Hey... It's been a while...
Do not have an apology for this, should be writing other things for my master thesis, but found myself here again.
So... Hope you guys enjoy a little bit of Finnick.
The Capitol is just like I left it.
Loud.
Bright.
A place full of wonders and one which the beautiful appearance hides the ugly truth.
And the longer you stay the more you notice the mud staining everything. I guess is the contrary from home. There you will look down at the locals at first glance, see our dirty boots, the dirt under our nails and the faces burns of sun exposure causing winkles way before they should appear and categorize as rough people, uncivilized and unwelcoming, but things get better as someone spent more time. Here… in the beginning is like a dream, everyone is well fed and the clothes and fashion, while in a style I don't particularly like, are obviously made of great quality. It doesn't seem to have homeless people neither poverty, just like a fairy tale everything is amazing. And then, just like I notice with president Snow, the contradictions start to become more noticeable the longer you let your eyes take in the whole picture. The faces and smiles start to remember maniac dolls, the parents that let the avoxes raise their children, the couple with a screaming age difference and the desperation in the eyes of one.
This is what I notice in the way to my new apartment.
The subtle way they found to tell me that I will be coming here often and not only for the Hunger Games. The building used as accommodation for tributes is open only twice every year. For the Games and for the Victor Tour. In theory every one of us also receives an apartment somewhere around the area, but for most of us is never used. Or at least for the ones with dead relatives or too old for the Capitol to care. The rest visit the city often, some of them because they enjoy, like victors from 1 and 2, the others come for more nasty reasons. The fact that Aster is introducing me to the one-bedroom apartment so eagerly means that I will be the latter.
But first I need to survive the Ball that will be held in my honor.
The first time I will need to interact with so many capitolians at once. This is not only party; it will be more like an auction in which I am the prize. The first look for potential buyers. There will be other victors here and maybe it would be interesting interact with them in an environment when we will not be competing to keep kids alive or been showed off to the families of those that didn't make it.
"There we are, my dear! Isn't it splendid? Of course, you can decor it how you like it after, even though I doubt you, people from the district, have a better sense them us… Oh God! Look here! The wood is mahogany! It has been so difficult to find out in the market these days! Aren't you lucky?" The Bloody-Man almost shine from the enthusiasm, his red face a tone deeper than the rest of the body. He is loving it more than anything. And I despise him for that. Maybe if he was a new escort I could made an apology for him, something along the lines that he didn't know any better, he suffer brainwash from the Capitol or whatever. But this was excuses I used for the careers that for better or worse were children. Aster Lowtrop had been with the district 10 for longer than I am alive. He saw what happen to Noah.
To him and to his family.
And yet.
There he is… Excited for a place that he knows will become my cage.
I am forced to smile and agree.
The problem isn't the place. It is actually quite lovely, with a design that now was vintage, but was everywhere when I was alive. Really different from home, but yet somehow familiar. I doubt any other victor would feel comfortable here, for them would be too capitolian like. No, that wasn't the problem. The issue was that I wasn't sure if there was hidden cameras and microphones and I doubt I would be able to relax before checking it.
My hands are already itching for it.
Will there be a day where I am no longer paranoid about it?
Just after the night fall in the city, I found myself in the middle of the ball. It is an incredible thing taken out of my wildest dreams and that will not be dislocated in any fantasy book I have ever read. Dresses that look like costumes, more food than I ever saw in my entire life, drinks that shine and glitter when the Avoxes walk around delivering more alcohol for the already intoxicated guests. And the decoration… The presidential manor was already a beautiful thing, direct from other times and it would be stunning during the day without the help of the colorful lights, but tonight it had a theme.
Ophelia Gadeer.
Me.
And what is best than the flowers that I used in my head to honor my victory?
It also made it clear that in the drunken state the capitolians were in, although the ball had barely started, they did not remember my name. For them I was the "Flower Girl", a nickname that I found rather uncreative since it was based on my flower crowns, and it remind me of little girls that walk in front of the bride in weddings.
It serves me.
In a decade or so, I can show them that in the wild, bright colors are usually a sign of poison. You should be careful of something that even nature did not bother hiding.
Some victors are here, either entertaining the crowd or camping on the bar where the pile of empty glasses form itself too fast for the avoxes to get rid of it. I don't know all of them, some because I forgot their names on the victor tour and some because they never showed up.
I hesitate for a moment.
It would not be a smart move to approach them, it will drag eyes and gossip and if anyone I don't know do something wrong, I could be implying on it. But it is so tempting. I could make connections, get to know people that could, in about ten years, put me and my loved ones into a hovercraft to District 13, maybe understand how others deal with the things I had to do.
But who? Who should I approach? Not the careers. Passing through their districts was already a totally new kind suffering seeing how they brag about their times in the arena. Not the morphinaceos, even if I understand the reason why they got addicted it would be a waste of time to them now. This excluded a good part of the present victors. The ones left divided in three groups. The alcoholics, the elders and the prostitutes. Some of them being part of more than one group at a time.
I went to the bar. It was the better option. If I went to the third group it would put me even more in the spotlight for future buyers, the elders may be kind and try to help me because of the dozens of kids they mentor and fail to bring back to their districts, but they would be dead in less than ten years. And isn't it an awful thought? They were probably the ones that suffer the most and yet will die without seeing Panem free of this monstrosity.
District 13 will not take them unless they bring something to them and the Capitol will publicly execute them for something they may not even be involved in. It is not fair. But I am grown up enough to understand that life isn't fair and that I can't save the world. To make it a better place was a dream of an old me, one that lived before this time and for who the horrors I passed and will pass was nothing more than books and movies. I will do my best for my own life and for my loved ones. The rest will be collateral.
Which bring me to the first group that had two distinct advantages. If they talk something wrong, I can always blame the alcohol and the second and most important: Haymitch Abernathy.
Even though I didn't spoke to the district 12 victor at all during my tour he is somehow fascinating. Someone who had all the odds were against him and yet persevere and survive the Second Quarter Quell only to lost his entire family because of a rebellion act he did not intend to do. And despite all that is still relatively sane.
As sane as we can be. We can, right? We have to be.
He is not completely wasted when I approach him, but it was obvious by the blush in his olive skin and how he leaned on the table, so he did not had to stand straight that he wasn't sober. I doubt he had been sober anytime in the last sixteen years.
No judgment.
Regardless of this inebriate state his appearance is better than last time. At least now his hair seems somewhat clean, and his shirt does not look like it has not been washed in years and there is something sharp in his eyes. A glint of intelligence that was dulled by alcohol and years of endless mental torture.
It doesn't matter how loud he is laughing over Chaff dirty jokes, it is obvious for everyone that knows the signs that Haymitch Abernathy is not comfortable here. Almost all of the victors have the same posture. The readiness to fight or flight that only comes from necessity.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't our 'Flower Girl' a bit too young to join the responsible grown-ups at the bar, aren't you?" The victor from district 11 calls me when I approach them. Chaff Brown won the 45th Hunger Games and more than twenty years later I don't know if he remembers that he lost a hand there because he gestures for me to approach with his left arm that ended in a stump, a hand lost in the bloodbath and another nursing a glass of whisky close to his chest. I admire his courage to deny a limb reconstruction that the Capitol must have offer him at that time. Shows character… or stupidity. Not completely sure which one yet.
"My parents say that I am really mature for my age." I said shily looking down to my pretty little doll shoes. They do not fit me, not personality wise, two weeks ago I was wearing old boots cover in mud and half a year ago my favorite pair has been glued more times than I can count. A mask. A costume. All of this is a play pretend. 'And I think that if you are old enough to kill, you are old enough to drink'. The second thought doesn't make it to my lips.
The older victor snort and Haymitch chuckles at his drink, he didn't even bother to look to me.
"Yeah, yeah. All of them say the same thing. Now why don't you go play with dolls while the adults have better things to do?" My blood boils over the dismissal. I expect this, being despised, disregarded and all of it. And I wanted this. It would be useful in the future against the Capitol. But those two went to the same as I did, they are from districts just like mine, bottom districts on top.
I want to stomp my feet on the ground, scream or punch that condescending smile out of their faces. I can't do this, and that is why I feel my face going red from anger, rage and maybe a little of despair.
No. No, no, no. No!
They can't disregard me. Any useless victor will be disposed of. I can't be one of them. I am not ready to die. Not again. Please, not again.
"Hey, do you believe in love at first sight or should I pass again?" The cheesy line came behind me from an unknow voice. And in a world where I wasn't bursting with rage, I would have acted shily and childish. Maybe burst into a girly giggle or something alike.
But this world and that world are not the same.
So, when I turn my around and see Finnick Odair with a stupid grin in his face acting as if he was a godsend in an awkward way only teenagers with too much confidence in their appearance can muster, I snapped.
"You must be really glad for your face, because if you had depended on your pick-up skills, you wouldn't have received that trident."
I don't take time to look at their faces, stomping as hard as I could until they couldn't see me anymore. And later I would scream on my pillows as Abernathy's and Brown's laughter still ring on my ears.
It wasn't even a good comeback.