Dreamers Live to Die
I did the cowardly thing and tried to avoid the future as much as possible, even with all the devastatingly powerful information behind my lips. But alas, fate found its way to bite me in the ass. [SI-OC Gale's twin sister]
Published 2020.01.22
The first cannon shot out after a blissfully underwhelming period of three days. Three days since given the healing cream. Three days since discovering the arena's secrets.
Given the type of arena, it was hard to cover much land without needing a break or needing to regroup. This may have created quite a spectacle back at the Capitol, where the viewers were no doubt becoming increasingly bored. A gruesome lot, those people. I didn't know if that sole tribute who died on the fifth day had been killed by the Career pack or from the arena itself, but the answer became obvious on the mid-morning of the sixth day.
My methods of collecting water all tied down to a deft hand in traps and the newfound skill in wires. Figuring that the mutations grew more intelligent the more I killed, I was forced to come up with brand new ideas every day. Extending the entire spool for an elaborate spider web trap and into the empty chasm, finding a fake oasis where the ponds smelled poisonous and the fruit trees had layers of dead lizards by the trunks, and then making a mutation splash into the acid pool. Making a noose where tightening the wires around the bird's ugly head made my palms bleed from the effort. Perhaps I hadn't shown the audience the technical and electrical skills like Beetee, but they did know now to never let me near any type of string. I had used my shoelaces for folding together the correct pattern for the spider web trap - a useful tool, to be resourceful.
The girl from three I expected to live longer, as her district was geographically the closest to being in a desert, being where the remains of New Mexico and Arizona once had covered. Perhaps the climate all around the world had been altered after whatever created Panem the nation, but it wasn't like I'd ever be able to find out without travelling to other districts on a victory tour.
Now, that was an idea.
But on the mid morning of the sixth day in the arena, when the heat really started developing into something serious and the dryness made my hair stiffer than straw, a roaring boom and crash came from the north. My general direction of movement had luckily been a constant southeasterly direction, as those noises signified something much more dangerous than any tribute.
A sandstorm.
Wild. Chaotic. Untamed. Those words barely scratched the surface of a true sandstorm barreling down on you at hundreds of miles an hour. It was no more than a line in the distance, but the correlation between the girl from three's death and the sandstorm was absolutely everything. I didn't know if the other six tributes were aware of what was coming, but I did know for certain that there was only one place in the entire arena capable of taking that much damage.
The cornucopia.
I barely had a sense of direction, but some crazy adrenaline induced fever made me march all the way back west. It took the entire sixth day and a sloppy getaway from the vulture-eagle mutations resulting in a scratch tilting below my left eye that was too small to waste the precious medicine on (but I still worried about my face. I mean, it was the moneymaker, right?). At sundown, the glitter of the cornucopia shell outlined the distance. I could have cried from relief and ran in there with my hands waving in the air, but I chose to settle behind a cascading dune, keeping a steady eye on the ever growing storm.
At night, when the air felt chillier than ever before and the growing storms rumbled with energy in the distance (was it slowing down? was it? was it?), trumpets rang through the air before the national anthem. Claudius Templesmith's rich voice boomed overhead, announcing there to be a feast at the cornucopia for the remaining seven tributes, commencing immediately. Smart. That way, all the tributes could finally come together in one last final battle while the sandstorm billowed around them, trapping everyone in one area to ensure a sole victor.
When the announcement ended with his typical flourish, I crept up from my spot and squinted at the almost glowing bronze of the cornucopia. Staying inside that place had to be a metal death trap, given that the sun would only make metal hotter. Therefore, the Career tributes had likely packed all their supplies with them and migrated to somewhere cooler, like an underground cave. With their strength in numbers and training, they could fight off whatever beasts and mutations lived in the underground.
Praying to the ends of earth that I wasn't just about to run into a death trap, I fastened my backpack, netted a loose spiderweb trap to be ready in my hand just in case, and hastened forwards. There was a long stretch of running for ten minutes where there were no dunes in sight - just hard packed sand, flatter than boards of wood. I felt exposed running without any sort of cover, which only motivated me to run faster and reach my destination before I knew it. As expected, it was completely empty besides piles of supplies nobody could carry with them on foot, such as an entire wooden table, a rack of metal tridents, - funny, considering our climate, but I supposed Finnick Odair's popularity still made the gamemakers put his weapon of choice in all the subsequent games - electronic gadgets, and several wool covered empty wooden crates.
When no drones arrived to provide the upcoming feast in the next three hours, I grew confidant that Templesmith's announcement had just been a scam for all the tributes to rack up in a nice cutting order.
And I had been the first guest, having been prepared for hours.
I heard him before I saw him. A male. Alone. Scared. Timid footsteps. Rather the boy from seven or eight. Obviously smart enough to have survived so far. I couldn't tell the extent of his fighting prowess, as I was unsure if he had stolen his own water or was able to fight off the mutations for the cactus water. No, he had to have drunk the cactus water. No one man could carry enough water for several days in one backpack, given the heat.
From behind the crates, I peered through the little cracks between the wood panels, waiting for him to cross into the wire trap. And... paused. Just the slightest. The boy was a fan favorite, I remembered. A youthful one, so full of energy. A handsome young face.
But he was a deer, and I was a wolf.
After a moment's hesitation, he limped straight into the trap. The same time his leg made contact with the wire, I sparked two currents with my separate power adapter wires. With a blinding white flash that imprinted into the back of my eyes, he convulsed as a spasm of electricity flowed through his body. He dropped dead in a second. A cannon fired.
It was only when I dragged his still twitching body behind the crates did I realize the gravity of the situation.
I killed someone.
I killed someone - a child, a victim. I killed an innocent boy from district eight, fifteen years old. He had a family. Maybe a girlfriend. Or a pet. And friends. But what disgusted me more than the fact that I had his blood on my hands was that I barely felt anything about it.
I did what I had to do; that was all. The idea was torturous, but my body didn't tremble nor cry nor moan in agony. My body was a weapon, and it was sharper than it had ever been before.
One down, five more to go.
By the time the sandstorm was in its first preparatory stage of churning clouds, whistling winds, and thick, hot static energy, the Careers had arrived. A cannon fired in the distance, signalling the death of either the district ten girl or the district seven boy - but then it didn't matter too much about who was left because, as it turned out, the boy from seven had teamed up with the careers.
That meant the girl from ten had died, then. What was her name again? Zannia? Zannie? No, that sounded too much like the district eleven girl's name.
"Where's the feast?" Roared out the girl from two. She was maybe seventy pounds heavier than me and a whole foot taller, made of pure muscle. She wasn't an unattractive girl, per se, but her fierce features made me feel weak in the knees in the wrong way.
"Maybe it isn't here, yet?" The boy from seven - I was sure his name was Cyan - responded helpfully. I could see why the Careers had thought to keep him, as he was seven feet tall and carried at least three huge packs on his back. A pack mule, really. They were bound to kill him off after his usefulness faded.
"What isn't here is the girl from twelve," the boy from one, Rogley, said. "We saw the girl from eleven's corpse, and it's so bad outside that she's rather in here somewhere or about to die any minute now from the weather."
I remembered him being the most popular candidate to win the games due to his virtuous charms or something. But he looked puny compared to the other three tributes by the cornucopia entrance. A stripe of lightning echoed from the sky and they all jumped.
The girl from two, Amaria I thought her name was, rolled her eyes and leaned against the wall. I smiled as she unknowingly shifted closer to one of my traps. "Quit it, Rogley. Why do you care so much about twelve, anyway? She's just a thirteen year old runt who's going to die in this stupid freaking sandstorm, as you said, 'any minute now.'"
She leaned back against the wall a little closer, and a cocoon of woven wool nets dropped on top of her. She shrieked and ran out the entrance, being blinded by the literal "wool over eyes" moment. What she didn't know was that wool was a highly static material, despite its insulator qualities. Provided that the entire sandstorm set up was man made and charged within an inch of the gamemakers' own lives, I wasn't at all shocked when a flash of lightning from the broiling sands shot down st her, leaving behind only the nasty scent of charred flesh.
Now, there were only four of us left. The last time someone from district twelve had made it into the last surviving four had been from Haymitch's game - the 50th annual Hunger Games. I sent a calculating little smirk at the ceiling, where I suspected a camera to be recording my every move.
When had I become so immune to the horrors of death? I killed two people by now, and yet nothing in my heart told me what I did was wrong. I was doing what I had to do to survive. To come back home to my family. To win.
"She's here! The girl from twelve is in here somewhere, setting up traps!" The boy from two shouted over the rumble of the sandstorm finally breaking through. The full force of it all slammed against the side of the cornucopia's bronze walls, throwing everyone, including me, off balance. The scarf wrapped around my head, allowing a bare slit for my vision, protected me from the intense whip of sharp grain throwing themselves in, even from behind the crates. Electricity crackled right at the entrance again, hitting Amaria's corpse once more and trailing out on the surrounding ground.
I strutted out from behind the crates, knowing that this pivotal moment had to have everyone at the edge of their seats. I needed to look confident; in complete control of my actions. "You're right. 'She' is here." And then yanked a wire cord wrapped around my fingers.
Previously, while waiting for the tributes to show up, I had tagged the outside areas of the cornucopia with slivers of wire, hoping to god that they wouldn't wash away in the storm. After climbing on top of the structure, I knotted a trident onto the roof. The explosives set off one by one, gathering more and more charge until a lightning bolt hit through the metal trident and sent electric currents through the walls. Given the thunderous. murderous explosions, and hailing sands outside, the remaining few tributes latched against the walls with all their strength. I strode out to the middle of the cornucopia, letting the winds slice through my skin. The other tributes howled obscene threats, but still took shelter to the sides, clutching the metal walls.
Perfect.
"I. Am. Lightning!" I cackled over the howling weather, knowing that victory was mine. And, as expected, the outside blackened and then everything turned blindingly white.
I woke up to a whirring hum of machinery. My eyes cracked open… then promptly shut back closed. Everything seemed much too bright. Too much light. Too much whiteness.
"Oh, good, you're awake."
Fuck. Unwillingly, I opened my eyes completely and stared emptily at the soft blue paneled ceiling tiles.
A doctor wearing mint green scrubs (they used scrubs in the Capitol? I always had a vague idea that everyone wore pretty dresses all the time) peered down my empty eyes, patting here and there to check on a few itchy scratches all around my body. "Congratulations on winning the sixty-ninth Hunger Games, Miss Hawthorne. However, during the games, your body sustained a number of injuries. Especially that last stunt you pulled. Simply marvelous for the screen, but unfortunately a lot of work for the medical team."
A hazy few memories trickled into my brain. "...I was…" I coughed from scratchy, unused vocal cords. "Lightning?"
He seemed to understand what I was trying to get at. "Ah, yes. Ingenious idea to use the lightning against everybody like that. Even more ferocious and dangerous than Beetee Latier's games. At least he didn't also electrocute himself in the process."
"I can feel all my limbs and extremities, though," I pointed out, wiggling under the covers as proof. He smiled sympathetically.
"We've never had to deal with lightning burns before, so I'm afraid your beautiful skin will remain blemished for the rest of your life. Creams and gels may help, but there isn't much we can do besides body paint or dying your skin. We can offer you the chance to redye the scars back to your lustrous olive tan tones, if you'd like." He pulled out a simple mirror and handed it over to me.
Criss-cross patches of shiny white scars pulled tightly over my shoulders, trailing down my right arm and spine in a chaotic abandon. Overall, it wasn't really bad. The fresh skin needed training to prove flexible again, but it wasn't as ruinous as the doctor made it out to be. The Capitol people wanted perfection, but these scars were only proof of my battle. I was proud and disgusted at the same time by the marring, but it wasn't like they were hugely disfiguring or smashing my main features into an ugly blob. My face wasn't even harmed. Besides, it looked kinda cool, like actual lightning.
"No reconstruction," I told him. "Don't you think the Capitol would eat up that lightning girl now has a lightning scar?"
He sighed heavily and told me to do what I wanted, as it was automatically my choice to keep the scars. Body modifications, though, they had to be approved by a medical board. Enobaria's sharpened teeth modifications had been an interesting choice for the medical board to let slide by, but I guessed that anybody would feel pressured into anything when stared straight down by a victor who won through brutal violence.
A victor. Wait. She was a victor. I was a victor.
I won.
"I won," I repeated numbly. "I did it. I won."
The doctor hummed absently while pulling up a hologram screen from his watch and tapping down a few notes. "Yes, you did. Your full medical report and all the injuries we healed is on the screen at the base of the bed. When you woke up, I alerted your prep and stylist team to take you back to your quarters. They should be arriving shortly. In the meantime, congratulations on your victory."
And then he strutted out the infirmary room, leaving me to my thoughts. My family. They knew I won. They knew that I had survived the games, that I was coming back to them. Against my will, little tears began to fall and snot dripped from my nose. I used my sore arms to rub away the runny liquids, knowing Potentia would be the type of person to make a huge ordeal out of a few tears. Even though my face was surely red and puffy, however, the prep and stylist team burst into the room a scant few minutes later and cheered loudly for my victory.
They whisked me to another room in an unfamiliar building, where Flavius, Venia, and Octavia set on scrubbing every last speck of dirt remaining from the games from my body. They tutted at the white scarring, but Potentia had the brilliant idea of redesigning my victory dress to accentuate the damaged tissue.
I zoned out throughout the many hour process, barely able to hold everything in. Boom. Sound of a cannon. Boom. Someone's dead. Boom. Another innocent child. Had the girl from ten died from exposure? From the sandstorm? Had she woken up in the middle of the night to feel the sand ripping into her eardrums, to feel the heaviness of the air choking her from the inside? Did the winds funnel into tornadoes to carry her body in shreds? How did her eyes feel as the sand burned into them, blinding her forever?
"..re... Blaire... Blaire. Blaire! Hello? You in there?" A calloused hand waved before my eyes. I blinked a few times to get out of my funk, to realize the situation. Haymitch waved his hands in front of my eyes until he recognized the sudden clarity behind them.
Haymitch. He was here. "Haymitch," I breathed out, thinking about the antibacterial cream sent on the second day. My forgiveness. Had he heard that? Fuck. I didn't want to talk about anything right now while the deaths of half a dozen children rang so clearly though my ears. Brutal. Cold blooded. A killer. Murderer.
"Hey, sweetheart. How're you holding up?" He murmured in a soft, low tone.
With another few blinks, I glanced around the room and realized my stylists must have left a while ago. It was just the two victors of district twelve, in a starkly empty room closed off from the rest of the world by the heavy blinds and locked doors.
"Told you," I mumbled incoherently, then burst into ugly sobbing. Told you I'd win. Told you I'd do anything to win the games. Told you I'd do anything - even kill innocent children. Told you I'd... I'd kill. Kill. And kill. And kill.
A murderer.
From a teacher's assistant to a murderer. From a woman in a little girl's body to a ruthless killer in a little girl's body.
"Hey, hey, just let it all out, alright? I'm right here." The only other victor for twelve eased, not once providing the comfort of touch. Perhaps it was for the better if he didn't try to grasp me, because all I could see under my closed eyes was embracing the boy from eight's corpse and dragging it behind those crates. Hiding the body. Hiding the evidence. Hiding the shame, just so more children would be lured into the death trap.
After a while, the sobs diminished into dry hiccups and the puffiness from salty tears and rubbing the tender skin below my eyes felt slightly painful. I tried speaking but no words came out.
"You're not a monster," Haymitch said, seemingly reading my mind. "You're a survivor. You survived the games so now you get to see your family again. You had a twin brother, was it? And some younger brothers and a baby sister? And remember during your interview, you said it yourself that your mom was the best mom ever. Think about how you get to see them again, get to see your family live in Victor's Village."
Mom. Gale. Vick. Rory. Posy. I said all their names, in age order, out loud. And again. And again, and again, and again.
"For them. You get to see them again," he whispered. His voice wobbled, and that's when I knew he wasn't just trying to assure me, he was also ruminating on his own past. Just nineteen years ago, he had been the happiest ever. Winner of the second quarter quell, lived in a mansion with his mother and younger brother, alongside a wonderful girlfriend.
And then President Snow shot them down like disobedient dogs when he refused to be pimped out.
A flash of fear coursed through my veins. "I don't want them to die!" I choked out, on my feet and definitely on edge. "They can't, they can't!"
"Whoa, whoa, Blaire. They aren't going anywhere. You need to sit down."
"They're going to die because I don't want to become a prostitute for Snow!" I warbled, staring straight at the locked door. It was locked, yes. No one could get in. Time to examine the door. Time to make sure no one could get in the clutches of Snow. No. Never. Keep them safe.
Haymitch pushed me back onto my chair with enough force to stun me for long enough for him to clasp my shoulder, the one with the lightning scars, so tight I could barely move upwards. "Blaire. What makes you think Snow's going to make you a prostitute?"
The seriousness of his voice made me pause. It made me stop. Think. Pause. I let something slip out. I let it slip out to Haymitch I knew about what happened to victors after the games. The lovers. The sponsors. The clients. The highest bidders. I almost thought about trying to reverse time and not emerging victorious, but I remembered my family would be devastated. Heartbroken. I thought about mom's bleeding fingertips after a long day of work and I knew I did the best thing for them.
I won. And to keep winning, I needed to clear my mind and think of what to say now, to amend the situation.
"I don't believe for a second that Finnick Odair has a string of lovers in the Capitol. Not when Augustus Bran, last year's winner, is just as handsome and popular, but the news of his family's passing had been shut down quicker than I can say my own name. Of course there's someone wanting to be paid back for their efforts of sponsoring a victor. What better way to do it than for the victor themselves to personally thank them?" I spat out.
His eyes hardened for confirmation. "You're much more intelligent than you look," he sighed. "I'm sorry I can't do anything to protect you, but Snow can't legally touch you until you're sixteen."
"Legally. Can't legally touch me. That's reassuring." The snark was more of a defensive measure behind all the hurting, but I tried retracting my spiked tongue to ease Haymitch's mind. He had a fellow victor, now. The last thing he needed was a victor with more pent up anger than his own alcoholic self.
A pattern knocked on the door. "Blaire? Potentia's finished your dress," Venia spoke through the industrial metal doors. As a truce, I took Haymitch's offered hand to lift myself up. Apologizing for the outburst was out of the question, but at least he'd know I didn't hate him. He even held up as a true mentor and somehow provided a sponsor gift.
Outside, Venia led me to a new room in the foreign hallway. "Where are we?" I asked, looking around for any clues.
"The Victor's Spire," Octavia answered as the door opened. "Haymitch and Effie will collect you once you're ready. Oh, you're going to look fabulous!"
And I did.
They first sprayed me in a light sheen of golden body glitter so I became a sparkling vampire. Minus the vampire part. They painted my nails, eyelids, and cheekbones a bronze-y gold to match plum lined lips and a deep violet skater dress. The back and arms were exposed, perfectly revealing the white scars. Flavius painted concealing cream along the edges of the scars to shape them into more manageable designs for viewer ratings, taking away the messy and uncontrolled part of my wounds.
"Your eyes really pop out with the make up," they sighed dreamily, twirling and snipping my hair into even bangs. I never wore bangs. I automatically hated it. They also made me look at least two years older with the sharp lines of make up, and the style of the dress over accentuated body parts my pubescent body didn't quite have.
Nonetheless, I thanked them for their services.
Effie and Haymitch waited outside the door, feet tapping. I found my anxiety levels growing from the constant pattering of Effie's heels clacking against the polished floors.
"Oh, our gorgeous victor! Look at you, absolutely beautiful! You can't believe how excited I am for you!" Effie pounced on me immediately, running her bony hands over my taffeta skater dress and examining the delicately painted nails. Her normalcy made my lips quiver into a smile for the first time since waking up. Sweet, sweet Effie. Just a Capitol lady through and through, ignorant of all the pain and suffering. Her ignorance made me hate and love her at the same time.
They hustled me into the elevator, then we all descended down to ground level where a crowd gathered outside.
"The first victor for district twelve in a long time!" Some cheered, citing "underdog."
"The third ever victor for district twelve for the past sixty nine years!"
"The youngest victor to win the games!"
The roaring of the crowd lulled when we made it to our car to travel to the filming headquarters, where the interviews took place just over a week ago. But the monumental cheers and shouts and screams pounded in my ears, even in the effective silence of the car. It reminded me of the gong of the games commencing, the crash of a cannon being released, the roar of thunder, the whir of winds picking up sands, and the ringing stop to it all when all the lightning came whizzing down. Haymitch said something, but I just smiled and nodded, not wanting to make an effort to hear him.
The car pulled into a private lot, and we were offered reprieve from the crowds in the awkward ride up an elevator and to the backstage of the sixty ninth Hunger Games finishing ceremony. At the end of every game, President Snow personally crowns each victor, then the victor and the two legendary hosts watch a strictly three hour long edited film based on their own journey in the games. This became the official episode for the year - the one the television screens repeated constantly in loops. Each year, these films were apart of the required viewing for all of Panem. All of Panem watching me kill children, while were in the games voluntarily, were also victims to the system.
The grand speech alongside Claudius Templesmith and Caesar Flickerman felt empty. I didn't understand the sarcastic words my body used defensively, but the audience seemed to enjoy it, cheering at the appropriate times and often whistling in appreciation of some snarky comment added here and there. They liked the girl with teeth. They liked lightning girl. They liked me.
But it couldn't be mistaken with love. No, they didn't love me. They didn't know me, no matter how many days they watched me struggle and bleed in a stupid desert. I barely knew them, either. The Capitoleans ranged from someone as haplessly nice as Effie and Potentia to someone as morally conniving as President Snow and his government officials.
And when President Snow clamored up the stairs to place a crown on my head, all I could think of was how much I wanted to bash his face in. His hair was snow white, the smell of roses was balking, and a trace of blood from the sores in his mouth leaked through when he congratulated my victory. His cunning pale blue eyes looked straight into mine in a curious manner, as if he didn't know what to do with me or how to manipulate me. But when he returned to his place in the nosebleed section of the crowd, a glint of satisfaction returned as Flickerman asked me about my family.
This year's film started off seguing into all the districts, then finally to mine, where the dusty faces of hard working coal miners and the weariness in the eyes of the starving were more highlighted than usual. They flashed forward to me during the training period, where I looked better fed and happier with life in the Capitol. And then through my progression in the games, occasionally allowing other tributes to shine whenever they did something particularly impacting to the audience. They skipped through my injury and Haymitch's gift, focusing on my clever traps and battles with the bird mutations in the fight for water. When I fell backwards into the ravine, the entire audience gasped and completely stilled. I didn't know why they reacted like that. They watched the games during its entire airing. Why look surprised now?
The gamemakers and crew produced the finale in a cut-throat action sequence, with Amaria's screams echoing intensely, her panicked breaths as she ran out into the sandstorm, then no background noise at all when lightning struck down right through her. I sounded like a mad scientist at the time of my cackle and the heavily dramatized "I am lightning" last words. I had the distinct feeling that that would become my catch phrase to haunt me to my grave. Lightning girl. I am lightning. The mad genius. A crazy scientist. A thirteen year old girl killing everyone on sight using deviously laid out traps.
The applause when the screening ended was passionate. I smiled and waved at the cameras, thinking only about Gale and how he felt about my winning. Would he still hunt, now that we had all the money in the world? Would he still forge a close bond with the future girl on fire, unknowingly aiding her in becoming the best hunter in all of Panem?
No, he'd never stop his passions. He enjoyed hunting just as much as I enjoyed whittling toys for Posy, as much as I enjoyed climbing tall trees at six in the morning just to see the sun rise into pretty pinks and oranges from the best vantage point.
The rest of the day passed by in a flash. After the thunderous victory ceremony, Haymitch and Effie dragged me to a floor in the Victor's Spire, a sleek jet black triangular prism shaped building dedicated for victors to stay at whenever they visited the Capitol. I didn't want to be alone, but Haymitch didn't deserve being burdened with my broken and freshly traumatized self, so I sat in my new apartment suite with absolutely nothing on my mind.
A party established downstairs for the mentors of other tributes to celebrate the end of the sixty ninth Hunger Games, but I wasn't particularly in the mood to celebrate the onslaught of my future mental health check ups.
I woke up at sunrise after having cried myself to sleep. The added mental energy from getting a full night's rest not drowning in sand or parched of water helped motivate me to take a shower and finally scrub away at all the makeup from the day before that now caked itself onto my brand new pillow case. Oh well. No matter for the powerful yet gentle laundry units tucked away in the back rooms.
The film from yesterday played over and over again in my head as I mindlessly entered Haymitch's private quarters without knocking. I settled myself on a love seat in front of a painting of a basket of bread and mused about what the film's theme had been. I hadn't paid much attention to anything yesterday, so I didn't know what to think. Had it been the fall of a sweet child into a dangerously mad genius? The struggle for survival from a poor district twelve girl?
The bread basket painting nearly the size of the entire wall alarmed me, mainly because it reminded me of Peeta. Peeta Mellark. And then I outright laughed at the irony of Haymitch having a bread painting. Would Peeta one day see this and also laugh?
"You were right," a deep voice cracked from behind. I didn't turn around, just taking in the painting as a whole. Rye bread, pumpernickel bread, whole wheat bread, raisin bread...
"When you said, 'told you,' I didn't understand what you meant until now." Haymitch settled in the couch next to me, cupping a mug of coffee. "You were willing to sacrifice everything to win. Even your sanity."
I continued laughing because I didn't like what he was currently insinuating. Laughing was better than crying. Laughing represented happiness. Happiness represented positivity and positivity was good. But yet, why did I feel so hollow inside?
"Everyone's a little insane," I deflected after the bout of giggles quenched. "We're all traveling down the rabbit hole. Some faster than others."
He drank his coffee while I stared at the painting in silence.
"You need a hobby," he interrupted the silence after a while. I suspected his mug empty. "All victors pick up their quirks because it keeps them occupied. The Capitol calls them 'talents' when they check up on you during your victory tour."
Haymitch drank his sorrows away. I remembered seeing Mags, the old district four mentor who had to be the oldest victor alive from winning the eleventh Hunger Games, with a pair of knitting needles while on stage for last year's reaping ceremony broadcasted on the television. Gale and I cut class that day to watch the reaping reruns at the Justice Building's outdoor screens. Perhaps she wove nets or made baskets or scarves to keep her own sorrows away.
"I like whittling; Gale traded in hard earned meat to buy me a whittling knife a few years ago." An odd thought occurred to me. "Do you know what happened to my token?"
My little elephant toy. A sense of home in the arena, where I'd toss and turn in the scratchy sands and clutch onto the elephant for a reminder of the piney scent of the mountains beyond the fencing.
To my dismay, he shook his head. "Destroyed in the lightning that marked up your arm." He jerked his head at my exposed arm. The closets had been remarkably bursting with designer clothes in my own private quarters, but I had only pulled on a simple black tank top and olive green maxi skirt for the sake of other people. Running around naked, no matter how comfortable it may be, would have made me seem more fucked up in the head than I was letting on.
"I'll make more, then. Got any furniture you don't like?" As tragic as losing the elephant was, now it was time to make something new. A new gift for Gale. Expensive new toys for Posy. The best shoes for the twins so they could run around in the mud all day long. A chance for mom to not work back breaking shifts and scrub her hands raw at the washboard.
In an hour, the sun peeked brightly from behind the half closed blinds. Haymitch read a leather bound book with a smudged up title I didn't bother making out while I whittled and carved away at a piece of a mahogany table leg he detested for no apparent reason other than that it was mahogany. Something about Effie complaining about her favorite type of wood or whatever.
I smoothed out all the notches with a carbon steel apple knife stolen from his kitchen and presented the quietly reading man with the piece of art. A batch of primrose flowers, each petal carved delicately as wet paper. Perhaps he'd find irony in the gift during five years from now, just as I had found irony in the painting of bread.
"You should be partying alongside the rest of the Capitol," he drawled, raising an eyebrow at the offered wooden batch of flowers.
"Primrose flowers," I said instead. "My gift to you. For the medicine."
He took it wordlessly.
At sundown the Victory Banquet took place in the President's mansion. Walking into the lair of the snake made chills creep up my spine, but I ignored it largely in favor of the crowd. Hundreds or even thousands of people danced around in a humongous ball room with glittering chandeliers and ornaments draped over Roman sculptures and marble carved pillared walls. A vast buffet of delightful food platters occupied the entire dining table - where my entire team and I were able to sit. My prep team weren't of high enough ranking to be apart of the dining table, but I could see Flavius' purple hair spikes peeking out among the crowd of dancers. Haymitch to my right, Effie to my left, and Potentia to Effie's left. President Snow and a few gamemakers sat at the head of the table, thankfully far away enough from me.
The entire affair was much too loud. Too much noise in one place. I wanted to run away and cover my ears while rocking back and forth, but Haymitch's presence kept me tethered to the ground. He, however, drank glass after glass of bright red wine - leading an example I didn't want to resort to. My methods of coping were far less destructive than his, so I kept thinking about looking forward to heading back to my empty room in the Victor's Spire to chip away a new creation. Perhaps a tiger lily. Or a bunny. Maybe something hard enough to keep myself occupied for days on end, like a toadstool village.
The feast lasted until the barest trickles of light returned back in the sky. I was completely dead on my feet, only surviving through the remaining half hour to reach the Victor's Spire by Effie's loud insistence on taking a bright pink pill. While not complete rejuvenation, it did help clear all the mud wading through my mind and helped me all the way until I all but collapsed on my bed.
Unfortunately, sleep evaded me.
Throughout the bare few hours I managed to cram in, I dreamt of the coppery stench of blood, white flashes of lightning, and the boy from eight's weight in my arms as I dragged him away. When it was revealed to me that I was instead clutching onto a pillow for dear life, I kicked it away.
Knowing that Haymitch slept throughout the day, I curled up in the soft and plush Capitol made bed, trying to wash away the remnants of the dream in my quivering arms. After an indeterminable amount of time, my stomach growled for food. I dragged myself to the shower first, washing away last night's makeup and sweaty hair after being forced to dance with a countless number of fans. Most dances followed a flowing leader-follower step by step process, so I imagined not having done too shabby. Not stepping on anybody's shoes counted as a win, right?
The Victor's Spire had a mess hall and lounge area somewhere on the first floor, but I didn't feel in the right mind to sit besides the mentors of kids I killed. Regardless, the games scarred everyone in their own distinct ways, and having the newest example of the games before their eyes wouldn't lead to the greatest results. My kitchen, thankfully, came fully stocked with catering call buttons and fresh produce. Not wanting to socialize with anyone, even if it was a speechless avox bringing food for less than ten seconds, I snacked on three apples and called it good enough.
The door opened - were there no locks in this place? - and Effie, Potentia, and my prep team flitted through just as I threw away the last apple core.
"Oh, there's our lovely victor!" Effie chimed, reaching out for a hug. I obliged, only because ignoring her would indict a lengthy lecture about politeness and manners. I had manners, thank you very much.
My prep team dragged me into the bathroom, allowing the bare modicum of privacy away from the literally wide open front door, and began stripping me. They didn't view me as human, more like a living doll, so there was no shame in being in the nude in front of them. They yammered on about doing another full body polish and taming my spiky locks, but I slipped back into a zone where nothing mattered.
In the end, my hair was redone into sleek blunt bangs framed with side locks. The back puffed up like a duck butt, but Flavius assured about how it was all in the trends these days. His purple spikes definitely not withstanding, I noted irritably. Potentia's dress made me look older, again, and I wanted to rip the fabric off my body. It didn't sexualize me like the last dress did, but I abhorred the idea of craven sponsors bidding pieces of me as soon as I reached the legal age of consent.
Everyone whisked me away, including a sleep deprived Haymitch wearing a rumpled dress suit, all the way to a car driving away to the entertainment headquarters.
"Remember, cute does the trick. The Capitol thinks it's funny how an innocent little girl hid a massive genius brain and killed the last remaining tributes in a fell swoop," Haymitch gruffed out at the tail of the car ride, looking less pleased about the final interview than I did.
Reminding me about the deaths on my hands made it harder to get into the persona of someone innocent yet devilish. Camera crews and producers parted to allow our team to enter the filming location, somewhere on the fifth floor. Caesar Flickerman greeted us with his trademark smile and gentle eyes.
"How are you doing today, young miss?" He asked just as the cameras began rolling.
I wrangled my lips into a smart smile. "Obviously, a lot better than a few days ago, when I was still stuck in a burning desert."
A laugh track echoed around us. It took all of my carefully honed self control to not jump in surprise. I had really thought that the laughs in the background came from a live audience. Was the footage used of a live audience a digitally made segment?
"She's got some fire to her," Flickerman whooped out. I saw Haymitch and Effie give a thumbs up from their position behind the camera crew. Strange, since my mentor had never really needed to assure me before. And then I noticed my trembling hands and I set them under my thighs, as if warming them.
"Fire? But I thought my new moniker was 'lightning girl,'" I drawled out, indicting another laugh track episode.
The interview lasted maybe an hour of witty remarks and Caesar Flickerman begging for me to turn around to reveal my back to the cameras, where they caught plenty of shots of the white markings shooting down my spine. The scars ended at the same height of my belly button, so Potentia's dress thankfully ended at an appropriate height. If the scars reached down any lower, I had no doubt she'd tailor the dress to reveal an entire buttock.
All my energy drained into appearing lively and happy during the interview, so once the cameras stopped airing, I slumped back into my chair and groaned about needing more sleep. Flickerman said something about growing girls needed their rest, but was whisked off by his own managers before finishing his sentence.
"You did great, sweetheart," Haymitch patted my back on our way back to the Victor's Spire. "Our train leaves at seven p.m. We'll arrive five p.m. back in district twelve on the twenty-first."
July twenty-first. The reaping ceremony had been the fourth of July. How many days without my family? I didn't want to do the basic maths and stare at the number in my mind's eye. But because I hated myself, I subtracted the amounts and repeated the number seventeen like a mantra. Seventeen. Seventeen. Over two weeks of separated from a family where everyone was raised within a cramped little shack of a house and saw each other every morning and every night before bed.
"Time to go home," I warbled, dragging out of a car when we reached the spire. "Time to go..."
Haymitch looped my arms around his neck and carried me into my room, ignoring the messy trails of tears and snot staining the front of his dress shirt.