i have a feeling you got everything you wanted.

full name — pyaari chadhary nickname(s) — ari name meaning — pyaari ( darling ), chadhary ( undertaking the burden )  age — twenty-eight date of birth — october 31st place of birth — district six star sign — scorpio sun, virgo moon, taurus rising  current location — the capitol / district 6  gender — cis-woman pronouns — she/her sexual orientation — bisexual religion — agnostic  occupation — victor education level — district six family — adhira chadhary ( mother ), aavya chadhary ( sister )  finances — not great   spoken languages — english, bhojpuri allegiance — the rebellion ( it’s complicated ) 

tw: mentions of violence, blood, fire, strangulation, drowning, lots of death but it's the hunger games.

BEFORE.

your story started out before you were born, a runaway girl from the capitol finding solace in district 6, she married quick to change her name, the love for her husband had come after, a child was next, and then came you. you got a couple of good years with your father before he died during a late night transport to the capitol, the death is a mysterious one, but the capitol claimed that there must have been something wrong with the train, or perhaps he was just a little too tired that night. there was no body to be returned. your little sister cannot remember your father very well, there are just photos that proved he existed once. 

your mother plays a game with you and your sister aavya, she used to call it midnight dancing with the constant steady hum of the trains and train tracks. its simple really, and a bit dangerous, but your mother thrived on danger, and you won’t ever know the full story of why your family feels cursed, at least, not yet anyway. your mother climbs the train until she gets to the top you pull your sister up before pulling yourself up after her, your mother hums a song that you don’t recognize, stereos are expensive but she starts to dance, it’s graceful, your sister spins and you think it’s stupid at first until you look up at the stars and start to dance too. 

on the particular bad days you play this game, jumping over the tops of trains by yourself in the middle of the night, you’ve gotten good at climbing, and sometimes you think that if you really wanted to you could ride the the top of the train like a wave and it’ll take you somewhere very far away from here. you learn how to be light on your feet, and this is how you learn how to steal things from transportation for your family to make sure that they never go hungry. 

of course this comes to an end quickly, you’ve always been told you’re the replica of your mother, her ease and grace is something you learned how to be, you learned it to be like her, she learned it because it’s what she grew up in. 

it’s a cold morning, when you wake up and your mother isn’t there and your sister has had a cold for days. walking out to the town square and see peacekeepers surrounding your mother with videos of a cloak you wear to hide your face when you steal things from transport, they ask how do you plead and she says guilty. all that you can remember is running to your mother, and you’re going to confess that it was you that was doing all the stealing. but your mother looks at you and shakes her head. 

“you’re a rebel and a thief.” 

“guilty.” she says, and then a shot rings in your ears. 

the peacekeeper looks at you, the blood splattered on white, a sniff and then, “bury your dead.” 

you can’t afford to keep the house. you make a home out of shipping containers and abandoned trains that no longer work anymore. 

your sister gets sicker and sicker, and then reaping day comes. 

mother made clothes for the family, for the special occasions, pyaari dresses her sister up in her best and gently does her hair, kissing her on the forehead promising that no matter what happens she will always be her first priority now. it’s not fair that there is no other help but themselves, mama’s funeral was a small affair, when she was called a rebel moments before her did pyaari was too lost in her thoughts to look at the fear in people’s eyes when the peacekeeper said it. 

she watches as her sister stands in the front, she can’t help but play with the stitching on her dress, and pyaari notices how lopsided the little bits of hair, how the braid is falling apart, how nothing seems to fit her sister right anymore. she bites her lip before listening to the same speech they give over and over again very single year. 

“ladies first!” 

pyaari watches as fingers dive into the bowl, long fingernails holding up the female tribute, a smile. 

“pyaari chadhary!” for a moment, she is still, and then she walks down the middle of the aisle. she can hear her sister and she reaches out, fingers brushing against the tiny hand but she doesn’t look back, she walks gracefully onto the podium like in waves, hands behind her back. 

and before she knows it the second name comes out. elam mottello. not a friend, nor an enemy, someone that pyaari sat with at lunch, someone who often found pyaari at the scrap yard looking for parts to try and make a home. she remembers how he would look for parts too, to help her, because he was kind, and because he was lonely. 

and before she knows it they’re being rushed into the building and the only person to greet her is her sister. she doesn’t know what happens next after this — her sister cannot survive on her own. she’ll die. there’s a woman that pyaari recognises as a conductor that makes her way towards them, she says that she won’t have to worry about aavya, they were going to take care of her — she knows it’s only loyalty because of her father, but she thanks them anyway. 

“are you going to come back?” her sister asks, and they both know the answer. but her pale face, her tiny body, the braveness that she was forced to learn, the loss they both went through, pyaari lets her sisters hair down, she presses a kiss to her forehead. 

“i’m going to do everything i can to get back to you.” she whispers. “i don’t want you to watch.” she says, even more quietly. 

“why?” her sister asks. 

“because i don’t want you to be afraid of me when i come back.” 

“you’re my sister—i can never be afraid of you.” 

pyaari hugs her one last time, smelling the sweet scent of chamomile soap that pyaari learned how to make, the train tracks in their odd little home, the last remaining scents of their mother in the stitching of their dresses. 

“aham tvayi snihyaami, aavya.”

INTERLUDE.

pyaari would never had been considered kind growing up, but she liked to think that she was polite and fair. after they had scrubbed every inch of her body she knew that it was time to get to work on her image everywhere else. she was kind to every single stylist she encountered, she said hello to tributes from every single district. she especially had gotten close to her district six partner, elam had looked terrified, and pyaari had given him small little directions of how she could act if he wanted sponsors. 

by the time that training actually happened pyaari was a soft face, working with the plants and learning how to make a shelter even though she had been doing that most of her life. she had learned how to play with knives having attempted to make her own with the scrap metal back home. the way that she moved around the dart boards was magic, her feet so light, she had twirled before aiming before it came to combat. she had avoided most attacks, but it was always the districts that had the careers that were harder to impress and even harder to get trust her, most thinking that she was either a weak link. she stayed far away from them but she observed, often asking questions, trying to find the things that made them tick. 

the younger tributes were the easiest for her to manipulate, and so many had flocked to her, she often told fabricated lies about her childhood and even stooped so low to talk about her sister in ways that weren’t true, but she promised her sister that she would do anything she could to bring herself home. 

when it came to her score, she had gotten a two. she had given them an elaborate dance and threw a couple knives at a board. but her winning personality had gotten her sponsors. 

when they dress her up, they dress her up in black and gold, tiny white stripes lined on the sides. she looked over at elam once. 

“allies? until the bitter end?” he whispered. 

she reached out and shook his head. 

“until the bitter end.” 

and then she remembered, his score was a five. 

BETWEEN.

you're dropped from the sky with an insulated jacket on your back, goggles for the hidden sunrays, and a pack of supplies for an icy terrain with a beautiful background of a palace that looks close to the one called the palace of versailles. from your viewpoint, the water has been frozen over but the gardens are vibrant and beautiful, untouched by the icy terrain and the manicured trees take to the sky. 

the doors open and you’re forced to drop using ropes onto the roof. this is the easy part as you make you swing in the air, you watch as tribute districts one and two are the first to land, but are immediately humbled by the ice you decide a different way to go, there’s a glass roof you prepare your feet for the impact and smash through to be hit with one of the first chandeliers. you curse yourself swinging from it before dropping, breath leaves your lungs but then there’s your fellow tribute from district 6, grabbing you up as district 1 and 2 are looking for the kill. you can’t breathe in these dry conditions but the adrenaline runs through you as you make it out the door to the cornucopia that’s huge, grecian statues surround it as well as the ice. it looks like an oversized fountain. you watch as district 3 and 4 get on the ice and watch as it immediately cracks and they fall in, the ice breaking quickly. you make a run for it, feet hitting the cold water, stepping over the bodies as they try and stand up, their body going into shock from how cold the water is. 

living in six where it snows in a non insulated container shipment taught you that you could handle the cold, you grab the knives that you watched district 1-4 love so much, watching as a child from district 3 who you stepped up looks thirsty for blood, their hands reach out for you and it’s your first kill with the knives and for good measure you kick them back into the ice, it cracks underneath their skull. you don’t look at the blood. 

the second weapon you grab is the whip before making yourself scarce and heading towards the palace.

when pyaari entered the arena changed, what was a bright and inviting palace turned blue, the only real light where the small reflections through the windows otherwise it was shadows and unbearably cold. pyaari had kept the whip close in hand as she moved lightly up the stairs, all those years of stealing had made her stealth, often only moving on her tippy toes as she made her way through the great halls looking for supplies that would be helpful. by nightfall she knows that this will be claimed by the career pack. she had grabbed linen from a bed and folded it as small as she could and then matches. she moves from the next room before she hears a boom and the palace shakes and then a cannon goes off. 

there’s laughter downstairs, and she knows that she needs to get out of here. 

“landmine!” she can hear someone scream and now she knows this place is infested with them. she opens the window and it’s too far to scale down safely and her ribs are already bruised. she hears a creak behind her before she sees another district, she can’t remember which one, but they smile when they see her and she smiles back. she reaches out her hand, they’re one of the youngest here, and that’s all that she can remember. ahead of them is another great hall and there’s intricate tiles stretching far. 

“how about you go ahead of me and i’ll protect you from behind?” she says with a whisper. 

the child is naive, and the worst part is pyaari knows that they are. the child walks, their body hunched and pyaari is steps back, knife in one hand and the whip in the other. they just need to make it across to the other set of winding stairs. 

everything goes find, until another landmine sets off and all there is smoke, another canon and pyaari begins to run. 

she couldn’t even remember their name. 

the first night as she sleeps in one of the trees in the gardens she looks up at the sky at all the tributes lost and falls asleep. 

THE WOLF & THE SHEEPS. 

as the games go on, pyaari tends to attack at night, her sweet voice, her kind and caring nature to the little ones make them trust her, they think it’s the careers killing all of them off one by one, but the easiest way to weed out is by striking first. the hardest deaths would be the ones that caught on too late, who see when she’s about to strike. she uses the whip the most as a way of strangulation before throwing them out into the icy fountains and ponds, by the time morning comes her footprints are small until they’re completely vanished. 

she has yet to see her district partner. but if she knows anything about district six it’s that he’s hiding and pyaari is making herself something out to be a loud spectacle. hand combat in the snow is hard when you can’t feel your fingers, and most of the time food that she does get she ends up dipping her hands in just to bring back some warmth before she eats it. she doesn’t think about her sister, and doesn’t even think about her mother. 

the mutts that come into play near the end of her games are the worst ones. she has to go back to the palace to look for more food and by the time that she gets there in the middle of the night all of the food sources are piled up in piles and there’s a game that needs to be played knowing that the careers have set their own set of landmines. she realizes that she needs to scale the palace, using her light feet and upper body strength she learned from climbing trains.

when she’s in she finds herself in the hall of mirrors and there’s a scent that smells sweet that smells like home, the chamomile, the air and the grain and grass near the train tracks, and the last scent of her mother that lingered on the dresses that she had made. she makes one small move, and the ground shakes the mirrors move too, and then she’s staring at her own reflection with the corpse of her mother behind her and her sister too. their hands are placed on both sides of her shoulders in the mirror but nothing is actually touching her. their faces are beautiful, but frozen, their eyes are dull and there’s nothing there. the blood is frozen on their outfits and then a song starts to play, the one that she didn’t recognize. she takes one step and they follow with her, she watches as the visions of her mother and sister dance behind her, their smile turns creepy, it looks painted on and she starts to run, her hands out in front of her and the melody of the song gets louder and she runs into the glass and it begins to crack and her breathing is getting harder, and she realizes that it’s poison, her lungs feel on fire for being so dry and cold over the last week in these games.

“keep going!” she can hear elam say. “i went through it too!” he says, there’s blood running down his forehead and his arms are out and she can’t tell if it’s an illusion. 

“there’s no landmines. it’s psychological torture. they played the same song for me too. try not to breathe.” he says and she places her nose in her shirt as he hands are reached out, and she starts using the whip to hit the glass, watching as the glass shatters and there’s nothing but a black wall that gets revealed. she can’t bare to see her sister and mother like this anymore and all the glass keeps shattering around her, she trips and she’s crawling now, she can’t hear anything over the song, and when she’s out she takes a deep breath and elam grabs her and slides her away from the room of mirrors into one of the foyers and grabs the water and pours it over her face and she can finally see past all the red. 

the careers who are the only one’s that are left get to them, and pyaari can barely fight but she gets up, her hands cut up but at least she can see. the boy from district one goes in for the attack, pushing her back against the wall and using strangulation on her, she reaches for her knife and misses the first time before she gets successful the second time, a blow to the neck, but it doesn’t stop him. she crawls on top of him, fingers shaking as she grabs the whip and chokes him with it. the district two girl is fighting elam who’s not taking the hits well but holding his own, the cannon goes off and they double team. elam is the one to take the kill. 

another cannon. 

there’s still another career out there. pyaari ransacks the careers of their weapons and grabs the four shoes off of their feet and stands back outside the big palace doors and throws one of the shoes as far as it can go and one landmine goes off before she throws the other three until it all goes up in flames. 

they walk through the fire, a comfort in the icy tundra. 

“what did you mean when you knew the song?” pyaari asks. 

elam is chewing on a tangerine rind, before he bites into one of the slices. 

“it’s a capitol lullaby. my mother used to sing it to me before she died. she was a rebel from the capitol too.” he says with a sad smile. “like yours. she hid out in district six until it caught up to her.” 

like mine.

THE BETRAYER. 

the games end early morning, no sun, a forever blue tinted sky. pyaari doesn’t sleep. but an announcement is made that only three tributes are left. and then the palace goes up in flames, and the arena is slowly is starting to set on fire. the flowers rise up in a way that’s unnatural and pyaari can physically see the poison release into the air. they start to run towards the iced out water that stretches as long as a football field to what looks like a stage that is also made of ice. except there’s only one spot for one victor. 

they see the last career running towards the same goal and he sees that he’s starting to throw knives at them and then the axe. pyaari ducks down and so does elam and she uses her whip and watches as the fire is starting to catch up to them. she hits him once with it, he screams out in pain before she stops and grabs him by the jacket and throws him into the fire and she can hear the screams before she’s running again. the ice starts to crack underneath them and the fire has reached the water, and it quite literally looks like the lake of fire and she can hear the mutts in the water starting to swim after them. it’s their family members in fancy dresses, gold and black, their bodies blue tint, cold and lifeless, the song plays again and elam reaches out to grab pyaari’s hand and he pushes her up to the front, and he’s right behind her, she puts distance between them and the ice keeps cracking beneath until they’re swimming, her teeth chattering and her lungs feeling like they’re concaving. 

there’s only one way to get this to stop. 

“elam!” she screams, and he looks up at her she reaches out her hand for him again and he takes it before she dunks him underneath the water. holding his head down and he can feel her fighting him and she sits and watches as the mutts get closer, and they grab his leg and she tries to kick them off but they don’t care about her. and then, the flailing stops. the mutts deactivate almost the cannon goes off. the fire is gone and the water turns warm and she gets up and elam’s body floats. 

her body is numb as she walks towards the podium, dripped in gold. 

AFTER. 

aavya died one day into pyaari’s games due to her sickness. 

a small mercy, pyaari had thought, not having to see the monster that she had become. 

pyaari became outcasted from her district due to elam’s violent death by her own hands.

the safest place to live was in the victor’s village. 

full name — peeta mellark indian name: pathan madhu nickname(s) — none name meaning — pathan: brave, strong. madhu: honey age — thirty-four date of birth — january 20th place of birth — district 12 star sign — capricorn sun, virgo moon, aquarius rising  current location — district 12 gender — non binary pronouns — he/they sexual orientation — bisexual religion — none occupation — baker education level — whatever district 12 education system  family — otto mellark 'oresh madhu' ( father ), mother ( estranged ), two brothers ( estranged, but trying ) finances — what could be considered lower middle class spoken languages — english, gujarati

tw: brief mentions of parental abuse, absentee parent

they say kindness is a weakness, but you have never been weak even if your mother tried to beat it out of you. you were born into a world of hunger and anger from your mother, your father a shell of a person he was, and two brothers to love and care for. they used to bully you as a child, kids not understanding the words that they mean, you were better off than most, but what goes unsaid will always stay with you. your father had two best friends once, and then one of them died in the mines and the other… well, let’s just say you didn’t officially get to meet him until you were reaped. but no one talks about it, so you don’t bring it up. secrets are a wonderful thing and you try and not to have many yourself, but they’re so carefully up your sleeve but you were never a mean boy, you just observed the way that people hold their own. it’s much easier that way. 

you love your brothers, as a good sibling does, but each has been scarred by your upbringing in ways that you can’t discuss, it seems that as the years go by as your story gets told every year in district twelve people know more about you than you do. so you keep to yourself and you don’t say much but let your hands do all the work. you’re kind and a gentle person, someone people can rely on and to tell a funny joke when it's needed. 

maybe you look like your mother but your father runs through your veins, a lover at heart, but quiet when it matters. maybe your spark is gone but there’s still hope there to be better than what you were. everyone knows your story, they hash it out every year of what had happened in your games, your mother still can’t believe that you made it out and says it so every year. you’re just happy to be alive, happy that you have your own home now even though it’s empty. your family didn’t move in with you, no one knows how hard you tried to make them but you see your brothers sometimes and always show up to work at the bakery on the days that you’re not mentoring children to their death. 

peeta wishes his life wasn’t like this. sometimes everything feels so fake that he has to remember what’s real. no one has hijacked him, apart from the little shreds of humanity the capitol only really took his leg, but the least they had done was give him a prosthetic. everything still aches like it did that first day in the arena and the fear never goes away but that love and that kindness and hope for more still stays. maybe peeta is naive to think all of that but the only truth he knows sometimes is how much he loves people like katniss, haymitch, his brothers. maybe that’s all they get from this life is those truths but they hold onto them like a simple small thread.