"Alright," Diana said after Portia had explained as much as she could recall about the survival stations this year. "It's definitely going to be warm to the point where cold or exposure will not be a problem. If you were taught water purification but not finding water, there are two options - a wet Arena where it's everywhere, or a very dry one where water is only found at artificial oases, making any attempt to find any the usual way pointless."

"So what do I do in each of the two situations?"

Good thing Diana had had all these lengthy phone calls with the other Victors and watched the films of every single Games ever with Leonella providing expert commentary on random bits of trivia no sane person cared about (sanity was overrated). "If it's a swamp or something of the sort - if you don't find anything useful in the Cornucopia, I'll prioritize it. Don't drink anything before I send it to you, you will have two days in which your functionality will not be severely impaired." Money was the big issue. Being the most recent Victor Diana was still fresh in everyone's mind which meant she had an advantage, but as it stood, even if only one of the Tributes survived the Bloodbath, it would be very difficult to supply them.

"And if it's completely dry, like your Arena?"

"If you don't see obvious water sources at the Cornucopia, then they're out there, just keep looking, the Gamemakers don't want half the field to die of thirst." Of course, their competence was questionable, but best not upset Portia ahead of time. "If it's in the Cornucopia, like with me - I'm sorry, but you'll have to go there. If there are identical bags with one for four Tributes, don't bother, that will only be an advantage, but one for two is a different story and survival without one will be impossible. Remember what I told you. Tomorrow, learn to fight with a knife and show it off at your individual evaluation. That will get the Gamemakers to put a knife close to you."

"And if they don't?" John asked.

"It would be a very boring bloodbath, so they will."

The next day, Diana had a more pleasing errand to run. She went to a nearby synagogue to tell the rabbi that Rabbi Miller said hi.

The synagogue from the outside looked like yet another little shop from a row of shops, with only the blue six-pointed stars in the windows signifying what it was, but inside was small and cozy, albeit with benches of wood with no sort of cushioning. Diana went to the women's section, as always wondering what people who were neither male nor female did - the Talmud probably had to have something on that because it had something on literally everything - took out her siddur, and said morning prayers. She may have been in the Capitol, but being in here made her feel at home.

She waited for Rabbi Kaes to finish praying and went up to him. "Um, Rabbi?"

He turned around. Rabbi Kaes was around seventy with light skin, dark eyes, and completely white hair and beard. "Ah, Diana, how nice to see you!"

"Rabbi Miller told me to tell you he says hi?"

"He also told me to give you something," he said with a conspiratorial smile. "Let's go to my office."

On the way there, he inquired after the congregation, her family, how she was doing, and so on. "Now, Diana," he said, turning somber. "This is serious." He closed the door and went through some papers on his desk. "You are going to break a law."

"What are the chances of getting caught?"

Rabbi Kaes laughed. "Slim to none, if you're careful. I want to pass on to Rabbi Miller some photographs I had smuggled in. They're from last year's protests in Israel." He stretched out the prints to her, and Diana was hit with an overwhelming emotion she could not identify.

There were tens of thousands of people there, hundreds of thousands, in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Haifa and in countless cities, towns, and villages. A print of a newspaper proclaimed that by percentage of population, this was the biggest anti-Panem protest in the world and the biggest protest in Israel ever.

Diana stared at the Hebrew words. She could speak it decently well, as could a few others in the congregation, but to her, it had always been the language of prayer and nothing more. But it was more than that. It was a language like any other that could be used to order noodles, argue with the neighbours, sue your ex for child support.

"So that was all they had to do to make people care," Diana said. "Try to kill a person someone out there cared about."

"Many someones."

In the photographs, people carried signs demanding action against Panem. A group of protesters carried a sign in Arabic and Hebrew that read 'Neighbours do not abandon each other - free Diana Cohen!' "What does it say in Arabic?"

"Probably the same thing as the Hebrew." He studied the picture. "This is right on the border in Jerusalem. I remember when I was a child, my grandmother said this was the most-fortified border in the world. How things change."

"Er, yes."

Other signs read 'Bring her home!' or 'Let my people go!' or quoted lengthy passages from the Law of Return. Of course, it hadn't worked, but Diana was still impressed that people could just go out and march for a stranger. That wasn't how her Panemian brain worked.

Seeing contemporary photos of places that had always seemed distant and semi-mythical was odd. Be'er Sheva. Ashdod. Netanya. Kiryat Gat. Ashkelon. And across the border - Hebron, Nablus, Huwara, the two countries now locked not in mortal combat like in the stories in history class at the synagogue, but in a friendly embrace. Israel could probably fit into Six five times over. Diana read the names of cities and towns, wondering what it was like to live in a place where you could go march in the streets if you didn't like something.

"Would you leave if you could?" Rabbi Kaes asked quietly.

Was he implying that Mossad would smuggle her out? "No. Who would mentor the Tributes of District Six?"

"Understandable."

The way the training scores worked was simple - Diana had guessed at most of it already before, with only a few nuances that had escaped her understanding. The scores were given relative to others in the same field, which meant that the top scores were always tens with perhaps an eleven once every few years, and at the bottom would be a three or perhaps even a two. According to the other Victors, a twelve was given roughly once a decade when a Tribute went absolutely above and beyond. The last such score had been two years ago, when John Brown had demonstrated his martial arts. And ones were given only to defiant Tributes who refused to do anything. Diana's suspicions that John would get one were soon confirmed.

Portia got a six. "That's a good score," Diana said encouragingly. "Good job."

"Is that going to help her?" John asked.

"It certainly helped me."

When it came time to prepare for the interviews, Diana did as some of the others did and delegated learning how to act to Elly, who was a master at speaking to people the way they wanted to be spoken to, going by the fact of him having this job. Diana had gone to the stylists and personally vetoed high heels because of the risk of falling, but even in flat shoes Portia and John just couldn't walk like Elly wanted, and plus John obviously didn't care.

"Actually, how about I take John for the morning and then we switch off after lunch?"

John wasn't any more cooperative with her. "What does it matter? I'm just in this to die instead of someone else."

"Spoken like a Career, but even they aren't so open about it."

"How dare you compare me to them?"

Diana was two years older than him, but status magnified small age differences. "Listen up, boy. I compare you to whomever I see fit. Do you want me to help you with your interview?"

"No."

"Then get out."

Even John's defiance was more palatable than Portia's desperation. Diana did her best to coach the girl, but she kept on getting hit with the realization that Portia was going to die soon, which tripped her up and made her feel sick.

"Alright," Diana said. "The best way to appear in the interviews is to be sincere, so that you don't have to fake anything. But you do need to fine-tune it to appeal to the audience. Can you smile the entire time?" Portia immediately smiled. Wow. No matter how hard Diana tried in her own interviews, she could never glue a smile to her face like that. "That's great. Now, I'll ask you a few of the most common questions, and we'll see how it goes, alright?"

Portia was quite unremarkable. She wouldn't lose potential sponsors, but it was unlikely she'd gain any, either. Where Diana had managed to appear harsh and uncompromising, Portia was just too nice. Which was a minor problem compared to the fact that she didn't have anything to appeal to sponsors with.

"Excellent," Diana said, feeling like she was telling a person on their deathbed that everything would be alright. "Why don't we get some dinner now?"

Diana kept careful tabs on the other Tributes. While they were unlikely to say something completely earthshattering at the interview (in her memory, the most shocking revelations had been of the who-is-the-father variety), a lot about their state of mind could be gleaned there.

The girl from One was very pious, but in the 'In the name of Jesus Christ, fire!' way. She had gotten a ten in training. According to Portia, she was a bit of a jack-of-all-trades and was best at unarmed combat, which was odd given how rarely it got to the point where an unarmed Career was up against someone. Though on the other hand, if someone underestimated her because she was unarmed for some reason, they would not live for long after that.

The boy had scored a nine and used a sword. He talked like a typical Career - noble combat, heroic death, sacrifice for the nation.

The girl from Two had scored an eight, the lowest of the Careers. She was great with a short sword or a large knife, and could also use a javelin. If the preceding boy had sounded uncaring about death, the girl seemed to actually want to die, and not in the sense of sacrifice - just for the sake of not existing anymore.

The boy, who had scored a ten by using a flail of all possible things, was just as checked out as the girl. Well, if the instructors had wanted to give the District peace of mind by sending in trained sheep to the slaughter, they had succeeded.

The first non-Career, the seventeen-year-old girl from Three, had scored a six and did not appear to have any serious combat skills, having spent all of her time at survival stations. Despite her good score, she was disoriented and struggled to piece together a coherent sentence.

The boy was sixteen and had scored a five. He was a possible threat. He was tall, and talked aggressively, but his attempts to learn a weapon had been perfunctory.

The girl from Four had scored a nine, most likely thanks to her spears. She sat silent and menacing, replying only in brief.

The boy had scored a ten, but with what was a mystery, as he had never touched a weapon and had spent his time doing things like the obstacle course, at which he was a master. Whatever his weapon of choice, a rugged Arena would be easy for him.

The girl from Five, a sixteen-year-old who had scored a six, was someone to keep half an eye on. She seemed halfway well-fed and alert, which bumped her up in the rankings.

The boy was a year younger than her and had scored a four. He was very nervous, so he probably wouldn't be able to do much in the Arena.

And now, Portia. It was exactly as Diana had thought - unremarkable. She did manage to use her respectable score to give herself an aura of danger, and she did not appear completely lost, but she lacked the determination Diana had managed to pull off in that position.

John, fortunately, had enough brains in his head to not say something stupid right on television. He muttered something about not wanting others to know what he knew and afterwards replied in monosyllables. Unfortunately, he was just too small for that to draw in sponsors, nobody would believe he had some kind of secret skill.

The eighteen-year-old girl from Seven had the next lowest score, and little wonder, because she was lost and dazed. Diana wrote her off immediately, wondering why some Tributes were lost while others were focused.

The boy, a year her junior, was better - he had drawn a five - but Portia hadn't noticed him being particularly good at anything.

Portia's peer, the girl from Eight, had a four. She tried to charm the audience, but pity did not motivate sponsors, they wanted either a promising candidate or one they felt kinship with or preferably both.

Her eighteen-year-old counterpart had gotten a five and seemed resigned.

The thirteen-year-old girl from Nine, the youngest one in the field, had gotten a five and was visibly terrified.

The boy was eighteen and just as terrified. His six was hardly better and he had spent the entire time at survival stations.

The eighteen-year-old girl from Ten had scored a seven, most likely on the strength of her hand-to-hand ability. She projected confidence and steely resolve. Now this was someone to watch out for.

The boy was sixteen and had scored a four. He tried to pretend he had a secret, but Diana didn't believe him.

The girl from Eleven was seventeen, had scored a five, and barely said a word. According to Portia, she was good with starting fires.

The boy was eighteen, had likewise scored a five, and literally trembled on stage. He tried to compensate for that by being arrogant, but just like John, he was too small to be imposing.

The seventeen-year-old girl from Twelve had a six and mostly just looked blank. She had spent training drifting from place to place, and what exactly she was good enough at to get that score was a mystery.

The boy was a year older, had a five, and tried to sound defiant, but only came across as pathetic. He had also focused on knives, but his score presumably meant that he was not as good at them as Portia, unless he had avoided demonstrating his abilities for whatever reason.

Of course, anyone could suddenly turn out to be a threat, and it didn't even have to be direct. Diana remembered well how the boy from Five had lasted just seconds longer in a fight with the girl from Two than she had expected, allowing Diana to kill her. One of those lucky things Diana worked with Adam on not constantly dwelling on. What had it been, five seconds he had managed to resist? Three? A time interval too short to ordinarily notice, and Diana had eliminated a strong contender and made her own survival possible.

"Any more advice?" Portia asked just moments before they were due to leave.

"Look at the situation and decide what to do. We went through all the scenarios. And don't die before death. Don't give up just because it seems hopeless."

"I'll do my best," John quipped.

Once the Tributes left, Diana had to go to her own workstation, a little cubicle on the top floor equipped with two televisions and a telephone. Some of the others explained that one screen would mostly focus on her Tributes and the surroundings, while the other would show the official feed, which was delayed by five minutes to remove anything improper.

There was nothing else to do. Since Diana was here alone, she wouldn't have someone to switch off with so that she could go sleep. She fiddled with the cable of her telephone, flipped through her phone book, and made a few calls. Diana hated talking on the phone, but it was only a few people. On the table was this year's catalogue of things she could send in. Going through the prices of survival gear made it obvious that the Arena would be swampy, but that wouldn't help her now. Diana simply couldn't afford to send in more than energy bars and water purification tablets. There was no chance whatsoever of sending in a knife. Portia would be on her own there.

Just in case, Diana jotted down in her notebook the catalogue number of the water purification tablets and energy bars. If it came to it she would probably be able to send in a very small canteen as well, but that would mean putting all of her effort on Portia. The others had talked about picking favourites. If you could afford it then you supported both as much as possible, but if money was tight, it was sometimes better to pick the likelier candidate and give them all they needed.

Diana played on her phone for a while until mandatory began on one of the screens. She listened with half an ear to the newscasters discussing the odds of the Tributes. Much to her own surprise, she wasn't anxious. She wasn't the one about to die, after all. The only thing she was feeling was mild irritation at the fact that she had to stay until the end of the Games, because the others wanted her to become familiar with the entire process. Next year, if both of her Tributes died in the bloodbath, she'd get to go home immediately.

Some time later, the other screen also switched on, showing Portia and John ascending their tubes. Diana tried not to think about having been in the exact same place last year. And indeed, as she had guessed, they emerged into a swampy Arena. The area around the Cornucopia was solid grass, as the commentator explained, and some of the twenty-four paths into the thickly forested bog were solid as well. The paths were not evenly scattered, with Portia being equidistant from two, one of which would lead her into swamp. Diana was more concerned about the knife three metres away from her next to a bag, luring her into a fight with the boy from Eleven.

The camera focused on John, who was taking off his boot.

"What's he doing?" the commentator asked.

John lobbed the boot at the pedestal of his neighbour, the girl from Two. Nothing happened. Diana kicked herself for not having mentioned that and wrote it down in her notebook for next year. The mines were manually activated, as John now found out. He must have assumed that they were faulty and jumped off, dying immediately. His half of the screen disappeared and now that television showed only Portia. Diana could only shake her head. When would his family and friends find out? Would the owner or manager of whatever farm they were working on now take the time to alert them? Did the owner even know that John's relatives were working for them?

The countdown ended, and Portia, as instructed, realized she would never make it in the swamp without anything and ran for the backpack. The boy from Eleven tried to grab it from her hands, and in the tussle, Portia forgot about the knife, which the boy picked up and shoved through her stomach and chest. Diana unexpectedly burst into tears. She had told herself that they would both die, but she had to admit now that she had hoped Portia would stand a chance. The girl had been in good shape, well-nourished, focused, and done everything right. She had been pretty much the best Tribute Diana could have hoped for. A momentary distraction had still been her undoing.

Diana tried to grasp at reasons why Portia had actually been doomed to die all along - an eighteen-year-old would have been maturer and more mentally stable, as well as stronger, it had all been because no matter what Portia had simply been fourteen - but it was scant consolation. Most of her Tributes would be like John, sixteen to eighteen but undernourished and likely to be chronically ill, they wouldn't have any better luck, either. Her watch said that the Games had begun twenty seconds ago. And already, her Tributes were dead.

Diana pushed the catalogue away and watched the same feed as the rest of the country, bar those with no televisions like John's family. There were a total of nine deaths in the bloodbath. Diana took notes, hoping it would help her somehow next year. Aside from hers, there was the girl from Three, who had stood paralyzed and unsure of where to go. The girl from Five who had seemed relatively put together made an ambitious dash for the more quality supplies at the centre but was thrown on the ground by the boy from Two and then killed by him. The boy from Seven had tried to grab a knife and was shockingly killed by the girl from Nine, who had gotten there first. The girl from Eight had run back and forth between the pedestal and a path, eventually falling prey to the boy from Four. The boy from Nine went for a large backpack and was killed by the boy from Twelve, who had gotten his hands on a machete but was killed in turn by the girl from Eleven, who was cut down when trying to get away by the girl from One.

The Career pack began to go through the supplies, and the camera cut to the others in turn. Diana wondered how it had shown her on that first day. A part of her wanted to watch the old broadcasts just to know what had been said about her and her chances, but another revolted against the slightest suggestion of watching herself in the Games.

The boy from Three had nothing and was walking down a solid path. The boy from Five had managed to grab a packet of dried fruit and was sitting in a tree despite his proximity to the Cornucopia. The girl from Seven was on a solid path with some water purification tablets, but she had nowhere to put the water except perhaps her cap. The boy from Eight had wandered off the path and was now walking thigh-deep in water. Diana would never have dared venture off-path, it was so strikingly obvious that in this dense Arena, the Gamemakers didn't want them hiding. The girl from Nine had a little backpack with basic survival equipment but her path was taking her to a bog, so she would have to turn around soon. The girl from Ten had a knife and, when reaching a turn, went in the direction that, unknowing to her, was leading directly to the boy from Eleven, who had nothing. The boy from Ten had tried to go off-path and ended up bitten by something. He was now sitting on the ground semi-comatose and appeared to be dying. The girl from Twelve had nothing and had lost her cap on top of that. She was already being bogged down but stubbornly kept on walking, probably presuming that the bog was a minor obstacle when in reality there was no other road for kilometres.

The boy from Eleven had a hand injury from stabbing Portia - he must have gotten her in a rib, not between them, as Diana had been taught.

The Careers began to hunt now. They left the boy from Four behind to guard, but he grabbed a bunch of supplies and went away on his own, leaving the Cornucopia unguarded. However, there was nobody who could use that to their advantage, as Diana had noted several times when watching previous Games this past year. Desertion was rare, which was why the pack still formed every single year. Diana hadn't wanted to bring up that possibility because staying close enough to the Cornucopia to see what was going on was simply too dangerous.

"Alright," the girl from Four, the unquestioned leader this year, said. "Let's do this methodically. Sweep up and down the paths, watch out for ambushes and mutts, don't go off-path because those ones are going to get themselves killed without our help."

That would take a while.

"Anyone notice what sort of weapons the others have?"

"A knife at most, I think."

The boy from Two made a face. "We'll have to be careful, then. A scratch will kill here, medications will simply be too expensive. I remember when I was little, my aunt died from a scratch, and we weren't living in the middle of a swamp."

Diana blinked. Did the editor of this segment seriously think that dying from scratches because of the cost of treatment was perfectly normal?

"We'll have to be on guard," the girl from One said. "Any of you know how to track?" Predictable head shakes. Once, Careers had been master trackers, following a set of footsteps over grass easily. "Whatever. There aren't that many paths."

At that moment, Diana received a text message from Aunt Raisa, who offered condolences and asked if she was willing to chat. She agreed. So far, nothing was happening. The Careers were walking down a path that led to nobody, the girl from Seven was delivered a tiny canteen she immediately put water into, the boy from Eight returned to the path, now soaking wet to the thighs, the girl from Ten and the boy from Eleven would probably collide tomorrow if they kept walking at that pace, and the boy from Ten was going to die in a few hours without treatment, which he obviously would not receive.

Raisa, as it turned out, wanted to distract Diana from the Games by going on and on about how things were like at home. Michael's wife was pregnant - good for them. Dad got a promotion at work. Sooty was doing well - the most important thing, everything else paled before the well-being of the fuzzy little void. And Francine had dropped by, so now Raisa was dropping hints if perhaps their relationship was more serious than Diana had said.

Diana could only sigh. Six's Tributes were coming back to their families in caskets, and here was Raisa worrying about Diana's personal life. "Aunt Raisa, we've only been dating for half a year."

"Long enough to know what you want out of this relationship."

"What I want and how it works out are two different things. Anyway, so when Sooty fell out the window, what happened then?"

On the screen, the boy from Four was bitten by a snake when he tried to wander deeper into the swamp. Diana realized she was hungry, politely ended the call, and left her room to get something to eat. Some of the others were also there. "You doing alright?" Haymitch asked as he poured himself some watermelon liqueur.

"Of course." Diana had some grape-blackcurrant juice instead, as well as noodles with beef and tofu, an orange, two peaches, and a chocolate bar.

"Surprised you have an appetite."

"Why wouldn't I?" Going hungry would hardly have improved her mood.

"Are you really alright?"

"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?" She retreated to her room to avoid more questions and ate her lunch. That evening, when the Careers returned to the Cornucopia, they presumed that the boy from Four had been killed via ambush, and the killer had taken a handful of supplies.

The entire next week was not what the Gamemakers called exciting, but it was well-paced and the audience was engaged. The Careers picked off one person after another - boy from Five, girl from Seven, boy from Eight, girl from Ten. After the girl from Ten's killing of the boy from Eleven, there were no fights whatsoever, only the Careers' methodical killings, suspense provided by means of 'can X escape, or will they too fall prey to the alliance?' The calling of a feast backfired massively, as nobody but the Careers showed up, likely because they had gotten lost in the maze of paths. After two days in which food became expensive to the point where the girl from Nine and the girl from Twelve were getting four hundred calories a day, the Gamemakers finally livened things up for the final eight - or rather, for the Career pack.

Were those alligators? They certainly looked like them, but Diana was fairly sure that normal gators weren't as maneuverable. In the meantime, smaller mutts herded the other three towards the Cornucopia, but the Gamemakers had learned the lessons of last year, so the worst they did was nip at the three Tributes' shoes. If there would be a dark-horse Victor this year, it would be the boy from Three. Like her last year, he had gotten a fair amount of sponsors and was well-fed. He had even been sent a tiny knife the blade of which was maybe five centimetres long - the best Beetee could do.

Diana realized that the Gamemakers wanted these Games to end immediately. The alligators killed one Career at a time in a way that made Diana almost feel the flames reaching up to the sky around her. It was a footrace, a simple footrace over the dry but uneven path maybe a metre wide at most, and it was not a fair one. The Careers had noticed the girl from Twelve a few days ago and tried to reach her, but walking through the swamp had resulted in sprains and bites. They ran now, dropping their equipment and weapons in their desperation to be just a tiny bit faster than the Tribute next to them.

The boy from One died first, then the girl from Four and the girl from One. The boy from Two was badly bitten on the leg and the mutts retreated. The girl from Two gave him a mercy death by suffocation and continued on, now missing all of her weapons. Diana wondered if the Gamemakers had liked the end of her Games so much, they'd have similar things happen frequently. It was certainly a good decision from the cinematographic point of view, a literal race for survival drew you in, but Diana would need to do far more work with Adam if she was to constantly watch something that triggered her PTSD.

A cut to the Cornucopia showed that there was nothing there, and prices were jacked sky-high to the point where even Jing Yi Lyme and Brutus Donaldson couldn't send their Tribute more than some food and a small bottle of water, as well as a single tablet of over-the-counter painkiller.

Now this would be exciting, from the Gamemakers' point of view. The other two girls were not likely to survive, but if they bided their time, it was very possible that the long days with no changes had made the others forget who was alive and who was dead, which meant that one could hide and wait for the others to kill each other, or at least be greatly weakened. On the other hand, the only weapon among the four of them was the little knife of the boy from Three.

The Cornucopia was reached simultaneously by all of them - someone would get a promotion for this. It didn't enter anyone's mind to hide and bide their time. For a second or two, they stared at each other, the girl from Two desperately trying to figure out who to attack first and how, the others reluctant to do anything that put them in danger. And then something the audience didn't get to see roared.

The boy from Three leapt sideways and stabbed the girl from Twelve in the side and neck. The girl from Two attacked the girl from Nine, but killing someone bare-handed fast was difficult at the best of times. The girl from Two held her opponent in a choke hold, and when the boy from Three tried to stab her, used her adversary as a literal human shield. The knife went between the ribs, in the lower back, the shoulder. Face twisted in a snarl, the boy stabbed the girl from Nine in the back of the neck. The girl from Two continued to use the body as a shield before growing tired and dropping her.

Diana wasn't sure who was likelier to win. In pure physical strength, the girl from Two had the edge thanks to her intense training and feeding compensating for her body composition, but the boy had the knife. Did she know how to disarm him? Indeed she did, and he had no idea what to do when her hand clamped down on her wrist. They fell on the ground, rolling around, the girl desperately trying to not let go of the boy's wrist, but as long as she did so, she could not put him in a choke hold.

The boy's arm tightened, trying to free the knife. As Diana watched open-mouthed, the girl literally bit him on the neck and managed to tear free a small chunk of flesh. She then shoved the knife into the ground (a better move would have been to throw it away, but even the Careers could not keep their composure in a fight to the death) and used the boy's shock at being bitten to manoeuvre around and begin to choke him. He tore the knife free and stabbed her in the side repeatedly, making this a battle of attrition. But how much damage could such a little knife do? He gave up on his only hope of survival and tried to get her in the chest, but from his angle, all he could do was slash at her face, opening up small wounds. The girl was too afraid to try to relinquish control even partially to grab the knife and instead only choked harder, using her legs to twist the boy's body into a painful position.

Finally, she was able to fully strangle him, and within fifteen seconds at the most, he was unconscious. The girl sat in obvious pain, oblivious to the fact that she could use the knife now, her forearm on the boy's throat. Several minutes later, the cannon finally sounded.

"Congratulations to the Victor of the Sixty-Second Hunger Games! I give you - Enobaria Seemu of District Two!"

Enobaria slumped sideways. The hovercraft arrived, and the screen turned off. Mandatory was over, they didn't like to show it when the injured Tributes had to be helped into the hovercraft. Feeling exhausted even though she had done nothing, Diana went into the central lounge where the Mentors could ostensibly relax. There were five people including her - Brutus, Haymitch, Beetee, and Junie.

"Interesting that Twelve made it so far two years in a row," Junie was saying.

Haymitch poured himself a large portion of strengthened berry wine. "Not surprising. They all tell me - all I have to do is survive, I know how to survive. Survival my ass, you ever spend a week living outside without as much as a blanket? Even if you do make it, and the Gamemakers let you, you'll be a malnourished and frostbitten wreck picked off before the final battle starts. There's no second place here. Even Annaliese killed two." He tossed back the drink in one go. Had Diana tried that, she'd have thrown up on the spot, but Haymitch looked as if he had gulped down some cold tea.

"I think mine knew that," Beetee said quietly.

"It could easily have gone the other way." Brutus, as usual, was knitting. "My girl was in no shape to really fight. One stab going in the wrong place, and that would have been it."

"That's how it goes." Junie perched on the edge of an armchair. "It's all luck. For all of us."

It took as long to put Enobaria back together as it took to tear her apart, a fact that Snow used to foist even more clients on Diana. Once, she was invited to some kind of party and forced to take some kind of drug that made her unable to remember the entire thing. Diana now had no idea why in the world so many of her fellow Mentors abused drugs. By now, of course, there were chemical processes in their brains that forced them to crave it, but why had they gone back for a second dose? With Blake, it at least made sense - he had started out being prescribed painkillers, and once the prescription ran out, even the much reduced pain was too much and he needed more. But Maria? It seemed that she had just randomly injected herself with opiates one day.

Diana could easily see how anyone could end up like Blake, but she was certain now that she would never end up like Maria. The hazy feeling of euphoria had revolted Diana, her brain desperately beating on the bars of its cage and shouting that something was wrong, she should not be feeling happy. At the same time, the awareness of her own vulnerability had sickened Diana even as she had recognized that even fully sober she would have had all sorts of things done to her and not resisted.

All in all, Diana was now terrified of psychoactive substances, to the point where at a fancy 'date', she requested alcohol-free drinks and, in response to her 'date''s raised eyebrow, muttered something about her neighbour (who had actually been on 'cough syrup', whatever the hell that was, but whatever). She had no idea what she would do if she developed chronic pain that required medication.

Diana desperately wanted to go home and be free of this place. Everything constantly reminded her of the Games and made her feel unhappy and exhausted, people kept on having sex with her against her will, and she missed her family. So when it was finally time for the ceremony, Diana was ready to stand up and start cheering.

Shortly before the ceremony was due to begin, Jing Yi Lyme, who had arrived to the Capitol for a 'date', walked up to Diana and Haymitch, who was using any excuse he could find for avoiding Twelve.

"Oh, you're still here?" Haymitch asked.

Jing Yi made a face. "Someone asked for me."

Haymitch shook his head. "Four years, and they're still after you."

Diana was not surprised. Jing Yi was very beautiful, tall, broad-shouldered and broad-hipped with a lovely figure. Her short hair was cut in a way that made her look both young and fresh-faced and serious and mature. All in all, plenty to envy - or desire.

"In any case," she said, "what is it?"

"Enobaria has had her teeth sharpened to fangs."

What? Involuntary body modifications were known to happen, from scar removal to cosmetic surgery on the face. But teeth? "How is that even going to work?" Diana asked, hand flying to her mouth. "The enamel is gone, they'll constantly be damaged and hurt." After the epic saga that had been Mom getting a mouth's worth of new teeth, Diana was an expert.

"They put some kind of coating over it, but nobody knows how long it will last for and how tough it will be. I suspect she won't be able to eat solid food for a long while. All we can hope is that they get bored fast and she can get them replaced with implants."

What the fuck. And all this because she had bitten someone?

"Well, then," Haymitch said, "I am suddenly very grateful for what I have."

So did Diana. With all she had to put up with, at least nobody was taking away her ability to eat properly.

Before going home, Diana went to the grocery store to stock up on cheesecake bars. Back home, even the expensive store only had a few types to pick from. Diana had grown up on the cheap bricks of vaguely flavoured sweet cottage cheese, but she preferred the kind that were chocolate-coated and had a filling. She took one of her bags and filled it with several of each flavour, cherry and lemon and apple and boiled condensed milk and so on. A bunch of people mobbed her, taking pictures and asking questions. Diana ignored them and took some extra blackberry-filled bars from the box in the freezer.

A/N: If you're wondering how Diana was able to watch the tapes of every single Games when BSS says recordings of the Tenth were supposed to be destroyed, the answer is corruption, laziness, and incompetence. The regime wasn't capable of exercising total control yet, so when cinemas were told to get rid of the films they had just received (in my headcanon, televisions only became halfway common around 40-50 and many only had radios even at the time of the trilogy), managers instead sold it to collectors or put it in the attic, so it wasn't too hard for Diana to find a copy at the market, lying in a vendor's basket with a pair of knockoff luxury brand shoes, a mismatched set of porcelain dishes, and a collection of McCollum's essays on How The World Ought To Be, vol. XXVI.

Also, I mentioned that my Tenth Games were not compliant with BSS, though the Victor is still Lucy Grey and she still went missing without trace (I headcanon that she died of exposure) trying to flee Twelve. Snow had nothing to do with it (he was too busy carrying a senator's suitcase) and Lucy Grey won without anyone's assistance. The fact that someone attacked the audience, however, resulted in the ones up there trying and failing to bury the entire thing and switching up the Arena the following year.

I vaguely recall reading somewhere that the Talmud has a set of rules on how intersex people fit into the otherwise strictly binary framework, but I don't have the faintest idea what it says and who exactly this applies to.

I miss cheesecake bars :(