stay there forever. It's not that things are awful now. I've made it through the worst of things, I think. But the weight of problems and hardship never really leaves, that pressure staying far after the pain has been lifted and the moment has passed. There's no more carefree. There's only resolve, and the motto which has given me a purpose again.

The air whistles as my spear cuts through it, pinning the center target. Dewey Arroyo steps out of his office, a whistle of his own as he twirls a set of keys and nods at me. "Looking good, Arno. Don't be late for the reaping, now," he says to me as he passes by. I become vaguely aware that the training center is now entirely empty aside from the two of us. The large digital clock in the center of the gym tells me the reaping is just an hour away.

"Never late," I reply simply, grabbing my jug of water and hastily guzzling from it.

"First time for everything," Dewey says casually. He tosses me the key-ring, and I deftly snag them out of the air. "Lock up when, or if, you decide to leave." He turns, then pauses and spins back around. "And consider changing out of the training clothes. Feel free to steal some clothes from the locker room."

"Ah, I don't know. I think I prefer the rugged look to the thief one," I retort sarcastically.

"Cute." He laughs, and as always I can't tell whether he's sincere or not. "Do reconsider, though, thief isn't a bad look for the arena, anyhow."

He's still backpedaling away, and I only have time to shout one last quip before he's out of earshot. "I guess so, to be a victor you've got to steal a few lives after all."

He chuckles, and calls back to me, his voice faint, "We steal a lot more than that, Arno."

I was sixteen when it all went wrong. Someone poisoned Elise's father, it was murder, they were sure of that much. I was still comforting Elise when the authorities came to my house and informed me I was under arrest. Elise's swearing on my behalf did nothing to stop them from dragging me away. They booked me for Gilbert Delacroix murder, and within a single day everything had turned upside down.

Elise came to visit me while they held me in some tiny cell at the Peacekeeper HQ. She came with her mom, and they told the Peacekeepers that they had made some terrible mistake, an awful misunderstanding. When pleading proved ineffective Elise switched methods, anger taking hold as she accused them of laziness and incompetence, letting the real murderer roam free. None of it mattered to them. I was found guilty for a crime I had nothing to do with, and they never even told me why.

I was tossed into one of the few district jails not long after, just a holding location while my trial continued without my presence. According to the people on the inside, it wasn't a jail, really. Nobody stayed there for long enough to call it a prison. It was a holding pen, and before long everyone was taken to face the raven. Rarely somebody would be decided innocent and set free, even rarer than that a person would stay in limbo, left in the prison for years on end, their fate left unknown, never knowing if the next day might be the one that sees their death or their freedom.

Pierre Bellamy was one of those men. He recognized me right away, asked me if I knew Charles Dupont. When I told him that he was my father, or that at least I thought he was since he had died when I was little, the man took me under his wing. Mother never talked about my father, all I had from him was a dusty old pocket watch that had belonged to him. Otherwise he was a blank slate, a blurry-faced parental figure that I had no image of. Pierre told me stories about the trouble the two of them used to get into, and painted a picture of a man I wish I had gotten to know.

But he did more than just that. He knew that I would be one of the few to escape with my freedom, and set me down the irreversible path that's led me to where I am now. We would spend hours talking, debating, and it all resolved me to know what I had to do once I got out. I would clear my name, and get justice for Elise's father, and there was only one way to make that happen. There was exactly one type of person in the districts with the necessary power, influence, and wealth to fulfil my goals. A victor.

Pierre's prediction came true, and a few months later I was set free. Elise's mom pulled a few strings, and while my name was never officially cleared, they dropped the case against me. I wanted to be relieved, to let things return to the way they were, I could tell that's what everyone else wanted. But things weren't the same. They still aren't, and they can't be until I see this through to the end.

The last time I saw Pierre, he took me by the arm and told me that my father would be proud of the man I had become. Then he shared with me his motto, his creed he liked to call it, told me to remember it always, and wished me luck.

Elise greeted me at the exit with a hug. I smiled, cracked a witty joke, laughed when she returned with one of her own. We walked home, arms interlinked, and when we got back to my place I told her that I'd see her tomorrow, that I just needed to rest for a little while. She understood, and my mother wasn't home when I entered our old childhood house, and so I laid down on the couch and thought for a while about whether or not I wanted to cry.

I've switched into new clothes by the time Elise arrives, strolling up to the outside of the academy where I sit on the entrance steps. She has some of her finest clothes on, a stunning lavender dress that makes the jeans and denim jacket that I've thrown on look like the outfit of a street urchin. She seems to have the same thought, gesturing to my outfit as she approaches me.

"Are you going for a look?" She snickers.

"I intended on switching to something a bit more formal, but someone seems to have left me waiting on these steps on a sweltering, humid summer day." I fan myself off, and pretend to peer off into the distance. "Can't figure out who ever that would be."

She mocks a gasp of shock. "So disrespectful. They surely weren't kept late at work, or anything excusable such as that. No, it must have been some malevolent force that made you stand outside rather than sit inside the air conditioned building."

"Whoever they are, they sound like a real pain," I joke. She glares at me. "I appreciate you not beating me up for that one."

"Yeah, well," she says, pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing at my cheek, where a fresh cut from earlier this morning adds to the bruised aesthetic poster that's known as my face. "Can't have you looking even more rugged than you already do."

"Scared I'm gonna win the country's hearts?" I ask teasingly.

"Scared that they're gonna think this guy sure seems to lose a lot of fights for a Career," she corrects me. She sits down beside me on the stairs, and the two of us sit quietly for a moment.

The summer heart really is bearing down today, that was no joke. It must be one-hundred and ten, with a full sun and air so thick you might drown in it if you breathe too heavily. The white under-shirt I have on already came with a few dirt stains, and now sweat is starting to collect as well. Probably not the best first impression to make, but I'm hardly worried about that. At least Ainsley is unlikely to show me up, she doesn't seem the type to volunteer wearing a fancy dress like the one Elise has on. District unity will have a headstart in Four, yay us.

The streets are nearly empty. This part of the district is usually bustling with life, academy kids hanging out on the steps, while workers and civilians stroll through the downtown center of the district. Everyone is at the reaping now, though. It'll start in just a few minutes, and really I should already be there to get a good spot, but I don't feel too rushed. I still remember those days in prison, wishing that I could stretch out those moments on the docks with Elise, let them last just a few seconds longer. I'll do future me a favor and let this one sit for as long as I can.

Elise balances herself as she tiptoes along the curb, arms spread out as she keeps her eyes on her feet, an easy smile spread across her lips. I walk beside her, hands in my pockets and wanting to smile and walk on my toes the way she is, but I can't find it in me.

"I'm just so glad to have you back," she says in the type of sincerity and seriousness that our relationship so rarely has through words. It's the type of quiet small-talk that lets me know that things are different, that the carefree way of life really is gone. It's more than just death that hangs in the air, and I'm not even sure what all it is. I should've been happy to be out of prison and free again. But I don't feel free, not yet. It sounds silly to say that it's my honor that I'm after. I can imagine myself telling Elise that I have to regain my honor, erase the stains that have been thrown on my name. She'd laugh, ask me if I was doing some bit, pretending to be one of those idiotic Careers you see them interview. Not the smart types either, but the dumb ones that go charging into the bloodbath with a grin and leave it with that grin still plastered in place, but their heartbeat flattened.

It sounds silly, but that's what it is, isn't it? I could reason my way into some different method of explaining it, but at the heart of the issue that's what it's about. For the rest of my life, the name Arno Dupont will always mean 'murderer.' Not just any murderer either, but someone who killed Elise's father. If I marry her someday, will that mean I'll have officially committed patricide? Will my kids look up my name one day out of curiosity and believe that their father is a killer? That burden will hang over me forever, and even beyond that, past my death. I have to set the record straight.

All those thoughts pinged around in my head, bouncing off the walls of my skull and hoping to connect together in some unique way, something that could help me explain it to Elise. She stumbled, losing her balance as she hopped back onto the sidewalk. I catch her from falling, and she sells the fall, pretending to continue stumbling and dropping herself into a dip as I hold her steady.

She smiled up at me, made some clever joke, and I don't have it in me to respond, not even a smirk or a reply. She frowned. We were stopped in place in the middle of the sidewalk on a quiet street by the edge of the district near the ocean. There was nowhere to run, no excuse to make. This was where I would have to explain myself. Where I'd have to tell her what I needed to do, and risk everything in the process.

She didn't have to ask me what was wrong for me to start explaining. I sat down, dangling my legs over the edge of the road, where a small buffer of a few loose rocks existed before a plummet to the waters down below. She sat next to me, and waited quietly for me to begin.

"They're never gonna find out who really did it," I said.

She nodded. "I know."

There was silence for a while again after that. "If I was someone more important, they'd find them. They'd clear my name, and go find the real murderer."

I didn't look over, and so I'm not sure how she responded to that. I kept my eyes on the waves below, and waited for her voice to call out to me and tell me what she wanted to tell me, once shock and surprise gave way. "They probably would," she finally agreed, and it sounded as if she was swallowing the words as she spoke them.

"If you aren't a Capitolite, or a Peacekeeper, they don't care about you, not really." I bit my tongue. "There's only one way for a district kid to get them to care."

I looked over at her, my eyes shining. I knew what I was risking with what I was going to do. I had already lost so much, and this was risking everything else. It was a gamble, but it was one that I had to take. I needed that carefree lifestyle again, where Elise and I could just be us and that was all. That heavy weight hung from my neck, and I could never look up and see the light as long as it stayed locked in place. I had to break free.

Her face was blank, any reactions that began to slip onto her features instantly wiped away as she searched for a response. "So that's it then?" She asked me, and her voice was bordering on venomous, just barely held in.

I looked down at my feet. For once the words came right away, with no thought necessary. "A few days we were walking downtown, and we passed by the training center. I remember, because you told me "I don't trust those volunteers" and that's been sticking with me." I sucked in a deep breath, and looked away from the water, and into her wide, hazel eyes that were so bright that you just knew that she was someone special. "Do you trust me?"

Her eyes stayed trained on mine. They fluttered away, out to the ocean, up to the sky, back to the road behind us and then to the one ahead that curved away around the edge of a cliff. Finally, they came back to mine. Moments ate away at one another, my palms slick as they rubbed against the cement anxiously.

She nodded her head. "Yeah," she said quietly, as if she were in disbelief. "I do."

I signed up for the academy as soon as we got back to the district. I was years behind most of the other kids, but I had something most of the others didn't: a reason. It wasn't just for me and my name. Elise never did things in halves, certainly not love. Once she was behind me, her support was there in full. She wanted her father's true killer to come to justice just as much as I did, and even more importantly: she wanted me to win. Because she knew that I needed it, in order for things to go back to the way they were.

I shot up the rankings, staying late and pushing myself further than I thought that I could to earn enough points to get one of those top two spots. Two days before their final decision, I snuck into second place, and from there I ran away with it. Dewey Arroyo called me into his office just one month before the reaping and told me that I'd done the improbable: that I'd be headed into the Hunger Games. He asked me what my philosophy in the arena would be, and without hesitation I repeated the creed that Pierre had told me two years before.

I wish that I could sit here with Elise forever, but there's only so long a moment can be stretched before you have to slip back into reality, as filled with burdens and hardships as that reality may be.

I'm sure not to move Elise too harshly as I worm my way to my feet, gently taking her head off my shoulder. She takes my hand in hers, and squeezes tightly, looking up to me with a barely confident smile.

"I believe in you, Arno Dupont," she says, and she leans in and kisses my cheek, sweat and dirt and blood and all. The smell of lavender perfume lingers as she pulls back. "I trust you."

I squeeze her hand in return, and can't find any words that seem right. That's fine, though, because this isn't goodbye. It's not the end. It's just 'until next time.' It's the beginning of the next act, the part where pain and scars and burdens turn into victory and revenge and the slate being wiped clean.

The reaping is just a few minutes away from starting, but it isn't a long walk, so we take our time, leisurely strolling down the sidewalk, and I think back to everything that's led me to this moment one final time. From that first time I saw a long brown ponytail bouncing up and down to the beat of some made up song, to those few months in prison, to that moment at the edge of a cliff, staring off into an unforgiving ocean. I think back to Pierre Bellamy, and his creed, the words that he told me defined not just his life, but my father's life as well. The words that could define mine, too. The ones that could lead me to everything I've searched for, and make sense out of the random mess that my life has been thus far. It plays in my head, and the back half echoes as I hold tightly to Elise.

Everything is permitted.

A/N: Thank you Pi for the lovely Arno Dupont. I loved getting to start to scratch the surface of this wonderful and complex character, and am excited to reveal more of him and slowly unravel everything I have planned for this awesome guy. As I said before, shorter chapter because I feel this POV is really tight and structured in very specific way so that adding any more words would damage the quality, which I don't want to do just to pad word count totals. And no mentor POV because that's not really necessary this time, since we've met both of the D4 tributes, and nothing crazy happens at the reapings. If y'all really wanna see what happens though worry not, because there'll be a reaping recap chapter after all the intros. I hope I did Arno justice, Pi, and I am so excited to explore this D4 pair some more!

Trivia (2 points): We're at the halfway mark of intros already! Woah! Perks of an 8-character cast lol. Bias aside, which character has stood out the most to you so far? Which one are you most looking forward to that we haven't seen yet?