Chapter Text
In District One, ‘gilding silver’ has two meanings. The literal form means to cover a piece of silver jewellery with gold to make the jewellery look more luxurious while cutting down on cost. The figurative form means to paint something in a better light to soften the blow of a heavy subject or to gaslight someone into perceiving it as attractive.
(Sugarcoating. It means sugarcoating. Much like most of District One, it’s posh, it’s fancy, and completely unnecessary. Why invent a new saying and not use the original word for its intended purpose?)
District One citizens are taught gemology and jewellery design in school from a young age. Gold has a higher density and hence is heavier than silver, it’s not rocket science, at least to District One it isn’t. Kids have to hold a necklace in one hand and correctly guess whether it’s made of real gold as part of elementary school. It’s tradition.
The Capitol doesn’t care; they’ll take anything so long as it shines, which is why it’s so prevalent in the market. But to people in the know, it’s disgustingly easy to tell the difference between solid gold and gilded silver.
.
It’s funny: for as long as he can remember, he’s always been Technoblade.
Okay, that was a lie. Of course, he remembers his birth name, and of course, there are people who don’t call him Techno —either because they don’t know what name he actually goes by, or they simply refuse to address him properly. For the most part, he doesn’t care, he doesn’t, he can’t correct everyone, and it doesn’t matter.
But the fact is that: it’s the truth, at the same time. At six, he stepped into the training centre and the very first thing his trainer asked him was, “What’s your name?”
When he opened his mouth to answer, she stopped him mid-word.
“Not the name your parents gave you. Who do you want to be?”
He was six, when he picked up a sword, swung it for the first time, and became Technoblade. He remembers how much pride it brought him, because suddenly, he was someone! The Careers of District One had simple, bland names — lots of Johns and Jameses and Marys and Jens — and like him, they carved out their identity, their place in the world as soon as they chose a name.
(He was a real Career now, he had an identity, and he was well on his way to win a Game.)
He’s thirteen now, and it’s still Technoblade. He’s been waiting seven years for his turn. And as his trainer always liked to say: he was born a Victor, raised to fight, made to win.
The Capitol’s escort took his sweet time running his fingers through the glass bowl that contained their names. District One held their collective breaths — parents wishing for the life of their children, teens hoping that someone would take their place if they were called, and Careers gearing up to volunteer the moment they could.
The escort plucked out a bent strip of paper, read the name printed on it, and dropped the paper on the floor. Two things happened at once.
First, the crowd of kids parted around a girl he didn’t know, and he caught a glimpse of the blood fading from her face. Her mouth fell agape in shock. Her parents were yelling from the sidelines. The rest of the adults sighed in relief.
Second, his friends burst into movement where they stood beside him. Deo and Squid were already in frantic motion, their arms reaching out to hold Wisp, whose mouth stretched open in a scream Techno couldn’t hear, because his own had been louder.
“I volunteer as tribute!”
When he marched up the stage, head raised against the weight of District One’s scrutiny, the escort had asked for his name. He hadn’t hesitated when he said ‘Technoblade’.
He turned to the audience, and when they cheered for him, he’d smiled at them. These people, they believed in him, they knew he was a Career, they wanted him to win.
District One loved the Games. And by extension, so did Techno.
.
He’s thirteen, and he’s proud.
(Well, prouder than he will be, years in the future. One day he’ll look back and he’ll realise the silver in the midst of the blacks and the whites was all he’d been living in.)
More anger, more bite, more naïvety, more ambition. More pressed on the idea that he was above these people, more confident in the assumption that he was better than them.
His trainer back home had hammered into his head the fact that he was her best student. He had the highest potential amongst the other Careers. He was stronger, he was smarter, he could fight better, he was better than them, he had to be.
He couldn’t doubt- no, there was no doubt that victory was his the moment he volunteered.
.
Seven years before his Reaping, Techno was six, watching eagerly from the sidelines as the Capitol escort thumbed through the glass bowl, unfolded a piece of paper, and declared the tribute of the 49th Hunger Games.
“Jordan Maron!”
Jordan was a Career, but one that Techno remembered wasn’t the most confident one. They had enough faith in him that nobody stepped up to volunteer in his place, but he was thirteen and he was inexperienced and District One held their breaths when he walked up the stage stiffly, face pale and looking his death straight in the eye.
Jordan, now named CaptainSparklez, had appeared in TV, face caked in glittery makeup and red-framed shades perched proudly atop his nose. He had been nothing like the boy who shuffled his feet on the stage in District One.
Techno had watched every second of his Game season, and a flame had ignited within him the moment the last cannon fired and the speakers declared Jordan the winner of his Game. That same day, he started his journey as a Career.
But as they always say, never meet your heroes. Never place a person atop a pedestal so grand and so unreachable, that all you see when you look up is the impossible shadow they cast. And if you do, never, never meet them face-to-face. They will never amount to your expectations, they will never be the perfect figurehead you revere. Because as it is, Jordan Maron does not live up to Captain-fucking-Sparklez.
Jordan Maron leaned against the doorway of the train car, wearing a grey hoodie, a pair of sweatpants, and a hat, looking very much like the ordinary boy Techno never expected him to be. All tired eyes, a weary smile, and hidden hands. At least he had his signature shades folded over his collar. Techno almost didn’t recognise him when he showed up and if he were to be fairly honest, if Jordan hadn’t spoken at all, Techno wouldn’t have given him a second glance.
“Hello,” Jordan said, his voice soft and his wave softer. “You must be D-.”
“It’s Technoblade,” he interrupted. “Just call me Techno.” Only the people back home called him by his birth name and even then, he only really exempted his family and his closest friends.
Jordan raises his eyebrows and brought his hands up in a placating gesture. “Right, sorry,” he said, “my bad. They gave you a name already?”
“I chose it myself,” Techno said flatly. He didn’t know what to expect from his mentor, but with what he’s seen so far, he wasn’t too enthusiastic about it. Wasn’t Jordan a Career? Shouldn’t he know how important their names are to them?
Jordan gave him a once-over, assessing him for a few seconds before pushing himself off the doorway. He strode over to Techno in five calculated steps and sat across the table piled with uneaten food.
“How old are you, Technoblade?” he asked. The name didn’t fit right coming out of Jordan’s mouth. It didn’t feel like the proud connotations Techno has learnt to associate it with.
“Thirteen,” Techno answered.
“I’m guessing you watched my Game?”
“Yes.”
“My pre-Game ceremonies?”
“Yes.”
“Post-Game?”
“Everything,” Techno said. What the hell was Jordan trying to do?
His fingers found a hollow part of the table and began tapping an uneven rhythm. “You’ve seen it all, then?” he stated more than asked. “Your trainer made you study every Game since you started training?”
“Yours didn’t?” Techno asked.
He couldn’t count the amount of hours he spent obsessing over past Victors, analysing their time in the Capitol’s stage and more importantly, analysing how they won their Game. He was raised to soak everything up. It was crucial to their culture, his trainer had told him, he had to know every little detail of a tribute’s — and a Victor’s — life.
Jordan crossed his arms on the table and leaned his weight on it. “No, mine did. Why wouldn’t I? I mean, after Adam won, I was ecstatic, I wanted to volunteer and win — a lot of kids did.” He huffed out a bitter, half-hearted laugh. “Are you their first choice?”
Techno nodded.
“Yeah, thought so,” Jordan said. “I wasn’t, did you know that? I was thirteen, like you. There were — oh, I don’t know — five other kids who they thought were better than me.”
And not a single one of them volunteered, was left unsaid and hanging in the air. What Techno thought was apparent fatigue in his expression might just be a sense of resentment so old and etched so deeply that he didn’t know it was there. Was this who his mentor was?
There must’ve been a change in his demeanour, because Jordan looked at him and narrowed his eyes. “What? Didn’t expect a pity story your first day on board?” He leaned forward, and suddenly Techno didn’t like where this was going. “I didn’t meet your expectations,” he noted, “you can say it, I won’t mind.”
“I thought you’d be more enthusiastic,” Techno mumbled.
“Speak up, kid, no one can hear you.”
“I thought you’d be a better mentor,” Techno said, louder, braver. He clenched his fists on his lap. First impressions are a test for many and Jordan’s just failed his miserably.
“Alright,” Jordan said, and unfolded his shades. He put them on, smiled his dazzling, million-dollar smile, and Techno really didn’t like where this was going. “Hey Technoblade, welcome to the 56th annual Hunger Games! I’m CaptainSparklez, your mentor, but you knew that already, right?” Jordan tilted his head back and smiled the wrong side of cocky. “What’s wrong, kid? You’re gonna have to get used to it, things aren’t all sunshine and rainbows here.”
From the short distance that separated them, Techno could make out the strain in his cheeks, the slight tremble of his lips, and the tension he held in his neck. Jordan’s fingertips were shaking.
Jordan looked him up and down and laughed. There’s gold lacing his words, and Techno can see in his mind’s eye the tacky yellow peeling off after years of misuse.“Why the long face? Chin up. Back straight. Smile. Millions are watching.”
“Stop that,” Techno wheezed out in a breath he’d been holding in. He glared at Jordan, at CaptainSparklez, at the rubies studded in the frame of his shades that Techno could tell were man-made even at first glance. “You’re my mentor; you’re supposed to be teaching me something valuable.”
Jordan paused, licked his lips, and dropped character completely as he took off his shades and dropped it onto the table with a resonant clatter. “Fine.” He shrugged, and leaned back on his chair, letting Techno some room to breathe. “Lesson one: you listen to me. I’ve been here seven years, mentored six kids, all Careers. They were just like you.” He grimaced. “What’s the phrase, you Careers were…?“
“Born a Victor, raised to fight, made to win,” Techno finished. That phrase came to him almost as naturally as breathing and swinging a sword.
Jordan nodded and smiled, but there was nothing behind the macabre twist of his lips. “That’s right. Look where all those Careers are now.” He laughed. A pity bark. “That’s what they all said, God. The whole shebang, the stuff they feed you to keep the kids rolling in. We weren’t made to win, we were made to look pretty and sound pretty and maybe, just maybe, if by chance we lived, they’d parade us around some more and brag about the Career system.”
“We were raised to die, do you realise that? We were raised pigs for slaughter.”
.
(Pigs for slaughter. How fitting.)