Hadria Byrd
Thirty-eight / District Eleven Victor

Hadria steps off the train, back into the dull, frosty world of Eleven.

The first thing that greets her isn't family (not that she had any), or even friends, but rather the looming figures of two Peacekeepers, ready to escort her back to her home. As always, they're suited up in their outfits, poised and ready with their batons held in both hands close to their chests. She squints at them, gives them a dirty look like she always does, trying to identify the faces under the masks.

"Thorne. Beau. Good to see you," Hadria says, her voice low and dangerous. Neither of them react.

They lead her away from the train station, flanking her on both sides, not quite touching her but within their arms' length - letting her know she couldn't make a run for it. Which... after more than two decades of this victory thing, they should know she wouldn't. Any desire she had to turn against them, to do something rash and bold, had been extinguished years ago; now, more than anything, she wants to live her life as quietly as possible. She wasn't going to do anything now, even if she had the means to. She had accepted her fate as their puppet, their shining star, their trophy. Their very first.

Hadria had won the Seventy-Sixth Hunger Games, and the Capitol was more than eager to parade her around as the Quarter Quell Victor they never got to have. She was special, they said, for being the first Victor in this brand new, sparkling era of Panem, which... was tremendously ironic, for the state they left everything in. It was only a "sparking era" for the Capitol, who had finally caged their scum District counterparts and had cleaned up their turf, so that now they really shine.

As a part of her victory, she now lived in the best home in Eleven, received a hefty allowance every month, had only seven fingers between her two hands (three on her left, four on right), and was blessed with her very own personal bodyguards. That's what the Capitol told her when she raised concerns about the Peacekeepers looming outside her home. Bodyguards her ass! She knew why they were there, to survey her, to keep her under check, to let her know she could never truly let her guard down.

Hadria was supposed to be their perfect Victor, their sign of strength, their living example of the Capitol's power, which they needed so desperately after the District's brutal defeat. They sent her back home as a hero, a defeater of evil rebels, only to be shunned by her very own District for the narrative that was woven for her. She didn't want to kill, didn't even mean to kill the tributes from the most rebellious Districts (she wasn't even thinking about that), she just wanted to go home.

(She partially wonders if that coincidence was the reason they let her go alive.)

But, it was whatever. Nowadays, there's plenty of Victors who were raised from birth to be the Captiol-degree of perfect, or those who are perfect naturally, though perhaps unintentionally, but do a better job at it than Hadria ever did. They like the ones who don't need much editing, yeah? She mostly falls under the radar now, save for the layer of "protection" they still need to throw over her.

The gates of Victors Village remain wide open, currently frozen in place by a thick layer of ice over the hinges. The frosty grass crunches under Hadria's boots as she picks up her pace, ready to be rid of her nasty gargoyles. At the top of her driveway, she looks back at the Peacekeepers, who had stopped on the main road and now stare at her. They weren't allowed to enter her house, but frequently stood guard outside, just... staring. It's to unnerve her, she thinks, but as of late they've begun to look more like sad abandoned puppies, and it's all that she can do to not laugh at them.

Shedding them from her mind, she strides up to the front door, only to find the knob turns easily under her hand, perfectly unlocked. She sighs at it. Damn kids can never keep the house locked.

But still, entering the house, she's wary. She shuts the door behind her and creeps down the entryway on her toes, slowly approaching corners and sneaking quick glances down hallways, until she reaches the living room. Peering around the wall, she finds her three kids crouched around the coffee table, two of them engaged in an intense match of chess while the third observes on the sidelines, her head in her hands. They don't realize she's watching them from the doorway.

Now... they're not exactly her kids. They're just some random orphans she picked up off the street because they looked at her funny. But in the two years they've lived with her, she wonders how she went twenty years being the only living soul in her house. Really, they've made her life a lot brighter, with their quirks and their vibrant personalities and their... presence. For the longest time, she swore up and down she wasn't much for youngins, but they're a lot better when she isn't herding them into the Hunger Games.

To get their attention, she asks, "Who's winning?"

Aria, the observer, jerks her head up instantly. "Ria!" She gasps, "You're home!" She leaps up from the table and bounces over. By the way she holds her arms, she was asking for quiet permission to give Hadria a hug. Hadria gestures Aria over and pulls her into a one-armed hug while the smaller girl squeezes her ribs as hard as she could (which was surprisingly hard for a twelve-year-old).

Makaio and Nakoa, the twins, look up suddenly at the new voice, giving her a quick wave before returning to their game. They were perhaps the most petty and competitive kids known to man. Once Aria peels herself away from Hadria, she settles down onto the couch and observes the board. There were... significantly more white pieces of Nakoa's than Makaio's black.

Nakoa reaches over and pushes a black piece off of its square with his white piece, then snatches up the opposing one and adds it to his collection, snickering all the while to get his brother's goat. Makaio takes the bait, as usual, and glares with hatred.

"I don't want to play this anymore." He frowns at the two pieces he has remaining.

Nakoa looks up at him. "You're just being a sore loser."

"Yeah!" Aria, the perfect instigator, chimes in, "Don't drop out! Maybe you can still win!" It was very clear there was no way he was leaving this match victorious. She was just leading him straight towards the kill.

Makaio looks between the two of them, then to Hadria, suddenly very conversational. "How was your trip?"

"Boring." She grunts in return. "Same old thing." Having been to every single Victory Tour celebration the new-Panem had hosted, they always felt the same. The only highlight was seeing the handful of other Victors she actually tolerated, but they were few and far between.

"What have you guys been doing while I was gone?" She asks.

Aria shrugs. "Literally nothing. Fighting. We said we were gonna throw a party behind your back and we never agreed on what to do so we didn't."

Hadria almost laughs at that. "Okay… you guys did okay on your own, though?"

They all nod, but Aria kind-of-waves her hand with it. "Don't leave me alone with these jackasses again pleaseee... I thought they were gonna kill me."

She sighs at her. Aria loved playing into their sibling-rivalry bit, but Hadria knows that secretly she loved her brothers, even if they had a tendency to rough her up sometimes. A part of her was a little worried to leave them home alone for two days, but it seemed like even as immature as Nakoa and Makaio were, they were still responsible enough to not burn the entire place down. Part of her feels proud, like she taught them well or something, but if she's honest she knows she didn't teach a damn thing - coming from the streets, they always had this extra level of self-sufficiency you wouldn't normally expect from twelve and fourteen-year-olds.

"Did you bring anything back for us?" Nakoa asks.

"Uh..." Hadria fishes through her pockets, searching for any loose trinkets, then tosses a single coin on the chessboard. "Yeah, here you go, have fun."

Makaio stares at it. "That's it?"

"Look, I'm a busy woman, I don't have time to find souvenirs from the Capitol while I'm there." She slumps back into the couch and rests her foot on her knee.

Her tone was dismissive of the subject, and they didn't pry any further. Her status as a Victor was... somewhat of a touchy subject, it was awkward for her to talk about and an awkward conversation for them to be bringing up. There's a lot they don't know about her life, especially the Capitol-centered side of it, and she would like to keep it that way. Because somehow, the irrational side of her says that keeping it from them would keep them safe. She was very, very conscious about the fact all three of them were Reaping eligible now that Aria's birthday had passed since the last one. She thinks that if she hid the Capitol from them, then their slips would be hidden from the mayor's reach, and she could come home at the end of July and see all three of them, perfectly intact and happy and whole.

In the months between Hunger Games-related events, she did in fact get to live her quiet, somewhat happy life with her kiddos. Yet, she's not oblivious to the fact she has something to hold against her now, that she has something worth protecting, worth coming home to. She was the first; she's seen everything they could do to a Victor who went against their assigned role. There was nothing they liked more than leverage to keep somebody in check.

But... that wasn't going to be an issue with her. She swears on everything she was that she would be good. For them. For their protection.

She couldn't change her life now but, at the very least, she could keep them safe. And that was good enough for her.

Belrose Cassell
Thirty-three / District Nine Victor

Belrose tilts her head, examining the corpse sprawled out in front of her.

Clover looks over her shoulder, wide-eyed with her mouth partially agape in disgust and confusion. The body was still partially submerged in its shallow grave, the exposed parts decayed and discolored, a perfect hollowed-out home for bugs. If Belrose's memory served her right - and it always did - this was the boy from the previous year's Games, his flesh still partially hanging to his bones, face permanently locked in a final expression of horror, his neck still sitting at an incorrect angle.

"What..." Clover breathes out, still shocked by their finding. "...What happened?"

"Bah, I knew this would come back to haunt me." Belrose shakes her head and tugs her heavy-duty gloves onto her hands, approaching the corpse with her shovel in tow. "Didn't dig his grave deep enough. The wild dogs got after him."

She crouches down and, using the tip of her shovel, nudges him back into the grave. By the looks of it, a fox had desecrated his grave and tried to yank him out of it, to little avail, she'd assume. The stray animals in her area weren't the strongest creatures, they picked at any easy scraps they could find, and a human corpse wasn't exactly the easiest. However, this left him exposed to the vultures with her greedy beaks, ready to pick apart what was left of him.

When the birds would begin to circle over the fields behind her home, Belrose knew another corpse had resurfaced. She tried every method to keep them out of her graveyard, but they never gave up on trying to gnaw at anything they could get their grubby claws onto, with threats from both the ground and from the sky. So she resorted to just keeping a close guard on them. That was her sworn duty as the lone survivor, the only Niner to ever return back to their cornfields, now it was her duty to keep the dead safe and dignified.

Clover watches with a mixture of morbid curiosity and disturbed disgust as Belrose shovels dirt over the boy, piling it further and further until he becomes an uneven lump in the earth. She pats it down, then leans against her shovel.

"...Does this happen a lot?" Clover asks.

Just a few minutes earlier, Belrose got done informing her about the tribute graveyard in her backyard, something only a handful of people knew about. Most families never got their corpses back, so Belrose kept the deceased company for them, and she had for as long as she could remember.

"Yeah, every so often. I've gotten better at keeping them away, though." Belrose responds.

Clover looks at her, then back to the grave, still clearly disturbed.

Belrose notices her friend's discomfort. "I was the same way too, when I first started this. But you get used to seeing the bodies, so..." She shrugs. That was partially true - it was the smell of death she never truly got over. "C'mon, let's head back."

Belrose leads her back through the field. She knew the labyrinth like the back of her hand, where all of her kids were laid to rest at, but she also knew by heart who they were and what they had been in life (or, what they wanted to be). That was part of her duty. Several of them were the last survivors of their families, loners who had rarely experienced love in life, so she carries their memories through herself. She remembers, because after their cannon fires, nobody else will. They're just another name for the records.

And maybe it is a bit of a selfish thing, keeping them all to herself. They're in her backyard, her mind, and she holds them close like a well-guarded secret. So what if the families don't know where their child ended up? It was her turn with them now.

Belrose walks up to the back porch, leaning her shovel against the railings and plopping herself back into her rocking chair. She watches as the vultures realize she had hidden their meal from them, and promptly get lost, becoming shapes against the grayish sky. Clover sits down next to her, stunned into silence. Normally, she was pretty talkative - they had known each other for the better part of their lives, she was always going on about something - but now she just stews with her thoughts.

(Belrose remembers the days walking side-by-side with Clover, trailing behind some pack of people they didn't know along some lonely road. Out here, they were the only signs of life, but in post-war Nine, people were few and far between. When you found somebody, you clung to them. Clover clings to her arm right now; her knuckles and face white, blabbering nervously about one thing or another. Poor girl never truly grew numb to the way their world changed, how quickly people turned on each other in times of desperation.

It was a good thing Belrose was reaped and not her.)

"I didn't realize..." Clover mumbles, "...I didn't know you had to do that."

"I chose to do it," Belrose corrects her. "Nobody else is going to, so it's my job now. I don't mind it!" She was being careful with her words, she actually enjoys it quite a lot, but she figures that verbalizing that wouldn't go down very well with her.

Gravekeeping wasn't very easy, but okay... maybe there was something fascinating about the process of decaying or the concept of... ceasing to exist. It was interesting stuff, actually. Watching the Games was too, seeing how far somebody could be pushed and somehow keep kicking it, but having been through that herself, her fascination only went so far.

Clover squints at her. "That worries me a little bit, Belrose."

"...How so?" She leans forward in her chair, elbows on her knees.

She pauses, looking for the words. "Do you ever..." She begins, then purses her lips. "I just think that... um..."

"Spit it out, girl."

"Does it have something to do with... your arena?"

Belrose stares at her. "What about it?" Her arena, ironically, was a graveyard. It was much fancier than her hollowed out graveyard tucked between wheat stalks, in her Games they had caskets and headstones and cold metal fences and a permanent drizzle that chilled her to the bones. It was symbolic of the lives lost in both rebellions, the markers were carved with the names of fallen soldiers and civilians (she recalls recognizing a few), but... a subject of concern? How so?

"...You can do something else with your life, you know," Clover says, her voice soft. "This doesn't have to define you."

"I like what I do, though." Belrose protests. "I chose to do it."

"Did you feel like you had to?"

"No." She did. Maybe her arena setting gave her an inspiration, a way to take the weight of the crushing guilt off her shoulders. But she got used to her role and she welcomes it now, and in her maturity she's come to accept her position. She couldn't imagine devoting her time to anything else.

Clover sighs and deflates back into the chair. She's trying really hard to make some sort of point, but Belrose isn't having any of it. She wasn't exactly disappointed with how her life turned out, but she occasionally wonders what would've happened if it was somebody else's name on that slip - and she's come to admit she would've ended up wasting her days away harvesting fields of wheat to meet harsh quotas, like how Clover does.

Sure, Belrose's life might be lonely and a little eccentric to the outside world, but at least she was making it her own.

Bear Barlow
Twenty-eight / District Twelve Victor

There was no saving those who didn't want to be saved.

You could bring a horse to water but you couldn't force him to drink, which was... a hard lesson to learn. You can try, but there was no way to save everybody, not when there were five thousand people in Twelve, stubborn and unwavering in their independence - and only one of him.

Bear has come to know this in his years of (somewhat successful?) philanthropy. In the decade since his victory, he was all too eager to get the money burning holes in his pockets away from him and towards his District instead. With it, he has helped restore homes, shops, infrastructure, back to vaguely resembling something like it used to be. He gives where he can— food, water, clothes; and he even opened up his home in Victor's Village as a place of shelter should anybody need it (though, this was never utilized by the prideful residents... exasperatingly.) Even the town square was a lot neater, debris and rubble cleared away from all the major places across Twelve, opening up the streets and properly burying the bodies left under rubble. Because Bear would be damned if he let his victory go to waste.

But it doesn't make him feel any better.

He can't help but let traces of doubt slither into his mind— that this was all performative, and he was a fraud. Peacekeepers still had free reign over his District, to whip innocents and abuse their power as they pleased, and the air was still unclean and heavy, forever thick with smog. There was nothing he could do about it (he knows that, he just fails to believe it), but he still stares down everything that was wrong and feels it is a failure on his part.

What was the point of winning if he couldn't save everybody?

Bear stands in his aviary, listening to the sounds of his birds chirping around him. It's the middle of the night, but the night terrors frequently chase him back into the dimly lit bird enclosure attached to his home. It was his selfish indulgence, taking care of his birds (and isn't everything he does inherently selfish? He says he's helping, improving this world for the better, but...), and in turn, the birds take care of him.

Still shaken from his nightmare, he finds a bench and settles down onto it, instantly being met by a sing-songy chirp in his ear. He cranes his head towards the familiar black, white, and blueish body of one of his magpies, Maggie, who stands on the other end of the bench, curiously tilting her head at him. He wonders if she understands he's the one who refills their bird feeders or keeps their baths clean or cares for them - his birds are kind of stupid sometimes, but it's funny. Tentatively, he holds out his hand, offering it as a perch for her to climb onto.

Maggie hesitates for a moment, then steps onto his finger and curls her talons around, still blinking at him.

Bear smiles at her and brings her in close, whispering a little "thank you" for allowing him the honor of being a perch, but he doesn't have the energy to come up with a funny voice for her in response, it's too late for that kind of thing. He rests his head against the back of the bench and watches as she preens herself, digging her beak into the feathers beneath her wing.

Sometimes, he had his doubts about keeping them in captivity, taking their freedom away from them, but the other, perhaps more logical side of his brain tells him that he is the one keeping them alive and happy and healthy. Does that make him a good person? Or is he thinly stringing together excuses?

Exhaustion tugs at his eyes, but he doesn't want to fall asleep again. He was afraid that when he would, he'd end up right back in the Games, being chased by ghosts long dead.

That morning, after working out the stiff kinks in his neck (he was getting too old to be falling asleep on wooden benches), Bear completes his daily aviary chores in the daylight. The sun never broke through the thick layer of fog over the atmosphere in Twelve, but it definitely illuminated the world when it rose— at dawn and dusk, it turned the gray clouds red, like the sky itself was bleeding.

He does a quick roster check, making sure all eighteen birds (were they really at eighteen now?!) were accounted for. With that, he shuts the screen door separating the aviary from his house and finds his way into the bathroom.

He washes his face and brushes his teeth and stares at his reflection in the mirror. He had long since gotten used to what stared back, with the help of time settling down the burns that snaked across the right side of his face and tugged his hairline a few inches back. The scars were all across his body in various degrees, but namely the front of his torso, his knees, and his elbows and forearms. He had gotten used to life so changed, not just his place in society or his outlook on existence, but physically too — on the other end of the Games, he was hardly the person he walked into it as, but now sometimes he felt stuck as that seventeen-year-old boy grieving the circumstances he had no fault in.

Truthfully, he didn't think he would ever be over what they did to him. He couldn't go back now. Even if he did come to terms with everything, nobody would see him at the same level as they saw themselves. He killed three people, was responsible for a fourth's death, all on national television; and he gets it, honestly, how do you look him in the eyes and still see a fellow human?

This is what the Capitol wanted, for the people in the Districts to be portrayed as subhuman, animalistic killers, and the Hunger Games were a prime example of that, that in the case of hard times, how quickly everybody would turn on each other and turn hateful and violent.

Despite all of this, Bear was lucky. He still had his mother, who never saw anything but her son, her troubled human son, perfect in her eyes even with all his flaws; and, oddly enough... friends? There were a handful of people (mostly his former coworkers from his days in the mines) out there who actually enjoyed his presence. They called him things like "a respectable young man", which was true, and "a joy to be around", which he was more skeptical to believe. What about him sparked joy?

He pulls back the top layer of his hair and secures it into a ponytail behind his head and walks into the kitchen, where his mother, Calla, is making herself a cup of coffee. On the other side of the island, Nayeli is eating a slice of toast, the two of them talking like old friends.

Nayeli had been in his life in various degrees. He remembers her when he was fourteen and and just infiltrated his way into the mines, as she was one of the many people fretting over the safety of such a young kid. She reached out to him after his win, keeping in touch with him until she became something of a staple in his house. She was friendly, upbeat and personable, and got along extremely well with his mother.

(According to one of their other mining buddies, Calla and Nayeli had something a little... deeper going on. Bear chooses to ignore this.)

When he walks into the kitchen, Calla smiles at him. "Morning, Bear. How did you sleep?"

"I slept fine." He half-lies. He didn't have any more dreams after staying in the aviary.

"That's good."

He sits at the table next to Nayeli, and Calla slides him a cup of coffee, prepared just the way he likes it— with an abundance of sugar and creamer. He briefly smiles a thanks.

She looks at him. "Me and Nayeli were just about to head to the bakery, get a little something sweet, do you want to join us?"

Bear thinks about it for a moment. He had spent all of yesterday in a former neighborhood, assisting in clearing that up to make room for more construction, so his task for today was going back and finishing up with that. He had no time for that, he tells himself, but he was more than happy to see them treating themselves.

"No, you guys go ahead though." He waves his hand and takes a sip of the coffee.

Nayeli chimes in. "Okay, but if you want to find us you know where we're at."

Bear nods, and stays behind as they collect their things and head out the front door, throwing a few farewells over their shoulder There were very few perks to victory, but one of them was that with newfound wealth, the ones closest to him could be kinder to themselves. No more long days beneath the earth in the dark mines or at the surface cleaning shops for twelve hours a day, there was no need to work that hard anymore.

But he couldn't afford being kind to himself right now. Maybe one day, but for now, he has a duty. He'll work on earning it.

Bear you are such a debbie downer smh

Umm… yess anyways I'm like 90% sure subs are closed now. Not the subbing period that's still at least a month out there but all of my slots have been filled … which happened in like three days. Crazy work. Thank yew everypony for all the interest! The cast is shaping out to be Cool and Awesome and i'm excited.

Also… a somewhat cool blog!: https / alloftheseangrydays . weebly

Umm… got three more prologues after this. You can pry my victors out my cold dead hands or something.