Warning: I say this a lot but this chapter spoils The Bride and The Widow. It follows one of the tributes in the Seventy-Second Hunger Games so that's kind of to be expected.
Lyme di Maggio, District 2
"We love you
And we don't want you to die."
Car Seat Headrest, Stop Smoking (We Love You)
When Lyme Lombardi was declared District 2's chosen female volunteer for the Fifty-Second Hunger Games, she decided to propose to her boyfriend, Ore di Maggio. They got married in the Justice Building a few hours before the reaping. Lyme made quite the first impression, volunteering in her wedding dress.
It was the happiest day of her life, though she never made it completely clear as to why.
Winning the Hunger Games was easy for Lyme di Maggio.
Her newlywed status and her patriotic attitude won the hearts of sponsors across the Capitol. Her confidence and her strategic mind put her at the head of the Elite alliance. Her strength and skill meant that there was an all-Elite top six for the third time in five years. Her loyalty to her district partner, Gravel, meant that they were the final two. Her ruthlessness in battle meant that she was the victor.
In fact, the biggest challenge of Lyme di Maggio's life had nothing to do with the Hunger Games (at least at first). It was raising her son, who she'd named after her old district partner.
Lyme tried to teach Gravel the lessons she'd learned as a child. She taught that the Capitol was great and merciful, that President Snow was all-knowing, that the Hunger Games were glorious.
The problem was that Gravel di Maggio wouldn't learn.
Lyme di Maggio was a true patriot but her son was a true rebel.
It had started with a few awkward questions - "Why do we punish people for something that happened decades ago?", "Why doesn't the Capitol end poverty?", "Why do peacekeepers kill people when they're starving?", "What really happened to District 13?"... Then came the rude and rebellious comments to teachers at school. Then came the drawings, then the fliers.
Lyme's son had transformed from a sweet little boy to a hooligan who painted anti-Capitol slogans on walls and threw rocks at peacekeepers. She knew they'd punish him. What little immunity he got from being a victor's son was wearing thin, the older he got. There was nothing Lyme could do to save Gravel from himself. The more she warned him against rebellion, the more he assumed that it was another one of her lectures.
She'd done this. She'd pushed her son so hard that he'd just snapped.
All Lyme could do was wonder when she'd lose him.
It happened when Gravel was sixteen. There'd been a fight and a peacekeeper had died. Lyme couldn't believe that Gravel could get away without punishment.
Then President Snow came to District 2's academy to ask for there to be no male volunteer from District 2 that year. All the victors - Lyme included - knew what that meant. The Capitol were going to rig someone into the games.
Maybe a victor's son who'd recently murdered a peacekeeper.
Lyme tried to warn Gravel to train harder. He didn't listen and she got more and more visits from his teachers to say he'd cut classes at the academy, yet again. It was only when Gravel was reaped for the Seventy-Second Hunger Games that he begged his mother for help, trying not to cry.
"What do I do, Mom?" His voice quavered.
"Join the alliance," Lyme said. "Kill people and make sure you show the Capitol the proper respect. They'll have you killed if you say any more of that rebellious nonsense."
Gravel nodded, his face grave. He looked terrified.
The Seventy-Second Hunger Games were torture for Lyme. Any one of those tributes could be her son's killer. Was there a sly glint in the eyes of handsome boy from Three? Why was the flame-haired girl from Five so confident? Even the boy from Eight - twelve years old and with a clubbed foot - could be a threat.
And then there were Gravel's allies, the Elites, the loyalists, the fighters.
Lyme hated them all.
First there were the Ones. Candida was as quick, sharp and bright as the knives she wielded. She cut training dummies apart with an almost surgical precision. Victor was tall and brutish. His nose broken, his fists calloused, his voice harsh. He elected himself as the alliance's leader. Nobody argued.
The Fours were even more chilling. Picaresque was tall, willowy and gorgeous but there was an emptiness in her green eyes. There was something savage beneath that perfect façade, something wild that burst forth when she discovered a "Kick me!" sign stuck to her back during training. She frothed and hissed over a childish prank pulled by one of the outliers. Bagman was short and stocky, with a sick, joyful glint in his eyes. He looked at people like they were just skin, bone and organs. And blood...
As for Gravel's district partner, Cornelia, she was a perfectly nice girl. Unless she got her hands on some matches. Then she became terrifying.
Watching the five of them snarl their way through the pre-games events left a bad taste in Lyme's mouth. Had she really been like them?
Why had she been like them?
In the bloodbath, Lyme watched her son stab a harmless, scared thirteen-year-old to death. There was nothing glorious about it. She watched as Gravel fought to keep the fear and disgust from showing on his face. She felt ashamed.
On the third day, the Elite alliance hit its first setback in the haunted house arena. It was attacked by a swarm of bats. None of them were injured that severely but Picaresque seemed extremely unsettled. She started babbling about the girl from Six, who she'd killed in the bloodbath, being a witch who'd put a curse on her. The next day, a drone flew up to the alliance, carrying a doll in its claw. The doll had a noose around its neck.
It looked exactly like Victor.
As more and more dolls came - Candida, Gravel, Bagman with his eyes torn out, Cornelia with charred limbs - Lyme began to wonder if there really was a curse. Finnick Odair, Bagman's mentor, was the first to figure it out. He was friendly with the Threes and found out that their male tribute - the handsome one with the clever eyes - had stumbled upon a room full of dolls and known exactly what to do with them. The drone was hacked into by the boy's district partner. The nooses were tied by the clever fingers of the third member of their alliance - the tiny, crippled boy from Eight.
Three outliers were tearing Gravel's alliance apart and there was nothing Lyme or the other Elite mentors could do. They had no way of communicating with their tributes.
Lyme realised, in that moment, that the Hunger Games was cruel.
The alliance crumbled on the sixth day, when Picaresque's doll was sent. It was covered in livid, red stitches - Eight's handiwork. On its back, the words "KICK ME!" blazed. Lyme realised that that sign on Picaresque's back in training hadn't been a simple prank. It had been the first blow struck by a master of psychological warfare.
The boy from Three must've planned this from the start.
The arrival of Picaresque's doll was accompanied by a piercing screech, one that only stopped when the girl from Four lost whatever of her mind she had left and speared Victor though the neck. The other Elites ran. Gravel ran away, wild-eyed like a prey animal or a scared outlier. Lyme was angry, angrier than she'd ever been.
What was the point of Elites and training if they couldn't save kids like Gravel from the arena? What was the point if the Capitol could just undermine them like that?
Lyme di Maggio watched her son die on the seventh night of the Seventy-Second Hunger Games. He'd managed to avoid his allies as they'd all killed each other and hid in the house's bathroom. He couldn't escape the fire that Cornelia had set to kill Picaresque. As Gravel slowly succumbed to smoke inhalation, Lyme felt hate bloom inside her like flames.
It wasn't hate for Cornelia, whose fire had killed Gravel. She'd been forced to start that fire by her fear of Picaresque.
It wasn't hate for Picaresque, who'd caused Cornelia to start that fire. She'd been forced to turn on her allies by the boy from Three's plot.
It wasn't even hate for the boy from Three, who'd driven Picaresque mad enough to start killing her allies. He'd been desperate as well, forced into an arena that he hadn't even asked for.
The root of all these problems, the true cause of Gravel's death, was the Capitol. They were the reason why Gravel had been rigged into the games. They were the reason why the games even existed.
Lyme blamed the Capitol for her son's death. It was better than blaming herself.
She was going to make them pay.
Lyme is a bit of an anomaly. A rebel victor from the most loyalist district. I've never seen a story where she starts out as a loyalist and then becomes a rebel due to the things the Capitol have done to her. It's one of the reasons why I added Gravel to The Bride and The Widow. Lyme loses faith in the Capitol mostly because of her son's death but partly because the worst side of the Career pack is on full display. I don't think any of the Career mentors enjoyed watching the Seventy-Second games. The gamemakers weren't the only dangerous people who Fawkes managed to humiliate.
I hope those of you who've read The Bride and The Widow enjoyed Gravel's backstory. We're only twenty games away and I've got something really fun planned. We're beginning to get close to some of the major characters. There won't be any references to The Bride and The Widow next chapter but there will be another canon victor.
