The 32nd Annual Hunger Games.
Diana Van Capelli, District 2.
In the very first years after the end of the Capitol-Districts war Ajax Ganymede, the eldest son of the privileged and uber-wealthy Ganymede family, largely made his living as a model and designer of the Capitol's high-class fashion trends. His girlfriend and later wife, Violetta Starboux-Ganymede, was his closest companion alongside him on these ventures and to them, life was very good in the Capitol. Everything they wanted was theirs; youth, wealth, power, ambition. There was no stopping their dreams.
However, things began to sour for them; the impact of the Districts' war against the Capitol was devastating, socially, morally and financially. The Ganymede family in particular began to break apart piece by piece after losing much of its investments in District 8, and the more the more opulent members of their family tried to push the financial abilities, the more danger their network stood of reaching complete collapse. Eventually they could all be sent to debtors' prison or even homeless. Stealing wasn't an option, since the Peacekeepers were on standby to shut down such things with extreme ferocity.
There was no telling this to Ajax and Violetta, however; if anything they seemed to be on a downward spiral; Ajax had branched out into drugs [apparently he once swapped a few spices with District 1's first victor] and was developing on a downward spiral; developing more and more financial debts that could never be paid off and in the current climate could not be forgotten.
Eventually there reached a breaking points with the families. The winter twelve and a half years after the end of the civil war, Ajax and Violetta were sent to an old family house in District 2 where they were to reside for the rest of their lives; both of them were deprived of any contact with drugs or much of the rest of the outside world. They were both set to work with roles in Ajax's parent's architecture company; it kept them busy and had enough creativity to prevent them from killing each other out of boredom immediately.
The key word being 'immediately'.
The Ganymedes and Starboux's were, like most District-descended families, not fond of reminiscing on their unfortunate beginnings. No one could know about their connections to District 2; so the two were entirely confined to the house grounds, under armed Peacekeeper guard.
Shortly after they arrived at the house in District 2 Ajax and Violetta had had a small daughter who they named Quartz. Her grandparent's orders did not pass over her life; until she was of an age to make a suitable judgement she was to be kept under house arrest on the estate. Tutoring under strict guard would do for her education.
Quartz grew up a very lonely girl in an increasingly strained household. Since her parents had been deprived of any sort of alcohol, drugs and sexual repletions they began to take their frustrations out on each other, and occasionally her if she was unlucky. Most of her time outside of the tutoring was spent planning a way out of the estate, either through her grandparents or just running away.
There was just one time a year when she was allowed to leave the house. Since Quartz had been born in District 2, and her parents and herself were registered as citizens her name was eligible for the reaping. Every year she was to be escorted down to the reaping area at the centre of the District and her name entered into the reaping bowl with the other eligible District 2 females.
This was one of many things that made Quartz wonder about how she could get away from her forgotten, miserable house in the dumpy hills above 2.
Studying the victors on the reaping stage, she eventually figured out such a way.
After paying off one of the Peacekeepers to let her out of the estate and tell her information, she made her way to the outskirts of District 2's Victor's Village. Inside it were people who had already achieved victory, and could help her train to do the same and escape this dreary life.
She didn't think it would work to just bust in and talk; it would never persuade any of them. But through eavesdropping one day, she slowly learnt a way she could show, not just talk about, her potential.
Two of the victors, Hayla and Lancel, held early training stages for contestants to enter the 'Career program'; where trained 18 year olds volunteered to enter the Hunger Games after learning every sort of combat imaginable. Apparently the fight aspect of it was somewhat inspired from gladiator set ups in impoverished District 10, which had also inspired the Hunger Games themselves [and been helpful for a victor from 10 a few years earlier in surviving]. There were trials available to audition, under the illusion of Peacekeeper training, in essentially fighting other children.
It took Quartz a year of training before she felt confident in going but eventually she was confident enough. So she went.
And the victors were impressed, to say the least.
One of the advantages, in her scenario, of not having any friends growing up was that you had very few barriers preventing you being highly ruthless attacking other people.
After nailing the try outs for the early female candidates, Hayla warmly welcomed Quartz into training. Her story, however, complicated things.
Eventually Quartz herself decided on the right course of action.
Through going to the mayor's office in District 2 Quartz was able to contact her aging grandparents in the Capitol and inform them of her decision; she wanted to enter the outside world, to train for the Hunger Games and live a more public life in District 2. If they wanted to, they had the power to override her parents' decision; in fact it was more than possible Ajax and Violetta would kill each other in one of their arguments one of these days.
Her grandparents, to her appreciation, saw her perspective and agreed. But there were a few conditions. She had barely been seen around the District but to be extra sure, they needed to re invent her; give her a new backstory, and a new name.
The backstory was easy; Quartz explained herself off from one of the more remote mining villages and that she had largely given up on contact with her family in order to make a life for herself training for the Hunger Games. It took a while longer to decide on a new name.
However, 'Diana Van Capelli' had a good ring to it.
So she trained, and became more and more ferocious, and with relatively few social attachments hindering her in training as well. Hayla was very proud of her protégé and by the time of the 32nd Hunger Games there was no ambiguity over the female candidate from District 2.
The odds were in her favour that year; it had been a whole eight years since District 2 had won, and seven since the last Career girl.
The arena was one of the more forgettable that year, a widespread cornfield with little in the way of food sources outside the Cornucopia and practically nowhere to hide from the alliance pack. Diana and the others swept through most of their surroundings and opponents in 9 days.
Initially the Careers thought they were ready for the idealised 6-trained tribute showdown between themselves and initiated this on the 10th day only to find it go off plan; after the tributes from 4 and boys from 1 and 2 fell, Diana and the girl from District 1, Jemina, injured each other quite badly on the arms and stomachs and both fell away to try and clean themselves up before a proper stand off. Tornadoes in the middle of the night separated them further.
The next day it turned out they had miscounted; the male tribute from District 5 had remained alive, and was now allied with a badly injured Jemima to try and kill the largest remaining threat first.
Diana knew the odds still weren't in her favour 2 against one, so she decided to tread very very carefully, and wait and see where she could trick the remaining opponents. She wasn't disappointed.
Diana followed a strategy of lying dead still in wait between the layers of corn, waiting for her fellow tributes…..and successfully ambushed and killed first the girl from 1, then the boy from 5. She lay down, notably tired but not exhausted as the trumpets rang out and District 2 gained its seventh victor.
Diana's parents never tried to contact her after the Games and she heard later on that they had died in a violent clash some time after her Hunger Games. She felt little regret but still went to stand at their unmarked graves for a while, in complete silence.
She herself went on to found a branch of Peacekeeper training focused on wilderness survival skills; it grew over the years and flourished, receiving great funding from the Capitol and popular support at home, taking up to 100 students a year. It fulfilled her.
In fact later on this survival camp would go on to be quite important to the ongoing victor's saga when Diana met and took under her wing a young woman, training there, by the name of Lyme Sorren….
But that story is for another time.
AN. Out of all the recent stories this one definitely focused the least on the arena but I thought that made sense considering the story. What did you guys think-don't forget to review or PM wherever possible.
I will see you again soon enough with more…..May the odds be ever in your favour.
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