This is going to be a long one – a lot of breaks, but the first quell is something I'm so, so interested in.
Author's Note
1. Plains Duits is mainly spoken in what's now part of District Nine but what was once the Dakotas and Nebraska. German still exists there as a first language in isolated towns, and in Panem's development it stuck around in some regions – hence why it's semi-bastardized German.
When the Spire opened, in 18 PTD, it was the culmination of more than a decade's pressure by One. Elan had been the straw that broke the camel's back, because all of a sudden One was back in the spotlight. The first holidays out of the Capitol since the Dark Days were being booked, everyone was looking at the District with big eyes because One was back.
And that meant that, after more than a decade's pressure, Ruby and Nutmeg (with Elan in tow) were called into President Ravenstill's office before going home, and given a set of orders to take with them. One wouldn't be just providing goods any more, they'd be providing the staff the Capitol wasn't wiling to deploy. Maids, serving girls, receptionists and dozens of other roles that were needed.
And at the center of that was the Spire. Built out past Natoma, in the Sinev mountains and on the shore of a mighty lake. There was a dedicated train to service it, and the campus was broad, stretching out along a gorgeous bay and soon enough sprouting in glass and steel and marble.
It was One's pride, and the kind of pride that even with Capitol technology and the help of experts from the city took decades to be built. And with the construction came children. Children who paid tuition fees, some from the wealthiest families but most with loans taken out by their parents or themselves. Tutors had been hired from across One, the best at social graces and at public speaking and at half a hundred other things.
And when every single girl and boy who graduated that year ended up with a job, most in One but a handful even overseas, helping to set up a newly planned resort in Two's mountains? Well, applications for children came in like wildfire.
Among the children who came in that year was a ten year old girl, all dressed up in her Wednesday best, called Lavender Caron. The second child of a branch of the Caron family, as it turned out, and a disgraced branch given a dog they'd trained had bitten a buyer.
Which was why she'd been sent here – a backup. And, as with all the children who got sent to the Spire, Lavender was assessed at eleven for signs of natural talent with presentation, athleticism, all kinds of things that checked whether she'd be perfect for a challenge.
She was.
Which was why, at eleven, Lavender Caron wasn't sitting in and learning her sums, or how to properly speak to people in a customer service role. Instead, she was ostensibly in a class with nine girls and ten boys learning how to be a good bodyguard. How to properly play her part in protecting the great of Panem from any issues, because who'd suspect a slender blonde from One to be anything more than an aide?
No, instead she was learning useful things. Things like how to survive in the wilderness, because of course a bodyguard would need that. Things like finding her flow with a weapon, until a slender rapier was placed into her hands and she was told to think of the best way to make a go of it. Until she was taught how to properly smile so the Sponsors would be happy with her, want to pay money.
Of course they were training for the Games. But (and they were told this in no uncertain terms) so long as they could claim they were training to be a bodyguard they could avoid the scrutiny. The Capitol was happy to have some more entertaining fodder in their Games than the usual crying children. But they had to keep it on the down low.
And in some of the stuff, Lavender excelled. Top marks in camouflage and concealment, and in practicing setting up camp. High, not top of the class but very near, in presentation, in design, and in weapons tech.
That still wasn't enough to get a fourteen year old Lavender out of being called up to the head's office, where Nutmeg looked at her through his glasses and sighed. Just a tad.
"Miss Caron. What are we going to do with you?"
"Sir, I. Do with me?" Her voice was a tad strained, a tad incredulous, but at the same time legitimately confused because what did he mean.
"You have top marks in all your academics, you're not going underwhelming on that side. You've got top marks in weapons technique, Elan says you're up there and I'll bow to her judgement. But…"
The silence hangs in the air like a drowsy fly. "But, sir?"
"But you're not putting any heart into it according to her. You're brilliant technically, but you shut down in sparring. I don't know if it's because you're scared of getting hurt, scared of hurting others, or whatever. But according to Elan, and I have absolutely no reason to doubt her on this, you're pulling back like you're afraid of something."
She can only nod, and wait for him to sigh, press a finger and a thumb to the bridge of his nose. "Lavender, Lavender, Lavender. Now. Lets take you through what happens if you don't put the heart in."
There's a set of manila files on the desk, the top one is opened and read aloud from. "Assignment to some businessman, because he wants a bodyguard he can bring with him anywhere. Assignment to a Capitol socialite, because she wants someone she won't be ashamed of turning up with but she also just doesn't feel safe enough to travel with just an aide. Combat trainer to the third marines, out in Four. The One recruited ones. Those are the kind of roles you're looking at the moment, and they're good but not great. That's if you can put a little more heart in."
"And if I don't, sir?" Her tone is perfect, tinged with just the right amount of desperate curiosity, and for a moment he wants to congratulate her. But then it's back to the matter at hand. "Then you're going to be replaced. Fourteen, that's enough years we can get a new girl trained well enough up to replace. Or, you can put heart in, because work hard and you might be able to make something of yourself."
Her eyes widen, despite herself. "Make something… sir?"
"Get status. You work hard, you might get picked as Volunteer, and then you can go up and enter the Games and bring pride to One. The Twenty-Fifth as well, good date."
The conversation continued, but when Lavender came back to her class later that day it was with some renewed vigour. Oh, she slipped a bit in the marks department, but nothing too bad. Plus, given she was getting more weapons practice in – well, the day was only so long.
At fifteen, she had her first proper spar. It was the year of the 23rd Games, the year that their girl got stabbed in the throat by a useless boy from Twelve at the Bloodbath and the Threes got their first Victor. They didn't deserve it, she thought – Alysanne had been more worthy, as had half the other tributes in there. But it was Caster who came out of the Games, Caster who did the final interview, and Caster who was used as a cautionary tale. When the rapier comes at her throat (padded with armour but still it'd hurt) she doesn't hesitate. She kicks her opponent in the knee, watches him go down with a scream, and gives a light tap on his head with her tomahawk before smiling. "I believe I win."
She's taking notes, a year and a half later, when there's a knock on the door, and an order to 'switch on the television. Now.'
The First Quarter Quell is announced. And Lavender has to get voted in.
Thrace Rivers shouldn't have been up there in the first place. It wasn't right, he'd said as much in the bar and gotten a good lashing for it. But now? Looking down at the submission pad, the one that had the name of every child in Twelve between 12 and 18 on it? Now that he had the fresh blood of thirteen lashes on his back, and now that he'd been told in no uncertain terms that it was the patriotic duty of every citizen of Panem's Districts to vote for a child of each gender to represent them in the 25th Annual Hunger Games?
He starts at the top, starts scrolling down as names fly out at him. Eli Whitney – the son of the man who oversees every issue that goes on in the mines. The son of the man who docked him half a week's pay for that time he fell and slashed his leg and had to get medical attention. The boy's twelve, and he can't. The boy looks so pathetic, so… so.
He scrolls on. There's a few blondes interspersed among the brunettes, and he begins to go down tht list, hoping one flies out at him. Raiye Mellark, oldest son of the District's baker. The baker who's seen as always just a little too much, always keeping the good food out of the hands of those on the Seam who need it the most. The baker's son who's apparently worse, even throws out the food in plain view of the District, as if he couldn't have handed out stale bread to the hungry.
Scrolls on. The Cartwright boy's a little simple, but the Cartwrights have always been nice – handed out help in patching together messed up shoes, always wanted to make sure that a Seam citizen had good shoes and were even willing to knock down the price a little if it was absolutely necessary. No. He scrolls past.
Myson Ashcroft – if all the stories are right, a terror. The kind of boy who's reportedly kicked a puppy, burnt half a dozen homes to the ground, or (according to what supporters he has and his father has) is a good lad who has just been lied about. Thrace isn't sure what he's thinking – Birch could have told him what was going on, but Birch wasn't exactly up to the task of going to school and finding out about the latest gossip – he was a sickly lad at the best of times, and in these times? He was positively awful.
Sickly.
Thrace tries to put the thought out of his mind, but. More money for the rest of the kids. A quick death, better than that coughing from all the dust the Doctor called asthma but demanded too much to be able to do anything more than wish them luck.
He finally decided. He scrolls down. Presses a name.
Prays his wife will be able to forgive him. No. Prays he'll be able to forgive himself.
Balmann Fahrman isn't quite sure what he's meant to be doing. The Peacekeeper came to the farmstead with that… thing, but the Peacekeeper had had only a passing understanding of Plains Duits. The Peacekeeper had tried, really had, but hadn't succeeded.
"Tu stimmet fuhrdas, sie sturbn." The words make enough sense. You vote for them, they die. But that's not a promise he can make – the Hunger Games aren't voting. Balmann knows as well as anyone – his cousin was sent off to fight in the 11th, and ever since then he's spent his time wishing he didn't have to watch and going out into the pub to watch the Games.
But this. This is new. He sits in his booth, Isabela and Bit waiting outside, and takes a look at the options. There's all sorts of names here.
There's a pretty girl, one he can't quite place until he remembers going around the pub, first in Capitol Basic but then in Duits. That she'd gotten arrested after breaking into an old man's home and stealing all the money from the safe. Hel, she was even on that crappy TV they had on in the corner, the one that only showed pictures but that was enough to recognize a face.
But at the same time, that was all hearsay. He may have been at the pub, and they may have been words that were true, but realistically was it fair to even consider the prospect of voting someone in based on what he'd heard they've done?
Then it's his own daughter. Elle, only twelve and he couldn't live with himself throwing a kid who had anything less than a guarantee of survival to the Games. Make the sacrifice, doom his family and doom any hope of ever being proud of what he voted for?
No. No, he can't, there's a lot of things Balmann is but that kind of cowardice. No. He'll pick someone who'll never be picked.
No. Instead, he scrolls down until he finds the face of the Victor's daughter. The one who's in every mandatory viewing, the one treated like she's above the rest of them just because her dad killed 20 years ago.
He clicks the button. Goes outside. Waits for Issy and Bit to have their turn, and then he can leave and hope, really hope that the little girl doesn't go into the Games.
She hates him.
He'd rejected her. He'd told her that she wasn't pretty enough, just because he'd thought that he was so bad and so cool. Because he was the son of one of the richest families in Eleven, and Tommen Redmere's first son didn't go out with silly girls who may have been blonde and from the good bit of town, but weren't quite good enough for him. Besides, she wasn't even his friend – just someone who'd come up to him in hopes of taking away what should by rights have gone to one of the people he spoke to more than twice a month.
Those were the words that got her scorned, laughed at by most of the school when they'd heard. He'd looked a little bit bad when he'd seen her with the fifth mocking note on her cubby, but at the same time. Well, if he wanted to make amends he could always ask her to the village dance, and then there'd be no question of whether or not he felt bad. Prove himself the villain and her the hero in this whole sordid affair.
She'd wanted to go for his brother, first. Take away what was most precious to him, because it wasn't fair that she allow him to be so happy with his brother when he'd rejected her and she hadn't even had a brother in the first place, not when Forrest had died of measles years ago and nobody had even come up to her at school after that to say sorry.
Then one of his idiot friends. Like Patrek, who she was sure had done something wrong even if she couldn't prove it. He was always hanging around Ed, and Lucas, and Ray, and all the rest of those messy children.
But really, she knew who she wanted. So it was with a smile she pressed her name into the pad, and then left it away.
After all. If he didn't have a date, maybe he'd come back to her, and the Mayor's daughter? Well, enough people don't like her (or, more accurately, her father) that it's likely he won't have a date.
Then Ellen can have him all to herself.
It's not him.
That's what Poseidon Shore knows, tells himself as he presses the button with a slight smile.
Because he's not the one going in. Caspian, Cas (as he'd introduced himself) had introduced himself to the cadets not three weeks ago. Ostensibly going into the Marines, but everyone knew that was as much bullshit as Ten produced in a year.
No. Caspian was going into the Games. And that was why he'd stood up on stage, put a smile on his face and encouraged them to vote for him. Told them this Quell wasn't a punishment but Four's reward. They could choose their tribute. And he was that choice. Let the rest stick to their squabbling. Let Twelve, Eight, the rebels try and do something to shatter their own people. Four would reap the rewards they'd been given.
The students at the Panemois Service Academy for the Marine Littoral had been marched out in crocodiles to vote in the public square. Rumour was going 'round that they'd been offered the chance to just have it at home, but Mags and Oceanus had reportedly insisted. That their kids were no worse than anyone else, deserved to go down with the rest of them.
And for that act, he was allowed a chance to go down and see his parents after the Games. To tell them he'd seen Caspian, that there was no way Four was coming home without the Victor's crown. That he hadn't seen Amphitrite, but he was sure she'd be a good one as well. And they were proud, and told him he could do just about anything, even be as brave as Caspian.
And Poseidon was at least half-sure that was true.
Carolyn Fielder is regretting her decision.
She regretted it from the second she saw weeping Tanager up there and realized just what an absolutely monstrous choice she'd made. Sure, the girl had made a few bad decisions, and maybe she didn't deserve to be around sensible people any more, but voting her off to her death was wrong.
She'd just had to.
But it was the girl, Tanager, or her own daughter. Her own daughter.
Who could fault Carolyn for voting one more vote that wasn't for her daughter?
He's known it'd be him from the day the Quell was announced.
That doesn't stop him panicking when his name's called. Abel Ammiton, they yell, and he's screaming, wrestling against the hands of Peacekeepers trying to drag him up to the stage as he hits out at them. He did nothing wrong, nothing at all. He's not meant to be up here.
There's Peacekeepers grabbing, their white hands, but he can't even think about that. He can't. He doesn't deserve to be up here, and he's looking towards his big brother for help but Robett doesn't do anything, doesn't look down for him or reach out or tell the Peacekeepers they've got the wrong guy. He can't see Hickory, but Hick's probably with mama in the stands. Too young.
Abel's standing on the stage, and trying to remember who he'd voted for, when it hits him. He'd known who it was going to be. Evenrue's the biggest town, and he was the town memory. The town cripple. The one who was different, all because the midwife had fucked it and he'd been dragged out of mom but one of his legs.
Well.
He'd voted for himself, had accepted that mess, but now he's pushed up on the stage and wishing he could take it all back. There's terror in his eyes, and he's not even able to support himself when the Peacekeepers let him go - the crutch is left somewhere in the crowd. The girl supports him when she comes up, but there's nothing behind her eyes.
Lilah Heathers isn't sure what's going on.
The man on the television came in and spoke words again, spoke words that (as usual) she couldn't quite get. Something about a Game. And then she got taken to a booth, and the nice man in white armour told her to look for the name that she was thinking of and put them in.
She knew which name she was putting in. The one Mamma had told her to vote for. Because she knew what her own name looked like.
She wasn't sure why everyone was sighing. Why all Eight was turning their eyes away, why the silly-dressed man was raising her hand in the air and announcing her whole name to the whole crowd.
But mama had told her to pick her name, had told her that it was ok to feel a little bit shy when everyone was looking at you. And that meant it was all going to be fine, right? She'd even had a whole orange today, and it wasn't like there was anything else now she could do but wait.
Because she knew, in the end, everything would turn out just right.
It's her first year, and Numi, looking up at the stage, is ever so glad that Two sent their volunteers every year. Without fail, a boy and a girl from the Peacekeeper academy from the hill would come down and declare themselves willing to volunteer as tribute.
Besides, as she's sure every other girl in Two was scared, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that she be chosen to represent them. That she be ordered up to the stage, and be told that she'd been chosen by the will of Two's population. She wasn't dumb - she knew Two would choose a name spread around. But still, the fear had been there.
So when Numi saw the column of people, reporters and Mentors and Tributes heading through the streets? Well, she had to go in.
She was small. Small enough to press her way through the column of people, free to shove her way all the way to the front where Eleanor and her escort are waiting for the crowd to pass. She slips under the barriers (it takes a little shimmy but nobody quite notices), shoves aside a Peacekeeper and runs up to the girl who'd chosen to go into all this with a smile. Wraps her arms around Eleanor, feels the taller girl hesitate and then return the embrace.
It takes a few seconds for her to be gently eased off the Tribute, enough time to say several 'thank yous' and yell one more as she's ushered off. And the crowd awws, and soon enough Numi's back at home with a stern warning to never do anything that dangerous again.
And in that instant, Numina Vettore learns that the Games can fix just about anything.
Interviews come, and Argentina Caron is watching them with her branch of the Caron family. Lavender wasn't from her branch, but that didn't mean she wasn't family. Wasn't a Caron.
So of course she's watching. The main branch of the family, Lavender's branch, is watching in the big sitting room with invited family members, the Capitol liaison to One, the mayor of Seaguard. The kind of small gathering that really should be bigger under the circumstances.
Still, they're in a comfortable enough room, Tina and her lot, and the interviews are just beginning with that obnoxious trumpet.
Lav's up first, and she's smiling like she's just won the world. Perhaps she has - she's certainly got the teeth that suggest she has that kind of wealth. But the words, the three minutes she gets don't talk about conquest. Or reward. Or anything.
Instead, she talks about how excited she is to get home. About how much she's loved meeting some people (with a pointed glance at the general area Two's sitting in), and crosses one leg over the other as she giggles and tells Lucky that when she's back she expects he'll tell her where the best place to go to dinner in the Capitol is.
When Lav heads down the stairs and ends her interview, the applause is deafening, and Tina's glad. Proves that voting her cousin in was the best choice, after all.
Lune was cringing from the second Troy had come on the stage.
Of course she'd voted for him. All the Ones had. He'd attacked Sacharissa, they said, and done worse things. And she wasn't a Three, wasn't even local to the District. She was just some One girl who was conducting a tour through Fair Isle, and afterwards had gone for a walk. Just one of a hundred it could have been.
Lune had gone to see her, of course - everybody had. All the merchants on Fair Isle, at least. Crowded into the hospital, left their own little gifts. Their way of apologizing, of proving that not all of Three was the kind of depraved monster who'd do that to somebody who was blonde and nice and bringing popularity to their Isle.
The Capitol approved - the liaison in Fair Isle even came out and thanked everyone before they went in. And Sacharissa was ever so nice - said she didn't hold any ill will towards Three as a whole.
So when the announcement was made? When the Quell was declared? Troy went into the Games. The merchants didn't celebrate in public, but in private? In the safety of their homes? There was at the least some gladness that no longer would the name of Three be sullied.
But interviews first, and Lune was cringing because his tone was harsh. Accusing, filled with spite because he'd been sent there by an uncaring District. Condemning them with his words, even as Lucky Flickerman kept trying to defuse it. The merchants didn't care - the condemnations of a criminal were of little comfort. But still, the way the normals were looking at her across the barrier?
Well, she rushed home a tad quicker that night.
When Rosalie Pike took the stage, it was the solemn duty of everyone in Six to look away. Even when her name had been the biggest, and according to the drawn reaping slip with quite a margin of victory. 80% of Wijta's Votes, 22% overall.
It was well known why, but seeing it was something different. The dulled eyes, not bright and lively like that of most even in Six. The slow words, the stumbling over those words because she wasn't quite all... there.
Sure, her escort had been allowed to go up there. Was answering some questions - Rosalie was a 'brave girl'. She was 'so glad her District had allowed her this chance to represent them in the first ever Quarter Quell'. Even if Six was looking up, and all of Six wasn't even sure if she was quite certain where she was.
And, besides, it's not like there's any disagreement from Rosalie, so it's for them to look up with disappointment. Alexandria is staring up at the screen with a disappointed eye, thinking about whether or not she should have voted Rosalie in. But, in the end, it was an easy choice. She was community home, she wasn't really Six with Pike as a surname. Just some Air Force hotshot's daughter.
So if it was her, or a trueborn Six girl? If it was her, or losing something, someone who would prove far more useful in the workplace?
Well, there's still that unease. That maybe all of this is wrong and unfair - that nobody should at all have gone. But that doesn't change anything. Doesn't change anything at all.
Everyone knows Colt Dalton wasn't meant to be up there. Oh, he's a criminal - everyone knew he broke into houses, everyone knew he'd done a hell of a lot of bad stuff and been rewarded for it.
But, realistically, he's still Northriver. Still pale, not like the Southriver. And they had their own murderers. It was thought, really thought that that boy who'd murdered a cow and tried to steal the meat had been a shoo-in. Instead, it was Colt Dalton who'd been called up, and given the size of the votes it was pretty obvious what had happened. The Southriver had colluded, and gotten away with it. Never mind that it was more often than not two of their up there, never mind that Northriver kids were hardly ever chosen because they didn't have to take out half as many Tesserae.
So he was spitting (some would say righteous) fury at being picked. Anger at being dragged up there, at being put on this kind of show, on being treated like a rebel, like a bad guy for... well, for being up there.
So when he answers Lucky, it's with rolls of his eyes and angry glares and warnings that his District should remember what he's done to them when he comes back. His tone is at the least more forward than some. Still, they know. Know he's not coming back.
And that makes them angry. It makes Tanner Farmer more than angry, because it should be a murderer up there, not a thief who had the greatest crime (at least he expects) of being born north of the river. It's not fair. Really not fair. And the glares shot at him and his by the Southriver folks is murderous.
So Colt won't sleep easy tonight. He doesn't trust them. Not after they didn't choose the right Tribute.
There's a kind of vicious pride in Androw's face when he watches the bloodbath numbers flash up on the screen. 59, 58, 57. It flashes to the booth of District Nine's mentors recently, where Millet looks to be the only one keeping it together in the face of. Well.
Because they deserve this. Rye, Demeter, they're both good Capitol dogs. Servants of the region that's kept Nine in chains, that beat Nine like a dog because they could. And they, Rye and Demeter and even Millet, had profited from the deaths of Nine's children. They'd taken their Victory and not given any of it back to Nine, and it wasn't like the Capitol had the power to tell them how to spend their own money, right?
No. It was spite, plain and simple, that was the reason for the Victors not helping Nine, or at least the families of the dead. It was a travesty, and that was why Nine had taken their revenge on those Capitol lapdogs. They could feel a tenth of the pain Nine felt for once, and get out of the easy life that was their 'reward' for a few days work.
The horn blasts, and in an instant they're off and running. It flashes between them, camera flies above them, and Androw can see One reach the Cornucopia first. The camera flashes to her placing a hand on an axe.
A silver tomahawk sinks into Barleigh's skull. Deeper, deeper. It cuts to Rye in the pits of despair, and then back. And Nine can see the boy slip to the ground, hear the first cannon of the Quarter Quell, and Androw is sure that at least the 25% or so who voted for the boy to go up there are just now feeling the same emotion that he is.
Androw is glad.
Camaro isn't quite sure what's happening.
One minute, he's standing in a dark room, getting dressed in a set of nice clothes. A jacket, a shirt, a pair of trousers, nice shoes. The kind of stuff that he'd always looked at in the shops, before matron or someone else had dragged him off. The kind he'd always imagined himself wearing, because it would look nice, and it looked like it felt nice, and it did feel nice. But where was everyone. The rude man who'd said he should run with the horn and laughed, sad Rosalie who never spoke when he asked her a question, even the nice man who he'd just left. Where were they.
Where was Matron, even?
Matron had told him she'd be just back to him when she'd handed him his mother's handkerchief. Back at the big building at home, in Six. And just like she'd told him that he needed to put his own name into the machine to register for the new system, just like she'd told him that his parents would come back for him almost every day, just like she'd told him that it was ok to eat the green stuff that came with dinner, he'd believed.
But now the air smells like smoke, and he's looking around, and the horn's sounded so he should run but the nice man told him to stay on the plate so he's stood on the plate. He takes a hesitant step forward, thinks better of it.
He's still hesitating when one of the boys comes up to him. A big one. He's smiling, and trying to introduce himself when Two grabs his hair, and he feels himself dragged down. Feels cold metal against his head and it hurts it hurts it hurts.
It hurts twelve times. It doesn't the thirteenth.
Jon, when he thinks about it, is glad that Ohm got sent down.
Oh, it's not really fair for anyone to go into the Games. He's been told that since time immemorial by people, because Five may be more loyal and it may be more willing to align with the Capitol, but that doesn't mean they have to agree with everything that's gone on. But Ohm wasn't just anyone.
It was Ohm who'd severed cables and got the power shut off to the various construction sites in Vipeche. It was Ohm who'd pinned the blame on his supervisor, even when everyone in the city could tell you that Mr. Fredriksen would never do anything like that. Not that it would be of any use - there was already reprisals, executions and firings, and so the Capitol didn't really care who'd done it so long as there was someone hanging from a noose. Or several someones.
But Five remembers. Five knew what was wrong. Five wanted to prove that they understood, that they'd known what to do and that they weren't in the business of condemning an innocent to death when there was someone to blame.
Nobody could quite tell how the word got around. Everyone would deny that they'd been the one saying to vote for him, but it had to be someone speaking - couldn't have just been osmosis of thought.
But it had been Ohm standing on the stage, white as a sheet and probably thinking about what nobody could prove he'd done wrong but everyone was certain he had done. Ohm who spat hate at his District during interviews, and got finished off early for it.
Ohm who died with a silver tomahawk in his back. And Ohm who won't be troubling the nice, neat streets of Vipeche any more.
Kent. That was all that'd needed to be said among the poor of Eleven, the idea that hadn't been just passed around in Cotor but in all the southern cities of Five. The North was different, but the South was willing to do what needed to be done to show the Capitol that they didn't agree. That they couldn't be pushed around any further.
They'd argue they didn't enjoy it. Some may even have been telling the truth. Whatever that truth, it was the Capitol Liaison's son who was sent up to the stage alongside Darcie. The Capitol Liaison had resigned a week later, some of Eleven may even have felt bad because it was still his son. But, in the end, he was just one of the Capitol's tools.
Eleven crowds into the town squares to watch the bloodbath. They have to, of course they do, and the attitude is sombre as always because these are still children dying. But this time it's different. This time, it's not their children.
They watch Kent go down. They see him fall, a silver spear embedded through his back and the girl from Two already moving on with a tight set to her jaw. Eleven turns away - they do nothing else. They caused this, they voted for this. This doesn't meant they accept it.
Eleven made their choice. Eleven wishes they didn't have to make that choice.
Seven had never expected Pine to get past the bloodbath. That was their mistake. Because in an instant, the strange girl who was mostly left to her own devices because she wasn't productive at work, the strange girl who seemed to spend all her time in the forest because her parents... weren't the best had become the darling of the Capitol. Seven watched as the Capitol cooed over her, thanked Seven for sending them this 'gift'.
And that 'gift' had escaped the bloodbath, wandered through streets with numbers until in Seven. it was night. It was perfect time for an escape from watching. And the lumber crews were all back, the paper mills were still staffed but not as much. Seven could have gone home and put her out of their minds. Instead, Seven gathered.
So when she stumbled through what looked so much like the streets of Evenrue, crying, the District stayed. Watched. They'd owed her, at the least, this much. Several people went out to check she wasn't actually outside their homes, but after that it was all hands on deck.
She finally got where she was going. A house that looked so much like hers most people thought that hers had been moved. Stumbled inside, sobbing, and met for her troubles a set of things that looked like her parents. Or probably did to sleep-starved eyes. To Seven, it was so obviously slightly off, the house ever too small, all the furnishings looking slightly off compared to the interview with her parents.
She fell into not-mom's arms, even as Seven was screaming at her to run. Instead, she just lay in those arms and cried, until something that was not her dad went outside. Came back guiding the girl from One, pretty purple dress now stained with red blood.
The silver axe sinks into Pine's back. It's quick, at least. Quick.
Luce is just glad it wasn't him. He'd been the second favourite, after all. He'd been the one tapped as a back up, in case Chiffon hadn't been willing to go. They'd never asked Luce if he was willing to go.
But Chiff had stepped up, had announced his candidacy for the Games and got the District vote to go into the 25th on behalf of One. Luce, meanwhile, had a bodyguarding job scheduled out in the Capitol, one he was to head off to on the 1st of August. For now, he could stay back at the family manse and watch.
Hope Chiffon won, because otherwise he wouldn't be able to be live with himself. He'd done well so far - dispatched two at the bloodbath. Not as many as Lavender, who'd dropped three before walking around the circle and dispatching of the fodder who'd given up, sat on their pedestals and waited. The others didn't interfere as Lav cut down the girl from Eleven, boys from Seven and Nine.
And now Lav and Chiffon are out hunting together, and they're bantering together. She hasn't told him she got led off during guard duty, but why would she? He was safe, they're getting on well, so why wouldn't she. Besides, that offer of him getting the next kill - this was a promise, right? That was an apology.
And then, as all One's watching, they can hear a whispered apology. A real one.
Right before a silver tomahawk sinks into Chiff's chest, a cannon fires, and One erupts in uproar. That it wasn't fair Lavender should get that prize.
It's one of the first times a One betrayed her District Partner, and One is not happy about it.
Chess had voted for himself. There was no reason he wouldn't vote for himself - he was going in. Winchester Sarfield, headed off to the Games. It was a nice thing to note. He was proud of it - proud his District had given him this opportunity, proud that he'd taken it.
But the cannon had fired that afternoon. Lav and Chiffon hadn't gotten back yet, and he was worried. It was his alliance, but. Well, one of them (probably Lavender if he was being honest) being out there entices the Fours to betray. Encouraged Nell to look at him and feel just a little bit more worried about whether or not she should keep following his lead.
When Chiff's face emerges in the sky that night, Chess is fucked. He knows what's happened. Knows that Lavender's wrong, and he places a hand on his sword as guard duty is abandoned and he heads to the alliance to discuss what to do next.
Caspian thinks they should all pick a direction and head off in it. Split the alliance. Nell wants to hunt down Lav, and Chess doesn't disagree. Lapp just thinks they need to wait to the morning - none of them have slept a wink waiting for this. Also not a bad idea.
They argue, and discuss, and mediate. They're all leaning their own way, and they need to come to a decision. One way or the other. But he doesn't properly keep them all down, and soon enough eyes turn to him - as well they must. A leader is a danger, and he manages to block the trident that comes swinging down to smash his skull. It's over. Lapp makes the first move, but Cas and Nell aren't far behind.
In the end, Nell buries a silver sword in his chest, and his last thought is of just how wrong he was to vote for himself. How wrong he was to be proud.
Eloise is so scared.
She didn't want to live any more. Her parents were so... unlike parents. She had no grandparents, nobody to turn to. So she put her name about. Told everyone she was willing to go in. And when she stumbled up, and told the rich man who'd come to vote with his daughter that if he helped her then his daughter wouldn't be a worry? Well, Three was content to make their play. Content to let Eloise make her choice, and she sat and watched person after person go through, her name get bigger and bigger. She told classmates, they told others. She had almost all of Cotor's vote by the end.
And now she's in the Arena, stumbling about on streets so much like home, like Cotor. She thinks that maybe, if she gets out of this part, she can get back to the one that smelt like salt and rocked beneath her feet. Before that, to the streets that were so hot and were laced with a million lights. She wants to go home, not here but home. Where she didn't not get to drink water, where she could eat, where she didn't have to watch for One. Home where, looking back, maybe she could have mended it all.
She stumbled through a door like her own, and tried to go up to her room. It was so much like it. Instead, mom and dad were there and didn't yell. Didn't tell her to go to her room, or to sit down and eat and shut up.
She never wanted it to end. She told mom everything she'd wanted to say, the perfect grades in school and that she thought she might get a good job, a scholarship after. Apologizes that she'd gotten herself into this, and dad comes back, with the One girl in tow. Tells Eloise to close her eyes.
Eloise tries to run, but One's on her. She scratches the blonde, hits and screams and kicks. But soon, One raises the silver tomahawk in her hand, using the handle of the one in her other hand to press down on Eloise's neck.
It stops hurting soon.
"Go on, Guernsey!" The crowd is, to put it simply, ecstatic. One's taken down her allies, is all that stands between Guernsey and victory. And the blonde, hair soaked with blood and slash across her leg, is in no state to contest the Games.
Guernsey has a silver sword. Took it from the dead One boy, because that boy wouldn't be needing it any more and he'd dropped it. Guernsey may be a criminal, may have stolen a whole cow and taken it back to her parents, but now the entirety of Ten is rooting for her. Their first finalist in almost a quarter century, and she's so much the favourite to win that half of Ten has bet their (legal) maximum on her.
She runs in, and One lunges forward before stumbling. It's enough to draw a cheer from 70,000 throats back in Ten. She's going to win.
And then One lifts herself up, and Guernsey stops for just a second - enough for One to raise her arm and throw the tomahawk.
Enough for the tomahawk to sink silver steel into her face, and for Guernsey to scream once and then fall silent.
Enough for the cannon firing to be for Guernsey, and not One.
When that preening little bitch from One is standing up on the stage, talking about how proud she is to have involved herself in the Games, how proud she is to have won? It's all Callan can do not to throw a rock, or yell insult, or throw mud. Or do, realistically, just about anything that demonstrates that he was wrong, that voting Mercy in was an act of cowardice, that realistically it was the only choice but still the wrong one.
Because it was wrong. She was from the community home, that was all the excuse they'd needed to vote Mercy Sheen up onto the stage by way of people talking, deciding on a name. No family, nobody to mourn. Who else could they have sent up?
But now One's standing up there, and she's chirping about her hopes that District Twelve will demonstrate suitable loyalty and willingness to get a new Victor, and everyone in the District, or at least the vast majority who are gathered beneath the stage under the eyes of Peacekeepers? They're angry, a hot wad of anger that burns hot.
Fourteen children. Including Mercy, and Birch. One killed fourteen, and now she has the gall to stand up there, not even look at them for the most part but read from a card, and talk about how much she enjoyed killing their children? How they should just try harder? It's a joke, an abomination.
She's hurried off the stage quickly after the speech is over, even the Peacekeepers can feel the fire in the air, but once they're gone? Well, Callan wants to rise up. He knows everyone does, knows that people would do it because Mercy didn't deserve that, and everyone thinks it. But without a target to focus their anger, the Twelves huddle back to their homes, sloping away. No need for batons, cuffs, guns. They're not going to fight over it.
Eight's not as sad as usual.
They lost two. The families have to be consoled, have to be given sorries and have to be appeased because losing a child hurts at the best of times. Losing a child sent in by their District? Well, it's got to hurt. But Lilah was... Lilah, and Weff was blind from an accident in the factories. It was only right, only necessary that they send in two children the District wouldn't miss and be done with it. Apologies had been given, gifts as well.
But Eight still stared at the preening girl on the stage with flat hate, because she was One's first attack dog. Elan was like her, but Lavender? Lavender, bubblier even than the interview (some said due to Capitol pills)? Lavender, who'd killed both of their children as the Capitol's chosen executioner? Well, she was a problem. A monster. And so Eight watched, and waited, and stared hate.
Because they knew someday Eight would have her revenge on Lavender and all those who'd prepared to do this. The Peacekeepers who crushed them, the Ones who laughed, the whole pack of them. And that ideal of revenge bred hate, dissent. Eight wasn't as sad as usual.
Didn't mean they were happy.
Lapp was dead. Tethys couldn't, when they'd told her, quite believe it. Sure, Lapp was in the Games. Sure, in the Games people died - 23, and they were lucky that a tense finale hadn't made it twenty-four. That, she knew, would happen someday, this she was sure of.
But not Lapp. Never Lapp. Lapp was her big sister, the one who chased the sky out of their home. when the roof was a bit more messy than usual. Lapp was the one who'd promised that when she was home, Tethys could come and live up in the Victor's Village and they wouldn't have to worry about their parents any more because Lapp was the one who knew, just knew, that she'd be coming home and told Tethys never to do the same because one daughter down is a sad fact, two would be an end. LApp had asked Tethys for her trust, and Tethys had voted.
So of course Tethys knew Lapp would come home, and then it wouldn't matter just how badly their parents drinking all night and out all day would feel. Then it wouldn't matter.
So when Lavender came back, and stood where Lapp should have stood, and talked about how much she'd enjoyed Lapp and Caspian when she was the same one who'd sunk an axe into Lapp's chest and beheaded Caspian to take third?
After the meeting, Lavender's invited Tethys to the Justice Building. With her parents, not that she knows where they are. The blonde girl apologizes - claims that she didn't want to do it, that she had no choice. Tethys knows otherwise. Slaps aside the purse that Lavender offers, even when the girl pleads with her to take it as an apology.
An apology. Like money can buy back her sister. Like money can buy a life that was hers by right.
Lapp wouldn't have been like that coward. Lapp would have been a hero.
Right?
When the Spire shut, in 39 PTD, it was a day's mourning. Lavender had been found dead, they said, and nobody quite knew what the cause was. But, as it always goes, someone heard the Victors whispering.
Her wrists. Lavender had bled out all over the bed. There was no note mentioned, at least in rumours, but everyone knew what it meant.
When Lavender didn't come in the next days, it was confirmed. Finally. And only then did kids, as they do, start asking questions. Why Lavender had done it. What had happened.
That couldn't be told to them. That was a story for another time.
Author's Note
To the 23 children I put through the First Quell. To Chiffon, Eleanor, Winchester, Eloise, Troy, Lapp, Caspian, Tanager, Ohm, Rosalie, Camaro, Pine, Abel, Lilah, Weff, Lilia, Barleigh, Guernsey, Colt, Darcie, Kent, Mercy and Birch. Well, you all deserved better than the 25th. I've written some chapters, this is the only one I've shed actual tears over.
To clarify, the vote was three months early, and they replicated the area of each District the Tributes lived in in that three month gap between vote ending and Games.
And to Lav.
Fly high, little bird. Heaven knows you deserve to rest. I wanted to visit you more post-Games, but that felt wrong.
I don't know if I'll ever write Lavender again - she alone among my Victors is one who just makes me... sad, and I'm certain her victory is going to be overturned by Collins in a little over a week XD. Still, I know she had some nice times.
At least some.
Thank you all for reading - I'm expecting an extra chapter next week, and then Lightning's coming off hiatus! I can also promise you'll be seeing at least a few of the faces from this fic again.
Cecelia Pipes