CHAPTER XI:
QUANDARY

Shawn Xylander, 17. District Seven.

From the moment Shawn's name had been called at the Reaping, everything had felt like an overwhelming rush of noise and motion. His mind, however, had been a strange kind of quiet— as if he had just jumped into water below freezing and tried to hold his breath. The feelings of panic and nausea had been there, but suppressed; internally he'd been flipping out and unable to do anything to change the situation.

In fact, he hadn't snapped out of autopilot until after his family had left. And perhaps that was for the better. His father's always been soft-spoken, with a heart way too big for his own good. He's always been Shawn's biggest supporter. His mother's always been the opposite— harsh, no-nonsense and she never took shit from anyone in the lumber yard. In all of his life, Shawn's never seen either of them cry— the thought of it is enough to destroy him from the inside out. His siblings had been holding it together about as well as he could have expected, but only after they had all been dragged away did he allow himself to properly feel everything.

(Nevermind that even after everything that had happened over the last year, a part of him still clung to the hope that somebody else would show up to say goodbye, too.)

It doesn't do him any good to think about that, though.

He's been pleasantly surprised by how smoothly this process has gone so far, though. Shawn anticipated he would hate being stuck with what he presumed would be a trio of glorified babysitters, marching him against his will toward his death. And yet, there is a certain kind of gratitude to be found in the distractions his district team has offered him. Both of Seven's living victors seem keen to make actual connections with him and Juniper. Even their escort isn't horrible, provided Shawn pretends as though whenever she speaks, she's doing a comedy routine rather than being drop-dead serious.

(Ever the middle child, Shawn's grown used to dealing with different personalities. Whether it be his free-spirited older brother or his assertive younger sister, his typical laidback nature tends to make him easy enough to get along with. And so far, he has done his best to let the emotions roll off his back. He's a stone in the river; a duck paddling above water, its webbed feet relentlessly churning underneath the surface. So long as Shawn gives off the illusion of calm, no one will be able to tell how exhausted this has all made him. How overwhelmed. Who wouldn't be, when forced to be in this position?)

He tries not to let it bother him. Focuses instead on the sun, rapidly disappearing outside the window. It alters the dynamic lighting in the cabin, to change from a dim, unobtrusive glow to something a little brighter, given there are still people in the room. His plate is cleared away by an Avox, dressed in an awful crimson smock. He doesn't protest— dinner was a fine affair, but his stomach was in far too many knots to eat much.

The relentless tapping of fingers against the polished surface of the table brings him out of his daze, and he realizes the noise is coming from him. He stops. Even the table is different, smooth where the table in his parents' kitchen is well-scarred from use. Outside, the landscape blurs past, increasingly unrecognizable in twilight. He fights the urge to yawn. Blinks. Then yawns, and re-enters reality when he does.

Across from him at the table, Juniper remains seated, picking at what's left on her plate. Shawn can feel her watching him, but he doesn't meet her gaze. Now that it's just the two of them, the weight of everything that's happened— and everything yet to come— threatens to cave in on him. Shawn gets the inkling that a good night's sleep would help right his mind. He decides he'll count to sixty and if she doesn't say anything, he'll go to bed.

Unfortunately, Juniper hasn't shown herself to be the type to let silence linger for too long. Her quick wit and loquacious personality have proven that to be true over the last several hours.

"How are you holding up now?" Juniper's voice slices through the stillness. It's a little too loud, and jarring even when he's been expecting her to talk. Perhaps he didn't expect concern from someone he hardly knows; let alone someone who is going to have to die for him to return home.

Shawn blinks, his gaze drifting slowly over to her. She's leaning back in her chair, arms folded and one knee drawn, positioned in-between the table and her torso. He cannot tell if it's curiosity sparking this question, or genuine concern for him— all he knows is that he doesn't want to answer it until he's slept on the feelings. Dwelling on how he feels is hardly a logical response at the moment, even if it's what she's asking for.

"I'm fine," he offers a small smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. They've only been on the train for seven hours and already, he mourns the easygoing everyday version of himself that wouldn't have to lie to her.

Juniper raises an eyebrow. She's clearly not convinced. "Fine? You look like you're a thousand miles away. Senna and Oren even said goodnight to you and you didn't respond. Seriously. Gonna ask you again: are you?"

His chest tightens when she doubles down with the question. It feels much too loaded to answer, like an emotional gun leveled at his head, waiting for him to cry or wuss out. "I'm just… processing everything still," Shawn finally replies. "I don't know, Juniper. It's a lot."

"Tell me about it." Juniper pushes around her food a little more and then pushes the plate away, laying her fork across it neatly. Within seconds, it's snatched away by their lone attendant. He watches grimly as the crimson-clad Avox hurries out of the dining carriage. "I think the hardest part is done, though."

"The hardest part?" Shawn echoes, blinking hard again in confusion.

"The Reaping. Getting… y'know, picked?" Juniper sighs, dropping her leg back to the floor. "Everything else after that is— well, it's just survival. And we're pretty good at that, aren't we?"

Shawn can't help but laugh at this. After the Reaping Recap, Senna and Oren got explicit confirmation from them that they wanted to be advised together. Subsequently, Shawn had been grilled about his skills— survival, social or otherwise. Dinner had almost been a welcome relief. He felt as though they knew more about him than he knew about himself just based on the things they'd pick up from his answers, and was desperate to get the onus of conversation off him.

"Is that supposed to be comforting?" he ventures, trying his hand at matching her witty remarks.

Juniper smirks. It, too, doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Well. It's still something, isn't it? Over half of the time the arena is natural, not artificial. The odds on that front are in our favor, you heard Senna say it. I feel like the only way to go from here is up, don't you think?"

Sure. Or die, Shawn thinks morbidly. But it is true— they're both fresh entrants into the Games atmosphere, and they both have a chance to pull this thing off. In his seventeen years in Seven, he's gotten good at one thing: picking silver linings out of many situations. The reminder that a chance exists, no matter how infinitesimally small, acts like a balm to briefly comfort him.

Shawn leans back in his own chair, missing the way the ones at home would creak in their age, because the Xylanders were dirt poor and always had been but at least it was familiar. This chair is as alien to him as everything else on the train. Shawn's eyes drift back to the window. "I guess maybe everything will turn out just fine. It's just strange to not really know what's going to happen. If we weren't Reaped, I know exactly what I'd be doing tomorrow. I'd wake up, have a cup of coffee with my Dad, and work in the lumberyard from sunup to sundown. The whole routine. Same as always, and that'd be it."

As he speaks at length, he can see Juniper shifting in her seat, as if she's dying to get a word in. "Totally get the uncertainty aspect of it all," she shrugs. "But maybe… do you think that's kind of the point? To keep us from knowing? Keeps us from really thinking about the Games too much if we have to actually prioritize living."

Shawn snorts. "You think they want us… to not think? It would be easier to just turn off my brain," he jokes. "That's how things roll for me most of the time, anyway."

"Honestly, I don't think they care either way. But that's why it's all so chaotic. We focus on all the little shit… stops us from seeing the bigger picture. Food for thought."

(Food for thought: Shawn's never been particularly skilled at seeing the bigger picture. He's a logical mind at heart, too easily bogged down in the details that pull his focus away from his goals. But in a way, it's true. From the moment their names are called, fear is the primary emotion the Games are designed to invoke. Then they seem to want to shock with the opulence of the trains and their first impression on the Capitol; the food, the clothes, the constant performance of it all despite being, deep down, a scared little kid. It's so incredibly fucked that Shawn prefers not to see the bigger picture, just this once. Ignorance would be bliss.)

"Maybe you're right," he says quietly. Maybe survival is all they can do, until the end of it. As the old adage goes, nobody really wins. Winning implies a positive connotation to the Games, as if they can be something looked at with anything other than horror. But if he can survive, then he can make it home. Back to his parents. His brother. His sister. The lumber yard, and the forests— the blue, cloudy skies and the rustling of leaves in the wind, admired without any real care in the world or stance on his place in it. It is a life worth living, and he intends to do just that.

"I just don't want to make anyone mad," he adds. "I don't want to fight anyone, or skies forbid, hurt anyone. But it feels like there isn't really a choice. I hate that."

Juniper shrugs, standing up from the table. "Then play the game. It's a quandary, yes, but it's not hard to find the solution." She gives him a grin, playing it cool, as if they've been friends their whole life. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay? Goodnight, Shawn."

"Goodnight," he manages to say, eyes glazed over as he contemplates her words. The twilight world beyond the window blurs by without him really seeing it. He's grateful for her departure, as horrible as it is to say. A little rest will go a long way to fix the way he's been feeling lately.

Today has made him feel estranged from himself in a way he didn't know was possible. In ways he hasn't felt, truly, since a month and a half back, when he ugly cried into the couch pillows at the Xylander household. For over an hour, Shawn hadn't been able to stop.

The story is simple. He messed around, and got his heart broken by a boy.

In truth, it's always more complicated than that. Or at least, that's what he tells himself when his mother insists that he was always 'too good' for Oliver anyway. That he should have focused on work instead of getting his heart crushed. It wasn't his fault that Oliver came to work at the yard. Freshly sixteen, and already employed as a crew-leader at the yard, it had been Shawn's responsibility to show new workers the ropes. One had been effortlessly charismatic, and so good-looking that it made Shawn look stupid how hard he was crushing on him.

His whole family could tell. It was that obvious. Their opinions were mixed. His siblings thought he should grow a pair and ask Oliver out. His mother disagreed with the notion entirely, and his father… his father had been concerned. Shame on Shawn for not being able to see that sooner. For the first few months, everything had been picture-perfect. It was Shawn's first relationship, besides a kiss he shared with one of his friends behind the lockers in grade school. He had been so over the moon that somebody had finally liked him back, that it made him oblivious.

(Oliver wasn't just not right for him, he was a grade-A scumbag. Rose-colored glasses had ensured Shawn never saw the truth— he was the only one who ever put in actual effort into their relationship. Any time they hung out, it was because Shawn asked him to. Any time Oliver needed anything, Shawn was there for him. But he was never there for Shawn.)

A little under a year into their relationship, everything eventually came to a head.

In their neck of the woods, poverty wasn't just a statistic but a fact of life. Money had always been tight, and Shawn and his folks lived paycheck-to-paycheck even when he was too young to understand it. Sometimes their power and water would be shut off when the bills went unpaid. In later years his father confessed it was to keep food on the table. Shawn told him he appreciated being fed and went on with his day.

Oliver was a different case— since the beginning he kept asking for money. He always seemed to forget his wallet, need a favor, or want a raise. He asked Shawn's dad for one enough times that everything clicked together in the end. When he confronted his boyfriend about it, Oliver laughed in his face and told him that, yes, he was in it for the money that Shawn clearly didn't have, and dumped him on the spot.

Shawn had never felt so crushed. Not even just at the action but at how utterly remorseless Oliver seemed to be. All his life, he's seemed to reflect other people's negativity back to them more than any other type of energy. Maybe it's why he makes such a conscious effort to remain as optimistic as possible, but that moment broke him.

(He'd thrown vases, slammed doors and screamed at Oliver to get out of their house until his face was red and his throat was raw. Only once he had managed to march Oliver out the door did he break down. It had been the worst moment of his life, at the time.)

Since, Shawn has been more careful about who he associates with. Thus far, Juniper seems like good people, but the Hunger Games are an inherently selfish animal. It worries him that anyone could try to use him for his skills, then discard him like trash. It worries him to be here at all. And he's sick of that feeling. So he gets up, tucks the chair underneath the edge of the table, and heads for bed. In the morning, perhaps everything will be a little more clear.

It doesn't do to dwell on the past, with such an uncertain future. There are bigger things to worry about than Oliver Akins, even if he still wishes the boy would have made an appearance today.

He'll get through this. One problem at a time.

Beaumont Pullman, 17. District Six.

All around him, the train carriage is awash with silvery moonlight, changing what had once been a warm and opulent space into something coldly elegant. Shadows drift and sway across the well-polished wooden floor with every subtle movement of the train, dancing to a symphonic silence that Monty can only observe with his eyes. One moment, the intricate inlays of the floor are visible, the next, shrouded in the darkness of night.

He casts his eyes toward the window. Aside from the steady humming rumble of the train along its tracks, everything is quiet. Too quiet, perhaps— the way that only deep into the nighttime, the stillness can become so all-encompassing that one might feel frozen in time. Monty can hear his own breathing, shallow and even. He can practically hear his own thoughts.

He doesn't like that very much.

(Today has, perhaps predictably, been one of the worst days of his life. He's been fortunate enough to be able to count the previous worsts on one hand, but this one takes the cake. It's been nearly nine hours since he was Reaped, and he still can't shake this feeling of imminent doom. He still can't get his parents teary-eyed faces out of his mind, grief-stricken in a way he has never seen them before, not even during the Pullman family's hardest moments.)

(Perhaps that's the worst of it all. How utterly alien the experience has been, and how uncertain the future looks. In a week, every bit of good he strived for in life might as well be erased.)

Outside the window, the moon is bright enough to illuminate a decent stretch of the rolling plains they're traversing over. He can spot a few scraggly trees dotting the landscape, like little soldiers marching into the dark horizon beyond. Any time he looks away from the glass, it becomes a hazy blur, but if he really focuses, the details become clearer. He tries to tell himself that the uneasy sickness in his stomach is from this game he's playing with his eyes, and the movement of the train. It's easier that way, he surmises. Much, much easier.

In fact, there is something interesting about observing the wilds beyond District Six. They're a far cry from the sprawling industrial rot that Six seems to be made of, rusting upon the foundations of the natural world. His favorite part of the trip so far had been the stretch of tracks along the Erie. Not that Six didn't have its own waterways, but there was something different about seeing such a massive body of water, glistening beneath the sun. It was breathtaking.

Their final destination will be another city. Albeit, a better one, but still the same kind of urbanity he's known all of his life. And while Monty has never been the type to complain about the kinds of situations he finds himself in, imagining life if it had been different. He isn't home, nor is he dead. He's nowhere, really, and something about the fleeting transience of the moment captivates him in a way he can't quite explain.

From the stillness of the world around him, the scuff of a shoe behind him. Monty looks up sharply, twisting to see who has entered the lounge area with him. "Oh," is all he manages to say, surprised to see his district partner lingering in the entryway, pale and ghostly in the moonlight. "Hey."

"Hey," Nova says quietly, her voice faintly hoarse. Somewhere, it clicks for him that she might have been crying. He wouldn't blame her— there's a part of him that wants nothing more than to pretend this is his parents' couch and break down in its comfort.

(But even as a child, he'd never been much of a crier. When he was very little, his mother used to call him 'sunshine' because to her, he had been the living embodiment of it. Always bubbly and full of laughter; warm and friendly and kind, above anything else, because his parents had always told him if he could be anything in this world he should choose to be just that.)

Monty doesn't cry. That doesn't mean he doesn't feel the same weight around his neck; the same hollowness at the back of his skull when he thinks about dying.

"Come sit," he offers, patting the couch cushion beside him. Nova hesitates for a fleeting moment, but takes his invitation. He senses it might be out of a desire to not seem rude, but his district partner has remained an enigma to him for most of the day. Since the pair boarded the train, they have mostly kept to themselves, save whenever Pollux called for dinner three hours after they left Six and one hour earlier than his parents would.

(That had thrown him off. The Pullmans, while never destitute, had always found a way to make ends meet. Had always found strength through family, and dinnertime was at seven-sharp daily. No earlier and no later. It was a time for them all to be together. He never missed it, not even when his friends had other plans for him. Not that they were secondary in Monty's mind, but dinner had become a ritual habit. Eating at six felt wrong. Just like everything else has today.)

"I miss home already," he confesses, awkwardly scratching the back of his head. He massages his dark curls for a moment, breaking his gaze from the window to glance at Nova.

"Yeah?" she prompts, as still as a statue on the cushion beside him.

He nods. "Yeah. It already seems so far away."

"It is," she agrees. The words feel robotic to him, but at least she's talking. "It feels strange to not know where we are."

"I agree," Monty says. "That's why I've been out here. It's just all so… different," he suggests lamely, turning the word over in his head. "I don't care for it much."

"Me neither," Nova agrees again, drawing her knees to her chest. Though both of their bodies are positioned toward each other, both are staring out the glass, at the shifting landscape beyond. Monty hopes she doesn't think he's struggling to find words to say to her. It's late, and he's tired, and content to simply enjoy the company of this girl that's stuck in the same place as he is.

They sit like that for a while, and it's nice to simply not be alone. Monty's not used to being as alone as he has been— after the peacekeepers removed his family and friends from the visitation room, he had never felt so isolated. The feeling has stuck with him in a way he can't quite shake. He's always been a people-person, surrounded by scores of friends and acquaintances alike. Monty liked knowing everyone by name, and was always willing to make time for anyone. He was never the smartest in school, but everyone knew him or knew of him, and thought of him highly. And for good reasons. His parents always liked that about him, and Monty always liked it about himself. Too many people tried to posit as something they weren't, but he just was.

He's so used to cheering people up. All day, he's watched Nova remain plagued by the same stormclouds that seemed to follow her since the moment she volunteered. And it's not like he hasn't had opportunities to chat, but Pollux's clear apathy for them has made it hard for him to build any bridges. Monty wants to ask her for her troubles, but the words evade him. He suspects being too direct would only make things worse, anyway.

"So, if you don't mind me asking," Monty ventures carefully, "why exactly did you volunteer?"

Nova stills. Only her breathing reminds him that she's there, and for a long moment she seems to struggle to compose an answer. "Because I felt like I had to," she finally says, turning toward him and never quite meeting his eyes.

Another question. "Did you know Jiyana?"

"Yes." She looks uncomfortable, as if it's some great personal secret.

"I'm sorry. To hear that, you know. I hope… I hope she knows what you're sacrificing for her," Monty manages to say. He kicks himself for how much more reassuring the words could have sounded, instead of serving as an unwanted reminder of the death-sentence waiting for them at the end of the line.

A beat of silence passes between them. "Me too," his district partner whispers, the words nearly imperceptible. He searches her face and finds only the same carefully-worn stoicism many in Six learn to front. Maybe it's his imagination, but Monty thinks this distresses her greatly. If his own plight didn't offer him a window into her feelings, he might be intimidated instead.

"I'm sorry if that was pushy," he amends. "I just feel like we haven't talked a whole lot today, and… you know. Kind of a big deal."

The words don't fall on deaf ears, but Nova doesn't offer him any response. She doesn't leave either, though. He takes this as another good signal— it would be all too easy for her to say she was just getting a glass of water, and disappear back into her assigned quarters.

The rolling hills outside the window begin to break, scattered by a handful of trees that grow denser and denser together with each passing heartbeat. Within moments, the moon is no longer visible, and the carriage goes dark. Remnants of light distort their faces across the surface of the glass, reflecting bluish like a strange mirror. A part of him wants to smile at their reflections, if only to break apart the solemnity they share.

It takes only a second for his eyes to adjust. Before them is a scarred rock face, with thin vertical lines stretching from the top to the bottom. If he cranes his eyes upward, Monty can see trees at the top of the cliff's edge. Between them, the moon re-emerges, bright and full.

"Beaumont?"

Monty turns to Nova, offering a watered-down version of the heart-warming smile that he's become synonymous with. "Beaumont? I dunno who that is… call me Monty, please."

"Monty?" she echoes, as if she finds the nickname unbecoming.

"Yeah. Uh, my friends call me Monty," he tells her. This time the smile is genuine. She doesn't return it, but that's okay. He would like for her to be his friend should she give him the chance, at least for the time they have left.

(He always did have a rather large group of friends. Attended all sorts of parties with Josie and Lail, and all the rest. Fuck, he's going to miss them. The thought settles in his bones like it did when they said goodbye— that he may never be dared to enter an abandoned warehouse with Lail, and all of his friend's adventurousness despite being as scared as an alleycat. He hates the thought of Josie sleeping on the Pullman's couch alone, too afraid to return home and likely being smothered by his parents in his absence. A long day of near-total silence makes him miss her banter, or the way Lail's scary-smart vocabulary would slip into their jokes and conversations even when he was trying to cover it up. He hates that he might never see them again.)

(He hates the void of absence growing inside his chest, like an ache he can't quite replace. For a brief moment, Monty thinks about all of the grumpy elders he's worked to keep comfortable for the last three years and he understands. Loneliness is crippling, especially for him.)

"You had a question for me?" Monty prompts, returning his attention to her as the rock face slopes downward for a moment into more forest. He can't bear the silence anymore.

Nova nods, slowly. "Are you okay?"

The emphasis on the word makes him reel as if he's been suckerpunched in the stomach. "Of course I'm okay," he falters. "There's just a lot to think about. You know?"

"Yes," Nova agrees with him again. "I know."

"It's gonna suck," Monty decides after a moment. "Under different circumstances, maybe it would be fun to visit the Capitol, but what part of this is fun?" he asks, hating how the bitterness has crept into his voice. It's the last thing Nova probably needs right now.

"None of it, I suppose," is Nova's hesitant response. She draws the lapels of her leather jacket tighter around her body. For the first time, he feels the intent of her eyes on him. He doesn't dare to meet them, but is surprised nonetheless. "I'm sorry you have to be here."

"I'm sorry you do too," Monty says. He means it. There could be a thousand reasons behind why she volunteered for Jiyana, and none of them mean she deserves to die. At the end of the day, the two of them are just kids. He hates how awful the odds are that he will get to live to grow old, to actually make good on his worries about what he'll really do for work, because working at the retirement home is fulfilling but it doesn't cover the bills. More than that he hates the thought of his parents sitting around their checkered tablecloth at seven-sharp, with dinner on the stove cooling for a son that will never come home to eat.

"I'll look out for you, okay?" Monty tells her. The words come unbidden from his mouth, but they feel right to say in the moment, so he doesn't stop them. "When we get to the Capitol, or when they dump us into the arena. If you want. It doesn't always have to be so grim."

Nova's eyes seem to glimmer, but it might just be a trick of the moonlight. It waxes and wanes in intensity as they travel past more rock faces. "Okay," she whispers.

"Okay," Monty confirms, dropping his hand from his knee to the couch. He wants to reach out and give hers a squeeze, but worries she wouldn't respond kindly to physical touch. A hug from his father sounds really fucking nice right now. His district partner shifts off the couch anyway, swinging her socked feet off the cushion and onto the ground.

"Goodnight, Nova," he says. For all of what has transpired, he doesn't really expect a response. He listens to her footsteps recede across the carriage floor, stopping once they reach the doorway.

A surprise. "Goodnight, Monty."

And then she's gone as quickly as she came, leaving him all alone again in the lounge car. Monty waits for a moment to make sure she isn't coming back, then draws his knees to his chest and hugs them, leaning his head against the glass. Feelings of hopelessness threaten to creep in, the pressure in his chest only alleviated by one little thing: she didn't use his full name.

Monty sighs. Closes his eyes, wishing the rhythm of the train could lull him to sleep even in spite of his mind racing a mile a minute. He's grateful for the interaction— the after is no less fun than his previous state of being, but there is a quality of familiarity in speaking to someone. Even if that someone is as much of a mystery to him as Nova remains. Even if it poses the same problem that's been plaguing him since the moment he boarded this godforsaken train.

He's so used to helping everybody else. In this, how is he even supposed to help himself?

A/N: A quicker update, for once. Major thank-you to submitters Tyquavis for Shawn and Son of Arryn for Monty. As usual, I had a great time getting to know your tributes. Thank you for entrusting them to me and feel free to let me know what you think!

Three chapters left and I am free from intros hell… I for one cannot wait. Hope everyone is doing well and I will hopefully see you soon with the next one! —David