Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games. They belong to Suzanne Collins.
Note: Johanna's truly a woman who speaks for herself, little introduction needed. J think everybody knows her and her rough and tumble attitude well enough. Indeed, it was her attitude that made thinking up a format for this chapter so easy in comparison to a few of the past victors in this story. Compared to normal I don't have much to say, so without any further dawdling I give you the Johanna's tale. Enjoy!
"You know, she may have an attitude… but I'm sure as hell glad she does," Katniss said after a moment. "It's nice, imaging the trouble that she must have given the Capitol before we met her."
"True, but that attitude got her in trouble a lot. You know what happened to her family, right?" Peeta trailed slightly paced faced at the thought.
"It's horrible," Katniss agreed. "I've lost some family and the pain won't go away. All of them? No pain like it."
The pair were silent for a moment.
"Did you hear what happened when she went to visit Snow shortly before his execution?" Peeta asked.
"No, what?" Katniss responded.
"I don't know all the details, but whatever she said to him… it broke him. He was pleading, begging, even screaming. Johanna laughed in his face," Peeta paused for a moment. "She also, uh… she called him a rather foul word."
"Which one?" Katniss asked, curious.
"The word banned in District Twelve," Peeta stated.
Katniss knew right away which word he meant.
71st Annual Hunger Games
Name: Johanna Mason
Gender: Female
District: 7
Age: 17
Kills: 4
BAD ATTITUDE: SEVEN TIMES JOHANNA MASON CALLED SOMEBODY A CUNT
#1
Johanna was the third born child to her parents and the only daughter they had. In her younger days Johanna wasn't quite the foul mouthed and tough girl she'd become for most of her life. Of course, that all being said, she could certainly act like it if the moment ever called for it.
Her Grandma had a lot to do with this. The old lady had been something of an actor in her youth and had passed on that talent to her ever attentive granddaughter. Prior to that she'd overseen a small acting club for some youths in the surrounding area of Seven, a group Johanna had been quick to get in on and learn the ropes of being an actress within.
Johanna's first stage performance had been the source of much joy and excitement for her, the tiny little lumberjill barely able to talk of anything else in the weeks leading up to it. It was a classic that was to be performed – the tale of Little Red Riding Hood.
Naturally, Johanna had the leading role. For the first half of the performance things were going perfectly fine. The lines were all remembered, the rather low budget props all worked and the audience were having a good time watching everything play out. Johanna was ready to call it the best day of her life so far.
Or she would have if, after the break between act two and act three, one of the boys from her class at school hadn't started heckling.
"Oh Grandma, what big eyes you have!"
"Eyes that are no doubt defiled after seeing this acting!"
"…Oh Grandma, what big ears you have!"
"Poor Grandma having to hear this crud!"
"Grrrr…. Grandma, what big legs you have!"
"With legs like that you'd think she'd run away from this disaster!"
Johanna huffed and strained to think of something to make the boy shut his mouth. What word would suffice? What would rattle him to his very core?
What word had her dad used to describe the Head Peacekeeper when he hadn't realised she was in the room.
…Aha!
"Oh Grandma, isn't the boy in the audience such a cunt?"
The boy shut up after that, but the audience was sent into a sheer overload of shock. They all gasped in horror at Johanna's foul language, stunned she even knew such a word. From then on the play went off without a hitch.
Of course, Johanna got thrashed for it later and went to bed that night feeling a little sore. Still, stinging rump or not, she would always and forever declare that shutting up that boy had been more than worth every single bit of it.
She also began to, when alone, whisper the rather vile swear word under her breath. She'd giggle each time she said it, as if in wonder such a toxic curse was real.
She'd found her new favourite word.
#2
Johanna had always arrived at the reaping with a different plan every year. When she was twelve she would just stay hidden in the crowd and not move anywhere – how would they know who she was without a photo? When she was thirteen she planned to kill every single other tribute. When she was fourteen she would stick it to the Capitol and kill nobody. When she was fifteen she decided to simply not get in the launch tube. When she was sixteen she wanted to form an anti-Career pack of her very own.
At the age of seventeen her plan was to make herself look as weak and pathetic as possible so that she could stay beneath notice and then murder the fuck out of the others when only a few were left.
"Johanna Mason!"
It seemed faking weakness would have to do.
Johanna wailed and sobbed like a baby as she mounted the stage, crying her eyes out until she was herded into the judgement building. She hadn't even seen who the reaped male was due to how into her act she'd been.
Her family had no idea she was acting. Stunned as they were to see her crying they did their best to comfort her. It meant so much to Johanna, not that she could admit this. She didn't want to let go of her act for a moment. What if she couldn't restart it? She had to be pitiful and nothing more.
For the most part the other victors of Seven had no idea that Johanna was laying it on thick and pulling a ruse over all around her. She seemed like just another terrified tribute, albeit on the upper side of the scaredy cat scale.
Pliny, during the short time she was awake, didn't suspect a thing. The elderly victor just felt really bad for what she perceived as a poor girl walking to inevitable slaughter.
Fir tried to tell jokes and offer Johanna hugs to try and cheer her up. It was the very essence of her soul to try and help those lost within despair. She had to try, even if it wasn't likely to work.
Snag understood how Johanna felt. He'd been much the same when he was reaped decades ago. He'd wept even more when Logger – he tried not to think about the monster – had killed Bloom. He knew her despair very well and hoped, by some sheer fluke, she'd survive just as he had.
Blight, always the somewhat kooky sort, gave Johanna plenty of advice for dealing with tracker jackers. It wasn't relevant at all, but why shouldn't she know it anyway? Blight could not think of a reason.
Logger, forever to be known as the district traitor and a coward to horrendous degrees, tried to bond with Johanna over the simple fact both lived in everlasting fear. They were two of a kind. Johanna couldn't tell him to fuck off, but bursting into tears and claiming being near the boy who killed Bloom was making her feel worse worked well enough to make Blight get Logger to bugger off.
Jack, the wily thief, was the sole person who did not buy the act for a moment. Being a street smart crook and having been cheating and smooth talking people for as long as he could remember had made him the sort to spot a phony from a mile away. He knew Johanna's game.
That was why he made sure to only tell her that he knew when they were both alone in the dining room carriage that night when everybody else had gone to bed.
"You're faking the coward act," he said, casually.
Johanna was stunned into silence for a few moments, lost as to what she could say.
"I love it. I'd like to be your official mentor for the Games," Jack offered Johanna a handshake. She slowly accepted it. "Now, if you're gonna be acting like a weak bitch for the Games ahead then I have one bit of advice for you… get better at it."
Johanna instantly ended the handshake. "Get better? You having a fucking laugh?"
"At your reaction now, yes," Jack let out a chuckle. "But seriously, you need to get better to the point even a crook like me won't be able to see through your act. The whole point of a 'wounded gazelle gambit', as they call it, is to not be detected. If another tribute sees through it then you're fucked… maybe sorta like old Peridot's district partner if you've ever watched the Eighth Games Games. I have, and-."
"Oh fuck off, you cheeky cunt!" Johanna yelled, pounding her fist onto the table.
Jack just laughed even more. "Johanna, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship."
"It fucking isn't!" Johanna snapped.
Over the years Johanna would realise she had been wrong. Jack became her best friend by far.
#3
Johanna hated a great many things when it came to the world. Tree chopping, birds, the Capitol, dancing, table manners, scrabble, frogs and even high pitched laughter. This was hardly the full list.
Her arena was very close to the top of the overall list. For the Seventy First Games the gamemakers had decided to drop off the tributes in a place that could best to referred to as having 'scrub terrain'. Numerous dry bushes were all over the place, the ground was often quite sandy, large boulders were littered around for no apparent reason and the heat was unbearable.
Indeed, the heat was one of the biggest problems for the tributes to contend with.
The bloodbath had ended up an oddly low number of death – just five. It hadn't ended up mattering, not when dehydration was able to kill just as effectively as a sword could. It was simply a matter of time. Over the first four days three tributes died of unbearable thirst and five more went insane over the lack of water.
The snakes sucked. They bit several other tributes, including the girl from Two, and on the off-chance their venom did not poison a tribute into a horribly prolonged trip journey to the reaper then they'd leave a tribute paralysed for twelve hours.
Johanna had kept herself alive by avoiding danger, fleeing anything remotely scary and living off of water Jack was able to send into her. He was forbidden to sponsor her himself, of course, but nobody said he couldn't rob a bank, pass the money to a few contacts and have them send the money back to him through the approved channels.
It wasn't stealing if he wasn't caught.
He also send Johanna a cryptic clue of where to find a treasure. It led Johanna to where the girl from Four was almost dead from dehydration. Johanna stole the girl's axe and ran away once more.
She kept running until eventually just five tributes were left and the girl from One was approaching her. Johanna had spotted her from literally a mile away and recalled just how few people were left.
She'd assumed a fetal position and began to weep like a baby in hopes of drawing her over. It had worked like a charm.
The girl from One came closer and closer, starting to snicker as she closed in like a predator to its prey. She raised her spear in preparation for the murder.
When she was one step away Johanna dropped the act and, with a roar, bought her axe down to the girl from One's left hand, damn near severing it in the process.
The girl from One fell to the ground screaming blood murder. Johanna stood tall, no longer a crybaby. She was confident, vicious and cold in the eyes. It was like looking at a completely different person.
Before long the girl from One lay sobbing in agony and terror, her hands and feet chopped and split horrifically by Johanna's axe. Johanna loomed over her, sneering at the trained killer.
She couldn't resist dragging things out a bit. Not like this girl hadn't done the same already and surely planned to do it again, right?
"How does it feel to have wasted your entire life training for a Games you were never going to win," Johanna sneered down at the girl from One, idly tossing her axe between her hands. "You'll be forgotten, just like every other dead tribute."
The girl from One had already been crying blood, but now genuine tears joined the mixture. Her life was over and had been wholly wasted. Only right before the end did the poor girl realise how foolish an idea it was to be a career tribute.
"Farewell cunt," Johanna said, tightly gripping her axe with both hands.
Johanna bought the axe down, damn near decapitating the girl from One. Johanna wiped away the blood that had splattered onto her face and pillaged the dead tribute's supplies she left to hunt down the remaining tributes.
If she recalled lightly it was just the lanky boy from Five, a starving boy from Eight and a blind girl from Eleven. It wouldn't be hard to win, not with the last career dead and her act no longer needing to be upheld.
She was right. She became a victor only fourteen hours later.
#4
When Snow wants something he always gets it. Whether it was a bottle of fine wine, roses for his garden or forcing a victor to be a prostitute as a means for him to make a huge profit out of.
Johanna didn't know this. Nor did she know what befell the relatives of those who refused him.
It was just after the post-games party at the president's manor when she was called to a meeting, getting her first chance to properly meet the most powerful man in Panem.
"Congratulations on your victory," Snow said. "I must say, you were a bit of a slow burn… but in the end you were easily one of the best tributes of the year. I'd go as far as to say I even like you after watching your clever ploy."
"Right. Forgive me if it'll take a long time for me to return that good will," Johanna said, dry.
Snow just chuckled, slightly amused. "Fair enough I suppose. Luckily, I'm not overly concerned if you like me or not. By all means hate me if you feel you must. Part of being a president is having thick skin to insults. Anyway, I didn't call you in here to make small talk. I had something else in mind."
"What might that be?" Johanna asked, still dry.
"Simply put, you're a popular victor with a lot of fans. Fans that want to get to know you," Snow began. "Part of being a victor is upholding certain responsibilities to your fans within the Capitol."
"Signing autographs?" Johanna guessed, idly crossing her arms.
"Having sex with your fans, or 'patrons' if you will. Refuse at your own peril," Snow gaze Johanna a look befitting of a snake. "You'll do it and-."
Snow recoiled in shock when, by sheer reflex, Johanna punched him in the face.
"I'm not being whored out to a bunch of three hundred pounds pieces of shit with green hair. Those freaks can go die in a fire for all I care," Johanna spat. "I handled the Games. I can handle whatever you do to me. Threats, assassins, the whole works. Good fucking day, cunt."
Johanna left the room, leaving Snow to grimace as he clutched his nose. He gave the order to have Johanna's family executed within a minute and acted like he wasn't remotely phased.
Only when he was certain he was alone did he let out a pained groan. That bitch hit hard!
When Johanna returned home she learnt the consequences of her actions. Snow did not always target people who pissed him off, not when they were tough as nails and ready for anything.
He'd rather have their loved ones killed and leave their heads lying around the offenders new home in the victor village.
Johanna could only weep. It was a long and hard effort to keep her stable for the first few weeks after that, but it was an effort most of her fellow victors in Seven, sans Logger, were willing to make.
Nobody wanted a victor to go down the terrible route Pi had almost fifty years ago.
Pliny, in the last few weeks of her life, held Johanna close. The sleepyhead always was a gentle sort – her one kill, after all, was a mercy kill only done to prevent further agony -and did her very best to provide the comfort and kindness that Johanna needed.
"It'll be alright," Pliny whispered. "One day things will be alright. You must believe…"
Johann believed alright.
She believed that she'd be happy once the Capitol burned and Snow died a terrible death. There was nobody left that she loved. Nobody to use against her.
She had no reason to not become one hell of a rebel.
#5
In the end all people had to say goodbye and move from this life to the next. Victors were certainly no exception to this law of reality.
Fir wasn't an exception.
It was only two weeks before the reaping of the Seventy Fourth Hunger Games when Fir lay on her deathbed, just about ready to pass away. It was old age, the doctors said. Mere natural causes.
That didn't mean any of the many people who loved Fir, having been touched by her kindness and laughter over the decades, felt alright with this. It was a tragedy in the making. Pliny had only died a few years prior, nobody was ready to say goodbye to another victor of the lumber district.
Surrounded on her deathbed by the other victors of Seven, sans Logger, Fir didn't seem bothered at all. In fact, she was still smiling all the way to the end.
"I'm glad you're all here, right at the end," Fir whispered, weakly reaching to try and take somebody's hand.
Snag wheeled himself closer and gently took hold of Fir's left hand.
"I'll miss you guys, and I know you'll miss me," Fir had to pause for a moment, ever so tired. "But we'll see each other again. Just like I'll be seeing Monty again."
The thought of seeing the Peacekeeper who practically raised her made Fir smile.
"I believe you can win," Fir's voice was getting weaker. "I believe you can beat them. All you need to do… is work together… and be excellent to each other…"
"We will Fir," Snag said, tears in his eyes. He'd miss his mentor terribly.
"We'll give them hell," Blight promised.
"Fuck that, we'll give them triple hell," Johanna vowed.
Jack gave a simple not. He wasn't subtle about the fact he was trying not to cry.
"It's just like Pliny said," Fir added, starting to drift away. "You must believe…"
Fir closed her eyes, a smile on her face, and went silent. It appeared that she had died.
The victors lowered their heads in respect and to hide their tears. It had barely been five seconds and already the loss was hitting them hard.
Logger entered the room a moment after that, quietly mumbling something about the doctors needing to take the body away.
"BOO!"
Everybody screamed in terror, all but Snag falling over in a fit of panic, because Fir had suddenly sat bolt upright with a scary look upon her face. She giggled like a schoolgirl when she saw how shocked the others looked and how Logger had passed out into a complete faint.
"Got'cha!" Fir teased.
Fir weakly lay down, starting to drift away for real. A smile was forever etched onto her face, a look of joy in her eyes just like when she was a little girl.
"I had to do it. Just one final joke," Fir whispered.
Fir died for real only a few moments later. The victors were still stunned by what had just happened and Johanna was the first to speak.
"That cheeky cunt!"
#6
Because both Pliny and Fir had died Johanna was forced into the quell. It hadn't even been an intended fix like what Katniss suffered. It was just her own shitty luck and the timing of her friends' deaths that condemned her.
Jack had stepped up to mentor her once again while Snag had volunteered to mentor Blight. Johanna did not know where Logger was and also did not care.
Why spare a thought about the district traitor when she could be brushing up on her skills?
Of course, Logger was not the only victor that Johanna had a particular dislike for. Tabbock was another person whom she could not stand. The hammy and rather sociopathic victor was not popular amongst those from Seven – not after what he'd done to their female tribute that year – but beyond that Johanna just found him annoying.
The fact he was juggling axes near her only served to deepen the level of annoyance.
"Could you stop doing that?" Johanna asked, dull. "I'm trying to focus."
"I don't tell you how to live," Tabbock grabbed an additional three axes to juggle with, for a total of ten. "But I could tell you how to disappear. You never know what may happen in the arena."
"Watch yourself shiny. You don't want to push your luck with me," Johanna said, her eye twitching.
"Why not? You won because of an act, one you cannot repeat a second time," Tabbock finished juggling and set the axes back into place. "I'm all about acts, and yours was good… for one time only. I'm not about repeat performances."
"Well, neither am I," Johanna replied, taking a step closer to Tabbock. "The disappearing box, the trick with the balloons, that shit with the saw? We know all of your tricks."
"Those were but a mere handful of tricks. I have thousands in mind," Tabbock replied, laughing. "I guess we'll soon see whose tricks are better, eh? I dealt with a girl from Seven before, I can deal with another."
"I've dealt with people like you before as well," Johanna cracked her knuckles before throwing her axe into a target. "Bring it on, cunt."
Tabbock soon left with a laugh, not remotely bothered by the vulgarity sent his way. Johanna, similarly, was not bothered by any of the threats Tabbock made to her or any of the other victors. He didn't have the Games quite as in the bag as he thought he might.
He'd not been given any details on any rebel plans whatsoever, same as Cashmere, Gloss, Enobaria, Brutus, Neon, Arendellian and Skinner. He had no idea about the massive alliance nor the breakout that was looming near. Everybody else either knew the whole plan, knew a few select bits and pieces of it or, in the case of the 'star crossed lovers' were in the dark about it for their own safety.
If Johanna had her way then she'd be out of the arena before the fifth day and Tabbock would be dead in the bloodbath.
The fewer victors that sided with the Capitol, the better.
#7
Johanna strolled into President Snow's rose garden, after the guards made sure she lacked weapons and knew that there were consequences for any attempts on Snow's life.
The bearded bastard was to die the following die, not any sooner and not by anybody but Katniss.
They needn't have worried. Johanna had something else in mind than breaking Snow's body.
She was going to crush him psychologically.
Of course, it wouldn't be easy. Not when he appeared calm and composed over having lost the war and set to die the next day. Indeed, if anything, he was rather cordial and even offered Johanna some tea. Things like threats or insults did nothing to lower his mood.
"My dear Johanna, your words are wasted on me. You won't be able to get away with hurting me, and I'm dying tomorrow unless some cosmic fluke occurs. I'm afraid there's nothing you can say to upset me. I've already lost, simple as that," Snow calmly say down on a garden chair. "What do you want me to say, exactly? That I'm sorry your family are dead?"
"We both know you're not remotely sorry. You probably don't remember their names or what they looked like," Johanna said, her voice about as cold as Snow's own soul. "I'm not interested in an apology I could never get. It wouldn't bring them back."
"Then what do you want?" Snow asked, still calm.
"You suffering," Johanna took a few steps towards Snow. The fallen president didn't flinch at all. "I want you to feel the same agony, the same sheer mental torment you've put so many thousands of people through for decades you fucking bastard!"
"You're not going to get it. Like I said, I've lost everything and you cannot inflict anything upon me that would be of any consequence. Say you did discard all warnings and attack me anyway… who cares? Guards would flock in before you could do anything and a bruise is hardly a big deal to me now. If you broke my neck, well, I'd lose… say, twenty hours? Not a big loss," Snow took out a handkerchief, coughing out a few drops of blood. "You'd have to get plenty creative, and while I have no doubt you are able to… I still don't care."
Johanna looked in Snow's eyes. She looked at him with a particularly nasty, almost downright evil glimmer within her own eyes.
She knew exactly what to say.
"Myself and the other six remaining victors had a vote for one more Hunger Games. One with Capitol children," Johanna leaned closer to Snow. "Three votes no, four votes yes. Your granddaughter is going into the arena. It'll be known that your regime led to this."
Johanna leaned so close she was almost touching noses with Snow.
"The other tributes will know this. They'll take their anger out on your granddaughter," Johanna's grin grew in size. "They'll torture her and she'll know it was all your fault."
Snow had turned pale.
"No… no…" he trembled for a moment. "Not Rhonda. Please… please! Not Rhonda!"
Johanna laughed. She laughed loudly right in Snow's face, delighting in the terror he was now displaying. This in itself made the war and all she had been through totally worth it.
"She'll die scared and alone and it'll be your fault," Johanna stood back, watching Snow starting to have a mental breakdown. "Looks like even you have a weakness Snow. Your love for your granddaughter."
"Please, don't hurt her," Snow was forced to stop begging and cough more blood into the handkerchief. "Please!"
"You had my family killed. I owe you nothing, cunt," Johanna sneered. "Have a good rest. You have a big day tomorrow."
Johanna turned and took her leave, the sounds of Snow's continued wheezes and choking remaining ongoing behind her. She didn't stop smiling for a long time afterwards.
Life was good.
Katniss and Peeta soon moved on from Johanna's imprinted face. There was little need to linger, not when they would be seeing her again in no more than a few minutes at most.
They soon arrived at the seventy second face upon the sidewalk. The girl looking back at them had an eager grin on her face, mischief in her perky eyes and had her bushy hair put into a pair of large pigtails.
"Numi," Peeta recalled instantly. "The thing I remember most about her isn't so much her Games, it's her victory tour. Remember when she was in Twelve?"
"Yeah, I remember how she treated the tour as a chance to get her name out there as a rapper," Katniss covered her face. "It was so bad that she made Prim cry."
"You know the crazier part?" Peeta paused for a moment, as if wondering if he should dare to continue. "Gale liked it and was singing along with her."
So, foul enough language or not foul enough? Haha, hope you guys enjoyed reading this one! It strikes me as very in-character for Johanna to use this sort of vile profanity against people who piss her off, so naturally I just had to make a chapter all about it. It certainly proved to be quite a fun chapter to write overall. Do you guys agree? In any case, just two more victors left on the Walk of Victors and it's almost time to meet the first of them – Numi Marrolto, Bentley's #1 fangirl and a pro rapper (in her own mind only…)
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), Platinum Twist (44th Games), Gloss Lord (63rd Games), Cashmere Lord (64th Games), Augustus Braun (67th 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), Mercy Gregor (46th Games), Brutus Gunn (49th Games), Lyme Rabe (51st Games), Enobaria Golding (62nd Games)
District 3: Honorius Perthshire (5th Games), Pi Orbit (22nd Games), Beetee Latier (37th Games), Wiress Plummer (47th Games), Yohan Fairbane (58th Games)
District 4: Museida Selkirk (3rd Games), Mags Flanagan (11th Games), Tide Luther (23rd Games), Librae Ogilvy (35th Games), Anchor Paddock (52nd Games), Finnick Odair (65th Games), Ron Stafford (68th Games), Annie Cresta (70th Games)
District 5: Shunt Gaspar (12th Games), Isobel Sparks (18th Games), Crimson Flanders (29th Games), Porter Tripp (38th Games), Neon Erg (48th Games), Wattzon Holmes (55th Games), Arendellian Spinner III (57th Games)
District 6: Chassis Macalister (31st Games), Bentley Corduroy (54th Games), Porsche London (56th Games)
District 7: Pliny Aransio (2nd Games), Fir Buzz (9th Games), Jack Tylos (21st Games), Snag Nakamura (34th Games), Blight Jordan (53rd Games), Logger Barlow (61st Games), Johanna Mason (71st Games)
District 8: Woof Casino (16th Games), Paige Murphy (30th Games), Spool Nylon (42nd Games), Cecelia Mog (60th Games)
District 9: Mizar Aldjoy (1st Games), Gwenith Rosebud (13th Games), Teff Withers (28th Games), Laurel Flamsteel (36th Games), Tabbock Summers (43rd Games), Trevy Vex (Escaped 55th Games)
District 10: Stallion March (26th Games), Lammy Phyronix (40th Games), Pasture Gallows (59th Games), Skinner Alecto (69th Games)
District 11: Bear Redfoot (15th Games), Seeder Howell (33rd Games), Chaff Mitchell (45th Games), Spud Munroe (66th Games)
District 12: Duke Saint-Rose (6th Games), Haymitch Abernathy (50th Games)