Flares | Johanna Mason

II. Where We Are

Ethan

He stood off stage as Caesar did the opening of the victory ceremony meant for him. If he could have, Ethan would have skipped it. It went on a pretty basic formula anyway: Caesar would introduce the victor, which the audience would go mental for (they loved any chance to see the latest mass murderer that the games had produced); they'd have a chat about how they were doing and what happened in the arena; there'd be a video of what they did behind them playing; then they would leave the stage with a chorus of thunderous applause by the murder loving psychos in the audience. Now it was his turn to be paraded in front of the cameras.

After he had been took off of the morphling, the design team had poked and prodded him, coming up with whatever abomination they would make him wear this time and how they would make it link to District 7. Ethan hated every minute of it, from the new measuring that the design team had to do, due to the weight he lost from being starved in the arena, to the endless combing of his hair which he ruined the moment they had stepped out of the room. For nearly 18 years, his hair had been curly and he wouldn't let someone who had seemingly dropped a paint palette on their face and called it makeup decide how his hair looked.

So there he stood in a green suit with a bark design and his auburn curls waiting for Caesar's longwinded speech to end. Did any of the design team have any creativity whatsoever? He had seen similar designs forced onto District 7 tributes for years but it could have been worse. He could have been forced to dress up as a miner like District 12. How they didn't die of embarrassment was beyond him.

"How are you feeling, pretty boy?" Johanna's voice called out from behind him, making Ethan twirl on his heel to face the shorter woman.

"Got a new nickname for me, have you?" He smirked teasingly as Johanna leaned against a nearby wall.

"I can't keep calling you brainless now could I?" Johanna shot back as she grimaced at Ethan's outfit. "What have those mean designers done to you?" She teased in an over the top tone.

"Same thing they did to you two years ago. It's nice to see you make an effort for me, it's flattering really that you think I deserve all that time it took you to dress up like that."

Johanna's eyebrow shot up at that. "Effort? You think that this is me putting in effort, do you? Oh, pretty boy, how naïve you are." She gently patted his cheek like he was a child. "When you see me putting in an effort, you'll know."

Despite having started the teasing, Ethan gulped due to Johanna's closeness, her tone and the wink she gave him.

Their little moment was interrupted by Caesar's voice calling out, "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the victor of the 73rd Annual Hunger Games!"

With a small nod to Johanna, he took one final breath before he stepped onto the stage. Ethan forced a look of indifference onto his face as the camera's focussed on him. Caesar gasped dramatically when he saw him while the audience's applause was mixed with a few whispers.

Caesar guided Ethan to his seat before he took his own. "I must say you look amazing. What a difference from what we saw in the final days."

"Well, I'm not starving or at risk of being killed anymore am I?" Ethan forced a small smile onto his lips to give the illusion that he was joking.

"No, you aren't. That I can guarantee." Caesar laughed. "Now, we all saw what happened during the games. Did it go the way you planned?"

"I knew how skilled I was going into the arena. I knew how to exploit other's weaknesses. It doesn't matter if it went to plan or not, the only thing that matters is that I won." Ethan forced out in a neutral tone. He couldn't show how much these questions were affecting him, how personal this all felt. How his family would be watching and would be horrified by what they saw. However, Ethan had a character he needed to portray so he would no matter how much it bothered him to say these things.