Sorry, this chapter is so late! I move out and into University digs on the 17th so I have been trying to get everything ready. I hope to get the introductions for Tributes done by the time I leave. I won't be doing much freshers week though so I guess I have that too.
Anyway, I published a new story called 'Amour Et Pouvoir'. It takes place during the year of 196th Hunger Games. It is not a Hunger Games story about the Games and does not even involve them. It focuses more on the political side of things. It will be a short story that will finish around the time this story gets to the Games. It is a prequel to a future SYOT I will be doing during the 197th Hunger Games.
These will be a normal year, nothing special and although it might seem that AEP has no connection to it, how it ends (already planned) will have a massive ripple effect on the future SYOT. These Games will be called 'Realism: 197th Hunger Games'.
Do not threat, though, 'Realism' is connected to my universe (just wayyy in the future) but there will also be a resurrection Games called, Resurrection *gasp*. Submissions for this will open when the victor is announced for this story. You can submit as many characters as you like as long as they are from my stories and I will pick twenty-four of them to bring back. This will be a lot more light hearted than 'Realism' and I have some fun things planned.
So, the 'R' SYOT's are a thing of the future but I thought I would just let you know. For now, we have this story and in this chapter, we meet Ares and Coutille of District Eight, enjoy.
Ares Walker, District Eight Male:
"If you don't have a pork bun, you are no man!" the plump butcher cried to the bustling crowd. Some ignored him, some drooling at the goods they could not afford. Ares was the latter.
Sweets were more of his thing but as he watched the crisp, pig carcass rotate above the fire, his stomach turned. He watched in fascination when a small girl and her parents walked up to the man. She was dressed in her finest mink coat and white leather gloves as her snow boots crushed the snow beneath her feet.
"I will have a bun, please," she said with a wide smile, rocking back and forth on her heels. The pork bun man smiled before turning around and cutting some pork off the mouthwatering sight and placed it in a freshly baked bun. The way the meat fell off the bone made Ares long for it even more but when he placed his hand in his trousers pocket, he only found some lint.
"I got chestnuts!" his mother cheered towards her deflated son. She followed his eyes towards the pork bun the mayor's daughter held and frowned. "Ares, I have told you, for the price of one of those buns, we can buy a whole bird." Ares' eyes lit up at this until he saw the dead chicken his mother held that was the size of a sparrow.
With a grumble, Ares jumped down from the wall and turned to walk away when he came face to face with the mayor's daughter, Maria. She smiled happily at him, her brown eyes shimmering. "Hey, Ares!" she cheered, taking a large bite of her bun.
"Hello, Maria," Ares said with a blush before hurrying back towards his home. After catching up with a son, she gave him a knowing smile only a mother could give.
"Just friends?"
"Just school friends, yeah," he muttered under his breath, the ghost of a blush still covering his cheeks.
His mother smiled, letting out a small giggle. "Okay, Ares, if you say so."
10 Years Later...
Ares Walker just wanted to own a sweet shop. He would spend his mornings and afternoons drooling outside of the bakery in his District. Christmas being his favorite time of year when they would pour the fudge out on the big steel table, decked in holly and prepare it before his eyes. HIs family never had the money to buy him some but that smell was enough for the child. Oh, how he longed to taste the sweet fudge so, at breakfast on his fifth birthday, he announced he would be a sweet maker. The first in town with affordable sweets for everyone. Twelve years on, Ares knew it was nothing but a pipe dream. His family lived in the slums, the chance that he would be able to afford the sugar let alone the shop was impossible. And even if he did, he couldn't allow it to go for less than a profit unless he wanted to be run into the ground.
Yes, being an adult was boring, logic taking over dreams. However, being a Warrior was worse. Sure, he could get his shop with the money if he won but he wasn't sure it would feel right. A killer selling sweets to kids, he might as well mix in the blood of the other tributes, wouldn't make him feel any worse about selling his fudge to children. Although, this morbid reality did not stop his love for sweets or his childish nature.
The tall man had a love for cartoons, most of all a small one about a bunny that would hop around the Districts, giving children information on them. Each season was five episodes long and each season showed a different District and Ares owned all twelve. They were incorrect and childish but they reminded Ares of his pet rabbit back home. A small fluffball of black and white fur that he found near the cotton mills a year before he was volunteered. He was called Hop but sadly, Ares came home one day to find out he was that night's dinner. The boy learned fast that for a family as poor as his, no food was off limits.
The death of his pet always plagued Ares so when he saw the spitting image of Hop, District Bunny, he became scarily attached. Even now as a seventeen-year-old boy with just over two weeks until he would be forced to kill all of his friends, he was happily watching and singing along to the show. In his hand, he held a bowl full of sugar coated balls that all tasted like banana, the sugar sticking to the stubble around his mouth. His woolen onesie covered in the white granules too. If Romilda was the big brother of the group, he was the baby brother. Even Grover did not have the heart to make fun of his friends morning antics, he was just left to relive the childhood that was stolen from him.
Today, the other tributes were gathered in the breakfast area, helping Pallas clean the dishes, their way of thanking him for cooking their breakfast. All but Vulcan who had skipped out on his breakfast to focus on fixing his ancient camera. He sat cross legged on the sofa, screw driver in his mouth as he tenderly placed the pieces back in their designated spots. He glanced up at Ares and raised and eyebrow at the boy's sugar coated self. "My father used to grow that stuff," he sighed, gesturing towards the bowl Ares was holding.
"What was it like?" Ares asked through a mouthful of sweets. "They never showed the sugar plantation on the show."
Vulcan gave a shrug. "He never complained about it but I was only a kid, why would he? I don't think it was an easy life, though...he always begged me to do something with my life unlike he did with his." The two fell silent after this, Ares clearly anxious to unpause his show but not wanting to be impolite to the shy boy.
"I am sure he could not have done better, there were not many chances to better yourself in Eight, I assume Eleven was the same." He said with a pitiful smile.
Vulcan hummed in response. "Maybe that's why they volunteered me...maybe fighting for your life against twenty-three other children is better than whatever work my father did." After saying this, Ares gave the boy an understanding nod, receiving a smile in return. The second the boy's attention was drawn back to his camera, Ares quickly unpaused his show. He was not completely sure how volunteering your child for death was better than working but if that is what helped Vulcan sleep at night, Ares was not about to shatter it.
Coutille Harrow, District 8 Female:
"We need you, the future of Panem rests on your shoulders," Coutille's adopted father said, his eyebrows knotted. It was a slight exaggeration, Coutille volunteering, being chosen or even winning would not decide the fate Panem faced, she might aid it at the most but she would never be someone the people followed. Not from what she could see anyway.
Her adopted parents only adopted her for her birth parents ties to the rebellion and to get chosen as a Warrior. So here she was, seated at the kitchen table, a map and an old, battered history book before her. The map was marked, showing where each District was and the known weak spots. This, along with her lessons in the rebel language was just another nightly event she had come to expect.
"Remember, they are the enemy, no matter how nice they may seem...they kill our people every day and they want to kill you too," Mr. Harrow growled, pointing at a badly drawn depiction of Peacekeepers burning a woman and her newborn baby alive. Coutille's breath hitched as she looked up at her father, her green eyes glossy with tears.
"But, what if I fail?" She asked.
"Then you fail all of your brothers and sisters."
10 Years Later...
Coutille stood before the large crowd of people, a spot light blinding her. To her right was the rest of the warriors, waiting impatiently for her to speak. She was not sure why the scripted words were so hard for her to utter, after all these years of pretending to love the Games. Maybe it was because she knew she was lying to the public about where her heart truly lay. Maybe it was seeing the hopeful face of a child, knowing she had aided in their brainwashing. However, on that stage, she felt sick.
She Shifted slightly, her lip quivering as she read the words before her. She glanced up at the crowd with her green eyes and cleared her throat, ready to give them what they wanted and get it over with.
"In a few weeks, I will partake in a Game I have trained all my life for, a Game that will decide which of us took our teachings from the merciful Capitol and turned them into a victory," as she spoke, the crowd around her roared to life, cheering for their supposed mercy that had shown the tributes. "It has been an honor to be part of your lives for the past ten years and I sincerely hope that I may live to honor The Capitol for much more."
After it was done, she was not sure what she was so nerve wracked about. The speech was laced with Capitol arrogance, something Coutille did not posses. Any of her brothers and sisters back in the District could tell it was fake, the smiles, the waves. Even as she walked to join the Warriors, she could tell they felt the same way as her, forced to do something, to lie about their love for the Games in order to protect someone. Maybe their family, themselves or maybe some were like Coutille. Rebels undercover searching for a platform to speak the truth, a platform being a victor would achieve. However, even if she was to fall in the arena, she knew my life would not have been wasted. In these ten years she had been there, the coded messages to her movement back home had gained information about The Capitol they could not have known otherwise. Even the money gained from her sacrifice had funded the rebellion, leading them closer to victory.
However, every pro-Capitol speech she gave made me feel more lost and small. They might have been Capitolites but they deserved the truth. They were nothing more than brainwashed. If Coutille could just show them the pain and slaughter they cheered on and inflicted, then maybe, just maybe, they would not be so cold. They would cry, some might even join the movement. She thought that every negative event could have a positive effect if the stars aligned.
However, as the Games drew closer, Coutille began to distrust herself. She wanted to win, to place the crown on head and know she was safe from death. Sadly, as the days passed by, she was starting to wonder if that was because she wanted to help the rebellion or if she just did not want to die.