Disclaimer: I don't own TBOSAS or any of the characters from TBOSAS. Title is part of a lyric from Can't Catch Me Now by Olivia Rodrigo, which I also don't own.
Soooo… guess what I'm still doing instead of writing A Traitor's Tale. This one doesn't require much of an introduction. It's the Treech one. That's it. That's the intro.
General Trigger Warning: I felt like this was serious enough for me to warrant a warning in the first chapter, even though it won't come up until later on. One of the main characters is a survivor of SA and a lot of the story is them trying to cope with their trauma. I can guarantee that I won't write any graphic SA scenes.
In terms of trigger warnings for this specific chapter, there's one mention of suicide and a couple mentions of morphling.
Dr Volumina Gaul considered most things in life an experiment. This meeting with Casca Highbottom was no exception. Today, they would assign each of the academy's twenty-four best students a tribute in the Tenth Hunger Games to mentor.
As head gamemaker, Volumina knew more about the Hunger Games than any other person in Panem, even the man who had created them. It would be interesting to see what kind of tribute would bring out the best in each of these students. Some might benefit from having a stronger tribute with a fighting chance at victory. Others would benefit from having a weaker tribute with zero chance at survival. Some would learn what it was like to have genuine power over the outcome of the games. Others would have that power stripped from them and learn humility through mentoring a tribute they'd never get a good result from.
"I've identified four priority students I think we should give tribute slots before the others," Casca said. "First we have Felix Ravinstill."
Volumina nodded. "A wise decision. We must be careful which slot we give the President's great-nephew, lest we get accused of favouritism."
"Which district would you suggest?" Casca asked.
"Eleven," Volumina said. "They're unpredictable. Their tributes are often malnourished, but their industry does encourage physical activity, so strong ones aren't too rare. Eleven has one victor already, and Rhubarb was close to winning last year."
"I remember her," Casca said, blue eyes looking sadder than usual. "I'll put Felix down for District 11 Female. Next we have Sejanus Plinth. I'd strongly advise against giving him a Two-"
"Why not?" Volumina asked. "I think it'd be interesting."
The Plinth family had moved to the Capitol from District 2 after the war and Volumina could tell that Sejanus had never really fully adjusted. It would be fascinating to force him to mentor a boy from his birth district and confront the fact that he'd changed since he'd left Two. Either it'd make him stronger, more ruthless, more Capitol, or… it'd break him.
Either way, Volumina would be entertained.
"As head Gamemaker," Volumina said. "I think the best option for this games is for Sejanus Plinth to mentor the District 2 Male. And, as Dean of the Academy, you of all people should support this decision. It'll be… educational for the boy."
"Okay," Casca said. "Next we have Coriolanus Snow, our highest scoring student overall."
"Not Miss Jasper?" Volumina asked.
"Io Jasper is far and away our best student in your area of expertise but had this program been based on grades in, say, literature, she would not have made the cut. Mr Snow is an all-rounder. He performs well in every subject. Whatever metric by which we could've selected our twenty-four mentors, Mr Snow would've always preformed well enough to be selected."
Casca grimaced. Volumina got the sense that he'd been trying to find a way to exclude Snow from this program but, with the boy's good grades in every subject, there was no way that would not look suspicious.
"I think, we should give our best student a real challenge," Casca said. "Which tribute would be the least likely to win."
"District 12 Female," Volumina said.
"But Twelve came second last year," Casca said.
"Second place is meaningless, Casca," Volumina said. "In six of the nine games we've had so far, the victor killed all the strong tributes who ran for the weapons first and the second place tribute was just whichever of the weaklings who ran away they managed to chase down last. And out of the three exceptions, two of them involved district pairs in the final two. As for the female aspect…"
"You don't need to remind me," Casca said, glumly. "We've never had a female victor."
"We would've had one in the Fourth Games had it not been for those blasted Sevens," Volumina pointed out.
The Fourth Hunger Games were a disappointment. The rightful winner of the games was Jenny Laburnum, a girl from District 7 who could wield an axe well enough to defeat all her opponents. All her opponents, save Nathaniel Bloom, her district partner. who'd spent the entire games crying on the floor. When it'd come down to just those two, instead of killing her pathetic district partner, Jenny had turned her axe on herself. The whole affair had annoyed Volumina immensely. Instead of producing a victor ruthless enough to kill her own district partner, the Fourth Hunger Games had a victor with no kills who hadn't moved an inch all games.
It had been maddening enough that Volumina had travelled to District 7 for research purposes to try to understand why Seven's tributes didn't play the games the way they were supposed to. The people of Seven were stubborn and selfless, with a strong sense of honour and community.
Well, most of them, anyway…
"I suppose Jenny would've won if she'd been cruel enough to kill Nate," Casca said. "I've spoken to the boy. They grew up in the same community home, poor things."
Volumina gave a sigh of exasperation like she always did when Casca showed pity for the tributes.
"So we have the Eleven girl for Mr Ravinstill, the Two boy for Mr Plinth and the Twelve girl for Mr Snow. Who's our fourth mentor?"
"Vipsania Sickle," Casca said.
"Oh," Volumina said, smiling. Vipsania Sickle was one of the more promising students in the academy. She was fierce. She had a hunger for success unmatched by any of her classmates besides maybe Coriolanus. There was something of the wildcat about her, her poise when she raised her arm in class, the predatory glint in her eye when she answered a question or stepped onto the sports field.
Volumina had also heard from her colleague, Agrippinia, Vipsania's aunt, that Sickle enjoyed watching sports games in her free time and had watched every single Hunger Games live. Unless a baseball game was airing at the same time. Volumina was still angry that the final game of the Capitol's most popular baseball tournament had been scheduled on the same day as the Seventh Hunger Games, utterly demolishing it in the ratings. Especially because the Seventh had been one of the more exciting games so far.
Sickle had to have some insight into how to make the Hunger Games as popular as baseball. If this mentoring assignment went well for her… she'd make a fine gamemaker.
"Miss Sickle is in quite an interesting position," Casca said. "She's the niece of one of one of our staff, so we can't appear too biased in our pick for her. But also, she has the second highest average grades after Mr Snow and… I don't think she likes being second best. She has a lot to offer."
Volumina only had one slot on her mind. Come to think of it, hadn't Agrippinia mentioned that her little brother - Vipsania's father - had fought for the Capitol in District 7 during the war…
"District 7 Male," she said. "Either she gets the next Nathaniel Bloom and she has to whip him into shape, or she gets a proper lumberjack. I reckon if we pair Vipsania Sickle with a boy who's utterly lethal with an axe, we're going to get some terrifying results."
Casca nodded. He looked like he was trying not to frown.
"Terrifying indeed," he said.
With the priority students out of the way, Volumina surveyed the rest of the potential mentors, looking for combinations that would potentially be entertaining. Casca took a bottle of morphling from his desk, a sign that he didn't particularly care how the rest of this meeting would go. Volumina had free rein.
Urban Canville and Volumina's star pupil, Io Jasper, were both brilliant in science and mathematics. Less so in keeping an audience engaged. Volumina assigned them both District 3 tributes, with who got which gender being dependent on a coin toss. Three had the most advanced education system out of all the districts and, therefore, was the most likely to produce intelligent tributes. Canville and Jasper would never be able to sell a tribute to an audience unless that tribute was a fellow brainiac.
Domitia Whimsiwick, dairy heiress, was bubbly, friendly and optimistic, but she lacked ambition. She was unlikely to fight to get something out of her tribute, but if that tribute was someone she could work with easily, she'd likely put on a good show. She was given a random District 10 slot. A coin toss decided that she'd get the boy.
Festus Creed, whose family had shares in District 7's most productive lumber yards was almost assigned the girl from that district but Volumina decided that it didn't feel right. Creed was too ambitious. He needed more of a challenge than the girl from the district he was most familiar with, with Vipsania Sickle potentially working alongside him. No, it'd be more entertaining to have the ambitious students like Creed, Snow and Sickle fighting against each other. Creed was eventually assigned the District 4 Female. Four had always been one of the stronger districts and Volumina wanted to give at least one of the female tributes a mentor she knew would push them to win.
Casca, who was now high on morphling, brought up that Festus had feelings for Persephone Price, so Volumina gave her the District 4 Male. Working in close proximity to his crush would likely make Festus even more competitive in his efforts to impress her.
Pliny Harrington Junior, son of a naval commander, now seemed like a fish out of water now both District 4 slots had been taken, which was just what Volumina wanted. Harrington was too lazy. He needed a challenge. So Volumina gave him the District 7 Female, a tribute that could go either way. But whether Harrington's tribute turned out to be weak or strong, one thing was for sure. He was going to have Vipsania Sickle yelling in his ear all games, and that was just what he needed to whip him into shape.
Juno Phipps, heiress to a Capitol founding family, was a little too haughty for her own good. Volumina decided to teach her humility by giving her a random District 8 slot, which turned out to be the boy.
Lysistrata Vickers was another tribute Volumina sought to give a weaker tribute, but this wasn't to punish her. Her medical background meant that she had the potential to nurse a sick tribute back to health in the pre-games, which could turn an absolute no-hoper into a tribute capable of putting on a show. She was given the District 12 Male.
Apollo and Diana Ring, the twins, were friendly and charismatic, but they always seemed to be happier together than when they were apart. Volumina decided to assign them both to the same district, believing they'd perform better as a team, with District 6 being randomly selected.
One by one, the students were assigned slots. When Volumina was satisfied with the lineup, she returned to her lab. She had some new assistants and she wanted to put them to the test by having them feed Erisikthon.
Erisikthon was a rabbit which had been genetically modified to have the jaw strength of a pit bull. Over the years, he'd claimed the fingers of many of Volumina's assistants. He was a fun little pet to have around. But today, upon returning to her lab and seeing the white rabbit in his cage, Volumina was suddenly reminded of another white rabbit she saw every day.
Over her career as head gamemaker, Volumina had collected news stories and photographs detailing the most horrific events of the war and pinned them to the wall of her office. There, on the top left corner of the wall, where District 7 would be on the map, was a family photo printed in black and white. It showed a married couple and their young son, all dressed in their finest clothes. The boy was sitting on a chair with a white rabbit on his lap. It was attached to a newspaper clipping with the headline Loyalist lumber yard owners found dead after gruesome double murder by rebels.
It suddenly occurred to Volumina that, if the boy was still alive - which Volumina hoped was the case - he would've turned eighteen in April. Time did fly. She'd been hoping his name would be called at the reaping. This year would be the last year that her little experiment from her research trip to Seven could yield results. It would be such a shame if that chance passed…
Volumina decided that she was going to give the mayor of District 7 a call. Whether or not the rest of the Capitol would be entertained, she would be.
Dr Gaul isn't going to be a regular POV character but I thought it'd be fitting to open the story with her meddling. It was fun thinking of reasons why certain mentors were given certain slots. I feel like, knowing what we know about Dean Highbottom, Dr Gaul had to be the reason why Sejanus as assigned the District 2 Male. There's no way it was a coincidence. I also wanted to set up Dr Gaul's relationship with District 7, especially her research trip.