Chapter Text
I’m not exactly well known. Most of the time people don’t even know I exist. My younger brother has always overshadowed me. However, I haven’t talked to him in years. My brother is 5 years younger than me. It always seemed odd to me that my parents had another child so much later after I was born. Even though we were farther apart in age, we were always close as kids. Our father would take us out fishing. Our father taught us how to spear fish and how to use tridents.
Our father never wanted us to volunteer. Both our parents agreed that they would never allow us to go through the training. However, our father wanted us to be prepared if we got chosen. So, he taught us lots of survival skills as well as combat skills. My brother was always much better at fighting than me. He even chose to practice during his free time.
I was never very worried about being chosen. Most years, even if you were chosen, someone volunteered. That was the reality of living in a career district.
However, District 4 was different from the other career district. We were never as rich as Districts 1 and 2. So even though we had training, the love for the capital was not there. We trained more so that we could bring resources to our district. Fishing was never a very prosperous profession. 1 and 2 volunteered because they wanted the notoriety of it. They wanted the life of the victor.
My brother was more like the victors from 1 and 2. We saw the money and parties and thought that would be fun. Our family was never very rich. We never went hungry like they do in the outlying districts, however, we didn’t have much else. The most expensive item we had was our dad’s old trident. It was originally our grandfathers. My brother and I both trained with it. Finnick was always much better than me. Our parents never would have let him volunteer. I’m not even sure he would have even volunteered. I think he liked the idea of winning but not what you had to do to win.
I remember when my brother was picked. I was 19 so there was nothing I could do. I had to watch from the audience as my 14-year-old brother was picked out of a bowl of thousands. I thought someone would volunteer. Usually, the trainers picked two people to volunteer before the reaping. I guess this year the male career got cold feet. So, there he was walking up to the stage.
He looked so small. My parents and I all stood in horror thinking that this would be it. After he left, we would never see him again. He didn’t even show much emotion on that stage. I could tell he was trying to keep a straight face. I had seen him with that face many times before. It always happened before he broke down. I knew he was trying to hold it together for the cameras.
Then the female tribute was chosen, and a volunteer stepped up. She was much larger than Finnick. She was at least a head taller than him. He almost looked even younger than 14.
After the reaping ended, we went back into the town hall to say goodbye. I felt numb watching my parents say goodbye to Finnick. It seems he felt the same because he looked devoid of emotion. Then I said goodbye. I told him that I thought he had a chance at winning. I didn’t really believe but I was trying to convince myself he could do it. Looking back, it seems silly how little faith we had in him. He clearly was very good at fighting.
After that moment, I never thought I would see him again.
It was so odd leaving the building after that. We went back home, and we all just went back to work. The next few days I went back to working on the clam farms. My father went back to the fishing boat. I was originally going to work on his boat. But then the clam farm paid more, and my father said that would be better for me to do.
We saw Finnick throughout the pre-game events. He seemed completely different. They were trying to make him look older. They had him in revealing outfits. They had him acting like he was flirting with everyone. My parents watched it, but I could tell they hated it. My mother wanted to turn it off at one point. My father wouldn’t. He knew that this could be some of the last times we saw him. I understood my mom, she wanted to remember him by who he was at home; not what the capitol made him.
Finnick was always closer to our dad, and I was closer to our mom. They both loved us, but our dad seemed to understand Finnick more. We never had a problem with that. It was just how it was. It worked out well. We each had a parent we could go to.
When the games started, we watched them as much as well could. Even with the games happening, we still had quotas to reach. Most people looked at me with pity. They all thought there was no way he was coming home. I didn’t either.
Then he survived the bloodbath. Then he survived till there were only 12 left.
He was using all the skills our father had taught us. I could tell my dad was a little proud of everything. Finnick didn’t need any of the supplies that he probably would have gotten. The commentators kept talking about how popular he was. How everyone in capitol loved him. It felt odd to me. They commentators said it was odd he hadn’t gotten anything in the arena yet. But they said it was probably because he was doing so well on his own.
When he killed his first tribute with a spear, it was jarring. I wanted him to win but I never actual thought about him having to kill someone. After he did it, he still look devoid of emotion. Then it quickly cut away. I'm fairly certain that something happened afterwards that they didn’t want us to see.
I guess him killing a tribute did give me some hope. I never thought he would be able to outmatch someone. So, seeing him have some success gave me a sliver of hope. The next few days he did much of the same. Just trying to survive. None of the careers seemed to bother even looking for him. Even his own district partner didn’t care.
Then we saw it. His first present in the arena. A glimmering golden trident. The commentators were shocked when it showed up. They said it was the most expensive gift ever given in the games. It was even more expensive due to how late in the games it was.
We then saw him use his trident. He was incredibly skilled with it. He was quickly becoming one of the strongest tributes in the arena. He may have even been one of the most skilled tributes to ever be in the arena.
We were down to the last 8, which meant we had to do interviews. We mainly just said the boring stuff. We talked about how we were proud of him. It was nothing different from the all the other interviews of the families. My dad did talk about fishing with him and how much he missed him on his boat. I guess he’s hoping that the capitol might give him more money if they think of him as a devoted son.
As the games wrapped up, we watched how skilled he was. We saw him eliminate the other tributes easily by using nets and his trident. The finale was a little more challenging. He had to fight one-on-one with a career from district one. He got cut a few times and got stabbed but in the end he won.
I remember the announcement ringing out that he was the winner. However, it’s all a blur now. We all just sat on the couch watching, stunned. We were all happy, but we couldn’t believe.
They quickly got him looking perfect again. He did his interview afterwards, he looked like he had never been in the games. He was also keeping up all the stuff he had done in the previous interviews. He was smiling. He was chatting with Caesar like he had known him forever. It seemed so odd.
Then he came home.