Here's you New Years gift! I am very, very, very sorry for not updating for a long time. A big thank you to Squintz!
I know you want to start reading so I'll make this A/N short, but make sure you read the one at the end of this chapter!
"Caesar, you're on." Sylvia, one of the stage hands, informs the famous Caesar Flickerman.
"Thank you Sylvia, I'll be out shortly." Caesar smiled. Sylvia nodded and backed out of the room before closing the door.
Caesar stood up and smoothed out a few of the wrinkles on his glittering lime green suit. He walked out of his lavish dressing room and past the bustling stage hands, talking into their mic attached to a headpiece about the lighting, taking care of the families who are waiting in their lounge, and the temperature of the entire building.
Caesar walked down the hallway just as he heard the voice announce, "And here's your host, Caesar Flickerman!" Caesar steps on stage to meet the screams of every Capitol citizen present for the interviews of the tributes' loved ones.
"How's everyone doing tonight?" He asks the crowd to get them fired up. The crowd screams and expresses their excitement in high-pitched cheers.
"In every Hunger Games, when it is down to the final eight tributes-" Caesar stops to listen to the voice on the other side of his earpiece.
"Or, make that final seven.Gary from District Nine has just died." Caesar updates everyone. Some let out a bunch of 'awww's. Apparently Gary had earned himself some sponsors. They were betting on him and figured that since he was with the careers and was skilled at a weapon, he'd make it. They were wrong. Gary is dead just like the others and will be shipped home to his family…Or wait, his family is here in the Capitol, waiting to be interviewed.
"Whenever it comes down to this, we interview the families of the tributes. Are you all excited for that?" Caesar asks.
They didn't disappoint him with their stomping and cheers of agreement. While the audience gets thrilled with what's going to happen, Caesar gets enthused with their screams of excitement.
"Now we will start with District One-Amethine Gemmis's family! Up first, we will interview her mother!" Caesar gestures to backstage opposite of him and out walks Mrs. Gemmis in an elegant, yet simple, purple dress and matching purple heels. Around her neck is a pearl necklace and her hair matches with her whole proper outfit. Half of her hair is clipped, leaving half of her shoulder length blonde, wavy hair down.
When Mrs. Gemmis reaches Caesar, he gently takes her hand like the gentleman he is, and leads her to the two chairs on which they both sit down at the same time. Caesar quickly retracts his hand from Mrs. Gemmis's.
"I don't want Mr. Gemmis to beat me for trying to make a move on his lady." Caesar jokes. The crowd laughs and Mrs. Gemmis joins in.
When the laughter dies down, Caesar begins with his questions. "Now Mrs. Gemmis, your daughter has earned the nickname 'golden goddess' from the costume she wore for the chariot ride. What are your thoughts on that?"
Although Mrs. Gemmis is caring and tender, she is very smart as well and doesn't take too long to answer Caesar's question.
"I thought that Amethine looked wonderful in her costume. My thoughts on that? Well, the name suited her wardrobe, and now that the tribute parade is over, I feel that the name should fade away since she's not wearing the dress anymore."
"That is very true. From watching the games, you see that Amethine is the leader of the Career alliance. What do you have to say about that?" Caesar inquires.
"Amethine is a great leader, and I know that she's good doing a good job at working with and leading her fellow allies." She smiles confidently, but under that smile was fear.
Susan had confidence in her daughter, but anything can happen in the Hunger Games. Just like that night when that lunatic from District Nine nearly killed her daughter and chanted an inexplicable phrase. Susan remembered dreading the worse outcome, but Amethine managed to kill her attacker. Susan had let out a sigh of relief when that happened, but was still affected when Amethine did not hesitate to finish her off. The words of what she said to her daughter in the Justice Building replayed in her head. Promise me that when you win, you come back the way you were. It wasn't peculiar for a mother, regardless a mother of a career or non-career, to be scared for their child's life. It was motherly instinct.
"She is a great leader, isn't she? If Amethine was watching this right now, what would you like to say to her?"
Susan doubts that Amethine would be able to watch this in the Arena, for it has never happened in the history of the games that have passed. But, it was that key word Caesar had given her-if.It won't happen, he's just asking what ifAmethine could see this.
Susan clears her throat to speak and looks directly into a nearby camera. "Amethine, I know you can win. You're doing a very great job so far. You've trained for 12 years, you've got what it takes. I love you and I know you can do it." Saying these words, tears starts to well in Susan's eyes, but she holds them back.
Caesar reaches over and pats her hand reassuringly. "That was very lovely. I'm sure it would mean a lot to Amethine." He says. Then the buzzer goes off.
"Thank you Mrs. Gemmis, we wish the best of luck to your daughter." Caesar stands, and the crowd claps as Amethine's mother walks towards backstage, where her husband was getting ready for his interview.
A stage hand was waiting for Susan, ready to lead her back to the lounge. Susan follows and steps into the room that her children and spouse were waiting and watching the interview from the ten inch flat screen television hanging on the wall.
"You did great, honey." Her husband praises.
She smiles appreciatively. "You'll do better."
"I know." He says jokingly, causing his wife to laugh lightly.
The stage hand that had brought Susan to the lounge not too long ago sticks her head in the room and says: "Mr. Gemmis, you're up."
Susan straightens out her husband's gray suit and gives him a quick kiss on the lips. "You'll be great out there." She says.
"Go dad!" Geode cheers.
"Be nice to Caesar. Don't forget your manners." Says Garnet.
His father messes his hair up playfully and gets scolded by his wife who made it all nice for his interview.
"I won't." he assures. He walks towards the door.
"Don't embarrass me." Amethyst warns just as he gets out of the room.
Thanks to his handsome features, Mr. Gemmis earns a few wolf whistles from the ladies and believe it or not, some men. He smiles, happy that he might've just earned his daughter some more sponsors. He's getting closer and closer to Caesar, when he notices the Hunger Games host backing up, like he's scared. Then he remembers how Caesar was scared of holding his wife's hand and holds his hand up, displaying his harmlessness. There is an explosion of laughter among everyone in the audience. They're loving it.
Caesar nervously sticks his hand out. "Are we good? You're not mad or anything?"
"It's all good." Mr. Gemmis takes his hand and shakes it. "Just don't try to do that again." He adds jokingly.
Caesar laughs. "I won't. Welcome Mr. Gemmis!" He greets, dropping the scared act. It takes a minute for audience's laughter to end, and when it does, Caesar starts.
"Your daughter Amethine is overall, a wonderful tribute. She has a lot of great traits, but tell us, who is she most like? You or your wife?" He asks.
"To be honest, I think that she took after me. I was like her when I was young, especially in my teenage years." Mr. Gemmis replies.
It was a factual statement. Charles reminisced about his adolescence years as a fiery, determined, and smart boy. With a wife, a family, and businesses to take care of, Charles notices the changes that were made due to growing up. He always thought it was fascinating to watch his children develop everyday, and was proud of them. He was very proud of his oldest daughter, making it far into the games and bragged about her role of being the leader. But, just like his wife, there was always that pit of fear of her not returning her to them alive and well lying at the bottom of his stomach.
"If Amethine wins, there will definitely be a lot of boys after her. What will you do then?" Caesar inquires.
"I don't think I have to worry about that because she doesn't really care about boys." Charles states confidently. He smiles when a memory pushes itself to the front of his mind.
"Mother always writes down the list of things she needs before she goes shopping. You should've done the same." Fifteen year-old Amethine candidly tells her father.
"I guess so. You're mother is good at these things." He examines a carton of milk.
"What do you mean 'these things'?" Amethine asks curiously.
"Lady stuff. Like cleaning, cooking, and shopping."
"Are you saying that's a woman's job?" Amethine crosses her arms over her chest.
"No. I didn't mean that."
"Good." She turns her attention to the many flavored cookies resting upon a shelf to her left. "Mother always buys these kind of cookies for Garnet. They're his favorite." She says as she takes a pack of oatmeal cookies off the shelf.
"Thank god I brought you along with me." He smiled.
Amethine smiled back. "Thank god you did, if you didn't then you'd be buying the wrong things." She places the cookies in the cart.
Her father chuckles. "That's true."
"I'm going to get the eggs, they're near the fruits section. I'll be right back." She walks past her father to get the item.
Everything in the cart was fetched by his daughter and while she was gone, Charles wanted to pitch in. (After all, he was the one who volunteered to take care of the groceries.) '"What's something Susan loves to eat?" Charles asked himself. After a few minutes of thinking, he finally remembers. "Chocolate covered strawberries! How could I forget?"
'All I need to look for is some strawberries and chocolate mixture.' He thought. Didn't Amethine say that the eggs are near the fruits? Charles peered around the aisle and saw Amethine talking to a boy that looked like her age. 'He's probably just a friend.' He assumed right away. He walked over to the fruits, bringing the cart with him. He took two plastic containers full of strawberries and placed them in the cart. He was within earshot of his daughter and the boy and listened in on their conversation. Amethine's back was facing him, and he couldn't see the boy because of a big sign.
"I said 'leave me alone'" He heard his daughter firmly state.
"C'mon sweetie. We'd make a perfect couple." The boy said.
"I'm not interested."
"Why not?" He cups her chin. After that sentence, Charles heard some ruckus and turned around and saw that his daughter was holding the boy by his collar and had him pinned to the wall.
"I said 'leave me alone.'" She repeated. "Am I clear?" She asked.
The boy was stunned. He must've thought that a pretty blondie like Amethine was harmless. He was dead wrong. Charles couldn't help but smile proudly at this. Susan definitely would've stopped Amethine and scolded her for doing such a thing.
When the boy gave a nod, she let go of him. "Get out of here."
When the boy walked away, Charles quickly pushed the cart back to the cookie aisle so Amethine wouldn't know that he saw everything. When Amethine came back with two carton of eggs, Charles suddenly remembered the strawberries. If Amethine saw them, she'd know that her father witnessed her pinning the boy to the wall.
It was too late because Amethine asked: "You saw everything?"
"Yep." He responded.
"Good job." He added.
His daughter smiled.
"Mr. Gemmis?" Caesar repeated for the third time.
Charles blinked a few times, realizing that he was too occupied with that memory that he completely forgot about the interview.
"Sorry, I was just thinking about something. What were you saying?" Charles asks.
"I was asking you if the whole family will move into Amethine's house in the Victor's Village if she wins." Caesar says.
'If'? Charles thought. 'What does he mean 'if'?' Amethine will definitely win. She's prepared for this. Charles didn't want to make his mind wonder what would happen if she didn't make it.
He didn't want to keep the audience and Caesar waiting too long, and didn't want to seem weak either, so he answers: "We will. The boys are going to enjoy the big space they get to play in, Susan will fall in love with the kitchen, and I'll have a big office to handle all of my-"
"Whoa, whoa. Let's not get too carried away, after all it will be Amethine'shouse." Caesar says jokingly.
Just as Charles was going to respond with something equally funny, the buzzer went off. Caesar gets up and Charles follows suit.
"Let's hear it one more time for Mr. Gemmis, father of District One female tribute-Amethine Gemmis!" Caesar exclaims.
The crowd applauds and Mr. Gemmis leaves the stage. Just like his wife, a stage hand ushers him to their lounge.
"I told you you'd do a better job." Susan tells him when he opens the door.
Charles plants a soft kiss on her cheek. "It doesn't matter. We both did a good job."
Amethyst pretends to gag loudly. "There are children in the room." She says.
The stage hand's head appears again, this time for the twins. "The little boys are next." She tells the Gemmis family.
Susan gives both of them an encouraging kiss on the forehead. "You two will be amazing out there." She assures.
This is directed to Garnet, who is more nervous than his brother.
"Are you sure?" He asks.
Garnet is the shy one, and being in front of thousands of faces is scaring him.
"We will. We'll do a better job than mommy and daddy." Geode reassures his fraternal twin brother.
Their parents and sister laugh at his cockiness.
"Don't get too confident." His father says playfully.
The stage hand takes the boys to the front of backstage. She stops and tells them to go to Caesar. Although she points and says 'Just go to Caesar' Garnet is uneasy, and the sight of the huge sea of people doesn't help at all.
"Come on, Garnet. We're going to do better than mommy and daddy, remember?" Says Geode.
He takes his scared brother and leads him to Caesar. The audience claps and falls in love with their cuteness. Since you can already tell the difference through hair color, their mother had them wear the same thing- a teal and red, long sleeve button-up plaid shirt that is tucked in, and khakis. Their hair contained no styling cream, it was just combed neatly.
"Look at Amethine's adorable little brothers!" Caesar says, also loving how cute they look.
Two chairs weren't needed for the twins because of their size. They both could fit on the already big plush chair, and the sight of it makes the audience fall more head over heels for their innocence.
"What do you like about the Capitol?" Caesar starts.
Garnet makes it obvious that he doesn't want to do the talking, so Geode answers. "The food, the chairs, the smell, the TVs-"
"This might take a while." Caesar interrupts. The audience laughs at his comment.
"My mom said it's rude to talk when someone else is speaking." Garnet says.
"I'm sorry." Caesar apologizes. He lowers his head dejectedly. "Will you ever forgive me?" He asks.
Garnet laughs. "Yeah."
"Good." Caesar picks his head up and flashes a toothy smile. The audience is chuckling over the three's humor.
"Okay boys, how do you feel about your sister not being here?"
"It's a little sad because she's not with us, but when she comes back she's going to bring back presents." Says Geode.
"What about you?" Caesar asks Garnet.
"I also think that." He agrees with his brother.
"Plenty of presents, indeed. Now boys, Amethine trained for the games and your other older sister is training too, correct?" he asks to make sure he's right. The boys nod.
"Will you two follow in your sisters' footsteps and train when you guys are older?"
Susan and Charles leaned forward, waiting for their answer. The question of when the twins will start training has came up before and Susan and Charles said that they had to wait their turn. Two of her children were already preparing for the games and Susan didn't know how to handle watching allof them training. When Amethine turned six, she begged to be enrolled in the training center. She wanted to train so bad that she even refused to talk to Susan for a week when she first told her no. Susan had even gotten her husband to try and talk to Amethine and get her to change her mind, but Amethine stood her ground.
Seeing that she's sure about this, and knowing all the things that their daughter would do to, Charles listened and convinced his wife. The main thing on the bright side was that if she got reaped, she'd be ready. That's all Susan thought about. She didn't know that training will shape her into a sadistic killer, who would do anything for a spot in the Hunger Games. Amethine trained and trained, and watching all of this was six year old Amethyst. Amethyst saw all the fun her big sister was having and wanted to join in. When she first asked, Susan and Charles immediately said no. It was hard for Susan to let Amethine train and she told herself that the same thing will not happen with Amethyst. She was wrong. Susan and Charles both thought that saying no to Amethyst will be very different than with Amethine and they were right, but Amethine stepped in and helped her sister persuade their parents. Amethine told Amethyst to do the same thing she did when she was her age. Beg and ignore them until they say yes. Amethyst did this and it worked. She even went higher up a notch and refused to eat supper! But in the end it was worth it, because Amethyst got to train with her big sister and join in on the fun.
"Mommy and daddy said that we have to wait our turn." Geode states.
"And when it is your turn, you'll both discover your talents." Caesar says kindly.
"Yeah, we're going to be stronger than Amethyst and Amethine." Geode agrees. The audience laughs.
"Whatever." Amethyst keeps her eyes on the high-quality screen, doubting that her little brothers will surpass her in strength and skills.
The buzzer goes off. "Okay, boys. That's all the times we have for ya'," Caesar rises from his chair.
He helps the twins out of the chairs and gives them high-fives before they walk off the stage and to their lounge.
"Good job, you two!" their mother hugs them.
"Amethyst, you're next." Garnet says.
"I know. Watch and learn boys, watch and learn." She saunters out of the room.
Amethyst still has time to push her hair out of her face and make sure her dress isn't messy- speaking of her dress, it's crimson, sparkly dress that stops at her knees and goes straight down without any volume. The plunging neckline doesn't go too low, thanks to her mother, and her hair cascades down her back in flawless curls. Amethyst wants to help win Amethine some sponsors, and sought this opportunity to practice for her interview when she enters the games. With all the attention being on her even if just for a few minutes and helping her sister, this is a win-win situation for Amethyst.
"Last, but not least of the Gemmis family is Amethine Gemmis's sister- Amethyst!" Caesar introduces.
Just like her father, wolf whistles fill the air, all coming from men. Most of the women whisper 'slut' and other mean things, already judging her. Amethyst confidently struts towards the host and he takes her right hand and guides her to her chair.
"You look amazing!" He acclaims her attire.
"Thank you."
"Okay, let's get started. Although your sister has trained longer than you, do you think that you're stronger than her?" Caesar asks.
The audience waits for her answer, loving the idea of sibling rivalry. Amethyst keeps the look of confidence on, not showing any hints of being scared of Amethine's skills.
"No, because she has more experience. But, I'd like to test my answer out. Maybe challenge her to a duel when she comes back."
"That would be interesting to watch. Do you plan on competing in the Hunger Games?" Caesar questions.
"Yes, I do. When I'm eighteen, I'm going to volunteer."
"Do you think you have what it takes to win?"
"That question doesn't have to be asked. I don't think,I know."Amethyst says confidently.
"I love the confidence! Your sister was very confident in her interview, and I can see the resemblance."
Amethyst never thought that she and Amethine looked alike. Nothing seemed the same in appearance between the two. Whenever someone points it out, Amethyst would say, "I don't see it." She was never with Amethine when people mentioned this, and wondered what her sister's response was when she was told this.
"Some people think that, but I just don't agree. I don't see it."
"Need a mirror?" Caesar asks. The audience giggles, knowing that that's not what Amethyst means.
"Is that sarcasm, Caesar?"
"No, not at all." He says defensively.
Amethyst has just proven that the pretty face doesn't mean that she won't back out of a fight or hesitate to kill. Haven't people hard the saying: 'Don't judge a book by its cover'? Amethyst was sure that the same thing is happening to Amethine and her sister was doing a good job at proving them wrong.
"Better not be."
"It was nice having you, Amethyst." Caesar says after he hears the buzzer.
Amethyst gives Caesar's hand one last shake before walking away.
"Why were you mean to Caesar?" Garnet asks Amethyst when she arrives at the lounge.
"I was just kidding."
"Why do you need to kid?" He asks out of pure curiosity.
"To help Amethine win." Amethyst replies.
Satisfied with that answer, Garnet stops with the questions and goes to sit on the couch. The whole family joins him, relaxing now that their done and can watch everyone else's interview.
Susan holds onto her husband's hand, fully aware that the interviews of the tributes from the non-career district will be full of tears, most of them coming from the mothers, if the tribute even has an alive mother. Being a mother herself, Susan empathizes their tears and fears of their child not coming home.
Have you ever wondered what the characters in this story look like? Well, I have too and I've started searching up people that best portray them. So far I've found someone to portray Amethyst and the link to her picture is on my profile. For Amethine, I'm still deciding between two people.
Thanks for reading! I can't stop apologizing for the long wait. I'm sorry and I hope that you enjoyed this chapter (: