this whole mentor life never got easier for him. dawson had offered some advice, given his tributes his two cents about how the games were only based off of popularity & luck, which was something he found out the hard way during his. district five often provided underdogs, tributes that were constantly overlooked during the games. besides, he’d already seen what most of the careers & other tributes had to offer. you were supposed to believe in your own district, but his hopes weren’t as high as they were meant to be.
that, of course, didn’t seem like the case since he’d been walking around with a smile plastered on his face for the capitol. it might have been the alcohol in his system, but dawson was just happy he could have a second to himself once the parade had actually started. his name is called as he’s wandering absently & his head turns to flash at smile at the blonde before taking a couple steps towards her. “ hey ! ”
her question causes brows to furrow, attention shifting towards the chariots moving away from them before a shrug lifts his shoulders. “ i dunno. five’s always a shit show when i’m around. ” his brain was fuzzy, unable to comprehend if she meant something more sinister was happening within three, but dawson didn’t dwell on it long. “ you look stressed. ”
“Fair enough,” Soleil shrugged and took another sip from her mimosa. “Guess it feels just... so much worse this year for us. Wiress and Beetee’s daughter was reaped, so the suite isn’t, uh... super fun right now. Probably why I look stressed.”
Not that it ever was super fun, of course. But the weird tension that hung in the air among the victors from Three now was palpable. Wiress and Beetee had already lost a son in the Games several years prior, and Soleil had felt like she’d failed them then. Now it seemed like the same situation all over again, but the stakes were higher. They didn’t have any other children.
“How are your tributes looking this year?” she asked, reaching to scratch the back of her head, where just an ounce of that pesky headache still sat and poked at her sanity. “I talked to Rory earlier, but she didn’t mention anything about them.”
Her friend’s enthusiasm about plants made Rory laugh a little, holding up one hand as if in surrender. “I have a couple of them, but I’m not as enthusiastic about them. And gardening outdoors is unpredictable, weather-wise. I didn’t even know there were thirty types of houseplants, so I’m gonna need your guidance.” Enthusiasm was something Rory clung to, and she was happy to see Soleil do the same. She was excited about everything, even the things Rory knew were too dangerous. But squealing about plants probably gave Soleil a break from the situation she was dealing with, with Flicker being Reaped.
“It really is,” she assured her, smiling at her excitement over her nephew. “Ames is the best, I hope I’m a good aunt to him. He knows now that I go to the Capitol every summer and bring him back treats, but he doesn’t understand the whole Games and Victor thing yet, thankfully. That’ll be a conversation that Bell gets to deal with, not me.” She shook her head a little. Good luck, Bellamy. “But he’s learning to read so quickly, he’s really smart. Brains run in the family,” she added with a cheeky wink before taking a sip of her cold brew. “I don’t know if I want kids of my own, but he makes Bell and Waves so happy. He makes all of us happy.”
“Oh my goodness, Rory, ship those plants to me before you become a full-blown serial killer, or find a gardener to take care of them or something!” she lightly pushed on her friend’s shoulder and laughed. “I know you could afford one, we have the same income. I’ll get you a book or something to get you started. But I also know for certain that District Five is sunnier than Three, so maybe you just didn’t grow up longing for sun and vegetation like I did.”
That was the best part of returning to the Capitol, if Soleil was being honest with herself. She didn’t look forward to much, certainly not the nightly callers or the heartbreak of losing tributes each year, but it definitely was sunnier here. And she’d gotten the go-ahead to set up a rooftop garden. Maybe she could recruit Rory to assist in it.
“That’s amazing,” she smiled at the photo of the kid. “Since I’m the oldest I’m not going to be getting any nieces or nephews any time soon, but I have cousins who are getting married next year so we’ll see if I get to hold a baby soon. Heaven knows it’s not happening with me any time in the near future.”
Hemingway stared at her a moment trying to decide if she was making up excuse or had vaild reasons for not showing up. Not that he would blame her if she didn’t want to because getting caught could bring serious consequences. Hemingway would give her small tasks at first anyhow to see if she would be good for what he needed to do. His goal for this Games was to get some food trickling in the Districts but that was going to be extremely hard. He didn’t want tesserae to be so expensive on the black market no one could afford it.
“Hey, say you had to much to drink.” Her was sure Capitol men did not want to watch a Victor get sick. “If not,” he thought about it a moment. “I meet people almost every night of the week. No big deal.”
He reached for something purposely across from Soleil so he could look like he was interested in food more than he was interested in a whispered conversation. “Something needs to be done to help our Districts.”
-
“They don’t care if I’ve had too much to drink, trust me,” Soleil raised her eyebrows. She couldn’t verbalize just how disgusting some of the men here were, and how little they cared about whether or not she could truly consent to any of the acts they asked of her. Then again, if consent was in the picture at all, she might not even be talking to Hemingway right now. “But, now that you mention it, I do kind of feel a bit of stomach flu coming on. You know it’s not very sanitary back in the Districts, after all.”
She turned and scanned the table, her eyes catching a particular plate of cookies that sat to the side.
“Are these white chocolate macadamia?” she asked, piling a few on her plate. Her mild food allergies were hardly something she ever had to look out for; it wasn’t often that tree nuts were found in foods she liked, anyway. But when she did ingest an almond or a walnut or a macadamia on occasion, it would often trigger severe stomach cramps within a couple of hours that would then recede after about an hour of sickness. Not unlike the symptoms of the stomach flu.
It was a stressful day. Between the conversation with Hemingway, shuffling her tributes from suite to remake center to parade area, and trying to manage her own emotions with her fellow victors who were dealing with more than she could imagine in the reaping of their daughter, Soleil had been nursing a headache for several hours that had, luckily, been abated with a couple of pills handed to her by her escort an hour ago.
So, as the chariots began to roll away from the victors and escorts and stylists, Soleil reached for the Avox holding mimosas. Taking a long sip, she drew a deep breath and closed her eyes for several moments, relishing in the temporary moment of peace before she opened them once again. This time, she came to see a familiar face.
“Dawson,” she smiled politely, taking a couple of steps closer to him. “Should’ve known I’d run into you here.”
Soleil pulled a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. “How is everything? District Five has to be a little bit less of a shit show right now than District Three, right?”
The Reaping was always a weird day for Soleil. She was required to be at the square bright and early before most of the rest of the district, prepped and looking nice for the cameras. And she did so, wearing a light sundress with her hair delicately curled and nude heels strapped onto her feet. If anything, it was an excuse to get dressed up in this drab district she called home.
It also served as the most bizarre trigger she could imagine. Every year when she watched the District Three escort saunter between the bowls, pick names out, read them aloud, Soleil was instantly transported back to the year she was seventeen years old. Back then, she’d worn a shabby muslin sheath dress, passed down from an older cousin who had bullied her for years about how scrawny she was. Her bony knees had knocked together as her name was called, and she emerged from the crowd on the verge of tears with her hair limp and drab, her skin pale and lifeless. Her district partner could not have been older than thirteen or fourteen, and though his coloring was darker there had still existed that pervasive paleness and ashiness to his complexion that seemed to infect everyone in the factory district.
Today was entirely different. Soleil was eight years older, her figure had filled out (though she was still too skinny for her family’s standards), her skin had gained color, her hair was now shiny and bouncy. She sat now with the historic lineup of victors from District Three. And there was truly no way that she was “supposed” to be feeling right now.
Perhaps she could have followed the example of Haymitch from Twelve. The year he’d gotten so drunk he’d plummeted off the stage was something Soleil liked to remember fondly; maybe if she got drunk enough one of these years then she could sit through the Reaping without that awful nausea curling around her internal organs. In the Capitol they regularly drank mimosas and Bloody Marys before lunch time, anyway.
But alas, this year she was seated up at the front of the district in a dead soberness, nursing a headache from the lack of sleep from the night before.
The mayor was a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper black hair that reached the middle of her back, and who wore a crisp blue collared dress. Her own two children were up for reaping, Soleil understood, and that showed in her own physicality: the dark circles under her eyes, the worry lines dug across her face, the constant anxious itching. The other two on stage beside the escort were Beetee and Wiress, who sat no differently than they had been since Soleil was a child.
For Beetee Latier, it seemed like the stress had eaten itself away to the point where he sat next to her incredibly stoically, not ever responding to the kids who were chosen each year. Wiress would mutter to herself, self-soothe by twiddling with her hair or thumbs, and sometimes hold Soleil and Beetee’s hands for comfort. Their son had been lost in the Games several years ago, and the day felt like a grim anniversary for them. Soleil would sit politely, though each year it felt more and more awkward.
She was, after all, responsible for bringing these kids home. And so far, every single year, she’d failed.
So when the square filled with children once again, as it always did, Soleil held her head low. There also held that additional stressor of her remaining siblings within the proper age brackets. With the elimination of tesserae this year, their odds of being reaped were once again just as good as everyone’s around them. There was no special consideration for the siblings of a victor. Nothing to differentiate the accomplishment their older sister had achieved from those who desperately needed those additional raffle tickets in exchange for grain and oil.
Soleil had learned several years ago that it was best not to search for their faces in the crowd. It was reassuring that her brothers, Cosmo and Tellus, had now reached their twenties and were no longer in the line of fire from the Capitol, but with Luna and Stella at ages fifteen and eighteen it still very much weighed on her conscience. She could do nothing to protect them, much as she had hardly done anything for the tributes of the past eight years.
That enduring guilt continued as the teenagers of the District finished filing in and the escort took the stage. It was the same drivel every year about how excited they should all be about the opportunity to get to go to the Capitol, how lucky they were to have this chance.
Soleil had to keep herself from rolling her eyes, remembering that she was on camera. She had heard whispers of what might happen when she returned to the Capitol this year, how she might want to talk to Hemingway from Eight about really getting involved in changing all this. And that was was kept her hanging on as they played that same, tired video about war, terrible war, and the districts paying penance for their treachery.
It was bullshit. Everyone knew that, and nobody could say it. Because nobody was safe from the Capitol. Especially not this year.
And when the first name was pulled from the Reaping bowl, when she heard a name that was familiar to her, that became all the more clear.
Soleil felt another onslaught of guilt when she realized she had been relieved at the absence of Luna and Stella from the lips of the District Three escort. Her own family was safe. Stella had now aged out of the Games. The Maguires were now nearly in the clear.
Hemingway pondered this admission for a moment because he could always use an extra pair of hands peddling information or gathering it. It had been a long time since he had someone reliable in District Three. It was easier to get people to volunteer in Districts like Eleven where they had nothing to lose but District Three was a middle ground.
“Yeah, in an instant?” He asked with a raised eyebrow wondering again if he could trust this Victor. Perhaps he needed a little test for her to see how she would work and how much she could keep a secret. “What are you doing tonight then? You know after most sensible people have gone to bed?”
-
Soleil bit her lip, thinking through her schedule. She had to bring her tributes back to the suite, talk through logistics with Wiress and Beetee, attend a dinner with one of her Capitol regulars. But there was, so far, nothing scheduled for her late tonight (though that could change on a dime depending on how certain men might be feeling tonight).
“Nothing at the moment, but...” She took another bite from her sandwich and scratched the top of her head. “Depending on the whims of certain men in the Capitol, I might be, um... busy. They like to change their minds, and I don’t exactly...”
Soleil took a sip from her iced latte. “Let’s just say I’m required to be at their whims. But... I’m in.”
“So do I,” Rory agreed. “Like, if I had the gardening skills, I’d try growing vegetables or starting a community garden or something. But I can barely keep the plants in my house alive, so I doubt I could manage a whole garden. I feel like, in the outer Districts, you know, it’s gotta be so much worse. You know it’s bad when kids from outlying Districts are volunteering.” She shrugged. “I’m glad that it’s not that different here. I was really scared of that.”
Rory’s brow furrowed at the idea that working in a factory was something Soleil’s family thought would improve her mental health. It seemed the opposite. “No kidding, I’m with you on that. I think being true to yourself is important when it comes to that, and you’ve done a good job of it,” she added with a smile. “I’m okay- same old, really. My family’s good and I’ve been painting a lot. Not to say I have a career in it or anything, but it’s fun. Ooh, and wait, look: Ames just turned three. He’s growing up so fast.” Rory opened her phone to show a photo of her smiling nephew on the screen. “He asked me to bring home fancy cookies again this year- he remembers a lot more now.”
-
Soleil nearly had to hold in a gasp.
“Rory, you have to let me teach you how to garden. It’s vital for your plants. And trust me, you’re going to get very addicted to growing things once you figure it out, and once you start breathing in all that nice, fresh oxygen from your thirty houseplants that I’ve bought you, you are going to be feeling so good, you don’t understand,” Soleil grabbed Rory’s wrist, feeling more like a salesperson than a friend trying to help out with her plants. “I’m sorry, I’ll shut up but you had to have known you’d hit a chord with me and plants.”
Soleil smiled and leaned back, letting go of Rory’s wrist and taking a long sip of iced coffee. “I’m glad you’re doing okay. I feel like that’s kind of all anyone can hope for right now. Do you-”
She gasped again, this time for real as Rory pulled up the photo of her nephew.
“Oh my goodness,” Without thinking Soleil moved her hand to her abdomen. Of course, due to her situation with her required patrons she had been given a Capitol-mandated birth control implant, so that kind of thing would not be happening in her near future. But-
“Wow, he’s so precious,” she breathed. “I’ll bet you’re just the best aunt.”
Hemingway reached for a tiny little pastry in an attempt to seem nonchalant to anyone that might be watching their interaction. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for him to be talking to someone from District Three. It wasn’t like Soleil was from One or Two. “Can’t say much is different in District Eight, but ya can’t tell from looking at me.”
The weather however was tricker in District Eight. “It’s like there is always a storm on the horizon but people tell me it’s just the smog.” The factories polluted the air but no one seemed to care. The joke was you wouldn’t be able to see the sky even if it was a clear and sunny day, but they weren’t talking about the weather, were they?
“Do you see sunnier days ahead for District Three?”
-
If they’d actually been talking about the weather, Soleil would have ripped into a miniature rant about how much she hated the overcast and how it never seemed to go away and that all she ever wanted was a week of sunlight to walk through and bask in. The greenhouses she’d established in Three were nice and helpful but the greenery in the district would be blooming if only there was the sunlight.
“I hope so,” she answered instead, grabbing an iced latte from a nearby platter and taking a long sip from it. “I like to say that if there was anything I could do to help the clouds move along, I’d volunteer in an instant.”
Soleil raised an eyebrow, hoping that Hemingway understood where she was coming from. Rebellion was not something to speak aloud in a snakepit such as where they stood, but there were rumors among some of the victors about what Hemingway was working toward. And she wanted in.
Hemingway reached for another sandwich as he awaited the cue to be ushered to view the parade. By now the tributes were dressed up and loaded on their chariots and the Victors had been ushered out to watch with the sponsors and citizens. He didn’t know what but he hated this part of the games nearly as much as everyone dying.
“How’s the weather in District Three?” He asked his fellow blonde Victor as he popped a bite of food into his mouth. Hemingway had heard she was someone that could be trusted but he had to be sure. Anyone looking on would have found his question trivial and meaningless, but he wasn’t simply asking about the weather. The weather of people’s tolerance of the Capitol was fluctuating all over Panem from what he heard.
@soleilsx
Soleil was busy stuffing a vegetable wrap into her mouth as she was approached by another victor. Hemingway Paylor was a presence among the victors, and if the whispers she’d caught from Beetee were true, he was someone that she wanted to be acquainted with. Perhaps he was feeling out that same rumor with her.
“Terrible, as always,” she answered as she swallowed down her bite. “I’m not sure how it is in Eight, but we’ve got a pretty steady overcast going most of the year. That’s why everyone from Three is so pale-looking.”
Soleil raised an eyebrow and took another bite from her wrap. There was a tinge of something else in his question to her; he certainly wasn’t only asking about the weather, and Soleil’s attention had been captured.
After the journey to the Capitol, Rory dropped her bags off in the suite and opted to treat herself to a vanilla cold brew downstairs in the lobby. Her tributes were getting settled and ushered into prep, so she had the time to relax and get her head in the game a little more. But she didn’t feel optimistic this year, and that worried her. Their tributes didn’t seem particularly driven or prepared.
She had just been passed her drink by an Avox when she spotted Soleil’s bright smile from across the room, she waved her friend over with a smile of her own. “We just got in a little bit ago- I’m just taking the time to recharge. It’s so good to see you,” she enthused, reaching to squeeze Soleil’s hand before gesturing to the empty seat across from her. “Things are good- I was so afraid of there being a weird mood here, like that everyone was going to be super competitive, but there isn’t, thankfully. Not so far. Dawson and I aren’t particularly wowed by our tributes, but there’s still time.” She sighed, hoping for the best.
“How are things with you? I hope your tributes are easy to work with. It really makes it all so much easier,” she admitted. “But also, like, outside of the Games. Like how things are for you just, you know, in general.”
-
“Yeah we got in last night,” Soleil answered, taking a seat and pulling her ponytail tighter. She turned to the Avox (with that same pang of guilt falling into her stomach every time she had to interact with the servants). “Iced caramel latte, please? With a sweetener mixed in? Thanks. Like thank you so much.”
Soleil watched the Avox leave and sighed, then turned to Rory and scratched the back of her neck.
“No, things have felt kind of the same, I think?” Soleil said. “People are definitely grumpier, since a lot of them are hungrier than they’re used to. I wish I could do something about it.”
The Avox returned with her drink and she thanked them profusely once again, then took a long sip and set the cup on the table.
“Things are fine,” Soleil nodded. “My family’s doing well, though they think I should get a job in the factories again. Said that not working is ‘hurting my mental health’, but honestly nothing could be worse for my brain than those damn factories. How about you? What’s up in your life?”
The first thing Soleil did on her first morning of the Games was take a walk outside. If the Capitol had one thing to enjoy, it was that fresh mountain air, complemented by the cool breezes that cut through the early July sun. Back home, Soleil was not a morning person. The idea of pulling herself out of bed so that she could walk through the factories and past the gray, pale faces of the citizens of District Three was not something she ever relished. But here she found herself waking up bright and early, grabbing an iced coffee on her way out of the Tribute Tower before downing it and going on a mile-long run. The District Three tributes would be sent down to the Remake Center while she was out, and she would have time to talk strategy with them when they had emerged looking up to the Capitol’s standards.
As weirdly apropos as it was for someone named Soleil, she truly loved to bask in the sun’s rays as much as she could, and on her way back to the Tower she slowed to a walk, stopping at an outdoor coffee stand to grab herself another iced coffee. Soleil sipped this down quickly as well, turning her face up towards the sun for several more precious minutes before walking back into the steely, stagnant Tribute Tower.
She dumped her empty cup in a nearby trash bin, then wandered the ground floor for a while before noticing a friendly face within the Tower’s cafe.
“Hey!” she called out, wiping off the last bit of sweat from her forehead and approaching Rory. “I was hoping I’d get to see you soon. We got in late last night. How are things?”
“Well, hopefully they won’t do that again.” Esme said out of obligation and because she suspected the Capitol was not in a hurry to repeat that experience. Katniss Everdeen had caused ripples at every turn and clearly now they wanted to get back to how things should be. Not that she was complaining because she, for one, did not want things to be chaotic and uncertain as they had been the year before. Had it been that way for the other Victors too?
Esme had to admit it seemed daunting when Soleil put it that way. Parties were fun and everyone enjoyed them, but there was moving too. Her entire family would have to be uprooted and moved somewhere new. Somewhere better, but somewhere new. Her parents and siblings would be further away and maybe it was because they wanted Victors far away from their old lives.
“I don’t know how I feel about train rides,” Esme added with a laugh. District One was only a brief train ride away from the Capitol, just on the other side of the mountains. “It’s such a short ride… I hear some of the other districts take a while to get to?” Part of Esme was now curious as to what was in other districts held after speaking with Lincoln Conway.
-
“Let’s hope not,” Soleil took another long sip of champagne then glanced into the grand ballroom before the two of them. A couple of Gamemakers were already milling about and ordering Avoxes around, with the servants tucking things away and tidying up as the first guests arrived. Soleil’s heart dropped into her stomach when she saw only the first of her many Capitol suitors: a particularly rough and large man with five o-clock shadow running down his neck. One of the first items on her agenda tonight would be getting him absolutely black-out drunk so he would forget to call for her tonight, she decided.
Esme talked about the train rides and the districts and Soleil nodded politely, remembering how much she somehow enjoyed her own victory tour. The salty sea air of Four was revitalizing and the fresh mountain breezes of Two were something she could have sat in for the rest of her life.
“They do,” she answered with a nod. “I think Twelve was the longest, if my memory serves correctly. They’re on the other side of the country, and there was an entirely different mountain range over there. Six and Eleven were pretty far, also. I’d recommend bringing something to keep yourself from getting bored.”
A soft chuckle escaped his lips, as Lincoln eyed the assortment of food on Soleil’s place. “I can see that. You’ll have to eat enough for both of us.” He countered with a light smile. “I might have some of the champagne around here instead.” It seemed a dangerous notion without much food, but the indulgence was worth it. Anything to occupy his mind helped.
Lincoln waited for a few moments until an Avox carrying a bottle of champagne passed nearby. “I’ll take that off your hands.” The young man reassured them, extending a warm nod toward the Avox as the champagne exchanged hands. Now content with his find, he turned his attention back to Soleil with a soft smile. “Some of this should help for a little while.”
His dark eyes glanced at the bottle, pondering whether or not it would be improper to drink straight from the vessel. Lincoln even parted his lips to ask Soleil’s opinion, but another question fell from his lips instead. “So, how are you enjoying the gala? Besides the obvious announcement that is probably on everyone’s mind right about now.”
-
“Trust me, my stylist practically made me starve myself for the last few days in order to fit into this dress. I’ll eat your helping plus dessert,” Soleil remarked. “Champagne is good, too. Necessary, even.”
He took the entire bottle from a nearby Avox and Soleil smiled and laughed a little, then balanced the salad bowl on top of her plate and reached for another Avox, who was holding glasses of the alcohol. He had the right idea, she decided. Soleil took a long sip from the glass and tilted her head towards the nearest table.
“Wanna sit?” she asked. “Other than... that announcement... gala’s going alright except for these awful shoes that are too small. I’m ready to pull these off and hit my stylist over the head with them.”
She’d been dancing for the last hour or so at the behest of some of her Capitol regulars, and though it wasn’t something she particularly wanted to do (truly, if she could have murdered those Capitol regulars and gotten away with it, they’d be dead in a ditch by now) it did help to get her mind off the tesserae announcement.
there was no denying the strategic wit of their victories ; indirect forms of attack seemingly a go - to while in the arena, both will kill counts that were pretty significant for their games. victors, unlike many other citizens, knew what loss felt like. they knew what fear could do & what selfish intentions the capitol held when it came to the games. his triumphs left him unscathed, but he deems it a blessing in disguise. people feared speaking with him because of the big, scary scar that stretched from his cheek to the back of his shoulder. if he saw a guy like that as one of the main sources of survival in his district, dawson was sure he’d have lost hope by then. part of him felt bad. he survived, rory survived, but he had less to offer. he was selfish in a different way, lazy even.
“ it might be a little distilled. ” warning is given, but it’s accompanied by a flash of a smile ––– a genuine one. such emotions are a rare catch when it came to dawson, but only because grief had a way of weighing down his features with an uneasy pull. he wasn’t an alcoholic, but events like these made his mentors weary of the mixture between a victor & liquor. in most cases, he’d be stumbling back to a room drunk, but he figured ten years might have been enough time to let himself spiral. sobriety is both a blessing & a curse in his life now.
a glance towards her shoes makes him laugh, possibly for one of the first times that night. between the anxiety attacks & hallucinations, dawson wasn’t even sure if this conversation was really happening. “ i don’t think anyone would really notice if you went barefoot. ” a shrug graces usually slumped shoulders. “ i’m sure this is gonna be over soon enough, though. i can’t wait to get back to a bed. this entire thing is … draining. it got old after the third year. ”
“Definitely necessary,” Soleil repeated with another smile. She drew in another gulp of the champagne, and felt an immediate relaxation fall into her shoulders, and though she knew it was helped by the alcohol, for some reason she found him to be a slightly calming presence already. Soleil had always known that allowing herself to stew in frustration on her own was never a healthy coping tactic, but it was too often that she couldn’t help it, given that she felt like a bit of a black sheep among the victors from Three.
Soleil followed his glance down towards her shoes. He was right; there was a pretty big chance nobody would notice if she took them off. But she shrugged.
“I’ll keep ‘em on for the moment, just because I think I’m a bit of a glutton for punishment,” she admitted. Soleil pulled a lock of golden hair out of her face and raised an eyebrow. “Reminds me who to be angry at when I think about how much I-”
hate it here. Soleil paused, keeping the frustration from bubbling to the surface. Gamemakers were certainly within earshot, and even if they weren’t there were more than enough Capitolites who would be eager to spread details of gossip. Did you hear about Soleil Maguire? they would say. She doesn’t like the Capitol or appreciate the good we’ve given her. Well I certainly won’t be sponsoring her tributes next year.
“You’re right, it’s draining as hell,” she redirected.
Rory raised a warning brow as Soleil started to grow more intense and heated. She had heard Soleil say a few things that made Rory want to clap a hand over her mouth, but luckily the other girl knew when to stop when they were out. “Good save,” Rory murmured with a nod. Rory was not rebellious, after what happened to her dad. It was unfair, sure, what was happening. But Rory was not willing to put her mother or her brothers at that kind of risk.
She hadn’t told Soleil about what had happened to her dad, she didn’t want to frighten the other girl or make her more rebellious, gods forbid. But she kept a steady eye on her friend. Just to make sure she didn’t end up going through that pain.
“It’s going to be so hard. I don’t want it to become hyper-competitive, but it really could go that way. With the outlying Districts, all of us knowing what’s at stake for the people there, the pressure on us is so high.” She sighed, shifting to rest her chin on her hand. Luckily, she’d calmed down enough with Lincoln to be able to get her thoughts together. “I’ll have to talk to Dawson over the next year, see if he’s got any thoughts on what our approach might be. I feel like we’ll be seeing a lot of tributes coming in with that goal in mind, moreso than just to survive. They have their whole Districts on their shoulders now.”
-
Soleil gave Rory a knowing smile, then reached forward for another sip of champagne. She’d hinted her turn towards rebellion a couple of times in the past few years to the other victor, only for the tips to be carefully dodged each time. Soleil understood (very begrudgingly) that Rory probably wanted no part in it, but it had always been difficult to keep her true feelings under wraps. She’d never been a particularly subtle person, especially when it came to issues that made her angry. And the Capitol made her angry.
“District Three wouldn’t know ‘hyper-competitive’ if you threw a book at it,” Soleil remarked with a sigh. “Unless you’re talking about higher-up positions in the factories. People there pretty much want to bury their faces in their computers and never talk to another person if they can help it. I never thought I’d say that I wanted that to change, but who knows at this juncture?”
Soleil had distinct memories of her classmates in Three, how they’d all learned coding at a young age and most would have rather read books than played outside. “You don’t make a living by playing,” kids in Three were told all-too-often. “You earn a living by reading, learning, and putting your education into your work.” That was all well and good when you could decipher the letters and numbers in front of you, but considering Soleil’s brain still warped words while she was reading, it was never going to be tenable for her.
“I’m sure Beetee already has a plan in mind for us,” she noted, leaning back in her chair and letting her shoes fall off. “He’s the brain, I’m just there to show up and look pretty.”
“Do you?” Esme asked but more out of a feeling of obligation. If it was true it was something she could get used to. District One had many lavish parties and celebrations over the years for past Victors, but this one was for her. If she tried not to think so much about it, she could forget for a moment that she killed four people to get to that point. Again, she reminded herself someone had to win and she was just as worthy as everyone else. “I think I can handle that. There will always be a new winner.” For now Esme was that new Victor.
Esme shook the offered hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Soleil and yes, I know who you are.” At the Academy she had learned every Victor by name, District, and their arena. Esme had been thirteen when Soleil won and back then and it seemed certain that her brother would have been the Victor in the family… “And thank you!” She told her happily.
“So what comes next?”
-
Esme had the look of District One. That much was obvious as Soleil drew in her appearance. She probably had never known true hunger or poverty, and Soleil had to work to bite back judgements that she felt towards the woman. After all, they’d both been through the nightmare that was the Capitol’s arena, and it wasn’t District One’s fault that they tended to do well in the Games.
“That’s true,” Soleil smiled. “Always a new winner. Unless they decide against it.”
She was referring, of course, to the tragic ending of the 74th Games. But Soleil wouldn’t speak any further to that; it seemed that most negative talk about those Games was looked down upon, despite the absolute horror that had befallen both of the District Twelve tributes that year. She shook that thought out of her head. Unfairness was something to dwell upon for the moment, not to verbalize.
“Well,” she answered as an Avox came walking through the doors holding a platter of champagne glasses. Soleil plucked one and held it delicately in her right hand. “They’ll celebrate you here. And then they’ll celebrate you at home for a little while, move you into the Victors Village. Your district will probably move on from the excitement in a couple of weeks, but be reminded of it every time that monthly prize arrives. And then you get your Victory Tour. Which is fun if you like train rides.”
