Welcome to the eleventh chapter of the Untold Hunger Games.
Just a quick note before the chapter starts. There will be some French phrases sprinkled through this chapter. I'm not fluent in French so if any of these phrases are off and you know French better than I do, please tell me. As I'm going on memory from my grade nine French classes.
mes excuses pour l'attente, s'il vous plait, bonne lecture chapitre onze de l'indicible l'embracement. en anglais: Sorry for the wait, please enjoy reading Chapter Eleven of the Untold Hunger Games.
Effie Trinket once again awaited us by the elevator wearing an outfit that looked similar to the one she was wearing on Reaping Day, only this one was dark purple with indigo blue highlights and a purple bejeweled collar instead of a necktie. Beside her stood Jérémie, his red button shirt was opened to his navel and tucked into the top of his black dress pants. Over it all he wore a fur trimmed light grey coat. He had slicked his hair back and trimmed his beard. He looked very modern and dashing in his elegant entire.
"Bonjour mes hommages, I am to believe that your training was fruitful?" He asked, his French accent making the speech sound exotic and not at all like English.
Peeta nodded stepping into the elevator with the three of us following behind him, "Oui, I believe it was Jérémie, and yours?" It was obvious Peeta was making nice with our biggest sponsor, that was how Peeta was. If anyone could schmooze with an ambassador it was Peeta.
"Est bon. I had lunch with President Snow and the other ambassadors. It was eventful, the man that is your president is trés intéressant. He has the air of a politician about him as well as a sweet fragrance of roses." He explained, peppering in a bit of French, but it was his native language after all.
Effie Trinket sighed, mostly likely by hearing his accent, commenting on the last note Jérémie had made, "He wears a rose perfume, my love. He distills it from the white roses he grows in his personal gardens." She explained, with a sweet note to her voice, good God she was way too infatuated with this poor man. Even when talking about someone else, her voice was filled with love and affection, it made her accent even more sickly sweet. Just hearing it could give you cavities, "As we discussed yesterday, Jérémie will be joining us for dinner tonight. He'll also be coming for dinner tomorrow night and will be staying late to see your training scores. As a personal sponsor it is his right to congratulate you on the scores you receive from the Gamemakers. I'm certain they will be the highest scores of them all."
"Here's hoping." Peeta whispered into my ear, quiet enough so Effie Trinket couldn't hear him.
I smirked, suppressing a laugh. Jérémie looked at us, and suddenly a knowing smile came to his lips, "Kaniss, it seems to me that Peeta is ton petit ami?"
Effie Trinket looked confused, "Your little friend? I never heard that expression before."
Jérémie smiled at my escort, "It is an expression that refers to childhood friends, ma amoure."
"Oh. I didn't know that. I believe they are in fact." She stated with a happy smile. Sometimes it helped that Effie Trinket was clueless to the outside world. What Jérémie had really asked was something far more personal than just childhood friends. He had asked me if Peeta was my boyfriend.
Peeta and I exchanged looks before nodding slowly, "Effie's right. We are."
The look on Jérémie's face was enough to show that he understood what I really meant, "That would explain your desire to help him, as well as yourself. Petits amis should always support each other, do you not agree?"
"I do, that is one thing I will always do. Support my friends in any way I can, and since we're speaking of supporting friends there's something we wish to ask of you." I said, looking back at Peeta, who nodded, continuing with his request.
"I want to add a clause to our sponsorship deal." He said, looking calm as he spoke just as the elevators opened onto our floor.
We walked out, standing in front of the elevator. Jérémie's expression was one of interest and curiosity, "Do continue."
"That will have to wait until they've showered and changed, dear." Effie Trinket stopped Peeta before he could do just that, "I won't have my tributes eating dinner in their uniforms."
Jérémie nodded, "Of course. We will wait until we have begun dinner to continue this conversation."
After showering under a lovely rain shower and putting on a clean, light blue shirt with short gossamer sleeves and a pair of black dress pants, that flared at the knees. I did a once over in the mirror to double check my appearance before heading to the dining area. I smiled at the sight of Peeta leaving his room at the same time as me, wearing a similar blue, button shirt and black pants to mine, "I guess we'll be matching tonight at dinner."
Peeta chuckled, closing the distance between us, "I guess we will, but, you wear it better."
Why did he have to be so charming? I let a little laugh escape my lips and kissed his cheek, "Come on, Mr. Charmer. We can't keep the others waiting."
"Relish the thought." Peeta muttered, walking in step beside me.
I could hear laughter coming from our dining area as we got closer. Effie Trinket, Haymitch, Cinna and Portia were all sipping wine while chatting with our esteemed guest. The Eastern Canadian didn't look a bit out of place among the adults of our team, he appeared casual and charming, as though it was a normal event for him. I suppose the sound of our feet on the marble floors alerted him to our presence, since he turned his head to us with a smile, "Kaniss, Peeta allez, asseyez-vous, s'il vous plait."
Peeta looked confused, I took his hand gently and whispered, "He's asking us to sit down."
"Ahhh." Peeta exclaimed before nodding and walking over to take his seat at the head of the table beside Jérémie, I took a seat across from our guest, beside Peeta. Effie Trinket had told me sometime yesterday that this was how the seating would go so we could make a good impression on Jérémie.
"Mes excuses, I tend to forget that I am not back home in Eastern Canada and very few people here in Panem understand the French language. It is a bit surprising that Kaniss understands." He pointed out, "I thought it might be because of your District but that does not seem to be the case."
"My father knew some French. He was the one who taught me the language." I explained quickly so that more questions wouldn't be necessary.
"I see, your father must be a learned sir, then. I would like to meet him."
I looked away, taking a sip of my drink, "That would be hard, seeing as he died when I was eleven during a mine collapse." This caused everyone who didn't know that story, mainly those not from District Twelve, to look at me with sympathy and pity, "It happens quite often in my area of the District. Mine collapses are quite common and people die because of them."
"It is still a tragedy you should not have had to bear." Jérémie stated, his eyes filled with a gentle expression that made me understand why Effie Trinket was so keen on him. He was a kind man who was different from many others in the Capitol, "Perhaps we should change the subject back to the one in the elevator? You said you wished to change a clause of the deal. I will need to know what the change is, to know if it is acceptable."
Peeta cleared his throat, drinking a bit of water, before he began to explain the situation to Jérémie, "I want to change the receiver of my allowance if something happens to me in the arena." Jérémie looked a little surprised but waved Peeta on to continue, "I wish to have the receiver be Gale Hawthorne, a dear friend of mine and Katniss'. I'd also wish to have him receive a percentage of my allowance."
"As do I." I added sitting up tall in my seat.
Jérémie glanced between the two of us, with everyone else, except Haymitch, sitting speechless, "That is a very difficult request to grant. The money goes to your families if you die to ensure that they are well cared for. Granting a friend the right to this money instead is unheard of."
Peeta nodded his head slowly, expression of pain coming to his face, "I understand that, Jérémie, but my family doesn't need any more money. They eat well, they can afford finer things. To be honest, I don't want them to be more well off than they are now. My family isn't the best, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if they received more money because I died. But Gale's family, they deserve it. They're like family to Katniss and me. I think of Gale as my older brother and if he didn't have his own family and Katniss' to look after, he probably would have volunteered for me, something my real brothers would never do."
That was something I hadn't thought about. Gale was old enough to volunteer for Peeta but because of our pact, to protect each other's family if we were reaped, he knew volunteering would hurt both my family and his.
"So you see him as family? I believe I can work with that, but I can only change this clause for you Peeta, not both of you. I can give some of your money to this Gale if you survive and the same with Kaniss or you both dying." That was a terrible thought, that we knew might happen.
"Fine. Please make the receiver of my allowance, if I perish, be Gale Hawthorne and his family," He said, looking straight at Jérémie, "And if I survive, please give him a third of my allowance."
Jérémie nodded, "I will speak to the Head Gamemaker about this, ambassador sponsorships go through him and he finalizes them. I believe your reason for the request will make him agree to the change."
Effie Trinket smiled and touched her suitor's hand, "You are really a kind man, Jérémie." She whispered, kissing his cheek with tears in her eyes.
"To Jérémie." Cinna toasted in response, raising his glass of wine.
"To Jérémie!" We all chimed, clinking our glasses together in toast of the ambassador.
The dinner, and eventually dessert progressed as normally as could be expected, with everyone chatting between themselves about different topics until, just as we were finishing dessert, Haymitch cleared his throat, "I need to talk to you two about tomorrow before you head to bed."
We turned to look in his direction, our full attention on him since we both knew he would only do this if it was important, "Tomorrow, at the very start of the day, they'll bring you in one by one to evaluate your skills. This is important because the higher your scores the more sponsors you'll get. Jérémie is a good sponsor to have, but as an ambassador sponsor he can only do so much. You need sponsors from the Capitol, ones who can give you weapons and equipment to defend yourselves."
Jérémie nodded, "Haymitch is right, I can only give you food and medicine and even then I can only give each of you one of each item."
"Thank you for explaining that to them, Jérémie," Haymitch said genuinely, "Regular sponsors are the same, they can give a tribute one form of food, medicine and weapon through the entire Games and the cost of each is also a problem. That's why it's important to have multiple sponsors. Sometimes you need eight just to have a decent meal sent to you. The prices for sending a gift to a tribute all depend on your chances of survival. You need those chances to be high in order to get lots of sponsors." He put his hand over his glass, refusing more wine. I knew the next thing he was about to say would be important, "Tomorrow will be the time to show the Gamemakers everything. Katniss," he looked to me with all seriousness, "There'll be a bow. Use it." He looked at Peeta, his finger pointing to him, "Peeta, make sure to show your strength. You have a half hour, throw as many weights around as you can. You already know that you'll be the last two in." He paused looking between us, "I'm going to be blunt here. Do whatever you can to make sure they remember. Cause if you don't, you're dead."
The two of us exchanged looks as what he was saying sunk in, we had to do well tomorrow there was no doubt in our minds about that. We were going to show the Gamemakers just how good we were and we both weren't about to lose to anyone.
"Well that certainly was… tense." Effie Trinket exclaimed, as always she was understating the situation, again, "Alright, enough chit chat, off to bed you two." She said, making a shooing motion as she did.
I got up and nodded my head to Jérémie, "Thank you for joining us for dinner tonight. We'll see you again tomorrow."
Jérémie nodded, "Bonne nuit, Kaniss, Peeta."
"Good night Jérémie." Peeta said, following me back to our room stopping right in front of my door. He looked around and slipped into my room with me, "Sorry, I needed to be alone with you for a second."
I nodded and kissed him hard, pushing him onto the couch, "What did you want to talk about?" I asked, sitting atop his lap. I wasn't planning on trying anything with him, I just need the closeness of his body next to mine.
"Tomorrow, I'm going to skip dinner and pretend to be too tired to eat with everyone. I want you to do the same and meet me on the roof." He said, kissing my lips deeply, "Will you?"
I nodded, looking into his beautiful blue eyes as though they were most precious to me, "I can do that, but what about the scoring reveal?"
"Don't worry, we'll be back down before it starts." His voice had a slight husky tone to it, like he wanted more than just a few kisses and me on his lap, "I should go now." I bobbed my head in agreement and climbed off, my arms tightening around me. In a flash he moved towards me pushing me against the wall and kissed me harder and more passionate than before, "I love you. Don't ever forget that."
My heart skipped a beat at those words, "I love you too. More than ever."
He brushed away the tears that had started to flow down my cheek, his eyes filled with love and compassion as well as a hunger that he knew he could sate right now. Before he could try anything else he left my room, leaving me alone to the sound of my throbbing heart.
That was steamy wasn't it? :"3