[Flowers] • The Hunger Games

Four

Sure enough, Asteria was regretting the previous night's events the moment she awoke. A pounding in her head accompanied by irritation from everyone and everything. She knew better than to complain. Effie would try and tell her some miracle quick-fix, Haymitch would laugh at her. No sympathy from anyone except maybe Madge.

"You know, eggs help with hangovers." Haymitch offered instead, pushing some off onto her plate.

"I'm not hungover."

"You've had your head in your hands for ten minutes now, and the first thing you told me this morning was to shut up. I hadn't even said anything yet." He reminded her, getting an unenthusiastic groan in response.

"Did you try them first?" She asked, peaking over at him.

"Oh, so you want me to die from poisoning? Got it." He joked. He earned a glare in response. He held up his hands before taking a bite and showing her that they were, in fact, not poisoned.

"Why are you convinced they're trying to poison you?" Madge asked her after a bit of a pause. Asteria looked up at her for a few beats.

"Because an axe to the back is too on the nose, don't you think?" She scoffed, shaking her head.

"What does that mean?" Gale asked.

"You might've been too young to remember, or maybe all of the games blend together for you." Haymitch said, wiping his face with a napkin and leaning back in his chair. "Asteria isn't exactly well-liked by Snow and the higher districts. Though there are certainly some people from the Capitol who still absolutely adore her." He told them.

"It's how I won my games." She spoke, quietly.

Haymitch was silent now. She never talked about her games once she was out. Not even to him. Even Effie stopped whatever she was doing to listen.

"I...think I remember?" Madge added. "You were young. You convinced the career pack you would be useful to them. You made yourself look weaker than you were." She said.

Asteria nodded.

"You don't have to be the strongest to win the games, or the most intelligent. You just have to be the most convincing." She decided. "I...lied, to the careers. Turned them against one another. Killed when I had the chance, and betrayed my most trusted ally. Only one person can leave the arena. I had reason to make sure it was me."

"Wait, what games were you in again?" Gale asked, setting his fork down as he clasped his hands together.

"66th." She responded. "The snow-capped mountains." She told him.

Gale thought about it a moment. "Yeah. Yeah- I think I do remember. They scrubbed most of your games, they never play the recap of it anymore. You had the most kills in a single game, didn't you?"

Asteria stiffened a bit.

"Yeah," she tilted her head. Her fingers moved quickly, rapidly tapping against one another as she held them under the table. "10 tributes in total. It was...unintentional. Just the way things played out."

"How do you even...do that?" Madge asked, a bit nervous. Asteria could tell the two were looking at her differently now. As did most people who remembered what she'd done years ago.

"You want a breakdown?" Asteria half-joked. "Rock, dagger, poison, poison, poison, axe, axe, axe, axe, axe. Like I said, Snow wouldn't exactly execute me with an axe, it's too messy and noticeable. But he's not above silently poisoning me as punishment." She said.

Usually Effie would come to Snow's defense. All of the Capitol elites were conditioned to think that their mighty President Snow could do no wrong. But even she was silent, as Asteria recounted her own games.