Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games. They belong to Suzanne Collins.

Note: Back for more? Well fancy that, so am I! If you've read my story Howling Hate, the tale of the D9F from the 74th Games, you'll recognise Laurel as Sickle's mentor. What may have happened to that woman decades prior to the canon Quarter Quell? Let me be the first to answer that mystery… ok, fine, hardly the first given the amount of wonderful every-victor stories, but I'll answer it regardless. Haha, enjoy!

Peeta and Katniss looked down at Laurel's imprinted face, the knowledge that she was no longer among the living being heavy upon their hearts.

"When the Quell happened I never wanted to know too much or get attached to her. It was just too painful," Katniss said, looking off to the side. "But now I wish I had. I feel… I don't know."

"I think I know what you mean," Peeta replied, wringing his hands. "They say Laurel was one of the luckiest victors overall. Perhaps not in the same way Chassis, Snag or even Spud were. More just a case of all the circumstances lining up when it mattered most."

"So, kind of like us in a way?" Katniss asked.

"I guess you're right," Peeta agreed, giving a soft nod of his head. "I'm not sure what Laurel went through, but her kill count speaks for itself. It must have been brutal."

36th Annual Hunger Games

Name: Laurel Flamsteel

Gender: Female

District: 9

Age: 16

Kills: 7

Orion's horrific death was met with weeping within the Capitol, many a candle lit for their dear leader who died too young.

In the Districts there were more than just a few parties thrown and many cheers were yelled in celebration of the horrid tyrant's demise. Few outside the Career Districts felt anything but contempt for the man and approval for whoever had gotten him sent into the reaper's clutches.

Of course, the new president was not what anybody could call better. In fact, some were starting to think he may have been even worse. True to his word curfew and security was stricter, food supplies were lowered, and it'd be this way until Orion's killer was caught.

Nobody knew Snow had done the deed himself and had no intention of treating the Districts as anything aside a work force of slaves.

What they did know, however, was that they were hungry.

So hungry.

Laurel Flamsteel was one of these starving citizens. The girl was emaciated from hunger, having always been poor and homeless. Snow's cuts to resources only made it even harder to find any food; there weren't even pieces of bread in the trash cans anymore.

Beggars were shot on sight at this point so pleading with people for food was pointless, not that many people could spare anything in the first place, whether it was an apple or just a single cap to buy a grape with.

Laurel's only hope was drinking water from rivers and munching on weeds, actions that more often than not made her ill. She'd vomited more times from the age of ten to twelve than most people did in their entire teen years. But between starvation and sickness, she was the sort to risk the latter.

Hunger was the enemy.

The winter after Orion's death and the victory of the surfer girl from District Four was perhaps the worst time of her young life. Starvation, the freezing cold and peacekeepers shooting anybody who dared come close to the grain crops out of desperation – even children as young as six – had Laurel close to the point of giving up.

"Why… why do they… why do they hate us…" she sobbed one cold night, staggering her way down a street.

It wasn't much of a surprise that Laurel ended up collapsing from the combination of hunger and the unforgiving cold. Indeed, it was inevitable.

The real surprise was that Mizar Aldjoy had been taking a late night walk through the snowfall to clear it his head, having heard the news that an attempt on Isobel's life had come close to succeeding.

He ended up walking right to where Laurel lay dying outside of District Nine's Victor Village. One quick check that the poor, tiny girl was still alive was all it took for Mizar to make the snap decision to help.

"Let's get you inside where it's warm," Mizar said to the unconscious girl, as warm as the weather was cold. "Far worse than that old snow meadow out here."

With a shudder at the memories of the meadow he'd been the sole survivor of almost thirty six years ago Mizar carried Laurel towards his house, hoping he wasn't too late to save her.

He wasn't.

Laurel awoke the next morning, stunned to find that she wasn't dead. Stranger still was the fact she was warm for the first time in so long. Her heart sped up when she saw she was in a fancy bedroom of some sort.

"Is this paradise?" Laurel whispered, unsure of what else to say.

Laurel gulped as footsteps made their way towards her door, their owner and their intent a complete mystery to Laurel. She was close to making the snap decision of jumping through the window when the door opened.

Seeing the first ever victor of the Hunger Games holding a tray of freshly baked bread and wearing an apron with the words 'kiss the cook' on it was perhaps the last thing she'd expected to see.

"How are you feeling?" Mizar asked as he moved closer to Laurel, setting the tray down on her bedside table.

Laurel had about one thousand things that she wanted to say. So, naturally, she somehow went with saying the most random thought of the bunch.

"What's with the apron?"

Mizar groaned, muttering something about Maizie getting it for him as a joke, before pulling up a chair to talk to Laurel.

"How are you feeling?" Mizar repeated. "I found you outside the Victor Village halfway frozen to death."

"Well, I can't really feel much of anything. I guess the cold must have made me all numb," Laurel shuddered weakly. "Actually, I can feel one thing. Starving."

Mizar pressed the tray of bread into Laurel's hands.

"Eat. You need it, badly," Mizar said, seriously. "Lots of people are suffering this winter; I'm not letting more people die on my watch."

Laurel didn't so much eat the bread as practically inhale it. If Mizar was bothered by her savage eating etiquette he didn't show it, instead getting up to look out the window at the snowy landscape outside of his house.

"This is the worst winter is years. People have been freezing all across Nine and beyond. No food, no shelter… it's been a nightmare," Mizar said, a hand over his face. "I don't have enough time to be able to help everybody at once. I can't be in a couple hundred places at the same time."

"What do you mean?" Laurel asked.

"It's my yearly tradition," Mizar replied. "I call it 'stopping people dying in the cold'. I go around and give food, money and blankets to the poor. I was on my way back from a homeless shelter last night, actually."

Mizar sighed as he returned to his seat.

"Not that it'll be around much longer. Snow's closing them all down across the District," Mizar let out a long suffering sigh. "I thought nobody could be worse than Orion… but, I've been wrong before. I once thought I'd never be reaped and we all saw how that went."

"You won," Laurel said, finishing the bread.

Mizar shuddered, memories of the bloodbath and of his duel in the rain against Kai dancing around in his mind.

"At a great cost," Mizar said after a moment. "Point is that Snow's been really keeping an iron hold on the Districts. Less food, less money, less of everything aside from suffering until Orion's killer is caught."

"Will they ever be found?" Laurel asked, weakly.

"Hell if I know," Mizar replied. "Isobel wants them caught because, if Shunt hadn't taken her drink, she'd be the one who died. It's been a pretty bad time in Five."

Mizar noticed Laurel's vicious look.

"Honorius worked out a way for us to communicate," Mizar said, promptly. "I'm getting ahead of myself. It's gonna be a horrible winter, so… feel free to stay for as long as you want until you feel like you can survive out there."

"Thank you," Laurel whispered, grateful to the point of almost sobbing.

It was the worst winter that Nine would see for many years. Even with Mizar doing his very best to help the poor and homeless of the District, and with Gwenith and Teff helping out as well, the fact was that due to Nine being quite a large District many of the poor citizens were lost in the cold long before spring arrived.

But Mizar's intervention had spared Laurel. She stayed alive and recovered some of her strength as the winter passed by, living to see events such as Snow moving from interim president to the official president, public whippings and hangings of those who so much as slightly complained about the lack of food and, of course, Librae's victory tour where the surfer looked rather messed up from what she'd witnessed in the after-Games party.

Laurel eventually had to leave when the Peacekeepers heard of a 'vagrant' living without permission in Mizar's home and descended with intent to execute the girl. Mizar managed to buy her enough time to make a run for it, saving her once again, but it was back to the streets with Laurel now that the Peacekeepers were doing their best to assure that the poor would receive absolutely zero aid.

But little did Laurel know, this was not the last time she and the kind first victor would meet.

They'd cross paths again during the summer when Laurel was reaped for the Thirty Sixth Hunger Games.

Laurel sat at the dining table in the meal carriage of the tribute train, gorging down an entire roast turkey. The escort looked green and not just because of the fact his skin was genetically altered, the three previous victors from Nine were torn between nonchalant and slightly uneasy while the male tribute, a tiny twelve year old boy, sobbed with his face slumped into a bowl of soup.

Just a typical dinner, naturally.

Laurel cared nothing for table manners, what with having been dealing with hunger ever since the earliest days of spring. If she was gonna die she'd not die of starvation.

The only reason she stopped eating, long after dinner had been deemed as over, was because Mizar sat down next to her and snapped his fingers for attention.

"So, we meet again," Mizar said, letting out one truly humourless chuckle. "So, how have you been?"

"Hungry," was Laurel's simple response. "Pass the mustard?"

Mizar did so, watching as Laurel squirted a bunch of the stuff over a large lamb steak. He had to briefly glance away as she devoured it, instead looking to where Gwenith and Teff were attempting to talk to the male tribute, Omi: the poor boy was inconsolable, reaping day having been his twelfth birthday.

It had been quickly agreed that the women would work together to help the objectively weaker tribute and Mizar would mentor the tribute he'd already met, and saved, the previous winter. It only made sense.

"Keep eating if you'd like. Putting on weight before the Games is a good plan. You never know how long you may be in the arena. Fir lasted almost thirty days and without sponsors she'd have starved," Mizar shuddered at the very thought of this. "Nobody is sure what to expect with this new president and what he wants from the Gamemakers, so… best be ready for anything."

Laurel nodded, downing a whole glass of milk.

"So, how do I survive this?" she asked, uneasy.

"First of all, you make a solid impression in the parade," Mizar replied. "After that we'll see what training stations you'd be most suited for. But to repeat my yearly advice, don't make yourself a target to any of the career tributes. You anger one, you anger them all."

Mizar shuddered, thinking back to various years where tributes from Nine were mercilessly, painfully murdered by the career packs.

"Like I said, do well at the parade first and foremost."

"I can't believe you did that," Mizar said not long after the parade as he and the rest of the Nine team entered their floor of the tribute building.

"I was hungry," Laurel said, defensively.

This year the tributes from Nine had both been dressed up as rather unflattering baguettes. This in itself was one thing – a rather humiliating thing to be exact – but as wise philosopher Borat Sagdiyev once said, if life gives you baguettes then make a meal out of them.

So, Laurel did. By the end of the parade her edible costume was missing several chunks, her face was covered in breadcrumbs and her stylist was screaming about his work being ruined by a savage ape.

Some other stylists had a rare moment of brainpower and told the man that making a fully edible costume was bound to come with risks.

In any case District Nine was forgettable in the parade as they were in almost every single year. The costume eating was remembered, but only for the novelty of it and not Laurel herself. It was apparent that training and a good score was going to be her main hope of securing some sponsor support.

But when asked what skills she had and was planning to focus on… her response did not fill Mizar with much hope.

"A sort of poison immunity due to living off of poisonous plants and berries in past winters and maybe strangling people."

Training started with a bang from the careers and a whimper from most of the outliers. The four careers, joined by a particularly vicious criminal boy from Four who volunteered to escape a looming death by hanging, were out for blood from the word go. They hogged the weapon stations and made the training centre their kingdom by lunchtime. Few were brave enough to get anywhere close to them.

Indeed, only Satyr from Seven was unbothered by their presence around him and that wasn't due to bravery. It was due to wanting to die after his family had perished during the horrible winter.

Laurel joined the bulk of the outliers in keeping away from the career pack and learning what she could from the training stations off to the side. Poison identification, patching up wounds, staff usage and even cooking soup. Not the most impressive array of skills, least of all when put next to the so-called 'fiendish five' as Gwenith had taken to calling the careers.

"I'm just saying, they act like fiends is all…" she had mumbled when pressed on the odd choice of a name.

The careers made sure to spare time for each of the outliers, one by one reducing them to tears or otherwise just a state of mortal terror. They were dedicated to their job of being the most dangerous killers in the Games.

They only skipped over Satyr as, really, what use was there threatened to kill somebody who desired it? It was a waste of time that'd be better spent swinging swords and smashing maces onto dummies.

It was shortly before lunch on the third day of training when the pack descended onto Laurel.

"Gee, she's a skinny one," the buff boy from One remarked. "Hungry for food? Starving for victory? Drooling for some kind of a hope or chance, little girl?"

"I think she's hungry for my mace on her skull," the girl from One added, twirling the weapon around and around by the handle in one of her hands.

Historically outliers both victorious and dead had spoken back against the career pack when they tried to intimidate them. Laurel was not among these tributes.

Indeed, the half-starved orphan was quick to run away to the other side of the training centre and hide herself in one of the artificial bushes. The sound of the careers laughing was a ghastly sound, second only to the screams of agony that filled the cornucopia bloodbath year after year.

Laurel eventually dared to come out when the tributes were called for lunch, only for the boy from Four to jump her from out of nowhere. One look into his twisted, malicious eyes almost made Laurel piss herself.

"If I find you in that arena you're gonna be chum," he hissed.

The boy, Sinbad, shoved Laurel down and went on his way. The sight of the Peacekeepers snickering and the other careers applauding their recruit filled Laurel with two main emotions.

The first, of course, was fear. Who wouldn't be scared of those brutes in her situation?

The second was hatred. Cruel, spoiled teenagers who had a warm home, plenty to eat – or in Sinbad's case at least were not halfway starved to death – and who enjoyed causing pain to other people.

She wanted them dead.

But, how was a scrawny wisp of a girl to do that?

Time flew by all too soon. The interviews were a morbid mixture of the careers making all kinds of death threats and most outliers crying for their families – or, in Satyr's case, asking if they could skip him so he could eat more donuts – while the Capitol crowd greedily ate it all up.

Having only scored a five and with odds set at forty to one it was unlikely for Laurel to ever see a place other than the arena in what remained of her life.

Mizar's advice had been to run off into the thickest flora visible from her launch pedestal and work things out from there. He was sure he could wrangle her a sponsor or two; being the first victor came with its own sort of sway.

All Laurel could think of when she was launched into the arena and took stock of the cornucopia and the surrounding terrain was how scared she was of starving to death. She'd already come so close before.

Her eyes were soaked with tears before the countdown had even reached fifty.

This year the Gamemakers had chosen to toss the tributes into a tropical island, one similar at a brief glance to the one all the way back in the Third Games. Lovely waves, clear sky, warm sunshine and a massive crab shell much like the one Museida had made use of over thirty years ago. It looked like a beautiful holiday destination.

Or, it would have if not for the slight problem of how the island was absolutely covered with poisonous plants. It was obvious to almost everybody that something was very wrong with the plants that covered the surface of the island. Perhaps it was the very unnatural colours some of them had and the odour of death that lightly filled the air.

Maybe it was how bird mutts flew all around the trees of the island forest and dropped dead when they made contact with some of the funky looking flowers growing here and there.

Even the career pack seemed a little wary after seeing this.

Laurel, however, was mainly concerned with living long enough for the poison to even factor into her continued existence. She was the sort who would pick poison over death.

Her eyes landed upon a forest green duffel bag about fifteen meters away from her pedestal. It looked like pure salvation to the desperate teenager.

The gong rang and they were off.

By the time Laurel had managed to reach the duffel bag in her desperate sprint Sinbad had lunged for the nearest tribute to himself – the tiny girl from Twelve – and snapped her neck. It had only been five seconds after that when Karmallia from Two easily grabbed Omi and, ignoring his sobbing and begging, slit his throat.

It was at this time, right as Satyr threw himself in the way of the girl from One's mace to spare his District partner, that Laurel was knocked over by the girl from Eight making a charge at her. The two terrified, malnourished teens grappled over the duffel bag, blind and deaf to all the carnage going on around them in every direction.

Laurel gained advantage upon loosening her hold on the duffel bag. The girl from Eight fell backwards to the ground from the force she'd been pulling with and from there it was hauntingly easy for Laurel to repeatedly punch her in the neck until she stopped twitching.

It was then that the boy from Eight ran up, knife in hand, and managed to stab Laurel in her side. The younger boy didn't have the strength to make a lethal wound nor the courage to keep fighting after the initial attack, but it didn't make it any less painful for Laurel to experience.

Laurel tore off into the overgrowth of the island, fighting the urge to cry and scream as blood trickled down her hip. After several near misses with lethally poisonous flowers Laurel had finally managed to escape into the depths of the poisonous island's overgrowth.

Ten tributes had not been quite so lucky. Eleven if one were to count the boy from six who was dragging himself away into the bushes, blood pouring down his back.

The pack were quick to start cheering after the dust settled, all of them having enjoyed the vicious combat to the fullest. After the cannons fired they started to realise that their celebrating was premature.

The cornucopia had little in the way of food this year. Some of it had been taken by the outliers, a few bits and pieces had been destroyed during the bloodbath and what remained wouldn't be able to feed a pack of five eighteen year olds.

"Ok, what do we do guys?" Karmalli asked.

Her district partner shrugged, having no idea how to do anything that wasn't killing people.

"Uh… kill people?" he suggested.

"Drogg, don't be stupid," Karmalli muttered.

"I think he has the right idea, actually," Sinbad said, arming himself with a pair of nasty, barbed harpoons. "If we can wipe out the outliers fast then a lack of food doesn't matter."

"But there are still nine outliers around the island," the girl from One had said.

A cannon boomed as the boy from Six finally bled out not even a hundred meters away from where the pack were standing.

"Eight people. C'mon, let's get our stuff together and get moving," Sinbad said, chuckling.

The pack were off on the hunt in less than an hour, eager to spill more blood. They left no guard, feeling that there was little of real value left in the cornucopia to begin with. Just a few lesser quality weapons and some crackers here and there.

Not long after they had left the boy from Ten climbed out from a crate he'd been hiding inside. He grabbed what little food remained and the sole water bottle left behind before he, too, ran away. His theft wouldn't go without causing some serious effects in the coming days…

While the outliers were terrified, the careers eager and eleven tributes more dead than the pre-Panem land of Italy Laurel felt a different emotion entirely.

Despair.

Her duffel bag had been worthless. Like several others, it had only been packed with paper and sticks to give the illusion that it had anything useful within it. With only the clothes on her back and a stab wound Laurel wept as she aimlessly wandered through the poisonous terrain of the island.

By the time day three arrived ten tributes were still alive. The careers had torn apart the girl from Three, Thimble from Eight had gotten lucky by killing the boy from eleven in his sleep and Laurel had taken down the boy from Twelve in a duel fuelled by starvation and adrenaline fuelled chaos.

Almost everybody was starving. Even the careers were feeling the pain of hunger; their food was running out fast, sponsors were much more expensive than the norm and the cornucopia was empty of anything that could be eaten.

Only Laurel was anywhere close to being well fed and it came at the cost of being sick and woozy all the time. Much like in her homeless upbringing in Nine she'd been living off of poisonous berries, the sort she'd developed a sort of immunity to. They made her sick, but they'd not do any worse than make her vomit every now and then.

It was by a berry bush of such poisonous delicacies that the career pack found her at midday. Initially it seemed as though Laurel was done for, lacking any weapons and being injured while the career pack were well armed and only bothered by hunger. But after punching Laurel around for a bit and really drawing out the fear the pack presented Laurel with an offer.

One that she couldn't refuse.

"We saw you at the poison identification training station. Same with edible plants and bugs," the boy from One said. "Help us figure out what stuff growing around here is safe to eat."

"Cook it for us too," Karmalli added.

"If you don't, you die," Sinbad added, brandishing his harpoons. "Fish aren't the only things I know how to gut, just saying."

Laurel was quick to agree to the 'deal' after Sinbad's threat. A moment later she was knocked out by a solid punch to the back of her head. The careers didn't want her getting any wise ideas after all or having a chance to make a run for it.

Laurel was dragged towards the Cornucopia for several hours after that, getting cut and bumped by thorns and rocks along the way. The noise made it easy for the remaining outliers to evade the pack, not that the careers minded.

They were solely focused on satisfying their hunger above all else. Something they were sure that Laurel would be able to help them with.

And if not, it'd be another easy kill and a step closer to victory.

Laurel regained consciousness just as the sun was setting. By then she had been tied up and her wounds were searing with pain. Numerous berries and flowers had been set down in front of her with the five careers standing back, silently polishing their weapons.

"Oh, good, you're awake," Karmalli noted. "Get to work."

"What?" Laurel said, barely half conscious.

"Tell us what's safe to eat," Sinbad added, scowling. "We're hungry. Get cracking."

The girl from One threw a knife in Laurel's direction, missing by an inch and even then only because she'd missed on purpose. Laurel weakly squirmed around in her bindings as she tried to reach the piles of poisonous berries. Drogg cut her loose, but kept a close guard over her as she started to look over the scavenged berries.

"Don't get any bright ideas," he said, coldly. "You're gonna be tasting it first."

Laurel wept as she sorted through the poisonous plants in search of something that would be safe to eat. But amongst the cluster of poisonous flora was only poison and more poison. Not even a single, harmless apple existed within the arena.

But she wasn't about to admit this, not when doing so would be her death warrant. In the sea of Laurel's desperation, fear and panic swam a whale of a plan. Nothing was outright safe to eat, but if she were to taste test everything… who else but her was the one with the semi-immunity to poison built up after years?

"These three types are safe," Laurel said, gesturing to a decent selection of berries. "Don't touch the rest. Don't even breath too near them."

The Ones handled disposal work with the worst of the poisonous berries. The Twos both watched over Laurel as she worked to prepare the soup and Sinbad patrolled around the edges of the clearing on the off chance an outlier was hiding in wait for them to leave the supplies ripe for the picking.

Before long Laurel had the soup ready and poured out into six metal bowls. With a sword pressed to her back Laurel did as she was demanded and gulped down the contents. It tasted beastly and had Laurel gagging for a few moments, but her years of suffering without food or comfort in Nine served her well indeed.

The poison was entirely ineffective, just as Laurel has expected. Just the odd queasy burp, not enough to rouse instant suspicion from the careers. After five minutes passed by without Laurel dropping dead the pack gulped down their own bowls, gagging much like how Laurel did.

"Tastes worse than raw fish," Sinbad muttered, wiping his lips.

"At least it's food," Karmalli stated. "C'mon, we're fed so let's go hunting. We've wasted enough time as it is."

"We bringing this one?" the girl from One asked, looking at Laurel in distaste.

"No, she's just get in the way," Karmalli said, firm. "Besides, if she dies out there then so does our way of getting food. Let's just leave her here."

"And risk her escaping?" the boy from One muttered, incredulous.

"I'm on it," Sinbad said, rolling his eyes.

Not even ten minutes later the careers had left the cornucopia and returned to the overgrown wilderness of the island arena in search of their prey. Laurel, meanwhile, was left hogtied with a rope with Drogg left to watch over her.

The hours passed by slow and miserably, each second snailing by. No amount of struggling against her binds did anything for Laurel aside making her skin sore and making Drogg growl.

It was, simply put, hell.

But Laurel still had one advantage and that was how the careers were none the wiser to the fact she'd started poisoning them. Over the next few days the effects would really start to show, but so long as she kept drinking the soup as well… how would they ever know?

Drogg certainly showed no signs of suspicion, even when he had to vomit in the bushes on four separate occasions.

Several days passed like this. Laurel would make the careers a soup out of the poisons they gathered, she'd be forced to taste it first and then the careers would consume large helpings of the sickly soup before heading off to hunt for the remaining outliers. The hunting was lacking much success, the careers finding only one tribute in a total of four days, not that Laurel minded.

Why would Laurel mind if it meant more time for the poison to take effect?

Of course, being the prisoner of the pack was by no means anything beside a horrific experience. Laurel was tied up for long hours, given only the bare minimum of water, took the brunt of the pack's abusive words and tempers after a failed hunt… as stated, it was hell.

Laurel didn't give in. Not when the pack had been getting sicker and sicker, lacking Laurel's built up resistance. They were getting slower, puking a lot, slurring their words and best of all, to Laurel at least, were blaming it on the arena itself.

They had no idea that their prisoner was slowly killing them.

By the time the eleventh day rolled by the careers had became erratic, incredibly nauseous and had slept poorly. They almost looked like zombies as they staggered around on their hunting trips.

Zombies that could still kill, mind you. They were, after all, well-armed and bigger than the remaining outliers.

As it happened, the only outliers who were still alive were the girl from Eleven and Laurel herself. Time was running out for her before the careers would deem her as no longer needed.

With a slit throat looming Laurel decided to make her move shortly before the anthem of the eleventh day. By then the careers would be at their most angry and restless from their lack of kills.

Sure enough the pack were not only seriously sick, but seriously pissed off when they returned to the cornucopia without anymore kills to their names. The boy from One, left as the guard, could only scoff in disgust.

"We'll head out again in a few hours, see if we can get the last one while she sleeps," Sinbad muttered. "Nine, get cooking."

"Do it! Now!" Karmalli shouted, having long since lost any remaining threads of her patience several days ago.

Laurel got to work as she mixed up the soup under the watch of the furious, sick, starving career pack. It was hard to ignore the way the Ones were muttering to each other about killing their slave if they couldn't find the other tribute by sunrise.

The soup was soon ready and, unknown to the careers with their lack of any survival skills, it was a true meal to die for. As always Laurel was made to try it first.

This was a dish she was not immune to. One swallow would kill her, but therein was her plan. Pretend to take a mouthful while in actuality not sampling a drop.

Just as Laurel predicated, the half-crazed pack were nowhere close to their normal level of attention and keen observation. They simply shrugged to themselves over the meal being safe, if perhaps disgusting.

It was their last mistake they'd ever make. The Ones and Twos gulped down their meal and instantly began to choke, froth at the mouth and cry out as they began to die of poison and suffocation due to the swelling in their throats. They slumped over, helpless as Laurel and Sinbad watched them die.

Sinbad, spared due to having paused to add a little pepper to his soup, laughed and openly applauded Laurel. He even doubled over, hysterical.

"That was brilliant!" the convict laughed and laughed. "Not bad Nine, not bad at all."

Sinbad shakily reached for his harpoon.

"Too bad I didn't taste any," he continued, kicking his untouched soup over. "Thanks though. I was wondering how I was gonna dispose of this lot once you and the other girl bit it. They'd kill the odd man out first."

"You're not gonna win," Laurel said, swiping up the knife from Drogg's still twitching hand.

"Why's that?" Sinbad asked, coughing weakly as he laughed.

"I've been poisoning you lot for days. Every meal was poisoned," Laurel narrowed her eyes, starting to circle Sinbad. "I've been starving all my life. I had to eat that kind of shit to survive. I'm immune!"

For a moment a flicker of genuine fear appeared in Sinbad's eyes, but it passed quickly as the convict made a grand charge at Laurel with his harpoon stuck out.

Laurel, though weak from being a prisoner for so long, still wasn't affected in the same way that Sinbad was. The poison made it hard for him to keep on the attack for more than a few seconds without vomiting. The moment he paused to vomit was the moment Laurel stabbed him right in the middle of his chest.

The boy from Four fell to the ground dead, something close to respect in his eyes for the few seconds prior to all life fading from them.

The five cannons fired out one after another until the night became silent once again. Panting hard and twitching every few seconds from her own feelings of trauma, Laurel staggered her way to the cornucopia and sat down against the side of it.

She sat perfectly still for the rest of the night, not reacting at all when the gamemakers decided to put on some strong wind for some atmosphere.

She didn't react when they turned on the rain either. She was like a statue as she stared into space at seemingly nothing.

She only reacted when, shortly before dawn arrived, a cannon fired. The girl from Eleven, immobile from an infected wound for the past day and a half, finally succumbed to her injury.

As the trumpets sounded and the hovercraft descended to take home the nation's newest victor Laurel hardly said anything. She didn't even cheer.

She just silently let tears flow down her sallow, bony cheeks as the memories of the fresh trauma consumed her mind.

Laurel's victory, at the time, was seen as a bit of a let-down by the Capitol citizens. It wasn't so much that they did not like the survivor from Nine and more that her win did not feel flashy enough. Seven kills with four from poison and the other three from forgettable fights didn't give Laurel the same status as somebody like Vercingerorix had… not that she cared.

Indeed, Laurel never spoke of the Games unless forced to. She was content to just stay in her new house, spend time with her neighbour and parental figure Mizar and eat all the food she could ever want. Starvation would never trouble her again.

Perhaps District Nine's fourth win was a bit of a let-down at the time, especially due to the lack of any finale between her and the fallen girl from Eleven, but her win would have plenty of long-term effects over the years. Some she knew of, some she never did.

The talk of Nine offering up such a weak finale inspired a boy of Laurel's District several years later to give the nation the hands down most flashy, fancy and amazing finale they'd ever seen. All with the aid of a bit of stage magic.

Due to how the career pack were so easily poisoned the trainers at the academies added a new topic to the training regimen. Pressing upon the cadets how important it was to never ever accept food from an outlier.

Laurel's idea of poisoning the careers and drinking the same poison to avoid any sort of suspicion gave President Snow the inspiration he needed to ensure his enemies were killed and he could retain power over the remnants of humanity for many years to come.

Her poisoning of her enemies to gradually weaken them came in very useful for a crazy women from Ten many years later who Laurel had told everything she knew about poisons. This woman, before her death, she used a spiked cleat covered in a smuggled poison to strike Brutus.

The exact strike that led to him being weak enough for Peeta to stand a chance at beating and for the second rebellion to be able to ignite a few days later.

Laurel may have ended up dead on the rocky island of the cornucopia during the Third Quell's first five minutes, but the effects of her actions lived on and on and on…

"May she rest in peace," Peeta said.

The pair from Twelve held a few moments of silence for Laurel before they walked further down the street. Hardly ten paces later they came to the face of a smart looking short haired boy imprinted into the sidewalk. From his firm, thoughtful gaze to his smart glasses he had a look of pure inquisitive genius to him.

"Beetee," Katniss read, a ghost of a smile on her face. "Finally, somebody that we know is alive and well. Or at least as well as can be expected."

"He was vital to the rebellion. Without him, could we have ever stood a chance?" Peeta asked, frowning slightly.

"I don't want to think about it," Katniss replied. "I'm just glad the Capitol fell and the Games are gone forever."

So, how was that? Poisoning people has been an effective tactic in past Games, most notably seen with Mags of course, but gradual poisoning over several days whilst being a tied up prisoner? I'd say that Laurel certainly took it a step further. Hope I did this fairly forgotten canon victor some justice, guys. ^_^ And now, we come to a fan favourite victor and our first confirmed survivor – I mean, aside Katniss and Peeta obviously, haha – Beetee Latier! Stay tuned for more!

Stats

District 1: Peridot Gaudy (8th Games), Crystal McCree (14th Games), Bronze Marley (19th Games), Crown Martins (24th Games), Dollar Dettwieller (32nd Games)

District 2: Baron Overwhill (4th Games), Runa Peace (7th Games), Olga Machete (10th Games), Rook Valiant (17th Games), Boulder Atherston (20th Games), Vercingetorix Carnby (25th Games), Dragon Batofel (27th Games)

District 3: Honorius Perthshire (5th Games), Pi Orbit (22nd Games)

District 4: Museida Selkirk (3rd Games), Mags Flanagan (11th Games), Tide Luther (23rd Games), Librae Ogilvy (35th Games)

District 5: Shunt Gaspar (12th Games), Isobel Sparks (18th Games), Crimson Flanders (29th Games)

District 6: Chassis Macalister (31st Games)

District 7: Pliny Aransio (2nd Games), Fir Buzz (9th Games), Jack Tylos (21st Games), Snag Nakamura (34th Games)

District 8: Woof Casino (16th Games), Paige Murphy (30th Games)

District 9: Mizar Aldjoy (1st Games), Gwenith Rosebud (13th Games), Teff Withers (28th Games), Laurel Flamsteel (36th Games)

District 10: Stallion March (26th Games)

District 11: Bear Redfoot (15th Games), Seeder Howell (33rd Games)

District 12: Duke Saint-Rose (6th Games)