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TO THOSE WITH an average mind, the visage would've been nothing more than spectacularly ordinary. It would simply be as it physically was; a torch dancing in the twilight, dredging all the colours from the dusk into its soul in hopes of leaving an impression on the blissful dark of the kind that was acquired when one closed their eyes and allowed the world around them to thrive.
To her, the woman who nestled in a way so akin to a vulture upon the slate tiles of her roof, that an innocent might glance around in hopes of sourcing carrion, it was indefinitely all and none. It was splendour in the rawest, deepest sense of the word, yet it carried a tide of warning, born upon its fleeting peaks, lit so garishly by the amber-gold ochre of fire.
She, who was still perched in such a way that one might have mistaken her for some sort of ungodly scavenger from a distance, held the flame in one hand, the other balancing herself in case of a mistake. Several contusions and abrasions bloomed darkly up her arms and the side of her face as she still stayed, enraptured by the flames in such a way that one would've thought, had they had little to no context, was pyromania.
This woman, crouched in her cloak of dark glory, was many things. A pyromaniac - that is to say, one who seeks the comfort of flames above human contact or falls to fire upon becoming unstable - was most certainly not one of them.
She very rarely, however, let people know what she was. Instead, she sealed it grimly in a sheath, so that if she wished, she could draw it and wield it like a weapon that wounded so harshly that it could kill.
Her neighbour, a mere acquaintance whom she had spoken to no more than once, had found that she did this every evening, as the sunlight over District 5 began its slumber, its golden hue fading from the world to leave it scattered with shattered starlight. It was almost as if it was a ritual for the woman - who he had gained a wicked sensation from and decided to keep himself and his younger sister as far away from her as he could - for there was not a night that she had not done this since the darkness of her first night here.
Here, among the steel greys and graphite skies of District 5, where it was veritably impossible to distinguish home from factory from yet another factory. The one thing that was beautiful here, in their small section of this world that had drowned in blood so many years ago, was indeed the passing of time. It was represented here by streams of gold, rivers of plum velvets, belts of lilac and bands of amaranth, washed by a tender pink before they were flushed far away, and would drain into a new day, or yet another night.
The woman herself, for all her distinguishable faults, held a kind of rough, sharp beauty more commonly found in men than women. Her neighbour - whose name happened to be nothing more complex than Orion Gray - had found himself glancing through her window on the occasion that he would be the one of he and his sister to purchase food from the filthy, fuel-scented market.ย
They were cleaner than his windows were likely ever to be, and often gleamed in the morning hue of sunlight. He had wondered about it at some points in time, allowing his thoughts to overtake the rest of his brain and often ending up physically or mentally lost. He had supposed, while promptly wandering into a factory he had worked in before he'd moved out, that each of them must have had to find something to occupy their time, whether it be cleaning, or cooking and painting, where he had inclined more towards.
She had been frozen in her trance for longer than she would normally allow herself, as he had noticed that she always did on the eve of the Reaping or the night before the Victory Tour was scheduled to trundle into their city of metal and wires. He wasn't quite sure why, but she had never once come with him to the Capitol, to help with the Tributes, or even attended a Reaping since her own.
He shook his head in his quiet disapproval and slight wonder at her dedication as she finally begun to move. She unfurled herself, and it was if her presence had become suddenly less ominous, but far more daunting. The woman, who he had never seen smile, or allow any other emotion to grace her cold face, was nearly always so fiercely intimidating that a dark fear would slowly pierce his veins, piercing them if he attempted to move too far, spreading far more slowly than the hour hand on a clock would dare to move.
It would often leave him numb and freezing for hours afterwards, and he found himself imagining that that was what death felt like.
He didn't know much about her, but if she resided in the house adjacent to his own, and most likely identical in every superficial feature, and that meant that this woman was a Victor. The Victors of Panem were not people to be granted your trust. Not until you knew exactly how far they had dared to go to keep themselves from precipitating in to the freezing, pitch black grasp of death.
She, who had closed the graphite coated door with a snap and a groan of hinges that were not often enough oiled, did not imagine death as most would. She would close her eyes to the idea of death, to the end of it all, and would find herself standing amidst a field of flame, so violent and hot that her body began to melt before it even had the slightest chance to burn. It was the death that she had come so close to. She had not allowed herself to die then, however, and had chosen her survival over her humanity as was the instinct of so many in the Arena.
Her reflection flitted past her in the mirror as she swept to her kitchen, where she begun to make her dinner a second later. She had grown to look far older than she truly was. In truth, she was no more than 17, but the animosity that so many projected towards had whittled down her youth until she looked years older than she was.
Today, as her earlier actions had dictated, was the eve of the Reaping. To be utterly precise, as she often found herself, in eleven hours, the District 5 tributes for the 74th Games would be reaped. She had done everything as she normally would; stayed sentinel in her vigil for an hour or so longer than every other night, was in the process of making herself a soup of slightly higher quality than what she frequently consumed, and had taken a drawn-out shower, turning up the heat so her skin became close to blistering, forced herself to wallow in the pain.
But something was different, this year. This year, President Snow wanted her there. She was to be on the train to the Capitol, to help train the tributes and interact with the other mentors and the Capitolites. This was something new to the woman, and she was fairly confident that she would find herself struggling in a situation that she should've been able to handle with the utmost ease. It had been eight years since she'd been in the public eye, the thrill of her own Games washed away just fast enough for her liking by a new fashion season, and the activities of the previous year's Victor (a 15-year-old boy from District 4 who seemed to have more attention than she ever would), whose name she couldn't recall.
And so, she had been forgotten, left to her silence in her life of grey, by all but President Snow. He had seen something in her. A potential spark, he had called it, and he seemed to have been almost desperate to contain it as well as he could. At first, he hadn't had any leverage over her; her family loathed her for having the valour to 'stain her hands bloody and still have the nerve to be walking as the rest of us', and she had no friends. It had been a few years ago, around the 70th Games, when he had finally gained what he had desired.
It had worked, though she wasn't planning on explaining to anybody what it was for a sustained period of time; perhaps as long as she continued to 'be walking with the rest of us'. She had let Snow win, and she held no emotions to the matter. No regret, nor anger, nor contempt. Neither was there relief, gratitude or a sense of security.
No, she knew that she would never feel safe. Especially now, when she sat in her large, empty, chilling, factory-metal house and ate a watery soup that would be considered waste in the Capitol and a feast in some of the poorer Districts.
She had no-one. She did't mind it; she was used to it. She didn't care for the judgemental stares that she received each evening from her neighbour, or the bordering terrified ones she was cast by his younger sister. After all, caring for others would get here one place; exactly where she had started.
IT WAS BARELY dawn when she woke up the next morning, and starlight still glittered, fragmented in the fuchsia sky, her breathing scattered and ragged as if someone had torn holes in her trachea with thousands of miniature knives, that would have glimmered in the light of the sunrise like a bleeding ink set upon the metal. It was not that that prompted her to crawl out of the haven of her sheets to start the day, however. No, that feat would be attributed to the dread that coiled inside of her like a snake; squirming, squeezing, hissing.
Terror inspired many people. Whether it be to be the one who causes it, to exert an idea of control, or to be the one who let it keep you in place, rooted in your spot, following orders like a perfect coward. She, however much she detested to admit it, was the second. She was not one who aspired to cause fear, and yet, that seemed to be all she found herself doing. She was not average, even for the Districts and the tropes of Victors who had torn their way out of the Games.
She had been unusual from the start. More refined in her methods than most in her Games, but everything that she had done had seemed to hold a dark chill, to the point that the Careers hadn't bothered trying to chase her down. They had given her a wide birth, not that it had helped her much. With her dark, blank, cold disposition, she'd received very little attention and no sponsors, which had left her almost scrambling for the scraps in the Arena, cleaning up what the Careers left.
She didn't care for the words that painted her a vulturous person: for she was not one. Her manner, in many cases, was odd, and off-putting in the most strange way, but she was as much of a person as Orion Gray, or as any of the Victors who allowed themselves to be paraded around as if they were exhibits in a museum.
She hadn't dared to appear in front of District 5 and the cameras for the actual Reaping, and had instead headed to the station, where the sleek Capitol train waited, gleaming far too brightly in the sun for her liking. It was a pale morning, and the breeze held a slight chill to it as she strode through the streets, which by this point, were entirely deserted. All of District 5, except from those who were deathly ill or had an injury that prevented them from moving - which, without proper treatment, would often amount to the same thing - would be gathered in the Town Square. Or, as they had grown to call it, the Ferryman's Crossing. For it was where you would sign your soul to death, take the step into the boat that would be rowed over the river, and you would be escorted through the grand gates of the Afterlife. After much pampering on the Capitol's behalf, of course. Perhaps it made them feel better about the morals of it all.
Maybe it was how they dealt with forcing twenty four children into the Capitol - a world which was entirely alien to them - to be presented as nothing more than something to bid on; a source of entertainment, especially as they were forced into the arena and made to perform wicked acts to escape with the bare bonus of survival. She was sure, upon reflection, that they were a great many victors who would've rather perished in their arenas, fallen victim to the siege of blood-lust and megalomania so often exhibited in the Games, than experience the puppetry that they were forced into, the charade of well-being, the job of acting one exact way for the rest of their dictated life.ย
She was not one of them. She cared little for delusions of power, and her illy-gained isolation from the rest of Panem had helped immensely, she supposed. Though, the deaths that many of the Tributes had suffered in her Games had a great deal to do with it. It had been horrific, and she herself had become very close to it. She could not imagine that kind of agony simply cutting off because a person's life ended. No, it would linger in their bodies, haunting them for the rest of their dismal eternity, sinking into their bones, which would be burned as if they had been sunk into a vat of the deadliest acid that the Capitol's awful labs could produce. But it wouldn't be constant. It would be an irregular throbbing, so that it was impossible to get used to, and so that every time it coursed through you, leaving your blood spiked with nothing more than pain, it would reduce you to shambles; a mess on the floor that opened its mouth to scream words that would never be heard because they were empty words. Because their owner was dead. Dead, forgotten by the news of Panem and the rush of the Capitol's latest fashion season.
Even her, who had had the nerve to win her ghastly year of the Hunger Games, had been quite forgotten by the Capitol before her Victory Tour had drawn to a close. She held little affluence, and she had grown to enjoy the life that she had found herself subconsciously languishing in. Perhaps they would remember her now. Now that she would appear in the corner of their screens once again, or perhaps she would be entirely ignored as the crowd screamed its revelries at whatever tributes whose death warrants had been signed by the Reaper himself the moment they had been forced to set even a foot into the Ferryman's boat.
The opulence of the train did not take her breath away as it had the first time that she had set foot on it. Despite rarely being involved with public events and news of her never reaching the citizens of the Capitol, she found herself travelling to and from the sprawling city with a startling frequency. That was what happened, she supposed, when President Snow found his leverage.
Instead of basking in the grandeur of the crystalline chandeliers and objects that seemed to glow with the hue of money and power itself, she swept through the compartments until she found her sleeping quarters. She had ignored the unnerved looks shot her way with an incredible ease. Never once, in her awfully odd life, had she met someone who didn't find her abnormal; who didn't become unnerved by her cold manner and unusual demeanour. She was quite prepared for the comments she would have to endure from everyone she would interact with on this trip. Orion Gray, the tributes, the tributes' stylists and teams, their district escort. Even the Avoxes seemed unsure of her and shot her judging glanced behind her back that she would manage to catch in the shimmering panels of the walls.ย
She cared little for it as she arranged the room exactly to her liking, mostly finding a way to wile away the time as she moved things around to the specific way she always did. There would be at least another ten minutes before the tributes arrived, she guessed, depending on how much family they had and how long that they had decided to take before owning up to their name, which would be clutched between the talons of their District Escort, who she had never bothered to learn the name of.ย
Her approximation, as it turned out, had been fairly accurate, as when she slid back through the train exactly ten minutes later, she found the two tributes standing and staring at the train in nothing short of awe. She regarded the pair for a moment, taking in the girl's small stature, sharp features and red hair, before she moved her gaze to the boy. A tall brunette who was probably around 17, though he had little muscle. She supposed that that was what happened when one lived in the Power district. Neither of them looked at her. In fact, she doubted that they had noticed her. Orion Gray however, who had stepped onto the train just behind the two, had found her incredibly quickly and had narrowed his dark eyes at her in shrewd distrust. He knew nothing about her, she was sure of that, and her irregular air did little to help that, she was certain. He didn't acknowledge her, and turned his attention back to the Tributes, though she could see every muscle in his muscle tensed. He was both expecting her, daring her, and prepared for her to try something. She simply regarded him with a buried amusement that appeared upon her stony features as nothing other than a blank indifference. It seemed that even the Victors of Panem - perhaps especially the Victors - were still keen to fear the unknown.
The District Escort bustled in a moment later, a mess of frills and tulle that bounced almost alarmingly with her slight strut. The woman who stood off to the side had never liked her. She had held little empathy for her in her games, and every time that she had gone to the Capitol, the Escort would simply avoid her for the entire journey. If she ever crossed the other woman's path, she would give her a cold, disapproving look and murmur something about the Districts under her breath that the vulturous woman was sure that she didn't want to hear. Today however, the Escort entirely ignored her, instead focusing her entire attention on the two children who still stood, frozen, a few steps into the train. She was surprisingly grateful for it; it allowed her to make her own observations for more easily than she had expected, and meant she didn't have to deal with the Capitolite's high pitched twittering in her ear.
The girl, who turned out to be 15, was called Finch, while the boy told Orion that he more regularly went by Zeus. A name, which in the woman's opinion, did not suit the boy, or the district that they hailed from. No-one paid her any attention at all, in fact, until she sat down at the table, which was slowly being filled up with platters of food by the Avoxes. She didn't eat any of it. Though there hadn't been much of it, the watery soup that she'd had the previous night was still presenting her with the illusion of being full. She hadn't been able to stomach more than even a little food in years.
Every person in the room fell entirely silent for a few seconds as they realised that she was there, and the Escort's face twisted in a distaste that she often wore whenever she caught sight of the irregular woman. Orion Gray's eyes still blared distrust, though neither of the tributes seemed to recognise her in the slightest, because their young features twisted into confusion and fear at the sight of her. Though he very evidently did not trust her, and did not like her being there, Orion sat down next to her, his face once again as seriously indifferent as the woman next to him's was, and regarded the tributes carefully. He gestured for them to sit down a second later, and they did so, however grudgingly. Zeus' hands were trembling, and there was a panic in his eyes that the woman knew all too well, but Finch seemed almost dangerously calm. An intelligence of the kind that the woman herself had never possessed lay behind her light green eyes, and she seemed to be perfectly ready to accept her oncoming death.
"Since you two get to be the lucky two that we have to mentor this year," Orion began, his tone heavily laced with sarcasm, "you should probably know who we are. I'm Orion Gray." He stopped sharply, and turned to her with a slightly smug gleam in his eyes. She simply stared at him for a few seconds, watching the swell of pride die as she showed no sign of being remotely bothered by his attempt at getting information from her. It was only after she saw his eyes fade back to his previous seriousness that she turned to the two tributes, who were watching her intently. Even their District Escort had dared to watch her, as if wondering how she would proclaim herself. Though, it was entirely possible that she had forgotten the woman's name. She'd only heard her name a few times, and the two were determined to avoid each other as well as they could in passing. The woman flitted her eyes around the occupants of the carriage once more before she answered, quite enjoying the intense attention she found herself receiving.ย
"Rowan Marsh."
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Well, ngl, I really like the premise of this. There's not enough appreciation for Johanna going around so I figured I'd start a fanfic. I've also wanted to write a Hunger Games one for a long time, so I hope this is a good start. I was not planning to publish this at any point soon, but seeing as I'm publishing everything this week (or it feels like it) I figured that I might as well. This one will probably have a similar time frame for updates that Alias has, because the quality's quite a lot higher than my other fics.
Anyway, I gotta go write Scream so that I can get it finished and hopefully make it an okay quality. Have a good day, and I hope you enjoyed.
JABBERJAY_011
WRITTEN [22.05.2021]
WORD COUNT [3900]
PUBLISHED [28.05.2021]
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