Name: Remus Valentino
Age at Victory: 17
District: 2
Hunger Games: 01
"Your family?" a voice from District 13 asked.
"Yes Michelle," Romulon said. He stood up, tall and imposing, and took the main notebook from Terrance. "I wouldn't expect you to know but I'm the last in a long line of victors. Or in this case, survivors."
"No we'll keep the terminology the same," Terrence said. "So what do you know about him?"
"You know that he's the first of the legendary victors we kids in District 2 always learn about," Romulon deadpanned. "He held the kill record unmatched until my victory."
"Sounds like a monster," Nerida shuddered.
"He killed, like we all did," Romulon refuted. "He was just more...determined."
"Well, that determination lasted well after his hunger games," Terrence remarked. "But tell us about your ancestor, Romulon."
"HOLD THE SENTENCING!" a bold voice echoed through the courtroom. Two hundred heads turned around to see a pink painted woman pushing the doors open.
Capitol, the defendant realized. More importantly, one of those women involved with the Hunger Games. Of course, who else could it be? Why would the capitol care about a random District citizen otherwise?
"Your Honor," the woman started as she walked up to Judge Everett's desk. "We of the capitol motion that you extend this case until Mister Valentino has suitable representation."
"Madame," Everett said coldly. "The capitol has little jurisdiction over here. Shouldn't an esteemed woman like you be more focused on more important and vital prospects like-"
"That's where you're wrong," she said, slamming a brief case onto his desk. "The matters of the Victors is a strong Capitol matter. We are interested in those who represent our nation well. He is as much Capitol as he is District 2. If you do not believe me then look into his eyes."
Judge Everett took a brief look into the teen's eyes, his cold, unflinching eyes, and was soon met with a gunshot between his eyes. "Mister Valentino, your custody has since transferred to the Capitol for further sentencing and acquittal. My name is Fragrance Valiance and I work with the head of the gamemaker's union."
Remus Valentino looked at the woman from his standing position with a hint of nervousness flitting through his pale face. He turned to his family with an unwavering look of determination as they, all of them, nodded, just like they did when he was reaped all that time ago.
"This is highly unorthodox!" the bailiff shouted as he and the notary worriedly shared a glance.
"With all due respect, we are currently undergoing trial for our capitol citizen," Persecutor Valiance started.
Remus stood erect at his position, emboldened and more secure as he felt the cameras rolling. He felt his nervousness well through his veins slowly escape through the bar he was clenching. Valiance looked at him with a look that was ten percent comforting and ninety percent playing to the audience. He knew the capitol was watching. He'd have to be strong for the Capitol again.
"It was previously discussed that Remus Valentino killed fourteen individuals in the Hunger Games," Valiance started. "That is the purpose of the hunger games. To bathe in the blood of the rebellious spawn is but a mere effect of the Hunger Games. The actions of one person in one instance does not necessarily imply the repeated actions of a character."
Remus heard the crowd behind him engage in a low mumble. "Prosecution if you have any refutation now is the time."
The wiry, cruel man seemed to point his lips up in a sneer. His hands labored over the manila folder and he slid it under the projector. "Let the court know that Remus Valentino's fingerprints were found on the so called assailant. The murder weapon was also found to be a knife bought by the father of the accused. Mister Valentino, can you tell us about your relationship with your father?"
Remus closed his eyes. In the brief moment he kept them closed he remembered his father entering the goodbye rooms.
"What should I do?" Remus asked.
"You've been asked to do your duty. If you are a true and good Capitol citizen then you will fulfill your duty. ANd that may include dying." His father bit back tears and Remus stiffened. "You have it in you to kill. I know that much. You are my son always but if you kill…"
"Is it okay to feel nervous?" Remus worriedly asked.
"Yes," his father blanched as he pulled him for what was going to be a final hug. "I want you to come home. We all want you back."
"I'll make it. I don't want to die but…"
The two men exchanged a hug for the last time as his father stepped out the room. "I love you," Remus heard his father say before he stepped out.
"My father is my hero. He mentors me and he clothes me under the watchful eye of the capitol. He's a hardworking and loyal man who has yet to steer me wrong. I live with his morals and I live with a loving family," Remus calmly stated.
"So you are susceptible to your guardians' whims," the prosecutor said. "Let it be known that his father was willing to justify the defendant's murders of the tributes of the first annual hunger games."
"With all due respect," Valiance said, a vein popping out of her head. "They were honorable murders. If his father did anything less than encourage our first victor to kill then it would have been seen as something dishonorable. As Remus here has stated, he tries to live to be an honorable person as the good Capitol law states."
"Yes I killed," Remus spoke up. "When you're in the thick of the action and you want to return home and be a good District 2 citizen any other person is just an obstacle. I know the individuals I may have killed in the Hunger Games were also those who wanted to be their best 1, 7 or 11 citizens they could be. I concede that I was selfish."
"Mister Valentino, that is not the subject at hand," Valiance said. Remus suddenly became more aware of the presence of peacekeepers surrounding the parties in the courtrooms.
The persecutor displayed more evidence that seemed to be refuted at every mention by Valiance. Valiance chipped away at the prosecutor's sneer and Remus glanced at his family. His father seemed to hitch a breath as he looked at his mother.
"You're alive," his mother gasped as he stepped down from the train station. His three youngest siblings and younger brother looked at him with a look of fear in his eyes.
Remus ran to hug his mother, trembling and scarred from the arena. His mother could sense that there was something off about him, something that he couldn't quite guess, and Remus knew all too well that his mother no longer looked at him the same way.
"I missed you mom," he choked.
"We all missed you. Dad is preparing your residency in Victor's Village. It's hours away from our- i mean your old home."
"Mom," Remus choked. "I can't- you can't-"
"I know," his mom said.
"One last thing," Valiance mentioned. "We found a partially burned and partially torn note with the seal of the Variate. Would a local family explain what the seal of the Variate represents?"
A voice from the audience spoke up. "It belongs to the Variate clan, theys rich, theys mean too. One of our girls was to marry one of um. Then Valentino kill her."
"Marry one of them. May the notary please bold and underline that? Why would Remus Valentino's killer have a connection to the Variate family?"
The courtroom went silent as a single man stood up in the audience and rushed the stage. In the blink of an eye Remus was back in the arena.
Remus stood in the structure that was commonly known as the cornucopia, so named after the anthem of Panem. A chill passed over him as his hands lingered over a photo of his family. He held the sword in one hand and slowly stiffened.
A girl walked up to him.
"Remus?"
Remus turned around with intense and vigorous reactions. The cut was instant. The blade landed in Juno Evans' side. She held a mace in her hands and was poised to attack, but it fell to the ground seconds before she did.
"MISTER VALENTINO!" Remus snapped out of his trance and felt the hard grips of several peacekeepers around him. He looked down to see the bloody face of one Septimus Variate, Juno's fiance. He looked at his own hands and his clothes. They were torn in what must have been a brief scuffle.
"The court rules that Mister Valentino is innocent, and without a reasonable doubt that one Septimus Variate is responsible for two assassination attempts on the first Victor's life. His punishment shall be a live and public execution this very instant."
The broken heap of the tall, wiry, shattered man known as Septimus was carried to the center of the room. A ring of peacekeepers immediately surrounded him. Behind the ring a makeshift rack was built over what looked to be a drained enclosure. Remus' breath hitched as he looked to his family.
THe younger kids- Caerus, Vanessa, Eliza and Bthany, they were all choosing not to look. His mom seemed close to throwing up. His father looked with grim satisfaction. Craig rubbed his wife's swollen belly.
Remus stood still and waited.
Septimus was dragged to the top of the mechanism. A rope was hung from the top. A blade was drawn from one of the peacekeepers. A camera seemed to show up from out of nowhere.
Septimus Variate called for his family, his father, his mother, his grandfathers, he begged for mercy.
The Variates were escorted out.
Septimus screamed as the rope burned his bare skin. He screamed louder when the silver blade danced across his stomach.
It took three hours.
"Even if you did kill a man unwarranted," Fragrance Valiance said as she walked up to Remus. "You are as much a member of the capital as you are of the district. The president wants to make a strong friend out of you. Likewise, I wish to offer my amnesty despite the fact that we live on opposite sides of the mountain range."
Valiance held a hand out for Remus. Remus shook it lightly. "Crushing strength, the sign of a true man," Valiance smiled.
Valiance and her capitol cronies walked out of the courtroom through an empty space in the crowd. Remus waited outside for his family through a separate door.
His father was the only one to come again. "I feel so dirty dad," Remus wept into his father's shoulder again. In that moment, he wasn't a victor, he wasn't a capitol citizen, he wasn't even eighteen. He was just a kid.
"You're alright son," his father mumbled. "You're alright."
"Remus Valentino, seventeen years old, District Two, fourteen kills," Terrence wrote in his book. The others in the room were abuzz and walking around to the snack tables and making arrangements. He sniffed slightly and turned next to some of the other District one victors.
"Any commentary for our first victor?" he asked the few who were listening to him again.
"Nope," was the overwhelming response, even from Terrence.
"Well, then let's move on."
