Date: Year 9, August. Four days after Mags' victory.
Mags clicked her new suitcase shut, careful not to trap her flowing sleeves in the large lock.
Home. The word conjured Mama, Esperanza and Creneis' streets. Its smells and the crash of waves against the sand. Now, it also would be a building. A real house.
She had spent the day a the wave-like blue-and-white dress, answering questions and having her picture taken. The Lady of the Oceans. Mags huffed a laugh. The Capitol was... insane. The very serious rubbed elbows with the absolutely frivolous and trying to keep up left her reeling. There had been not traps though, she'd been given the list of questions beforehand, to prepare. No mention of the dead tributes was made; instead Marcus Flickerman had focused on her plans for the future and her awakening. Mags had become a symbol for propaganda, the confused but well-meaning rebel turned enlightened citizen. As revolting as it was, Mags forced her feelings aside. No rebel would triumph by staying out in the open.
She feared the stares she would receive back home, full of pity and judgment. She feared that the very people she wished to save would hate her and think her a broken coward.
It didn't matter. Constantine and Fife had died for her. Her feelings didn't matter. She just had to get things done.
Footsteps. Mags froze. It wasn't Achlys' or a guard's boots, so the lack of heels made her furrow her brow. Even male Capitolites wore metal lined shoes, and the step was too loud to be an avox.
"I'd like us to take a walk, Mags, before you leave."
Vicuña Chrysaor, Constantine's mentor, the Career.
Mags slowly turned around. Vicuña's blue eyes were alight with open curiosity. Mags decided not to see any malice in the invitation. She didn't know which mentors were still in the Capitol. In truth, she hadn't even thought to seek them out.
Mags silently followed the muscled blonde up two flights of stairs to a large balcony, struggling not to step on her overdone dress. Mags slowly walked up to the spun iron railing, her golden-brown hair swept back by the strong summer gales. From there, she couldn't see the destruction waged by the underground bomb, instead tall colored spires reached into the indigo sky while people and vehicles milled about, like a thousand parading peacocks, in the wide city-streets. Mags tasted the warm pasty wind on her lips and felt a wave of homesickness crash into her. Everything felt off. The air was too thick, the sun too hot and there were neither birds nor cicadas to celebrate the day with their songs.
The older victor gestured to the sight before them. "Beautiful isn't it?" Vicuna's smile grew wry. "There are conditions attached of course, but it's still magnificent."
Mags smiled at the last. It was gorgeous indeed, in its artificial way. "Are all the other victors gone?" She asked.
A short harsh laugh escaped Vicuña's lips. "There are only two victors, Mags. You and me."
Mags flinched at the tone. She turned to Vicuña, truly looking at her for the first time. The young woman was barely twenty but had nothing childish about her. She stood tall and had the air of someone who owed nothing to anyone, yet she looked neither worn nor jaded, simply aware. Her short blond hair and loose clothes were masculine, and Vicuña wore neither jewelry nor make-up to soften her tough figure. She looked at ease as she grasped the railing with her calloused hands.
"Only two victors?" Mags repeated. She feared she was beginning to understand.
"The other Hunger Games all claimed twenty four lives." She exhaled at Mags' wry eye roll and stood straighter, her posture screaming danger. Mags instinctively took a step back, cursing herself for angering such a famous murderer. "That's what the Careers are supposed to be about. Having a survivor, someone who enjoys being alive instead of those zombies trapped in nightmares."
Mags was now staring, struggling to push away the dreadful memory of Vicuña slicing through a begging fourteen year old with her huge sword and to actually listen to what the woman was telling her. She had never dwelt at length on Vicuña's reasons. Wanting to be on the Capitol's good side and craving wealth and power had seemed reason enough.
Vicuña threw her arms in the air, a flush creeping up her cheeks. "Look at them, Mags! Comet now spends almost all her time in the Capitol, as an actress, and between shootings she remains in character, because she's much too disgusted to be herself. The two guys from Seven argue like some bad caricature of an old couple but they can't leave each other alone! Mattock from Ten never says a word and is one sullen bastard, but at least he's done wonders for his family and has a girlfriend he treats right, which can't be said for Rye, who's trying to see how many laws he can break before the Capitol hangs his ass. That ugly runt has single-handedly spent more on hookers in the last three years than his whole bloody district put together."
"So that's what the Capitol sees: when you give district people money, they whore or just plain don't accomplish a damn thing."
Mags paled, both in anger -those people had been forced through the Hunger Games! of course they were off!- and in horrifying understanding. Every victor was used as an example by Capitolites to why the Capitol, and only the Capitol, should have wealth and power.
Disgust etched in her face, Vicuña took a bitter breath and lowered her voice. "Bianca from the Six won through patience and luck alone, and now she's still waiting. For what, she won't tell, but she has become an expert in astrology, and expensive cocktails... I haven't ever seen her completely sober and I doubt she will ever talk to me again after these Games."
"You were the one who told us the tributes from Six had sabotaged the train," Mags whispered hollowly, her mind pulling her back to the day of the train crash. "The two of them had no chance, they were innocent."
"We were all innocent compared to what we become as victors," Vicuña snapped. "You'd rather the ruins had claimed them, or maybe the Scavengers? Better than having you kill them, no?"
Mags took a shaky breath, more upset by those words than she wanted to admit. Vicuña had taken a step back, her body wound tight and her expression defensive, almost hurt. Mags didn't want her hurt. Everyone had a choice, but telling Vicuña she should have gone against Achlys and lied for two condemned tributes was ridiculous and childish. Yet it always came back to finding excuses for people working hand in hand with the Capitol, to accepting that tributes were but disposable pawns on a chessboard.
Mags feared she might be physically ill.
"So you're telling me all the other victors would have been better off dead?"
Vicuña barked a laugh at Mags' appalled expression.
"They believe it. What have you won if that's what your life becomes?" She said. "They're all so young and they're wasting their lives away." A sigh escaped Vicuña's lips as she shook her head, her eyes lost in the distance. "There are quite a few people who could benefit from being a victor, who could handle it. Winning was my only chance at a future. My family was a mess and we were much too poor to hope things could get fixed by hard work alone, so I trained and I won and I'm happy I did."
Vicuña put a hand on Mags' shoulder and flashed her a knowing smile. "You're proud of yourself, Mags, not because of what happened, but because you knew what you were fighting for. Having volunteers will save all the kids who aren't made for the Games from getting reaped and the victors will enjoy their status instead of being such wrecks."
Mags nodded slowly. Vicuña's reasoning made sense, Mags had told Achlys she wanted to train victors after all, but... The Games were death, and that nothing could change. Six of them had had sevens and eights in training and five of those were dead. Training would make it seem like the dead had asked for it. And worse, Vicuña spoke about building a society that considered the Games to be a long term reality, and that Mags felt utterly unprepared to accept. Rage and anguish warred in her as a sudden crushing loneliness almost pushed her to the ground.
Was she the only person who still believed in a successful rebellion?
"Training might be convenient for the Capitol, but it's illegal," Mags said, almost daring to hope her weak argument would have some weight.
"Then it just won't be too obvious," Vicuña said with a shrug. "It won't be a problem, not as long as the District is loyal."
Mags bit her lip. Loyal. District Four was a nest of dormant rebels, and Mags suspected that Achlys was actually counting on her to change that. How ironic. Vicuña sounded quite confident, which meant that the Capitol had given her its blessing.
Vicuña looked away from Mags, her eyes landing on the Capitolites in the streets below. "The President told me the reapings for the first two Games were rigged. There was no one under seventeen except for those three psychotic kids who should have been locked up. The tributes hardly looked sweet and if you ever check, you'll see they all had criminal, but rarely rebel, pasts. Everything was done to limit the amount of sympathy district people would muster. It's much more random now, but they're still careful, Mags."
Mags couldn't speak for a few seconds. She remembered the first thirteen year old ever reaped, a bloodthirsty orphan who had been broken by the war. Mags was guilty to admit she had been relieved to see him die. The memory now sent rage sizzling through her veins. Rigged? To make them think it was all right?
"Why would the President tell you that?" Mags finally managed.
Vicuña's mouth split into the feral smile Mags had seen so many times on TV. "To show me the Capitol knows what it's doing and that we'd better behave. Your Games were one big play. I can't imagine the amount of lies you will have to tell mundane citizen, so I figured it would be fair for you to at least know the truth. You don't have to worry about any siblings of yours getting reaped anymore either. Evadne isn't stupid enough to lose us like that."
Mags' eyes narrowed at the casual use of the President's first name. She was torn between sheer relief and fear. Esperanza's name would be back in the bowl in a blink, and on a thousand slips, if Mags were to reveal her true colors.
After an awkward pause, Mags extended her hand. "Thank you, Vicuña."
She doubted they would ever be friends, but Vicuña would be useful and doubtless decent company. More importantly, people had to get used to seeing Mags in the Capitol if she wanted to build the foundations of a new rebellion without being caught. Capitolites were the only people who could contact any district and Mags would need inside help to liberate Panem when the time would come.
Vicuña shook her outstretched hand firmly. "I don't care for the Awakened Mermaid and all that stuff," she said with an earnest expression, "I won't argue politics with you. I'm just glad there's finally someone here who wants to live on." Her voice dropped to a whisper as she tightened her grip. "I'm sorry about Aquila. When you'll be a mentor, try hard not to get attached."
Mags lowered her eyes as Vicuña let go of her hand. Constantine's smile mixed with the face of the twelve year old from district Ten, Leon, in her mind. Don't get attached. Mags' jaw clenched in sudden anger. She didn't have a damned switch to turn off her ability to care!
Mags forced a small smile after another tense pause. "I hope we'll get happy victors more often."
She didn't like the idea of giving wealth and power to trained murderers, but then she thought of Fife, who had put a blade through two men and shot three hovercrafts down, and she decided selfish killers didn't have to be so bad. If victors couldn't be innocent, they may as well be happy. As long as they didn't become some sort of special Capitol police.
In the city below, bells suddenly erupted in a symphony of joyful tolls.
Mags smile broadened. In four hours' time, she would be home.
Mags could never have predicted how the training centers in District One, and especially Two, would sacrifice whole generations, breaking the empathy of hundreds of children, instead of protecting the weaker teenagers and giving an ambitious volunteer their happy ending like Vicuña had naively wanted.
She could never have predicted the decades of wait that made rebellion seem an almost impossible dream. Almost.
Author's note.
Some information you may want to have:
Games:
Games 1 victor: District 7 male (age 18)
2: D9 male (18). Committed suicide during the chariot rides.
3: D7 male (16)
4: D6 female: Bianca (18)
5: D10 male: Mattock (18)
6: D9 male: Rye (17)
7: D1 female: Vicuña Chrysaor (18), volunteer.
8: D3 female: Comet (17)
Names (3). All District One.
Cereus: name of a species of cactus that bloom briefly at night, sometimes only once every ten years, giving a beautiful white flower.
Sphene (Cereus' last name): semi-precious yellow/green stone
Roy (Constantine's father): king in old French
Selene (C' mom): moon (Greek origin)
Coraline: semi-precious red coral growth
Valerian: Latin, means valiant
Vicuña: llama like animal with highly expensive wool.
Chrysaor: legendary sword that can cut through anything in Edmund Spencers' the Faerie Queene. Chrysaor is also the brother of Pegasus in Greek mythology.