Chapter Text
The gym hummed with the echo of feet drumming the floor, the cacophony of several pieces of music playing from different areas at cross-currents, the creaks and groans of wires for the aerial acts above and the safety nets strung beneath them, and the hum of the industrial lighting high, high overhead. Porter Millicent Tripp pivoted on the balls of her feet, wrists loose, shoulders tensed, attempting to squeeze one last tumbling pass into the last practice of her time on the Santa Fe Central High Gymkhana team before Coach Kella blew her whistle. She was just bouncing on her toes and lifting her hands when her moment of nostalgia was thwarted. Porter’s mouth pulled into that tight line where her lips vanished into themselves, as if she’d decided to bite back a thought before it left her tongue. Around her, music shut off with a chorus of groans and a sudden scuffing of feet shuffling across the mats to circle up. The unicycler yelped as his balance was thrown off by the sudden unpredictable movements of his teammates but he landed lightly on his feet and recovered himself quickly.
Ayci Rana, Porter’s best friend, scampered down the far post of the slackwire, the lights gleaming off her dark brown hair. She adjusted her tunic as she planted both her feet on the floor, tucked a strand of hair that had come loose from her braids behind her ear and looked around for her friend. She had a smile on her face that irritated Porter a little because she was always wearing it. No matter what came, Ayci took it in stride and it made Porter equal parts jealous and impressed. Still, the look she gave Porter when their eyes met was friendly, with maybe an edge of her habitual teasing to ‘Cheer up Porter, loosen up Porter, it’s not so awful, is it?’
“Don’t give me that look,” Porter mumbled when her friend joined her.
“You look like you could use cheering up.”
“Well I don’t. I’m not not cheerful; I just am.”
Ayci just patted her back at the well worn refrain.
“Bring it in,” Coach Kella shouted. “To our Year 10 students, thank you so much for all your work over the years. It’s been a pleasure to be your coach. We’ve put on some great shows. After the holiday, I wish you all the best of luck with your apprenticeships. I know the skills you’ve learned here and in class will see you well into the world of work. Let’s have a round of applause for our Year 10s! 10s, you’re free to go. You’ve got just enough time to put away the gear and clean yourselves up to catch the streetcars home before the holiday officially begins. Don’t dawdle! The rest of you, clean up first. Many hands make light work.”
Porter didn’t smile at being let go. Porter has never liked endings – she’s the kind of person who will read a good mystery novel precisely long enough to find the murder and not a page more. Finishing it means the pleasure is over, a thing of the past. While there are pages unread, part of the story unfinished, where anything could be in those pages, there remains a little spark of wonder, still something nice to look forward to. She just sucked in air through her nose, a shallow, exact breath, and started moving toward the locker room door without looking back.
As she changed in the locker room, she couldn’t stop thinking about tomorrow’s holiday – Reaping Day; it was not something to look forward to and yet there was now nothing left standing between her and it to distract herself with.
The practice space emptied with a rustle of bags and the biting scent of the bleach rags used to clean up gear, mats, and surfaces. Ayci fell in beside Porter, also changed and with her bag over one shoulder, and together they headed for the exit that would let them out near the elementary school where Ayci’s younger siblings were waiting.
Inti and Seeti were still in their school clothes, having come from more sedate activities – math tutoring in Seeti’s case, and choir lessons in Inti’s – and their faces were lit with enthusiasm for the holiday not yet lost at their young ages.
Porter walked in silence while the Ranas chattered about their days at school. It was comfortable for Porter, to be able to hover in the presence of the conversation, belonging, but not required to participate overmuch. The streetcar stop wasn’t far and the city was running extra cars to get everyone home at once so they barely had to wait before they were hoping on, each tapping their student ID at the payment kiosk at the top of the stairs and then finding a spot with two seats for the kids and space for Ayci and Porter to stand nearby.
The car was a little more crowded than normal, and the air wasn’t just the exhaustion of workers at the end of one more shift in their never-ending work: it was wrought with anxiety – the anxiety of parents with Reaping Age kids and of adults who knew that weeks of mandatory viewing of children suffering stood ahead of them.
Ayci and her siblings though, appeared not to notice, carrying on with their pleasant chatter.
The ride was a long loop through this section of the city, passing shopfront windows that give way to the sprawling grid of terraced rowhouses dotted at intervals with component factories that supported the district industry, and Porter’s thoughts kept pace with the hum of the track.
She didn’t say much, and even when Ayci asked about her post-Reaping plans and what to do with the days between Mandatory Viewings, Porter shrugged and answered with one word, or a blunt sentence that redirected to get one of the kids rambling. Ayci understood, and to an extent she appreciated the inclusion of her siblings but nevertheless, she continued to loop Porter back in every few blocks. Porter reluctantly admitted she didn’t mind it, knowing this was Ayci’s way of wrapping her up in the affection of the Rana family, even while accepting Porter for the prickly cactus she could be.
They parted at a corner stop at the top of Porter’s street. The Ranas had a few more blocks to go yet. Porter waved goodbye and hopped off through the car’s backdoor, alone into the cooling evening air.
The walk to her adobe rowhouse, identical in most ways to every other on the street, but for a few personal touches, covers several blocks. Her house was identifiable by the particularly nice teal paint her father chose for their front door and the window sashing. Her neighbors, the Hallans, had window boxes full of purple-pink Asters while the Morans on the other side had red shutters open now that the light and heat of the day are fading. Porter liked this street. It was just the right balance between predictability and quiet personality. And people here knew her and had long gotten used to her ways and largely stopped expecting her to suddenly become a different person… or if they hadn’t, they’d at least stopped expressing their opinions about her to her, which as far as Porter was concerned, was nearly as good since it meant they stopped bothering her either way.
Porter pulled her key from her pocket, briefly rubbing the beaded suede of the keychain with the pad of her thumb in fond memory of her grandmother – her father’s mom – who’d made it for her, before she slipped the key into the lock and opened the front door.
Her house was quiet in a way that made the city feel louder and the warm, welcoming glow of the kitchen lamp beckoned her through to the kitchen. She took a deep breath, inhaling the comforting scent of her mother’s family vegetable stew recipe, and sighed deeply, trying to relax her body in the hope her mind would be soothed too.
“Porter,” her mother greeted as her daughter dropped her bag in the hall and stepped into the kitchen. Her mother was sectioning a flatbread from the local bakery.
“Hey, kid,” her dad echoed from his seat on the floor in the corner, a cloth stretched out in front of him with everyone’s dress shoes and his shoe polish kit on it. His hands were already smudged with black but she had to admit her shoes for tomorrow were looking impressively shiny knowing how old they really were underneath.
On the holo in the next room, a documentary hosted by District 5’s sole Victor, Valence Saba, played just loudly enough to make out a familiar re-run - a behind the scenes at the Museum of the Ingathering, a not unpleasant history lesson to accompany the rare dinner with all of them guaranteed to be present.
Her mother passed the bread plate to Porter, gesturing that it should go in the center of the table. Each place at the table already had a cup of beet-red fruit juice – the kind sold as a canned concentrate of miscellaneous fruits all mixed together, to be mixed with water and chilled at home before serving.
A bowl of steaming vegetable stew for each place-setting followed, the scent of lentils, squash and greens curling through the kitchen enticingly.
Mother and daughter slid into adjacent seats at the table while father packed away his polishing kit and went to the bathroom to scrub his hands with a gritty soap before joining them at the table and taking up his own spoon enthusiastically.
Over dinner, they talked in the easy rhythm of a family that knows how to argue without leaving scorch marks. Despite liking the food and being hungry after a long day, Porter spent more time pushing the food around her plate than actually eating it. It was a bad habit, she knew, but her anxiety compelled it. Periodically, her father gently elbowed her and nodded meaningfully to her plate, reminding her she had to choose to eat when she was feeling like this.
They talked about their days, what each had done on this unusual day in preparation for the Reaping, about what nights the following week Porter’s mother would be on duty at the substation and when Porter’s father’s next out-of-district shift would be – he worked the long-distance transmission lines between the districts, doing repairs high in the air. It was dangerous, and not just because of the height and the proximity to high voltage current, but also because of the possibility attack or sabotage by out-district raiders. And if there were nasty peacekeepers assigned to the crew, well, even one of those could make it a miserable few weeks for everyone.
“Have you gotten your first apprenticeship assignment yet?” her mother asked Porter.
“Not yet,” she replied. “Even though I really think I want to be a power distributor like you, Mother, I wouldn’t mind getting some broader experience of the power sector.”
“I think that could be a good thing. But remember, if you get placed somewhere like the transformer factory-”
Porter made a grim face at the thought of that. Components factory workers were little better off than the general laborers at the Hydro plant. Her grades were plenty good enough that she shouldn't end up there.
Her father pointed a finger at her, accusingly. “Don’t make that face, my girl. It could happen – or another place like it. What are those workers going to think and say about you if you spend your whole assignment there acting like you’re better than them and too good for the work? Dispatch is very competitive and no matter what placement you’re given, if you don’t give it your all with a positive attitude and openness to learning, they won’t give you a good recommendation for future placements or future employment.”
Porter sighed, relenting. “You’re right. I’m not good at ‘positive attitude’ but you’re right; I’ll do a good job, no matter where they send me. I might start to panic if I don’t get anything good by this time next year but there’s no sense worrying about that yet.”
When the plates were empty and the leftovers packed away into their small fridge, Porter pushed her chair back with a soft screech.
“Don’t forget to bathe before bed tonight, dear,” her mother reminded her. “There won’t be time for all of us to go through in the morning.”
Porter nodded.
The morning, she thought as she made her last preparations before going to bed. Reaping Day. The end of another year. Her odds were good, that wasn’t the problem. Porter hated endings. She hated not having a plan showing her how to move forward. Yet there she stood at the end of a day that had brought too much to an end and she still had no idea where her apprenticeship would be. It was too much. That was the source of the gnawing anxiety. It must be.
Chapter Text
The early morning sky was a bruised gray, streaked with the first orange of morning reflecting off early clouds. A tremor more movement than sound shook Porter’s window, followed by the distant clack-clack as the Intercity Rail train cut through the dawn like a blade. The horn blared intermittently, echoing five blocks away as the train rumbled along the tracks, a relentless beast moving toward the city’s heart, carrying a whole city’s worth of teenagers and most of their families (the ones not required to keep the lights on) to selection for slaughter. Reaping Day. The 38th Hunger Games. Porter’s eyes fluttered open, her breath catching briefly at the familiar sound that always signaled the start of another Reaping day.
She sat up reluctantly, her mind already racing through the day’s chaos. The train’s horn sounded again, sharp and urgent, punctuating the silence of her small room. Her pulse quickened—not from fear, but from a steady, stubborn resolve. Today was just another day. It had to be.
Downstairs, her parents moved about in the bathroom, voices muffled but hurried. Porter swung her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet touching the cool floor. She pushed herself up, jogged down the stairs, heading straight for the sink in the kitchen, where she splashed cold water on her face. Her shoulder-length black hair was straight and sleek; she brushed it out quickly, letting it hang loose.
She pulled on her best dress - a spicy, pepper-red garment with white lace at the collar and black buttons up her chest. She had chosen this one from the department store in the city center just two weeks prior, when she’d discovered her dress from the previous year could not be let out enough to still fit. She examined herself in the lightly tarnished mirror hanging on her bedroom wall. In her opinion, she never looked quite right in dresses – she was muscular from her years of Gymkhana in ways that dresses just weren’t made to flatter. She tucked her lips into a tight line, lips disappearing into her mouth, and allowed her nostrils to flare. She tilted her head side to side, shoulders rolling, as if testing her resolve. ‘Well,’ she thought, ‘not glamorous, but not bad. It’ll do.’
Porter nodded to herself, then turned and jogged back down the stairs. After taking her turn in the bathroom, she joined her parents at the kitchen table where her father was just filling the skillet for a breakfast of flat bread and breakfast skillet – tomato, beans, and vegetables – in this case some greens and radishes - with a couple of peppers and some onion.
Her mother handed her a cloth napkin, her face tight with worry. “Tuck it into your collar,” her mother ordered softly. “Best not to risk any spills today.”
Porter nodded curtly as she took her seat and obeyed. Breakfast was eaten in an uneasy silence, the Reaping hanging over them, Porter wanted to point out that all this gloom was silly. That her odds of being picked were very low – it just wasn’t going to be her… but no one tempted bad luck by saying something like that out loud so she bit it back and pointedly took another bite – in her family, it spoke louder than words: Porter isn’t worried enough to be off her food; everything’s going to be alright.
After breakfast, they left their dishes in the sink and slipped on shoes. Porter pocketed her keys and ID—just in case she got separated—then stepped out into the morning light. The streets buzzed with activity; families and teenagers, all heading toward the same grim destination. Her parents paid the half-sesterce fare for the streetcar, and Porter scanned her ID as they crowded onto the vehicle.
The car jolted forward, rattling along the rails. She pressed her back into the seat, her gaze fixed on the window, watching the city blur past in muted shades of tan and rust. The tram stopped several blocks short of the turbine factory, the mass of streetcars waiting silently, their doors sealed tight, where whole streets of other residents had arrived and disembarked before them. An eerie hush fell over the crowd as passengers deboarded, silent and tense, seeking comfort in shared glances, hands held, or quiet tears.
Her mother reached out and took her hand, her father wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Porter squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then parted from them with a silent hug, steeling herself. She moved forward, joining the line of teenagers outside the gates, her heart pounding but her face composed. Peacekeepers stood at the gate, checking each teenager in with a device that scanned blood to verify ID, then making each teen look at their helmet camera to update the records in their database.
The line moved slowly. She fidgeted, ran her fingers over and over the beaded keychain in her pocket, kept checking the crowd for friends and watching the sky in hope of a friendly cloud appearing to offer a little shade in the sweltering heat. Her stomach twisted as she approached the blood test station. This, this moment was what she dreaded most about Reaping Day. She hated the needles—hated the thought of that sharp metal rod puckering her skin and invading her body—but refusal was not an option. She pressed her lips tight and offered her finger. “Porter Millicent Tripp,” she reported. The device beeped softly, and she looked away as the needle pierced her skin. The face scan, the nod from the masked peacekeeper and she was finally free to go inside and avoid needles for another year.
Porter navigated with the aid of cordons separating the eligible teens from the rest of the district, funneling the teens to the giant assembly floor of the largest wind turbine factory in the district, cleared for the day of heavy machinery and turbine components to fit the citizens of the district. Back in Year 4, her school class had come to tour this factory – each year, they toured a different major employer in their school’s catchment area; she had felt like an ant standing next to a partially assembled windmill. Despite having grown, she still felt tiny being there, caught in the eye of the cameras of the Capitol who was so eager to gobble up district children for their entertainment that they’d made an annual festival of it. But Porter caught her own line of thinking inching dangerously close to treason and forced her brain onto another track.
Both hangar doors of the huge space were open at either end to channel a cooling breeze through the crowds. Porter, grateful for her height, scanned over the crowd as she approached her age group’s pen looking for Ayci. When she spotted her from afar she called out to her and Ayci, the silly jackrabbit, jumped up and down waving her hands over her head and trusting Porter to find her (Ayci being too short to see over the heads of their year-mates by several inches). They congregated with some of Ayci’s other friends but it was Porter’s hand Ayci held when the anxiety got to be too much for her. Porter tolerated it.
On stage, their Capitol escort, Seraphina Arden, was directing the roll out of the two Reaping Balls by pairs of Peacekeepers while the mayor and their only victor sat waiting for the ceremony to start.
Seraphina’s outfit was as flamboyant as usual – she looked like a pastel rose had exploded. Her bright green stockings mimicked a stem, and her dress unfurled like petals. Porter, like many in the districts was never quite sure whether their escort’s fashion choices were intended to mock or if Capitol citizens actually liked this sort of thing.
Eventually, one of the camera operators gave her a hand sign and she hurried to the microphone.
“District 12 has started their Reaping. We will begin in 25 minutes,” she announced, her voice cheerful and gratingly perky.
Seraphina counted down the outer districts, each number bringing them closer to their own Reaping. Then the ceremony commenced with the traditional, mocking greeting in that grating Capitol accent “Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor.” The mandatory video about the horrors of the Dark Days and the mercy of the Capitol in victory followed. Then Seraphina introduced District 5’s only victor, Valence who won the 17th games, then passed the microphone to the mayor for the recitation of the Treaty of Treason. Then the moment every person in the district was dreading came as she reclaimed the microphone. “And now, we will select your tributes!” An urgent hand motion from a camera operator had her waiting an awkward 70 seconds for her cue and then she went to the ball on her left to draw a name.
“William Kalman!”
A weedy boy with the red hair and ruddy complexion of River City tesserae-takers emerged with a shove from the 13 year old section. ‘He’s a goner,” Porter thought the moment she saw him. No one under 16 had ever won the games. It was a death sentence, even moreso than any other reaping from a district with a single victor in 37 years. And then he was up on the stage, pleading with his over-large eyes as Seraphina asked for volunteers, but of course, none emerged.
“Now for the girls,” she chirped happily, moving to the remaining Reaping Ball.
Her gloved hand reached in and pulled out a slip, unfolded it, and read aloud: “Porter Millicent Tripp.”
The world seemed to pause, flicker, caught out of sync. Porter’s heart hammered painfully. Flash. Beside her, Ayci’s always sunny face was clouded with horror and sorrow. Flash. It was a look shared by her other friends, even though they weren’t really friends of Porter herself. Flash. Reluctantly, Ayci dropped her hand and drew away.
Porter’s mind was empty of everything but a deep desperate wail that she bit down viciously. Flash. She should be doing something, right? But what? Her mind held only screaming! And then – Flash. In the moment the cameras found her in the crowd and pinned her with the nation’s stare, she snapped into her performance persona — her proud, wide, theatrical smile, her straight posture, her hands up, as if readying for a tumbling pass. Having that pre-programmed, well-rehearsed performance face to fall back on was so fortunate. Inside, she felt the yawning pit of desperation empty of all sense, the chaos, the sickening jolt of reality crashing down, but outwardly, to the nation, she looked proud and happy to be chosen.
This was happening, nothing would stop it, so she was all in. She strode purposefully out from the pen of other 16 year old girls like she was taking a line up for the opening tumbling pass at the biggest show of the year and marched herself up to the stage, doing her best to portray strength and grace, just like coach worked on with her so hard. She mounted the stage and confidently told Seraphina, “No volunteers please,” She didn’t know if that was allowed but it would sound good. There was no use anyway; 5 didn’t have volunteers. And Seraphina reported this to the crowd with pride and joy and asked for a round of applause which she received, though a dutiful one, not a happy one. Porter looked over the crowd of families, trying to find her parents, but couldn’t spot them.
Suddenly, Porter was being ordered to shake hands with her much smaller district partner, then they were ushered off the stage, peacekeepers taking each of her shoulders and behind her doing the same to William. They guided them towards the hangar gate behind the stage. It was the most direct path to the justice building where they would be given their hour to say goodbye, then it would be on to the train and off to the Capitol and nearly certain death.
But Porter’s jaw clenched. This was only the start of the Games. She was sixteen. She had a shot — maybe. She would take it. No matter the fear, the loss, or the pain, she’d walk this path with her head held high. Because if she didn’t, she knew the Capitol would not be kind; it would grind her down. And so, with every ampere of resolve she could summon, Porter Millicent Tripp promised herself she would not let it.
Chapter Text
The antechamber was a parody of comfort. Lavish velvet drapes, polished wood, and gilded frames lined the walls, but the scent was all wrong — musty, stale, like a forgotten attic – did this room have any use other than tributes’ goodbyes? Porter’s boots echoed softly against the marble floor. She barely had a moment to register her surroundings before the false cheer drained from her veins. Her stomach twisted; her limbs felt leaden. For a heartbeat, she almost collapsed where she stood, but her stubbornness kept her upright. Eyes burning, she stumbled over to a green velvet bench and sank onto it with deliberate care, as if the act of sitting might somehow steady her. It did not. Her face fell into her hands and she tried to slow her breathing, her mind racing.
How could this happen? Her odds had been good. It wasn’t supposed to be her. Her parents’ words echoed in her mind — ‘It only takes one slip, no matter the odds.’ The cold reality pressed down on her like the weight of the Capitol itself.
She wanted to cry. The urge clawed at her throat, but she ferociously suppressed it. Instead, she clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms. She should have listened to her parents – no wait, she shouldn’t have - it wouldn’t have helped anyone to be anxious in advance, wouldn’t have changed the outcome, would just have made her miserable. She took an intentional breath, deep from her diaphragm and let it out slowly. Well, she’d wanted a path, a goal to plan for last night, hadn’t she. Well now she had one. She was going to do this. She was going to come home a victor.
Deep breath. Slow. Focus. She inhaled, filling her lungs with air, then exhaled through clenched teeth. She had to be strong. Fierce. No matter what, she would learn everything she could in training, make a plan, and, if luck was on her side, she’d get a relatively ‘friendly’ arena, not something like a tundra. She shivered just thinking about it, imagining the ice biting her skin, the wind tearing at her clothes.
The door swung open suddenly, breaking her concentration. Ayci burst into the room, her eyes wide with horror.
“Porter, oh Porter, this is horrible,” Ayci blurted, rushing forward and clutching her friend’s arm.
Porter looked up, her lips pressed into a tight line, nostrils flaring as she pushed herself to sit straighter. “Yeah,” she muttered, voice rough. She brushed her hands over her arms, trying to chase away the chill—not just the cold, but the dread crawling beneath her skin.
Ayci hesitated a moment, then stepped closer. “Can I… I know you hate when I hug you, but can I just—?”
Porter didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she opened her arms, and Ayci threw herself into them. Porter’s shoulders tensed at first, but she didn’t pull away.
“I don’t hate it,” Porter admitted softly, voice muffled in Ayci’s shoulder.
“You’re just a cactus—prickly on the outside, squishy on the inside,” Ayci said, voice gentle but firm.
“Yes, thank you for that flattering comparison,” Porter quipped sarcastically.
Ayci’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
“Make sure my mom gives your sister my tumbling costumes—I promised she could have them when I aged out.”
“Shh,” Ayci interrupted. “No planning for a future without you in it.”
Porter sighed moodily. “I’m going to try, I will, but I also like to leave nothing unfinished, to know I’ve accounted for all possible outcomes in my plans.”
It was Ayci’s turn to sigh, “Yeah, okay. How about this? If I get to keep hugging you, I will listen to and carry out all your instructions if the worst happens.”
“Deal,” Porter agreed. She thought for a moment and then listed out all the things she could think of that might need doing if she didn’t make it home. Ayci made an increasingly heartbroken face but committed it all to memory.
The peacekeeper’s knock was sharp and insistent. “Time’s up,” they announced, voice impassive.
Ayci hesitated, then reluctantly pulled away. She looked back once, eyes shimmering, before turning and following the peacekeeper out, her footsteps echoing down the hall. Porter’s stomach clenched as the door closed behind her, feeling terribly alone.
Barely had the click of the lock sounded when the door swung open again. Her mother and father burst in, rushing toward her with open arms. Porter was swept into their embrace, her face pressed against her mother’s shoulder, her father’s hands firm on her back.
“I’ll give it my all, Papa. I’ll try so hard, I promise, Mommy,” Porter said softly, using names for them she’d made an effort to stop years ago, for sounding so childish. Today, they only felt safe.
Her father’s voice was steady. “Good. Good. You do anything, everything you have to to get home.”
Her mother pulled back, wiping her face quickly of tears, her expression fierce with pride and love. “Right, that’s done. Let’s not talk about it anymore. Porter, sweetheart, I’m so proud to be your mother. Nothing you do could ever change that. I love you with all my heart.” Her voice cracked slightly, but she pressed on.
While you are in the Capitol, I’m going to remember you when you were three and we went to the wind fields and you danced among the flowers laughing so hard. I’m going to remember when you were 5 and starting school and you didn’t want me to leave but you were so short all you really saw from where you were was my uniform trousers and so when you latched onto another girl in class’s mother who had the same uniform and wouldn’t let her go.”
“Mom!” Porter groaned, but her dad was laughing now instead of crying, weakly, but it was good.
“And when you were 6 and read ‘Matilda Jane’ and wouldn’t leave the house for three months without a purple hat on your head because-
“Because a lady is never dressed without her hat,” Porter chimed in, quoting the popular children’s book.
They swapped happy memories for a few more minutes and when a peacekeeper came back to tell her parents their time was up, all three for them were smiling again. The peacekeeper’s return was a harsh reminder. With a final, shared glance, her parents pulled back, their smiles thin but genuine.
After that, Porter wasn’t really expecting anyone to come, but there were visits from some of the members of the Gymkhana, a few of her old teachers, and her elderly neighbors the Morans who used to watch her after school until her mom got home from work back before Porter was old enough to look after herself.
It was nice, realizing she had more people who cared than only Ayci and her parents. Bolstered, she was ready to put her performance face back on.
Then came the inevitable: Seraphina’s voice – too damn happy - announcing it was time to board the Tribute Train. Porter’s stomach sank. As she rose, her legs felt heavy, her mind a whirlwind of plans and fears. She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and stepped toward her destiny—uncertain, but determined.
Chapter Text
The short ride to the train station was nevertheless an exercise in patience for Porter who sat stiffly in the back of a the biggest, shiniest, nicest car in the district, drumming her fingers against her thigh. The others chattered around her—Seraphina’s constant soliloquy of Capitol gossip, Valence’s quiet muttering, Peacekeeper comms squawking—none of it registering. She kept her lips pressed into a thin, unyielding line, nostrils flaring as she watched the city blur past outside the narrow window.
William, packed between her and Seraphina, kept twisting in his seat, his eyes darted from the door to the windows, then back again. Porter was annoyed at first, thinking he was fidgeting an awful lot with anxiety, but then she realized he was genuinely looking around, trying to see everything as they drove by. The best neighborhood in Santa Fe must be something to see for a kid from the poorer parts of the poorest city in the district. Would they both be like that in the Capitol?
Porter leaned her head back against the seat with a quiet sigh. There was so much she wanted to ask Valence – all sorts of things about the Games, about different strategies, about training, about what she needed to do to win. Honestly, she even wanted to ask Valence about her holo shows—about the documentaries she loved. But she bit her tongue. Not now. Not here. Not the time. It was just that she felt like she had so little time left to do anything now. But sparing a glance at Valence showed she looked sick, pale, eyes half-closed, and her breathing was shallow. A million questions would have to wait.
The ride to the train station was short and soon they were pulling up to one end of the platform and climbing out.
Seraphina led them with her up onto the platform and Valence shuffled along at the rear.
Waiting in the station was the sleekest train ever seen in the districts. Built for speed, the tribute trains were the fastest way an ordinary person could travel in Panem.
They were ushered aboard the train and, well, the interior was more confusing than anything else. While the view from outside looking in was attractive, the inside was… bare. The car they’d entered was open inside, and wonderfully flooded with light from huge windows – it had to be nice to watch out of them as the train traveled throughout the country - but the space was empty of any travel benches or seats or furniture of any kind. At either end of the car, out of sight from the platform, were doors blocked by armed peacekeepers. It was such a strange perspective – like standing on a stage, able to see into the vast backstage through the wings and the yawning dark hiding the audience and little else, when the audience could see the actors and the set behind them and the fancy decorated walls and the boxes and all the other patrons but none of what really made it work. Was this car some kind of staging room, a viewing room, for people outside, capitol people, to get a glimpse of the tributes? Would a whole train car really be used like that, for two short moments either side of a long journey?
Seraphina led them to one of the doors, towards the rear. In the next car, only a narrow corridor with three doors could be seen, the first of which had the locks on the outside. It was that room Seraphina ushered Porter and William into. It was a tiny, dark room, and it was furnished like a prison cell. There were two small cots and a bathroom Porter would be hard pressed to turn around in with her arms flat against her sides. It smelled musty and the only windows were small, high up, and barred.
“You’re to remain in here for the duration of the journey. You will be retrieved in the morning and transferred to the Tribute Center to begin training.”
“I was hoping to talk to Valence,” Porter ventured, “about… strategies and all that.”
“Enthusiastic, ay?” came from the door to the next car. Valence had indeed joined them but looked thoroughly uninterested in having a chat.
“Realistic,” she corrected. “I plan to win and I know I’ll need help to do that.”
Valence scoffed, then disappeared down the corridor with a duffle bag. They heard a door further down the hall click, and then silence.
Before either tribute could say anything else, their escort closed the door in Porter’s face and could be heard ordering a peacekeeper to lock them in.
“This is really scary,” William whispered, looking around wide eyed.
Porter sighed. “I suppose it could be worse,” she said, then crossed to the bathroom to inspect it further. A pair of threadbare towels hung over a sink next to a small toilet. “I think I’ll wash my face and then, I guess… lay in bed?” Porter decided, for a lack of anything else to to do. It would appear they had over half a day to idle away. Porter had never been good at doing nothing.
When she re-emerged from the bathroom, she found William standing on the cot by the windows, stretching as tall as he could but still, he was unable to see out the small, barred windows. With a sigh, he plopped down on to the cot.
Porter settled down on her own cot and tried to get comfortable.
William shifted nervously, fidgeting, sniffling occasionally. Porter tried to ignore it. But when it got worse rather than better, she realized she was the only one in a position to do anything about it. There was only one problem: she was terrible at offering comfort. She did not do touchy-feely. She was, as Ayci liked to say, prickly like a cactus. But she remembered her parents in the Justice Building—how they’d kept her calm with simple words, how they’d made her feel safe when everything else was chaos. She didn’t know William well, but she was the only one there and with two choices – fix it or ignore it - and ignoring it having failed, she figured she had better make some kind of attempt.
“Look,” she started, voice rough with lack of practice. “I’m crap at feelings, but if you want to talk or whatever, I’ll try. I mean it though, genuinely terrible at the mushy stuff. That’s what Ayci’s for.” She paused, then explained, “Ayci’s my best friend. We go to school together, do Gymkhana. She’s the people person.”
William looked at her, eyes wide. “You do gymnastics?”
“Yeah. Tumbling, mostly. Or I did, at least. Yesterday was my last day on the school team.” She hopped up from the cot, tucked the bottom of her skirt into the waist tie at her back and flipped up into a handstand and walked herself around the small room on her hands. “See?” she said, leaping theatrically to her feet again.
William chuckled, wetly, and climbed to his feet to try to do a handstand himself, only he wobbled like a newborn foal. Porter helped him, holding his ankles loosely as he struggled to balance.
“Difficult with the train moving, huh?” Porter said quietly.
He nodded, grimacing. “Hard to stay still.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll teach you some basics. First, against the wall.” She stood him up, guiding him into a proper handstand position, then helped him find his balance and focus on the right muscle groups to maintain it while moving. They kept at it, the train’s subtle sway making it a challenge, but Porter was persistent.
After a while, she demonstrated a front tuck roll, and helped him try that too. Then a bridge, then a candlestick. “If we had more room, I’d show you some different cartwheels,” she said. “Why didn’t you learn any of this as a kid?”
He shrugged. “Only really for girls in River City. Not… not for us.”
“Dumb,” Porter said flatly. “My dad did slackwire stunts when he was your age and now he works the inter-district power lines with his skills – it’s a good job.”
William sat back on the cot, silent now, gazing at the ceiling. “I guess there’s not much call for it at the Hydro Plant or the boiler factories... or the chem labs – not that the likes of me ever would have rated the chemistry track.” The train’s rhythmic hum seemed to settle over him.
Porter reflected that even though they were from the same district, her life and William’s had been very different. She wondered idly if they’d get to talk to the other tributes much, learn a little of what their lives had been.
They sat in quiet for awhile, the exercise having helped William settle. When Porter looked over at him some time later, he had fallen asleep. Porter watched him, noting the stress painting his face even in sleep. Then she rolled over in her bed and let her mind focus on the problem before her: how to win the Hunger Games. There were so many choices to make: cornucopia or no? Spears or knives or bow or traps? Allies or no? Hide or hunt? Fight or trick? She was going to need more information and that meant she would need to get Valence talking. A long while later, their room gone dark and the train’s gentle rocking persisting, Porter was lulled into her own sleep.
Chapter Text
Porter was startled awake by the clatter of the locks outside the cell door being unlocked. It was light out and the train wasn’t moving anymore. She had a faint memory of sitting up half-awake in the night when they’d come to a clattering stop, probably in a railyard as there were sounds of trains, some moving, some idling, and voices shouting hear and there all around them. Those sounds had been replaced by car horns and crowds and even a distant siren. Porter stood just as Seraphina – now dressed in a violently orange fringe dress and matching hat pushed open the door shouting, “Up, up, we’re behind schedule already!” Behind her, Porter heard William jerk awake with a snort and a fuzzy “Wha?”
“Up! Make yourselves presentable – you have 2 minutes!”
Porter bit back a remark about how any lateness couldn’t be their fault as they’d been locked in all night. Instead, she slipped into the bathroom and quickly relieved herself before surveying her hair with dismay. Her dress wasn’t looking very nice either after a night sleeping in it. She straightened it, tried to tug out some of the worst wrinkles, looked without result for a brush and then resorted to finger combing and patting at her hair, in the absence of an opportunity to brush her teeth, she swirled some water in her mouth and spit and hoped it was enough. She yielded the bathroom to William and ignored the melodramatic muttering from the escort complaining she still looked like something the cat dragged in.
“We’re at the station. You will be watched from the moment we enter the next car. Do not cry! Do not look weak! Don’t embarrass me!”
“Yes, ma’am,” William muttered, probably on rote in response to her tone.
“We will pose for pictures leaving the train and, if any regular District 5 sponsors are here, we may pose greeting them as well, then we will be driven to Tribute Tower where you will have three days of training and then you will demonstrate your skills to the gamemakers for your training score. Then there will be two days to prepare you for the interview with Flickerman – one to study poise and manners with me and content with your mentor and then one for the prep teams and a stylist to go to work on you until you are presentable for a Capitol audience - she looked them both up and down with a sneer.
“We need a whole day just to get ready for an interview? Don’t we just put on some costume?” Willie asked.
Seraphina made a noise like an angry tea kettle. “You can’t expect district savages to understand,” she chirped, obviously to herself. Then, “Yes, it will indeed take all day to get you even close to the standards of appearance expected in the Capitol. There will be no arguments. Obey your preps and stylist in all things or there will be consequences. Now, smiles on – bigger! – and follow me.”
Porter was expecting to be led straight into the next car and into the view of the cameras, only they were instead met at the end of the corridor by a pair of peacekeepers holding shackles on a chain.
“Hands!” he ordered. Porter was taken aback but a moment later, she supposed she shouldn’t have been. Seraphina had outright called their room on the train a cell. So she shored up her smile to brilliant proportions and held out her arms. One pair of the cuffs was immediately snapped closed around her wrists, checked to make sure they were locked, then the pair at the other end of the short chain were attached to Willie’s fearfully offered wrists.
“Valence! If you’re not out here in 3 seconds, I’ll see your pay is docked!” Seraphina suddenly shouted nearly right in Porter’s ear causing her to flinch back and scowl irritably
“I’m right here, you hag!” Valence emerged from her room with her duffel bag over her shoulder. “More money than I know what to do with and you think that’s a threat?” She muttered under her breath as she joined them at the door between cars.
Seraphina huffed, then her face transformed into her clearly fake but very bright camera smile and she threw open the door, clicked her fingers over her shoulder at them, and led them through to the empty car. The double doors there were already open and outside a small crowd’s chatter became a dull roar upon spotting them. Men in green stripes and big sleeves pointed at them, women in pastel dresses leaned in over the cordon to get a better look, a woman holding a tiny tiger cub in a handbag gasped and started screeching – possibly in joy, though if so, Porter couldn’t imagine the habit made her any friends…
As soon as the flashes began, Seraphina was striking poses. William, clearly overwhelmed, largely stumbled along stiffly at her side. Porter put on her performance smile and kept her body language confident and strong. Valence acted like the crowd wasn’t there at all, refusing to interact with them or position herself for the benefit of their shots.
Seraphina had them standing before the crowd and a few cameras for several minutes, responding to shouted questions only with flirty laughter or overplayed shock all the while, then said “Let’s go,” to the tributes and victor and set off down the platform, her very high heels clicking loudly. They were ushered into a sleek vehicle that promptly began weaving through the Capitol’s streets.
William pressed his nose against the window, eyes wide with awe, while Porter kept trying to catch glimpses of everything - so clean, so busy, so bright. The buildings were so tall, their glass facades shimmering in the sunlight. The streets bustled with activity and everyone appeared so colorful and elaborately dressed - strikingly so, for a city that seemed to be in the middle of the workday. It struck Porter as odd; Wasn’t it work hours? Did they have extra holidays in the Capitol to watch the Games? Or was this just how Capitol life was?
Soon, the vehicle slowed and turned, circling around the tallest building in the neighborhood, a tower of steel and glass that gleamed in the summer sun. A metallic door at the base opened as the car approached and the imposing landmark swallowed them up.
The car drove down a ramp, past several different levels with doors that went past too quickly to investigate before it stopped at one and Seraphina got out.
“Come now, quick, quick.”
They entered the building through a metal door, inside which was a long cold corridor with a large elevator at the end. As they walked, several other corridors branching off led to other metal doors. One of those doors had a prominent “Morgue” sign on it.
“What’s a Mor-goo?” William whispered to Porter curiously.
Porter froze, really, really not wanting to answer.
“Morgue. It’s where the fallen tributes’ bodies are prepared to be sent home for burial,” Valence said, sparing Porter.
“Dead bodies! No. No, no, no, no. I’m supposed to sleep in the same building as dead bodies?!” William exclaimed, panicked.
Valence tried to reassure him, “There won’t be any bodies in there until after you’ve already left this building.”
Seraphina, who had made it several meters further down the corridor without them as the morgue was discussed, huffed and turned back, favoring them with a scolding look, complete with hands on hips. “That’s right and if you don’t shape up and find your spine, your body will be the first they bring back after the bloodbath!” she snapped.
William’s cuffed hands flew to his mouth, color draining from his face.
Valence darted down the nearest corridor and returned quickly with a trashcan just in time for William to empty his stomach of bile.
“Wow,” Porter drawled, deadpan, as she sent Seraphina back look of judgment that would have been complete with hands-on-hips if she wasn’t still shackled. “That was vicious.” She meant it as a biting insult but Seraphina’s face melted into a preening smile like it had been the sweetest compliment anyone could have given her. It pissed Porter off immensely.
“Listen kid, when we get upstairs to the District 5 apartment, I’ll get you some medicine that will help, okay. You’ll be feeling better in no time,” Valence told him, her tone firm rather than comforting.
“Come, come, don’t dally now,” Seraphina called back as she prodded the call button repeatedly. “1 and 2 will be upstairs already but everyone is confined to their own floors outside of official Games events. You’ll meet them in training tomorrow. And you’ll see them on the holo during Mandatory Viewing tonight – Caesar's recap of the Reapings – but you know that, of course.”
The doors opened with a digital bing and Seraphina stepped carefully over the small gap. Not wearing the finely-pointed heels the Capitol escort was, the others merely shuffled on after her.
Seraphina jabbed the circular number 5 button with a grotesquely long fingernail. The silver metallic doors slid closed behind them. With a mild jolt, the cabin began to rise and the lit numbers above the door rose.
Though the numbers cycled through several subbasement and studio levels before the numbered levels began, it was still only a few seconds before the elevator dinged and Seraphina chirped, “Level 5, District 5.”
The door opened into a room the size of her family’s whole front room. It was decorated only with ornamental vases, an empty side table, expensive embossed wallpaper, and a bright, woven rug - like it served no other purpose than to enter and exit from the elevator. Seraphina’s heels clicked as she walked across the stone tiled floor, then softened as she crossed the rug, then clicked again as she led them further into the living space. “Its a bit modest, but compared to anything you’d have in your district, I suppose it must be nice. This will be your home for the next week.”
Porter’s eyes widened – it was huge! And there was so much stuff. And not the hard-wearing, utilitarian stuff she was familiar with at home – each piece of furniture, each decoration, was a piece of high fashion art in itself. It was the sort of thing she’d only ever seen in advertisements and on holo programs from the Capitol but there it had seemed like something made for those imaginary worlds – this was right in front of her – she could reach out and touch it. And Seraphina had called it ‘modest’.
Valence slipped around them and disappeared down a darker corridor. Then a white-clad Peacekeeper, an older woman not bothering to wear a helmet or carry any weapon larger than her sidearm, appeared through a door so cleverly hidden in the wallpaper pattern that it must disappear when closed. In her hand, she carried a large metal key.
“Cuffs,” Seraphina said, clapping her gloved hands dully at the children.
Porter held out her wrists for the Peacekeeper who freed her and took the cuffs and chains. The loss of that weight was really noticeable, even for Porter’s muscular arms. When William’s were removed he actually rubbed at his shoulders, trying to relieve an ache.
The Peacekeeper exited through the same hidden door, disappearing with the chains and without a word, just as a completely different camouflaged door opened in the wall behind the over-large, glass dining table, revealing two woman dressed top to toe in thin, red bodysuits and bearing pitchers of juice and a decorative bowl to begin laying a meal on the table, already set with pink place settings.
Porter stood frozen in the middle of the grand room experiencing what must be existential confusion. How had she woken up in a holo movie? Was she still asleep on the train and she’d just dreamed herself into a trashy Valentina Romero romdram? Surely a place like this only existed in the imagination of filmmakers - no real person lived like this. Was something cinematic about to happen? Was there going to be a laugh track? Was she going to open a door and find a dead heiress and have to solve her murder?
Then her racing thoughts jerked back onto the rail line of reality with such abruptness she flinched. ‘Oh wait, there are 23 corpses in this film, aren’t there and I won’t know until its too late if I’m one of them... Well, that was depressing.’