#emberstaskone

Z.H.,

It’s not an easy thing to put sentimentality into words. Facts are easier to deal in, concrete calculations, problems that have real solutions to discover, questions that have answers, I have no trouble lecturing on those sorts of things for hours. This sort of thing is...different, though. But I’ve always found it more possible to offer vulnerability, honesty in written word rather than spoken. 

To start, I have to admit that I’ve done you a disservice by being more inclined to focus on my work, and by forcing you to do the same while you’ve worked for me, and I apologize for that. I think you’ll understand one day sooner rather than later why that’s been for the best, especially recently, although you’re intelligent enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if you had already reasoned why I’ve done so.

That wasn’t always the case, of course. It’s always been an intentional choice, yes, but it’s rarely been an unselfish one, more for my own benefit than for the benefit of any of those around me. In a way, it still is a selfish choice now, as I would rather you live freely, as you want to, with the potential to see a kinder future, or at least a more just one, than to end up in a position similar to my own. Or, more likely, a position much worse than my own, because of me. 

I’ve had dozens of interns turned assistants over the past two decades, all hand-chosen by my overseers, all intelligent in their own right, all helpful to varying degrees, and I’ve had several interns turned tributes, too––intentionally, I believe, but that’s a theory for another letter––but it would be a lie to say I’ve cared for any of them on a personal level. I say this with no amount of pride, but with a certain sense of guilt now. There’s a great deal more that I could have done, but it’s difficult to see the sense in attachment when there’s no future, and it’s safer to keep a distance for all involved. Or that’s what I’ve told myself, anyway. I don’t think that’s as true as I believed; it’s just an excuse I’ve used. It’s a punishment, after all, or perhaps more accurately a reminder of how easily things can be taken away, the power held over my head, no single moment of any of our lives truly safe, only it hasn’t had the effect they hoped for. 

(And I refuse to give them credit for any change in opinion I may be ruminating on as I write this.)

This is all to say that I’m grateful that they sent you to me, I’m grateful that none of the twenty slips of paper with your name on them were chosen, and you have the chance at a future I know I wouldn’t have been able to guarantee if it had. I’m grateful to call you an assistant, and I’m grateful that I’ve had the chance to be a mentor to you in a perhaps more meaningful sense than I might’ve been able had the circumstances been different. I only wish that I could reverse the hands of time and offer something better to the others that came before, in this arena and other Arenas.

I’d like to think I’m doing a better job of that now, though, and you’ve nearly forced me to do so, with your rather relentless stream of interest in the personal, and care it’s difficult not to offer back, but I’ll let you judge that, being more objective than self reflection. At the time of writing this, there’s still a long way to go, I think, but everyone has to start somewhere. I can only hope that I’m not starting too late. 

As sentimental as it sounds, it feels serendipitous that you came to me when you did. At the right time, in the right place, against unfathomable odds, here you are, to serve as proof and motivation at the same time. Proof of the things I’ve tried to ignore in the world, the cruelty I’ve been apart of and the pain I’ve helped cause, and motivation to take some semblance of control back so that I don’t let down another person whose well being has been put in my hands.

The thing I fear, though, is that my passivity and distance is the only thing that’s kept you safe, and I can’t comfortably give either of those things any longer... Which you’ve likely noticed, if this letter has found its way safely into your hands, or unsafely into another’s.

I think they sent you to me to try to show you it’s better to keep your head down, and do as you’re asked, and that’s likely what I would have taught before the sparks of something both new and old at the same time were lit around us. But now? Now I’m prepared to admit I hope you won’t do anything of the sort when the time comes, whether I’m with you or not.

Your mentor,

She doesn’t even know her name, doubts she will ever find out. Blythe has no true interest in this woman besides admiring her from afar. And she hates her. So. Fucking Much. She doesn’t know her, but she knows she hates her. Damn her from looking so much like her. Even from afar, Blythe can easily tell she has the same blue eyes she once came to worship. And it kills her. 

They’ve never talked. Blythe has made sure this woman will never be able to come close to her. As hateful as she is, Capitol Idiots still feel the need to get close to her, to wrap their slimy arms around her and pull her close before Blythe frees herself with a sift kick and a sneer. That woman has tried this though, which Blythe is incredibly thankful for since she doesn’t know what she will do if she is forced to look into her eyes. 

Every party, she is there. Blythe might not know who she is, but she knows she must be someone important, which only makes her disgust towards herself grow. Even if this infatuation, or whatever it should be called, is purely physical given how much she looks like her dead lover, Blythe feels absolutely sick whenever she finds herself daydreaming about her. 

It’s simple, really. Her fingers brushing her hair, or grazing her skin and memorizing every curve of her body. Cue her dinner ending on the floor. 

It’s not really love. It’s longing. Whatever this is, it’s just the result of her crazed desperation. Maybe one day she will be strong enough to stop projecting her feelings on that woman she is using as a vessel. 

MOSS BUCKLEY Childhood Friend, District 7

Now, when you count your loved ones from home, there’s only one: Moss Buckley.

When you were a child, you ran in a pack of three. A band of brothers. There was you, and there was Moss, and then the ringleader was Arbor Holmwood. They’d both found their way inside the walls of your family home: Arbor, for a short time after his father suffered an accident in the mill and his mother wouldn’t leave his side while he recuperated; Moss, to stay, after both of his parents died fighting a wildfire that threatened to take out too much of District Seven’s resources.

Arbor was reaped two years before you. You and Moss clung to each other as you watched him die on the screen. To this day, you still wonder: Would things have been different if you could have put one of your weapons in his hand? If you could have given him your sponsors? Two years later it was your turn, but your fate was different. You got to come home.

But things between you and Moss were never quite the same. Maybe they’d started falling apart earlier, maybe you couldn’t hold together without your leader. But, without a doubt, your victory in the Games was the final death knell. Moss escaped the Reaping, Moss was untouched by the Games—(or so you told yourself)—and so you couldn’t lay your burdens on him, no matter how much he may have wanted you to.

Of course, for those early years, you didn’t lay your burdens on anyone. You were too busy pretending that you didn’t have any, that riches and luxury had washed them all away.

Maybe, through the lens of time, you can admit it: you were insufferable then. Phony. Telling stories of the Capitol, a place that Moss would never see, repeating party lines. Come on, it’s just me, Moss would say, like he was pleading for something you didn’t know how to give. You can talk to me. But you didn’t, and you still haven’t. Maybe you’re still insufferable.

But Moss didn’t stop coming around. He still hasn’t. These days, he’s pretty much the only one that does. You don’t know why, when you never reciprocate. But at least you haven’t stopped opening the door. That has to count for something.

CYPRIAN STACK Socialite and Businessman, Capitol

These days, you’ve found yourself a new brother. And, like most things in your life now, he’s from the Capitol.

You remember the first gift you received in the Arena, the one that seemed to mark the moment when your victory went from possible to inevitable. It was a pair of night vision goggles, allowing you to better stalk your remaining prey, and the note that came with them was signed C. Stack. You’ve learned, in the years since your win, a lot about sponsors. They give you gifts, and if you win, they feel like they own a little bit of your victory. They feel like they own a little bit of you.

Cicero Stack was an old man when you met him. Maybe that could have made him feel fatherly toward you, but you always felt like more of a prized hunting dog instead. But you always had a place in his home when you were in the Capitol, and at Capitol events he liked to take a lot of credit for you, liked to tell everyone that he saw something in you before anyone else did. He was the kind of man with connections, who always knew which way the wind was blowing.

He’s gone now, too, but he’s outlasted by a son: Cyprian Stack. A good few years older than you, he taught you a lot of things that his father did not—namely, what trouble the young and the famous could get into in the Capitol when their upper crust parents weren’t looking.  

You’re older men now. Cyprian has inherited his father’s dynasty, his money and his connections, and has settled down in ways that you have not. You’ve never been on the same path, and the day may come when the two of you diverge, but for now you still suit each other’s purposes just fine.

part i. juli blueshade

beloved son.

Perri never sleeps well during Games season.

She never really sleeps well in general, but the restless nights are bad when she’s training tributes, worse since she started taking care of Juli. The nightmares are always the same — their faces morphing into one another's before they become Juli’s, staring up at her with pleading eyes. She must have witnessed him killed for over a hundred times now, like some sick game of spin-the-wheel where he gets to experience every death that her tributes died, every death she could not prevent, every death on her hands.

She wakes with a splitting headache.

The hologram screen in her room springs to life. “Good morning, mama,” Juli’s beaming face fills her vision, and immediately Perri’s heart floods with relief, racing heartbeat slowly calming. Still alive. It had only just been recently that Juli started calling her that. (Before that, she'd been too scared, too unqualified to allow him to call her that. It was always 'Auntie' instead.)

“Good morning,” she greets back, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. If she wasn’t staying at the Training Centre, she would have given him his usual morning hug. “Are you ready to go to school?”

At the question Juli scowls. “Nooooo,” he whines, giving Perri his best pout. He should have grown out of this petulance by now, but Perri is biased — it's endearing still. “I don’t like school. But I made you breakfast!” At this he holds out a bowl of cereal and milk. “See?”

Gods above, Perri loves him, but the small hints of rebellion he’s been displaying lately ages her ten years every time they happen. It’s cute, sure, but if this keeps up as he gets older she knows she can’t keep him safe. Not since she mostly retreated from the social scene at the Capitol to raise him. “That’s so sweet of you,” she smiles, keeping her fears to herself for the time being. Maybe when he was older she would tell him. “I’ll eat your breakfast, and you get dressed for school, alright?”

Juli nods eagerly. “Promise!” he holds up a pinky finger.

“Promise,” Perri echoes back, holding up a pinky finger of her own before his hologram flickers shut.

Back to another day of training.

part ii. flax gallocreek

fellow district 9 mentor.

Perri often wonders if Flax made the better choice.

Flax is a man of few attachments. He returned from his Games bitter (as one should be), keeping a sort of disdainful distance from his family ever since. Perhaps that was what people would call a smart decision. By pushing his family away, Flax keeps them safe. Doesn't marry the man he's always been sweet on, even though he'd promised to be together if Flax makes it back alive. Perri suspects some of it has to do with the fact that Flax had returned from the Games with a temper that he detests, a side of him that he doesn't want to show people he genuinely cares about.

In the end, Flax is probably right. They worked together as mentors, bonded over an unspoken shared weight of being responsible for so many deaths. They'd shared a bed before, once or twice, when Perri was still going through her destructively cynical phase, but they quickly figured out that it was more like pressing down on an open wound than any sort of healing. Flax's kindness has always been brutal; he'd broken things off by telling Perri that seeing her just reminded him of the dead.

Still, it's strange thing. Attachments. Perri had always thought of herself as cold and stand-offish, but recent revelations had shown her that she did have the capacity to care for others, after all. Flax might have been opposed to her caring about him, but she did, in some strange way of hers.

She hopes he doesn't mind.

part iii. zizania wheatfall

fellow district 9 victor; not a mentor.

Zizania is always the earliest to wake in the house. It's difficult to call it 'early', considering she has never slept well ever since she returned from the Games and it was more likely that she hadn't slept at all in the first place. She has a house of her own, but whenever Perri (and often Juli in tow) return to District 9 on the weekends, she stays over at their residence instead, citing the silent loneliness of living on her own.

Which is why Perri is up at five in the morning making pancakes.

There's a resilience in Zizania that Perri almost envies. That's why she's so determined to protect her from the duties of being a mentor for just a bit longer, why Perri treats her like a little sister more than a fellow victor. She’s happy to bear the burden of it all if it means that Zizania can have some semblance of normalcy for just a bit longer.

Footsteps from the stairs signals Zizania's arrival, and Perri turns to greet her. 'You shouldn't have,' Zizania gestures. 'I'm the guest.'

"And I'm the host," she replies, pushing a pancake off onto another plate with a spatula. The pancake-making had ulterior motives (Perri couldn’t sleep at all) but she wasn’t about to admit it "Zi. It's the least I can do for you for watching Juli while I'm gone."

Zizania shoots her a disgruntled look, but it comes off as warmer than she probably intended. 'Thank you.' In a motion of practiced ease, Perri slides the plate across the countertop while Zizania pulls out a set of cutlery from a drawer. She’s been over so many times that she knows where everything is, and Perri’s almost tempted to tell her to move in entirely. 'It smells lovely, as always.'

She smiles. "It's the only thing I know how to cook, after all."

part iii. sandor hornimoore

adoptive sibling.

"I suppose it would be strange to tell you happy birthday."

Perri pauses mid-step. She left for the Games and came back with a kill count and a bad habit of pacing and scratching the back of her wrist when she's nervous.  "Oh," she answers at last. Her voice comes out suspiciously light, though mostly because she's still too numb to feel anything. She has a big house now, in Victors' Village. It's also move-in day, and it's her birthday. "It is."

Sandor looks at her a bit funny, and she doesn't meet their gaze. Perri knows it'll be there, that strange mixture of sympathy and cautiousness. She doesn't want to see it, not from them.

"Well, happy birthday." They barrel on anyway. She supposes it's one thing she's always liked about them: their unfailing honesty. Having grown up together as siblings-but-not-quite, with the adults at the Children's Home more or less hands-off when it came to the children's upbringings, the older ones were in charge of imparting the unkindness of the world on the younger ones. It's why she chose Sandor to come to her new house with her, so it wouldn't be so lonely. "I got you a gift. Besides moving into your house, that is."

That did the trick — a bickering exchange so familiar she couldn't help but retort. "You are so stingy," she answers automatically. "Your generosity is noted."

Sandor snorts. "Hey, someone has to keep your ego in check. I thought fourteen year olds were supposed to be mature."

"I didn't think I would get to turn fourteen." All the wind rushes out of her as soon as she says so, and Perri doesn't breathe in the ensuing silence.

But finally Sandor makes the first move. "Here it is." They toss a tightly wrapped package at her, and she catches it on reflex. "Don't open it until I've left the room."

Still smarting from the exchange, Perri can only nod in appreciation.

​Knight Rosethrone

There’s not a day that goes by when Dawn doesn’t think about the love of her life. The man the Capitol stole away from her in the cruelest way possible. She feels in her heart that Knight is still alive, she just has no clue where he might be or where he might have gone after being banished. For his safety, she’s never gone looking, but she still hasn’t fully let him go. 

Knight is probably the deepest she’s ever loved someone. She’d cared for many people over her lifetime, but Knight was the one person she truly fell head-over-heels for. Dawn was always a romantic at heart and Knight completely fulfilled that side of her. When she first met him, he was a little rough around the edges with a flirty, devilish smile and a reputation for being a bit of a troublemaker, but he won her over almost immediately, cooking dinner for her at his fancy restaurant on their first date. He’d continue to win her over almost every day since, filling her office with flowers or writing her the sappiest letters that she’d treasure like gold. 

They never really had an engagement period. They merely woke up one day and figured why wait any longer to start a life together? Knight was Dawn’s storybook romance, her literal knight-in-shining-armor, for lack of better terms, so they had small, tiny ceremony, that most people didn’t even hear about until months later. 

She still loves him, despite not seeing him/hearing from him in years. 16 years later, the throb of pain she feels when she thinks about him lessens, but she doesn’t think it will ever go away. 

Gigi & Nero Hardin

When it comes to her siblings, love feels like a strong word. It’s not totally inaccurate...just generous. Needless to say, Dawn is definitely far closer with her siblings than her parents.

Gigi is the smartest person Dawn knows. They’ve never been particularly close, but they do stay in contact, checking in on semi-monthly basis. As professor and well-respected researcher Gigi is pretty anti-social, largely avoiding the Capitol’s social scene. Where Dawn is immensely caring, Gigi can be condescending and cold but she’s also the first person in line if Dawn ever needs a small favor. Gigi, had a pretty terse relationship with their (now deceased) parents, which the sisters have bonded over, especially during their parents’ funerals.