AUTHOR'S NOTES: There are still a few more adventures to be had with our friend Clove Kazera, and the Victry Tour as well as the lead-up to it are just a couple of these things. So sit tight, strap yourselves in, and get ready for a wild ride.
Happy Reading!

CHAPTER 24: District Heroes

Despite comforting the younger girl, Enobaria had failed to mention to Clove that she would almost inevitably have nightmares, and that the inevitable Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that plagued every victor ever, would keep those nightmares persistent, among other things.

Her mentality of villainizing Rue Keniye came back to haunt her that same evening, with her mind conjuring up images of the fight on the cornucopia. The biggest difference was that instead of Cato that she was fighting, Clove was fighting Rue—and losing rather spectacularly. Rue had knocked Clove to the ground and then shoved her off the cornucopia, where she began to get mauled by the mutts waiting for her below. She struggled and found herself unable to move much as they slowly tore her flesh from her bones, and she woke up screaming—and perhaps comically, tangled up in her blankets on the floor. Well, that explained why it was hard to move and breathe anyways.

"For someone so small, you really are loud," a male voice quipped. Clove recognized it as Elroy. Moaning, she lifted her hand out of the sheets, as if to ask for help. Elroy clutched her hand, pulling Clove to her feet and out of the sheets. "Are you alright?"
"I'm going to assume that you're being facetious," Clove sighed.

"Nah, I'm seriously asking a kid who just endured 17 days of hell if she's feeling okay." The playful sarcasm was practically dripping from Elroy's tone at this point.

"Are nightmares a common occurrence?" She looked Elroy in the eyes.

"Yes," he replied bluntly, "Enobaria still has them. There's a reason you don't want to make her feel threatened. She bites."

Clove cringed at the thought, but nodded as she closed her own eyes. "I just want to get out of here. Please tell me that the agenda for the remainder of the day is simple."

"Pretty much," Elroy nodded, "they're going to parade you from here to the train station in nothing but bangles and shoes, and then we haul you back to District 2 to build a life-size monument of you."

"Bull," Clove cracked a smirk. "Elroy, I always wondered what was wrong with you before the games… now I realize it—you're just as crazy as the rest of us."

"Sometimes, the best way to get your mind off of the arena is to resort to whatever it takes," Elroy advised, taking a more serious expression, "we might not be the most sympathetic lot, but at least here in District 2, we victors watch over our own."
"Well, let me get dressed then," Clove replied, "and then I guess we can eat and then get the hell out of here. I'll probably end up coming here for years and years."

"With that sort of negative attitude you certainly will," Elroy quipped, "District 2's not full of pushovers like '10 or something is, you know. We've got the best damn track record in Panem, and heck if we're going to let you blow that off."

"Oh, relax, Elroy; that's not what I meant," Clove pushed him before ambling towards her dresser to pick out something more decent to wear. Maybe it was being around the Capitol stylists and prep teams that had desensitized her, but modesty was not really one of Clove's concerns as she spoke to her mentor.

"What I meant was…" she rummaged through the drawers, "was that I'll probably stick around as a mentor for a long time. I might even volunteer if I like it enough. Sure, the games rocked my world, and sure, a few things are still uncomfortable to talk about. That doesn't change who I am though. I might have my moments, and hell, they might even have to sedate me a few more times. But I'm not about to turn into this little crybaby just because of a few nightmares."

A few moments later, she was lacing up a pair of combat boots, to compliment the jacket and cargo pants she had elected to don for the day—a simplistic military-styled outfit reminiscent of the attire a lot of people wore back in District 2.

"Welp, now that that's over with, let's eat and cut the crap, so I can get on that train and get home." Clove smacked her lips, only to have Elroy chuckle and nod in agreement.

Even Athena was fairly quiet that morning, for one reason or another, and Clove was a bit too tired to ask her what was going on. True to Elroy's earlier statement, shortly after breakfast, He, Enobaria, Clove, and Athena were all escorted to the train station.

"next stop, District 2!" the bubbly escort sang, "We're going to miss our District Hero for the next six months; that much is certain!"

District Hero… what constituted a 'District Hero' to Clove? Were they the men and women that fought and survived in the Hunger Games arenas? Clove would hardly agree if so; No one decent ever won the games, and those that were decent usually dealt with post-traumatic stress on levels that most others could only have nightmares about.

She liked that term though. Cato was a District Hero to Clove, for one; and it made her wonder who else could be considered such.

For the longest time, Enobaria's erratic mentality regarding the Capitol had been an enigma to her. It was a dangerous mentality to have in District 2, and perhaps now Clove realized why the older woman had been so subtle about it.

The train ride back home was not terribly long, although Clove did not actually do much during it apart from a few card games with her mentors, and a brief discussion about how the victory tour would go in 6 months. Despite some of the districts (such as '2) often having two mentors, Clove wondered if both Elroy and Enobaria would be accompanying her, or if it would just be one or the other. Not that she didn't like Elroy; but she had things she wanted to talk to Enobaria about—she wasn't even sure what these things were just yet, but figured that they would surface on the tour.

Otherwise, her thoughts wandered to how the visits would go. District 1 wouldn't be a problem. Districts 3 and 4 would probably not like her much, but she knew that '3 had a strained relationship with both '1 and '2 because of conflicting ideals. '5 might be fine with seeing her; while 6-10 would probably just be standard fare, unless District 8 made a scene like they had the year before when they had produced victor Paige DeSiete. '11 and '12 would be interesting, and maybe even troublesome. Clove had been a thorn in their sides the entire game, even if she had been directly responsible for killing Thresh and Rue herself. It was weird, when she thought about it. Here she was with some slight concern over how people would react to her, when she had just finished crawling out of an arena where literally everything and everyone was or had been trying to kill her.

During the ride, Athena also cheerfully mentioned that she wondered what Clove would start doing as a hobby—a trick or talent the Capitol sort of expected victors to take on after winning the games. Granted, everything Athena did appeared to be cheerful in Clove's eyes. She briefly wondered how much trouble she would get in if she connected her fist with Athena's face, but she decided not to test her luck. She imagined it would give Elroy a nice laugh though.

After her nap, Clove glanced out the window and noticed familiar buttes and mesas that reminded her of home—which meant that surely they were getting close. During these final minutes of the trip, Clove briefly sketched the first thing she thought of when she thought of home. Oddly enough, it was just a simple graphic—the District 2 seal, with its stone block and the crisscrossed pair of tools. Right beneath that, near the lower arc of the circle, was the eye—the reminder of the Peacekeeper force that served all of Panem. In truth, only a little over 40% of the peacekeepers came from the largely populated District 2, but they were the best known for them due to it housing the training facilities.

Masonry—Clove glanced again at the seal she had drawn, and then it hit her. Maybe she could find solace and purpose in her life by doing what District 2 was publicly known for doing. Perhaps she could build monuments to these "District Heroes"—whoever she thought qualified as one. It certainly beat being the child of two "District Zeros".

Within a few minutes of her finishing her little abstract sketch, Clove felt the train grind to a halt as they pulled into the District 2 station. As Clove and her team were greeted by throngs of cheering crowds, her eyes wandered through the audience—and sadly, found no one that she knew closely. She did not really have many close friends; sure she had classmates at the training academies, and she recognized a few of them; but for the most part, it was just another reaffirmation that Clove Kazera was indeed alone.

Still, after everything that had happened over the last few weeks… it was good to be back. It was good to know that she would not have to fight for her life in that arena ever again. For now, that was enough. Clove would take what she could get.