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𝑁𝐼𝑁𝐸 ʙᴇᴛᴛᴇʀ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴛʜᴀɴ ᴀ ᴠɪᴄᴛᴏʀ
❦
A splutter and the sound of vomiting filled the hallways. Cillian swallowed and held his breath. Any louder and they would all wake.
He wiped the sleeve of his dressing-gown across his face, dabbing off the layer of sweat. The shower was only a few feet away and still, he couldn't drag himself to it. It must have only been no more than seven in the morning. Only now, was he beginning to hear the rattle of the plates down by the dining table as the Avoxes set to work before the mentors and tributes would arrive.
Cillian placed one hand on the sink and paused, then placed his other beside it until he could pull himself upwards to lean in front of the mirror. He refused to look up. The reflection would not be what he- nor others- wanted to see. So with his head hung low, he stumbled to the shower, hitting his hand against the largest, silver button.
Half an hour later, Cillian emerged from the bathroom feeling as fresh as he could- far fresher than one would expect having been ill less than an hour ago. The tributes and the district escort sat around the table as they had any other time, food layer out before them in a feast. Johanna sat begrudgingly at the head, hand curled around her fork which had not moved from where it was stabbed into a piece of bacon.
"Oh, Cillian, finally you join us," Eirlys said as he sat opposite. "We were just talking about the training day yesterday."
Cillian poured himself a glass of thickened wine and watched them.
"And I was telling her that we were there watching. There was no need for the recount of the whole story," the second part of her speech was directed to Eirlys with a glower.
"Oh, never mind that. Isn't it nice to talk about and congratulate our young mentors on their superb show? I hear one of the youngest children got so excited that he fainted!" She was laughing again, a grin set upon her made-up face.
How did Eirlys do it year after year? Was her heart truly made from that hard a stone that not even the murder of the children she escorted and talked with could chip away cracks?
He stared between the two tributes and their smiles and wondered how long it could last. The sounds of laughter would be gone in the morning. They would regret the friendliness they showed to one another. Otis may have been too arrogant for his own good and Freyja too observant, but under no circumstances did they deserve to die- to be forced to murder other children as equally undeserving. Nor did Cillian and Johanna deserve the relentlessness of training them for their death for the pleasure of the people in the Capitol, who still abused him too.
Better dead than a Victor.
But what right did he have to say such a thing to them? Surely the hope of life was better than the dooming threat of death, even if that life was tainted by the chains of the Capitol?
