1.4 : Ashley
My sleep is restless, filled up with strange, liminal images. I am kneeling on the ground, digging in the dirt. I think I must be at one of the logging camps, because above me, pacing around on narrow bridges strung up between trees, are Peacekeepers, holding heavy rifles. My nails are caked in dirt, and I frantically pull apart chunk after chunk of soft earth. Buried in the ground is Tess Tallowfield, my old district partner. There is a great, open wound gaping from her chest - where she was speared by the boy from Six at the Cornucopia - and from it, bugs spill out; worms, beetles, centipedes, huge ants with flame-red bodies and pincers that look like they could slice my fingers off in a single clean sweep. I try to scramble away as they swarm for me, but, because this is a dream, I am already aware that the Peacekeepers will shoot me if I move. The bugs lurch at me, climb up my arms, burrow into my skin, become tangled in my hair. I want to scream, but I'm afraid that if I open my mouth, something might climb down my throat.
Outside, in the real world, the train must hit a patch of bad weather, because I hear the sound of rain on a metal roof, and in my dream, I am drenched. The insects continue to consume me, wet now, slimy. I look down again and see that Tess Tallowfield's body has been replaced with Johanna Mason, in her yellow reaping dress. She sits cross legged in the dirt pit. Her long, dark hair is matted and tangled, and she is staring at me.
"I can kill them," she says, and a hundred ants spill from her mouth. "I can kill all of them. Even you."
My dreams continue on like this for what feels like hours. I awake all at once. Sun has just begun to stream through the curtains, and though the train speeds by too fast to be able to properly tell, I'm certain that, wherever we are, it has not rained. I feel cold, but I am drenched in sweat. At some point during the night, I must have pulled the blanket off the bed, and I've become tangled up in the sheets. Quietly, I begin to pull myself free. I don't think I have screamed in the night - after all, I have had far worse nightmares than this - but I worry that the tributes might have heard me thrashing about. The train cars are not soundproof like the rooms in the Tribute Centre are, and I don't think it would be particularly encouraging for Johanna to hear her mentor terrified of a dream.
Johanna.
This is the first time I have ever had a tribute appear in my dreams before they died.
I frown as I think of our conversation from last night. I'm not really sure what to make of it all. I've never had a tribute corner me with a strategy before. The past four years, I've usually been the one pulling teeth. It takes a few days of shock for the truth of the tributes' situation to sink in, and even then, there's hours and hours of grilling involved before we can come to a passable conclusion for an angle. I suppose this should be a good sign, and Johanna is right, she has done a good job with her act so far. Perhaps even fooled me a little, even if I don't want to admit it.
But just because she's right, it doesn't mean I'm not. Everything about her will be scrutinised: every breath, every word, every gesture, every twitch of her lips and flicker of her eyelids. There's an entire industry for Games theorists. Money to be made for those who can most accurately predict the deaths; their order, the manner, the how and who and why. Johanna will need to be flawless to fool them, and even then, who's to say it will do her any good? One false step at the Cornucopia, a run-in with the wrong tribute, or even a lack of sponsors to keep her warm on a frigid night: these could all kill her far before her double bluff shoots her into stardom.
No. No matter what, the odds will absolutely never be in Johanna Mason's favour.
Nor mine, I think.
I wish I could talk to someone about this. Obviously, Blight's not an option. Caraway is his tribute, and while he might obfuscate the news if he thinks Johanna stands a chance, I'm not quite sure how he operates just yet. Maybe he would tell his tribute out of loyalty anyways, whether or not he thinks Caraway will die. And even with an addiction, I can't risk the possibility that Caraway might take Johanna down near the start of the Games before she becomes a threat. The same goes for any of the other victors. A lot of us are friends, but we're smart enough to know not to talk strategy to one another. The only person I can possibly think of is Sylvia, but she's back in Seven, and the only way to reach her is through the telephone, which has surely been bugged. I don't want some gossipy Capitol eavesdropper sharing the news before it's due. I'm going to have to keep this to myself.
I'm the first one to arrive at the breakfast car. I sit alone for about an hour or so, and thankfully the attendants don't bother me too much. I'm not really one for conversation with people I don't know, and besides, by the way they're whispering to one another, there's much more interesting things to talk about. When I stand up to refill a cup of tea, I manage to piece together the gossip. Apparently, the male tribute from District Two is Cassius Cybele, a relation of sorts to Septima Cybele, the victor of the fifty-ninth Games. I clench my teeth at the news. District Two must have sponsors already lined up around the block.
Johanna appears before any of the others do. She's dressed carefully, I notice. Long, loose fitting clothes to hide what must be strong, lean muscles from long days working in the woods. I make a mental note to alter her backstory and say that she works at the paper-mill instead of the woods. Hopefully the other tributes will buy it without question, and by the time they get around to interviewing her friends and family, the jig should be up, and we shouldn't have to lie anymore.
If we get that far .
I seize her up. Depending how good she is at the act, we might be able to scrounge up a few pity points before the Games start. Every year there are a few people - usually rich old ladies with nobody left to dote on - who will donate pocket change to the smallest, weakest, and most pathetic tributes out of some misguided desire for nobility, even though all they're really doing is funding the Games for another year. Maybe the old lady brigade will keep Johanna alive for the first few days, provided she makes it through the bloodbath unscathed.
She's not bad looking either, I think. Pretty, even. How old is she? Seventeen? Not desperately younger than I am, only four years, but I still feel uncomfortable considering her in this capacity, especially right now. I don't know how anyone else could.
Still, unlike the twelve-year-olds, who only have pity sponsors, Johanna is old enough to play to a different sort of an audience too. I'm certain there's a market out there for those that want a frail, scared girl to protect, and I'm sure I can get Pompey and his prep team to lean towards that aesthetic angle if I talk to him beforehand. Johanna might not like it, but I'm sure she'll agree if I explain it to her.
I will have a lot to explain to her. I try to calculate how often I'll be able to pull her away to talk in private before people start getting suspicious.
'Careful, Ashley,' a voice says, from somewhere in my head. 'She hasn't proven herself yet'.
I feel my stomach twist at the invisible words. I might have told Johanna quite firmly that my mind hasn't been made up yet, but I can tell that it has. Already, my brain has begun to spin into overdrive, like it does when I have a new project to work on. I have a tendency to obsess over things like this, and I cannot let myself cling onto Johanna Mason's survival, when the odds are that, come next week, she will be dead.
Some years are worse than others. I understand now that this is what Sylvia meant.
"Where are we?" Johanna speaks up, after a moment. She's done something with her voice, I realise. Toned it up a pitch, maybe? Or maybe she's just flattened the affect of it, so it comes across soft, and even a little faraway. It's impressive, but I don't comment on it, because we are still in the presence of a handful of attendants, and the train is nowhere near a safe place to discuss things.
"Pardon?"
She raises a hand to point to the window. Outside, I can see quick flashes of sprawling greenery, and in the near distance, jagged, looming mountains. I get a brief glimpse of something else too - a set of old wooden houses that aren't too unlike our own logging cabins back in Seven, only these ones appear half-caved in with rot.
"We're not far out from the Capitol," I say. "If I'm remembering correctly, this was a national park."
"National park?" Johanna frowns. "What's that?"
"You know how the people in the Capitol go to visit the old arenas?" I say. Johanna nods. "It's like that, I guess. They used to be protected, so you couldn't build anything over them. What we just saw must have been someplace for people to stop off on their journey."
I don't mention why we don't build over it now. We must be in the no-man's land between District One and the Capitol - the sprawling space that the Capitol ensures stays deserted as a buffer between itself and the districts. The division must have literal benefits - in the same way that the mountainous terrain that surrounds the Capitol had during the war - but I imagine that now the space holds another meaning. We are different from you. Look at us. We barely even touch you.
I look out towards the window. There might even be an arena built out here. I think the landscape of the 67th Games - the ones after my own - looked a bit like this.
"How do you know all this?" Johanna asks. I'm not really sure if she's interested or if she's faking it, but I decide to answer all the same.
"The Victory Tour takes a long time," I say. "The train wasn't as fast as this one, and we went all over Panem, so I saw a lot of stuff like this out the window. Abandoned cities and stuff from before all the calamities. Eventually I got curious about what they were and read up on it." I probably shouldn't be telling Johanna this, because you're not really supposed to talk about other districts, let alone the parts of Panem in-between, but I doubt anyone really cares. "The Capitol has good history books."
"I wish I could see the other districts." I hear a voice from behind us, and realise Caraway has joined us. He sways by the door of the dining car, still half asleep, and looking more than a bit worse for wear. I don't mention that, in order to visit the other districts, he'll have to win, "Where's Blight?"
"He usually sleeps in late," I say.
I also don't mention that Blight is unable to sleep before dawn at all. The year of his Games, the arena was made up of a series of pitch-black underground caves. The Capitol cameras were able to pick up everything, but the tributes were left in darkness, with only the light of their headlamps to help them squeeze through the narrow, rocky tunnels. Everyone expected District Twelve to do well that year, but apparently they only send people down into the mines when they turn eighteen. I'm not sure how Blight won his games. I've never asked, and I've never watched them, and besides, most victors make it a point not to discuss one another's time in the arena.
Blight arrives once Caraway and Johanna have finished breakfast. It doesn't take much podding to encourage them to eat, and by the way that both of them are gorging themselves - Caraway must secretly be a human hoover, I reckon - they'll happily put on a few pounds before the Games. Ambrosia is nowhere to be found, and Blight tells me she's on the phone with Caraway's stylist. It's an emergency, apparently. Someone has given them the wrong shoe size.
"I don't mind if they're too big," Caraway says, but nobody really listens to him. I wonder if I can get word ahead to Pompey about getting Johanna a cape or some fabric to cover her arms, but mentors aren't supposed to ask the stylists to change their costumes. Blight tells Caraway not to worry about it, and we finish breakfast in silence.
We're nearly in the Capitol, and there's not much point in retreating to our room, so instead, for the next half-hour, Blight and I describe what will happen when we arrive. Both tributes seem confused as we explain the prep teams, and what will happen in order to make them appear attractive enough for television. I doubt the horrified face Johanna pulls is an act.
"Don't complain too much," Blight says. "Nobody likes an ungrateful tribute, and these people are helping you out."
Blight seems far more present now than he was during my Games. Now that I think about it, I don't remember hearing him say a single word towards me, and barely a handful to Tess. I wonder if something in particular had happened during that year to cause it, or if he was simply worn down from years and years of dead tributes. I know Blight was originally my mentor, and Sylvia had requested the switch, so was it bitterness? No - why would it be? He would have had to agree, and Blight and Sylvia are friends. They've mentored together for years, and I always assumed that she was the one who got him through his Games, although, now that I think about it, it might have been Hap Holloway - Seven's other victor, who died of the pox five years ago. Either way, I'm glad he's talking more now. I make a mental note to ask him later what changed.
"I don't want a bunch of Capitol peacocks to see my privates," Caraway says. "Why does it matter? They're not going to be on show, anyways."
"You'd better hope not," I say. "You come to us if they try it." Twelve's tributes were almost naked, a few years back. Not completely. Apparently, the sole victor from their district, Haymitch Abernathy, fought tooth and nail for three hours with their stylists in order to get them some bare strips of fabric for modesty, and the entire tribute parade was nearly postponed. It all went over horribly with the Capitol.
The nudity, not the fabric, obviously. I think the boy was fourteen.
We speak for a bit longer about the parade, until eventually the train goes dark and I know we've reached the mountain tunnel that will, in a moment, spit us out into the Capitol. Johanna and Caraway stand back as we turn in towards the city. I can tell based on their faces that they're unsure on what to think. It's impressive, and nobody can deny that, but the city is almost hard to look at. The entire thing - candy-coloured pavements, glittering skyscrapers, flashy, neon billboards - feels as though it's covered in a dreamlike haze. Even now - even though I've been here before - I can't tell if I'm asleep or awake.
Surreptitiously, I check the dining cart for any crawling insects.
Eventually we close in on the central bloc, and the train slows down. The shape of a crowd slowly comes into form, and I take a step back to let Johanna and Caraway get a better view through the window. This year, the fashion fad in the Capitol is sheer lace, and I see at least a dozen in hues of sea foam green. It appears as though there are some fans of last year's Games after all. The faces pass by in the hundreds; yelling, waving, reaching out hands to wave at us as we speed along. There are cameras too, fighting with another to get the perfect shot of the tributes' faces as they see the Capitol for the first time.
I trail my eyes on Johanna. She's aware she's being perceived now, and I'm amazed at how quickly her body language changes. She may have appeared timid before, but now everything about her reads as meek. Low, pulled-back shoulders. Tense lips, wide eyes. I'm already impressed, but she's not done. She turns for a moment to me, gives me a look that very clearly says watch this, and then bursts into a flood of very realistic tears.
She doesn't stop crying until she's pulled off the train by Ambrosia and ushered into a car that will drive her and Caraway to the Training Centre. Blight and I stand and wait as a second car comes to pick us up. We'll be driven straight to the Games Centre - honestly, the two buildings are just offshoots of one another, but everyone is very particular about calling them two separate things - where we're needed for a meeting with the other mentors and our new Head Gamemaker, Seneca Crane.
Once we're in our car, Blight leans over to me. "If they see her crying -"
"I know," I say, and I have to try everything I can to hide the satisfaction in my voice. She's got Blight? She's good. "I told her not to, but I don't think she could help it."
"As long as she doesn't see them make fun," Blight says. I think Johanna would be pleased if she saw they were making fun of her crocodile tears, but I say nothing.
We make our way quickly from the car into the ground floor of the Games Centre and then down the elevator - down far enough that my ears start to pop - until we reach the Donum Level. I've never been to any other floor. Anything above ground level belongs to the Gamemakers, and, for obvious reasons, the mentors are not allowed. I think there's a couple more floors just below ground that must hold other important things - meeting rooms, breeding labs for mutts - and then, further down, there's the Donum Level, which is where the mentors operate. It's a big space which is primarily taken up by a massive room nicknamed the Click. I'm not sure why it's called that, though Sylvia thinks it might have to do with the sound of twenty odd mentors furiously clicking away at their own separate screens. We bypass it now, however, and make our way down the hall into one of the larger seminar rooms.
We're not the first to arrive, but we're not the last. There's the sharp smell of coffee that hangs in the air, which makes me gag a little, and almost immediately, an attendant presses a mug of the hot stuff into my hand. I give her a polite smile and go to claim a seat, placing it down as soon as she's looking away.
"Still not a fan?" A voice says, and I look up to see Cecelia from Eight has taken the seat next to me. I like Cecelia. Three years ago, our tributes made allies, and we had a nice few days working together before the Career pack hunted them down. Her tribute made it away, and I transferred her my sponsor money. The boy made it to the final five, I think. It's the closest anyone from Eight's gotten in about ten years, since Cecelia won.
"No," I say. "Tastes awful, and it reminds me of this place."
"That would do it," she says. She looks tired.
"How are the kids?"
Cecelia has three children. Hatch, Rosie, and a little baby boy called Otto. She's one of the only victors who does. I wonder if she's struck up some kind of deal with Snow to make sure they'll never be touched. It wouldn't surprise me. Cecelia is popular in the Capitol.
"Good," she says. "It's hard to leave them behind, especially at this age, but I can't expect Woof to mentor anymore." I'm not sure what's wrong with Woof, apart from the fact that he's old, but I don't bother asking.
We continue catching up for a while as the other victors mill in. Ransom Kegg from Six - who won the Games two years ago - avoids everyone and goes to sit, spaced-out in a corner. Septima Cybele from Two boasts loudly about her nephew, but everyone can tell she is terrified for him. Chaff from Eleven gives a good-natured shout as he enters the room, and goes to plop himself down next to Haymitch from Twelve, who is half-asleep on the table.
"Annie Cresta isn't coming this year," Cecelia tells me. Apparently, she heard from her escort that Annie has been deemed as too mentally unstable to be a mentor. It doesn't surprise me. I'd almost be envious of her, if I hadn't seen what she went through last year. I think if my little cousin got beheaded in front of me, I'd probably start talking to the walls as well.
It's Finnick and Peggy from Four, this year. Cecelia tells me that Mags suffered another stroke and so has also been forced to stay home this year. It's a blow for Four, because Mags is somewhat of a visionary when it comes to producing victors, but I suppose the District Four victors have had a rough go of it lately. Finnick gives me a wave, and I return it. I suppose we're friends, because we're about the same age and we won consecutive games, but I haven't spoken to him at all in the past year. I suppose he's been busy with Annie. Everyone saw what happened last year.
He goes to sit with the other Career mentors, and Blight comes to sit down next to me. I think he's been making cosy with Jude from Ten. Sylvia mentioned that they have some kind of history, but I can't remember exactly how it ended.
Things settle down fairly quickly — because as victors, we're all well accustomed to knowing when to shut up — and Seneca Crane is wheeled out. He's a weedy-looking man in his mid-thirties, with powder-white hair and a strong, sharp chin. I think I might recognise him from the past few years of Games footage, but I'm not sure.
"Thank you so much for coming," he says, and his voice comes out thin and piping. "It is an honour to assume the position of your new Head Gamemaker, and I hope this is the beginning of a long and fortuitous relationship between us all."
"If by 'relationship', you mean that you try to kill the kids we try to keep alive, then sure," Haymitch from Twelve slurs from across the room. He's drunk. Ish. Obviously.
"The Games will continue on as designed," says Seneca, as if this in any way relevant. "Now, let me explain this year's model - "
He goes on to describe how this year's Games will work. There aren't any newcomers in the crowd this time, so nobody really needs to hear this, but it's always good to have a refresher. Besides, occasionally there'll be a new rule dropped, or some sort of hint towards what the arena might entail. Everyone is on their best behaviour - even Haymitch, whom Chaff has nudged to attention - as Seneca speaks.
In a few hours, the tributes will be paraded around the Capitol in paired chariots. The footage will be live, and from tomorrow morning onwards, the sponsor lines will open up. Until tomorrow, we are confined to the Tribute and Games Centres. However, once the tributes go down to start training, we will be given free reign to travel anywhere within the central blocs of the Capitol. The idea is - as far as I can tell - to ensure that sponsors base their decisions entirely on the presentation of the tributes themselves, instead of batting for favours from their preferred victors. It almost never works. The majority of all sponsors back the same districts every year, and a few days of extra waiting won't sway them to another tribute, unless they're particularly dazzling - which they won't be.
Seven has a small, but loyal fanbase, and I know exactly who Blight and I will be visiting, come tomorrow. There are the occasional individual fans for each victor too. Normally I wouldn't visit any of them until my tribute makes it past the bloodbath at the start, mostly because the experience is so awful, but I get the sense I'm going to need to work hard to put Johanna on the same playing field as the others before she starts killing.
Sponsoring works the same as every year. On the morning of the Games we're given a catalogue of items we can bid for. It's very common for mentors to scour the list in order to gather some kind of intel on what the arena might be, and we're even allowed to order items before the Games start, if we're certain enough it will be needed. Sometimes this can be like striking gold. Apparently a couple years back, Beetee from Three managed to buy suncream for his tribute for pennies, while everyone else was distracted by the thick fur blankets and parkas on the catalogue. By the time half the tributes were bloody and peeling from the arctic sun, the price had hiked up so high that nobody - not even the most sponsored districts - could afford it.
In the meantime, we can make as many sponsor deals as we like. Every mentor has a unique ID code accessed via our fingerprints, into which funds can be deposited. If we make an alliance contract with another mentor, we can pool our funds. Sponsors deals can be made by meeting with individuals directly, or - as is more common - using a network of telephones and digital interfacing systems known as the Link. The Click and the Link. Who makes up these names? Once the Games start, we'll have access to the general live feed, as well as a constant track of our own tributes and their vital signs from their tracker. We're not allowed to have any maps of the arenas, though there are plenty of fans who spend hours scouring over camera footage, piecing it all together. We tend to use whatever they publish. It's almost always reliable.
There doesn't seem to be any rule changes this year, and Seneca Crane appears tight-lipped about the arena, so we're let go to mill about until tomorrow. Some mentors head back to the Training Centre, but most of us stick around to watch the Tribute Parade. As I stand up to follow some of the others back through to the Click, I notice that Ransom Kegg is silently crying in the corner. Nobody pays him much mind.
Ransom's a bit of a strange one, even in victor's circles. He scored a three in training and spent most of his Games hiding. When the Careers lost their food and their alliance broke apart, it became clear that the other tributes might stand a chance. At the final five, Ransom was cornered by the boys from One and Four, and he went crazy. Killed one of them with his own spear, then the other, and then ran screaming through the arena until he came across the girl from Ten and killed her too. The only other tribute who was left was the boy from Five, who died that evening from some bug he'd contracted on the second day. Apparently, Ransom didn't speak for six months after he left the arena.
Ransom Kegg. Annie Cresta. The Capitol's not been too happy with the victors as of late. Nobody ever thought Ransom's low training score had been intentional - it was obvious he'd snapped in the arena. But it had given them an appetite for something.
Whatever that something is, I hope they want more of it.
"Leave him," Blight tells me. I realise I've been staring at Ransom, and almost everyone else has gone. "Vega will come get him."
I follow Blight into the Click, where most people have already set up. There's no assigned seating, so everyone sort of just congregates near the middle. There's a massive screen towards the far end that usually shows the same live feed that the Capitol shows for mandatory viewing, though it's dark now. Situated all around are different kinds of tables; all with individual monitors. There must be about fifty, all-in-all. Some are solo desks, and some are round, circular ones, with one holding at least twelve seats. I've never seen an alliance that big before, but they must have planned for any possibility. We can access any monitor, all we need to do is scan our thumbprint to log us in. Because viewing another mentor's screen is forbidden, we're also given glasses, which are queued into the feed on the monitors, making sure that we're the only one who can see what our tributes are doing at all times. I will find my pair in my room back in the Training Centre.
For now, I wheel a chair over to the centre to join the group. We have at least an hour or two to kill, so we spend most of the time catching up. We only get to see one another once a year, outside of the victory tour, but this year, due to Annie Cresta's fragile mental state, victors were not invited to take part in the festivities. I spend the better part of half an hour talking to Cecelia, and the female mentor from Eleven, Seeder, when I feel a hand on my shoulder.
"Sorry, ladies," Finnick Odair says. "I hate to pull Ashley away from you, but I'd love a private conversation with my friend."
I've barely thrown them a quick farewell before Finnick has dragged me halfway across the Click. Blight, who is almost certainly going to be spending the night with Jude, gives me a questioning look, but I shake my head. I like Finnick. Whatever he has to say, I'll want to hear it.
As it turns out, I do.
"Listen," Finnick says. He smiles while he talks, as if he's telling me a joke. I follow his lead. I'd kill to have Finnick in one of my shows. He'd far outdo anyone in Seven. "You've got to tell the girl to stop crying."
"Johanna?" I ask. "I know - I told her, but you know how it is, Finnick, you can tell them one thing, but -"
"No, you don't understand," he lowers his voice. "After the past two years, they don't want another accidental victor. Seneca Crane's very strict on it. If she doesn't toughen up, they'll target her the second she gets in the arena."
I don't question how Finnick knows this. He just knows things. Finnick Odair is a steady source of gossip in the Capitol, and it's almost always reliable.
"Right," I nod. But the news is strange, because Finnick has his own tributes to worry about. "Why are you telling me this?"
"I don't want Annie to see it," he says, plainly. "She's not stupid. If that girl gets targeted for her behaviour, she'll know that the Capitol is sending a message."
This makes sense. "How is Annie?"
His face falls. "About as well as you can expect. She was improving over the past few months, but with the anniversary coming around, and me in the Capitol -" He shakes his head. "They could have given me one year. We have more than enough victors to choose from."
"I heard about Mags. Give her my love."
"She likes you," Finnick says. "She knew you were going to win. Told me not to bother getting my hopes up for my tribute."
"She did?" It's the first I've heard of it.
"It was my first year as a mentor too," he says. "I thought she was nuts. But here you are."
"Somehow," I say, glumly. "Any bets on this year, then?"
"Don't know," Finnick says. "Boy from Two's a favourite, of course, but I'm not sure he has it in him. One's a shout - I've heard their sponsors are getting antsy for another win. My tribute might make it far enough, but I don't think he has it in him either."
"No?" I try to rack my brains, but I can't remember anything about the boy from District Four. "Depends what Seneca Crane has cooked up this year." I decide not to mention Johanna any further. If I do, Finnick might get suspicious.
"Dreading it," he says. "I'm going to go call Annie and tell her we made it here OK. You free for a drink later this week? Once the sponsor stuff has been sorted? Some of the others were talking about it."
'Some of others' is definitely shorthand for Chaff. But I think I can guess who else Finnick is talking about. I give him a look. "Sounds good."
Around an hour before the parade, the escorts show up. Ambrosia seems to be in high spirits, and tells us that Pompey and Tulia have outdone themselves this year. As always, she offers us a list of the usual District Seven sponsors, and Blight and I agree on which ones to visit. There's a few new ones, which surprises me, because nobody from Seven has made it to the top eight since I won, but Ambrosia tells us that there's been a resurgence in popularity of some of the old Games, and Hap Holloway has returned as a Capitol favourite. God bless the dead.
"Did you know him well?" I decide to ask Blight.
"He was my mentor," Blight says, quietly. "Great guy."
It occurs to me now that Hap died the same year that I won the Games. Perhaps that was why Blight had been so distant that year. I try to imagine what I would feel like if Sylvia had just died a few months ago. Even with Johanna as my tribute, I doubt I could find the space to care.
"Wish I could have met him," I say.
"He would've liked you. You thought about things in the same way."
"How's that?" I ask. I didn't know Blight ever paid attention to the way I thought about things.
"You see things as they are," he says. "He was good at that too. And he would have loved your shows."
The shows, again. This is the second time Blight has brought them up. He must have watched them, but when? The only victor I've ever seen show up was Sylvia, and even then, I could tell that they weren't for her. He must have seen them on the television - the one time they showed some clips, the year I won. I make a mental note to invite him to the next one.
Eventually, the Tribute Parade begins, and we all cram into the centre as the live feed begins to play. District One is dressed in long, flowing silks, and the girl's red hair and pale skin looks particularly striking under the soft, golden sheen. There's a deafening roar as the chariot for Two rolls along, but it's clear most of the attention is on the boy. Septima gives a loud cheer too, and it echoes through the room, feeling oddly out of place amongst the flashing monitors. There's not much room for victory cries in the Click - not unless you're Brutus, from Two, but he's not here this year. When a tribute kills, it also means another tribute dies, and we're mostly respectful about that kind of stuff.
Three are dressed in something green and flashing. When Four rolls in, I pay close attention to Finnick's tribute. He's sixteen, with ruddy skin and a mop of long, dark hair. I can see what he means. He's strong, and boyish, but there's no tension anywhere. He won't make it the whole way.
Five and Six pass by. Seven rolls in, and I'm glad that Pompey and Tulia aren't absolute idiots, even though they've gone and done trees again. Johanna's long hair has been intricately braided and lifted upwards, likely with some sort of wire, and she wears a long, flowing garment that billows out at the end, flapping behind her in the breeze. Next to her, Caraway is dressed in a similar sort of getup. His hair isn't as long as Johanna's, but long enough that there's a similar effect, though instead of a dress, he wears a vest and similar, billowing trousers. I'm grateful at the loose fit, but between the hair and the obfuscating green makeup, nobody will be able to recognise them in the arena. We don't get enough of a closeup to see their faces, but I'm sure Johanna is doing her best to seem terrified.
Somewhere on the livestream, Claudius Templesmith - the asshole who announces the Games - says that this year, the stylists from Seven have decided to deconstruct a tree. By this, I assume he means that they've made upside down trees. At least they didn't do palm trees like last year. That had been so stupid that even Pliny cracked a smile.
For the textile district, Eight's costumes are entirely unremarkable. I do notice their female tribute, however. She's thirteen and so skinny you can see all of her ribs through her outfit. Nine and Ten are more of the same, but Eleven makes an impression, with clothes made from real, dried fruit. Twelve are in miners uniforms. They circle around, and then stop in front of President Snow's mansion.
Everyone starts to make conversation as the President begins to speak. It's moments like these that make me thankful for the other victors, even if we aren't ever really on the same team.
Nighttime falls and the chariots roll back down the bloc, towards the Tribute Centre. This is our cue to head back. The escorts have already left to - as the name would suggest - escort the tributes to their individual floors, and Blight and I are expected to show up for dinner. I've just stood up when I notice a commotion on screen.
Johanna has been teetering on the edge of the chariot, as if she's afraid to step off. Caraway is saying something to her, but I can't quite hear it over the music. She looks horrified. Shaking, weak, sick. He offers out a hand, but she refuses it, and instead tries to jump off the edge by herself.
She offshoots and lands straight in a pile of manure that the horses from Six had dumped in front of Seven's chariot, absolutely destroying the costume. There's a closeup, and she's bawling - absolutely bawling, like a red-faced child, gasping for tears.
"Jesus Christ," Blight says. I'm not sure what the phrase means, but I'm sure it's bad. I have to cover my mouth with my hand so that they can't see me grinning from ear to ear.
Game. Set. Match.
