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 2020.02.09
Peeta became something of a common presence around the house in the following weeks. Mom was ecstatic at the prospect of me finally normalizing and adjusting by gaining a new sorta-friend and pretty much adopted him under our roof. Once she found out he was the baker's son, they gossiped about baking and their favorite types of pastries to make. Rory teased us about being girlfriend and boyfriend, at which Vick attacked him with a throw pillow. I had to agree with Vick. I didn't think I could even crush on someone so obviously younger. Maybe he was only a year and a half younger physically, but I was twenty years older mentally. Zero plans for any pedophilic thoughts.
Gale's reaction fell somewhere between angry and agitated. He didn't like Peeta for whatever reason, maybe because he knew Peeta had a huge crush on Katniss or whatever inane reason boys held. Me? I truly liked that boy, but my worrying over whether or not I was indirectly changing the future kept me from fully extending the invite from casual business partners to full blown friends.
We finished the entire toadstool village by the middle of September, balancing his own school and bakery shifts while I worked on my own extracurriculars. Such as, deciding we needed an electric kiln in our basement. I paid a few burly townspeople to move the clunky thing to our house all while struggling to carry baskets of fresh clay and glazes. Mom managed my victor finances and initially disapproved of buying an entire kiln without telling anybody (it was a split second decision, really), but said it didn't matter in the end because we had more money than we could do about anyway. I could revamp the entire district twelve into a utopian dreamland, but I felt as though President Snow would not approve of that action plan. And then kill someone to make a point.
Finishing the toadstool led Peeta and I wondering how on earth we were going to sell it in the first place. District twelve had no one rich enough to want to buy something so obviously useless in the long term, but the Capitol did.
"You can phone someone in the Capitol? And then set up an auction?" Peeta offered, staring at the home telephone attached to the living room wall. It was off-white, blocky, and strangely reminiscent of a receiver from the late nineties, considering all the latest technology the rest of Panem (read: the Capitol) used. Well. Communications were limited and all that.
The best course of action would be to ask Haymitch about it, but I hadn't made direct contact with the drunk since our tumultuous meeting in August. And because I was a coward, didn't want to resort to asking him.
"We've probably got a phone directory somewhere in the supply room," I shrugged. We made our way to the supply room, also known as the room where random objects we didn't know how to use but looked important enough to not throw away were stashed. A fair amount of boxes scattered around the dusty room. It took over an hour of rifling through mildly useless objects, papers, and manuals to find the phone directory. Peeta had to be a hundred percent done by now, but when I looked over at him, he looked more excited than ever.
What a strange boy. "What's making you so fluttery?" I asked, genuinely curious.
He brightened considerably. "Oh, nothing. It's just that it feels so much more official now that the magical mushroom village is complete and we're ready to sell. How much do you think we should sell it for? A hundred? Two hundred?"
I lifted an eyebrow. "I was thinking more on the realms of a hundred thousand to five hundred thousand."
His jaw dropped comically.
"Come on, this is the Capitol we're talking about," I defended, feeling flustered for some odd reason. "The people over there are stupidly rich and would probably be insulted that a victor is selling something at such a low price."
He stuttered something incomprehensible, eyes still buggered wide open.
I couldn't help but crack a grin at his flabbergasted expression. "Oh, come on, you. Let's go downstairs for a snack. I'm hungry."
Peeta had never known someone to be quite as strange as Blaire Hawthorne. She stomped around victoriously in the cramped indoor space of her studio to celebrate a hard day's work, but glided over the outside gravel paths without so much as a whisper from her clunky leather boots. She was funny, but never understood jokes. She could smile sweeter than honey but preferred ugly crooked grins showing off an unusually sharp canine tooth. Her hands spun creations out of chunks of wood with all the delicacy and care in the world, but the middle and ring fingers of her skilled hands were crooked inwards, creating odd handprints in the dust. She was the most intelligent person he had ever met, but could never quite articulate her thoughts without stammering or waving around her hands in an incredibly child-like fashion.
Her entire being was a contradiction, seemingly made to confuse Peeta by the day. Most of the time, it didn't even pass his mind that his tentative friend slash business partner won the latest Hunger Games. She didn't look like a victor; like a killer. She wore dresses and skirts and blouses, though most of the time they were plain white button down shirts and plaid skirts - not the exceedingly rich, jewel patterned dresses he saw victors wear on the television. Or did victors also wear normal clothes when not on camera? The thought of them being human just like him made his head hurt, as he had always found those who had taken human lives for the amusement of the Capitol to be less than human. A puppet.
But then some weird girl invited him over for a job. Then dinner. Then a different job. And then he came by her fancy mansion at least once a week, rather to paint some wooden creation of hers or to use her studio for his own purposes. She said she didn't care if he wanted to use her expensive paints, paintbrushes, and canvases. And so, without too much guilt, he did just that. And through her, he stopped viewing victors as just instruments of the Capitol's vicious appetite, but also victims of suffering. Sometimes, when she thought he wasn't looking, her fingers would tremble at too loud noises or whenever his paintings featured skies that were not so sunny. He stopped painting dark images, and soon drew idyllic scene after scene.
His family had mixed reactions to his bizarre new friendship slash partnership. Rye couldn't care less and Banner teased him about hanging out with an older girl. His father didn't approve of their friendship due to Peeta developing "useless skills," but didn't stop him from heading over to the Hawthorne house whenever the days grew long and sales dropped during the seasonal recessions. His mother, however, had the strangest reaction. She encouraged him to hang out with her as much as possible, stating something about young love and it was never too young to marry.
Which wasn't the reaction he'd hoped to get. He liked the girl alright, but didn't love her. He harbored a massive crush on the solemn Everdeen girl in his year, not the third victor for district twelve. Blaire was too creepy at times and too wise everywhere else for him to ever think of her as more than a friend. And then his mom went off about marrying the right kind of girl, like a pretty blonde merchant girl or "that rich girl in Victor's Village. She's about your age, right, sweetie?" It was weird to think about his friend that way, but he did try to think about it from his mom's point of view. Sometimes his mom sighed about wanting more in life than being a baker's wife, so she pushed her personal views onto her children. Especially him, as he was the baby of the family, thus the main part of her attention, even though he reached double digits over a year ago.
Sometimes he just came over to their house (front door never locked, so he could just enter without knocking) to sit next to Blaire who had been in her studio since the crack of dawn, and sit in amiable silence while they each did their own thing. She'd hum a foreign tune and let fine strips of wood patter onto the floor with the melodic thunks of her whittling knife, while he let paint glide through creamy white canvas boards and scratch at the dried stains on the rickety tabletop. The rhythm of their partnership allowed for his skills to develop, translating into extraordinarily intricate designs on frosted cakes and iced sweet pastries.
He liked the Hawthorne family alright, too, from what he saw of them. Hazelle Hawthorne, the mother of the lot, asked him too many questions about baking he thought to be common knowledge. He enjoyed teaching the older woman his best tricks, loving the surprised look on her face when her pumpkin bread came out better than ever and she let him actually eat the expensive treats they baked together. Back home, if he so much as handled the apple tarts wrong, he'd get a whooping. Peeta found Gale, Blaire's twin brother, to be quite intimidating with his thick eyebrows and constantly pissed off expression (Blaire called him a giant puppy, which Peeta fervently disagreed to that statement). He recognized her twin as that school hunk a bunch of the girls fawned over, and only hoped that Katniss didn't feel the same way. Next, the twins Rory and Vick. He didn't see them as much because they usually played outside in the muddy meadows. And then baby Posy, who kept on trying to bite his fingers.
His school friends appeared to forget about the odd incident on the recess field, and treated him normally after that. He supposed it helped that Blaire didn't attend school anymore, else recess might become an awkward decision between sitting next to her to discuss their next project, or to play with his friends on the playground.
As the weeks passed by, the studio overfilled with their collection of art. He couldn't bring his paintings home due to the lack of room, so they made do by covering every inch of the studio walls (a former guest bedroom, complete with its own private bathroom) with his sketches, designs, and finished projects. And then all the floor and ceiling space dedicated itself to Blaire's carvings. Several half-finished life sized sculptures of people and animals he didn't recognize rested in a corner, while a bunch of different tables of desks of varying heights and types of chairs cluttered all over the room, each one holding at least a dozen little figurines and framed carvings. Their prized magical mushroom village (what was a toadstool?) hung from the ceiling from bronze wires, each piece swaying in the slight breeze from the opened windows. The bathroom was carefully devoid of art, being more of a hand-washing station than anything.
What bothered Peeta the most about his sorta-friend was her treatment of him. She paid great attention to his needs and wants, such as providing him a space for art and the ability to buy any treat he craved, but friendship extended beyond just material gifts. She listened to him ramble on about school, quirking her lips into that infuriating crooked grin of hers, as if she was only humoring their conversations. If he didn't know better, he would say the girl acted like she was better than him, or that she was older and wiser. Even though they were literally only a year and a half apart in age. It infuriated him that he could barely read Blaire behind her cold grey eyes and constantly amused lips. She couldn't be described as constantly smiling, no, but her lips resembled something more of a haughty smirk throughout the day.
With Gale's fierce gaze and Blaire's nerve wracking smirk, the older Hawthorne twins were a force to be reckoned with.
Peeta could only hope he would never accidentally set himself in their line of fire.
The days where Mrs. Hawthorne urged the two of them to air out the studio were usually baking days. He and Mrs. Hawthorne would mix the ingredients together and knead the dough, and Blaire would form it into wonderful little shapes. He enjoyed these days just as much as their painting days, since being able to bake without his own mother craning her neck over him while barking orders of a time limit allowed him to enjoy the activity much more. He made fondant icing from scratch and let Blaire's skilled hands take a crack at the new medium of art, so different from wood or even clay (he knew the house had a kiln somewhere), but the delicate decorations turned out perfectly, better than whatever the Mellark bakery could churn out.
But even as he spent more and more time with the girl, she still remained quite the mystery to puzzle over.
In the end, the phone directory only held useless call center numbers and mayor office directions, so we could only sell our art once I made my rounds during the Victory Tour.
Which I was not looking forward to. At all.
Weeks flew into months and the summer season transformed into autumn's crisp red leaves and frost laden grasses. The autumn season disappeared all too quickly, drawing back for the onslaught of winter. Throughout the rest of the year, I made more wood sculptures, paid Peeta out of pocket to paint Posy's animal dolls whenever he visited once or twice a week, and completely immersed myself in art. I picked up pottery alongside Vick, who had a real knack for using the wheel. Again, Peeta glazed and painted the clay sculptures, as I had absolutely no talent in any kind of painting or filling in colors. I barely trusted Vick to hold a paintbrush without permanently staining his fingertips or something equally insane, so Peeta became the answer to our problems.
Gale retreated into his hunting, spending most of his waking hours with Katniss outside of school. Sometimes he invited the girl over for dinner Sunday nights, at which I really hoped that he wasn't actively wooing her at our age. Then again, Peeta came over more often than the girl on fire, so it wasn't like I could complain about the situation. They were honestly a great pair of friends, but Gale's one sided crush hurt me in more ways I thought possible. Maybe because I spent the same amount of time raising him alongside mom, so I found him to be like my own child, or baby sibling.
My age haunted me more often than not. There were good looking adults in town I wanted to just flirt with in a mature adult fashion, but I couldn't force any of them into feeling uncomfortable about my child status. My period started and an influx of pubescent hormones developed at the beginning of winter, and all those feelings about the beautiful adults became harder to suppress. People who I wanted to befriend didn't even know how to talk to me, or avoided me altogether because they saw how I killed real, living people just like them on television.
By the time my Victory Tour rolled in, I was utterly defeated by the influx of heavy emotions. When I saw Haymitch for the first time in months, paunchier than usual, on the train, there wasn't even a shred of protest when Effie sat us down to prepare for my speeches. My arms and legs felt all nice and shiny from my prep team's earlier harassment, so I distracted myself from Effie's shrill voice and Haymitch's drunken slurs by rubbing my limbs against the soft fabric of my coat. Was it mink? Or rabbit?
"I've even prepared note cards for you if you ever need to refocus on the speech," the Capitol woman chirped. I blinked, reorienting myself to reality.
Haymitch dozed off next to me. "Thank you," I said just to ease the conversation somewhere less confusing, accepting the crisp floral patterned notes. "I appreciate them very much."
She beamed with the radiation of a thousand suns.
I went through the speeches with Effie, practicing my most charming smile and tone of speech, as everything would be broadcasted back to the Capitol. I wanted - no, needed - to make a good impression. For Snow to take one good look at my unassuming, mostly popular self, and discard me from his mind. He couldn't trace me back to knowing anything about a worrying rebellion (a future rebellion, at least), couldn't suspect me of being anything other than the perfect victor. While I couldn't see myself scheming any blueprints for a rebellion related escape pod, it simply would not do if the Capitol sent troops to murder my entire family if I said one wrong thing about my future knowledge.
Several hours passed by. Effie declared the speech memorized and my facial expressions perfect, so I sauntered back to my private quarters for a nap. But I couldn't sleep. I just tossed and turned and my eyes itched with pent-up energy every time I tried to smash the eyelids closed. Eventually, my prep team dragged me out of my quiet, sleepless state, into a different room to prepare for the cameras.
Flavius massaged a cinnamon scented goo into my hair, Octavia lathered my skin with ice cold gels, and Venia redid my nails, citing how horrible my nail-chewing habit was if the touch ups from this morning had already gone to ruin.
District eleven I knew to be geographically a conglomeration of half of the previous United States' southern region, from Georgia to South Carolina, spanning from the coast to the Mississippi River. Of course, they didn't call the river anything, now in Panem. Or provide adequate geography lessons at all, in fear of the districts planning insidious uprisings in certain locations. All provided in schools were the most basic maps of vague district borders and an approximate size of each one. District eleven had to be one of the, if not most, largest districts of the country. Due to agricultural based jobs abundant and necessary for every one of their citizens, the tributes typically had a fairer chance at winning the games compared to the other districts. Not counting the well fed Careers, of course. The tributes in the past from eleven wore strong and lean muscle from hours in fields, and were seemingly impervious to all types of weather after staying outside for the harvest and planting seasons. They grew taller than the people in the north, allowing for an added height advantage, also.
Through the train windows, I saw people laboring over acres of wheat, and I wondered which of those fields shipped directly to the Mellark bakery.
Haymitch hobbled outside the train first, right into the broad embrace of a tall black man missing his left arm from the elbow down.
"Haymitch! Oh, so good to see you, my drunken friend!" The man bellowed, chuckling all the while.
A few other people I vaguely recognized dawdled in the back of the train station, which was lined with rigid Peacekeepers. Back in district twelve, most of the Peacekeepers stopped caring about misdemeanors and odd behavior, yet the ones here began looking increasingly twitchy at the two men's warm greeting.
"Time's ticking away, Blaire," Effie reminded, pulling my arm away, out the train. Her prompting created a chain reaction, setting the rows of Peacekeepers to push us and the small crowd into the streets to start walking to their Justice Building.
After a round of hugging Haymitch half to death, the curious man in question sauntered over to me. "Oh, and you must be lightning girl! Blaire Hawthorne, nice to meet you. I am Chaff, an old friend of your mentor."
And then he kissed both my cheeks before going back to harassing Haymitch. His actions were startling, and it took all my power to not trip in surprise.
"Does he always do that?" I squeaked out to Effie, rubbing away the wet smooches on my cheeks. No, I wasn't a prude, but I hated the idea of being grabbed and gushed over without my prior consent. I was an adult, goddammit! Not a child! And definitely not a doll!
She looked over from preening her hair. "Do what?"
And then the main square came into view.
The Justice Building, while larger than our own, was a great deal more sun damaged and haggard. Fine cracks chipped away at a once lustrous paint job, and several terracotta roof tiles were missing from their bunch. Thick vines of English Ivy wrapped around the front stone columns, acting more protective of the building than the worn bricks did. I deduced the small crowd including Chaff walking off to the sides of the main platform to be previous victors. If my memory served correctly, these were all the district's victors. I discreetly wondered if I'd have to meet all the previous victors from years before on this trip while gloating to the families how I survived the arena and their child didn't.
My speech started and ended gloriously - another word for disrespectful. Perhaps the group of people gathered in the square would never grow to like me, or even understand the things I did in the arena, but I hadn't touched a hair on one of their own children's heads, so we wrapped up without glares or discontent faces. No claps, of course, because the overworked and famished people didn't dare applaud for a Capitol victory like the games, so Effie peacefully gathered me away, back into the building.
As the sun began to trickle away, a three course meal was served at a long mahogany table in the main dining hall. I sat next to the mayor, uncomfortably sandwiched between the feeble old man and a drunken Haymitch laughing alongside Chaff about something I didn't care to listen to. But then I heard my name in their conversation and my ears honed in on every word.
"She is no longer a child," Chaff mentioned, using low tones. A middle aged woman sitting across from me looked up at the same time. Seeder, I guessed her to be. She looked vaguely familiar - probably had her games repeated on loop due to popularity or something.
Seeder stretched her chapped lips into a smile that was not unkind. "And she is also sitting right next to you. Where are your manners, boy?"
'Boy?' I refrained from rudely examining her tight, flawless bronze colored skin. How old was this woman, to call the forty one year old Chaff 'boy?'
Said man shifted his sitting position to offer me an apologetic shoulder hug. "Forgive me, Miss Hawthorne."
"Thank you," I accepted. "Please feel free to just call me Blaire. There are too many members of my family to be simply referred to by my last name."
He chuckled deeply, his previous conversation with Haymitch now coming back to light. "Your mentor and I were just discussing - are still discussing - his treatment of you."
I gulped.
"While you have the body of a child, great intelligence sparks behind your eyes," he murmured gravely, as if in warning. "You deserve the respect of an adult, regardless of the fact you should have been treated like one ever since your name was pulled on the reaping day. Haymitch needs to realize this and stop treating you like a child, when it is so very obvious you are no longer one - or, have never been one. How have you come to be so wise and intelligent, Blaire?"
Haymitch sneered back, breaking Chaff's disturbing amount of eye contact and dangerous words. "It doesn't matter how mature she is, Chaff. She's still a child. I'm not demeaning her. I'm trying to protect her."
He hissed out that last sentence as if his tongue was on fire.
"And I think you boys ought to shut up and hear what Blaire thinks about this mess," Seeder cut through the vibrating tension with her smarmy words. But it was hardly a time to celebrate in gratitude, for she had put me in the spotlight.
The mayor was too enthralled in conversation with a pretty server lady behind him. The other district eleven people of importance were too busy with their meal to notice our little group's drama. A clear coast. "I want to be able to talk to you like an adult," I told Haymitch honestly. His pale eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "But I really am still a child and still have much learning and growing up to do before I properly earn the respect of an adult."
"Spoken eloquently," Chaff nodded. Seeder narrowed her eyes at her fellow district mate to get him to discontinue the conversation. Quickly, he turned to pour more drinks for everybody. I shot the old lady a grateful look, but she didn't notice, now deeply enthralled in a conversation with the person to her right.
The rest of dinner felt painfully lonely.
As soon as the last of the dessert dishes were cleared, Peacekeepers escorted us straight back to our train, where the day's events tired me out so much I fell straight asleep as soon as my face hit the pillows.
I dreamed of an empty meadow, just like the one behind the school's recess field. The skies above the meadow started peacefully idyllic, with streaking baby blue and creamy white clouds floating above. But then the stripes of clouds thickened in size, straight into a huge grey cover, blanketing the now grass-less meadow. The dirt transformed into grains of sand and my feet melted straight into the earth. The ground kept swallowing me whole until the very top of my head submerged into the dry, rough material. Before my surroundings could suffocate me, I shot straight back up to the meadow, back to air. But the air was thick and hot with heat. The skies, once a crystalline blue, now contained rumbling pitch black clouds. Thunder came, and barely a second later, lightning struck the ground half a mile away. The temporary light illuminated the fresh corpse of the boy from eight, who now wandered through the darkness, eyes glazed over in his death trance.
"You don't even remember my name," he accused, and then the lightning strike receded and all was dark again. During the next strike, he appeared closer, murmuring something ghastly. On the fifth strike, the lightning bolted straight down on him, and then the boy from eight turned into Amaria from two, and then the tall boy from seven who hunted with the Careers. The lightning faded, and I realized that it was going to strike me next. The sand grabbed my feet to prevent me from running, and I could only stare up at the blinding beam of light riveting down in a matter of milliseconds.
I woke up in a cold sweat. Sunlight beamed from the open shutter blinds, and I moved frantically to close them, fingers trembling with the exertion of my nightmare.
The next district on the tour, district ten, was a less sordid affair than district eleven. Haymitch didn't know any of the victors personally and I hadn't faced anyone from ten in the arena, so I was able to distance myself from the entire speech and dinner.
As the livestock district, the dinner mostly comprised of their specialty beefs and poultry meats. We sat in affable silence, not willing to discuss the previous day's events. Neither of us were great speakers, or were brave enough to break the tension first, so the entire meal felt out of place.
If we weren't provided with the cold, hard statistics based from textbooks, I would have found district ten to be the poorest. Everybody's skin was tanned and leathery from staying out in the harsh sun all year round, taking care of smelly animals and hazardous zoonosis diseases. Too many children in the crowd wore an unhealthy pallor and wore clothes so ragged, I could imagine the Seam people's daily attire to be considered luxury items for these people. How unfortunate to live in a dry, flat, and hot environment. Not many things grew in this area, so people relied on the meat from their own farms to sustain their families.
Even before I won the games, our large family ate quite healthily. Gale had always brought home fresh game, wild plants, and herbs, while our tesserae input provided a somewhat steady influx of grains. Now, as a wealthy member of society, I could only think about how most of the people in the livestock district never even had the chance to fully clean their hands from the stench of animal fertilizer.
District nine was slightly better, monetarily. The waves of amber extended as far as the eye could see, and it took several hours to reach the main town of the grain industry district.
Most of the victors extended past fifty years old, but a tall, strong female caught my eye as the odd one out. Triti Lancaster was a beautiful dark skinned woman who wore her hair in a white scarf. She had been the winner of sixty-first games, and her body was still young enough to resemble her victorious teenage self, now grown up as a twenty five year old woman. I briefly wondered how someone so slim and wafting could win a game, but her intense chocolate eyes reminded me that sponsors could have bet on her victory, in hopes of kissing her plump dark lips and violating every part of her body.
My mood soured enough to avoid striking up a potential friendship with the woman at the reminder of my future. Triti undoubtedly had been extended the choice of prostitution or the death of her loved ones, and I didn't want to know enough about her to find out which choice she made.
For I dreaded my choice in the future. Of course, I would do anything to save my family, but I didn't know if my sanity would be patched up enough by the time my sixteenth birthday rolled around for it to be prepared for the forced prostitution.
The textiles district, district eight, I remembered to be the first to rebel and spark the war against the Capitol. But all thoughts of their insane bravery washed away when the train doors opened and thick smog of factory smoke hit my nose. Smoke, ash, and dust seeped into the corners of the urban district. Not a blade of grass in sight - something I hated. Everything about eight was so unfamiliar and foreign, from the tall, looming stone factories to the absence of nature, that I immediately wanted to curl up back in my private quarters and whittle away at a comforting pace.
I felt sick from eating decadent dinners several nights in a row, so I barely picked at my food, not bothering eating the properly polite amount. An industry of textiles didn't seem to be one where its skills could be applied to the games, but a surprising number of victors remained, being about the same amount of the previous districts combined. Here, Haymitch had friends.
An old, gnarly man nicknamed Woof shared way too many drinks with my mentor throughout the long dinner. And he spared an occasional few sentences with a young woman named Cecelia, whose belly swelled with a child.
"How many months along are you?" I asked the woman sitting directly in front of me. Her skin was so pale it almost appeared translucent, contrasting heavily with her dark brown eyes and hair.
She offered a small smile. "Seven months. And if you're interested in knowing, it's a boy."
"Is this your first child?" I ventured, feeling as though talking about something she loved was a safer topic than bitching about the machine polluting weather or to ask how she won the fifty-ninth games.
"My second," she gushed immediately, and I dreaded the upcoming socialization. She talked about her first child, a four year old girl, and soon I learned more about a random toddler named Belle's first words than I knew about Posy's ("Belle's first words were 'thank you.' Can you believe that? My little girl was born to be polite and well mannered!"). Posy's first words were probably something normal when she hit one years old. Probably. I wracked my brain thinking about my sister's pudgy baby phase.
Effie dragged me away to the train in her clawed iron grip, telling me all about her delightful conversation with the mayor. When I mentioned talking with Cecelia, she grew absolutely ecstatic and squealed about how that woman had to be her absolute favorite victor in the games so far (besides me, of course), and how she really grew to be Panem's number one celebrity during her time. Effie continued on about mothers and pregnancy magazine pictorials before losing me completely to a little safe haven in the back of my mind.
I whittled away miniature crafts and reformed and edited my given speeches tailored to each district in between waiting between districts. District seven, known for their production of lumber, contained a similar enough geography of its Cascade Mountains to Appalachia that I was almost wanting to tour around the area longer than the drive and walk from the train station to the Justice Building. There was no Johanna Mason yet, nobody I really knew well enough (even if it was through a book and not in person) to strike up conversation. District six passed by without anything notable, other than the insufferably cold winds blowing through the entire outdoor speech.
Haymitch seemed to get along with district five's victors well enough, as they were all alcoholics. Plenty of drinks and jeers and laughs were spent that night, all while I picked at my food and the town's mayor asked uncomfortably personal questions about my current emotional state.
The trip to district four dragged on for what seemed like eternity. Perhaps due to the knowledge of seeing two important people - Finnick Odair and Mags Flanagan - at the dinner banquet, my nerves shook crazily in my stomach. My prep team's constant appliance of cinnamon and pumpkin scents felt out of place in a seaside town, when we finally arrived, but it provided memories of comfort and warmth of a loving kitchen back home in twelve.
District four became the first district so far to actually applaud and cheer at the end of the speech, signalling at long last what I didn't quite know how to behave around - Careers. Only about half of the tributes from four ended out Careers, but the shark hunting mentality of the crowd made me want to cry out in frustration.
I was arranged by the mayor's side, as usual, but instead of Haymitch at my side, it was the old woman Mags from the eleventh Hunger Games. She greeted me warmly with a kiss on the cheek and a warble of words I couldn't understand. Perhaps this woman suffered a stroke in the past, resulting in slurred or sloppy speech. But no - her words weren't at all sloppy, or from the result of brain damage. She spoke quickly and straight forward, a strong expression written on her face. I wanted to like this old woman, this person who gave her life for the rebellion, but all I could think about was how she was fated to die. From exposure to painful, nerve-attacking chemical fog. To save Peeta, a boy who I knew better than most.
Instead of feeling thankful for her future sacrifice, my heart pounded in trepidation. At the thought of her death. Of her sure death. Of her cannon shooting out in the distance. Of her going back inside the arena.
A gummy mouthed white haired old lady who had been born before the games first introduced themselves to Panem, off to die in another arena less than six years from now.
"Hey there. Blaire, right?" Purred a deep timbre from a handsome bronze haired, golden tan skinned, sea green eyed young man before me. Finnick Odair. Nobody else could wear such scandalous clothes to a formal event without causing a disruption.
"No, it's Haymitch," I deadpanned, unsure what else to say to the beauty of a man. "Blaire's over there, drinking her life away."
He paused for a split second, slightly thrown at my attempts at an ice breaker humor, but then he smoothly transitioned into a new topic. "So, Blaire," he spoke with rich tones. "How's the victor life treating you?"
I wondered if he was asking about my well-being in contrived, seductive tones he was popular for, but dismissed it as just my imagination. Snow couldn't touch me yet. Finnick had no reason to know if I was aware of the prostitution schemes.
"I'm just trying to enjoy the rest of my childhood," I responded, tugging my lips into a half-hearted grin. While there weren't any cameras for the dinner, it didn't strike me as normal to be in the Finnick Odair's presence and not smile. For the sake of people watching us, if there were any.
He nodded gently. "Three years left?"
Most people would've said five, counting all the way to eighteen. But he counted to the age of consent and drinking, displaying the truth behind his words. Three years until the peace shatters. Three years until I don't just stop in the Capitol to mentor, but also to uphold a string of "lovers." He mentioned how I beat his record for being the youngest victor, at which I changed the subject to Mags.
Said woman looked up from her shellfish and nattered on about something I was beginning to decipher as extremely trashy curses towards some very specific people.
"Oh, I agree wholeheartedly," I said, just to keep the mood up while the rest of the table began a discussion about their favorite, most brutal games in Panem's short history.
Mags cackled and pointed a wrinkly finger at a basket of bread before me I hadn't had the appetite to reach out for. Now curious, I shifted its contents my way, and saw several piles of salty seaweed bread.
"Do you want me to eat one?" I asked patiently, not sure at what she was getting at.
Finnick responded for her. "She's not pointing at the bread, but my hands."
I looked up to see the handsome twenty year old extending a handful of sugar cubes. "Here, take one. Everyone needs a little sweetness in life, especially for a cute girl like you."
His flirting may have flustered me if I had actually been a thirteen year old, but I simply laughed and told him, "Save the flirting for later. Maybe in a couple of years or so."
"She's a child, yet," Haymitch slurred from his corner, two seats down. His interruption into our conversation was surprising, but the intoxicated fluster and dragging words weren't. "Don't you dare, 'innick. No, nothing. No touch she's a chiiiild."
The tips of my ears burned in indignation. Who did he think he was, taking control over me like that? It wasn't like Finnick actually meant to seduce me; it was his normal way of speech. It was so ingrained into memory that he did it with every woman he talked to. Not his fault for being forced into a sultry habit. Was I angry? Absolutely. Did I want to punch my mentor in the face? Of course. But did I understand where he was coming from? Unfortunately, yes.
So instead, I remained still and silent and abandoned the rest of my meal.
Mags broke the awkwardness tangible in the air by muttering choice words to Haymitch. He snorted and hiccuped ungracefully, but soon agreed to her grumblings and turned his head for more alcohol. I didn't know exactly what went on just then, but I could barely muster up any kind of gratitude for the old woman. I gave my thanks, but didn't really mean it.
"You're looking homesick," Finnick noted.
My face contorted painfully while I tried to force it into a less telling expression. Finally, it settled on peaceful, and I responded. "It's been a bad day. But yeah, I am a little homesick. The air tastes so salty here. I don't know how you can stand it."
A grin cracked on his face. "It's just the ocean air," he said. "I don't know how you can stand the mountains, where the winter dumps ten feet of snow on you."
"Snowball fights," I challenged.
"Fresh seafood," he retorted.
And then the day brightened just a bit from our banter.
It was only when we boarded the train to the next district did I remember that his games had taken place in an arctic taiga arena. He would never be able to associate positive feelings with snow, but at least I made him smile at the thought of pelting kid brothers with snowballs and muddy slush.
District three wasn't what I expected. The main industry was electronics and other smart devices, yet most of the residents lived in abject poverty. Residents had ashen skin from their time in factories, creating all the electrical and mechanical products for the Capitol. It was amazing how most of these individuals, starting from grade school, knew at least the basics of electronics and engineering. But intelligence didn't equate wisdom, and having too much intelligence creates problems. Such as overthinking things. The district three boy for the seventy fourth Hunger Games - he was bound to create such an ingenious and lethal bomb trap, but ended up blowing up the Career's supplies from oversight. Was. Will? Going to?
The future tenses confused me greatly, as I remembered reading and watching these adventures in the past, but they hadn't even happened yet.
Unfortunately, Beetee had been placed on the opposite end of the dining table, so I couldn't talk about our wire related wins. Perhaps that was for the better. As much as I disapproved at my mental weaknesses, I had to admit that I still wasn't ready to talk about the games to anyone. Especially not for a contrived reason such as sharing a similar taste in weaponry used to kill children as efficiently as possible.
On the train ride to district two, my hands shook so much I cut my palm when whittling a dragon figurine. The splatter of blood on its scaly snout improved the look, I mused in quiet humor, but my prep team had different reactions.
Flavius wanted to order specially instant healing cream from the Capitol stat, Octavia wanted to fit me in lacy black gloves from the excuse of having an ugly clotting scar, and Venia just paled at the sight of blood and left the room. I wondered why Venia had such a small stomach for small matters, especially since she watched the games on television as an avid fan, but then I deduced it was probably because she'd never seen actual wounds in person.
"It'll heal in a few days," I complained.
Flavius gasped. "No. That is way too long for an injury to mar your polished skin. Potentia's going to have to redesign your entire outfit now."
Which my fashion stylist did. Because the small cut was on the hand of the arm with the lightning scar, she decided that wearing my usual sleeveless ensemble would be a walking disaster with gloves. Therefore, my time in the windy, rocky climate of district two was spent in long, itchy velvet sleeves draping down to cover my hands.
The commotion over the thin slice of an injury was the most interesting thing happening during district one and two's banquets. The halls for the final Career districts spoke of great wealth and maintenance, with Justice Halls four times as large as district twelve's and filled with glamorous luxury item furniture and art. Peeta would have a field day in these buildings, treating the walls like an art gallery rather than an office of a small government.
The thought of Peeta reminded me of how he was bound to run into a force field in the seventy fifth games, making Finnick the only person to resuscitate his heart. Finnick's words then rang in my head. 'You look homesick,' he had said. Homesick.
My home wasn't the mansion in Victor's Village. Home was mom and my siblings. And maybe Peeta. Home was my family and friends. That was home.
So yes, I was homesick.
Finally, after eleven strenuous days, the train arrived back home for our own ceremony.
Kids strung paper lanterns through the streets, running around with their Capitol issued bag of goods. Our family didn't receive one, of course, but it wasn't as if we really needed a bag of essential ingredients and home items, as we were the richest in town alongside Haymitch. Due to my winning of the games, the Capitol itself arranged the ceremonial victory party in my district. Which, as expected, became the most extravagant event of the year. School ended earlier to start and prepare on the festivities, adults were lackluster about their jobs, and everyone, most of all, had fun.
This had to be the best part of the victory tour. Seeing how happy it made my town.
The worst part was the attention.
A crew of cameras and interviewers all but broke into our house to pepper everyone with questions. Luckily for them, my family was still participating in the outdoor festivities. Unluckily for me, I was eating a snack in the kitchen downstairs when the door swung wide open for a crew of about a dozen cameramen and women. My first instinct was to hide the unfortunately placed Peeta in the chair next to mine. Away from the Capitol, away from the cameras. Being exposed to cameras prematurely would definitely change something about the future, I was sure of it.
"And this here is the home of our favorite Blaire Hawthorne from district twelve!" Shouted someone for a voiceover as all the gawking brightly colored people pattered into my home. "And here's lightning girl, eating a snack in her kitchen."
I flashed a glamorous smile. "Oh, hey there! We weren't expecting you for another hour, so I'm afraid that my family's still out celebrating."
Peeta shifted nervously besides me. Like sharks, the cameras all zoomed to his sudden movements.
A short, squat man with neon pink tattoos lining the right side of his face sat down across from us and adjusted his camera to a more approachable level. "And who's this lovely young man besides you?"
And the moment came anyway. My heart leapt into my throat as I tried to think of what to say or what to do for Peeta to be somehow edited out the feature length episode, but fear still hammered through my veins by the time the boy spoke up.
"My name's Peeta Mellark," he said with that instantly likeable, boyish smile of his. "I'm Blaire's friend and business partner."
Now there was no way for his appearance to be cut out.
Fuck.
"Business partner?" The cameraman inquired. Several shuttering shots were taken from around the house as the crew wandered around at their own discretion. My eye twitched.
I put on a comfortable smile and nodded. "Yep. Peeta and I are partners in our special art projects. I whittle and carve, he paints. We combined our talents together and are now looking to sell some of our artwork to my fans. Come on now, we're going to show you!"
I grabbed my friend's hand and practically bounded up the stairs, hearing the heavy footsteps thud behind us. Perhaps holding his hand (his wrist, really) in front of a camera was a bad idea, but I was anxiously trying to get him out of the spotlight, and reacted out of panic.
He shook his hand back, rubbing at the red claw marks around his wrist. I wanted to wince to show an apologetic face, but the cameras were still rolling and touring our studio meant suffering through a tedious, long-lasting smile. "And here's our studio! It's a bit cramped with everything we've been working on, but feel free to tour around. Just don't touch anything."
The crowd oohed and awed at the wood sculptures and figurines, and were absolutely delighted at the finished toadstool village set up in the center of the room. I bribed Gale to take down all the pieces hanging from the ceiling by carving him an elegant new bow for his freakishly long growing boy arms just this morning. They didn't pay attention to the paintings hanging all around the walls due to needing to focus the screen time on the victor, not her painter. A few clay vases holding his paintbrushes and my chiseling tools adorned the handmade tables, at which I proudly boasted the pottery to be from Vick's hands.
They finished up filming a special thirty second clip of the toadstool village out of my request, and then the rest of the family poured in. With five more people to interview, they left Peeta and I alone in the studio.
I kicked a table leg in frustration. "Sorry about that," I said.
He gave a breathy short laugh. "Sorry about what?"
"That you had to be on camera. Now there's probably going to be a news article somewhere picking at our friendship. You'll be the center of attention of the Capitol for, like, a day. Considering these people have the attention span of goldfish, that's saying something."
He shrugged and scratched the back of his head. "Well, good thing I don't live in the Capitol, then. I'll see you after you get back, Blaire. Good luck." Then he gathered his things and sauntered out the door.
His easygoing nature confounded me for a solid minute as I stared stupidly at the open door. What kind of saint possessed that kid's mind? Jesus Christ, I was going to get whiplash.
At six p.m. sharp, I was escorted out the house by a bumbling Effie to the Justice Building, where I'd be giving my final speech. The formulaic "hey I won good for me let's celebrate" speech had to be lackluster in quality, but the crowd still cheered at the prospect of what my victory did for them. District twelve was above such pride about honoring the games. I was reminded of this especially when the crowd lulled in quiet respect during my regretful words to Yonner's family. Being cooped up inside so much meant that I didn't have to wander around town and accidentally bump into any of the Bayaurchs (there were six of them in total - two parents, four siblings), but looking at them ripped up a different kind of hurt in my chest.
By the end of the speech, I finally acknowledged my exhaustion and decided to call it quits. The cameras stopped rolling during the dinners and all the camera crew people were too busy occupied filming outside festivities and editing what footage they managed to get back home, so instead of eating and socializing with the upper members of the district, I laid my head straight down next to my porcelain plate and took a nap.
The aftermath of my rude showing definitely spread rumors about my apparent madness from the games, but at that point, I couldn't care less. Let them point fingers and whisper "that's the lightning girl; the poor, mad girl." I had my family, painter friend, and the support of the Capitol. President Snow couldn't touch me yet.
On the arduous train ride to the Capitol for the huge gala event in honor of wrapping up the victory tour, I even began to feel content.