CHAPTER ONE
guilt of a mentor

( content warning - discussions of sex trafficking of a minor )

ELEANOR PLACED THE BOUQUET SHE MADE IN FRONT OF TWO STICKS CROSSED TOGETHER WITH A SINGLE PIECE OF STRING. Posies and daisies, placed gently on the freshly dug soil. Her eyes fixed on the two sticks. The older people always made them - they called them crucifixes - and apparently they were a part of the old time traditions. She remembers when the elderly would talk about these times - even showing her ruined scriptures they held so dearly to themselves. It was nice, but not for Eleanor.

Those old people spoke of a benevolent god. If there really was a god, why would he allow for this to happen to them?

Her eyes fixed on the neat writing inscribed on the wood. The lettering was in cursive, delicately done by the mother of the girl whose bones were buried here. The grave belonged to a young girl, thirteen years old, filled with life and full of promising hope. The girl was dead - she had been dead for two months now - but Eleanor could still recall her smile. Celine Cory had been her first ever tribute Eleanor mentored, the first Eleanor had failed. She died in the initial bloodbath, stabbed in the back by the girl from District 5. Eleanor told her to ally with them - foolishly hoping that the girl from District 5 was exactly like Sage.

Sage Crossley's nobility was a rarity for a reason, Eleanor quickly realised.

Eleanor didn't know how long she had been sitting on the rocks by the grave. She nervously picked at the satin gloves on her hand, a blue shawl wrapped on her shoulders to protect her from the chilly summer breeze. Minutes could have passed, even hours, but it didn't matter. Celine was dead, so nothing really did matter. She felt a tear run down her cheek and she brushed it quickly away. She didn't deserve to cry when she had been the cause of this girl's death. It's false sympathy, she immediately assumed. How could she be sympathetic to the death of a little girl she had marched off to death?

Eleanor didn't need to look over her shoulder to know who was standing behind her. "You shouldn't be here."

His reply was instant, as though he had rehearsed it one hundred times over. "Neither should you, it's getting late." Finnick was dressed in a simple grey jumper and worn out blue jeans. She didn't know how long he had been standing behind her, nor did she care. "Nel, you must be cold."

Eleanor shook her head. "I'm fine." Eleanor wasn't fine. "I deserve it." She was cold, Finnick could definitely tell that. He could probably tell it by the way her voice quivered - though that was also because she had been crying.

"Why?"

Eleanor shrugged nonchalantly. Her response practically left her lips immediately, almost as though she had rehearsed what she would say in the mirror beforehand. "I murdered her."

She heard the sigh that left his lips. This was becoming a frequent pattern, Finnick reminding her the same thing over and over again. How she wasn't liable for any deaths because she cannot manipulate the games. That's a lie of course, even when it seems like there's no hope, there always is hope.

Eleanor was adamant. "Even you said the alliance with 5 was stupid." That was true, Finnick opposed the alliance Eleanor so desperately wanted. The girl from 5 was cunning, playing a naive role that Eleanor so desperately wanted to be a piece of Sage. She had been the one who told Celine to ignore Finnick and do the alliance if she felt it was right.

Celine trusted Eleanor.

Eleanor betrayed Celine.

Finnick didn't know what to say, because it wasn't exactly far from the truth. No one has ever looked at Eleanor with such trust as Celine had. The small girl was hopeful as she was held tightly, wanting to believe the small lie which was that she could return home to her mama, nana, and brothers.

Thing is, she did come back.

Just in a pretty little box wrapped in a white bow.

She was pretty, even in death. Just not a victor.

Finnick let out yet another sigh, moving to sit next to Eleanor. For a moment he watched her, watched as the wisps of her dark brown hair messily fell in front of her face. Gently, he reached forward and brushed them behind her ear. His touch wasn't unwanted, the rough feeling of the scales on her cheeks making Finnick's heart thunder. No one had anticipated the aftermath of the venom, especially the doctors who desperately tried saving Eleanor's pretty face. Of course, the scales didn't make Finnick flinch away, he could stare at Eleanor for hours.

Their eyes met and Eleanor sniffled, hurrying her face in his chest as he pulled her in. His chin rested on her head, a lingering kiss pressed quickly.

"I'm sorry." Eleanor croaked.

He pressed another kiss on her forehead. It was warm, the feeling of his lips against her cold forehead. "It's not your fault."

"It is." She whimpered softly, shaking her head back and forth. She could feel him shake against her form, or maybe that was her shaking him? Eleanor had no clue. "It's all my fault."

Finnick shook his head once more, holding her as tight as he could as though if he let go, she'd disappear. "It isn't, Nel." He pressed yet another firm kiss on her head. "It never will be."

Viola Rosh wished she hadn't been heavily pregnant when the 69th Hunger Games rolled around. Things would just be so simple for the victors of District 4 had Eleanor not been made to mentor. The year prior, for the 68th, she mentored - since Finnick begged her to make sure Eleanor stayed far away from the Capitol - but then she ended up pregnant with her daughter and Snow practically demanded for Eleanor to begin mentoring.

Now all the victors were stuck in a violent cycle of watching their newest neighbour tear herself apart from the torment of her one failure. It was hard to ignore the screams, the constant sound of someone haunting themselves because they believe they deserve to be haunted.

Stupid Greer, Viola cursed to herself as Finnick practically poured his entire heart out to her. It was late, the boy had knocked when it had just gone past midnight and Viola sent her husband upstairs so she could privately talk to the boy about things not even her husband knew. He immediately cried over how broken his best friend - who Viola doubted was just a best friend - was because of the death of her first mentee. It didn't surprise Viola, she knew just how sensitive Eleanor Eves was from a mere glance alone.

"She's going to blame herself," Viola tried to explain, passing a mug of hot chocolate to the tearful boy that sat inches from her. "Eleanor is a sensitive girl, I am not surprised she's taking this hard."

Finnick shook his head. "You don't know Nel like I do." He whispered so quietly that Viola had to focus just to hear him. The tragedy of Panem was not that Eleanor was reaped. It was that the Capitol actively sought to destroy her. To destroy her was to erase the Eleanor everyone knew from existence. They had done that already - traces of her were fragmenting, washing away like an unwanted stain. But there was nothing unwanted about who Eleanor was - is.

Finnick hiccuped, taking a sip of his drink. "She's breaking herself apart over her first mentoring. Her first one." His voice quaked with a tremendous tremble. "How can I protect her when she's the one I need to protect herself from?"

Viola reached forward to place a hand on Finnick's knee, her heart dropping when the boy flinched. He brought his oversized coat closer to his body, practically allowing it to swallow him whole. "Finnick?" He knew what she was asking and he nodded. Viola swallowed, her throat painfully dry when she asked softly, "Since when?"

It took a moment for him to respond, but he eventually did. "Since two weeks after Nel's victory." The response made Viola's heart shatter, tears pricking in her eyes. None of them had known... not even Mags. They had just assumed Snow wanted Finnick in the public eye for social purposes.

Not for that.

How could they be stupid to assume it wasn't for that reason? Everything from Snow always came with a cruel price.

Finnick, however, continued without being prompted. "They want Eleanor," he whispered, his hand gripping his pants as he held onto them with a tight grip. Viola only then noticed how baggy they were, how skinny Finnick had gotten recently. How else had they been ruining him? "I-I couldn't let them destroy her anymore... so I made a deal with him." A painful silence enveloped the room, a chill running up Viola's spine. "I made a deal with Snow."

Viola's light blue eyes softened, a frown becoming more and more pronounced on her rouge tinted lips. Her eyebrows relaxed, lips parting in concern. "That's dangerous. Finnick, you should've told us, we could've-"

He scoffed. "Help me? Fat chance, I was going to be sold whether Eleanor survived or not," he brought his knees up to his chest. "Just sped up the process, I guess..." His voice was practically an inaudible murmur, forcing Viola to strain to even understand.

"Finn, I don't... why?"

Finnick shrugged. "Me or her, that was Snow's offer. You know what I chose."

He chose to protect Eleanor, even if it meant putting him through horror. Even if it meant being violated and sold and trafficked. Finnick did all that because every hand on his body meant one less hand on Eleanor's.

"It'll destroy her when she finds out what you're doing, Finnick," Viola lightly whispered, her words careful as though Finnick was glass ready to shatter. Any blow could destroy him, her words careful scavenges as they search for a solution so rare. There are no solutions once you lock yourself in a deal with Snow. Even in death, you are tethered by your debt. "She'll never forgive herself."

He shrugged, absentmindedly. "That's why she's never going to find out." He didn't care what he would go through, it didn't matter if Finnick had to sleep with a hundred Capitol men and women. It would simply mean that it was one hundred Capitol men and women that wouldn't be destroying her. Finnick had made his bed, drank his poison, and now he had to lay it in and die. He was content with that. "She still has to be prominent in the Capitol. She's a symbol to them, sexually, socially, Snow said she'll mingle with them to the point she is one."

Viola scoffed. "As if they'll make that sweet girl anything like them vile pimps." Her arms folded over her chest, her knee jittering up and down in a repeated trepidation of anxiety.

She was right, but that didn't mean Snow wouldn't try.

HERE IS A CHAPTER MY LOVES !!! WE ARE ALREADY AT 127K AND IT'S NEARLY CHRISTMAS !!

this is my lovely christmas present to all of you :) of course if you do not celebrate, then this is a lovely little surprise 

im gonna give myself some time to fully write act two since this act is also of my own creation. actually writing and making the narrative fit the hunger games is a lot more difficult than i anticipated. however, i want people to fall in love with eleanor and each character i include that is my own creation. its so fun to create a story so meaningful to so many. all of your support means the world to me and keeps me motivated to write. 

originally, i would've jumped to catching fire by now, but i wanna establish eleanor as apart of her own narrative. 

just a little tease, this act will explore the 70th Hunger Games ;) do with that what you will.

love you all :))))))