AN: This fic is for Irish Luck, whose willingness to try her hand at non-linear storytelling (and the Hunger Games Universe) has challenged me to try something different as well. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about my OC's, girl. Everyone else reading is welcome to do the same!
This fic is rated T for violence and language.
The Capitol
The train heaves to a stop at the Capitol station. My heart is hammering and I feel like puking my guts out, familiar foods at breakfast or no. I've seen it before, of course, on the vids, but even on the largest of screens no picture can ever prepare you for the sheer, stark terror that is mankind.
Behold, he cries, look what I have done! The very sky is etched out around massive columnades of buildings upon buildings rising and twisting and fighting like a massive forest of industry and steel. The morning sunlight sheers off glass paneling, fiery and flickering in a blinding glare. And filled to the bursting, overflowing and running over that immense anomaly are the people.
I've never seen so many. Didn't know so many could exist…and their collective. chorus is deafening.
Tasha Puskina peers through the tinted windows at the gathered crowd. Tributes from Districts 1 and 2 have now all disembarked. "How are you feeling?" She asks timidly.
"There's so fucking many,"I grunt.
She puts a light touch on my arm. "You have to be brave, Petra Angelovna. For both your sake's."
…she's right. She just doesn't know it yet.
Districts 3 and 4 have now disappeared into the maddening throng. It's nearly our turn. Tasha's face has grown both resigned and vapid—with a jolt I realize she's preparing as much as me. "You hate this, don't you," I finally whisper.
She grimaces. "More than you know."
I'll admit. She's got me confused. "Why?"
She shrugs under that braided monstrosity. "The same reasons you do, I suppose. The sight of this many people just makes my insides go all cold."
"No, I mean, why do it, then?"
Her heart-shaped, tattooed lips smile sadly. "Because in the Capitol, Petra Angelovna, being a beautiful woman has its downsides."
I muse over her words as the Tributes from District 5 make their descent. "I don't understand."
"You wouldn't," she continues placidly. "Be grateful for that, Petra."
"Because I'm ugly?" I snort.
"Because there are two types of cruelty women suffer at the hands of men. You've known your share of one, but in the other, child, you've been spared."
I frown. "I'm not a child."
She eyes me up and down, from my wide, flat feet to my curveless hips and unblossomed breasts. "I doubt you're a woman, either, Petra Angelovna."
My face flushes crimson. Is it that damn obvious-?
She laughs, but it is not unkind. "Petra, no eighteen year-old but a virgin would have put up such a fuss about being seen by two men. Or a boy and a drunk, to be more accurate."
A sudden thought occurs that terrifies me. "Tasha, were you…" raped. But I can't say the word outloud.
"No, Petra. I was thirteen, he was seventeen," she closes her eyes in rapture at the memory. "And he was very, very gentle. But I realized then what lay in store for me. Here in the Capitol, beautiful women are forced to be seen. An Escort, a Consort, a Mistress, a Dancer…or even a Vid performer. "
I shudder. Never before have I considered my ugliness an advantage. Fate, I'm suddenly thankful. "So you chose the Games."
"Where I'm required to show my face," she continues somberly, "but as for the rest of me, well, they're forced to wonder." In all six years Nataliya 'Tasha' Pushkina has Chaperoned the Games, teenage me never stopped to question her ridiculous sense of fashion with ornate, costumed clothing, lavish wigs and theatrical make-up. I was petty, I was jealous, I was angry at the Capitol and thought her just another brainless bimbo like so many of the Chaperones and Stylists. Small though she is, she grows giant in my eyes, and suddenly I feel like a little girl again, looking up at my mother in wordless admiration.
…I haven't felt that way since I was five, when the first of my sisters died.
"It proved too much, of course." She gestures to her permanent tattooing to cover her addiction. "I was selfish. I wasn't strong enough." Could you do it, Petra? Befriend children once a year, just to watch them die? Tasha Pushkina does morphling nearly three-hundred and sixty days of every year, just so she can forget.
"I don't think you're weak, either," I whisper.
She blinks, and a tear glides unexpectedly down her painted face. "You know, Petra Angelovna, for the ugly, uneducated daughter of a butcher who doesn't say much, you can still be very, very kind."
