The Fourth Annual Writer Games: Canon

The Quell | Females

District One – Dioria Rose

Dioria Rose prefers cyan to navy, aqua to sapphire. She cares little for the richness of a blue, for the depth of its colour; she prefers them light and clean, like the sky above her or the water that was in her pack There's a purity to the lighter blues that the others just don't have, no matter how concentrated they may be. There is no prettier sight than a pair of sea-blue eyes; she's been jealous of many a girl in training for this reason. How nice it must be, to have a pair of bright blue eyes rather than a dully glinting grey.

The murkiness of the blue before her taunts her. When Dacre had suggested they dig under the earth to see what they could find, she hadn't expected mud. Instead, she'd allowed herself to fantasize about water, clear and clean and almost scintillating, like the one that flows from the taps back in District One. After all, if there's one thing District Four knows, it's water.

"For Snow's sake, Dioria, it's not mud," Dacre reminds her.

"And even if it was, princess, it's that or die. I hear dehydration's a nasty way to go. Your shit gets stupidly wet – I bet it looks like that water in your bottle, actually – and sometimes there's even blood in it. Your head squirms and you aren't hungry enough to eat. It kills you faster than you'd think, but it feels agonizingly slow. It takes days, after all. So go ahead, turn your nose up and throw away that water. One less person for me to worry about."

"Fuck off, Pandora."

Dioria can't figure out how the Career pack has fallen to just the three of them already. Faust's death had been understandable, if disappointed, and Maur is still out there somewhere, a traitor that needs to be dealt with. Ara's death, however, makes no sense. She'd been reaped, sure, but she'd seemed strong enough. She hadn't been enough to make Dioria feel threatened, of course, but she should've been capable of making her way back to the Career camp without getting herself killed. Now, Dioria is alone with Dacre, who she tolerates, and Pandora, who she'd kill now if it didn't screw up their numerical advantage even more. This, she huffs to herself, is so not where she'd expected to find herself at this point in the Games.

"There's no point in bickering," Dacre mediates. "The three of us are all we have left, for better or for worse, and we need to have each other's backs. And we need to stay strong, too, which means we need to hydrate. Since our supplies are apparently worthless, this is all we have left."

She knows he's right, of course. Dioria can ignore it as long as she likes, and she can curse out the Gamemakers for putting her in this position to start with, but she can't escape reality. If she wants to win the Hunger Games, she needs to drink, and the brownish water is all she has. Dioria Rose can stomach blood and guts seeping out of a cadaver. She can take a human life without blinking an eye. Surely, she can drink this distasteful mess without putting up too much of a fuss. Besides, if she doesn't soothe the burning in her throat soon, she might claw her own vocal chords out.

"Close your eyes. Pinch your nose and try telling yourself that you aren't drinking mud, even though you totally are."

Dacre shoots Pandora a nasty look, but the smug smirk doesn't disappear from her face. If anything, it gets stronger. "Don't think of it as mud, Dioria. Think of it as water. It's just...a bit earthy, that's all. Earthy water. Can you do that?"

She nods. She can do this, she reminds herself, because she has to. So she does. Dioria closes her eyes and plugs her nose, lifting the bottle to her lips as quickly as she can. The bottle has a steely taste to it, which is almost as unpleasant as the water. The taste isn't as bad as she'd expected, more bitter than downright revolting. It isn't until the first clump comes down that Dioria feels herself want to gag.