[Mar. 4] [The Hunger Games] Many Have Died For More

[seta-suzume.livejournal.com]

Title: Many Have Died For More
Day/Theme: March 4, 2013 "a thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it"
Series: The Hunger Games
Character/Pairing: Mags, various OCs
Rating: PG-13


In my own Games it was different. This time around, I have avoided learning the names. But things are down to the wire now. This is the Final Four. One of these people I will get to meet afterward. I'll get to know him or her. For a long time, maybe. They could be my friend. They will be my colleague.

Two boys, two girls. …and one is mine.

Three of the four of them are sleeping now. Salvador is still stuffed up from the dust and grunts a bit in his sleep. He's not too afraid of what he has to do. He's come this far. But-

While they sleep (and the Two girl bites her nails), Mr. Bronze and Mr. Zimmer and a groggy-looking Jack run some additional Final Four commentary on the main screen. The family interviews are already done. This is probably the last night they'll give them. Come sunup, they're going to have to run, to kill, to die. Tomorrow might not be the last day, but the end will begin then, like the Gamemakers in mine gradually turning up the rising of the water. Faster and higher, until there was barely any ground left to stand (they left enough though when they could have drowned the whole arena- that was their only mercy- they wanted to have a victor).

The girl from 2 is Mica Saffron. She is sixteen. There are ropes in her pack and a scythe and a hammer. She's been scavenging. She is Hector's tribute (and Gerik's by proxy now that the boy is dead). According to Hector, she wants to be an architect. Back home she was a masonry student. She has a younger sister. She has three kills to her name.

The girl from 8 is Silk Sachet. She is fourteen. She looks like a nymph come out of the sea. She has rope too and a camouflaged blanket, which is covering her from view as she sleeps. She is Pal's tribute (and there is a rumor running that he never planned on doing anything for the boy from the moment he set eyes on her, but I can't help but think Pal is far too kind for that (while I know and never forget that he was not too kind to kill)). He has bought her the blanket. He has bought her other things too. No one has spent nearly as much on their tribute (no one else, I think, has it to spend). There are knives hidden under her clothes and they look sharp. She has only killed once. But the commentators, aside from Mr. Bronze, seem rather enthused by her anyway. She could win anyway.

The boy from 1 is Indiana Gold. He is eighteen. He's the reason that Jack Umber looks so miserable right now. He only takes the smallest breaks watching over Indiana that he can. He doesn't trust anyone else to do the job properly. The mentors' headquarters has grown quieter and quieter as the Games have worn on. When I stand up from my station to switch with Aulie, he raises his head and looks at me over the top of his carrel. On television he makes himself perfectly clear and understandable, but in person I find him a curious read. I don't know what he's thinking when he looks at me at those times. Indiana is a grappling type. Good with his hands, good with his body. He has a tiny switchblade. Other than that, he's used more natural things as his weapons. Rocks, the terrain, a nasty mace he cut himself from a branch, his body. Four kills to his name.

It's weird, because for all the attention that Jack gives him, I can't completely say I'm sure that Jack wants him to win. Really, I get this strange feeling about it. But it's not my business. I want the win. I'm not going to question it now.

The fourth is Salvador Chavez. Mine. Sleeping with his hatchet. Sleeping despite the two kids he's killed. I'm glad that he can though (he'll need it if he's going to have a chance to win).

I lift my head to look around the room. Jack isn't here- he's onscreen talking about his boy. Hector is snoring in a chair. Gerik is watching Mica sleep onscreen, stirring the dregs of his coffee around over and over. Maybe the motion is what's keeping him awake. I know the quiet, both here and in the arena, makes me drowsy, after this many days caught up in the maelstrom and watching the melee.

Pal Fields is here too, looking, well, kind of freaky to tell the truth. If he's left his station for anything longer than a bathroom break or a fifteen minute interview since the Games began, I haven't seen it. If mentor dedication can save a tribute, that fourteen year old girl is going to win the Thirteenth Hunger Games.

It's not that the rest of us remaining aren't dedicated, but it's hard to match the somewhat unhinged intensity Pal seems to have reached. There are empty mugs around him and junk food wrappers. He has a patchwork blanket wrapped over his shoulders. I am seriously considering the possibility that his wakefulness is powered at least in part by drugs. …and even though his tribute is only sleeping, I have a feeling that he'd still be mad if I approached him now.

I ring for Aulie. "Can we swap?" I ask. "I think they're going to give them a good six hours at least."

"Oh, anytime, sweetie," Aulie assures me.

He's there in about five minutes with traces of some kind of overnight skin treatment left like shaving cream on the corners of his face. I thank him and tell him to call me when Salvador wakes up (or, at his discretion, if anything else occurs of note). Hopefully Salvador and I will both make out with a decent amount of sleep.

I drift off without bothering to shower. I only manage to halfheartedly brush my teeth. I can save that for the morning.



Aulie's call wakes me four and half hours later. "Mags," he sounds nervous, "Mica's up and hunting."

I splash some water on my face, rush down in the same clothes I was wearing the other day, and come running into the control room in time to see Mica bearing down on Salvador's location. The arena is still dark. I'm led to assume she probably never slept. Those nerves (that nail-biting) got to her and she decided not to wait any longer.

I have to do something. I have to wake Salvador up. Mica is too strong, too well-equipped, too unhesitating. Asleep he is a goner.

I punch through to the sponsorship hotline while Aulie frets behind him.

They tend to drop the items gently near the tributes, but I need something that will wake him. Something, hopefully, not too obvious though, to bring Mica down on him if she hasn't found him already, before he has a chance to get a move on.

It has to make noise when it hits the ground. And he's exhausted, so I don't know how deeply he's sleeping. It has to make enough noise to wake him up.

"I want to send my tribute a maraca!" I tell the woman on the other end of the line.

"A what?" she sounds beyond confused. Aulie's puzzled noise from over my shoulder helps to cue me in. It's too localized. In the Capitol you'd have to be a music specialist or something to know it.

"Can you send him a can full of rocks?" I am getting frantic. Looking back and forth between the two screens (mine and the large one above), I can see Mica drawing nearer and nearer to the unknowing Salvador.

The woman sounds like she thinks I'm nuts, but she says that she can and names the price. It's too weird to be a high list item, so our funds can easily cover it, but I feel like she couldn't possibly put the request through any sooner. Someone's going to have to put those rocks in that can! It's going to have to be dropped into the arena! How far away is the arena from the item depot? Salvador doesn't have time to waste!

"Is there any message?" she asks.

A message?! A message at a time like this?! I'm not allowed to pass him information about any of the other tributes anyway.

"'Rise and shine!'" I shrill out, almost wishing I could snap the phone in two with my bare hands.

"And…sent," the woman confirms, seemingly unperturbed by my frustrations.


Aulie gasps.

Mica is using her scythe to slit Salvador's throat as the can full of rocks hits the ground.

The noise makes her jump, but only succeeds in causing her to make her cut sloppier. "No!" I pound my fists against the console/desk as Salvador chokes and sputters in his own blood as he dies. "No!"

Aulie puts his hands on my shoulders.


When Mica is sure- when the cannon fires- she picks up the can and reads the note attached to the outside. The large screen shows it zoomed in enough for the typed message to be read. "Someone needed a better alarm clock," Mica shakes her head.

She opens the can, wondering, no doubt, what amazing thing was sent to save Salvador, and pours a handful of round pebbles onto the ground. She shakes her head again. She doesn't get it. She's probably thinking something about crazy District 4.


"Good show, Four," Hector Auric raises his hand over the top of his carrel and gives me a little salute.

I can't muster more than a grunt in response.

I leave the good-byes to Aulie as we head back to our quarters. Jack Umber passes us quickly, almost without noticing us, on his way in. His tribute could be next.

I cry in the shower and then go back to bed.

I sleep for four more hours, then reluctantly get dressed. I lay on the couch watching the Thirteenth Hunger Games go on. No one else died in the night. Between Mica, Indiana, and Silk, there's a cautious tension, a sort of cat and mouse game, where everyone is simultaneously a cat and a mouse.

My stupor is broken when Kayta Hiro calls. "Sorry 'bout your tribute," he says, "Salvador. …Do you want to have lunch?"

I'm sad to say that this makes me feel a little better. I haven't eaten any breakfast and Kayta sounds so sympathetic.

"Sunny and Shy will be there too."

"Okay," I agree, "I'll come."