The Price of Champions and Crowns (Hunger Games)

19

(Background to Johanna Mason, TW the end is dark (Death)

You booked the night train for a reason

So you could sit there in this hurt

Bustling crowds or silent sleepers

You're not sure which is worse

She liked travelling at night. Silent, cold and dark. The words many might use to describe the young Johanna Mason. At just eighteen she'd already lost everything. And maybe sometimes its better to sit and wallow behind closed doors. Or in this case, empty train compartments.  From the liveliness of the Capitol to the now empty dark streets of District Seven. She couldn't help compare them. The people, here they're angry. She'd failed them. No one but herself and Blight are coming back. Yet in the Capitol theres no hate, just disappointment that their entertainment is over. At least, for now.

Its always just for now. If life has taught her anything, its that nothing is ever permanent. Maybe that's why she craved permanence.  Craved it in a manic like regiment. Schedules are permanent. Train in the morning. Train as soon as she couldn't bare to try and close her eyes again. That's when her day would start. And she'd train until she couldn't hear those goddamn screams anymore. 

Perhaps the schedule was helping, perhaps it made it all worse. All she knew was that it was permanent in the way that it can't be taken away from her. That's what was promised. A life of peace, a lie but she could make it true. If she just finished each day. Then she'd make it true. 

Her only problem were those dreaded spare four hours at the end of her day. The hours she'd take to walk around a mansion and drink, smoke or lie down staring at the ceiling for hours on end. That needs to stop. Mainly because its not permanant. Especially if she keeps switching it up. 

Its why she left the lavish Victor's Village on a rare sunny day in an other wise gloomy district. She'd be lying if she wasn't drunk. But not to the point that she wasn't herself. More so, in the way she was lightly buzzed, enough to have a slight smile on her face. She hung, in a tree and streched out her arms. Basking in the sunlight, for once maybe even feeling free.

Until she felt someone slap one of her hands. She blinked. And then she was down and staring at a boy. A...shirtless boy. He wore jeans, although faded with one to two holes. A flannel shirt was tossed over his shoulder carelessly. And she felt her eyebrows crease in suspicion. 

A face, that could rival Finnick Odair. A cocky smirk on a boy in Seven with bright blue eyes that pierced her soul. She tusked. "What was that?".

It was demanding and clipped. He merley rose an eyebrow as if he was supposed to be the one offend. "Its called a high-five".

She scoffed. Quite unerved by his arrogance. "I know that. Why did you high-five me?".

He turned around slightly to face her, his head tipping to the side slightly. "Cause you literally just fell in front of me with your palms facing me. Besides, who am I to leave a girl hanging?".