A/N: Cynicz, there will indeed be a sequel(s)! I'm planning as I go, but I have a pretty good idea of what's to come and how to develop the storyline. Thanks for the praise!
Caramellachoco, Sam's kill count ended up at four (Troop, Laredo, Fresco, Royal) with an assist for Hadrian if you go by basketball rules. As for the Gamesmakers and the mutt, well…I can't just give the answer away, heh. Several of the earlier chapters have clues that will bring some light to that question, however; particularly one of the ones with Rex. I'll certainly be following up in the sequel.
Thoughts and dreams swam through Sam's subconscious. The aquatic mutt angrily ripped through her cloudy mind, tearing at Gannet and Storm and taunting her with Royal's voice. She turned away to run, but a flood of water just out of reach kept her pinned. The mutt unsheathed a long mane of silver hair and grabbed her in a suckered arm, jabbing one of its needle teeth in the crook of her elbow.
"Why, Sam, why, why, why," the mutt lamented in Royal's voice as its silver mane of hair erupted in a bath of fire. "Why do you keep fighting? Why do you keep getting up? It's pointless, I've already won! You're a stupid girl from the realms of nowhere."
She stumbled to the ground as her leg exploded in blood spontaneously, showering the area in a rain of crimson. The mutt's face charred like a charcoal briquette as black as Troop's death.
"Are you fighting for something? Everything you have is gone, lost!" the mutt rambled, Royal's voice hardening and mixing with Fresco's acidic tones. "Is it for peace? You'll never have that with these memories! Love? I extinguished what little love you ever had. For family? You have no mother, a brother who will no longer recognize the monster you have become, and a father who never wanted a daughter! It's illusory Sam, pointless! Give up, just give up! Save yourself the trouble!"
No. I'm going to keep fighting.
Sam woke in a soft bed with a start to soft orange light floating through a shaded window. She tried to reach down frantically to her leg, but found her arms bound by medical straps. She wriggled for a moment before calming down – and realizing where she was.
Back in the Training Center. Back in her room on the tenth floor – back where she'd looked out sleeplessly at the alpine sky the night before the Games had begun. The mountain sun quietly set behind peaks of rock outside, bathing the crowded Capitol streets below in a warm glow. Two clear tubes ran into Sam's arm, one carrying a clear fluid while the other ferried a pasty white substance that mucked along towards her veins. She looked away – despite all the blood she'd been witness to in the last few days, she had no desire to watch herself being rebuilt for the limelight by medicine.
More importantly, her legs worked. That was a success in and of itself. Sam's dreams had been littered by thoughts and images of a crippled life in between horrific scenes of violence and brutality. Knowing she'd be able to return to her district able to live again – to laugh, to enjoy life as it was meant to be enjoyed – meant the world to her.
She was uncertain about the last part, however.
What horrors awaited? The mutt of her dream was right in some aspects, just as Laredo had been in the cave – how could she return to normalcy on the prairie with the memories of blood and gore etched into her mind?
The door to the room slid open with a slight hiss, startling Sam from her downward train of thoughts. Her negativity disappeared at once.
"Dallas!" Sam croaked, shocking herself with how pitiful her voice sounded in the quiet enclosure.
Her mentor walked quietly into the room wearing a bright smile, his blonde hair made up just enough to sooth Sam's tension. "Congratulations, Sam. You've done us proud. Me. Everyone from District 10."
Dallas gripped her hand and Sam immediately burst into tears – not the tears she'd cried inside the arena and leading up to the Games, but tears she didn't mind shedding. Tears that said there were still happy things in the world. Tears of a tomorrow she could be safe in.
The Capitol's medical expertise brought Sam up to shape quickly, healing nearly every trace of the arena apart from the twenty pounds she'd lost. That would have to be made up – and her bony thin exterior would be problematic back in District 10. Her legs still bore the reminders of the final confrontation, with scars across her Achilles tendon and from where the mutt had ripped her calf open to the bone. Technology had given her the flesh back, but the sight would never leave.
Agrippa dressed her in a soft gown for the post-Games interview with Constantine and the crowning ceremony with President Octavian. She studied the dress below the stage as music played above – a light and limber thing that flowed rather than fitting to her form, belying her underfed body and instead stressing the same qualities her parade outfit had done. She was once more a girl of the wind, fit to float along the prairie – but no longer powerful and strong. She was now the touch of cool air on a summer day; the kiss of breath upon a cheek in the woods.
The dress told her what the Capitol had thought during the Games. She wasn't the ruthless killer in their eyes – still the girl from the country with a penchant for speaking softly and smiling sweetly.
Just add four deaths and some life-long mental scars and we're good.
Sam was unprepared for the bright lights of the stage, the roar of the crowd and cheers of glee; it all overpowered her with an energy that harkened too many bad thoughts. Her mind battled to build a wall against the noise that blended all too easily away from a jubilant crowd to remind Sam of the battle cry of the aquatic mutt – of Royal's death, Laredo's gruesome end. Just noise, all of it noise.
Constantine's voice brought her out of her stupor, standing uneasily on the rising platform.
"The person of the hour, our victor of the 98th Hunger Games!" he cheered in his own way through his words, urging on the power of the audience. "Welcome back, Samantha, welcome!"
Sam forced a smile on her face – a poor effort, but the best she could manage – and she took a hesitant step off the platform and onto the stage. Constantine gripped her hand energetically, leading her to a seat where she no longer had to battle against falling over.
The recap show stretched for three hours that left Sam feeling vulnerable in front of Panem's eyes. Too many scenes raced by that she wished to forget – the chariot ride that she'd felt how different things were in the Capitol, and the rise to the Cornucopia to face destiny. Carnage ensued there – Royal was shown taking down tribute after tribute, brutally concluding her spree by staking Hadrian's hand to the Cornucopia and just missing killing him before he'd ever had the chance to imagine hurting Gannet. Her cold-hearted kill of Io, the girl from 2, shocked Sam the most – Royal had never been in the Games to get along. She had simply been an alpha predator in her element, taken down by the twist of fate.
Troop's incendiary end flew by, as did the horrifying scorpion mutt's battle in Gannet's rescue from the quicksand. Sam took note at how the little girl from 4 and Storm had cared for her as she'd been out – improvising on the fly with whatever they could find to keep her alive after the mutt had nearly taken her life. She'd never be able to thank them now.
A pitched battle between the three Career boys and Royal over Cornucopia supplies rolled past, taking out the girl from District 11 as a bystander. The tornado, Laredo and the cave, and the night battle all flew by through Sam's mind for everyone in Panem to witness. Gannet's death forced tears from her eyes that she couldn't hold back – with many in the audience joining suit. They hadn't been there in person; hadn't kissed Gannet off to whatever lay beyond. Sam felt a fire of indignation at their emotions. How did they think that felt? That it was just some game to watch the little girl die?
Of course it is. To them.
Storm's passing struck as kill after kill flooded by. The video spared no detail in his final moments with Sam, leaving the entire affair to draw out. Finally the climax –Royal beating Sam down alongside the river, on the verge of killing her before the Capitol's abomination roared in to save the day. The vixen from District 1 was given no quarter in footage of her death, with the gritty details shown for the audience to delight in. Sam felt sick at their reaction; their glee at the spray of blood and the mutt's trumpeting war cry. It was all so sick, even now just in watching.
"What a journey, what a ride," Constantine closed the presentation, turning back to Sam for the juicy part of the night – her interview and the presentation of the victor's crown by Octavian himself. "Samantha, what are you feeling after the last few weeks?"
Sam stumbled for words. What was she feeling? She wasn't dead, was she?
"I'm…alive," Sam managed to say with a nervous laugh.
"Well, I think I can speak for all of us when I can say your Games were a unique experience," Constantine moved on. Even he had a hard time with Sam's shallow answer. "To go from the girl we had up here on the stage back during pre-Games interviews to now, with you as District 10's victor…your district must be proud. You mentioned your brother then; it seemed the two of you were so close…what would he tell you now?"
Oh God, Constantine, here come more tears. "I don't think we'd say anything," Sam stuttered. "I think a hug would suffice right now."
The crowd aah'ed, moved by the sincerity. Sam wiped at the corners of her eyes, stemming her emotions before they emptied all over for the cameras to see.
"Well, you'll have your homecoming soon," Constantine patted her on her leg, sounding much more sympathetic and emotional than his light and witty banter of the last interview.
He and Sam traded a few contextual questions about things in the arena for the next ten minutes on subjects Sam could answer easily. Her thoughts in skinning the camel, her feelings when the scorpion mutt attacked, rescuing Gannet from the quicksand…questions that brought her all hurtling in to a climax of her own.
"Now, Sam," Constantine moved in. "You and Storm Hawthorne from District 12 shared an…emotional bond in the arena that had us all on the edges of our seats. He fought hard for you in the Games. What would you tell District 12 watching now, considering all he meant to you and your relationship?"
Sam opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. She looked down at her sandal-clad feet, feelings welling up in her eyes. Of course he had to go there – to the spear at her heart, at Panem's heart. It had no doubt had the audience begging for more, attached to the two tributes until the end.
"I…" Sam tried to find a footing. "I…I hope they're proud. They should be proud. He was special. I'm not going to forget him, and I hope they won't either."
"Of course not," Constantine nodded in empathy. "And we will never forget, either."
The audience raised a titanic applause as Octavian strolled onto the stage following the tear-jerking conclusion to the interview. The President was not quite as Sam had envisioned him in person – tall, yet thin and wiry. His eyes hadn't changed from that night of the chariot parade – still two dark coals of fire burning in deep white oceans. His black hair looked like serpents seeking prey; his bony face reflected arrogance, deception, and narcissism.
"Congratulations," he breathed to Sam in a silky accent she couldn't place as his bony hands placed the victor's crown atop her head. "A most unexpected triumph from such a beautiful tribute. Magnifique."
He removed his hands, his black eyes staring beadily into her face. "You shall be a most welcome addition to the Capitol and our legion of victors. Once again…congratulations."
It was a poisonous thing he spoke as he walked away, his gaze leaving her face and retreating back to the audience. Screams from the crowd rained down on the stage, yet Sam only felt a cold sweat. Octavian's words had not been phrases of warmth and kindness – rather, the weapons of manipulation that only a cruel leader could possess.
The eyes of the Capitol audience did her no favors, vapid and wild in the ecstasy of the moment. She feigned a smile to the crowd and cameras, scanning for a face that would give her re-assurance. She found only eyes – brown and blue and green, all shades and colors that said of nothing but the enjoyment of idle entertainment. Only in one pair did she see something else; a look of smug satisfaction and victory reflected by eyes of unnatural blue electricity shining like fireflies from throngs of ants.
The eyes of a Head Gamesmaker.