annie cresta (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
maredementis) wrote2012-06-18 02:05 pm
maredementis) wrote2012-06-18 02:05 pm
[70th tributes] how many fates turn around in the overtime?
Annie Cresta kills five people to win the 70th Hunger Games.
[in the garden i did no crime]
Amethyst is eighteen and glorious, today. Her birthday is only shortly before the Reaping, so she's younger than Silk by eight months, but that's unimportant. Silk is brilliant too, Amethyst can give credit where it's earned, but Amethyst is a warrior princess like a story her mother used to tell her about when etching into the lovely ceremonial armour that went to the Tributes from their District at the parade when that was a tradition for a few years. She's tall for a girl, almost as tall as Silk, rippling with sculpted muscle underneath her lovely curves. Her family purchased surgery for her flat chest and her slightly crooked nose last year, her hair is long, blonde, and expertly maintained, and she is an artist with a make-up brush.
She's an artist with any brush, but she's saving that for her talent when she wins. Amethyst plans to paint every day and have showings in District 1, in the Capitol. She will paint and they will love her art, and they will love her. District 1 isn't as rich as the other Districts think, when they see their lovely Tributes, and her family lives in a cramped little house next to the foundry, but Amethyst will ride on the love of the Capitol and carry them all away to something wonderful.
"You looked amazing on stage, sweetheart," her brother says, standing in for her father, whose has been dead since an accident in the foundry two years ago. It's her, Jasper, and their mother now, and her mother is crying--tears of pride, not mourning, because they are all perfectly confident that Amethyst will win. "Every inch a Victor."
Jasper is ten years older than her, always her greatest protector and hero, even if he lost his chance to go to the Games to a boy who lost in turn when he was eighteen. (Secretly, watching the Victor that year, a brutal, hulking girl from Two, Amethyst had been glad her whip slim and deadly fast brother hadn't gone. Selfish, maybe, but she'll make up for her cowardice at eight now.)
"Thanks, dork," she says, playfully, and he laughs and begins to gather her into an embrace--
It all happens so fast, which sounds like a line from an awful Capitol drama but is true here, where the Peacekeepers break down the door and tear Jasper away and Amethyst, honed for the Games, already like a drawn sword, reacts before she can think, breaking an arm and a nose before the barking of a Peacekeeper finally penetrates her reflexive protection.
"--is under arrest for theft of Capitol property, Tribute!"
Jasper has never stolen a thing in his life, even working with the most precious gems in his jeweller's workshop. He would never steal. There's no need, it's far too risky, and Jasper is the most honest and loyal person Amethyst has ever met. Jasper lifts his head, his face battered and bleeding, and in his eyes she can see his confusion and--no, no, this is a mistake. This must be a mistake. She tries to explain that, but her mouth won't open. She can't make a single sound.
"It's okay, gem," Jasper says, soothingly, "Go--win. We'll sort this out while you're gone. Don't worry about it."
The penalty for theft of Capitol property is execution by hanging. The punishment for traitors.
They bustle Amethyst onto the train and all she can think, over and over, is that this has to be a mistake. She thinks this until immediately off the train she is taken to the private office of President Snow himself, the man she has always admired from afar for his calm, tact, and effortless control, and he invites her kindly to take a seat. Amethyst sits down, still numb, and accepts the glass of wine he offers her.
"Your brother has been accused of a serious crime, I understand?" Amethyst nods, mutely. Snow sighs, sympathy all over his face. "What a pity. I'm sure it can be arranged to postpone his trial until after the Games, at least, so he can watch you. Would you like that, Miss Amethyst?" She nods, again, already planning to spend as much as it takes in order to save him--Amethyst doesn't know how to bribe, she's never had to, but she'll find someone who does. She'll save him.
"I hope you give an excellent performance, for his sake," Snow says, and discreetly brings a napkin to his mouth. "You have stiff competition this year. I think the District 4 Tribute, the young woman, is one to watch. It isn't precisely done, to give you advice, but you seem like an exemplary young citizen, and I'd hate to see you at a disadvantage. If you remove the girl quickly, it would be in your favour."
And your brother's.
He doesn't have to say it, because suddenly Amethyst understands, and because she is a warrior princess of her District, and she is well-trained, polished to an invincible sheen, Amethyst finds it in herself to smile sweetly at President Snow instead of screaming you could have just asked me. All he would have had to do was ask, and she would have killed the girl without question. It wouldn't matter why. It doesn't matter why. Amethyst is a good girl, she does what she's told. But now Jasper will die if she fails, somehow, and Amethyst loves him like she lets herself love nothing else.
She smiles and is sweet, lovely, shining, all through the parade and the interviews. She knows that the armour she wears in the parade was made by her mother (and Jasper, in the gems, she's his little precious gemstone and he's her adored shield, her big brother who braided her hair and made her soup whenever she was sick, who ushered her entrance into training and who has believed in her always), she knows that her dress sparkles with flecks of real diamond at the interviews, she is cloaked and protected by everything from her District. But there is nothing but hate in her heart, and since she can't kill Snow--and she never imagined hating him, hating the Capitol, but now Amethyst hates and hates and hates--she focuses her outrage on the girl she has to kill. Snow never said she had to win. Just that she had to kill Annie fucking Cresta, who is winsomely pretty, who smiles at the weakest Tributes and acts like she's better than anyone, and Amethyst forces herself to hate her too. She hates her, even though Annie is the kind of girl Amethyst has always blossomed little crushes on, the kind of girl that Amethyst wants to settle down with after the Games, and some nights Amethyst stays awake and wishes she could tell Annie that it's not personal. It's not really her. She only hates her because she has to hate someone she can reach to hurt.
"I kill her," she tells the other Tributes, dangerously flashing her perfect pale blue eyes, after she starts a fight with Annie by tormenting the District 10. The fight makes her hate plausible. It'll make for a better show, and Amethyst is determined to exceed Snow's expectations like she has exceeded every expectation anyone has had of her in her life. She'll show him how loyal, how good she can be--and after the fight, after she is punished, he allows Jasper to call her. They talk about nothing. She can hear pain in his voice, but he's alive, this is her reward for behaving. He wishes her luck. She wants to wish him the same, but only thanks him instead.
In the Arena that boy, that wretched boy, steps between Amethyst's axe and Cresta's head, and Amethyst seethes for the rest of the day. No. The rest of the Games. She insists the other Careers track Cresta with her, makes a case that the girl is the only real threat left, and when Spoke starts to argue Amethyst runs him through with her sword. She can't let them see she's desperate. Only that she's angry. They follow her up to killing the District 3 girl and the District 10 girl (not then, but shortly after--Amethyst hit veins), and then Julian rebels. Says that this is a waste of time. Amethyst stares at them all, with such hate, and stalks off on her own.
The Arena floods and that night Amethyst watches the sky and prays, although she doesn't know what prayer is, and is endlessly relieved not to see Cresta.
It's a stroke of luck to find her, pure luck, and as good of a swimmer as the girl is she's sick and insane, Amethyst can still do this--
Cresta guts her and Amethyst knows she's dead as soon as she clutches at her stomach and feels her intestines spilling out over her hands, and all she can hope for as she goes face down (they won't see her cry, no one will ever see her cry) and breathes water so at least it's on her terms, not Cresta's, is that Cresta bleeds out. That maybe it'll still count as killing her, and Jasper will survive.
Jasper is executed shortly after Amethyst's cannon fires. Having watched his baby sister, the only thing he's ever let himself love, convulse and die, it's almost a relief.
Their mother straps a bomb to her chest and calmly detonates while delivering weapons to the District's Peacekeepers, after the girl from Twelve shows everyone how to fight back. The rebels in One rally around the memory of Pyrite, mother of two children killed by the Capitol, and since none of them are around to care it's easy to say it was worth it.
[you're not a helicopter, you're not a cop-out either, honey]
Quoin knows from the second she's Reaped she's not going to make it. Fourteen, but she looks twelve, practically, skinny and underfed. She has eight siblings alive, three dead when they were babies, of course she's never had enough food. She fits right in the middle of them, and they all gather around and cry, even her bratty twin older sisters and her obnoxious little brother, because everyone else knows she won't make it either. District 6 usually only wins by luck or endurance, except for a year a rail worker cracked a lot of heads and won like a Career. Quoin doesn't have weight to lose, she's not a rail worker, and she's never been very lucky. She doesn't bother saying it's okay.
Right from the start their Mentors both seem to agree Spoke is the one to invest in. Stupid Spoke. He's sixteen and brawny, one of the boys who shovels coal, and at least he has that. Quoin isn't strong. She isn't smart, fast, or even cute. She's plain, mostly, even when the stylists truss her up in a ridiculous costume that at least tries to bring out her brown eyes. Unextraordinary. She's not going to get any sponsors. But Quoin doesn't cry, much. It's not that she isn't scared, because she is. She's scared out of her mind. But hey. What can you do?
She's mostly accepted what's going to happen. No one has any good advice for her, but she figures out on her own that the Bloodbath will probably get her if she goes in. So she goes in, taking a risk for a backpack and a slingshot--she wasn't bad at the slingshot, in training, or at least she was the least worst at it--and to her amazement she comes out the other side running, and at first she puts down the sting in her eye to blood dripping into it.
It's only after the adrenaline wears off and she really starts to hurt, coming out of shock, that she realizes her eye is gone, punctured by the random swipe of a panicked boy's knife. She lets herself mourn for a second, but then--well. She's got a backpack, with a tent, and she's got a slingshot, and even if she's not going to win she's not ready to off herself either. She figured that out in the Bloodbath. Quoin isn't that scared to die, but she doesn't want to run into it either. Mostly she's kind of ambivalent. She'll die, eventually, but until then--until then, Quoin camps out, hiding as best as she can. A wild eyed girl from 7 finds her, hacks a piece of her back out as Quoin struggles on the ground, on her stomach, sure that this is it--and amazingly, the Arena floods.
The 7 can't swim. Quoin can, a little, and she kicks away holding onto a tree branch that floated to the surface and watches the 7 girl drown. She wonders if that counts as a kill. She doesn't have her supplies anymore and she doesn't know how to fish. She's pretty sure the 4 girl is alive, along with a bunch of other Tributes, and Quoin knows she's going to starve even if no one kills her. She can already feel the ache of hunger in her gut. She tries eating bark, but it doesn't help. She'll starve, unless the sluggishly bleeding wound on her back she's only barely stopped up with her torn shirt gets her first. Quoin rests her head on her branch and waits to die.
When the girl from 4 shows up, it's actually not that bad, and underwater Quoin exhales even before she can't hold her breath anymore, and it's not that bad. Could have been worse. She's pretty sure she made it into the top eight, so that's something. Maybe her family is proud of her.
Quoin leaves a hole in the middle of her family nothing can fill, sarcastic and tiny Quoin who haunts them now. When the Rebellion is still barely a flicker, barely a whispered rumour, her obnoxious little brother, then sixteen, slits the throat of the Head Peacekeeper and fiercely displays him to the cameras in the Reaping square. He says, before he has to flee to District 13, this is for Quoin.
She'd be proud of him, if she was alive. Maybe she'd even forgive him for spilling juice on her favourite shirt when she was twelve.
[so don't give me respect don't give me a piece of your preciousness]
Fallow isn't ready to die.
She's sixteen. She can't die yet. Dying has never haunted her like it does a lot of the skinny kids from 9, because her mother is a warehouse manager. They've always had plenty to eat, especially since Fallow is an only child. Her parents kept trying, but Fallow was the only baby who made it to term. So Fallow grew up fat and happy, envied by all the girls and desired by all the boys at school around her age. She never thought of being fat as a bad thing until her stylist clucked at her, said well, we can hide some of the rolls, and that's how she ended up a sheaf of wheat. Fallow privately thinks her stylist is a moron.
Being fat means she at least won't starve as fast as everyone else, even the Careers. Fallow told her mom that after she got Reaped, sternly, hugging her close anyway because she hates when her mom cries.
"I'm not gonna die, mom," she said, exasperated, and her parents just kept crying. That's part of why Fallow wants to go home. That, and she sort of has a boyfriend now. He's just a wisp of a thing, Michael, the son of one of the scientists in charge of developing new wheat strains, but he's sweet and pretty, and he kissed her a week before the Reapings. Fallow is glad he wasn't Reaped too. That would have been awful.
In training, she focuses on survival skills, because despite her dad's lessons in how to fight since she didn't have any older brothers to protect her Fallow only needs to look at the Careers to know she won't be able to take them, and she feels sick thinking of hurting anybody anyway. Her plan is to just--outlast. She'll use her fat and her smarts to stay alive until the end, and if she has to Fallow will wait until everyone else is weak with hunger to kill them. Her Mentor thinks it's actually a good plan, playing to her strengths, and so in the Arena Fallow whirls on her platform and takes off into the woods as fast as she can. She's fat, but not that slow. It surprises everybody, and Fallow is even rewarded with a little silver parachute of supplies--iodine tablets, matches, an empty water bottle. She grins at the sky and says thanks, because she has manners, and there's another little parachute with an empty backpack. She must've made a good impression at the interviews when she sat up straight and answered every question like she wasn't scared, joking about her winter stores and patting her stomach. Whatever. It gets her stuff, and she survives on foraging for edible plants and staying out of the way.
When the flood comes she manages to hold onto her stuff, even though the iodine tablets dissolve when her backpack soaks. She learns her lesson about the water fast, puking it up when she tries to drink a long swallow of it when she's crazy thirsty, but if she takes little sips and mostly just uses it to rinse her mouth she can manage a few drops at a time. She lashes together a raft with strips from her backpack and hoards her last bit of clean water in her bottle, hungry and losing weight so fast she thinks she can almost see it. Her stylist will be happy, at least. Fallow is glad she grew up close to a river. On her lumpy little raft she's almost sure she can outlast everybody, like she planned. She even made the top eight. Almost nobody from 9 makes the top eight.
But when she sees the girl from Four, Annie, swimming to her with flat, empty eyes--Fallow knows already. She's a goner. She can't swim like that, not at all, and her raft is too flimsy to even move much on. She's not surprised when it breaks, but she fights, she hits just like her dad said to, but Annie has a lump of wood in her hand and hits her in the head over and over until Fallow can't see at all, dizzy and helpless, and underwater she thrashes and keeps--trying, she keeps trying, but when she can't breathe or feel her arms anymore she knows it's over.
Well. She tried.
Her mother tries to drown herself three months after the Games. She beats her fists against Fallow's father and screams my baby girl my baby, they took my baby, and after the Mockingjay her parents both burn down Capitol warehouses. They hold hands before they're executed, summarily, by gunshot.
[hold onto nothing as fast as you can; well, still, pretty good year]
Julian has always been the second choice. Second born, second trained, second to everything his amazing sister Aurora did, and the worst part is that he can't even hate Aurora. Aurora was the Victor two years ago, and she was effortlessly generous in giving them space in her new home. She's always encouraged and supported Julian, sparred with him like he wasn't three years younger, pushed him to be the best he can be because Aurora, lovely and exceptional Aurora, has nothing but faith in Julian. She's always been there to shield him from their parents' censure, hugging him late at night well past the age he should have stopped crying and apologizing. For what? For being so good Julian, reckless, temperamental, delinquent Julian, will never live up to it?
He doesn't have to go. He's not even slated for volunteering, and it's an enormous faux pas to step in front of a 'real' Tribute in Two, but when they call his name Julian refuses to accept a replacement. Sure, he's not the highest scored in training, but only because he's always being penalized for misbehaviour.
It's not about glory and it's not about a better life for his family. No. This is for him.
Aurora bullies her way into being his Mentor, even though it's a bit unorthodox, and she never, not once, chastises him for not giving way to the chosen volunteer. Instead, she tells him she knows he'll win, and he pretends not to notice that she cries in her own cabin on the train. She only cries once. It's the way their family is. You get one day, one night, to be upset, and then you pull yourself together and move on.
She pushes him hard, harder than anyone who wasn't his sister would. She tells him that if he gets in a fight she swears he'll break his fingers, and he believes her, so he doesn't. She's a good mentor, even if she's only nineteen. Aurora is at parties in the Capitol every night trying to get him sponsors, and Julian doesn't think anything of it, except--except--
Aurora stumbles back to their quarters, one night, and Julian hovers by the door as she vomits until he can't take it anymore and kicks the door down. Aurora doesn't even look up, and Julian is horrified to see her crying. He's heard it, once or twice, but he's never seen it, and even worse--worse is that in her flimsy little dress, under the sharp light of the bathroom, he sees bruises in the shape of fingers and hands.
"Who--I'll fucking kill them, Rori, I will--" he falls to his knees, and Aurora, drunk and high on something, blurry and hurt and crying, smiles at him. Pulls him into her arms.
"It's okay. It's okay. I'll bring you home, no matter--what I have to do." Aurora rocks him, back and forth, and Julian can't find the words to say--no, no, not this, I didn't know you had to do this, not this, no. It's not worth it. I'm not.
After that night, they don't talk about it. Aurora doesn't actually remember, and after Julian put her to bed he swore he'd never bring it up unless she did. She's his big sister, and once again he's fucked up and failed her. He brought her here, he made this happen. He'll win and they will never fucking touch her again, he vows to himself, he'll find a way. So in the Arena he fights like more than his life depends on it, until it's just him and 4 and 10, and since he can hear 10 crying that's where he goes. He doesn't look forward to killing 10, but he'll make it painless. There's no glory in torturing someone like a child. Aurora would hate him, if he did anything cruel, and Julian would hate himself more.
He doesn't notice the tiny fingers at his waist until he feels the weight of his knives leave him, and he curses viciously, dragging 4 out of the water and throttling her, but 4 is quick, 4 is supple, and she slips out of his hands and pushes him under every time he manages to get a hold of her. He does his best, but she's too slippery to break her neck and he has no leverage swimming, and eventually he's oxygen starved and lost enough for 4 to keep him under.
At least they won't touch Rori again, he tells himself, knowing it's a lie. At least she won't mentor, not for years and years and--he doesn't know Aurora, screaming, has to be wrapped in Seeder's arms and soothed, but as long as she's only touched by friendly hands Julian wouldn't care anyway.
In the Rebellion Aurora, always exceptional, kills more Peacekeepers than she can count, and when she dies she smiles blindingly at her husband and makes him swear that their son will never go to the Games, no matter what happens. In interviews, he holds their child (Julian, Julian, too young to understand that his mother is gone but missing her desperately) and says she was a hero.
[second to the right, straight on 'til morning]
While Annie Cresta thinks that no one who doesn't kill wins the Hunger Games, what she doesn't know is that Colt killed in the Bloodbath. He's been swinging a hammer since he was thirteen, and before that he was wrestling calves and steers. Colt is strong and used to blood, and the only reason he doesn't look thick is because he's so tall. But every muscle on his body is sinewy, tough, and when Antonia kills Tuck with a dagger Colt takes a swing with the rock he scooped up right on the back of her smooth skull, and she dies twitching in her vomit as he sweeps Cypher up and runs.
Colt knows Tuck was sweet on Cypher, and Cypher was sweet back. Pluck cusses him out for wasting time saving Cypher, but Colt would've saved Tuck too, if he could. Poor little Tuck. He got between Antonia and Cypher like Niall got between Annie and Amethyst, and Colt cries softly when they have time to cry.
Colt knows Pluck wants to save him, but he knows nobody can save him. It's okay. They called Lamb's name and it's been okay since then, because what does Colt have at home, besides Lamb? He's seventeen and he'll never, ever not be retarded. Colt knows he's not going to have a family or a sweetheart, not ever, but that's okay too. He'll die in this Arena (dying is forever, forever away) and Lamb gets to grow up and be a veterinarian like he wants. Colt remembers the word because he made himself write it over and over and over, until he could write it with his eyes closed. What Lamb is going to be. His little brother is clever and amazing, smarter than Colt since he was five, and Colt is very, very proud of him.
He wants to send Cypher home, until she dies, and then he wants to send Pluck, but she dies too, and he's all by himself. Even his selkie isn't there.
So Colt stays alive. He does want to see Lamb again. He does want to go home, and if it happens--it happens. He's calm about this. They say he wasn't always retarded, he caught a fever when he was six and it boiled something out of him, but Colt doesn't remember. He only remembers since he was maybe eight, maybe, and he was little and they gave him Lamb to hold and sometimes he doesn't remember how old Lamb is but what matters is he loves Lamb, so much. He'll love Lamb the same way forever.
When Cypher was alive he cradled her in his wide arms and sang to her until she fell asleep. He sang to Annie, too, who was so sad, and so lost. He knows lullabies like the soft calls of sheep, like cows searching for their babies. Colt knows how to be gentle, even if he's been swinging a hammer since he was thirteen.
When Annie comes back to him--
Colt is seventeen and much stronger than her. A simple boy would be a better Victor than a mad girl. Colt, at least, has easy likeability, he has instant love. Colt is adorable, as in easy to adore, adored already, beautiful and sweet and instantly trusting of anything his team tells him, which includes Capitol loyalty. Annie, also, is no match for him. Colt is hungry, but Annie is starved, broken, and out of her mind. Colt could kill her in seconds.
Colt lets go of his shattered shelter and gently brings Annie into the water.
He lets her drown him, because Colt has been dead since they Reaped Lamb, and he isn't scared. Just sad. But Annie is scared, and Colt wants her to go home. He tries to hold her, before he dies, but his arms won't move. So he loves loves loves at her, instead, and hopes that's enough. He hopes Annie is happy again, someday, because she's a sweet girl, and Colt liked her the second he met her. Pretty little Annie, with seaweed in her hair, and he hopes somebody loves loves loves her too. He breathes water against her shoulder and tries to be good, like he's always tried, and dying isn't so bad after all.
Lamb treats all the rebels he can gather, after District 10 strikes back against the Capitol, and even though he's trained on animals he knows enough to save lives. He treats injured Peacekeepers, even, when no doctor will, because he's sure Colt would have wanted him to be kind. If he only could take one lesson from his brother, it'd be that. Be kind.
[i crucify myself]
Finn loves loves loves at Annie and she doesn't understand why it feels so familiar.
What does she have to prove?
She wants to live.
But she doesn't care if she does.
There is something monstrously unfair about all of this, but Annie cannot remember what it is.
(They'll be part of her forever.)
[in the garden i did no crime]
Amethyst is eighteen and glorious, today. Her birthday is only shortly before the Reaping, so she's younger than Silk by eight months, but that's unimportant. Silk is brilliant too, Amethyst can give credit where it's earned, but Amethyst is a warrior princess like a story her mother used to tell her about when etching into the lovely ceremonial armour that went to the Tributes from their District at the parade when that was a tradition for a few years. She's tall for a girl, almost as tall as Silk, rippling with sculpted muscle underneath her lovely curves. Her family purchased surgery for her flat chest and her slightly crooked nose last year, her hair is long, blonde, and expertly maintained, and she is an artist with a make-up brush.
She's an artist with any brush, but she's saving that for her talent when she wins. Amethyst plans to paint every day and have showings in District 1, in the Capitol. She will paint and they will love her art, and they will love her. District 1 isn't as rich as the other Districts think, when they see their lovely Tributes, and her family lives in a cramped little house next to the foundry, but Amethyst will ride on the love of the Capitol and carry them all away to something wonderful.
"You looked amazing on stage, sweetheart," her brother says, standing in for her father, whose has been dead since an accident in the foundry two years ago. It's her, Jasper, and their mother now, and her mother is crying--tears of pride, not mourning, because they are all perfectly confident that Amethyst will win. "Every inch a Victor."
Jasper is ten years older than her, always her greatest protector and hero, even if he lost his chance to go to the Games to a boy who lost in turn when he was eighteen. (Secretly, watching the Victor that year, a brutal, hulking girl from Two, Amethyst had been glad her whip slim and deadly fast brother hadn't gone. Selfish, maybe, but she'll make up for her cowardice at eight now.)
"Thanks, dork," she says, playfully, and he laughs and begins to gather her into an embrace--
It all happens so fast, which sounds like a line from an awful Capitol drama but is true here, where the Peacekeepers break down the door and tear Jasper away and Amethyst, honed for the Games, already like a drawn sword, reacts before she can think, breaking an arm and a nose before the barking of a Peacekeeper finally penetrates her reflexive protection.
"--is under arrest for theft of Capitol property, Tribute!"
Jasper has never stolen a thing in his life, even working with the most precious gems in his jeweller's workshop. He would never steal. There's no need, it's far too risky, and Jasper is the most honest and loyal person Amethyst has ever met. Jasper lifts his head, his face battered and bleeding, and in his eyes she can see his confusion and--no, no, this is a mistake. This must be a mistake. She tries to explain that, but her mouth won't open. She can't make a single sound.
"It's okay, gem," Jasper says, soothingly, "Go--win. We'll sort this out while you're gone. Don't worry about it."
The penalty for theft of Capitol property is execution by hanging. The punishment for traitors.
They bustle Amethyst onto the train and all she can think, over and over, is that this has to be a mistake. She thinks this until immediately off the train she is taken to the private office of President Snow himself, the man she has always admired from afar for his calm, tact, and effortless control, and he invites her kindly to take a seat. Amethyst sits down, still numb, and accepts the glass of wine he offers her.
"Your brother has been accused of a serious crime, I understand?" Amethyst nods, mutely. Snow sighs, sympathy all over his face. "What a pity. I'm sure it can be arranged to postpone his trial until after the Games, at least, so he can watch you. Would you like that, Miss Amethyst?" She nods, again, already planning to spend as much as it takes in order to save him--Amethyst doesn't know how to bribe, she's never had to, but she'll find someone who does. She'll save him.
"I hope you give an excellent performance, for his sake," Snow says, and discreetly brings a napkin to his mouth. "You have stiff competition this year. I think the District 4 Tribute, the young woman, is one to watch. It isn't precisely done, to give you advice, but you seem like an exemplary young citizen, and I'd hate to see you at a disadvantage. If you remove the girl quickly, it would be in your favour."
And your brother's.
He doesn't have to say it, because suddenly Amethyst understands, and because she is a warrior princess of her District, and she is well-trained, polished to an invincible sheen, Amethyst finds it in herself to smile sweetly at President Snow instead of screaming you could have just asked me. All he would have had to do was ask, and she would have killed the girl without question. It wouldn't matter why. It doesn't matter why. Amethyst is a good girl, she does what she's told. But now Jasper will die if she fails, somehow, and Amethyst loves him like she lets herself love nothing else.
She smiles and is sweet, lovely, shining, all through the parade and the interviews. She knows that the armour she wears in the parade was made by her mother (and Jasper, in the gems, she's his little precious gemstone and he's her adored shield, her big brother who braided her hair and made her soup whenever she was sick, who ushered her entrance into training and who has believed in her always), she knows that her dress sparkles with flecks of real diamond at the interviews, she is cloaked and protected by everything from her District. But there is nothing but hate in her heart, and since she can't kill Snow--and she never imagined hating him, hating the Capitol, but now Amethyst hates and hates and hates--she focuses her outrage on the girl she has to kill. Snow never said she had to win. Just that she had to kill Annie fucking Cresta, who is winsomely pretty, who smiles at the weakest Tributes and acts like she's better than anyone, and Amethyst forces herself to hate her too. She hates her, even though Annie is the kind of girl Amethyst has always blossomed little crushes on, the kind of girl that Amethyst wants to settle down with after the Games, and some nights Amethyst stays awake and wishes she could tell Annie that it's not personal. It's not really her. She only hates her because she has to hate someone she can reach to hurt.
"I kill her," she tells the other Tributes, dangerously flashing her perfect pale blue eyes, after she starts a fight with Annie by tormenting the District 10. The fight makes her hate plausible. It'll make for a better show, and Amethyst is determined to exceed Snow's expectations like she has exceeded every expectation anyone has had of her in her life. She'll show him how loyal, how good she can be--and after the fight, after she is punished, he allows Jasper to call her. They talk about nothing. She can hear pain in his voice, but he's alive, this is her reward for behaving. He wishes her luck. She wants to wish him the same, but only thanks him instead.
In the Arena that boy, that wretched boy, steps between Amethyst's axe and Cresta's head, and Amethyst seethes for the rest of the day. No. The rest of the Games. She insists the other Careers track Cresta with her, makes a case that the girl is the only real threat left, and when Spoke starts to argue Amethyst runs him through with her sword. She can't let them see she's desperate. Only that she's angry. They follow her up to killing the District 3 girl and the District 10 girl (not then, but shortly after--Amethyst hit veins), and then Julian rebels. Says that this is a waste of time. Amethyst stares at them all, with such hate, and stalks off on her own.
The Arena floods and that night Amethyst watches the sky and prays, although she doesn't know what prayer is, and is endlessly relieved not to see Cresta.
It's a stroke of luck to find her, pure luck, and as good of a swimmer as the girl is she's sick and insane, Amethyst can still do this--
Cresta guts her and Amethyst knows she's dead as soon as she clutches at her stomach and feels her intestines spilling out over her hands, and all she can hope for as she goes face down (they won't see her cry, no one will ever see her cry) and breathes water so at least it's on her terms, not Cresta's, is that Cresta bleeds out. That maybe it'll still count as killing her, and Jasper will survive.
Jasper is executed shortly after Amethyst's cannon fires. Having watched his baby sister, the only thing he's ever let himself love, convulse and die, it's almost a relief.
Their mother straps a bomb to her chest and calmly detonates while delivering weapons to the District's Peacekeepers, after the girl from Twelve shows everyone how to fight back. The rebels in One rally around the memory of Pyrite, mother of two children killed by the Capitol, and since none of them are around to care it's easy to say it was worth it.
[you're not a helicopter, you're not a cop-out either, honey]
Quoin knows from the second she's Reaped she's not going to make it. Fourteen, but she looks twelve, practically, skinny and underfed. She has eight siblings alive, three dead when they were babies, of course she's never had enough food. She fits right in the middle of them, and they all gather around and cry, even her bratty twin older sisters and her obnoxious little brother, because everyone else knows she won't make it either. District 6 usually only wins by luck or endurance, except for a year a rail worker cracked a lot of heads and won like a Career. Quoin doesn't have weight to lose, she's not a rail worker, and she's never been very lucky. She doesn't bother saying it's okay.
Right from the start their Mentors both seem to agree Spoke is the one to invest in. Stupid Spoke. He's sixteen and brawny, one of the boys who shovels coal, and at least he has that. Quoin isn't strong. She isn't smart, fast, or even cute. She's plain, mostly, even when the stylists truss her up in a ridiculous costume that at least tries to bring out her brown eyes. Unextraordinary. She's not going to get any sponsors. But Quoin doesn't cry, much. It's not that she isn't scared, because she is. She's scared out of her mind. But hey. What can you do?
She's mostly accepted what's going to happen. No one has any good advice for her, but she figures out on her own that the Bloodbath will probably get her if she goes in. So she goes in, taking a risk for a backpack and a slingshot--she wasn't bad at the slingshot, in training, or at least she was the least worst at it--and to her amazement she comes out the other side running, and at first she puts down the sting in her eye to blood dripping into it.
It's only after the adrenaline wears off and she really starts to hurt, coming out of shock, that she realizes her eye is gone, punctured by the random swipe of a panicked boy's knife. She lets herself mourn for a second, but then--well. She's got a backpack, with a tent, and she's got a slingshot, and even if she's not going to win she's not ready to off herself either. She figured that out in the Bloodbath. Quoin isn't that scared to die, but she doesn't want to run into it either. Mostly she's kind of ambivalent. She'll die, eventually, but until then--until then, Quoin camps out, hiding as best as she can. A wild eyed girl from 7 finds her, hacks a piece of her back out as Quoin struggles on the ground, on her stomach, sure that this is it--and amazingly, the Arena floods.
The 7 can't swim. Quoin can, a little, and she kicks away holding onto a tree branch that floated to the surface and watches the 7 girl drown. She wonders if that counts as a kill. She doesn't have her supplies anymore and she doesn't know how to fish. She's pretty sure the 4 girl is alive, along with a bunch of other Tributes, and Quoin knows she's going to starve even if no one kills her. She can already feel the ache of hunger in her gut. She tries eating bark, but it doesn't help. She'll starve, unless the sluggishly bleeding wound on her back she's only barely stopped up with her torn shirt gets her first. Quoin rests her head on her branch and waits to die.
When the girl from 4 shows up, it's actually not that bad, and underwater Quoin exhales even before she can't hold her breath anymore, and it's not that bad. Could have been worse. She's pretty sure she made it into the top eight, so that's something. Maybe her family is proud of her.
Quoin leaves a hole in the middle of her family nothing can fill, sarcastic and tiny Quoin who haunts them now. When the Rebellion is still barely a flicker, barely a whispered rumour, her obnoxious little brother, then sixteen, slits the throat of the Head Peacekeeper and fiercely displays him to the cameras in the Reaping square. He says, before he has to flee to District 13, this is for Quoin.
She'd be proud of him, if she was alive. Maybe she'd even forgive him for spilling juice on her favourite shirt when she was twelve.
[so don't give me respect don't give me a piece of your preciousness]
Fallow isn't ready to die.
She's sixteen. She can't die yet. Dying has never haunted her like it does a lot of the skinny kids from 9, because her mother is a warehouse manager. They've always had plenty to eat, especially since Fallow is an only child. Her parents kept trying, but Fallow was the only baby who made it to term. So Fallow grew up fat and happy, envied by all the girls and desired by all the boys at school around her age. She never thought of being fat as a bad thing until her stylist clucked at her, said well, we can hide some of the rolls, and that's how she ended up a sheaf of wheat. Fallow privately thinks her stylist is a moron.
Being fat means she at least won't starve as fast as everyone else, even the Careers. Fallow told her mom that after she got Reaped, sternly, hugging her close anyway because she hates when her mom cries.
"I'm not gonna die, mom," she said, exasperated, and her parents just kept crying. That's part of why Fallow wants to go home. That, and she sort of has a boyfriend now. He's just a wisp of a thing, Michael, the son of one of the scientists in charge of developing new wheat strains, but he's sweet and pretty, and he kissed her a week before the Reapings. Fallow is glad he wasn't Reaped too. That would have been awful.
In training, she focuses on survival skills, because despite her dad's lessons in how to fight since she didn't have any older brothers to protect her Fallow only needs to look at the Careers to know she won't be able to take them, and she feels sick thinking of hurting anybody anyway. Her plan is to just--outlast. She'll use her fat and her smarts to stay alive until the end, and if she has to Fallow will wait until everyone else is weak with hunger to kill them. Her Mentor thinks it's actually a good plan, playing to her strengths, and so in the Arena Fallow whirls on her platform and takes off into the woods as fast as she can. She's fat, but not that slow. It surprises everybody, and Fallow is even rewarded with a little silver parachute of supplies--iodine tablets, matches, an empty water bottle. She grins at the sky and says thanks, because she has manners, and there's another little parachute with an empty backpack. She must've made a good impression at the interviews when she sat up straight and answered every question like she wasn't scared, joking about her winter stores and patting her stomach. Whatever. It gets her stuff, and she survives on foraging for edible plants and staying out of the way.
When the flood comes she manages to hold onto her stuff, even though the iodine tablets dissolve when her backpack soaks. She learns her lesson about the water fast, puking it up when she tries to drink a long swallow of it when she's crazy thirsty, but if she takes little sips and mostly just uses it to rinse her mouth she can manage a few drops at a time. She lashes together a raft with strips from her backpack and hoards her last bit of clean water in her bottle, hungry and losing weight so fast she thinks she can almost see it. Her stylist will be happy, at least. Fallow is glad she grew up close to a river. On her lumpy little raft she's almost sure she can outlast everybody, like she planned. She even made the top eight. Almost nobody from 9 makes the top eight.
But when she sees the girl from Four, Annie, swimming to her with flat, empty eyes--Fallow knows already. She's a goner. She can't swim like that, not at all, and her raft is too flimsy to even move much on. She's not surprised when it breaks, but she fights, she hits just like her dad said to, but Annie has a lump of wood in her hand and hits her in the head over and over until Fallow can't see at all, dizzy and helpless, and underwater she thrashes and keeps--trying, she keeps trying, but when she can't breathe or feel her arms anymore she knows it's over.
Well. She tried.
Her mother tries to drown herself three months after the Games. She beats her fists against Fallow's father and screams my baby girl my baby, they took my baby, and after the Mockingjay her parents both burn down Capitol warehouses. They hold hands before they're executed, summarily, by gunshot.
[hold onto nothing as fast as you can; well, still, pretty good year]
Julian has always been the second choice. Second born, second trained, second to everything his amazing sister Aurora did, and the worst part is that he can't even hate Aurora. Aurora was the Victor two years ago, and she was effortlessly generous in giving them space in her new home. She's always encouraged and supported Julian, sparred with him like he wasn't three years younger, pushed him to be the best he can be because Aurora, lovely and exceptional Aurora, has nothing but faith in Julian. She's always been there to shield him from their parents' censure, hugging him late at night well past the age he should have stopped crying and apologizing. For what? For being so good Julian, reckless, temperamental, delinquent Julian, will never live up to it?
He doesn't have to go. He's not even slated for volunteering, and it's an enormous faux pas to step in front of a 'real' Tribute in Two, but when they call his name Julian refuses to accept a replacement. Sure, he's not the highest scored in training, but only because he's always being penalized for misbehaviour.
It's not about glory and it's not about a better life for his family. No. This is for him.
Aurora bullies her way into being his Mentor, even though it's a bit unorthodox, and she never, not once, chastises him for not giving way to the chosen volunteer. Instead, she tells him she knows he'll win, and he pretends not to notice that she cries in her own cabin on the train. She only cries once. It's the way their family is. You get one day, one night, to be upset, and then you pull yourself together and move on.
She pushes him hard, harder than anyone who wasn't his sister would. She tells him that if he gets in a fight she swears he'll break his fingers, and he believes her, so he doesn't. She's a good mentor, even if she's only nineteen. Aurora is at parties in the Capitol every night trying to get him sponsors, and Julian doesn't think anything of it, except--except--
Aurora stumbles back to their quarters, one night, and Julian hovers by the door as she vomits until he can't take it anymore and kicks the door down. Aurora doesn't even look up, and Julian is horrified to see her crying. He's heard it, once or twice, but he's never seen it, and even worse--worse is that in her flimsy little dress, under the sharp light of the bathroom, he sees bruises in the shape of fingers and hands.
"Who--I'll fucking kill them, Rori, I will--" he falls to his knees, and Aurora, drunk and high on something, blurry and hurt and crying, smiles at him. Pulls him into her arms.
"It's okay. It's okay. I'll bring you home, no matter--what I have to do." Aurora rocks him, back and forth, and Julian can't find the words to say--no, no, not this, I didn't know you had to do this, not this, no. It's not worth it. I'm not.
After that night, they don't talk about it. Aurora doesn't actually remember, and after Julian put her to bed he swore he'd never bring it up unless she did. She's his big sister, and once again he's fucked up and failed her. He brought her here, he made this happen. He'll win and they will never fucking touch her again, he vows to himself, he'll find a way. So in the Arena he fights like more than his life depends on it, until it's just him and 4 and 10, and since he can hear 10 crying that's where he goes. He doesn't look forward to killing 10, but he'll make it painless. There's no glory in torturing someone like a child. Aurora would hate him, if he did anything cruel, and Julian would hate himself more.
He doesn't notice the tiny fingers at his waist until he feels the weight of his knives leave him, and he curses viciously, dragging 4 out of the water and throttling her, but 4 is quick, 4 is supple, and she slips out of his hands and pushes him under every time he manages to get a hold of her. He does his best, but she's too slippery to break her neck and he has no leverage swimming, and eventually he's oxygen starved and lost enough for 4 to keep him under.
At least they won't touch Rori again, he tells himself, knowing it's a lie. At least she won't mentor, not for years and years and--he doesn't know Aurora, screaming, has to be wrapped in Seeder's arms and soothed, but as long as she's only touched by friendly hands Julian wouldn't care anyway.
In the Rebellion Aurora, always exceptional, kills more Peacekeepers than she can count, and when she dies she smiles blindingly at her husband and makes him swear that their son will never go to the Games, no matter what happens. In interviews, he holds their child (Julian, Julian, too young to understand that his mother is gone but missing her desperately) and says she was a hero.
[second to the right, straight on 'til morning]
While Annie Cresta thinks that no one who doesn't kill wins the Hunger Games, what she doesn't know is that Colt killed in the Bloodbath. He's been swinging a hammer since he was thirteen, and before that he was wrestling calves and steers. Colt is strong and used to blood, and the only reason he doesn't look thick is because he's so tall. But every muscle on his body is sinewy, tough, and when Antonia kills Tuck with a dagger Colt takes a swing with the rock he scooped up right on the back of her smooth skull, and she dies twitching in her vomit as he sweeps Cypher up and runs.
Colt knows Tuck was sweet on Cypher, and Cypher was sweet back. Pluck cusses him out for wasting time saving Cypher, but Colt would've saved Tuck too, if he could. Poor little Tuck. He got between Antonia and Cypher like Niall got between Annie and Amethyst, and Colt cries softly when they have time to cry.
Colt knows Pluck wants to save him, but he knows nobody can save him. It's okay. They called Lamb's name and it's been okay since then, because what does Colt have at home, besides Lamb? He's seventeen and he'll never, ever not be retarded. Colt knows he's not going to have a family or a sweetheart, not ever, but that's okay too. He'll die in this Arena (dying is forever, forever away) and Lamb gets to grow up and be a veterinarian like he wants. Colt remembers the word because he made himself write it over and over and over, until he could write it with his eyes closed. What Lamb is going to be. His little brother is clever and amazing, smarter than Colt since he was five, and Colt is very, very proud of him.
He wants to send Cypher home, until she dies, and then he wants to send Pluck, but she dies too, and he's all by himself. Even his selkie isn't there.
So Colt stays alive. He does want to see Lamb again. He does want to go home, and if it happens--it happens. He's calm about this. They say he wasn't always retarded, he caught a fever when he was six and it boiled something out of him, but Colt doesn't remember. He only remembers since he was maybe eight, maybe, and he was little and they gave him Lamb to hold and sometimes he doesn't remember how old Lamb is but what matters is he loves Lamb, so much. He'll love Lamb the same way forever.
When Cypher was alive he cradled her in his wide arms and sang to her until she fell asleep. He sang to Annie, too, who was so sad, and so lost. He knows lullabies like the soft calls of sheep, like cows searching for their babies. Colt knows how to be gentle, even if he's been swinging a hammer since he was thirteen.
When Annie comes back to him--
Colt is seventeen and much stronger than her. A simple boy would be a better Victor than a mad girl. Colt, at least, has easy likeability, he has instant love. Colt is adorable, as in easy to adore, adored already, beautiful and sweet and instantly trusting of anything his team tells him, which includes Capitol loyalty. Annie, also, is no match for him. Colt is hungry, but Annie is starved, broken, and out of her mind. Colt could kill her in seconds.
Colt lets go of his shattered shelter and gently brings Annie into the water.
He lets her drown him, because Colt has been dead since they Reaped Lamb, and he isn't scared. Just sad. But Annie is scared, and Colt wants her to go home. He tries to hold her, before he dies, but his arms won't move. So he loves loves loves at her, instead, and hopes that's enough. He hopes Annie is happy again, someday, because she's a sweet girl, and Colt liked her the second he met her. Pretty little Annie, with seaweed in her hair, and he hopes somebody loves loves loves her too. He breathes water against her shoulder and tries to be good, like he's always tried, and dying isn't so bad after all.
Lamb treats all the rebels he can gather, after District 10 strikes back against the Capitol, and even though he's trained on animals he knows enough to save lives. He treats injured Peacekeepers, even, when no doctor will, because he's sure Colt would have wanted him to be kind. If he only could take one lesson from his brother, it'd be that. Be kind.
[i crucify myself]
Finn loves loves loves at Annie and she doesn't understand why it feels so familiar.
What does she have to prove?
She wants to live.
But she doesn't care if she does.
There is something monstrously unfair about all of this, but Annie cannot remember what it is.
(They'll be part of her forever.)