Funnily enough, when I tell someone I will probably not update very soon, I finish a chapter. That's twice now. Thank you all for your feedback.
Guest reviewers, don't hesitate to get an account. I'd love to chat.
Date: Year 10, August. Four days after the end of the 10th Games.
Mags smelled it before she saw it. Fire.
Bitter ash seared her nostrils and filled her throat, urging her to gag with every breath. The pungent scent seeped in her hair and clothes, until even the contrary wind brought no relief.
Mags' eyes stung, and not just from the ash. She balled her fists to hide the tremble in her hands.
"They burned it?" Her voice choked from pained disbelief as she turned to her peacekeeper guard. "They burned it down?"
'No casualties', and yet Mags felt as though the body of an acquaintance had washed ashore. Months of work, her academy, the crystallization of all her plans for her ungrateful district. Why?
"Those poor people must be afraid to they'll be out of jobs if they actually finish the academy," Ajax said with a sneer.
"Sergeant, I doubt the workers are at fault," Marquise interjected. "Dylana came to be put under protection, she has the names."
Mags stumbled. Dylana? Her radical rebel former best friend would turn in the culprits?
"She demanded we wait for you to have a talk." A laugh escaped Marquise's lips "You should have seen how she told Yarrow off when he tried to stop her from coming to us. Sanguine, isn't she? That boy tucked tail like a kicked puppy."
"He'd better be very afraid," Ajax said darkly. "We established a perimeter around town, no one's getting in or out."
Mags frowned at the ground, puzzled. A perimeter? With fifty peacekeepers?
"How can you keep small vessels from leaving with just fifty people?" She said, struggling to keep up with all the information.
Marquise gave her a blinding smile, pride flushing her face. "We had a hundred. Teams of four: two peacekeepers, two civilians. Not one incident." She outstretched her arm. "Look, Miss Mags."
Mags forced her head to come up. She didn't want to see this. She wanted her mother. What had kept her from being here? She didn't want to see how months of work had been reduced to nothing.
The sight before her brushed away her resentment. Her eyes widened in awe.
Two peacekeepers, two civilians. The words sunk in.
The sturdy concrete walls of the former desalinization factory were black, the last of the old paint peeling off the walls. The half-built roofs had been torn down by the fire, leaving the factory as naked as it had been when the works had started. But the structure was clean, no debris littered the ground. The scaffolding was back in place and new wood stood stockpiled in the reserve, neat beams ready to be assembled. Over thirty people were hard at work under the beating sun.
A smile graced Mags' lips. "They all did this in less than two days?"
"The whole town helped," Alaric said, surprise still clear in his tone. "We have a score troublemakers sitting around with handcuffs waiting for the names dropping. People were eager to turn in the suspects this time."
Had it been that easy? "There has been no incident with their parents?"
"We just cuffed them up and tied them to a tree," Marquise said. "They're suspects, not criminals, not yet. The parents know better than to complain." She snorted. "We had to stop passersby from throwing rocks at those idiots."
"'We' being Marquise, the mayor and the Corduroys. Small rocks wouldn't have killed them," the masculine Indra said. "If they're not guilty of the fire, they're guilty of something else."
Despite the peacekeeper's condemning tone, Mags found herself hiding a grin. Ironically, the town had never been more united.
A shimmer on the academy's wall caught her eyes.
Lengthening her strides, Mags squinted to make sense of the tall intertwined tags.
LIAR TRAITOR LIAR Capitol slut!
Four will give no slaves. BEWARE! Mags=Capitol FIGHT for FREEDOM.
Those too stupid to trust will DIE. **MURDERERS** RIP Valentia Gar and Petrel Zander.
CowardS TRAITOR Our land, our rules!
Mags stared, mouthing the words. It hurt. They were written by angry children who knew nothing of her. It still hurt.
Marquise put a hand on her shoulder. "Stop focusing on the small and take a global view at the graffiti."
Mags blinked and did as she was told. A huge red SHUT UP SQUIDHEADS was tagged on the insults. Her eyes crinkled. It was silly, but Mags felt like a cool silk blanket had been wrapped around her shoulders.
"Who did that?" She wondered.
"A drunk man had the idea," Alaric said, standing stiff as always as if he was reporting for duty, "shaggy beggar, the one who hauls the trash out, others brought paint."
Scaup? Mags owed him another bottle, and a new set of clothes.
"It was fun," Marquise said, "I ruined my shoes with the paint but it was fun."
"Poor little princess," Indra muttered.
They headed for the shacks that the workers used either to store supplies or as toilets.
"She's here," Ajax announced to the three men standing guard, "You may retire."
"Yes, Sergeant."
Mags found Dylana seated on the ground.
The victor gave her former best friend a brief hug. "I leave for less than half a month..."
Dylana snorted. She had lost weight and her eyes were sunken and red, but her scowl was as fierce as always. "Glynn was right. You think she'll be insufferable for it?"
Mags chuckled once. Her face darkened. "Was there anyone from Sickleport involved?"
Dylana's eyes narrowed in keen curiosity. She was not the only one.
"Valentia warned me," Mags said, bowing her head at the memory. "Was there?" She whispered.
"Berle and Dylan tagged the walls and lit the flames, with Dover and Mareen," Dylana said, her face a mask of stone as she let herself fall back down on the ground.
Mags winced but couldn't say she was surprised. Dover was Yarrow's best friend and Berle the boy who had been branded as a boy for having thrown boiling oil at peacekeepers. He'd gotten in trouble ever since; Mareen was one of his friends, a quiet surly girl that had done remarkably well in school. Dylan she didn't know, he had to be older.
"They had contacts with people who came by boat," Dylana continued, anger slowly seeping in her tone. "One was little, either a girl or a kid, rough-wise five feet tall, with a limp. The other was a man, broad but not too tall."
"Genny and Calder, it fits. Va -," Mags swallowed. "Valentia warned me they wanted revenge... Is that all?" She said, daring to hope.
The seated teenager gave a stiff nod.
"They needed a lookout, girl," Ajax said, his voice thick with warning. "If you start covering for people, we'll do our own work."
"Berle and Mareen are always with their weasel friend," Indra supplied.
Dylana's face was flushed. She refused to meet the peacekeepers' eyes. "Galon is smarter," she said. "He had nothing to do with this, I promise."
Ajax didn't look impressed. "He must have suspected."
"You have the culprits, Patrol Leader," Mags cut in before Dylana's cheeks blazed hot enough to light a room. She dearly hoped that Dee wasn't lying. "It's enough. Galon knows better than to cause trouble and will stop others from making the same mistakes. People like him are better for the peace than placid old ladies who'll never say anything to anyone."
The officer glowered at her, his square jaw clenched as he shifted his broad frame to stand above her, casting a dark shadow over the victor. "Try to phrase your opinions a little less like orders, young lady."
"President Achlys sent me home a day early to solve the situation," Mags replied, sensing her own temper flare. "I apologize if I am tense, Sergeant, but we are expected to give results and guarantee a long term solution."
She hid her satisfaction at the abrupt change in the tall Patrol Leader's demeanor. Mags knew she couldn't throw the President's name around too much, but it worked every single time.
"The lookout?" Ajax snapped after a loaded pause.
"Mako and Opal Sandler," Dylana grudgingly whispered.
Opal? Mags stomach sank. The name was familiar. Esperanza had sometimes mentioned an Opal Sandler. "How old are they?"
Dylana brought her knees to her chin. "Eleven and thirteen."
Mags' throat clenched as her stomach rebelled. "Kids." Foolish kids with the best intentions. They always were.
"Of course," Ajax said with a grim smile. "They're easier to convince. What punishment do you think is appropriate, Mags? The older ones will be executed of course."
Mags had slowly learned when not to bend the rules. Aggressive criminals were never avoxed, yet… Berle and Dover had still one reaping to go.
"Please give them a choice between volunteering and being executed, Sergeant. It'll go over more smoothly even if the result will be the same," Mags suggested tightly. And it would save an innocent boy from being reaped. She sighed. "What's my choice for the children?"
Ajax tutted. "Children is eight and under, not over ten. Those morons should be avoxed. Destruction of property is no less than twenty lashes. It should be thirty. "
"Twenty lashes have killed adult men before," Mags muttered, waiting for her mind to come up with a miracle solution. Dylana wasn't being of any assistance. Mags cursed her mother for being busy elsewhere. "How long –"
"Lieutenant Falx is coming in a quarter hour," Ajax said, not an ounce of pity in his dark eyes.
These were people's lives, damn it! Mags kept her eyes downcast, not wanting to antagonize the man. They were asking for her input, she didn't want to lose what few privileges she had.
"Cutting off their left hand?" Indra suggested. "There's jurisprudence for theft in minors."
The woman was serious. Mags grasped her wrist to keep her hand from flying up of its own accord and slapping Indra across the face. Peacekeeper like her made –
Peacekeepers. Mags' eyebrows flew up. Yes, she had to try.
"Why don't we send Opal and Mako off to Galene to train them as peacekeepers? You keep them as helpers here until the center there is done, which should be a year. They'll be watched but remain with their families until they can leave."
The usually silent Legend, the oldest of the squad of five, laughed. "Whip up a cool like speech to justify that. I'm sure I'll love it." He scratched his head. "Unless the boy's very big for his age, twelve is too young to start. It'd be fair to have them both do the drudgery until he turns fourteen. Half the cadets – peacekeeper trainees - begin in their late teens. Opal won't be behind."
Mags nodded. She cared little for such details as long as the Sandlers were alive and not mistreated.
"We all start at fourteen back home," Indra pointed out, looking down on the pair from District One.
"Good for you," Marquise muttered, earning herself a glare.
Mags grew silent as their bickering turned into serious debating over how to handle the criminals.
"We could execute directly on the Pier of Spirits, it'd spare everyone the bother of a second ceremony," Indra said.
"Get us out, or I'll get myself killed," Dylana said through clenched teeth, seething at the peacekeeper's complete disregard of one of their most rooted traditions.
Mags couldn't get out of the squad's sight, but she led Dylana out of earshot, her appraising eyes never leaving her childhood friend's face.
"What changed, Dee? I'm amazed you did this," she said, still not really believing that such a fervent Capitol-hater had sought out peacekeepers.
Dylana gave her a disillusioned smile. "They've got twenty-nine people in chains, Mags. Twenty-nine. Those'd pay for things they haven't done. It's your house that Genny and Calder wanted to burn, but Berle and Yarrow decided the academy was a more powerful symbol. Yarrow didn't light the beams because I swore he'd never be able to ever have sex again if he did."
Mags shut her eyes briefly, forcing her sudden anger to simmer down. "Couldn't you have warned us earlier?"
"Would I have saved lives? Maybe the Sandlers', yes, but, imagine I'd have told you, what would you have done? Sent in peacekeepers? Then Yarrow and the others were dead either way. Had you gone to talk to one of them, the others would all have panicked and torched the train station and barracks while they still had the chance. People would have died." Dylana crossed her arms. "Some wood burned, big deal. You'll have your academy soon and now everyone's on your side." She bit her lower lip. "I was also caught by surprise. It was planned for September, but they decided days ago that Petrel and Valentia were martyrs or something and that they couldn't wait anymore."
Mags cracked a mirthless smile. It was so despicable that she preferred to laugh at them. Treating them like intelligent human beings would have her strangle them with her bare hands. Her rage turned into a ball of nauseating revulsion when she was reminded they would die soon enough. She wasn't happy with Dylana, but she agreed her arguments weren't completely devoid of merit.
Dylana turned her palms upwards in a supplicating gesture. "I tried to talk them out of it. To have them do something useful without playing the Capitol's game. They had such a tunnel vision of things… Maybe you're really as extreme as we can pull off, Mags," she said, bitterness etched on her features.
Mags put a hand on the thinner girl's shoulder, hoping she'd lower her voice. While she felt for Dylana, she was relieved that she had finally recognized that rebellion wasn't about who had the biggest rocks to throw. "Brooke and Yarrow? The other two who hung out with you guys?"
A sharp breath exited Dylana's lungs. "Yarrow's probably going to try to kill me, literally. I had to make a choice, and it couldn't be him. Brooke is full of hot air, just like the rest of the bunch. She'll hate and do nothing. Frankly, I liked Dover. He's a good guy, but it's always the same crap. Either you're with them or you're the enemy. There was no talking with them." She gave Mags a sad smile, her eyes bright. "There was no talking with me, was there?"
Mags gently grasped her arm. "Not really. I'll have someone guard you for a while longer."
"They'll break the house's windows when no one's watching and such, I know it. I know who too," Dylana said with a grimace, "but it's one or the other, either people are broken, or they pull through by getting angry. The angry ones are dangerous, but they remind the meeker ones to be strong. Lots of people still look up to Berle, even if they'll never act out against the Capitol like he does, because he's a symbol. Kill all the rebels and Creneis won't recover. There will only be sheep left."
Mags agreed wholeheartedly, which still left them with no real solution.
"I'll look into that without the peacekeeper's help," she said. "I don't want mob justice. People should feel safe in their own town. We can't have people bullying every person they suspect of having rebellious thoughts."
Collaborators were already much more numerous than the extreme rebels and more dangerous as a group. They were a dark silent force, the inertia that dragged Panem down. The reason people whispered in the streets even when no peacekeeper was in sight. The reason parents did not speak freely to their children, afraid they'd repeat their words to someone who would report them, and therefore leaving the younger generation much more vulnerable to propaganda, convinced that rebellion was a thing of the past.
"Go have a talk with their parents," Mags said. "Marlin will come with you, and so will Glynn if you let her."
She looked down, thinking of the parents of the condemned. Even if Creneis Town slowly became a better place as they prepared for the rebellion, there would always be those who'd have paid the price in blood.
Dylana nodded. "You're right, I will." She bit her lip again. "I'm not looking forward to this, especially Yarrow's parents."
"Thank you, Dee. It was the right thing to do," Mags said, not wanting the other to doubt her choice.
"It pisses me off," Dylana spat. "It's how things work but, Circe, it makes me furious. When we'll talk, be prepared to see me pissed, Mags. Short of that, I think we can work together. You were my friend, I won't ever forget that."
The 'were' made Mags want to sigh, but it was nostalgia rather than grief. She had accepted her falling out with Dylana long ago. It was better this way.
Mags clasped both her hands. "I never doubted your loyalty."
"I'd found a good man," Dylana said, tears welling up in her brown eyes. "He wasn't perfect but he wanted to give me a perfect world. I wanted to believe that." She sniffed.
Her eyes narrowed. She wasn't looking at Mags anymore but behind her.
A middle-aged, and confusingly familiar, man with thick gray-streaked black hair had stopped a few yards away from them and was staring straight at her.
She shared a puzzled look with Dylana and stepped forward. Bare-chested with wearing washed-out shorts, the man didn't look to be a threat, but people had been told to keep away.
"You know, we're Abalones too," he said, his voice made raw by years of smoking.
Mags wracked her brain until she recalled his name. Deseo. Their grandfathers had been cousins. There were maybe fifty Abalones in Creneis. A few had already tried to come claim part of Mags' victor money as their right as family, people who even her mother barely knew, people who made Mags wary with their opportunistic ways. What did Deseo want?
The dark-haired man dropped his eyes. "Dylan married my youngest sister."
Oh. "I'm so very sorry," Mags said, a bitter smile twisting her lips. The selfish part of her so desperately wished Dylan had remained a complete stranger. Her face fell further when the man remained silent. She couldn't stand it anymore.
"What did he expect would happen when he burned down the academy?" She exclaimed. "What did your sister expect when she couldn't stop him? Unless she didn't know…"
"There's no way to save him?" It didn't sound much like a question.
Mags' jaw clenched. She didn't trust herself to answer without losing the shaky hold she still had on her temper.
"He never became more than an angry child," Deseo finally said, looking worn. "It only ever made sense to him. My sister wanted me to talk to you, so here I am." He gave her a tight smile. "A pension for the widow of the executed?" He tried, his expression resigned.
"I can get her a job cleaning the tags," Mags said, guilt flushing her face. She couldn't do charity.
She bit her tongue as soon as the words had left her mouth. Asking a woman to clean the last trace her husband had left on this earth was disgusting.
A strangled laugh escaped Deseo's lips. "I'll be the one to clean them, if you don't mind."
Mags nodded, feeling more despicable by the second. "Of course. There will be a schedule posted within a couple of hours."
The man turned around and left, his drooped shoulders hitting Mags like a punch to the guts. When would people walk with their heads high again?
"Mags," Dylana whispered, her eyes blazing with heat. "Even messy, even dragged out, rebellion is better than executions and misery until we are all bled dry."
The victor eyed her oddly. "Yes, of course. Rebellion, not unfocused destruction."
"I hate waiting," Dylana said darkly.
Mags grinned at seeing Esperanza's sleeping form, sprawled on the shaded grass next to the house. The raven-haired girl's deep regular breathing betrayed her exhaustion and whatever residual annoyance Mags harbored at not having been greeted by her family fled at seeing Esperanza like this.
She kneeled and gently pulled her sister's elbow from under her face. "There's been one late night too many for you."
" ... left to vacuum the ash," Esperanza mumbled, "there's no room…." The thirteen-year-old's eyes flickered open. She blinked and licked her pasty lips.
"Good afternoon, Esperanza," Mags said, her grin broadening.
"What-," Esperanza lifted her head up so fast she almost head-butted her sister. "You're back already?" she shouted, her face crumpling in dismay. "But, but I had to wake Mama! I couldn't sleep so I came here at dawn, I just wanted to take a short nap." Esperanza huffed as her mind cleared. She cracked a guilty grin and spread her arms out. "Welcome home, Big Sis."
Mags wrapped her arms around her and pulled her upright. "I missed you, Angel. It's great to be back."
She then pushed her sister back at arm's length and furrowed her brow. "Circe, you'll be taller than me by next year." Her eyes narrowed. Overfed Peace-Child. There were lines a younger sibling had no right to cross. "That's utterly unacceptable."
A laugh caused Mags to turn.
Angelites was standing on the porch in her nightclothes, guilt written over her tired features. "On the bright side, there were so many people wanting to help in the last couple of days that we had to send some home."
Mags' smile grew wry. "They're all driving me crazy. If it wasn't for the executions, I'd say we'd turned the tables on bad fortune, but -" An innocent patch of clovers succumbed to her frustrated kicking. "- it's never all good, there's always a price to pay…" She squared her shoulders, hating how whiny she sounded. "Do you think it's over, Mama? I can go to bed and expect to find things intact when I wake up?"
Her mother wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Few have doubted your honesty since last year, but they're now starting to see that the academy will better their lives. The change was striking. People have been hiding ever since the end of the war, afraid the little they have will be taken away, now they're out in the open, and they want to build."
"About bloody time," Esperanza said. She ran a hand through her short locks to remove the tangles. "Now, what do you want me to do?"
"We all have to go to the…"
Her sister shook her head. "I mean, like, from now on. I finished school like you wanted me to, but the only jobs I could get now are awful. I could get apprenticed, but I don't see the point."
Esperanza smiled in relief when she saw her mother's nod.
As if there was even the minutest chance of them forcing baby Esperanza to work herself raw for money they didn't need. She was so cute.
"So," the thirteen year old pursued. "I was thinking to test out the courses when the first people will come in the Academy. I wasn't the best, but I was a good student. If I understand what they're on about, they're good teachers and you can keep them. I'll learn and save you time. Then I'll be able to choose what I really want to do."
"Sounds good by me," Mags said, meeting her mother's eyes. The raven-haired woman nodded again, a small grin blooming on her lips. "We'll have the academy built by quarters so that we can bring people little by little and as early as possible. We'll be doing some travelling." Mags stifled a yawn at the prospect of heading out again so soon. "Your first task will be to find me an appropriate name for the academy and its students." She had never had any imagination.
Esperanza cocked her head to the side. "The Citadel sounds cool," she said with a broad smile, "and since it's not taken anymore…"
The girl had to duck to avoid her sister's swat. Mags didn't want to imagine what Achlys' reaction would be.
"Work Force 2?" Esperanza's cheeky smile almost reached her ears.
Mags poked the younger girl's nose, affecting an outraged expression.
Work Force 1 was the Capitol overseen office in Lycorias that 'helped' people find a job, which was another word for recruiting desperate adults to do the more thankless jobs.
Esperanza's face scrunched up under her sister's assault and soon her catching laughter had them all holding their sides and throwing ridiculous names out.
It was great to be home.
"What's going to happen to Opal?" Esperanza said, suddenly much meeker. "What about her little brother?"
Mags rubbed her tired eyes, wishing she had real good news for once. "Peacekeeper training in Galene."
Her spirits lightened slightly as her mother's hand caressed her cheek. "You, my dear, have a very quick mind."
Mags cracked a half-smile. "It's that or a very snug grave."
"That's not funny, Mags," Esperanza exclaimed, all trace of a smile gone.
"It's the truth," she said. And now she had speeches to prepare. At least things were moving along…
Esperanza's fingers dug into her arm. "You dying is not funny," she repeated, her voice hitching.
Mags bowed her head, annoyed to have upset her sister. She wasn't usually sarcastic. The Capitol was slowly ruining her.
And Creneis wasn't relaxing either...
"I'm sorry," she said, "let's get ready."
The soft crackle of burning paper filled the gloomy living room as Mags fed the pages to the hungry candle. Not that it should be called a diary. Diaries were not something you burned as soon as you wrote in them. Mags needed to organize her thoughts, to commit her understanding of events on paper to better plan out her actions, but she could never let anything so incriminating lying about, so she wrote and burned whenever she something weighted on her mind.
Mags jumped to her feet. The candle slid through her fingers. The room went dark.
She hadn't imagined it. A swift shadow, at the edge of her vision; the balcony.
Knife in hand, her heart hammering in her ears, Mags gingerly opened the sliding door.
"Relax," a familiar voice said.
Mags let the knife clatter to the ground. She ground her teeth in exasperation. "One day, I will kill you, Glynn."
"It'll probably be my fault," her friend said with an unabashed smile. "Your girls sleeping?"
"Yes." Mags now suspected her mother and Esperanza had slept less than she had during the Games. She couldn't sleep. "How was stopping people from throwing rocks at the suspects?"
"Enlightening, I had a nice long chat with Marquise. She painted quite a fascinating portrait of District One," Glynn eyed the silver coated ocean wistfully. "I so wish I could travel."
Her hazel eyes glimmered with an odd intensity as if she had something to ask but thought better.
Mags sat next to her, enjoying the night breeze. "Most people here have never left Creneis. You've been all around Four."
"Well, there are always people who have it worse… And on the topic of people -"
Mags held her breath. Glynn was quite capable of making her discuss Berle and Dover without beating about the bush.
"How do Capitolites work?"
"What?" Mags said, taken by surprise. Capitolites. Images of hundreds of hysterical sponsors stampeding to the stands, faces painted and clothes shredded, made her lips curl. "They're shallow, self-centered and need everything to be sensational. They worry about image more than we worry about survival." Mismatched eyes and a silver mustache then replaced those memories. "Some... Lucian at least, is more educated; it's the power, not the Games, which interest him. He's resigned about the deaths but has no self-esteem issues at all," she said with a stiff smile.
"But they're not coherent," Glynn murmured. "During the victory interview, I saw how they laughed when Mordred almost strangled the escort. It doesn't make sense." A deep frown creased her face. "I thought they enjoyed the Games because the deaths of sub-humans are a small price to pay for such breathless excitement, but they should have seen that the man was in danger. I don't understand."
Mirthless laughter escaped Mags' lips. "You're the shrink's daughter, shouldn't you be used to incoherent people?
Glynn wasn't amused. "It's like they think the victor enjoyed the Games. That's not being callous, that's crazy. Unless they're as cruel to each other as they are to us and they laughed at Roman's expense. They're the most educated population in Panem, I don't get it."
"Capitolites want to have fun, they'll convince themselves of anything to feel good." Mags said, thinking of how easy to influence Myia was. "At least the ones I see do. There's no reason for anyone sane and reasonable to attend events like the tribute interviews, unless it's to show status, in which case they'll pretend to laugh, because it's the thing to do."
Mags paused, remembering how her short stay in Galene had made her see her District in a different light. "Capitolites only ever see Capitolites, no one will tell them to think differently."
Glynn nodded. "The older generations pretend to be shallow not to become the targets of the thought police and the younger generations grow up without knowing there's an alternative."
Those words made her pause. They echoed what she'd thought while talking to Dee in an eerie way.
"It's the same here. Everyone who has lived the war pretends to accept the law to survive. Only the brave dare contradict their children's teachers. Even Esperanza sometimes came home, her eyes filled with doubt, and she knows the teachers are all screened by the Capitol."
"Angelo Vasquez," Glynn said simply.
Mags' face darkened. Four years before, a nine year old boy had reported his parents for telling 'filthy lies' on the Capitol. The family had been avoxed and Angelo had been given a one way ticket to Lycorias and a generous monthly allowance for being a good citizen. A child, whether desperate to escape abuse, angry, misguided or simply unwise in his choice of friends, could get their family killed.
"Many parents don't trust their children," Glynn pursued, her scowl growing more pronounced, "and most rebellious children think their parents are collaborators. Propaganda doesn't make itself. I wonder how many brilliant Capitolites there are. How many true enemies does Panem have?"
"The peacekeepers, the teachers and the media, keep the system going," Mags said. "Without them the Capitol and the cowardly collaborators who'll switch sides the moment the tides turn are powerless."
"But they're tools, Mags. Chop off the head, replace it with a sane one, the tentacles will follow."
Mags grimaced at the thought of a dark hulking octopus wrapped over Panem, its slimy appendices hoarding all it could grasp.
"You're picturing a squid-Achlys, aren't you?" The auburn-haired girl said with a grin.
Mags drove her elbow in Glynn's arm, causing her to snicker.
She sobered and turned her inquisitive eyes back on Mags. "How many victors are like you?"
The young woman's face lost a little color. It was going to be a long night.
"Glynn, I need a service," she said, ashamed by the admission.
Glynn rolled her eyes, an indulgent smile on her lips.
"I need letters delivered in Sickleport," Mags said, "I don't want to know, ever," she whispered heatedly, "who Valentia's relatives or friends are. They're in a large envelope, in my suitcase."
She hoped her late tribute's loved ones would never want to see her. She wasn't meant to be a mentor. No one was meant to go through that.
"Of course," Glynn said, squeezing her hand.
Date: Year 10, August. Five days after the end of the 10th Games.
"You're going to sulk during the whole trip?" Marquise complained, tearing a small smirk from her Alaric.
Mags glared slightly, aware Marquise was speaking out of concern rather than boredom, but annoyed nonetheless. Her conversation with Glynn had lasted deep into the night and she now regretted her too short foray in bed, but even full of energy, she would not have gone skipping to an execution. Her eyes fell on the round insignia on Alaric's uniform.
Tentacles…
"What are the ranks of peacekeepers?"
If the man was surprised by her question he did not show it. "For rankers: Private, such as us, Sergeant and Sergeant Major," Alaric enumerated, "officers ranks are: Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Colonel – there are less than a score in the whole of Panem- and there are two generals, both in the Capitol. The Homeguard is divided in the same way."
Mags gave a slow nod. "So Patrol Leader is not an actual rank. Ajax is a Sergeant."
She'd thought Sergeant was high ranking…
"No, and yes," Marquise said. "What's bugging you?"
"Why is Valerian Fletcher the same rank as Ajax?" It was insulting really.
Marquise frowned. "Valerian Fle-," her eyes widened in recognition. A puzzling smile flitted across her lips, as if she remembered a private joke. "Elite squads, South Sector?"
"Him, yes."
"He's Sergeant Major, not Sergeant, and he's a special case," Marquise said, her crinkled eyes far away. "He was kicked out of officer school for murder."
Mags gaped, unable to reconcile her friend's airy tone with those harsh words. What?
Marquise kept on speaking without a pause. "He entered among the youngest, at fourteen, and was a senior at barely seventeen, a little prodigy. He stabbed Major Delisle during a troop review. The uproar he caused was un-be-lie-va-ble. We still gossiped about it when I got in. It helps that the man's quite dashing," she added with a wink.
"He was left unpunished?" Alaric asked, as if the fabric of his reality was shattering.
Mags frowned. The blind respect of Two's peacekeepers to authority was expected, the hand Alaric casually had placed on Marquise's arm was not. Her frown deepened into a scowl. She hated the thought of interfering in Marquise's private life, but she wouldn't make the mistake depending on someone who had mixed loyalties again. If something ever happened between them, she wanted to know.
"His head is still attached to his body because Colonel Aquila twisted some fingers," Marquise told Alaric with the superior expression of the person who had information of value to impart. "And no matter how good Fletcher was, the officer he killed must have deserved it. The only thing President Achlys is stricter on than mutiny is corruption. Fletcher's stuck a ranker for political reasons, but he's an officer in all but name." The blonde arched an eyebrow and shot Mags a questioning glance.
The victor smiled. Whatever her friend's gossip-starved mind was envisioning was doubtless much more scandalous than the real reason behind Mags' interest.
Her smile died when the clamor of thousands of assembled people reached her ears. Public executions held no secret for anyone older than five. At the spring and autumn equinox, clad in long black shifts, the condemned were dragged out of the cells they'd been left to rot in in the meanwhile, and hung for all to see.
But this time, there would be no waiting.
Next chapter will cover the whole year up to the 11th Games. I'm still figuring out how I'll structure the time period between Games 11 and the end of Achlys' rule.
Please review. ^^