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ALLOWING MONTHS TO PASS WITHOUT SEEING FINNICK OR ALENA WAS A GOOD CHOICE FOR OCTAVIA. She'd managed to go back to Eleven for a good amount of time between President Snow demanding her back. Day by day, she tries to get her parents to trust her again. The wedge between them had only grown while she was in the Capitol. The Cirillo home didn't shine anymore. They weren't friendly. They weren't a family. Octavia tries not to blame herself, but every time she sees her old home, she can only picture Augustus' face looking up at her as he died. Augustus had been dead for nearly a year now. He would have been eighteen now. Octavia had bought a cake to leave at his headstone that ended up being eaten, she isn't sure by who. She figured it was a worker who was starved, and she knows Augustus would've rather the worker have it anyway. She wishes she was as good as him, or at least half as good.
With Augustus' death anniversary approaching, that also meant another anniversary was approaching. The Sixty-Seventh Hunger Games was coming up quickly. Octavia, Seeder, and Chaff debated on who would mentor this year. Octavia told them that she wouldn't mind, but they saw the way her eyes were empty when she thought about getting close to someone and watching them die, especially when she probably went to school with them or saw them around Eleven. Seeder and Chaff would mentor again, leaving Octavia to rot away in her beautiful home with nothing but intoxicating memories to attack her peace.
With one week until the Reaping, Octavia is doing her best to keep distracted. She'd decided to turn her extra bedroom into a small training room. She had a few dummy's shipped from the Capitol. She made her own katana out of sharpened sticks and rope. She trained everyday, unconvinced that her time in the Arena was finished. She couldn't wrap her brain around the idea of safety. Every last concept of comfort was killed along with her brother. Octavia Cirillo would never know peace again.
The air in Eleven reminded her of Augustus. Everything did. She hears his voice in the wind calling her. She feels his hug through the heat of a fireplace. She sees him standing beside her in the mirror. Being home also came with being haunted. She can't look at herself without seeing him. She can't walk outside without looking around for him. The Cirillo siblings were ghosts, but one of them has a beating heart. Octavia's days in Eleven are spent secluded in her home, hiding from herself and everyone else that knew her.
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When Reaping day came, Octavia wore a similar outfit as she did for her victory tour. The exact outfit, actually. Octavia was never great at fashion, nor did she have time, so she wore Lionia's left over ideas. She gets dresses and heads toward Seeder's home. Her boots click on the stone steps up to Seeder's front door. Octavia inhales deeply before knocking. The door swings open as Chaff's smiling face greets Octavia's immediately. He stumbles slightly from the door's momentum and motions for Octavia to come inside. She can faintly hear Seeder apologizing to Octavia for Chaff's already drunken behavior. Chaff is laughing at god knows what as Octavia tries to prepare herself to watch two children be sent to die.
