Metacognition
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If my body is a pitcher I fill and empty
How strong do we need to be
'Executive Action', Nina Puro
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Saxaul Eslami, District 7, Victor of the 84th Hunger Games
The knot in his throat, tightening progressively since he hauled his single duffel bag off the train the previous morning, had only grown as a second day passed in the Capitol.
He hadn't thought that it would be this difficult, coming back for good, without a clear escape hatch or a one-day timeline to make it bearable. He'd returned for their sort-of-weekly dinners, of course, but not for ceremonies, nothing to do with the Games. Despite all this, he'd made a good show of normalcy, he thought, spending the first night in the hotel, very conventional. Timothy seemed well, which was good. Had apparently gone on Intensive Care with Cora a few weeks back, another episode about alcoholism, managed to stay off it since then.
It was a marvel that the poor man was still alive.
That any of them were, if he thought about it for too long, but Timothy in particular had never really belonged in the world of victors. As though any of them had, as though it was something that someone could belong to rather than a delightful dead albatross that a subset of the population happened to treat like a medal. He tried to be kind, as best he could - they were the same age, had won in consecutive years, it was technically supposed to mean something.
Annoyingly enough, the meanings to be found in almost everything to do with victory, when one squinted and pried off the obfuscating top layer of ceremony and decorum, were just… sad.
He was ready for something to not be fucking depressing for once.
That was how he ended up checking out of the hotel, his bag swung back on his shoulder, navigating through the neon-lit streets and glimmering sidewalks until he reached Cora's building.
After such a long absence, his key card no longer permitted him entry to any building he wished; he had to buzz her down to let him in, relieved, at least, to see that she was staying somewhere with decent security. Had apparently just gotten into the city herself, after missing the mentors' meeting.
Lucky her!
It started to rain as he waited - perfect, his hair was already a wreck.
She opened the door in a rush, pajama-clad and apologizing profusely (it wouldn't be Cora if she didn't greet him by apologizing for eighteen different things, none of which he gave a fuck about) and all he could do was hug her, breathe, try to pretend, as before, that this was just a normal meeting, just two friends brought back together by totally-not-war-crimes circumstances.
"Let me get your bag," she insisted. "Damn, what do you have in this thing?"
"Everything I own!" he said proudly, allowing her to take it, a little put out but willing to avoid an awkward argument on the doorstep.
Despite her complaint, she lifted it easily, balancing the whole thing on one shoulder as though it only weighed a few pounds. The perils of friendship with someone so demonstrably capable of breaking bones, whether or not she'd turned her talents elsewhere.
Even in what looked like house slippers, she was still a solid half a foot taller than him, which would have annoyed him more had it been anyone else. If he couldn't be six feet tall, no one could be.
Cora got a pass, but she was on thin fucking ice, he was fond of reminding her.
"Planning on moving in?" she asked, as they took the elevator to the thirty-first floor.
"Depends. You got a free couch?"
"Always free for a friend. I've missed you."
"It's been two weeks," he laughed. "I was going to be back in town anyway for the dinner, even without all the other business."
"All the other business," she repeated, nodding vaguely. "I didn't make it to the mentors' meeting, you probably…"
"Noticed? Yeah, the ratio of murderous psychopaths to tolerable people was a little off, I sort of noticed. Don't worry, Polly flaked too."
"I didn't flake! We had to wrap filming in Two, I was busy. And, uh, also I didn't want to go," she admitted, a little sheepishly, taking his rain-soaked light jacket and hanging it up as they entered her apartment.
The kettle on her countertop was still steaming. She'd probably been making tea when he buzzed to be let in. She'd never been much the interior decorating sort, but he smiled to see that she'd at least hung a few pictures on the walls. It was a homey enough space, though sparsely furnished, despite his awareness that she'd lived in this particular apartment for nearly a year, now.
"Don't worry, you didn't miss much," he sighed, taking off his shoes at the door and throwing himself inelegantly onto her couch. "God, I just want to be laying down right now. You know what's fucking great? Laying down. Standing is bullshit. Walking? Worse bullshit. I want to be supine twenty-four-fucking-seven."
"That bad, huh?" she observed. "Can I make you some tea? Food? I have food."
"Tea would be awesome, actually, thanks."
As she poured from the kettle and rifled around for, presumably, something caffeinated, he inspected the pictures she'd chosen for her walls, not having visited her apartment specifically since her last move. There was a picture of her and the family of her three-years-dead district partner, taken at a site in District 7 that he recognized as a popular hiking destination in the public forests. One that included him, a photo taken over dinner with Hero, Marina, Polly, and Manari.
He sighed, accepting the steaming mug with a nod of gratitude.
Cora seated herself on the floor next to the couch, and he frowned, glancing around the room.
"How is it possible that you have no chairs in here?"
"I don't do much entertaining on my own, lately. I'm never really home for long."
On closer inspection, she did look awfully tired, though she tended to be dark-circle-y even when she was well rested.
"You're valid."
"You're valid!" she exclaimed.
"That's not true and you know it," he laughed, blowing over the surface of his tea to cool it. "I take it back. If you think anything about me is valid, you're not valid."
"I know, I know. Come on, I'm sure something happened at the meeting, tell me everything."
He did his best to do exactly that. Most of the observations likely wouldn't come as a surprise. Sequin was clearly stretched thin, willingly delegating the role of Corsage Supervisor to Finish - that was new. Finish's hair was stupid, which wasn't new at all. Cereus and Claudia continued to conspire, in their way, not that he could parse out exactly what their deal was, though he knew he didn't like it one bit. An remained snappy as ever, Sharon got more beautiful every day (he shoehorned this in because he knew it would make Cora blush), Timothy remained sober, so good for him.
"That's exciting," Cora interjected. "I think we had a really good talk when he came on Intensive Care. There's a lot to work through, there, but it was kind of cathartic, actually."
"I figure you've heard the rest, the announcement, all that stuff?" he sighed.
"Yeah," she said. "Hey, it could be a lot worse. It's exactly what she told us it would be. She's holding to it."
"Cora, I love you, but it could also be a lot fucking better."
He didn't like it at all, her running informal public relations for Marina, though with full sincerity, of course, completely believing her reassurances. He understood it, he supposed. She'd been through the wringer. Marina beat Claudia, at least as far as 'people worth trusting' went.
'Not trying actively to kill them or destroy them psychologically' was a step up from Claudia, so, well, low bar.
That wasn't very charitable of him. He regretted the thought almost instantly. The betrayal was the Games, the sheer uncharacteristic idiocy of the move. She was better than what she was a part of, or he had believed that she was better than… this, that she would be the person to protect them from the Games, from the horror of them.
It was a childish belief, and letting go of his faith in Marina had been… painful. Like forfeiting any childhood illusion about a just world. Just more proof that he'd never properly managed to grow up, he supposed. Three years spent trying to make up for it.
"You're right," Cora said, almost immediately, not really giving him too much time to dwell on it. He was grateful for that. "But that's for us, the fixing. We can fix things!"
"That's the dream," he said, trying not to sound too glum, since it usually worried her.
"I hear that you're… doing something," she said, a little hesitantly. "And you don't have to tell me anything if you don't want, obviously, so just tell me to fuck off if it's invasive, or, really, if it's something that needs to be kept secret, especially from Marina, because I'd definitely tell her, you know."
He laughed aloud.
"She definitely already knows. You know the election this coming year?"
Parliament, not the Presidency. That one rolled around on the decade, while Parliamentary seats were decided every two years.
"Not really," she admitted. "It's far away. Practically as far off as the… the Games. But is that…"
"Yeah," he said, swallowing over the words before he voiced them aloud. "Um. I've got the papers done up. I'm running."
A beat passed between them.
"Hey," she said. "That's really awesome, Saxaul, you're gonna be great."
"...but?"
"Aren't you going to die? With the mentoring thing, all the… that's a lot of things to do at once."
"I've done a lot of things at once before," he said, trying not to let defensiveness color his tone. "And look. If we want anything done right, any of this, we're going to have to do it ourselves. It's the only way I can think of, though if you've got some great alternative, be my guest. People are getting lined up to die as we fucking speak and no one is doing anything about it."
She held up her palms, a gesture of surrender.
"No, I get it, and you're right. I'll vote for you! How are you… what's the process? What's the deal? Can I help?"
He sighed, reaching down to take her hand.
"Well, I'm the Oppositionist Party candidate for Sector Eighteen, if you know what that means at all."
"Oh! You have a party and everything! Ah. Yeah, no, I don't know what that means beyond the general gist of it, but I'm… in favor of it!"
The whole thing was the product of several months of work. He'd gotten Manari on board, the young man having spent the last few years becoming everything short of a politician himself in a way that Saxaul absolutely was not. While they certainly hadn't gotten along as easily as he did with other survivors of the 89th Games (which was to say, the present company), the progress they'd made had yielded a grudging sort of respect.
"You're not doing this whole thing alone, right?" Cora asked, abruptly sounding very anxious. "I'm serious, if you need help…"
"Save an ad spot during Intensive Care for me," he suggested. "Seriously. I've got people."
Well, person, for now.
"Manari," she guessed. "I knew he wasn't in Seven for some kind of cultural tour!"
He laughed at the idea.
"No, he mostly reads, acts as an intermediary with Hero while pretending that's not his source of information, and makes incisive comments about my lifestyle."
"Oh, he's really good at that last one," Cora observed, biting back a laugh.
"What's there to criticize you about?"
"What isn't there? Have you met me?" she sighed.
"Don't you go down that route," he said warningly. "He's been really helpful, sorted through a lot of metrics by sector to figure out where I had a shot, made an excellent go-between with the Oppositionist leaders… they only needed minimal selling, which was… really surprising."
"Surprising? You're the best at, like, opposing. Of course they'd want you on their team," Cora said, rolling over slightly to offer him an upside-down grin.
"It's really weird," he admitted. "I've never even… it was never an option. Even now, it kind of feels like I'm playing dress-up or some shit. You know I'm running for Cornelia Wiltshire's old seat?"
"...who?"
"Oh, Marina's old employer. Her local demographic was the most willing to elect a seditious idiot with tenuous claim to even run for the position, per Manari's tireless research. But it's weird. She did a lot of good shit. Big shoes."
"You're not…"
"I definitely am. Manari keeps me humble."
"Dunno if I'd go that far," Cora laughed. "Is 'humble' in your range?"
"Nothing's out of my range!" he insisted, then chuckled.
"Definitely not dramatic irony, huh?"
"Fuck off."
"I'd be happy to, but I worry you'd get lonely," she replied with a smile. "Glad someone's hanging out with Manari, too."
"Speaking of people who got scooped out of the arena with you…"
"Yuna's still not public, but we flew an old friend of hers in a few months ago. Things have been getting better since then. Sort of. I mean. I killed her. Hard to shake off."
They couldn't exactly discuss this sort of thing at the victors' dinners. Certain people's continued living existence remained on a need-to-know basis. It was all very convoluted, the job of sorting out who had been or could be told what.
"Hey," he said, not wanting to think about the intricacies of… well, anything… anymore. "Want to see something my sister showed me?"
"Nyssa?" Cora said expectantly. "Yeah, show me, come on."
"Okay. I'm not as good at telling it as she is, but watch."
He shifted to a sitting position on the couch, ushering her up to join him.
"I'm watching."
"Suppose someday you meet someone very evil, possibly an evil prince - I don't know where she got the monarchy angle, don't ask - and they demand that you swear fealty by kissing their hand."
"Fealty?"
"Yes. Fealty."
"No one's ever asked me to swear fealty to anything."
"Imagine, okay? Suppose."
"Fine, I'm supposing. How am I going to get out of swearing fealty? There must be a trick," she said willingly, nodding along.
"Watch."
He extended his hand, twining his fingers with hers.
"So, they take your hand like this, and they demand that you bow and kiss their hand, because that's how fealty works."
"Obviously."
"And then…" he leaned in, smiling as she flinched, so much less, now, than she had in the first few months after she left the arena when anyone got too close.
Without breaking eye contact, he kissed his own fingers.
"See, then it doesn't count!" he insisted as she laughed and took her hand back, shoving him playfully, though with enough muscle behind the blow to knock the wind out of him. "No fealty! Because you didn't kiss them. Cora, c'mon, isn't that a great trick? Tell me you can't find a way to use that!"
"When am I… what… so many questions. How did Nyssa pick that up? When did she meet an evil prince or whatever and have to figure that out?"
"She's a great creative mind, like her brother," he sniffed, feigning offense.
"Do you hear yourself? Can you hear the things you say?" Cora exclaimed, through another peal of laughter.
"Of course, I'm brilliant and hilarious and it's all very deliberate."
"I've really missed you," she said. "I'm glad you're here. And you, uh, you sound like you. Everyone had me worried."
"By 'everyone', you mean 'Marina'."
"No, I mean everyone. Even Sharon's worried about you, a little, at least, people… care about you, it's not just me, and it's definitely not just Marina, even though she probably misses you more than I do."
"Is Hero…"
"Agonizing constantly about everything, utterly unchanged every time I see him."
"...by 'everything', do you mean…"
"I don't mean 'Marina'!" she huffed, sounding just a little exasperated with him. "You're the one who keeps bringing her up."
Her television lit up abruptly, beginning to glow pink and hum.
"Speak of the devil," he observed.
"You stop that," she said reproachfully. "It's her line to the victors. How come your tablet's not humming?"
"It's been dead for days."
"Saxaul! Take care of yourself, please!"
"I'll start when you start," he shot back, and she sighed, gesturing open the message with a flick of her wrist that conveyed slightly more attitude than usual.
Rather than responding with some cutting remark - he could imagine a few that might work - she frowned at the message displayed onscreen, shook her head like she couldn't quite believe what she was reading.
"We're getting … different districts?"
"Scoot, let me see!" he complained.
"No," she said vaguely, though she gave him her spot on the couch, standing as though to get a better look. "A lottery? Saxaul! There's a list attached! We all get our own districts to mentor!"
He inspected the message closely himself.
"Randomly assigned," he said, grimacing. "A bold lie. If there's another goddamned ceremony..."
"Are you done reading? I want to see the list."
She was rocking on the balls of her feet, now, looking almost excited. It took a second, but he got it. For practically the last two years, she'd been worrying about mentoring at Claudia's side, what that would look like, what it would mean for someone whose identity was already so inextricably wrapped up in District 2. He could hardly blame her. Even his complicated (read: two stabbing attempts) history with the senior mentor looked like nothing compared to the mess she'd made of Cora.
Not that there was anything wrong with her, but even three years later, the brush strokes of something terrible remained visible. Her worry hadn't been at all unfounded. This must be a relief.
He was grateful to Marina for that, at least.
"Of course, let's see the list," he sighed, fighting to muster up the same positive energy that he'd been able to harness a few minutes earlier.
As she deftly flicked open the accompanying message, he couldn't help but search for District Seven's assignment immediately. Not as though district loyalty had ever done him or anyone any good - that was one of the things he knew that he and Marina still agreed about, what a shitshow the social mechanics to enforce arbitrary borders were and had been and would continue to be until someone did something about it.
This would have made sense as a step, in a kind of messy way, if it hadn't been for such an awful purpose. Taking a moral stance on district nationalism while essentially executing twenty-three kids…
An would be taking his place in District 7.
He frowned.
Odd choice, but okay. He had nothing in particular against the severe victor from District 6, knew her to be reasonably fair and competent as well, often brutally so.
"I got District Six!" Cora read off the screen, literally hopping, now, with excitement. "Oh man! Wow! My own… oh no…"
She slowed after a second, and he crossed his arms, waiting for it to sink in.
"Oh," she murmured. "I think I have to sit down."
"Take your time," he said, glancing back at the list, starting from the top, though he felt his attention drifting to familiar names.
Timothy in One, a shitshow waiting to happen. Maybe that was the goal? The least apt mentor placed in one of the most viciously competitive districts.
"Wait. I'm in Four?"
What?
"...is that good?" Cora asked weakly. "Oh no. When do we meet them?"
"I… I don't know," he said, squinting as though that would clarify the significance of the decision on, no doubt, Marina's part.
Claudia, of course, was still in Two. As though she could be pried away from her district's Center, from her comfortable role in the context of the Games, without the aid of several tons of napalm.
"Well, it's probably… not the district that's going to need the most help?" Cora suggested. "Since you'll be busy, you know, with your campaign."
He ran his hand through his hair, forming a fist at the nape of his neck, closing his eyes, just trying to think, damn it, what did it mean?
It worried him, almost, how quickly his thoughts turned skeptical.
Was that really him, the impulse to treat the decision as a slight? As though he couldn't mentor tributes who truly needed the help. (As though ability to send children to slaughter with particular panache was a viable measure of a person's character in some way, he reminded himself.) But it was a vicious blow, really, all of this, the whole situation, that sent him stumbling back three years into the past, watching Oliver die first at the Cornucopia, his heart sinking despite how hard he'd fought to prepare himself, how he'd tried to make the last night survivable for him, Fidan, god, watching Fidan die, after three weeks of watching her live, after everything he'd done to try to help her, everything he did every fucking year, over and over again, never making any difference…
"Fuck," he sighed. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
"Fuck," Cora agreed, her voice cracking like she might cry.
He looked up in alarm to see her with her chin tucked to her knees, staring up at the still-pulsing-pink screen.
"I thought I'd come to terms with it," she said quietly. "But Claudia's gonna have two more. Just like me and Marcus. And I'm. I'm not good at this. I don't know how to be good at this. What… what could she do, could she… my… I'm going to be responsible for them, two whole people, I can barely…. I can barely be responsible for myself… they're going to die."
There were no comforting words forthcoming.
Vividly, he had the sense that more or less the same knot of confused guilt must be coiling in each of their throats.
"Yeah," he said. "They're going to die."
"What's it like?" she asked, looking up at him, surprisingly small for such a disconcertingly tall woman. "You've done it before, it's… do you get… what happens?"
"I don't know what it'll be like this year," he conceded, sitting down beside her and laying a comforting arm over her shoulders. "But every year it's… exactly what you expect. Two people who don't deserve what's about to happen to them. And then you try to convince them to kill the other kids, who also don't deserve it. Try to tell them it'll be okay. And you're with them for a week, and it's enough of a… it's so destabilizing that you can't not bond with them, usually, you're all they have, and that feels so fucking real and even if you promise yourself it won't consume you this year, it always does. And you'd do anything for them. Even though the best you can offer them is the worst of what happened to you."
"You … Saxaul, you must have been the best mentor."
"Didn't make them any less dead."
Not Fidan, not Oliver. Not Bret and Lyrata, Etzy and William, Shajara and Naeem, Yoneq and Rowan… and that was just his district. Technically his responsibility. Hundreds dead since the Mockingjay Rebellion alone, so many of them out of reach of his help, as though he had anything to offer them.
"It's not for a year," Cora said softly, leaning into his arms. "What if we can stop it. We can… we can stop it. We can... blow up a building, maybe? I bet Polly would help. She likes that sort of thing."
"Because our being branded terrorists will help everyone so much," he sighed. "I'm just going to run for a stupid seat in fucking Parliament. And that's going to be great. And everyone's going to take me so seriously. And I'll do something meaningful. Because that's how politics works."
"You don't have to do it, you know."
"Yeah, I do."
"How come?"
"No one else is doing anything that's going to fucking work. I can't… I can't have another year of feeling helpless. There's only so much I've ever been able to do for them, and it's all been so fucking useless. I just want something I do to fucking matter. There's no point in being the last person who waters the saplings before they cut them down. Over and over and over again. It's hell on earth, Cora."
And every time he'd tried to make it better, things had only gotten worse. His brilliant plan with Niagara, oh, they were clever alright, it was so fucking clever of him to try the media, drag her into it, along with him… all these brilliant, creative plans.
All these dead friends.
He held her closer. Wondered why he wasn't crying. He usually was by this point in the process of thinking too closely about the role he played in the context of society. How useless he really was, how it really was for the best that the reason he'd recognize half of Parliament, if he even got the seat, 'sure thing' or not, would be from fucking them.
And wouldn't that be powerful incentive to keep him out?
How all his tributes had died anyway. How Niagara had died anyway. None of it had mattered. All of it washed away in a hot shower, anyway. All the death, all the blood, all the everything else. And it was just him, in the end, clean and true and his own kind of disgusting.
"Hey, uh," he said quietly. "Don't let me… make this harder for you. You can make it better for them. You'll be a great mentor. It matters, when someone cares about you. These idiot kids are going to need someone to look out for them, and you know - jeez, you know better than anyone, it matters that it's you rather than Claudia, right?"
She nodded mutely, seemingly past words.
"It's not… it's not hopeless," he said, though the words felt like ashes on his tongue.
That was the least he could do, right? Dial back the honesty. Protect someone, just a bit, from the pain of anticipating what was coming. Something terrible was coming. A flood of something-terribles.
All of his plans felt about as substantial a protective force as a dam made of toothpicks.
"It's not hopeless," she finally whispered, echoing back his words. "It'll be the last time, and we'll make sure of it. I'll do… not just me. We'll do what needs to be done. You and me and everyone else. We can fix this. I know we can."
He hoped Marina realized what the fuck she was doing. What she'd agreed to, what the coming year was going to do to all of them. Inevitably.
It was funny, almost, that Nyssa was the one who'd come up with the seemingly nonsensical advice, the twined fingers and the perfidious kiss. She'd always been just an ounce more sensible, just slightly more reliable than he was, which seemed like a small distinction in theory, but had clearly brought them to massively different places in life.
The thing was, if there was anything he'd ever been good at, it was kissing without swearing over an ounce of fealty, or anything else, for that matter. Leveraging some kind of… some kind of something-wrong-with-him for a shot at helping someone else. Even if it hadn't worked so far. Perhaps he'd been playing the wrong game.
In the arms of his friend, he took a deep, shuddering breath, and thought… well, we'll do what needs to be done.
His tea had grown cold where he'd left it, on the little end table beside the couch. Cora coughed awkwardly, drying her eyes and straightening her hair.
"So, I guess we should talk strategy, then," she said, seemingly aiming for a 'conversational' tone, barely landing a notch better than 'stricken'.
He could have laughed.
"I was thinking I might get really, really drunk and do a marathon rewatch of Game of Love. Just for tonight, you know. Before we actually face the real world."
And the things they would have to do in it if they wanted to make a difference for anyone.
"Sounds good to me," Cora said, smiling sadly. "Just like old times."
"Old times? Christ, you're twenty-one, shut up," he sighed, finally getting a sincere laugh out of her, startled though she seemed to be.
"Shut up? I'm not the one who's been monologuing tonight."
"I said what I said," he insisted, leaning on her shoulder and taking a long drink of room-temperature tea.
Cora waved away the list, the message, the reminder from her television that the missive required a response within twenty-four hours to confirm that she'd received it. For a second, it really could have been that almost-a-year after the 89th Games, when they believed it was over and they were free.
What a stupid thought, that they could ever be free. When all of them, save for poor Timothy, of course, had a body count on their shoulders just for the privilege of continued life. They couldn't be free of that, and they couldn't be free of the Games. That was just the contract. Signed, yes, but also drenched in blood.
For the moment, the best they could do was open a bottle of tequila together and pretend, for a few hours, that it wasn't happening, that the world wasn't waiting for them outside of the sparse but cosy shelter of Cora's living room.
And really, it almost worked.
Just like old times.
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Delightfully enough, we are up to fourteen tributes! I'll post One's introductions within the next three days, and hopefully by then I'll have a pair of Twos. The form remains on my profile, and if you have questions, or submissions, my inbox remains open. :)