A/N: I was very flattered to see that people were actually reading this; though, a special thank you to my singular reviewer, ToastedChaos. And all the thanks to any and all who favorited/followed.
Though, I actually forgot all about this story until it was reviewed (realized I wrote most of this chapter already and just finished it up today, lol), because I'm on Archive right now with another story. I'll endeavor to update this, but still, Rose Petal Red is my baby and it's been in the works for about a year now. Fair warning that this'll be slower.
Anyways! I'm excited for the Games, but I'm also trying to puzzle out how on earth I'm going to put this fic together. I kinda charged in blind here, inserting a somewhat demented child genius into an AU. Whoops. At least I have an ending and such planned, so don't worry about that.
…
She will admit that Cinna and Portia have talent in making physical impossibilities seem possible. First, they create the Girl on Fire. Then, they cloak her in robes of smoke.
Adrian stands stoically next to Samhain Vinpointe, ignoring him and the crowd that screams as they exit behind Portshore and Combe. The two teenagers look like they are wearing scorched wood and shadows, sparks of light drifting from their suits lazily. When her eyes flicker to the screens, past the roaring Capitolites, she sees their expressions, too. Portshore has a familiar, sharp smile on his face that looks just a slight bit queasier than normal; it is a good attempt at confidence. Combe simply looks sick, eyes darting all over the place; there is a certain slouch to her shoulders that makes her look defeated already. Then the cameras switch and Adrian is suddenly looking at herself.
Their clothing is not immodest, as they are only twelve. It's almost militaristic, black cloth stretching from their necks to their wrists to their ankles. There are sleek lines of a material that is black but glitters silver when the light hits it right, accenting the tiniest curves of their developing bodies. One-shouldered cloaks drape across them, however, and flow out behind their backs like ink in water. It's cloth, or some sort of strange material that feels like liquid, black as her hair and curling around the sharp cuts of their uniform-like costumes, fading ethereally.
They're smoke.
Though Vinpointe looks pale and drawn, it only brings Adrian's own sharp expression to to the crowd's attentions. Her eyes and hair seem a part of the costume, endless and dangerous, and her shoulders are straight, back like iron, cheekbones sharp and cutting with how malnourished she has been.
They're dressed like smoke, but Adrian Valencia looks like death.
(The Capitol adores it, this dichotomy of innocent child and black-clad soldier.)
(She understands why Katniss hugged Cinna when she saw him again.)
The parade is longer than she would've imagined it, even accounting for the doubled number of Tributes. Most other Districts made their entire four-piece set match: precious metals and elegant stone for the Careers of Districts 1 and 2, lightning bolt theme for 3, clothing like scales for 4, etc.
Adrian Valencia listens to President Snow's speech with half an ear, more focused on observing the other Tributes.
"-are, for the third Quarter Quell since the founding of our nation-"
District 1 and 2. Four eighteen-year-olds, the voted-in. No doubt their District was told who to vote for; Adrian would be surprised if District 1 and 2 didn't always vote in their Tributes, based on scores or a competition of some sort. The Peacekeeper academy is somewhere there, a front for Tribute-training. The twelve-year-olds are just as confident, just as determined-looking. Most of them were volunteers, if she remembers correctly.
"-twenty-four Tributes became forty-eight, in order for our people to remember-"
Threats, she looks for threats. 3? Perhaps, depending on the arena. She remembers that boy who rigged the mines last year, who that District 2 Tribute killed with a snap of his neck. 4 is Career, all of them tanned and muscular and siren-like, beautiful and hungry for blood. A Tribute from District 9 looks particularly vicious, the way his female counterpart edges away from him. 11 is not as strong this year. A girl from 7 has a wildness in her eyes that could either get her killed or make her a monster; Adrian recognizes that look from that one, particular massacre in the 48th Hunger Games, the Victor who killed herself a few years after Abernathy's Quarter Quell.
They said she died from illness, of course. Adrian has never believed that, not after having heard that Victor's sobbing screams as she butchered her opponents. It was a carnival of blood, that year.
The same look was in that 4th District's Tribute, too. Not Odair, but the girl. Annie Cresta, she thinks.
"-for the sake of remembering. For the sake of our Districts. For the sake of Panem-"
Quietly and quickly, just before Snow finishes his speech, she happens to lock eyes with a twelve-year-old Career from District 1. Pale-haired and dark-eyed, standing as straight as she is, an assessing look to his gaze. If he survives the Games, she can see his baby fat melting away to reveal a man all made of sharp edges.
She tilts her head to one side, showing some sign of consideration.
The dark brown eyes narrow.
A small curve of her lips. Not friendliness; she's never known how to look friendly. It's more like a baring of her teeth, if anything. A polite snarl.
The boy blinks.
Then his chariot shudders, and suddenly the little Career is gone. District 2 follows, then 3, then 4, and on and on. They're exiting the circle, paraded just once more — like dangling meat in front of a starving dog — and the crowd screams as they leave. She suppresses an instinctive wince at the volume, and at the sheer amount of colors and sparkle; it's migraine-inducing. She simply faces forward, never sparing them a glance. She has things to think about, things to do.
"You could try to smile," whispers Samhain Vinpointe quietly.
"I am not here to perform for them." She answers dignifiedly.
"But… sponsors…"
They are out of view of the crowd now, though their cries are easily heard through the steel and concrete and stone. She glances at Vinpointe, who is looking away nervously, biting his lip. She's never interacted with him, though she vaguely remembers his presence in school. Dark brown hair and blue eyes and a body that is just beginning to grow lanky, fidgeting with the ends of his shirt, with the billowing cloth that was hiding them like smoke.
"Don't concern yourself with me. I am an enemy, Vinpointe."
"I… Yeah. I know." Vinpointe looks away, then. "It's just… You're scary, but not like Livius."
She glances at Portshore, then, who is jumping from the chariot and knocking Combe down in the process. She sniffles, and he sneers and walks towards a waiting Haymitch Abernathy. There is a lot of anger in him, now. The numbness of fear has hardened, as it always does for that one.
"Portshore is cruel."
"You're not, though." Vinpointe says quickly.
Adrian studies Vinpointe more closely. "You are looking for protection in the Games."
He stiffens, starts to shake his head… Then stops. Gives up. "A little, yeah. But mostly… I think it's gonna be the voted against the Reaped this time. The older teens against us kids. The way some Tributes were looking at the twelves… I just… wanna be sure."
She had to grant that one to him. She's run the scenario through her head, too, but dismissed it in favor of observing the group training. Assumptions were dangerous, and she did not want to be caught early. She needed to last.
"It will be clearer tomorrow, though that is a possibility." She says.
The boy looks proud of himself for some reason. Then he ducks his head again. "Um. Uh. A-Anyways. I just… Juniper is really snippy, you know? Ignores me because I'm from town. And Livius is…" A pathetic bully, she thinks. "-just himself. I just… wanted to talk to someone."
Loneliness, she sees now. She knows what that feels like, but she has a soft memory of hands brushing her hair and a whispered voice in her ear to keep it at bay. So she nods at Vinpointe.
"Until the Games, Vinpointe."
The boy lightens. "Okay. Yeah. Until the Games."
She eyes him. "I mean it. It would be better for you to make friends with other Districts regardless. In probability, I'll be going to the Careers."
Vinpointe nods. "That's fair. I think you can make it with them. Um. Can I call you Adrian?"
"…Alright."
"And you should call me Samhain. Not Vinpointe. Or Sammy. Everyone calls- called me that."
"Samhain," she tests out.
He nods enthusiastically. "Yeah- Uh- Oh. I think our mentors are waiting."
Indeed they were. Juniper Combe was having Peeta Mellark's attention lavished on her while Portshore was in another snarling match with Abernathy. Katniss is looking towards her and Samhain, waiting expectantly. They are one of the only Tribute pairs still on their chariot, the rest having deserted, clustering around their mentors like sectioned colors. Seafoam-green and silver and blue near Finnick Odair and Mags Flanagan and two other Victors, mentors. Bright golds and flashing winks of pearl near Cashmere and Gloss, the siblings. Deep browns and greens next to Johanna Mason and Blight.
A sea of color and opulence. It's even more irritating up-close than from the projectors.
She says as much, in a very careful whisper, to Katniss Everdeen.
The Girl on Fire smirks. "I know what you mean."
They're leaving now. All of them. They're returning to those decadent suites reserved for Victors. As the highest-numbered District, they're on the highest floor, just under the rooftop gardens. Adrian thinks she'd like to ask one of the Avoxes for a book, so she can read up there for an hour or two, compose herself.
"It's disgusting," sighs Katniss, shaking her head. "Come on. Let's go."
For just a moment, Adrian wonders why Katniss is being so free with her thoughts around her. Because they are both Seam? Because they are both female? Because Adrian is just a bit younger than Primrose Everdeen? It's obvious, by this easy relationship between the two of them — not close, but simple — that Katniss does not share that jadedness that most mentors gain after only a few short years.
(Adrian remembers watching the Archive vids, seeing Victors lose the light in their eyes with each consecutive year of losing. She remembers watching Haymitch Abernathy's straight shoulders slump with the weight of the blood of children.)
She hopes that Katniss does not take her death too badly. She may not adore the girl as much as the Capitol does, or approve of how sloppily she seemed to become the figure of a half-cocked rebellion (District 8 was shut down for quite a while, she remembers from last year), but Adrian respects Katniss for the skills she has and the fact that she won.
There's a quick moment where Katniss turns back and blinks at Adrian. An indication that she is waiting for her. When Adrian steps out from her thoughts — she gets lost in them very easily, which is rather dangerous, she admits this — for some odd reason, Katniss rewards her with a small smile.
Barely a twitch of her lips, but Adrian does see it.
Odd. Doesn't she know, the Girl on Fire, that attachments will kill you in the end?
…
Adrian almost feels overwhelmed. If she weren't so practiced in compartmentalization, she might be like Juniper Combe right now, sobbing into her pillows and blankets in her room. But Adrian clamps down on the panic, the uneasiness, the aggression which is her default reaction to annoying, foreign, or overly-emotional situations, and processes what she experiences in easily digested fragments.
First. Samhain wishes to be somewhat friendly with her. Extremely out of character and definitely not her area of expertise, but the child is lonely and about to die; there are certain allowances made, and she would be a poor human being indeed if she mocked or ignored the boy, who, while he hasn't done anything for her, has never done anything to her, either.
Second. Katniss wishes to become her friend, or at least, wishes to establish a relationship of trust with her. This is perhaps due to Katniss' projecting her little sister onto the conveniently small, fragile-looking girl, perhaps because she is taking her mentorship responsibilities seriously, but more likely because Katniss Everdeen seems to like Adrian. That's much more strange than the former reasons, but their similar quietness, backgrounds, and subtle habits of observing and telling things as they are seem to bind them together in some way. As Katniss doesn't demand anything ridiculous from Adrian, she doesn't suppose she should react negatively to the foreign, positive attention.
Third. Haymitch Abernathy is crying — quite obviously drunkenly so, but the fact remains — and there is no one else around.
Adrian Valencia didn't seem to ever absorb the fact that the Games made things very emotional behind closed doors, off-camera. She doesn't think she's interacted with other people like this is a very long time. (They're like emotional volcanoes, exploding at every slight provocation, and she just happens to be a canyon. Empty.)
It, quite honestly, disturbs her.
Why is Haymitch Abernathy crying?
It's late, enough that the gardens are empty except for two District 12 souls. One of which is cradling a bottle of alcohol — hard stuff, she thinks — and the other of which is hiding and watching, and not having a clue on what to do.
She isn't sure if she even likes Haymitch Abernathy. She watched him kill people when he was young, she watched the hope leave his eyes with every passing year as he stood behind walking gravestones. He seems to enjoy the fact that she has no aversion to killing or death, but he is Portshore's mentor, not hers.
(She is confused and annoyed. She just wanted to read Greek Mythology.)
But Adrian isn't Portshore, who would mock others' pain in order to marginalize his own — or so she assumes he does, with how he seems much calmer after breaking boys like Selkirk's wrists — so she approaches. Her feet are bare and the breeze ruffles her loose pajamas airily, and there's earth in between her toes, and Katniss earlier taught her how to braid so her hair isn't cascading all down her face. She's practiced in silence and stealth, but she makes some little noises so that Abernathy doesn't attack her; he may be a washed-out Tribute, but the man was still a Victor, and some instincts simply don't fade with time, especially with how he returns, again and again, to his personal nightmare.
Sniffles and deep breaths. He's trying to muffle himself, hunched in on himself on the white bench. There are several bottles rolling at his ankles, clinking musically in the quiet gardens.
She doesn't do anything but sit down beside him gingerly, not too close but close enough that if he reached out, he'd be able to touch her. Her memories of comfort and soft touches suggest that distressed people like that, but she also knows that it's not her place to simply force a hug. It's not comforting that way.
(She was given the choice to bite down and tear, or to let go. It saved her, a little.)
Another sniffle, and then Abernathy wipes his nose slightly. "What're you doin' up?"
Adrian opens her book and begins to skim. "I just wanted to read."
"Go to sleep, brat. Big day tomorrow."
She doesn't like lying. She doesn't like babying people, either. She can be subtle with her innermost thoughts, with her observations, with her movements; but people are a whole different matter, and she can't bring herself to be purposefully tactful.
"If you'd like to be alone, say so. Otherwise… I suppose it's nice to know that there's someone there." Adrian says, not looking at him, but not reading the words in her book, either.
A pause.
"Should'a known you weren't gonna ask anything."
Her eyes flicker sideways, glancing at him briefly. Haymitch Abernathy isn't crying anymore, he simply has glassy eyes and a reddened face. He looks exhausted and furious, learning more towards the former than the latter. He probably stopped crying the moment he could hear her.
She goes back to her book. "It's not my place to demand answers from you."
Another pause. He's formulating his thoughts, she thinks. "Why're you here?"
"To read. And… It's easier to cry when you're not alone. And harder."
He snorts. "You'd know, Seam brat." Abernathy says, voice laced with sarcasm.
"It's… nice, to be given a choice. It's easier and harder, isn't it? I'll stay if it's easier. And I'll leave if it's harder. Your choice." She says, shrugging. Then she looks up again. "I'm rather indifferent to you, Abernathy. But it wouldn't be…" She glances at the book. "…honorable, if I let one of my mentors suffer needlessly."
"Honor. Pffft. You talk like a Career, too."
She sets the book aside. It seems it's easier, this time. "The concept of honor isn't owned by Districts 1, 2, and 4."
"Fairytales. Heh. Didn't take you to be one of those little girls."
"There's not much honor in fairytales. Only a little, sometimes."
Haymitch Abernathy looks both genuinely curious and extremely relieved (at the turn of the conversation, the distraction). She thinks he wanted to be her mentor but decided it was safer for them — for all of them — if they paired her with Katniss. Not that she would have minded either way, as she has grown to appreciate Katniss and her almost-embarrassed concern and care for her, but still. Haymitch Abernathy likely wants her as a Tribute, especially considering his current student is Livius Portshore.
"You're not bringing that honor into the Arena, are you?" he asks.
Adrian looks up at the sky. It's the same as home, almost. Rather than being obscured by plumes of smoke, the stars are dulled by how bright the Capitol seems to be. Blinding.
"In the original tale of the Little Mermaid, the mermaid woman kills herself rather than have to kill the man she loved. She gave her life for his, because he gave her meaning," she says dully. "I hate Hansel and Gretel, though. They do not fight the witch, who seemed to be nothing but a crazy woman. They trick her into burning alive. Where is the honor in being led into a trap stupidly, and not even having the decency to face their opponent face-to-face?"
"Talkative, all of a sudden?" grunts Abernathy.
Talkative, perhaps, but not straightforward. She's not speaking the answers to his questions. He probably knows this.
"I don't have the words to explain why I think the way I do."
(I want to kill.)
Haymitch Abernathy chuckles, and finishes off his bottle. Whiskey, she reads. "Damn Quarter Quells. Damn double Tributes." He spat. "Fuck. It's like goddamn… It's like goddamn being a Tribute again."
More swearing, but enough information that Adrian understands. The doubled tributes is very much like the 50th Hunger Games. It probably gives the man nightmares, remembering the bloodfest that was his Games. She thinks he says the name of his ally, the Donner girl — Maysilee? — but he's snarling and grumbling and swearing too much for her to be completely sure.
At least she knows why the man was crying earlier.
"Listen up."
It's commanding enough that she straightens in her seat, obeying. Abernathy eyes her warily.
"Tomorrow at training, there's gonna be fucking forty-eight of you. I'm guessing you're going to the Careers."
She nods.
Abernathy does the same, looking at the distance. Thinking. "Alright. Katniss says you're not into the acting thing, and frankly, that's good. For you. You've got a character that the damn Capitol will love. 'Lil Seam brat that rose to glory or whatever. They'll eat it up. Katniss told you to keep your mouth shut?"
"Until the interviews."
"Good. We're gonna go with that. But let a bit of it out when you train tomorrow. The Careers will be watching — everyone's gonna be watching the twelve-year-old Volunteer — but you wanna reel them in. Peeta kissed ass last year, but I don't think that's what you wanna do."
The notion of performing in order to gain the good graces of others actually makes her want to kill something. She has been kicked down and kicked over, but she has never simply lay there to let them do it. She's always fought, tooth and nail. She has always demanded to be treated human, because she knows.
You deserve to live.
Haymitch Abernathy chuckles at her. "Dunno how you kept your pride in the Seam, but that's… somethin'. A 12, acting like a Career. Damn. Huh. You friends with Katniss and the Vinpointe kid?"
"Of a sort."
"Tch. Charismatic, in your odd way. That might get the Careers, too. Honor and a bit of charisma. Probably because you're pretty damn honest about what you're feelin', even if no one knows what you're thinkin'."
"Is this cross-examination something you do every year?"
"Only with the ones that can win."
Adrian blinks. "I don't want to win."
"You could make it."
"I don't doubt that. But I don't particularly want to win."
"Why the hell not?" He sounds a bit frustrated, now.
Adrian smiles a little, the smile that scares people. "They say I'm obsessed with death."
Abernathy sighs. "You're one big ball of crazy, aren't you?"
She almost laughs.
Haymitch Abernathy rolls his eyes. "You might as well last as long as you can, in any case. We'll work on your crazy later. Anyways, allies. Show off to the Careers, but not too much. Careers don't often have sneaky brats like you, but they know to respect them. Or, at least, be careful with them. Especially with last year's games, the girl from 11 and the girl from 5. Demonstrate your stealth; there's a station for that, it's got pressure plates and computerized sentinels look for you in an obstacle course."
"I'd have to watch someone else go first."
"Someone will. Don't worry. The non-Career Districts always go for that one."
"What should I do first?"
"Up to you. Don't do anything that needs strength. Don't do anything that needs endurance. Agility and finesse for you. You'll have to go through an obstacle course first thing, to measure yourself. Concentrate on the dodging and the running, not the shit you're bad at."
Adrian sighed. "It's almost a performance."
He raised a brow. "That matter?"
She hums a little. She doesn't want to be some sick sycophant to the Careers; no, if she had to do that, she'd rather just kill them all. She doesn't want to… compromise her pride, she supposes. To pretend to be a sniveling little girl like Johanna Mason did, to bow to the Careers like masters like Peeta Mellark did; it grates on her, having to bow to others so publicly and obviously like that. But she can retain her pride if she performs well tomorrow, shows the Careers she isn't a weak link, but an asset.
"No, that's alright, I suppose."
Haymitch Abernathy reaches over. The alcohol is probably compromising his intelligence, because he plants his calloused hands in her hair and ruffles carelessly, sloppily. Her braid is a bit messy now, and Adrian is too shocked to do anything but blink her large, black eyes up at the Victor in confusion.
He grins a little. It's teasing. "You're too serious, for a brat."
"And you're intoxicated."
"Thank God."
They don't move from there for a while. She goes back to her book, and he has somehow produced another bottle of alcohol from inside his fluffy, robe-like jacket. They don't say anything more, but Adrian thinks she's no longer quite indifferent to Haymitch Abernathy now. Despite the fact that he seems to enjoy alcohol to an unhealthy degree, slurs most of his words because of that, and is extremely crude and careless. But Adrian likes him. It's difficult not to, when he so obviously wants her to live.
(She's weak to that sort of thing.)
…
"Goddamn barrel of contradictions, you."
She blinks up at Haymitch. "Good morning."
"Yeah, yeah, kid. Drink your supplement? Good. You look a bit better already."
And she does, actually. With every meal and snack, she's given that bright blue concoction. Her olive skin isn't waxy anymore, her hair is a bit more shiny. She won't put on weight until the interviews, Cinna explained (when she asked him after the introductory speech), but the vitamins and nutrients are suffusing her blood. As she walks, her body is fighting off years of neglect and starvation.
(That's probably why she's in so much pain right now. If this is what most District 12 kids go through before the Games, Adrian is suddenly understanding of their low scores. It will be difficult to show off her skills when her very bones feel like they're splintering apart and scrabbling back together.)
She nods to Haymitch, who snorts.
"Kid, I dunno who raised you, but you freak me the hell out."
"Are you referring to your lack of hangover today?"
There's a glint of amusement in his eyes. "You act all indifferent and shit, and then you apparently make sure I'm okay. Where the hell did you get that shit I drank this morning anyways?"
"An Avox."
"Why the hell aren't I supplied with those regularly?"
She tilts her head to the left consideringly. "Probably because you deserve the hangover."
"What the- You little brat-!"
(They are familiar words, but there's some sort of… warmth to them, today. Odd.)
Katniss glances between the two of them, back and forth and back and forth, looking confused and almost horrified. She's not the only one, as Peeta Mellark and Juniper Combe look rather taken aback as well.
"Since when did you two become friends?" Peeta Mellark asks, a brow raised.
Haymitch Abernathy grins at him. "Since the twelve-year-old made sure I was fed and watered and hangover-free. You two wanna tell me why neither of you've ever done that for me before?"
"Adrian already said." Katniss chimes in, recovering from her shock, "You deserve it, drunkard."
There's a pleasant air at the breakfast table that morning, laughter and playful banter pushing all thoughts of death from them. Even Adrian finds herself rather… not content, she wouldn't say that, but at peace. Rested. She manages to eat quite a bit, quietly listening as Katniss and Abernathy trade smirks and barbs, as Peeta laughs along with Samhain, as Juniper Combe giggles into her mountain of food (still hunched over it protectively, a gleam of hunger in her dull blue eyes).
The only other quiet presence is Livius Portshore, and she eyes him with a sort of ironic amusement. She wonders if that slant of his mouth is homesickness — did his family, with all their money and affluence, have mornings like this? — or confusion. She thinks it might be the latter, the way his eyes dart from face to face, and she nods to herself; she can't imagine Livius Portshore of all people having a good relationship with anyone that doesn't suck up to his father's name. Including his family. (It's so ironic, really, Adrian thinks it might be sad — if Portshore wasn't a poor excuse of a human being, that was.)
She turns her eyes back to Haymitch Abernathy, who is starting to address them all again, in that sort of voice that she equates to the "mentor" side of him more than the "drunkard" side.
"First day of group training. There's an initial assessment after you're introduced, every Tribute takes it. I'm not gonna sugar-coat it for you: this is the first impression you've got on the other Tributes, and none of you are gonna make a good one."
That little insult is apparently all Portshore can take.
"Why did you prepare us for this, then? How are we supposed to survive without allies? If my father ever caught wind of this- this deliberate sabotage, Abernathy, I guarantee you that, Victor or not, he could fucking-"
"Oh, shut up, kid. Daddy ain't here, and I wasn't finished yet. Sit down."
"Seeing double of me, Abernathy? Drunk already? It's a wonder you haven't keeled over yet with how much garbage you're willing to kill yourself with." Portshore sneers. "You haven't been helping any of us-"
Katniss' jaw seemed tighter than usual. "Haymitch has been talking to Adrian, Portshore-"
His expression sharpens, then. "A drunkard and a pedophile. I guess you Victors need your coping mechanisms, especially if you're attracted to a little Seam rat-"
Abernathy is about to throw blows, Adrian can tell.
But it is Peeta Mellark who stands and takes hold of Portshore's upper arm in his iron grip, squeezing and making the boy — who seems so much smaller, standing next to Mellark, even if he was better-fed and the exact same age — wince.
"Enough," Peeta Mellark says, not softly, but calmly. "Don't be stupid, Portshore."
"The only stupid one here is you, Mellark," Livius Portshore hisses scathingly, trying and failing to shake Mellark's hand off, "If it weren't for the efforts of the Girl on Fire, you'd be mutt food."
Adrian does not form attachments. If needed, she will leave Katniss and Abernathy and Samhain in the dust; if that is what it takes for her to reach her goal, to make it through the Games the way she needs to, that is what she will do. She has long since been able to separate wants and needs and everything else.
She is not attached. But she still likes Katniss, whose epithet is said on the verge of mocking, and she is on the fence with Haymitch Abernathy, who was insulted already and has still not retaliated (which is impressive, to her). She even slightly holds Samhain in regard, if only because of his courage to speak to her through his fear and his generally unobtrusive nature.
This, plus the fact that Livius Portshore annoys her with his very existence, is what prompts her to speak.
"Mocking a room full of killers. I've always thought you stupid and sad, Portshore, but this is something else."
She says is calmly, as she eats and sips at some sweet liquid, and the room quiets and turns to her. Perhaps it is because she so rarely offers her voice without being asked for it. Or maybe they're surprised that she defends some of them at all. Adrian Valencia herself is aware that it is uncharacteristic of her, to break her cold silence with a piece of her thoughts like that.
But then again, she has never liked so many people at once. It's somewhat… disconcerting.
"What would you know, brat?" Portshore snarled, finally shaking Mellark off of him.
Her eyes turn cold. She knows it, by the way he flinches from her. She smiles, and she almost wants to chuckle when he aborts an instinctive step backwards. (Was she so frightening? Her, a starving Seam brat that could still feel the grooves between her ribs?)
"Do you think," she says liltingly, "that I've never met a killer in the Seam? You're more stupid than I thought, in that case. And much more short-sighted. I don't understand how you manage to dress yourself everyday."
"You little bitch-"
"Touch her and you'll see firsthand why I won the Games, Portshore." Katniss snarls, knocking her chair backwards with the force of her standing. There's a knife in her hands, held like a dagger even with its dull shine.
Portshore evidently sees that he has no allies here, that he's discarded them all. He turns and makes to return to his room, and it's only because Adrian knows what sort of disgusting child he is that she's not surprised at his one last barb:
"Protect her all you like, Everdeen, but she'll go. Just like that kid from 11. All of us will."
Katniss falters, and then Juniper Combe excuses herself.
She mutters, Combe, just before she leaves, "Portshore's a bastard, but he's gone one thing right. We're all going to die. So stop lying to us about it."
Adrian doesn't miss the flinch from Peeta Mellark as Juniper Combe leaves.
She and Samhain are the only ones still sitting. He's stopped eating, but Adrian continues. The adults — well, the Victors — are standing, looking after the two older Tributes, the angry ones, the ones who were chosen to die. After a while, Peeta Mellark strides out; she isn't sure whether he wishes to be alone, or wishes to comfort Combe. The first, she thinks, when Katniss follows after him quickly.
Abernathy sighs. "Well, fuck." he mutters, walking out as well, picking a bottle of whiskey out of the breakfast pile as he does, and unceremoniously jugging at it when as he walks back to his rooms.
Samhain is no longer eating, and looks vaguely nauseous.
"How can you keep eating like that, Adrian?" he whispers.
It's not judging. It's not disgusted. He simply wants to know how she continues on.
Adrian blinks at him in between bites. "I'm Seam. I need to eat to be as fit as possible for the Games."
"But… They're right. What are the chances of us surviving? Even… Even if you're really good at sneaking an-and you're willing to fight, you're just… so small. Me, too. We're just so small, and the Careers aren't, and…"
He begins to hyperventilate. Adrian sighs.
"Breathe, Samhain." she commands, eyes sharpened. She doesn't really want to see someone die before the Games.
Surprisingly, the boy does. He looks teary-eyed and panicky, but he does. He breathes.
She nods at him. "There is no use tormenting yourself with what-if's," she says, pushing his plate of food nearer to him quietly, "Lock away your fear. It will not help you here. Eat and get stronger and breathe. That's what living is, in its purest form."
You deserve to live.
It's a simple concept. You deserve to eat. You deserve to grow. You deserve to breathe. She knows it was meant much more complicatedly, which is why she needs to read and watch so much, because she still can only barely understand it. But she can explain to Samhain that simplest concept.
"Everyone dies," she says, almost carefully, "Which is why you deserve to live."
"…What?"
"Every breath, even the last, you deserve it," she says impatiently, "So fight for it."
Samhain looks at his unfinished plate. Then he eats, and Adrian wants to roll her eyes. Finally. It's almost nonsensical, how they all trouble themselves so much. He worries about dying, when he should be using that energy to make sure he doesn't. Why fret and cry so much that the fight leaves your body?
Adrian has never questioned it, not since that day where she — quite literally — bit the hand that fed her. She will live and fight not to die. She will die, but it doesn't matter, because she will have done her damned best to stay alive. Just because she deserved to live didn't mean she could grow complacent, whining for others to help her up; that was stupid, and pathetic. She knew, and she would take her life into her own hands.
That Samhain is trying to glean confidence from her own sureness in her life is good. Perhaps he could fight harder. She has never thought that she would have to kill him in the Games, but perhaps now. And maybe that was better, because to die by a merciful hand would be better than some of the depravities she'd witnessed before.
The thought of slitting his throat makes her feel heavy, though. She sighs as she drank her nutritional supplement.
They eat in silence, quick and careful, as if they are starving when they have never eaten so well before. It is not pleasant or content as it was before, but Adrian Valencia doesn't mind. And neither does Samhain Vinpointe, with how ferociously he stuffs his face, tears streaming down his cheeks as he does so.