Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

PART I

GENERATION

Chapter Text

The reaping begins in one hour and I can’t seem to move from the window overlooking the sea. Perhaps I shouldn’t call it the reaping—not this year when there’s no luck of the draw to worry about, just the fear of who in your district secretly despises you enough to put your name into the Games.

The crash of the waves onto the beach had been comforting earlier—much earlier, when I had woken up at three in the morning. The air was crisp despite the season, and I relished the feeling of it against my face. A welcome distraction that lasted until I woke up back in my bed at a more reasonable time.

The cramped nature of my beachfront abode (as Maren liked to refer to it) had never bothered me as much as it had my elder sisters. All it took was four steps from my bed to the seat by the window. Making the trip back seems comparatively impossible.

A crack in the window lets in a slither of sea air. I trace the sharp edges of the fracture, press hard enough that the pad of my finger sings in protest. I barely register the pain, nor the blossom of blood that drips down onto the sill. I think my finger could be sliced through entirely and I would still take a moment to retreat from my thoughts. My own head is my worst enemy this morning, until the results of the election are announced.

I drop my hand into my lap. Tilting my head against the cool pane of the window, I let my mind perform the overthinking it is so desperate to do.

I remember my reaction to the announcement last month that this year would be a different version of the Hunger Games, a special version. They brought in new screens to the square—a gift, they said, and a replacement for the ancient one we’ve had to use since the Games first began. We weren’t due to gather in the square until the next day, but a group of us shuffled in and watched them setting it up. Three screens were propped up, two longer rectangular ones hovering above the main screen which sat atop two more substantial pillars. I don’t know what the longer ones are for, perhaps capturing different angles for the enjoyment of the Capitol people. It was lost on us, and the crowd dispersed after a while. I took the scenic way home that afternoon. I couldn’t bear to be alone, even in the cramped corners of my house.

Everyone was to watch the broadcast the next day, preferably from the new screens in the square but some were permitted to view from their own homes. There were hardly any boats out on the sea that day, but the square looked like an ocean of bodies, bobbing like buoys across the tiles. District 4’s Mayor stood by the right of the stage—little more than cobbled together wooden planks with only one way to get onto it, a shabby set of stairs all the way on the left—waving his arms at a Capitol worker flanked by two Peacekeepers. I was too far on the left in the traditional reaping placements to hear any of their conversation, but the screens flickered to life anyway.

For a moment there was nothing but static. It was silent enough to hear the little fuzzes of the blank picture but we all started murmuring between ourselves quickly enough. “The weather is so nice today,” Shell said from beside me, “I bet the waves are gorgeous.”

“It’s not even reaping day yet,” another boy complained.

“Look at the screens, idiot. They’ve obviously got something to tell us.”

“Maybe the Games have been cancelled,” Shell said with bright eyes. I envied her easy optimism.

The two longer screens sparked to life and died almost immediately after. A patter of snickers came up from the crowd of watchers, not organised in their rows of 12-18 year olds but interspersed with all ages. It was as informal as a message from the Capitol could get.

A picture flickered onto the larger screen. Pixels grew into a complete image, though it stuttered at intervals and I doubted that it was even nearly as clear as the ones in the Capitol.

President Ravinstill hadn’t looked too well for most of my life, but even through the glitching new screens it was obvious that he had taken a turn for the worse. His eyes were heavily set into his face, the skin bulging around them but sinking in at all the wrong places. The natural contours of a human face were nowhere to be seen; if I hadn’t heard him speak the words of the Quarter Quell into existence I might very well have taken him for a skeleton.

“Citizens of the districts. We welcome you into this new era of our country, of our Hunger Games!” There was an awkward pause which I had to assume was included to give time for people to applaud. Perhaps they did in the Capitol. It was nothing but stone cold silence in the square of District 4. After a stuttering cough into his sleeve, he continued, “In this year, a mere twenty five since the conclusion of the war that threatened to rip our proud country asunder, we remember our history. We remember the sacrifice of men, women, and children in order to restore order. We remember the Dark Days. We remember it all.” For a moment it looked as though the President would surge out of his chair, overtaken with emotion. Instead he sank back, receiving a small wooden box from disembodied arms off-camera. He fumbled with the latch before drawing out a slip of paper, a little scroll.

“On this twenty-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that their children died because of their choice to incite violence, every district will be made to hold an election and vote on the tributes that will represent it in this year’s Hunger Games.” The box snapped shut, the scroll still clutched in Ravinstill’s gnarled hand.

There had been no more snickers or impatience from the gathered crowd. A gaggle of twelve year olds looked around confused, as if expecting someone to jump out and declare everything to be a joke and that they were all free to go and do whatever they liked for the day. It wasn’t even the month of the reaping, and most of the twelve year olds had barely come to understand the existence of the Games at all.

“Quarter Quell, did he say?”

“An election? How is that going to work?”

“They’re going to choose who goes into the Hunger Games?”

“We’re going to choose who goes into the Hunger Games?”

As instantly as the silence had descended, chaos took its own hold. The throng of people seemed to grow in size, to become tighter like a snake’s constriction around its prey. Confused voices mingled with the understanding shouts of mothers and fathers, schoolteachers and sailing instructors who had mentored and cared for those eligible for the Games. The crowd heaved, pushing me forward with the rest of the sixteen year olds I had naturally gravitated to. I won’t stand with them later at the reaping-election; I turned seventeen just the other day.

The Mayor had finished his conversation with the Capitol worker—before or after Ravinstill’s speech had started I didn’t know—and he’d made his way onto the stage. “Citizens of District 4.” His words hardly carried on the tepid breeze with the amount of hubbub rising from the square. He made another half-hearted attempt at seizing control before the crack of a firing gun cut through the noise like a knife. The mix of worried shouts and frenzied complaints was replaced by shrill screams and cowering bodies.

One of the Peacekeepers near the Capitol worker slotted himself back into position, shouldering his gun but keeping a hand grazing against the surface. The Capitol official had covered his ears from the noise. He lowered his hand and gave a curt nod to the Mayor.

“Yes, well.” The Mayor straightened his navy tie. I imagined that he wished he’d worn a jacket, despite the heat. His white shirt had grown soggy with perspiration and he seemed in the right mind to drag his set of cue cards across his sweat-soaked face. “As you have heard, this year’s reaping will differ from those we have held before. That is, in a month's time we will not select at random one male and one female tribute to represent our district in the Hunger Games. Instead, a week before our normal reaping day, every individual aged nineteen and over will be required to submit to voting at this very square. There they will put forth their votes for one male and one female from the eligible tribute population. These will be verified and counted by the appropriate Capitol body, and the two tributes with the highest number of votes will become our tributes for the 25th Annual Hunger Games.” He stopped, as if mimicking the very pause Ravinstill had performed just minutes before. There was not even an indication of applause. He dragged a hand across his forehead. “Their names will be announced on reaping day…they will…travel as normal…will bring pride...”

As the crowd’s murmuring started up again I’d watched as the Mayor stumbled to the edge of the stage—the wrong end, without the set of stairs. He’d practically plunged off the end and somehow landed on his feet, hunched over like he was about to lose his lunch. I’d thought that his reaction to the sun was just taking over him, but on my walk through the scenic route back to the beachfront I’d figured out the reasoning behind his adverse reaction and why he’d been conversing with the Capitol official so vehemently.

His daughter had stood next to me during the announcement, and Shell was of reaping age.

I don’t remember too much of the walk home after that. I’m not sure if I went inside first or not, but I woke up on the beach with my arms hugging my legs, wishing for my sister. I saw her the week after, of course. She is twenty-four, so I saw her in the square when she went to vote.

I realise I’m biting too hard on the inside of my top lip as I think about the broadcast. Then I realise that my sister is here. Maren is with me. She lowers my hand from my mouth, holding it gently between her own despite the lingering trails of spit and blood. I suppose she’s seen and felt worse, what with having three children of her own. I’m glad they’re nowhere near old enough to be voted into the Games, but that luck won’t last them when they eventually turn twelve.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

“What on earth are you sorry for, Tethys? I won’t have any of that, nor any of this slouching about.” Maren drags me up, sweeping back curtains of my thick hair that had drawn closed around my face. Maren used to call it a shock of coral and me the reef at large. Even though it’s faded plenty since then, to a slightly burnished auburn, whenever I see her she still remarks about it. “You don’t need to get all dressed up yet. Do you want to help me sort out some of Bay’s supplies? You know how it all gets tangled when he’s shoving it back into his back to make it back in time for dinner.”

I don’t remind her that this was the second time I was seeing her in six months. I hadn’t seen Bay, her husband, for even longer. “Sure,” I say. “As long as you leave the heavy bits to me. You look exhausted.”

Maren smiled, soft as always. “Wade hasn’t been sleeping well. He’s teething.” I have zero experience with children. Our parents didn’t have any more after me and it's a rare thing that I see any of Maren’s. Toothache is bad enough, though. I imagine having teeth coming through their gums would aggravate even the most placid child.

Maren leads me outside and I have to put a hand over my eyes to combat the strength of the sun. My eyes settle a little and I can lower my hand, but I feel bad for Maren with her blue eyes. She’s still squinting as I gaze out at the ocean. The sun glints off of its waves, but not in a sharp, distracting way. It’s almost a caress, a gentle touch of fire to water. It rubs me the wrong way, especially on a day such as this.

“I left the bag out here. It should be fine, there doesn’t seem to be anyone out right now.”

There isn’t. Every child has been treated to a lie-in unless their morning work was unavoidable, and every parent is keeping them within eyeshot whilst clutching tight the knowledge that they might’ve condemned someone else’s child to the Hunger Games. I haven’t watched all of the Games—why would I want to?—but they seem to have developed in recent years with regards to the spectacle. I have no reason to believe that this year will be any different. A Quarter Quell, the first of its kind. The Capitol would be a fool to put aside such an opportunity.

I sink onto the sand and start rummaging through the bag. “Hey, careful!” Maren falls to her knees beside me. “There’s all sorts in here. Wires, fish hooks, other hooks…”

It’s hard to fight a smile off of my face. “Other hooks, huh? Do you know what they do?” I pick one out of the bag, a large treble hook with slightly evil looking points to it. “What’s this?”

“That,” she looks proud, “is a triple hook. Bay told me about that one, because he caught an ‘absolute monster’ on it the other day.”

I allow the smile just a little more space on my face. “Good work, Mar.” She was basically right, and if it would get her to stop making such sad faces at me then I’d tell her about anything.

“Oh, but Tethys, look at it! And you were just swirling your hand about in there! What if you’d cut yourself?”

The words spill like water from me before I can hold myself back. “It’s hardly the worst thing that could happen to me today.” The quiver of her mouth and droop of her eyes stings far more than any gnarly old hook could. ‘I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” The stresses of her smile say otherwise. “Look, do you want to go and get a bit more sleep instead? I can do all this and then wake you when…”

“It’s fine, as you said. I’m fine. I just…I don’t need all this tiptoeing around. We both know what’s happening. We know what there’s a chance of. We can just, I don’t know, not talk about it if you don’t want to, but acknowledge it. It sucks, but we’ve acknowledged it. Ignoring it isn’t going to make the Capitol go away.”

Maren looks like she wants to say something else but ends up nodding. “Alright. We’ve acknowledged it. It sucks.”

I nod back. “It sucks. Now, let me at all these loose ropes and wires. I can turn this upside down in half an hour, easy.” Scylla, our other sister, had always called me a control freak, a little compulsive organiser, but I liked doing it. It made me feel cleaner, like I had tighter control on my life than was strictly true. Scylla might’ve said the same thing now, I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her in five years.

The work is repetitive, honest. It doesn’t even take me half an hour. I’m done in twenty which lets Maren and I sit and stare at the ocean for a while. We don't really talk much but her hand in my head full of coral is as comforting as words could be. All too soon it’s time to go and get ready for the reaping. Maren’s brought something for that as well. Something to calm my mind and something to keep me presentable. I doubt it’s exactly the way our mother intended for me to live before she died, but it’s all I have.

“Maren,” I say plainly, “who did you rob to get this for me?” I’m nowhere near the wealthy in District 4—I do alright with selling some of the fish I catch and doing odd jobs for anyone who asks, mostly the elderly—and Maren isn’t much better off. Not to mention she has three children under seven to look after.

Maren sniffed. “I’ll have you know I’ve taken up sewing.”

I laugh. I feel bad, but I laugh. The image of my frantic, mile-a-minute older sister sitting down at the table with a needle and thread is beyond me. “Mar. You’re not telling me that you’ve sewn me a new reaping outfit.” Maren and Scylla’s hand-me-downs have sufficed for the five years I’ve been a part of the reapings, but I’m shorter at newly seventeen than Scylla was at fourteen and Maren’s clothes often fit strangely around the chest and hips.

“Well, don’t sound so critical of it. As a matter of fact, I have.” Maren knelt down to rummage through the bag she’d brought to my house. The second bag she’d lugged all the way here, since the one full of fishing supplies is still outside on the sand. I feel safe leaving it out there because hardly anyone lives along this stretch of the beach. There’s only a few dotted along the coast: one that belonged to a previous Victor of the Games before the Victor’s Village was implemented and a couple that remain un-lived in. Only one still has a resident, other than mine. His house has seen much better days.

“You really didn’t have to. Your old stuff is still fine to wear.”

“Okay, I didn’t sew all of it. I found the base clothes in a shop in town and I couldn’t help but buy it and try to fix it up for you. I thought—I thought it might be just a little more your style compared to some of the stuff you’ve had to wear these last years.” She brandished a puddle of fabric from the bag, handing it over to me with something like shyness in her eyes.

“Oh…Mar,” I say as I unfold it carefully. It's beautiful—if slightly clear that it had been sewn at the sides by someone new to the skill. A modest neckline trickles down into sleeves that would end just below the elbow, cut open so that my forearms would be exposed and leave the material to hang delicately around them. It’s gorgeous in cobalt blue, but as I look closer I see that someone has embroidered tiny golden stars onto the skirt. Only as I try to look for a zipper or buttons to start putting it on do I realise the main draw of the outfit. Instead of the stars lying atop a skirt, they have been applied to a pair of pants.

“I’ve never seen something quite like this in any of the town shops,” Maren says meekly. It doesn’t suit her. “I thought you’d like it anyway, but then with the Quarter Quell announcement I…”

I haven’t hugged my sister in months. With the mimic-dress slightly crushed between us it feels like a little taste of the past. Of a home with more than one person darkening its halls. I wipe my face before I leave her arms. “Thank you, Mar. It’s gorgeous. I love the stars.”

Maren smiles. “I knew you would. They might be a bit wonky but I think they look pretty good.” She turns her back and I slip into the jumpsuit. It feels a little like wearing the sea, waves clinging to me but not in the stomach-turning, claustrophobic feeling I get when wearing a dress, especially a longer one.

It’s comforting as we weave through the roads of District 4 to get to the large square where they hold every year’s reaping. There’s limp decorations hanging over the doors of shops, as if someone got the day wrong and planned for birthday celebrations instead. Maybe it is someone’s birthday today. Statistically, I’m sure there’s plenty of people across all twelve districts that have the particular joy of suffering through reaping day in an even worse way. Statistically, there will be plenty more.

People are already waiting in the lines, separated by age and gender. I was walking well all the way, but now that I’m here facing it all head on, my legs feel like they’re encased in ice. “Maren,” I say, but to my ears I sound a million miles away. My lip must be in ribbons considering what I’ve let my teeth do to it. I taste a little copper on my tongue.

“Hey, breathe for me. You can do this. You’ve done this since you were twelve and…you’re strong. I know you are. You’ve kept it together when I wasn’t there for you, and when Scylla…when we both left.” Maren cups my face in her hands, adjusting the little baby hairs that have escaped the low bun at the back of my hair. There’ll be more flyaways soon; it hates to stay tied up for long. “I love you, coral,” she says.

My chin wobbles. I tighten my jaw. “I love you too.” I give her a kiss on the cheek and walk towards the line of workers. It hurts to do it but I can't stare at that look on her face any longer.

The Capitol officials take down my name and match it to their records, doing the same with my fingerprints. It’s a semi-arduous task but they have enough people that it doesn’t take to take too long. When they finish I take the short walk down the roped off middle of the square, ducking underneath once I reach the vague section for seventeen year old girls. It’s not really abided by, but people do tend to flock to groups of their own age and gender. There’s nothing for me in the male section. I don’t even glance their way.

The Mayor is already up on the stage. The previous Victors from District 4—thought there are only two living, both female—haven't made their way up to join him. They only started making appearances the reapings from the 20th Games, so I don't really have clear memories of a reaping without them. The thought feels a little strange; I don't know these women at all.

I wonder if Shell, the Mayor's daughter, is standing with the other fifteen year olds. I’m sure she’s aware of everything going on but I honestly doubt there’s a single bone in her body that knows how to be negative. The Mayor, on the other hand, is staring into the crowd and hasn’t blinked for at least a couple of minutes. I don’t know of him taking part in any unseemly behaviours during his tenure as Mayor, but if he’s upset enough people then it’s entirely possible they’ll retaliate in the only way they know how. A way that the Capitol has delivered right on their doorstep. They don't even have to tell anyone how they voted, only live with the consequences.

But as the Capitol escort takes to the stage in great clompy shoes, it’s not Shell’s name she reads out. After a brief waffle on the Dark Days, and the might of the Capitol overtaking the rebellious districts, and the ‘great’ introduction of the Hunger Games twenty five years ago, she grins brightly and stumbles over to the reaping bowls. They’ve left them out despite there only being one name in each. One bowl for the boys, one for the girls. But the girls are first as they are each year.

And it isn’t Shell’s name written on that rip of paper. “For the twenty fifth anniversary of the Hunger Games, our very first Quarter Quell experience, your female tribute from District 4: Tethys Holloway!

It’s mine.

Chapter Text

I regain my hearing only once I have ascended the stairs at the left side of the stage. The top step crumbles a little beneath my feet, sending a shower of moldy wooden pellets down to the floor. I doubt they’ll ever get cleared away. More likely they’ll continue to decompose down there. It doesn’t quite hit me yet that I am soon to be the same.

I yank my heel free from the remains of the step, coming to stand on the main body of the stage. I stand gormless for a moment, captivated by the sea of people staring back at me. I scour their faces: girls aged twelve to eighteen who can barely keep the relief away from their eyes and the lines of their smiles, even as some regard me with something that might be pity; boys I’ve known for years from school or working by the sea, meeting my eyes impassively because their safety for the year has not yet been guaranteed, though mine has already been taken; everyone over the age of eighteen who is well enough to leave their homes to watch the reaping in person. It is the latter people I keep my eyes on the longest. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know which of them chose my name for the Games but, whether suspicion and spite have invaded my brain or not, every face looks back at me with the word guilty scrawled over their skin.

“Up you come, up you come!” The Capitol escort practically carries me forward to the center of the stage, tottering worse than me in her frilly heels. I had never thought that there was an option to have frills on shoes, but there they are. I don’t know her name but she is dressed in what I can only assume is her idea of a District 4 based costume.

Past the frills on her feet that look more like questionably patterned doilies, she wears strange sticking out patches of fabric up her legs. It takes me a moment to realise that they are supposed to look like gills, though why they are on her legs I have no idea. A large coat dwarfs her thin arms and reaches the backs of her knees, buttoned across her chest and looking black compared to the fluorescent aqua of her tight knee-length skirt. A matching aqua hat sits at an angle on her head with a long piece protruding up and over her forehead. It flops into her eyes as she looks down at me, teeth bared like a goblin shark. “What is your name, little fish?”

It’s all I can do not to reach up and yank the ridiculous creation further down her face. I suppose it is in my best interest to appear docile and appreciative to the cameras—to the potential sponsors that might see my plight and consider sending me something of use in the arena—but reality hasn’t quite sunk in just yet. “What are you supposed to be?” I say before my brain has a chance to catch up with my mouth.

The escort’s smile doesn’t move from her lips but I catch a slight twitch going on in her left eye. “Pardon, little fish?” She says the word as if I am a dog who just finished bathing her terrible shoes in a stream of urine.

I blink at her. It’s easier keeping my gaze locked onto her face—complete with garish makeup—and her insulting outfit. My other option is the crowd of people I have known my whole life, though that hasn’t stopped the majority of them from voting to send me into the Games. The Quarter Quell. “An angler fish is a strange choice to dress as. It’s not like you’d ever see one, they live so far down. And my name isn’t little fish.” She should know my name. She just read it out in front of everyone, butchering the pronunciation with her accent.

“Lovely,” she says, dropping my wrist as if it were a packet of poison. “Shall we move on to the boys?” I’m not sure if she was looking for an answer or not, but I’m mostly just glad she’s stopped calling me ‘little fish.’ Her attention slides off of me like dew and as she moves back to the circular reaping bowls I feel myself deflate slightly. An embarrassing little noise escapes me, half a gasp from my mouth and half a sobbing exhale out of my nose. I keep my gaze averted from the crowd, though all I want to do is collapse back into Maren’s arms. I wonder where she stands in the crowd, staring up at me.

By the time I raise my head again I realise that I’ve missed the male tribute being called entirely. There are more pained expressions in the crowd than when my name was called, but I don’t hold it against them. At least not the other kids in the reaping pool. They had no say in who would be voted for. I must look at every adult with suspicion, however. Plenty of the population must’ve put forward my name; I just can’t understand why.

There’s a boy climbing the same set of steps I’d fumbled my way up only five or so minutes ago. He’s scarcely taller than I—only a few inches separating us—and he wears his hair like a crown of gold. A Victor’s crown will look lovely on him, if they decide to introduce something like that in this year of unprecedented spectacle. District 4 may be in with a chance of victory this year. I know all of this because I know him . And I know I will not be able to kill Florian Furman.

He takes his place behind the reaping bowl for the boys, meeting my eyes. The connection makes mine water. He doesn’t smile but I can read the tilt of his eyebrow and the stiffness in his jaw. The escort—our escort—stands on Florian’s right rather than in the middle of us, as if she’d love to be as far away from me as possible. She’s speaking to him but I can’t tear away from his tanned skin and the little mole on the side of his neck. After so many months of no contact he has managed to reel me back in with no trouble at all.

“Well,” says our escort. She sounds slightly out of breath and I hope she isn’t about to collapse onto the stage. She’s rather strange and doesn’t seem to like me very much, but she’s Capitol. I’m going to need someone who knows what they’re talking about when we finally get there. “Hasn’t this just been the most exciting of days?” I don’t know who she thinks she’s fooling. “Shall we have our lovely tributes shake hands?” It is a question, but she says it as though she’s asking for permission.

I’ve already been staring at Florian for an embarrassingly long time, but the grip of his hand in my own brings me out of the trance. I jerk my head back towards the crowd, to the thousands in front of me and even more that sit in their homes in front of television sets. I trace the faces of the adults. Which of you put my name forth? Did you give a second thought to my condemnation or did you think of yourself as just another voice in the wind, pressing buttons in the voting booths for something that surely wouldn’t come to pass?

I look to the rows of reaping age children. I don’t want any of them to face the Games in the future, but what I want doesn’t matter. Two of them will be reaped next year, as Florian and I were today. At least they will not have the added torment of staring their people in the face and having only unanswerable questions accompany them.

“Please give a hand to your District 4 tributes for the twenty fifth annual Hunger Games, and our very first Quarter Quell to boot! Tethys Holloway and Florian Furman!” Our escort says my name wrong again. A solitary tear trails its way down my cheek and lands in the dark fabric of my outfit. I realise that in all my searching of the crowd I have failed to spot one thing. Amongst the blank expressions of District 4’s population, not once had I caught sight of Maren.

Florian doesn’t let go of my hand until we descend the steps and make our way into the farewell room. It sits adjacent to the stage, more of a little shack than a single room, minimally reminiscent of my own home. I’ve never set foot inside of it before but at every reaping I can remember I’ve watched the chosen tributes trudge inside of its doors. In my memory, only one of those tributes returned.

The inside of the farewell room is simple. I haven’t spent much of my time in barns—any cramped space that isn’t my home tends to leave me anxious—but I imagine that is what the room is modelled off. Beams stretch up to the sloping ceiling, so low that Florian’s head threatens to brush against it, and I see hastily kicked clumps of straw in the corners. A wall bisects the room with two doors leading to even smaller alcoves. A Peacekeeper stands guard at each entrance and I am unceremoniously shoved towards the first door.

There is someone waiting for me already. Scylla, my older sister and Maren’s younger, sits on the wooden bench that makes up the only furniture in my alcove. She looks effortlessly relaxed in a dark shirt and blue patchwork pants. Her red hair, wilder and more vibrant than mine, is chopped short at her shoulders. Her fingers glitter with bronze rings. She’s always called me a magpie, but anything glittery is enough to steal her attention. The scowl I remember from my childhood already lives on her lips, but her eyes refuse to land on me. The door slams shut behind me. I’m not sure how long I have with her, but I don’t know what to say. I was expecting Maren.

She speaks first. From what I remember she was always good at doing that. “Tethys,” she says. That’s all, just my name. Correctly pronounced— teth-is instead of how the escort’s accent warps the syllables into teth-ees —and it’s enough for me to shed the stoicism I held in front of the cameras. I stumble forward. If it had been Maren in front of me I would’ve found warm arms to hide in. But I don’t know where Maren is and this is Scylla, so what I receive is a firm grip on my forearms. “Pull yourself together.”

Her voice isn’t unkind but it is strong enough to snap me out of whatever daze the reaping had over me. “Scylla. I’m going to die.” Reality hits me like a tidal wave. I wonder what Florian is talking about in the other room, whether his father came in alone or if Florian’s little sister clambered to say goodbye. I’m not sure she understands the Games to the greatest extent; she won’t reach reaping age for another couple of years.

“No,” she says. She moves one of her hands gripping my forearm and grasps me firmly under the chin. “No. That attitude is a surefire way to make sure that you die. If you’re going to take one thing from me then let it be this: the first step in you surviving and making it back here as a Victor is to actually believe that you can.”

“It makes sense when you say it.”

“ You say it. Then it’ll start sinking into your brain the way it has in mine.”

Such steadfast belief in my abilities doesn’t help my steadily climbing heartrate. “The first step in surviving and making it back here as a Victor is to actually believe that I can.” Perhaps if I say it enough it’ll start to ring true.

Scylla gets scarily close to actually smiling. “Alright. Look, you don’t have to say it verbatim. ‘I can do this, I have a chance, I can win,’ take your pick. As long as you’re believing it by the time you’re in that arena. Here, sit for a second. They told me I’d have ten minutes so you can afford to put your head between your knees and cry it out.”

I follow her suggestion, perching on the edge of the bench like a little duckling, except I refuse to take my eyes off of my sister. Ten minutes isn’t enough when I haven’t seen her for years and am facing the possibility of never seeing her again. I’ll take her advice of positivity on board, but not at the expense of my realism.

There’s a lump in my throat and no amount of swallowing seems to shift it. “I don’t understand,” I say around it in garbled speech, “why they hate me so much.”

“Magpie, they don’t hate you—”

“They do! I’m sorry, Scylla, but why else am I getting voted for so heavily? It can’t have just been a couple spiteful people that did it; I had to have had more votes than any other girl.” And so did Florian where the boys were concerned. I haven’t spoken to him for ages but he’s liked by our district. I’m pretty far separated from the main hub of 4 and I can go a week or two without talking to anyone at all. It’s a stretch but I can sort of see how the people being forced to vote would turn to a name like mine. For Florian, it didn’t make any sense at all. He teaches loads of young children how to swim for free. To be repaid by their parents in such a way is unthinkable.

I take a handful of hair tight in my hands. “It doesn’t make sense .”

“Stop that.” Scylla works at my fingers until they loosen, holding them in her own. Her hands are as cold as I remember with the rough skin and short nails of someone who works with their hands. Her teeth worry at her already chewed to pieces lower lip. “I…”

Stubborn, argumentative, wildly opinionated are all ways in which I would describe Scylla. At a loss for words would never be one of them. “What?” I say, desperation leaking into every syllable I speak. “What do you know? Tell me, Scylla!” I hope the Peacekeepers outside are enjoying the free show.

“Fine! Fine, you want to know? I didn’t want this to hang on your mind on your way to the Capitol and during everything that comes after, but you’re only going to worry yourself into a crisis anyway, aren’t you?” She grips harder onto my hands. I relish the bruising pain. “Last week when I went in to vote—I chose some beloved twelve year old who no one else would even think of voting for, before you ask—I heard a group discussing outside the Justice Hall. They were strategising about how to cancel out anyone voting for younger kids to get reaped. There’s enough people with bad blood here that it was a real concern. They said they had more people involved—thousands it sounded like—and that they could sway the vote with enough cohesion. They’d picked you and Florian at random, it seems, and I suppose it worked the way they intended. If the other votes were scattered among lots of other kids then it wouldn’t be too hard to get a majority…”

Scylla sees the exact moment my face drops. “This was planned ?” It’s all I can do to get a whisper out.

She pushes back some of my hair, almost gentle with her touch. “Tell me it would’ve helped you to know. That your district pooled a majority of their votes to send a seventeen or eighteen year old into the Games—you and that Furman boy—instead of leaving it up to the whims of everybody else. You want some twelve year old kid going in and having to slum it up against whoever the other districts planned to pick? Some massive guy from 2 with a full beard and muscles up to his eyes? You’ve got a better base chance than anyone younger than you, and you’re better prepared than everyone else with that training of yours.” 

“Nothing came from those training sessions. They…they weren’t widespread, just me and a few kids, and they didn’t even work. The kids got reaped, they went into the Games, they died. Just as they always have.”

When I was twelve another twelve year old was reaped for the Games. It was my first year in the reaping and the realisation that it could have easily been me called onto the stage shocked me into submission, and then action. It took me the best part of a year to actually get it going, but I gathered a group of reaping aged kids who wanted to be prepared if the worst happened to them. We didn’t have much, no proper training room with real equipment and weapons like we’d get in the Games. Some of the others brought kitchen knives and we got these boards set up against the walls of wherever we were meeting that day to practise hitting with the knives.

Maren had already aged out then and Scylla seemed unbothered by the threat of being reaped, but they both helped me in their own ways. Maren was worried about it, naturally, but after a brief shouting match with Scylla she realised that it might just help some kid get out of the Games alive, give them an edge against the other districts. We never discussed how this would come from the deaths of other people’s kids.

I’ve always been the best at making things, so I started crafting makeshift spears and swords out of spare bits of material and fishing supplies. They were crude and a pale imitation of the real thing—I assume—but with Maren’s supervision and Scylla’s talent at finding helpful component parts, I managed to consolidate quite an array of practice weapons.

We kept everything secret from the Peacekeepers stationed in 4, but the oldest amongst us was only sixteen. Eventually there were rumblings of what we were doing, but I don’t think the Peacekeepers knew what to do. There was an announcement in the main square and in the schools that any sort of armed groups were forbidden. We kept it up for a while longer, but it wasn’t sustainable. Whatever we were, this little group of attempted survivors, we disbanded before my sixteenth birthday. Then the reaping happened. One of the kids a year or so older than me got reaped and died in the Games. Whatever advantage Scylla thinks I have is overstated at best and dangerous hope at worst.

“Look,” she says, “I’m not like you. I didn’t take the reapings seriously and if I’d been chosen when I was eligible then I’d probably have died in there. But you are not going to die. It doesn’t matter what Maren and I heard those people talking about, if they voted you in by complete coincidence or if it was strategic—“

I cut her off. “What do you mean ‘Maren and I?’ She was there too?”

When I was younger all I’d wanted was for Scylla to be as doting a sister as Maren was. I would’ve traded her cruel barbs and lazy attitude for the more typical love I thought a family should show. In the absence of our parents that was all I wanted.

But as she looks at me now with pity in her eyes, all I want is to be a child again, laughing at her jagged words and floating with her in the azure waves. “Yes, Maren was there.”

“And she heard the same as you.”

“When I arrived she was already there. She told me not…”

She told me not to tell you. And then she didn’t tell me either.

We sit in silence until the Peacekeepers unbolt the door and usher me out, leaving Scylla on the wooden bench. Florian joins me only a moment later. “Ten minutes wasn’t enough,” he says, “but I’m glad that they let my father and Pearl see me at the same time. Five minutes with each would’ve been double the torture.”

It’s only as we’re walking out of the farewell room, back in our stifling silence, that I realise what he meant. We get ten minutes total in the farewell room, split evenly between however many people come to see us. Scylla told me she had those ten minutes all to herself.

Maren had never planned on visiting me at all.

Chapter Text

The ugly pattern of the train floor sends my head into a spin. The vivid swirls of, what seems to be every color in the rainbow, mingles with the salt beading up in my eyes. I blink furiously but it just makes the fog worse. There are seats somewhere around here—I saw them as soon as Florian and I boarded the train. I break away from Florian, scrabble with my hands and sink into whatever chair I end up finding. It’s almost silky smooth under my hands. I press them against the fabric of my tailored outfit instead.

I don’t hear the give of the furniture that would signify Florian joining me. I press the pads of my fingers against my eyes, push until streams of fractured light invade my eyelids. When I bring my hands back down my eyes are clear, though I can still feel the drying tears against my cheeks. “Ridiculous,” I whisper. To waste the advice Scylla gave me in my last ten minutes with her, after an even longer five years apart, by falling apart at the slightest provocation. At this rate I won’t just die in the Games, I’ll perish in the first five minutes itself.

“What is?”

I turn at the sound of his voice. Now that I’m not half blind I can take the time to observe the train, or at least the carriage that we’ve been forced into. The carpet is indeed ugly, and to my displeasure the seats I’ve found myself sitting on are clad in the same unbearable material. Reds, blues, and yellows all swirl together; a bastardisation of the sky at sunrise. “What?” I croak back at Florian. He’s further down the carriage but only slightly, trailing his fingers up the wooden appliances. Most of them are painstakingly engraved, whorled like the clams that wash up on the beach outside of my house. They probably do outside his house as well.

“You said that something is ridiculous. I just wondered what you meant.” He’s not looking me in the eyes, but I could still tell the color of his in my sleep. Sea-green, with the smallest fragments of yellow dancing about like shaved gold. We look a little like a sunrise ourselves: him with his golden crown, golden eyes, and smart red waistcoat, me swimming in swaths of dark blue ocean.

I flex my feet in their heeled prisons. They aren’t too high but I’m used to going barefoot on the beach, not to be tottering about. “I—” Before I can answer, the partition between our train carriage and whatever lies in front slides open. I no longer feel as annoyed at my own footwear as our escort properly totters into the room. She’s still in her…interesting outfit, but her face is now bare of the garish, almost white paint that had coated it during the reaping.

“Hello!” she calls. “Don’t worry, there won’t be much more of a wait. Just a small issue with the train. On the outside, though, so I’m sure it will be fine.” She aims a wide smile at us, a smile that I had mistaken for a shark when I was deep in the midst of being reaped. She’s more of a deer: skittish; wide-eyed; practically radiating nervous energy and a predisposition to bolt at any moment. With the makeup all gone she doesn’t look older than twenty.

When I don’t reply she turns to Florian. Maybe she really will bolt if neither of us say anything, but I fear that would be asking for a broken ankle. “Ah,” Florian says, brushing a lock of hair back from his face. We haven’t had any time to clean up, but he still looks firmly in control of himself. It’s infuriating. “Thank you, Ma’am. I’m sure you’re doing your very best.” I almost expect him to bow at the waist, and the thought disgusts me.

“Oh!” She smooths down her skirt, though it barely moves due to the strange material it’s made from. “Well, it was a terribly long journey down here. I’ve never been out of the Capitol before, you see, and the travel didn’t quite agree with me.” She perches on the arm of another chair, plush and green. Her eyes are wide and pale blue, like those of a doll.

“Would you like to sit down?” Florian offers, despite the fact that she already has. “We haven’t quite had time to explore the carriage, but there’s a couch here that looks to be quite comfortable. If it was a long journey down here, I’d imagine it’ll feel the same going back up.” His easy smile is disarming, even considering how long I’ve known him. It seems our escort feels the same way.

“Well, I doubt they’ll be needing me until we arrive.” She looks back at the partition as if looking for confirmation, before walking up to take a seat on the couch. Its long back is pushed almost flush against the wall of the carriage, with two connected seats sprouting out from each end. Our escort practically collapses against the cushions, huddling up on one end and tucking her feet up and under her body. For a moment it’s as if she is the child, and we are the adults in control of everything. It’s like seeing a reality that could never come to be. I hate the sight of her.

The spell breaks as soon as she continues speaking. “We should arrive at the Capitol in the evening, around seven o’clock by my calculations. Then, we’ll—”

I interject. “Calculations? Are you some mathematics specialist in the Capitol? Do they just pluck anyone out of their normal jobs and recruit them to help with the Games?”

Her nose scrunches. “What? No, no. I’m terrible with numbers, honestly. I’m…” She peers behind her, as if there could be someone else lurking within the room. I’m not sure I’d put it past the Capitol to do such a thing, but I doubt they’d want to listen to our escort’s ramblings. “...I’m actually just a store temp. It is a rather well-known store…oh but I could never have guessed that I’d receive the call for a job such as this!” I wonder how much she’s getting paid to herd us around until our deaths. “Imagine: ‘Filemina Forna-Richmond, after our confirmed success with the District Escort Program during last year’s Hunger Games, we are delighted to offer you the position of district escort for this year’s celebrations! More information will be with you shortly.’ Oh, and it was ! I don’t mean to brag, but I really think that my fianc é’s position on the board of Gamemakers made all the difference. I’m sure he put in a good word for me, maybe even two!”

I stare at her—at Filemina Forna-Richmond —with completely undisguised amazement. “I can’t believe you,” I say. This one conversation has managed to suck out any last dregs of energy my body still holds, and the train has yet to even leave District 4’s modest station.

“I know!” She falls back against the cushions, giggling to herself. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she isn’t even twenty years old. She seems to have forgotten all about our uncomfortable interaction on stage. I’m about to walk over and start smelling for alcohol on her breath when I heard a door being slammed further up the train. All three of our heads turn towards the noise like a gaggle of geese. The train shudders and I sink back into my hideously patterned seat. A moment passes before the train lets out a puff of steam and pulls away from the station.

I forget Filemina Forna-Richmond and even Florian in my hurry to press my face against the window closest to me. My side of the carriage has a view of the tracks so I jump up and race to the other side. The sky is still light—there’s no way to tell the time in here but I doubt it’s much later than three o’clock—and fluffy white clouds dot the horizon like sheep grazing in a field. Benches line the seating area outside, roofs protruding out a little in order to provide some shelter in the case of rain. It doesn’t tend to rain much here in District 4, but when shipments to the Capitol are concerned there is always a level of precaution.

I nearly miss her—a blurry figure sitting right at the end of the station before it peters off into patches of grass. She’s as curled up as someone could get on those long, uncomfortable benches, but as the train picks up more and more pace she looks up. She looks up at me. Maren hadn’t come to say goodbye to me in the farewell room, but she had come to see me off to the Capitol. Our eyes meet for the briefest second. As if she can hear me I think in my head: I still love you.

I imagine that she says back: I love you too, coral.

I hit the window, once, twice, and let my hand slide down its pristine surface. No, not pristine. Tears cast down the reflection of my face. It is raining after all.

I don’t know how long has passed when I raise my head again. My arms are wrapped around my knees, which are pulled up to my chin. I’ve been resting my face in that little divot between my legs, curled up as small as I can make myself. As I release my legs from my grasp, pricks of pain start travelling up from my feet to my thighs. I wince at the sensation, wiggling my toes until the feeling returns. My mouth tastes dry and rotten.

I pick myself up from my new seat, fighting the urge to wrap my arms around myself. Scylla’s words filter through my brain, and I imagine her usual posture. I try to mimic the way she carries herself: confident and sure and convinced that the world was made for her. It doesn’t come as easily to me.

Florian gives me a little wave as I approach. I raise an eyebrow back, but I do come to sit next to him on an identical wooden chair. It’s nice to have something against my back, it makes the task of keeping myself upright that littlest bit easier. He doesn’t ask how I am, just watches me with those green eyes that remind me of the waves lapping against the beach outside my home. Outside our homes.

“They brought those through a few minutes ago,” he says, gesturing to the table adjacent to ours. A tablecloth has been haphazardly thrown across it, clashing with the pale wood of the walls and chairs, as well as the hideous furniture I’ve vacated. It’s a little lighter than my clothes, embellished with white thread in the shape of what seems to be waves. How kind of them.

On top of the cloth sit a few dishes and larger plates. I don’t recognise most of the food, or rather, what I mean is that almost none of it looks like it comes from District 4. For one, there is no fish. I eye a suspicious bowl of some kind of pureed food, as well as a tall canister that might be filled with soup. I don’t want any of it, despite the fact that I haven’t eaten all day, until I catch sight of something I do recognise.

I’m back out of my seat before I really know what I’m doing. The sight of the familiar bread almost has my eyes welling up yet again. From where Florian and I sat it was barely visible, just a small corner  peaking out from behind some sort of pink cake. I was wrong when I said there was no fish: our most popular type of bread is created in the shape of one. The telltale green hue from the seaweed beckons me closer, and I take an embarrassingly long time to reach out for the loaf. The details are intricate: scores across the front accurately detailing the designs of the real, living fish. It’s like holding the coast in my hands, sitting outside in the sand as I unravel spools of wire from fishing nets and hooks. Sitting with—

Florian’s hand burns against mine as he traces the lines in the bread. “Whoever made this one really knows what they’re doing,” he says. “The craftsmanship is immaculate.”

“It’s a loaf of bread, not a fish hook,” I scold back. It doesn’t feel good to be so snippy to him, which just makes me feel even worse. “Shall…shall we split it?” I make the mistake of looking at him. He’s still staring at the bread, wistfulness in every crevice of his face, but his eyes flicker back to me after only a second. I am reminded why I’ve dreaded seeing him properly for months now. Every glance is so soft, every smile so gentle, that I feel like the predator watching my prey animal turn to me and willingly lay flat on the ground with its belly towards the sky. I will never be able to kill him, but every reminder of his existence makes me feel as though I already have.

“Sure,” he says, pulling down with tanned hands until I’m left with the front half of the bread in one hand and the back half in the other. He plucks the tail end from my left hand and leaves me with the head. “There. Since you’re the brains of the operation, it only makes sense for you to keep the head.” He looks far too pleased with his observation, no matter how wrong it is—there is no operation and if there was, I certainly wouldn’t be the brains of it—and I feel a smile curling onto my own lips.

The room feels oddly quiet. “Where did the escort go?” I ask. Poor work from me, falling asleep while unknown people skulk about this unknown train. Capitol people. It will be worse in the Games—there the tributes will be vying to kill me imminently, instead of this slow condemnation that the Capitol have bestowed. Well, I suppose my own district deserves a piece of that pie as well.

“Filemina Forna-Richmond—” he does a prissy, Capitol accent which does not prompt a laugh from me “—has retired to another carriage. She did say that she would—” Florian doesn’t get to finish before the partition is opening once again. The familiar patter of heeled shoes follows, as well as two more sets of footsteps.

“Where are my tributes?” Filemina Forna-Richmond’s voice (it feels strange calling her just Filemina—she isn’t my friend, and at least one of Florian and I will never live long enough to even speak to her again after the Games) trembles as she squeaks out ‘tributes’ in a piercing pitch. Her face is still bare of makeup, and as she comes closer I realise that she has freckles dotting her cheeks, and that her hair is a soft pink. “I have some people for you to meet.”

“Not more of you,” I say before I can stop myself. Florian tilts his head at me, raising his eyebrows as if to say be quiet . Perhaps I’m making it up, but he does seem the slightest bit amused, lips upturned on one side. He wraps his half of the bread loaf in a napkin square from the table and tucks it away inside of his jacket. I follow his lead, squishing the bread slightly in my undersized pockets.

“We’d be pleased to meet them,” Florian says, the suck-up. “Are we almost at the Capitol?”

“Not just yet,” comes another voice from behind Filemina Forna-Richmond. I look at her pink hair again, coiled and curled around her shoulders. She is ridiculous; the shorthand Filly suits her just fine. “It’ll be at least another hour to go yet.”

“This,” says Filly, who is practically bouncing in her shoes, “is one of your mentors! Well, yours specifically, Florian. You each have one, of course, and if there were a living male victor from your district then you would be working with him. But that’s alright! You know, I heard that some of the districts don’t even have two victors, and a couple don’t even have one ! Aren’t you lucky?”

There is an agony-filled moment of silence in which Florian and I gape at Filly’s lack of tact, but we are saved by Florian’s mentor stepping forward. To my knowledge, there haven’t really been strict mentorships set for tributes in any of the previous Games. Certainly not any involving the still living victors of each district. I’m strangely nervous about meeting them, but something akin to hope threatens to sprout in my chest. Having the assistance of someone—two someone’s, really, considering Florian and I harbour no real malice towards each other and thus won’t be hiding any strategies—who has already survived the Games will be invaluable. I suppose I just have to hope that the mentors for the other districts are incompetent, or that their tributes refuse to listen. I pity the districts that Filly mentioned have no victors. The odds are certainly not in their favour.

“Hello,” Florian’s mentor says in a steady voice. “Despite such circumstances, it is nice to meet you, Florian, Tethys. My name is Mags.” I appraise her once she steps forward. Her hair is wild, curly like Maren’s, but with almost the same vividness of Scylla’s. It tumbles down her back, pushed away from her face by a navy headband. Green eyes are set in a smiling face, little lines already beginning to pockmark the sides of her mouth, though I doubt this woman can be much older than thirty. I have never seen her Games; she must’ve won when I was only a child. She reaches out to us, plucks our hands into her own, all with that smile still on her face. Above everything, she seems kind.

I almost wish she were rude, abrasive, even delusional and unable to read the room like Filly. Her simple kindness only makes the pangs of my heart hurt more deeply.

“Thank you,” Florian all but whispers. He inclines his head at her, a mark of respect shown to masters of their craft in District 4.  “It’s nice to meet you too.” Oh. They will have zero problems in getting along. I wonder how Mags, this lovely lady with a head full of curls so reminiscent of my sisters, killed her fellow tributes in her Games. She must have, I think, to have won a Hunger Games. It seems incomprehensible that someone could last to the end without spilling blood, without dashing the dreams of another person and making their family watch on at home.

“Tethys?” Her voice brings me back. “Are you alright, dear?” I nod. I don’t trust my mouth to form the correct words, to act as demure and digestible as Florian does with so much ease. At home I go days, sometimes even weeks without speaking to another soul, only leaving my home by the beach in order to sell fish or newly crafted hooks and lines. I am out of my depths, no matter how strong a swimmer I may be.

“Do I get a mentor as well?” Is what I end up saying.

Mags doesn’t look put off. “Of course. Though, you can always speak to me as well. We will both be here for you these coming days.”

“Both?”

Filly smooths down her immovable outfit again before tottering back to the door. “Now really,” she starts, winding a strand of pastel hair against her pointer finger, “she was just behind—”

Even having gotten used to Filly’s uncanny ability to stay standing while wobbling on her shoes, I’m surprised that she doesn’t fall onto the ugly carpet when another woman brushes straight past her. Filly grasps at the wall and I wince as one of her ankles takes a sharp dive inwards.

This new woman is younger than Mags and barely older than Florian’s eighteen years. Chestnut hair is tied back in a loose, straggly knot at the back of her head. I reach up to touch my own hair, unsurprised to find strands coming loose. Her eyes are dark, almost black, sunken into her pale face. Sections of her hair are braided seemingly at random. My mentor walks towards us in black boots, clad in a black one-piece outfit that seems similar to mine— though doubtlessly far more expensive—and holding a black mug.

Florian plasters on his usual golden smile as she approaches, holding out a hand in greeting. My mentor doesn’t even glance at it. She veers right, collapsing down onto the comfortable couch Filly had taken up residence on earlier. Something of Filly’s remains on it now, a scrap of pink fabric that might be some sort of jacket, which my mentor kicks further up the couch with a booted foot. She sprawls out, head against the armrest and legs unfairly long, one flush against the couch while the other she props up at an angle. Balancing her mug on her chest, she pulls out a little box and clicks a lighter to life, holding the flame against a sleek white stick.

“Halimede.” I’ve only just met Mags, but hearing disappointment in her voice makes me want to curl up and apologise profusely, even without it being directed at me. I steal a glance at Florian and the bread shifts in my pocket. I consider asking him if he’d be open to just sharing Mags as a mentor. I won’t have time to entertain a woman who looks as though she’d rather do anything other than helping me.

“So you’re my mentor,” I say. She peers out at me through lank locks of dark hair, smoke furling out in a cloud around her.  “I have so much to discuss with you.”

Chapter Text

As it turns out, my mentor does not have a lot to discuss with me. Anything at all, in fact.

Halimede had taken one look at me and laughed. She hadn’t even deigned me with a response, simply alternating between taking a swig from a tumbler and a drag from her thin cigar.

It’s Mags who takes me gently by the elbow and leads me to another couch further down the carriage, beckoning for Florian to follow. It’s situated almost at the end, just in front of another door. Not knowing what lies beyond makes my head spin, so I curl up in the middle of the L shaped couch, resting my head against the downy cushions. I despise them, as I despise everything else beautiful and comfortable on this train. I despise Filly who is examining the table of food and drink, and Halimede who might’ve fallen asleep, cigar still held aloft. There are two servants stationed by the door now, silent and staring in their red uniforms. I don’t know who they are, so I feel no hatred towards them. I almost feel a connection: they don’t look very happy to be here either.

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing out of Mag’s mouth. I lift my head. Florian settles down behind me, and Mags takes a seat on the shorter side of the couch, in front of us.

“What are you sorry for?” I can’t help but let the words flow from my mouth. “None of this is your fault. You didn’t write the Quarter Quell decree and you didn’t vote us into it. It’s not going to help us in the Games.” My words sound empty, transient, as if someone else is speaking them into existence and all I can do is listen.

Mags tucks a curl behind her ear. She’s wearing a simple white dress, but there are pops of blue all over her that remind me of District 4. A rope cord hangs from her neck with a sea-green shell settling just below her collarbone. On her feet she wears simple blue sandals and a matching shell sits on a rope around her ankle. Her wrists are bare and she wears no ring, but her nails are neatly trimmed into ovals.

She says, “It’s not my fault that you’re here, and it isn’t yours either. Nothing we say will change what has happened, but ignoring any of it is only going to make these next days worse. Sorry won’t save your lives. Sorry won’t save the lives of any of this year’s tributes, or next years, or the lives of those reaped in fifteen years. But that doesn’t mean it’s useless to say, and it doesn’t mean you don’t need to hear someone say it.”

I think Mags knows exactly how much her words have helped. If she was a worse person then I suppose I could hate her for it, but she’s been nothing but lovely. It’s hard not to trust Mags, even though I’ve only just met her, and having seen my other option, it’s definitely in my best interest to stick with her. Plus, I like her.

I feel Florian shift behind me. “What should we be expecting next, Mags?” he asks. I want to snap back with ‘ it’s the Hunger Games, what do you think? ’ but there are prerequisites before the actual Games are set to start. They air on television but it’s never really been as common to watch as the Games itself. Some people can’t bear to watch, but others—particularly the parents or relatives of those reaped—can’t seem to tear themselves away from the screens. In recent years there’s been a sort of directive from the Capitol to make the Games, and everything leading up to them, mandatory viewing. I wonder if they’ve exacerbated it this year due to the special circumstances of the Quarter Quell. I can imagine Scylla watching, hoping that I’ve taken her words on board, internalized them, but it would tear Maren apart. Even though she lied to me, and didn’t come to visit me in the farewell room, I would never want her to have to see me in that arena. Though I suppose it doesn’t matter much what I want.

“It’s all quite different from my time,” Mags says. “Fifteen or so years have gone by, and you have the added stressors of dealing with this new twist. We only knew about our involvement just recently, but we weren’t to join you here until we’d been properly briefed.”

“Fifteen years?” Florian asks. “You won the 10th Games? I’m sorry we’ve never seen it.”

“We’d only have been two and three then,” I add unhelpfully, as if they are incapable of basic addition.

“Oh.” Mags shakes her head. She’s still smiling, but there’s a tension to it. “I was reaped the year after. Mags Flanagan, winner of the 11th Annual Hunger Games. Very prestigious. So much so that they added a little district tour to the list of victor duties, and sequestered me away in a fancy new house they built.”

The Victory Tour might sound interesting and special to the average Capitol citizen (I’m sure Filly goes crazy for it) but it’s the last thing a new victor needs. To be dragged around not just your own district, but each of the eleven others, reliving key moments of the Games and staring at the families of the children who were murdered. Whether you were the one to kill them or not won’t matter to those families; the fact that you lived while their son or daughter had to die is enough to justify a lifetime of hate.

It is much easier to hate the lone survivor who is paraded in front of you, than the Capitol conglomeration hundreds of miles away.

Something about Mag’s words jogs a memory in my brain. “Mags,” I ask, “did you used to live by the beach? In the main town, just a ten minute walk or so from the reaping square?”

She nods. “I did. It was so difficult to leave it there, to move into a new house that was twice the size and just as empty. But, the Capitol insisted.” Her eyes betray hidden pain. It’s none of my business, but I do wonder how they got her to leave the, presumably family home, that she speaks with such longing of. “Why do you ask?”

“Right, yes. It’s just…I live there too. On that stretch of beach with only a couple of houses. Florian does too, but the other ones are empty.” I stop rambling. This is another pointless tangent for me to be going on, especially as there can’t be too long until we arrive at the Capitol, and we’ve not been briefed at all on what to expect. It won’t be like District 4, I won’t know the terrain and the people, and I can’t afford to say the wrong things, not if I want to protect Florian—

“Oh, that’s lovely!” I think, what? Mags sinks further onto the couch, sitting cross-legged as if she were a schoolchild. She continues, “All three of us, from the same part of town? We’ve been connected long before we even knew it.” Her smile is contagious. I know this because a copy of hers is rising on my own face, and the muscles feel strange in their contortion. My eyes feel funny too, and then a splash of water falls onto my cheek.

Florian leans forward, propping his chin up on my shoulder like a puppy. When I turn to look at him, his green eyes sparkle. “Mags, did you ever have swimming competitions? Up to the blocking buoys and back again?” The blocking buoys are more like entire walls, and they go around the entire coast to stop us from chancing our lives on the open ocean instead of in Panem. I’m sure someone must’ve attempted it at one point or another. The only male victor we’ve had from District 4 so far is rumoured to have done so, but there’s no proof either way. He might just be locked up in his Victor’s Village house most of the time and managed to avoid the Capitol officials when they came knocking for the Quarter Quell. Either way, the blocking buoys don’t stop us from supplying the Capitol; we have enough sea to garner our fishing quotas, and no more.

“Swimming competitions?” Mags has a playful glint in her eye. She wears it well. “The swimming competitions that we started?”

Florian gasps right into my ear. I give him an incredulous look; his breath is horribly warm. “You started them? When?” He gasps again . “Would I ever have raced with you?” I nudge him. He coughs. “Apologies, would we ever have raced with you?” I try to ignore how much his forgetting our past hurts. I think as children we thought that we had invented the game, at least, that is what I remember telling the even younger children that wanted to play. Florian had cooked it up when we were around twelve, under the guise of wanting to teach the kids how to swim—though I know he grew to love it purely for the fun.

“Oh, I’m not sure. I stopped just before I was reaped, when I turned 16. You two would’ve been very young.”

“Right.” Florian rubbed at his forehead, jostling me. “I keep forgetting; you just look so young.”

If I’d said it, I’m sure it would’ve come across surly, or rude. But Florian had the kind of voice that you couldn’t help but trust, and the kind of face that put you at ease. I looked back at Mags. There was no longer any time for ease. “I know it’s different this year,” I say to her, “but anything you can tell us will be helpful. What…what exactly should we do when we get to the Capitol?”

Mags hummed. “It’ll be a little late when we get there, but some citizens might still be out to catch a glimpse. You shouldn’t have to talk to them, the Capitol is quite good with transporting tributes. That’s not to say, however, that your journey will be pleasant.” She rubs at her wrists as if they are causing her pain. An injury she suffered in the Games that persists even now? “They don’t want anyone going walkabouts, and they’ll likely be especially observant considering the stakes of this year’s Games. I will warn you: you must do as they say if you do not want your time here to be worsened.”

I scoff. “What more can they do? Our odds are already terrible with 22 other tributes fighting for the exact same thing as us. We’re already marked for death, the timer is just ticking slowly for now.”

“To you, as an individual? Perhaps you are right, you’ve already been dealt the worst hand at the table. It is other people you should be thinking of. People you know, people you love, and people who mean neither to you. Things are changing in the Capitol, if the whispers are correct, and that means change for the districts too. Did you think this twist in the Games was random? A whim taken upon by an aging President? Many see it as a portent, a preview of things to come. I am inclined to agree with them. The days of Hunger Games like mine seem to be over, and certain people within the Capitol have ideas about how the future should look.”

Florian looks around warily. The silent servants remain at their post by the far door, and we are sitting fairly far away from them. Halimede is snoring on the other couch, and Filly is surveying the food options, though she walks away with a violet-colored drink. “How do you know all of this, Mags? And… are you sure it’s safe to talk?”

“There are no cameras in here, dear. Nor microphones either, which would be of more harm to us. There is nothing wrong with a newly made Mentor having a conversation with her clever tributes. Now.” Mags hops up and fetches us a cup of water each. “Drink. You will wish you spent more of your time drinking water when you’re in the arena.”

“How do we find fresh water?” I ask between gulps. I can practically feel myself strengthening as the liquid slips down my throat. It’s cold, filled with ice. I still can’t make myself have any food, though if Mags handed me something I’d probably eat it just to appease her. She seems to know what she’s talking about, but I need to know if that extends to the inner workings of the Games as well.

“Well, I won’t know the layout or biome of the arena until you do. By then it’ll be too late; I won’t have any way to specify instructions to you. But as a general rule, if water is going to be found then it’s going to be found downhill. Travelling upwards can be good for other situations, but if you don’t have any drinking water then there’s no point. You’ll be more likely to find a stream by taking a path downwards. And make sure that it is a stream, or some form of running water. If the Gamemakers wish to mess around with the condition of the water, then there isn’t much you can do, but it’s best to avoid any stagnant water.” Mags swirls her cup around before taking another sip. Even though her Games were almost fifteen years ago, I can still see her savoring every pull she takes.

“And what if we can’t find a stream? Or there just isn’t one in the arena?” Florian asks. He’s moved his chin from my shoulder, sitting back against the cushions and tapping his fingers against his cup, and the lack of pressure there feels strange.

“Firstly, if there are iodine tablets in the arena and you manage to find any, use them on any drinkable source of water you want to take from. It might be the clearest water you’ve ever seen, but looks can be deceiving. Terribly deceiving.” Mags does look young, but I notice her eyes. They age her past her thirty years; they are awfully sad. “Barring any success with streams, try to locate mud. Digging down can unearth water from beneath the surface. Rainfall, too, can be exploited. Rope can be woven into baskets, as I’m sure you both well know, and there you have drinking water for a day or so. Again, though, the terrain of the arena will determine how effective each of these methods can be. A forest might mean you could tap a tree for its water, while a desert may still have some vegetation or dry riverbeds—in which you might dig underneath.”

“Not ideal though, is it?” Florian says, trying to inject a little misplaced enthusiasm into his voice. It’s almost annoying how it works a little bit. “The arena being a desert?”

“No,” Mags says, shaking her head, “it would not be ideal. But, I imagine the majority of tributes dying from heatstroke during the day and freezing to death during the night would lack the critical entertainment factor they seem to be pushing these days.”

“Especially for the most illustrious Quarter Quell,” I say in a silly Capitol voice.

Florian laughs in his unique way—with his full body rocking from side to side. “You sound just like Filly, Tethys!”

I let out a laugh myself, and it feels good. I can allow myself this. “Wait,” I say, having realised something, “you’ve been calling her Filly too?” I stare at him, and we both burst into more peels of laughter. When I turn back to Mags, feeling Florian’s arm press up against mine, she’s clearly been partaking in the laughter as well. She’s practically crying with it. I take her cup and refill it, then I go back to the table again when Florian brandishes his own cup at me. I remember Mag’s warning of always wishing for water in the Games, and I make another trip with my own cup.

Florian is mid-discussion with Mags as I fall back onto the couch. Its fabric practically swallows me up. My dark outfit hardly helps either. I trace one of the little stars embroidered onto it, and it makes me fall back into thoughts of Maren. Has she reunited with Scylla, citing the exceptional circumstances for an impromptu sisterly reunion? I wonder how they talk about me, and the Quell, and what they tell Maren’s children.

“I must ask, do either of you have any expertise with weaponry? Any experience at all?” Halimede shifts on the other couch as Mags speaks. Hopefully her cigar fizzled out alright on its own; I have no desire to burn to death in such an enclosed space. As the hysteria of our earlier laughter fades, I’m already freaked out enough that there’s nowhere for me to go while locked in this carriage.

Florian meets my eyes. There’s no doubt that we’ll tell Mags of our experience—if it can really be called that—but I know he doesn’t want to relive any of it. Mags doesn’t need our life story though, just the basics of the weaponry we know, even if it was craftily constructed by two teenagers. I turn to Mags. “A year or so after we became eligible for the reaping, we started a little…group. We just wanted to be at least a little bit prepared if the worst happened, and as it turns out so did some of the other kids. We didn’t have a lot of tools, outside of what we could scavenge from the fishing families and anything the merchants in town could spare. Knives, mostly. Daggers, shoddily-made swords and spears. Mostly did medium range training, throwing the stuff we made at targets. Some of the older kids did spar with each other, but the whole thing got disbanded before anyone really made any progress.”

Mags hummed. “I would wager that they include knives of some kind in the arena supplies. It’s a simple weapon, but one that beginners and trained fighters alike can use. Even if not, you said you constructed some of your own?” I nod, and Mags looks pleased. “Intuitive and handy with materials. I’d say you two have more than a fighting chance.”

“Do you know who was reaped—who was chosen from the other districts? I mean, have you seen footage of the other reapings?” Florian poses a good question. I wonder who our competitors will be, who the eleven other districts voted to enter the Games. Older kids like us—seventeen and eighteen year olds—is what I would guess, but if I couldn’t even foresee my own district choosing Florian and I, then perhaps my judgement shouldn’t always be trusted.

My heart sinks a little when Mags shakes her head. I suppose it wouldn’t have been the largest boon in our favor, but it couldn’t have hurt to know a little about the other tributes before we meet them. “Halimede and I have been sequestered on this train since the day before the reaping, and I wasn’t able to find any screens aboard. We’ve barely seen anyone, except for your lovely escort, so we know about as much as you. We didn’t even get to watch your reaping.”

A muffled “whuzzat?” comes from the human heap on the other couch. From what I can see, her cigar is nothing more than a stump and the level of liquid in her glass is rapidly approaching zero. She struggles into somewhat of a sitting position and wipes a hand down her face. “We there?”

I don’t know who exactly she’s addressing, but Filly chimes in anyway. “Not long now! Not long at all.” She’s sitting ramrod straight in a chair, fidgeting with something in her manicured hands.

Halimede stares at her. “How long?” she says, with a pointed pause between each word. I don’t think she blinks at all.

Filly reaches for a strand of pink hair. I think it’s her own, rather than a wig, but I can’t honestly be sure. “Oh, I…”

Mags checks her watch. “I should think only ten or so minutes now. Fifteen at the most, but I’ll go and check in with the train engineer now. You two,” she says, pointing at Florian and I but wearing her normal smile, “take another cup of water each, and see if you can get any food into you. Don’t think I didn’t see that neither of you touched any of it.” I brush my fingers against my half of the bread squished away in my pocket, but I know I can’t bring myself to eat it. I steal a glance at Florian and wonder if he’s thinking the same thing.

“Yes Ma’am,” he says, with a grin and a little salute to Mags. She chuckles and musses with his hair, laying a hand over one of mine before retreating back to the front of the carriage. She knocks on the door and must say something, but she’s gone in a matter of seconds.

“What do you think this even is ?” Florian stands by the food table once again, peering at the tall column of what I had assumed is soup.

I tell him that. He says, “Not that I don’t trust you , but I don’t trust this soup.”

I let out a laugh, but Mags’ absence has strangled some of the lightheartedness that previously permeated the room. I feel a sudden wave of self-consciousness. “Florian?” I say from the couch.

He swallows whatever food he went for before replying. “Yes? Sorry, did you want anything? My father would have my hide if he knew I was being rude.”

“No he wouldn’t, he’s lovely.”

“Mhm, lovely to you. Either way, what is it?”

I nibble at my bottom lip. “You…do want to ally in the Games?”

He blinks at me. “Of course. Who else would I want to ally with? We don’t know anything about the other tributes.”

“And if we did?”

“ No , Tethys. Look, I know we haven’t spoken since…since we were kids, but you can’t really believe I’d abandon you. Or kill you.” His voice drops on the last words, though Halimede and Filly look as uninterested in us as possible.

“No, I don’t think that. But only one can live in the end. I—”

“We have less than a week together. We can be practical and plan, but I won’t let you shut me out. They can’t tear me from you so easily, yeah? From the riptide, back to you? Just like old times.” Our old phrase both sobers me up and makes me want to break down into ruin.

I just nod as the train comes to a gradual halt. It’s nearing dusk outside, but Florian drags me over anyway. I let him have the first look.

“From the riptide, back to you,” I whisper.

Chapter Text

Mags was right enough: there isn’t much fuss when we disembark from the train. My legs are a little shaky from the hours spent on board, but there aren’t too many steps to navigate. Florian offers to go first in case there are any Capitol people waiting for us. I indulge him, but either we aren’t interesting enough to stay up to see, or they’ve gotten lost on the way.

We walk a bit further from the train, Florian a pace in front of me with Mags next to him. She sends me smiles dripping with reassurance during our walk. Halimede trudges along behind me with a Peacekeeper keeping an eye on her, while four more bracket all of us at each side. Filly tromps ahead, somehow at the front in those towering shoes.

We duck under slanted roofs and skirt around boards with beautiful people on them. They’re advertising…things, but it must be Capitol specific because I’ve never seen any of them before. I suppose that’s why the models are so beautiful, while there’s still grains of sand underneath my fingernails and tangles in my hair.

We come out into a room within the station, all brick walls and laminate flooring. By Capitol accounts I’m sure it’s perfectly ordinary, but my eyes have never seen so much shine that isn’t from the sun glinting off the waves. It captures my attention for sure, but I prefer the waves.

I get ample time to observe when I am unceremoniously pushed into a paddock. Even though livestock is not our trade in 4, I can still tell that is what it is supposed to resemble. We stand right in the middle of the room, in a space at least a couple dozen meters in length and width. There is some sandy substance beneath our feet, and there are already people inside the paddock.

Before I can take a look at our fellow tributes, size them up against mine and Florian’s combined strength, I am asked a question, “Right or left handed?”

I squint at the Peacekeeper from across the fence. “What?”

He is unamused. “Are you right or left handed?” he repeats, louder and more slowly. The very first of the tributes ahead of us in the strange line looks over at me, whispers to the girl standing next to him. Her sleek, red hair is tossed over one shoulder, mixing with the white-blonde of the boys. Hers is long, whereas his reaches far past his waist.

“Left handed,” I lie. I don’t know why he wants to know, so he’s not going to know. I can’t see his face behind his visor, but he takes the bait and grabs my left wrist. Any semblance of rebellion is stripped from me as he shoves my hand through a cuff attached to a spool of rope on the fence. He tightens it until the metal scrapes against my skin, making me release a grunt of pain.

“Hey!” Florian says. He’s a mere foot or so in front of me, but both of his wrists are free. “That’s hurting her.”

“Florian,” I hiss. Does he have a death wish? Then I realise how silly what I’ve just thought is. We’re marked for death anyway, as I told Scylla and then Mags. But Mags was right. Maybe this one Peacekeeper won’t do anything, or can’t, but if Florian mouths off to the wrong person in defence of me, or what is equally likely, in defense of a younger tribute who he wants to protect, then someone higher up on the food chain might decide to take it out on his father. Or his younger sister. “I’m fine,” is what I say, but when I have a chance to talk to him alone I’m going to make sure he understands. This game is much bigger than just him and I, than the entire 24 tribute package.

He must see something on my face because he stops trying to move towards me. He offers up his own wrist to the Peacekeeper: his right hand. He’s left handed. I suppose we’ll take our resistance however we can get it. “From the riptide,” I say to him. Old words of comfort, but they work the same on him as they always have.

I take a look around the room. There are more Peacekeepers standing guard at the perimeter, maybe the ones that walked us in here, maybe not. We’ve been left to our own devices in the paddock—chained to our meager lengths of rope, of course, but without surveillance breathing directly down our necks. I don’t feel safe to speak my mind, however. Mags has made me careful, but she has also made me paranoid.

Surveying the other tributes is safe. The blonde boy and redheaded girl aren’t looking over at me anymore, but they still catch my attention. They could pass as models from the boards outside. Considering where Florian and I are in the line, I assume they are both from District 1. Their beauty makes sense.

He is all elegant angles and pale skin, probably with crystal clear eyes though I can’t see from this far away. His hair is held back from his face with a clip, though it tumbles in such thick waves that I can’t help but feel a little envious. His district partner is equally fair—both in skin and in face—but she has none of his, for lack of a better word, prettiness. Her eyes dart about the room as she whispers to him. With her thin shoulders and drape of red hair, she reminds me of a fox.

“They’re from 1,” Florian tells me, as if I am an idiot. I know he doesn’t think that, though, so I reply, “I know. We’re in order. They were looking at us just now, with the Peacekeeper. I want to know what they’re saying.”

Florian lets out a breathy laugh. “Of course you do. They’re planning already. Shame, they sure are pretty.” He says it as if he is envious of their beauty, which is ridiculous. But it’s also not the time.

“Look at the others ahead of us. 2, and 3 if they’re here. 2 will probably be our biggest competition, but it’s worth seeing everyone who's here already. I’ll check out the backwater districts.” Backwater might sound harsh, but four out of the five most recent victors have come from District 1, 2, or 4. District 2 has had more recent victors than some districts have ever had. Size and a decent diet is a real threat in the Games, and from what I see, that threat will be in full force for the Quarter Quell.

I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting to see, whether I thought the other districts would mostly choose older kids with more of a stab at winning. As it turns out, some have done. Which means some haven’t.

We’re spread out enough in the paddock that I can stare ahead and see the tributes from the lower districts. There are gaps between some of them, indicating there are more districts that haven’t yet arrived from their train journeys. I make eye contact with a tall, dark skinned girl. She stares back, stony-faced, and I can’t find it in me to blame her. Her lips are full and she wears her hair in tightly coiled curls that reach below her shoulders. Her partner is barely taller than me, with slightly lighter skin than the girl and a matching expression. A possible threat, but I don’t feel actively weary of them as I do with the pair from 1.

There’s a fairly large gap between those two and the next pair. I spot the girl first: she’s tiny and blonde and can’t be more than thirteen. I’ve no clue as to her district—8 or 9 if I have to guess—but her hair is neatly combed and she clutches a well-worn teddy bear close to her chest. The boy next to her looks every bit her opposite, with his olive skin and shock of dark hair. She’s staring up at him but he seems indifferent. He even has his eyes closed.

I catch a glimpse of ginger hair, but the next couple of tributes are hidden behind a very tall dark haired boy. It forces me to look at who I’ve been trying to ignore this whole time.

The tributes from District 5 are behind us, naturally. They can’t weigh much at all, though the boy is tall and skinny. That’s not what sickens me though; I’ve seen enough poverty even in 4. They’re definitely siblings, their faces are almost identical and they have the same eyes and black hair. They’re not the same height but they look like copies of each other.

I think they might be twins.

Florian’s seen it too. He leans back against the fence—which I begrudgingly appreciate they have left un-electrocuted—and meets my eyes. We don’t speak about it. The tributes from 5 aren’t too far from us, after all.

He steps closer to me, as close as he can get with his hand shackled to the fence. He has to twist a little awkwardly in order to face me, considering he got his right hand trapped in the cuffs rather than his dominant left. A strand of fluffy blond hair flicks in front of his face. “2 aren’t talking to each other, and they’re not talking to 1 either. I’d say they don’t care much for each other, but they might just be playing along to not stick out.”

I nod. “An interesting strategy. The opposite of ours, so we should count them as a threat, as well as the pair from 1. 11 look strong, especially the girl, but they don’t strike me as the type to initiate any killing. There’s some others our age, but I don’t know enough about them to gauge a threat level.” I still don’t mention the twins, nor the tiny blond girl from one of the middle districts. I don’t want to think about them, because then my or Florian’s chances of winning become even more complicated. I’m not sure Scylla took the idea of younger kids being reaped into consideration when she was thinking of her speech. She can be plenty cruel, but I doubt she’d want me to start slaughtering twelve year olds so I could come home.

Perhaps I take after her a little, as I lean forward to look over at the tributes from 1 and 2, and wonder if I won’t have to slaughter those kids at all.

“What about 3? Anything different from usual?” Tributes from District 3 are usually small, averagely-fed, and very…techy.

“Kind of. They’re young, around fourteen if I had to guess. Doesn’t make me think they’ll be particularly good with tech, but there’s always surprises in the Games.”

“It wouldn’t be the biggest one,” I reply. I stop, listening. There are shouts from somewhere outside. Doors burst open from behind us. The small length of rope doesn’t let me whip around; I only jar my shoulder trying to do so. I hadn’t seen those doors when we entered the room, and I kick myself at how unobservant I was.

More tributes are dragged in, probably completing the paddock circle. “So far, my impression of the Capitol is very disappointing,” Florian whispers into my ear. I can’t help but let out a snort of laughter.

“Really?” I reply. “Not a fan of our warm welcome?”

“Found it rather lacking, really? No mints on my pillow at all.”

Peacekeepers shove a huge boy with cropped hair into the pen, shackling one of his wrists without asking for his dominant hand. A shorter—not that that’s saying much—girl follows him in, his district partner. They stand in line after the two from 11.

District 9 comes in after them, and the difference makes a lot of us stand and stare. It doesn’t feel good to do, but if there’s ever been a sign of the inherent unfairness of the Games, then it’s this. They lock the girl in first, and she’s small enough, with copper-colored hair cut into a bob a couple of inches below her ears. They don’t let the boy hold onto anything as he enters. They seem irritated when he nearly collapses, trembling on stick-thin legs like a newborn colt. When they insert his wrist into the cuffs, they can’t tighten them enough to make it fit. The boy wears a drooping rose behind his ear.

As the Peacekeepers bash about, trying to get this boy chained up who looks like he’d weigh ninety pounds soaking wet, his district partner starts shouting. The Peacekeepers give up with their strategy, instead holding both of the boy’s wrists together behind his back. He staggers, stringy brown-grey hair hanging in front of his gaunt face. His shoulders shake and I see the bones in his upper body sticking out even further.

“Why are you tying him up? You think he’s going to escape? Look at him!” The girl is practically frothing at the mouth. When a Peacekeeper tightens the boy’s cuffs again, her eyes light up. She rears forward, pushing against him with her free hand. He’s not expecting it, so he staggers back, one hand going to his side. “Cowards!” she screams, and spits over the fence. Then she’s flat out on the sandy floor, a baton held in the Peacekeeper’s grip. 

None of the rest of us do anything. I can’t tear my eyes away, and neither can a lot of the other tributes, including the pairs from 1 and 11. Florian makes a stilted movement, as if he’s entertaining the idea of pushing forward and protecting the girl. The rope keeping him at the paddock's perimeter pulls taut, then slackens. He takes a step back, hand clasped to the pocket which contains his half of the bread.

The girl struggles to her feet. She looks like she wants to repeat her attack, but when her district partner tilts to the side she moves towards him instead. Like a makeshift crutch, she positions herself by his side, holding onto his thin waist. She can practically wrap her arm all the way around him.

“This isn’t all of us,” Florian says, looking around at the nearly completed circle. He’s counting everyone again, but I see the empty space between Districts 11 and 1.

“Where’s 12?” I ask. “They have a long journey, but they should…”

The doors hadn’t shut from the District 9 tributes coming in, but they still manage to bash it against the wall. The boy and girl from 12 are almost as malnourished as the ones from 9, but from the glimpse I get they appear a little older. The cuffs must fit them at least, as the Peacekeepers step back after tightening them. One remains a few feet behind the girl.

“Look at her face,” Florian whispers.

I peer closer. Ringing the girl’s eyes are bruises, painted like a stain of blood on her olive skin. “She looks like she’s been in a fight,” I whisper back to Florian.

Some of the Capitol people have noticed her condition. “What is this?” says one woman, brandishing a brush like a sword. She leans against the fence, stabbing forward with the brush as if there’s any chance someone could miss the state of the girl’s face. Her purple hair wobbles as she speaks. “You want me to clean this up in…five minutes? Do you have zero respect for my craft?”

I’m not sure exactly who she’s talking to, but she whirls around to face the Peacekeeper stationed behind the girl from 12. He’s wearing his visor, but his body language makes him seem like a cowering deer. “She’s a biter, this one,” he rationalises, “so I had to make sure she—”

The woman waves him off. “I don’t care. Stop talking to me. I need to get this fixed before we go live.”

Live. Television. Of course there are interviews each year, but they usually don’t happen so early. Tributes get a couple of minutes to talk themselves up in front of a crowd, cameras, and Lucky Flickerman. I see a crowd, though there’s no organised system or seating arrangements—they’re all just standing around or meandering the perimeter to gawp at us—and there’s plenty of cameras being wheeled and hauled about, but no Lucky.

I can’t see Mags or Halimede, so either they’ve been escorted somewhere else while filming goes on, or the Capitol people simply outnumber the mentors. I have no idea who the mentors are for the other tributes this year, but last year a boy from 10 won, and Halimede was a couple of years before him. Filly might be out there, but so many of these Capitol people all look the same in their garish colours and even worse makeup.

“Oh!” Florian exclaims. Speaking of makeup, the purple-haired woman is still trying to ‘fix’ the damage done to the girl from 12. She’s got a clump of the girl’s dark curls in one hand, flitting about with the brush as the girl thrashes about.

“Hold still! ” cries the woman, giving a sharp rap to her nose as if reprimanding a dog. The girl goes still. The woman gives a satisfied huff. Then she screams.

The Peacekeeper had called the girl from 12 a biter. I hadn’t taken much stock in it, but as her teeth sink into the woman’s wrist I understand what he meant. Her teeth go right in, on the inside where the veins lie beneath the skin.

Her partner cowers as far away as he can get. The girl from 1 looks disgusted, while the boy hollers. He looks eighteen—or close enough—but he’s like a bloodthirsty child witnessing his first fight. Maybe he is. I can’t imagine they get into many fights in the gemstone district.

The girl from 9 seems inspired. She lets loose another glob of spit, and it finds its mark against a Peacekeeper’s visor. District 1 are both cheering now, and when I lean forward I see that the District 2 girl has a smile on her face. Her partner isn’t looking at any of the unfolding entertainment, and he’s the only one. 

We’re an unsightly bunch. The girls from 9 and 12 are halfway feral, the blonde thirteen year old looks liable to burst into tears at any minute, and the sick boy is as collapsed as his cuffs will allow. The twins simply stare blankly. With the addition of more jeers and shouts, the Peacekeepers seem lost as to what to do, despite there being at least a dozen of them. A couple go to the crowd, ushering them back as if us slipping our cuffs and jumping the fence is a real possibility and great threat.

Another waves his baton at the girl from 9, but she doesn’t seem intimidated until it starts sparking. The fence isn’t electrified, but these are. She steps back, focus returning to her partner. The Peacekeeper notices the effectiveness of this threat and gestures at his friend stationed behind the tributes from 12. He nods to the first Peacekeeper and fiddles with his baton, raising it up when it starts to spark.

“Echo!” her district partner shouts, but, like him, his voice is thin and reedy. The Peacekeeper brings the baton down on the girl—Echo—and she convulses. Her teeth are still caught around the woman as she falls, and the wrist pops free from her mouth with a spatter of blood. The woman wails and is pulled away by a group of Capitol onlookers, while the sandy floor of the paddock reddens.

Things die down almost instantly. The blond from 1 has a pout on his face, and I see the pair from 11 whispering between themselves as their eyes dart around. I grit my teeth. This whole palaver has stopped me from getting information about the other tributes. All I’ve learnt is that there are plenty of scrawny, scrappy ones, and that the District 1 boy is a piece of work.

They’ve left Echo face-down on the floor for now, her partner gazing worriedly but unable to get any closer due to the cuffs. “What are they going to do with her?” I murmur to Florian. “Weren’t we supposed to be live already?”

Florian gnaws at his lower lip. “Are they just leaving her there? She's…they’ve electrocuted her. She needs…”

We both know what she needs, but somehow I doubt the Capitol is going to give it to her. She’s marked to die in a number of days anyway; they won’t heal a doomed animal.

Everyone with a camera looks confused, glancing at each other in search of orders. No one steps up until a man enters, flanked by two more Peacekeepers.

He’s not a Peacekeeper. Instead of the visor and practical white outfit, he’s dressed in a crisp burgundy suit. Golden hair twists into curls atop his head; blue eyes take their time to scan over each and every person in the room: Capitol and tribute alike. He’s vaguely familiar, but I can’t put a face to the name. 

He surveys the scene. He doesn’t look angry, but I get the feeling that his is a well-practised picture of indifference. “Well, how very disappointing. As Head Gamemaker, I take the running of my Games most seriously. That includes the preamble, the beginning, the middle, the end, and the finale. All of it. I strive for perfection, and I will have it. Now, cameras this way, if you will.”

The people with cameras look relieved to have someone to follow. Only one hangs back, a tall man in a dark suit. He says, “Ah, Head Gamemaker Snow. It’s just… we thought that Lucky Flickerman would be attending to—”

The Head Gamemaker doesn’t face the man when he speaks, merely coming to stand a few feet from the District 1 tributes. “Mr. Flickerman is indisposed. I will lead these preliminary interviews. Now,” he says, dismissing any more concerns with a smile, “let us begin.”

Chapter Text

The Head Gamemaker's name suits him. He's pale, light-eyed with pin-straight blond hair neatly arranged with slick streaks of whatever he uses to keep it in place. When he smiles his teeth are just as white, stacked in his mouth without a single chip or overbite. When he smiles at the district 1 boy—who even seems to have lost his earlier bravado for a moment—they could almost be siblings.

He—Snow—gives an expectant look at one of the men standing around the cameras, holding a huge pole with some strange fuzzy fabric at the end. He snaps to attention and aims the pole down, until it is hovering just out of the view of the cameras. He counts down, "Three, two, one," and then Snow comes alive.

He wasn't outright hostile to us, unlike the Peacekeepers who, once they remembered its existence, got a little trigger happy with the electrified batons, but there had been something off about him. The smile had been a little too wide—the teeth too white—and from head to toe he looked far too perfect. Of course, he still looks the same physically: red suit; combed hair; tall stature, but there is an ease to his gait and a comfortability in front of the rolling cameras that I hadn't seen before. I wonder which side of him is even real. I can't be sure in this strange new place; I can't be sure of anything.

"Good evening, citizens of the Capitol! I can be nothing short of overjoyed that you have elected to join us, especially after already having consumed such an exciting meal of reapings earlier on! As I am sure you know, I am our one and only Head Gamemaker, Coriolanus Snow, standing in for our beloved host and retired weatherman Mister Lucky Flickerman. Worry not, however, for I have it on reliable information that he will not be away for long, and is set to make a full recovery from his bout of food poisoning!"

The words pour forth, as if it is as easy for him as breathing. His voice is clear and distinct. I can't help but abandon any pursuit of information from anywhere else, listening only to him and what he might say next. Florian raises his eyebrows at me and I return a shrug back to him. I pull on the rope a little. We certainly aren't going anywhere soon.

He continues, "Though you have seen glimpses at our tributes from their respective reaping ceremonies, don't let yourself believe you have seen everything. There will never again be an event as momentous as the first Quarter Quell, so consider keeping the television turned on. At such a unique time in our history, you won't want to miss a thing. Now! I have made you wait for fair too long. Shall we start with the first taste of our dessert course?"

The Head Gamemaker turns back to the boy from 1 and I realise just how long we will be standing here for. I don't know if we'll be allowed to leave after our sections of the interviews are done, but one rattle of the shackle on my wrist tells me that the Capitol isn't going to care about a tribute's leg pain.

Head Gamemaker Snow holds the microphone in a poised hand, leaning against the fence both casually and with a degree of elegance. He looks entirely out of place by the paddock, and even in the room as a whole, but he is still on the other side of the fence. "Young man," he says, "what would be your name?"

The boy from 1 composes himself rather quickly. He doesn't look at Gamemaker Snow, but rather stares intently into the camera pointed straight at his face. A pale hand brushes a lock of white-blond hair from his face. "Good evening, Capitol! My name is Cameo Romero. Eighteen years old." He punctuates this with a wink and a shake of his head. His hair fans out in a cloud. I do not like him.

"Cameo, District 1, eighteen. You would describe yourself as confident, if I were to hazard a guess?"

Cameo smiles like every moment is a competition. "Oh yes. I know my worth, Mister Gamemaker, and it is very high. I'm going to win."

"Gumption." I doubt Snow is convinced, but District 1 does tend to do well in the Games. "Will he make it far, or is it all just bluster? Now—"

"Make it far? No, didn't you hear me? I am going to win . That's why I came here, not to 'make it far.'"

Snow ignores him. Cameo looks affronted by the dismissal, and I almost think he's going to lunge forward—for Snow or the camera. Instead, he alternates his time between looking for more cameras pointed towards him and making faces at the other tributes. He doesn't look my way, nor Florian's.

The camera leaves him in favour of his redheaded district partner, who I learn is named Radiane. She is seventeen, like me, though she could pass for at least nineteen. She doesn't seem to like hearing herself speak as much as her district partner, but her voice is strong and she lets the camera know that she believes in her chances of winning, citing her intellect and quick-thinking. Cameo is taller than her—and most of the rest of us—and might be physically stronger, but I make a mental note to tell Florian that she will be at least as much of a threat as her partner.

"Next, our pair from District 2! Your name is…?" I wonder what they feed the kids in 2, because this boy is huge. Even calling him a boy feels wrong, though he can't be older or younger than eighteen. His arms are thick with muscle, which I imagine continues underneath his plain black shirt and trousers. His dark hair hangs lank, hiding most of his face except from patches of olive skin.

"Miles," he says in a rumbling baritone. And that's all he says. He ignores the Head Gamemaker's prompts of age and dedication to the Games, until he is forced to move on. Neither of the District 2 tributes give him much to work with: the girl seems more likely to spit in Snow's face than tell him what her name is. He seems to know it anyway—Katolina—and he tells the camera with a big smile. He skirts around her immediately after, giving the fence a wide berth until he comes to a stop next to the District 3 tributes.

I barely hear him talking to them—two little kids with pale skin and lank, brown hair—because they are District 3. Which means we are next.

There's something clutched in my hands; fibres run along the skin of my fingers. I've grabbed the sleeve of Florian's shirt, and though I don't want to rip it, I can't find it in myself to let go. It's not even particularly helping the rising panic in my stomach, but it's a little comfort that I can't help but take.

When he shifts and dislodges my hand, that rising panic swells even further. But my grip on fabric is replaced almost instantly with something else: Florian's—slightly sweaty—hand. My heart leaps into my throat, but I swallow it back down. He doesn't look at me, and I don't look at him, but when I squeeze his hand, he squeezes back.

"Our tributes from District 4! Dressed quite thematically, I must say. There's nothing like a bit of district appreciation, I say. Tasteful ." Head Gamemaker Snow's voice is so much louder now, and there's a camera staring right back at me. I have to crane my body uncomfortably against the fence in order to stare back, but it's not my turn yet. I'm glad, because I'm gazing blankly into the camera and I don't think I could say a single coherent word.

Others don't seem to have that problem. Head Gamemaker Snow is the ideal Capitol leader: introducing every tribute with ease and navigating the ones that don't want to cooperate with him; the Capitol people must be eating every moment up. In another world, perhaps I would've too, if I hadn't been born in the districts.

"And what a handsome man you are, Mister Florian Furman. A pity we've no audience tonight, I'm sure there's plenty of young ladies watching their screens absolutely smitten!" I've missed whatever conversation Florian had with him, but I don't like the snippet I've caught. Something rises up in me, protectiveness, the need to pull Florian back from Snow and the cameras and the entire Capitol watching their screens 'smitten.'

But I don't. And now the camera is pointed even closer at me, and Snow is saying something, and all I can hear is the buzzing of garbled syllables going in one ear and out the other. Shocker: I'm no good in front of a camera, even when, as Snow says, there is no real audience before me. I think I take a breath, and then I feel another squeeze to my hand, and I speak.

"My name is Tethys Holloway, I'm seventeen years old, and I'm here to win the 25th Hunger Games." The first part is true, but the last is a horrible, barefaced lie, and it feels like chalk when it leaves my mouth. I've made it sound as though I want to be here, like I'm a Cameo-clone who wants to spill some blood and make it home for the celebrations. I hate saying it, but I think it's working for me.

Head Gamemaker Snow almost looks surprised; his left eyebrow jumps slightly up his face and there's a tiny twitch to the side of his mouth, but he makes no more show of it. "You are, are you? Well, confidence is absolutely key, ladies and gentlemen at home, but let's hope there's no overstep into cockiness , hm?"

Just like that, my time with the camera is up, and just like that, he has managed to knock my newfound confident persona as soon as I created it. Snow is onto the pair from 5 already, crouching down to their eye-level. The boy is a little taller than the girl, but that's not particularly difficult. Most of the other tributes are, barring the sick boy from 9, who is somehow looking even more fragile. His legs shake like a newly born foal and I can't imagine he'll remain upright for much longer, even with his tiny spitfire of a district partner trying to help.

I'm focusing solely on Florian's hand in mine and the drape of hair in my eyes, but a snippet of the conversation going on beside me makes its way through. "You two look like an absolute pair," Snow says. "Might I enquire—"

The boy from 5 replies, in a surprisingly strong voice, "We're twins. My sister is going to win."

I don't want to hear anymore. If Scylla were here, she would scold me, remind me how I have what it takes to win the Hunger Games, this twisted Quarter Quell that has reaped a pair of twins and a sick boy and however many other starved children that look twelve or thirteen and will never age past those years. And maybe I can win. But my winning means that the boy's sister will not, and neither will he, or the stoic boy from 2, or the tiny girl with golden hair, or Florian —

If I can't even imagine fighting and killing one of the other seventeen or eighteen year olds, then how will I do the same to these kids?

I don't know what district Head Gamemaker Snow is interviewing now. I'm slumped against Florian as much as possible with these shackles around our wrists. He doesn't ask me if I'm alright. Instead, he slips his free hand into his pocket, waits for a moment until the Head Gamemaker finishes with a district pair and moves onto the next—7 or 8 maybe—and produces a slither of the bread from our district.

Florian pulls in closer to me until our sides are all but pressed together. "Here," he whispers, and I barely catch it. I think he realises that I'm struggling to stay together, let alone move any part of my body below the neck, because he presses the bread against my lips. "Think of home," Florian says, and I do. But no matter how hard I try not to, I also think of him.

I think of the ocean first: the smell of the salt spray against my face; the feel of the water perfectly cradling my body as I glide through it; the picture of Florian beside me when I open my eyes despite the sting.

We had countless competitions. Who could hold their breath the longest, who could sink down to the silt of the seabed the quickest, who would win each game of chase. It had all been so simple when we were children, unburdened by the cost of the reaping except to wonder why some of our friend's siblings went away and never came home again.

We had tried to cling onto that ignorance for as long as possible, by becoming enamored with each other. In holding on to a simpler time, we hardly spent any time apart. I dodged the teasing remarks of one sister, often dancing right into the sceptical words of another. Both just made me eager to see Florian even sooner, and made me angrier at my family. It had only been years later that I realized it had been Maren's last year eligible for the reaping, and that our mother had spent the entire night weeping into Scylla's neck.

I hadn't cared, for Florian and I were going to start teaching some of the younger children to swim, and when we were finalising their plans the previous night—messing about in the water as we were wont to do—Florian had kissed me.

There were so many things I hadn't realized. I had just never expected to only have a few days left to contemplate them.

I chew the bread mechanically, but it tastes like salt and seaweed and home, so my eyes well up of their own accord. I lift my head. Snow has almost completed the entire circuit. He is just leaving the girl from 11. I've missed so many tribute introductions and whatever details I might've gleaned from them. With just an eye test, both 10 and 11 look physically strong, so I hope Florian has at least been listening, rather than focusing all his energy on keeping me conscious and bipedal.

When I meet his eyes, he gives me a big smile—customary from him—as well as the slight incline of his head. A sign that he knows what I was thinking, or has at least hazarded a good guess from the situation we're in, and wants to reassure me that he has been listening. Good. That marks one of us as helpful.

The boy from 12 is, unsurprisingly, small and skinny. His brown hair sticks up something awful, as if he's been spending all his time stuck up a chimney—which, considering District 12, might be entirely accurate. I've got no idea what the place is like, but when we were younger Scylla used to whisper tales of mine explosions and coal-coated body parts that usually belong inside . Of course, now I'm aware she was just trying to scare me, but it's still a little difficult to get some of her imagery out of my head.

The poor boy is shaking like a twig during a hurricane, and his district partner—

"Florian," I whisper, stopping to trace the shreds of bread that have gotten in between my teeth, "where's the girl from 12 gone?"

"They took her away when Snow was interviewing one of the backwaters districts. It was…it wasn't the most elegant of removal processes." I imagine Peacekeepers standing over her, separated by a fence like a barn animal kept from their keeper. Did it take them long to cart her over the top? Did they remove the shackle from her wrist, or did it dangle like a ring from a piece of string as they took her away to who knows where? I don't know this girl, but her display of violence against the Peacekeepers and the awful makeup woman was…

It was what? Inspiring? Do I want to be like her, and the girl keeping her sick partner up on her own malnourished body, fighting back against enemies twice, three times my size? Someone like Scylla would say yes, someone deeply, intrinsically angry with the world and the lot it gave her. Mags would not agree, at least not in such an enclosed place with cameras and Capitol people everywhere. She strikes me as the kind of person to plan, meticulously, and think through every single scenario that might occur. She knows how to play the game that the Capitol provides, but I don't know how many of the other tributes also have mentors like her.

The Head Gamemaker is finished with the boy from 12—his partner might've shouted his name earlier in the scuffle, and vice versa, but I can't remember either of them, which sends a pang of guilt threading through my heart—and he turns again to the camera. "Ladies and gentlemen at home, I do hope that you have had the most wonderful night, getting to know our delightful tributes! Of course, this is not their final farewell to you, not yet." There are no sweeping gestures from him, no wide arms and big chuckles like what I remember seeing from the usual host during previous Games. He is, quite offputtingly, rather like a doll, a figure carved from wax or stone or intricately molded sand, that is doing a convincing impersonation of, well, a person.

He continues, "Over the coming few days, we will be getting to know our tributes even further. It wouldn't do to have them here and waste their presence, now would it?" A wax figure, with shining white teeth; he tilts his head and smiles. Not a hair on his head wavers. "Coverage will span the course of each day, of course, including footage from previous days in case any of you are unfortunate enough to miss anything. Depending on the day's activities, the time of airing may vary. Make sure to pick up a programme guide for live viewings, or, if in doubt, ask the neighbor with the best taste. Though I may only have been your temporary host, I bid you all a wonderful night from Head Gamemaker Coriolanus Snow!"

The cameras whir. They must then be cut off, because they are wheeled or carted away in order to make room for the surge of Capitol faces. One person starts, and suddenly all I can hear is thunderous applause. As if they are the ones being held back with fences and shackles and ropes, they burst forth from where they had been perching like wallflowers, all to be the first to shake the hand of the Head Gamemaker.

Most of them are so captivated that we are almost entirely ignored. One woman is in floods of tears, shaking Snow's hand in between both of hers. It's almost amusing the way his face strains, how he takes a step backwards and looks at her as if she's a fly on his wall. I watch with some strange sense of glee. I want to see him as uncomfortable and embarrassed as he made me during the thirty second interview, whether he meant to or not. He is Capitol, this treatment will be temporary for him.

I don't have such a luxury.

"I hate them." The words burst from me before I can even think why they are a terrible idea. "I hate them."

Florian's eyebrows shoot up. "Not that I don't agree," he says, cautiously—as I should be, as Mags told me to be, lest the wrong person with the right amount of power hear and take it out on my family. I realise that I don't know how Mags is aware that there are some people in the Capitol that would do that. The person I imagine to have the most power is President Ravinstill, but he's grown so frail and isn't in attendance. "But are you sure this is the place to air such a grievance?"

"I can't help it. Look at them, Florian. Most of them can barely tell we're here, which is bad enough, but the others do nothing but gawp like this is a zoo. What animal do you think we are, or is it an entire menagerie in here?" I need to stop, my voice is pitching up. I don't want to risk more onlookers joining the crowd.

Would it be strange for me to grab Florian's hand again?

I don't get to find out, because they're opening the tiny holes in the fences that tentatively pass as gates. No, just one, the one next to the district 12 boy. He gets led out first, shackles undone and hanging from his thin wrist. A keepsake. It's the same with the rest of us. We file out in reverse order. 11 goes next, then 10. The girl from 9 half dragging the sick boy behind her, their shackles clacking together despite the fervent Capitol chatter happening beyond the fence.

The middling districts get to leave, and then it's our turn. I wait for Florian to be unshackled and then walk beside him. We don't speak, but his little finger brushes against mine before he gestures for me to leave the paddock first. I smile at him—disgustingly soppily I imagine—but I take a glance at the remaining tributes as I go.

District 2 are already on the way out, being directed to walk the entire perimeter we just did rather than taking the shorter width right in front of them. Cameo is the only one still chained, but his partner is waiting for him. And he's staring right at me. I swallow against a lump in my throat, but outwardly I raise a single eyebrow and then keep on walking. I don't know if he bought it or not. Maybe he can smell fear.

There's a line of tributes waiting for me as I exit the paddock. Of course, I can't even breathe easily after being freed from it. There are Capitol people everywhere, though perhaps they've been told not to crowd us as they were doing to the Head Gamemaker, because they keep a fair distance away. It doesn't stop them staring, though.

The Head Gamemaker is still here, shaking hands and clinking glasses with some fancy looking people in dresses, suits, and towering hats. I brush my arm against Florian's and try to look for Mags or Halimede. I'd even take Filly at this point—my feet feel like they're on fire even in the shoes Maren got for me, and there's been a sick feeling in my stomach for a while now—considering she's enough of a beacon that she'd be easy to spot.

But I can't drag my eyes from Head Gamemaker Snow, still holding an elegant glass in his hand and toasting to something. In just a few days, after we've been dragged around and stared at some more, those hands will control the Hunger Games. They will have the power to kill me, or to leave my tentative fate in my own grasp.

I just don't know which it will be.