Pearl Heart {Finnick Odair}

Amelia Tompkins

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Amelia Tompkins was the victor of the 67th Hunger Games at the age of 15. She is known to the Capital as 'The girl with the pearl heart' originally 'The girl with the pure heart' but considering she is from District 4, they did a play on words for humour's sake, and it stuck.

The 67th Hunger Games was known as the most brutal Games created. Sure there were 'violent' and 'gory' Games, but 67th was, and still is, the most painful Game to date.

At least for Amelia, it was....

Before the countdown started for the 67th Games, the Gamemaker warned the people of Panem that the games will include a new obstacle for the Tributes to face, and of course the said Tributes were not made aware of this. The obstacle was known as 'The Pain Scale' and how it worked was that the Tributes that had not killed another, were to feel the same pain that the Tribute that died felt, but would not die. Here is where the scale came in: every time someone kills, the next death to occur will be a bit less painful, also the killer will not feel their victims' pain. This made the Tributes want to kill more, and that's exactly what the Capital wanted. All the Tributes wanted to kill except one, Amelia.

As her nickname applies, Amelia had a pure heart, she was sweet and kind. She refused to kill, and she didn't, not until the final two when she was forced to. Amelia suffered through the pain of every death in the Arena, and did so silently. Most thought it was because the first death was a decapitation, and that the pain affected her frail body. But really it was her way of mourning the death of her fellow Tributes.

Amelia, being the smart girl she is, didn't exactly kill the last Tribute, but rather he killed himself in her trap. She used the Mutts that were released to kill the last remaining Tributes,to kill the Tribute from District 1. The Mutts were flesh eating Butterflies, and this is how she did it....

Being from District 4 you learn how to weave baskets at a young age. Amelia, when younger used to hide in the baskets and she remembered that fact when she was trying to hide from humans and Creatures alike in the long grassed biomed Arena. She had made one that blended in so well, it took her sometime to find it and it had been part of her plan. The other part of her plan was a simple hole in the ground with wooden spikes and a camouflaged roof. The plan had been simple but had been sufficient.

The tribute from 1 chased after Amelia while the Mutts chased them both, Amelia jumped over the hole and into her basket, while the Tribute fell into her trap, impaling his leg on the spikes. Unable to move, the butterfly Mutts ate at his skin until there was nothing but bone, while Amelia was safe from the Mutts in her basket. That was when she was declared Victor of the 67th Hunger Games....

But she didn't hear the announcement over the screams that filled the arena and speakers across Panem....

Her screams.

She hadn't killed the Tribute directly, meaning she could feel his pain, she could feel the tiny razor teeth of the Mutts ripping away at his flesh, therefore for her own, but not a drop of her blood was spilled. It was a pain she had never forgotten, and probably never will. It was the only time throughout the Game that she had made a sound, and her tortured screams made even the people from the Capital horrified.

She didn't go insane like Annie soon did, like everyone expected her too. She simply went silent again. She would always stare into the distance, like her body was there but her mind was not. She was still sweet and caring as she had been before. No one could get a word out of her except the one and only Finnick Odair...

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Finnick Odair was Amelia Mentor for her Games and had become her support after it ended. He had often seen her around the District, helping the elderly with their everyday tasks, playing with the Orphans and helping the sick. He had always wanted to talk to her, to ask why she went out of her way to help others. But he could never bring himself to, perhaps it was because he was too ashamed of himself and the things he was made to do. He didn't want for her to associate herself with someone like him. She was so different from the girls he had met, heck from anyone he had met and he wanted to be himself around her, not the person Snow wanted him to be, the one everyone thinks him to be. The senseless flirt that wanted to be payed in secrets. He was ashamed of himself, he didn't want her pure heart to be stained by his tainted one.

But it was all for not when those words left her mouth...

"I volunteer!"

'Why? He had wondered,'why does she have to be so selfless? Why did she have to give her life to save a little girl?' As bad as that might sound. She volunteered for a 12 year old orphan who she spent so much time with. Finnick had understood why she did it, but he had been sad that he might lose her even though they never spoke.

Throughout mentoring Amelia, Finnick became attached to her, and Amelia in turn became dependent on him. He was her life line throughout training and the nightmares of what's to come. She became his reason to live, since he had lost everyone he had cared for to Snow. Every time she had a nightmare, she would sneak into his room, where he sat awake from his own, he would take her into his arms and whisper reassuring things to her, while she would cry into his chest. Just her being there made the horror of his nightmare disappear.

When she calmed down she would tell him her fears and he, in turn, would tell her of his terrors. She then would turn the table and comfort him until they would eventually fall into a dreamless sleep in each other's arms.

They fell in love, but never told the other, with the chance of her death hanging over their heads. They couldn't admit to their feelings only to be left heartbroken.

They still found comfort in each other after Amelia won her games, so much so that they moved into the same house in the Victor's Village, so they didn't have to travel between houses in the middle of the night. They still didn't confess their feelings for the other, it didn't feel like it needed to be said as they showed it through their actions.

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Amelia became a mentor alongside Finnick, she would help the children with the survival part of things while Finnick helped with the fighting. Mags, when she joined them in the Capital, would handle the sponsors along with Finnick. Annie was made 'unfit' to mentor the Tributes, so she was left in the comfort of the District.

Amelia would always get attached to the children while mentioning and would break down when they would die, especially if it was an orphan. She couldn't help it, she loved children, and to mentor them to their death broke her heart.

The only good thing that came out of suffering in the Hunger Games, was that President Snow didn't make Amelia do what he forced Finnick to do, much to the man's relief. Those in the Capital didn't see Amelia in that way, they loved her for her kind and sweet personality, and to see her any other way, horrified them.

Little did they know that the nightmare didn't end...

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(Update 2.July.22)
-1328 words-