After The Storm (A Hunger Games Fanfic)

Dusk - 12

For only the second time, the sun begins to set over the arena. The waving grasses are bathed in watery orange, and a dark blue velvet blanket, dotted with sparkling stars, sweeps across the sky. 

The Gamemakers are pleased. They were worried by the comparatively less bloody bloodbath, but since then the deaths have been steady and they're impressed. Betting is running wild, as ever, and sponsorship demands are through the roof.

The tributes below know none of this. They just see the moon, a dull orange harvest moon, hovering over the horizon, ready for the night shift.

Trey sits on the roof of the Cornucopia, watching it all, his arms wrapped around his knees to stave off the light chill, his heart heavy. This isn't how he had imagined, not at all. Grey's eyes stare accusingly at him. All the tributes out there hate him already. He shudders; it's just the cold. He's not scared. He can't be scared. He's Trey Rathbone, the district's loveable rogue but a demon with weapons. 'Scared' isn't in his vocabulary, unless somebody else is scared of him. The wind ruffles his hair. He wishes that Jax was here to take his mind off it.

Speaking of Jax, there's an argument down below. It's been brewing for a while and he spent some time trying to stop it, but eventually Jewel just fixed him with a glare and he went off to be by himself.

"He's a traitor," hisses Avery's voice.

"He could be hurt," Savannah suggests, even her tone seeming split in two. Go and help him, or go and kill him while you have the chance? She doesn't think that she likes her district partner; he's everything her mother taught her to hate, and if they both hadn't ended up here, her father would probably have insisted they got married. But at the same time, someone hurt and in pain just doesn't seem right.

"I doubt it," Jewel insists crisply, "You think he'd have kept quiet?"

"He could be a long way away."

And so on. Trey tunes them out, his eyes watering as he stares into the setting sun. Something shuffles behind him and his hand whizzes to the cold hilt of his sword before his brain can catch up, but it's only Boo. His face is set in stone, mildly interested, and definitely not worried, like when he charged off to attack the instructor in training. Trey has never seen this in a lower district tribute before and he watches curiously as Boo plonks himself down next to him, dangling his feet off the Cornucopia.

"How old are you, Boo?" he asks. Boo half-turns, and he catches a resigned glint of irritation in the boy's otherwise dead eyes. A small chill runs down his spine.

"Beau. My name is Beau. And I'm sixteen." His dirty blonde spikes flop in front of his face; even his hair is sharp. Trey nods, unable to think of anything else to say. Below them, the girls' voices debate furiously. 

"So, District Three, huh?" Trey offers. Boo blinks but shows no other reaction to the mention of home. It doesn't matter to him, not right now. Everybody in here has a home. He has an advantage if he can put his aside. "What's it like? Different to One?"

"That depends on what One is like." You could cut yourself on his tone. Trey frowns.

"Quite hilly. A lot of it is underground, you know, diamond mines and things. White marble buildings and pretty girls. Everybody smiles."

He feels himself begin to relax, talking about his home, where he needs to get back to. The memory can be his token, as well as the leather band around his wrist. He tugs on it, sniffing the rough-edged smell of his mother's kitchen, combined with the tart cleanliness and stale sweat of the training centre.

"Oh," Boo says.

He's not going to elaborate, Trey realises, unless he asks. So he does, because now he's genuinely curious. He wants to know what kind of district can churn out tributes like Boo and whatever his partner was called, and yet also shrivelling and weepy eighteen year olds, like last year.