Mags Cohen did not believe in Luck.

Finnick Odair did not believe in Luck.

Annie Cresta did not believe in Luck.

Perhaps this is what made them so close.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. And there's so much to tell. Let's go back. To where it all begins. Which is of course, with Mags.

Mags Flanagan was the victor of the 11th hunger games. It was the first time the rules had changed. On the train ride there she was informed of the possible wealth waiting for her at the end. There has never been rewards before. Unless you count fixing up your wounds, so you don't die on the way home rewards.

She didn't.

But this. A house. Wealth. Glory for her district. This was something. There had been a victor from 4 before, it had been a boy, Tom Cohen. But still. There had been girl victors before. The odds won't too badly against her.

There were no mentors. Not like in future years. Or even the last year when the capital itself had been the mentors. But Mags knew none of this.

She was a bright young girl of 16 years old. Tiny. She knew she wouldn't win in a flat-out fight. Not ugly. But boys would never chase after her. She was thin. But everyone was thin in those days, even in the richer fishing villages there wasn't enough food. There was hardly enough food in the capital itself. Her hair was brown. Her skin tan from working on the boats. Her job was gutting fish and she was very good at it. But it made her cringe inside to think of cutting up a human.

You weren't given time with your family then. It was just assumed you would never see them again unless you were the lucky one. Mags didn't think she came to terms with it on the train like you were supposed to. It was a capital train, so it was fast, and it was clearly an improvement from the train of the year before, which had been a livestock train. This was a train for people. They locked the tributes in individual rooms after they were handcuffed.

There still weren't a lot of things. No chariot entrance. No costumes. It was much more to the point in those days. A bunch of kids fighting to death. On the plus side. Not that Mags knew it back then, some of the darker parts of being a Victor hadn't started yet either.

They weren't kept in the zoo, instead someone had volunteered their house (for a generous sum of money of course) and they were locked in a room by district. Mags and the boy ignored each other the best they could. A camera was occasionally shoved into their room to film them, and the reporter narrated the story of district 13 rebellion for the hundredth time. They were given a pack of dry crackers and a cup of water once a day.

It was on the first day, after they had been fed and returned to their corners, that Mags spoke over the boys' muffled tears. "We should give each other our last breath."

The boy looked over in confusion.

"There's no one else to do it. I don't want my soul to get lost, do you?"

The boy shook his head. "But we're going to kill each other." He pointed out.

"Our souls are more important than our lives." Mags's mother had taught her as much of the old religion as she could. Although there was much even then that had been forgotten.

The boy nodded and they moved across the floor towards each other. Their lips met and they breathed breath into each other. Then they scurried back to their corners of the room, two teenagers who hadn't had their first kisses. Sharing a breath in a hope their souls wouldn't be lost at sea forever.

Mags's mother had told her when she was a little girl. Her father was stuck on a boat in the storm. "He'll be fine even if he dies," She had said, kissing her hair. "I gave him his last breath before he left. So his soul will be strong, it will swim across the sea to the land there, it's a beautiful land there, where no one is ever hungry."

Mags touched her lips. Wondering if her soul was strong enough to reach that land all the way from the capital. She hoped the land was as beautiful as her mother had told her.

It wasn't long before there was an interview with Lucky Flickerman. There were sponsors. There was a show to put on, and Mags remembered the winner from last year, the singer Lucy Gray. And she tried to be charming. She didn't think she succeeded. She knew that she didn't look like the type of girl who could win. But she reminded everyone 4 had a win before. And talked about how patient and fast one had to be to catch a fish. Watching, waiting. Moving at only the last second.

Mags only ended up killing 2 others. One in the bloodbath. She went for supplies. As did a boy from 8, he was younger than her, only 14. They wrested it out and she managed to get her elbow into his neck. While he gasped for air she grabbed a knife and stabbed it into his neck. She ran after that. With her knife and a twine. She didn't have anything else. But she made do. Camping out at the edge of the pond. She made a handful of fishing hooks from a tree. She only came out to fish at night. She didn't make any fires, eating only raw fish. She just waited while the others hunted each other. Everyone thought that the boy from 1 was going to win. A big blond kid that was brutal with a mace.

She only got a sponsor gift when it was down to the last five. Some bread that went nicely with her fish. It wasn't 4's bread, it was far finer and had no hint of seaweed about it. She realized that it must be what they ate in the capital. In a strange way it was the first time the capital had ever treated her like an equal. When they were trying to kill her.

Mags wasn't proud of what she did in the end. But it kept her alive. And that's really all that matters in the end. She knew it was down to the last three. She heard them fighting, the boy from 1 and the girl from 6. And followed them. She came up behind them as they fought. She waited until the boy bashed the girl's head in. Using the sounds to cover the sounds of her approaching. And then tiny little Mags leapt on his back. Stabbing her knife into his throat and side as many times as she could. She didn't stop when he was dead, she wasn't sure to this day when he died. She only stopped when they landed the hovercraft, and a man pulled her off of the body. She realized then she was crying. She wasn't sure when she started.

There was another interview with Lucky Flickerman after. She stared blankly at him as he made it sound like a lovely thing she did. Talked about her passion at the end. She nodded along. Vaguely answered that it was for her family. For her town. Lucky replied that they were lucky to have to have her. She remembered that there was a man hanged the year before for killing a child. She wondered how they were so different.

She went back to her village. To her new house. The first year was good. Compared to the others. She talked to her family often. Even though there was a wall between them. She didn't play with her younger sister and brother anymore. But she came over for dinner on Sundays. Bought them gifts for their birthdays. She had thought it was over. How very wrong she was. Life as a victor was never over.

She was told to get a talent. Any talent so long as it wasn't a weapon. They were going to make her tour the districts, she needed something to show off. So she weaved baskets. She made beautiful designs of seashells and waves and home. She looked into the faces of the families who had lost children. She wondered what the point was to this new torture. They already knew what happened to those that rebelled. She remembered the long cold nights. The only food being fish her father caught. The only warmth being her family's bodies pressed in around her. She had been very young. But she remembered. No one would ever rebel again.

The next year came the announcement. Mentors would be from the other victors. This was drastically unfair. Only 1,2, 4 and 11 had victors. As Lucy Gray from 12 had died shortly after winning her games. It was even more unfair as Tom Cohen, the victor from the 6th hunger game said loudly and often. Because only Mags even got something for winning the games. Mags told him to shut up and move in with her if he liked her house so much. So he did.

It was a quick wedding on the beach. Only their families were there. But Mags still remembered the taste of the sea on her lips years later. Tom had also won at sixteen. He was 5 years older than her. She was only 17. He was 22. But they loved each other. In a way that only victors can love. In an understanding of just how horrible survival can be.

They mentored for the first time, a pair of scared 15-year-olds. Neither of them lived. Tom started going to the pub to drink after he was done fishing for the day. Mags told him not to. He wasn't the same drinking. He yelled and hit things. Never her. But she took to leaving the house for long walks on the beach whenever he had been drinking. Which became more often with every passing year. And every passing death.

Things were so bad in those days, people actually started viewing the games as a good thing. Several people would volunteer every year, starving people from the lower districts desperate for any means to feed their families, even if it cost them their lives. At worst, their family had one less mouth to feed. District 4 was better off than many other places, producing their own food. Tom and Her had a few volunteers in the early years, but they all died and the volunteers stopped coming, not as desperate as the other districts.

She often wondered after he had passed if their marriage was a happy one. Tom had worked on a boat until his dying day. Despite the fact the capital gave Mags enough money for both of them. Over the years he drank more and more, and they hardly talked. But every weekend he would turn on the radio and pull her into his arms. And they would dance.

No matter how bad he got. They still danced.

They never talked about children. They had children. Two of them. Every year. And they never lived. They couldn't bear it to have another.

Finally, one year, they brought a child home. A seventeen-year-old named Earwyn. Winner of the 26th hunger games. It was only a few months before him and Tom were meeting every day to drink. Tom invited Mags to join them. Mags refused. Earwyn didn't need much, having a victor's wealth. But Mags made sure to bring him food when she made it, she knew he drank to the point of not eating when she didn't.

When it was Earwyn turn to mentor Mags let him be to the best of her ability. Doing as much as she could. Sending him to bed every night and sleeping at 4's mentor station ready to deal with any crisis that arose. It was here she started to make the friends Tom and Earwyn never did, lost in their alcoholic dreams.

She introduced them to Woof, Seeder, and many others. They were polite to them, knowing Mags cared for them, but refused to bond with them like the younger victors were doing as a matter of course. Like her and Tom had once done in their youths. She found peace among these other victors. Woof was a loving man, who showed her pictures of his wife and children each time they saw each other. Seeder was young, exotic and pretty. The Capital raped her in their beds, yet she still greeted Mags with a smile every time she saw her.

Mags had to be relieved that she and Tom were too old to be sold. And Earwyn had never been much of a looker. For the younger victors were having their bodies stolen from them, and there was nothing the older ones could do to help them. Victors were being called back to the capital more. There were more interviews. More parties. More expectations for victors now.

Perhaps that is what allowed friendships to form, in those who won't be too far gone into alcohol or morphine? That they saw each other when they weren't pitted against each other with children's lives on the line? They could talk and see that these were the ones who understood them.

Earwyn hung himself at 33. It was the normal way to go in district 4. They were so very good at knots after all. Tom found the body, Mags and him covered all funeral costs, insisting his wealth go to his family. It didn't matter, his mother, father, sisters and brothers were all dead within the month, most of them without receiving a final breath. His money eventually went to his nieces and nephews. This is what happened when a victor killed themselves.

Mags hadn't talked to her family in years. It was better for them if she never met her youngest nieces and nephews. They had never been very close anyway. Not after she won. But she kept pictures of them in a box on her mantel. And the capital knew and reminded her of that. The only ones it was safe for a victor to love, was another victor. Every victor knew it. It was the first rule of being a victor.

Tom took Earwyn dying hard. He drank even more and drew away from Mags, as though pulling away would ease the pain when he left too. Mags felt alone, except when she was in the capital, among her friends. Tom passed three years after Earwyn, Mags had seen it coming and had been ready to give him his final breath when it was time. She stood alone after the small funeral, watching his body drift away, she could almost see his spirit swimming past it, as determined to get to the other shore as he had been determined to do everything in life.

At 50 years old. Mags was the last victor in 4. It was a hard life. Mentoring two children to die each year. Weaving baskets the rest of the time. Only seeing her friends a few times a year.

The little Flanagan girl who had gone into the games was gone. Mags had come out the other side. Forged by skill, cruelty and kindness. A woman who knew what it took to survive. A woman who did not believe in luck. Her reaping was not lucky. Her winning was not lucky. Her marriage was not lucky. They were the control of the capital. They were the desperate cries of those who were broken. Anything good that had happened to her had been earned. Anything that she had lost had been taken. She would not give them anything else to take.

Until she saw a golden-haired boy.

Some Notes about this fanfiction if you made it through the first chapter and enjoyed it enough to continue.

This fanfiction is almost complete and will follow canon. I have twenty chapters prewritten and will be posting every other week. ( I post for a different fandom the other week)

This fanfiction contains every single archive warning, characters will be raped at as young as fourteen. Characters will die of varying degrees of minor and major characters. However nothing more then one would expect from a story about these characters. And the rape, or sexual scenes in general are never graphic and the violence is rarely so.

I know some fans have very strong opinions on whether or not 4 is a career district. I will not be writing it as one. However the fact it is viewed as one by the rest of Panem is a major plot point in this story.