Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games. They belong to Suzanne Collins.
Note: It was always a detail that caught my eye in the books, the fact District Twelve had a Victor before Haymitch... one that we never hear about again nor know any detail of whatsoever. All that can really be taken away is that, as they are dead by the start of the series, they had to have been one of the first few Victors. Thus, here's Duke to fill in the blanks for us! The world of Panem continues to take shape... and what a grisly shape it is.
"It really is a shame what happened to him," Peeta said after a while, sighing.
"The fact he was in the arena at all, or the mugging after the forty eighth..." Katniss trailed off, a faraway look within her eyes.
"I guess both," Peeta said a few moments later. "Makes you wonder if Twelve would have done any better after the second Quell had there been two mentors instead of just one."
"Who even knows?" Katniss replied. "It's a wonder our District had any Victors to begin with."
"Yeah... can't disagree," Peeta said, nodding. "Thank goodness there won't ever be any Victors, or Tributes, ever again."
6th Annual Hunger Games
Name: Duke Saint-Rose
Gender: Male
District: 12
Age: 17
Kills: 4
Mizar sees him as another poor kid deserving pity.
Five years after his own Victory had given Mizar a certain sort of resignation mixed with determination. He'd do his best to bring one home, Lord knows he'd fight tooth and nail to protect somebody innocent from dying in the arena like those poor kids who died in that damn meadow. But eight dead children since his own arena, nine with poor Petra added to the mix, made him wonder if he was getting any closer to achieving what he so desperately wanted.
Not to mention that the families of the dead had a habit of holding their only Mentor responsible for the failure to save their children. The first ever Victor did not even blame them, fully understanding their grief in a way most others wouldn't. Maybe this would be the year he could start burning away some of the guilt that froze around his soul. He had to try.
He first saw Duke while watching the reaping recaps on the tribute train with this year's poor pair – a young boy named Brewer and a gangly near-adult named Cornflower – and crossing his fingers in hopes that none of them would be too dangerous.
While the tough quarry miners from Two who volunteered with little hesitation were sure to be a problem, and the boy from One with the tattoos - a small time crook wanting to hit it big time - looked particularly intimidating, the same wasn't true for the boy from the Mining District.
In fact, the blond pale faced boy shivered on the stage like a deer caught right in the headlights.
The son of a pair of tailors, Duke was the first of the merchant kids to be reaped from District Twelve since Colton and Rose back in Mizar's own games. Decently well fed and well off, at least by the standards of his particularly poor home, his quiet life as a tailor meant he'd never had to exert himself like the vast majority of his District. Background checks that were run on him painted a picture of an indoorsy boy who acted a lot more confident than he really was, often way in over his head.
"How do you feel about this honour?" the Escort asked him, her artificial whiskers twitching.
Mizar looked on at the same time as all the tributes, and his fellow Mentors, in the other trains en-route to the Capitol. They all wondered, as one, what the boy's first words on live television would be.
"Startled, I guess," Duke said, folded his arms as he tried to keep himself from shaking. "Very startled."
He gave polite, short answers to the rest of his Escort's fast, snappy questions before the reaping finally concluded, Duke being herded into the Judgement Building alongside a Seam girl by the name of Root.
"Startled tributes don't win the Games," the Escort from Nine tuts. "Oh, except you Mr Aldjoy."
Mizar restrains himself from scolding the Escort, knowing that her words apply to the two tributes seated either side of him. Instead, he begins to go over tactics with the tributes entrusted to his care. As usual, finding water is where things start.
All the tributes from all of the Districts stick out on the young man's mind like they always do. That night his mind settles on the young man from Twelve, the last tribute to have been picked for the looming death match.
Statistically, Twelve has done the worst overall in the five previous Hunger Games with their tributes never once doing well. He mutters a prayer, hoping the deaths of Duke and Root won't be drawn out.
He doesn't know it, but Duke is awake throughout the night doing push-ups and raiding the fridge of the train he is stuck on in hopes of gaining weight before the arena arrives.
Pliny thinks he is a polite young man who got dealt a bad hand.
The sole Victor from Seven, diagnosed as being severely narcoleptic, really didn't like her job.
Being seen as the weakest Victor, and thus the weakest Mentor, for having literally slept through the Hunger Games did not make her tributes feel hopeful when they met Pliny. With their biggest hope being a small woman that hardly did anything in her own Hunger Games and never had to suffer much, if any, trauma... many 'Sevens' simply gave up on the train, thinking there was nothing she could do for them.
Such was the case this year, though this time had the distinction of being the first year where her tributes took preemptive action. Acorn and Bushel had tried to jump to their deaths off of the roof only to get thrown back onto solid ground by the forcefield that got installed after what Amp had done the year prior.
That was how Pliny found herself seated alone on the roof of the tribute building later that night, unable to sleep for once, while her tributes were cuffed down to their beds to prevent a second suicide attempt. She sighed, sipping from a mug of hot cocoa.
"Am I really that awful of a Mentor?" she asked herself.
"I don't think so. I mean, I wouldn't know, but I'd assume you try your best?" said a voice.
Pliny yelped, alarm racing through her small frame. A few seconds passed fretfully before she realised one of the tributes from Twelve was speaking to her.
"Oh, sorry, thought you were talking to me," the boy said.
Pliny gives the boy – no, Duke, that was his name – a tired smile.
"It's fine. I didn't realise I wasn't alone," Pliny said, "Are you allowed up here?"
"Are you?" Duke replied.
"I'm a Victor, I have some allowance," Pliny said, letting out a soft yawn. "You're... well..."
"A tribute," Duke said, sighing as he sat beside Pliny. "One thing differs me from the others, though."
"What's that?" Pliny asked, curious in spite of her own gloom.
"I'm not going to die," Duke said, his eyes narrowed. "I'm not. I'm not. ...So, uh, where are your tributes?"
"Acorn and Bushel tried to kill themselves by jumping off the roof. They're gonna be chained to their beds until the morning," Pliny said. She turned away, a tear trickling down her cheek. "They've got that little faith in me."
Duke was silent for a while, tapping a hand lightly against his knocking knees. He eventually moved his hand over to Pliny's shoulder.
"At least they have a mentor, one who cares about them too," Duke said, looking up at the moon. "Root and I have to make do with a firm Peacekeeper who, uh... well, he wants us dead, actually?"
"Oh..." Pliny trailed off, wincing.
"Point is... you're not a bad mentor. One of yours placed second. That's not bad," Duke said, quietly. "I mean, not great but... sorry."
"No, no, it's fine," Pliny said, weakly smiling. "I appreciate the fact you're here, talking to me, even if we're on... well... different sides."
"Are we?" Duke asked. "Capitol against District, tribute against tribute, Merchant against Seam, I've had enough of sides and fights."
"...Same," Pliny agreed. "You sound confident. Aren't you scared?"
"Terrified," Duke said, looking out at the city. "But I'm still going win. Because that's the only option I'm willing to consider."
"Think your training will be enough?" Pliny asked.
"It'll have to be," Duke said, shrugging. "Just gotta pick up new skills wherever I can, you know?"
The pair spoke for a lot of the night, sharing stories and feelings about pretty much anything that came to their minds. With the high likelihood of Duke's death in the next few days, neither Mentor nor Tribute saw much of a reason to hold anything back.
By the time Duke left to get a few hours of sleep before training resumed Pliny felt a little better than she had before. She had to admit that, if her own tributes ended up dead like all those before, then she wanted the nice, determined boy from Twelve to be the last one standing.
She doesn't know it, but Duke offers the pair from Seven an alliance the next morning and tells them to give Pliny a chance to help them. The second Victor is stunned when the pair hang on her every word that night.
She's further stunned when, in his one minute interview on the flight to the arena, Duke says she is his favourite of the first five Victors.
Museida admits that he is tougher than he'd initially assumed.
This year the Tributes are launched into a rocky canyon about as orange as a lovely garnet. The canyon complex towers above the diminutive Tributes and the vultures are circling above before the countdown even starts. It's going to be another arena with very harsh conditions, especially as water is scarce in the canyon aside from what the Cornucopia offers.
The five Victors sit in a private booth, the hardest part of mentoring now only a minute away.
To his left Mizar is already biting his fingernails and Pliny is getting teary eyed. On his right Baron is pouring out a drink with a shake of his head and Honorius is muttering for his pair of tributes to play it smart and run.
Museida doesn't do anything except stare at the screen, watching the countdown tick towards zero.
It's carnage from the moment the gong rings. This year all of the tributes make a charge towards the Cornucopia, those lacking a Mentor making a desperate sprint for supplies and even those with a Mentor unwilling to risk their lives in the canyon with only their bare hands.
The exceptions are Fancy from One and Gamemaker favourites Odin and Berretta from Two. The volunteers, all sporting anywhere from a few months experience as a crook around One to a year at Mr Overwhill's Academy in Two, want to get on with eliminating the competition.
They do exactly that.
The three Careers, joined by Perfect from One – the girl was only allowed into the alliance due to Fancy feeling he owed her for all the times at school she did his math homework for him – have the upper hand from the start. Fancy guts a chubby boy from Five before he has time to scream, Odin smashes the girls from Eight and Eleven with a spiked sledgehammer, Berretta breaks Root's neck and all this is just in the first minute.
Perfect tries to get the drop on Acorn, only to be grabbed by the back of her shirt and hurled to the ground. The last thing she ever sees is Duke swinging his pickaxe down at her.
Half of the tributes are crumpled around the golden horn, their blood staining the rocky canyon ground, when the dust settles. Among the dead is Bushell, her having been unable to escape alongside Duke and Acorn when Odin threw a knife in her back.
The Outliers scatter. The Careers exchange hi-fives as they take over the Cornucopia. The families of the dead weep. It's a yearly tradition by now.
Mizar stares blankly ahead, his pair already dead. Pliny wipes away a tear, staring at the body of what was her female tribute. Honorius is just glad one of his pair, a boy with a love for chemistry, survived the opening battle. Museida does the same thing as Baron; focusing on the screen without fail, both of his kids still alive and potentially needing help at any moment at all.
Three days later and Honorius joins Mizar in defeat as his boy is attacked by vicious vultures, while Museida has to keep reminding himself Baron never intended for his tributes to end up like this when he has to watch Odin throw the once confident ladies man Tidewater off the canyon's highest point. He doesn't punch Baron, but it's a close thing.
He no longer pays any mind towards Duke, the tailor boy and his ally from Seven both free of injury so far and hiding in the shadows at the base of the canyon.
He doesn't know it, but Duke has read a lot of books back home and one of them happened to talk about canyons quite in depth. Duke recalls the knowledge with ease.
Baron thinks that, though he's probably doomed regardless, Duke has it in him to be the last one left outside the Career alliance sweeping the arena.
For a boy who never really exerted himself before, he takes to the pickaxe in his hands like a fish to water, swinging it at any vulture or occasional snake that comes close to himself and Acorn. When Acorn eventually asks how a tailor knows how to fight so well Duke simply tells him it's all out of a refusal to die. Acorn doesn't press it after that.
The Capitol appreciates his nerve in spite of the hopeless odds and send him water, the fluids keeping himself and Acorn going. Regardless, the Careers remain better off.
When eight are left the Gamemakers turn up the heat and suddenly the shade doesn't help so much anymore. Caves close up, leaving all the tributes stuck on the sweltering canyon.
"Let's make our own cave," Duke suggests.
"With what?" Acorn asks, lost.
Duke simply nods to the pickaxe in his arms and tells Acorn to keep watch.
All viewers, whether they were District, Capitol and even Gamemaker watch in awe as Duke smashed away at a section of the canyon wall he deemed suitable, little by little causing rocks to fall away and a cave to be filed out. A few vultures are sent down and swiftly dispatched before the Gamemakers decide to let it play out, figuring it won't amount to anything and at least keeps the audience watching.
Duke is absolutely exhausted by the time he declares he is done, his shirt now discarded much to the delight of many Capitol women, but nonetheless leads Acorn into the shaded cave with the water they got sponsored mere minutes prior.
They manage to sleep in peace for the first time in ages while the Careers slaughter Sharka in a dry ditch two hours before sunrise. Baron doesn't even blame Museida for hitting him over. If that's the price he has to pay for his District taking pleasure in murder then so be it.
As heat and tensions rise, the Outlier allies remain in their cave away from the sun and danger, the days passing by slowly. They tell stories about their homes in that time as well. Acorn mentions he's got three possible fathers and has no idea which one to call his dad. Duke admits he never really got around to telling his parents the real reason why he never asked a girl to the school dance.
Seven becomes six over the next two days when Fancy, standing guard at the Cornucopia, manages to catch Clarence from Ten during a desperate would-be raid. While the ranch hand bleeds into the rocks the Outlier allies continue to hide, sleeping undisturbed.
Their reprieve is broken when the Gamemakers, feeling the alliance is getting a bit too friendly, send snakes after them. Duke does his best to fight them off and succeeds, but one bite is all it takes to doom Acorn as no antidote is coming.
Duke remains in the cave, alone and silent, for two more days. Baron can only watch, sighing, unable to feel anything but a resigned sort of depression over the grisly Games even when his District has both Tributes doing fine. It's only a matter of time before they find the remaining Outliers.
He doesn't know it, but Duke has nothing left to lose and is willing to eat the meat of bats that flutter into the cave and drink their blood in order to sustain himself when the sponsors finally stop coming. It's more than the Careers, out of food and hardly having any water left, have amongst their gear.
Honorius has no idea how the tribute from Twelve can expect to win anymore.
By the seventeenth day, five days since Acorn's death and two days since the Careers tracked down the tiny girl from Five, it's just them and Duke left. The Games have become slow, boring even and the spoiled Capitolites demand action. They demand a fight, and want the tributes to do it to each other.
After all, the primitive Mutts only end up dead from Duke's pick axe or the Career's blades anyway.
Honorius expects the worst and is already wondering how he might be able to talk his way out of having to be in the same room as one of the Careers the next year. The outcome of the Games no longer effects him per-say, but he'd at least appreciate the company of Duke more than that of Fancy, Berreta and especially Odin.
"Congratulations Baron," he tells his favourite fellow Victor, pouring himself some juice. "I think Two has it on lock."
Baron only gives a light nod, still staring at the screen intently. Nothing is for sure yet, he knows this fact well.
Duke has almost no awareness of time passing around him, hardly even registering the fact it's four in the morning, when another first for the Hunger Games happens.
A Feast is called, one to be set upon a flat stretch of ground at the base of the massive canyon at sunrise. Food and water are promised to be there.
Life flickers in the eyes of the exhausted tailor boy. Despite feeling ever so empty he still manages to make his way, pickaxe in hand, to the area that Head Gamemaker Casperous spoke of. He sits and he waits.
Part of Honorius wonders if Duke has given up and is simply willing to let the Careers end the suffering. He knows the same feeling, having felt it badly in the final few days of his own dreadful Hunger Games.
Duke gulps down the water as soon as the table starts rising through a newly opened hole in the floor and munches the bread and meat as quickly as he can without making himself sick. He feels halfway decent again after a few minutes.
He's just finished ruining the food he doesn't need and pouring away the water he no longer craves when the Careers show up, weapons in hand and fury in their eyes.
Honorius expects another bloodbath, but nonetheless forces himself to watch.
A bloodbath happens.
He doesn't know it, but Duke had watched the three Careers in the training centre and noticed that, as much as they focused on weapons, not a single one of the trio had spent a single minute at one of the survival stations. With their advantage negated from thirst and hunger they all end up painfully struck to the hard ground by a pickaxe, bleeding badly.
Duke is shaken, but alive and amazed at how much tougher he is than he believed to be possible.
Everything is a blur for him from the moment he wakes up after being giving the best medical treatment the Capitol can possibly offer. The realisation he won, the screaming fans, the ten minute interview with Mortimer after he's deemed fit to be in public, the after party and being crowned by the vile President Orion... it leaves the tailor boy's head spinning.
"I just wanted to go back home," he says in quiet, polite voice. "I just stuck by my plan, not dying, and did what I needed to do in order to keep to the plan."
It's like he's on autopilot for most of his remaining time in the Capitol, saying a few words here and there while going along with whatever is needed of him. He'd rather just speed the whole thing up as much as possible so he can get back home and back to work.
Those shirts won't make themselves, after all.
It's only after the party is over and home looms the following day that he starts to get into the party spirit, even if just barely.
Then again, the same can be said for Pliny.
The other Victors welcome Duke into their 'Victor Family' but Pliny stays behind and makes sure to thank Duke for working with Acorn for as long as he did.
"Oh, it was no trouble. Honestly, having a friend made all the difference," Duke said, pouring himself and Pliny a drink. "...I miss him."
"He was a good guy," Pliny agrees, quiet. "Maybe next year..."
She trails off, of course, knowing that next year she and Duke will have to Mentor their own Tributes through the arena. Tributes that may kill each other.
"...Next year, maybe we could get our tributes to ally?" Duke eventually suggests. "We got along that night on the roof. Maybe keep that going, yeah?"
Pliny smiles, willing to go for it. They don't talk much after that, but at least they don't feel quite so alone anymore.
President Orion is completely indifferent to him.
He's only concerned with the massive influx of new Peacekeepers and the brilliant show put on by the Careers, fallen as they may be. He willingly allows District Two to keep training up their children into being savage killers and, having been impressed by Fancy and also Ruby the year prior, begins to consider allowing District One to do the same sooner than later.
Mr Overwhill receives funding and firm orders to expand the small academy in Two into something grander a week later.
"Think he died happy?" Katniss eventually said, letting out a soft breath. "I mean... he took a bullet that would've hit Pliny, right? That's some friendship."
"I don't think we'll ever know," Peeta said, gazing up at the sky. "But, he died as himself. No better way to die than that."
With one last respectful look down at Duke the couple moved on a few paces until they came to the next face on the ground, a tough looking girl gazing back up at them with her hair in one gigantic braid.
"Runa Peace," Katniss read. "She looks tough."
"No surprise. I mean, seven kills... that speaks for itself," Peeta added, lightly.
That was a fun chapter to write! Like I said, the mysterious first Victor of District Twelve has always been something of a fascination to me and one I wanted to some some justice. I'm hoping that Duke came off as a likeable, engaging addition to the growing Victor family. Gotta give the tailor boy credit, he got the job done no matter what. Lucky him to have an ally and be in a year with only three early Careers.
Stats
District 1: N/A
District 2: Baron Overwhill (4th Games)
District 3: Honorius Perthshire (5th Games)
District 4: Museida Selkirk (3rd Games)
District 5: N/A
District 6: N/A
District 7: Pliny Aransio (2nd Games)
District 8: N/A
District 9: Mizar Aldjoy (1st Games)
District 10: N/A
District 11: N/A
District 12: Duke Saint-Rose (6th Games)