multifandom

You strip off your nightgown, a smooth rippling like water. You sit in the bathtub and let the nozzles pummel your back and your shoulders until the aches from training fade away and you imagine your bruises being erased. You throw on a royal blue sweatsuit that Salem left for you and clean the steam off the bathroom mirror to check your reflection before you head out to the common area for breakfast. Before I see Aemond.

The girl in the glass—the woman, actually, although it feels strange to think of yourself that way, especially here where it is children who are fed to the meatgrinder—is afraid…and the lighting must be kind in here, because she’s a little beautiful too. There’s nothing important on the agenda for today, so Salem isn’t here to attend to your hair or your makeup. You try to smooth down rogue wisps, then glaze your lips with a mint-smelling balm until they shine.

Okay, enough, you think, still inspecting yourself. He’s seen me crying, he’s seen me bleeding, he knows what I look like. Enough. You leave your reflection behind.

You’re about to open your bedroom door when you hear Charm say on the other side: “You’re too attached to her, Aemond.”

You drop to your knees and press yourself against the door, listening intently. You don’t hear Aemond respond; you can picture him being avoidant as he so often is, gazing down at the floor or at his own hands, penning his meticulous notes, puffing on a cigarette.

“You remember what it was like for you before, don’t you?” Charm continues after a moment. She sounds soft, and sympathetic, and human. It occurs to you that while the tributes change each year, Aemond and Charm have been teammates for a very long time. “With the girl…with Sirena…?”

“This is different,” Aemond says.

“Yes. It might be worse.”

Again, he doesn’t respond. The television must be on, because a faint unfamiliar voice is talking about the weather.

“Aemond, she…she’s not going to win. She’s not going to be able to kill people like Commodore and Roosevelt and Brookie. And even if, miraculously, somehow she was the victor…you’re never going to have what you want with her. You know that. I’m so sorry, but it’s not in the cards for either of you.”

Is that true? you think desperately, clinging to the door. How can that be true? How can we be so close to each other and yet so far apart?

“She’s good with a knife,” Aemond says, and he’s frustrated like it’s something he’s been wrestling with. “I just have to figure out how to keep her alive long enough to use it…”

Charm gasps at something. “Oh, look!”

Then you hear a voice that is impossible here in this cold, metallic, dry, mechanical place, and yet it’s unmistakable. Misty?!

You burst through the door and into the common area, and there on the television is your oldest sister, smiling with tears in her eyes as she answers a journalist’s questions. Daddy and Fleet are with her. They are home in District 4: blue skies, cliffsides, the ocean breeze in their hair. Misty is saying: “We’ve always known she was special, and now other people are realizing it too. And we just…we just really want her to be able to come home someday.”

“She’s a good girl,” Daddy says, like he’s driving a hard bargain in the marketplace, like he’s trying to negotiate. “Never asked for nothing. Never caused no trouble. Never complained about being stuck helping me on the boat rather than running around having fun someplace else. Never brought home a boyfriend. She’s only ever wanted a simple, quiet life. She don’t deserve to be hurt. She don’t deserve to be scared.”

The journalist has one last question. She thrusts the microphone back in Misty’s face and asks: “Your sister received a training score of 7 from the Gamemakers, which isn’t disastrous but certainly separates her from the favorites. Do you still think she has a realistic chance to win the Hunger Games?”

“Well, I’ll tell you this,” Misty says, abruptly severe. “She’s damn good with a knife. And Aemond knows that. And I guarantee you he’s figuring out how to help her kill those other kids right now.”

Aemond says to you from where he’s sitting at the dining room table, like it’s good news: “They’re giving you more coverage.” Sure enough, the screen is now awash with a montage of clips from the party at President Snow’s mansion last night: Aemond’s hand on the small of your back, Aemond standing between you and an unruly throng of admirers, Aemond glaring at the tributes who are most lethal to you, Commodore, Roosevelt, Brookie. We do look like a couple, you marvel, two lavish hostages in matching funeral black.

The journalist in District 4 has found Commodore’s mother, a gargantuan grey-haired woman who—for some reason—is beaming and has her hands on the shoulders of a young boy. When she’s asked how she’s holding up, instead of talking about her son she says: “We’re doin’ alright, it’s very kind of you to ask. My sister’s in a bad way, cancer most likely, and she sent my nephew here to stay with me and be properly looked after. Isn’t he a sweet little lad? Go on, Leeward, say hello…”

Commodore shuffles out of his bedroom, yawning and rubbing his still-bleary eyes. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, sea monster,” Charm says fondly and changes the channel. She is lounging across the couch in a flowing white sundress accented with gold: buttons, hooks, dainty chains and jangling bracelets.

Someone knocks at the front door, which is odd. Salem has a key and comes and goes freely, as do the housekeeping staff. Charm checks her glittering gold pocket watch. “He’s not usually awake this early.”

“He must have slept on the train,” Aemond says, and then he tells you, because you’re closest to the door: “You can let him in.”

Who? you think. You open the front door and there’s a man standing in the hallway with a rolling suitcase. He wears neon green sunglasses, thin flat sandals, tan linen shorts, and a white shirt that’s unbuttoned down the front. His hair is shoulder-length and silver and greasy like he got sunscreen in it days ago and hasn’t scrubbed it out yet. He is carrying a glass fishbowl, clutched to his soft bare chest with one arm. A single goldfish circles restlessly inside.

There isn’t much of a resemblance, but the hair is striking and rare. Aemond’s brother??

“Hey, Sparkles,” the man says and pushes rudely past you into the suite. His sandals slap against the floor; he shoves his sunglasses up into his tangled hair. He startles when he sees Commodore, letting his suitcase topple over. “Goddamn, you’re big as fuck.”

“Hello, Aegon,” Charm says pleasantly from the couch.

“What’re you doin’, girl? You usually run such a tight ship. How’d you let a walrus in here?”

“He’s a very well-behaved walrus, you’ll see,” she says, and then to Commodore: “Sea monster, there are waffles on the table. Make sure you have something.”

Obediently, Commodore sits down—as far away from Aemond as he can—and fixes himself a plate.

Aegon plods over to the table and slides the fishbowl onto it. He points to the goldfish and instructs Commodore sternly: “Don’t eat that.”

Commodore, unsure of whether he’s joking, just nods.

Then Aegon ventures towards the couch, smiling sheepishly, clasping his hands behind his back like Aemond does sometimes. “You’ve always been such a gracious hostess, Charm. Don’t disappoint me now.”

She smirks, produces her compact from a small gold purse, opens it and flips down the mirror. She coats a finger with white powder and offers it to Aegon. He grabs her hand and snorts as much of the powder from her skin as he can through one nostril, then licks off the remainder as Charm laughs. “You’re a fucking animal,” she says.

“I know. I’m the one who belongs in a cage.” He straightens up again and turns to Aemond, who stands to greet him with a sigh; not like Aemond is disappointed he’s here, necessarily, but perhaps because he heralds the start of the Games like the boom of cannon fire. Aegon grins and dashes over to him, his arms thrown wide. He collides with his brother, but Aemond isn’t knocked off-balance.

“It’s good to see you,” Aemond admits, surrendering to the clumsy embrace.

Aegon pounds on his back. “You alright? You hanging in there?”

“I’m okay.” But when Aemond pulls away, he reflexively glances towards you, and Aegon follows his eyeline.

“Oh, that’s a problem,” Aegon says softly, gazing at you, wondering and sad.

Charm sniffs as she rubs white powder into her own nostrils. “How are the waffles, Commodore?”

“Good,” he dutifully replies. He is staring at the television as he forks soggy pieces of blueberry waffles into his mouth, a documentary about manta rays.

“Get your breakfast,” Aemond commands you, pointing to the table. You sit down next to Commodore and watch the manta rays with him as you both eat.

In the elevator, when you are alone, Aemond hits the Emergency Stop! button and opens his notebook, skimming his tidy black-ink annotations.

“Monty has something wrong with his left knee,” he tells you. “An old injury, maybe an ACL or meniscus tear that never fully healed. He tweaks it every once in a while. It’s a vulnerable spot if you need to find one on him.”

Aemond looks at you expectantly, and you nod to show you’re paying attention. I can’t kill those people, you think, as if you have a choice.

His wave-blue eye flicks back down to the paper. “Pluto has bad lungs from the mines, but everyone already knows that. If the arena has dust or sand, he’ll suffer. Brookie is excellent with an axe, she can reliably hit a target from thirty meters away, so don’t think you’re safe unless you have much more distance than that between you. She’s the type of tribute sponsors like…” A Career. A beauty. “But you might be in luck. She’s eighteen, but she still has a girlish look to her, a certain juvenile quality. Don’t get me wrong, there are men who prefer that. But there are plenty of others who want a woman, not a girl.”

Like me, you think, shuddering.

“Commodore’s eyes are so deep-set that his visual field is limited. Only slightly, but it might make a difference. He can’t see as well if the attack is coming from above or at the edge of his peripheral vision. He’s been trying to hide it.”

“I won’t hurt him,” you say. “He’s from our district. He’s from home.”

Aemond frowns; he’s disappointed in you. You feel his rebuke like knuckles to the belly. “I might not be there when you wake up on the day of the Games. Sometimes the news about the arena starts getting out early, so I always go a few buildings over to the Control Room and hang around for a while to see if I can learn anything. But I’ll be back in time to see you off.”

“Is that safe?”

“I have a connection there. I know what I’m doing.”

“How did Isla get an 8 from the Gamemakers?”

“She had to pick peaches twelve hours a day back in District 11. Of course she’s strong.”

You’ve rarely seen her do anything but halfheartedly stretch and receive lessons on survival skills. “If she is, she’s kept it quiet.”

“Because she’s smart.”

I can’t kill those people. You know you can’t. “Any tips for Roosevelt?”

“Yes,” Aemond says as the elevator doors open and he snaps his notebook shut. “Don’t try anything unless he’s asleep or otherwise incapacitated. Stay away from him.”

“He’s my friend.”

“You don’t have any friends,” Aemond says, and you follow him to the gymnasium.

It’s an easy day, a free day, the training scores already awarded and the interviews with Caesar Flickerman tomorrow night. It’s the tributes’ last chance to rest and unwind. Roosevelt is running on his favorite treadmill while his mentor Sherman slurs and slumps against the machine. Brookie is leisurely tossing axes that hit the bullseye every single time; Isla is providing encouragement as she stretches nearby. You go to join her. Monty and Pluto are playing catch with little Babylon from District 5, and you think as he laughs and grapples with them: Does he even understand what’s happening? Does he know these same people are going to be trying to kill him in two days?

At lunch, you chat with the people you believe are your friends. But as you sample today’s spread—cured meats and aged cheeses, dried fruit, honeycomb, an assortment of raw fish served on rice, something called sushi that turns out to be way more delicious than you would have thought—Aemond sits down beside you, and your companions instantly fall silent, their eyes wide and shifting and skeptical. Is he here to spy on and sabotage them?

You tell Aemond: “I don’t need you to supervise me to make sure I eat.”

He swipes a piece of salmon sushi off your plate and eats it in one bite. “I’m not supervising you. I’m spending time with you.”

“Oh.” And you smile, your face flushing as he sets a fresh glass of pineapple juice down in front of you. “Okay. Then that’s fine, I guess.”

“She guesses it’s fine,” Roosevelt quips to the others, snickering, his dark eyes flashing.

For a while no one is sure where to look or what to say, and then Pluto works up the courage to ask Aemond a question. “I hear the Capitol can fix anything that’s wrong with you. Is that true?” You all know that he means his lungs, the coal dust in his capillary beds and the dark poison in his bloodstream.

Aemond nods. “Just about, yeah.”

“And the food is always this good,” Isla says.

Aemond chuckles. “The food is really good.”

“And the victor can have a mansion here in the Capitol if they choose to,” Roosevelt says. “A big one like yours. And they can live here, and have anything and anybody they want.”

Aemond looks him dead in the eyes and smiles as he lies. “Exactly.”

At night you can’t sleep, and you hear the television on in the common area. Thinking it might be Aemond, you go out to meet him, but it’s just his brother: eating ice cream straight out of the carton at the dining room table, watching a game show on the huge blue-white screen as the rest of the room is draped in darkness. The contestants are at the top of an artificial mountain, perhaps ten stories tall, and are racing each other down an ice-coated path to the finish line at the bottom. They are shrieking as they slip and crash into each other, spinning helplessly on their backs like flipped turtles. Large mechanical penguins wander around nudging the contestants off the ledge, where they are caught by safety nets as the studio audience boos.

No safety nets in the Hunger Games, you think bleakly. Just rocks, and spikes, and darkness, and depths.

“You want some?” Aegon asks, offering you his spoon. Beside him on the table, his goldfish swims around his glass bowl in lazy revolutions like a planet.

The ice cream in the carton—soft and soupy, evidently some sort of cookie flavor—is less than tempting. Also, you don’t really know Aegon. “Uh, no thanks.”

“You’re going to regret passing this up when you’re in the arena eating leaves and worms or whatever.”

He has a point. “On second thought…”

You sit down next to Aegon and he grins, his teeth gleaming in the darkness, looking you over as he passes you the spoon. You sample the melted lagoon of ice cream. It’s better than you expected: very rich, very sweet, a pinch of salt to round it all out, chocolate chip cookies and ice cold milk in one. Aegon brought a suitcase, but he must have forgotten to pack pajamas because he’s commandeered some of Aemond’s clothes instead. The black sweatpants are too long, hanging past his feet, and the white t-shirt too tight across his belly. Aegon’s silver hair hangs in wet curls; he’s finally showered.

“So you visit Aemond every year for the Games,” you say.

“Yup.”

“Do you always bring the fish with you?”

Aegon laughs. “His name is Sunfyre. I rescued him from Charm’s shoes once, years ago. I can’t trust anyone at home to remember to feed him.”

“One fish doesn’t seem like too much of a commitment.”

He shrugs. “The house is chaotic. My sister’s too busy with her bugs, my little brother is always knocking down walls for his latest home improvement project. Mom has cats. Disaster seems inevitable.” He’s studying you again, not leering—which you’re very grateful for, the silk nightgown is not really appropriate for mixed company—but only seeking, contemplating. “I was wondering if it was an act,” Aegon says. “The you and Aemond thing.”

“It’s not,” you confess quietly.

“I know that now. I knew it as soon as I saw the way he looks at you. On the tv, the Capitol can show anything. They choose the angles and the clips, they write the narrative. And it would be a good strategy to get you sponsors, if Aemond had thought of it. It makes you both seem more desirable. It makes the romantics sigh at the tragedy and the predators willing to do anything to fuck you. But it’s real, and that’s not good.”

“We can’t help it,” you offer in a weak defense. “Do you hate me?”

Aegon is taken aback. “Huh? No. I don’t even know you. But I don’t want him to do something stupid and get himself killed. If he breaks the rules to help you, he’s slitting his own throat. He’ll never get to escape from this place. He’ll never get to discover what other world is out there.”

“You know he’s planning to leave?”

“Yes. And he deserves to. He’s done his time.”

You give the spoon back to Aegon, but he seems to have lost his appetite. He stirs the melted ice cream, peering down absently into the carton. “Aemond volunteered for you,” you say.

Aegon sighs. “He did.”

“Because you were younger.”

“What? No, I was eighteen. I’m the oldest.”

“Oh.” You blink at him. “Sorry, I just…assumed.”

He smiles miserably. “Yeah. I get it. I wasn’t so impressive then either. They called my name on Reaping Day and my mother lost her fucking mind. She was screaming and sobbing, and everyone knew…you know…that if I went, I wasn’t coming back. The Peacekeepers grabbed my arms and started dragging me to the stage, and then I heard Aemond shout that he volunteered. I think he wanted to help our mother, and I think he wanted to save me, because he’d actually have a shot. But I think he also wanted to be more than just some boy from District 4 who always had his face hidden in books and got ignored by girls. We’re all sold a mirage of what it means to win the Games, and by the time we realize it’s not real, there’s no going back.”

Fifteen years old, you think, the horror of it overwhelming. Fifteen years old and a killer. Fifteen years old and losing his eye. Fifteen years old and having strangers crawl across the bed to him, their weight shifting the mattress, their mouths hungry.

“He shouldn’t have volunteered for me,” Aegon says, watching the television again, cold blue-white light on his face. His eyes—ungouged, unruined—are larger and darker than Aemond’s, deep wells, nightscape currents. “He should have let me go to the Games, and I would have died in the arena, and the nightmare would have been over. But now he has to live with what he did. None of us knew what winning meant. The rest of the family still doesn’t. Aemond can’t bear to tell them, it would break their hearts. But I come for the Games every year, and he can’t hide it from me. It’s the least I can do, sharing the weight of it. I’m the reason he’s here.”

“I think he likes that you visit, Aegon. Even if he doesn’t say it.”

Aegon looks at you, profound futile pity…but there’s a warning too. Don’t get in Aemond’s way. “You know, they won’t let you go if you win. You’d be the new toy. They have to keep you long enough to rub off all the shine. Aemond’s done ten years, and I’m not convinced even that’s enough. They might make him stick around a little longer. So don’t think he could take you with him or give you his ticket. Don’t kill those other kids because you think you’re going anywhere.”

“I understand,” you say, gazing though the window at the starless void of the night.

Tomorrow is the 47th Annual Hunger Games, and today things are strange.

There’s hardly anyone in the gymnasium, and the tributes there aren’t speaking to each other. Roosevelt is running on his treadmill, red hair flying, dark eyes straight ahead and vacant and humorless. The kids from District 3 are at separate stations; Kista is doing some sort of pattern recognition game on a computer, while Tendo is weaving hemp and tree back into a hammock almost compulsively. The girls from Districts 7, 8, and 9—Oakellen, Calico, and Gotha—aren’t braiding each other’s hair anymore, but silently and grimly stretching, repeating the same poses they’ve seen Brookie and Isla do…the same ones you’ve done. Commodore is lifting colossal weights with a cackling Jackline Humboldt.

In the cafeteria, as Aemond stands by the wall and colludes with Mags and Beetee in whispers, you fill your plate with food from the everchanging daily spread. A Taste Of Greece! the banner hanging above the buffet reads. You’ve never heard of Greece. You wonder if it is one of those other places that Aemond knows so much about, like Tanzania or Mexico or Egypt. You try a little bit of everything, as Aemond once advised you to: lamb, olives, spanakopita, pita, hummus, tzatziki, dolmades, a salad with tomatoes and cucumbers and feta, baklava for dessert.

You see Roosevelt eating alone and go to join him. But when you sit down across from him at the table, he doesn’t even look up. “What’s wrong?” you ask, worried, wounded.

He doesn’t answer for a while. “I don’t want to kill you,” Roosevelt says at last. “And I don’t plan on killing you. But I still have to hope that you die. I can hope that it’s as quick and painless as possible, a rock falls on your head or you take a blade to the carotid, or you freeze to death in your sleep, or you fall off a cliff and don’t even have time to be afraid before you hit the bottom. But I have to hope that you never leave the arena, because that’s the only way I get to survive, and see my Mom again, and win the life that I want. So I’m sorry, but I can’t be your friend anymore. It just feels too ingenuine.”

He picks up his plate and leaves.

You can hear the audience roaring through the concrete walls as Salem heaves and jerks you into your gown for your interview with Caesar Flickerman, the famed host of the Games, much-adored here in the Capitol (and much-maligned at home in District 4).

You are in an underground dressing room, walls of mirrors, nowhere to look except at yourself. Your dress is made from thousands of small glass beads arranged to look like waves on the ocean, blues and greens and whites. It is very tight and stops at mid-thigh in the front; the back has a train, ropes of beads that dangle all the way to the floor, dragging and clattering, flowing like a tail of a fish. Salem has lifted your hair off your neck with a single large claw clip made from mother of pearl; you are given earrings to match. Now comes the essential glimmering step, the one the Capitol expects, the one you are becoming known for. Salem picks up the bottle and begins to squirt your arms disinterestedly.

Gently, you push Salem’s hands away. “Can Aemond do that?”

Salem smirks, like they aren’t surprised by the request. “Of course he can.” They gather up their stylist equipment—makeup to paint you with, sprays and oils for your hair—and disappear. Moments later, Aemond is here misting your skin, drawing glittering half-moons under your eyes. He does not look at the knife that hangs from your throat, or the ornate gown, or where it sits low and smothering across your chest, held up by two flimsy bejeweled straps. He only sees you. Aemond is wearing a dark blue suit, like the beads that form the water’s deep currents. When he turns, you notice that they’ve given him a matching mother of pearl clip to secure a portion of his long silver hair, just a small flat one.

Aemond goes to the door and pauses when he sees you aren’t following him. “Everything alright?”

You hesitate. “Salem didn’t give me any underwear.”

An apologetic smile. “I think that was purposeful,” Aemond says. “Are you nervous? Did you want to rehearse again? Do you know what you’re going to say?”

“I think so. I understand what they want.”

“Do you?”

“My advantage isn’t being fast or strong or vicious. My advantage is that people want to fuck me.”

He opens the dressing room door. “Keep your legs crossed during the interview and you should be okay.”

You walk with him into the hallway, your blue heels clicking on the cold concrete floor. There are production crew members hurrying you along as they franticly check and recheck the time on their pocket watches. You trot as fast as you can without stumbling. Aemond’s palm comes to rest on the small of your back.

You are both ushered up a flight of stairs, and then there’s a studio set up with blinding lights and chaotic racks of props. The tributes are all in a row, their mentors and escorts fluttering around giving last-minute counsel and practicing lines. Charm, dressed like a clownfish and with her hair dyed orange, is beaming up at Commodore as she pins something to the lapel of his cerulean blue suit. It’s a tiny silver Loch Ness Monster.

The photographer approaches, clapping his hands impatiently to get everyone’s attention. “Alright, these photos are for promotional material. You’ll each take your turn, then you’ll wait to go up the next stairwell for your interview with Mr. Flickerman. Every tribute gets three minutes with him, and three minutes only. There’s a light on the stage that will go green, then yellow, then red. When it turns red, you better be on your way off that stage. Got it?”

A chorus of nervous agreement from the tributes. Brookie is wearing a gown made of gold coins that jangle merrily; they remind you of the chimes of bell buoys back home on the sea. Roosevelt is in a black suit, his hair slicked back, a choker of onyx stones around his throat. Monty and Pluto are trying to count the atoms on little Babylon’s flame-colored jumpsuit, spinning him around and making him laugh.

As the tributes are being photographed—posing sweetly, or formidably, or wielding prop weapons—a group of adults stand in the corner of the room watching, women in gowns and men in suits. Maybe they’re Capitol executives, or Gamemakers, or people who won some sort of raffle for VIP tickets, you have no idea. But they ogle at you and the other tributes, and hiss to each other, and pick you over like bones stripped of meat.

A woman, perhaps forty, grins as she gestures to Commodore: “Yes he’s an ugly brute, but do you think he’s that big everywhere?”

You are abruptly furious. You’re sick. He’s just a kid.

But he isn’t, and you aren’t either; none of you are. You’re fish in a net, you’re fillets to be portioned and sold and devoured.

“You next, sweetheart,” the photographer calls to you with a yawn. He’s already getting bored. We waves you closer until you are standing in the middle of the floor, stark lights, a whirring fan. He stands in front of you and raises the camera, expecting you to do something cute: a blade flourished, a kiss blown.

You have to want to live more than you want anything else.

You drop to your knees so hard you bruise them, unsheathe your knife, shove the blade between your teeth like a horse’s bit, like the way Aemond’s ring finger stifled your moans on a wet metal table. You crawl on all fours towards the photographer as the extravagant observers gasp and the fan rips tresses of your hair from the clip. The photographer is immediately revived; he goes down to the floor with you, gushing encouragement, the shutter of his camera clicking over and over again. Aemond just watches, his arms crossed, not saying anything but his eyebrows raised.

“Okay, you’re done!” the photographer announces, glancing down at his camera. “I got the shot. Good God, did I get it. They’re going to be putting that on billboards and buses. Who’s next…?”

You struggle to your feet, no easy task given the height of your heels and the constriction of your dress. Aemond swoops in to help you up. Some of the tributes are chuckling awkwardly, not knowing what to think. The Careers are gaping, and you see something in their faces that gives you horror and hope: fear. They know people are starting to notice you. They know you’re going to have sponsors. You click the sheath back onto your knife and let it swing loosely from your neck again, the long silver chain shimmering.

They’re herding the first group of tributes up the stairs to meet Caesar. They make you all stand just off-stage, your ankles trembling, your hearts racing. The mentors and escorts allow their tributes no free rein, as if they are skittish horses that could bolt at any loud noise or sudden movement. After a moment, Commodore arrives behind you, unspeaking, unsmiling. Charm is chattering away unimpeded, mostly about how dreadful the District 10 outfits are, fur and horns and cow print. She’s trying to distract him, you think.

The production crew instructs each tribute when it is their turn to be interviewed. They grab Brookie first and thrust her out onto the stage; she swiftly gets her bearings and smiles and waves for the crowd. Each three-minute segment goes by so fast you can’t really retain anything. Your thoughts are a hurricane, your skin is cold with sweat. Brookie and Roosevelt are quick and funny. Hawk and Sara are earnest. The kids from District 3 are well-versed in statistics and emerging technological innovations. Tendo shakes Caesar’s hand in goodbye. You’re next.

“I’ll be right here,” Aemond assures you, as if that means anything, as if he can save you; but you feel better knowing he’s so close. The spotlight roams to the edge of the stage, and you step into it.

The stage feels as vast as an ocean. The audience is almost deafening, although the lights are so bright you can’t really see them, just blooms of color and the prismatic glinting of gemstones. You try to remember to smile. Caesar is standing by his chair and beckoning to you. “Welcome, welcome, our lovely young lady from District 4!”

You reach for him and he seizes your hands, squeezing them, his face exuberant and radiant and…open, somehow. Ever-curious. Empathy that endlessly regenerates. It occurs to you that he’s the best kind of person for a job like this. When you’re in front of him, you’re his whole world, and he means everything he says, and he feels every joy and sorrow; and then the second you leave you cease to exist, and his devotion begins anew for the next transitory subject. “Thank you, Caesar!” you say as you both sit in your large cozy violet lounge chairs. “It’s so generous of you to invite me here tonight for this interview. Not that I had a choice.”

The audience laughs, and so does Caesar. His hair is tied back and dyed jet black, accented with silver pins of stars and the moon. He wears a black suit freckled with constellations. “Hahaha, that’s positively true, you did not volunteer!”

You say, smiling so widely it hurts your face: “It’s not too late to send me back and pick someone else!”

Caesar wags a finger like you’re being naughty. “But the Capitol, despite all its grandeur, would be a little less dazzling without you, dear. I mean, look at you! Look how you sparkle! Tell me, what is the inspiration behind all this glitter and glamour?”

“Well, the ocean is a bit like that, isn’t it? The wave crests sparkle so invitingly, but then below the surface are sharks and riptides and rusty fishhooks waiting to cut you. District 4 is famous for our sparkling, lethal water. I just don’t want anyone to forget it.”

He simpers, almost flirtatious. “How could we forget how dangerous you are with that knife hanging around your neck all the time?”

“Oh, this?” You rip the sheath off the blade and twirl it effortlessly between your fingers, the steel flashing, the mother of pearl hilt smooth. The crowd whistles and applauds. You spot the tiny green light on the floor of the stage, right by the ledge, your timer. “It’s been in Daddy’s family for at least three generations, and I’ve been using it to gut fish since I was ten years old.”

“And you think your experience will be an advantage in the arena?”

“Fish and people have a lot of the same parts, once you get past the fins and the tails.”

Caesar chuckles heartily. The crowd hoots. “And what a gorgeous decorative sheath! Are those little fish? With gemstones for eyes?”

You can’t keep the heat from your cheeks as you cover the blade again. “They are. Aemond had this made for me.”

“Ah, Aemond Targaryen. Your mentor. A very popular victor here in the Capitol.” Caesar looks to the audience, his tone conspiratorial, and they fall quiet, leaning forward in their seats. “You know, there has been some chatter about the two of you…how close you appear to be…and how ravishingly good you look standing next to each other! Rather like a couple, frankly.”

For the first time, your face falters. This isn’t for show. This is real. On gigantic screens mounted on either side of the stage, every expression is magnified. You catch a glimpse of yourself and think: How did they make me so beautiful? “He makes more of an impression than I do, but I’ll accept the compliment and I’m very grateful for it.”

“But how do you really feel about this buzz surrounding you and Aemond?”

You can see him waiting just off-stage on the periphery of your vision, a pillar of blue, a flash of moonshine. The audience is pin-drop silent. You tell them the truth. “I certainly find myself wishing that we could have met under different circumstances.”

Caesar’s voice is soft, sympathetic, cajoling. The light at the edge of the stage is yellow, but he pays it no attention. “Do you?”

“Well…” You gaze out into the audience, and now that your eyes have adjusted you can see them better. They stare back at you, not bloodthirsty, not grinning, not hungry. Their faces are solemn. Their eyes shine with impending heartbreak. “Before I came here to the Capitol, I’d never been in love before. And there are still so many things I haven’t done. I’ve never been kissed. I’ve never had anyone to call mine. I’ve never had a ring or a wedding. And with Aemond, I think…”

The light has turned red. Your time is up. Nevertheless, Caesar grasps your hands again, urging you onwards. “Yes, my dear?”

“I…” Your voice breaks, and a single tear skates down your cheek. The audience gasps, mourning along with you. With great effort, you begin again. “I think I want more with him than I’ll ever get to have. And that’s very difficult.”

The crowd erupts into grief-stricken sighs and whispers. Some people are crying. Caesar, his own eyes brimming, raises your left hand to kiss your knuckles. “You might yet have it, my sparkling tribute from District 4,” he says. “You just might.”

You aren’t conscious of standing up, and bidding Caesar goodbye, and waving farewell to the audience; but suddenly you’re standing just off-stage with Aemond again, in the shadows, in the gloom, and he’s leading you away as the other tributes and mentors and escorts glower at you, terror and vitriol in their faces, because you’re giving the people of the Capitol what they want and it’s working.

Far behind you, Caesar is saying as Commodore marches out to meet him: “Now folks, I promise I’m not as short as he’s making me look…”

Aemond leads you through the concrete labyrinth and out into the night, where the cars are waiting. Pedestrians scream when they see you. Cameras strobe and journalists shout questions. Aemond opens a car door and helps you in, your gown a straightjacket, your ankles quivering in your heels. You don’t know if you’ve made a mistake; he hasn’t said a word. He ensures you’re settled in the back seat and then goes around to the other side. He gets in, slams the door, doesn’t give the driver a destination. Everyone must return directly to the Tribute Center tonight; there’s nowhere else in the world for you. Aemond exhales shakily and looks down at his palms as the wheels begin to turn.

“Was that okay?” you ask him.

His voice is quiet, like he’s very far away. “It was great.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Aemond says. “No, you were perfect.”

“Then why can’t you look at me?”

Aemond says, still staring down at his hands: “You are so beautiful.”

You cross the seat to reach him, to lay your palm over his scar as streetlights and camera flashes strobe into the indigo cabin. And he kisses you, not soft or gentle like you always thought your first kiss would be but messy and famished, not the kind of hunger that steals and bleeds but something satiating, necessary, life-sustaining. You don’t know how to find a rhythm, and you don’t know which way to tilt your head, and you have no idea what your tongue is supposed to be doing, but it’s magic anyway, him pulling you into his lap and gripping your bare thighs beneath your gown, your hands clasping his face, his scarred perfect face.

“I’m so sorry,” you say, breaking away. “I’m probably terrible at this—”

“You’re not,” Aemond promises, smiling, and he kisses you again. You can hear people shouting through the glass, and you know they’re watching, they’re taking pictures, they’re encapsulating you into video clips to play on the news, but you don’t care. It could be your last night on earth. It could be your last night anywhere. And anything they see won’t really be you. “I’ve never done it this way before,” Aemond confesses, and at first you don’t know what he means. Then you understand: He’s never been with anyone who didn’t pay. He’s never had something real.

“Hey,” you tell him, your palms cradling his jaw, streetlight constellations in his eye, fractured luminescence sparkling in his sapphire. “I’m looking at you right now. No one else is, but I am.”

His left hand skates around your waist, beads rattling like windchimes of shells and shark teeth. His long lithe fingers tuck an unbound lock of your hair behind your ear. He touches your face like he’s been waiting to since the moment you met on Reaping Day, in the shadow of the Games, in the autumn of your life: your cheekbone, your lips. Then his mouth is on yours again and the cadence like a pulse, hot and pounding, is not so elusive. Your tongue tastes him. Your teeth graze him. The car makes a sharp turn and you lose your balance and slide out of Aemond’s lap, giggling and clawing for the backrest. He follow you down to where you end up sprawled across the seat, on top of you, still kissing you, his silver hair like moonlight and his hips braced against yours, knowing you wear nothing beneath your gown but sweat and secrets.

At the Tribute Center, Aemond draws you to the elevator and presses the button for the fourth floor. The metal doors close and he is on you again, your back to the wall and your lungs gasping in sharp scarce air. You take his hands and put them on your chest because he won’t touch you there until you’ve told him it’s alright, and he yanks down one of your gown’s thin glittering straps and tastes you, licks the salt from your skin, bites your nipple as you rake your fingers through his hair and moan. The elevator doors open again and you scramble to fix your gown before diving out into the hallway.

The television is on in the common area of the District 4 suite, Caesar Flickerman’s interviews with this year’s tributes ongoing. From the couch, Aegon gapes at you both: disheveled hair, dazed faces, Aemond’s rumpled suit jacket, one strap of your gown hanging off your shoulder. “So, what have you guys been up to?”

“Stay out here,” Aemond orders him, still breathing heavily.

“Obviously! This is where the tv is, where else would I be?!”

“Good,” Aemond says, and grabs your hand and disappears with you into your bedroom.

In the time it takes him to close and lock the door, you’re already on the mattress waiting for him, your shoes kicked to the floor, your outstretched palms impatient for him to fill them. He meets you there and drags you roughly into his lap again, the hem of your beaded gown pushed up to the tops of your thighs, and when his fingers slip between your legs you’re amazed by how close you are already, bright like clear skies, warm like summer, your blood pooling there until it is heavy like an anchor and dragging you someplace sublime. You’ve never been able to force this to happen no matter how hard you tried; he gives it to you so freely.

Instinctively, without premeditation or self-consciousness, your hips begin to circle and press against him, only the ocean blue cloth of his suit separating you, and even this is too much. You unbuckle Aemond’s belt in the twilight shadows and he realizes what you want. He reveals himself: staggering length and thickness, and you can’t claim to know your body well, but the prospect of the culminative act seems to defy physics. You move against him as he touches you, coating him in your wetness, teasing you both, his tongue darting between your lips as you moan, his fingers coaxing you into the depths of blue water, the riptides of a kind storm.

You cry out too loudly and he clamps a hand over your mouth, laughing as he whispers for you to be quiet, kisses your temple, strokes you beneath your gown until the tide starves away and you are empty and too sensitive. You shake his palm off your face, reach down to grasp his fingers that are dripping with you, raise them to your lips. Aemond watches, transfixed, as you lick him clean, and then he kisses you, the room whirling, scalding blood thrashing in your ears, your skull filled only with him.

Your lips rove to his jaw, down his throat, following the line of his breastbone as you unbutton the white shirt beneath his suit jacket. Then there are the taut muscles of his belly, and the slopes of his hips, and then…

Aemond, alarmed, lifts your chin to make you look at him. “What are you doing?”

“I want to,” you say. You want to learn everything about him, you want to touch him, you want to taste him. And you want him inside of you, but this way seems easier than the other. No pain, no blood, no irretrievable rite of passage, nothing that could poison this night-blue haze you’re both lost in. “Can you teach me how?”

He hesitates and glances to the wall, maybe because when you’re so far away it’s easy to forget that you’re the woman here with him, and phantoms begin to creep in, and nightmares and shame.

You come back to nuzzle his throat—shared salt, ghosts of smoke—and put his hands on you, the swell of your chest, the downy inside of your thigh. “It’s just me,” you remind him.

Aemond closes his eye and nods. “Lips over your teeth.”

You cover them, like a blade with a sheath, and sink low to take him in your mouth. He’s big, so there are adjustments to be made: how to keep your jaw open wide enough, how to draw in your cheeks to create friction. Your hair, fallen out of its mother of pearl clip, drags over his lower belly; Aemond knots his fingers in it, not to push you lower but to feel anchored to you like a boat safe in harbor. You pay attention to when he jolts and his breath hitches: your tongue lapping the underside, your lips sucking the tip. You’ve drenched him with saliva, you realize; he’s dripping and glistening with you. You peek up at Aemond, embarrassed.

He chuckles, and he isn’t so tense anymore. “It’s supposed to be messy.”

Reassured, you continue, and it’s getting easier now. You alternate between the motions he seems to like best; and your technique can’t be so impressive, but perhaps it’s the knowledge that you’re the one doing it to him, because low euphoric sighs are escaping from Aemond’s throat and his hold on your hair is rough and distracted. You don’t mind; it’s minute violence from harmless hands, like when he held you down on the metal table in the prep team’s pod.

“Give me your hand,” he says, panting, and places it at the base. He shows you how to grip him and you can feel him pulsing against the lines of your palm, the whirls of your fingerprints. When you caress and squeeze him, his head falls back and he gazes up at the ceiling, his ribcage heaving as his lungs battle for oxygen, his fingers twisting in your hair. When you glide your thumb up over the tip, he whimpers. Seconds later he gasps: “You should let me finish myself.”

Not a chance; he didn’t leave you to finish yourself. You keep stroking him, your hand tight and slippery, your lips and tongue edging him closer towards the feeling he taught you was possible. It’s an indescribable high, giving him the same gift. It’s the only time you’ve felt powerful since Reaping Day.

“Don’t,” Aemond begs. “You’re going to…you have to…”

He moans and tries to push you off, but you plunge down as far as you can like diving into clear water, swallowing him, devouring him, not to harm but to savor, not ravening but worshipful. It’s a potent mineral rush, metallic and a little jarring, but it’s a part of him. You linger there, working him until the very end, licking those last slow drops from the slit.

But Aemond doesn’t immediately begin to soften as you expect him to, as you’ve heard men do; instead he pulls you back onto the bed, an urgency like adolescent zeal, because this is almost like his first time too. You’re grinning as he covers you and kisses you deeply—salt like the sea, warmth like golden sand—and then his hand is skating between your thighs again, not merely to touch you but to open you. What you feel now is not pleasure at all but pressure, and stretching, and a sensation that is so foreign and intrusive it’s almost nauseating. You hold your breath, hoping it will pass, not wanting to ruin this, not wanting to disappoint him.

And he’s so much bigger than his fingers.

“I can’t,” you gasp, and Aemond stops, startled, wondering what he’s done wrong. But it’s not his fault. It’s my fault. I should know myself better, I should have explored this before now. But how could I have known my life was almost over? “I’m not ready. I’m sorry, I know I don’t have time to get used to the idea. But I’m just not ready yet.”

He shakes his head. He’s lying between your legs, nearly as close as it’s possible to be to another person, but you know he won’t do anything you don’t want him to. “You have time.”

Your voice is hushed; there are tears in your eyes. “Do you really think I can win?”

“I do,” Aemond murmurs, like something sacred, a secret or a vow. He kisses your forehead and then draws away, and you almost break and say: I take it back, I want you to do it. Even if it’s horrible, even if it hurts me. I’d rather bleed for you than for anyone else. “I have something for you.”

“Really?”

“It’s in my room. I’ll go get it.” And then, when he’s climbed out of bed and is buttoning his shirt and buckling his belt: “You should get cleaned up.”

“I should,” you echo numbly, realizing it’s over. You have to go to sleep, because you have to wake up early, because tomorrow is the start of the Games. Nothing on earth can stop it. Nobody on earth can save you.

“This is probably for the best anyway,” Aemond says, and he’s businesslike again. He’s your mentor, not your lover. He has to be. Maybe he couldn’t stand it otherwise. “You shouldn’t go into the arena right after…I mean, the first time…you could be sore, you could be cramping and spotting, you could develop a urinary tract infection. It’s a wild card to add to all the rest of the factors, and you don’t need that.”

“I don’t,” you agree, and he leaves.

Faintly, you hear Aemond tell Aegon out in the common area: “Everything is fine.”

Aegon snorts and replies: “Sounded a whole lot more than just fine to me…”

You tug off your gown and get in the bathtub, fill it with hot water, turn on the bubbling nozzles so there is something to disrupt the quiet instead of your own thoughts. Aemond comes back with a small plastic pill bottle, and you hit the button again so the nozzles shut off and the water goes still. You don’t hide your body from him; he’s seen it already. He sits on the rim of the tub and shows you the present he’s brought. From out in the common area, you think you can hear Charm’s voice; she and Commodore must be back from the interviews.

“I know you’ll be too anxious to sleep tonight,” Aemond says, shaking the bottle so the pills rattle inside. “These will help. Most sleep medication knocks you unconscious but actually suppresses REM sleep, which is the stage most necessary for physical and mental recovery. These won’t do that. They’ll put you into REM sleep within thirty minutes, and you’ll wake refreshed. It’s a good advantage to have. You’ll go into the arena well-rested and thinking clearly, and you’ll last longer than the others if there’s sleep deprivation.”

“How did you get them?”

“I have a client who’s a doctor.” Aemond twists the cap off the plastic bottle. “Open your mouth.”

You smile. “I think I can figure out how to take a pill myself.”

“Sure, but I’m not leaving them with you.”

No, of course not. Just in case you decide to try to swallow all twenty or thirty at once. You open your mouth and Aemond places a single white pill on your tongue, where it almost instantly dissolves. He touches your face, ghosts his thumbprint across your unscarred cheek, leans in to kiss you goodnight. You tease, already drowsy: “I’ll contaminate you.”

“No worries. I’m going to need one too.” He administers himself a dose, a cupped palm, a flash of white vanishing. “Finish up. Get into bed.”

Aemond stays until you’re beneath the blankets, and then he departs for his own room. You lie there on your back in the darkness—still breathing in his sweat and smoke and cologne, still surrounded by him—for maybe five minutes before you force yourself to get up, knowing you can’t fight against the pill much longer.

You tiptoe across the common area, Aegon peeping curiously at you from the couch, and steal into Aemond’s bedroom. He’s left the door unlocked. He gazes up at you through the shadows, murmurs of moonlight glimmering in his sapphire. He’s taken off his suit, but he’s not wearing anything else. His hair is still dry; he hasn’t washed it yet. There are stray flecks of your glitter on his skin.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, but he doesn’t seem surprised to see you. And when you seek refuge beneath the blankets, he holds you against his bare chest and tells you hushed beautiful lies, that everything is okay, that you’re safe.

“I’m so scared,” you whisper as you descend rapidly into the dark currents of sleep.