A/N: This is a victor whose story is touched upon is some of my other fics, notably Mentor and Fight or Flight, so it wasn't difficult to go into a little more detail about Auriel.

As ever, I hope you all enjoy the chapter :)

Mentor Profile

Auriel Hope

Age: 35

District: 4

Hunger Games: 58th, aged 18

Mentored By: Harrow Greaves

Kills in the Arena: 2

Preferred Weapons: Spear, Knife

Tribute: Margaret 'Mags' Tyler

Mentoring Record: 2 Games/1 Victor - Finnick Odair (65th Games)

Unlike some victors, Auriel's is a story that begins and ends with the Hunger Games, and his life has shaped the Games just as his life was shaped by the arena.

Auriel's Games were the 58th, probably the most controversial Hunger Games in history. Auriel entered it like so many other capable, athletic, high-scoring and popular tributes from District 4, but what he found waiting for him led to one of the most difficult political periods in the history of the Games.

The arena for the 58th Games abandoned the usual Cornucopia set-up, with each tribute entering the arena within a twisted, booby-trapped version of their own homes. The Games were focused around the mental torment of not being able to trust the places you would normally feel safe, and subsequently fourteen of the twenty-four tributes were killed by traps they had never expected.

Many readers will remember the discontent surrounding these Games. For some, the mental aspect of these Games was deeply upsetting; for others, the amount of Gamemaker interference in the Games with their traps led to too few confrontations between tributes, an argument backed up by Auriel's kills total of just two tributes, an unusually low number for a victor.

Of course, the real furore was caused by the nature of the arena leading many to believe that the reaping had been a fix. Of course, if that was the case, how would the Gamemakers be able to account for volunteers, such as eventual victor Auriel? Despite evidence stacked against any form of involvement in the reaping, a conversation about conspiracy theories rarely ends before someone mentions the 58th Games.

The fallout of the Games led to a nosedive in the popularity of long-term Head Gamemaker Ignatius Plant, with him eventually being removed from the role a little over five years later.

But for Auriel, life continued as one would expect for a victor. His victory tour came and went, and the circus rolled on. That is, until the 65th Games.

Having been chosen as the mentor for District 4's tribute that year, Finnick Odair, it was clear from his first appearance that year at the reaping that something had changed with Auriel. Even after years of research on the matter, Auriel's condition that year is still a subject of discussion. A generally accepted version of events is that a large argument with another victor in District 4 had led that victor to set up a trap within Auriel's home akin to those he experienced in the arena. Some claim it was a joke, some claim it was just to scare him, and others suspect something more malicious.

What quickly became apparent, though, was that Auriel was in no fit state to mentor anyone that year. Many suspect some sort of PTSD-style shock, but nobody knew for sure what had upset him so much that summer.

In the end, Auriel's tribute won the Games, although he had very little to do with Finnick's victory. The mentor for Finnick's district partner, Mags Tyler, shouldered the responsibility and mentored two tributes at once, as many mentors are forced to do this year. Auriel may have been given the official victory as Finnick's mentor, but Mags is the one who gets all the credit for leading District 4's most popular face to victory.

If Finnick hadn't gone on to win the 65th Games, Auriel's turn during that summer may have been brushed under the rug, but with it directly affecting a victor, the Gamemakers chose to act on the situation. In all years prior, in districts with multiple victors eligible to mentor such as District 4, mentors would be reaped from the pool of victors at the reaping along with their tributes. However, starting with the 67th Games, victors had the right to choose between themselves who would be representing their district as mentors for the Games each year.

A consequence of this new rule is that Auriel has not mentored in the decade since Finnick's victory. The only other year he has mentored before was the 62nd Games, where his tribute reached the final two before Enobaria ripped his throat out.

However, with almost fifteen years absent from the pressures of mentoring, Auriel has finally agreed to return as a mentor. In recent years he's returned to the man we once knew in his early twenties, although he understandably tenses up whenever anyone mentions Finnick or Finnick's Games around him.

Teamed with Ludo Robertson, this time around Auriel has a chance to show he has what it takes to lead Finnick to a Hunger Games victory.

A/N: I've managed to get ahead with writing these chapters over the weekend, so there should be a chapter posted every day for at least the next week :)