Previously in The Road Most Traveled: Ingrid Kolster falls in love with Jacob Everdeen, but eventually follows her family's advice to turn him down. Phillip Mellark proves to be an excellent second choice, and she marries her new man the same day Jacob marries his new woman. Her and Phillip are incredibly happy together. However, they're shaken by taking in the brutality of the Games. Even so, the victor, Ingrid/Phillip and Jacqueline/Jacob start families. An existing family is threatened when Jacob's brother is sent into the next year's arena.
A/N
I recently started thinking about the series in a racial context, thanks to the katnissisoliveskinneddealwithit tumblr. I was already well into this story with Seam/Town as classism only, but I'll keep the new perspective in mind going forward.
Chapter
I was the only person besides the Everdeens to go to the Justice Building to say goodbye to Daniel. "I remember when I visited and you complimented me. I think the odds will be in your favor to make yourself legendary," I said. I tried to stay positive – I figured that would help alleviate the feeling of dread. It was cruel to instill false hope – that was the Capitol's job, not mine. However, if he took after his brother, he might actually have a chance.
Andrew cried when the Peacekeepers took Daniel away. He wasn't quite three months old and he already seemed to know something wasn't right – smart baby. The 47 year old Andrew was too tough to cry, but the father was just as pained as the nephew.
For the tribute parade, District Twelve's stylists reprised a tired old gimmick – our tributes appeared in the chariots naked and covered in coal dust.
Apple Smith was especially heartbreaking to watch - like many of our past tributes, including both last year, she was a pitiful sight putting on a brave face. The quick Capitol touchup couldn't hide several years of starvation, and ironically seemed to hurt her in making an impression. The black powder highlighted her ribs.
However, the soot was highlighting other features on Daniel. He was thin, but thanks to the food Jacob stole, he wasn't as dangerously underweight as his district partner. Intellectually, I found it disgusting how he was being paraded before leering Capitol citizens. On the other hand, I had to tell myself You're a married woman. You're a married woman. Jackie was even more conflicted – I could have been married to his brother, she actually was.
The outfit or lack thereof seemed effective for Daniel; maybe the stylists were trying to appear balanced by doing the same thing for both tributes.
The volunteers felt like the usual faceless horde; I had to make myself remember that those six kids were victims of the Capitol much like Daniel, Apple and the other sixteen. Annie Hickok, the girl from District Ten, was the only other impressive non-volunteer. Her training score of nine matched Daniel's.
"The dust isn't so fun when you're breathing it in," Daniel told Caesar. It sounded like a joke about the costume, but it was a serious concern in District Twelve, a deadly serious one – Jackie was already worrying about how it was going to shorten Jacob's lifespan. Jacob's father Andrew and older brother Adam were already well on their way to that fate. It pained me as a healer that I could do so little about it.
"That costume or lack thereof made quite an impression," Caesar opened. "And I bet a lot of the women and some of the men in this country want you to make quite an impression on them," he joked, taking it a bit to glibly even for him.
"Fine by me. One of my brothers is taken, but I'm not," he shot back.
"Tell us about him," Caesar said, seizing the opportunity.
"The odds have been in his favor with the ladies. He dated two of the prettiest women in the district and married one of them." Jacqueline and I cast celebratory glances at each other over being complimented on national television. "I have to say, my nephew is the coolest little dude."
"I bet he is, I bet he is," Caesar said enthusiastically. "I think you'll be seeing them again. I can't bet, but if I could, I'd bet on you." Flickerman said something similar to several tributes – apparently he was hedging his bets.
"I will be coming home, and I look forward to taking all the other Everdeens to Victors Village with me. Now the odds are in my favor," he closed confidently. As for the talk about supporting his family; what else would you do with the massive perks of victory? The inner district kids were dangerous and had made that clear, but no one had a story like Daniel's. Those of us close to the Everdeens figured that the skills honed in illicit woodland excursions would prove useful in the arena.
The whole district had reason to be hopeful, but most of the town seemed ambivalent. They didn't truly know the hell the Everdeens had a chance to escape from through Daniel. I couldn't fully understand their situation either, but I at least tried. It seems there were few decent people amongst what passed for the well to do of District 12. We didn't know the hunger where a year of free food from the Capitol would be a literal lifesaver. Most of us couldn't identify with the dark skinned boy from across the district, the likes of which were our customers, the classmates of our children. Many gravitated towards people from across the country just because they were other palefaces. The District Two boy Phoenix Augustus was a particular favorite this year.
The arena looked dry and hot. Capitol residents surely had machines to chill the air and vent away the heat. The Capitol kept us in the dark about life in other districts, so I'm not sure how the other eleven managed the heat – or didn't. I was already seeing people collapse in puddles of sweat not to rise; it reminded me of those freezing to death during the winter.
Once the gong went off, Daniel was amongst the tributes rushing into the mouth of the Cornucopia. He and Titanium, the boy from One, were fighting over a pack of knives – no scrapes, since the blades weren't unsheathed yet.
As expected, Apple was one of the first to die. She was speared by Octavia with a smile on the District Two girl's face. Daniel must have caught it out of the corner of his eye. He viciously elbowed Titanium to temporarily gain the upper hand in that fight. He raised the same left arm into the air and folded thumb over forefinger. It was an ancient sign of respect in our district. He didn't have time to kiss the three middle fingers before raising the hand, but that was understandable. The gesture was often used as a goodbye at funerals, and it was the only attention Apple got besides slaking Capitol bloodlust. That fleeting moment had a lasting impact on those who knew what it meant.
Ten children were slaughtered in the opening moments. Annie Hickok had killed the boy from Four, and Lotus was running with a spear to avenge her district partner. Daniel opened the pack of knives he had wrested from Titanium and threw one at Lotus. It hit her in the back of the right leg as the foot landed. Fortunately, Daniel remained among the living, but unfortunately, he had to become one of the killers.
Hovercraft plucked the corpses out of the arena. Capitol morticians would clean them up and ship them back to the home districts for burial. They wouldn't be buried yet if their district partner was still alive – perhaps they would be buried together, perhaps the other one would attend the funeral as a Victor. Twelve was in this limbo, and so were Three, Five, Seven, Eight and Ten. All of this year's tributes from Four and Nine had met their end. This was surprising for the volunteers from the seafood district, but One and Two were still at full strength like usual. However, it was surprising to see no one from Six or Eleven dead yet.
The Capitol got the districts to hate each other instead of the city controlling them; the Games and favoritism to certain districts were a key part of that. They did something similar within District Twelve, as I knew all too well, and perhaps within the other districts as well.
Annie Hickok cracked a barbed whip that was positively vicious even by Gamemaker standards. Phoenix was deadly with a bow and arrow; Jacob had professional respect for one of the biggest threats to his brother's life.
A surprising amount of non-volunteers had escaped the bloodbath. They tried to hide, but the arena sands provided little cover, and the heat wore them down. The volunteers killed four more at range that evening. Three at least met a clean end by arrow or javelin, but one was bludgeoned to death with thrown rocks. I'm sure the sadistic bastards in the Capitol audience would love that.
Daniel and Annie were working together, and they ambushed the group of volunteers the next morning. Titanium paid dearly for not being able to get those knives from Daniel.
Many tributes of any gender had figured out that taking some clothes off was a way to both deal with the heat and draw sponsor attention. This was emphasized when Daniel whipped off his sweaty shirt and a parachute immediately dropped a full canteen for him. I could see how attractive Annie looked with her clothes clinging to her curves – I'm straight but I'm not blind. She was being given plenty of water too.
There were a few drinking water sources near the edge of the arena, but the distance to them and the minimal cover almost defeated the point. There wasn't much dirty water to purify or much to purify it with.
Danny and Annie ambushed the volunteers again the next morning, strangling the girls with pieces of cloth. This gave Daniel a chance to kill Apple's killer. These deaths were quiet, not disturbing a still-sleeping Phoenix. The cannons would rouse him, so the killers left quickly, leaving the supplies untouched.
The Gamemakers usually amplified the spectacle when there were only eight tributes left, but the tribute pool had shrunk from nine to seven in an instant. So the Capitol would interview who the final seven knew back home. I identified myself as one of the prettiest women in the district as per Daniel's interview speech. "He's such a gentleman, I can't wait to see him get back to us," I finished.
Many symptoms of dehydration weren't visible over a screen, but it was obvious the girls from Five, Six and Seven were suffering, along with the boy from Eleven. They collapsed at various times during the fourth day while trying to get to the oases at the arena edge.
Daniel and Annie's fragile alliance disintegrated now that there was only one other left. The brutal weather further stretched their patience until it reached a breaking point. Her sharp whip had a long reach, and she badly scraped him several times, but he backed up and threw his knives.
He didn't have medical supplies, but he bound his wounds with regular cloth to stanch the blood and keep the sand out. He rested and slept in what passed for shade. An exhausted Phoenix did the same.
They were both up at the crack of dawn, looking for each other. This let both of them move around in daylight before the arena temperature skyrocketed. When they came into each others' view, the Games came down to who could shoot best.
Phoenix blew a couple of silvery arrows while Daniel was just a bit out of range. Daniel recovered them, and while he couldn't snap them, he bent them into uselessness should Phoenix ever be able to come back from them.
Daniel's knives couldn't fly nearly as far, so he ran in to throw, let a knife loose, and retreated before Phoenix could take aim. However, this necessary haste caused him to miss. Yet the next time, he managed to hit Phoenix's left hand – the nondominant one, but he still hampered his enemy's ability to hold a bow steady.
Phoenix's next arrow merely grazed Daniel's side. Daniel bravely charged in to throw another blade, and scored a similarly indirect hit. He ducked, and felt an arrow go right over his head. He sprung up from his crouch with another blade in hand and threw it almost blindly before hitting the ground again. However, the odds were in his favor, and it hit Phoenix in the chest. The twenty-third cannon sounded, and the third Everdeen child became his district's third victor.
Haymitch had nearly been disemboweled; the surgeons six years ago had some serious work to do. The doctors this year just needed to disinfect some cuts and rehydrate him beyond plain water.
Jacqueline and I sat and talked after the broadcast of the victor interview. "The way we were celebrating, the new Victor is liable to have another niece or nephew."
"Jackie, even with the money and time to take care of it, this seems awfully quick to have another one. I would have spaced them more," I advised her.
"Well, he's rich now," I said morosely to Mother.
"Honey, it isn't just that," she responded. "He still looks and acts different because of where he's from, and that won't change once he has some money. I wish you wouldn't even associate with those rats, but at least you didn't shack up with one of them and get knocked up."
"That's not what it's called when the man marries her first," I spat back. I purposely didn't marry Jacob, and yet my mother's vile language had gotten even worse. Granted, she had a point about how run-down the houses were.
"Either way, it would have produced a half-breed, a child neither Merchant class nor Seam classless," she answered. She really did like Phillip and Ceres, and this vitriol was her twisted way of supporting my decision to take the road most traveled.
Thinking about Daniel's victory tour reminded me of Julius' visit last year. He had killed neither of the tributes from our district and had even killed their killer. It was a sort of mercy for the grieving families to not have to face the person responsible for their loved one's death. Also, the way he dealt with Onyx was widely respected – it helped make the bloodlust seem justifiable.
"It's just the way it is in the districts and arena," Julius said. "Talk about live hard, die hard," he joked. He had figured out the Capitol but cast it as a dirty joke. This year, he had been joined by a good man who already understood the Capitol's evil.