The Hunger Games has been proven to test everyone's virtue, not just the young and unfortunate kids plucked from their districts and thrown into the arena. Venus Hummingstill has never cracked under pressure. Regardless of everything being stripped...
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Faith was a waste of time in Venus's eyes.
She had faith in the medicine she gave Dill. Faith that they would live through the Games. Faith in humanity that it would evolve out of the lingering fog of the Dark Days. Faith that Coriolanus would love her back wholeheartedly.
She saw her time in the Hospital as a blessing in disguise. Venus was shown why faith was an idea that silly children believed in. She was eighteen in a month, she was nearly a woman now, and women handled business no matter how hard life may be in the moment. They didn't have the chances men did, one wrong move and everything would be taken from them in the blink of an eye.
Venus had nothing left to lose and that's what made her the most dangerous.
Dill's sickness had presented itself again during her interviews. She did as was instructed, talked about her family and her life back home but it fell flat. Any impression she may have made on the Capitol was ruined by her illness. She had become so sickly that even her coughs were barely audible. Venus treated every second she had with Dill as her last, because she knew the girls fate was sealed. She just didn't have the heart to say goodbye. Her confidence rubbed off on the young girl slightly and Venus refused to be a monster that crushed her spirit the night before going into the Arena.
Her fondness of the young girl was muddled with her newfound feelings towards the Districts and the rebellion. While she acknowledged the complexities of the Capitol and their control over the other Districts, the idea that rebels attempted to take her life made her stomach turn. Here she was, being punished for advocating for them and in return they try to blow her to pieces? Someone who could enact real change for them if she was given the chance. If she were on better terms with Coriolanus, surely she would discuss the ideology with him since he understands loss at the hands of the rebellion.
But they were barely speaking following that evening in the hospital. The only contact they had with each other was during their last visitations with their tributes.
"Did I make you proud?" Dill asked, voice cutting through the air as Venus struggled to get her emotions in order.
The Capitol-born sat across from her District counterpart, the bars of the Zoo enclosure separating them even though they were already worlds apart. Her chest felt as if it caved in at Dill's words. The sincerity in her eyes that she could barely keep open. Venus made sure to bring her a large spread of food, even baked goods and a slice of cake. She had the sickening belief that this would be her last meal. Her last few moments alive.
"My opinion here doesn't matter." Venus admitted. "It never has really. My concern is you, do you think that I did everything I could?"
Dill nodded, stuffing a raspberry pastry into her mouth, the small rattle of a cough snaking through. "You were the only one who fought for me when I couldn't." She said, giving her mentor a small grin. "You tried to heal me. Treated me like a person and not an animal. That's all I needed."
