Saorise Current, District 4

"And they will recognise all the lines in your face

In the face of the daughter, of the daughter, of my daughter."

Joanna Newsom, Sawdust and Diamonds


"Tell me a story," The red-haired girl curled up in her bed, her eyes bright.

"What kind of story?" Her mother asked.

"The story of how you won the Hunger Games!"

"Okay," the mother sighed. She knew she wasn't doing Sirena any good, putting those ideas in her head, but she owed her an explanation behind everything. Sirena needed to know the real reason why her Mam only had one eye and screamed in her sleep and left her alone with Pa every July.

"A long time ago, when I was a little girl, a special school opened up. The school taught children how to fight so they'd be able to win the Hunger Games and bring extra food to the district."

"Can I go to that school?" Sirena asked.

"I'll ask Uncle Surf," her mother said. Surf Depthell wasn't really anyone's uncle but that was what Sirena had started calling him and the nickname had stuck. "My parents - your grandparents - thought I should go to that school. So I learned how to fight and Uncle Surf decided that I was very good. Probably the best in my class. So he picked me for the Thirty-First Hunger Games. I volunteered at the reaping when I was eighteen - which meant that another little girl didn't have to go. Everyone gave me a big round of applause and I went on a train to the Capitol."

"On the train, I met Mags and she told me to forget everything I'd learned about winning and honour and glory. What was most important was surviving. I think she really wanted to mentor a victor. She was tired of going to the Capitol every year."

"That's strange. I can't wait to go to the Capitol," Sirena said. She still thought of Mags as her slightly crazy neighbour.

"In the Capitol, I dressed up like a mermaid in my chariot. A lot of people cheered for me but I remember just feeling really, really cold. We spent three days in the Training Centre, where I made an alliance with all the other volunteers. None of them wanted to learn any survival skills, which I thought was a bit stupid. I'd seen too many tributes from my district get killed by mutts and other arena hazards. So I learned survival skills with the outliers and scored a ten with the gamemakers just to prove that I could survive and fight."

"And then you met Caesar Flickerman?" Sirena asked.

"Yeah," the mother said, remembering her interview and how she'd had nothing interesting to say. She'd been so desperate not to be just another academy kid that she'd made up a completely ridiculous story on the spot. "I told him that I was a selkie."

Sirena's eyes lit up as she remembered the stories her mother had once told her about the seal spirits who'd once swum on colder waters. "Are you a selkie, Mam?"

"Maybe," the mother gave a mysterious smile, wishing that she could tell her daughter a happier story. "After I met Caesar Flickerman, I went in - into the arena..."

"What was it like?" Sirena asked. Her mother was caught off guard by how she could be so excited over such an awful place.

"It was a terrible place. There were pools of boiling water everywhere. The air was so full of steam that it was hard to see, or even breathe. I had to kill a lot of people and it was easy but not very nice. About a week in, most of the outliers were dead and my allies decided to betray me. Vesta - the girl from Two - she attacked me with a knife and really hurt me. She tore my eye out..."

"What happened next?" Sirena asked, as her mother tried not to break down in tears.

"The last two outliers - the girl from Twelve and the boy from Three - attacked with a flamethrower. Those of my allies who survived ran away and the outliers assumed that I'd just die of my wounds anyway. They left me to bleed to death but Mags sent me a medical kit. Slowly, I began to patch myself up. Soon I was strong enough to fight again. Nobody expected me to be. It's probably the biggest reason why I won. None of my opponents saw me coming."

"Do you think I'd be able to win?" Sirena asked, innocently.

"No!" Her mother cried, thinking of the boy from Nine who'd died the year before Sirena had been born - the victor's son. "Well, you could if you trained really, really hard. But you won't be able to win like I did. Everyone will see you coming."

She couldn't keep her worry for her daughter hidden. Sirena was a thrill-seeker, a daredevil, a risk-taker. Kids like that rarely made it to adulthood in District 4, with the Hunger Games calling them in one direction and the ocean calling them in the other. They were caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea.

Even if Sirena survived her games, her mother had heard from Surf what the Capitol did to pretty, unmarried victors. She'd managed to escape it, because the Capitol hadn't wanted to take a scarred, one-eyed girl to bed, but Sirena wouldn't have that luxury. The Capitol had a machine that could fix everything, something that could turn every victor into a perfect, polished doll.

"Don't worry, Mam," the girl said. "I'm going to train really, really hard. I want to be a victor like you."

The mother sighed again. She didn't want her daughter to be anything like her.


Saorise is one of the victors who just needed a time skip. This chapter's about ten years after her victory, so it gives a few hints about what will happen over the next decade. Victors' children will start ageing into the reapings and not all of them will make it out unscathed. As well as this, the Capitol (or someone else...) are going to invent the Full Body Polish.

Saorise got pretty lucky with her victory. She had a lot of useful skills but that made her a big target. Even though Vesta's attack left her scarred, both physically and mentally, it also gave her a lot of opportunities she wouldn't have been able to have if she hadn't been injured, opportunities to take her opponents by surprise, get married and start a family. Hopefully Sirena will have the same opportunities, since we'll be seeing her more in the future.