An Era Awakens - Effie and Haymitch

1. Era Awakens

Hello everyone and welcome to this new story. Some of you might already know me from my other Hayffie fanfic "Figure It Out"! This story here is set ten years before the 74th Hunger Games. It's Effie's first year as an escort, she meets Haymitch for the first time, and their story develops. "An Era Awakens" serves as the prequel to "Figure It Out". It would make most sense to start with AEA, but since I wrote FIO first, both can be read separately or in any order you please. But you will notice some common elements and easter eggs along the way. I don't want to reveal to much, I just hope you will like this story because I had a lot of fun writing it!

I don't own the Hunger Games saga or any character that's mentioned in Suzanne Collins's book, only those characters that I made up. Furthermore, I'm not a native English speaker. I translate all my fanfics from German, so I hope that most of my grammar is correct as well as the spelling etc., but there's of course no warranty!

I hope you enjoy reading!

Song inspiration for this chapter: Young Blood (The Naked and Famous)

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Era Awakens

Effie stared excitedly at the densely packed wooden houses of District 12. She had only a few minutes to catch a glimpse of her District before the train would come to a stop. Enough time to realize that this place had nothing in common with the Capitol. The run-down buildings, covered in coal dust, were obviously in contrast to the capital city in both architecture and modernization. So much so that Effie, had she not seen this foreign city with her own eyes, would have believed she was no longer within the borders of Panem.

The scarce literature available on District 12 naturally confirmed this first impression: the smallest, poorest, most dispensable of the twelve Districts. And although knowledge was a freely accessible resource in the Capitol and highly valued, it had taken her considerable research to even find visual records of the District that showed places other than the square in front of the Justice Building where the Reaping is held. It had bordered on impossibility. As if District 12 existed only in people's minds, but not in reality. At least, this would match its presence in the Hunger Games, which, aside from the sole living victor, was virtually nonexistent.

In hindsight, Effie could have saved herself the effort. The records had been decades old, and despite the visible changes in construction and spread of the city, the typical characteristics had remained the same: a mix of stained, sooty brick and brittle wood. This theme ran through all parts of the District that the train passed by before it reached the station.

Given this fact, a creeping disappointment spread within Effie, which was, of course, ridiculous. She knew what to expect. How often had her own mother quashed her budding enthusiasm for her upcoming position by reminding her that the honor of representing District 12 was a limited one. The goal was to work with the opportunity she had been given. The goal was to use District 12 and any possible positive publicity as a steppingstone to a more prestigious District. Given the relatively young age of the other escorts, District 12 had been her only option to get a foothold in the Games. Effie could only wait and hope that one of her colleagues would decide to step down early, even though this almost never happened.

But now, it was time to shake off this negativity. Effie would do her best and she was convinced that her superiors would soon realize how much more valuable her work would be in a different District. She had studied her competition's work closely, so she knew how to stand out.

As the train compartment doors silently slid to the side, Effie straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and put on her brightest smile. Then, following Petunia Cajolery, the woman whose position she was taking over this year, she crossed the threshold and set foot in District 12 for the first time.