Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games. They belong to Suzanne Collins.
Note: It's a noticeable trend that many careers in the fandom, mine including, can be rather psycho and have a thing about torturing their victims. But generally, even they end up finishing things after playing to the crowd enough or may have some shred of a redeeming quality. Here though, we meet Mascara. If ever an outlier in my stuff thinks that careers are addicted to torture and are some sort of demonic force, it's probably because of this particular girl. She's a whole level of her own… so, enjoy the bloodshed!
Katniss and Peeta stared down at Mascara's imprinted face in the sidewalk, lacking any idea of what to really say about her. She was the sort of victor that needed little introduction nor many words to describe her.
"I'm just gonna come out and say it, she was messed up," Katniss said, a hand over her face. "Just… demented. Awful. Mom saw these ones live, and on rerun, and it was disgusting."
"Worse than Titus' Games?" Peeta asked, unsure of the answer either way. "I don't think she was right in the head. I've no idea what it was, but… apparently Mascara was pretty broken mentally."
"Doesn't justify the things she did," Katniss said, coldly.
The pair went silent, nothing else being said.
41st Annual Hunger Games
Name: Mascara Court
Gender: Female
District: 1
Age: 18
Kills: 11
It had been many years since District One had begun taking the Games as a serious contest. Many years since Peridot emerged victorious while Cadbury was left with a sword shoved up his ass.
Many years since most of the families in the Flawless Estate had doomed their bloodlines to extinction thanks to their own greed and selfishness, sending their children to the arena in hopes of gaining a victor.
None besides Peridot ever made it home.
You'd be forgiven for thinking that the families would just die out by this point or preciously guard what few children they still had. Or, hell, maybe just willingly marry those who were not elite nobles and have more children, the lessons of the past well and truly learnt. It's what the sane and rational would be expected to do, right?
Well, you'd be wrong to assume such things of the Court family. Elitists to the end, practically starving for more status to the exclusion of all else and having nothing but sheer hatred for those deemed as beneath them… a textbook case of a family doomed to die out by their own selfishness and cruelty.
But the thing with people is that when you back them against a wall they'll fight all the harder to live or just plain survive. And as it happens, around the time of the Twenty Second Hunger Games a plan was hatched, a last ditch attempt to keep their family going and have a chance at gaining a victor for the family.
Shortly before the reaping of the Twenty Third Hunger Games a little girl by the name of Mascara Court was born. She, at a glance, seemed healthy, inquisitive and strong for somebody so very little. Her parents couldn't have been prouder of her, their future victor.
Who were her parents?
Victor and Princess Mascara.
Siblings.
In a move that disgusted even the other remaining noble families the Courts had resorted to the taboo of incest to get another child and another chance to have a victor in their family. Their hatred of commoners overrode their sense of morality, conscious and basic decency. And so, nine months after the nauseating deed, a new member of the Court family was born into the harsh world of Panem.
It was quickly apparent that something was very wrong with little Mascara Royal Court.
Even in her infancy the girl was prone to twitches and staring vacantly with the creepiest of gazes. Nobody knew what was going on within her head, but chances were that it was not anything good. Her parents cared nothing for whatever issues she may have had, simply raising her on a diet of strict exercise, the best of health foods and constant propaganda about the importance of winning the Hunger Games.
Years went by as Mascara grew from a little girl to a big girl, her actions only getting worse and her outbursts becoming more and more violent.
At her eighth birthday party she smashed a glass at one of the other nobles and seemed almost eager by the sight of blood.
When she was thirteen she was caught by Peacekeepers skinning a stray dog in an alley. Only her parents' fortune prevented an arrest.
When she was seventeen a petty street thug tried to drag her off while she was returning from the corner bakery. She was found an hour later bathing in the blood of the unrecognisable corpse of the thug.
Most parents would be terrified of their offspring displaying such vicious tendencies and incredible unstable behaviour.
Victor and Princess, along with the rest of the Courts, encouraged it and applauded every single meltdown or incident. Their idea, of course, was to make Mascara as absolutely destructive as she could possibly be. The more vicious and sadistic the girl was able to be, the more likely she would emerge as a victor once she entered the arena.
All letters about Mascara's psychosis and various other ailments were burnt and any medication that happened to be mailed to the manor in an attempt to help the young psychopath – or save the rest of One from her, either was fine – were swiftly disposed of.
Mascara just carried on day after day. Violent rampage to twitching fit. Her own madness made her oblivious to the fact anything was even slightly wrong with her.
All she wanted was to see what people looked like on the inside and all the pretty shades of red.
Being so incredibly vicious and her capacity for causing pain made Mascara the obvious choice for the female tribute once the reaping of the Forty First Hunger Games came rolling by. The harder part was choosing a male tribute. Not because there was volunteers lined up, but rather that nobody wanted to be in the same arena as the 'District Psychopath'.
After drawing straws it was decided that Caviar McCloud was to be the male tribute. Confident as he was about his chances, the boy was also incredibly unnerved by the twitching girl who ended up on the reaping stage beside him. Shaking her hand, it was said, ended up as the scariest moment of his life.
Legend tells that just looking Mascara right in her eyes could send a boy to madness.
Things did not end up improving for the rest of the preliminary events either. On the train Mascara would just sit quietly, staring at the wall with a vacant look only to suddenly let out a screech for no known reason and start tearing at the cushions. The escort for District One needed two full bottles of wine to make it through the train ride, while Crystal needed the deliberators once again.
Indeed, Mascara's obvious insanity and mania was decided to be too great of a risk for Crystal to mentor. As the victor had known for many years, she wasn't to live for long and was certain that being close to Mascara was more than her weak heart could take. So, by the time the train reached the Capitol – by which time Mascara had broken numerous items on board – Crystal ended up being sent back to One to spend her likely limited time with Harp, while Crown was bought in as a replacement mentor.
Even the famous chatterbox was silenced when he saw what Mascara was like. The way she slapped at the broken, helpless stallions who pulled the chariots. The way she had freaked out and screamed when her prep team were working on her prior to dressing her in a princess gown soaked in fake blood. The way she had to be held back by security from attacking the little kids from Seven.
The nation all thought Mascara was insane, seeing her howling and snarling as she stood cuffed to the chariot that led the parade that year. The Districts were terrified of her. The Capitol thought she'd be a good villain for this year's Games.
Her family simply smirked and sipped wine, ever confident that Mascara was going to be a ferocious warrior and a sure fire victor.
Nobody thought for a moment of asking if the girl needed any help or a shoulder to lean on.
Nobody did a thing when Mascara woke up screaming and destroyed her room in the tribute building in a fit of psychopathic rage and panic.
Training was a mess.
The Ones and Twos allied right away just as they always did, but it quickly became apparent to the Caviar and his quarry worker allies that their noblewoman ally was perhaps more dangerous to be around than was worth it. Mascara was vicious with her training… and that was exactly the issue.
She was vicious.
The outliers, whether they were eighteen or twelve, stared in terror as Mascara tore apart training dummies with a wide variety of blades, spilt fake blood over herself, duelled a sparring trainer to the point the man pleaded for mercy and set an all new record on the running course.
The careers were less afraid of her, but the feelings of bonechill and dread remained. Kicking her from the pack would accomplish nothing and her clear insanity made it impossible to try and bond with her. All they could do was mutually agree to take her out in her sleep on either the first or second night.
Mascara seemed oblivious to the fear she inflicted upon others. She hardly said a word as she went wild in training or as she calmly ate the cafeteria food. The most she ever said in those days of training was either muttering about how annoying it was to be forbidden to spill any blood or pleading for her mother when a lighting storm during the second night left her trembling.
Mascara's score of eleven left most of the low scoring outliers, all stuck in the range of two to six, lost in a pit of despair. There was no way they could overcome the demon from One. The other careers all felt fine with their scores of nine or ten, but collectively agreed they needed to dispose of Mascara as soon as they possibly could.
Mascara didn't even react to scoring an eleven. She just stared blankly at the TV, fixated upon Caesar's blood coloured hair as he talked about the current betting odds of the Games.
Mascara didn't make any indicator that she felt anything from her odds being 2-1.
After Mascara had been put to bed later that night a tense discussion began between Caviar and Peridot. The boy, fearing what his district partner was capable of, asked Peridot if it was acceptable for him to want her dead sooner than later. The girl was so demented that he honestly felt safer outnumbered by the Twos.
Still, both were from One and rich should not harm rich.
A rarity for the victor forever loyal to her home, Peridot gave Caviar her blessing to betray Mascara much sooner than the typically permitted point. She'd become revolted by the girl all to swiftly and had known from the start what the circumstances were that led to the girl's mental state.
Alas, any pity she may have had for the mentally broken young women was overrode by the way the other noble families had treated herself and her parents so awfully when she was a kid. If there was to be a victor from One this year then it had to be Caviar. At least he was sane and shared Peridot's interest in the comic book series 'Armadillo Andy'.
Some interviews are never forgotten once seen, whether they are as grand and well done as Olga's or as much of a mess as that of Arendellian III years later.
Mascara's interview was something else altogether.
As always the girl from One was the tribute slot to start of the night. Most things after Mascara's interview were mainly an afterthought. After all, it's hard to top the girl that went on stage dripping in the blood of a stray cat that had gotten past peacekeepers and into the backstage area. The scent of gore hung about through the entire interview while, between twitches and vacant staring, Mascara muttered out answers to what Caesar asked her. It all came back to one thing in the end.
"I want to kill people and make my mama and papa proud. It's all they asked me to do and it's all I want to do," she said, her tone a creepy blend between posh and vacant.
Nobody forgot Mascara as she was led off the stage by a Peacekeeper once the buzzer went off. They didn't forget the smell of blood either. After all, the scent hung around for the entire interview. Caviar from One gagged from the smell, Mini from Six turned green in her cheeks when she saw the bloodstain on the chair and bony Nakk from Twelve ended up being close to fainting entirely.
Nobody slept soundly that night.
The outliers were far more terrified than they would have been in most years, for this time they were locked in the arena with a psycho beyond the norm expected of careers. A psycho without any kind of mental balance or an ability to feel even the tiniest form of empathy or regret.
The other careers were on edge, knowing that Mascara would be very hard to work alongside. What was to stop the mentally ill girl from lashing right out at them with a knife or twelve if she felt like it on a whim? Could she be killed in her sleep or would she fight back in an instant and take them all down?
Mascara just lay on her bed and stared up at the ceiling, blank. All she had known for her entire life, aside garbled and intelligible thoughts and feelings, was how her mama and papa had been always and forever telling her she had to win the Hunger Games no matter what.
To show no mercy until everybody else was dead. Until she had heard twenty three cannons and heard the trumpets.
Mascara would do them proud, eager to see more pretty red fluid. But she did have a question about something she'd never once understood.
What was mercy, exactly?
The tributes were launched into the arena and for at least four of them all remaining hope was well and truly lost. The arena would go down as one of the nastiest ones seen in the history of the Hunger Games. The actions committed inside the arena would never truly fade away from memory. They were just too horrible.
The arena was a dark, dull prison. The building was vast, the hallways as long as several miles and hundreds of prison cells lined the corridors. All was without much light, or hope. Monochrome concrete was the only thing of any note around much of the arena, alongside the claw marks and messages written in blood upon the walls. On the walls outside of the prison was the sound of rain hitting against the wall, thunder frequently accompanying it.
The dull silver cornucopia was motionless in front of the tributes, stocked up with containers of food, water, sleeping gear… and many, many serrated blades. All the weapons seemed to be designed to cause extra agony than the already considerable amount they would in any normal year. What little light there was had a particularly nasty looking barbed scythe gleaming within the darkness.
The boy from Eight decided to cut his losses and, seeing his death as certain, died on his own terms by jumping to the landmines.
The sight of the boy's blood only one pedestal to her right had Mascara let out a shuddering sort of giggle. Her eyes widened for a moment, soon narrowing together vacantly. Nobody missed the lecherous smile that crossed Mascara's face.
The gong rang and, due to the lack of any sort of vegetation in the arena this year, all of the remaining tributes charged right into the fray. Some of them, like the little kids from Six, grabbed scraps from the edge and bolted down the nearest hallway for their lives. Some like the careers charged for the weapons at the mouth of the horn of plenty, ready to get killing – and none more ready than Mascara.
But several others had a different plan in mind. Killing off the psychopath before she had a chance to become too powerful.
The boys from Four, Five and Nine were joined by the girls from Three and Eight as they made a charge towards Mascara right from the very beginning. No sooner had Mascara grabbed hold of a curved dagger they were all upon her, trying to bring her to the ground and stomp her to death, at least until one of them were able to grab a blade of some sort.
The rest of the careers did nothing to help their insane ally, caring not if she were to lay dead upon the concrete in under five minutes. They contented themselves with grabbing some gear and starting to attack the boys and girls from Ten and Eleven.
Much to the horror of the nation and the smug delight of the Court family it became very clear that Mascara did not need help.
With an enraged shriek and a demand for the tributes flocking her to not touch her Mascara fought back. Her knife became wedged into the gut of the boy from Nine, his torso ripped apart and sending his entrails out with blood soaking all around him. The girl from Three was sent back against the cornucopia headfirst, her head crushed under Mascara's foot a moment later. The boy from Four was left with his wrists slashed wide open and his throat very much the same. The girl from Eight took a blade into her spine as she tried to run away.
As for the boy from Five? He suffered over three dozen slashes by the barbed scythe Mascara had taken an interest in. He was dead by the third slash, but the girl just kept going on and on with a look of childish glee in her eyes.
The other careers, themselves murderers now as well, stared in horror as their ally began to laugh and bathe in the blood of the children she had killed. She giggled and laughed on and on, laying back to make a 'blood angel' in the large pool that had spilt.
Nobody commented when Arc from Two had been unable to stop himself from being sick. It wasn't like Caviar or Shade felt much better.
Fourteen cannons fired.
The second day in the prison arena was no better than the first. After all, the demented game of hide and seek had begun and it turned out Mascara was very good at seeking. Though she'd failed to sniff out Cooper and Mini cowering behind a crate in one of the prison cells the pack went by she did catch Yew from Seven in the grand, eerily silent mess hall of the prison.
The boy stood no chance, suffering dozens of cuts, all his limbs being broken and an eye being torn out before death finally claimed him. After that Mascara tore out all his innards and started to paint a picture with them.
Her allies exchanged wary nods, knowing it was time to take out the maniac. She was just too powerful and with too little sanity to back up her prowess. She was, simply put, too dangerous.
Mascara had been training since she could walk. Earlier than any of her allies had been. It was easy for her to sense Caviar's sword coming and cartwheel out of the way. She snarled like a wild animal, not pausing for a moment as she lunged and dug her fingers right into his eyes.
It was a savage battle that lasted a total of fifty four minutes and seven seconds. Caviar, Ark and Shade put up the best fights as they possibly could, but in the end the handsome boy from One and the fearsome girl from Two lay dead, mangled beyond the recognition of most viewers.
Ark ran away in terror, one leg bleeding and one arm torn to shreds. The pain of movement was overridden by the fear of what that freak was doing with the corpses of his allies.
Sure enough, Mascara was coated head to toe in blood and giggling like a schoolgirl. The Capitolites were loving the show she was so easily putting on while the Districts, even Two, were struck with genuine terror of this mentally ill girl. None of them truly knew the circumstances behind her birth, after all.
"Are you proud mama? Are you proud papa?" Mascara asked, crawling over to a nearby camera and giving it a vacant smile. "I'm winning."
While many in District One were feeling more than a little queasy, Victor and Princess were as proud as could be. The entire Court family were proud as they watched their bloodsoaked heir wander through the dark corridors of the prison, her calls for the other tributes echoing like a terrible phantom.
Seeing her cutting apart Beaker from Three later that night only had their greedy grins widen.
With the outliers who remained being considerably weak, Ark being a fraction of his former power and Mascara being barely harmed as she stalked along in search of prey, well, it made the outcome seem fairly obvious.
She had by far the most kills of those left, eight, with only Ark coming remotely near her. He met his end midway through day three, struck by a vicious punch to the throat by Montana from Nine. With the nearest outlier now having only one kill – not to mention being scared shitless nonstop - it made betting cease downwards to a crawl. Of the six left it seemed obvious who would end up winning.
It became seen as less 'extremely likely' and more 'fact' when Mascara was attacked by Montana and Sandy from Four at the same time. Both outliers thought that, just maybe, if they teamed up then one of them may be able to go home. All it would take would be a lucky stab.
Mascara freaked out the instant they touched her, hardly registering the punch that left some blood tricking from her jaw.
"Don't touch me!" she screamed, tackling the outliers down and knocking away their weapons.
There exists a phrase from a time before Panem ever came to be. 'Take out his heart and show it to him'. If one were to use the opposite pronoun then you'd have an accurate idea of what happened next.
Mascara was so covered in blood now that her normally elegant, almost pretty pale skin could not be seen. She literally looked as though she'd taken a swan dive into a massive pool of tomato soup.
Of course, she did not smell like tomatoes. No, she smelt of pure death.
The odour and her constant yells, twitches and angry fits made it easy for Cooper and Mini to evade her. The twelve year olds no longer feared death. They only feared meeting it because of Mascara.
Just before the anthem began on the end of the fourth day – broadcast on screens fitted to the walls of the long prison corridors – Mascara managed to find Uranium from Five out in the prison courtyard. Neither girl paid mind to the grass nor the sea that was beyond the tall wire fences – proof that the prison was located on an island of sorts – and only stared at each other.
Mascara charged, literally not knowing fear.
Uranium charged, having lost much of her mind from what she'd heard and seen within the prison walls.
Mascara sliced Uranium almost in half with her scythe.
Uranium died in moments.
The cannon boomed.
As Mascara continued wandering around the prison, giggling to herself, two things were apparent.
The first was that Cooper and Mini, holding hands tightly, made a desperate search for the roof of the prison.
The second was that Mascara was a single kill away from breaking the kill record. Just one more and Olga's record would finally be bested. The thought had the citizens of the Capitol cheering the blood-soaked banshee on towards her victory.
The fourth day was slow and ever so creepy. The cameras showed, with delight, the terror of the kids from Six as they tried to find the roof of the prison while avoiding the demon hunting them down.
The cameras further delighted in showing Mascara as she wandered along, dragging her scythe along the ground behind her. The strangest part of everything was that she was softly singing.
Never mind the darkness
Never mind the storm
Never mind the blood red moon
The night will be over soon
Cooper and Mini managed to reach the roof of the tall, grim prison near the end of the fifth day. Rain came down from above while Mascara pursued them from below. It seemed certain they were about to die. It seemed just as certain that it was going to be perhaps the worst display of torture in the history of the Hunger Games.
It wasn't.
Mascara emerged from the stairs leading up from below, eagerly giggling, only to see Cooper and Mini hold hands at the edge of the roof. If death was inevitable then they figured it was better to take a deep drop than to let Mascara catch them.
The maniac from one could only stare blankly as the kids jumped to their deaths, a pair of cannons firing only a few seconds later. There was an eerie silence, as if nobody could believe the anti-climax that had just occurred. The rainfall continued unperturbed and started to wash away some of the blood on Mascara's face.
The trumpets rang and Mascara was collected from the arena. Few in the Districts, even within One, cheered for the psychopath. Many were silent in simple, sheer shock and horror at what she'd done. She'd had the bare minimum amount of mental health to be allowed to win and clearly no capacity for any remotely normal feelings.
Nobody who saw her as an actual person was there to see her asking if she could have her mama and papa back yet, mumbling almost inaudibly about wanting them to be proud of her.
Not that she really knew what proudness was.
Mascara went home to a delighted family, all of them pleased with their new status and all the opportunities and fortune that having a victor in their family would bring them. They believed they were finally getting what they were owed.
None of them, especially not Victor and Princess, bothered to talk to Mascara nor give her any of the treatment she was in desperate need of. It was easy to access it and as a victor her mania was no longer needed.
They saw Mascara the victor, not Mascara the mentally ill girl needing help.
In fact, they hardly saw her at all. Too many parties to attend for them to think of the daughter who had served her one purpose. The honestly weren't sure what to do with her aside parade her around.
The tour, of course, was a disaster. Mascara had to be cuffed and on sedatives the entire time or she'd have probably ended up killing somebody for looking at her funny or just being too close to her. Even with these precautions a few people were left with scars and limps.
It was such a problem, in fact, that Snow decided to do something about this girl. He'd tolerated her in the arena, if only as the Capitol citizens had loved her crazy antics so much and he needed public support, but seeing the terrible way she was behaving and all the mania she was sure to bring within the Capitol during the next Hunger Games made him resolve to get rid of her.
The fact Bronze had phoned up and requested he do something about her – apparently she'd broken his bedroom window and scared off the whore he'd been spending the night with – had his mind made up.
The Grim had been able to deal with Isobel just fine and had lowered a good bit of rebellion by doing so. He was sure the mountain of a man would be able to kill the demented beauty. And, perhaps, other victors he believed could become troublesome.
He'd never liked the victor of the First Games very much nor the girl from Four who won the Eleventh Games. Indeed, the married pair from Two were annoying in their own way…
"Eliminate her," Snow told his most trusted and powerful of assassins. "Same for her family if they get in your way."
The Grim responded with a single, deep nod.
Two months before the reaping for the Forty Second Hunger Games, themselves never forgotten albiet for entirely different reasons, Mascara wandered out of another massive party that the Courts were throwing. They'd thrown over a hundred by now, eager to keep riding off of her success.
They'd spoken to her less than a hundred times since she'd won. Perhaps less than half of that.
Nobody noticed that Mascara was gone, the young women being able to freely wander away into the night. Before long she ended up in a moonlit field and found herself gazing at the stars above.
She was also set upon by The Grim, the man having stalked her to this place. He figured that, as a gun would draw in too much attention, he'd be able to get the job done just fine with a pair of knives.
He was wrong.
Mascara was not like other targets he'd been forced to take down hand to hand. She didn't fight with rationality or an instinctive fear of being hurt. She fought like a completely savage wild animal. This, combined with her combat prowess after over fifteen years of training, made her a formidable opponent.
The Grim was in the fight of his life and for his life. It had been so easy for Mascara to break two of his fingers and wrestle a knife away from him. Easier still for her to start slashing madly with it, forcing him to back up and try to block her attacks. He reasoned she would get tired soon enough.
The duel under the moonlight continued for a long time, The Grim taking more hits as time went on. Mascara was wounded too, but it seemed like she was unable to register the fact she was in pain and be made to recoil.
The sight of blood just seemed to make her happy and inspire her to fight all the harder. Hard enough to land a nasty stab just below The Grim's left lung.
The ending of this vicious one on one bloodbath was nothing short of incredible and ever so eerie.
The Grim finally landed a fatal stab to Mascara's gut, but by that point she'd been a nanosecond from slashing his throat open. The Grim, thought to be unbeatable, fell down dead and Mascara made short work of his body. He would be near impossible to recognise.
Mascara took the knife out, wondering why she felt so cold and sleepy all of a sudden. Her twitching was starting to slow down as well. She slowly walked away from the bloody mess that used to be Snow's best assassin and soon realised it was too hard for her to walk.
Sitting would do.
When sitting became too hard lying down became the next best thing.
Mascara lay down, staring up at the moon and stars as the seconds ticked down towards zero. She was covered in blood and her eyes were as vacant and unnerving as always, and yet she seemed like she was at peace.
"Blood… so much… blood…" Mascara muttered, making one last twitch of her leg.
Mascara faintly smiled and closed her eyes. It was as if a cannon had silently gone off, the field soon left as silent as the night itself.
Silent until a search party came looking for the missing victor and found the bodies.
Cue pandemonium.
Mascara may have died so soon after she won but she was not a girl who would ever be forgotten. Not after the things she had done within the arena and outside of it too.
The districts would often fear her or hold her in contempt for her terrible murders.
The Capitol mostly liked her for putting on such a show and considered her death a tragedy.
District One in particular made it a point for their tributes, however nasty they had to be, to not 'pull a Mascara'. There had to be some limits, or else were they better than the average common animal?
The Courts were thrown out of the victor village as soon as Mascara's death was reported. Such was the way it worked, for one was only entitled to victor rewards when the victor was alive. With their surplus partying, absence of heirs aside Mascara, lack of fortune outside the repossessed victor stipend and reputation of created a monster from the taboo of incest it all led to the disgraced, hated noble family dying out by the time the next Quarter Quell arrived.
Snow decided that he had gotten very lucky that Mascara had left The Grim unable to be recognised. If she hadn't then things could have all fallen apart. While he was glad she was dead, he felt a little wary of how close things been to a downfall. No more assassinating disliked victors. He'd learnt his lesson. There were better ways to keep his power and keep everybody in line.
Nobody ever wondered to themselves if things could've been different if Mascara had ever been given a little love and professional help, before or after she won. But such is often the way with a maniac. People might not flip past the earliest of pages in their story.
Katniss and Peeta said nothing else once their brief silence was over. Both were quick to move on, neither feeling comfortable spending more time by Mascara's imprinted face than they had to.
"Think the next victor is any less… messed up?" Peeta asked.
"Hard for them to be any worse," Katniss replied.
The pair soon came across the next victor imprinted upon the street. The face on the ground was that of a young boy with a face full of life and a notably large fringe. The look in his eyes was cheeky, but also confident… like he knew something that very, very few others did.
"Tag Nylon," Katniss read. "Know anything about him?"
"Just a charismatic kid from Eight, so I hear. Not much else to say," Peeta replied.
Peeta did not know how wrong he was. Neither he nor the Capitol – not even President Snow himself when he was alive – knew about the scam of the century pulled off flawlessly by the forty second victor.
There we go, Mascara! I gotta say, disgusting as this chapter may have been in a few – or maybe more than merely a few – places, mentally ill characters are really fun to write for. They offer plenty of unique feelings, actions and takes you'd not get from somebody like, say, Mizar. The goal here was to make a psycho known for inflicting pain, agony and starting the trend of careers being truly feared for torture, and where that reputation truly comes from. Of course, making Mascara a basic maniac would be too easy and… boring, in my opinion? So, I tried to make her come off as pitiable. Somebody who, in a certain point of view, may need a hug if that makes any sense at all? Hoping it came off well and wasn't too heavy handed. In any case, next up is a character I'm quite attached to and have high hopes for! So, stay tuned guys!
Stats
District 1: Peridot Gaudy (8th Games), Crystal McCree (14th Games), Bronze Marley (19th Games), Crown Martins (24th Games), Dollar Dettwieller (32nd Games), Mascara Court (41st 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), Rhyder Overwhill (39th Games)
District 3: Honorius Perthshire (5th Games), Pi Orbit (22nd Games), Beetee Latier (37th 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), Porter Tripp (38th 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), Lammy Phyronix (40th Games)
District 11: Bear Redfoot (15th Games), Seeder Howell (33rd Games)
District 12: Duke Saint-Rose (6th Games)