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. So what are you waiting for? Go read her Hunger Games fic, Legacy!

This fic is rated T for violence and language.


The Entrance

Victor Victor Ivan Klerkov strolls into the compartment as the anthem of District 6 is broadcast. It sounds dull and powerless against the backdrop of the enormous city, its ethnic undertones now pathetic and weak, a show of quaintness instead of greatness as the Capitol drains its pride and power. It's all for show, of course, by a Capitol orchestra with no sense of interpretation.

It's a song of the cold, frozen North brought back from before the Apocalypse and the changing of the world when everything was forgotten. It's meant to be melancholy, not a march.

"It is time." He announces abruptly. "It is time to be a champion." Now I know what he meant. He's changed into his finest, raw-silk robes, trimmed in wolverine fur and worn under a breast-plate of ornate, native armor. His bulging arms are encircled with protective gauntlets wrapped in varnished leather studded with teeth from elbow to wrist. His unkempt beard is now sleek and oiled, and his brittle, yellow nails have been filed to sharp points and painted a coppery, matte bronze. He now looks every bit as dangerous as I know him to be.

Cry baby agrees. He lets out a squeal and plants his face in my ass again. "None of that!" The Bear before us thunders. Even Tasha Pushkina jumps. "I will not have you mess up our entrance, little Zaychik! Do you know what bears do to bunnies, Mr. Malcovitch?"

He peers out around me and shakes his head, nose still pressed tightly into my hip.

"THEY EAT THEM!" Klerkov roars. Cry baby wails in fright, clinging harder.

"Klerkov, you're scaring him!" Tasha shouts. "Leave the boy alone!" She's right—Xavier Malcovitch is fragile. If Klerkov had wanted to ruin any chance of us getting off the train with the slightest trace of dignity intact, he couldn't have done a better job.

"I do NOT deal with children," my Mentor sniffs. "I deal with champions."

She crosses her arms, glaring. "Is that your excuse, then, Victor Ivan Klerkov? None of the others had a good enough chance so you couldn't even be bothered to try?"

Klerkov glares from under his bristling eyebrows. "Enough!" I order. "Enough." Both their arguments are valid, but we can fight it out another time. Outside, the orchestra has reached the second chorus. All the eyes of Panem are now watching our train.


"Shoulders back. Head high. Stand straight!" Klerkov growls. "You have no breasts because you do not try, Petra Angelovna! Today you are not afraid! Today you show the world you are a child no longer!"

I haven't been a child since I was seven. Not since I watched father kill Lilly. But Tasha Puskina said I wasn't a woman yet, either. Staring out at the masses of Panem's Capitol with a lump in my throat threatening to choke me, I wonder vaguely what that makes me.

"What about Xavier?" Tasha Pushkina asks lowly. His tiny hands are clasped in one of her painted palms.

"I can save one," Klerkov shrugs. "One or none. Which will you have it be, Nataliya? Petra, or neither?"

She sets her jaw, and tears threaten to spill. "That's not how it works, Klerkov! You're supposed to promote them both!"

"No, Nataliya Pushkina, I am here to train," Klerkov continues harshly. "And you should be happy I do even that. You are to do the promoting, then. So go on. Promote him." He gestures to Cry baby with disgust. "May the odds of him winning be ever in your favor."

"Go to hell." She spits. The heel of her free palm crashes against the side of his chin. It's the closest she can come to striking his face. But Victor Ivan Klerkov doesn't even so much as blink.

She turns to me, imploringly. "Petra, please-"

I wheel away. Away from her pleading look, away from Xavier Malcovitch's wide, piteous eyes. I am Petra, Stone-heart. Rocks can't feel. Rocks can't die. If I want to win—if I want to live—I must become Klerkov's champion. "I got him on the train, Tasha." I whisper. "If you want him off, that's your business."


Klerkov and Tasha exit first, her delicate arm entwined with his iron-clad wrist. They make a fine show, to be sure. If I didn't know them better, I would say they were enjoying it, even. Tasha's natural grace and litheness make her almost dance down the sanguine carpet laid before them. She waves and prances, like the good little show-girl she is. Klerkov plods stoically, nodding his magnificent head in beneficence like a lord to his subjects. District 6 is hardly rich, and has no right to be so damn popular with the crowd, but the people of Panem's Capitol drink it up like vodka after a harsh winter's work.

Head up. Shoulders back. Breasts out. Glide. You can do this, Petra, I tell myself as I take that first step towards the waiting Arena. Just pretend that crowd is cheering for you.


...I'll be damned. They are.

I feel giddy and disgusted simultaneously. The nervousness has gone. "The Butcher!" they cry, "The Butcher!" They love me. Me, Petra Stone-heart, the Child-killer. Xavier Malcovitch's innocent face has given me nightmares, but the thought of taking a blade to one of these applauding assholes who will watch us die for their viewing pleasure is oddly satisfying.

What would it look like to watch a man bleed out? I wonder. That one, right there. Will he scream, cry, beg for his life like a bleating lamb? Or will he simply accept his fate-? Not that it matters. It's just a point of curiosity.

Perhaps that thought shows on my face. Victor Ivan Klerkov instructed me to keep my eyes facing front, but I've found nothing can frighten a herd of cattle like a man on his feet staring them right in the eye. The hundred in the first row stop their cheering mid-clap under my contemptuous stare. I hold their gazes, one by one, as I stride down the sanguine stairs to the streets below littered with coins, flowers, and District flags. I am Petra Angelovna, I tell them, and you are all about to die.