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 2020.07.06
70th Hunger Games
Warning: adult language, possible mental health triggers, talking about non-consensual sexual activity (but nothing happens, don't worry)
(Note: most of this story and future chapters are written before the prequel was released, so I'm just throwing in Lucy Baird's name in here when they talk about district twelve's past victors. Blaire doesn't know anything about Lucy or President Snow other than the main trilogy knowledge, but she might be suspicious about why the tenth games aren't talked about if I edit one of the future chapters, idk)
(Note: the new cover image is something I drew with a dark grey felt pen. It's a sketch of Blaire if you couldn't tell and I tried to make her expression look as somber as possible to reflect her own thoughts/experiences lol. Hope you like it!)
Two more hours until two p.m.
The clock ticked away. I wanted to smash the device to the ground.
Two more hours until the reaping ceremony.
The warm summer air's mugginess thickened as the hours ticked by. I slammed the windows shut. I groomed my locks into a manageable bob, snipping away a few annoyingly spiky hairs jutting out behind my ears. I tugged on a crisp creamy white blouse and olive green skirt, knowing that wearing anything else would make me associate my clothes as foreign. Wearing familiar outfits meant a brief lull in security before heading back to the Capitol. Back to the games. Back to Snow.
I walked alongside my family, very quiet and out of it. Rory never seemed to have forgiven me ever since the incident in May, but Vick at least stayed close to me and made sure to grasp my hand tight before heading to the tied off back sections of the reaping ceremony in front of the Justice Building. Gale engulfed me in a deep embrace, his chin resting atop my head, before dragging himself to the male's fourteens section.
In the crowd, familiar faces popped up. Right at the front. Peeta Mellark. He glanced up at my new position on the temporary stage, standing a safe distance away from the wobbling Haymitch. I couldn't even reassure him with a smile, because all I could think about was how telling him that everything was going to be alright would be a lie because the seventy fourth games were in four years.
Mayor Undersee exited the Justice Building to trot down onto the platform. He nodded brusquely at me in recognition before starting the ceremony.
"It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks," he announced after the short video about the history of the games played on the encompassing screens. And then he read the short list of district twelve's victors - Blaire Hawthorne of the sixty-ninth games, Haymitch Abernathy of the fiftieth games, and the deceased victor of the twelfth games. There was also a rumor floating around that there had been one before the twelfth games, but they weren't televised to the districts so we didn't know much about the possible missing person. Nobody in the district could provide much information about silly myths, which I would've found suspicious if not for the fact that pretty much everything about the Panem government was suspicious. After that, we were both able to sit down on our provided seats, to which Haymitch nodded off and curled up into a nap, taking two seats at once.
Effie Trinket bounded out from the Justice Building and hopped up onto the stage. She offered me an elegant hug and two quick kisses on my cheeks, a look of hidden disgust at Haymitch, and then started her piece. "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor! It is such an honor to be here, to be able to select district twelve's tributes. All of Panem watches on, jumping in their seat, just to see every districts' reaping ceremonies!"
She chimed a shrill "ladies first!" on her way to reap the female tribute. I looked to the sea of girls, trying to catch a familiar face I didn't want to be reaped. Katniss stood awkwardly in the front, but I knew her to be saved for the future. Mrs. Cartwright's daughter was behind her, trying not cry in that puffy eyed way. A few recognizable classmates peppered the sections, but I couldn't find it in my heart to not despair if they were chosen.
Effie primed her fluffy shoulder puffs on her obnoxiously yellow dress before smoothing the creases in the slip of paper for the female tribute she had just picked out. "Beau Trixon!"
A slim golden haired, sky blue eyed slip of a girl tentatively made her way from the front. The twelve year old child clenched her fists against her pasty pink skirts as I pushed down the feeling of horror at her age. Twelve. Not even a teenager. A prepubescent little girl.
She had less chances than I did, and I barely won with my life (and most of my flesh).
"Anton Riggsbee!" To my horror, another child emerged from the twelves section up front. At that moment, I envied how out of the world Haymitch drank himself to be this morning. He had matching golden hair and blue eyes, but a smattering of freckles not unlike my own stretched from cheek to nose to cheek. He slowly trembled up the stage next to Beau, the two children both looking directly at their feet and trying not to cry.
The mayor read the Treaty of Treason, then motioned for the two tributes to shake hands. The anthem of Panem played on and a few inappropriate claps echoed from the crowd. Haymitch woke up at the blaring song with a bleary eyed scowl. Peacekeepers marched on stage from their position at its sides and escorted our small group into the Justice Building. The little girl and boy were locked into waiting rooms for their last hour of farewells while Haymitch groggily dragged himself to the nearest couch by the doors and passed out once again.
In the hour left, I slipped out my whittling knife from my sleeve and the block of wood hidden in my skirt pocket. Perhaps the outline of the wood had created a bumpy indent on my skirt, but I didn't care much about looking symmetrical than having a soothing activity for my skittish hands. I crafted two poppy flowers - one for each child about to die - by the time the hour was up and the last of the guests had left the building. Peacekeepers standing roughly about the building marched the puffy eyed tributes out their rooms and off to the train station. Effie shared a car with Beau and Anton while I dragged Haymitch into the leading car with me.
"They're going to die," he gruffed out, leaning against the car window. I wanted to disagree just to spite him but couldn't. Because they were going to die.
"Did you think the same with me, last year?" I questioned instead, trying not to imagine how terrified they must be back with the eccentric Effie spouting the glory of the games.
He grunted. "At least you didn't cry. They don't look like they can pierce two words together without stuttering." He offered a flask from inside his vest pocket. "I'd drink this if I were you."
I denied the offer and awaited the train station.
More cameras whirled around in the small station, no doubt creating the ending of twelve's reaping ceremony airing live on television. Once inside the train carriages and away from the cameras (still recorded, but not for public audiences), Beau finally burst out into ugly sobs and Anton hid his face in his small, pale hands.
"Oh dear," Effie fretted. "Don't cry now. It's unbecoming of a tribute."
She gave me an awkward look then slowly walked out the lounge carriage to a different one. Her private quarters, perhaps. That left me with a snoring Haymitch half on a couch half sprawled on the carpet and two crying children.
They finally wobbled side by side into a sofa booth. I gathered several plates of decadent food from the center tables, placed them on the booth table, and sat across from them. I hacked off a chunk of mahogany wood from the tabletop behind us and began to whittle until their sniffles disappeared.
The first person to speak up was Beau. "I don't want to die," she choked out.
I looked up from whittling my seventh tiger lily. Except I didn't have my painter friend to color its distinctive orange and black petals, so it just looked like a normal, if elongated, lily.
"It may be my first year as a mentor," I said carefully. "But I will do everything in my power to make sure you survive the games."
"What about our other mentor?" Anton asked.
"He usually has valuable advice, but you can only get that out of him if he's not stone cold drunk."
Haymitch's snores echoed in the crystalline room.
I wanted to rest in my private quarters, but leaving the two children alone left a foul taste in my mouth, so I braved through the rest of the day in the main cabin of the train. Apparently they knew each other well enough to break into quiet conversation without bothering to let me awkwardly intrude in any conversation, so I left them at that and sat a few couches away from them out of politeness. Something I noticed this time around, there were more bottles of alcoholic beverages offered. Presumably for my accompaniment alongside Haymitch.
The next few hours consisted of Beau and Anton stuffing themselves silly on capitol food and quietly chatting about something I didn't care enough to eavesdrop on. The dull sound of wind rattling against the industrial windows and low voiced chatter became background noise to concentrate on fumbling with another chunk of mahogany hacked off the dining table.
Effie didn't need to know.
The children filed out the main cabin into their own corridors by the time the train stopped to refuel. I allowed myself the break to slip into my own private quarters and shut out the rest of the world. Octavia, Flavius, and Venia were no longer my personal stylists, so I was surprised to find Venia knocking on my door towards dinner time for a small re acquaintance. Apparently the styling crew now had to escort district twelve tributes to the extent of Effie, as they also now had to manage my own image. Her dumb affection blinded me, but I made sure to heed her helpful beauty tips and let her choose which of the provided dresses to wear for tomorrow's appearance at the Capitol.
The issue with past victors returning as a mentor for the first time, she explained in not so many words, was that sometimes they outshined the current arriving tributes. It depended on the past victor's popularity and the state of their tributes. Because Beau and Anton were only boring little children, news outlets and flashing cameras would pass over them in favor of their newly returning lightning girl. It didn't help how my body developed a little more into something resembling a womanly figure in the past few months, or how all of the dresses provided were sleeveless.
Venia continued to warble on about mindless topics, but what little information I gleaned from her was incredibly useful to know. My victory tour hadn't been full of social interactions with much anyone, not even my stylists, but I'd make sure to remedy that from now on.
None of the small blond haired children sought me out the next morning in the hours before arriving at the train station, so I continued my tirade of butchering the rest of the table and whittling cute little objects for my own enjoyment.
(Effie didn't need to know. No, really, she didn't.)
I made sure to check on Haymitch the hour leading up to docking, at the very least. His body strewn half on the bed half on the ground, smelling of vomit and alcohol, seemed so normal now. Because personal hygiene was his own problem, not mine, I made sure to kick his bedstand table hard enough for him to wake at the sudden noise. An hour of prep time should be enough for him to shower off his stench by himself. Hopefully.
My outfit for the day comprised of thin strap white summer dress reaching above my knees. The heat from the summer weather burned straight into my soul when the train finally docked and we were greeted with the flashing lights of paparazzi and news outlets alongside a terrible heat wave. The air was drier here, where my throat felt crackly already in the short walk to a private car with Haymitch. Effie took the two tributes in the following car, and we departed to the Remake Center. Following my past footprints was a little uncomfortable, but I entertained myself in our district twelve waiting room by discussing inane topics with Effie while waiting on Beau and Anton's transformations.
When Effie was excited about a certain topic, she started to gesture loudly and her pitch lilted upwards even more prominently at the end of her sentences. " - and pearls, my goodness, so last season! Rhys should've known that it's all about rubies right now. And don't let me get started on Boris, who thought he could get away with wearing garnets instead of rubies for the morning banquet."
I nodded along dutifully, trying to filter through the clutter for bits of important information used for my own status. Gemstones were seasonal? Wearing colored contacts in certain cafes was a social faux?
At a sentence break, I finally butted in. "Oh, Effie! I've just realized something important."
She gasped and tutted.
"What am I going to do while Beau and Anton are completing their three days of training?" I asked, buttering up as much as possible. "Do you think it's okay if I hang out with you on one of those dreadfully boring days?"
Effie let out a small shriek, bounding up from her seat over to my part of the couch and clasped my hands. Haymitch, somewhere in the corner, grumbled something incoherent. She instantly agreed to a morning cafe hopping session and a bunch of other activities I wasn't sure I wanted to waste time on. Nonetheless, I gave an easy agree. Familiarizing myself with Capitol customs, people, and general area couldn't be anything counterproductive.
Snow would be happy. Or, well, fuck Snow. I was doing this for my own benefit. The more popular I became through exchanging niceties with the everyday citizen I could meet in cafes or parks, the harder it would become for him to willy-nilly try to ruin me.
Finnick prided himself in his quick witted charisma. If he were only a pretty face, then he'd just be like every other mentally unstable victor with a half decent smile. Of course the games ruined probably a good ten year's worth of sanity on his part, but he knew how to talk to people and how to make them want to be with him. Like a living, breathing sex doll who could make even the most bitter crack a smile at his effortless flirting.
Part of his charisma was an uncanny ability to read people. He could read a room's atmosphere and know how to act from there, what actions to catch people's attention, or how to make himself seem even more desirable and trustworthy. Facing unreadable people was inevitable of course, but he'd never met someone as confusing as the victor of the sixty-ninth games, Blaire Hawthorne.
He could read her, but then he couldn't. Through last year games' interviews, he found her to be a sweet and smart girl, capable of nearly bloodthirsty cunning. Which were maybe half the victors anyway. No visible signs of mental deterioration besides that awkward victory tour dinner - forgivable, he hadn't had the best victory tour himself - or any psychological freakout in the arena, despite the horrid geographical conditions of the sixty-ninth games. Finnick knew that the only tributes turned victors who hadn't suffered any sort of freakout in the arena fell under specific personality categories. Most, if not all, Careers trained from a young age and were trained to understand the games. They had conditioned themselves against the mental agony in order to receive eternal glory. While he hadn't specifically trained to be a Career in his youth, the harsh sea taught his body and mind endless endurance. Again, he hadn't learned how to use a trident to one day pierce a child in the sternum with it, but to hunt sharks. His knife and weaving handiwork came from handling fishing boats, not used to make death traps. But the Capitol didn't need to know that, it was better for everyone around if they knew he had originally been so prepared all along.
The trouble with Blaire, Finnick found, was that she had come to the games with unmatched determination. Somehow, she had picked up skills as useful as his, and reaped the benefits of a Career worthy skill set. Even now, she was treated as if she came from a richer district, not the coal mining dumb district twelve, and this was all due to how she carried herself. Her words were so carefully selected he wondered at one point if her team was feeding sentences. Blaire acted the qualities of an experienced adult, yet was still such an innocent child. The strange juxtaposing of personalities caught his attention the most, mostly on part of wondering how a young girl such as herself knew such proper mannerisms. Some things were only learned through age and experience, yet she conveyed them all perfectly.
Someone so confusing would've been the ideal person to ignore, but also what drew him to her strangeness was her astounding innocence. Any and every little scrape on her baby faced tributes' knees could be reflected in Blaire's worry. Could she be innocent enough to allow herself to care for those two pre-teens who were basically already decked out in halos?
Perhaps he was the hypocrite, hoping to the ends of the world and back that his own tribute made it out alive.
He had a dinner date with one of his "lovers" in the mean time, so he couldn't waste his time on would-bes and had-beens. Blaire would forever be an odd figure in his mind. She was sweet and forthcoming. She was warm and full of delicate smiles he knew would only increase her risk of damage. But underneath the pleasant appearance marred as harshly as the jagged burns down her spine and arm. Wisdom beyond her years, yet unrivaled purity. Maturity grown through a somber atmosphere. Little cracks could be seen in her mental state the more he examined her, so he let it go.
He didn't think she'd last too long in the future anyway.
When Beau's pale, limp body was collected from the bloody pile next to the Cornucopia, I wanted to throw up. I had told her to run, hadn't I? Done everything possible to make sure she survived? Told her to immediately run away as fast as possible, ignoring all the shiny new weapons at the center. And she listened - she had - but then a Career tribute had grabbed a spear next to his feet and let it fly to the nearest person.
It had been the little twelve year old with angelic blonde curls and a bright dimpled smile.
"It gets easier," Haymitch whispered into my ear, his whiskey breath huffing all over my neck. I didn't have the energy to push the drunk man in our shared cubicle off, so I let him giggle and snort about something his intoxicated brain conjured up on my shoulder.
Some ethical duty made me stare at his hologram screen while he was unable, to make sure Anton still lived. And he did. He made his way out the bloodshed in record time, barely lugging a backpack over his shoulders while making it the hell out of the open, grassy field.
My eyes stayed glued to the screen for hours, not noticing the drop of the sun past the windows beyond us. Haymitch snored fitfully when I jumped from a hand on my shoulder. My hands immediately shot down to my sides, where I kept a whittling knife strapped, before realizing that the voice had to belong to another victor in the room.
"Come on, newbie. Up you go. It's break time," a mildly familar voice said.
"Sorry, a bit busy here," I responded, still watching Anton settling down underneath a mangle of tree roots for the night.
The voice - a man's voice - sighed. "My sister wants to talk to you," he pressed. "Come on now, Cashmere gets sassy when she's annoyed."
I allowed myself to whirl my seat to face the opposite direction. Chiseled jawline, golden blond hair, richly tanned skin stretching over lean muscle. "Oh, hello, Gloss. Are we allowed to even talk to each other during this delicate time period? Haymitch isn't exactly the type to debrief me on this type of stuff."
The twenty one year old grinned crookedly. "Our favorite drunk. No, there's no rule prohibiting mentors to socialize. So, you wanna do this to easy way or the hard way? 'Cause I can just swing you over my shoulder or drag you over, or you can come walk peacefully. Your choice."
"My choice, indeed," I bit out, then begrudgingly walked over to the awaiting district one mentor, sitting at a small dining table near the floor to ceiling windows. Gloss sighed again, then wandered away.
Cashmere had to be one of the most gorgeous women I'd ever laid eyes on. Luscious golden locks cascaded down her back and framed her face, playful shamrock green eyes twinkled under the low lighting, and an excellent, curvy physique covered in clothes that left little to the imagination - a model. A star.
(Deadly and vicious)
"Lightning girl," she mused. "Have a seat."
I peeked back towards my hologram screen to assure that nothing catastrophic had happened to Anton in the last few seconds, then hurried my butt down. "I don't believe we've ever been formally introduced. Blaire Hawthorne," I greeted, clamping down my nerves.
The sex-on-legs young woman dipped her head into a nod. "How'd you win your games?" She asked straight away.
My right eye twitched. "By electrocuting my enemies. By surviving in the burning desert. By making sure I was popular enough."
Cashmere's lips twitched into a slight smirk at the last statement. "Oh, yes," she agreed. "You were surprisingly popular. My lover was simply taken aback by your... ability. He often roots for your type of person, you see?"
A heavy weight dropped to the bottom of my core. "Your lover wouldn't happen to be named Quintius Bast, would he?"
A strange, unnamed emotion flitted through her face. "Don't get all involved with him, lightning girl," she spat, then stood up and walked back to her station.
My first thought was that Cashmere was jealous. But that didn't make sense. The victor from district one had all the riches in the world and the most dazzling features - what could she possibly want with a slimy little Capitol rascal like Bast? But her wording seemed a little peculiar, so I invested time into that. "Don't get all involved with him," she had said.
A warning?
The curve of the blonde's hips and the swell of her breasts made me reconsider her character. With her face and body, of course she'd be prostituted to a wide range of buyers. Had she been first given to Bast? How old was she again, when she won her games?
Instead of dwelling too deeply on that matter, I dragged myself back to the district twelve section, where Haymitch had finally awoken and was bobbing his head up and down to whatever the district eleven mentors were saying. Seeder and another mentor who I had met on my victory tour but never bothered to acquaint myself with. I zoned out, curling my legs up to my chest on the wide chair seats and resting my chin on my hands to settle into a semi-comfortable permanent viewing position.
Anton lasted until just before dawn. I was the last victor left in the surveillance room by then, everyone else having enough confidence that their victor could survive without outside supervision or didn't care enough, such as district six's morphling mentors. Seeing the little boy's organs strewn out around a group of laughing Careers didn't ignite any sort of fire inside. I just felt... empty. It hurt more to realize this, that I didn't care enough from the beginning anyway. Did this make me a bad person? Could I have done anything anyway? Living life comfortably in a big mansion and only stressing out about little children who would've died anyway?
When I entered to my apartment in the Victor's Squire - no need to return to the Training Center - just as the dregs of sunlight filtered through the clouds, an electric note had been left inside. It outlined another meeting time with Bast later that day. Instead of resting for another stressful meeting, I paced around the living room, whistling a mindless tune and busying my fidgeting hands with a block of wood and a knife.
I supposed it was nice of Snow to only arrange "lover" meetings after my tributes had died, so I could waste all my nervous energy trying to make sure they survived in the days leading up to their actual death. But the several minuscule cuts on my fingers betrayed my emotions, so in the hour leading up to getting picked up I washed away the blood under stinging antiseptics and watched a boring television channel about the history of the Capitol's favorite singing talents.
Seeing Bast again reminded me of my mother, but no tears trickled out from the squeezing pain in my chest. I smiled and laughed alongside him. He held my hand and patted my hair and I didn't break down until I returned to my quarters and stared at the beautiful jewelry sets he had gifted me.
Rubies. Hadn't Effie said something about rubies?
The next day was a little better. No obligatory meetings with anyone. Seeder invited Haymitch and I to lunch in the district eleven training center quarters. I zoned out for most of the meal, picking at the honey cakes and played with the syrupy droplets immaturely. The lounge room was a little better, with less people traveling in and out. I hacked off more pieces of expensive furniture around me and poured everything into ignoring the world via whittling.
Little clacking noises interrupted the steady flow of the knife. On a nearby lounge chair rested the old district four mentor, Mags. The gummy old lady had two obscenely large crochet needles in hand and a large pile of some sort of yarn thread. As if sensing the disturbance, she raised her head and met my gaze. She warbled something I half understood and continued her crafting.
The next few days continued like that. Effie or Venia (who now had neon yellow skin) dragged me out into socializing in the morning hours for appropriate media coverage, I checked on Haymitch to make sure he hadn't died in the middle of the night, and then completely destroyed a few pieces of furniture in the mentors' lounge room. Mags was a nice companion to have, even if I wasn't willing to engage further conversation with someone completely outside of my frame of social knowledge. There weren't many elderly people in district twelve for obvious reasons so I wasn't sure on what kind of shared interests topic we could have a possible discussion on. I grew to enjoy Mags' presence, no matter that we probably exchanged a total of twelve words over the past week.
Nine days after Anton's last breath, a seventeen year old Annie Cresta was named the victor of the seventieth games.
I didn't see much of her, but what little screen coverage she had in the after parties of the games were filled with loud, panicked tears and wailing screams. The public was divided, to see such a horribly sick girl. Some pitied her, for not living up to the other victors' standards. My name was thrown around a lot, several comparisons made. Some romanticized her experiences, enjoying seeing her broken mind and wishing to be "strange" and "different" like her.
The return trip home felt empty, with no Effie and no stylist team. The train conductors and accompanying peacekeepers didn't make for good conversation, and the main compartment reminded me of the quiet chatter of Beau and Anton. I didn't especially want to apologize to their families for being unable to hold true to a false promise, so I didn't.
My bags were full of priceless jewelry and more, to which I deposited them into the locked up attic of our home, where everyone and no one welcomed me back.