Read the theory this is based on here.
You can find the story on AO3.
Here's my strawpage where you can find all my socials and leave messages/suggestions if you want. I usually don't reply to negative comments so don't waste your time, I just delete them. If it's a constructive critic, it's more than welcome :D
“Si vis pacem” is a work of fanfiction based on the characters and the world created by Suzanne Collins. Said characters and world are hers and not mine. This story follows Silius and Messalina Trinket, two characters mentioned on The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping and it’s based on a theory I wrote and that you can find on my social media.
Again, I'm not a fanfic author. At least not until now. This could be awfully written. BUT I needed to write it. I'm sorry for how out of character preexisting characters could be and sorry if i mess up the canon. But a at the end of the day, this is a fanfiction. HOPE YOU LIKE IT. If don't, pretend. Love you.
came back here just so i can ship hayffie in peace!!!!
anyways, here's what i imagined effie used throughout the years as she fixed haymitch's clothing and how they found their way to each other during/after the revolution. i think everyone deserves to find hapiness again :))
Meet Caesar Flickerman in the new edition of Panem Today!
I just did this earlier. I can’t believe Kieran Culkin has me excited to see Caesar Flickerman.
The interview is literally this one, but I modified it a bit to make it seem as if it was part of the hunger games universe https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/jason-schwartzman-and-kieran-culkin-geek-out-on-the-succession-extended-universe
Author note/tw: I have to warn of descriptions of concentration camp-like stuff because that's basically what their assigment is. It's just at the begginign of the chapter since i didnt feel like elavorating much of it because I felt unesay while doing so.
As always you can read it in AO3 and follow my socials that you can find on my strawpage (even though I'm gonna be inactive on twitter until i feel better).
Si vis pacem: the masterlist
Kisses to everyone.
Chapter 3
We proceeded to brainstorm then. First we needed an enemy to focus on. We chose the rebels without knowing what the future would bring to us. In thirteen things were getting ugly. Silius told me secrets about what he read in the communications with the district. They got madder everyday about the Capitol government and an uprising was almost inevitable.
District 13 had an advantage no one liked to speak about out loud. They were the ones producing the nuclear weapons and military equipment that went to Panem’s military. They had mass destruction weapons closer than anyone else, the moment they decided to stop administering them to the military and gave them to the rebels, the war would start, and they could easily win it.
On the TV they liked to pretend the rebel acts were isolated cases that happened from time to time, that it wasn’t important, nothing real was happening. Anyone with a basic knowledge in politics knew that wasn’t the case. The uprisings were getting more frequent, in more districts and more violent every day. Things were looking bad for the Capitol government and for Panem.
With the idea of punishing rebels from different districts and knowing how Sisyphus’ punishment worked we created a disciplining system for them.
For district eleven, for example, we created a system of agricultural production that never produced anything. At the start of every season, the rebels of that district would go to work, with the task of growing the best crops possible because they would be directly sent to the president, or that’s what they would think. They would plant some seeds and let them grow, taking care of them as they usually did. Their crops would look the best when given some time. And when the rebel farmer went to sleep that night, their crops would go bad and die. They will be forced to plant them again, and punished for letting the crops die, leaving the president without his provisions of hay. District four rebels would spend their days fishing in the most fish infested areas, unable to catch a fish without it going back to the water. In district three, every time they got too close to achieving something, a spark would burst and cause a blackout in the whole district for a day.
And the list went on and on for each district. Our idea was to make them believe they had an important task they needed to fulfill for the president, make them fail and then start again. The idea was to exhaust them physically and mentally.
Dr. Gaul was surprised to see Silius submitting an assignment days before the due date. Well, maybe it was just two days before, but it was something never seen for Silius. She made a comment about how maybe he should start hanging out with me more and I can swear I saw him blushing while he quietly agreed.
‘It was a pleasure to work with you’ he told me while he held the door open for me while we left Dr. Gaul’s office.
I turned around to look at him when I heard the door closing behind him and he looked shocked, as if he wasn’t expecting to be eye to eye with me right now.
‘You know, we don’t have to stop hanging out now that the project is over’ I said smiling, looking at him directly into his eyes. He nodded slowly.
‘We don’t.’ The subtle blush was on his face again. I tried to look for a hint of what it meant in his eyes. It was my turn to slowly nod now. We stayed silent for a few seconds, both unable to think of something else to say but neither of us wanting to go. He took a cigarette out of his box and offered me one, which I politely declined. ‘Right. I’m going to Bell's tonight with Cyrus. Snow and Highbottom are gonna be there, too. If you want to come, I can go pick you up around 6pm.’
‘No. I mean, yes, I want to go. But don’t come pick me up.’ He looked surprised for a second, with a questioning look in his eyes. ‘My mom will think that you and I… You know. I don’t want her to make me stop hanging out with you.’
‘Oh, sure, yes.’ Silius smiled then, with that lovely smile he always had. ‘You can tell your friend, the blonde one, what was her name? Decia?’
‘Decima. I’ll tell her to come with me.’ Truth is during those days I didn’t see Decima much, so it was a nice excuse to catch up with her.
‘Alright, then I’ll see you there at six thirty.’ He put out his cigarette and gifted me another of his smiles before leaving.
I stayed there looking at Dr. Gaul’s door, with what I’m sure was a stupid look on my face, thinking about Silius and our date. Could it be considered a date? I mean, he invited me. Yes, Crassus Snow and Decima were gonna be there too, but he wanted me to go, right? He–
‘You’re still here, miss Avarit?’ Dr. Gaul calling me by my surname unexpectedly caught me out of guard and interrupted my thoughts fast.
‘Yes. Sorry. I was…waiting for Decima to come and submit her assignment.’ Lying sounded better than admitting I was daydreaming about my assignment partner and telling Dr. Gaul that she played Cupid when she paired me with Silius for it.
‘Funny, she submitted it two days ago.’ Her sarcastic smile was big on her face when she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and made me walk with her through the corridor. ‘Messalina, don’t do anything that can compromise your future. You are brilliant, Messalina Avarit. Great things are coming for you, don’t let anything or anyone take them away from you.’
She gave me a pat on my back, hard enough for it to leave a mark. I simply nodded at her. I didn’t understand what she meant by this or why she was telling me that. She smiled again and simply left. I decided it was time for me to truly look for Decima.
Someone finally told me she was in Trajan Heavensbee’s library. Trajan kept an insane amount of books so old they even used words no longer in use. The Heavensbee family was well known for loving literature and education so, if you asked Trajan, he never said no when someone wanted to use the library in his mansion for research purposes. Or any purpose, really.
Trajan was around my mother’s age and he was also a widower. I once told my mom she should try to go on a date with her and she slapped me so hard I could still feel her hand on my face when I thought about it. I don’t think it was that bad of an idea. He had the money, he wasn’t that bad looking and had a great reputation on the Capitol. She asked me not to mention it ever again, so I never did.
He didn’t live far from the university. The Heavensbee mansion wasn’t easy to miss since it took up a whole block and was made of a white marble that reflected the sun so bad it was difficult to look at it much. When I got to the entrance, two men in violet uniforms opened the doors for me and one of them took me to the library in complete silence. I usually only came to the library when the day was sunny and a lot of natural light entered through the balcony that ran around it, because when it was lit up only by the candles that were placed around the library it became obscure and scary.
I found Decima through the labyrinth of books in the economy section of the library. I knew where to find her because she wanted to work in Panem’s bank when she graduated, so she was always reading about money management and economists theories, even in her free time. She heard me arrive because she looked up from her book and her face lit up when she saw it was me. We hugged in silence, not wanting to disturb any other students that could be around. Trajan could be quite strict when it came to the level of noise one could make in his library, so we went to the balcony to chat, not before getting a drink at the bar’s refrigerator. With an iced tea in hand we sat down in one of the benches outside.
‘I missed you so much, you were so focused on Gaul’s assignment…’ She said resting her head on my shoulder.
I threw my arm around her to hug her as tight as I could. ‘I missed you too, that's why I have an offer to you.’ I looked at her waiting for her reaction. Sure enough, she reacted as I expected, getting up from my shoulder and looking at me with the same excitement a dog looks at you when you tell them you’re going to the park.
‘I’m listening.’
‘Would you come tonight with me to Bell’s nightclub? Silius and Cyrus…what?’ I stopped talking the second I saw her face go from excitement to a “I know what’s going on” smile.
‘You like Silius don’t you?’ She said playfully.
‘Well of course I do!’ We both started laughing when I confessed. ‘What do you say? You want to come?’
‘Sure. Highbottom is going to be there too, right?’ She had hooked up once with him and now she took any opportunity she had to repeat. I simply nodded. ‘Perfect then.’
‘We’re meeting them there at six thirty.’
So six thirty it was. It was a pain to convince my mom to let me go out. I had to come up with hundreds of excuses: that Decima was going to go too, that it was a way of celebrating that the course was coming to an end, that I’ll be at home by eleven, then I had to say by ten… I ended up going.
Decima and I were met inside the club by Cyrus and Pluribus, who were after the bar counter, serving some drinks. We ordered a drink each and sat at a round table waiting for Silius, Crassus and Casca. Soon enough, the three of them were ordering drinks at the bar too, and then sat with us. Highbottom sat next to Decima, as expected, Silius next to me and Snow ended up looking as if he was in the middle of everyone.
‘So Trinket, when are you going to submit the assignment?’ Highbottom asked, looking at Snow with a knowing smile. They were both thinking Silius would still be working on it and was going to submit it late, as he always did.
‘Oh, we already submitted it this morning, right?’ He said as casually as he could, lighting up a cigarette while looking at me for an answer. I swear I could see how Snow choked a bit with his drink when he heard that.
‘Yes, earlier today.’ I played with the straw in my drink, looking at Highbottom and Snow waiting for their reactions.
‘You’re stupid.’ Said Snow hitting Highbottom in the arm. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or if he was being playful with his friend. ‘I told you we had to get to it. Even Trinket here submitted it. Do you know how bad it’s going to make us look if we show up tomorrow with nothing?’
Highbottom wasn’t looking at him, he was looking at Silius. He seemed to be trying to tell Silius something telepathically, and Silius seemed to understand.
‘Let’s get to work then.’ He took his drink in hand. ‘Excuse us.’ He got up from his chair and started walking towards another table.
Snow looked at us with an incredulous face, but he soon enough followed Casca, not without letting us know with a big sigh how angry he was.
Decima looked devastated that Highbottom left, but her discomfort and the awkward moment ended soon enough when a band appeared on stage and started playing on stage. Bell was playing the guitar on stage, Cyrus behind the bar serving drinks. People started to get up to dance to their music. Silius looked at me, got up and offered me a hand. I looked at Decima, as if asking for permission, because I felt bad leaving her alone at the table. She let me know with a simple look that it was fine, so I took Silius hand and started dancing together.
We danced for hours, had a few drinks together. Silius even danced with Decima for a bit until she found someone to dance with. Not many words were exchanged while we were dancing, no words were needed really, we were communicating everything with our eyes and bodies. What started as playful dance, ended up with our bodies pressed together, with his hands travelling all the way through my back and mines playing with his hair. Our noses pressed against each other and our breaths were so close we couldn’t tell whose was whose.
It felt like a dream. But as every dream does, this ended abruptly. Suddenly Silius was moving away from me. I started to think about all of the things I could’ve done wrong until I saw him bending back to approach Pluribus Bell, who was telling him something in his ear and pointing at something. Or rather, someone. I followed the direction of Bell’s finger to see where he was pointing at: Snow and Highbottom clearly drunk talking loudly. They looked like they were having fun, though. Both Bell and Silius excused me and went towards them, but I followed them.
‘Oh Trinket!’ Snow said when he saw us arrive. ‘We have the best assignment ever! I can already see the A+ on it.’ The smell of alcohol on his breath was so bad I could smell it from where I was.
‘The Hunger Games!’ Said Highbottom in a theatrical voice, gesturing as a TV show presenter. They both started laughing. They were so drunk they couldn’t even sit straight on their chairs.
‘The Hung– come on, we’re going home.’ Silius started to organize the paper sheets that were on the table. Snow put a hand on them first and laughed.
‘Hey! Don’t steal my friend’s idea here! He’s a mastermind!’ Snow said laughing. Highbottom laughed too but he suddenly stopped, as if he sobered up in that exact moment. Decima arrived then.
‘Crassus we can not submit this. This is a horrible idea.’ He said, suddenly terrified by it. Snow organized the papers and took them under his arm.
‘Nah, we’re going to fail. We have nothing.’ Snow pretended to be sad for a second there, he then got up as he could. ‘Let’s go home, maybe tomorrow we can meet early to write something.’
Highbottom got up too and we all left the bar. We took Snow and Highbottom home, then Decima too. Silius and I were walking in complete silence, listening to the noises of the Capitol night.
‘I’m sorry our night ended so abruptly’. He said as he took my hand tentatively with his. I stopped walking then. He turned around confused, and he met his confused look with my playful eyes.
‘It might have just started.’ I said, winking at him. It was all he needed to pull my body to his, move his free hand to my cheek and lean forward to kiss me slowly.
This is more of a filler chapter than anything else, just wanted to introduce some characters and talk a bit about their background. Enjoy it! As always you can read it in AO3 and follow my socials that you can find on my strawpage.
Si vis pacem: the masterlist
Kisses to everyone.
Chapter 2
I had to go back to his house a few days that week. When we started working on the assignment something always happened that made us talk about other things for hours.
‘They don’t pay well, I have to admit.’ Silius said while lighting his cigarette. ‘But I want to work there in the future, when I graduate.’
‘Is Ravinstill a good boss?’
Silius was telling me how he had an internship in the Government, and he was working hand to hand with the president. President Ravinstill had been president for a few years now. He was in his thirties but his hair has been gray since I first saw a picture of him on TV. He was known for being serious, a cold man whose face no one could read.
‘Yes.’ He let the smoke of his cigarette fill the room while he looked like he had something else to say. So I waited for him to continue. ‘He’s not the kind of boss to congratulate you or give you a rise when you do a good job. But he’s not a bad boss.’
That day we talked more about Ravinstill and his latest policies than the policy we had to write down ourselves. How he was managing the recent rebel movements in districts like thirteen was an interesting topic. Silius told me how his work consisted of reading the communications sent by the districts and writing a summary to then send it to the President so he didn’t have to read it all. I jokingly suggested he could lie about what they said on it, but he didn’t like that joke.
A few days later I told him about my family. ‘I live right next to the university, it’s a ten minute walk.’ I explained. ‘We live in an attic. The top floor of it has a terrace and my room is next to it. I used to share it with my sister until she graduated and moved to her husband's house.’
‘I used to live with my sister, Ceres, but she’s still with our parents in our family house. It’s a big one, bigger than this one. But I obtained this after our grandparents died.’ He told me while he pretended to read through a text book looking for inspiration for the assignment.
I knew the Trinkets, mostly from TV and the newspaper. His father, Denarius Trinket, was the owner of Panem Today, the most reliable source of news in Panem, according to their own slogan. His mom, Maytree Trinket, was one of the most known faces in the country. She started modeling at a young age, and was in every kind of advertisement you could imagine. From modeling the newest trend in clothing for women in the Capitol to political advertisements, her face was everywhere. Both of them eventually met at a party held by his father, Silius told me, and love was unavoidable.
Another day, while we baked some cinnamon bread, I told him about my mom’s plan to get me a husband. ‘She has suggested at least a thousand candidates.’ I said while I mixed the ingredients in a bowl.
‘Look at the bright part, you’ll have a great husband one day.’
‘I know I’m known for hooking up with many people and not having serious relationships, but I do believe in love.’ I told him giving him the kind of look that could kill. ‘When I marry, I want to marry for love. Not status.’
Silius nodded with a smile on his face, as if he was satisfied with my answer. Hiding my smile around him had become impossible. Every day that passed his smile was more irresistible. I was starting to love the way his hair fell on his forehead when he was reading. The way the smoke of his cigarette left his mouth when he laughed with one of my jokes. How his hands kneaded the dough when he baked something. And I kept asking myself if he was liking something about myself too. Did he notice my hair is more red today because I dyed it yesterday? Did he like how I held the pen or how I sat on the chair with my legs crossed on it?
He wasn’t like the candidates my mom talked about, the ones she wanted to marry me. He was the kind of man you married for love.
‘I hang out with the boys at Bell's nightclub almost every night.’ He began to explain.
‘The boys as in…’
‘Pluribus Bell and his partner, Cyrus. Snow and Highbottom join us sometimes. They go more on their own, and I don’t really enjoy their company.’ Silius was writing some brainstorming down on a paper. By this point, the assignment was due in a week and we had nothing. It seemed like at this pace, we would really end up doing the project the day before we had to submit it.
‘You don’t like Snow’s company?’ He shook his head. No. ‘I would’ve thought the two best brains in class would be friends. You could be unstoppable if you worked together.’
‘That’s the thing. He has refused to work with me a few times. Crassus is more…practical. I'm more of a theoretical guy, according to him.’
I pretended to understand what he was referring to. I tried to think about the version of Crassus I knew. Platinum blonde hair, tall guy, with eyes so blue that were almost transparent. A great kisser, too, if I’m completely honest. Not that I was going to share that with Silius, obviously.
‘He failed an exam for the first time recently.’ Silius continued explaining.
‘Did he?’
‘Yes. Dr. Gaul’s last exam. I think he might be dropping his grade on that subject. He’s been more occupied drinking and having wild nights out these days than studying. Let’s see what he submits for this one. Knowing he’s paired with Highbottom, they’re fucked up.’ He added a scoff at the end of the sentence.
‘Let’s take advantage of that. We’re going to submit the best assignment.’
I lit up a cigarette for myself. I never was a smoker myself, it wasn’t lady like my mother would say. But around Silius that didn’t matter, he didn’t care. We shared cigarettes while working and then I would shower myself in cologne that I started to take with me every time I came to his house after my mom asked me why I smelled like that one day after I arrived home.
My dad, Marcus, used to smoke cigars when I was young. His office smelled so bad my older sister Claudia and I didn’t even get close to it. He used to work at the Capitol city hall, since his father, my grandad, was the mayor of the city for a few terms. He started working for him, then stayed there out of habit. He died young, five years before I met Silius. When he died, my mom, Domitia, was left in charge of me and my older sister, our house and money. She never took good care of it.
By the time I met Silius my family had less money than probably we ever had. Sure we still had enough to pay for my sister’s education and mine, but we truly couldn’t keep living the life we pretended to have. My mom grew obsessed with the idea of us being back to the status we used to have when my dad was around. She attended the same parties she used to go to with him, bought the same dresses she would’ve bought with his money and lived in the same house we always had. That’s why she wanted me to marry some of her candidates. She wanted to regain a status that we no longer had.
Claudia married her Academy sweetheart, Lucius, a philosophy student who became a kindergarten teacher, just like her. They lived simple lives in the suburbs of the Capitol, worked with children and never got any of their own. My father loved Lucius so much he used to call him son. My mom liked him too, when my dad was around. But I know deep down she always regretted not preventing the wedding from happening. She could have two daughters married to important people instead of just one, or none.
‘Have you ever read this?’ Silius handed me a book. It was old, the pages yellowish from being on a shelf for a long period of time. I took it and gave it a look. “The Myth of Sisyphus” you could read on the front page. It had a drawing of a man carrying a big stone up a hill.
‘I haven’t read this one in particular, but I know the myth.’ Sisyphus, once a king, was punished in the underworld when he died. He betrayed Zeus, so the gods forced him to roll the rock up a hill, but when he got to the top, or as near it as he could, it went down the hill again. He then had to go up again, repeating this for eternity.
‘What if…We took that idea. An action repeating itself for eternity as a form of punishment.’ Silius took a chair and moved it next to me to sit on it. He looked excited, as if the idea was the best thing that has ever crossed his mind. He took a paper and a pen and he wrote something down. When he had it he turned to look at me with that smile that was becoming irresistible day by day.
‘Look, things with District 13 are getting worse day by day. And I had a lot of time to think about this at work. What would the Capitol do to the rebels if they lost?’
I took a few seconds to reply. ‘Something violent.’ I suggested, taking a grape from a bowl in the middle of the table and playing with it with my fingers.
‘Sure. But violence manifests in many ways. Our classmates are going to take the easy route: physical violence. At least, most of them. But that’s predictable. It’s easy to execute your enemies.’ He took the grape from my hands and put it in his mouth. ‘Psychological violence. That’s something they won’t think about.’
I took in what he was saying while I wrote it down. ‘Let’s play Zeus, then. How do we punish our Sisyphus?’
That’s how our assignment, “Sisyphus’ Labour”, was born.
Tags: no special tags added to this chapter, general tags from the fic.
Author's note: I heavilly recommend reading this on ao3 because I could forget to post here.
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Part 1. Para bellum.
Chapter 1.
‘Red is so my color.’ That was the only thought I had in mind while looking at the mirror the day my life changed. It wasn’t even red, it was what we call Academy rouge. We didn’t have to wear a uniform to class in University, but I loved how the Academy skirt suited me, how my figure looked perfect while wearing it. So I kept it and wore it the days I felt good with myself. I matched my make up with it too and the colors and the nice weather outside made my eyes spark.
The walk from my house to the university was one of my favorite parts of the day. On mondays and fridays I stopped at a bakery to get something sweet and a coffee. ‘A little treat to start and end the week right’, I told myself as I bought it. I used to go alone all the way to class, it used to take me ten minutes to get there the days I didn’t stop for my treat.
That was, of course, until I met Silius. I was doing a degree in communications, but I also took advanced classes in military strategy and other subjects related to politics because I wanted to specialize in that. I saw him there for the first time. He was always late to class, but he always was on top of every subject we shared. He never submitted the homework on time, but he always got the highest rate possible. I hated him for that, I was envious, so the first day I recognized him on the way to class I didn’t say anything. I didn’t approach him, I didn’t say hello. I walked about thirty steps behind him, praying that hopefully he wouldn’t recognize me. When he didn’t notice me at all, I got angrier at him. How could he not see me? I was wearing the color that made me look the prettiest.
With that mix of feelings I got to class and I didn’t see him again that day until he arrived at Dr. Volumnia Gaul’s class. He sat at the end of the classroom, next to some of his friends. By this point we have shared classes for almost a whole semester and I only knew he was Silius Trinket and he had “a promising future”.
Dr. Volumnia Gaul’s sing-song voice made me mad most of the time, but I have to admit it made it almost impossible for me to not pay attention to her. It was a point of the semester where final assignments and exams were being explained and people started to freak out about them.
‘Next to the door on your way out you’ll be able to see your partner for the assignment.’ She said in a tone that was way too serious for her so she just used it on special occasions. She had explained that we would have “to create a punishment for our enemies so extreme that they would never be allowed to forget how they had wronged us”, in Dr. Gaul’s words.
My friend, Decima, who was sitting next to me, said that she hoped we were paired together. I secretly hoped we didn’t. She was great as a friend, but I didn’t like the way she worked. So when we got to the door and I read someone else’s name next to hers I had to resist the urge to sigh out loud. Before I saw my name, I saw Crassus Snow’s name next to Casca Highbottom. They were best friends, but Highbottom was failing and Snow was on top of the class. He didn’t have the same luck I had.
Then I saw his name, Silius Trinket, next to mine. I turned around, looking for him, which didn't take long because there he was, right behind me, smiling. I never paid attention to his face, and that was the first time I realized he wasn’t only intelligent, but also handsome. I paid attention to how his smile created dimples on both sides of his face and made his blue eyes smaller than they were. His hair, almost black, contrasted with his eyes, making them stand out. I wondered if he dyed it as I did. He had his hair slicked back but some of his hair was peeking out of his perfect hairstyle.
‘Messalina, right?’ He said, extending his hand between our bodies. I took it and shook it. ‘Looks like we have two weeks to work together.’ I nodded while we stopped shaking our hands.
‘How are we going to do it? Do you want to leave it for the last minute?’ I asked.
He laughed, and at that moment I knew I was lost.
‘We can definitely work it during the following weeks, no need to do it the day before.’
‘You better be telling the truth.’ Dr. Volumnia Gaul said as she walked past us, patting his back and giving me a soft smile, which I reciprocated.
‘You better,’ I said, smiling, pointing at him. He smiled and nodded.
‘I am.’ He took his notebook out and wrote something on it. He then tore the sheet from it and offered it to me. ‘This is my address. If you’re free today, you can come after class. We start working on it.’
‘I will.’ I folded the paper and put it in my pocket.
Later that day, when I was back home, I told my mom I was going to a friend's house to do homework. I omitted the part where that “friend” was someone I barely knew, and not only that, he was a man. My mom didn’t like to see me with men. She also believes I’ve never dated before. If she knew the truth, she would die from a heart attack. People in university used to say I was promiscuous, another word for whore. I preferred saying I was free to do with my body what I wanted.
My mom was also obsessed with finding me a good husband. She wanted me to marry someone with the same status as we had. If not, better. She used to go to parties and asked the people she knew about his sons. No one was good enough for me. I liked it that way. I didn’t want her to make the choice for me.
I retouched my make up and hair before leaving the house. I was going to do homework, yes, but I was also going to a handsome man's house. I made sure I took the note with his address with me and gave it to the chauffeur when I took the car. I was expecting his home to be close to mine, I had seen him that same morning on the way to class, he couldn’t live far if he was getting there by foot. But I found myself surprised when I saw he lived on the outskirts of the Capitol. I took a mental note to ask him if he really went by foot to University, and if so, why?
When I finally got there, he was on his balcony having a cigarette. He smiled down at me when he saw me and disappeared inside, only to appear on his front door a minute later.
‘Messalina, come on in.’ He left some space between his body and the door for me to enter inside. I took in the smell of his house. Sweet, as if something was in the oven. Citrusy, as if he had an air freshener somewhere. Bitter, from the cigarette he was smoking.
‘You live alone?’ I said without looking at him, looking around the corridor, paying attention to the details on it.
‘Is it that obvious?’ The way he said it made me feel bad. He must have thought I was saying it looked messy or not well decorated.
‘No, not at all. It’s just that I didn’t hear anyone.’ I didn’t go far into his house because I thought it would be bad manners to do so without his permission.
I followed him into the kitchen when he told me to. There were some papers and pens on top of the kitchen table and I saw the light in the oven confirming that he was baking something. I sat down on one of the chairs and took a pen and a pencil.
‘I do not like vengeance.’ He said as he sat down. I gave him a puzzling look since I did not get at first what he meant. ‘For the assignment, I mean. If I had to punish my enemies, I would like to do it as legally as possible.’
I nodded, because I did agree. ‘But that’s not what Dr. Gaul wants.’
‘That’s not what she wants.’ He took another pen and a paper. ‘What would she do?’
‘When I was twelve, she came to my class to do a special biology class.’ I did quotation marks with my fingers when I said “special”. ‘The class consisted of showing us how she had merged dogs with birds and was trying to make a flying dog.’
‘Flying enemies. Got it.’ He pretended to write it down and I laughed.
‘No. I meant to say she has crazy ideas. I could never read her mind.’
The oven made a little sound and he got up. When he opened the oven’s door and smoke filled the room I couldn’t help but to smile. It smelled delicious, and it was the second time that day that I knew I was already lost. As soon as he served me a plate of that cake, the assignment was long forgotten and my life changed.
"If only half the stories are true..."
“Si vis pacem” is a work of fanfiction based on the characters and the world created by Suzanne Collins. Said characters and world are hers and not mine. This story follows Silius and Messalina Trinket, two characters mentioned on The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping and it’s based on a theory I wrote and that you can find on my social media (tumblr and twitter).
Again, I'm not a fanfic author. At least not until now. This could be awfully written. BUT I needed to write it. I'm sorry for how out of character preexisting characters could be and sorry if i mess up the canon. But a at the end of the day, this is a fanfiction. HOPE YOU LIKE IT. If don't, pretend. Love you.
Any suggestions and comments are welcome and appreciated. Hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Tags: Hayffie in the prologue, Minor Haymitch Abernathy/Effie Trinket, Canon-Typical Violence, Pre-Canon, I made up the Canon tho, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Theory turn fic, mature language, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags May Change, silina ? i guess that'll be the ship name
Read in AO3.
Prologue
‘It’s hard enough being a Trinket.’
I stop drinking my tea when my morning thoughts are interrupted by that statement. ‘Excuse me?’
‘You said that once. The day we met, actually.’ Haymitch spreads marmalade on some toast, not making eye contact with me while he speaks. ‘I was thinking about it. What you said about great-aunt Messalina.’
‘Well, it is. It was, at least.’
Haymitch and I met 27 years ago, not in the best circumstances. He was a tribute chosen to represent District 12, I was the big sister of an Academy student chosen to style them. How I ended up being District 12 escort for 24 years of my life is a story for another day. Haymitch and I spent weeks together during the summer, watching children die, every year for 24 years. I saw his downfall and prayed for his improvement. I’m not quite sure how we became friends. I don’t even know if the word friends is appropriate for our relationship back then. That’s something funny about us, we never know what to call each other.
He’s now looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to continue talking.
‘Do you really want me to tell you about them again?’
‘Well do you have anything else to do right now?’ He says, taking a bite of his toast. He looks out the window, pointing at it with the knife. I follow the direction of the knife; the view outside shows a summer storm that threatens to stay for the day.
Two years ago they won a war. Haymitch, Katniss, Peeta and the rest of the rebels. I was there with them, Haymitch insisted on it. He fought for it. If I’m sitting with him right now it’s because he did what was on his hand to keep me alive. Him and Plutarch. Now I come to visit quite regularly. He has never come back to the Capitol nor I ever asked him to. I'd rather come to twelve, it feels more like a home.
‘I don’t understand why you like the story so much.’ He just shrugs and takes a sip of his drink. I never ask what he’s drinking anymore, so I don’t know what he is having for breakfast, but I know he tries not to drink much alcohol when I’m around.
‘Well it’s an interesting one.’ He says with a grin on his face. I resist the urge to kiss the grin out of his face. He looks happy today. Maybe not happy, he just has a good mood that was rare years ago and now it’s more usual. I only see him like this with me and Katniss and Peeta. So I don’t kiss him. I smile at him, with a mix of sarcasm and playfulness on my face.
‘You have to know it by heart by now.’
‘I do. But you explain it better than I do in my head. And I woke up missing great-aunt Messalina.’ Somewhere between his games and the day today he started referring to my family by the family nicknames too. It warms my heart to hear him do that. I don’t know what to say when Peeta asks me what Haymitch and I are, but it is things like this that make me say “family” each time. I feel a little playful kick on my leg under the table, his way to urge me to explain the story. So I do.
Great-Aunt Messalina and Great-Uncle Silius and how they brought disgrace to the Trinket family: a thread of my theory.
I want to start this by clarifying that a) I’m not an expert on Roman history (that is going to make sense in a second) and b) this is just a theory(?) I came up with and polished with the help of @teasleuthing . This is solely based on the names this characters have: Silius and Messalina. They have to be carefully chosen and it has to mean something. I also want to clarify that this theory doesn’t involve cannibalism that people suggested they could be involved in; nor the Trinkets being rebel sympathizers (because Vitus does say that his family were and Effie dismisses that).
Let’s take a look at Silius first, as he is the one with less information and I think the main character here is Messalina. Silius gets his name from Gaius Silius, a Roman Senator described in ancient sources as intelligent, noble and attractive man. A married man and lover of Valeria Messalina. He also had a known enemy, Publius Suillius Rufus, who was interfering on his business. Gaius Silius. He managed to get a law to stop him but when he thought he had won, Publius Suillius Rufus successfully appealed to Claudius to amend the law.
Now, let’s look at Valeria Messalina. She was the third wife of emperor Claudius. She was powerful and really influential, and ancient sources describe her in a misogynistic way as promiscuous.She is known for plotting against her husband. Emperor Claudius is usually described as manipulated by her, unaware of her plotting and of her infidelity. There’s a lot of controversy surrounding her story because it truly looks like it was written from a misogynistic point of view and with the urge to make her disappear in history. She was calculated, she knew how to move her pieces to win power. She knew her influence and used it to get to the top.
And now, their relationship. As I said they were lovers, but they do end up getting married. Silius divorces his wife but Masselina is still married when they do it. They do this behind emperor Claudius’ back and when he learns this, he ordered their execution. The motive of their marriage is unknown, but all the clues imply that it was because they wanted to overthrow Claudius and make Silius the emperor. Masselina was given the option to take her own life, but she didn’t, and they end up killing her. Something interesting and I want you to keep this in mind now is that when they executed her, they ordered a damnatio memoriae, which meant to erase all the evidence of her existence from public and private places.
After this history class, back to the Hunger Games. In my theory, Masselina’s husband is President Maximinius Ravinstill, president of Panem during the Dark Days and after that. Silius enemy then could be Crassus Xanthos Snow, Coriolanus’ father and a military general during the DD. Great-Uncle Silius and Great-Aunt Messalina plotted against Ravinstill. Could be because they didn’t agree with how he was handling the war; could be after because they didn’t agree on the decision on creating the Hunger Games. If I had to choose I would incline to the later. Maybe Silius didn’t like that Snow’s project for the punishment to their enemies was the one that was most successful and then tried to get to the top to change it for his. As Galius Silius had a good policy, but the Emperor ended up picking Publius Suillius Rufus one. On Masselina’s behalf her motives are a mystery for me as they were for ancient sources. But what is important here is the punishment she received: damnatio memoriae, being erased.
Effie Trinket mentions that it’s hard being a Trinket and I think it could be related to that. It is “hard to be a Trinket” because they don’t let them get a name, grow, they don’t let them triumph. Their reputation is ruined forever because of what they did. Great-Aunt Messalina feels like she owes Effie and Proserpina for the shame and disgrace she brought to the family. She is to blame, as Valeria Messalina was for the ancient historians. I think in this case Silius is the one to be executed, while Messalina has to live with the consequences of being “a Trinket”.
About the blood found on Great-Uncle Silius clothes by Haymitch, it could be Silius own blood from his execution, or blood from an attempt to fight President Ravenstill. And I also think that it’s kinda symbolic to think that if this is true, haymitch wore the clothes of a man who, on his own way, defied the President and Snow once.
As I said I’m not an expert and I feel this is very vaguely explained, so feel free to add, correct and clarify anything you want. I might write a fic based on this just because i feel i can explain it better if i write the whole thing down. But I hope you like my interpretation.
