Isaura Demetrius
Twenty-five / District Eight Victor

They've set up the whipping posts in the square again.

The last time they did that, Isaura was about four years old. She remembers, despite her young age, walking into the square with her hands around her mother's wrist and seeing some poor boy tied up to the post with a flayed back. Behind him, a Peacekeeper had his firm grip on a whip, and raised it to strike once more. Her mother turned her away before she could watch any more, which was probably for the better.

From that moment forward, Isaura came to hate the Peacekeepers. It was typical, everybody did, really — but they didn't have to hate them for much longer. The rebellion put an end to any enforcers in Eight, and a handful of other Districts, which had seemed like a good idea at first to young Isa, who was still wet behind the ears and believed that people would still choose to be good even when nobody was watching.

And, she guesses the moment she stopped believing that was when she, at eight years old, came home one day to find her entire family killed in her kitchen. And she didn't stick around for long, but she swears they were missing limbs. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened— the people on the rural end of Eight were starving. And there was no one to stop them from doing what it took to stay alive.

Eight years later, she was reaped and somehow managed to win. Not for the first time in her life, she was aimless. What did this mean for her now? Before, her life was meaningless, but now that there was something to live for, she was face-to-face with the vast nothingness of her life.

The other Victors at the time were talking about a reformation of sorts, improving the quality of life in their Districts in one way or another. Huh. It hadn't crossed Isaura's mind that she could do that.

What would she even do?

She thought about the state her District was in. Ever since the rebellion, Eight had just gone downhill. There were high crime rates (not that anybody was tracking data), no justice, no consequences. Sure, there were vigilantes patrolling the streets she sometimes saw, running around with their masked faces, but they existed on a smaller scale. Not enough for everyone. She thought about her parents and her siblings lying on the kitchen floor, with nobody to save them. She believed she could save the next family.

Yeah. She'd save them all.

And for the first three years, she did. First year to get them off the ground, and two of prosperity. Her Enforcers were random Eight citizens she offered jobs. She told them she'd pay them if they could uphold the law she had picked up from the rubble and dusted off. She kept them humble, she reminded them that they were District citizens, nothing like the Capitol scum that had scoured their earth for so long, and for a while things seemed to be going well. It was an uphill battle sometimes, but it was going up. And they loved her for it.

Like any other human being in the world, Isaura loved leadership. She loved being the one in charge. Sometimes she felt more mayorly than the Mayor herself. After a lifetime of being insignificant with the lower hand in most social situations, being above felt good. It was a win-win situation; she got to be in control, and she got to save people.

But sometime after those four years, the Capitol got involved. Suddenly, she was no longer head of her own Enforcers… and hell, they weren't even Enforcers anymore, they were back to being Peacekeepers. They clapped her on the shoulder and thanked her for getting them off the ground, for giving the brilliant idea of recruiting District citizens for the job, and told her they'd be taking it off her hands now. Like hell they were! This was hers! She had finally done something good in her life, accomplished something with it, and proved why she had lived when her family didn't. For the first time in her life she wasn't being swatted away by her coworkers or berated for daring to be a teenager on the streets— she was finally being appreciated. Her hard work was paying off.

But Victor or not, she was still a District citizen. No match against any Capitolite.

But, staring at the whipping posts, Isaura's gut twists. Is this not what she wanted? A reinforcement of the law? She swallows hard, but her face doesn't waver. She won't let it. Not when eyes flit towards her expectantly, knowing damn well it's been out of her control for a long time. She moves her way through the crowd until she finds Axel and stands next to him.

The Head Peacekeeper puts his hand on her shoulder. "Isn't it great?" he whispers, just loud enough to be heard over the concerned murmuring of the crowd. In front of them, a boy is being tied to the post by two rough Peacekeepers. "It's an excellent deterrent to crime, if you ask me."

Isaura thinks about the last boy she saw tied up, bloody and gritting his teeth to nubs to conceal his sobs. Nothing more humiliating than losing your shame on the post, along with most of the flesh upon your back, she supposes. "What did he do…?"

Axel shrugs. "He was at the wrong place, wrong time."

"What did he do?"

He works his lips into a hard line. "Well, Mrs. Ethridge wants justice for her ransacked home… and somebody has to be an example."

Circling the post is Axel's little fifteen year old son, a whip clutched in both of his hands. Angel's a splitting image of his father— tanned skin and dark hair, straight postures and wide stances, and the same eager bloodlust in their dark eyes. For the past few years, Isaura had tried to ignore that look, having seen it on a few tributes of hers. She found the higher they reached, the further they fell.

When Axel arrived with his son in tow, Isaura sort of got attached to Angel in an amusing sort of way. She kept him around instead of shooing him away for the same reason you'd keep around an ugly dog: because they're funny, and it's not about what's on the surface. It's what's beneath it. She truly believed for a while that, despite the insane things he has to say and his downright awful takes and his snippy temper, that the Capitolite kid was truly just that at heart— a kid. A stupid one at that. Nothing wrong with being a preteen in a new world, she figured.

But the answer was in his title; at the end of the day, he was still from the Capitol, and they didn't make them anything but cruel from the day they were born. Any last bit of hope Isaura had in Angel fades away when he looks back at Axel, waiting for his cue, and smiling devilishly when he receives it in the form of a curt nod. He's been waiting to let his anger out on something for a while now, and here it is, and it isn't going anywhere.

When the first lash is delivered, driving a painful yelp from the hung boy and a bewildered gasp from the gathered crowd, Isaura isn't watching anymore. She's staring at the sky, dark and gray, like a menacing cape keeping the light from reaching them.

When the Capitolites got involved, her District turned on her. She went from being a hero, the town darling, a face people would actually smile at when she walked in; to the number one enemy, Eight's worst curse and downfall. For a while, it was fine, she was in control, she was the one with the upper hand. But now control is slipping through her fingers, and she is once again looking up at everybody around her, bending to their will and doing what is expected of her. Yet again, she's back to being useless. She thinks her father would be disappointed in her, if she could remember the expectations he had for her— but if she had to take a wild guess she would assume it wouldn't be this.

The first time in two decades is generous, if one could even call such a punishment that; it's over after ten lashes. Angel lowers his weapon and faces Axel and Isaura, blood freckled onto his face. "Are you proud of me…?"

Isaura doesn't look back at him. She purses her lips and disappears back into the crowd, while Axel sings his praise to his little clone.

Isaac Kiefer
Twenty-five / District Ten Victor

Isaac was reborn about nine years ago, in the Bullock's backyard. Or, according to them, really born for the first time (as far as God was concerned).

Mrs. Bullock was very gentle with pressing his head under the pond at first, baptizing him in a dirty hole in the ground with tiny fish swarming his head like some sort of crown halo thing. He tried to play along, tried to act like he was being blessed with safety, but the feeling of drowning grabbed his body in a panic and he jerked his arms out and clawed at Mrs. Bullock's forearms until he drew blood. She pressed down, really holding him down, for just a few seconds longer, then released him. Even years later, she still bears the marks from his nails.

Isaac owes his life to the Bullocks. When he decided, at sixteen years of age, that he was tired of being in the same farmhouse as that deadbeat father of his and took to walking the long, dead plains of Ten for days, they took him in and invited him as one of their own. At first he was one of their workers on the farm (he gave one of those compelling cowboy speeches on how he's good at labor and low maintenance— and he did a good job at it if he's still here almost a decade later, if he says so himself), living in the upper section of the stables and only sneaking pieces of their dinner, being too scared to make himself an actual plate; but slowly came to know the family, get closer, get integrated into their life as more than just their employee.

They're… a religious bunch. Before them, Isaac's only connection with any religion had been turns of phrases ("Oh my God!" and "Thank the Heavens", to name a few) so this was a new experience for him. And they were more than eager to teach and share their divinity with him, some atheist (that was a new word too) boy who came from a God-knows-where hellhole in the ground. He thinks they think they were saving him from purgatory in death due to his unfaithfulness or whatever, but… he didn't understand any of it.

When Mrs. Bullock requested to baptize him… okay sure, why the hell not?

Anyways, the Bullocks were great people. Perhaps an odd bunch but really, can he say anything? Next to anybody else, on his own, he'd be some outcast freak who speaks only in a few words at a time and never with any cadence to his voice nor flicker in his expression— but he thinks he makes them look normal. With their crosses over every doorway and a recited prayer before each meal and Sunday masses with a few other families in the nearby town square a mile down the road where they once again, sent prayers to some man in the sky, he could call them neurotic if he didn't love them so much.

He married into the family, he kind of had to love their quirks.

Their oldest son, Henry, is a year younger than Isaac. From the first day, the red headed freckle-faced boy would bother him from the ground floor of the stables, shouting up at him with a lantern in one hand and the other cupped around his mouth to share: check out this cool thing I found in the woods! At the time, Isaac thought he was the most annoying boy to ever roam Panem, but perhaps he was just raised in a lethargic family whose only excitement was combating starvation. Being an excitable teenager wasn't really an option. Plus, the last thing he wanted to do was piss off his new employers and end up on the plains again, so he slid down the ladder and joined him. Because his motto is "why the hell not?"

After Isaac's victory, Henry wouldn't leave his side. And they kept him around, even if he had to take an entire year off work to adjust to everything, and it made him realize… wow, these people really love him. It wasn't some coworker/employee relationship anymore and apparently it hadn't been for a long while, whoops.

How good it was to be loved. He hadn't realized it was happening until he nearly fucking died - that this is what being welcomed and cherished felt like. How good fixing himself an entire plate of food was, how good even having his own horse was (her name's Princess; he didn't name her), and how good dismounting her to collapse into Henry's arms felt. How good it was to walk into the kitchen and get smiled at by his parents(-in-law) or shoving Danielle and Sammy around good-naturedly like older siblings are supposed to do to the little ones. How good it was to be safe.

It's Sunday, and as always, it's cold out. Mr. Bullock always talks about the days before the war when summer was actually hot, but none of his four children would ever remember that in vivid detail themselves. Well, Isaac faintly does, but that memory is tainted with his old family so he keeps that to himself. Something about the bombs ruining the atmosphere… Henry likes to frequently joke that they're lucky livestock don't need photosynthesis to survive, as the sun only peeks out behind the thick layer of smog in the sky like twice a year.

And every few weeks, a body resurfaces somewhere on the edges of town and the mile stretches around. They range from fresh to old, from the days in war to a poor soul who was left there to rot after being claimed by sickness or injury or starvation, and the following Sunday the service doubles as a funeral for the— frequently nameless— person. Today is no different, a fresh anonymous corpse is laid out across a stretcher in front of the priest, shaped and posed to resemble a sleeping figure. They did this to everybody because it's a funeral ritual or whatever, but Isaac always thinks it doesn't make them look any less dead.

The priest performs some sort of sign over the dead body, and invites everybody to join him in silent prayer for the fallen.

Does Isaac believe anybody is listening to their prayers? It's one thing to think that there's somebody above listening to their thoughts and hopes and wishes, and another to believe the clouds of humanity's own doing aren't muffling their voices. But on the off chance that yes, God is real, and yes, he can still hear them, Isaac gives some half-hearted attempt at prayer for the deceased. Just in case. The priest breaks the silence with some concluding statements, and the ceremony ends.

Isaac's all too eager to either get his feet moving or to get off of them, he has been standing in place for them for far too long and they ache beneath his weight. But unfortunately for him, his husband is more curious than a schoolboy, and grabs his hand to go get a peek at the corpse before it's taken away.

"Just a look! Real quick!" Henry promises, leading him through the crowd. "Then we'll go home."

Isaac was never sure what Henry thought he was going to find, maybe some sign of cause of death, as it was always good to be aware of what threats are lurking in your community. Together, they peer over the stretcher, staring at the pale, clammy skin of the man with pieces of grass still caught in his hair. It's clear the coyotes had gotten after him and tried to tear him apart, he was missing a few chunks. And, despite the deep, shoddily-sewn shut claw marks in his chest, he really does look like he's sleeping.

Isaac supposes he couldn't run forever before they found him. As he and Henry turn away, back towards their home, he thinks it's real ironic that his older brother looked dead when he was asleep, and asleep in death.

Nemorio Killian
Seventeen / District Seven Victor

Mori doesn't want to admit it, but he hates that house.

Ever since he and his family moved into the two-story cabin in Victor's Village, he hasn't known a day of peace since. Something something, skeletons in his closet, their new home built upon blood, the inherent family dynamics that get changed when one of them becomes a public murderer, et cetera. But running into the frosty woods with a t-shirt, shorts, with a big windbreaker (that he was promised a year ago he would grow into but since he grew vertically and not horizontally it only hangs off his shoulders weirdly) helps kind of settle that itch beneath of skin— something like claustrophobia of being in that cabin.

The sun's beginning to rise. He climbed out of his bedroom window right after bedtime— not like he needed to anymore, his parents wouldn't stop him if he had just gone through the front door but you know, it's for old time's sake— which means he's been running around in the forest for give or take eight hours now. He's climbed a few trees, slept on a few branches, fallen out of them, threw a few stones at birds then fell asleep again for real this time between some roots and woke up when dawn brought the birds back. He's so bored nowadays.

Who knew winning the Hunger Games could be so boring?

Before, he lived a much more exciting life. Well, of course the big excitement of his life was cracking open the boy from Four's head open with a rock and watching his brains ooze everywhere but there were a few times before that were pretty exciting. He thinks so, anyway. Pre-victory life is sort of fuzzy in his head— like a distant memory he can only brush with the tips of his fingers and never hold (wow that was a good one)— but he knows it was thrilling and fun. Despite famine! But he had friends and a cool job at a papermill where, despite being notorious for child labor, he was chill with most of his coworkers.

Anyways, that stupid house. He says he misses his home, the one he spent the first fifteen years of his life in, but he knows the truth: he just misses his old life. He misses his old friends back in his old village and their treehouse. He misses his brother, who sleeps in the bedroom across the hall from his, very much alive, and his parents who are probably getting ready for work, still very much alive. And he misses Tilia and Ilex but those guys are dead and he only knew them for a week before sending them to their deaths so he best be getting on with forgetting them.

But he's beginning to get cold. Or well, he's been cold for a while, but it's pushing his limits now. He's not dressed appropriately for this weather at all and he knew it too, but maybe he just wanted the thrill of frostbite. But this is just downright hurting. He's going back.

Mori picks himself up from the roots of the tree and follows his footsteps in the snow mindlessly until he's in his backyard again. Through the window looking inwards on the kitchen, he can see the silhouette that very clearly belongs to his brother; there's no shape more recognizable than your own.

Sylvio unlocks the front door when Mori rattles the handle, standing awkwardly to the side to give him space and staring at him with wide, cautious eyes. It's kind of like he half-expects Mori to whip around and slap him, which has only happened three times within the past year and it wasn't even Sylvio's fault, he just caught him at a bad moment. But it kind of leaves a sinking feeling in his stomach to see its effects still.

Mori makes the first move. "Morning," he says, quiet as if anybody were still asleep. They're a family of early-risers.

"Good morning," Sylvio responds, a tentative smile spreading across his face and the tension disappearing from his shoulders.

They walk over to the kitchen, staring out that window into their backyard. Sylvio leans against the windowsill, holding a mug of tea he probably just made, gazing wondrously at the frost-covered earth and probably imagining some crazy but beautiful poem behind his eyes. He was always really good at that kind of creative stuff. Sylvio lets out a sad sigh, like a tired dog, then turns to him.

"What do you do when you're out there?" he asks, conversationally, not confrontationally. Or at least that's how Mori reads the tone; it's been difficult to read his voice anymore. Maybe he's just rusty at communication.

Mori sits on the kitchen counter and shrugs. "I have fun and be myself."

Sylvio half-laughs, half-scoffs. "Really?"

"Yeah."

Sylvio stands upright and says around the mug hovering at his lips, "Well, today I've got some plans with friends after work, so you're not gonna see me tonight. I just thought I'd let you know."

"Your nerd friends? I can't believe you still talk to them."

"Not nerds." Sylvio corrects. "Don't say that about them. But it's been a bit since I've seen them, I never really get a chance to see them since we moved, y'know? So I'm excited."

"Didn't you see them last weekend?"

"Well, okay… But I used to see them every day, so…"

"Mm… well, that's good for you. Hope you have fun." Mori doesn't have capacity in his heart to be envious, never has and never will, probably. But if you'd told him two years ago his twin brother would've been the one with all the friends and social gatherings and he would be the one staying at home sitting on his ass, he wouldn't have believed you. Maybe if he's lucky his dad will send him out to get stuff from the market now that it's finally stable enough to be reliable— that'd be the highlight of his day. God, he's so boring.

"Thanks." Sylvio smiles, setting down his mug. "I have to go get ready, they've got me working early today."

As Sylvio disappears around the corner and up the staircase, Mori watches him go, staring at the back of his head. It is a little peculiar that his whole family still held jobs despite them now having enough money to last them for the rest of their life, but he doesn't read into it too deeply. He wouldn't.

The phone on the wall ringing unprompted would've scared anybody else, but not him. He's not like that. More often than not, it was some Capitolite businessman trying to get his money; Caspian had instructed him to tell them to fuck off a long time ago. And he did and it was fun cussing out people when he couldn't look them in the face.

Mori picks up the receiver. "Hello?"

The voice on the other line is faint, staticy, but recognizable. "Hey. Is this uh… Nemorio?"

"Yep. Gonna guess this is Swift?" Mori leans against the wall, his loneliness quickly forgotten and a stupid grin pushing its way onto his face. "It's been months, I was wondering if you'd ever call."

"I wasn't planning on it." He grumbles. "I hate to admit this, like hate a lot, like I'm gonna kill you afterwards so this dies with you, but… I need your help."

"What's up?" He loves being helpful. This is exciting.

Swift hesitates on the other line. For some reason, Mori imagines him fidgeting like he did during his interviews. Why does he remember that? Gross. "Lairus told me I'm gonna be mentoring this year. Which is stupid as hell, I just got here. But I got mad and now he won't talk to me. And I don't know what to do."

"Mhm…" Mori nods. "Is it possible you can like… apologize t—?"

"No. No, I— I don't give a fuck about that guy! It's just… I don't know what I'm gonna do in the Capitol." Swift groans a sigh. "I don't want to… be responsible for uh… that." He leaves his words to linger in the air, like he had something he wanted to add on. Instead, he pulls away from the receiver, his voice growing faint. "God, this is stupid. You're stupid. I shouldn't have called, I don't actually care about this, bye—"

"No!" Mori grabs the phone with both hands, pulling it to the other side of his face. "Wait wait wait wait, I can walk you through it. Let me help. I just went through it myself, I know what being a first-timer feels like." The phone still hums with connection. Swift remains silent on the other line. "We're only six weeks out from the Reaping. It's never too early to be prepared."

"…No?"

"I mean, it'll be a lot easier to walk you through it in detail when we're in-person. But I can tell you what I know now. I didn't have someone to hold my hand through it last year, and that sucked, and I don't want you to go through that." Stop talking. "Um... yeah."

"Dude. Don't hold my hand."

"It's a metaphor." Mori twirls the curly cord around his finger. "You're probably gonna hate me for it but I don't care."

"Mm. Fuck you," he hisses, but Mori can tell it wasn't backed with hate— just anticipation.

"Nah, it's gonna be fine." Mori slumps down the wall and sits criss-cross on the kitchen floor, his legs suddenly jittery. Woah, new friend? He didn't think it could be possible, but he's starting to become very excited for this next Capitol visit. It invokes the same feeling nervousness did, but in a good way, strangely. "I mean… unless you don't want me to?"

"…Fine. Whatever."

Mori smiles, to himself mostly. "Okay, great! What do you want me to tell you about first?"

Keo Marius
Thirty-three / District Six Victor

Keo grabs the hood of his niece's sweater and shoves her into the bathroom, shutting the door behind them. When the latch clicks shut, it drowns out all of the commotion from the bottom floor, allowing a peaceful silence to descend on the two of them.

Keo sighs, moving over to the counter and splashing water on his face. Stress settles at the bottom of his stomach and he swallows back the vile that rises in his throat. Ariane stares at him from a corner of the room, their expression unreadable, if not vaguely disappointed. He sets his forehead on the faucet, feeling the rumble of the water beneath his skin, and lets out a deep, dejected sigh, stroking his wet fingers through his hair and undoing the gel he had put into it. Why did he even bother?

"I'm sorry, Anne. I'm not sure why I thought they would've been better. It's so stupid of me, God," he mumbles, then tugs at his scalp until he pulls a few hairs from his head and throws them into the sink. "This was a mess. Every year it's a mess. It's not your fault though, okay?" He looks up, a red mark across his forehead, "Your father just hates me. Nothing you did."

Ariane shakes her head slowly. "No, I have a part in it too," she says honestly. "It's my fault as much as it is yours."

"It's not, I promise, it's all me." He stands up straighter, then puts his hand on their shoulder. "I've failed you, okay? You know that, and he hates me for it. That's all there is to it. Not your fault at all."

"Don't talk to me like that!" She snaps suddenly, jerking away from his grip. "I can handle the truth. My dad hates anybody if he has a decent enough reason. And he has better than good of a reason to hate us. And that's fine, I couldn't care less about him."

Keo shakes his head slowly. "No, he loves you."

Ariane's gaze softens, and she sighs. As quick as her anger had come, it leaves. "He says that, but I don't feel it."

They try to push past him and reach towards the door, but Keo holds his arm out in front of them. "Are you going home?"

"Yeah, I'm not staying at this shitshow any longer."

"Do you really want to go down there?"

Beneath their feet, in the lower level of Keo's home, their family turns his kitchen into a warzone. He tries to get people to get along, he tries every year to get them together to have a civilized conversation, and every year it turns out the same. Somebody has an issue with somebody else, either his mother is mocking somebody else backhandedly or his brother is twisting others' words to start fights and… it's always something.

Ariane stops in her tracks. They glance at the window at the end of the bathroom. "…We're not too high up, are we?" She murmurs thoughtfully.

"I mean, it's a safe height but—"

She undoes the clasp on the window and opens it, releasing a cold nighttime chill into the bathroom. She doesn't hesitate to stick her legs through the opening and shimmy onto the overhang, shifting the shingles beneath her weight. Keo runs over, holding up the window from falling back onto her.

"I'm going with you," he says. "Hold on."

"Mkay…" Ariane slides down the slant and disappears over the edge, dropping to the ground.

Keo darts down the hall and into his office, grabbing his backpack perched against his desk and throwing it over his shoulder, then taking it off back for the bathroom.

He's less graceful than Ariane with his dismount off the roof, but he ends up on his feet anyways, a little ruffled. He smooths down his button-up in embarrassment, but Ariane doesn't seem to be fazed by his fumble. He looks through the kitchen window with silhouettes moving against the golden backdrop of the overhead lights. None of them were going to notice they were gone, eventually they were going to trickle out one-by-one and head home when they got bored. No show of gratitude or to the host for putting on some great get-together for them. Hm.

When he turns back, Ariane is already halfway to her house. He dashes to catch up to her.

They pull their house keys out of their pants pocket and step onto the porch. The rule is typically one house in the Village per family— you weren't allowed to occupy one of the empty houses, even if you had to admit they were never going to be used— but two Victors in one family was an exception to this rule, apparently.

Ariane locks the door behind them, pulling the curtains on every window closed and keeping the lights dim. Her home is more lived in than Keo's is— she has a section of her living room dedicated to being a reading nook and fairy lights strung across the ceiling and dirty dishes in the kitchen. It's a contrast to his home being so pristine and neat, like he's afraid to touch anything.

Ariane slumps on the couch, shifting the decorative pillows beneath their weight, and turns on the radio sitting on a side table. Draping their upper half over the armrest, they fiddle with the dials until the static dissipates into some news reporter from the Capitol. Very few signals reached the District, but the ones that did were heavily censored and hard to find. Being a little further northeast and closer to the Capitol, they got more signal, a few more stations you couldn't find downstate.

Keo sits on the floor over the coffee table, setting his backpack next to the table and pulling out his folders from it. When he was younger, he couldn't imagine being a school teacher, but somebody had to teach the kids mathematics. He didn't even like numbers, despite it being his best subject in school, but the engineering that came with building vehicles came with a lot of math. He just needed something to do in the long-term, really. Not like he had anything going on with his life outside of grading papers or trying to wrangle in a classful of twelve-to-fourteen year olds.

He flicks the red pen open and closed a few times, reading and marking the papers (per usual, his best student made no mistakes— he'd have to leave a sticker on her sheet. One of his scratch-and-sniff stickers from the Capitol. They loved those, they were a very easily entertained bunch of people), when he glances up at Ariane. She had since drifted into sleep, her dark hair fallen into her face and mouth partially hung open, a rare moment of calm finally descending on her features. She always seemed on edge, touchy and defensive, but he was far from blaming her for it.

Keo stands up and pulls a blanket off the back of the couch, unfurling it and setting it on top of her. She stirs, and he flinches away, but she just turns over and pulls the blanket closer to her body, falling back asleep. He lets out a quiet exhale, then returns to the floor, the radio still blabbering softly as background noise.

In the years since their win, Keo could never get closer to Ariane. For the longest time, he was afraid he had put the thought in their mind that the only way to save themselves was through winning— for all he knows, in their eyes it seemed like he was living the perfect life away from their family. That's what her father says, anyways, that it was Keo's fault she went and did all that. But he didn't really know her then, and he really doesn't know her now. All of her life, he thought of her as the quiet eldest child; even back when he was just ten years old, he recalls her never fussing or even blabbering like normal babies would.

So, it really was a shift to watch her go from sweet and placid to a murder machine in the arena, smooth-tongued in the interviews with an uncharacteristically sharp look in her eyes. Over the years, he had both had and seen some bloodthirsty, trigger-happy tributes, but those were just random kids, she was family. But he will never forget that phone call, where her mother called and begged him to shut down all sponsorships for her, to let her die in those concrete tunnels alone. And she made it home anyways.

He tried really hard to get close to her, because nobody else wanted to. Their relatives all saw her as that bloodsoaked animal, like the persona that the Capitol had attached to her name, and not as a person, certainly not of their own kin. But every attempt to get to know her ended up with her just pulling her further away, sinking deeper into herself, her own mind. Which was disappointing, he will admit that, but he promised he would give her space. If she wanted to, she'd come around on her own. He just hopes she knows he's here.

He returns to grading the papers.

Thank yew to Ama Amadeussss9 for betaing this o7

Hopefully I'll be a little quicker at writing down the road... excited to get to intros :)