Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games. They belong to Suzanne Collins.
Note: Here we are, already at sweet sixteen! Of course, I'd hardly go around calling the Hunger Games sweet whether or not you win or die. So, Woof! Kind of an enigma to me in canon as, understandably imo, he doesn't really do anything and we don't exactly get a read onto what his Games were like, really? Lucky for us, I figured out how to fill in the blanks. One can only hope this won't turn terrible lmao.
Katniss and Peeta looked down at Woof's blank face imprinted upon the sidewalk. With his tidy, short hair and fairly relaxed look he seemed perfectly ordinary. Middle of the road. Like there was nothing really notable about him.
"How do you think Woof won his Games?" Katniss eventually asked. "I never asked, though I don't think he'd have really given me much of an answer anyway."
"The guy seemed senile," Peeta agreed. "Looked nice though. Guess we'll have to hope a Victor from Eight made it through the rebellion, won't we? ...Honestly, I always just assumed he hid for his Games and maybe made one kill in the Bloodbath."
Katniss considered this for a moment.
"Yeah, that sounds like the most reasonable guess," she said with a short nod. "I don't see him being one of those Outliers who went on a rampage."
The pair looked down at Woof's stats below his imprinted face. Stunned into a mutual silence for a few moments.
"...What the fuck?" Muttered Katniss.
"Didn't expect that," Peeta said, now looking awkward.
16th Annual Hunger Games
Name: Woof Casino
Gender: Male
District: 8
Age: 17
Kills: 10
8 TIMES WOOF CASINO DID EXACTLY AS HE WAS TOLD
#1. "Work harder!"
Besides the fabrics and clothing that it produces, almost all of which is taken away for the Capitol to make use of, District Eight is quite the colourless and lifeless sort of place. The citizens are glum, riots and small showings of rebellion are commonplace, everything is grey from all the pollution in the air and people are packed together like the long extinct species known as sardines, having to make do with living in high rising tenant buildings. It's no way to live, but it's all the people have and all the Capitol intends to give them.
The fabric factories are much like a sweatshop, metaphorically and literally. Working conditions are harsh and unpleasant, but the penalty for not making quota is even moreso. It's a struggle to survive but when it's a choice between live horribly and work or end up starving to death it ends up not being a choice at all.
Children as young as ten are often used to work on the assembly lines, pairing socks or packing rolls of fabric into boxes ready for shipment. It pays badly, but bad pay is better than no pay. Such a mantra is what gets most residents of District Eight through the day.
One such resident is Woof Casino, perhaps the quietest boy in Factory Delta-Six in Town 16. He's often silent throughout the entire work day, hardly reacting to a thing going on a round him whether it's angry factory foremen or fellow youths on the assembly lien who cry out in hunger and pain.
Some call him brain dead. Some call him creepy. Others assume he might be at least partly robotic.
The truth is much simpler. Woof has plenty of capacity to outshine all of his work mates, but he's got little to none in the way of independent thought. Living a strict upbringing as the seventh among seven children where Ma and Pa's word is law and, if they are not around, his siblings' word is law left him without any chance to make his own choices in life, merely following whatever somebody else decided for him.
He doesn't even realise his distinct lack of personal ideas and decisions are alarming on a psychological level. If he's told to do something then he will do it, no matter what it is.
He doesn't even pause from his work when the feeling of thirst gets a little bit painful. Nor when it gets more than just a little painful and the girl three places up from him faints.
He does pause for a moment when the head foreman of the factory storms over, impatience in his eyes. He shakes his head, rather incensed.
"We're falling behind on quota!" he yells, tapping a clipboard roughly. "All of you work harder!"
He gets right in Woof's face, snapping his fingers an inch from his eyes for a few moments.
"Work harder, Casino!" he snaps.
Woof simply gives a quick nod and does as his boss tells him to. His hands are practically a blur as he rapidly packages the materials into their boxes with a pace so fast it makes the rest stop[ and stare for a moment, awed.
Even the foreman is stunned into silence by how insanely fast Woof is going without any signs of stopping. But he won't argue with results like this, simply giving an impressed nod and keeping on his way.
"Do this every day that you work here," he says as he leaves.
Woof hears him and obeys without question. Because of these simple commands Factory Delta-Six is by far the most productive factory within District Eight for that entire year. Woof doesn't get any particular reward for it, but such a thing never occurred to him to begin with.
All he really did was do exactly as he was told.
#2. "Save me!"
Woof passes through his first five reapings completely unnoticed and undetected. He hardly emotes in the time that he is there, a stark contrast to the terror of the boys who cluster around him in the applicable age section year after year. On the two occasions that a boy within his own section is picked he doesn't react as the sobbing future corpse heads to the stage, towards their gruesome fate.
Nobody told him to cry or to feel pity. He just stands where is Ma pointed him towards.
Five reapings go by with Woof being completely safe and ten children being butchered. Ten to add onto the large death toll that has arisen for the District lacking a Victor.
At his sixth reaping he is silent in the section for seventeen year olds, not making a sound. No cries nor mumbles nor even a quiet mutter. Nobody told him to speak, just to stand.
Even the fact his name has gone into the reaping bowl twenty three times doesn't give him any reason to react in any particular way outside the norm. It's only people who can tell him to do something, not simple slips of paper.
A name is drawn from the girls bowl – just a poor fifteen year old he doesn't know – and as expected he doesn't react.
When a boy is reaped it's not him.
It's his brother Wefter, who at the age of eighteen is his only remaining reaping eligible sibling and has an arm in a sling from a recent accident at his factory job. One the doctors say is unlikely to ever be the same ever again.
"Save me!" he wails, having entered a rather nasty panic attack.
Woof hears the command and doesn't hesitate to obey. He throws up his arm and loudly volunteers, marching his way up to the stage. His brother can hardly speak, mixed between relief and sheer horror of what Woof has done.
"I just did what I was told to," is all the reasoning Woof gives to his Escort, Peacekeeper Mentor and to Mortimer when they each ask why he Volunteered in his brother's place.
He doesn't particularly understand the fuss going on over the fact he willingly entered the Hunger Games. It doesn't occur to him that the odds of death are high and that District Eight has never won before, their tributes having all died violent and painful deaths.
All he really did was do exactly as he was told.
#3. "Learn everything."
Woof passes through the parade unnoticed, a normal occurrence for a boy from District Eight. He stands rigidly still on the chariot beside his female companion Looper. Unlike her, he doesn't wave to the ground or even look anywhere remotely towards them. He stares straight ahead like a statue, hardly even blinking. Nobody told him to wave.
Looper finds herself feeling spooked by the boy she's forced to share the chariot with.
It's much of the same when training begins the next day. The tributes are given a short introduction and left to their own devices, an action that leaves Woof without anything to do.
Literally. He spends the entire first half of the day standing in the same place, calmly staring off into space. He doesn't respond to anybody who waves a hand in front of his eyes or tries to bark a mocking insult at him. He just stands and stares blankly.
Even the Careers quietly admit to each other that the boy from Eight is starting to freak them out a little.
It's during lunch when Looper asks Woof why he's not doing anything that things begin to make a bit more sense to her.
"I wasn't given any orders," he says with a simple shrug, focusing on finishing his scrambled eggs.
"Well in that case... learn everything?" Looper suggests, awkwardly.
Lunch ends and Woof barrels into the training area like he's got the stamina of ten men. Everybody, even the Careers, can't help but pause in awe for a minute as the boy from Eight sprints around the training centre like a human blur, blazing through each and every single training station with a look of sheer focus and determination on his face. He's a total training machine!
Days pass with him training with the same, seemingly endless, ferocious energy. The Careers think better of recruiting him, seeing him as too much of a danger and hassle to work with. He's marked for the first to die unless he grabs a big sword. No sense fighting this warrior if he's well armed.
Woof becomes the first tribute from Eight to score an eleven. He's not sure why everybody is cheering for him over this and raving over how powerful he must be.
All he really did was do exactly as he was told.
#4: "Tell us everything!"
It's no surprise when Woof's interview starts as a complete flop. He enters the stage as prompted and from there everything is very, very awkward. Woof only replies in the most vanilla, one word answers on the odd occasion he says anything at all. It's not even able to be angled as mysterious or Woof being a man of few words. It's just awkward.
Very awkward.
When the interview reaches the halfway mark Mortimer has had all he can take of the awkwardness. He loses his composure, actually pulling at his hair as he cries out in sheer protest. The amount of awkwardness in Woof's terrible interview is more than he is able to take.
"What about this is hard to understand?! It's an interview! You just answer the questions I ask you and you answer them interestingly!" he shrieks, a mad look in his eyes. "Woof! Tell us everything!"
Having been given a direct command Woof instantly obeys.
He obeys all too well and soon the audience are suddenly missing the awkward silences and short answers from mere moments ago.
Woof tells them everything. Everything. He tells them about how many times he has vomited at work from all the unpleasant fumes. He tells them about the warts on his Grandpa's feet. He tells them in-depth about the rat he ate in a soup on a dare. He tells them about the rather suspicious looking pimple that has recently appeared on the left side of his scrotum.
His interview is cut off ten seconds early because, rules be damned, this is just too much information for a 'family show' like the Hunger Games!
Woof doesn't really understand why the audience are gagging into their popcorn and crying in such shrill voices as he's practically dragged away backstage.
All he really did was do exactly as he was told.
#5: "Give Them Hell."
Woof dresses quickly changing into his tribute outfit per the orders of his Stylist and stands around blankly, awaiting further instructions. None come until it's time for the games to begin. He doesn't even pay any attention to his air filtered, heat resident clothing he's been given. He wasn't told to, after all.
He moves into the tube when prompted, his eyes completely devoid of fear. Devoid of pretty much every emotion, in fact.
His Stylist has only one thing to say to him before the tube closes.
"Give them hell," she says, hoping that by having a Victor under her care she may get a promotion.
Woof snaps to attention, giving a serious nod as the tube closes and begins to raise him upwards to the arena. His fists clench and his eyes narrow. He's been given his orders and he'll dedicate his entire sense of being towards getting the job done. He remains fiery and determined as the air of the arena meets him.
It's perhaps the most hellish arena that has been seen at this point in the history of the Hunger Games. The sky is an endless night much like the Fifth Hunger Games while the terrain is an all new variety that has the Capitol citizens cheering. A volcano. A rocky, barren landscape filled with lava lakes is towered over by a gigantic volcano filled with magma that looks ready to erupt at any given moment. The sight of all this hellishness and the smell of burning sulphur have many tributes weeping and shuddering under the darkness of night.
When the gong rings the Careers charge in as do many of the terrified Outliers, but Woof remains right where he is standing as he merely observes his competition. It's not clear right away, but he's taking a few moments to pick out a target and ensure he can most efficiently carry out the request of his Stylist.
Thirty seconds into the Games, by which time the girl from Nine has blown herself up by vomiting onto the landmines around her pedestal prior to the gong and the boy from Six lays with five stab wounds in his back, Woof lunges into the fray as fast as lightning. As he grabs a sword in one hand and a spear in the other there is no doubt that he manages to do as his Stylist asked and then some.
He decapitates the boy from Five silently.
He guts the girl from Ten without blinking.
He throws the spear over a hundred yards through the air and into the back of the little boy from Twelve.
He throws aside the acidic and sour girl from two, stealing her kill as he breaks the neck of the boy from Three in an instant.
Before long he's racked up two more kills in the form of the bloodied body of the girl from Six and the torn remains of the boy from Eleven.
By this point the Career pack flock him at once, wanting to eliminate this maniac before he can do anything to them and also to stop him kill stealing. Murder is how the Careers earn their sponsors after all; if somebody keeps doing it for them then they'd be out of the job.
Woof stampedes out into the barren landscape with a large duffel bag over his shoulder and a big sword clutched in both hands, with a nasty cut across his back. He doesn't understand why the Careers call him a psychopath as they morn the crumpled, beaten and very dead form of pretty Beret from One.
All he really did was do exactly as he was told.
#6: "Win for Me..."
With Woof's prior order constantly on his mind the Games this year do not end up going on for a particularly long time. By the time the fourth day rolls around, the endless night still very much ongoing, only seven tributes are left. Amazingly, District Eight still has both of their tributes alive.
By midday District Seven cannot claim the same as their powerful girl falls victim to Woof throwing her over his shoulder and into the molten lava. A quick and clean kill, one that easily makes the highlight reel.
But even on his rampage for the sake of his Stylist Woof is broken out of his killing focus when he hears Looper screaming for help. Like a powerful eagle he practically flies through the air as he makes a rapid beeline for where his District Partner can be heard suffering and pleading.
He makes it too late to save her, though he certainly isn't too late to dispatch Barracuda from District Four, swinging his sword so hard that her upper half is sliced off and falls into a lava river while her lower half stumbles around, collapsing lifelessly.
He can tell that Looper's trident injury is bad, easily bad enough to be beyond help. But if she gives the command then he'll do his best regardless to help her through the pain.
Instead the dying girl weakly takes his hand, a gesture he returns as she lays down for her final sleep. The seconds pass as though they were hours, one half of District Eight's chances kneeling over the other as she slips away from the world.
When she gestures him to come close Woof obeys in an instant.
"What do you need?" he asks, a single tear leaking down his face.
It's hard for her to get the words out, and when she does it's barely in a quiet whisper. She's so very nearly gone.
"Win for me..." Looper requests with her dying breath.
She dies moments later, but not before seeing Woof go rigid as he registers this new command and promises to her, swears to her, that he will do exactly that no matter what.
He stalks off into the fiery night as the cannon booms and the volcano rumbles, the lava flowing fast and soon boxing the final four into a mere two square miles of land.
He has no idea why people doubted his capability of keeping his promise.
All he really did was do exactly as he was told.
#7: "Aw, fuck me."
Woof walks around with no idea where to go as the fifth and final day of the Games goes by. It seems, by pure fluke, the other three tributes ended up on the other side of the limited area they have been stuck into and so he jogs across the barren rock in search of the last three.
He wishes somebody would order him to remember who they are because right now he has no idea anymore. He just knows they have to die so that he can fulfil Looper's dying request.
A cannon booms and has him moving at nearly double his previous speed. The cannon that fires right afterwards only has him go even faster still. Unknown to him the large boy from Four was able to take out Magnificent from One, only to die when the muscular One boy's body fell onto him and knocked them both into a lava lake.
Hours pass before Woof, led along by some fireflies here and there, comes across his final opponent. Valour from Two is alive, but burned badly from all the embers and a near fatal encounter with a shower of lava that sprayed too close for comfort.
He lays in agony and, upon seeing that his last opponent is the maniac boy from Eight he curses, knowing that he's all but beaten at this point.
"Aw, fuck me," he spits, furious.
Woof hears him loud and clear, marching right towards the scorched man on the rocky ground.
He has no idea why people are sickened at the mere sight of him and not only refuse to come near him but never discuss the Games that he emerged victorious from.
All he really did was do exactly as he was told.
#8: "Holy shit, stop obeying everybody's damn orders!"
At the after-party Woof is incredibly quiet once again, having fulfilled all of the orders given to him over the past two weeks or so. He stands silent and reserved at the edge of the party, taking light sips from a nice glass of fruit punch.
It's a long debate with the Victors over who is going to speak to the newest member of the Victor family. The trio from two refuse point-blank as do the pair from One. Even the earlier Victors like Mizar and Pliny find themselves reluctant while Bear is still too broken to say much of anything, hardly over his trauma from the year prior.
It's Duke who steps up for the role and makes his way over to the first Victor from the Textiles District midway through the party. Depressed as he feels on the inside over the fact District Twelve has lost for the tenth year in a row - especially with the girl, Erin, having been his boyfriend's younger cousin – he's got enough strength still in him for this conversation.
"So, uh... Woof?" Duke asks to the boy just under ten years his junior.
"Yes?" Woof says, his voice soft and almost shy sounding.
"...Alright, I'm gonna lay it on thick here. Really straight, you know?" Duke says, massaging his temples. "As a collective, us Victors feel... upset. Grudge holding is a fickle thing for Victors, as our tributes kill each other's tributes every year. We get that the arena is where things change."
"...Ok?" Woof says, unsure.
"But..." Duke takes a deep sigh, wondering how his life has gotten to the point where he has to say this kind of grimdark shit. "You flat out raped Valour. Woof, that is so messed up. Not ok. Straight up wrong, you get me? I'm a known murderer as are all the gang and yet... I'm pissed. Angry. Just... I don't know. But as you're one of us now, we need to live alongside you in Games season. We need to be sure this will never repeat!"
"I only did it because he told me to," Woof says, taking a single step back. He doesn't speak above a whisper.
Duke can't hold back a strangled sort of screech. He takes a deep, harsh breath of air and rests both hands upon Woof's shoulder, staring right into his eyes.
The tailor boy from Twelve has never looked more serious, not even when he fought in the final battle of his own Games three on one.
"Holy shit, stop obeying everybody's damn orders!" Duke yells, utterly incensed.
For a moment all is silent between the two young men, both Victors of a deadly Games. Woof is silent as he looks into Duke's cold, serious eyes.
"...Ok," Woof says, nodding agreeably. "Anything you say."
At that, it's almost like a spell has been lifted. Without any need for orders or any input of another Woof begins to get into the spirit of the party and start to somewhat enjoy himself. He begins talking with people and even cracking a few moderately decent jokes. It's like he's really just a particularly normal guy.
Duke stares, absolutely beyond the brink of confusion of what he has seen. Feeling more than a little creeped out he returns to where some of the other early Victors stand, quietly talking and drinking.
"How did it go?" Mizar asks, standing protectively close to Gwenith as he eyes the new Victor warily across the room. "He gonna be an issue?"
"I don't feel safe sleeping if he's nearby," Pliny mumbles, the young women yawning as Fir keeps her supported.
"No... he won't be a problem anymore," Duke says, gazing at Woof. "At least, not in the way we were fearing anyway. C'mon, let's just get out of here."
"You know, if any Victors from Eight are alive for the party... let's not ask about how Woof got ten kills," Katniss said, already walking on.
"I agree," Peeta said as he followed alongside her. "Better to at least try and focus on the good."
The couple soon came to the seventeenth face imprinted upon the sidewalk. A firm and serious looking young man stared back at them, a look of seeming disdain within his eyes.
"Rook Valiant," Katniss read. "What do you suppose he did in the arena?"
"Killed people?" Peeta guessed.
Both of the Star Crossed Lovers knew it was less if Rook had killed others and moreso how he had done so.
And there we have it, Woof's origin story! I'll admit, this one really went into some dark places I had not exactly foreseen, but to be honest that can be used as a way to describe basically any fic I have ever written. Canon tells us little about Woof, but it can sort of be said he is in a sense kind of like a 'sidekick' to Cecelia. That led to me having the thought of him being a guy who would do whatever anybody in power told him... which led to me basically going all out and making him do literally anything that anybody tells him. This insanity was the result. Whether it was good, bad or just WTF this means D8 have a Victor at last and now it's a race for Six and Ten to not be the only District lacking a Victor. Stay tuned for more!
Stats
District 1: Peridot Gaudy (8th Games), Crystal McCree (14th Games)
District 2: Baron Overwhill (4th Games), Runa Peace (7th Games), Olga Machete (10th Games)
District 3: Honorius Perthshire (5th Games)
District 4: Museida Selkirk (3rd Games), Mags Flanagan (11th Games)
District 5: Shunt Gaspar (12th Games)
District 6: N/A
District 7: Pliny Aransio (2nd Games), Fir Buzz (9th Games)
District 8: Woof Casino (16th Games)
District 9: Mizar Aldjoy (1st Games), Gwenith Rosebud (13th Games)
District 10: N/A
District 11: Bear Redfoot (15th Game)
District 12: Duke Saint-Rose (6th Games)