"Let me have a moment,

Let me say goodbye,

To bridge and river, forest and waterfall

Orchard, sea and sky

Harsh and sweet and bitter to leave it all-

I'll bless my homeland 'til I die."

Chalet O'shea, 33, Tribute Stylist

Funny, how trauma works. How little things will remind you of that one key moment, that single segment of life that made everything unravel, made it never the same again. And Chalet cannot forget it, his own special turning point; the day they came for him.

They plucked him like a flower from District Seven when the sun was high and the wind was sh-sh-sh-ing between the live oaks. Chalet was seventeen then, not much older than the other teenagers milling around that brand-new Training Center, their footsteps echoing off freshly-painted and carpetless rooms. Little did he know, he'd soon be the only teenager left in the sprawling, lonely building.

"You like fashion?" they'd asked him, on the way out of the District. He hadn't known then that it would be the last time he saw his home. "You like clothes?"

A nod from Chalet, and nothing else. Looking back, he'd been so innocent, so young and new to the ways of the world, and he scoffs now at the way he didn't even recognize the Capitol officials. He should've denied it, said, "you have the wrong man." But instead he nodded—doe-eyed, ignorant.

The Capitol officials smiled, identical and saccharine. "We have just the job for you."

There are years yet, until they've taken everything out of him. Sixteen years and twenty-four faces for each. It makes him sick, to think of the 368 lives he didn't know he was preparing for death, and the sixteen left behind. He sees them sometimes, just ghosts of their former selves. He could not recognize them without the nametags, the Victor's crowns perched on their ducked heads. Every time he sees them, a part of him always wants to reach up and push a stray lock of hair behind their ears, adjust their sleeves. His brain is firmly fixated on the habit of making them look perfect, but they are not nameless, blissfully ignorant children anymore, he knows. They are battered and broken by the storm the world sent them. And they're not alone.

A peppy knock comes at his door. Chalet stares down at his uneaten dinner on its tray—salads, soups, meats and breads untouched—and stares back at the door. Only three days of every year is he needed for anything more but decoration, a face in the papers, and he's only just realized how close those days are. "Come in," he calls, his voice rusty and creaky from disuse.

In strides Avarette de la Lune, aging but glamorous, her weathered eyes heavy with makeup. With each year he sees her, each length of time that passes between visits, her eyes grow colder. Her face grows a little more exhausted-looking, as though she is laden with something indescribably heavy.

"Oh good, Mr. O'Shea, so glad you're in, you were just the man I wanted to speak with; are you ready for Games? I certainly am—one feels useless without them, no?"

Her words are rapid-fire, rushed and clipped, but he manages to keep up. "Avarette, I hardly think that's the word I'd choose."

She doesn't seem to hear him. "President Graymore sent me—long live he—to ensure you were all prepared for the Games; the Capitolites are fickle and they tire quickly of repetitive fashion, so I do hope you have something new and original to bring to the table, 'else we'd have to replace you." The last word trills off into a high-pitched laugh, jittery as a bird's wing.

Chalet makes a tactful decision to ignore her last few words, the casual threat. At this point, he'd be glad not to see another face, reduced to only memory on the famed screens, washed away by a commercial break and the promise of someone more interesting. Let them cart him away. He wouldn't mind.

"I daresay I haven't lost my touch, dear Ava," he said carefully. "And what of the Arena, do you have that all prepared? I hope you haven't chosen a forest again—three years straight is long enough, I should think."

His younger self, shy and docile, wouldn't even recognize this new version of himself. But again, trauma. It tires a person out, after a while.

Avarette flushes, but covers it behind her parasol, which she waves despite the sterile, cool air filling the room. "Funny you should say that, because my Arena is neither typical nor overused this year—I do learn from my mistakes, unlike some."

Chalet isn't quite sure what she's referring to, but he nods as if it's the wisest thing she's ever said, wishing she would leave because he can't think through her chatter, can't breathe through the thought of another twenty-three kids he'll surely get attached to, only to see their memorials when he looks away. Just for a moment he blinks, but a moment is too long and now they're all gone.

He remembers their names, (is that silly?), he remembers their faces. They are still sketched with their outfits, their figures and costumes like blueprints tucked away in his drawer. He tries not to open that drawer, because he gets too attached, too sentimental, too sad. And sadness is a luxury he can't entertain in a place like the Capitol.

That's what happens when you're torn from home too early. Your heart is half broken, you are still kind and soft and open, a butterfly pulled too quick from its cocoon. He does not belong here, among the heartless and hedonistic. But where else could he go? His life has already been stolen. He'd have to go as far as Europa just to escape it if he could, and even there they might still recognize him. Panem's disease has spread outside its borders, a wreck that the world can't look away from.

And Chalet is helping them, even now, he is responsible, he is to blame-

"Chale-et!" Ava's shrill voice adds a third syllable to Chalet's name, drawing it out too long, and he realizes just how much his memories have overtaken him, how deep he's stuck in the past.

He meets the Gamemaker's eyes. "Yes. Yes, I'm sorry, I just-"

"Oh never mind, I'm leaving now anyway. I just wanted to send Mr. Graymore's message." She leans closer, steps forward so she's against the table across from him. "You'd better be careful though, Chalet. It's getting kind of... turbulent, of late. Don't do anything rash."

And before he has time to ask her what in Panem she means, Avarette de la Lune is gone.

...

Linnet Llamora, 30, Victor of the First HungerGames

She grew up among the waist-high grass and dry air of summertime, tucked between dirt floor and ceiling, when the Capitol was distant as dandelion seeds blown free. She remembers it all with a sleepy cast, a time when all she had to worry about was the next harvest. Times were hard then, of course—times were always hard, always would be. But she never had to fight for her life. Her soul was not bloodstained, whether it be from self-defense or the natural man; she was just a sweet-faced little girl, her world as wide as the fields around her. She navigated the familiarity with a maple branch in her right hand, her left palm up, open and waiting for someone to hold onto.

And there was always someone. A collection of characters that lived just a call away, friends and neighbors she knew well by their voices. Fractured people, flawed people, but good people. Yes, there were days when the hunger knotted tight around her chest and there was nothing to loosen it. But she wouldn't trade the special companionship of those years for anything, wouldn't ever want to forget the easiness with which she could call across the cornfields: "Miss Mallory, can Eulina play?" and hear her hollered response, "'course, honey, I'll send her yonder. Tell your Momma I say hello."

She still hasn't lost the remnants of that drawl, she can't let it go. And even if she has more to eat than she ever could've dreamed back then, she's still hungry. She remembers every voice still, every name, every silly mannerism and pattern of speech that set them apart so from the Capitol. How funny they talk here—she still hears new quirks in their clipped, airy tones, still marvels at the difference an upbringing and an ocean can make.

Everything was okay, then. Everyone was good, and safe, and she was a wild little girl, peach juice running down her arms just inches shy of her rolled-up sleeves and dirt smudging her pant legs. She learned so much on those hay bales, about people and manners and honor. Before before before the world came full in her face and she was ripped away from her mother and father and baby sister, whom she held close to her gentle-beating heart. "Little Linnet in her big britches," people would tease as she took her baby sister by the hand and led her through the fields, lifted her up so the grass would not tickle her nose. How motherly she felt then, how treasured.

Before they took Linnet away. Before they turned her into this.

Nobody really knew what was happening then. "The government with them big ideas," people would grumble. "They's never gittin' nowhere."

This they preached and testified until the day They came right to their district, right into their homes. "It's a special game," the Capitol officials said when they pried Linnet away from her parents, "with a great reward."

"Will she come back to us?" Linnet's father was a man with a natural smile and a beautiful heart and a flawless moral code. His stubble tickled her cheek when he tucked her under the animal-hide blankets and he always gave a portion of his food to his children. His life he traded for Baby Lark's. But she died too. Meaningless now, their little sacrifices. Only her mother is still here to hold her when she cries, and that's often still.

"If she performs well, sir, you'll see her within the week."

"Linnie doesn't know how to-perform." Even at fourteen, Linnet was a Momma's girl, and she clutched tight to Mrs. Llamora's arm, feeling the ominous depth of the situation without really knowing why.

Later, Linnet's mother told her that the strange-sounding government official had smiled darkly. "All the better," he'd said, and then they dragged her away. Her neighbors fought tooth and nail, Linnet kicked and screamed, but they were mere mice to the Capitol's lions. In the end, they threw her into that Arena. Everyone thought she would die.

After she returned, the Capitol offered her a surgery that would heal her "impairment," as they called it. But she refused. Maybe it was the stubborn little girl still kicking within her, and maybe it was the lingering sentimentality of home. But she'd told them—and she'll tell them time and again—that her blindness is not an affliction but a part of her, and anyone who knew a thing about her would understand and accept that, even if that was precious few people nowadays. A part of her had perked up at the offer though. She could not pretend that it was easy, being unable to function the same way other people did. But Linnet Llamora still functions. She wakes up every day, she tries not to think about that Arena, and she does it well. Even when it hurts. Even if she can't really live with herself anymore.

That first time her mother saw her. After the Arena... she could feel her shock. "Linnet? Baby?" she'd asked, as though the name and endearment were strangers on her tongue.

And Linnet had cried then, finally broken open like a coconut. All those arduous days in the Arena, and her mother's shattered voice had been the thing that sent her over the edge and back into misery. She hasn't been able to climb up that slippery slope since. That's the saddest thing about the Games, in her opinion. They break you, no matter what. Maybe the luckiest ones were not the Victors but the ones who went early, in the Bloodbath. At least they didn't have to witness the rest.

Linnet blows out a breath and presses the button on her clock. 2:35 PM. She's going to be late.

Linnet's cane is resting in the corner and she picks it up, smooths back her hair and walks the familiar route to his quarters. Rima Raevsky was the only person since after the Games that she's actually let herself open up to; besides her mother, but Linnet has always seen her as an ever-present being in her life, from beginning to end. It was inevitable that they meet—two apparitions wandering around this ghost town of a Capitol, both haunted and haunting. When she enters the room, Rima touches her arm, and the knot of unease at the upcoming Games begins to slowly work itself loose.

"Linnet," he says now, guiding her to a chair. "How are you?"

His voice is gentle, and soft, but she still has to struggle against a bout of nausea because They're coming again.

So Linnet just sighs at length, twines her hand with his as he takes a seat beside her. "How're you?" she deflects instead, but he knows better than to fall for that. They both know the answers to each other's questions by heart—neither are fine, nor will they be anytime soon.

Rima was the Victor of the Third games, though Linnet and him are the same age. His family was still alive when he emerged like a nightmare from the depths of the Arena, but they did not welcome murderers beneath their roof, and so he was cast off and wandered adrift in the Victor's penthouse for days before Linnet found and befriended him. As for Linnet's living arrangements after the Games, she could've lived in her old home back in Nine, but nobody really wanted her there, and home was too open a wound at the time. Strangely enough, an unfamiliar house was better than an intimate home for her right then, and her mother had stayed loyally by her side.

Now they lived in the Victor's Penthouse, where those without true family resided. Luckily for them, they've now cobbled together a sort of community of their own, a quiet gathering of haunts that silently defies the Capitol.

Rima narrates those in the room for Linnet, so they wouldn't have to go around in a circle and say their names or some such monotony, and it's the same as always. Her mother, four other misfit Victors who she can't help but like, and the Master of Ceremonies' wife—Mirabelle. They are small in number but their dreams pile high and bright like logs on a fire in that humble room. Ever since those fateful few weeks that changed Linnet from a sweet little girl with big possibilities to a hollow-eyed and friendless woman, she has never felt like she truly belonged, never felt that the world was small enough and good enough for her to travel safely. But in this room, with these people, she feels the beginnings of something igniting within her—within them, as a collective.

And it isn't Nine. It isn't porch swings and old guitars and sweet lemonade, but it is tangible. It's one of the only things that fills her gaping years of time now, and it feels like a fire aflame in her heart. It might be true that nobody will see their efforts for a better world. But she sees them, and Rima sees them, and it makes her feel like she deserves something again, like she's actually helping someone. And that's a start, for her. It is hope, rekindled. And she yearns that someday, that hope will catch and spread throughout Panem. But for now, it's enough just to sit, clandestine and hushed, and plan out a future that accommodates everyone. And Linnet has spent her whole life feeling that she's never had enough—food or love or courage or goodness—and so she can't help but think—pray—they'll be more help than harm in this desolate country.

...

And we're back! Updates will most likely be weekly once subs close, but for now I've got one more prologue after this for you all which I'll post sometime during the week of March 15th along with the cast list, so you have that to look forward to! But for now, my Valentine's/Singles Awareness Day gift for you is this lovely prologue. It's a lot of set-up and character building but I assure you, this Capitol bunch will be along throughout the whole story, and so it'll be well worth it. If you notice some of the worldbuilding doesn't line up with the OG books, that's 'cuz it's not, I kinda made it up because I felt like it! :) Either way, I do hope you enjoyed this prologue—the style is a big different, and that's because these two characters are a bit different from the ones we met last chapter and so I wanted to make their voices distinct. Worry not, though; we'll see Mirabelle and Signet quite a lot, as well as these two very lovely individuals! What did you think of them? How do you think the revolution will go? Are you regretting sending your Tributes into such a sad, sad Panem? Lemme know in the reviews.

Speaking of which, I'd like to sincerely thank Shinigamieyed, KatDog42, SakuraDreamerz and QueenofFunerals37 for your reviews. You are the sweetest, most awesomest people and I appreciate your support! Now, if you're thinking "hmmm, this looks like a fab story, I should totally submit, but I wonder which slots are open?" Well guess what?! Subs are open for another month! And I've got an interest and submissions tracker on my profile for your convenience. Am I trying too hard? Probably. But all that to say, I'd love to see a brilliant sub from you if you've got the time!

Next prologue we will see many familiar faces as well as a new one, as well as the cast list—though the prologue will be pretty fun too, I hope! Credits to Anastasia the Musical for the quote, and for Hadestown for the one last chapter—both great musicals by the way which you should totally listen to. I think that's about all I have to sayyy? Though I do apologize for any typos, I'm a busy high schooler without Grammarly or autocorrect and I promise I'm not writing this in my sleep, but I do try to proofread as thoroughly as I can! I hope you enjoyed this chapter because it was really fun for me to write, and I hope you spend today curled up with a book, some chocolate and someone who means a lot to you! See you all in March for the last prologue!

Miri