At the Tea Party (@ovcrlookcd)
Every day seems to bring new whispers. Someone else has disappeared. Someone else has returned. Someone else hasn’t. So close to their wedding, and the chaos that came at its conclusion, they can’t help but feel that they bear some of the blame. They tried to play the Game, and this is what they get from it. The Capitol takes its cost; the Capitol still wins.
There’s another guilt there, too: that their victory with Fava put so many people in danger, people that they don’t even know. People that they never got a chance to really meet, and maybe now never will. People like Halle.
Back in District Twelve, Hudson watched the Games alongside everyone else, corralled into the town square by the Peacekeepers. But they tried to keep their head empty, their eyes turned away, tried to keep the horrors from sinking in. They didn’t commit the names of the Games’ architecture to memory—the escorts, the stylists—because they didn’t think they would ever need them. They didn’t think they would ever be reaped. Not from District Twelve, where their family was proud to not take Tesserae, not like so many of the rest. Not like Fava.
Even from across the room, Hudson can see that Pista looks tired. Drained. Hudson can relate: they were missing someone too, today, missing Cinna’s careful care before each and every Capitol event, making them into someone who could move in this world. “Pista—“ they say, not entirely sure where to begin, their tone softer, more serious than their words suggest. “Have you seen all the hats? I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many fancy hats in one place in my life.”
