Work Text:
Jester sat down next to the stream with a heavy fwump. At least the leaves sounded nice when they crunched underneath her. The water tumbled past her, crystal clear and very, very dangerous. Jester couldn’t stop thinking about that one year a girl won the Games by being further downstream than her competitors when the Gamemakers unleashed a terrible acid that ate them from the feet up.
It had just looked just as clear and beautiful as this.
Jester was tired, and sore, and more hungry than she’d ever been in her life. She had nothing to show for her fight at the Cornucopia except a small knife shaped like a crescent moon and a single loaf of rough black bread. She’d been walking by the creek all day, except for the fighting at the beginning, and hadn’t seen a single soul. Some of the trees had big webs strung between them, and almost all of them had big hollow spaces between their roots that led who-knew-where.
Now it was getting dark, and cold, and creepy. Jester piled some more leaves around herself and leaned back against a large rock. The stars looked very different from the ones from her window at the Chateau, and she had watched that kid die today, and...
She didn’t realize she was crying until a tear slid halfway down her face, trembling on her cheek until she brushed it away. “Oh, Traveler, we’re really in it now.” She tried to laugh, quietly. If she could walk this far in one day, so could other people. “I don’t know if you’re even here,” Jester whispered, a terrible loneliness gnawing at her heart. “Maybe you only live in the District, because I didn’t see you in the Capitol at all and I really need you right now Traveller and—”
“Hush, child.” A familiar deep voice rolled from between the purple-barked trees. “I wouldn’t leave without a good-bye.”
Jester leapt to her feet, scattering the leaves, to see the deep green cloak and shining eyes of her best friend. He leaned nonchalantly against a tree on top of a particularly large and humped root, like this was a place you might visit on a morning stroll. Before she could remember how dangerous it was, Jester let out a happy squeal and launched herself towards him. Sometimes this tactic didn’t work, but he seemed to know how much she needed a hug. His body was solid, if thin, and his cloak was warm and soft when he wrapped it around her.
“There now,” the Traveler said, holding her tight. “Let them look at someone else.”
“Traveler you won’t believe what’s happened, you weren’t there at all and I went on television—”
“I saw you, Jester,” he says, and his voice is so proud, so warm, that she starts to cry all over again. “I’m sorry I couldn’t answer. It’s a mite crowded in that city, you know.”
“Oh, that’s true. That makes sense.” Jester settles against his chest, feeling safe for the first time in...oh, weeks probably. “Traveler?”
“Yes, my dear?” the Traveler is looking out through the trees, his eyes gleaming green. Something skitters across the forest floor, dark and too many legs and—but it runs away from them, and Jester only drops her voice to a whisper.
“Are you going to get me out of here?”
He sighs heavily, one hand patting awkwardly at her back. “My powers are many and great, dear Jester, but they do not include spiriting a tribute out of the Hunger Games.”
“Why not?” Jester pulls back to try and look under his hood. The Traveler avoids her gaze, leaning back and turning his face away.
“I am but a small, strange god, my dear, and the Gamemakers are a clever bunch.” His voice gets dark, and for a moment the forest around them shudders. “But just because we cannot escape the Game, does not mean we cannot win it.”
Jester sucks in a quick breath. Her heart skips a beat, then gallops forward. She feels suddenly alive, the way she always does before a prank. “Do you mean it?” she whispers, a sharp smile growing on her face. Oh, she’d told Caleb that she would do her best, and she would . But she didn’t believe that she could win until right fucking now.
“Would I lie to you, Jester?” the Traveller purred, and then added, in a much more practical tone, “Don’t answer that. I’m not lying about this.” He put a long, pale hand under her chin, tilting her face up to the dark green shadows under his hood. “Why not make you Victor of the Hunger Games?”