Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hi! This is the author, Ann, and this is a skippable infodump. But, I wanted to include it because I thought that it would be helpful! All of this information is already present in the fic itself, but I know that some people would prefer to know a lot of things right off the bat.
This contains no spoilers for the fic, but I just wanted to set the stage for some things that you might see.
After reading, if you are more curious about these characters, I post a lot about them on my Tumblr account (@SpleenMuncher). I make a lot of digital art and Del is my favorite muse. Included in this infodump is:
— General
— Personal lore on how I started this
— Certain dialectal choices
— District 4 worldbuilding
— Major families

———
General:
The infodumps do not have indents, but the story itself does.

The few times that I put thoughts into dialogue, I use 'these', rather than the "double quotation marks". I make it clear by saying "she thought" or something similar, I just thought that this would be helpful to know going in.

There is a character in this story named Willamae Lloyd, she has a very small part. It was not until a day after posting this that I remembered that Haymitch's mom's name was Willamae Abernathy. I decided that it would be more trouble than it's worth to go through and change it (and definitely make multiple mistakes), so don't worry, I know that I messed up a little.

I used a combination of book and movie lore. Mostly book, though, since it was easier and I like the books more, lol.

This is semi-canon compliant, as there are some choices that I made that do not fully align with canon. There is nothing too bad, but still be aware.

I began writing this before the release of SOTR, and updated whatever I could, but if there is an inconsistency, then that is why.

Del and Mako were not written with autism in mind, although, I based a lot of their personality off of my own and I was recently diagnosed. So, they are both canonically autistic in a sort of Abed from Community way!

———
How APATR came to be!:
I've always been a big Hunger Games fan, but my interest in the series really hyped up in 8th grade. Around this time I was making a bunch of OCs, and I figured that making a Hunger Games OC would be fun.
It snowballed from there.
Elowyn Caddel started as a lumberjack from District 7, but then I remembered that District 7 cannot have a female victor because Johanna is the only one. I then turned her into a District 4 OC, and changed her name to Delphina because Elowyn didn't fit anymore. Delphina Caddel didn't have a very nice ring to it, so I changed her last name to Hollis, and gave Caddel to the deuteragonist of this story.
Fun fact, the female District 7 tribute in the 53rd Games is named Elowyn as an Easter egg for this! (And Mako's original name, Hayes, is also present in one of the tributes!)
This was my first ever fanfic, but a couple months after I posted it I realized that I had matured so much as a writer that I could improve upon it. If you're reading this, you are on the version that is updated.
I made a lot of changes, I added an epilogue, characterization, I removed a lot of the juvenile language and cussing, and I allowed for more downtime for the relationships of all of the characters to properly develop.

———
District 4 Worldbuilding:
I made a mistake all the way back in December 2024 when I started writing this, because District 4 is not located where I thought it was. The reason that I chose to write for District 4 was because I thought it was in the modern day Carolina region, and that is where I'm from.
I did not realize my mistake until I was very far in :,). This heavily influenced the story in multiple ways, so I decided to not change it.
There are three main regions in District 4, the West End, the Markets, and the Marshes. The West End is the most wealthy of the three, and is the more business-oriented area.
The Markets are the middlemost financially of the three, being the commercial region of District 4 and home to the Reaping Square. It is both the largest geographically and population-wise, by far.
And finally, the poorest of the three is the Marshes, being home to the smallest portion of District 4 citizens—mainly small fishermen and shopkeepers. The Marshes are located in (you'd never guess) the more swampy and marshy area of District 4, and deters a lot of people due to that.

———
Character Dialect:
The main character, Del Hollis, is from modern-day South Carolina. I decided to give her an accent inspired by a lot of the people around me and I used Kya Clark from WTCS as a written reference. I do not think that I overdid the phonetic translation of her accent too much, but it is still present.
This also goes for any characters in the Marshlands of District 4. Like Otto Hollis, Serena Romero, and a handful of other characters.
The people from the Markets have a have a very noticeable Southern accent as well, it's just not as strong as that of people from the Marshlands. Dorian Gillary is an example of a character with a Markets accent.
Although, people from the West End have what is essentially just an American accent. With, obviously, some dialectal similarities to the other two regions. Mako Caddel and his family have this accent.

———
Major Families:
Hollis Family-
— Doris and Otto (Mother and father)
— Caulder, Delphina, and Cordelia (Older son, middle daughter, younger daughter)
Caddel Family-
— Irena (Paternal grandmother)
— Shelley and Marlin (Mother and father)
— Mako and Marley (Older son, younger son)
Romero Family-
— Tessa and Alon (Mother and father)
— Serena, Caspian, and Azalea (Older daughter, middle son, younger daughter)
Gillary Family-
— Marisol and Dorian (Mother and father)
— Ezra and Nico (Fraternal twin sons)

Chapter Text

     The morning burned a sort of hot that could only be felt in July, the rising sun shone bright on the edge of the grassy marsh. Casting light on the splintering deck where Delphina sat, swinging her legs above the water, her boots just barely missed the surface. She stared at the murky waters below, small fish weaved in between the brown marsh-grass in pairs.

     She liked the quiet of the marsh. It wasn't clinical like she envisioned the Capitol, but full of birds and bugs. Del listened to the gentle ripples of the water softly sloshing the posts of the dock, the heron quickly snatching its breakfast from the murk, and she felt content for a moment.

     "Hey, Dellie." She heard a familiar voice from behind her.

     Del turned around, Serena sat next to her, and swung her legs in sync. Her dress was different from Delphina's, it was well-fitted and surprisingly nice for a person from the Marshes. Del's was a dark shade of sage green that was stained with mud at the bottom. But Serena's was a light shade of lavender purple, without mud stains.

     "Hey," She responded, the same hint of numb sadness in her tone.

    "How many times is your name in this year?" Serena asked.

     She knew that she was going to ask this question, she really had no reason to worry, her name was only in fifteen times. She only needed enough tesserae for her and her father.

     "Fifteen."

     "That's a lot, Del..." Serena muttered.

     "It'll be okay, I mean, my name was in forty-two times for the Quell and I wasn't called, and, y'know, that was doubles year." Del remarked.

     "I know, but don't think I'm not gonna worry with you fixin' to go to the arena!" Serena seemed to stare into Del's soul, the expression of fear and sadness in her face mirrored her own.

     Del couldn't stand to see those big doe eyes of Serena's shatter.

     "It's all gonna turn out fine, there's thousands of girls in Four. The odds are in my favor!"

      Serena looked away, she stared right at the painted sky. But Del looked straight at her, she tried to memorize every single feature on her perfect face. Her upturned eyes were brown, almost black. Her skin was a deep shade of olive, her nose was hooked, her eyebrows were thick, and her straight, black hair was put back in a loose bun.

     She was scared that this would be the last time that they could sit together at the deck and watch the sunrise, and she could steal not-so-subtle longing stares at Serena.

     Even though this was the sixth and final year that Del was eligible for the Games, it still felt as terrible as the first. Serena was three months older than Del, she was already nineteen and no longer had to worry about being reaped.

     But because of that, Serena couldn't help anyone if they were reaped. "I'm just worried." Serena's voice hitched. "About Azalea."

     "Not me?" Del joked.

     Serena lightly whacked her arm with the back of her hand. "Of course you!"

     "Ow!" Del snickered, and rubbed the spot on her arm that Serena hit.

     "It's just- well-" Serena buried her head in her hands. "She's so little, and I won't be able to take her spot, and we all know that there's no one here who would take her place!"

     Serena had a habit of getting rambley, and Del loved that about her. She adored sitting down and staying quiet as Serena endlessly spoke about whatever was on her mind that day. Serena's loudness was the only one that Del didn't mind. Others would drown her speeches out as background noise, but Del listened intently as she did her menial tasks.

     Serena's soliloquy sent chills down Delphina's spine this time. Her voice trembled as she spoke, and Del could tell that this was the first time that she was voicing her fears.

     "It's just so stupid!" Serena squeaked out as she finished speaking.

     "You don't have to worry, Rena, like I said, there's thousands of girls in Four." Del put her hand on Serena's shoulder.

     Serena silently responded by giving Del a soft hug, momentarily resting her chin in the crook of her neck.

     They felt that familiar pit in their guts every July fourth. Serena and Del sat in silence as the fresh air wisped at their skin. Del grabbed Serena's hand, which was far softer in comparison to her callused palm. And she laid her head on her shoulder, Serena reciprocated her action by laying her head on Del's.

     They stared longingly into the sunrise, splashes of pink, orange, yellow, and purple decorated the sky above the wetland. Despite the fact that they saw it every morning, it felt different on the reaping days. The thought that it could be their last sunrise together made it feel less monotonous.

     "I like the stuff on your dress." Del changed the subject.

     Serena touched the embroidery on the hem of her skirt, they were small flowers with a collection of little stars filling the empty space. "My momma did it." she smiled upon mentioning her mother.

     Ms. Romero was a seamstress, and that always led to Serena and her family having highly personalized clothes. Del even owned a few dresses with patchwork and embroidered flowers.

     "I guessed so." She smiled slightly.

     Serena bore a striking resemblance to Tessa, but Ms. Romero had far sharper features, she looked like what Del would imagine a raven to look like had it become human. Her black hair had turned mostly grey, despite the fact that she was only in her mid forties.

     "Girls! It's time to go." Delphina heard her father, Otto, shout from the little fishing shack right off the dock.

     Del looked back at him, she could barely make out his expression before he turned away.

     "Well," Serena said, breaking the silence between the two. "You ready to get goin'?"

     "Oh, fuck no." Del responded.

     Serena let out an exhale that would have been a laugh under different circumstances. "I'd rather get goin', I don't really wanna get my tongue ripped out."

     Serena lended Del a hand to get up onto her feet. Del accepted, and the pair walked to the passenger ferry that would take them to Towne Center. As it would take them days to walk, but only a few hours with the ferry. Tickets were costly and the boat was cramped, but it was far better than whatever the Capitol would do to them if they missed the Reaping.

     She and Serena interlocked their hands for comfort, but both dropped them when they got too close to the ferry.

     Del could feel her throat grow tighter with every stranger she bumped into. She found herself sticking incredibly close to her father out of fear they'd get separated. Otto didn't talk the entire trip. Del could tell that he was overwhelmed just the same as her, he had just grown to hide it better.

     Once they got off the ferry, the roads started to fill with other District 4 citizens. Del and Serena's families lived in one of the more marshy and rural areas of District 4, and they only went to Towne Center for the reaping and trade.

     Del and her father had never really been to most areas of District 4. Her father was more antisocial than her mother was, he never liked the heavily populated areas. Which was why the Hollis family lived so deep into the rural area in Four.

     Before her mother died, Del went to the urban areas to trade, and she and her siblings made a day out of it. They used to visit the beach, they lived in the Marshes and often swam there. But swimming in the ocean was much better. She liked the waves, and the absence of mud; but she loved nothing more than the shells.

     When Del and Serena were little, they often walked along the beach, collecting seashells to turn into jewelry. They used cheap twine and tied it to the holes in the shells and exchanged necklaces. Delphina was wearing one of those necklaces now, and Serena wore a few bracelets.

     But now, going there just felt painful. It just reminded her of the day when she got home and her mother and siblings weren't there. The day her father had to sit her down and tell her that their boat didn't come back.

     She was fifteen at the time, but even three years later, it still stung. Especially since Delphina inherited her mother's looks, curly ginger hair, heavily freckled skin that was lighter with pink undertones—which was currently horribly sunburnt—and hazel eyes that were downturned in a way that made her look permanently sad. It hurt to see her own reflection, especially as she got older. Because every day she looked more and more like her mother.

     "We need to run by the fabric shop after the Reaping." Tessa spoke to Del and Serena. "Your dress is gettin' a little tattered, Dellie."

     Del smiled. "Thanks Ms. Tessa."

     "Momma, her dress is fine." Serena seemed to recoil in embarrassment.

     "Rena, she's right, it's tattered." Del laughed.

     "Girls to the left, boys to the right!" The group got close enough to the Square that they were able to hear the intercoms.

     Tessa let out a shaky sigh before she gave Azalea and Caspian a tight hug and wished them well. Del and her father shared an awkward nod, and the trio departed from the group.

     Azalea was a little fourteen-year-old girl with thick, wavy hair that fell just above her shoulders. She had skin that was deeply pocked and rough from acne scarring.

     Caspian was a seventeen-year-old boy with chin-length straight black hair and crooked teeth. He was shorter than Del, but taller than Serena, with awkward willowy limbs and a perpetually worried demeanor surrounding him. Everyone always knew that something was up with him, but no one could quite place their finger on it.

     That was a trait that Del shared with Caspian, she too had bad posture and a tendency to struggle with people unlike her.

     The pair always viewed Delphina as another older sister. Serena and her had been joined at the hip since early childhood, so it was hard not to.

     They exchanged nervous glances and half-hearted smiles. The silence between the three remained unbroken, their nerves were too tense to speak. 

     The Reaping began shortly after the trio were separated into their respective sections.

     The District 4 escort stood on stage, she wore a knee-length dress that was heavily sequined in a champagne-pink color. It reflected the Sun in a way that made her look like an eye-burning disco ball. She had a platinum-blonde wig on that resembled a tall beehive.

     "Hello District 4! And happy Hunger Games!" The escort said, with her high-pitched posh Capitol accent. "May the odds be ever in your favor!"

     Her words were met with silence, as usual. No one felt the need to applaud, everyone was either at risk of losing themselves or a loved one today.

     Delphina flicked her thumbnails against each other, she was growing antsy. She looked around the crowd, trying to find the people she almost wanted to be reaped. She knew it was a bad thought, but she had to admit it would be cathartic to have the boy who hit on Serena go into the Games.

    "Well, I suppose we're ready to pick two lovely tributes that will participate in the 53rd Hunger Games!" She walked over to the glass bowl that contained the names for the female tribute. She fished her hand through the bowl for what felt an eternity.

     "The female tribute for District 4 is..." Del anxiously held her breath.

     Maybe it would be Lynette Reese, the girl who spread a rumor about Serena and her. Or Myrna Laine, the kid who bullied her for her crooked nose and gapped teeth.

     But, as the escort was opening the paper, the breeze blew it from her hand. Del watched as the Capitol workers scrambled onstage to catch it before it flew too far away. She tried to stifle her laughter, and several of the girls near her tried to do the same.

     The orange paper landed somewhere in the crowd of non-Reaping eligible citizens.

     "Can one of you grab that?" The District 4 mayor butted in front of the escort to speak through the microphone.

     The crowd failed to produce a slip after a bit of half-hearted searching, and the escort gave up.

     "Oh, just give it up!" She shoved the mayor away and wiped her hands off on her dress. "It clearly wasn't meant to be, we'll just rerun it!"

     "Okay." He spoke meekly and walked back to his chair.

     After a short intermission, the escort restarted from a checkpoint.

     "I think we'll start with the girls!" She smiled widely and clapped her hands.

     She fished her hands through the bowl again, and made sure to keep a stronger grip on the paper slip.

     "The female tribute for District 4 is..."

     Del's mind began to wander, she wasn't as focused as she was during the first drawing. Would the fabric shop have the same type of fabric as her dress? Or would she have to use a completely different one? How much of the dress could she replace before it no longer-

     "Delphina Hollis!"

     Del took a moment before she realized what happened, she had been so elsewhere that she felt as if she was getting called on in class.

     Once she realized, Del looked to her father, her expression desperate for him to do something. He just stared back at her, his eyes wide. It led her to believe that he hadn't even comprehended it yet. The girls around her started to move away from her, highlighting her in the crowd. 

     She couldn't bring herself to move her legs and walk to the stage. It was only when the escort called her to stage that she began moving. Her body moved mindlessly, like a puppet, her head was in other places.

       She walked up the steps to the stage, her heart beat wildly in her chest. Once she got up, she stood up straight, with a frail mask of confidence that even the least aware members of the crowd could see right though. The escort pulled Del right in next to her, she gave her a squeeze on the shoulder and a smile. But the smile was fake, her eyes showed no emotion at all.

     "Any female volunteers?" The escort asked.

     The crowd was dead silent, no one even dared to breathe, scared that that would even be too loud. Del silently begged and prayed that someone, anyone would volunteer, but no one did.

     "Well! Now for the boy!" The escort announced cheerily.

     And that was it. 

     She quickly wiped the tears from her eyes, and looked down to her feet. Delphina reminded herself not to cry, because crying was weak, and they could not know how truly weak she was.

     Del's thoughts were so loud that she could hear them as if they were being screamed by someone standing next to her. But they weren't comprehensible, she couldn't make out a single word.

     In the front row, she watched Myrna Laine smugly smile to her friend. She wanted to charge offstage and slam a fistfull of gravel into her face. She was going to die anyway, why not break that rat's perfect little nose while she was at it?

     The escort ruffled through the container, before finally picking up a piece of paper. Del was too preoccupied to think about anyone who she wanted to be picked.

     "And, for the male tribute..." She paused for dramatic effect. "Mako Caddel!"

    Del scanned the crowd, the name Mako Caddel didn't sound familiar to her. She watched as a kid from the twelve-year-old section walked from the crowd up to the stage. He looked like he was about to buckle at the knees, he walked up to the stage, and was guided next to Delphina.

     "Any male volunteers?" The escort asked.

     Del expected someone to volunteer, Mako was twelve, he was a little kid. Now that he was standing next to her, she could see how small he looked.

     He was maybe five-foot-one with dark curly hair, medium-toned skin, and a small build. Mako had a long, straight nose that stood out from the rest of his soft, round facial features. He wore a white button down with one of the buttons put through the wrong hole, but his clothes were surprisingly clean and fit well.

     Del heard Mako sniffle, and she could tell that he was holding back tears.

     But not a single person volunteered, Del's head hurt with horror, Mako was just a little kid.

     "Well, that concludes the reaping for District 4!" The escort proclaimed happily. "Shake hands, shake hands!"

     Del turned to Mako, and held her hand out for a handshake. Both of the pair quaked like kids in a blizzard, but Del shook his hand firmly to hide it.

     Peacekeepers came and herded the pair off of the stage, they were separated and put into their respective rooms to say goodbye to their loved ones. Del stood in silence, waiting for someone to come in, she cupped her face in her hands and tried to prepare herself, repeating 'don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, that's stupid'.

     The door opened.

     "Dad!" Del quaked.

     She wrapped him in a tight hug.

     "I'm sorry I- it-" She stammered.

     "No, you have nothin' to apologize for." Her father trembled, it was clear that he was holding back tears. "Just promise that you'll fight like hell and try your very hardest to get out of that arena alive."

     "I promise, I promise-" She sobbed too heavily to continue speaking comprehensively.

     Del knew that her father probably wouldn't survive her dying. Especially after what happened to the rest of her family. She had to survive, not for herself, but for him.

     "I'm scared." She cried. "I don't wanna die."

     Her father hugged her tighter.

     "You ain't gonna die, you'll make it back." He bent down a bit to look into her eyes, bringing his rough hands to her face. "You've made it through worse, you can make it through this."

     Del nodded, she breathed shakily in-between cries, the tears made her hazel eyes gleam.

     A Peacekeeper came into the room, and grabbed Otto by his arm.

     "No, wait!" They both protested.

     "You can't- you-" Her father was yanked out of the room.

     "Dad!" Del yelped.

     Del stood alone in the room for a moment, frozen, before Serena burst through the double doors. She immediately wrapped her in a hug. Del shattered, she couldn't stand this. It was all too much, she wanted to crumble, and crash through the window, sprint into the water and swim away.

     "I'm scared," Delphina sobbed. "I'm so scared, I don't wanna die."

     "Dellie, I- I'm so sorry, I-" Serena cried.

     "Don't be sorry, you couldn't've done anythin' to-"

     Del looked down to Serena's cupped hands. In them laid an orange slip with the name "Willamae Lloyd" scrawled across it in messy handwriting.

     "I couldn't bring myself to turn it in," She choked up. "I know her, she's only twelve!"

     If Serena had given the slip up, Del would've made it to nineteen without getting reaped. But, because of her, she was being sent into a game of death.

     "Serena..." Del choked out.

     They stared at each other for a moment, before Del remembered how little time they had.

     "I love you, an-" Del's voice hitched, the words felt so natural to say, but they were words she had grown to fear.

     "And that's why I've loved you! I'm sorry I didn't say it before! I've always loved you, I still love you, and I'll love you-!"

     Serena interrupted her with a kiss. There was a moment of silence between the two before Serena spoke up again.

     "I love you too."

     Heavy sobs racked Del's body as she tightly hugged Serena, who reciprocated the hug. The moment didn't last long, a Peacekeeper opened the door and grabbed Del by her forearm. 

     Serena didn't think, she clung onto Del as tight as she could, she wasn't going to let them take her away without a fight. Del desperately tried to convince Serena to let go of her, but they both yelled over each other.

     "Serena, let go!" She tried to reason with her. "They have guns!"

     "Please don't go!"

     There was a sudden 'crack!' and Del watched in horror as Serena was struck across the face with the butt of a Peacekeeper's rifle.

     "No!" Del tried to throw herself towards Serena, but was yanked back by the other Peacekeeper.

     Before being thrown out of the room, she saw Serena pull her bloody hand away from her crooked nose with a shocked, glazed look over her teary eyes.

     Del was tossed to the ground towards the train, and the Peacekeeper pointed her forward with his rifle. She shakily got up to her feet, before stumbling almost drunkenly towards the train doors.

     The only thing on her mind was the girl behind the door, the girl with the glazed over eyes and bloody face.

Chapter Text

     Del and Mako watched from the train windows as they pulled away from the District 4 train station. The familiar landmarks of their home District got smaller, and smaller. After a few moments of standing and staring in silence, Mako sat down on one of the chairs in the center of the train cabin. He opened up a container of bread, and cut a chunk of bread off. 

     Del sat down next to him, the plush chairs were more comfortable than anything that she had at home, she felt like she could just sink into it. Mako offered her a piece of the bread, and with a sweet smile, she accepted. It didn't have the familiar green tint that District 4 bread had, probably from the lack of seaweed in District 11—where it was likely made.

     She felt as if she could vomit, what if that was the final time she would ever see Serena? Her very last memory of the person she loved most would be of her bloody and terrified.

    But then Del's mind switched to Serena's perspective, could her final memory of her be Del crying on the ground after being discarded onto the concrete? Or was she so out of it that the last thing she would be able to recall was Del begging her to let her go?

     "Oh fuck." Del spoke under her breath, and rubbed her face with her hands.

     "Hey, Mako," Del tried to break herself out of her state by making conversation. "How're you doin'?"

     "Oh," He mumbled. "I'm doing good."

     She could tell he was lying, he didn't even make an attempt to hide it. His eyes were still red from crying as he fiddled with a bracelet, which was made from thin pieces of green and orange braided shirt fabric.

     "Great, that's great." She tried to make sure that he knew that he was 'safe'.

     "That's an interesting way to put it." Mako toyed with the piece of bread, ignoring her attempt at help.

     The thought occurred to her, "How old are you?" She hoped that he wasn't actually twelve, and maybe he was just accidentally put into the twelve-year-old section.

     "I just turned twelve, like, three-ish weeks ago." Mako took a moment to calculate the days and spoke with a rising inflection.

     "Oh, shit..." That shut Del up.

     "What about you?" Mako finally made conversation.

     "Eighteen," She answered. "But I turn nineteen on the nineteenth."

     "That's unlucky." He stated.

     Del gave him a small smile and nodded, she was about to verbally agree when the District 4 escort dramatically burst through the door.

     "Hello Ms. Hollis, hello Mr. Caddel! I am Ladonna Kemp, this is my third year as the District 4 escort!" She proclaimed cheerily. "You probably remember me as one of the former news anchors of the most popular news channel in Panem!"

     She signaled to the pair, as if to ask "do you?"

     "Oh sorry, I don't watch the news." Delphina tried to answer.

     "Oh, right, you're District." Ladonna sneered.

     Mako and Del shared a look, one that wasn't of offense, but of bewilderment.

     "Whatever." Ladonna quickly retorted. "I just need you to follow me to the main cabin, to meet your mentors!"

    Del and Mako got up from their chairs and followed her. They walked into the main cabin of the train, their mentors sat on plush couches. One was an older woman, who looked like she was in her late fifties. Her hair was ginger, but greying, she had slightly wrinkled, light skin. She wore a green blouse with embroidered flowers, a brown cardigan, and a flowy maxi-skirt. 

     The other was a man, he looked about thirty-five or so. He had sun-tanned skin and dark brown hair that fell in wisps at his ears. He wore beige pants and a light blue dress shirt that was unbuttoned to reveal a plain white shirt underneath, he had the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

     Del was the first to introduce herself, and gave a handshake to both of them.

     "Hiya, I'm Del Hollis." Despite her wording, her tone was very serious.

     Mako noticed what she did, and followed suit. Although, his handshake was considerably weaker.

     "And I'm Mako."

     "I'm Dorian Gillary, and this is my good friend, Mags Flanagan." The man said.

     Mags nodded and gave a sweet smile to the pair.

     "You're Mags?" Del smiled, her voice full of admiration.

     She had heard of her Games, she had won the 11th Hunger Games—fourty-two years ago. She was admired by everyone, not only District 4 citizens. She was known to be very generous with her victor money, helping out anyone who needed it. But she recently had a stroke and found speaking difficult, so she sweetly smiled and nodded in response instead of talking.

     "Let's get down to business." Dorian said, intentionally cutting the greetings short.

     "Where do we start?" Del asked.

     "Well, the Reapings have been released. We usually go over them first ." Dorian remarked.

     The others agreed, and Dorian turned on the screen in the train, and they watched the reapings for the other districts. As they came up, Mako jotted down the names of the tributes.

—

District 1

Falco Dray

Ambrose Bronye

—

District 2

Lazere Sullivan

Rowan Baxter

—

District 3

Chip Drummond

Pixelle Ewhig

—

District 4

Me

Delphina

—

District 5

Keeran Smith

Twila Hensley

—

District 6

Harper Alfonso

Azami Gamoore

—

District 7

Hayes Verde

Elowyn Atmos

—

District 8

Graham Dennis

Maude Simmons

—

District 9

Vaughn Dempsey

Magnolia Gillespie

—

District 10

Everest Fischer

Isadore Blankley

—

District 11

Flint Sloan

Landry Franklin

—

District 12

Finch Umbra

Liverna Dreck

—

     A few tributes stuck out.

     Of course, all four of the District 1 and 2 tributes, as they were the natural Careers. But, the female District 11 tribute, Landry Franklin, looked like a strong contender. She looked on the older end, maybe seventeen or eighteen and she was muscular.

     Since District 11 was the grain district, she probably worked as a farmer, or at least received training to become one. She volunteered in place of another girl, maybe a loved one. She was a small thirteen-year-old who resembled Landry just a bit, so maybe not a sister, but possibly a cousin.

     Dorian went to shut off the television, and began his routine of questions.

     "Do any of you have skills that could be used in the arena? Like tridents, swords, bow and arrows, or y'know, whatever."

     Delphina immediately spoke up. "Just regular Four stuff, tridents, spears, nets, swimmin', fishin', etcetera."

     "Those're useful, I definitely think you'll be a strong contender." He remarked. "And you?" He turned to Mako.

     "Uhm," He stammered. "Just fishing, netting, and swimming, I probably can't really fight."

     "That's okay, I can defend you." Del spoke without thinking.

      But she immediately regretted her words. She couldn't ally with him, there could only be one victor. Best case scenario, only one would come home. Though, on the other hand, what monster would leave this child to die? She couldn't do that, not again.

     "You're plannin' to ally in the arena?" Dorian asked, his tone indicated that he wasn't shocked, but glad, glad that Mako wouldn't be left to his own devices in the arena.

     "Are we?" Mako looked up to Del.

     For the first time since she saw him at the Reaping, there was something behind his brown eyes other than sadness. There was a glimmer of hope, and she could see him forming a small smile.

     "Yeah, yeah we are." She ran her fingers through her curls.

     "Good, yeah, District solidarity and all." Dorian noted, but Del could hear a quiver of worry in his tone.

     "How do we win this thing?" Mako asked.

     "Well, you could try to join the Careers, but," He glanced over to Mako. "They probably won't let both of you join."

     Mako looked down, and clenched his jaw in shame.

     "But, if the Careers are off the table, then you're gonna want to stick to the quiet parts of the arena until you can't anymore. Most non-Career tributes who win do that." He continued.

     "And what about the Bloodbath?" Del questioned.

     "You run straight to the Cornucopia, you grab whatever you can." He responded. "You need a weapon to get the upper hand, or supplies at the very least."

     "But won't everyone else do that?" Mako inquired.

     "Well..." He thought for a moment. "Yeah, but, it's better to face them with a weapon rather than without one."

     Del thought about it for a moment, weighing the pros and cons.

     "I mean, it's worth tryin'. I'm an alright runner, but the other tributes look stronge." She added.

     Mags chimed in, she shook her head.

     "What, why?" Del asked.

     She signaled to Mako, who was sitting criss-cross applesauce on a wide armchair. It hit her, Mako would die the second he ran to the Cornucopia. He was small, the Careers would rip him to shreds without a second thought.

     "I could run to the Cornucopia and grab everythin' I can, and then we could meet up on the outskirts of the clearin'." She proposed.

     "But I wanna help." Mako said.

     "You can, but the Bloodbath is the most dangerous part of the Games, not tryin' to be a prick, but you'd be killed immediately. It's safer to let Delphina here handle it." Dorian remarked.

     Del winced at Dorian calling her 'Delphina', but opted against saying anything in the moment.

     "I'm not weak." Mako muttered.

     "I know you're not, but if you die in the Bloodbath, you can't show that off." Del reassured him.

     Mako gave a little head tilt, as if to say, 'I guess you're right'.

     "What else can we do, I mean, other than the obvious stuff?" Del asked.

     "Sponsors, you need to get the Capitol to like you. In my Games, my District partner and I were dehydrated and probably hours away from death. But, some sponsor paid for water, I'd be dead if it wasn't for them." Dorian remarked.

     "How do we get sponsors?" Mako inquired.

     "Get people to like you, show off your talents in trainin', get a high trainin' score, make kills in the arena, make them feel bad for you." He emphasized the last part. "But whatever you do, don't make yourself look weak, people won't sponsor you if they think you can't win."

     Dorian glanced to Mags, "People love to bet on underdogs, but they won't bet on losin' dogs."

     Del guessed that he was quoting something Mags said to him during his Games.

     "How do we make them feel bad for us?" Del asked.

     "Did you grow up poor? Tell them. Are you an orphan? Tell them. Do you have dead loved ones? Tell them." Dorian stated.

     "But I'm not any of those." Mako said.

     "You're young, play that up. Say that you have to get home to whatever family you have, talk about your parents, your siblins', friends, etcetera." He responded.

     Mako nodded, he understood what Dorian was saying.

     They spoke for a bit more, before Del and Mako walked down to the back of the train, because that's where the food was.

     "I'm sorry if Dorian and I made you feel left out earlier, or weak." Del remarked.

     "Oh no, it's okay. I get it." He responded.

     "I know, but still." She said, "That was shitty on my part."

     "Delphina, it's fine, seriously." He promised.

     "Just call me Del, I don't like the other one all too much." She clarified.

     "Why?" Mako asked in response, he grabbed a cube of cheese about the size of a thumbnail off of a charcuterie board in the middle of the room and bit into it.

     She hesitated for a moment before coming up with an easy lie.

     "It's a gorgeous name, but there's a billion letters—and everyone just calls me Del." She explained. "Or Delph, Delphie, or Dellie every now and again."

     She sat across from him at the table, and inspected a grape before tossing it into the air and catching it in her mouth.

     "It's mostly just Del, though, the only people who call me the other three are just the ones I love the most."

     "Okey-dokey then, 'Del'." Mako erased the 'phina' from her name on his list of tributes.

     "Is that mozzarella?" She cut off a chunk of cheese.

     "I- I think so, but I'm not sure." He responded.

     Del grabbed a chunk of cheese, and threw it into the air to catch in her mouth. But, this time it bounced off of the nose, she was able to catch it before it hit the ground and she chose to simply eat it instead.

     "Have you... never had cheese before?" He implored.

     "Not in a while." She replied.

     "Why not?"

     "It's expensive, my dad and I can't shell out ten bucks for cheese." She explained.

     "But ten dollars isn't that much?" He said, his tone made an irritating sentence sound genuine.

     "For some people, it is."

     Something seemed to click in Mako's brain, Del wasn't like him. Her dirty reaping dress, her inability to afford cheese, and her thick accent. Del was from the Marshlands.

     "You're from the Marshes!" He exclaimed.

     "Yeah? What about it?" She asked, not trying to be mean, she was confused. "Wait, it took you this long to realize?"

     "I've never met anybody from the marshes before," He explained. "I'm from the West End."

     "I can tell." Del laughed, she didn't intend for her words to possibly come off as unkind.

     "What's it like in the marsh? Do you guys actually go swimming in it? My mom says it's dirty." He asked.

     "We do," She grinned. "And I promise you it's actually much cleaner than the beaches you're used to on the West End, less people means less pollution."

     Mako seemed surprised at this, his mom and dad told him that the people from the marshlands were dangerous. But Del seemed really nice, and she said that the marshes were clean.

     "How about the crocodiles! My dad tells me that they're really scary." Mako implored.

     "I've only ever seen one, it was horrifyin'." Del stated. "How's The West End?"

     "It's..." He thought for a moment. "It's fine, I mean, it's too crowded. And the Capitol polices it too much. You can't turn a corner without seeing a Peacekeeper."

     "I've only ever seen a few Peacekeepers, they don't like to come to the marshes, too murky for the prissy little Capitol ones. Only the District Peacekeepers are willin' to come." She said.

     "My little brother doesn't like the Peacekeepers, whenever they're too loud we sleep in the closet."

     "Have they ever gone inside your house?" Del asked.

     "No, but they went inside his friend's house a year ago or so and we never saw his family again."

     "Oh, shit..." Del hadn't realized how big of a fear the Peacekeepers were for the West End folks.

     "It's fine, y'know, it happens to the best of us." The mood between the two was now permanently shifted.

     "But it's still sad-"

     "Do you actually want to ally with me?" Mako didn't mean to cut her off, but he needed to ask.

     Del didn't know the answer to his question. On one hand, she looked at him and saw a scared little kid who needed to be protected. But, on the other, she also saw an obstacle in her way of victory.

     "Because I bet you wanna go home, and it's not like I can help you much." He continued.

     "I dunno, I mean-" Del cut herself off. "Y'know, we don't need to talk about this right now."

     Mako let Del have all of the cheese on the board. They sat and chatted for the remainder of the train ride, it was only when the Capitol came into view that they stopped. The train was almost dead silent, the only noise was the sound of the train running on the tracks.

     Del stared, her mouth agape, the Capitol was huge, they showed the Capitol in propaganda pieces, but it was so much bigger and more beautiful in real life. 

     "Kid, get over here!" She exclaimed.

     Mako, who was standing at the other side of the train, stood next to her, staring out the same window.

     "Holy shit." He said, awed.

     The train came to a smooth stop at the station, Ladonna grabbed them both by their shoulders and led them out of the train doors.

     "Smile and wave, smile and wave!" Ladonna said, her mouth locked in a smile.

     She walked Del and Mako to a large, foreboding building. It wasn't scary-looking, it was actually a beautiful building with white brick and marble fountains. The doors were opened by the stoic Peacekeepers who stood next to it, so still that they almost blended in as marble statues themselves.

Chapter Text

     Once they made it inside—and Del and Mako stopped gawking at the architecture—Ladonna finally spoke up.

     "Your stylists will handle you two for the next few hours. Delphina, you go to the female hall and open the door labeled with your number, Mako, do the same but the male hallway."

     Del and Mako hesitantly went their separate ways, she followed the signs leading to the hallway where the female tributes were styled. 

     "Why couldn't she have just led us there? She's literally the escort?" She mumbled, the building was massive. "And does number mean District number, or did I miss somethin'?"

     She turned a corner, and she saw a Capitol woman waiting at the mouth of the styling hallway. She was about to walk right past her when the woman spoke up.

     "Delphina Hollis?"

     "Oh- uh- yeah, that's me." Del said.

     "Anastasia Carmine, I'm your stylist." She spoke, her tone was flat, but her Capitol accent made everything she said sound like it was said by someone who was excited.

     "Follow me, follow me." She said, "You are a tad late, honey."

     The loud click-clacking of Anastasia's heels echoed through the spacious hall. As she followed closely behind, Del stared her up and down. Her skin was unnaturally pale, the undertones were so subtle that they almost weren't there. And her hair was relatively tame for a Capitol citizen, it was lavender purple in a chin-length bob, but it looked plastic, and fell in an unbreaking pattern.

     Anastasia opened the door.

     "Ladies first!" She exclaimed.

     Del was about to step into the room, when Anastasia quickly jumped through the door before Del.

     "I said, ladies first!" She joked.

     Del could help but let a smile sneak through her mask of stoicism.

     Anastasia let her assistants prep Del, they painfully waxed all of the hair on her legs and arms, and cleaned up her eyebrows. Del had never really put much thought into her hair, she didn't understand why the Capitol people were so obsessed with being hairless. 

     Once they were done, Anastasia came back in.

     "Mother of all things great, you actually look presentable now!" She exclaimed.

     "Oh," Del said. "Thank you?"

     She couldn't tell if that was supposed to be a compliment or not.

     "For the chariots, I had a lovely dress planned. But, when I learned that you were a ginger, I completely uprooted it. I simply could not put you in a yellow dress!" She spoke very quickly, Del had to really focus to understand her. "It would have to be green, or blue, or purple. Those go the best with orange, some people think it's dark red, but I will die on the hill that it's not." She went on.

     "Yellow's my favorite color." Del lied to mess with her, it was actually lavender purple.

     "No, no it's not." Anastasia shut her down quickly.

     'What?' Del's brow furrowed.

     "So, I dug up some old designs, Four is one of the admittedly easier Districts to style, the ocean offers an easy color palette, blues, greens, and whites..." She rambled.

     "Then why were you trying to put me in a yellow dress?" Del was confused.

     "Because I was bored! I wanted something new!" Anastasia continued her speech after the interruption.

     Del listened, at least she tried to. Anastasia didn't have the drawl that Del was used to, she spoke unnecessarily fast.

     "I dug up an old dress, the one from the 26th Games, I made some adjustments to make it cute and to really blow the sponsors away on the ride today!"

     Del nodded slowly, she didn't know what the dress from the 26th Games was, but she knew it was going to be pretty. Because Anastasia was right, District 4 was easy to style.

     "Only one problem," Anastasia pointed up and down at her. "You have an incredibly flat chest!"

     Del was in too much shock to take offense at her jab. She was used to other kids insulting her appearance, but nothing this straightforward.

     "I mean, I suppose we could shrink your nose a bit with makeup, and the cameras won't pick it up from that far out..."

     Del ran her pointer finger over the dramatic bump on her long nose. It too, was an object of ridicule among those who disliked her.

     Anastasia left the room momentarily, Del swung her legs over the edge of the chair. She looked around the room, it was filled with mirrors, makeup, and other cosmetic products. The walls were covered in photos of past District 4 tribute pairs in their chariot and interview outfits, probably for makeup and outfit inspiration.

    She spotted Dorian's, he was maybe seventeen and looked incredibly uncomfortable in his suit. He stood next to a younger girl, who was maybe thirteen or fourteen. Their photo was labeled "Cove and Dorian, 35th".

     Anastasia came back in, she held a beautiful dress, Del couldn't help but let out a gasp when she saw it. She loved dresses, she loved feeling pretty and this would be the prettiest dress she's ever worn. It was a dark shade of aquamarine, with lace sleeves and detailing—imitating seafoam.

     Anastasia, seeing how much Del clearly loved the dress spoke up.

     "Oh no, you don't like it... I'll take it back." She joked.

     "No, no, I love it." Del responded, not taking her eyes off of the dress, awed by the intricacies of the lace.

     Anastasia smiled. "Well then, let's put it on then!"

     Del put it on, it was a bit tight in certain places, a bit loose in others, but it fit well enough. The assistants came back in to do her makeup and add the finishing touches.

     Her eye makeup was a green-blue shade that was slightly lighter than the dress. The stylists straightened her hair, and slicked some of the front pieces down to her face in spiral patterns. They stuck halved fake pearls to her skin as an accent to her makeup and hair.

     The stylists let her keep her seashell necklace, and gave her a pearl diadem. Del didn't expect them to pierce her ears, but they wanted to give her dangly earrings—and they didn't care to ask her permission before jamming needles through her ears.

     She saw herself in the mirror, and she felt a sense of uncanny unease. Her face wasn't her own, it belonged to the Capitol. Her hair wasn't wild and curly, it was pin-straight and tidy—she belonged to the Capitol.

     "Well Delphina, I suppose you're ready for the chariots!" Anastasia said, her tone actually coming across as genuine.

     Del gave a half-hearted smile as she nodded. She hoped that Anastasia and her prep team couldn't tell that she was on the verge of crying.

     Anastasia walked Del to the chariots, where about sixteen of the other tributes waited. When Anastasia left, Del looked around, she noticed Mako awkwardly standing away from the other groups of tributes. There were a few others doing the same, but most either stood with their district partners or were in the Career group. 

     She walked up to Mako, tapping him on the shoulder to get his attention.

     "Mako," She said, and he turned around. "You look nice."

     "Thanks," He smiled. "So do you."

     He wore a suit that had the same color palette as her dress, but the fabric that imitated the waves on her dress was replaced with a flowy pattern on his suit. His stylist gave him a crown that matched her diadem.

     "I'm glad to finally be away from beehive hair, she was certainly a character." Del said.

     "My stylist was really nice." Mako responded.

     "I was talkin' about Ladonna."

     "Oh, yeah, she was a real piece of work." He remarked.

     "You ready for the chariots?" Del asked.

     "Ready as I'll ever be!" Mako tried to come across as confident, but Del saw right through him.

     Just as Del was about to continue the conversation, someone else joined in.

     "Four," Falco Dray, the District 1 male tribute, walked up to the pair.

     Del didn't recognize him at first, she placed him as one of the Careers, but didn't know if he was the male District 2 or the male District 1 tribute.

     "Yeah?" She asked.

     "You look... nice." He remarked, and Del couldn't tell whether or not he was being genuine.

     "What do you want?" She sighed.

     "I wanted to see if you cared to join us." He smiled.

     Del glanced at Mako, who shook his head subtly, she could see the twinge of fear in his eyes.

     "I, uhm..." She hesitated. "No, I'm alright."

     "Really?" Falco was more shocked than upset.

     Del was a strong looking District 4 tribute, and they usually joined the Careers. She looked him up and down, and Del couldn't decipher whether Falco was a good actor or an oddly kind person.

     "Give it some more thought, talk to us in training tomorrow." Falco left back to the other Careers.

     Once all of the tribute arrived, they were all put on their chariots in their District pairs and the parade began. Del admired the chariots, they looked pretty on screen, but the cameras didn't do justice to the intricate golden detailing.

     District 4's chariot followed close behind District 3's. When the horses began running, it lurched the chariot forward a bit, and Mako—who wasn't holding onto the chariot as tight as he should have—stumbled backwards a bit. He would have fallen out if Del didn't catch him by sticking her right hand out.

     "Ope, you good there?" She let out a small laugh.

     "Yeah," he laughed. "Thanks for catching me."

     "No problem." She said as the chariot entered the main path.

     The crowd was unbearably loud, people threw flowers, hats, and some even tossed signs that they made. Del felt that familiar feeling that she felt whenever too many things were happening, it took every fiber of her being to not cover her ears, shut her eyes, and start humming loudly to try and drown out the noise.

     Instead, she had a noticeably scared expression on her face. And balled up her fists and dug her newly-manicured nails into her palms. Mako seemed to not notice her turmoil, he was too busy smiling and waving to the Capitol citizens. Playing up the fact that he was twelve, just like how Dorian told him to.

     Del snapped out of her state when someone threw a dark red rose to Del. When she stuck her hand out to catch it, a pinkish-purple chrysanthemum struck her square in the face.

     She gave a joking 'what the hell, man?' face in the general direction from where the flower was thrown from.

     She noticed Mako smiling toothily and waving to the Capitol crowd. She decided to do the same, she had to just suck up the horrible feeling radiating through her body. Getting the Capitol, especially the sponsors, to like her was arguably the most important and lifesaving thing that she could do.

     She waved to everyone on the right side of the crowd, while Mako waved to the left. She made special care to wave to the children in the stands.

     Once the chariots arrived in the square, President Snow gave his speech.

     "Welcome," He waited for the crowd noise to die down before speaking again. "Welcome, tributes, we welcome you, we salute your courage and your sacrifice."

     'I certainly wouldn't count myself as courageous, I'm not here by choice.' Del thought.

     "And we wish you Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor."

     The crowd cheered loudly when he finished his words. And the chariots lurched forward again, but this time Mako held onto the chariot tight enough to not fall off.

     Once they got into the unloading area, Anastasia, Saphia, Ladonna, Dorian, and Mags met them. So did the stylists and mentors for the other tribute pairs.

     Ladonna spoke up first, and her outfit was somehow already changed. It was less eye-straining than the one before, she wore full pastel colors.

     "That was excellent! Perfect!" She exclaimed.

     "Thank you, Ladonna." Mako smiled.

     "Just, try not to catch flowers with your face next time Del!" She said, condescendingly.

     'There it is!' Del thought.

     "I'll do my damnedest." She let out a begrudging smile and nodded.

     Mags reached forward and adjusted Mako's crown, it had fallen to the side slightly, she gave him a kind smile.

     "Thank you, Ms. Mags." Mako said.

     She patted him in the shoulder.

     "Let's show them to the Training Center now!" Ladonna exclaimed.

Chapter Text

     Del and Mako were led to the Training Center, where they would spend the next few days before the Games.

     Everyone involved with the District 4 tributes sat down for dinner, Del and Mako filled their plates up. Mako's family could always afford food, but never food this high-quality.

     Everyone at the table silently ate, Del avoided touching her tongue or her teeth to the metal fork. She hated the taste and the feeling of metal utensils, it made her skin crawl. And the smell that it made in her hands when she held them for too long made her want to cry.

     "So, Delphina, what do you plan to do for the training scores?" Ladonna asked.

     "I'll just chuck a trident, I'm good at that." She said, after she set down her fork and instead chose to eat her caprese with her hands—much to the dismay of Ladonna.

     Ladonna stared uncomfortably at Del, "Good, good, okay." She spoke. "And you, Mako?"

     "I'm not sure yet." He responded.

     "Well, they have knives, bows, spears, tridents, swords," She cut herself off, remembering who she was speaking to. "Or, if those aren't your style, there's nets, ropes, uhm..."

     "It's okay, Ladonna, I'll figure it out when I get there."

     "Mako, we want both of you to be prepared, it won't look good if your trainin' score is below seven." Dorian remarked.

     "I'm sure he'll figure it out, we'll find somethin' in the trainin' room." Del responded.

     Mako stopped paying attention when one of the avoxes filled his glass up with orange juice. She was a woman in her mid thirties, with straight, jet-black hair sprinkled with shades of grey, dark eyes, and skin pale from little time outside.

     He immediately recognized her, she was-

     "Mako!" Del broke him out of his state. "Hello? Are you even awake right now?"

     "Alright, alright." Dorian interrupted. "But seriously, a score below seven, that isn't done strategically, can cost you valuable sponsors."

     Before Del or Mako could speak up, Dorian continued.

     "You're twelve-years-old, one of the youngest tributes, so I'd even consider five or six a decent enough score for you. But I trust that Del could get a nine or even ten, which will get Del sponsors, and since you and her plan to ally, you would get them as well."

     "So does it really matter if I get a good score?" Mako asked.

     "Yes, aim for five to eight." Ladonna said.

     "But I thought you said Del's score would matter more?" He implored.

     "It does, but if she messes up and gets a low score then you're going to want to compensate." Ladonna explained.

     Mako nodded in understanding. "Okey-dokey, I'll give it my all."

     They all finished their food, and as the Sun set, Del and Mako went off to sleep. Del entered her room, she went to take a shower, she took off her dirty dress and let her straightened hair down. It was nice to take a hot shower, she'd never had access to luxuries like that.

     The water seemed to burn her skin, and the soaps smelled like chemicals. But Del used every ounce of shampoo and conditioner that she had time to, she didn't get the opportunity to feel clean very often.

     She smiled as the water gave her her curls back, it was like a part of her was brought back from the dead.

     Once she stepped out, she dried off and put on her Capitol-assigned pre-Game outfit. A plain black T-shirt with the number four on the back in green text, and black pants with the same green four on the sides of the hips. Once she cut the tags off, they were comfy enough to be pajamas.

     She combed and dried her long hair. She hadn't cut it in about four years, but before, she cut it to shoulder-length for practicality every year. 

     Del hadn't chopped it off in a while because her mother also cut it like that. She couldn't bear to see her in herself anymore than she already did.

     She sat on her bed, too aware to fall asleep. She flipped through the channels on the television across from her bed, trying to find one to drown out the thoughts that were screaming so much louder now that she was alone. But all of the channels were either propaganda pieces or news sites. Which were all, of course, covering the 53rd Hunger Games.

     She ended up finally finding a channel that wasn't covering the Games. It was a children's propaganda show, with bright colors—brighter than Capitol usually has—and loud sounds. She just turned the television off, there was too much happening.

     She pulled the blankets up from the bed and snuggled under them. With no noise or anything to distract her, her mind went straight to her loved ones back at home. She missed her dad, she just wanted him with her now.

     Del and her father went fishing a lot, in District 4 there wasn't much else to do. You could either starve or fish. But there was this one time that she thought about whenever she got sad, when she had just turned eleven she and her father went to the coast. That was the time he first put a trident in her hands, and she hadn't put it down since.

     She wasn't a natural with the trident, it took her years to get it down as good as she had it now. But, she was persistent, she wanted to be as good as Caulder, who constantly proved himself better than her. He always caught more fish than her, up until the day that their boat went missing.

     Even though she surpassed his full total about three months after the accident, she still marks the score board, which was on the wall on the outside of their little shack, even though there was no one else there to mark for the other side.

     'I wonder if he's gonna watch the Games?' She thought.

     He probably would, he'd want to make sure she was safe. But she hoped he wasn't planning to, she didn't want him to watch her suffer like this—to possibly die.

     But, she was all too aware of how her father subconsciously resented her. He didn't suspect any involvement in their family's demise , but she looked so much like a copy of her mother. She knew that whenever he looked at her, Otto didn't see Del, he saw Doris.

     Del didn't end up getting much sleep that night, she fell asleep about an hour and a half before she had to wake up. It wasn't a restful hour and a half, she was just on the verge of waking up the entire time. Her dreams were filled with crying loved ones and mangled corpses, none of which were her own. They were all so familiar, but unrecognizable, they felt like they were so many people at the same time.

     She awoke when someone knocked at her door, it was one of the Capitol avoxes who was waking up for breakfast.

     "I'm comin', one moment!" She said loudly as she put her hair into a bun.

     Del walked out of her room to go eat breakfast with the others at the table. Once she got there they discussed many of the same or similar things that they talked about earlier.

     Del noted the anxious glances Mako shared with the avox woman with black hair.

     When they finished eating, Del and Mako left for the training facility, walking without purpose. They didn't want to go there, they were scared of the other tributes.

     "Who's the avox?" She looked down at Mako.

     "I think that's my brother's friend's mom." Mako didn't look at her. "From the family that disappeared."

     "Oh." She didn't know how else to respond.

     Once they entered the huge room, the tributes were all grouped together and one of the Capitol attendants began her speech. She laid out the basic rules and her advice, she mentioned that it would be best for tributes to focus on survival skills rather than weaponry.

     Once she finished, the tributes scattered. Most ignored her advice and went to the weapon and fighting stations.

     "What do you wanna do first?" Del asked Mako.

     "Uhm..." He looked around the room. "We could go to the climbing wall."

     "Sounds good." She responded.

     They walked over to the climbing wall, they tried to avoid the glares of the Careers.

     "You know how to climb, right?" Del asked.

     "No, I don't." He said sarcastically. "Yes, of course I know how to climb."

     "Okay then." She laughed. "Well, do you wanna go first?"

     He smiled and nodded, Del spotted him while he climbed up the wall. He scaled the wall incredibly quickly, but as he got higher, the distance between the handholds were almost too far for him. Once he got too high, he began to climb back down.

     "Good job, kiddo." She congratulated him.

     He thought it was odd that she called him kiddo, only his dad called him that. But he brushed it off, maybe it was a cultural difference.

     "Your turn!" He exclaimed.

     "Wish me luck." She joked.

     She climbed the wall, by far not as fast as Mako had, but she was taller, which allowed her to reach the handholds easier. Once she made it to the top, she began to climb back down. Once she was about ten feet from the ground, her hand slipped, and she fell onto the thick mat covering the floor.

     "Del!" Mako yelped.

     Rather than being hurt, Del laughed on the ground.

     "Are you okay?" Mako asked.

     "No, all of my bones are broken!" Del got up. "Didn't you see? I splattered on the ground like an overripe tomato bein' stepped on." She joked.

     "Oh ha ha," Mako had a fake grin that turned into a real smile after a moment.

     Del looked around the training center to find something else that they could do.

     "Want me to teach you how to use a trident?" Del questioned.

     Mako's face lit up, he really wanted to learn how to use a trident but he was too shy to ask. He smiled and nodded excitedly. Del was happier than he was, she only got to teach Cordelia to use a trident a bit. She was only thirteen when she died, and her father only let Del start teaching her when she was twelve, out of fear that Cordelia would get hurt.

     Del walked over to the section with the trident, Mako followed close behind her, giddy. The Careers were relatively close to the station, Del could get a better look at them now that they were out of their chariot makeup.

     Falco Dray, the male District 1 tribute, was average height, maybe about 5'10". He had dark toned skin and short black hair, and as the Career tributes usually were, he was muscular. Del noticed a medium-sized faded scar across his right cheek. Ambrose Bronye, the female District 1 tribute was also of average height, she was 5'7". She had light skin and auburn hair that was put back in a braided bun, her sparkling eyes were grey, and she also had dimples on her cheeks.

     Lazere Sullivan, the male District 2 tribute had light skin, it had extremely pink undertones, he looked like he had spent his entire life in the sun, but was only able to be burnt, not tanned. His medium-length brown hair was put back in a small bun, with a small group of strands—having been too short to fit into the bun—falling down his forehead. Rowan Baxter, the female District 2 tribute had medium-toned skin, and straight black hair that formed a tight ponytail with bangs. Her dark brown eyes had monolids, she was working at the machete section, she looked like a fierce competitor.

     But Del couldn't think about them now, she had to focus on Mako and the tridents. The targets were about fifteen feet away from the pair, they were shaped like people. Del picked the trident up and demonstrated to Mako how to hold it.

     "Okay, Mako, you put your right hand here." She guided Mako's right hand to the staff of the trident, near the prongs. "Wait, you're right-handed, right?" She asked.

     "Yeah." He responded.

      "Good, good, because I don't really know if it's different." She said, "So, then you raise it above your head a bit." She guided his right hand upwards. "Perfect, perfect." She continued.

     "It's heavy." He noticed.

     "Well, it is made of metal." She smiled.

     Del let go of the trident and stepped away, letting Mako hold the trident. He stumbled a bit, without experience, it was going to be hard to hold properly.

     "And you're gonna throw it like this." She mimed throwing it.

     "So, like, I just throw it?" He asked.

     "Well it ain't gonna throw itself." She joked.

     Mako looked a bit nervous, but he tried his best to throw it. It flew towards the target, sliding on the floor and colliding loudly with the floor.

     A few of the other tributes turned around, alerted by the loud sound. Del gave Mako an awkward smile and a double thumbs up.

     "In hindsight, it would've been a good idea to demonstrate first." She smiled.

     "It's not too late for that." He gave her a look asking her to keep trying to teach him.

     She walked over to retrieve the trident, and then she demonstrated to Mako how to hold the trident, which he was doing properly before. And then she raised it above her head and threw it. Unlike Mako, she put her entire body into it, not just her arm. It landed on the target, not on the bullseye, but pretty close to it.

     Mako looked at it in awe, he wanted to be able to throw a trident like that. He wanted to be like her. But Del just saw how the trident fell short of the bullseye.

     "Well, shi-" Del was cut off by Mako.

     "Del, that was so awesome!" Mako exclaimed. "You hit the target!"

     Del realized that if the target was an actual person, the trident would have killed them. The bullseye was positioned at the heart, and the trident landed right below the ribcage. That made her feel a bit more confident about the outcome of the Games.

     "You wanna give it another shot now?" She proposed.

     "Of course!" He cheered.

     She went to retrieve the trident, she yanked it out of the target. And walked it back over to Mako, she flipped it around so that the handle was facing Mako when she handed it to him.

     "Remember, if you're handin' someone somethin' sharp, hand it to them so that the blade is not facin' them." She remarked.

     "Okey-dokey." He responded.

     He held the trident as she had taught him a moment ago. But Del moved his hand a bit farther up the staff.

     "Alrighty, I think you're ready." She said.

     Mako exhaled, he recalled how Del used her whole body to throw the trident, and not just her arm. He attempted to do the same, hurling the trident at the target with all of his might. It landed on the floor and slid forward to the target's 'feet'.

     Del saw a few of the Careers smirk at Mako's failings. She moved a few steps over in order to obstruct Mako's view of them, she didn't want him to see that they were watching and judging him.

     "Hey, you did your best. No one's perfect at everythin'." She consoled him. "I mean, you scaled that climbin' wall about faster than I ever could."

     "Yeah, it's just..." Mako spoke. "I can't use any weapons, worst case scenario, I can't defend myself."

     "Well, we'll just have to make sure that that 'worst case scenario' won't happen." She knew what he meant by worst case scenario, she's dead or otherwise incapacitated and won't be able to aid him. 

     He gave a half-hearted smile and leaned on the pole next to him.

     Del thought that asking: "What do you want to do next?" would be a little repetitive, so she just stood there awkwardly instead.

     Mako and Del wandered throughout the training facility, they picked up random weapons and tested them out. They both laughed about how bad they were at using swords and were surprised at how good they were at starting fires.

     Over the next three days they spoke, trained, and examined the competition, other than the careers and Landry, they noticed Elowyn Atmos, the District 7 girl, she was 5'6" but but built like a brick wall. She proved herself to be adept with an axe, Del grimaced at the thought of being at the receiving end of it.

     The District 12 girl, Liverna Dreck also stood out, but not because she looked like a particularly strong contender, but because she was constantly playing catch with a wooden ball with Finch Umbra, her District partner. But they were not good, so the ball often hit the ground, and made a loud clacking sound every time.

     When the day finally came for the training sessions, Del and Mako sat together silently in the waiting room. When Del finally got called in, Mako gave her a nervous 'You got this!' nod.

     She walked into the room, her heart beating quickly, she hadn't expected it to be so stressful. Dorian had talked it up so much to the point where she was scared that she had to be absolutely perfect, or she would die on day one in the Arena.

     The gamemakers in the room above watched her intently, she was a strong-looking tribute from one of the better Districts, so of course they did. They had ridiculous outfits on, but the neon hair in unnatural shapes gave them a run for their money.

     Del moved over to the trident, she looked back at the targets, they were shaped like a person with two bullseyes, one on the chest, and a smaller target on the head. She held the trident in their hands feeling the weight. She had been practicing with them over the past few days. They were different from what she had at home, but she would work with what she had.

     She walked over to the targets, standing at the markings on the ground, she was about fifteen away from the targets. Del laid her eyes on the bullseye that she was aligned with, she swallowed her spit and exhaled.

     Del put her entire body into the throw, trying to ensure that the trident would land in a 'fatal' spot on the mannequin. It found its way almost an inch below the bullseye, her throw was almost perfect.

     She was pleased with her work, the gamemakers gave her no indication of their feelings about her, they took notes and spoke too quietly for Del to understand them.

     "You may go now." The main gamemaker announced.

     "Thank you, ma'am." She said nervously.

     Del exited the room, and could only hope that Mako would do well with his training score. She waited for him in the District 4 lounge, and the only other person that sat there was Dorian, who stared into space with a television remote in his hand.

     "Delphina!" Dorian seemed to have just noticed her.

     "No, just Del." She corrected him.

     "How'd you do?"

     "We'll find out soon." She gave a worried smile.

     Del figured that she'd make conversation, since she hated the awkward silence that seemed to follow her everywhere.

     "Y'know, I've been noticin' your accent, what part of Four are you from?" Del fiddled with one of her curls.

     Dorian hesitated for a moment, but answered nonetheless. "The Markets." He looked over to her. "I lived a few minutes down from the Reapin' Square."

     "Really?" She perked up. "Did you have a shop?"

     Del didn't realize how uncomfortable Dorian was at the question.

     "Yeah, my family sold bait."

     "You and everyone else back home." Del laughed.

     Dorian snickered at her quip, he had to admit that it was probably the most stereotypical thing that his family could sell.

     Once the pair stopped laughing, Del began to ask more serious questions.

     "How did you win your Games?"

     "Way to change the conversation." Dorian took a swig of water.

     "Well, I kinda need to know..."

     "I stayed away from conflict for as long as possible, and I fought tooth and nail against anyone who tried to kill me."

     "It was the thirty-seventh, right?" Del always mixed up her fives and sevens.

     "No, thirty-fifth." He clarified.

     "Whoa, you're old." Del laughed.

     "I'm only thirty-five?" Dorian defended himself.

     “I was literally born that year.” Del pointed out.

    "Shit, maybe I am old…” Dorian seemed to realize how quickly time moved.

     Del snickered.

     "You're laughin', but you'll get here one day, kid." Dorian remarked.

     "We'll see!" Del immediately regretted her words, bringing up the Games permanently tampered with the mood between the two.

     Del recalled the photo of Dorian and his district partner that hung in the costumes room. She wanted to ask his advice on winning with a younger district partner.

     "Wasn't your district partner on the young side as well?" She pulled her knees up to her chest and laid into the corner of the couch.

     "She was." Del could feel Dorian growing uneasy.

     "How'd you make it out?" She thought of Mako, and how she'd have to let him die.

     Dorian didn't respond. Del couldn't tell if he was just thinking through an answer, or that he didn't plan to give a response.

     "It's just-" Del became choked up. "I don't wanna die but I don't want him to die either."

     Her words seemed to resonate with Dorian, and she knew that she struck a nerve. Without saying anything, Dorian got up and headed towards his quarters. But before he left the room, he said one final thing to Del.

     "I'm not gonna sugarcoat it for you, kid, Mako doesn't have a chance, but you do. It's gonna suck, but if you want to go home, he's gonna have to die."

     The door shut, and Del stifled a sob. She knew he was right, Mako didn't have a chance. She gave it a moment before she went to her own room, and ran into Mako after he had finished his session.

     "Del!" Mako seemed happier than usual. "I actually think that I-"

     "Goodnight, Mako." Del didn't intend to make him feel bad, but she didn't have any energy left to speak with him.

     "Oh," He watched as she brushed past him, and quietly mumbled "nighty-night" to himself.

Chapter Text

     Del, Mako, their mentors, stylists, and Ladonna, all waited in the District 4 lounge. Del sat on the couch with her legs criss-cross applesauce, she twiddled her thumbs.

     The screen came alive, and Ceaser Flickerman began to speak.

     "As you know, the tributes are rated on a scale of one to twelve after careful evaluation over the past three days. One being the worst, and twelve being the best. The Gamemakers have decided their scores now."

     Del and Mako glanced nervously at each other.

     They watched the Careers ahead of them get their expected scores. Falco got a ten, Ambrose got a ten, Lazere got a nine, and Rowan got an eleven. The District 3 tributes both got scores on the low end, which wasn't uncommon for their District.

     Finally Mako came up.

     "And Mako Caddel, with a score of..." They all held their breath as Ceaser spoke. "Four."

     Mako let out a disappointed groan, and received glances from others in the room.

     "Oh, well, that's..." Ladonna muttered.

     Del shot her a look, trying to get her to shut up.

     "Delphina Hollis, with a score of..." The pause Ceaser always took for dramatic effect seemed to drone on for longer than it usually did. "Nine."

     Del was satisfied with this, it was a really good score, especially for a non-Career.

     "Good job, Delphina!" Anastasia exclaimed.

     "Yeah, good job." Dorian remarked.

     They watched all of the other tributes, and a few of the others stood out. Both District 6 tributes got a score of eight, Elowyn Atmos got a score of nine, Landry Franklin got a score of ten, and Liverna Dreck got a score of two, the lowest of the night.

     Del could tell that Mako was disappointed in himself, he tried to disappear into the couch and hide his face behind his curls.

     "Hey, it's okay." Del mouthed to him.

     He averted her gaze, and left the room the moment the broadcast was over. Del followed soon after, heading to her place.

     Del slid her hand over the door handle, pushing the door open and entering her room. She almost immediately jumped into the shower, lathering her curls in as much shampoo and conditioner that she could ever dream of. Once she stepped out, the bathroom was filled with the citrus scent from the soaps she used.

     She wove her hair into two braids before curling up under the covers. Del laid on her side and brought her knees up to her chest.

     She felt so pathetic, crying every night. But there was no other time in which she could do it, all other hours of the day she was being watched.

     "What am I gonna do?" She half-whisperer half-cried.

     Tears rolled down Del's face, she felt her throat tighten. She let silent sobs rack her scared body. Del got a high score, she should be happy, not even more terrified. She would be going to the Games the day after tomorrow, there was a one in twenty-four chance that she'd go home to her loved ones. There was a twenty-three in twenty-four chance that she would die horribly and never see them ever again.

     She thought about Serena, her perfect face, her perfect personality, her perfect smile that made her feel all warm inside and-

     Del gathered the quilt into her face and screamed. She wanted to tear apart the blankets and pillows on her bed. She wanted to run miles and miles home and grab Serena by her face and embrace her in a tight hug.

     Then there was the matter of her father, and Del was done sugarcoating it for herself, if she died he would join her. Their home would turn decrepit, the plants in their garden would die, and the dock that Serena and Del shared would rot.

     She decided to move her thoughts away from the Games, and instead to think about the interviews. Of course, that wouldn't last long, how long could one not think about their imminent doom?

     Del cried herself to sleep that night, but at least she got sleep.

     When she was woken up by the same avox knocking on her door, she splashed her face with cold water to get rid of her puffy red eyes. Once she was finished, she walked out to eat breakfast with the other District 4 team members.

     "Del! You finally joined us!" Ladonna said, intending to come off as sarcastic, but Del didn't realize.

     "Thanks Ladonna, good mornin'." She said drowsily, wiping the sleep from her eyes.

     "As you know, the interviews are later today." Dorian remarked, taking a bite out of his pancake.

     "Yeah," Mako responded. "What do you want us to say?"

     "I was gettin' to that, be patient kid." Dorian asserted.

     Mako gave a half-hearted facial expression that said "yeah, yeah, whatever".

     "Make the Capitol feel bad for you, I said it on the train and I'll say it again. But you can't make them view you as weak, they won't sponsor you unless they think you stand a chance." He explained.

     "I mean, I bet they already don't think I stand a chance." Mako remarked.

     "Don't say that!" Saphia said. "You'll do great in the arena!"

     Del rubbed the bridge of her nose with her pointer finger and thumb. "Mako, I'll make sure you'll be fine in the arena, stop bein' so pessimistic."

     Mako rolled his eyes, and brushed off Del's comment. She was hurt, but decided against acknowledging it.

     The group ate their breakfast, before finishing up and getting dressed and prepared for their interviews. After a few hours, Del was adorned in a sky blue dress with puffy sleeves and a flowy skirt, meant to be complimentary to her chariot dress. 

     Her prep team had straightened her hair again, and Del hated it more this time. They were stripping her of her personhood and her individuality, they were taking away what made her Del Hollis, and turning her into Delphina Hollis, the female tribute for District 4 in the 53rd Hunger Games.

     "You'll do great, Delphina." Anastasia assured her.

     Del gave her a nervous smile and said, "Thank you, Anastasia."

     Even though being called 'Delphina' made her want to cry, Del stopped bothering to correct the Capitolites—it wouldn't change anything.

     She left to go meet up with Mako and wait in the line behind the District 1, 2, and 3 tributes. Del gave Mako a nervous thumbs up as Ambrose Bronye went up on stage for her interview, marking the beginning of the interviews. 

     The tributes went up one by one, and then it was finally Del's turn.

     "And now everyone, please give a warm Capitol welcome to the female District 4 tribute, Delphina Hollis!" Ceaser announced.

     Del walked towards her seat, the lights beating down oppressively, the cheers rang loud in her ears, and the eyes of everyone in Panem were on her, Even the people back in Four.

     She sat down in her seat, adjacent to Ceaser. He was a middle-aged man, maybe late thirties to early forties, his hair was dyed an intense shade of yellow, and it reflected the light from the spotlight straight into Del's eyes.

     "You look absolutely stunning dearie! If I do say so myself!" He proclaimed, in a tone that was genuine. But Del knew that the intention was simply just to get the interview started.

     "Oh, thanks." She stared into the crowd, shakily breathing as she saw the quantity of people in the audience.

     "Well, introduce yourself!" Ceaser tried to get her to warm up.

     "Well, my name's Del." She explained.

     She looked back out at the crowd, most of them just seemed disinterested in her.

     "Well, 'Del', could you tell us about your family and your life back home?" Ceaser questioned.

     "I live with my dad in the rural part of Four." She averted eye contact and flicked her thumbnails together.

     "This actually happens to lead perfectly into my next question..." He spoke.

     Del nodded, worried about what he might ask.

     "Of course, we know that you have a father back home, but I'm sure the masses are curious, how does he feel about you entering the Games?" He asked.

     "Well," She paused for a moment to think. "He's scared, he knows that there's a chance that I won't make it back to him.

     'Make them feel bad for you.' Del thought, that's the advice that Dorian gave her.

     "And death ain't the part that scares me, it's the fact that I'd be leavin' my dad alone" She drawled.

     'Bring up momma, Cordelia, and Caulder.' She thought.

     The audience let out sympathetic awws, saddened by the thought of her father losing his daughter.

     'Bring them up!' Her mind screamed.

     "How tragic Del," He spoke. "I guess you'll just have to fight twice as hard to get back to him!"

     'Stop being so sensitive Del, just talk about them, they'll eat it up!' She thought.

     "I certainly will." She said.

     "Moving on from the sad stuff, do you have any talents that would be handy in the arena?" He implored.

     "I can kinda use a trident." Del admitted to herself that she was too awkward to be able to bring her family up.

     "Now that is great! What about any weaknesses?" He questioned.

     "Well, I've technically never killed anyone." She didn't mean for her words to come off as humorous and obvious, but that's how the crowd took it.

     Del's first instinct when Caesar and the Capitolites in the audience began to laugh was to think that they were accusing her—that they knew of something she did.

     "Well, I sure hope not!" Ceaser put on a theatrical laugh. "But do you think you'd be able to?"

     Del knew that a lot of, if not most, of the tributes had siblings, parents, partners, friends, and other loved ones. She didn't want to take someone's sibling because, beyond the fact that they were also a person, she knew what that sort of loss felt like.

     "But I know I will have to, and I've gotta put my own self above 'em." She continued.

     "Well, I do wish you the best of luck in the arena!" Ceaser said. "But I am afraid that that is all the time we have left."

     "Well," She looked into the crowd. "Bye then."

     "Ladies and gentlemen! Delphina Hollis from District 4!" He announced.

     She stood up and gave a little curtsy and wave to the crowd before walking off stage. The uncomfortable smile that she put on for the Capitol turned into her resting face the second that her expression was no longer visible to the crowd.

     Once she stepped off stage, Mako began his interview, and she watched from a television in the hallway.

     "And now everyone, please give a warm Capitol welcome to the male District 4 tribute, Mako Caddel!"

     Mako smiled and waved to the crowd while he took his seat.

     "Hello Mako! You look dashing in your suit tonight!" Ceaser began.

     "Thank you." He spoke meekly, even more pathetically than Del.

     "Now, Mako, tell the people a bit about yourself!" Ceaser continued.

     "Oh, uhm," He stammered. "Well, my name's Mako, and I'm twelve."

     Ceaser was hoping that Mako would give him a little more to work with, but he'd do what he could.

     "Lovely, Mako, you are twelve-years-old, one of the younger tributes this year. How do you think that that will affect your chances in the arena?" He asked.

     "It obviously means that the odds aren't really in my favor, but I'm holding out hope." Mako responded.

     The audience awed sympathetically.

     "Well I'm sure that everyone here at the Capitol will be rooting for you," He turned to the crowd. "Am I right folks?"

     The audience cheered.

     "Thank you." Mako said politely, he was so quiet that he was almost whispering.

     "Now, Mako, tell us about your life back in District 4, any family or friends?" Ceaser implored.

     "Well, I live in the West End with my family." Mako seemed to get distracted by the bright stage lights coming from the fly above him.

     "And how do they feel about you going into the Games?" He asked.

     "They're not very happy about it, they know I'm probably not coming back."

    Mako immediately regretted his words, Dorian said to not make himself look weak. But he did it immediately, he admitted that he didn't think he could win the games. 

    "Oh, don't say that, there's been several underdogs who won over the past years!" Ceaser reassured him.

    "And I hope to be one of them." Mako tried to make up for his previous statement. 

     "And I am sure you will!" Caesar exclaimed.

     "Moving on from familial stuff, what kind of skills do you have that would help you survive the arena?" He asked.

     "I'm a really good swimmer, I'm also good at making nets, fishing, and other District 4 stuff." Mako responded.

     "That certainly sounds helpful!" Ceaser cheered.

     "What about weaknesses?" He asked. "Other than your age of course." 

     "I'm not really good at weapons, but Del's been teaching me." Mako spoke.

     "Are you planning to ally with her in the arena?" Ceaser continued.

     "Yeah." Mako said.

     "Splendid!" Ceaser exclaimed. "And I have one last question for you, boy."

     "Ask away." Mako smiled.

     "If you do perish in the arena, what would you like your folks at home to know?" Ceaser asked, his tone shifting. 

     Mako went quiet, and then twiddled his thumbs when he finally spoke. "Well, I would want them to know that I love them."

     "Well that is lovely Mako," Ceaser spoke. "But that is unfortunately all the time that we have left."

     Mako got up out of his seat, but forgot to wave goodbye to the Capitol audience as he walked off stage.

     "Hey, good job, Mako." Del smiled half-heartedly.

     "Thanks, you too." He gave her a similar smile.

     The pair watched the rest of the interviews from the screen in the hall, they learned a few valuable factoids about the other tributes.

     Landry Franklin, the District 11 girl, volunteered for her niece—not her cousin. Elowyn Atmos, the District 7 girl, joined the Careers. And finally, Harper Alfonso, the District 6 boy, lost his parents two years before he was reaped, leaving him as a sole provider for his little siblings.

     "They aren't makin' it easier for us." Del said.

     "Easier for us to do what?" Mako asked.

     As soon as those words left his mouth, he realized what she meant. She meant that they weren't making it easier for them to have to kill them later on. Del looked over to him, she saw the realization in his face and knew that she didn't have to explain it anymore.

     Once the interviews were over, they both walked next to each other in the hall, back to the District 4 floor. Del sat on the couch, not yet willing to head to bed.

     "Are you scared?" Mako stood by the arm of the other end of the couch.

     "Are you?" Del thought the answer was obvious.

     "I mean, I'm gonna die." Mako meant for his statement to come across as almost a joke, but his voice hitched.

     They both knew it was true, but Del didn't want to admit that to him. "No, kiddo, you're not gonna die-"

     "Don't lie to me!" Mako was hit with a sudden bout of anger. "I'm not a baby, I know how the Games work!"

     "Mako-"

     "I'm five feet tall and I have twig arms!" Mako paced back and forth, he seemed to be talking more to himself than Del. "If a Career so much as touches me, I'm gonna turn to dust."

     She wanted to assure him that he was going to be safe, but his odds were some of the worst in years.

     "It's gonna-" Del tried to prevent herself from crying. "It's gonna suck, but I'll keep you safe."

     "You say that, but you wanna go home just as much as me."

     "Why can't you just listen?" Del stood up quickly, and looked down at Mako.

     She could read an expression of fear on Mako's face as she towered over him. She didn't know what to say, seeing him so terrified of her made her feel like a monster.

     Without a word, Del turned around and rushed off to her room. She could hear Mako begin to cry once she closed the door. She balled her hands into fists and hit herself in the head repeatedly.

     "Fuck you!" She yelled into a pillow, getting her thick makeup all over it.

     Her words weren't directed at anyone but herself. She hated that she was able to scare a child like that. Maybe she reminded him of someone in his own life at that moment; but the thought of that just made Del want to tear into herself.

     She was evil. No, she was worse than evil.

     There was something intrinsically wrong with her, something she always felt but could never voice or change.

     She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, her makeup was in disarray, her hair was tangled with hairpins and straightened curls, and her dress was overwhelming.

     Del began to pump soap into her hands, and desperately tried to wash the makeup off of her face. She quickly became more violent in her removal and extended her outburst into pulling out seemingly endless bobby pins from her hair and clawing at her dress, trying to get it off.

     "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you-" She whispered in between sobs.

     She finally got her dress off, and curled into a ball in the corner in her undergarments. Her makeup was smeared, her hair was tangled worse, and her eyes were red from the soap and the tears.

     She was going to be shipped off to her death in the morning, and nothing could stop it.

     She was terrified for herself, she feared death like any regular person would. But beyond that, she feared what her father would do if she died. Del did not trust him with his own life.

     In the arena, she would keep Mako alive, but if it had to come down to it. She would have to let him die so that she could go home. She could not bear the thought of her father losing another person.

Chapter Text

     The girl in the mirror wasn't the same girl as it was hours ago. There was a cut and bruise on her cheek, and her hooked nose was crooked and still a bit bloody. Serena could tell that it was only getting worse, and she needed to put ice on it soon.

     But she didn't want to heal her face. Serena wanted to feel the shame, she deserved to remember what she did.

     She pulled out the orange reaping slip from her pocket and placed it on her dresser. She rummaged around in her drawer to find her matchbook, and she burned the paper into ash. The threat that the Capitol posed if they ever were to find that she technically tampered with the reaping was a terrifying one.

     She took the ashtray to sprinkle outside, far away from her home. Every step on the floorboard caused it to creak throughout the house. Once she put her hand on the doorknob, she heard her mother behind her.

     "Rena? It's late, you need to get some sleep." The moonlight shining from the window hit her face and revealed that Tessa was teary-eyed.

     "I just need a quick moment, momma." She turned around, but didn't take her hand off of the doorknob.

     Tessa took notice of the ashtray in her other hand. "Are you smokin'?" She jumped to conclusions. "I knew I told your father to throw those things out! You'll die at thirty with rotted lungs and black teeth." She tried to grab the ashtray from Serena.

     "No! Momma, I'm not smokin', I swear!" She kept the ashtray away from her mother.

     The distinctive orange of the reaping slip stuck out of the ash, and it caught Tessa's eye, she immediately put the pieces together. Her grip on the ashtray loosened as she began to speak.

     "Whose slip was it?" Her tone was soft, and Serena struggled to stifle her tears.

     "Willamae Lloyd's." Serena spoke quietly. "I couldn't give it up, I didn't think it would be Del."

     Serena failed to prevent herself from crying, and she began to tear up. "It's all my fault, she's gonna die-"

     "No, no, no, sweetpea..." Tessa grabbed Serena's face. "If Will went into that arena, she'd be killed on the spot—Del has a chance. You saved that little girl's life!"

     Serena felt like a little kid again, her mother cradled her in a tight hug while stroking her hair with her fingers. She let her mother hold her as she cried, but she didn't reciprocate her hug—she didn't have the energy to.

     "Bury the ashes far away or hide them deep in the marsh." Tessa pulled away from Serena. "Better to be too careful than not.

     Serena didn't have the energy to respond verbally, she nodded, and slowly walked her way to where she'd hide the reaping slip.

     The moonlight made traversing the marsh difficult, especially as she got deeper into the woody area. She dropped a little sprinkle of ash at a time, she knew that it was overcautious, but she didn't want to go back inside.

     She felt as if she was spreading Del's ashes, but she wasn't even dead yet. But she was going to die, and it would be all Serena's fault. Even if she came home, Del would hate Serena, she was responsible for sending her into the Games.

     She finally dumped the last of the ashes into the water, and was overwhelmed by a sudden bout of grief. She didn't think before slamming the ceramic ashtray into a rock on the ground. It shattered into jagged shards and Serena accidentally cut her hand.

     She wrapped her hand around her finger, and shook as blood poured into her palm. Serena no longer opted to cry, she grabbed the rock that she broke the ashtray with—which was about the size of her fist—and slammed it into the shards.

     "Fuck you!" She yelled, to no one but herself.

     She repeated before she tired herself out, and laid in the dirt while staring up at the stars. She laid close to the water, and let the brisk marsh cool her skin.

     Serena recalled her best memory with Del, and longed so painfully to return to that time. It was Serena's fifteenth birthday, and the pair were taken to the Markets by Tessa so that they could celebrate.

     Del had secretly been saving her money for a month to buy Serena a gift, and she settled on a small chocolate cake. There was a missing board on the boardwalk that Del didn't notice, and as she ran up to Serena, she tripped and the cake splatted to the ground.

     Del skidded and cut her knee open on a loose nail, Serena felt bad, but she couldn't help but cackle. She helped her friend up off the ground as blood leaked from her laceration. The pair received stares from the others on the boardwalk, but nothing they weren't used to.

     Serena bought gauze from the medical supplies shop and helped Del wrap her knee.

     "I remembered how much you said you liked chocolate, but how we never get it." Del explained. "Caulder was givin' me all the money he made, he's not gonna be happy when he learned I wasted all of it."

     "It's alright, the gesture is what matters." Serena spoke sweetly. "Besides, you'll remember it forever."

     "I don't really wanna remember this forever." Del laughed.

     "I do." Serena smiled.

     It was then that Serena realized what Del was to her, she wasn't a friend, she was something else entirely. She realized why Del's laugh and her imperfect smile made her feel the way that she did. She finally understood why she always let their hugs linger longer than they should have, or why she never wanted to leave her side.

     "Y'know what I love about you?" Serena recalled saying.

     Del grew a little flustered, the word 'love' scared her. "What?"

     "You fucked your knee up and you're only thinking of me." Serena realized she forgot something. "And your brother, but he's not as important."

     Del giggled, she tried to come up with a way to respond that wasn't petrifyingly awkward. "You're more important than my knee anyways."

     But now Del wasn't with her anymore, and she was going to have to watch her fight for her life on live television. Serena wasn't sure if she would come home, and stared at the ashes floating in the marsh water.

     "I've always loved you, I still love you, and I'll love you..." Serena whispered to herself, they were some of Del's last words to her.

     She wondered how she would have finished that sentence. "I've always loved you, I still love you, and I'll love you..." She repeated.

     Serena fell asleep in the dirt that night, and found some comfort in the smell of the marsh, it smelled like Del.

Chapter Text

     Del was taken out of her state when the avox knocked on her door. She opened her eyes to see the morning sun shining through the blinds. Del didn't want to get out of bed, she wanted to curl up so tightly into a ball that she disappeared.

     But she got up, they'd force her to if she didn't. It was better to go with her dignity than without.

     She was guided out, stoic Peacekeepers at both of her sides. Del was brought to the Hovercraft, and locked into her seat. The Capitol workers went past and injected all of the tributes with a large needle, containing their tracker. They stuck it in her forearm, she made a quick, involuntary, face in response.

     She saw Mako freak out a bit, which was reasonable, the needle was very large.

     "It's gonna be fine, it'll be okay." She mouthed to Mako.

     He looked at her and shook his head frantically, needles, especially needles this large, were one of his biggest phobias.

     The Capitol worker took his arm, Mako didn't dare move against him. The Capitol worker stuck the needle into his forearm, and Mako winced. He looked across to Del, she gave him a small smile and a thumbs up for reassurance. Mako gave her a little teary-eyed nod in response.

     The Hovercraft ride felt like it took forever, but Del wouldn't care if it took years. She wanted it to, delaying her arrival to the arena was a very welcome idea. But of course that wasn't the case. 

     The tributes were all taken to their individual rooms, she said a silent goodbye to Mako as the two Peacekeepers herded her away. She walked into the room, and she saw Anastasia there waiting for her.

     "Hello, Delphina." Anastasia handed her a bundle of clothing to change into.

     "Thanks, Anastasia." Del gave a half-hearted smile.

     Del changed into her outfit, it was a nylon black top with matching capris of the same materials, like a swimming suit. She was also given dark brown cargo pants with a complementary jacket to wear over them.

     Anastasia put Del's hair into two braids. She yanked her head around and pulled on her hair too tight. It brought up memories of her father trying to do her hair for her after her mother died, before she had learned to do it herself.

     The countdown on the screen reached ten seconds, she had to be in the tube by the time that the countdown ended. She stepped into the glass compartment, shaking with every step.

     "I wish you the best of luck in the arena, Delphina." Anastasia spoke genuinely.

     Del could not bring herself to speak, she gave a nod and a fearful smile. Her mind spun, her throat ached in worry, she felt her eyes water, but no tears fell from them. She looked out at Anastasia, who had her hand up to her face, nervously picking at the skin on her lips, paying no mind to her—now smudged—aqua lipstick.

     Anastasia has been through this many times before, she expected for it to be easier by now. But it never did, she stopped letting herself get attached to the tributes she styled, but they were still little kids who she couldn't help but love.

     The sliding door of the tube locked with a loud 'click!' and she began to rise up, her chest heaved, her throat was choked and her face was hot to the touch.

     Del's pedestal finally made it to the surface, the familiar heat hit her the second she was above the ground. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the bright sun in the arena sky, but once they did, she was greeted with a familiar landscape.

     It was a marshland.

     Once all of the tributes were above the ground, the countdown started.

     60... 59...

     Del frantically looked around the pedestals, searching for Mako.

     58... 57... 56...

     She spotted him, in-between the District 12 girl and District 6 boy. She breathed a sigh of relief, as he was next to two tributes that weren't the careers, or really even strong contenders at all.

     55... 54...

     She waited for him to spot her.

     53... 52...

     Once he did, she mouthed to him "run away, I'll catch up". He nodded in response, his expression horrified.

     36... 35...

     Del spotted a trident, right in the mouth of the Cornucopia. That's what she was gonna run for.

     24... 23...

     The District 12 girl, Liverna, suddenly screamed.

     "NO-"

     Del quickly turned her neck to look at the girl, as her abrupt scream broke the tense silence of the arena. She had dropped the wooden ball that she had been fidgeting with. The girl's pedestal exploded, cutting off her shrill scream. Bits of her flew a few feet out.

     18... 17...

     Mako didn't know how to react, the girl had been right next to him. He wiped his face with his left hand, and pulled it down to reveal a splash of Liverna's blood. He looked over to Del, his face full of nausea and horror.

     14... 13...

     Del quickly shook her head at him, mouthing "Mako, it's okay".

     12... 11...

     Mako frantically shook his head in response, his eyes welling up with tears.

     10... 9... 

     Del averted her gaze to Liverna's pedestal, she knew that she'd immediately regret it. The sand around it was concave, the explosion threw it into the surrounding area. But what sand was left was bloody. The scarlet liquid seeped into the ground, bits of black hair were blown about by the soft wind, some getting stuck in the chunks of flesh stuck to the ground. Which weren't even recognizable as human.

     7... 6...

     'Her poor family.' Del thought. Most people were tuned into the Games, she caught herself thinking too hard about how Liverna had people back home. How all the tributes—who she would have to kill—had people back home.

     3... 2...

     The countdown continued, Del exhaled, clearing her mind and getting ready to run.

     1...

     The loud sound of a gong banging filled the arena. Del immediately broke into a sprint towards the Cornucopia, not looking back to check where Mako was. The Careers and a few other tributes were running to it as well. She didn't let anything, or anyone, stop her.

     She outstretched her arm to grab the trident, her fingers brushing the metal shaft. She was about to wrap her fingers around it when the hood of her jacket was yanked away.

     "Shit!" She yelled.

     Del fell onto her back, and Falco stood above her, about to bring his axe down on her face. The axe caught the Sun in a tantalizing glow, but the oppressively bright light struck Falco in the eyes. It blinded him for a moment, which gave Del the upper hand. She rolled out of the way, and he chopped off the end of her braid instead of splitting her face in two. The axe got stuck in the metal of the Cornucopia, and Falco tried to pull it out. But he decided to just kill Del with his bare hands instead.

     "That axe too heavy for you?" Del quipped while taking the trident in her hands.

     Falco grabbed a backpack from the ground, he violently threw it at Del, she blocked it with her arms. She grabbed the trident, which was now within range. She thrusted it towards Falco, he backed away from her, deeper into the Cornucopia. She finally picked the bag that he threw at her and sprinted away, faster than she ran to it. She ran to the area that she pointed to for Mako to go earlier.

     "Mako!" She yelled.

     She was caught off-guard when a spear, thrown by Lazere, flew through the air, a few feet in front of her. Whizzing past and slamming into the chest of Magnolia Gillespie, the District 9 girl. She crumpled to the ground and died immediately.

     Del turned around momentarily, she watched the carnage unfold before her, Flint Sloan, the male District 11 tribute had his face chopped to bits by Rowan with her machete. Keeran Smith from Five took a bow shot to the head from Graham Dennis from Eight. Vaughn Dempsey from Nine, who was paralyzed in horror after watching what happened to Flint, pleaded for his life as he stumbled away from Rowan, who showed no mercy. She stabbed her machete through his chest.

     "Fuck, oh fuck." Del muttered, she had to get away from the Cornucopia.

     Del turned back around, she ran into the swamp, she had to find Mako, she assumed that he was hiding somewhere in the swamp—he had to be.

     "Mako!" She yelled again. "Where are you!"

     'Shit, shit, fuck, shit.' Del's mind raced.

     "I'm over here!" She heard a small voice from behind a tree trunk.

     She ran over to the tree she heard him from. He was sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest and his face down.

     "Holy shit!" She sat down on her knees, putting her hands up to his face to check if he was okay.

     "Mako, it's gonna be fine. I swear." She comforted him, despite the fact that she was equally a mess as he was, she was just better at internalizing it.

     "She- she-" He stumbled through his words. "She exploded!"

     "I get it, I get it." She didn't know how to help someone after something like this. "But I swear it's gonna be fine. That's just one less person that we gotta get through."

     Mako shook his head erratically, and he didn't bother to wipe the tears from his face. He shook like a palm tree in a hurricane, and Del freaked out when she realized how hard it would be to move him from his spot.

     "Please, we have to go!" She grabbed him by his shoulders. "I can keep you safe, but not here!"

     Nothing she said worked, and as Del looked back to the Cornucopia, she felt her skin crawl. The panic she repressed had begun to boil up, and without thinking, she yelled "You're so stupid, we need to move!"

     She regretted her words immediately, but that didn't matter right now. Del grabbed Mako by his sleeve, and pulled him along with her as she ran away from the Cornucopia.

     Mako gained his footing after a moment, and shoved Del's hand off of his sleeve. They had slowed down after a moment, but they were still focused on getting away from the Cornucopia.

     "We can keep walkin' for a while, once we can't hear the fightin' in the Bloodbath, we'll pause to rifle through the bag I got." She turned around a bit to show him the bag that she wore on her back.

      "Okey-dokey." He spoke with a flat tone, not bothering to look up at Del.

     They traversed through the swamp, walking on the conveniently fallen trees. The breeze blew the smell through the air, and Mako scrunched his nose in disgust.

     Del felt her stomach churn, but not from the smell. It felt as if they were using her home against her. She smelled the air, felt the breeze, and heard the birds and bugs chirp—all of these were meant to be indicators that she was safe.

     And yet, she's never been more unsafe. She almost got her head split in two and screamed at a little kid.

     She looked down at Mako, and realized how deep her words could have cut.

     "Hey, y'know I didn't mean it, right?" Her voice came across as ingenuine, even though that wasn't the intention.

     "I know." He said, bluntly.

     "I'm- I was just scared." She stuttered around her words, trying to organize a proper apology.

     It wasn't that she called him stupid, Mako was aware of his intelligence. It was more that it was coming from her.

     Sometimes the kids at his school insulted him, and sometimes it was his parents or his grandmother. But it was different with Del, he wanted her to have a positive opinion of him.

     "It's fine, doesn't matter." He glanced up at her.

     Del nodded, but she knew that it did bother him, but she decided to let it go.

     "What happened to your braid?" Mako inquired, moving on from the previous subject.

     "The District 1 boy cut it off with his axe." She responded.

     "Oh, are you okay?" He asked, concerned.

     "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just hair." She lied, it did bug her.

     Her braids were uneven, the uncut one fell past her chest, but the chopped one unfurled at her shoulder. She hated the fact that they were uneven, they were imperfect in the worst way.

     "How'd it happen?" Mako was a tad nosy.

     "I was grabbin' the trident when he pulled me to the ground and tried to split my head in two." She didn't make an attempt to sugarcoat it.

     "Oh, I'm sorry." Mako's tone shifted.

     "What're you apologizin' for?" She laughed a bit. "You didn't do anythin'."

     "Well, y'know, it's scary."

     "You don't need to worry about me." She promised him.

     Mako was about to speak up, but he was cut off by a cannon.

     "Bloodbath." Del pointed out.

     The amount of cannons upcoming would represent the end of the bloodbath and the death of the tributes. 

     Del and Mako quietly whispered, counting the amount of cannons that went off.

     "Nine." She said.

     "That's..." Mako did the math in his head. "Fifteen left, thirteen other than us."

      "Okay, let's..." Del looked around. "Let's climb up that tree, to look through the bag."

     Mako nodded, and he motioned for her to start climbing the tree first.

     "You first, I'll follow." Del laughed a bit. "Somethin' tells me that I'd have an easier time catchin' you if you fall."

     "Maybe." Mako began to scale the tree.

     Mako climbed the tree, and Del followed close behind him, making sure that he didn't fall. She struggled to hold the awkwardly long trident. They both sat on a thick tree branch, and Del swung the bag onto her lap.

     "Let's see what's in here." She said.

     Mako clung to the tree trunk tightly, scared that he'd fall into the swamp below. Del opened the bag, she pulled out a hunting knife, a flask full of water, some jerky, a packet of biscuits, a thin sleeping bag, and some fishing string.

     "Hey, Mako," She turned to him. "Here, take this."

     She held out the hunting knife to him, handle out.

     "Really?" He seemed surprised.

     "Yeah! 'Course!" Del smiled.

     He took the knife in his hand, and carefully put it in one of the pockets of his cargos. Del put the supplies into the bag again, and swung it to her back.

     "What's the plan for the day?" Mako asked.

     "To do what Dorian said, to stay away from the other tributes for as long as we can." She responded.

     "Should we keep moving then?" He implored.

     "Let's give it a moment," Del looked around from the vantage point, making sure that there were no other tributes. "I think we're good for now."

     Mako nodded his head in response. Del noticed how the swamp spanned a far distance, but there were also marshlands nearby with cattails.

     She didn't notice how Mako anxiously flicked his nails and whipped his head around at every small sound. After a moment of sitting there, he finally spoke up.

     "Can we get going now? I don't wanna stay here anymore."

     "Yeah, sure, we can get goin'." She responded.

     Del went down first, she clutched the trident tightly. Once they both made it down, they went in the direction away from the Cornucopia, to avoid bloodbath survivors.

     They traversed through the swamp, trying to get out of the muck and into the marsh.

     "At least the other tributes will have a decent disadvantage, with the marsh'n swamp'n all." Del remarked.

     "You're talking, the West End doesn't really have swamps." Mako responded.

     "Oh yeah, shit, I forgot about that." Del corrected herself. "But I bet that a bunch of 'em can't swim."

     "Yeah, I bet you're right about that." Mako grimaced.

     "Let's steer clear of the marsh, the Careers will probably stick to the Cornucopia, and the swamp is probably too far outside the comfort zones of the other tributes." Del suggested.

     "Sounds great." Mako replied.

     They traversed the swamp silently for about fifteen minutes, out of fear that they would be heard. Their silence was abruptly interrupted when a loud cannon shot sliced through the air. They both jumped at the sudden sound.

     "Shit..." Del grabbed Mako by his upper arm and pulled him in closer to her. "Keep your eyes peeled."

     They hadn't heard any other noises, so they assumed that the tribute couldn't have died anywhere near them.

     "I wonder who it was." Mako remarked.

     "We'll find out tonight, let's just hope it was a Career, or stronger tribute." She responded.

     Hours went by, Del and Mako didn't come across any dangers, other than plant life that they didn't recognize and therefore feared to eat. As the sun went down and the arena got colder, they realized that they needed to find a spot to sleep that night.

     "Could we climb a tree? Or maybe..." Mako thought. "I dunno, I can't think of anything else."

     "The tree's a good idea, but we can't secure ourselves to a tree branch, unless you count the fishin' string." Del responded.

     "Do we just find a clearing or something?" He asked.

     "I think that's our best bet." She said.

     The pair walked around, looking for an area that wasn't just murky water. Once they found one, Del pulled out the sleeping bag and sat down at the base of a tree.

     "I'll take first watch, you can take the sleepin' bag." Del offered.

     Mako wanted to protest, but he wanted to sleep more.

     "Okey-dokey."

     Mako got inside the sleeping bag, and set his hunting knife on the ground next to him. A bit after he fell asleep, the announcement came on that would show which tributes died on the first day. As usual, all of the Career tributes were unarmed. But, both District 3 kids were dead, both kids from 5, Maude from 8, both from 9, Isadore from 10, Flint from 11, and Liverna from 12.

     Ten dead. Ten dead and it hadn't even been twenty-four hours, which meant that there were fourteen left alive.

     Del looked over at Mako, who looked even smaller while sleeping, horrified at the thought that she'd have to let him die.

     She could hear the thoughts in the back of her mind telling her to take everything and run. Mako had to die for her to go back to her dad. She tried justifying it in her mind by saying that Mako dying would save both her and her father.

     But, she looked at him, his hair a mess of dark brown curls. There and then she knew she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she was complicit in his death.

Chapter Text

     Del played with her hair, trying to fix it. The extreme length difference pushed her towards the edge. To make matters worse, the length that the shorter braid was was the same length that her mother wore her hair. Her hair would take forever to grow back to the length of the other, she couldn't wait that long.

     Her eyes flashed to the knife that she had given Mako earlier. It was sharp, she could fix her hair. But, slicing her hair shorter would mean that she would probably wear it like that for a while, as she would feel too bad to grow it to neck-length.

     "Fuck it." Del whispered.

     Del snatched the knife, she cut the longer braid to the same length as the other one, and then ruffled her hair up, breaking apart the braid.

     "No going back now." She thought.

     Del took the razor sharp knife to her hair, bit by bit, slicing off just enough until it was about two and a half inches long. She didn't have access to a mirror, all she had was the distorted reflection in one of the blades in her trident.

     But it was different from what her mom had, and that was all that mattered.

     Del set the knife back where it was before, kicked her hair cuttings into the bushes, and sat up against the tree. She laid the trident down in her lap, prepared to keep watch until Mako woke up, or the sun came up.

     She ran her hand through her hair, her heart felt so much lighter, like a physical weight was taken off of her shoulders. She shook her head, small hair clippings falling out of her curls like sand from a shaken tarp.

     Mako woke up in an extremely panicked state, he inhaled suddenly.

     "Shit! Mako, are you okay?" Del put her hand on his shoulder.

     "I'm- yeah, I'm okay." He seemed ruffled.

     The night before, the scene of Liverna's death had played in his head repeatedly. The first time it played, it went about as it had gone in real life, but the next time, the explosion was larger but somehow more clear. And the young girl's blood and flesh had been thrown towards him in a way that seemed more targeted.

     And as the dream repeated, the explosion got larger and her death became more violent. In the last few repeats before he woke up, it had gotten so bad that her dismembered limbs and decapitated head had flown onto his pedestal. The dream of the memory corrupted the real event, he remembered it as leagues more brutal that it had happened.

     "Are you sure you're all good? You look a little shaken up." Del asked, concerned.

     "What happened to your hair?" Mako brushed past her question.

     "It walked away." She said sarcastically. "I cut it, what do you think happened?"

     "Oh, okay, it looks... nice." Mako lied.

     "It was buggin' me, I didn't like how uneven it was." Del explained. "You should go back to sleep, it's only been three-ish hours."

     "That's plenty of time." Mako said, not wanting to go back to sleep. "I'll take over for the night watch."

     Del pondered for a moment, she trusted Mako enough, but knew he would not be able to protect the pair.

     "Alrighty, but, if you even suspect that there's somethin', or someone nearby, wake me up."

     Mako nodded, she didn't have to tell him twice. "Deal."

     Mako got out of the sleeping bag and took Del's place. Del crawled into the sleeping bag and tried to doze off. She reminded herself that Mako would want her up if it went south, and that she was in relative safety.

     Once she finally fell asleep, like Mako, her dreams were not pleasant. The gore that unfurled wasn't what she witnessed the day prior, but instead it was the people back home.

     Her brother laid on the arena ground, an arrow in the back of his head. She ran up to him, but a drop of blood fell onto her forehead. Del looked up to see the corpse of her mother tangled in the tree branches.

     She began to stumble through the marsh, until she slammed into another person. That person was her baby sister, who stood in front of her, alive.

     The moment didn't last long.

     Before she could get out a word, blood leaked from Cordelia's mouth as she collapsed into Del's arms. She couldn't do anything to help her before she melted before her eyes.

     But she also saw Mako, being hacked to bits with an axe by Falco. As she sat off to the side, still holding her arms out like she was holding Cordelia. She was incapable of moving, pleading, or screaming no matter how hard she tried.

     The dream was foggy, but the gore was clear. The facial features of the people were oddly unidentifiable, but their expressions were so visceral.

     When she finally woke up, it was light outside. The artificial sun shone through the tree leaves and hit her fluttering eyelids. She crawled out of the sleeping bag and began to roll it up.

     Del was used to horrifying nightmares, but she hadn't experienced anything of that caliber since she was fifteen.

     "Good morning." Mako said, leaning his head against the tree.

     "Mornin'," Del responded. "Anythin' happen when I was sleepin'?"

     "Nope, nothing." He replied. "But you mumble in your sleep."

     "What was I sayin'?" She got out of the sleeping bag and began to roll it up.

     "Just 'Corey' and 'no'." Mako also got up from where he sat.

     Before Del could respond, Mako asked her a question. "Who's Corey?"

     "Oh, uh-" She tried to come up with a lie. "She's my friend."

     "You have friends?" Mako seemed genuinely shocked, before realizing how his words might have come off. "Wait, no! I didn't mean it like that! I just meant- y'know- you didn't seem like the social type!"

     Del began to cackle, before trying to stop herself because of the volume.

      "I'm sorry, please don't hate me." There was a hint of humor in Mako's tone.

     "No, you're good, I see what you mean." She smiled.

     Del grabbed the backpack and swung it onto her shoulders. "So, kid, where're we off to today?"

     "Oh, uhm..." Mako looked around, and after a few moments, he responded. "Let's go that way."

     "Okay then," Del looked in the direction he had pointed, it was an area they hadn't been to yet, no use in leaving it unexplored. "Sounds good."

     Before leaving, they both took a swig of the water. They walked through the swamp, luckily, they had already passed the area with the deep water. So they no longer had to worry about falling into disgusting muck.

     "Did you know that if our bones were on the outside of our body, we wouldn't have any blood?" Mako began to speak out of boredom.

     Del furrowed her eyebrows and looked down at Mako. "What?"

     "We would have hemolymph instead!"

     "Oh yeah, because that makes it make more sense." Del said, sarcastically.

     Mako began to walk backwards in front of Del so that he could explain it more.

     "Because if our bones were on the outside, then we would have an exoskeleton like bugs do. And bugs don't have arteries or veins, so they don't have blood. Their blood-stuff is yellow because it's not blood, it's hemolymph!"

     "Oh, that's... cool?"

     "And speaking of bugs and exoskeletons, there's this fungus that-" Mako tripped on a root.

     Del was caught so off guard that she immediately cackled in response. Mako barely even acknowledged that he'd fallen, and pulled himself back up and immediately continued his knowledge dump.

     "There's this fungus called Ophiocordyceps unerliatis that takes control of ants and uses them like puppets!" He smiled widely. "It uses its spores to drill into the ant's exoskeleton and-"

     "You aren't hungry yet, are you?" Del changed the topic.

     "No, I'm all good." He lied, he felt too anxious to eat anything the day before the Games and was quite hungry, he just didn't want Del to think he couldn't handle it.

     "Damn, you're stronger than I am, I'm fuckin' starvin'." Del joked.

     Mako laughed a bit, he knew that she probably didn't care at all about Ophiocordyceps unerliatis, and gave up on trying to explain it.

     They continued walking and talking, the scenery around them was the same for miles. For the next four days, they traversed the swamp with little difficulty. But they had run out of water and most of their jerky.

     It wasn't until the sixth day that they heard a cannon, which was quickly followed up by another.

     "That's..." Mako did the math in his head again. "Twelve remaining, ten other than us."

     "Two back to back is concernin'." Del observed.

     "Yeah, I bet it was the Careers finding one of the District pairs or something." Mako theorized.

     She gave a little side nod in agreement, it was the most probable thing that could have happened. Del heard a familiar guttural gurgling sound from behind them.

     "What's that?" Mako asked, he could see the concern on Del's face.

     "Keep your voice down!" Del whispered urgently as she frantically looked at the ground behind them.

     "What? Why? What is it?" Mako whispered.

     "It's a fuckin' crocodile." Del replied.

     Mako's face contorted in fear, he'd never seen a crocodile before. But he had heard the horror stories of people who lived in the Marshes being mauled by crocodiles—mostly told to him by his father. Del looked around for a way to get out of the situation, she saw an easy-to-climb tree.

     She motioned to Mako, pointing to the tree. He nodded in response and stuck very close to her as they silently moved to the tree. Mako went first, he slowly climbed up the tree. Del followed him, but quickly surpassed him, but he was glad to be off the ground.

     Mako put his trust in a branch that was too weak to hold his weight, it snapped off of the tree and he fell four feet to the ground.

     "Del!" He yelled when he began to fall.

     Del looked to the ground where Mako fell, he was getting up while holding onto the tree for support. Her eyes then flashed to the spot where she had heard the crocodile.

     "Mako! Shit!" Del shouted.

     She heard the crocodile heading towards Mako. She hated that she questioned for a moment whether she should save him or not. She'd be putting herself in danger by going to the ground, and only one person can win the games. 

     'No, goodness gracious, Delphina Mae Hollis, you cannot let that twelve-year-old boy get eaten by a crocodile, you fuckin' monster!' She thought.

     "Del!" Mako yelled, he tried to climb the tree the same way that he had previously. But he was shaking so profusely that he failed to get a good grip.

     Del climbed down frantically to try and rescue him, she had the trident under her arm. The time that she had spent thinking was time wasted, crocodiles are fast, faster than Del was comfortable with. But luckily, Del was only ten feet up, so she climbed down a few feet before jumping off to the ground.

     Del yanked Mako away from the crocodile and he snapped out of his fear-induced shock. The pair scrambled back up the tree, and were safe from the crocodile.

     "Are you okay?" She whispered urgently.

     Mako couldn't bring himself to speak, he nodded quickly in response, still breathing heavily from the crying.

     "Good, good, okay." Del peered back down at the crocodile.

     The pair had to stay in the tree until the crocodile left, and Del could tell that it would be a while.

     "When I was eight, my family rescued this duck and her two remainin' ducklins'" She wanted to fill the time. "She had a lame leg and couldn't walk well, so she needed our help."

     Mako listened, curious as to where her story was going.

     "We had 'em for a little while, and named 'em Flora, Sandy, and Molly. Until a few months later, when they were all gone. The chicken-wire fence was taken down, so I could tell that they didn't just fly off. I didn't recognize the tracks that let away from their pen, but I followed 'em anyway. A bit into the marsh, I heard that sound right next to me. I didn't know what it was, because I'd never run into a crocodile before." Del mindlessly picked at the bark on the tree. "I'd be dead if it weren't for my friend Serena's dad nailin' it in the head with a trident."

     Mako listened intently, but before he could respond, they heard a voice from the treeline.

     "Did you actually see a crocodile? I think you're lying."

     The voice was feminine, she didn't recognize it as one of the Careers, thankfully.

     "No, Az, I swear there was a crocodile. Do you think I would lie about a crocodile?" Retorted a masculine voice.

     Del acted quickly, she hid behind the trunk of the tree and pulled Mako towards herself.

     "Okay, jeez, I was just wondering." The girl, 'Az', replied.

     Del heard the pair break through the treeline, and find the crocodile.

     "Oh fuck!" The boy screamed like a little kid, she could hear him fall backwards and scramble away.

     There was a scuffle, and the District 4 pair could hear the dull impact of an axe, and the crocodile was dead.

     "I didn't know that they were so ugly." Az peered at the crocodile.

     Del realized who they were, they were the District 6 pair, Harper Alfonso and Azami Gamoore

     "Just like you!" Harper spoke in a sarcastically loving tone.

     "Aw, you're so sweet!" Azami responded.

     Del got the impression that Harper and Azami may have known each other before the Games.

     "Should we..." Harper began. "Like, carve it up? For y'know, food."

     "It's a reptile, you can't eat those, they're poisonous." Azami responded, her tone indicated that she wasn't joking.

     "Az, what?" Harper retorted. "You can eat reptiles, they're not poisonous. Also, you're thinking of venomous, not poisonous."

     "I'm not stupid, we live in District 6, I've only heard of crocodiles once." Azami asserted.

     Del listened to the pair bicker for a moment more before finally, they decided to carve the crocodile up to eat.

     "How are we supposed to cook this? If we start a fire they'll find us." Azami asked.

     "We'll find something, and if we get desperate enough we can just eat it raw." Harper responded.

     "Ew." Azami cringed. "Raw crocodile?"

     "Well, I'd rather eat raw crocodile than die of starvation." Harper retorted.

     "Alrighty." Azami sighed, with heavy annoyance in her tone.

     Del heard one of them zip up their backpack. She hoped that they put the crocodile in something, because the thought of raw crocodile marinating in a backpack made her violently uncomfortable. Their boots squelched in the mud and they walked away, Del and Mako let out a sigh of relief.

     "Hey, kiddo, you sure you're all good?" Del asked.

     "Never better." Mako had a withdrawn expression across his face

     "You can talk to me," Del assured him. "You know that, right?"

     "Yeah, I know." Mako looked up at her with scared puppy-dog eyes that were meant to be concealed behind a mask of bravery. "But, what is there to talk about? Everything is self-explanatory."

     "Somethin' bein' self-explanatory doesn't make it any less important." She clarified.

     "Oh." He looked to the ground below them, they were pretty high up in the tree. "We're really high up." He tried to change the subject.

     "Yeah," Del recognized that he was trying to stop the conversation, and she respected that. "It's gettin' dark."

     "Should we find somewhere to sleep?" Mako asked.

     "I think we should just stay in the tree, we're safe from the crocodiles up here." She added.

     "But how will we not fall down?" Mako asked.

     "I'll stay awake, and keep you from fallin' down." Del offered.

     "You've been taking the longest watch for almost every night." Mako protested.

     "Could you catch me if I started to fall in my sleep?" Del pointed out.

     Mako gave a side nod that said 'fair point'. As Mako began to drift to sleep, the Capitol anthem began to blare through the arena. Del looked to the sky to see the tributes who had died that day. It was Everest Fischer, the boy from Ten and Finch Umbra, the boy from Twelve. Del knew that they were allies, they were probably nabbed by the Careers.

     They were both fourteen-years-old, barely teenagers. Not even given the chance to begin their lives before dying for pure entertainment. She didn't even know those kids, and yet she could feel her eyes growing heavy with tears.

     She looked over to Mako, who was trying to fall back asleep after the interruption. She hated that he reminded her of Cordelia, his brown doe eyes and messy curls replicated hers uncannily. She hated the way that he made her feel, the pit in her stomach when she thought about how she'd have to eventually let him die. The feeling that she'd have when she went back to Four and would have to face his family.

Chapter Text

     It was the twelfth day of the Games, Del and Mako had avoided any confrontation for days. Del was picking apart a piece of bark from the tree when Mako woke up.

     "Mornin' kiddo, how'd you sleep?" She smiled.

     Mako gave a sleepy thumbs-up in response, too tired to respond verbally.

     "Well, when you're ready to move about, I was thinkin' we could head that way," Del pointed to their left. "Because I don't think that we have yet."

     Mako nodded as he begrudgingly rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The pair walked in the direction that she had pointed to earlier.

     "It's too humid out here." Mako observed. "Is it always this bad in the wetlands?"

     "They're humid, don't get me wrong, but not this bad. It's probably just like this to drive the tributes crazy." Del wiped the sweat off of her face with her sleeve.

     "Oh, makes sense." He remarked. "What else is different?"

     "Well, other than the obvious Games stuff, there's a lot less passive wildlife, it smells worse, and all of the fallen trees are very conveniently placed."

     "Passive wildlife? Like squirrels and bunnies and stuff?" Mako asked.

     "Yeah, but herons and other birds as well." She clarified.

     After a while of walking, the pair broke through the treeline, and were greeted by the beautiful sight of a coastal wetland. There were groups of green grasses surrounded by water that was calmly waving to the sandy shore.

     "Well shit, Mako," Del marveled. "Looks like we're goin' fishin'."

     Mako grinned, he immediately scrambled to take his boots off. Del followed quickly, she and Mako set their over-clothes, their socks, their bag, and their boots on the rocks. Del fished through their bag for the knife. Del and Mako were dressed in the black swimming top and capris combo.

     "Do you know how to fish with a trident? Or just a rod and net?" Del inquired.

     "I've tried spear-fishing before, but it ended with someone having nine toes instead of ten." He responded.

     Del turned around, she stopped fishing through the bag.

     "What?" She asked, concerned.

     "I dropped the spear on my uncle's foot, and he wasn't wearing shoes." He said. "I was nine and he was trying to teach me."

     "Oh!" She exclaimed. "That's... interestin'?"

     "He's fine, I mean, he's still alive." Mako clarified.

     "You wanna try again?" She asked, jokingly hesitant.

     "Do you want ten toes?" Mako joked.

     "No thanks, I already have ten of my own." She quipped.

     It took Mako a moment to understand the joke, after a moment he let out a laugh. Del joined in on his laughter.

     "I'll catch the fish, and then I'll give 'em to you, you can gut 'em." Del said once the laughter died down.

     "Okey-dokey." Mako agreed.

     Del walked around the rocks, she looked for a suitable spot to fish from. She didn't want to step into the water out of fear of possibly disturbing any fish, she waited a few minutes before finally striking. She pulled her trident out of the water, revealing a skewered fish on the other end. 

     She turned to Mako with a cheerful look on her face, she took an exaggerated bow and pretended to smile and wave to a cheering audience.

     "We got one!" She cheered.

     "Wahoo!" Mako clapped his hands. "Get it, because a wahoo is a type of fish?" He grinned.

     "Oh, fuck you," Del cackled. "Here, take the fish."

     Del gently tossed the fish over to Mako, and he caught it. He pulled out his hunting knife and began to clean it. Del waited for another fish to come around, after about three minutes, she caught a second.

     "Got another one!" She exclaimed.

     "Nice!" Mako cheered as he gutted a fish. "Hand it here."

     But just as Del was about to hand Mako the trout, someone tightly gripped her short cropped hair and yanked her backwards. Del was caught off guard, she dropped the fish in the water and it bobbed on the surface. She yelped at the sudden tug, and Mako was alerted to the commotion.

     "Del!" He yelled.

     The tribute who yanked her back grabbed her by her shoulders and held her under the water. Del struggled against her grip, her eyes stung, but she was too preoccupied to close them. She identified the tribute as Landry Franklin, the female District 11 tribute.

     She fought against her, trying to kick, punch, poke, and even bite at arms from underwater. She tried to get away from Landry, she was finally saved from drowning when Mako threw the trident to Del. It glided through the water, before being stopped by the sandy ground.

     The terror of the situation overwhelmed Del, and she could feel the water entering her nose. But, the trident was a welcome sight.

     Del kneed Landry in the gut, she grabbed the trident and swung it at Landry, the staff hit her in the side of the head. The effect swing was dampened by the water resistance, but Landry was knocked into the water.

     Landry was disoriented, and Del gasped for air while coughing violently.

     "Mako!" She yelled in-between gasps. "Run!"

     Mako hesitated. "But I can help!"

     "Go!" She shouted.

     Mako glanced at Landry, then to Del, and then to the water. He finally made the decision to listen to Del, he dove into the water and quickly swam away.

     Del turned her attention over to Landry, who pulled a knife out of her pocket. Landry was still wearing the cargos, she hadn't removed them to reveal the swim pants underneath yet.

     The knife was different from the one that Mako had, it was a throwing knife. But Landry didn't use it like a throwing knife. Del aimed her trident at Landry and tried to keep her back. She was preparing herself to kill Landry, she wasn't ready yet.

      "Fuckin' coward!" Landry yelled.

     Landry acted like she was about to jerk to the left, to get Del to thrash her trident and give her an in to tackle her. She threw Del to the ground, they had moved to an area of the water where it was too shallow for Landry to drown Del. She slashed at her torso with the knife, lacerating her gut. Del let out a cry of pain, and dropped the large trident. She swung her fist into Landry's neck, who didn't take the punch well.

     "No-!" Landry heaved for air.

     Landry wrestled Del's left arm to the side, pinning it to the ground with her hand.

     "No! Please!" Del begged as the water sloshed over her face.

     Landry stabbed her knife down onto Del's neck, but she jerked out of the way right in the nick of time, and her knife landed in Del's shoulder, Del screamed out in pain. Del kneed Landry in the stomach, she used this moment to scramble to grab her trident.

     Landry got up, she ran over to Del to finish her off, but Del brandished her trident just in time; and she plunged the gleaming trident right below Landry's chest. She barely even had time to make a horrified expression and let out a cry like a scared puppy before her cannon cut through the air.

     The setting sun shone in the already bloody water, Del's vision spun. She pulled the trident out of Landry's corpse and stared down at her body, she laid face up in the shallow water, her short blonde hair had come out of the mini ponytail it was in during the fight. It sat on top of the water, lightly moving as if it were blowing in a light wind.

     Del's eyelids began to feel heavy, she reached to the rocks behind her for balance.

     "Del!" Mako yelled, stumbling over to her from the water. "Holy shit, Del!" He cried.

     Del leaned against the rocks, and slid down to sit in the water, her hands gripped the laceration on her abdomen. Her eyes stung with tears that she wouldn't let fall, Mako could not see her like that.

     Mako kneeled down at her side, he breathed heavily. His eyes scanning Del for injuries, they fell on the wound caused by Landry's knife in her upper arm.

     "It- it's okay, you'll-" He stuttered. "We'll patch it up."

     Del let out a pained grin, at least he didn't see the gut wound, the black top she wore, combined with her posture, concealed the blood. But it was slowly seeping through her fingers.

     Mako grabbed his jacket, he pressed it against the gash, trying to staunch the bleeding. Del let out a stifled yelp, she tried to keep her cool, but it, combined with the abdomen slash, was horribly excruciating.

     "I'm sorry, it's gonna hurt" He apologized.

     "No, it's fine, just do what you gotta do." She winced.

     "I'm sorry for running." He said, his eyes not leaving the jacket as he tied it around her arm.

     "Don't be, Mako, seriously. I told you to run for a reason, we're both alive and that's all that matters." She reassured him.

     Mako suddenly wrapped Del in a tight hug above her shoulders, the moment of surprise washed away quickly before Del did the same. The tears that she told herself would never fall, fell in droves down her cheeks. Once the embrace ended, Del spoke up, she shut her eyes and subtly ran her hands though the water, cleaning the blood from them before burying her face in her hands.

     "I'm- I'm sorry I've been such a dick, it's just-" Her voice cracked. "You remind me of my little sister, and I- I couldn't save her, but-" She opened her eyes and removed her hands from her face to look up at Mako.

     But Mako wasn't making eye contact with her, he instead stared at the laceration on her abdomen.

Chapter Text

     "Mako, I swear it's gonna be fine." She whispered.

     "Th- that doesn't look like it's gonna be fine..." He sputtered.

     Del grabbed him comfortingly on the shoulder as he teared up.

     "It don't hurt that much!" She swore. "It's skin deep."

     The wound was not as bad as Mako thought it was, he didn't have very much experience with physical harm. Something like this he perceived as life-threatening.

     "We've gotta get the, shit, the- the-" He frantically stumbled around his words.

     Mako got up to try and help Del stand.

     "C'mon, let- let's get to the rocks" He held his hand out, stammering as he spoke.

     Del took his hand, and Mako attempted to pull her up, but she had to use the rocks behind her to get off the ground. She tried to stifle her seething as she walked. She wanted, she needed, to keep her mask of strength up around Mako. She also thought of the advice given to her by Dorian, how he said that sponsors won't gift you anything if they think that you're weak. Del and Mako made it to the rocks, where the fish that Mako was gutting laid.

     "What do we do?" Mako asked, he wanted to help, but he had no idea how to.

     "I- I don't know." Del admitted. "We have nothin', unless you can fashion bandages out of fishin' string, we're gonna have to start beggin' the sponsors for shit."

     "I forgot about the sponsors!" Mako exclaimed, hit with a sudden burst of hope. "How do we get them to send us stuff?"

     "Well, it's Dorian and Mags who have to send the gifts, the sponsors just pitch money in." Del explained.

     "How do we get them to send it then?" He implored.

     Del looked up at the sky, removing one of her hands from her wound and taking it up to her mouth to project her voice. Before removing when she remembered what happened the last time they were too loud.

     "Bandages, please?" She whisper-yelled while motioning to her laceration with the hand that she was going to use to project her voice.

     A minute or so went by before a parachute gift came floating towards the pair.

     "I didn't actually think that that was going to work." Mako walked up to grab the parachute.

     "Toss it here, I don't wanna bleed out." She held her hand up to catch it.

     Mako opened up the container attached to the parachute. He pulled out a wrap of bandages around a spool and a bottle of wound disinfectant. He didn't want to throw it to Del, out of fear it would end up in the water or hitting her in the face. He knew he wasn't the best at throwing things.

     He handed it off to Del, she unscrewed the cap of the antiseptic and doused the corner of her jacket in it. She pressed it to her wound and winced, the fabric soaked up the blood, it spread through the jacket very quickly.

     She grabbed the bandages off of the rocks next to her and unspooled them, wrapping them around her abdomen. She tied them off with the end of the bandage, she did the same to the wound on her shoulder. Before finally putting the remaining bandages on the spool into the backpack.

     Mako retrieved the fish that Del had dropped into the shallow water, when he ran back up to the rocks, the hovercraft came to take Landry's body away. They watched it happen, Del had a strange feeling of disgust and guilt with herself. She knew why she felt that way, but not to the degree that she did. Landry had attacked her, she had stabbed and slashed at her with a knife, and tried to drown her. But Del still killed her, Landry was just a desperate tribute who volunteered to be in the arena to replace her niece.

     'Her niece. Oh fuck, her niece.' Del thought.

     Del's grandmother often told her about people living after death, she wished she could believe it, especially at times like this.

     Mako looked back at Del, he saw the conflicted expression on her face.

     "Del," Mako walked up to her. "It's not your fault, you did what you had to do."

     "Yeah, I know." She clarified. "But I still killed her, I know that I had no choice. But that doesn't make it feel any better."

     "Well, I'm thankful that you did." Mako sat down next to her, he picked his knife up and began to prepare the second fish. "She woulda killed both of us."

     "Thanks, kiddo." She gave a half-hearted smile.

     Mako finished with the fish, he gave Del one of them.

     "I think that these ones are safe to eat raw." Mako assumed.

     "Yeah, I'd say so." Del examined. "We should get off the rocks, into the swamp before it gets too dark. We don't wanna be caught in the clearin'."

     Mako smiled half-heartedly. "Okey-dokey."

     The pair walked into the swamp, sitting at the base of two trees that were a few feet apart from each other.

     Del savored the fish, it was certainly some of the worst she's ever had, but it tasted like home.

     "Dorian and Mags couldn't stand to have sent us some seasoning? That would have saved my life more than the bandages." She joked.

     "I'd even kill for salt." He said, with a theatrically exaggerated longing tone.

     Del ate her final bite of fish, before wiping her hands on her pants to clean them. Mako held out his fish to her, because he still had half of it left.

     "Do you want mine?" He asked.

     "No, Mako, it's yours." She responded.

     Mako nodded and gave a little "Okay" before taking off a chunk to eat.

     Del leaned against the tree, she let out an exhale and shut her eyes as the night got darker. The Capitol anthem blared in the speakers and Landry's portrait was displayed in the arena sky. Del was ashamed, she stared at her portrait. The silence was interrupted by Mako speaking up.

     "Y'know, Del, your full name kinda sounds like dolphin." He said, his tone could only be described as 'out of it'. "Like, Delphina, dolphin, Delphina, dolphin..."

     "Oh, yeah, I think that's what they named me after." She opened her eyes, and looked down at Mako with a confused expression plastered across her face.

     He laid on the ground, staring up at the sky, he was changing his facial expressions to the extreme, like a person learning that they can move their facial muscles for the first time.

     "Mako? You doin' good?" She asked.

     "Do you ever think about the Sun, like, it's so far away, but we still feel the heat." He said thoughtlessly. "How hot is it? Is it a big ball of fire, how does fire even survive up there?"

     Del stood up to walk over and check on Mako, something wasn't ready right. But she began to feel light-headed, she caught herself on the tree with her palm. Her vision blurred and she had to hold onto the branch of the tree to keep herself from falling. Del shut her eyes, breathing deeply in order to stop the weird and unfamiliar feeling running through her head.

     Until she heard a familiar voice in the jungle.

     "Dellie?" The girl said, she sounded sad.

     The voice was a familiar one, she hadn't heard it in years.

     It was Cordelia's.

     "Corey?" She was immediately shot into a state of hyper-awareness.

     She walked towards the voice, stumbling her way there. The marsh was thick, and Del's vision was giving out on her. But she had to find Cordelia before it got too dark.

——

Mako:

     Mako didn't notice Del walk off, he still laid on the ground, reaching up to the stars with his outstretched arms. He had never noticed how pretty the stars were, there were a lot of lights in the West End, causing light pollution, meaning he rarely ever saw the stars.

     He wondered where stars were from, in school he learned about fishing, netting, swimming—but never things that actually interested him. He wanted to learn about science, like the sky, animals, fungi, and plants.

     There was a rustling sound in the bushes.

     "Del?" Mako stopped moving around, he sat up and looked over at the noise. "Is that you?"

     In that moment he noticed that he didn't know where Del was, and that was a sobering realization.

——

Delphina:

     "Cordelia!" Del shouted.

     "Dellie!" Someone else screamed.

     "Caulder?" She thought. "There's no way it's really them?" Her mind raced.

     But maybe it was? Maybe, their boat was found by the Capitol, and they were here, in the arena with her. Deep down she knew that it wasn't true, they couldn't be alive, much less in the arena with her.

     "Caulder!" She yelled back.

     "Dellie!" Cordelia screamed.

     Del ran towards the voices, she tried her best to not trip on the roots, they jutted out like sharp rocks on an unruly ocean shore. She had to make it to her siblings, she had to make sure that they're okay, she needed to save them.

     "Del!" Cordilea screamed. "Help!"

     "I'm comin'!" She shouted back.

     She tripped on a root, she rolled into a little clearing. Her head throbbed, she breathed heavily while trying to push herself off of the ground. Her knife wounds ached, she tried to look past it.

     "Del!" Caulder shrieked. "Help us!"

     Del stumbled up, but fell back to the ground, she noticed a sharp rock that had lacerated her calf. She quickly rolled her pant leg up to check her wound. Blood poured onto her hand, and she weighed the risk versus reward of continuing to run.

     The decision was a quick one, and Del limped her way back to standing. It was a shallow wound, anyways.

——

Mako:

     "Del?" He asked, suddenly far more concerned.

     Mako got up to his feet, and he noticed Del's trident leaning against the tree she sat against earlier. He walked over to it, and noticed her backpack next on the ground as well.

     "Del!" He shouted.

     He pulled his knife out, looking around the tree. He heard something brush against the ground behind him.

     Mako whipped around and had the wind knocked out of him when another tribute rushed him and pinned him against the tree. 

——

Delphina:

     She limped her way towards the voices.

     "Del!" Cordilea cried out. "Please!"

     Following the voices led her to break through the treeline and trip into cool sand. She clumsily tried to get up, before stumbling back down and giving up.

     Del sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, ignoring the sand getting into her wound. She stared up at the night sky and admitted to herself something that she knew the entire time; Cordelia and Caulder were dead.

     Her baby sister, her big brother, and her mother were all gone, and there was no chance that they were ever coming back—it was stupid and childish for her to think of that as a possibility.

     Beyond that, she was stupid and childish to think that they'd even want her help after what she did.

     She watched the waves slowly lap at the shore, and there was a moment where she felt calm. The moonlight shone on her numb facial expression, the breeze blew her short-cropped curls lightly, and the air carried the sickeningly familiar smell of the marsh.

     Del was still out of it, she guessed that there was something in the fish or the water that caused the hallucinations.

     Her moment of peace was interrupted by someone's voice screaming for her help, it wasn't Cordelia's and it wasn't Caulder's—it was Mako's. 

     In that moment she realized that she left him alone, in an arena filled exclusively with things that wanted to kill him.

——

Mako:

     Mako looked at the tribute who had him against the tree, trying to discern who it was. It was Graham Dennis, the male District 8 tribute. He was fifteen-years-old, maybe 5'6" or 5'7", with skin that was badly burnt from the arena sun, brown eyes, and buzzed brunette hair.

     The tribute had his forearm against Mako's chest, pinning him against the tree, he used his other arm to try and yank Mako's knife out of his hand. Mako pleaded with Graham to let him go, Graham ignored his pleas.

     Mako gripped the knife, he used both of his hands to keep him from taking the blade from him, which gave him a minor advantage since Graham could only use one arm.

     In the struggle, as a last ditch effort, Mako suddenly flung both of his arms to the right, slashing Graham in the upper arm. The momentum that he had gained made the knife go in deep. Mako heard his flesh rip, though the sound was mostly overwhelmed by Graham's scream of pain.

     Mako stumbled forward to the ground, turning his head to see Graham, holding his shaking hand up to his gash. Mako quickly sprinted up and grabbed Del's trident and ran into the jungle as Graham cried.

——

Delphina:

     Del could hear someone scream in pain, but she could tell that it clearly wasn't Mako—the voice was too deep. But, it meant that someone was near him, and that was reason enough for her to worry.

     "Mako!" Del limped towards the trees that they had sat near.

     Del's mind raced; what if Mako died? No, there was no cannon. Shit, but, what if he was about to? What if she misheard and that was in fact his scream and Mako was left for dead.

     She broke through the treeline, she took her surroundings in. There was a splatter of blood at the base of the tree that Mako had sat against, the trident and the backpack were gone.

     "Mako!" She screamed again, calling out for him.

     Del stopped for a moment, she buckled over and had to wipe snot from her runny nose as she tried to stifle her tears. She didn't allow herself to stay for long, but she needed to find Mako before it was too late.

     She looked around her, stumbling around blindly in the dark jungle. Until she slammed into someone, knocking them both to the ground. Del heaved for air after being winded, and shook with adrenaline. The person yelled and pulled themselves away.

     "No! No, no, no-!" They screamed. "Please!"

     "Mako! It's me!" She struggled to speak.

      She heard him breathing heavily, but he stopped moving away. Del laid on the ground for a moment, before stumbling her way over to Mako.

     Del looked him up and down. "Are you okay? You're covered in blood." She asked, concerned.

     Del moved over to give him a hug, thankful that he was still alive. But, Mako harshly shoved her away.

     "You left me behind!" He sobbed.

     Del realized, not only from his perspective, but also hers, she did leave him behind. She left him alone without even thinking, just at the 'possibility' that Cordelia and Caulder were there in the arena with them.

     "I-" She paused. "I did."

     Mako was surprised by her honesty, he shook with tears and asked, "Why?" There was vitriol behind his tone.

     Del wiped the tears from her eyes, and she began to stutter out a response.

     "I was hearin' shit. But that don't excuse it."

     She could tell that Mako was still seething at her, and she didn't want him to forgive her. She was a sick person, who people were too quick to forgive.

     "What were you hearing?" Mako glared at her.

     "That don't matter, what happened when I was gone?" Del asked.

     "The District 8 guy found me, but I held my own." He wiped the tears from his eyes.

     "Are you hurt?" She scanned him up and down, and kneeled across from him. "Was the blood yours?"

     "No, I'm- I'm all good, it was his." He looked up at her. "What were you hearing?" He reiterated.

     "What does it matter?" She needed him to shut up.

     "Because I want to know! I want to know what was so important to you that you left me for dead!" He yelled.

     She didn't know how to respond. She wanted to get it off her chest, but she just didn't know how to. It was an odd combination of the two, she never talked about it with her father, even though they were as close as ever after the accident. She talked about it a few times with Serena, but never the part that she was the most ashamed of, no one knew that part.

     "Tell me!" Mako interrogated.

     She just wanted him to shut up. "I heard my dead fuckin' sister and my dead fuckin' brother!"

     "Oh." Mako put the pieces together in his head, and Del finally made sense.

     Del got up to her feet and turned away from Mako, she didn't want him to see that she was trying to stifle her tears into the back of her hand.

     She couldn't look back at him, because it wouldn't be Mako standing there, it would be Cordelia. She saw her in his curls, his eyes, and the way he was so much smarter than her despite being so young.

     "I'm sorry." His tone wasn't cooled down fully.

     She could tell that he was trying to weigh in his head whether or not to actually forgive her.

     "And it's all my fuckin' fault too." She hadn't turned around yet.

     "I doubt it is..." He spoke softly.

     "It is!" She whipped around. "There's no other way to spin it!"

     Through tears, Del finally opened up, she had to get it off her chest.

     "I knew it was broken! I knew the boat engine couldn't make the trip" She breathed out shakily. "I knew somethin' was gonna happen!"

     Mako stepped away from Del, and she could read the fear in his eyes. She knew she shouldn't have said anything, much less on national television.

     "I was mad. I don't even remember what for, and-" The words burned in her mouth. "I didn't even think it through."

     In that moment, Mako realized that Del wasn't the person he had idealized her to be. She was flawed, she was terrible, and she was a murderer.

     But when he looked up at her, that wasn't who he saw. He saw Del, not the girl who was responsible for her family's deaths, but the girl who saved him even when it came at a personal cost.

     There was a moment before Del sat at the base of a tree, burying her face in her arms. Mako didn't hesitate to sit down next to her. She looked to her left, and the pair shared a red-eyed gaze.

     "I mean-" He choked. "You saved me a couple times.”

Chapter Text

     That day, Del woke up before Mako, the spongy ground was surprisingly comfortable. She got up to stretch, she decided she'd give Mako a little bit longer to sleep in before she woke him up. Since it was finally bright outside, she could check on the dressings for her wounds. They were dirty and worn from her little adventure through the marsh.

     The cut on her calf was far less serious than she thought it would be. Now that she was clear-headed, she wrapped the remaining bandages that she had in her pant pocket. With the amount of tributes left, Del was willing to bet that the Games would be over soon enough, and she wouldn't need to change them.

     She went to search the backpack for any food. It hit her suddenly, she didn't know where the bag was. Her trident laid on the ground next to Mako, the knife was in his hands, but the backpack was nowhere to be seen. She shook Mako's shoulder lightly to wake him up.

     "Hey, mornin' kiddo." She spoke softly. "Where's the bag?"

     "Morning," He yawned. "It's, uhm," He paused.

     Mako looked around the area, then he remembered that he only grabbed the trident, not the bag.

     "Oh shit." He said, suddenly fully awake. "It might be back at the spot we were last night, or Graham took it."

     Del looked back at the spot that they were last night. "C'mon," She held her hand out to help him up. "Let's go check."

     The pair walked back to the tree, where the bag unfortunately did not lay.

     "Shit." Del sighed.

     She looked down at the blood at the tree, it was a reddish-brown color that was slick and shined in the Sun. Only now did she truly see the magnitude of the altercation between Mako and Graham.

     "Hey, Mako." She looked over to him, he stared at the blood too. "You wanna talk about it?"

     Mako shook his head, he fiddled with his thumbs. He didn't take his eyes off of the blood, until Del put her hand on his shoulder.

     "How 'bout we just get outta here?"

     "I'd like that." He spoke absent-mindedly.

     She guided him away, when an announcement came over the intercom. 

      "Ladies and gentlemen! Today is the sixteenth day of the 53rd Hunger Games, and I hear that you all are running a bit low on supplies!"

      "Enthusiastic much?" Del joked to Mako, trying to lighten the mood, but Mako didn't react.

     "But, do I have news for you! There are eleven bags for the remaining eleven tributes placed in the Cornucopia! You will have two hours to claim yours before they are removed. May the odds be ever in your favor!"

     Del and Mako shared a look, one that asked whether they should go or not.

     "I mean, it's dangerous..." Del worried.

     "But!" Mako interjected. "There could be something that we need."

     "But, we could die." She pointed out.

     "Just think about what's there, we're hungry, we're dirty, and we're losing our minds." He rambled.

     "Everything's fine, we don't need anything from the feast." Del assured him.

     "We are the farthest from fine! We're starving and you're bleeding to death!" Mako went on.

     "The bleedin's stopped, I'm all good." Del asserted. "And remember how you were before the Games? You told me that you knew you were going to die! What's changed now?"

     "I'm so hungry." Mako admitted.

     "Look, Mako, even if we did go, I can't run that well right now. We wouldn't even be able to grab our bags."

     "I can, I can run." Mako pointed out.

     "Mako Whatever-Your-Middle-Name-Is Caddel, you are a five foot one, twelve-year-old boy who isn't even ninety pounds soaking wet. I trust you, but let's be real, kiddo." Del said.

     "Fine, fine, whatever." Mako gave up.

     Del gave him a thumbs up and a pat on the shoulder.

     "But..." Mako spoke up.

     "Mako..." Del sighed.

     "What if we just went there? Like, we don't do anything and watch. And then maybe run in and grab our bags if there's an opening."

     "C'mon kiddo, you know that's gonna end well." Del frowned.

     "Alrighty." Mako said sadly.

     About fifteen minutes later, the deaths became apparent. Two cannons sounded, with about a fourty-five second gap in-between them. Del gave Mako an 'I told you so' glance.

     "I don't want to stay in one place for too long, we should keep moving." Del pointed out.

     "Good idea." Mako sighed, still upset about them not going to the feast.

     Another cannon fired.

     "Damn, man, what is happenin'?" Del asked, the question was rhetorical.

     "Yeah-" A fourth cannon cut Mako off.

     "I am gettin' morbidly curious." Del admitted.

     "I thought you said that you didn't want to go to the Cornucopia?" Mako was confused, why would the death make Del change her mind.

     "I don't, I'm just curious." When Del finished speaking, the fifth and final cannon fired.

     "Mother of pearl!" Del exclaimed. "What is happenin'?"

     "I hope most, or all, of them were Careers." Mako crossed his fingers.

     Del also crossed her fingers. "Yeah, me too."

     They heard running in the marsh, quickly approaching them, footsteps crunching on the ground. Del looked around, looking for a quick out. She grabbed Mako by his wrist and yanked him over to a tree, they scaled it faster than they had just days before.

     She held her finger up to her mouth to tell him to stay silent, he nodded in response. Del looked down from the tree, she saw Falco and Rowan. They were both breathing heavily, she noticed that Falco's hands and top of his pants were covered in wet blood, he seemed far more distressed and frantic than she expected a Career to be. Falco leaned against the tree that the pair was hiding in.

     He spoke frantically and disorganized, Rowan put her hands on the sides of his arms.

     "She- she's fucking dead!" He hyperventilated. "He fucking killed her!"

     "Falco, it's okay." Rowan spoke with a flat tone. "You got him back, it's what she would have wanted."

     Del discerned that they were talking about Ambrose, Falco's district partner. She noticed that Lazere was also missing from the group, he must have also been one of the Feast victims.

     "She-" He let out a breathy cry, and stopped talking after that.

     Mako and Del saw Rowan stand up, she had her arms crossed and she seemed to just be waiting for Falco to stop crying. Del silently begged for Rowan to not look up, she and Mako quietly shimmyed their way to the opposite side of the tree, to hide themselves from the Career pair.

     Del held her trident close with one hand, and had her other hand gripped tightly onto a branch a bit above her head. Mako held onto Del's jacket sleeve and a different branch. After a moment, Del twisted around to check if the Career pair were still there. To no surprise, they were still there, they hadn't walked off silently.

     She accidentally shook the branch when she snuck a glance, the leaves rustled. She shared a wide-eyed 'oh shit' look with Mako.

     "Hey, Falco, you hear that?" Rowan was alerted by the noise.

     "Yeah..." Falco got up off of the ground.

     The Careers stared into the tree, silently. Del couldn't tell whether they saw them or not. She hoped that they weren't aware of their presence and planning something, she was too scared to check. She heard quiet footsteps, and the tree began to shake gently.

     Del immediately knew what was happening. She took her hand off of the tree and used both of them to wield her trident, making her location apparent. Falco was climbing the tree, Rowan waited at the base with her machete, ready to strike if they went down the tree.

     "Get behind me." Del whispered to Mako.

     Del thrust her trident down at Falco, repeatedly stabbing at him, trying to get him to go back down.

     "Go away!" Del yelled.

     She got Falco pretty good on the hand, one of the blades of the trident went through the back of his hand and through his palm. Falco fell a few feet to the ground, and held his hand in front of his face, as if he was in shock.

     "You fucking asshole!" Falco shouted.

     Rowan checked on his hand, Del used the small window that this gave her to hold Mako close to her and scramble down the tree. She ran as fast as she could, but she knew that this was not sustainable. They had to find somewhere to hide, and fast.

     Del ached, the only thing keeping her going was the adrenaline. Which certainly was not helping her case, as adrenaline causes oneself to push themselves past their limits, harming their body.

    Mako had an idea, without saying anything, he changed his course towards the beach. Del understood exactly what his plan was, they were going to jump into the water, where they would have a massive advantage compared to Rowan and Falco. Especially considering that a trident was a bit of a better weapon to have in the water than a machete or an axe.

     Blood seeped through Del's dirty bandages, she and Mako dove into the water from the rocks. It was the highest section, maybe fifteen or so feet above the water. Salt burned her wounds, but it was better than whatever the Careers had in store for her.

     Del saw Rowan and Falco from the top of the rocks as she swam away. They were speaking, but she was both too far away and her ears were going in and out of the water so she could not hear them. Rowan flipped off Del and Mako from the rocks, and Mako shot it right back.

     The Career pair moved down the rocks, but Del didn't see them walk away. It was safest for her to assume that they stayed in the blindspot that was concealed by the rocks. 

     "That was quick thinkin'." Del complemented Mako.

     "Thanks." Mako smiled.

     "What is your middle name anyway? Do you have one?" Del asked. "I kinda feel bad for not knowin' it earlier."

     Del floated on her back in the water, Mako followed suit.

     "It's Murphy, I was named after my grandpa." Mako answered. "And no worries, middle names don't really matter that much."

     "Mako Murphy Caddel, that's very annotative." Del observed.

     "Alliterative," Mako corrected her. "Annotative is a different thing."

     "Nerd." She joked.

     Mako laughed at Del's joke, it would've stung to be called a 'nerd' by anyone else, but she made it funny.

     "What's your middle name?" Mako inquired.

     "Mae, but spelled with an E instead of a Y because my parents wanted to be special."

     "That's a pretty name." Mako complemented her, and then he realized something. "Murphy and Mae! We match!"

     "So we're both annotative." Del laughed.

     "Is there an actual reason why you don't like being called 'Delphina', or is it just because it's too fancy?" Mako had been meaning to ask.

     Del had never told anyone the genuine reason why she hated being called Delphina, she just told them that it was for simplicity purposes.

     "It's what my momma called me, she never called me by a nickname. I don't really know how to explain it, but I don't want the sound of other people callin' me by my full first name to overshadow the sound of her voice."

     "Oh," Mako suddenly felt bad for all the times he referred to her as Delphina. "I just thought you thought it didn't fit you."

     "Well, that too." She chuckled.

     Del thought about the end of the Games again, she'd thought about this a million times at this point. But it got harder every time, she had to go back home to her dad and to Serena.

     As much as she cared about Mako, she cared about her father more. But the thought of allowing him to die was the worst fucking thing that she could imagine. The poor kid was only twelve, he had friends and family back home, no different than her.

     They stayed in the water as long as they could, chatting about their lives in Four, how hungry they were, and just how bright the sun was. Del learned that Mako lived with his mom, dad, younger brother, and grandmother. But, they had to get out of the water, they were getting hungry after the few hours they spent there.

     "I think that Rowan and Falco are gone, no way that they stayed there for however long." Mako observed. "The Sun's going down."

     "Yeah, we need to head to shore." Del responded.

     The pair swam to shore, and luckily for them, the Careers had left the area. Del offered to try and fish with the trident again, but Mako reminded her of the night before.

     "Well, we need food." Del asserted.

     "We could scrounge around for berries or something." He suggested.

     "But, the Capitol tends to poison stuff. We can't be sure that it's all safe to eat." Del pointed out. "Like last night."

     Mako gave a side nod in response, he knew that she was right.

     "How hungry are you?" Del asked. "And be honest, don't lie and say you're fine this time."

     "I'm really hungry," He said. "But I can hold out until morning, I'm not emaciated or anything."

     "You sure? 'Cause we try to find somethin' if you really need it." Del spoke.

     "I'm sure, it's getting dark. We should find somewhere to sleep." Mako assured her.

     "Alrighty, you wanna head into the swamp, then?" She said.

     "I think that that's our best bet." He responded.

     They traversed through the marsh, Mako helped Del walk across the hard parts. They finally sat down when they found a small clearing under a fallen tree. Mako volunteered to take the first watch, and Del was too tired to protest.

     Del slept through the Capitol anthem and the portraits of the recently deceased tributes. On the list was Ambrose Bronye from One, Lazere Sullivan from Two, Elowyn Atmos and Hayes Verde from Seven, and Graham Dennis from Eight. Mako let out a little smile when he saw Graham pop up, but then was overwhelmed with disgust at himself.

     He looked over to Del, still sleeping. He felt terrible about how the Games would end. He didn't want to die, but he didn't want her to die. He didn't want anyone else to die. He wanted it all to stop, he wanted to go home. And before he knew it, he was crying.

Chapter Text

     When Mako was supposed to be keeping guard, he ended up falling asleep. But, luckily for them no one found them in their sleep. They were jolted awake by two consecutive cannons, Del and Mako immediately checked on the other, fearful that one of the cannons could have been the other.

     "Shit! Kid, you had me scared." Del held her hand up to her chest, trying to stop breathing so heavily.

     "You had me scared too!" Mako responded.

     "Y'know, if you're tired at night, then you need to wake me up." Del reminded him.

     "Sorry, I didn't realize how tired I was." Mako apologized.

     "It's fine, I ain't mad and I ain't disappointed. You're all good." Del assured him.

     "Thanks," Mako nodded. "With those two cannons, that's..." He did the math in his head. "Four of us left."

     "Mother of pearl, holy shit..." Del didn't realize how far they were in the Games.

     "It's either the two Careers or Azami and Harper." Mako discerned. "But, we both know who it probably is."

     "Yeah..." Del sighed, and after a pause she began to speak again. "We need to come up with a plan, they're going to push us to the Cornucopia to force the final showdown soon."

     "Oh." Mako wove his hand through his, now very badly maintained, curls.

     "Okay, here, let's run through a quick plan here." Del began, Mako nodded as she spoke.

     "I've got my trident, you've got your knife. Stay behind me and let me do everythin'." She emphasized the word 'everything'. "We move in quietly, they'll probably already be at the Cornucopia waitin' for us. You got that?"

     "Got it." Mako nodded quickly.

     She ruffled his hair affectionately, and they took a few steps. Del walked, steps squelching on the wet ground. She didn't expect Mako to wrap her in a tight hug.

     "Hey, Mako?" She asked empathically.

     "I'm scared." Mako sobbed. "I don't want you to die, I don't want to die, I don't want them to die."

     "Oh kiddo..." Del knelt down to be at his eye level, putting her hands on his shoulders and not caring about the mud getting in the knees of her pants.

     She enveloped Mako in a tight hug, she couldn't stand to see him like this. It has been so long since she had to comfort Cordelia, or was comforted by Caulder. She pulled away from him, and looked him dead in the eyes, which she struggled to do usually.

     "I can't promise that it's gonna be fine, whatever I say'll just make it worse." Her voice broke. "I wish it was different, but it ain't. I would love to go back to Four with you and-" She was fully crying at this point. "And- swim in the ocean and the marsh 'til the Sun goes down. One of us is goin' home, I know of that. And it's goin'a suck, and it's goin'a be the worst fuckin' thing ever. But whatever happens—to me or to you—I just want you to know that you did your best, and that's all that matters."

     Mako cried and nodded as she spoke, absorbing all of what she said like a sponge.

     "It's gonna be me." He didn't make an attempt to sugarcoat it. "We both know it."

     Del didn't make an attempt to correct him or change his mind, she also knew what the outcome was likely going to be. She gave him one last tight hug before standing back up.

     They walked silently towards the Cornucopia, Mako gripped his knife tightly as it came into view. Del reminded Mako to stay behind her, they saw Falco, standing alone on the outside of the Cornucopia.

     Del and Mako snuck up behind Falco, with one hand, he steadied himself against the Cornucopia. Del held her trident in a position prepared to strike, but before she could, a cannon cut through the air and Falco fell to the ground. There was a stab wound in his gut, and a fistfull of a torn-out chunk of black hair.

     Something was wrong.

     "Shit, Mako, we need to-" Del spoke, before being cut off by the machete being swung at her neck.

     Mako let out a sudden yell of terror. Del blocked the machete with her weapon, and quickly moved the trident in an attempt to keep the blade away from herself and slash at the tribute's legs. The metal of the blade and the metal of the trident shaft scraped together in an earsplitting cacophony. 

     Del recognized the tribute as Rowan Baxter, her straight black bob-cut hair that had been so perfect and tame before, was now ratty, with a decent-sized chunk torn out.

     Her gleaming dark eyes no longer held the cocky, childishly arrogant gaze that they did before the games. They were no longer the eyes of a seventeen-year-old child who volunteered for the Hunger Games in order to bring honor to her family and District. They were the eyes of a girl who thought she was a monster for being a pawn in the Games, who just wanted to go home.

     Rowan whipped the machete back at Del, hitting her on the top of her shoulder, stopping at the bone. Del let out a cry of pain, which she did again when Rowan ripped the machete out of her shoulder Mako grabbed Rowan's arm to stop her, he took out his knife and plunged it into the back of her hand.

     "Little shit!" Rowan yelled.

     In her blind, uncoordinated rage, she sharply whipped her arm to the right and hit him in the side of the head with the blunt bottom of the machete handle. He limply crumpled to the ground.

     It took Del a moment to realize what had happened. But once she did, she felt her throat burn and her stomach flip. There was that familiar feeling of guilt, grief, and self-hatred that she felt three years prior ricocheting off of the sides of her brain.

     Rowan seemed terrified of her actions, but Del didn't care. She had someone to blame now, and she was going to utilize that opportunity.

Chapter Text

     Rowan's guilt flashed through her face, but she quickly turned her attention over to Del. Who clumsily got back up on her feet, she gripped her trident tightly in her hands. Del glared at Rowan with an expression of pure hatred, her eyes full of tears. Del's shoulder bled profusely, blood flowed down to her arm to her elbow. She ignored the searing pain and charged Rowan, slashing her trident at her.

     The light of the Sun hit the trident in a tantalizing sheen, she thrust it at Rowan, one of the prongs impaled her in the upper arm, pinning her to the Cornucopia. Rowan yelped as the wound was inflicted.

     "Fucking bitch!" Rowan cried out.

     She used her other arm to jab the machete at Del's chest, but the distance that her trident provided gave Del an advantage. 

     Del yanked the trident out of Rowan's arm, she made an attempt to plunge it into the girl's neck, but she ducked away just in time, the trident got stuck in the metal of the Cornucopia. She tried to yank it out, but Rowan stabbed the machete deep into her thigh, and she fell to the ground.

     "No!" Del yelled.

     Rowan thrashed the machete wildly as Del tried to drag herself away from her, hot sand got into her open wound. Del reached around for something to defend herself with, there was a metal staff that was about the length of her arm. It was one of the weapons that Falco had on him, he had dropped it during his and Rowan's fight.

     Just as Rowan began to swing the machete down onto her head, Del held the staff up with both of her hands, the metal of the machete blade clashed loudly with the metal of the staff.

     Rowan took one of her hands off of the machete, she grabbed the staff and tried to pull it out of Del's hands. But Del held onto it with all of her might. The tribute threw the machete down on the sand; she instead put both of her hands onto the staff and tried to push it down onto her throat.

     "Please!" Del croaked out.

     But Rowan ignored her pleas, tears fell from her face and onto Del's. In an attempt to escape, Del brought her knee up and hit Rowan in the gut. But Rowan didn't falter, Del was strong, but Rowan put her entire body weight onto the staff.

     Just as Del began to give in, Rowan let out a yelp of pain, and rolled into the sand. She grasped frantically at her back, a pained expression across her face.

     Mako stood above Del, his chest heaving.

     "Mako!" Del limped up to tightly hug him. "I thought you were dead!"

     She realized that a cannon never blew, which would have signaled his death.

     "Your- your leg! Are you-" He began.

     The moment didn't last long, the stab wound in Rowan's back wound only weakened her. The knife had a short blade, and with a small cry of pain, she yanked it out from her middle back and discarded it to the sand. She stumbled to her feet, about a meter away from the pair. She picked her machete up off of the ground, her hands tightened on the handle, and her knuckles whitened.

     "Get behind me." She whispered to Mako.

     Mako wanted to protest, but knew that it wouldn't change Del's mind. She brandished the metal staff, swinging it with all of her might towards Rowan's head. She ducked beneath the attack, and kicked Del in the thigh—on her stab wound. Del buckled, she fell to the ground and clutched her gash.

     Rowan harshly shoved Mako off to the side, she picked Del up off the ground and held the blade against her neck.

     "Let her go!" He yelled pathetically.

     "I can't," Rowan sobbed. "I just wanna go back home, I- I miss my family."

     Mako couldn't let himself feel bad for Rowan, no matter how many tears fell down her face, no matter who was waiting there at home for her.

     "I don't wanna hurt anyone else." She cried.

     Del's eyes flashed wildly around, looking for something, anything that she could to get her out of here. She jerked around as much as she could in Rowan's grasp without hurting herself, which wasn't much because of the blade's closeness to her throat.

     "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She weeped.

     Del realized what Rowan was about to do, so she purposely went limp in her arms. Rowan shoved her to the ground, she tried to pin her down and slash at her with the blade.

     "Let her go!" Mako shouted, he didn't know what to do, how could he help Del.

     Del kneed her in the gut, giving her time to scramble to her feet. Del limped her way over to Mako.

     "Kid! You- you need to-" She said in between gasps.

     Mako had an expression of fear and anxiety across his face. He nodded despite the fact that Del had not yet told him what to do.

     Rowan directed her blade towards Mako this time, knowing he was an easier target for her. She violently jabbed the machete at his chest.

     Del acted without thought, and she shoved Mako harshly to the ground. He hit the sand hard, and tried to brush the sand out of his eyes and mouth.

     The moment had happened so fast that she didn't even realize that she had taken the machete in the dead center of her torso. Del inhaled sharply as the wound was inflicted, she felt the horrendous pain of the blade puncturing her skin, the metal grinding against her flesh.

     She stood there for a moment, stabilizing herself by clinging into Rowan's shoulders. The girls shared a look, Del tried to read the emotions on her killer's face, but her blurring vision didn't help her out.

     But Rowan's face was decorated with an expression of anger, badly masking her terror.

     "I'm sorry." Rowan whispered.

     She ripped the machete out of Del's torso. The pain spilled through her body, it felt as if someone tore her guts from her abdomen.

     It was at that moment that Del realized that she wasn't going to make it out of the arena. She would never hug her father, do arts and crafts with Serena, or lie wrapped in her favorite quilt on her bed ever again.

     But the kid had to go home, there was no other way.

     She used the last ounce of her strength to wrestle the machete from Rowan's grasp. She was able to fling it in the sand near Mako, who hadn't yet realized what happened.

     After being thrown to the ground unexpectedly by Del, Mako was a bit confused. Had she turned on him?

     Mako quickly brushed the sand off of his face, but then he heard Del yelp. He whipped around, and saw Del violently struggling to rip the machete out of Rowan's grip. But he also saw blood dripping onto her pants from a deep wound through her abdomen.

     Before he could react, Rowan lost control of the machete, it went flying past him and landed a few feet away from him in the sand. Rowan shoved Del to the ground, and ran up to Mako. Mako tried to get up, but ended up having to drag himself away.

      Rowan pinned him to the ground, weaponless, and Mako had no idea what to do. She grabbed him by the shoulders and bashed him into the sand a few times in order to get him to stop thrashing.

     Mako frantically looked around, in the corner of his eye, he saw the machete. Rowan put her hands around his neck to begin strangling him. As a last ditch effort, Mako reached for the machete. His fingers wrapped around the handle, he brought it towards Rowan's neck.

     Next thing that he knew, a spurt of blood sprayed down at him and Rowan's grip on his throat weakened. He gasped for air, after a few seconds of not being able to breathe, this was very welcome. Rowan made choking noises, he took the machete out of her neck and shoved her off to the side.

     He propped himself up on his elbows, Rowan looked up at him, choking and sputtering before her cannon finally sounded. He wiped as much of the blood off of his face that he could with one swipe. He came to his senses when he saw Del on the ground.

     The sand burned hot against Del's skin, she laid the side of her face down on the ground, she got sand in her mouth as she gasped for air. Her hands hovered above her wound, she shook profusely and couldn't touch it without letting out a little cry.

     "Del! Holy sh- shit! Fuck! Del!" Mako yelled as he desperately ran up to her and threw himself to the ground.

     He knelt down next to her on her left side on his knees. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and carved streaks down his blood-splattered skin. He took off his jacket and pressed it to her wound, scarlet blood seeped through the brown fabric disturbingly quickly.

     "No!" Del shrieked. "Wait!"

     Once Mako stopped frantically trying to tend to her wound, she wrapped her rough, bloody hand around his wrist.

     "Just give it a second." She croaked through clenched teeth and pained gasps.

     "Please, I- I don't know what to do." He stumbled through his words, he wanted to save her, to magically fix her wound.

     "You can't-" She struggled to breathe. "There's nothin' you can do, it's not your fault."

     Del didn't want Mako to experience even an ounce of the guilt she had to live with.

     "I don't want you to die!" He sobbed.

     "It's okay!" She grabbed his face comfortingly and Mako leaned into her hand. "You're gon' be okay! You're gon' be fine! It's not your fault!

     Mako didn't verbally respond, he sobbed violently as Del tried to assure him.

     Del tried to speak, she had to pass on a message, no matter how painful it was. And no matter how hard it was to not succumb to death.

     "Jus-" She gasped for air. "Just make sh- sure my dad's okay, don't- don't let him die."

     "No! You- just- you can make sure yourself!" Mako sobbed, his tears fell from his cheeks onto her face.

     Del wanted to sob, she wanted to call out for her father, even though it would be futile. But she had to stay coherent for Mako, because he didn't have to know how scared she was.

     Mako looked away from her, he desperately looked around the arena, as if someone would magically appear and save Del. But they were alone, he begged for help—knowing no one would come. Even in his most hopeful delusions, the Capitol wasn't at all near humane enough for that.

     "An- and tell Serena," She choked the words out, her vision spun, she tried to focus it on Mako. "Tell her-"

     "T- tell her what?" He sputtered, now staring into her fading eyes.

     Del made little choking sounds as blood filled her throat. Mako could read a terrified expression behind her hazel eyes, one that made his blood run cold.

     The hand that she used to hold his face fell limply onto her chest, her finger got caught in the twine of her seashell necklace. Her head fell to its side, and the final sight that unfurled in front of her eyes was the setting sun.

     There was a moment of euphoria before it all stopped, she died making up for her past errors, and that was something she could have never hoped for.

     Mako waited for her chest to rise again, but she remained perfectly still with the exception of her hair blowing lightly in the breeze.

     "Del?" Mako quivered.

     He swore he could feel his heart stop when a loud cannon shot rang out through the air like a funeral bell. He grabbed Del's head, turning it to face him, he stared into her eyes, as if he was looking for confirmation that it was really true. They looked like glass eyes that belonged to a mannequin, they seemed to stare straight through him.

     Heavy sobs racked his body, he couldn't stop himself from inhaling sharply and letting out little cries. Mako futilely tried to rouse Del awake by shaking her shoulders.

     He was so racked with grief, that when the final announcement came over the intercom, it didn't make him happy, it just made him mad. He hadn't even thought about the fact that he had 'won' the Games, he could only think of the girl who had once been his friend, practically his big sister, but was now dead because of him.

     "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! The victor of the 53rd Hunger Games, Mako Caddel!"

     He stayed with Del, sitting in the sand and trying to come up with a way in which Del could wake up. Mako was so small in comparison to the vast arena, he felt like a wild animal who lost their only friend.

     He assumed the cameras were cut already, as they usually cut them if they thought that the tribute would be hard to extract from the arena.

     The Hovercraft flew in from above, it didn't land, but instead dropped its ladder down. Mako didn't want to leave Del, but he wanted to leave the arena. He wanted to go back home, he wanted his mom, his dad, his little brother, his grandma, and he didn't want to stay here.

     He gave Del's corpse one last tight hug, and took off her necklace, she would want Serena to have it. He got up and gave one last glance at Del's corpse, before he finally began to scale the ladder, sobs still racking his body.

Chapter Text

Hi again, it's Ann! This is another skippable infodump containing information about the Games.
Included are:
— Arena worldbuilding
— Tribute lists containing their names, ages, Districts, and allies
— Tribute death order and cause

———
General Setting:
The arena was a marsh inspired by the geography of the Carolinas. I actually spend a lot of writing time outside, you would be surprised about the amount of this story was written while I was observing the sounds, smells, and sights of my own marshy creek.
It's incredibly humid, with sticky air and the stench of swamp. There's a constant cacophony of birds, bugs, and a light breeze. The water in the swampy areas of the arena is stagnant, only interrupted by wildlife and the bubbling from decomposing plants and animals releasing CO_2 beneath.

———
Tribute List:
Key 1:
🧡 - Career
💙/💛/🩵/🩷 - Different ally groups
🖤 - No Allies

Key 2:
District #:
Male tribute name
— Age
— Heart
— Death day
Female tribute name
— Age
— Heart
— Death day

District 1:
Falco Dray
— 17
— 🧡
— Died day 21
Ambrose Bronye
— 16
— 🧡
— Died day 15

District 2:
Lazere Sullivan
— 18
— 🧡
— Died day 16
Rowan Baxter
— 17
— 🧡
— Died day 21

District 3:
Chip Drummond
— 15
— 💚
— Died in the Bloodbath
Pixelle Ewhig
— 17
— 💚
— Died in the Bloodbath

District 4:
Mako Caddel
— 12
— 🩵
— Survived
Delphina Hollis
— 18
— 🩵
— Died day 21

District 5:
Keeran Smith
— 16
— 🤎
— Died in the Bloodbath
Twila Hensley
— 15
— 🤎
— Died day 1, post Bloodbath

District 6:
Harper Alfonso
— 17
— 💛
— Died day 20
Azami Gamoore
— 15
— 💛
— Died day 20

District 7:
Hayes Verde
— 16
— 🖤
—Died day 16
Elowyn Atmos
— 16
— 🧡
— Died day 16

District 8:
Graham Dennis
— 15
— 🖤
— Died day 15
Maude Simmons
— 18
— 🖤
— Died in the Bloodbath

District 9:
Vaughn Dempsey
— 14
— 🩷
— Died in the Bloodbath
Magnolia Gillespie
— 16
— 🩷
— Died in the Bloodbath

— Fun fact, Magnolia "Maggie" Gillespie is my OC from a completely different fandom, and I put her name in as an Easter egg!

District 10:
Everest Fischer
— 14
— Died day 5
— 💙
Isadore Blankley
— 16
— 🖤
— Died in the Bloodbath

District 11:
Flint Sloan
— 15
— 🖤
— Died in the Bloodbath
Landry Franklin
— 18
— 🧡
— Died day 13

District 12:
Finch Umbra
— 14
— 💙
— Died day 5
Liverna Dreck
— 16
— 💙
— Died in the Bloodbath

———
Tribute Death Order:

Key:
Day (Dead:Survivors)
Number: Tribute Name (Sex & District)
— Killer or Cause of Death

Bloodbath (9:15)
1st: Liverna Dreck (F12)
— Dropped her district token and exploded
2nd: Magnolia Gillespie (F9)
— Lazere Sullivan (M2)
3rd: Flint Sloan (M11)
— Rowan Baxter (F2)
4th: Keeran Smith (M5)
— Graham Dennis (M8)
5th: Vaughn Dempsey (M9)
— Rowan Baxter (F2)
6th: Isadore Blankley (F10)
— Harper Alfonso (M6)
7th: Maude Simmons (F8)
— Everest Fisher (M10)
8th: Pixelle Ewhig (F3)
— Ambrose Bronye (F1)
9th: Chip Drummond (M3)
— Ambrose Bronye (F1)

Rest of Day 1 (1:14)
10th: Twila Hensley (F5)
— Accidentally drowned

Days 2-4 (0:14)

Day 5 (2:12)
11th: Everest Fischer (M10)
— Careers
12th: Finch Umbra (M12)
— Careers

Days 6-12 (0:12)

Day 13 (1:11)
13th: Landry Franklin (F11)
— Delphina Hollis (F4)

Days 14-15 (0:11)

Day 16/The Feast (5:6)
14th: Ambrose Bronye (F1)
— Graham Dennis (M8)
15th: Graham Dennis (M8)
— Falco Dray (M1)
16th: Hayes Verde (M7)
— Lazere Sullivan (M2)
17th: Lazere Sullivan (M2)
— Elowyn Atmos (F7)
18th: Elowyn Atmos (F7)
— Falco Dray (M1)

Days 17-19 (0:6)

Day 20 (2:4)
19th: Azami Gamoore (F6)
— Crocodile
20th: Harper Alfonso (M6)
— Crocodile

Day 21 (3:1)
21st: Falco Dray (M1)
— Rowan Baxter (F2)
22nd: Rowan Baxter (F2)
— Mako Caddel (M4)
23rd: Delphina Hollis (F4)
— Rowan Baxter (F2)

Chapter Text

     The Capitol doctors patched him up, fed him, and gave him new clothes to change into. The entire time his facial expression remained unchanging, his mind just raced with Del's empty expression and bloody teeth. They way that the blood seeped through the jacket so quickly, and the way that she spoke, so raspy and airy.

     He sat alone in the little room, only accompanied by a hospital bed and a television, no remote though, the screen just played the Capitol news, which was caked with his face and headlines that were different variations of: "MAKO CADDEL: VICTOR OF THE 53RD GAMES!" or "DELPHINA HOLLIS, AUDIENCE FAVOURITE: DEAD!". He hated the news, of course it would all be about him, the boy who let his District partner die.

     There was a small window that showed the land below on the way back to the Capitol, he never noticed how uniform it was, it looked like a grid. He heard people speaking outside the door, probably doctors and nurses. Doctors and nurses who treated him as if they were veterinarians, treating a dog used in dog fighting. 

     Of course they did—he was District, they could never have the care to treat him the same way they'd treat a Capitol child.

     The news headlines had to keep reminding him of it, they played the final moments of Del's life. Each different one had new angles and a new—equally as ridiculously dressed—newscaster. He couldn't believe it, Del couldn't be dead. Just a few hours ago, the pair were walking through the marsh, chatting. But now, she was probably being packaged up in a coffin to be shipped back home to District 4.

     Mako buried his face in his hands, he wanted to disappear into nothingness. His mind raced with the possible endings to the Games in which Del survived, and he perished in her place. He thought that he didn't deserve the victory, Del was the only person between the pair to fight, to fish, or to kill.

     When he got home, he would have to look his family in the eye.

     Someone knocked on the door.

     "Come in." Mako said.

     The door opened to reveal Saphia, his stylist. She greeted him in an inappropriately cheery way.

     "Congratulations Mako! You did so well!"

     Mako gave her a half-hearted smile and nod in response. He just wanted her to shut up, he wasn't happy that he won, since it was at the cost of his friend's life, he just wanted to go home.

     "I just know that the Capitol will love you at your post-Games interview! I have just the outfit, y'know, I had a feeling about you!" She went on and on.

     He wanted to tell her to stop, to just let him mourn, but she wouldn't leave. She continuously kept speaking cheerfully and ignoring Del's death. But, he almost preferred that she didn't mention her, she wouldn't have done her justice.

     Someone finally herded Saphia out, it was Dorian. He and Mags stepped into the room, closing the door behind them.

     "Hey, kid." Dorian said solemnly.

     "Hey." Mako sat criss-cross applesauce on the bed with his head down as he picked at the bloody grime in his fingernails, he couldn't look either of them in the eye, the shame of letting Del die was too strong.

     "You did great out there." Dorian continued.

     Mako sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He began to tear up, Mags noticed this, she crossed over to him, holding one of his hands with both of her hands. She looked at him, her face full of emphatic grief, Mako wanted to fold, and to collapse in on himself.

     Mags made him think of his grandmother, even though they shared no similarities except for the fact that they were both old. But, even still it was comforting to have her here with him, hugging him so tightly.

     Mako couldn't help but break down into tears, he had held in the horrid feeling of disgust with himself and grief for Del. He tightly clung to Mags, who soothingly smoothed the hair on the back of his head down.

     Dorian stood by the door, the one tribute that he mentored who had made it out was triumphant about her victory, and five years older than Mako.

     He ran a hand through his hair, brushing it out of his face. He knew that he had to do something, Mags would be pissed with him if he just let the kid cry. He walked over to Mags and Mako, and awkwardly patted him on his shoulder.

     Mako appreciated the gesture, no matter how insignificant it may have seemed. Mags forcefully, but tenderly, pulled Dorian into the hug. Once the moment ended, a Capitol attendant entered to let Mako know that it was almost time for the interview.

     Mags excused herself for a moment to make sure that the attendants couldn't mess with Mako for a little while.

     "Y'know, you did great." Dorian's tone was less aggravating than Saphia's.

     Mako couldn't muster words, so he just nodded in response.

     "I'm bein' serious, kiddo, you deserve to know." Dorian sat on the floor, while Mako sat on the other side of the room, backed into a corner.

     Mako tried to disappear, to make himself so small that no one could see him anymore. He sniffled and wiped his tears on the knees of his pants.

     "Don't call me that." His heart stung at the mention of 'kiddo'.

     "I lost my District partner too, I get it." Dorian tried to make any sort of connection he could.

     Mako felt his throat tighten, how could Dorian's loss even compare to Del? Of course Dorian lost his District partner, that's how the Games work. Mako hid his anger well, but Dorian could read him like a book.

     "She was fourteen, I was seventeen. Her name was Cove, Cove-" Dorian's words hitched. "Cove Gillary."

     Mako looked up at Dorian, with empathy behind his eyes. "Your little sister?"

     "My niece." He clarified.

     "Oh." Mako realized his mistake.

     "I'm not tellin' you this so that you feel bad for me, I'm lettin' you know so that you know it gets better." Dorian explained. "I have a family of my own now, and I love them."

     Mako buried his face in his shirt, he didn't want to be seen or perceived by anyone. He didn't believe Dorian when he said that it would get better, because how could it?

     "It doesn't get easier, but you learn to live with it." Dorian tried to reword his explanation. "I still think about Cove everyday, she shows up in all of my nightmares, and I still can't go to a butchershop because seein' all the blood reminds me of her. I was in your shoes eighteen years ago, and I remember feelin' the same way."

     Maybe there was hope for him. Mako looked up at Dorian, he was relatively well put-together. If he could bounce back like that, could Mako?

     There was a knock at the door again, and Mako knew what it meant.

     "Remember, you don't have to tell him anythin' you don't want to." Dorian looked down at Mako.

     He nodded before leaving the room, he felt cold in the sterile environment. Mako was led to be styled, and then to the stage. He wore a light green suit with a white undershirt and golden buttons.

     "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! The victor of the 53rd annual Hunger Games, Mako Caddel!" Ceaser Flickerman announced.

     Mako walked to his seat, the crowd cheering and the lights beating down on him. Once he sat down, Ceaser began to speak again.

     "Now, boy, before we start I must issue..."

     Mako silently begged that he wouldn't end that sentence with 'my condolences.' or something like that. He knew that Del would be brought up, but he hoped it wouldn't be just yet.

     "...A congratulations for being such a young victor! It's been so long since we've had one under the age of fifteen!" He continued.

     Mako let out a shaky sigh of relief that Ceaser didn't pick up on.

     "Thank you," He gave a little smile.

     "Oh, don't be so humble! Tell us more! We want to know about just how you felt when that announcement came over the speakers." Ceaser exclaimed.

     Mako didn't know whether he should lie, and say he was overjoyed, or tell the genuine truth, that he felt disgusted with himself.

     "I felt... conflicted," He admitted. "Out of the two of us, I did almost none of the work to get that far."

     He decided that it would just rip the bandage off now, and bring Del up. At least it would be on his own terms, so Ceaser wouldn't spring it on him unexpectedly.

     "Ah yes, Delphina, tell me, how-" Caesar was cut off.

     "Del, she doesn't like Delphina." Mako interjected.

     "Okay then..." Ceaser was perplexed by the fact that he used the present tense, but he figured it'd be better to just not mention it.

     "Tell me how you felt, when she shoved you away and took that strike for you." Ceaser interrogated.

     "I was scared, I didn't realize that she shoved me away to protect me." Mako deflected from the real answer a bit. He was still telling the truth, but just beating around the bush a little.

     "Why did you think that she pushed you away," He paused for a second. "For that little moment?"

     "Well, the first thought was that she betrayed me." He said. "But that went away pretty much immediately."

     "But how did you feel when you learned that she had been stabbed?" Ceaser probed.

     Mako froze, he questioned whether he should dodge the question or just give in and tell the truth, or a variation of the truth.

     "I was," He took a moment. "Scared."

     The crowd awed sympathetically, Caesar gave a sad face to the crowd and the cameras.

     "Now that is tragic, my boy." He sighed, with a mask of that faux Capitol sympathy.

     Mako fidgeted with Del's necklace, which he now wore around his neck.

     "But tell me who are you the most excited to see back home?" Ceaser changed the subject, realizing that questioning him more about Del wouldn't get him anywhere.

     "Oh," Mako smiled. "My family, definitely."

     "Your family!" Ceaser cheered. "Tell me more about them."

     "I have a mom and a dad, and I also have a little brother and a gramma I live with." Mako explained.

     "I've got one final question for you, is that alright?" Ceaser asked.

     "Of course." Mako said.

     "When you made that final kill, Rowan, the District 2 girl, how did you feel?"

     "I was more shocked than anything. I still haven't fully realized what I've done." Mako admitted.

     "Well that moment certainly was shocking, I don't think anyone expected it." Ceaser said. "Did any of you?" He turned and asked the audience.

     The audience cheered, Mako was confused about what they were trying to say. Were they surprised or not? Once the cheer died down, he spoke for one final time.

     "Well, ladies and gentlemen, the victor of the 53rd annual Hunger Games, Mako Caddel!" Ceaser exclaimed.

     The audience began to cheer again, he curtsied before walking off. He left to the wings, he practically went into autopilot mode as he waited to go onto the train back home. He changed out of his Capitol clothes and into normal ones, which were very similar to what he had worn for the Reaping just weeks ago.

     He waited for the train, and Dorian stood next to him, also waiting for the train.

     "Y'know that you did do really well, I wasn't just tryin'a make you feel better." He clarified.

     Mako took a second to respond, he looked up at Dorian.

     "Thank you," He paused. "A lot."

     "No problem." He patted Mako on the shoulder, and he gave a little half-smile that seemed to be the most that he could muster.

     The train slowed to a stop, and the gleaming door opened.

     "Ladies first." Mako grinned.

     Dorian laughed as he walked into the train, it seemed like a genuine laugh, which cheered Mako up a bit.

      Mako followed close behind him, and the door slid shut as the train began to move.

Chapter Text

     The train zoomed to the station, for the first time since Del died, he was ecstatic. He was so overjoyed at the thought of being able to see his mother, father, brother, and grandmother. But, the idea of Del's loved ones being at the station scared him. What if they were mad at him? What if they hated him? After all, it was all his fault that Del died.

     The train slowed to a stop, Mako already stood at the door, he was waiting there since he got the "fifteen minutes until arrival" announcement. His heart was practically beating out of his chest, he nervously toyed with the ends of his sleeves in anticipation. He smiled an uncontrollably wide toothy smile, and went up and down from tip toes happily.

     The door began to open, he was greeted by the sight of a large crowd, cheering wildly. He didn't need to look very hard to find his family, they were at the very front. He immediately scrambled over to them, his mother and father hugged him so tightly that he felt like he was about to pop.

     Once the hug ended, his mother got onto her knees to be at eye level with him. She eyed him up and down, checking him for injuries, even though the Capitol made sure he was completely spotless. Once she was done, she brushed his hair out of his face and grabbed his face with her hands.

     "I missed you so much." She smiled while crying.

     "I missed you too." Mako reciprocated her tears.

     Mako's brother didn't bother with words, instead he gave him a hug so tight that it almost rivaled the one his parents gave him.

     "I didn't think you would make it out." His brother laughed, but in a way that was more grateful than mean.

     "Marley!" Their mother exclaimed, she shot him a look. "That is not appropriate!"

     "But you always tell me not to lie!" Marley retorted.

     "That doesn't mean you can just be a little brat!" She continued.

      "I haven't been back for a full minute!" Mako spoke.

     "Sorry, sorry." His mother apologized. "We're just so glad you're here with us!" She smiled.

     "I'm glad to be back." Mako smiled and his mother gave him another big hug.

     Him and his family boarded a train back home, he was confused when the train took a turn. And even more confused when the rest of his family didn't acknowledge the turn. 

     "Wait, I thought we were headed back home." He tapped his mother's arm.

     "You won the Games, our home is in Victor's Village." She smiled.

     Mako was surprised, he forgot about this part, he didn't know how to feel about this. He had lived in his old home since he was born, moving seemed out of the picture. But then again, it would be nice to live in a home in a quieter area of town. His biggest complaint about the West End was that it was crawling with people and Peacekeepers.

     The train arrived at the stop, Victor's Village was gated, but the gate was wide open. He was able to identify a few of the houses to the people, but there were a lot of houses that were empty. District 4 had a lot of victors, especially compared to other Districts. But, the richer Districts often took home the prize.

     His mother jingled the keys in her hands.

     "We've already moved the stuff all in, they gave us the keys almost the moment they announced you as the winner." She explained. "Grandma's in the living room, she'll want to see you."

     Mako walked through the doorway and made his way to the living room. His grandma was sitting on the couch and watching some stupid soap opera.

     "Hi Gramma!" Mako exclaimed.

     His grandmother turned around, she had an ecstatic expression on her face.

     "Mako! Come here, give Gramma a hug!" She cheered.

      Mako ran over to the couch, she hugged him tightly, as if she was afraid that he would be taken from her again.

     "I just missed you so much!" She spoke as she hugged Mako.

     Mako wondered how a seventy-something year old woman who could barely even manage to walk most days could hug him so tightly.

     "I missed you too!" Mako smiled. " But Gramma, you're squeezing me really tight."

     She apologized and let go of him, she offered to bake him something to welcome him back. But Mako turned it down, he feared that she would burn herself on the oven like she did last time she tried to use the oven.

     Mako left the living room to walk around his new house, which seemed so big compared to his last one. He had previously lived in a nice house, at least to District 4 standards, but it was nothing like this. The walls were all shades of light blue, green, and white. The wooden floors had no splintering sections and were a sandy birch color, the kitchen tiles were white, but the bathroom tiles were seafoam green.

     The house lacked character, it was beautiful, but it wasn't a home. His old house was a home, with its splintering wood, colorful walls covered in doodles he and Marley drew the first time that they had access to markers. He missed his room, the one he shared with Marley.

     Now he had a room all to himself, which was really nice in theory. But in practice, it meant that he never could have those late night and early morning conversations, or be able to move down to the bottom bunk with Marley when the Peacekeepers were being too loud.

     The stuff from his old room was in a few boxes on the ground. He opened them and started placing items in drawers, on surfaces, on the walls, and on his bed. He got emotional every time he grabbed something out of the boxes that reminded him of the time before the Games. Which was practically everything.

     He stopped when it became nighttime, he wanted everything to be aligned perfectly. But, it got too dark for him to see, and mom was serious about lights off time. He changed into his jammies and curled up under his brand-new comfy blankets.

     This was his first night of sleep out of the Games, but it didn't feel like it. He still had one foot in the arena, and he feared going to sleep, especially without the lights on. He decided that he didn't care about lights out time, and that he'd just flip the lights on, his mom was probably asleep by now already.

     A few minutes after turning the lights back on and lying awake on his bed, he heard a knock at the door.

     "Shoot." He whispered.

     The person who knocked on the door opened it. He expected to see his mom, about to grill him for having the lights on past eight o'clock. But it wasn't, it was Marley.

     "Hey, Mako." His little brother had a sympathetic expression on his face. "I can't sleep."

     "I know, I'm sorry, I'll hit the lights." Mako apologized.

     "That's not it." He frowned. 

     Mako sat up on his bed, and wrapped the blanket around himself. He stayed silent, he didn't know how to respond. Marley walked over to his bed and shut the door behind him, he sat down next to Mako, and Mako moved the blankets around so that Marley could get in next to him.

     "Y'know, we all watched the Games." Marley explained.

     "Oh." Mako wished that they hadn't, he saw it all as embarrassing.

     "I didn't like it." Marley spoke bluntly.

     "I didn't like it either." With the same tone.

     Mako was four years older than his brother, and he grew into the role as his protector. Neither of their parents spent very much time at home, they were always so swamped at their jobs. This meant that their grandmother was often their only supervision.

     But she couldn't be ripped from her spot on the couch in any circumstance other than a house fire.

     Marley's first instinct whenever he was scared was always to snuggle next to his brother, not his parents.

     "We all thought that the girl was gonna win." Marley pulled the blanket tighter towards himself, not realizing he was taking it away from Mako.

     "So did I." Mako ignored the blanket.

     "But I'm glad it's you."

     Mako knew that he was glad to be home, and that his family was overjoyed to have him back. But there was a voice screaming at him from the back of his head that he can't be happy. His joy came at the cost of his friend's life.

     "So am I." He still wasn't sure whether or not he was lying.

     Mako's bedside lamp shone soft light into Marley's brown eyes, he resembled Mako a lot. They were biologically brothers, so of course he did, but they had the same eyes and nose. But Marley's hair was a bit longer and less curly, and his facial features were softer. 

     "It's all just stupid. It's so stupid. I know that it shouldn't have been her, I should have been the one to die. I didn't do-" Mako cut himself off, he didn't need to share this with an eight-year-old.

     "You shouldn't've lost." Marley's voice began to tremble.

     Mako knew that he had to be the older brother, and he had to remain as the level-headed one.

     Marley laid his head on Mako's shoulder, he pulled the blanket up closer. Their parents had no idea how to use the "fancy" new air conditioning, and wouldn't let Mako explain it to them out of pride. So the air conditioning was blaring, making the house a crisp fifty-five degrees, and the vent next to Mako's bed wasn't helping.

     "It's weird, I knew her for barely a month but I miss her like I knew her my whole life." Mako said. "And, it's like, there's so many points in the Games where she could have just let me die and it wouldn't have been her fault. But, she saved me."

     Mako wiped the tears from his eyes, Marley looked up at him, his expression confused, but empathetic.

     "And, the reason I couldn't fall asleep was because a part of me is still in the arena. And I- I-" He began to stutter badly, but Marley let him keep going on rambling. "And I'm so scared."

     "But you're home now?" His little brother didn't understand why he still felt unsafe.

     "I'm scared that someone'll break in through the window and slit my throat when I'm asleep." Mako began to tear up.

     Marley thought of what could happen, and went to the first help that he could think of.

     "All of the people from the arena aren't here anymore, you're okay."

     Mako sniffled, he knew that Marley was trying his best. And being with his little brother made him feel safe, almost as safe as he felt before he had ever gone into the Games.

     "I can keep you safe." Marley yawned.

      Mako laughed quietly at his comment, and—oddly enough—it did make him feel safer.

     "I bet you can."

     The pair fell asleep soon later, curled up under the warm blankets.

Chapter Text

     The Hollis house was more of a mess than usual. Del's absence showed in the dead potted plants on the windowsill, the untouched pair of boots by the door, and the absence of muddy shoeprints on the floorboards. The house was empty, even though Otto still resided in it.

     Otto stared at the little television as his daughter fought for her life. Once it was revealed that Mako was still alive, Otto knew what Del was going to do even before she did. When she threw him to the ground and took the machete in her abdomen, Otto felt as if he could vomit.

     He loudly yelled a curse word as he flung his glass cup of whiskey against the wall. He needed to do something more, breaking the cup wasn't enough to express his cacophony of emotions.

     The camera caught a close-up of her face, he could watch the thoughts behind her eyes as she realized that she was dying. He recognized that expression, she had the same numb desperation when he told her that the rest of the Hollis' probably weren't coming home.

     He had just watched his daughter receive a fatal stab wound on live television for the entertainment of the very people who starved her. He expected to be mad, furious at the Capitol and at Rowan, but he didn't. He just felt empty, the despair crawled throughout the pit in his stomach.

     Del may technically have been an adult, but when he looked into her eyes through the screen he still saw the little girl who was fascinated with the most mundane of things. Who used to bring him and his wife broken seashells she found while playing because she found them beautiful, whose favourite insult was 'you smell bad!'. Who used to play dolphins with her siblings in the marsh and cry when Caulder said that he was too old to play with her and Cordelia anymore.

     The camera then cut to a shot of the machete as it was torn out of her torso. Otto could feel his throat knot and his eyes burn when his daughter yelped, and dark red blood seeped through her clothing and splattered onto the sand.

     His mind replayed the sound of tearing flesh and the metal of the machete.

     He expected for it to feel cathartic when Rowan was killed, but Otto just felt dirty. Rowan couldn't have been more than seventeen, which was younger than Del—who had turned nineteen two days prior. She didn't deserve to die, especially not like that.

     The camera swung back to Del, who struggled to breathe while she laid on the sand. He wanted nothing more than to crawl through the screen and save her, to sit down next to her, brush her hair out of her face, and tell her that everything was gonna be okay.

     In the back of his mind, he thought that Del could survive this. She'd survived turmoil, stretches of poverty, and tragedy—surely she would be able to survive this?

     He couldn't bring himself to understand that it was happening, that she was dying. His daughter, his Del, was bleeding to death with everyone but herself on her mind.

     He hated that she mentioned him, he hated that he had to keep living in a world in which she wasn't. He didn't want to keep on going, he knew that that would be what she wanted, but he was a fourty-seven year old man living with the loss of his wife and three children, in his mind, his life was already over.

     He watched life leave his daughter's eyes from the television, powerless to do anything. He flinched as her cannon sounded, and immediately stormed out of the house. Otto has to fiddle with the finicky screen door handle to get it to work.

     He stood outside his home with his hands on his head. He tried to breathe in the fresh air, but nothing worked to calm him down. He repeated it to himself for the thousandth time, Del was dead.

     Two days had passed, the only thing he got from the Capitol was a letter explaining that Del's body would be delivered in a casket shortly.

     But, Serena and her family had stopped by a few times to help him out with housework. Their presence was kind, although it tended to be a nuisance, since he just wanted to be alone.

     He'd already begun digging her grave, he knew he'd have no energy after she came back home. The box the Capitol had placed her in couldn't be counted as a coffin or a casket, it was just a plain, plastic, rectangular black box. They had the gall to sensationalize Del's death as a sacrifice to the Capitol, but they didn't even put in the effort of a nice casket.

     He popped the lid of the box, shakily lifting it up and setting it off to the side. The Capitol embalmed the tributes when they could, to prevent them from looking 'ugly' postmortem. There was something about that that made Otto feel sickened, that was his child, and they couldn't let her rest, even in death.

     The first thing he noticed was her dress, it was the one she wore on the day of the reaping. It was a dull sage, with embroidered detailing around the neck. The mud that stained it was nowhere to be seen, and the rips were stitched shut. That was Doris's dress, he still remembered her wearing back when they were both Del's age.

     But the dress wouldn't be passed down to Del's hypothetical child, or ever be worn by another person. She was robbed of the opportunity to see the joy in a child's face after having it gifted to them.

     Del's fingernails were perfectly manicured, her choppy hair had been cleaned up, and her skin was entirely blemish-free.

     They had mutilated his daughter worse than Rowan or Landry ever could have.

     After Doris's death, Otto feared how much he saw her in Del. It was never hatred towards her, but towards himself instead. Del couldn't control how she looked, she couldn't control the curls in her hair, the hazel in her eyes, the way her crooked teeth showed in her smile, or the constellations of freckles on her face.

     But in death, he didn't see Doris anymore, he looked down and saw his daughter, Del.

     He grabbed her right hand, which was cold and uncannily solid, the feeling sent a shiver down his spine. Del had gotten a scar on her palm when she was younger, she had gotten it when Caulder was teaching her to make a lure. Recalling the memory made Otto smile a bit, he could remember it clear as day.

     He was working on dinner in the kitchen while Doris was reading to Cordelia, their little moment of peace was interrupted when Caulder burst through the finicky screen door while dragging a little twelve-year-old Del behind him.

     Del was cackling like a hyena, tears were running down her face, as she was a little delirious from the pain. Her bloody handprint stained the outside of the door frame, and neither of them ever had the heart to paint over it.

     But there was no trace of that scar.

     In an attempt to make her perfect, they removed the things that made her perfect. To them, she wasn't Del, she was Delphina Hollis, the female District 4 tribute. Someone whose character was simply cosmetic, and her family was a tragic story that made her more compelling.

     He set her hand back down, and laid it across her chest.

     "Tell 'em I miss 'em, tell all of 'em that I love 'em" He spoke to Del like she could hear him. "Tell 'em it won't be long 'till I'm there with you."

     The grave he had dug for her was next right by their house, beneath the windowsill of the room she shared with her siblings. He took her out of the box, and wrapped her in a quilt that had been in their family for years; she didn't deserve to be confined to a Capitol-made container.

     Otto had lost his older sister, Paloma-Mae, when he was a teenager—she was the only other person buried near the garden. She was Del's namesake, but he hated talking about his sister, so Del never really knew whose grave that was.

     He couldn't bring himself to lower her into her grave, all of the emotions that he hadn't yet comprehended struck him like a sledgehammer. He was so angry, he hated the Capitol, he hated Rowan, he hated the dandelions that sprouted in Del's, now unkempt, flowerbed, he hated chirping birds in the marsh, and he hated himself.

     How could the dandelions still be sprouting? Del was gone. Del was dead. She wasn't coming back, just like her mother, just like her brother, and just like her sister.

     Otto was staring at the corpse of his child, the little girl he held as a baby. The little girl who stuck close to him after the rest of the Hollis' died, the little girl who was the only person he had left.

     Del made sure to give the dandelions just as much attention as she did the other flowers. Because in her mind they were all flowers, dandelions were not just weeds. They were meant to symbolize joy, but she didn't even know that one day, they would decorate her grave.

     Otto took his glasses off, and rubbed his eyes with his hand. He got up to his feet and looked up to the sky, breathing shakily, maybe if he took a moment to breathe, he'd wake up.

     "Y'know kiddo, you did a brave thing." He blinked away tears. "That boy gets to go home to his family because of you."

     He sat against the house, ignoring the dirt from the ground below, but being careful to not crush the dandelions.

     "I wish you didn't, and I hate myself for that." He admitted. "I'm tryin'a put myself in his dad's shoes, but I just can't." He inhaled sharply. "You're my daughter, I love you more than I can even comprehend."

     She died scared and bleeding on the sandy arena ground, while he watched from home. To him, he was a coward, someone who left his daughter alone to die alone even when he couldn't do anything.

     Now he was burying her, soon she would decompose, and she would just be fertilizer for the dandelions that she held so dear. Dandelions that he would have to treasure now that she no longer could.

     He buried her, making sure not to pack the dirt in too much, he didn't want her to be uncomfortable. He sat by her grave for a while after that, and then fell asleep on the ground. Otto couldn't bear to leave his daughter again.

Chapter Text

     Mako's mom helped hom with his tie, he didn't know how to tie it properly. It always came out with the thin section a few inches longer than the wide side.

     "Hey," She said to him. "You're gonna do great, I love you."

     "You're talking to me like I'm gonna be shipped off to war." Mako let out a breathy laugh.

     "Now is no time for jokes, Mako, a child is dead." She finished with his tie.

     Mako cringed at her words, she acted as if he wasn't the one who watched it happen. Shelley grabbed his face and tried to wipe off what she thought was grime using her thumb. Mako tried to brush her off, but it wasn't until she realized it was a scar that she stopped.

     He watched as genuine sadness briefly flickered across his mother's face, but it was replaced with her normal, vacant expression just as quickly as it appeared.

     Mako and his family—besides his grandmother, she decided to stay home—all took a train from their new home in Victor's Village down to the Marshlands. 

     Every time that Mako thought about having to meet Del's loved ones, his stomach flipped. He only knew Del for a few weeks, and there was no way his grief could amount to whatever they felt.

     The train slowed down, and Mako's family stepped off. Mako was flooded with the smell of the marsh, and for a moment he was back in the Games. He felt his throat tighten as his heart seemed to stop momentarily, none of his family noticed his turmoil, and he was glad for it. 

     Mako was surprised at how few people were in attendance, it started in a few minutes, why wasn't everyone there? He looked around, trying to place names on people. There was a girl, about Del's age, with black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin, he placed her as Serena.

     There were four different people who resembled her, a teenage boy, slightly younger girl, and two adults that looked to be in their late forties or early fifties. He made an educated guess that they were Serena's family.

     But there was also a man, who he couldn't quite place the identity of, until he recognized the craftsmanship of a seashell bracelet around his wrist.

     "Holy shit." Mako whispered under his breath.

     That was Del's father, he was surprised about how little he resembled his daughter. Del was ginger, and her father was a brunette—she must have gotten her looks from her mother. He had a mustache, but the rest of his facial hair was grown out from what looked like self-neglect. He wore what was probably the most formal clothes he had, a button up shirt that was an off-white beige color and a pair of jeans with dirt stains on the knees.

     His mind raced with what to do, should he go say hi? Should he wait for him to approach him? Or just not speak to him all together. 'No, that's insensitive.' He thought.

     Mako's father immediately walked up to him. He held his hand out for a handshake. Del's father seemed surprised by the gesture, but still shook his hand.

     "I'm Marlin Caddel," Mako tried to gesture to his father that this was not at all the time for these introductions. "My wife over there is Shelley, my youngest is Marley, and you already know my eldest." Marlin pulled a very uncomfortable Mako in close to him and ruffled his neatly styled curls.

     "Dad!" Mako fixed his hair, he then looked down at his feet, averting his gaze, ashamed to make eye contact with him. 

     "Nice to meet'cha, Mako." Mr. Hollis looked down at him, Mako noticed how similar his and Del's accents were. He didn't know why he was so surprised, that's how accents work.

     Mako was bewildered, was he actually not mad at him? How could he not hate him? Why was he not mad at him? Mako looked up at him, his expression sympathetic and confused.

     "Otto Hollis." Del's dad introduced himself while shaking Marlin's hand.

     "Great to meet you." Marlin smiled.

     "Right back at'cha." Otto gave a nod.

     Mako felt horribly uncomfortable in the situation, he was relieved that Mr. Hollis wasn't mad at him, but he should have known that when he was invited to Del's funeral. His father often put him in these situations, he didn't have the best idea of when being social was appropriate or not. Or, maybe he had such a good one, because it never really went wrong for him.

     Mako looked for an out, he peered around the Hollis property. The clearing was wide, most of the space was empty, but he noticed a patch of disturbed dirt in the garden, a few feet long and about half as wide.

     That was where Del was.

     Something about seeing her grave stung him the same as seeing her corpse for the first time. It was less of a reminder, and more of a confirmation. Otto noticed where Mako was looking, he mouthed "go say bye" and motioned towards the garden.

     Mako looked up at his dad, who looked more serious now, and he nodded to his son. Mako took off his suit jacket—it was too hot and he felt overdressed—and he handed it to his father. He walked over to her grave, picking at the grime under his nails as he did. He sat up against the fence, so no one else would be able to see him.

     "Hey, Del..." Mako sniffled.

     He didn't know how to say everything that he wanted to, he spoke softly. Even though everyone else was dispersed around the clearing and wouldn't be able to hear him speak even at a normal volume.

     "I miss you a lot, and I brought your necklace and I'm gonna give it back to Serena. I know that that's probably what you want." He quickly corrected himself. "Woulda wanted."

     It hurt to speak, every word felt like a new needle being poked into his throat, but he pressed on anyway.

     "Thanks for keeping me safe, my family is really grateful. And, uhm..." He paused for a few seconds. "As much as I wish it could be you speaking to my grave right now, I am grateful. I'm glad that I'm here right now, but I feel so selfish for that."

     He kept his arms crossed, trying to make himself feel smaller. He played with the fabric on the sleeves of his button up shirt, too overwhelmed to stay still.

     "I'm sorry, it's all my fault. I should have stabbed her in the neck and not the back. I got scared, I hesitated, the idea of hurting someone like that was so scary. But if I just killed her then, then maybe it'd be you who won. It should have been you, I didn't do a single thing to help."

     Mako didn't notice when someone walked up behind him.

     "Hey, Mako, right?" He heard a voice.

     He looked up, and a girl peered down at him from over the garden wall. The glare from the sun blocked his vision for a moment, but he made out her appearance enough to identify her.

     "Yeah, Mako." He nodded. "I'm assuming that you're... Serena?"

     "Yep, that's me." She gave a half-hearted smile as she sat down next to him in the dirt.

     "Oh, I have something..." Mako remembered that he had the necklace on him, he took it off his neck, but he had to wrestle with the collar of his shirt to do so. "I brought it back for you."

     Mako winced when he noticed the blood soaked into the twine, he had been so overwhelmed that he hadn't noticed it prior.

     He held the necklace out to her, Serena eyed it for a moment, there was an expression of confliction in her eyes. She held the back of her hand to her face, wiping her nose. He moved his hand a bit closer to her, he wondered why she took so long.

     "Keep it." Her voice broke a bit as she spoke. "I've got plenty, you deserve a little keepsake."

     She took her hand to her eyes and wiped them free of tears. Now that he was closer to Serena, he noticed a deep—and relatively fresh—scar across her cheek that extended to the bridge of her nose.

     "Really?" Mako was confused. "But she would've wanted you to have it."

     "She'd haunt me for the rest of my life if I took that thing away from you." She let out a little laugh.

     "Oh, thank you," Mako looked up at her.

     They remained silent for a moment, both staring at the same patch of dirt in front of them.

     "What was she like?" Mako looked up at her. "Before, y'know, everything."

     "Well, before the boat, she talked a lot more with her pa. I used to think it was just sadness, I didn't- I didn't know about-" Serena cut herself off after that.

     "I kinda just meant before the Games."

     "Well, she wasn't that different from what we saw on the television. But, she sure told you a lot more than she ever told me." Mako could make out a hint of resentment in her voice.

     The dandelions in the garden began to catch Mako's eye, they grew along with the flowers, the crops, and alone.

     "What's with all the weeds?"

     "I don't know, I've been helpin' Otto out with the chores since Del got reaped, but he's told me not to touch 'em."

     "That's odd." Mako observed.

     For a moment, everything was calm.

     Mako didn't feel scared of an oncoming attack and the smell of the marsh was less like the arena and more like Del. The birds and bugs chirped softly as the sun set, and the breeze wisped Mako's curls around.

     Mako's father shouted from where he was, breaking the peace. "Kiddo! Guess who's coming down for dinner soon?"

     Mako was mortified about his father, yelling at a funeral could not have been a good choice.

     "Don't worry," Serena sighed. "My pa's the same way."

     Mako let out a smile and a laugh.

     "Otto's coming down!" Marlin cheered.

     Mako gave an uncomfortable thumbs up and a smile from over the fence, he just wanted him to quiet down. But, Mr. Hollis didn't seem to care much.

     "That's nice, we're all worried 'bout him." Serena said to Mako, while still looking over to Mr. Caddel and Mr. Hollis. "He could use some friends."

     "Is this everyone who's coming?" Mako realized.

     "Yep, there ain't that many people 'round here. We both, Del and I, went to school, of course. But, no one really liked her much." Serena explained.

     "How?" Mako was surprised that people didn't like Del.

     "She was antisocial, didn't mix. She's got, shit, she had somethin' weird 'bout her." She continued.

     The change from 'got' to 'had' hurt Serena to say, and Mako to hear.

     "I bet they like her now, all those dickheads, with the Games 'n all." She said.

     Before Mako could talk, Serena started speaking again.

     "It's just so dumb, y'know?" She whacked herself in the head with her palm. "They talk, right within earshot of us! They laugh when we do anythin', talk up a storm about us, and- did you know-" Serena began to stutter.

     Mako stared up at her, unsure if she was talking to him or just talking into space.

     After sorting her stutter out, Serena continued. "I was walkin' around the Markets yesterday, and I heard this girl, Myrna Laine, talkin' to this guy and she said, 'yeah, it's just so sad what happened to her... I knew her, y'know.'" Serena switched her accent to an exaggerated West End one when imitating Myrna.

     Mako continued to awkwardly sit on the ground, and he began to trace little stars in the dirt.

     "And I wanted to break her little nose right then and there!" Serena crescendoed.

     He nodded, unsure of the response Serena wanted.

      "I'm sorry, I haven't had anyone to talk to like that in a little while." Serena rubbed her face with her hands.

     "No, it's fine, I'm used to it." He gave her a half-hearted smile.

     Serena was quiet for a moment, she played with the fabric of her dress while she was deep in thought. She began to sniffle, and Mako awkwardly remained seated next to her.

     "I just can't understand that she's gone." Serena picked at a scab on her finger. "I spent my whole life with her and now it's all over."

     Mako wanted to tell her that he understood, but he didn't think that he did. He only knew her for a month, and he didn't know if that was long enough to count.

     "It's not all over, though." Mako tried to make her feel better. "We can be friends."

     "Kid, I'd love to be your new best friend." Serena smiled.

     Mako never thought that Del's loved ones would tolerate him, much less accept his request to become friends. It felt like a weight being lifted from his shoulders, and as the sun set, he felt his worries subside.

     The grief remained, but the relief of his preconceived notions being wrong made him feel lighter.

     He breathed in the smell of the marsh, and he wasn't filled with unease. He felt safe, and he realized that he never had to feel like a tribute ever again. He never had to go back into the arena, and he was as free as he would ever be from the clutches of the Capitol.

Chapter Text

     Life in Victor's Village was nice for the first couple years, everything was so picturesque.

     Mako lived with his family and enjoyed constant visits from Del's dad. But, Marley and Mako preferred visiting him in the Marshes, because he delighted in teaching the brothers how to use a trident.

     Sometimes it hurt, he had taught Caulder and Del to use the trident, and now he was reliving it. He couldn't help but see his children in them, Marley had Cordelia's childlike wonder and Caulder's contempt for authority.

     But it was worse with Mako, the influence that Del had on him was so painfully visible. The way that he was reserved and yet eccentric in the right circumstances, the way he held himself up to a standard higher than he did with those around him, and the way that his stupid sense of humor functioned.

     It didn't make him miss his children any less—or Doris for that matter—they didn't fill the void or act as replacements. But that didn't bother him, he didn't want them to. But, no matter what, Otto felt guilty about teaching them the same things that he taught the Hollis kids.

     Mako had been asking Dorian to step down as mentor for District 4 for a while. He wanted to take over the job, not because he thought he would like it, but because he knew that Dorian needed a break.

     Finally, when Mako was sixteen, Dorian folded. The job never got easier, sending children to their deaths wasn't something he ever enjoyed doing. Especially when the two tributes reaped had a considerable age difference like Del and himself. He watched what happened to them happen a few more times, but the pair were not often as lucky to have a member survive the Games.

     His eighteenth birthday was a strange one. Not because anything interesting had happened, but because he was now the same age that Del was when they went into the Games. He recalled how mature and grown-up he saw her, but now he realized just how young she was.

     She wasn't an all-knowing, level-headed adult, she was just a kid.

     Mako was eventually replaced by Finnick Odair as a mentor for District 4, a few years after he won his Games.

     When he was twenty-two, Mako met a woman named Willamae Lloyd while shopping in the Marketplace. Will was a tad shorter than him, with sea-blue eyes, messy blonde hair that she pinned up under a bandana, and skin that was deeply tanned from the sun. She had an eclectic style, but one that was tamed by her District status.

     Will ran the fabric and sewing supplies shop, and she was recently without help after her older brother moved out. Upon reading a 'help wanted' sign, Mako applied.

     She was confused as to why Mako Caddel, a victor, would want to work in a fabric store. But, Will had no other option, so she hired him.

     Soon, she realized that Mako wasn't the person she thought he was. Will had vague memories of watching the 53rd Games when she was twelve, and her idea of him was shaped by the Capitol. He was shockingly kind and chivalrous to her, and the pair found themselves growing closer.

     A year into friendship, Mako finally mustered up the courage to ask Will out. With a cheesy smile on her face and a flower tucked behind her ear, she accepted.

     When they were both twenty-five, they got married. It wasn't a very formal ceremony, but they spent their money where it mattered.

     Mako spent less and less time in Victor's Village, and his house there became his parent's house. He found the Markets to be a very suitable home, it was busy and overwhelming, but he shared his home with his wife, and soon, his daughter as well.

     Ardela Claire Caddel inherited her father's features, curly black hair, dark skin, and brown eyes. Once she began to talk, she never stopped. Ardela pointed out every flower on the ground, identified what shapes the clouds resembled, and which baked goods she wanted from the pastry shop.

     He continued to visit Mr Hollis on a regular basis, sometimes bringing his family along. Ardela liked the Marshes, but Serena was always awkward near Willamae. She never told Will that it was her name on the orange reaping slip, she didn't want her to carry that weight.

     Their monthly visits continued until Otto's death in 72ADD—nineteen years after Del's passing. Mako was thirty-one, he opened the door to find an eerily still home that smelled horrid. He was brought back to being that little twelve-year-old in the arena who looked down at his sister's corpse in the sand.

     Mako ended up dedicating his time to making sure the Hollis home didn't fall into disarray. He watered the flowers and dandelion weeds that surrounded her grave, he replaced every rotted board on the dock, swept the ever-dirty floors, and cleaned the unused dishes in the cabinets.

     Everything in Del's bedroom felt eerily left in time, Otto never took anything out or used it for storage. Under her bed was a plastic box that looked out of place, he checked inside and it was full of her old dresses. On the desk laid papers, unfinished jewelry, and drawings of Serena from when she was still a teenager.

     He made sure to pass them over to Serena, who still lived in the Marshes. She built her house a mile out from her childhood home. Serena took in Azalea's son following her sudden death. She expected herself to feel resentful, holding the baby that killed her little sister, but she was instead filled with overwhelming love.

     Mako and Serena remained incredibly close friends, and having children in similar age ranges helped that. Ardela had a tendency to drag her parents to go visit Dylan.

     Dylan Romero was her closest friend, they bonded when they were six over their shared birthday. He was the only person who could match her eccentric nature and astonishingly quick speech patterns.

     Mako's own father died two months after Del's, which was oddly not as painful to him as Del's dad dying. After a life of funerals, he had gotten used to the feeling. He now had a sort of numbness around death, and he shut down tragedy.

     During the time of the third Quarter Quell, Mako and Will were thirty-four, and Ardela was eight. Mako couldn't bear to watch the Games unfold, and he had to rely on what Dorian told him.

     Mako awoke one night to a loud knock on this door. He found it odd, but he didn't suspect anything was too wrong. The floorboards creaked as Mako drowsily walked downstairs.

     Ardela was already downstairs, and she peered through the window while standing on her tip-toes.

     "Hey, kiddo, go back to bed." He spoke softly.

     "There's people in white out there," She began to count them on her fingers. "There's one, two, three, four, five-"

     Mako joined her at the window, and he discreetly peered out at the 'people in white'. One of the Peacekeepers spotted him, and Mako immediately jumped away from the window.

     With a trembling voice, Mako grabbed Ardela by her shoulders and spoke quickly. "Go get your mom, don't grab anything, and-"

     The door burst open, and Mako desperately shoved Ardela towards the stairs. Peacekeepers grabbed Mako, their grip was so strong that Mako thought he would bruise immediately.

     "Dad?" Ardela yelped.

     "You're gonna be fine, it's not your fault!" He yelled his final message to his daughter before being yanked outside.

     His head hit the sidewalk, there was an audible 'crack!'. Mako pulled his hand away from the side of his head to reveal blood. As his ears rang and his vision dimmed, he could make out little Ardela futilely thrashing in the arms of a Peacekeeper. He didn't have time to comprehend anything before his head stopped hurting and he went limp on the sidewalk.

     Mako Caddel perished in the Victor's Purge, along with Dorian and all District 4 victors—with the exception of Finnick and Annie. Willamae and Ardela were imprisoned, and Ardela was avoxed by the Capitol only a few days after her ninth birthday.

     Upon their release, Will and Ardela returned to their home in District 4 after their medical treatment. The house remained unchanged beyond the red stain on the concrete sidewalk and the broken front door. Ardela silently traversed the house that she grew up in, the food in the kitchen rotted, but the smell of decay barely registered for her anymore.

     She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror for a moment. Ardela didn't recognize the girl staring back at her, the girl who was unnaturally thin with short-cropped curls and a gaunt face.

     It was worse for her mother, though, she had slipped Ardela any food she could get her hands on, and lived on the bare minimum.

     She went into her parents old bedroom, and on their dresser was the twine seashell necklace her father always wore. Ardela put it around her neck, she remembered how he always fidgeted with it whenever he was worried.

     Her uncle, Marley, and her mother's family helped them rebuild their lives. The Caddel family was left without a body to bury, and all of Ardela's memories of her father were tarnished by horrid flashbacks to him dead on the sidewalk.

     As months went on, and Ardela and Will were finally cleared for travel, they visited the Romero household. Seeing her best friend for the first time since her Capitol imprisonment was a pearl in the rough.

     After a tight hug, she saw Serena's face darken as her eyes fell upon the seashell necklace worn by Ardela.

     "Is that your dad's necklace?" Serena's expression changed to an empathetic smile.

     Ardela nodded slowly, she didn't know that his necklace meant so much to Ms Romero.

     "That thing's almost thirty-years-old now." She was choked up as she laughed.

     Before Ardela could sign a question, she was cut off by Dylan.

     "Ari!" He ran up to her and wrapped her in a sudden hug.

     He dragged her away from their parents, and showed her the area. "Over there is the dock, it's kinda prickly and it hurts to sit on, but it's the best fishin' spot ever!"

     Ardela was glad to see that Dylan hadn't changed since the last time she saw him. Now they were both ten, and she couldn't have changed more.

     She sat on a splintering dock next to Dylan, while Will and Serena worked in the garden. The afternoon burned a sort of hot that could only be felt in July, and the pair giggled at the little fish weaving in the marsh-grass.

     Ardela stuck her hand out with her thumb pointed upwards, she shook her hand left to right.

     "Does that mean fish?" Dylan asked.

     Ardela nodded and smiled.

     "How do you say..." Dylan looked around. "Water?"

     Ardela made a W shape with her three middle fingers and tapped them to her mouth.

     "What about..." He began to look around again, but was cut off when he leaned too far and fell into the marsh.

     Serena and Will jumped up at the sudden splash, and Ardela pulled Dylan back up onto the dock. The pair stumbled backwards and cackled at his mistake. The sun stung their eyes, but they still stared up at the sky.

     Serena watched the pair on the dock, she smiled to herself as they laughed. She felt warm looking at the people she loved the most, enjoying themselves in the same way that she used to.

     The bittersweet taste filled her mouth, the only thing holding this moment back from being perfect was the people who were missing from it.

     But Azalea was right there with her through the blood in her veins and the little boy she loved like her son. Mako was with her through Ardela, the greens and oranges of the plants, and the salt in the breeze.

     And Del was there in the crafts on her desk, the dandelions in the garden, the seashells in the sand, and every pearl in an oyster.

Chapter Text

In this infodump, I will be explaining the lore of some of the main characters. These are the reference paragraphs that I used while writing the story, and I thought that they would be interesting enough.
I didn't include them beforehand because I knew that they are very spoiler-heavy.

———
Key:
(Last Name) Family-
— (First Name), Age in YR53: #
53ADD will be used as the base year for all except for the three deceased members of the Hollis family. For them, 50ADD will be used, since it was their death year. But, I'll add the age that they would be had they have survived in parentheses. Post-tense will be used for all characters—regardless of whether they're alive or not—for consistency purposes.
I use ADD as the date, similarly to BCE. ADD stands for "After Dark Days" and the number correlates with the year of the Games. For example, The story takes place in 53ADD, during the 53rd Games.

———
Hollis Family-
— Doris, Age in YR50: 45 (48)
Doris O'Byrne grew up without her biological father around. Her mother was born and raised in the Marshes, and her father was from the West End. She was the result of a fling, and never met her father. She was raised by her mother and grandparents, and remained an only child.
She had curly ginger hair, heavy freckles, and a bumped nose. She kept her hair chin-length for practicality, and had a very inconsistent clothing style.
Doris never did too well in school, but she focused more on her career. She wanted to work on the docks as an engineer for the ships, but she suffered a serious leg injury that led to her being unable to climb the ladders, move quickly, or stand/walk for long periods of time.
Doris eventually fell for a boy named Otto Hollis after he rescued her from a crocodile by throwing rocks at it and helping her up a tree. They were sixteen and seventeen at the time, but later married when they were in their twenties.

— Otto, Age in YR53: 47
Otto was an intimidating-looking man, though it was never his intention. He was tall, relatively fit from his work, and roughened up from his lifestyle. He had brown hair that was auburn in the sun, brown eyes, lighter skin, and a pronounced nose.
Otto was the youngest of seven siblings, the oldest sibling was his only brother, August, then he had five sisters, Niev, Paloma-Mae, Perlah, Virginia, and Agatha. Otto was significantly younger than the rest of his siblings, and he rarely ever spoke to August, Niev, Perlah, or Virginia, as they had left and already formed their own lives.
Agatha was the second-youngest, and she stuck around until Otto was eleven. Despite the fact that Paloma-Mae was one of the oldest of the Hollis siblings, she had to stay with her parents. This was due to her extensive medical needs.
Otto and Paloma-Mae were incredibly close. She was almost fifteen years older than him, but since they lived so deep in the Marshes, she was his best friend. That's why it stung so much when he was fourteen, and he walked into the garden to find Paloma-Mae dead.
They weren't able to afford an autopsy, and decided that it would be best to simply bury her and host a small funeral. Her loss hit Otto heavily, he found it hard to stick in large groups, speak to people, and he generally lost any social skills he had.
Two years later, both of his parents died of natural causes, and—at sixteen, Otto was left to live alone in his home. Before the implementation of better travel between the Markets—where all of his living siblings resided—and the Marshes, going from one to the other was expensive, and saved for Reapings, important events, and very limited shopping. This meant that he only saw them during funerals.
When he was twenty-four, he and Doris had their first child, a son named Caulder. Five years later, they had a daughter to whom they named Delphina (and they gave her the middle name "Mae" as a tribute to Paloma-Mae). And two years later, they had their final child, a daughter named Cordelia.
Otto died in 72ADD at the age of sixty-six due to natural causes.

— Caulder, Age in YR50: 20 (23)
Caulder was incredibly headstrong, and filled with a deep, intrinsic hatred for the Capitol since day one. Had he lived in a more populated area, Caulder would have been avoxed by the time he became a teenager.
Like his father, Caulder was tall, and had brown eyes, and a pronounced nose. Although, Caulder inherited (albeit straight) ginger hair from his mother.
Caulder never liked being a fisherman, but he didn't quite know what he wanted to be. He knew that it was his only option, but he stayed awake every night thinking of a reality in which he was free to make other choices.

— Delphina, Age in YR53: 18
Del was awkwardly tall, she had curly ginger hair, freckles, downturned hazel eyes, and a long nose with a dramatic bump in the middle. She spent too much time focused on the trivial aspects of her appearance, the gap between her teeth, her odd nose, and her height were all an object of ridicule. Del was generally insecure about her looks, although it divulged into body dysmorphia.
It was mostly a feeling of fear, half of her genes were from a woman whom she loved, but is responsible for the death of. And now, she could only see her face when she looked in the mirror.
She struggled socially due to her inability to blend with other kids—even in her school, which was exclusively Marshland kids. She found her only friend in Serena Romero, her closest neighbor and classmate. She was significantly more willing to stand up for herself than Del was.
Since they were incredibly young, Serena and Del were essentially attached at the hip. They spent their time doing crafts, working, and messing around in the marsh however they saw fit.
Del worried that Serena didn't feel the same way that she did about her. After all, how could she? Serena was so beautiful that she could have been carved from marble—whereas Del thought she looked like a flounder.
Although, to her complete and utter shock, Serena actually liked her back. The pair became girlfriends when they were sixteen.

— Cordelia, Age in YR50: 13 (16)
Cordelia stuck as close to Del that she could ever since she could speak. Her sister was two years older than her, so they were naturally close-knit.
She loved animals and wanted to study them professionally when she grew up. Although, she knew that it was just a dream and was out of her reach. Her favorite animals were birds, she loved herons, ducks, chickens, and the other marsh fowl.
Even though she knew it was a long shot, she gave an application to the District 4 Wildlife Studies Academy. To her complete and utter shock, her application was accepted, and she would join the academy the next school year.
Cordelia disappeared at sea two months before the school year started, and was never able to attend her dream school.

———
Caddel Family-
— Marlin, Age in YR53: 38
Marlin was shorter than average at 5'6", he had straight, short, black hair and medium-dark skin. He had a very smart appearance, with well-kempt hair and neat clothing.
He had about as easy of a life as was possible for a District citizen, his father ran a finances business that helped many Market workers. And because of this, Marlin grew up relatively wealthy—and then inherited his father's business.
Marlin died in 74ADD at the age of fifty-nine due to natural causes.

— Shelley, Age in YR53: 35
Shelley Lopez lived in the West End her entire life, but her parents were originally from the Markets. They put up a facade of wealth and cared more about their outer appearance than anything else. As a teen, Shelley cared deeply about her academics, as she needed to keep up with her parents high expectations.
She had straight black hair, medium-dark skin, and round features—contradicted by her long, sharp nose. Shelley was below-average height, and was about 5'4" at her tallest.
Shelley's only relief from her endless parental torment was visiting her cousins from the Markets, Morgan and Marisol.
When she was fourteen, the intense pressure she received inevitably led to an anxiety attack, and her parents opted to have her heavily medicated.
The rest of her teen years weren't kind to her, when she was eighteen, her cousin Morgan was reaped into the Games and killed in the Bloodbath.
When she was twenty-two and desperate to remain in good graces with her parents, she accepted the advances of Marlin Caddel. This meant that she could live comfortably for the rest of her life without having to do much work.
She and Marlin had a son named Mako the year that they got married, and then another named Marley four years later.
Shelley never felt close with either of her children, she never meant to neglect them, but she didn't know how to show them that she cared about them. Affection was such a foreign concept to her, and she didn't understand why she felt the way she did. She wanted to love them, but she couldn't without it feeling like an act.
Because of this, she stayed out of the house as much as she could. She became an biology teacher at the West End highschool, and made an attempt at conversing with her sons by teaching them her curriculum.
Ultimately, Shelley died post-rebellion at sixty-two due to natural causes.

— Mako, Age in YR53: 12
Mako looked like a perfect blend of both of his parents, he had round facial features that were contradicted by his long, straight nose, medium-dark skin, and dark brown curly hair.
He spent his upbringing longing for his father's attention and his mother's love. He didn't know if they truly cared about him in the way that parents were supposed to. They told him that they did, but he never felt it.
Even though Mako was able to afford life's pleasures, something felt like it was missing. His mother funded his scientific interests, but she was always so distant. His father tried to teach him financial stuff, but Mako didn't care about finances, he knew that his father just wanted him to be the next company leader.
Mako is killed in the Victor's Purge at the age of thirty-four.

— Marley, Age in YR53: 8
Marley and his brother looked similar, the biggest difference in their appearance was Marley's straight hair.
He was still educated in science, but he didn't care about it like Mako did. But, he still stuck close to Mako because he always felt closer to his brother than his parents.
When Marley was seven, his best friend Kirby Carpenter and his family went missing. No one told him what happened, and he lived without answerd until he was fifteen. Then, he learned that they were likely taken by Peacekeepers—and then, Mako confirmed this by informing him of how he spotted an avoxed Ms. Carpenter in the Capitol.
Marley dies at seventy-one of natural causes in 116ADD.

———
Romero Family-
— Alon, Age in YR53: 48
Alon was respectable-looking man with longer hair and a beard. He looked older than his age from the stress and hard work of being a poorer district citizen. His previously black hair was now grey.
He worked as a repairman on the marshlands docks and wasn't home for long stretches of time as a consequence. When he came back, he usually made sure to bring small gifts for his family—and Del—to make up for his absence.
Alon died in 57ADD at the age of fifty-two after falling from a ladder at work.

— Tessa, Age in YR53: 50
Tessa had a very kind appearance, she had unkempt pin-straight hair that she kept in a bun. Similarly to her husband, Tessa had black hair that had gone mostly grey. She had a hooked nose, crooked teeth, smile lines, and she was of relatively short stature.
She worked as a seamstress, and this led to her family—and Del—having very personalized clothing.
Tessa looked like a mirror image of her eldest child Serena, whereas her other two children better resembled their father.
Tessa died of natural causes in 74ADD at seventy-one.

— Serena, Age in YR53: 19
Like stated before, Serena looked incredibly similar to her mother. She had pin-straight, thick black hair, a hooked nose, and dark brown eyes. Though, she was slightly taller than her mother, standing at 5'6".
Serena was incredibly outgoing, but similarly to Del, she was a social outcast. She was extroverted in the sense that she was not afraid of conflict, and she tended to start arguments with other kids at school.
She and Del had been friends longer than they could even remember, they grew up together in a very rural area, so they only had eachother. Serena had worried that her crush on Del was unrequited, but much to her joy, they began dating when they were sixteen.
Like all District people, Serena feared the Games, but as the eldest of three siblings, she had a special terror of them. No matter what, she would never be able to take her brother's place in the games, but, there would be five years where she wouldn't be able to take her sister's.
Ultimately, Serena died of natural causes at the age of seventy-four in 108ADD.

— Caspian, Age in YR53: 17
Caspian was taller than the rest of his family, standing at about 5'10". He looked like the rest of his family, with straight black hair, dark skin, and brown eyes. He had a generally awkward appearance, with willowy limbs, heavy eyebags, and a constantly worried demeanor about him.
Similarly to Del, he faced torment for his appearance and laughable social skills. Caspian and Del shared a few classes—Caspian being advanced for his age, and Del not so much. This led to the pair being very good friends.
Caspian ultimately died at the age of thirty-two in 68ADD after a deadly misunderstanding with a Peacekeeper.

— Azalea, Age in YR53: 14
Azalea was the only member of the Romero family to have curly hair, everyone else had pin-straight hair. Due to this, she had to depend on the Hollis' to help her take care of it.
She was more of a social butterfly than her brother, she enjoyed talking to people and often said more than she need to. But, she was also a very sensitive person. Azalea had a tendency to get overwhelmed quickly and cry.
Azalea ultimately dies in 64ADD while having her son, Dylan.

———
Extras-
Dorian Gillary, Age in YR53: 35
TW: Brief mentions of a suicide attempt
I cover Dorian's Games and his life in my in-progress fanfic "It's Summer Back Home". The following contains massive spoilers.
Dorian Gillary was of average height, 5'10" at his peak. He had sun-tanned skin, brownish-hazel eyes, and dark brown medium-length hair. Similar to most other characters on this list, Dorian was fit from his work.
He worked in his bait shop with his family, but picked up odd jobs along with his best friend, Morgan Lopez.
Dorian's brother, Jonah, was about sixteen years older than him. Jonah had a daughter with his wife when he was twenty. Since Dorian was only three years older than Cove, they were raised as brother and sister more than uncle and niece.
His father died before his first birthday, after accidentally falling from the balcony. His parents were named Avisa and Irvine, and his sister-in-law was named Marren. Morgan had a sister named Marisol who was about a year older than him.
Cove Gillary was reaped for the 35th Hunger Games when she was fourteen, and Dorian volunteered to join her in the arena. Dorian was seventeen at the time. During his goodbyes to his family, Dorian swore to his older brother that he would keep Cove safe.
Although, in the Games, Dorian was forced to kill the District 1 girl, Tamara, in self-defense. As revenge for this act, Cove was killed in front of him, and Dorian was stabbed and left for dead by the Careers.
Dorian failed the promise he made to his brother, and Cove was dead. He didn't want to go home because he didn't want to have to face his family, but he wanted to kill Marcellus, the District 1 boy, who was the main perpetrator in Cove's death.
Dorian made it to the end, and killed Marcellus, making him the victor of the 35th Games.
Upon his return, his family shunned him. Dorian lived alone in his new Victor's Village home. As punishment for a suicide attempt made by Dorian after his Games, Dorian's best friend Morgan was reaped into the 36th Games as the male tribute for District 4.
Morgan was killed in the Bloodbath, and Dorian was left without a family or a best friend.
Eventually, Dorian and Marisol began to date—it was the closest Dorian would ever get to what could have been with Morgan. Dorian and Marisol had two sons, who were twins, Nico and Ezra.
Dorian perished in the Victor's Purge at the age of fifty-seven alongside his wife. Nico was killed in action during the war, and Ezra survived, but never returned to District 4.