Song: You Are the Blood by Castanets
Iris stared out the window, watching the buildings in the distance grow larger. They were still at least ten minutes away, but the city had been visible for a while – for the first time she realised just how massive the Capitol was. The tallest building in Six was one of the factories where they made parts, and even that was only four stories tall.
She looked up as Pomponia entered the room. "Oh good, you're up. We'll be there soon – you should eat something."
Iris stood up and followed the escort out, wondering what it would be like in the remake centre. What would they even do to her there?
After a quick breakfast of oatmeal and fruit, Iris gazed again out the window, this time at the Capitolians pressing as close to the train as they could for a mere glimpse of the tributes. Hating herself, Iris lifted a hand and began to wave, smiling and blowing kisses. She hated to pander to these pathetic people, but if it meant sponsors, she was willing to do whatever it took.
"Already sucking up to the rats, I see," Haylee said disdainfully from somewhere behind her.
Iris didn't drop the smile on her face, and didn't for a second look away from the window. "How the hell did you manage to win?"
"By myself," Haylee said scornfully. "I didn't need help from anyone."
"Sure," Iris said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes in case the Capitolians thought it was directed at them. She decided to take whatever Haylee said with a grain of salt – the woman obviously wasn't doing herself or District Six any favours. "Whatever you say, Haylee."
There was a screech as the train docked in the station. Pomponia bustled into the room, half-dragging Axel behind her. "Is everyone ready?"
It was the first time Iris had seen her district partner since yesterday, and he looked far worse than he had yesterday. Considering how terrible he had looked at the reaping, this was saying something. Pallid skin, sweaty forehead, eyes even more bloodshot than they had been the day before. She recognised the symptoms immediately. She'd seen them on her father when he went more than a day without Morphling. She almost felt sorry for the kid – he was so young, and it probably wasn't his fault that the addiction started – but she pushed the sympathy from her mind. If she was to win, which she fully intended to do, she could not afford to go around feeling sorry for the other tributes. Axel included. It was easier to let herself believe that he had used the drug because he was weak, because he couldn't deal with his life; it was easier to hate him if she associated him with her father.
The four of them stood at the door, waiting for it to open. Despite herself, Iris was feeling nervous. Sure, she hated the Capitolians – but she knew that she was also entirely at their mercy. To not win their approval would mean almost certain death. And Iris hadn't volunteered because she wanted to die. She'd volunteered because she wanted to live.
The doors slid open. Her ears were immediately assaulted with the screams of the crowd – District Six or not, they were obviously excited just to be here. Iris had no doubt that the crowd for the Career districts would be even more uncontrollable.
A reporter grabbed Iris' sleeve and shoved a microphone in her face. "Tell us, why did you volunteer? What were the handcuffs for?"
She was surprised; she didn't think any of them would be truly interested in her. But as long as they were, she had a chance. "Keep watching me, and you'll find out," Iris said, managing a grin before Pomponia grabbed her by the arm, yanking her out of the reporter's grip as she dragged Iris away.
Haylee wandered off once they reached the remake centre. "I'll see you later," she said, vaguely waving her hand.
Pomponia gave her a disdainful look – evidently, she was sick of picking up Haylee's slack. But she didn't say anything, instead walking faster, Axel and Iris' arms gripped tightly in her hands.
/
Iris wasn't pretty. She never had been. The only thing that she could truthfully say was beautiful about her was her hair – it was a plain brown, but it had always been long and thick. When she managed to wash it, it could even be called shiny. Otherwise, she was plain in every sense of the word. It had bothered her some in elementary and middle school, when she was surrounded by cruel little girls and boys. But by the time she reached high school, she had learned that there were far more important things to worry about. Like finding enough to eat, for example.
She cared even less now – although she knew beauty was a great way to get sponsors. There were other ways too, though. Iris knew she would have to utilise them as much as she could – she would play up her tough persona as much as possible. She needed to keep them interested. She needed them to believe she could win.
It was this knowledge that allowed her to mostly ignore the buzzards that were her prep team as they swarmed around her, commenting on every single little flaw. "You are far too long, girl! Gangly. Face is too long. Nose is too long. Lips are too thin. Oh, if only we were permitted to give them fillers," said one of the prep team mournfully. Iris was finding it very difficult to tell whether this person was male or female – perhaps they were a different gender entirely. "I guess we'll have to settle for makeup," they said to one of the others. Iris was glad they 'decided to settle' – she had no idea what 'fillers' could be, but if they came from the Capitol she didn't want them anywhere near her body.
When she was thoroughly scrubbed and polished, the prep team apparently decided that she was good enough for her stylist to be called in. She didn't recognise the man who swept into the room – perhaps he was new. "I am Ulysses, creator of magnificence and beauty, inventor and innovator, entertainer – oh. They were not jesting. You really are plain."
"Thank you," Iris said sarcastically.
Ulysses seemed to take her response as some sort of praise, as if he thought she was thanking him for being here. "Yes, of course you are grateful. I will transform this ugly duckling into a beautiful butterfly."
Iris frowned. "Doesn't the duckling turn into a swan?" Her mother used to tell her that story at night, while she was falling asleep. She hated to hear Ulysses talking of it – it was something she wanted to keep pure, untainted by the Capitol. She didn't have a great deal of memories of her mother, and she wanted to keep the ones she did have intact.
Ulysses giggled. "My dear, even I, the great Ulysses, does not have the power to turn you into a swan. We will have to settle for butterfly. Or perhaps caterpillar would be more achievable." He obviously didn't know his fairy tales.
Iris rolled her eyes. She was not enjoying this so far, but if Ulysses thought he could make her pretty, she was happy to let him try.
An hour later, Iris was permitted to look in the mirror. The makeup her prep team had used was so thick she was surprised it hadn't started to melt. Evidently, even Ulysses' supposed magical powers hadn't managed to make Iris pretty. It seemed that they'd gone the other way, in fact.
"Much better," Ulysses said, looking her up and down happily. "Much, much better."
"I am stunning," Iris said, mimicking his tone of voice. She tossed her hair over her shoulder dramatically and pursed her lips like the girls from One did. "I am a lone diamond, sparkling in a sea of, um, plastic. I am a magnificent swan, a beautiful butterfly, a lumpy caterpillar – "
"Yes, yes," Ulysses said, waving his hands around. "I am an artist. But we must get you into your costume."
He handed her a stack of neatly folded clothes. "Proserpina! Julius! Katrinia!" He clapped his hands, and the prep team tore back into the room like a trio of trained dogs. "We must get this girl dressed!"
They hopped to it, and swarmed around her like a cloud of bees. Iris realised that she was running out of animal metaphors to refer to them as. Proserpina seemed to oversee her hair. Julius – the one whose gender Iris still found herself unable to pin – was in charge of shoes, which reached her knees and were covered in a series of unnecessarily complicated buttons and clasps. And Katrinia somehow worked around them both, unceremoniously shoving Iris' limbs into the outfit.
In under ten minutes, Iris was fully dressed, her hair done and her face almost unbearably itchy from the makeup. Ulysses beamed at her. "A masterpiece! It is time for the big reveal. Katrinia, uncover the mirror."
Katrinia rushed over to the mirror, and pulled away a sheet of silk with a flourish. Ulysses jumped in front of it, shaking his hands around enthusiastically. "Ta-da! Don't you love it?"
Iris gazed at herself, biting back a laugh. The outfit seemed to be mimicking a train conductor's, the very same idea of every single District Six stylist for as long as she could remember. Ulysses had, however, put his own spin on it. Instead of pants, Iris wore a miniskirt that barely covered her butt. The blouse, black and white striped, was so tight she thought it might be rearranging her internal organs. But that wasn't even the worst part – over each breast, Ulysses had stuck a circular light that flashed repetitively.
The stylist seemed to take her amusement for delight, however, and clapped his hands. "Is it not wonderful? Is it not magnifique?"
"It sure is something," Iris told him. She only hoped that she would be able to recover from this. The outfit alone would easily be capable of destroying her angle before she'd even really put it into action. "I'm a big fan of the nipple lights."
She looked better than Axel, in any case. The poor kid was wearing a costume like hers, except with pants instead of a miniskirt. And there were no flashing lights on his chest – instead, his stylist had thought it would be a good idea to put the light on his groin. Iris knew that these would do irreparable damage to any possibility she had of winning – but it was hard not to laugh at how ridiculous they looked. The only thing she liked was her hair – it had been trimmed, with long wispy bangs cut to frame her face. It somehow made her features softer. However nice the hair was, the utter ridiculousness of the outfit out measured the change by far.
"Well!" Pomponia said when she caught sight of them, her usually enthusiastic smile faltering. "Don't you look…"
"Terrible," Iris suggested. "Hilarious. Like Bloodbath fodder."
Pomponia sighed. "It will be fine." She helped Axel into the chariot. He stood there shivering, his makeup beginning to smudge from the sweat dripping down his face. At least Iris didn't look as terrible as he did. "Try not to cry."
"I'm not going to cry," Iris said, scowling. Haylee was standing by the elevator, as though counting the seconds until she could disappear back up to the penthouse. Ulysses and Axel's stylist stood gossiping with one of the prep teams from District Ten, obviously unbothered by the pathetic appearance of Iris and Axel.
"Well, good," Pomponia said. "Don't scowl either."
The chariots began to move, leaving Pomponia behind them. Scowling, Iris crossed her arms, and looked around at the other tributes in their chariots. Everyone looked better than them – except maybe the kids from Twelve, who were shivering in their costumes of shiny black mesh.
There were shouts from the crowd as the first of the chariots emerged – One and Two. The Careers, of course, took most of the attention away from the rest of the tributes. District Six, being right in the middle, was traditionally either forgotten or completely ignored by the crowd. Iris didn't know how she was supposed to get them to notice her when they were still drooling over the Careers.
At least she wasn't crying like the boy from Five. She could see him in the chariot in front of her, his shoulders heaving from his deep sobs. The girl inched away from him, obviously trying to separate herself from the wreck of her district partner. Glancing at Axel, Iris realised this was probably the right move for her as well. The kid was looking worse and worse by the second – the heavy makeup his prep team had used to cover up the scabs and pockmarks on his face was dripping even more. A glob of foundation fell onto his shoulder.
Iris took a step to the side, and pushed Axel away from her as far as she could. He didn't even seem to notice.
There was a moment where she was blinded, right as their chariot emerged – the brightness of the sky combined with the flashes of photographers rendered her temporarily blind. Furiously blinking, Iris scowled even more. There were a few shouts of her name from the crowd – probably people who were curious as to why she had volunteered. They were soon swallowed up by the crowd, by the shouts of "District One!" or "District Two!".
Axel trembled beside her, and she turned to glance at him. His eyes were bulging out of his face, and a trickle of sweat bled through his makeup and dripped onto his shirt. A moment before it happened, Iris knew what he was about to do. He shuddered, and there was an awful second as Iris watched him gag – and then he vomited all over her.
There were a few shocked or disgusted noises from the crowd. Iris knew she had to do something, or she would be remembered only as Vomit Girl. Thinking quickly, Iris drew back her fist and punched Axel in the face. She had tried to make the punch as soft as possible while still looking good – even so, she had managed to give Axel a bloody nose.
The crowd cheered. "Iris!" she heard someone scream. "District Six!" Iris squared her shoulders, forced herself to grin. Axel groaned beside her, and she risked a glance. There was blood dripping from his nose, falling down the front of his shirt with his makeup. She shook out her hand even though it had not been a particularly hard punch, making a show of it because she knew that was what the Capitolians wanted. She'd already made a name for herself as unruly, after all; might as well make them wonder about the handcuffs.
She looked down at her district partner with disgust – disgust she didn't even have to feign. The boy trembled and cried, curled up in the bottom of the carriage. She waved and grinned at the crowd, hating herself for the rest of the parade. Although he disgusted her, he was just a kid, and she felt bad for him – she had effectively ruined his chances completely while also raising her own. Not that he had much of a shot anyway. She pulled him roughly to his feet – the crowd needed to see what she had done to him. They always went feral at the first sign of blood.
Axel groaned. The president spoke. The crowd whispered and cheered. Iris dripped with Axel's vomit and her own guilt.
/
"What were you thinking?" Pomponia cried, the moment Iris stepped off the chariot. Axel, crying silently, stepped down from the chariot. She put an arm around him, glaring at Iris.
Iris shrugged, refusing to meet Pomponia's eyes. "I had to distance myself from him. I didn't want to be remembered as the girl who got vomited on."
"It is illegal to fight with another tribute before the beginning of the Games! And you just punched Axel on camera, in front of the entire country!"
Iris' stomach dropped. She had forgotten about that part. Forcing herself to act confident, she squared her shoulders. "Oh please, the crowd loved it." Dread creeped in. Would she be punished? Would Jordie? Oh, God, if Jordie was punished for what she had done…
"You may have just gotten yourself killed."
Iris rolled her eyes. "I'm pretty sure I already did that by volunteering."
Pomponia sighed, and wrinkled her nose, giving Iris a gentle push. "Go take a shower. We will discuss this over dinner."
Iris tore herself away from the group and walked to the elevator. Before the doors closed, however, she was joined by the pair from One, who walked in with one of their mentors. The door closed. Even if she wanted to, Iris couldn't escape them now. She stared straight ahead, not willing to let them intimidate her. They were both dressed head to toe in diamonds – the jewels seemed to be stuck directly onto their skin, making them shimmer with every movement.
"You stink like shit," said the boy. He sneered at her. Alarm bells went off in her head.
"It's vomit, actually," Iris said, as if it were no big deal. She straightened her shoulders and held herself up as straight as possible.
The girl laughed, and tossed her golden curls over her shoulder. "Nice punch."
"Eh," Iris said, and shrugged. "I've done better."
"Oh yeah?" the boy said. "We'll see."
"Now, now, Garnet." Their mentor laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. Iris recognised him as Glory – he hadn't mentored for ages. He'd won the… twentieth? Iris couldn't remember. "No fighting before the Games, remember?"
She picked up on the poorly veiled threat in Glory's voice, and held herself up higher, forcing herself to smirk at him. Hard to do, she found, while alone in a small space with three Careers.
The elevator stopped, and the doors opened. The group from One made their way onto the floor. Before the doors closed again, the boy turned around, and made a throat-slitting gesture, his smile glittering like the diamonds.
The doors closed. Iris let out a long breath and sagged against the wall, shaking. She didn't want to let them get to her, but it was hard when she knew that they weren't all talk like the people at home – they would kill her, as soon as they got the chance. And she knew that they probably had a thousand ways to do it with their bare hands alone. Iris knew how to punch, sure, but what use would that be against kids who'd fought since before they could talk?
/
Smelling remarkably better after the shower, Iris made her way out to the dining room. Axel had been cleaned up. There was a bandage over his bruised nose.
"I'm sorry, Axel," Iris said, and took a seat across from him.
The boy looked up at her. The symptoms of withdrawal were still painfully obvious, but at least now he was lucid enough to understand his own name. "My parents didn't say goodbye to me." His voice was hoarse from a lack of use, and slurred from the effects of withdrawal.
It was the first time she'd heard him speak. She shared a glance with Pomponia, who was obviously surprised as well. "I'm sorry to hear that."
Axel nodded. Hands shaking, he picked up a fork, and began eating.
Silently, Iris took to her own meal, barely tasting the food she forced down her throat. About halfway through, Axel threw up again – thankfully, none of it got on Iris this time. "Oh, poor child," Pomponia said, leaping from her chair. Iris watched as she put an arm around him and half-led, half-carried him out of the room.
Iris felt, if possible, even guiltier. She wasn't known for her agreeable personality, but she didn't just go around punching innocent kids. Especially not harmless baby zombies. That just wasn't her. She didn't want to subscribe to the Capitol's idea of district brutality – and yet she knew that was what they wanted from her, and what they would pay to see. I gave up choice when I volunteered, she realised, sobered by the thought.
Unable to think of eating anymore, she got up and switched on the TV in the living room. A rerun of the parade had already begun, though she had missed the first three districts. The kids from Four were dressed as… octopi? Not one of District Four's finer costumes. Five passed without much comment, dressed as power-plant workers, their costumes somewhat resembling Iris and Axel's, minus the boob and crotch lamps.
And then it was their turn. She watched, as if in slow motion, as Axel gagged, and vomited all over her. She saw the look of shock on her onscreen counterpart's face, before it was covered up with a carefully constructed mask of anger. If only she'd reacted sooner – anyone who looked closely at her could tell she didn't mean it. It would be enough to trick the sponsors, though, and that was mostly what mattered. Her fist slammed into Axel's face. He blinked, jarred, and stepped back, kept in the carriage only for the door on the side. Iris wondered what Jordie thought, if he saw through the look on her face – of course he would. Her brother was no fool.
She watched again as the crowd freaked out. They didn't love her – but they loved that the fighting had already begun. The commentators reacted exactly as she'd thought they would – surprised at first, before immediately jumping into the conspiracies, wondering where she'd come from, what the handcuffs were for, why she volunteered.
"Maybe you can say you were arrested for fighting, in the interview." Pomponia's voice came from the doorway. Iris hadn't even noticed she was there. "And that's why you had handcuffs on. It would make you seem tough, capable. Sponsors like that kind of tribute."
Iris frowned. It would also make her seem like she lacked control, although by punching Axel she'd already given the impression that she was quick to anger rather than calculating and calm like she had wanted to present herself as. "How long were you standing there?"
Pomponia shrugged. "Awhile. You'll need to work on your sensing skills before the arena. Anyone could have snuck up on you." Onscreen, Iris and Axel faded, and District Seven made their pitiful entrance, dressed as lumberjacks.
"Yeah, well, it's a good thing you didn't have a knife." Iris thought of the Ones in the elevator, of the boy's sneer, the girl's arrogance. Had she put even more of a target on her back now? Would the Gamemakers be after her as well, for fighting? For breaking the rules so openly?
There was a knock on the door. They both jumped, jolted out of their thoughts. Pomponia strode over to the door and unlocked it. Iris gripped the remote tightly in her hand, its smooth metal surface strangely comforting.
Two Peacekeepers strode in. Iris felt sick. "We are here to issue your first official warning," one of them said. His voice was muffled behind the helmet – but it was easy to tell that he was threatening her. "Fighting among tributes before the Games commence is strictly prohibited."
"It won't happen again," Pomponia said. Iris tried to burrow into the couch cushions.
"It had better not," said the other Peacekeeper. "Any further mistakes will mean punishment first thing in the arena."
"It won't happen again," Iris said, echoing Pomponia's words. The cool surface of the remote dug into her palm. "A moment of distraction, that's all."
"No further distractions will be permitted."
The Peacekeepers turned and walked out. The door slammed behind them, and Iris jumped again – if it was intimidation they were going for, they were doing a great job.
Pomponia exhaled shakily. "You are lucky."
"I wouldn't call that lucky."
"It was lucky," the escort said firmly. "They would not normally give you another chance. It must mean that the Gamemakers see potential in you."
Iris frowned, and fiddled with a loose thread on one of the cushions, pulling it taut and watching the fabric unravel. "What did they mean? By punishment first thing in the arena?"
"Sometimes," Pomponia said carefully. "If tributes are careless. The mines around their plate will malfunction. And sometimes, early into the Games, they might encounter a natural disaster. Other times they might have the misfortune to encounter a pack of mutts. Do you understand?"
"Yeah," Iris said. "Yeah, I understand."
It was perfectly clear, after all. One more mistake and she'd never see her brother again.