5: The Victory Tour
Gale POV
Today is the camera shoot for our Victory Tour outfits. The outfit that I will propose to Katniss in. Cinna and Portia arrived half an hour ago and are having tea with my family in our living room. I was told to go and have another bath or shower and make myself look the best I can. That's done now though and Portia will be coming up with my outfit soon. She's done fairly when in not making me look like I'm dressed up for Halloween so far, I can only hope she keeps it up.
I hear a knock and the door and tell her to come in. Portia looks my body up and down, examining me to see if I look clean enough and pretty enough, which makes me a bit uncomfortable. "We've matched your outfit with Katniss's," she tells me. "Most of the photos will be taken with you together. The pictures will be broadcast soon after we take them, but you probably won't get to District 11 until about three today."
Portia opens the bag, revealing my costumes for the next few days. There are three and they seem almost identical. There is also a set of casual black clothes for the train journey. First Portia gives me a suit the exact colour of the District 12 coal and a shirt in a slightly lighter grey colour. A black leather belt and some new shoes.
The material of the suit and shirt is odd, it seems to have threads of another fabric running through it, crossing and overlapping. The first few suits I have didn't have this feature. Noticing my interest in it, Portia smiles and takes an object out of her pocket. It seems like an oversized lighter.
"Another fire effect?" I ask her.
"Basically, but this time we aren't setting your whole outfit on fire. The fire will keep to certain threads that are running through the suit. I noticed you examining them." So I'll look like a piece of coal with fiery wires running through it. I can imagine it, it sounds like one of the better outfits.
She lights what I originally thought was a loose thread at the bottom. Slowly, the fake fire spreads throughout my shirt like the wires are veins. I look in a mirror at myself. Overall, my appearance is very District 12- and oddly in a good way. It doesn't look like normal smart clothes, but it also doesn't make me look ridiculous.
Portia brushes my hair to the side and teases out any tangles. She then highlights the odd thread dark grey or fiery orange to match with my outfit. Also, she puts a bit off make up on me just under my eyes to hide the dark circles resulting from nightmares about the Games nearly every night.
Then I am led out of the house to where there a crew of camera men stand with Katniss. Katniss is wearing a lighter version of my outfit. Her dress is the same colour as my shirt, paler than my suit. It also has the strands of fire through it and ginger highlights in her hair. There is something graceful about the dress, like a bird. A phoenix perhaps, rising from ashes and coal in District 12 to become a symbol of hope for the Districts. These are the clothes that I will propose in.
I smile at her and stand next to her. "You look amazing," I whisper to her. "Better than any other tribute or Victor that I've seen before." Katniss returns my smile and takes my hand in hers. I notice that she has mockingjays tattooed along her inner arms in light grey and the mockingjay pin in gold on the back of each hand.
We face the cameras, hand in hand. This seems like the pose that they wanted because there is the flash and click of cameras as we smile. We are shown the photo of ourselves. We look quite dark in the outfits. More smiling evilly than smiling happily I think. I wonder if this was the intended effect.
There are a few more photos taken and some of Katniss and I alone. Then we are taken back inside and dressed in different outfits to have pictures taken again. The next outfit is lighter and makes me look happy, not plotting. Katniss is wearing a similar dress to the one she wore at the interviews before the games.
The final outfit is a plain black suit for me and a dark dress for Katniss. Though they both have small fiery accents, these clothes look more like mourning clothes than anything. The cameras click again and we smile and pose together, then alone. I am a bit tired of all of the photos, do the Capitol people really care that much about this? I guess they do.
"The first outfits will be worn in Districts 1, 2, 4 and possibly 11. The second ones will be worn for Districts 3, 6, 7, 9 and 10. The ones that you are wearing now will be worn in 5, 8 and maybe 11," Cinna says. I see the pattern. The clothes that we are wearing now will be worn for the Districts whose tributes we were kind to in some way. Rue, the District 8 girl and Aravis. A lump forms in my throat at the thought of Aravis.
I remember the time when she saved my life as we were being chased by careers, helping her get the anti-venom she needed at the feast, tossing her that first loaf of bread. I try to put these memories out of my mind. I will be meeting Aravis's family sometime tomorrow.
The second outfits will be for the Districts that we had no real interaction with and the first outfits will be showing off how tough we look to the career Districts and maybe to Thresh's District. The tributes that we killed without remorse. The Victory party where I will propose always takes place in District 1 because they are the luxury District and they make the party items.
After the camera shoots are done, I change into the plain black clothes and my family and I get on the train. Katniss comes on with me. Rory and Prim go off together down the train to get some snacks and Posy goes with them, so I am left with Katniss, my mum and Katniss's mother.
I glance at Katniss and raise my eyebrows towards her mother, silently asking if she told her mother about President Snow's visit. She shakes her head slightly and looks down. No, she hasn't. Why not, I gesture to her. Katniss gazes down the corridor to where Prim and Rory and Posy went. She didn't want Prim to worry.
She looks towards my mother and I nod slightly. Katniss doesn't seem surprised at this, but I think that she does feel for Rory and Posy having to put up with the knowledge because she looks down the corridor again. I shrug. It's not like they wouldn't find out at some point anyway and they have a right to know.
"We should practice the proposal," Katniss says awkwardly. "I bet the Capitolites are expecting it to be flawless and natural." I sigh slightly at this idea. It makes me slightly angry the way that our proposal has to be so rehearsed and forced. Especially as we are rehearsing it for people that we both hate.
"Do I need to go down on one knee or something?" I ask her. Because I always expected that I would propose to her casually, like most couples in the Seam did, I'm a bit rusty on what makes a 'proper' proposal. Katniss looks a bit unsure as well. Maybe it would have been useful to have the stylists in here.
Surprisingly, Katniss's mum opens her mouth. "You do," she tells us. "You need to take her hands in yours or if you have a ring, offer it to her. According to Cinna, there is a place down the train that has a selection of rings for you to choose from, but you can propose without a ring if you want to."
I wonder why she knows so much about this. Perhaps Cinna told her. I shrug it off and get down on one knee and hold Katniss's hands in my own. "Like this?" I ask.
Katniss's mother nods. "Now you need to ask her to marry you. It would look good if you put some emotions into it, don't just say will you marry me."
"Katniss Everdeen. I have loved you since the moment I first heard your voice. Will you do me the honour of agreeing to become my wife and spend your life with me?" I say, a questioning look on my face as I look to Mrs Everdeen for approval. She nods slightly and I smile.
"Have you really loved me since you first heard my voice?" Katniss asks.
"No," I reply. "If you remember, I was angry at you for trying to take my catch for yourself. Though it turned out that you just wanted to learn to set snares. Anyway, it just sounded like the type of false line that the Capitolites would like. Love doesn't just happen like that, that's infatuation. Not love."
"It was a good line," Katniss's mum says. "In fact, your whole proposal was pretty good. It sounded a bit forced, but I'm sure you can put more emotion in later. You might want to choose a ring or if you want a ring first." That makes sense, it seems like the proposal will be different without a ring. Also, I would like to give Katniss something for the proposal.
"The ring section is that way," Katniss's mum says. She points down the train in the opposite direction the our siblings went. Katniss and I walk down the train holding hands. The feel of Katniss's hand in mine calms me. It reminds me that Katniss actually loves me, that this whole thing isn't just an act for the Capitol.
I smile slightly at Katniss. No matter how unlucky we have been, we were still lucky enough and smart enough to come out of the Hunger Games together, unlike so many others. Others whose families I am going to meet soon, I think anxiously. I don't want to meet their families. It makes even the careers seem like real people, not just cannons.
Katniss stops walking and I look down. Cinna and Portia are sat behind a table of rings. There are about fifty different rings there and I immediately wonder how much this cost and where the rings are going once we have picked. Hopefully the Capitol didn't buy all of these rings just for us.
My eyes scan the rings, picking out a few that I don't want immediately. These are the big, gold rings with huge gems in them that are too material. Most of the rings are gold, but I see some beautiful white-gold rings that would suit Katniss better. Katniss is scanning the rings as well.
"That one," she says, pointing. I look down to see the ring that she is pointing too. It is one of the white gold ones that I liked. It is quite a thin metal circle with two small curving bits coming of the main ring at the top. Embedded in the curling bits are two little pieces of amber.
I nod slightly, the ring is probably the same one that I would have chosen for her. Cinna picks the ring up and examines it. "24 karat white gold, two amber stones. It suits you very well and goes with the dress," Cinna says. Cinna pulls a box out of a drawer and puts the ring in and hands it to me. "Good luck," he says. "The train is approaching 11 by the way, you may want to change. Gale, outfit 1. Katniss, outfit 3."
We nod and I go to get changed into the outfit. Cinna left the fake fire lighter in the bag with my clothes so that I can light the loose thread that sends streams of fire blazing across my clothes. Satisfied, I exit the changing room and look out of the window. Apart from the Games, I've never been outside of District 12 before.
District 11 is big, much bigger than 12. I guess it has to be as it requires space to grow all of Panem's food. It is much prettier than District 12 too. District 12 is quite polluted and just has a grey atmosphere, whereas 11 seems quite quaint and sunny. There are farms and orchards all over the place and houses are clustered around in small villages.
I bet nobody ever gets killed in a fruit picking accident, I think bitterly. Why did I have to be born in 12, where people have the most dangerous and unpleasant jobs that also happen to be the lowest paying and ones with the least safety precautions? And why did it have to be me and Katniss of all people in the District who had to have our fathers killed in a mine accident? I put the thoughts out of my head as they are causing anger that I don't want the people to see.
The train grinds to a halt and Katniss and I get out. A podium has been set up for us and I struggle to remember the victory speeches that Katniss and I prepared a few days earlier. Luckily, Katniss has remembered them better and starts off with the speech about how happy we were to win the Games and how we were so grateful that the Capitol was so kind and merciful to us. I find myself nodding along with her. I get the feeling that if I open my mouth now then I'll come up with a hate-speech towards the Capitol.
The hatred intensifies as I look to the side of the crowd. I see the Victors families. Even Thresh, who tried to slit my throat and throw me off the cornucopia, I feel sorry for now. But Rue's family really makes my heart miss a beat. Rue has an older brother who seems part sad and part angry, and her parents have clearly been recently crying.
Katniss finishes her speech. The people of District 11 give a half-hearted round of applause. They really hate us, after what we did to their tributes. I think that the only reason Rue's older brother is holding back from running up here and murdering us where we stand is because he would only get killed trying.
As we leave the stage, Rue's older brother approaches us and glares. "I hate you," he says to Katniss. "I hate you!" he screams at her. Normally I would slap him for talking to Katniss like that, but I know that he has a reasonable excuse to hate her. Judging by Cato's reaction when he got back to the career camp after killing Rue, her death was not pretty. Also, if Katniss wanted to hit him she would have done it by now. Katniss isn't really bound by politeness and if something angers her she will generally say it.
Instead she only looks sorry. "You could have at least given her a decent death," he says. "I hoped so much when you were talking to her that you were going to let her go. But then you participated in her torture. You don't deserve to be Victor." The boy pauses. "Actually, you do. A sick Victor of sick games."
He storms off back to his parents and I put my arm around Katniss's shoulder. "It's OK," I murmur to her. "You had no choice. It was kill or be killed."
"I don't think I'll be able to keep this up for much longer," Katniss says as we get on the train. "This faking love for the Capitol and talking to the families of those that we killed. I don't think I'll be able to keep my anger in anymore." I clasp her hand in mine. I know that this has a calming effect on both of us.
The journey to the other Districts is spent in silence. There is nothing much to say after the argument in District 11 that will make Katniss feel better. The speeches in Districts Nine and Ten go by in a blur. There is nothing personal about the deaths of there tributes, so nothing happens. I am just dreading District 8.
Seeing the girl's family that I killed. My first kill outside the bloodbath. I can't really be held accountable for the kills in the midst of the bloodbath, but this kill was cold-blooded. The careers sent me back. I could have just left her. But then they would have realised that there was no cannon. I had no choice, I tell myself.
District 8 is a fairly small District. I give the horrible 'we're so grateful to the Capitol' speech this time and gaze off towards the Victor's families. I see the girl that I killed's little brother. Weft, I think his name was. Yes, definitely, Weft. Her dying words were about him, I remember it clearly.
"And I want to say sorry," I add to the end of the speech. "Sorry the families of those tributes. Sorry to there friends. Sorry to everyone who loved them. I didn't want their lives to end this way," I tell the crowds. The only part of my speech that was actually heartfelt and it was thinly veiled anti-Capitol propaganda. Great.
My eyes pick out a man from the audience. He is raising his hand. He kisses his fingers and holds up his hand slowly, proudly in the District 12 salute. The effect is like ripples. Others around him mimic it until the entire audience of District 8 are saluting us. They are united with us. An act of rebellion.
Peacekeepers stream up onto the stage. One of them drags the first man and some others march Katniss and I back to the train. I hear a single gunshot. I know what has happened. That man is dead. I don't dare look back as Katniss and I are forced up into the train. As the train leaves, I catch a glimpse of what happened.
The man's body is sprawled across the floor and blood is pooled around him. "I'm so sorry," I whisper out of the window. Then I kiss my fingers and salute him, like he did for me. President Snow will pay.
xXx-X-xXx
So what do you think of chapter 5? It's the longest chapter in this story yet. If you have any feedback, please leave a review and tell me. Thanks to the wonderful readers who already have. See you next chapter..
-MoonOfPluto