Author's Note
Here we are at prologue seven! There's one last very short prologue to come after this one, then we'll be into the story proper.
Tribute submissions are now closed. All characters were accepted, although two of them had to have their Districts changed for submission or story reasons.
I do not own the Hunger Games.
She visited him as often as she could, two, three, four, five times a week, pressing her hands against his with the glass between them as they spoke without words.
It was his charge, the guards had told him, it meant he couldn't be given a proper or private meeting with her. So they were stuck like this, so close and so far away. He told her about life here, the routine and his classes. She was back in school as well, she told him. The boys were immature bastards and the girls were bitches. She hated them all, and they whispered and spread gossip about the issues with the lights in the school building that had only started up again when she returned.
Why couldn't they have let them leave, he wondered. It wasn't like they wanted to hurt anyone. In fact, being as far away as possible from anyone else sounded great. Just them, and her fairies, and her ghosts.
This was all their dad's fault!
If he hadn't been such a prick-!
"Be calm," she told him. "We'll be free. I've seen it."
He trusted her.
She knew these things.
So he was calm.
So he worked, and he ran, and when winter came he split the firewood, and waited for the day he'd be free.
Freedom stayed out of reach.
He remained trapped, caged, working day after day. She still roamed, out across the fields, out to the woodland, a lone figure now except on rare days when another little one would bound along behind her, ill-accustomed to the terrain and struggling to keep up with her shorter legs, but it was different without him. The coyotes prowled more when there was no pack to protect her, but they knew better than to come too close. The few times she strayed too long, long after midnight, her mother would scold her and her new husband would shout.
But they couldn't keep her caged.
Days rolled into weeks.
Weeks rolled into years.
He was marched out for the reaping, his first taste of contained freedom in a year, watched on screen as a small girl of thirteen and a tall boy of eighteen were picked from two of the outpost squares. In prison there was nothing to do when he wasn't working but watch, and watch he did as the two escaped the bloodbath with the girl from Five, the boy from Nine, a broadsword and two backpacks. The arena was woody and mountainous, and the four hid themselves away in the trees.
The girl died on day four in an arena trap when the ground gave way beneath her and she was swept away in an avalanche that took out the boy from One and injured the girl from Two.
The boy from Nine died on day six, and then their boy was suddenly in the Top Eight, along with his ally and four Careers.
The Careers took out the other two remaining outer District tributes and then began a war amongst themselves, one which left only the girl from One and boy from Four standing.
After a long, drawn out finale, their boy came home Victor, the second in ten years.
The celebrations outside the prison were District wide. There seemed to be nowhere that wasn't partying. She slipped out of babysitting duty – not that she should ever be left on that, ever – to visit the bookies.
Folk in District Ten would bet on anything.
A few had bet on their own tributes – District loyalty and all that – but most had put their money on the tributes from One and Two, simply hoping to get something back.
She got quite the payout.
She didn't give any to her mom.
Instead she bought new clothes and boots for Ariel, a new slingshot for herself to replace her own handmade one, and stashed the rest away.
She visited him the day after, bringing him a cake from the bakery and a new book. Reading wasn't really his thing – more hers – but he took them and didn't question the sudden money when she gave him that knowing look. Of course the guards insisted on checking everything for 'dangerous items' so he only got two pieces of the cake, but it was better than anything he'd had in here for years.
He fell asleep holding onto the book.
