…..

The Flood Games

Chapter Two: Everything at Once

….

The sun was beginning to set as Annie and Attina walked through the gates of Victors' Village. The sky above the small peninsula was slowly creeping into its nightly metamorphosis, with soft pinks and oranges peaking through the horizon. The lights in all the houses were out aside from the one at the entrance belonging to Mags. Even at the gate, chatter and laughter could be heard from the kitchen as the evening's meal was being prepared. Annie felt giddy in anticipation- Artura and Librae were the best cooks, and there was sure to be cake.

"All right," Attina sighed, adjusting her necklace. The pendant on the end of it remained tucked into her shirt, which seemed odd to Annie as her sister was always keen to show off her latest and greatest creations. "Let's get this over with."

"I think it's nice that we can all be together tonight. Someone's always gone mentoring during the real festival."

Attina hummed- her way of saying she agreed to disagree- and shut the gate behind them. "Shame I can't just latch this. I think everyone I want to be here is already inside."

Annie frowned, patting Attina's shoulder sympathetically. "Let's just think about the cake instead."

Her sister finally broke her stoicism, unable to keep herself from laughing. The sound was contagious, and Annie's frown flipped into a wide smile. There. Now they were in the proper mood to enjoy the banquet.

The sisters entered Mags's villa without knocking, as was their custom. The smell of fresh seaweed bread wafted through the air, and Annie immediately felt at home. The tension in her shoulders dissipated, and she let herself unwind. Just for tonight, she could forget about her little scheme and enjoy the company of her friends and family.

"Gramps! Aunt Mags! We're here!" Attina called.

Attina's boyfriend and childhood friend Caspian was the first to meet them at the foyer. The sight of him was enough that even Attina could manage to relax.

"Hey," he said softly, looking at Attina like she hung the stars herself. Annie smiled, nudging Attina forward.

"Hey yourself," Attina said. "I think your tie's a little crooked."

She began fixing Caspian's tie, and Annie caught a glimpse of a string around Caspian's neck as well. Once more, the pendant remained tucked into his shirt without any attempt by Attina to fix it. Ah, so it was a weird couple thing. Annie decided not to look to far into it. A night without playing detective would do her some good.

"There's our princess!"

"Kai!" Annie squealed happily, rushing to the hallway entrance where Kai was standing.

Kai laughed, scooping Annie up and twirling her around as he always did. Although the Capitol may have seen Kai as the embarrassment of District 4, he had always been like an older brother to her. Annie could never be embarrassed of someone who was so kind to her, but she could certainly understand why the Capitol would have those (incorrect) feelings. He won his Games in a rather unorthodox manner- getting caught in his own trap once the Games were down to the final two tributes. He was unable to cut himself loose (a testament to his own brilliance in the art of traps, in Annie's humble opinion), but luckily for him the other remaining tribute had fallen into one of his traps as well and landed herself in the same uncomfortable predicament. He managed to be the last man standing as the other, less lucky tribute, died an uneventful death from dehydration on night two of that mess.

The unfairness of Kai's low standing in the Capitol had only become magnified over the past year after the District One girl who won was still wildly celebrated even though her victory was preceded by every other remaining tribute slowly freezing to death. Perhaps this was because she held the frankly unfair advantage of being drop dead gorgeous, but any time Annie would bring it up Kai would dismiss her concerns.

"She can have their love," he would say, ruffling her chocolate brown curls gently. "Trust me. There's nothing in the world I want less than their undivided attention."

This didn't do much to reassure her, but she learned to drop the subject.

"Where were you today at lunch? We missed you," Kai asked in the sternest voice he could manage.

"Oh drop it, Kai. Let the girl have some room to breathe," said Ari, Kai's wife and fellow victor. She turned to address Attina. "I finished up some more bracelets this afternoon. We're gonna load 'em up on the train tomorrow morning while the tributes are saying their goodbyes, so if you've got any more to send in before this winter we can meet up after the reaping."

"I think I've got most of them in. The rest can wait until you guys go over for the Victory Tour this year," Attina said with a slight shrug of her shoulder.

Ari's victor talent was jewelry making- something that Attina had taken an interest in from a young age. Even when Ari had just won and Attina was still a child, the two of them would spend hours making bracelets and necklaces together out of seashells Annie would gather, hand-sculpted beads made by Ari's cousin Artura, pearls fresh from the oysters, and any other materials they could get their hands on. When meeting with other victors, Ari would often trade with District Eight for new threads and cords and District One for lab-created gemstones to bring home. The citizens of the Capitol would pay a pretty penny for something created by a victor's hands, not realizing that many of them had been made by Attina as well (though even if they did know, Annie doubted they would turn down something made by the adoptive daughter of a victor anyways).

Ari didn't really need the money, so the majority of the profits always went back into improving life in the District. The current focus, of course, being to rebuild the school Attina had recently taken over after a tsunami destroyed it and claimed the lives of both the previous head trainer who stubbornly refused to evacuate and 43 of the District's finest tribute prospects. As Attina's biological parents had originally ran the school many years ago before their deaths, the responsibility had been assumed to fall on the 19 year old's shoulders before she could so much as answer. Luckily, she had taken on this new role in stride. She had always dreamed of following in her parents' footsteps, and even though the day to do so came earlier than expected she was filling the role with every bit of strength and grace required. Annie was proud of her, even though it meant spending less time with her beloved sister; she made the most of it by using it as an opportunity to slip away for extra training of her own.

"C'mon, I think Librae's setting the table."

Annie practically skipped into the dining room. Librae and Artura's cooking was an event in itself.

"Hi Grandpa!" Annie chirped, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "Hi Auntie Mags, hi Muscida!"

"Good evening, Anastasia," Mags said, smiling pleasantly. "Come in! Take a seat!"

The seating had been arranged with place cards- an effort Muscida had put in to feel a bit fancier. Mags and Muscida, as the two eldest victors, were placed at the heads of the table. Annie's grandfather was seated to Mags's right, with Attina on the other side of him and Annie across from him. This was typical. Place cards for other victors and their few remaining family members were also arranged strategically across the table. There were typically place cards for whoever was set to volunteer, as it was traditional to invite them, but the lack of a place card for Seille suggested that she wasn't able to make it. A place card was set for Finnick's mother, Euphratus, but that was really only out of courtesy at this point. In the past five years, she had only bothered to show up once- on the eve of the 66th Games. Rather than placing her tentatively by her son and sister, however, Muscida had tactfully sat the place card on the opposite end of the table, across from Artura's mother Chelsea. If by some chance she did decide to show her face, the last thing they wanted was for her to pick a fight.

Annie peaked over at the plate next to her's, where Finnick's own place card was sitting neatly on top of his plate. She smiled to herself, feeling a mix of nervous butterflies and hope. Maybe it wasn't a great idea to sit him across from Attina, but Annie wasn't about to point this out lest Muscida would decide to rearrange the seating. She missed him too much to let the opportunity to sit next to him slip by. Maybe things in Attina's friend group would never be the same as they were when they were kids, before Finnick had ever volunteered, but Annie was determined to hold onto her fleeting connection with Finnick even though Attina and Caspian had long given up on him.

Finnick's aunt Tigris, named equally for the river and the famous Capitolite stylist, wheeled in a cart filled of dishes and began to set them on the table. Annie tapped her shoulder as she leaned over to set down a plate of rolls.

"Psst! Tiggs! What kind of cake is it?" Annie whispered.

Artura, expert baker he was, made a cake for the banquet each year. He liked to switch up the flavor, though, and he would keep it a secret until the night of the banquet.

Tiggs grinned, the expression on her face mirroring her nephew's perfect smile. They were so alike it could be scary. Tiggs was much younger than her sister, being only a few short years older than Finnick himself, and as such the pair often passed for siblings.

"Double chocolate with those little fancy cherries on the top. You're gonna die when you see it."

Tonight was officially too good to be true. Chocolate cake, sitting by Finnick, no sign of Euphratus or Seille in sight? It didn't get much better than that. She helped Tiggs arrange the remaining dishes onto the table, returning to her seat once the older girl wheeled the now-empty cart out of the room.

Attina and Caspian had made their way into the dining room at this point, along with Kai and Ari. They took their seats, and Annie took notice of the way Caspian pulled out Attina's chair for her. They were entirely too perfect for one another. It really made her happy to see her sister so happy.

"Oh, Muscida! Did you hear anything from Seille?" Attina asked, setting her napkin into her lap.

Muscida frowned. "She declined the invitation."

"Oh... oh no. How tragic," Attina deadpanned. "She's really breaking my heart here."

Annie tried not to laugh, but after Caspian and Kai started laughing there wasn't much point in holding back. Even Mags smiled a bit.

"Are you sure about not picking a male volunteer? I can't imagine it will go over well tomorrow," Muscida sighed.

Before the tsunami, District 4 did have a male volunteer in place for the 70th Hunger Games. Nauticus was the perfect candidate for victory- 18 years old, tall, muscular, and handy with knives. Unfortunately, he was one of the many victims of the training school's destruction. His body was the first to be found.

Attina shrugged. "I just told the older boys to figure it out for themselves. It'll be like the olden days I guess. The younger boys don't know that I didn't pick anyone, so that should keep them out of it this year. There's just no stand outs in the 18 year olds left- other than you, Casp, but you know what I mean. I told Marcus I'm thinking about picking him for next year, but since he's just 17 I'd rather him have that extra year for training."

The banquet's other guests began to file in and take their seats. Annie mentally checked each of them off, but there was one victor still missing. She glanced at the plate next to her anxiously. Mags followed her gaze, narrowing her eyes.

They waited. And waited. The seat remained empty.

Librae finally spoke.

"I suppose we should begin, then."

Mayor Chambers (the grandfather of both Artura and Ari, incidentally) lead the blessing over the food, and then gave the floor to Mags for her speech. Mags stood at the head of the table gracefully, trying her best to overlook her tribute's absence.

"Thank you all for being here tonight. This year has had its challenges, but thanks to all of us sitting here tonight and those outside our walls as well, our district has survived another year. I would like to personally thank all of you for the part that each of you played in recovery efforts after the tsunami. From aiding in the rebuilding efforts to continuing to train with your assigned tributes, we could not have pulled through without you.

"It is through our unity and perseverance that we find our strength. No man is truly an island, and our district is set apart from the rest because we know this. Instead of lying down and facing our fate, for over fifty years now we have done our best to give our tributes a fighting chance in the arena. Our district may not be as prosperous as the Capitol, but our citizens will never have to know the hunger of the outlying districts. Our children can grow up without fear, knowing... knowing that they will not be sent into the Games unprepared. That they won't go down without a proper fight. We do our best for our children, even when it isn't enough, but we have done more than the others, and for that I am truly thankful."

Annie noticed the way Mags's voice was breaking. For the nine tributes who came home as Victors, there were still 131 children who never returned home. It was 131 lives lost as a consequence of the Games, 132 counting the death of her mother. She could still remember her grandfather's words thirteen years ago, said in this very house when he and Mags did not realize she was sitting quietly in the other room, listening to their every word. Annie was too young to truly understand her mother's death at the time, but one sentence stuck with her even after all these years.

Rissa's death wasn't an accident.

Annie felt her stomach knot up the same way it always did when she remembered that night. Her mother did not die of a sudden illness. No, someone had killed her. Deliberately. Marissa Cresta was young and healthy. The whole country adored her. She had her whole life ahead of her. Surely someone else found it suspicious. For it to have gone un-investigated all these years only made Annie feel worse about the whole situation. The truth had to be out there.

"There is still work to do, however. With one Academy down, we will still need to-"

Mags was cut off by the sound of a door creaking open. Footsteps followed- the kind that were trying to be silent, but hadn't quite mastered the art of it. The mood immediately changed from one of gratitude to one of annoyance. Muscida looked scandalized. Attina looked positively murderous. Annie fumbled with the sea-foam green napkin in her lap, staring at the empty chair between her and Tigris instead of meeting the gaze of anyone at the table. This was going to be awkward. She almost didn't want to be in the room for it. Maybe it would be a good time for a restroom break...

The latecomer stumbled into the dining room with unsure footing. Annie hesitantly glanced up at him. He looked... unwell. Without all the fancy Capitol makeup, it was easy to see the bags under his bloodshot eyes. She could hear the way Tigris's breath caught in her throat at the sad sight of him. Annie took a shaky breath of her own and did her best to smile at him as though nothing was wrong. She pulled out his empty chair from the table and subtly tilted her head towards it.

Mags finally found her words.

"How... nice of you to join us so late, Finnick. Have a seat, dear."

Not even cake could save the night now.

…..

a/n: As this is a re-write of something I started in 2013 but never published, I think it's really funny that I named an OC Kai way before I read The Lunar Chronicles. In my defense, the meaning of the name is water-adjacent and I probably got it from a list of water names. Given that I had a (girl) Thorne in a different THG fic back in the day though, I'm not entirely unconvinced that I didn't subconsciously steal the names from TLC fans I was internet friends with. Such is life.