The Shark in Your Water - sunsets12 - Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Part 1: The Beginning...

A trip into the archives of Persea University, with Professor Flavian and her Intro to Panem History class…

“In order to understand history, we have to look at something called primary sources. These are first-hand sources that are made at the moment events occurred. We’ll also be looking a bit at something called secondary sources. Secondary sources discuss things second-hand. AKA they discuss things that have been discussed before elsewhere. For example, a primary source can be a news article, whereas a secondary source can be a writing analyzing the news article.”

“Archives are good for finding both primary and secondary sources, but today we will be focusing on primary sources. Panem has devoted a lot of time and energy to preserving items such as letters, news articles, political statements, songs, and even, yes, videos of the Hunger Games themselves. As terrible as they are, they help us understand our history, and understand how we got there so that we may never go back.” A plump professor of library science was saying, pacing back and forth before a freshman year class at Persea University.

The professor stopped walking when she noticed a student had their hand up. “Yes, Miss…?” She prompted.

“I’m Claudia,” she starts before bracing herself, “Professor, with this lesson, I think we’re all a bit nervous about what you have queued up on the projector as a primary source. We’re not going to actually… watch anything from the games, are we?” The student, a freshman girl wearing a university sweatshirt just a bit too big for her, asked, chewing on her pen nervously.

“From the games themselves? No. I think that’s a rather terrible thing to force students to watch, and I, myself, have no desire to watch them, but we are going to watch an interesting clip from one of the pre-game interviews. I think you will recognize who it is. While we’re watching this, I want you to practice understanding primary sources. I want you all to take notes. Your assignment for next class will be to write a short paper—just two pages, about what the interview meant at the time it was taken and what the interview means to us now when we watch it. And, class, what is this paper?”

A twitchy freshman boy said, “homework?”

Dr. Flavian laughed. “No, no. Mr…”

“Tyler.”

“Mr. Tyler. What was I talking about earlier?” She surveyed her class. “Anyone?”

“It’s a secondary source.” A voice popped up. “I’m Gizelle, by the way.”

“Right you are, Gizelle! Thank you. Let’s get the video started, and, remember, take notes.”

As the students obediently got their papers out, the professor went up to the projector and pressed play.

*The camera pans over a large audience. Everyone is dressed ostensibly in garish colors. One woman even appears to be wearing a dress made completely out of neon pink feathers. In the corner of the room, sits a group of individuals who are not applauding. Instead they are studying the scene with interest as the interviewees switch out, going from the female tribute from district 4 to the male tribute.*

CAESAR FLICKERMAN: Everybody welcome the male tribute from district 4, Perseus Jackson!

*The audience claps loudly and some whoops are even heard*

CAESAR: It seems they love you already, but who wouldn’t with that face? And with that outfit at the parade… *CAESAR fans himself dramatically* First Finnick Odair five years ago and now you, WHAT are they putting in the water over there.

PERSEUS JACKSON: A lot of salt.

*Audience laughs and CAESAR laughs along.*

CAESAR: Alright, I’ve got to start with the question I ask everyone. You’re from district 4?

*PERSEUS smiles and nods*

CAESAR: I know that is quite different from the capital, and we always hear it’s a big culture shock coming here. What is your favorite thing so far?

PERSEUS: The food. Well, except for the seafood. Nothing beats it fresh from the ocean, especially when you catch it yourself.

CAESAR: I bet. *CAESAR chuckles lightly* So, Perseus, I understand you have quite the backstory, and that it played into your outfit at the Opening Ceremony.

*Perseus looks down, twiddling briefly with the pearl necklace he wears. He looks nervous, but abruptly, he seems to calm down, crossing his left ankle over his right knee and shooting the audience a winning smile.*

PERSEUS: Well, yes, that’s what everyone’s been telling me. They say that I’m strange. That I have to be some sort of mythical sea creature. I think they exaggerate the story a bit, but I’ll retell it just like they do.

CAESAR: Yes, yes, I think we all would love to hear the District 4 folktales regarding you. Wouldn’t we?

*Audience cheers*

PERSEUS: All I know is that some kind fishermen from District 4 pulled me from the ocean, but the story goes that I looked half-dead. That I was doing the dead man’s float,

*He gestures in a way that imitates the floating position*

PERSEUS: and had been for a long time. I shouldn’t have been alive because you can’t breathe like that. They pulled me out, just to give me a proper burial, and then they were like, holy sh—

*Here CAESAR shushes PERSEUS*

PERSEUS: Oh, am I not allowed to curse on—

*CAESAR shakes his head in the negative. PERSEUS just laughs it off before continuing with his story.*

PERSEUS: Sorry about that. Sailor’s mouth. Anyway they were like, “This guy’s still alive.” Apparently, one of them checked my neck for gills.

*CAESAR raised his eyebrows before squinting at PERSEUS*

CAESAR: Did they find them?

PERSEUS: No, unfortunately not. It’s a shame, it might’ve given me a leg up in the arena.

CAESAR: Well, I’ll tell you what. I have no idea what the gamemakers have in store, but I don’t think gills would be nearly as helpful as your smile. Can you give us a—

*PERSEUS shoots the audience a wide grin. It is lopsided and shows off his perfect white, straight teeth. Cooing is heard from the audience. It is largely female cooing in tone.*

CAESAR: There you go—Did you hear that? I’ll tell you what, your mentor is going to have an easy time getting sponsors this year. It seems like just about everyone here is rooting for you to get out, if only so they can see that smile again! Ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it for District 4’s merman, Perseus Jackson!

*PERSEUS’s grin doesn’t falter as CAESAR concludes their interview and shows him off stage. He stops by the camera and winks at it before going up to the balcony where the other tributes sit.*

Dr. Flavian pauses the video here. “Okay, we don’t have much time left in class today before the archivist shoos us away, but just to make sure you all are thinking in the right direction for your homework, what are some things you noticed?”

Gizelle was the first to speak up. “I mean, the video already alluded to him being more than human. At the time everyone thought it was a joke, but when we watch it now…” She trailed off.

“It certainly sets the foundation for what was to come, doesn’t it? I think this interview is fascinating, and it is much discussed amongst historians. How much of his myth was already formed in District 4 before he was ever reaped? That’s what I study,” Dr. Flavian smiled at her class,

“If any of you are interested in getting involved in my research let me know. Alright,” She clapped her hands together, “explore those themes in your homework for next time, and we’ll study some more primary sources next class. You’re all dismissed.”

Reaping Day for the 70th Hunger Games

The Doors of Death had opened to nothing but an influx of ocean water he didn’t recognize, and gloomy clouds that promised a storm. The ocean was, for all intents and purposes, his father. It would always welcome him home and nurture his wounds.

But this ocean didn’t. It still felt friendly enough, Percy supposed. The waves lulled him into a sense of calmness, but when he reached out with his already depleted powers, no other being reached back. It was just him and Annabeth, laying passed out in his arms. At least, he prayed she was only passed out.

The ocean didn’t even do him the favor of reinvigorating him, or maybe it did, but he was simply too far gone for it to work. One way or another, his eyes slipped shut, and Annabeth floated away.

The next thing he knew were the calloused hands of fishermen gripping his body and hoisting him onto the wooden boards of an old boat. He coughed.

“He’s alive?” he heard a withered voice asked, shock painted clear through the words.

Percy forced his eyes to open only to immediately shut them again. He hadn’t seen sunlight his whole time in Tartarus and now it seemed so impossibly bright, he’d worried it would blind him. Had Tartarus turned him into a monster? Making him fear the sun in favor of hunting innocents in the night? He saw Bob and Damasen behind his eyelids. He saw Annabeth, holding back tears of terror at what he had become.

Annabeth…

Annabeth!

Percy opened his eyes fully, ignoring the way they stung in the direct sunlight. He forced himself to sit up and take in his surroundings. His muscles were aching worse than he ever remembered them aching, which was saying a lot considering the amount of impossible things he put his body through.

There in front of him was an old man, his face was withered, full of frown lines, and his skin was scarred from years of hard manual labor on a fishing boat. Beside him stood a man in his early thirties. He shared the blue eyes and chin of the old man, and he already had his own impressive set of wrinkles, likely from working in the sun or stress. Possibly both.

Both of the men were looking at him like they saw a ghost.

“Son, what happened to you?” The old man asked.

“Forget that, how did you survive without breathing for that long? We saw you! You had your head under water for probably ten minutes before we managed to reel you in.”

The man cursed his fellow fisherman out. “Stop interrogating him. The Peacekeepers will give him enough trouble as is.”

Percy was barely able to process what they were saying, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about that. “There was a girl with me. Did you see her anywhere?” Without him and without his father protecting her, Annabeth wouldn’t last in the open sea. His breathing turned into heavy pants, distantly he knew he was having a panic attack. He could just make out the younger man saying, “I’m sorry,” before he was unable to interact with the world.

Annabeth had been unconscious when he let go of her. He knew what that meant, but he didn’t want to face it. Annabeth was his rock, his solace. He couldn’t—wouldn’t go one without her.

The younger man reached out to grab him, and he just heard him say, “get the Peacekeepers!”

But before the men could dock and take Percy to the Peacekeepers—as he knew happened next, he woke up. His pillow was wet from a mixture of drool and tears. At least his screams were silent. He knew well that the family home he stayed in would have kicked him out if they weren’t.

Everyday that Percy woke up here, in District 4, with no friends, no family, and no Annabeth was a day he would rather spend in Tartarus. Even now he only had a vague impression of what had happened to him—Gaea had finally decided he was a threat, and decided to take him out of the picture. Entirely.

And so he was plopped in a new world, with no gods acting as patrons of it. The sea, even at its most violent here, was always quiet, no Poseidon in sight. Since realizing how stranded he was, he had spent his nights in a depressive stupor more often than not and his days working at a low paying job on the docks. The ocean was the only thing powerful enough to raise his spirits—however briefly—anymore.

At the end of his shifts he would go onto the beach and stare at the waves, wishing he could drown like Annabeth did. Once he even tied a noose before abandoning the idea. It made him realize he was more of a coward than he thought.

If only the Peacekeepers had finished what they started when he was first pulled ashore months ago. They had beaten him black and blue searching for information on where he came from, sure he was a spy of some sort. The more he insisted he was from New York, the harder they hit him. But Percy was nothing if not durable, and he had taken a lot harder hits from a lot worse monsters. Eventually they gave up, presumably thinking he was just an insane kid who managed to slip through the cracks somewhere.

That was how Percy learned that New York wasn’t around anymore. That the United States as a whole had been flooded by climate change and gutted by wars over the remaining resources, leaving behind only twelve desolate districts and a glimmering capital in the distance. The rest of the world was left in ruins, uninhabitable.

Though Percy didn’t quite believe that. If their records of their citizens were so complete, and the rest of the world was an empty wasteland, where had they thought Percy came from? Who did they think would send a spy?

In his more lucid moments, Percy pondered these questions, knowing if he could pull himself together enough, he could escape out into the ocean, living underwater indefinitely as he looked for other civilizations—kinder civilizations.

That felt like a far off fantasy to him now, however. The only thing he could focus on was surviving day-to-day. Bringing in enough fish to keep his boss happy and his stomach fed. It was a tall order.

And normally everyone else was in the same boat, especially in the part of the district he lived in—the poor, rundown part, but today was different. Today was Reaping Day, which Percy had heard about in whispers on his job and cries from the other children in the family home at night.

Every year, the Capitol—the lovely people who had ordered Percy’s interrogation months ago—pulled the names of twenty-four kids from the districts to fight to the death, like the gladiator fights of Ancient Rome. Twenty-four victims go in, one survivor comes out.

Percy had laughed the first time he heard about the games. Bread and circuses. Panem et circenses. He’d like to drown whoever named the country. And whoever came up with the games. If they were the same person, he’d like to drown them twice.

The games weren’t as simple as random chance, though. No, certain districts trained children to volunteer and win the games. It was like New Rome with their child army on steroids, and District 4 was one of them. They straddled the line, not always having “career” volunteers, as they were called, but they had them more often than not. Big burly kids who were well-fed and trained in all sorts of weapons. For the past ten years straight, they had had volunteers for both the male and female tributes in the district.

Except, apparently, for Finnick Odair—the victor of the 65th Hunger Games—who was already being trained as a Career and was simply pulled early. Word on the street said that the volunteer decided to let him have the privilege of going.

Personally, Percy thinks the volunteer wisely backed out at the last minute. He would say he wouldn’t blame him, but it was equally sh*tty to let a fourteen-year-old go off to fight in your place.

Percy shouldn’t judge, though. He had made worse decisions. ( He remembered Annabeth’s cries as he tortured Akhlys. ) Percy gets ready, along with the rest of the kids in the family home for the Reaping Ceremony. His clothes are old and worn, hand me downs from a boy who aged out last year.

He’s not nervous. He had overheard at work the other day that the district already had two volunteers lined up, ready to take the glory of fighting in the hunger games. Ready to fight for the chance to be a Victor and bring honor to their district.

Percy was much more concerned about keeping his meager breakfast down while watching two children march to their death.

The Reaping wasn’t until the afternoon, but his boss had given him the whole day off since he was in the age bracket for tributes, so Percy went down to the beach and sat staring at the water. The weather today was terrible, heavy rain falling down and ruining any possibility of anyone else joining him on the beach. Ever since he landed in this world without gods, the weather has been reflecting his mood—meaning District 4 was getting more than its fair share of rain and storms.

Though using his powers took far more energy and effort than he was willing to sacrifice, the weather took effort to stop, so he let the rain pour. He knew it would rain at least until he fell asleep tonight.

The time passed in a blur, and before he knew it the alarms located around the district bellowed. It was time to go to the Reaping Ceremony.

Percy showed up completely drenched, and he made an effort to keep it as such. With this heavy of rain and no umbrella, anything else would be suspicious. He remembered the feeling of the Peacekeeper’s baton hitting him. The last thing Percy wanted was to be suspicious.

The man at the census desk pricked his finger to get a blood sample and asked for his name. “Perseus Jackson,” Percy mumbled.

The man looked up at him briefly in surprise. Everyone seemed to know about him despite how much Percy tried to keep his head down. Though the government tried to keep his mysterious appearance under wraps, the rumor mill of District 4 was strong. Everyone wanted to know who he was and where he came from. If there really was the possibility of life outside of this sh*t-hole of a country.

This man was a professional though, and simply waved him along, telling him to stand with the other seventeen-year-olds. Everyone around him was dressed in their best, like you would dress a corpse for an open-casket funeral. The only thing that ruined the image was that they were all soaked, too. District 4 didn’t have anywhere inside that was large enough to house their whole population of 12-18 year-olds, so they settled for a large tent. That didn’t stop the wind from blowing the water under it, however.

The people around him shivered, but Percy just closed his eyes and enjoyed the chill rain piercing his skin. He could almost imagine he was somewhere else for a moment—anywhere else.

Trumpets started blaring in a song Percy recognized as the Panem national anthem—it always accompanied the evening newscast—as the mayor stepped up to the microphone. He started reading off of a sheet of paper in front of him. Percy was barely able to pay attention with the way the adrenaline was running through the crowd. But he just managed to catch, “as atonement for the district’s sins of the past—”

Percy’s head shot up. The Capitol stole the district’s children and had the nerve to blame the districts for it?

It shouldn’t have surprised him. The Capitol made it very obvious they couldn’t care less about their district citizens. It was an abusive relationship, with the Capitol telling the districts it’s your fault I get so angry. If only you did better.

Percy swallowed his anger as the mayor finished his speech—the Treaty of Treason he called it, before walking off to the side of the stage. A Capitol citizen, easy to identify because of their elaborate clothes made of magazine cuttings and extensive cosmetic surgery, took the mayor’s place at the podium.

“Hello District 4!” The man exclaimed, throwing his head back. His hair must’ve been a wig or a toupee because it flew up off of his scalp just slightly with the motion. “It is so good to see you again. Are you all excited for this year’s hunger games?” There was a smattering of applause and weak cheers at his question.

That was the strangest thing for Percy to get his head around. Despite the Capitol stealing and killing their children as well as starving them, there were those in District 4 who supported the games. They were the wealthy upper class, who lived on the shore, but far away from the working docks. Their children had few entries—not needing to take out the Tesserae just to make sure they didn’t go to bed on an empty stomach, and they were secure in the knowledge that District 4 would train volunteers if their children’s names were called, anyway.

They could afford not to care.

“Alright, alright,” the man laughed, “as most of you know my name is Augustus Flatbone, and I have the honor of calling the names for District’s 4 tributes this year. As usual, ladies first,” he rubbed his hands together, like he was maybe trying to warm up his soul from the consequences of his job. He walked over to one of the large fish bowls—the one to his left—and pulled out a slip of paper.

“Patricia McCoy!” He called, voice echoing throughout the gathered crowd. Percy could just see a section of the teenage girls move out of the way, allowing a mousy looking girl to walk out of the crowd and over to the stage. She didn’t look nearly as nervous as Percy thought she should, but maybe she felt safe knowing that there would be a female volunteer this year.

“Come on up, dear,” Augustus said, extending a hand to pull Patricia up onto the stage. She took it and delicately pulled up the edge of her maxi-dress so as to not trip. If Percy were in her place, he wouldn’t have taken his hand. “And, as is customary, it is now time to ask if we have any volunteers for the position of female tribute for District 4.”

Percy’s eyes caught movement on the back of the stage, where the past Victors stood. Finnick Odair was looking out into the crowd of teenage girls, shaking his head subtly. “No,” Percy could almost swear he mouthed, but it was hard to tell through the rain.

“I volunteer as tribute!” A voice from in front of the stage shouted out, where the eighteen-year old girls stood. Though he was watching it happen, Percy still couldn’t believe anyone would actually volunteer for the games. How did you have to be raised to do that to yourself? To think it was honorable? What kind of parents told their children to volunteer?

His eyes flicked back towards Finnick Odair, who looked briefly pained before his face smoothed out, vanishing any trace of emotion he felt.

Augustus waved the volunteer up on stage. She was tall and lightly muscled with brown hair. “What’s your name, sweetie?” Augustus asked, passing the girl the microphone.

“Annie Cresta,” her voice was confident; there was no waiver to be found. For someone who had just volunteered to kill or be killed for the entertainment of the masses, she was handling it without any fear.

She carried herself like a demigod into battle. If Percy wasn’t so disgusted with the whole situation, he would be impressed. Instead, he felt morose. When he looked at Annie Cresta, he saw all the demigods at Camp Half-blood desperate to get a quest, to get their parents' attention, even if it killed them.

All too often, it did kill them.

“Well let’s hear some applause for your female tribune, Annie Cresta!” This time, at Augustus’s prompting, the cheering that broke out was loud. People were happy she volunteered, Percy realized. He wondered if it was because they thought she would win or if it was simply because it was another year of their own daughters being safe.

Percy noticed Annie looking back at Finnick Odair, for just a brief moment. Then it was over, and no one around him seemed to realize what had happened between the two teenagers.

“And now, it’s time to pull out the name of the lucky male tribute.” Augustus made a big show of walking to the second fish bowl. His gestures were exaggerated as he waved his hand around the bowl before finally snatching a slip of paper quickly, like he was a snake striking. He made his way back over to the microphone. “Let’s see… Perseus Jackson!” He announced.

Percy had been in many dangerous situations throughout his life. Some of which were arguably more dangerous than the Hunger Games, but he still felt his heart pound heavily against his ribcage in fear.

He should’ve expected this. For one, his luck was bad enough that this would happen. But more importantly, this was doubtlessly not an issue of luck. No, Percy was willing to bet that whichever tiny slip of paper Augustus pulled from the bowl would have had his name on it. A mysterious teenager who washes up in the tide, swearing he’s from a place that no longer exists, and with no records at all to say who he is or where he came from. He thought it was a miracle they hadn’t killed him in the holding cell when they whipped his back until there was no skin left.

Now, he realized they were only biding their time. They were going to make an example of him, take away any hope of life outside of Panem existing in the most brutal way possible.

But Percy couldn’t let them. He had not fought titans and giants and walked through Tartarus to be taken down by a corrupt mortal government. A small part of himself, the part where his power lay, spewed how it was insulting—that they think they can deal with him so easily.

Percy walks towards the stage. Augustus extends his hand like he did for Patricia, but true to his word, Percy didn’t take it. He didn’t think he would have been able to resist breaking it, not with the anger searing itself deep in his bones. He felt like the tide receding before a Tsunami. It was all he could do to not let his wrath out on the stage, washing away District’s 4 population with it.

“Do we have any volunteers to take Perseus Jackson’s place?”

Silence.

Percy knew his coworkers had said there was a male volunteer ready, but he must’ve gotten cold feet. Or, he was smart, and he realized, like Percy, why his name was called—the outsider looking for asylum. Maybe he knew better than to get between the Capitol and a punishment. Percy’s hands formed a fist at his side in an effort to not choke the nearest Peacekeeper. Or Augustus. His anger wasn’t picky.

They were gathered far enough from the sea that no one noticed, but the ocean stood unnaturally still, waiting to see if Percy would strike. He didn’t.

Instead, when prompted, he turned to face Annie Cresta, and they shook hands. Her grip was hard, as if telling him to stand down—she was going to win. Percy didn’t bother rising to the bait. He had nothing to prove.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Percy was escorted into a private room in the justice building. The Capitol allotted an hour for visitors—friends and family, usually—to say goodbye to the tributes. Obviously, no one showed up to speak to Percy.

It wasn’t a surprise. All of the kids at the family home were far more concerned with keeping their head down than befriending their housemates, and it’s not like Percy could have any friends from school, which he didn’t even go to. Instead of wasting any energy being sad over it, Percy stared out the window, which afforded him a perfect view of the ocean. As he watched the distant waves, all of his emotions faded to an iciness settling just under his skin. The rain slowly stopped.

He sat in silence until a knock sounded on the door and Percy stood up, surprised. It couldn’t have already been an hour?

“Come in,” he said.

An old lady, one Percy had seen standing on the stage earlier, opened the door. “Hello,” she said. Her voice was low and fragile. “I’m Mags. I’ll be your mentor for the duration of the games. I didn’t mean to intrude on you early, but the Peacekeepers told me no one was in here, and I thought you might like to not be alone.”

Just like that, the iciness faded, though his limbs still felt numb. It had been months since anyone had shown him kindness. He was an outsider in 4 and everyone knew it, whispers spreading to parts of the district he had never even been to.

“Thanks, but I don’t know if I’m up for talking right now.”

“That’s okay, we can just sit together.” She pulled a chair over to his vigil by the window.

The rest of the hour passed in a relatively peaceful silence. Percy was almost able to ignore what was about to happen, with Mags next to him. But like all good things, it had to end. The Peacekeepers opened the doors and greeted them with an aggressive “times up.” Percy and Mags were joined by Finnick and Annie, and they were marched to the train station by armed guards.

At the train station, a photographer with a bright green perm—from the Capitol, no doubt—physically arranged them in front of the train. He took tons of photos, and the aftereffect of the flash burned behind Percy’s eyelids. The whole time another camera was filming their every reaction, no doubt hoping to catch fear or tears. Percy would give them neither.

As they were finally allowed to actually board, Percy spotted what must’ve been the other, past Victors from District 4 boarding the back half of the train. Percy guessed they wouldn’t be interacting much, if they were already being sequestered off.

The train ride itself was, in a word, awkward. Finnick, Mags, Augustus, Annie and him sat around a table piled high with elaborate foods—everything from meats, pastries, fruits, and bread. Finnick and Mags looked almost bored with the spread and the ostentatious decor of the train, but Annie was looking around in awe, touching a marble tabletop delicately before feeling the red velvet curtains.

Percy was much more interested in the food, eating large spoonfuls of a fancy vegetable puree. It had heavy cream in it and Percy almost moaned once he tasted it. He couldn’t remember the last time he had cream.

“So, Perseus,” Mags began, breaking the silence, “What part of the district are you from?”

Percy eyed Mags. Did she not know the rumors about him? Or was she just making conversation?

“Portland.” Portland was where most of the actual fishermen lived; though, District 4 also had fish farms further inland.

“You fish?” Finnick asked. At Percy’s nod, he continued, “ever used a trident?”

Mags reached over and tapped his shoulder gently, shaking her head. Percy realizes suddenly that just like Annie and him weren’t a team, Finnick and Mags weren’t a team, not for this. Finnick was Annie’s mentor, and he was determined to bring her home, not just any district four tribute. When Finnick asked that question, it wasn’t out of curiosity, he was scoping out the competition. The games had already begun, though it would be a week before they went into the arena.

It reminded him painfully of Annabeth.

Percy grabbed a bread roll. It was one of the fancy ones from District 4, a light green with seaweed scattered throughout. He tore it apart just to give his hands something to do.

Annie cleared her throat. “I’m from Decoris.”

Decoris was latin for beautiful, which from what Percy had heard, fit the area well. It was the touristy part of the district, with a relatively safe surrounding ocean, free of the various aquatic mutts that were still around from when the Capitol had bred them during the war in an effort to make fishing even more dangerous. The mutts had practically starved the district.

The Capitol tourists didn’t care about that though. They were much more concerned about the beautiful sand beaches they pay exorbitant amounts of money to relax in without any district citizens around (except for the ones serving their every whim, of course). Apparently the beaches were surrounded by retired, armed Peacekeepers. Percy had never been anywhere close to the area, as he was the exact kind of person the guards were hired to keep out, but he could imagine it was a stark difference from the rocky beaches and starving kids in Portland.

Despite Percy having more tact than Finnick by not asking what weapons Annie knew how to use, knowing she was from Decoris told him quite a bit. For one, she was probably from a wealthier family that worked around the resorts, though likely not upper class, since she was trained as a Career. Just enough to not wear clothes with holes in them and be well fed. Her family was probably the closest thing to middle class in District 4, though from what Percy could tell, there was no such thing as middle class in Panem. There were simply the haves and the have-nots.

Another important thing about Decoris, was that it was the location of Victors Village, which was probably why Finnick and Annie seemed to already know each other. It was also where the training academy for the games was located—just a couple streets down from Victors Village, done on purpose so that the Victors could help the kids train.

It sounds like a special brand of Hades’s punishments to Percy. Surviving the games and going on to train kids to do exactly what you did. Percy struggled to send the younger demigods at camp on quests, and most quests were less deadly than the games, at least in that everyone who went on one had the possibility of coming back alive.

“Do you like it?” Percy asks. At least one of them will be dead before the month is done. The least he can do is be kind. Though Percy feels pretty confident he’ll survive, if he does die, he wants to be remembered as nice. It is helped by the fact that Annie said something first. Though small, it feels like an olive branch.

Annie smiles at him, and from what he can tell, it is genuine. “I love it. My parents own a restaurant and bar, right on the edge of the main beach. I would cook in the back in my free time, when I wasn’t at the academy.” She quiets at the end, as if embarrassed to actually be voicing out loud that she was trained for this, while Percy wasn’t.

Percy is a firm believer that she doesn’t deserve to be embarrassed about what her parents and her society did to her though, so he distracts her. “What’s your favorite food?”

“Crab, 100%. Especially if there’s butter to dip it in. Though, of course, I don’t have it much. Only when we accidentally have too much to sell to the tourists.”

Percy could count on one hand the amount of time he’s had crab. His mom had never been able to afford it, and now, living in District 4, he still couldn’t afford it given how rare they were. The only crab he had ever had was in between the Titan War and the Giant War when he had visited his father in Atlantis. It was delicious, but Percy didn’t know if it was because he liked crab or if it was because it was prepared by a royal chef. A royal chef could probably make anything taste delicious.

“I like bread,” he says simply, holding up a torn off piece of the roll before plopping it in his mouth. “What about you all?” He turns to Mags, Augustus, and Finnick, who had been watching the conversation between Annie and Percy carefully.

Mags smiles, “wild blackberries.”

“I used to fish for salmon with my dad, and I still have a soft spot for it,” Finnick says.

“Nothing quite beats a good crème brülée,” Augustus chimes in. Any peace the group had found was broken by the stark reminder of the difference between District 4 and the Capitol. More times than he could count over the past six months, Percy had gone to bed hungry, which wasn’t unusual in Portland, and District 4 in general. Augustus, however, was well fed with fancy food and elaborate desserts. Percy heard a fork scrap against a plate, the screech sounding abnormally loud in the uncomfortable silence.

For the rest of the meal on the train ride, Percy doesn’t say anything, even when prompted. Augustus, ignorant to what he had said and the implications it had, chattered on about how excited he was for this year’s Hunger Games. Apparently, he really thinks Annie has a shot.

Annie smiled at him, though Percy noticed it wasn’t the genuine smile she had given him earlier. Finnick was friendly enough with Augustus (if his smile was fake, he was much better at hiding it than Annie), but Mags, like Percy, just ate in silence.

Once Percy finally sets his spoon down for good, he’s ushered into a separate room by Mags. “Finnick and Annie will be talking strategy,” she explains, seeing his confusion. “And I wanted to clarify a rumor I heard. You don’t remember anything from before they found you in the ocean?”

Percy nods his head, glad Mags knows about the rumors. It is far easier to confirm what she said than to explain where he really came from, even if she—like the Peacekeepers—would just think he was crazy.

“You’ve never watched any of the Hunger Games before?” She continues.

He nods again, and Mags sighs before saying, “I have a lot to catch you up on, then. The first thing you need to know about is the Tribute Parade…”

Percy’s stylist for the duration of the games—Amos, as he introduced himself—immediately makes Percy uncomfortable. He has Angelina Jolie cheekbones, long fake lashes with pink feathers attached to the ends, and a startling lack of wrinkles despite his age. That isn’t what makes Percy uncomfortable though, that was par for the course when he lived in New York. No, what makes Percy uncomfortable is the man’s lecherous smile when he looks at Percy.

When he first walked into the room, he had stared at Percy in silence, walking a circle around him. His gaze felt like needles. “I have hit the jackpot, friends. Look at him! You, boy, are beautiful.”

For the first time in a long time, Percy felt like the teenager he was, slouching his shoulders in the hopes of making himself smaller, of making himself invisible. He knew he was attractive—most demigods were, but it had never been spoken out loud in such a manner before. Much less by a strange man three times his age.

His stylist must have noticed the way he curled in on himself because he looks annoyed and huffs to himself, as if it is a crime for Percy to hide from his gaze. He turns around to grab a black bag, which Percy suspects holds the outfit he will wear for tonight.

Percy isn’t sure if his stylist knows of the rumors about him back in four or if his luck is just really that bad when he pulls Percy’s costume out from its bag. It is the bottom half of a costume only; a mock merman tail, though not a realistic one people would spend thousands of dollars on. Instead, it looks like his Stylist has cut off the bottom half of a prom dress and not even a particularly pretty one. The fabric, a sequined blue and green color, is form fitting at the waistline all the way down to just past his knee, when it turns instead into flowing silk fabric jutting outwards, one layer after another. On a girl, it would be a fun Halloween costume. On him, he knows it will be hideous, conforming to his body in strange ways. Despite himself, he is relieved. No one will call him beautiful tonight, not with him wearing this tacky fish tail.

After much prompting from his prep team, he takes off his robe, and they move to put the glittering monstrosity on him, But Amos stops his minions at the last moment, literally reaching out to physically stop the petite woman who waxed Percy’s chest from taking another step towards him.

“It’s even better than I thought.” Amos said, staring directly at Percy’s chest. It was a struggle not to cross his arms. “You have an Apollo’s belt.”

One of the female members of the team sighs dreamily. At his side, Percy’s fists clench. He thinks he would’ve preferred if the Peacekeepers beat him to death all those months ago.

“Cut off some of the top. I want the tail to ride lower on his hips. We simply must show off his musculature! It is such a shame we have to cover up the thighs…”

Amos’s words cause a flurry of movement. Percy, thinking it will be awhile before they finish re-hemming his costume, turns to grab his robe, only to find it missing. The petite girl from earlier—the one Amos grabbed—looks at him in pity before hustling him to a chair and taking her own bedazzled jacket off. Gratefully, he puts it on his lap. The people not involved in redoing the tail walk threateningly towards him with pots of blue pigment, glitter, and pearls. One older man even holds a curling iron.

Oh no, Percy thinks, I’m not getting out of here anytime soon.

By the time they are done with him, Percy’s scars are fully covered with makeup, the raised skin of his back in particular was indistinguishable from the rest of him, which Percy hadn’t even known was possible. They have also painted blue starfish all over the top half of his body, filling them with glitter and pearls that catch the light. He even had matching blue glittery eyeshadow smudged around his eyes. His hair falls just above his eyes in tight, artificial curls that are much tamer than his natural ones.

Just in time for the last member of his team to put down a makeup brush, Amos struts over. He coos over Percy for a long moment, hands extended just inches from his hair, his face, his chest. “Gorgeous work team. And Percy, sweetie, let me tell you—I am including your mother in that.” He laughs, and Percy’s lips turn downward in a frown. Percy licks them, just slightly, and tastes the cherry lip gloss they had painted over them. It was a stark reminder of how foreign his body felt like this, with pounds of paint on him. Not even his nails escaped the treatment—painted a “seaweed green,” according to the stylists. Percy had never hated the ocean more.

They marched the mermaid tail over to him, but before he could put it on, it seemed Amos wanted to torture him a bit more. “Have you ever tucked before?” he asked.

If all the tributes in the arena were as evil as Amos, Percy knew he would have no problem killing them. He might even enjoy it.

Twenty minutes later, Percy was next to the chariot, feeling more uncomfortable than he ever had in the past. His steps were small, restrained by the fabric keeping his thighs close together, and the fake seashell/pearl crown Amos had him wearing was heavy. He fiddled with the pearl jewelry he wore—first his bracelet, then his necklace, then his ring. How much longer before this thing was over?

He felt like he stood there alone forever before, finally, his district partner arrived. She looked gorgeous, Percy noticed. If it hadn’t been for how guilty he still felt for Annabeth’s death and the awful circ*mstances surrounding the circus they were now in, he thinks he would be drooling. Annie was wearing a light purple lace dress, with a corset underneath. The fabric itself was see-through with two long slits up the side of her legs, leaving her to wear matching purple undergarments in order to not be fully exposed.

Percy, guiltily, felt somewhat relieved by this—like he didn’t have to suffer alone. The dress was also fully decked out in pearls and seashells strung on cords that were elaborately draped around her body. The same pearls and seashells were splattered throughout her hair, which was pulled back in an updo. Comparatively her makeup was simple, with a smokey eye Percy had seen the Aphrodite cabin girls wearing a lot and plum lipstick. Percy guessed the makeup still took her team at least an hour to do.

She definitely got the better stylist , Percy thinks.

“How are you holding up?” Percy asks.

“Fine,” Annie eyes him, from the top of his crown all the way to where the silk “fins” cover his feet. “I love my outfit. I’m guessing you can’t say the same?”

Instead of answering her, Percy says, “Be honest, do you think it would be that strange for a merman to have a bulge?”

At that moment, Percy spots Mags and Finnick coming out of a door opposite where Percy and Annie had come out. He nods in their direction for Annie’s benefit, who is standing with her back to the door. She turns around and calls excitedly, “Finnick!”

Finnick matches step with Mags, so it takes a bit for them to get to their chariot, but once they do, Annie goes to hug Finnick. He subtly pushes her away, “not here,” Percy can hear him say under his breath.

Ignoring them, Percy smiles at Mags. “How do I look?” He channels all his bravado, puffing up in the outfit to exaggerate how stupid it is.

“A bit like you’ll follow in Finnick’s footsteps. You’re a very handsome young man.” Mags says. She tries to sound upbeat, but there is a sadness there she isn’t able to mask. He knows about Finnick’s reputation as a playboy in the Capitol, but he doesn’t know why Mags would care enough to be sad about it, even though she was close with him. If he sleeps with that many Capitolites he must enjoy it, right?

Percy remembers suddenly that Mags is 75, and the Hunger Games have been around for 70 years, starting with the rebellion ended, meaning Mags was alive, though very young, during the rebellion. He wonders if she, unlike young Career Finnick, doesn’t like the Capitol and doesn’t like associating with Capitolites—if she doesn’t like her mentee associating with them. It is a sobering thought. All the different things Mags must’ve seen during her life. How many tributes has she trained—their last guiding hand before their lives were cut down prematurely? Did she mourn them? She must, he thinks.

Mags seems like she has nothing else to say, so Percy spends the remaining time surveying his surroundings. The horses here don’t react to his presence, not like the horses in his own universe. The most they do is turn around to look at him before getting back in position. They must be trained very well.

Off to his side, he can see Finnick and Annie having a hushed conversation. Percy is strong and more durable than most normal humans are thanks to his divine heritage, but that isn’t all. He can also hear better than the normal baseline average. Nothing crazy, but just enough that he can make out their conversation.

“You look pretty,” Finnick says. “Of course, you always look pretty.” There is no playboyness in his words. Instead, they sound awkward, but sincere. A lot like how Percy had sounded around Annabeth before they started dating.

“I look hot!” Annie says before doing a twirl. “I’ve never worn anything like this before!”

Finnick's smile is strained now, and Annie must notice because she asks, “What’s wrong? Do you not like it?”

“Of course, I like it.”

Annie crosses her arms. “Do you think I’m hot?”

Percy is fully paying attention to the conversation now, and only feeling a little guilty for it. Are Finnick and Annie dating? If so… Well, frankly Percy feels bad for both of them. He can’t imagine how horrible it is to be training someone to enter a death competition, much less how horrible it is to be training your girlfriend to enter a death competition. He pictures Annabeth in Annie’s shoes, twirling in a beautiful dress, but only a week out from competing against 23 other children to be the sole survivor. It makes him want to puke.

“Of course, I think you’re hot, Annie.”

“Why don’t you ever say it?” Okay, so they’re definitely dating, Percy thinks.

“Now isn’t really the time to have this conversation. Can we talk about it later?”

“No, I want you to answer my question right now. I’m wearing probably the nicest dress I’ll ever wear, dripping in pearls and finery, and my boyfriend can’t even tell me I’m hot. Why?”

“I just think you’d be a lot hotter at home, where I know you’re safe—alive.” Finnick sounds like a unique mix of annoyed and tired, now, and Percy gets the feeling they already had this argument. A lot.

“This year was my last chance, and the Academy chose me. I couldn’t not go.”

“Yes, you could’ve. What if you don’t come home?”

“You did.” She said, like she wasn’t competing against 23 other kids who wanted to get home just as bad as she did. “And if I don’t, then, well, they’ll preserve my memory with the games. They’ll take so many pictures! And it’s an honor to fight in these games. If I win, District 4’ll get the Capitol’s favoritism for the next year.”

“I can’t marry a picture, Annie,” Finnick said. There was no inflection in his voice. He sounded like a man who had lost everything, and the games hadn’t even started. Annie reached out to grab his hand, but Finnick pulled away. “I can’t. I have appearances to keep up when I’m in the Capitol.”

Percy tried to wrap his head around what he had heard. Finnick wanted to marry Annie? But he had appearances he had to play up… Was the playboy some sort of persona?

As Finnick and Annie were talking, most of the tributes had arrived, and everyone’s costumes served as a good distraction from what he had overheard. They were a reminder of what the districts are in charge of, as they are supposed to follow a set theme. Even though he has been in this dimension for six months now, Percy still hasn’t been able to keep all of the district numbers and jobs straight. All he had needed to know before now was that 4 was fishing.

He also likes looking at the costumes because at least half of them are just as stupid as his, which reassures him. He sees the girl standing by the number three wearing a chunky computer from the 90s on her head like Karen from Spongebob. He wonders if it’s a deliberate reference. It’d be strange if it wasn’t, as Percy was able to tell this universe was years ahead of his own, making the 1990s much more distant to them than it was to Percy. But he hasn’t heard about or seen any media made before the war.

The couple from district one are hard to look at, they shine so bright. They both have jewels draped over their body, and from what Percy can tell, not much else. Hopefully, their underclothes is just a really close match to their skin tone. Percy noticed that when he first turned to look at them the female tribute—Emerald, according to the monitor near him—was staring at his ass. He glowers.

The little boy from 8, probably 13 if Percy had to guess, wore an incredibly oversized jacket that just looked like a quilt of different fabrics with large balloon sleeves. Percy was kind of jealous of him. It seemed very comfortable.

It wasn’t until the teens from 12 came out that Percy realized that his outfit could’ve been far worse. Meaning, apparently, his stylist could’ve just not given him an outfit. That is what the stylists from 12 had appeared to do with their tributes. The two kids were naked except for the black powder and glitter that covered their skin and offered little in the way of coverage.

If they were adults who had decided to go out dressed like that, Percy would’ve just laughed. But they weren’t. Instead, they were two kids forced into it after having their names drawn for a gladiator fight. Likely, the next time they returned home, it would be in a wooden box.

Percy looked away from them. His brief glance had been long enough to tell that they were both underweight, looking half-starved, and the girl was shaking like a leaf. He noticed, unlike Mags and Finnick standing a stone’s throw away from Percy and Annie, there was no mentor for the two kids anywhere nearby.

“It’s going to start soon,” Mags said. “We have to get going.”

Finnick helped Annie get in the chariot, and Percy followed behind her. He barely heard Finnick whisper, “I love you, I’m sorry.” It was so quiet, and he was far away from Annie now, there was no way she heard it.

There must’ve been some sort of cue that Percy missed because the horses for the first Chariot started pulling out. “Good luck,” Percy told Annie.

“You too.” She said, “and no, by the way. I don’t think it’d be strange for a merman to have a bulge.”

Their chariot pulled out, and the camera caught Percy and Annie right as the two of them were sharing a genuine laugh. The crowd was deafening, and people were holding up signs, though the words were too small and their chariot too fast for Percy to make out what they said.

Scattered every couple of hundred feet were jumbo monitors showing all of their lovely faces. It cut to Percy, and he stared at his own face in shock. The styling team hadn’t let him look at himself before they sent him outside, and he had never seen himself wearing makeup before. It was strange, like his features weren’t his own. His eyes stood out in a way he wasn’t used to thanks to the blue eye shadow and even the lip gloss exaggerated his frown.

Should he smile? He noticed Annie at his side smiling and waving, so he made an effort to smile in a way that would make Apollo proud. He lifted one arm away from his death grip on the chariot to give the audience a subdued wave.

Suddenly, from the stands he could hear it. “Perseus, Perseus, Perseus!” The crowd shouted. If he tried, he could make out certain individuals yelling out other tributes’ names, am “Emerald” here and a “Nero” there, but his name outshone the rest by miles.

The crowd loved him far more than the rest of the tributes, and Percy had no idea why. While he was a demigod, none of them knew that, and he wasn’t the biggest or strongest looking tribute—that was the guy from seven, Trenton. Or if they wanted someone who made a deadly impression, they could cheer for Nero from two. Percy had planned on being a dark horse in the competition, but he couldn’t do that if the crowd had already seen something in him that suggested he could be the victor.

Why , Percy wondered, are they cheering for me?

Then the monitor cut to it—a sign a Capitolite was holding up in the audience. Perseus, reject me so I can move on! It said. The sign itself was innocent enough, a joke at their own expense, but it was what the sign implied that unsettled Percy.

The audience wasn’t cheering for him because they thought he was strong or deadly. They were cheering for him because he was beautiful. He was seventeen, dressed up like a doll for a fight to the death, and these people were viewing him as an object to be desired and coveted. His smile slipped from his face. Someone throws him a rose, and he lets it fall to the bottom of the chariot.

As they arrive in front of a Mansion, Percy sees the President stand up, and he braces himself to make eye contact with him as he looks around at all of the tributes. Humanity has always been aware of the power behind eyes, from the evil eye, to the eye of Anubis, and even the concept of eyes being windows to the soul. Percy himself had looked in the eyes of gods many times only to be met with threats of their power, of the violence and grief they could enact without lifting a finger.

He realizes suddenly he has been picturing President Snow as a wrathful god in his mind. When he finally makes eye contact, he’s expecting Snow to send a divine threat through his gaze. To be like Zeus staring down at a 12 year-old Percy from his throne. But instead, when they lock eyes, Snow is startlingly human. Percy feels relieved for the briefest of moments, and immediately chastises himself. He knows many stories of humans achieving the impossible. Sisyphus escaping death twice, Daedalus building wings to fly to freedom, and Psyche completing her trials. He shouldn’t underestimate Snow just because his eyes didn’t threaten to turn him into a dolphin.

This is a different world with different rules, Percy reminds himself. Though as he is paraded around for people who don’t even look human, he can close his eyes and imagine it is the same, and that he is just a demigod walking the streets of Olympus, waiting for divine judgment.

President Snow looks unnerved for a briefest second before quickly gathering himself, and starting his speech. As much as he should be paying attention, Percy can’t force himself to. The President’s words go in one ear and out the other.

He looks up at the monitor and spots his own face. He tries to see what the audience must be seeing, his strong chin and prominent cheekbones, his dark eyebrows drawn low over eyes that reflect the sea, his curly black hair. These are features he got from his father—the features of a god. He has a very bad feeling about what was on those other signs he couldn’t make out.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

By the time the tribute parade was done, Percy was ready to run off and get changed into something—anything else. He tripped as he stepped down from the chariot and one of the horses neighed in what Percy knew was concern. “I’m fine,” he said out loud for the horse's benefit. Annie just laughed.

As Percy pulled himself off the floor, he looked up just in time to see the little boy from 8 pass his quilt-jacket off to the poor girl from 12.

Percy was only now fully processing what had been done to the teens from 12. For all that he had been raised in a cruel world with godly parents who didn’t care and monsters craving demigod flesh, he had never before encountered the type of embarrassment and harassment they were experiencing—stripped bare and paraded around before a whole country. He wished he, like the little boy from 8, had a jacket to offer the male tribute.

A Capitolite lady wearing a tall yellow beehive wig sprinted over to boy from 12 with a robe extended, and finally, their torture was, well not over, but done for now. The Capitol woman was trying to cheer the boy up without outright insulting the prep team’s work, though Percy noticed she wasn’t very good at it. “It’s okay! It was mostly face shots.” She crooned, patting his back. She must be their district representative, like Augustus, he decides. She certainly has the tact for it.

Percy forced his attention away from the boy who was now only a step away from having a breakdown and was greeted by Mags and Augustus.

Unfortunately, it was Augustus who spoke first. “You were simply marvelous Perseus! There might be 24 tributes, but everyone’s eyes were on only you!” Annie was still only steps from them, talking to Finnick, and clearly able to hear what Augustus said, but she didn't react outwardly. She must expect it after Augustus told the whole table he thought Annie had a chance of winning, without mentioning anything about Percy.

Mags doesn’t seem nearly as happy with his performance in the Tribute Parade, but when Percy asks if he did something wrong, she simply answers “no,” and walks him inside, her hand resting supportively on his back.

They’re barely five feet past the doorway, when Percy hears loud yelling. “You’re a f*cking idiot and a creep, Flavian! And you too Agamemnon! How could you send them out there without any clothes?” The words are hard to make out, slurred like the person saying them was drunk.

When Mags sees Percy looking confused, she sighs and says, “Haymitch, the mentor for the district 12 kids. He’s not always able to be there,” she says this in such a way that it hints towards a problem, but also tells Percy not to ask for elaboration, “but he does care about the kids. As much as he can bring himself to. He just heard about their… uh, costumes.”

“I don’t understand why he is so upset. Even if he wants to be a prude, those teens from 12 had almost no screen time. Not with our dear Perseus there. The camera loved him too much” Augustus scoffs, either uncaring or unaware of how cruel he is being. Percy doesn’t know how truthful Augustus’s words are, but if he helped those kids not be broadcasted across the whole country, then he hates his own stupid, revealing costume less.

“Though, I will say,” Augustus continues, “at least Flavian and Agamemnon had the sense to use glitter. What was Daphne thinking, not putting any sparkles on Annie’s dress?”

“She had pearls,” Percy points out.

“Pearls are not diamonds or glitter, sweetie. Of course, Annie you looked gorgeous, but a little bling never hurt anyone.” Percy snorts, thinking of Hazel, and how her “bling” definitely could hurt.

It feels like the trip to the elevator took forever, but Percy knows it couldn’t have been more than three minutes before they were squished in a glass box going up to floor 4.

Their living arrangement is luxurious, there is no better word for it. It is as grand as the Romans’ temple for Jupiter. But Percy has been on Olympus more times than he can count. He makes no face of awe, looking around only so he can get his bearings. So he isn’t surprised by something he should’ve known about.

They all break off in different directions to get ready for dinner. Mags shows Percy to his room, and while he might’ve been able to ignore the extravagance of the apartment as a whole, he cannot ignore how great the bathroom is. It doesn’t look particularly fancy in the same way the rest of the apartment does, but it more than makes up for that in fancy appliances. There is a large shower, with buttons for getting different types of soap, different water pressures, and different heat. It’s been so long since Percy has been able to take a good shower. But it is the hot tub/bathtub combo beside the shower that Percy is really excited for.

He takes off his stupid costume, and slowly peels off the little pearls glued onto his body. As he walks over to the hot tub, his bare feet hit the tiled floor, and he can tell it’s heated. Once the tub is finally filled with hot water, he lowers himself in it and barely contains a moan at how reinvigorating the water feels. Poseidon might not be in this world, but everywhere Percy goes, he takes a part of his father with him, even this far from the sea.

He sends a prayer to his father. Asking for his help—his advice. It is not the first time he does, and like all the other times, there is no answer. Percy ducks his head under the water before starting to scrub off the blue starfishes painted all over his body. He smiles to himself, just slightly when his SPQR tattoo with his dad’s symbol of power is revealed. It’s not an answer to his prayer, but under the water, it provides comfort nonetheless.

Percy is the last person at the dinner table, thanks to his long bath. If he wasn’t a son of Poseidon, he would be a prune from how long he soaked. He plops down at the table and begins grabbing food at random. Annie tells him what all the stuff he grabs is. Idly, Percy wishes he could’ve tried her cooking before this whole mess. But he banishes the thought. He never could’ve afforded it.

At the head of the table, sitting next to Annie, is Finnick. He is sitting in silence, staring at him. Well, not his face. Percy tracks his eyes, and sees his SPQR tattoo, the one with the trident above it. Before leaving his room, Percy had changed into a matching blue pajama set with short sleeves. It was something he never would have worn before today, but after his earlier outfit he is grateful for it. Now though, he thinks he should’ve picked something that covered his tattoo. After all, it was common knowledge a trident was the weapon of choice for the careers from 4.

It was too much to hope Finnick would leave the matter alone. “What’s your tattoo mean?” He asks.

Percy knows what Finnick is really asking, though. It’s the same question he asked on the train. Do you know how to use a trident? Only this time, Mags, who sits on Percy’s other side, cannot see his tattoo, so she doesn’t stop Finnick.

“SPQR,” Percy says, just to be difficult. “I don’t actually remember getting it,” a lie. “But I think it must be an abbreviation. I’ve wondered a lot if S, Q, and R are my friends or my family. Maybe the P is Perseus, you know?”

Finnick sends an annoyed smile Percy’s way. “And the trident?” Annie chokes on her drink and turns her attention away from her stylist, who she had been making idle conversation with, to look at Percy. Since the cat is out of the bag, he puts his arm on the table, forearm positioned upward to show off his tattoo to everyone.

“I fish,” Percy says simply. It seems both Finnick and Annie assume this to mean he is good with a trident. (He’s not, by the way. When he visited Atlantis after the Titan War, some of his father’s soldiers had tried to teach him how to use it, but he was still leagues better with a sword. He’s… fine with a trident, at best. It had driven his father crazy.) Annie, strangely enough, looks happy about this, while Finnick struggles not to scowl.

“You could be in the alliance with us!” Annie says, smiling at Percy.

Percy thinks this, along with when she first came out wearing her dress, are the only times he’s seen her actually happy. It makes sense, he supposes. It’s not exactly a happy situation, especially when you’re being dogged by your boyfriend who didn’t want you to volunteer.

“Annie!” Finnick chastises. He looks briefly at Percy before his eyes flicker back to Annie. “You can’t just decide things like that this early. What if the other Careers aren’t even good? You don’t want to commit to an alliance with anyone before you see them fight.”

Despite Finnick talking about the other Careers, Percy knows the comment is mainly about him.

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course the other Careers will be good. And 4 is a Career district, they’ll accept Perseus if I vouch for him.”

Finnick slams both hands on the table, startling everyone at the table. Augustus and Amos’s lively conversation on the other side of the table quiets abruptly.

“This isn’t a game, Annie.” Finnick says. His tone is sharp, aggressive.

Logically, Percy can’t blame the guy. He can only imagine how stressed he is right now, but he sees Annie’s face and gets mad on her behalf. Her shoulders are slumped, and she looks like she’s about to cry.

She’ll probably be dead soon, and her boyfriend wants to spend his last moments with her arguing?

It’s made all the worse by Amos butting in. “Of course it’s a game. It’s in the name, Finnick, dear.”

If Finnick looked upset at Annie, he looks downright murderous at what Amos said. On this, Percy can’t blame him at all.

“With the way you dress your tributes, I’m sure it feels like a game to you,” Finnick sneers. The amount of hatred in his voice is palpable, and it seems personal. Percy wonders if Amos dressed Finnick for his own games. Percy envisions what he wore today and shivers as he imagines what Finnick might’ve had to wear.

“Finnick…” Annie begins, but he doesn’t let her finish.

“No, Annie, you can’t make decisions about the games before we even discuss them. And we certainly won’t discuss them publicly.” It’s clear when he says publicly, he means in front of Percy.

Annie’s eyes are watery now, and Percy has had enough. “Take a seat back in your clam shell,” he snaps at Finnick before he can say anything else to Annie.

The phrase seems to distract Finnick from the fact that he is supposed to be upset. Finnick’s eyebrows furrow, “Did you just call me a pearl?” he asks.

He hadn’t, actually. Percy had called him Aphrodite. But this world had hardly kept any history, stories, or art from before the Dark Days, even the ones so many people in the Capital were named after, so explaining that to Finnick would be pointless. And besides, how was Percy supposed to explain that he was referencing a famous renaissance painting that no longer existed?

Finnick was certainly pretty enough to be a child of Aphrodite, though, or possibly one of her lovers, if they were back in Percy's old world. When he looked at him, Percy wondered why so many people were obsessed with Percy’s looks at the Tribute Parade today. Sure, he was maybe one of the more attractive people in the pool of tributes this year, but he had nothing on Finnick. Maybe if he stuck close to him, people would forget about Percy.

But, Finnick would have to stop being a jackass for that to happen.

It’s been long enough now to make it clear that Percy won’t answer his question. Finnick huffs and gets up from the table before leaving the room entirely. It’s just the two designers, Augustus, Mags, Annie, and him now. Augustus starts chatting again—Percy thinks the man must not know how to shut up—but the rest of them only give the smallest of replies to his questions. The rest of the meal is eaten in silence, with Percy eating more than his fair share.

If he puts on some weight, he’ll have more fat to protect from starvation in the arena. More importantly, if he gets a layer of fat on his stomach, Amos won’t comment about his Apollo belt again.

Once they’re all done, Mags walks him to his room, but instead of leaving him at his door, she asks to come in. She closes the door behind her.

“Do you really know how to use a trident?” Mags asks.

Percy scratches the back of his neck. “I’m okay with it.”

Mags looks him right in the eye. “You need to be honest with me, Perseus,” she says. “Being honest with me could be the difference between your life and death.”

Percy tries to think about his skills objectively. He’s already decided he doesn’t want to use a sword in the arena. Swords are too important to him, and if he has to kill innocent kids with a sword, he thinks he might never be able to pick one up again. So, he doesn’t mention his sword fighting skills. Instead, he says, “I’m good, I guess. But nothing crazy. Not like I’ve heard Finnick is.”

“Well, Finnick’s skills with a trident are unmatched, so don’t feel too bad about it,” Mags says, giving him a small smile and pat on the shoulder.

“And you don’t need to be great, you just need to be good enough to survive a direct attack. And you look big and strong. I’ll bet on those fishing boats, you haul a lot of your catch. You strong?”

This Percy can answer honestly, “yes.” He doesn’t elaborate on how strong he is though. His strength is literally inhuman, and he doesn’t want to give that away. He doesn’t want anyone in the strange world to know about his powers or his past.

Finally, Mags asks him what his biggest weakness is.

Percy thinks for a moment, and finally says, “foraging for food and shelter.” Grover had taught him a fair amount about edible food in the wild, but what if it was a terrain he wasn’t familiar with?

He doesn’t voice his other weakness, his mortal flaw: loyalty. He can’t join an alliance like the one Annie mentioned. Alliances where there can be only one winner would inevitably need to break, and Percy doesn’t think he can do that.

Mags tells him a couple of other things—the importance of focusing on water and shelter, knowing what food is poisonous, taking out the careers if at all possible, and that he should make the Capitol like him. Finally, she left him to get some sleep, but not before telling him that training starts tomorrow, and reminding him that he better put all his energy into learning about water, food, and shelter. Percy nods obediently, and Mags leaves.

That night, Percy dreams of his old friends. This isn’t a strange occurrence; he has a lot of nightmares about them being killed by Gaea, but that isn't what this dream is. Instead, Nico is sitting on Percy’s bed in the Poseidon cabin at Camp Half-Blood. His head is bowed, back hunched.

Percy takes a step towards him, and Nico’s head shoots up. “Percy!” he yells, barrelling straight into him. “What happened? Where are you? Are you still in Tartarus? The doors closed, but you and Annabeth never came out or joined my father’s kingdom…”

At the mention of Annabeth, Percy chokes up. He had spent so much of the last couple of months trying to forget her. Trying to forget his failure. But it seems she was even denied her proper spot on Elysium because of him. “I’m so sorry, Nico. I couldn’t save Annabeth.”

Nico’s eyes look around wildly. He seems uncomfortable watching Percy cry, but Percy couldn’t stop himself even if he tried. Annabeth was dead because of him.

Nico puts a reassuring hand on his back. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. Percy, it’s not your fault. Tartarus…”

“She didn’t die in Tartarus, Nico. She died in the sea.”

Nico looks confused. “But if you were in the ocean, your father would have saved you. You’d be safe, here.”

Percy’s voice cracked as he said, “it wasn’t my father’s ocean. Gaea must’ve done something. I’m somewhere else entirely. A different earth, and I don’t think there’s any gods here.”

It was the first time Percy had said his fears out loud. Ever since he was twelve, he’d known, for better or worse, there were gods out there. Someone was looking after everything. Here, there was no such certainty, and he wasn’t prepared for how terrifying that thought was. There were no nature spirits to protect the wild. No ocean gods to protect the reefs. No gods to make sure the harvests grew and people thrived.

In their absence, mankind had ruined the earth beyond repair. Even a war god would have been useful in tempering a war—making sure people didn’t go too far.

But they had. Percy had even heard that there used to be a District 13, but the Capitol bombed them to ruins. There was hardly enough people or fertile land to destroy anymore, but the Capitol did anyway, uncaring for the consequences. The Olympians were kind of terrible in certain regards, but Percy can’t stop thinking that they wouldn’t have allowed this all to happen.

Nico opens his mouth to respond, but Percy starts to wake up. “Wait, Percy, you need to—”

Percy will never know what he needs to do because he opens his eyes to knocking on the door. It’s Augustus, telling Percy he has to get ready for breakfast. Today is their first training day, and Percy has a lot to learn if he’s going to survive.

Percy knows he looks like he’s been crying. His eyes have dark circles under them, which only serve to exaggerate how red they look. Mags gives him a hug after breakfast, while Annie looks sympathetically in his direction. Finnick takes one look at him and his red-rimmed eyes and makes a point of not looking at him anymore after that. It is a blessing when they arrive at the training center.

The mentors don’t participate in the training sessions, so Percy and Annie walked into the room together. Everyone is wearing matching clothes, with the number of their district on both the back and front of their shirt. Percy takes the opportunity to study the people around him in a way he hadn’t been able to when they were all wearing elaborate costumes.

His eyes first fall on the little boy from 8 who loaned the girl from 12 his jacket. He looks slightly older now that he isn’t being swallowed up by an oversized costume, but he is still small for his age, and he looks underfed, which from what Percy has gathered in his own experience in 4 must not be uncommon in the districts.

The two teens from 12 are standing only a little behind the boy from 8—and Percy makes a mental note to learn his fellow tributes’ names. It is the least he can do for these kids who will be dead so soon—they look only slightly more comfortable today than yesterday, even though they are fully clothed now.

Standing towards the very front of the room, where the various instructors are gathered in a small semi-circle, are who Percy assumes must be the Careers. The boys and girls from Districts 1 and 2. Upon seeing them, Annie gives Percy an awkward smile and small wave before walking over to introduce herself.

They all look big and muscled standing together, especially compared to the rest of the batch of tributes. Percy himself is an outlier. While he isn’t a career, his godly genes allowed for his muscles to stay strong and defined and he reached a tall height—uninhibited by his poor diet over the past couple of months. He towers over just about all of the rest of the tributes, except for the two boys from 1 and 2 and the boy from 7, who Percy clocked last night, noticing how tall and broad he was. His name is Trenton, Percy remembered.

Most of the other tributes don’t have anything that makes them stick out from the others. They are all underfed and look incredibly nervous to be here.

But finally, Percy’s eyes catch on familiar looking hair. She has her back turned to him, but Percy feels longing ache deep within him when he sees the curly blond ringlets that fall down her back, covering the number 7 on her shirt. Percy’s heart feels like it’s about to spontaneously combust, and it takes all his effort to stay rooted where he is.

An instructor claps his hands and announces that training is about to start. He goes over some ground rules, like respecting the supplies and not fighting each other, even for spars.

Training will consist of multiple different subjects all being taught at the same time at different stations. Weapons, shelter, nots, hunting, scavenging, everything you could possibly need. The instructor sends them off and everyone scatters to different sides of the room.

Percy, against his will and better judgment, follows the curly blond hair.

He can see her face now, and she honestly doesn’t even look that much like Annabeth. Her eyes are a dark brown, and her nose is smaller than Annabeths. Her whole face seems more delicate, lacking the strength in Annabeth’s face. Even the way she walks is different. Her feet barely touch the ground, and Percy is reminded of a bird.

She comes to a stop at the fire starting station, which Percy supposes is good enough. He doesn’t know how to start a fire without a lighter or matches, so he feels relatively guiltless when he stands beside her and listens to the instructor drone on and on.

When it is finally their turn to try starting a fire, he does something stupid. “What’s your name?” He asks.

She turns to face him, as if she has only now noticed him. Percy knows this isn’t true, she had taken a step aside when he joined the station, giving herself more room, but he supposes everyone will be viewing everyone as an enemy now. If Percy’s dumb heart would be quiet, that is what he would be doing.

He notices her eyes look down at the corner of his shirt, which says 4 in a bright blue color. She raises her eyebrow, “What aren’t you doing with the rest of the Careers?” She asks.

“I’m not a Career,” Percy says, forcing himself to look back down at the fire he is supposed to be starting. “There was no male volunteer this year for 4.”

“That’s bad luck.” The girl says, “but in that case, you can call me Judy.”

“I’m Perseus.” It’s easier for Percy when people call him Perseus now. It feels like a fresh start, like he can distance himself from his old life. With the people he failed. He doesn’t know what he would do if this girl with Annabeth’s hair called him Percy. He doesn’t think he’d survive it.

“I know. People kept shouting your name yesterday.”

Percy feels himself blush red. It hadn’t occurred to him that all of his fellow tributes would make the connection between the audience’s screaming and himself. He hopes none of them were able to read any of the signs.

Judy sees Percy’s blush and instead of changing the subject, like a nice person would, she continues. “You know, I have a little sister back at home. She’s ten, and when I saw you on the screen last night, I kept wondering if you would be her sexual awakening.”

By some miracle, Percy’s fire started, allowing him to simply say, “I hope not,” before leaving the station without glancing back. He heard Judy’s laughter echo behind him.

It sounded like Annabeth’s.

From there, Percy went to the shelter station, arguably the thing he was most worried about in the arena. If he didn’t have to hide his powers, he could probably just camp out in a lake or river, but that wasn’t an option.

The instructor at the station seemed delighted by how many questions he had for her, and she gave him long answers covering a variety of different possible arena types. He stayed there talking to her until lunch.

At lunch, Percy stared around at all of the different tables he could sit at. There were 24 tables in total, allowing the opportunity for all of the tributes to sit alone, and a lot of them did, especially if they were from the later districts.

Percy debated the merits of sitting alone. It would allow him to not get too attached to any of his fellow tributes, but he also felt so isolated—he had ever since he washed up in this strange world. It would be nice to at least talk with someone who wasn’t either Mags or a Capitolite excited to watch him die live. He spotted the boy from 8 and the two tributes from 12 sitting together close to the bread basket.

Just as he started walking towards them, he felt a hand grab his elbow. It took effort not to fight the person who grabbed him—his war habits were still firmly in place—but he was glad he held back when he saw it was Annie.

“C’mon,” she said. “I want to introduce you to the others.”

By “others” she apparently meant the Careers. Two girls and two guys from districts 1 and 2. Percy had been watching them as subtly as he could this morning, and it was easy to tell they were trained.

The girl from 1—Emerald—had skills with a bow good enough to confuse her with an Apollo kid. Meanwhile Nero and the guy from 1—Percy still didn’t know his name—could throw a spear as well as they could fight with a knife. And they could fight with a knife very well. The girl from 2 favored a sword, though the ones she chose to practice with were nothing like Percy’s own Riptide, which still sat uselessly in his pocket. Whatever magic made Riptide, well, Riptide was gone now, leaving Percy with a generic ballpoint pen.

The point was, the Careers were deadly. Percy understood why Mags said they were the ones to take out to win. And now Annie wanted him to play nice with them.

“This is Perseus,” she introduced him to the group, “he didn’t train at the academy with me, but he knows how to fight with a trident. He even has a tattoo of it.”

There was something different about how Annie talked to the Careers versus how she had been talking to their ragtag team from 4. It reminded him of the handshake she gave him on the Reaping stage.

She’s playing a persona, Percy realized. This was how she was going to make the Capitol remember her for sponsors. As a tough career, not as the daughter of a couple restaurant owners back in 4.

Percy thinks that maybe Mags would want him to do something similar, but honestly, he was too tired to even think about doing that. Instead, he just nods towards the group.

Nero sizes him up. “You’ve got muscles, but they’re probably from fishing. You any good at hand-to-hand?”

“When I have to be.” Percy says, and then, because he promised to learn his fellow tributes’ names, “What are your names?”

The Careers look vaguely offended, like they expected him to already know them. It makes Percy glad that he didn’t mention he did know two of their names, just not the other two.

Finally, Emerald speaks up first, “I’m Emerald. District 1, obviously.”

“I’m Andromeda,” the girl from District 2 says. If knowledge of the Greek myths weren’t wiped out here, Percy would’ve made a joke.

“Nero.” Unfortunate name, Percy notes. Though the guy has a cruel face and laughed when the girl from 6 cried earlier, so maybe it fits.

“Lace.”

Percy simply nods again in reply to all of their introductions. This doesn’t feel like a “nice to meet you” situation.

“Well, sit down,” Emerald says. Gesturing to any empty seat by her. Percy remembers she was the girl who eyed his ass at the parade yesterday, and wearily takes the seat she gestured to.

He had already piled his plate high with various delicacies, including crab, so he could decide if he liked it or not and tell Annie later.

Andromeda breaks the silence with possibly the worst thing she could’ve said, “So who do you all think is going to die first?”

Percy chokes on his water, which is a first for him.

“Definitely the girl from 6. She can’t fight, and she seems too delicate to risk the arena without any supplies. So she’ll go for something in the bloodbath and someone will kill her.” Nero begins.

Andromeda nods, like the terrible thing Nero said is perfectly reasonable. And, look, Percy will be the first to admit what Nero said was thought through, and was even helpful for Percy’s understanding of the hunger games, but it was still a terrible thing to say.

“Probably one of the kids from 12,” Lace continues, “they never last very long. I can’t even remember the last time one of them lasted through the first day.”

“That’s a safe bet. Their mentor sucks. It’s hard to survive when the person who might save your life is black-out drunk.” Annie says, though she sounds sad, as if she’s pitying the kids from 12.

Andromeda must notice the same thing because she scowls and says, “If you’re relying on your mentor that much, you wouldn’t have won anyway. I can still win even if my mentor doesn’t send me anything.”

Nero laughs, “Yeah, I can too, but that doesn’t mean I’d enjoy it.”

The conversation changes after that, and Percy is grateful to note neither Annie nor Emerald shared who they thought would die first. Though both of them still laugh at jokes about the arena and death and life as a Victor that make Percy uncomfortable. He wonders if Annie would be laughing if the Careers weren’t there.

Percy isn’t able to quite get comfortable with the careers after Andromeda’s first question, and at the end of the day, when it is just Annie and him on the elevator, he tells her he won’t be joining the Careers in an alliance. Annie seems disappointed, but she doesn’t try to persuade him, which Percy is grateful for.

The next two days of training pass similarly. Percy stays away from all of the weapon racks, focuses on survival, and studies the people around him. He’s learned most of the tributes’ names by now. The boy from 8 is named Will, and the two kids from 12 are Daffodil and Matthew. Percy hopes they make it through the first day—that Lace’s prediction was wrong.

At night, Mags will come by with a list of things she forgot to tell him about the games and strategy. Slowly but surely Percy feels like he has a proper understanding of how these games work. Once he gets in bed though, he wonders if he should even try to win. Don’t the other kids deserve it more? Hasn’t Percy already lived long enough?

He was supposed to die at sixteen, and he’s seventeen now. It would be easy to die in the bloodbath. He thinks maybe one of the other tributes could even poison him—an act of revenge from Alkys a whole world away. Besides, all of the other tributes have families and friends waiting back at home for them.

But he always wakes up in the morning with a new will to live.

—

Finally, training is done, and all that’s left is to perform in front of the gamemakers, after which they’ll score you and broadcast it for the entirety of Panem to see. Augustus told Percy this was when betting for the games really heats up.

Out of morbid curiosity, Percy asked Augustus if anyone had bet on him winning, and Augustus replied, “Of course, a lot of people have! Though I don’t know how much of it was truly thinking you would win and how much was hoping that your beautiful face would see the competition through.”

Percy doesn’t ask Augustus anything else after that.

Annie and him are dropped off on the training floor one last final time, and they see that twenty-four seats have been lined up in the hallway. Percy sits next to the female tribute for 3, a girl named Peyton. She is shaking in fear, and muttering, “I just want a 5,” under her breath.

Percy has no idea what score he should be hoping for despite Mags telling him to aim for an 8. Percy can’t really force himself to care about something as arbitrary as a score, even if a good one will help him attract sponsors. He waits impatiently for the six people in front of him to finish before the gamemakers finally call him in.

He walks in to find all of the gamemakers—mostly middle-aged men—staring intently at him. “I heard he’s not a Career,” one of them mutters to his friend, who is eyeing Percy like fresh meat.

The friend replies, “I still hope he wins. I’d love to meet with him throughout the upcoming years.” They both laugh. Something about the conversation deeply unsettles Percy, though he can’t quite pin down why.

He clears his throat, “I’m Perseus Jackson, from district 4.” One of the gamemakers gestures for him to start.

Percy had thought a lot about what weapon he wanted to use in his demonstration. Since he decided against using a sword in the arena, and everyone already thought he knew how to use a trident, it is a trident he grabs.

He slashes it around in a fairly random manner focusing on demonstrating speed and technique. He ends by stabbing one of the dummies scattered around the room through the heart. The three prongs of the trident go all the way through to the dummy, and Percy turns back around to the gamemakers.

He doesn’t think he did as well as he could’ve, but he also can’t force himself to care about that. Not when children will be killing each other within a week. He tries to keep his expression neutral, though he has a bad feeling he doesn’t quite manage it, but he is dismissed without further issues.

He wishes Annie luck on the way out.

Another awkward dinner passes, with Mags, Finnick, Percy, and Annie all avoiding talking about strategies around each other. At least Augustus and Amos have fun gossiping about the upcoming games with each other. Daphne, Annie’s stylist, seems to have slightly more decorum. Percy is once again jealous he didn’t get her as a stylist.

Once everyone has stuffed themselves with appetizers, entrées, and desserts, they gather around the TV for the announcement of scores. Mags told him the Careers usually get between an 8-10, with 12 being the best possible score. Most other tributes will score anywhere between 3-7.

Sure enough Lace scores a 9, Emerald scores an 8, Andromeda scores a 10, and Nero scores a 9. Then the two from 3 are up. The boy scores a 6, but the girl only gets a 4.

Percy’s score will be the next one announced. Mags reaches out and grabs his hand, holding it in both of hers. He can feel how delicate her hands are, the veins sticking out and skin sagging, but she still squeezes his hand tightly in reassurance, and Percy wonders if this is what it is like to have a grandmother.

Mags is, without a doubt, the best thing to come out of this terrible situation.

His face flashes on the screen, and Claudius Templesmith, who is apparently the news anchor for the Hunger Games, stops to comment on his photo and how attractive he looks in it. Percy grits his teeth.

“Well ladies,” Claudius says, “You’ll be happy to hear he got a 10.” Mags claps the back of his hand in excitement, and Amos shakes his shoulder.

“Atta boy,” Augustus says.

Percy looks over at Annie and Finnick. Annie is smiling, though it doesn’t quite look as real as some of her other smiles Percy has seen. Finnick is frowning, studying him intently. His eyes catch again on Percy’s tattoo, and he looks back at the TV just as Annie’s face shows up on the screen.

“And Miss Annie Cresta scored a 9, congratulations Miss Cresta.”

It is immediately apparent this is not what Annie wanted to hear. She breathes in deeply, and the smile from earlier is gone. Percy has outperformed her, tying with Andromeda for the highest score, and he isn’t even a Career.

Percy has a bad feeling his days of seeing Annie’s real smiles are over. Tomorrow is the interview, and the next day is the arena. Despite his high score, Percy doesn’t feel ready. He forces himself to pay attention to the rest of the score reveals, and winces when Will gets a 3. If they were scoring kindness, Percy knows Will would’ve got a 12.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

Now that the training days are done and scores are assigned, all that is left are the interviews. They have all day to prepare, and then they will be interviewed tonight. Tomorrow morning they will be flown out to the arena. Somewhat morbidly, Percy hopes Zeus can come through for once and strike the aircraft down before they ever manage to arrive. If anyone would be able to reach across dimensions to do that, it would be his petty uncle.

Once breakfast is over, he asks Mags for more tips for the arena—as he has everyday they have been in the Capitol, but today she tells him he should worry about the interview instead. That since he scored highly, the best thing he could do now is get as many sponsors as possible. A good interview, she says, can achieve that.

“How do I give a good interview?” He asks Mags.

“First, we have to pick a character for you to play.” Mags looks him up and down, tapping her fingers on the table in consideration. He is still wearing his pajamas and hasn’t bothered to brush his hair or even shave since he didn’t have to leave the apartment this morning. He wonders if Mags is disappointed in what she has to work with. Percy isn’t in the habit of impressing his teachers.

“How do you feel about playing the interview in a funny way? Maybe acting charismatic?”

Augustus, who for some gods forsaken reason is part of this discussion, buts in, “Everyone who isn’t in the know thinks you’re a career. I think you should go for a more aggressive persona to match that assumption. Play up the ten you got in training.”

“If you’re not going to join the career alliance, don’t pretend to be a career. Although, aggressive might work, with your score.”

Percy knows he can be aggressive in the battle field, but right now, sitting on a couch across from little old lady Mags and his eccentric escort, he feels as far as he can be from aggressive. He feels tired, somber. He thinks neither of those would make for a good interview though.

“I don’t want to be aggressive. I don’t think I can pull it off in front of the camera.” Mags and Augustus share a knowing look.

“But you can in the arena, right?” Augustus asks.

Percy doesn’t meet either of their eyes. He doesn’t want them to think he’s a monster before he’s even in the arena.

“What about funny and charismatic, then?” Augustus directs his question to Mags, which is good. Percy doesn’t feel like answering it.

“Maybe that would be best. Percy, could you smile for us?”

It takes a lot more energy than he would have expected it to, but Percy manages a half-smile. The one teachers always said made him look like a trouble maker.

“Ooooh, shoot that grin at the audience, and they’ll love you. You’ll get all the single old lady donations.” Augustus says. Mags lightly slaps his leg. Percy doesn’t really know why, that was one of the least offensive things Augustus has said since Percy met him.

“Okay, well then, let’s work on keeping up a facade during the interview. Let’s do some practice questions. What are you looking forward to the most if you win?”

Percy thinks for a moment, and the smile slips off his face. He knows other people are looking forward to riches or going home to their family and friends, but Percy doesn’t care about money, and he doesn’t have anyone to go home to. “Eating dinner every night,” he says finally. He takes one look at Mags and Augustus’s face and knows he has said the wrong thing.

Mags clears her throat, “The audience won’t like to be reminded of how… precarious the food situation can be in the districts. And you should stay smiling throughout the whole interview, unless he asks you a specific question that would warrant not smiling, but that usually doesn’t happen.”

Percy nods, doing his best to smile again and keep it up.

“What do you enjoy most about the Capitol?”

That is an easy question for Percy to answer. “The food.” He leans back into the couch, but his half-smile stays on his face.

“Are all of your answers going to be about food?” Augustus asks. Percy pats himself on the back for not decking him there and then.

Mags continues on bravely, “What sort of strategy can we look forward to you employing in the arena?”

And on and on it goes, with a brief break for Augustus to teach him some etiquette—how to shake Caesar Flickerman’s hand, how to sit, how to project your voice, etc. But Augustus ends the session saying that maybe he should lean back in the chair because he looks more confident that way, so Percy isn’t even sure why he was taught the lesson in the first place.

Before they finish, Mags takes him aside, “You’re a very charismatic young man,” she says. “But you’re stiff when we ask you questions. I’m not going to tell you to be yourself because with these interviews I frankly think that is terrible advice, but I want you to loosen up a little bit. It’ll be hard for you to mess up majorly. Everyone in the crowd already likes you because they think you're handsome and you got a good score. Just smile and answer as best you can, and you’ll be alright.”

“At least until tomorrow,” Percy mutters.

Mags breaths in and exhales loudly. “At least until tomorrow,” she agrees, squeezing his shoulder in support.

He gets a brief break for lunch, and then his prep team descends like the plague of locusts upon Egypt. He is placed in a bath containing a variety of oils and soaps, and then scrubbed and exfoliated within an inch of his life.

One of them tuts disapprovingly at his stubble before shaving him. They nick the left side of his jaw, directly underneath his lips, but since he is still in the bath it heals immediately, leaving behind just a drop of blood. Percy swears he can smell it, and he doesn’t know what to think about that.

Finally, he is dried, moisturized, and perfumed. He is offered a towel to tie around his waist, which he takes gratefully, remembering how uncomfortable Amos had made him the last time he styled him.

Amos bursts into the room without knocking. “There is my handsome muse!” he cries.

Percy only barely manages to refrain from rolling his eyes.

“Look at what I have brought you today!” Amos pulls Percy’s outfit out of the same black bag his parade costume was in. This one is a bright red suit. Or—well, it is a suit jacket with pants. Percy notices, to his horror, there is no shirt in sight.

At least this suit is more tasteful than the parade costume. There are no sequins in sight. Instead there are golden patterns of hibiscus flowers with rubies embroidered around them. It’s obviously styled after a stereotypical Hawaiian shirt, and it is the kind of thing Percy could picture his dad wearing to a fancy event on Olympus.

Unbidden tears threaten to well up in his eyes at the thought of his father. He had spent so much time missing his mom and his friends and the background presence of the gods that he hadn’t even thought about his dad’s mortal form since he landed in Panem. But now, a day out from a possible execution, he would give anything for his dad to be here. To give him some sh*tty advice before disappearing from his life for another year.

Mags had told him the other tributes would likely mention their families in their interviews as their reason they want to go home. It was a brutal reminder that Percy has no one waiting for him back in 4. He stares down at his SPQR tattoo, hoping it will give him strength.

“Don’t cry; I know, it is beautiful. But not beautiful enough to ruin your makeup!” For once, Percy is grateful for Amos. His stupid comment was just what he needed to shake himself out of the funk he fell in.

Percy cannot fall apart. Not right before the interview, and not tomorrow during the games. If he survives, he will have plenty of time to be sad. And if he dies… it will be a non-issue.

Percy dresses in the suit, with his prep team fluttering around him. He has managed to gain weight while in the Capitol, which Mags seemed grateful for, but Amos and the rest of his team mourn his “uber defined” abs. They’re still there, just not as defined as before, but they take makeup to the area, and contour like their life depends on it. By the time the team is done, they look just like they did at the Tribute Parade. Percy tries not to let his disappointment show on his face.

They have let his hair fall in its natural waves today, which Percy is glad about, and his nails are repainted in gold to match the suit. Amos slides a pearl necklace on him as the final touch.

“I count myself very privileged to be able to work on a beauty like you, Perseus,” Amos says.

Percy smiles at him, deciding this is a great time to practice smiling at statements that actively anger him. It will be very beneficial for the interview, he knows.

He practices his smile intermittently as they are lined up outside the stage. He is standing next to Annie again, and this time she is wearing a large blue ball gown that vaguely reminds him of Cinderella. It has underlayers in light sea green and off-white, likely meant to represent sea foam, and there are small fish embroidered in the bodice.

Percy almost tells her she looks beautiful, but at the last minute, he looks around and not finding Finnick anywhere, he shoots her a genuine smile and says, “you look hot.”

Annie looks startled at first, then she blushes. “You heard our argument that first night, huh?”

“Yeah,” Percy scratches the back of his neck. He had honestly forgotten he wasn’t supposed to hear it. At Camp Half-Blood everyone would have known they were within ear-shot. Sometimes, Percy forgets how different normal mortals are from demigods.

“Well, you look pretty hot yourself.” Annie says, quickly getting over her embarrassment.

Percy straightens his jacket and gives her his best trouble-maker grin—the one he’s been practicing all day. Then he winks and says, “Thank you.”

“You’re going for the sexy route, then?” Annie asks, and Percy is so taken aback, he steps backward into the girl from 3. He apologizes profusely to her before turning back to Annie.

“What makes you think that?”

“I mean,” Annie makes a vague gesture towards his body before pointing to her own lips and trying to copy his smile.

Was he going for sexy? Percy had never thought of himself as being sexy before. He was still only seventeen, which felt much too young to be labeled sexy. Though, he reminded himself bitterly, typically that is too young to become a killer, but the Capitol seems to have no problem with that.

And with that sobering reminder of why they are here, Percy can hear Caesar Flickerman—the host for the interviews—come out on stage to introduce himself, though Percy doesn’t know why. Caesar Flickerman had apparently been doing this job for decades, so much so that Mags wasn’t even the first time he had heard about the man. The people he worked with back in 4 would often mock interview each other, and they called it their “Caesar Flickerman” impression.

From those impressions, Percy gathered that the man was a bit eccentric, and his TV appearance seemed to reinforce that perception. His hair and eyebrows were dyed an ugly sea green, and he had the face of someone who had multiple face lifts and years of botox.

He called the girl from District 1—Emerald, Percy reminded himself for the dozenth time—up on the stage, and with that, the interviews started. Every tribute got three minutes, and Mags told him to make them count.

Percy just hoped he didn’t embarrass himself.

He catches only glimpses of each interview on the TV, too nervous for his own to pay attention fully. Emerald seems genuinely nice, a lot like Annie, and she is wearing a long green dress absolutely covered in Emeralds. “So you don’t forget my name,” she told Caesar.

Lace’s designer seemed to have similar thoughts as Emerald’s as he is dressed in a black lace suit. Percy is uncomfortable with how much it resembles a mourner’s outfit at a funeral. The audience seems to find the fully black outfit boring, and are only more uninterested in what Lace himself has to say. He is tall and broad and did well in training, but he seems to have an episode of stage fright. Percy winces in empathy. At least Caesar seems to be doing a good job of getting him to talk.

Andromeda is over confident in her interview, and Nero tries his best to be funny, and to be fair, most of his jokes land. In any other context, Percy would be laughing along with the audience.

Then the two tributes from three go, and they try to justify why their technological knowledge will be helpful in the arena. Both are young and scrawny, so Percy hopes their knowledge genuinely will help them. He worries they won’t get far otherwise.

Finally, it’s Annie’s turn. She walks on stage smiling, looking resplendent in her blue gown. If Percy were feeling more like his normal self pre-Tartarus and pre-Panem, he might even call her an angel. She sits down without shaking Caesar’s hand then gets up again, embarrassed when she realizes. She walks over to him and corrects her mistake. They both laugh it off easy enough, though she is bright red by the time she is sitting down again.

“So, Annie, can I just call you Annie?” Caesar asks. Annie nods her head dutifully, smile never leaving her face. “Annie, I understand you are being mentored by Finnick Odair this year.”

The audience cheers loudly, a couple girls catcalling and whooping. It makes Percy uncomfortable, and Annie looks uncomfortable too. She’s looking out at the audience in confusion, though she manages to hide it quickly.

“I am a big fan of Mr. Odair,” Caesar says, “I actually dyed my hair to match his eyes this year.” If the audience was cheering before they are screaming now, and the camera cuts to Finnick’s face from where he sits in the audience by Mags and Augustus. He waves at the camera goodnaturedly, shooting a co*cky smile as he does so. Percy notices Caesar’s hair does not actually match Finnick’s eyes that well.

The camera cuts back to Annie just as she finishes a laugh Percy knows to be fake. He wonders if she has never before realized the extent of which the Capitol covets her boyfriend. He wonders if Finnick never let her realize it.

If Percy were in his shoes, he would do the same.

“What is working with him like?” Caesar finally asks, getting to the point of his question.

“He’s great,” Annie says. “He knows so much about the games. He’s studied the different arenas and given me tips on how to navigate all of them. I feel safe knowing that he’ll be here in the Capitol handling sponsors on my behalf.”

“Well, Finnick Odair’s games were certainly a sight to behold, but I don’t have to tell any of our audience members that.” The audience shares a laugh with Caesar, but Annie merely smiles, waiting for the conversation to actually turn back to her.

It seems Caesar isn’t done yet, though. “I’ll tell you what Annie. If you win, Finnick Odair’s face will be the first you see, well after any necessary medical procedures are done. And, wow, doesn’t that sound great?” He turns to the audience to ask this question, and Percy can hear the audience sigh and laugh and cheer. It is obvious Finnick is a crowd favorite.

Annie’s smile looks noticeably more fake now. Percy hopes Caesar will change the subject soon.

Luckily, it seems Caesar hears his pleas. He looks at Annie’s face, and his mirth dies down a little. “What, Miss Cresta, is the first thing you are going to do if you win?”

Caesar hasn’t asked this to every tribute, but he has asked it more often than not. It allows a moment of seriousness, for a tribute to tell everyone watching what matters to them most. Some treat it as a joke, some take it seriously and deliver messages to their family watching at home. Percy wonders what Annie will do; he can see the timer is almost done. This will be the last question of her interview, the only one not about her mentor.

Annie sits up straighter. She, like Percy, was likely asked this question multiple times today. She knows exactly what to say. “I’m going to kiss Finnick Odair.”

The audience went wild with mirth. Half were screaming, “me too!” and half were pounding their feet on the floor. Caesar himself lets out a true cackle, as if Annie had just said the funniest joke. “I’ll tell you what, Miss Cresta, if you win, maybe you can tie him down. Let’s hear it for District 4's female tribute, Annie Cresta.”

And with that, Annie’s interview is done. Percy has no idea how well she has done. She ended with quite the splash, but most of her interview wasn’t even about herself. If that had been Percy, he knows he would’ve been really frustrated. He wonders if she chose her answer to the last question based on how the first half of the interview went—if she decided to cut her losses and paint herself firmly in her mentor’s shadow, trusting Finnick will be able to do the rest and successfully secure sponsors. It certainly seems like some of those audience members might be willing to donate to Annie solely because of Finnick.

He has no time to ponder it further before he is waved on stage. The lights are bright, and they blind him momentarily, but he pushes through, making sure his smile is clear on his face. Win them over, he can imagine Mags saying.

Charismatic and funny, he reminds himself.

Caesar greets him, and they exchange a firm handshake. They trade words back and forth, but Percy barely knows what he is saying. He looks out at the crowd and sees people wearing all sorts of strange clothing. He looks over at the mentors and stylists and catches Mags’ eye. She nods at him.

He looks at Finnick briefly, and finds him sitting in his chair with his hand under his chin staring off into space. Suddenly, Percy knows Annie’s interview did not go how Finnick wanted it to. With the way it started out and how much Caesar talked about him, she never had a chance for it to be about her.

Caesar drops Finnick’s name again, but luckily, he moves on quickly, unlike with Annie’s interview. It was merely a passing joke about how attractive they both are. Percy kind of wants to pull out his hair, but he jokes along, and the moment is gone. Caesar asks another basic question Percy answered an ungodly amount of times today with Mags and Augustus.

Then the monotony breaks.

“So, Perseus, I understand you have quite the backstory, and that it played into your outfit at the Opening Ceremony,” Caesar says, and Percy snaps back to attention. They knew about his past? And Caesar was asking him questions about it on live TV? Was that allowed? How much could he say? He could picture the Peacekeepers standing above him now, batons and whips in hand.

He fiddles with his necklace before forcing himself to stop. He adjusts how he sits, and he smiles exactly how he was told to smile. He can freak out after the interview.

“Well, yes, that’s what everyone’s been telling me. They say that I’m strange. That I have to be some sort of mythical sea creature. I think they exaggerate the story a bit, but I’ll retell it just like they do…”

Percy couldn’t recount what he said if you held him at gunpoint. The lights and the cameras and the cheering audience distract him too much, as well as how traumatic the story is telling is, but he answers every question Caesar asks, and he thinks he does well. At one point he curses, and Caesar stops him. Percy cannot express how he feels knowing he can’t curse in the interview, but that graphic deaths of children will be broadcasted to the whole country in less than 24 hours.

Then it is over. Percy leaves the stage, and the adrenaline flees his body, leaving him feeling like jello. He watches the rest of the interviews more carefully than he did the ones before him. Judy is humble and scared, but promising to try her best in the arena. Will spends his time gushing about his little siblings and how he would love to go home to them. Both of the District 12 tributes discuss how much they love the food in the Capitol. Looking at them and their undernourished bodies, Percy bets this is the only time in their lives they have reliably had food on the table.

And with that somber note, the interviews are done.

All the tributes are corralled back to their respective floors, and Percy prepares to settle in for a long night of troubled sleep, thinking about the days to come.

But before he could enter his room, Mags gently grabbed his elbow. “Perseus,” she greeted. “Good job on your interview. I’ve already had potential sponsors reach out.”

Percy blinked, “Oh, that’s good.”

Mags rubs her face, and Percy wonders how well she’s handling all of this. “Yeah, it’s really good. But I wanted to talk to you about something else. Your pen, it’s your district token, right?”

Percy nods, and Mags continues. “Well, they denied it. They said it could too easily be used as a weapon.”

Percy barely holds back a snort. He was angry. Riptide was all he had left, and he couldn’t even bring it with him in the arena. And a weapon? They didn’t know the least of it…

“I didn’t want you to be without a token, so I brought this.” She holds out a small pearl earring. It is a delicate golden hoop with a pearl attached to the bottom of it.

“Where did you get it?” Percy asks. “It looks expensive. And how did you even know my ear was pierced?”

Mags smiles at him. “It’s mine. I wore it on the train ride here. And I am a Victor, you know. I survived my own games, and you don’t become a Victor by being unobservant.”

Percy blushes, and accepts the delicate piece of jewelry. “Thank you so much, this is… really sweet.” He finally settled on. Over the past week, he has grown closer to Mags than he had to any of the people he worked with or lived with back in District 4. For Mags to give him a district token felt, well, poetric. It was incredibly touching.

He looks up to meet Mags’s eyes, and sees there are tears brimming in them. He hugs her, and she hugs back as hard as she can.

“Look, young man,” she says once he lets go. “You have a real shot at winning this, but don’t get co*cky just because of your score. Remember to find water first, then shelter, and lastly food. The Career pack will inevitably go hunting the first night, so if you aren’t joining them, make sure to avoid them as long as possible. They’ll have a lot of nasty surprises in the arena, so expect the worst and try to sleep lightly.”

Percy nods and Mags takes a deep breath before continuing.

“Listen, you seem like a very nice boy, and I want you to know that whatever you do in that arena does not define you. Do you hear me?”

Mags grabs both sides of Percy’s face, tilting his head downward, so he is staring directly at her when she repeats, “it does not define you. Whatever you need to do to come home is something you have to do. Morals have no place in that arena. Say it.”

“Whatever I do there doesn’t define me.” Percy obediently states.

“Good.” Mags lets go of his face and nods once. “Watch out for yourself. I’ll be watching out for you as best I can from the mentor chair. They’ll wake you up early tomorrow to take you to the arena, but I have to stay in the Capitol to handle sponsorships.”

They hug again, and Percy lets out a weak “goodbye” when she turns to head towards her own bedroom.

Percy takes a bath and heads to bed, but once he’s in bed, he just lays there, staring at the ceiling. Tomorrow, he might have to kill someone. He might even have to kill multiple people. He has fought in a war before and was in the middle of another one when he was transported here. But it feels different now. The Panem government will be forcing their citizens to watch, as a show of power and control over the districts. He feels like the wars he fought in were justifiable; the Hunger Games are clearly not.

Just as he is starting to get a headache, he hears a knocking on the door. He opens it, just a smidge and sees—

“Annie?”

“Hey, Perseus,” she says meekly. “Can we talk?”

“Sure.” He opens the door to let her inside his room. He knows this must be breaking all sorts of protocols, but what’s the point now, anyway? What can they punish them with?

“Are you okay?” He asks Annie because he feels like if she was, she wouldn’t be here.

“No.” She says, sitting on his bed and pulling her knees up to her face. “Do you think it was wrong of me to volunteer?”

Oh boy , Percy thinks. That is a doozy of a question. Does he think it is wrong that she volunteered so that the other girl—what was her name, Patricia? Portia?—didn’t have to go? No. Did he think it was wrong that Annie was trained and taught at an Academy specifically so she would one day volunteer to enter a death match fight with a bunch of other teens and pre-teens? Yes, that was wrong. But how was Percy supposed to answer this?

“I think someone had to go compete, and I think it was brave of you to volunteer so an untrained girl didn’t have to do it.” Percy finally says.

“But do you think being a Career is wrong?” Annie prompts.

Percy huffs, “I don’t know what I think. It’s a complicated issue. I think training kids to be better prepared is fine, but I think encouraging them to volunteer is… a bit terrible.”

“How so?”

Percy takes a good look at Annie’s face, trying to find out why she’s asking. He doesn’t even know how to explain his thoughts, it’s such a complex issue that he honestly doesn’t know that much about.

If only Annabeth were here, Percy thinks, not for the first time. “Because if you encourage someone to volunteer and they die, that’s on you, isn’t it?”

Annie looks like she’s considering what he said, and abruptly, she starts crying. She puts both her hands to her face to cover up that fact, but it doesn’t hide how her voice wavers. “You know Finnick wasn’t happy I volunteered, obviously. But my parents weren’t very happy either.”

Annie lets out a sob, and Percy waits patiently for her to continue. “They pay you, if you join the Academy. It’s not a lot, but it is a decent amount. And there’s 24 kids every year—12 girls and 12 boys. There's not high odds you’ll get chosen to volunteer. When I was twelve, my mom got really sick, and she needed to go to the hospital, but my parents went into debt doing it. I joined the Academy to help them pay it off.”

There was one hospital in District 4, and it was located in Decoris. There were extensive checks and barriers in place so that not just anyone could go. It was mainly meant for the Capitol tourists in the resorts, but wealthy District members could be treated there as well. Percy could see it now, Annie’s mother ill with some unknown disease, and the family just making the monetary cut-off, but going into debt to do it.

The Academy must’ve seemed like a reasonable solution. Percy had no idea the students who went were paid. While District 4 wasn’t as poor as other districts like 11 or 12, it wasn’t particularly wealthy either, and there were plenty of hungry kids in the streets. If your kid made the cut for the 24 students, and you knew it could mean the difference between keeping your family fed, how many parents would choose to send their kids? Even if it meant volunteering for the Games?

Percy knows his horror must be showing on his face, and Annie sees it and laughs, wiping away the tears that had fallen. Her voice is still shaky when she continues, “yeah, well, they withhold money if you don’t reach a certain skill level, so everyone tries their hardest. And they do their best to convince you that volunteering is righteous. That it’s an honor to participate in the games. They say Panem will remember your name forever. It’s all… really stupid from where I’m sitting right now, but it sounded so perfect back in 4. Especially with my mom healthy again.”

Percy reaches out and puts his arm around Annie’s shoulder. “And when I was chosen to represent four, I—I was so excited. I told Finnick all about it, and he tried so hard to talk me out of it, but if I was chosen and I didn’t go through with it, I would’ve been a social pariah. I didn’t have a choice!” Percy rubs her shoulder, and avoids voicing how little this sounds like volunteering.

“My parents were so sad too! My mom cried the whole week after I was chosen! She said she felt like she bought her life with mine. How was I even supposed to respond to that? And now, seeing Finnick here in the Capitol, I don’t even know what to think. He’s so different around the Capitolites, and he’s so angry at me and sad, too, and—” Here Annie devolves fully into sobs, unable to continue.

Percy just holds her tight, thinking of Finnick, who wants to get his girlfriend home safe, and Mr. and Mrs. Cresta, who enrolled her in the Academy to pay off their debts and no doubt regret it bitterly now. He can picture them so clearly, though he has never met them. He imagine Mrs. Cresta with Annie’s nose and eyes, and Mr. Cresta with Annie’s hair and jaw and same calluses from years working at the restaurant. They’re huddled around their old TV, waiting for their daughter to show up. Waiting to see if she makes it out alive.

If it comes down to Annie or me in the arena, Percy decides, I’ll kill myself.

Percy was never meant to see adulthood.

…

Part 1: End

I was left to my own devices

Many days fell away with nothing to show

And the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we love

Grey clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

And if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like you've been here before?

How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

We were caught up and lost in all of our vices

In your pose as the dust settled around us

And the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we love

Grey clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

And if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like you've been here before?

How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

Oh, where do we begin?

The rubble or our sins?

Oh, oh, where do we begin?

The rubble or our sins?

And the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we love

Grey clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

And if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like you've been here before?

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Part 2: The Hunger Games

Percy finds peace in his decision to die. To get Annie out. It settles some self-hating part of him that calls him a monster, his father’s son. It used to be buried deep down, but had started surfacing more and more often since Tartarus. Since Annabeth died.

Annie’s sobs slowly turn to sniffles, and eventually she leaves to go to bed.

Percy falls asleep easily. He knows his mind must be at peace because it decides to give him one last good dream.

“Percy!” Nico cries.

Percy walks up to him and pulls him into the strongest hug he can manage. He knows this isn’t really Nico. If the gods can’t communicate with him here and his father can’t hear his prayers, Nico definitely can’t appear in Percy’s dream. But he is going to savor this figment of his imagination anyway.

Nico pulls away first, but he keeps his hands on both sides of Percy’s arms. Staring up at his face. “Percy, there’s another prophecy,” he says.

Any happiness Percy feels abruptly leaves him. His brain hasn’t gifted him a dream, no. It’s given him a nightmare.

“Can I not have one nice dream where I get to say goodbye?” Percy asks his subconscious.

Nico’s brows furrow in confusion. “Why do you need to say goodbye?”

“I’ll be dead in a couple weeks, and I can’t even have a peaceful night’s sleep? I have to be haunted by possibilities of what’s happening to my family and friends.”

Percy paces around the room they are in. It is not one he recognizes, but based on the lighting and decor and Nico, he bets this is the Underworld.

“Haunted? Percy—”

“No, if you’re going to tell me about a sh*tty, fictional prophecy, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Not everything about the prophecy is bad,” Nico starts to say. “I mean… It says Thalia and I are going to find you. That we’ll see each other again.” Nico sounds frantic, looking at Percy in a frightened manner.

It is only then that Percy takes himself in, evaluates what he must look like. He has spent the last six months being worked to the bone day-in and day-out, his only respite being that the job was on a boat. Then he was drafted for some fight-to-death games. He has been primped and prepped for glamorous TV appearances, where audiences have oohed and awed over his body, and tomorrow he will run to the Cornucopia and kill fellow teenagers. Kids. He knows his scowl must be fierce, and his eyes are dark in boiling rage. When Nico watches him now, he must see him as a caged tiger.

Something dangerous and easily provoked.

Maybe if Nico were real, he would care. Instead, he reaches for a nearby vase. He wants to throw it against the wall, hear the smash of glass. He wants to pick up the pieces and squeeze his fists until his blood falls on the floor. He wants to destroy something before he’s destroyed.

He doesn’t do any of this. When his hand is about to make contact with the vase, it goes through it like he’s a ghost. He screams in rage.

“Percy…” Nico says in a strange combination of fear and concern. Percy looks at his face, and breaks down into tears, just like the ones Annie shed earlier that night. Percy slides down onto the floor, head in his hands to hide his weeping. He doesn’t need to put on a brave face in his dreams.

Nico approaches his side slowly, like Percy is some wounded animal. He’s whispering assurances that ultimately mean nothing. Percy just heard him say, “We’ll see each other again, I promise.” When he wakes up to loud knocking on the door.

It is Amos. Percy bravely holds back a groan at the face of his loathed stylist. He cannot believe it is Amos who will accompany him to the arena, but Mags had explained it to him. She said the stylists were there because they had to be “camera ready.” Her eyes were dull with pity as she said it.

Percy had wondered if she was already mourning him.

Amos chatters away about theories about the games this year. According to him, Percy is a crowd favorite and projected to at least make it to the top eight, where they would send someone to interview his family and friends. Percy wondered what they would do once they realized he didn’t have any.

They are directed to the roof where a hovercraft picks them up. The ladder that extends down for them to climb up is electrified. For a moment Percy thinks Zeus somehow heard his prayer to kill him before he arrives at the arena, but the voltage is strange. Instead of shocking them, it just freezes them in place as the ladder is pulled up into the hovercraft.

From there, he is injected with two things. Amos readily explains the first one with a larger needle was injecting a tracker, so they can keep track of him in the arena. When Percy asks what the second one was, Amos simply explains it was to make sure he didn’t grow any facial hair in the arena.

“Why is that a big deal?” Percy asks.

Amos looks at him in confusion, like the answer should be obvious. “Well, if all the male tributes start growing beards in the arena they’ll look older! Could you imagine? Tributes are supposed to be young, in the prime of their life!”

Percy gets the feeling the tributes are actually supposed to be clean-shaven so that those watching in the districts don’t forget it is children the Capitol took to play their sick games. Percy has never before felt any inclination to grow a beard, but he wants to now. As a small f*ck you to the Capitol.

The hovercraft drops them off in an underground building. Percy and Amos are walked to their destination by a pack of Peacekeepers. Percy wonders how many tributes have tried to escape at the last minute for this to be necessary.

Finally, they are locked in a room that Amos calls the “launch room.” There is a large tube on the far end of the room that will take Percy up into the arena. It is not until Percy is gone that the Peacekeepers will unlock the door again to let Amos out.

Amos is weirdly silent when he examines the clothes he is to dress Percy in. After a long moment, he says, “It’s going to be cold, though likely not below freezing, since the arctic themed arena was such a bust a couple years ago. But be careful of setting fires, it acts as a beacon for other tributes who want to hunt you down. I’ve seen so many tributes die that way. Your best bet will be grabbing extra clothes and blankets at the cornucopia. With your ten you should be able to survive the bloodbath.”

His advice is nothing new for Percy, but he finds himself grateful for it despite himself. Amos had been an outright irritating old man since Percy met him at the beginning of the week, but it was nice that he was making an effort to be more serious now that Percy was moments away from a literal bloodbath.

Percy sends him a small, closed mouth smile, but Amos ruins the moment by saying, “promise me you’ll try to avoid an ugly death. So many tributes’ bodies just get absolutely mutilated in the arena, and it would be such a shame for that to happen to those cheekbones.” Amos sighs, putting a hand to Percy’s cheek bones and Percy pushes it away in disgust.

“Of course, the best option would be for you to win, to be a Victor! Wouldn’t that be so exciting? I already have an outfit planned for you.”

Percy is silent. He hadn’t known it was normal for some tributes to get “absolutely mutilated.” Though, he knew mutts were a thing in the arena, so perhaps getting mauled to death was a normal way for some tributes to die. He hadn’t thought the games could get more horrific, but the Capitol managed to keep surprising him.

Amos dresses him first in a layer of thermal underwear and a thermal undershirt. Then a pair of outdoor pants with plenty of pockets, and a black turtleneck shirt made of athletic wear material. Percy slips on thick, wool socks and a pair of hiking boots. Finally, Amos hands Percy a heavy cold weather rain jacket, with a detachable hood. As Percy takes the outfit in, he feels more so like he’s going on a hike than going into a gladiator fight.

The last touch is the single, dangly pearl earring Mags gave him last night. Percy puts it in his ear, pushing through a thin layer of skin that has settled over his piercing. He hasn’t worn an earring in a while.

A bright flash erupts from Percy’s right, where Amos was standing, and Percy drops into a defensive position, already in fight mode. Amos takes a step back, startled, and he almost drops his camera.

“I just wanted to get a picture,” Amos says dismissively, laughing off the way Percy genuinely scared him. “You look so beautiful right now. It deserves to be preserved forever.”

Especially if your face gets torn off in the next couple of weeks , Percy mentally finishes Amos’s sentence. He doesn’t want the games to start, but he also doesn’t want to be in the same room as his stylist anymore, either.

“You know, that earring will start a trend, I just know it. And so I can be ahead of the curve, I already dressed to match you today.” Amos says, gesturing to his pearl necklace.

Only, it isn’t a necklace. Percy looks down at what Amos is wearing in shock. There, around his neck, is a rosary.

“You’re Catholic?” Percy asks before he can stop himself.

Percy hasn’t seen any outwardly religious people his whole time in Panem. Back in District 4, he never walked past any churches or mosques or synagogues, and he never saw anyone kneeling or clasping hands in prayer. The idea that his annoying stylist is the first religious person he has encountered here is deeply bizarre to Percy in a way he can’t quite express verbally, but he knows is showing on his face.

Amos blinks heavily, “What? Like the antiquated religion?” He lets out a deep chuckle. “Don’t be ridiculous, I would never break the Capitol’s laws like that. What made you even think that?”

“You’re wearing a pearl rosary,” Percy says, baffled. Amos had literally pointed it out to him. Did he not know what it signified? “And what do you mean by laws?”

Amos is quiet now, looking Percy in his eyes as if trying to read his mind. “Religion is illegal,” he says finally. “My necklace is just an antique piece of jewelry from before the Dark Days.”

The tone Amos says it in is sharp, letting Percy know this is the end of the conversation. Percy understands why; he had just implied Amos was breaking a law in Panem, a law that seemed pretty serious.

Percy turned the words around in his head. Religion is illegal. Percy had been raised agnostic, though that obviously quickly changed when he turned twelve. Even before he found out about his relation to the Greek gods, though, religion had always seemed so pivotal to people. What they did. How they made sense of the world. For so many, religion was comforting. It offered hope. How could Panem just outlaw it?

He fiddles with his earring, deep in thought, before an announcement comes over the speakers, telling the tributes to get onto the launch pad. Percy shuffles over. He meets Amos’s eyes one last time, wishing he were Mags, or even Finnick. Amos just gives him a thumbs up, and with that the launch pad starts to rise.

As Percy finally rises above ground level, he knows immediately what Amos meant by “it will be cold.” The Hunger Games take place during the middle of the summer. Percy had gotten used to the blazing heat outside.

But here in the arena, the rules of nature don't apply. There are woods directly in front of Percy, on the other side of the cornucopia. The leaves are an array of bright reds, oranges, yellows, and everything in between, and the ground is covered in fallen leaves. The air is crisp with a light breeze, and the arena is probably somewhere around 50-55 degrees.

It is autumn. This has important implications for what type of vegetation will be growing, what animals will be doing, and what the weather will be like. It will also make sneaking around in the woods harder. He’ll have to navigate the crunches of fallen leaves. Percy hadn’t been prepared for this at all. Regardless, he forces himself to snap out of his shock, and find something he is prepared for: water.

Apparently, there didn’t always used to be water, but since the year where most tributes died of dehydration, there are usually a couple of sources of it in the arena. Often, there is a main source of water that the careers camp out by. It takes him less than a second to find it.

There, to Percy’s left side, is a large dam holding an impressive reservoir of water. It is nestled right in between two hills lush with forestry. But the dam is strange—Percy clocks it immediately. Either the people who build arenas are incompetent, or that dam is going to break. There is even a backup reservoir of more water below the arena. If they flood the place, it won’t just be the valley that gets waterlogged.

This is lucky for him, but nobody else. Even Annie, though she is likely a strong swimmer, can be swept away in a second in a strong enough current, and if all that water flows out at once, there will undoubtedly be debris carried with it—knocked over trees, rocks, etc. You need to be more than a strong swimmer to survive that. You need luck.

Or, well, you need to be a child of Poseidon.

It takes him longer to notice the other strange thing about the dam, or, really, it’s about the reservoir behind the dam. It’s got fish in it, but the fish are totally wrong for this kind of landscape and climate. Percy reaches into his gut to feel out the reservoir more, to try to confirm his suspicions and…

Those are piranhas. It’s entirely wrong for where the arena seems set, but Percy gets the feeling the gamemakers don’t care about what’s natural. Most piranhas live in far warmer climates, they tend to die at anything colder than 50 degrees. But maybe that’s a good sign that the weather won’t get any colder. Or maybe they’re mutts—mutations specifically designed to survive the colder weather in the arena and eat any tributes that decide to take a dip in the reservoir. Percy hopes it is the former. He doesn’t want to know what a winter night in the arena feels like.

He pulls his attention away from the dam to study the rest of the arena in his eyeline. The cornucopia is in a valley, in the shadow of the dam, and the tributes are gathered around it in a circle, meaning Percy can only see roughly half of them.

It seems like it just rained recently, because there is standing water on the ground, and a lot of it, at least three inches, and even higher towards the center of the cornucopia. Percy winces on behalf of the other tributes and hopes all of the supplies are waterproofed.

To his right is some sort of field, but they grow a type of crop Percy doesn’t recognize, and he can practically hear Mags telling him not to eat it. Apparently, the Gamemakers love to give you something that looks like food but will kill you in horrible ways.

If Percy poisons himself after what happened with Akhlys, forget the poison, he’ll die of embarrassment.

The clock is counting down to 30 seconds now, and Percy pulls his attention away from the arena itself to study the supplies strewn around the cornucopia. Traditionally, the bags in the middle contain the most desirable supplies. Water purifiers, first aid, camping bags, food, and weapons of course. The ones on the outer edge are less valuable, and almost none of the weapons will be more than fifteen feet out from the cornucopia. Percy remembers Amos’s advice, as obvious as it was, Your best bet will be grabbing extra clothes and blankets at the cornucopia .

Percy looks around, trying to see if there are any bags that are see through, or are particularly obvious in what they contain. He spots a black sleeping bag close to the middle, and it looks like it might be insulated. Percy decides he will grab that and a medium sized brown bag beside it—much preferable to the bright orange bags on the edges.

But first, he needs a weapon to protect himself with. He scans the cornucopia again to see what he has to work with. There are a lot of large knives and swords, plenty of spears, some barbed wire, two sets of bows and arrows, some axes, and there, leaning against the side of the cornucopia, is one single trident.

There are no others. The Gamemakers know he isn’t a career, and they want him and Annie to fight for it.

At this realization, Percy finally looks at his other competitors, trying to spot his district partner, who has no idea what Percy decided to do last night. He sees her a little off to his right side, and in between the boy from 12 and the girl from 3. She is staring the trident down. Percy knows she must want it bad.

Fine, Percy decides , I don’t really need a weapon anyway. The conviction of this thought takes him by surprise, and it becomes a sobering reminder of what Percy is compared to these other kids. It’s like a shipwreck, and he’s the shark, waiting hungry in the water.

The timer is down to 10 seconds now, and Percy uses his precious remaining time to place who the rest of the tributes around him are. To his direct left is Andromeda. She’s signaling something to her district partner, Nero, who nods stiffly back. Percy can just barely see him, he’s almost on the other side of the cornucopia.

To his direct right is the girl from district 11. Percy doesn’t remember much about her from training, but she’s looking desperately in the direction of the field, and Percy suspects she isn’t even going to try for anything at the cornucopia. It means she’ll probably survive the bloodbath, but she’ll struggle to not freeze to death at night if she doesn’t grab anything else.

And there, a couple of platforms over, is Annabeth’s not-double, Judy. She is looking determined at something in the cornucopia, but unlike with Annie, he can’t tell what it is.

The timer is almost done. 3. Percy looks back at the sleeping bag he spotted earlier. 2. Percy adjusts his position, ready to run as soon as the timer is done. 1. Percy’s heart is pumping so loudly in his ear, but he isn’t nervous. He’s entered the same mindset he enters before every battle. Fight, stay alive, protect what’s yours to protect.

And the timer’s done. With a loud bang, the games have started, and Percy is the first off his platform, sprinting faster than all of the other tributes, even though he is holding himself back. A mix of his divine blood and natural agility carry him to the cornucopia precious seconds before everyone else.

He grabs the backpack he spotted earlier first, and throws it around his shoulders. It will act as a convenient shield for his back. Then he picks up a rope he spotted nearby and slings it around one shoulder, unsure what he will use it for, but knowing it could come in handy. He grabs a small knife—more for cooking and cutting plants than anything else, but also able to be a weapon if necessary. He attaches it to his belt, which has pockets and slots to hold all sorts of weapons. Finally, he grabs the sleeping bag.

He looks up, and takes in what is happening around him. The fastest tributes have weapons now, and are using them liberally on the slower ones. Percy can smell the blood in the air. It’s even stronger than it should be, and he thinks, again, how apt his earlier comparison of himself to a shark was. It horrifies him.

Andromeda slashes madly at the boy from 6, who holds a large knife in his hands, but lacks the skills to use it. He falls to the ground, already dead, but Andromeda gets two more slashes in before she is satisfied. His chest must be ribbons by now. There is a gleam to her eyes Percy doesn’t like. She enjoyed killing that boy.

Annabeth’s hair flashes in the corner of his eye, and before he knows it he is moving, some deeply ingrained battle muscle memory forcing himself to protect his girlfriend. Only, of course, it isn’t his girlfriend, and these aren’t his normal battles. This is televised murder games for the entertainment of the regime he now lives under.

He is supposed to be hiding his power, but in a panicked moment where he mistakes Judy for Annabeth and sees Emerald taking a shot at her with a bow and arrow, Percy forgets everything and leaps forward to grab the arrow out of the air.

It is a move impossible for a normal teenage boy. Percy is left holding the arrow in one hand, and Judy looks at him with her wide eyes, a brown color so unlike Annabeth’s. Too late, Percy remembers where he is. He is not in Tartarus, and that is not Annabeth.

He looks over Judy’s shoulder and sees Lace running at them. He, like Andromeda, carries a long, serrated sword, already bloody.

Percy pushes Judy out of the way, and drops his sleeping bag but places the arrow in his belt. He grabs Lace’s raised arm before he has a chance to bring the blade down. Percy twists his wrist in a way he knows from experience hurts like hell, and Lace’s sword clangs to the ground.

Percy keeps twisting his arm, and kicks the back of his knee, forcing Lace to fall onto it. Lace’s other arm—the left one—tries to claw at Percy’s face, but when it gets too close to his mouth, he bites it hard until he feels the skin break under his teeth, and it pulls away immediately, leaving a chunk of flesh in Percy’s mouth. The hand starts to scratch desperately at Percy’s arm. Percy spits the flesh out of his mouth already hating himself, but the taste of iron is still strong in his mouth. His teeth must be stained red.

He is a monster.

With one quick move, Percy places his arm around Lace’s head so that his elbow is under his jaw and his hand is on top of his head. He twists his arm quickly, and Lace’s neck snaps like a twig. Percy turns around before he can see the boy’s body fall to the ground.

There are some things you don’t need to see , Percy thinks.

It seems Judy realized Percy wasn’t going to let anyone kill her, and had taken the time to grab what she had run for in the first place—an ax. Right, District 7, Percy remembered, was in charge of lumber. He bet Judy was pretty handy with that ax.

She scoops up her own bag and Percy’s fallen sleeping bag and scans their surroundings before looking at him appraisingly. “Allies?”

She asks this in what she no doubt hopes is a calm and collected manner, but Percy can hear the panic in her voice. The begging quality it takes on. In the opening of the game, Percy has proved himself a powerful player, and one willing to protect her. He understands why she wants to be allies, but he doesn’t know if he can do that. He doesn’t think he could kill someone he allied with, and she wasn’t Annie. She hadn’t been crying in his arms last night about her worried parents back home.

He looks around, still trying to see if anyone is approaching them. He sees Andromeda spear someone through the back, and turns away in time to catch the end of the loudest, bloodiest confrontation so far.

There, in the middle of the fight is Trenton, the big, muscled tribute Percy clocked right away as deadly. On either side of him is Emerald, now wielding a knife with her bow and arrows slung across her back, and Nero, holding his own spear in his left hand and a sword in his right. Trenton is barely able to block their hits with the two clubs he holds in either hand.

Emerald lunges forward with her knife, determined to end the fight, and at the same time Nero swings his sword, aiming for Trenton’s chest. But Trenton is faster, and he ducks and rolls out of the way and right into a fight with Annie, who is holding the singular trident in the arena in both hands. It’s already bloody.

Percy isn’t focused on Annie and Trenton, though. No, he’s watching Nero’s sword, which was aimed for Trenton’s chest, instead slide cleanly through Emerald’s neck, separating it from the rest of her body.

Beheadings are gorey and scarring in a way that is hard to understand until you see one for yourself. Percy has seen a couple over the course of the two wars he fought in and each one was as terrible as the last. They had a way of searing themself into your nightmares. The brain needs so much blood, that when it’s separated from the body so suddenly, it all comes bursting out.

Emerald is no different. Even standing a couple yards away, Percy feels a little blood splatter on his face. Nero, Annie, and Trenton were hit the worst, with the top half of their arena outfits being coated in blood. Percy notices some even falls in Annie’s open mouth. And the powerful momentum of the sword swing sends Emerald’s detached head flying in Annie’s direction. She instinctively catches it, and stares down at the eyes of the girl she had befriended.

Percy knows Emerald was Annie’s favorite of the Careers.

Annie lets out such a piercing shriek, everyone who isn’t actively involved in a fight looks over, which is impressive considering how many people have already screamed their head off since they started.

Maybe Percy shouldn’t use that turn of phrase.

The other tributes see the gore, and they turn away, back to either killing the other tributes or dying. Judy pulls on Percy’s elbow, telling him without words that they need to get going, but he can’t look away from the breakdown happening in front of him.

Trenton has taken the opportunity to finally run away, safe from the bloodbath happening at the cornucopia. Annie is in a state of shock and horror, though. She hadn’t faltered at any of the other kills so far, but Emerald’s bloody death was too much for her. She kept wailing, her eyes glassy, while blood dripped on her shoes from Emerald’s head.

Annie threw the decapitated head away from her as her mind caught up with what she was holding. It lands right in Nero’s waiting arms. He seems perturbed for a moment before he tosses it on the ground and hits Annie in the head with the back of his sword to shut her up.

It’s a non-lethal hit. He probably didn’t want to directly spill another career’s blood, especially this early in the games. But Annie lands face down in the standing water. If Percy doesn’t do something, she’ll drown. Percy picks up a spear. He uses his other hand to grab whatever part of Judy is closest, and tugs her along towards Annie.

Nero has noticed him now and brings his spear up, and throws it. Percy knocks it aside easily with his own spear. It’s child play for him.

Then he lifts his spear up, and lets go of Judy, just briefly—until he kills Nero. If Nero is as good as he thinks he is, he’ll block it with his sword. It’s exactly what Percy wants him to do.

He throws the spear, and sure enough, Nero is able to block it, but the movement puts him off balance. He’s moved his feet from their stronger, steadier fighting position. Against Percy, this is a lethal mistake.

Percy charges the short distance between them and slams into Nero before he can regain his proper footing. Percy lands on top of him with his knees on top of Nero’s shoulders, holding him to the ground. He grab’s Nero’s sword and pushes it away before grabbing the arrow from his belt and stabbing it through Nero’s throat. It’s messy, brutal, and slower than Lace’s death, but it’s the easiest thing for Percy to do at the moment.

He thinks back to Mags’s parting words, and hopes she isn’t judging him right now .

Percy’s up and running towards Annie in the next second. He calls back to Judy, “Grab whatever supplies you think will be helpful, and let’s get out of here.” Then he reaches down and grabs Annie, who is still unconscious, and throws her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. At the last minute, he grabs another sleeping bag, though this one looks thinner than the other. He doesn’t want to waste time looking around for a better one.

Percy can feel the rise and fall of Annie’s chest over his shoulder, meaning she’s still breathing. Good. The middle of the bloodbath was no place to do CPR.

He looks back, and is glad to find that Judy is following him. Though, she looks significantly less happy than she did when it was just the two of them.

Well, she’ll have to get over it. He is a son of Poseidon through and through, and he was not going to let another one of his friends drown. Besides, she’s getting more choice in the matter than Annie is.

Together, they head into the woods.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Percy spent enough time with Grover to know immediately there is something about these woods that are off, but he lacks his friend’s inherent knowledge of nature, meaning he can’t quite put his finger on how it is different.

He briefly wishes that Grover were here, but then he remembers where here is and immediately takes it back, glad that Grover is a whole dimension away—entirely out of reach. Grover is too good for this.

Percy eyes all of the animals they pass, wondering which of them are muttations that will kill them as soon as the gamemakers call for it. He remembers Mags cautioning him to be wary of even the weakest, smallest animals, recalling past Hunger Games where tiny, seemingly harmless animals such as squirrels swarmed tributes in packs to eat them alive.

Sure, Percy is planning on dying but being eaten by squirrels is not how he wants to go.

He also makes a point to try and identify the foliage they pass, eyes peeled for plants he recognizes as safe to eat. Luckily, there are quite a few, but Mags told him the first day was not ideal for foraging or hunting. Stopping too close to the bloodbath means you might encourage people to hunt you down, she had said.

So, they trek along in the woods, Percy leading, with Annie still slung over his back, unconscious, and Judy following dutifully from behind. They must have walked for hours in silence—or maybe that was just Percy’s horrible sense of time and ADHD making everything seem longer than it was. Either way, it is Judy who breaks the silence first.

“How are you not exhausted hauling her around? I can barely even keep up, and I’m not carrying an extra person on my back.”

“Must be the adrenaline,” Percy says, “Besides, I’m a lot taller than you. Longer strides, you know?”

“So? I’m used to hauling lumber around. You can’t have that much more endurance than me.”

Percy is about to remind her that he fishes for a living, which takes its own kind of endurance, but he’s interrupted by Annie. She moans lightly, and Percy can feel her head move just slightly. It seems that their talking woke her up, which was good. He can practically hear Will Solace saying she shouldn’t be asleep with a head wound.

She mumbles something incoherent and starts kicking around. Percy puts her down on the ground. He doesn’t trust her to stay standing with the state she was in, and he doesn’t want to keep holding her in case she starts panicking.

“Why are you putting her down? She’s a career!” Judy exclaims, pointing accusingly at Annie.

Percy shoots her a look. While they aren’t necessarily near the cornucopia anymore, he doesn’t like her speaking loudly. Who knew what she could attract their way…

“She’s my friend,” Percy responds. He doesn’t like people insulting his friends, and he can tell that, to Judy, being a Career wasn’t anything good.

He looks over at Annie, who hasn’t moved from her spot on the ground. Her eyes are half-lidded and glassy, and she seems entirely unaware of her surroundings. She scratches pitifully at her neck, like she can still feel Emerald’s pain.

Percy’s eyes soften with pity, but Judy is having none of it. “I don’t want to work with a career,” she says, crossing her arms. “We should leave her here.”

“To what, be eaten by bears? Hunted down by the other Careers?”

Judy laughs. It doesn’t sound like a normal laugh; it seems almost manic. Percy had gotten so used to near death experiences he had forgotten how much they can shake people. “What other Careers? The only one left—other than crazy over there—is the girl from 2. You killed the boys, and one of their own killed the girl from 1.”

Percy blanches at how casually Judy mentions his violence during the bloodbath. He was doing his best to avoid thinking about it, but now that they are in the woods and everything seems quiet, he has space to think. Post-battle silence is never good for Percy. He’s learned he shouldn’t be alone with his thoughts if he can help it.

It starts to drizzle.

For better or worse, Judy isn’t done. “Careers never die that early, and when they do, it’s usually just one of them being stupid during the bloodbath. But this year there isn’t even a Career pack!”

Percy had started leaning down towards Annie, wanting to check her head, but at Judy’s words, he trips over a branch and lands right beside her. Annie still has no reaction to show that she knows he is there. That’s concerning, Percy thinks for a moment, but he is distracted by the implications of what Judy is saying.

“Is it really that rare?” Percy asks. He had no idea he had already singled himself out as much as he did. Catching the arrow was one thing (that he really shouldn’t have done), but killing the boys from 1 and 2? Was it really that unheard of?

“Yeah,” Judy laughs. “They’re the ones to defeat if you want to win.”

Percy isn’t sure if Judy meant to imply what she did, but he hears it loud and clear nonetheless. He had killed two Careers early in the game, painting himself as a big threat to the rest of the tributes. I’m the one to defeat if you want to win. If you want to go home.

It makes Percy feel like even more of a monster than he already did.

He looks at Annie again. She was a Career—is a Career—the big bad according to Judy, but she looks like nothing more than a scared teenager, here in the light of the woods. Even Nero and Lace hadn’t looked like the normal threats Percy deals with.

How many more kids is he going to have to kill? He reflexively reaches out for the rope, which he had tied to his belt once they were out of sight of the cornucopia. He doesn’t end up grabbing the rope, but his hands still move subconsciously in a familiar pattern. They’re moving like they’re tying a noose.

That’s how I want to go, Percy decides. He doesn’t want to make one of the other tributes have to kill him, and he certainly doesn’t want to let one of the gamemakers’ mutts off him. That’d be like admitting defeat. Plus after all of the monster attacks he's survived, it'd be embarrassing too. Not that anyone here would know that.

He doesn’t realize how distracted he is until Judy snaps her hand in front of his face. “Hello?” She says, annoyance loud in her voice.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“You zoned out on me. We can’t be a team if you ignore me. What were you thinking about?”

Percy coughs, not wanting to admit the directions his thoughts went. “Nothing, sorry. Since we’re a team, will you be nicer to Annie?”

Judy rolls her eyes but acquiesces, “Fine I’ll be nice to crazy over there.” She turns around to study their surroundings, and Percy can just hear her mutter, “it’s not like she’s much of a threat like this anyway…”

For his sanity, Percy decides to ignore that comment, just like he’s ignoring the fact that both Annie and Judy can’t win.

Annie’s neck is starting to turn red from her scratches. Percy reaches out to gently grab her arm before she starts drawing blood. She startles and whispers, “Perseus?”

“Yeah, Annie, it’s me,” he says gently.

She looks up at him slowly, before squinting her eyes and turning around to vomit on the dead leaves and dry grass. It’s just bile. It seems like she wasn’t able to eat anything this morning.

That’s vomiting and the lack of food is not the concerning part, though. It’s what the vomiting implies that is worrying.

f*ck, Percy thinks, she’s got a concussion. Percy’s experience with concussions wasn’t exactly limited, but most of it wasn’t applicable to Annie. He couldn’t exactly hand her one of his non-existent ambrosia bars and hope she gets better.

Just as he is getting ready to suck it up and ask Judy what they should do to help Annie, the first canon goes off.

Boom. 1. Boom. 2. Boom. 3. It continues all the way up to ten.

Judy laughs again. Percy is starting to get sick of the sound. “Almost half,” she says, grinning. Percy doesn’t respond. He can’t blame Judy for her excitement. She is ten steps closer to going home after all. But for Percy, who has no home to return to, the canon sounds are sickening.

Ten children are dead. Ten families are already mourning, and the first day hasn’t even ended. The rain grows heavier.

Annie shivers, and Percy pulls the hood of her jacket up, glad he has something to distract himself with. He doesn’t know what he would be doing right now if he was alone. Probably losing his mind.

“I can’t believe the gamemakers are already making it rain. I hope it’s not going to be like this the whole time. It’ll be hard to see anything or stay warm.” Judy rubs her arms, trying to retain as much body heat as she can.

“Yeah,” Percy says, not telling Judy the rain is his fault. She wouldn’t believe him anyway.

He should stop the rain, he knows this. But he’s too out of it, too tired. The idea of putting that much effort into holding his emotions back sounds like too much to ask. He has to be strong for Annie. He can’t cry. He can’t spiral in self-hate. He can’t even go to his mother or his girlfriend for comfort. So the sky cries for him, and he lets it.

He gets up and picks Annie up from the ground. This time, he holds her in a princess carry and nods for Judy to follow him. He doesn’t want to stop for the night until they’re closer to the reservoir.

Water has always equaled safety for him, and he’ll need it to protect his friends. If it were just him, he’d already be there, hunting fish for dinner and bathing in the water. But he has Judy and Annie to worry about now, and they can’t hike as fast or long as he can. Plus, they’ll probably only want to hike during daylight hours, something that is limited in the artificial autumn of the arena. He’ll have to settle for waiting another day to reach it.

He doesn’t regret it.

It is twilight when they finally feel like they are a comfortable distance away from any of the other tributes. They settle down for the night and evaluate their supplies. They have two sleeping bags—one of which is noticeably thicker than the other. They also have two backpacks, inside of which are two packages of beef jerky, one package of dried fruit, three high-calorie protein bars, two empty water bottles along with two bottles of iodine for purifying the water, a single pack of matches, and a thick thermal blanket.

Finally, they have their weapons: Percy’s knife, his rope, and Judy’s axes. Annie had dropped her trident long before they ever left the cornucopia. It’s not much, but it is good enough that Percy feels going for the cornucopia wasn’t a waste. He pities whoever doesn’t have something to keep them warm tonight.

If only they had gotten some kind of tarp to protect them from the rain. If only Percy had better control of his emotions or more energy to stop the rain. He’s glad Judy doesn’t know it’s his fault. He doesn’t think he could stand her disappointment.

Percy opens the water bottles to catch as much rain water as possible. At least his poorly controlled emotions are beneficial for this.

“How should we divide up the supplies?” Percy asks.

“What? Are we already splitting up?” Judy's eyes shoot up to look at him. She looks almost as panicked as she did during the bloodbath.

Percy wonders if she’s really that worried about being alone. If Percy were trying to win, he thinks he’d find a lot more comfort alone than around people who would have to kill him to win.

“No,” Percy states before Judy can get even more panicked. “But there’s three of us and we only have two sleeping bags and one thermal blanket. Plus we should probably eat some jerky for dinner.”

Reassured that they aren’t going their separate ways just yet, Judy votes that Annie should be left without a sleeping bag, since she didn’t haul any of their supplies from the cornucopia.

“That’s cold.” Percy says. “She was unconscious.”

“There’s no room for kindness in the Hunger Games,” Judy responds.

Percy closes his mouth. Judy has a point, but he still doesn’t quite think this is fair, and Annie is far too out of it to protest, so Percy volunteers to share the thinner sleeping bag with her.

“You can have the thermal blanket too,” Percy says to placate Judy. “The smaller sleeping bag will be warmer with both Annie and I in it sharing body heat.”

Judy huffs but doesn’t complain, probably grateful to have both the nicer sleeping bag and the thermal blanket. Percy puts a couple of drops of iodine into the water bottles so they’ll have safe water to drink before they fall asleep for the night. They dig out the jerky, and each have two strips of it. Percy has to coax Annie to eat it.

“You need to keep your energy up,” he tells Annie. She makes no movement to show she understood him or even that she heard him, but he puts the jerky to her lips and she eats it anyway. He’s grateful for small mercies.

“Do you think it’s her concussion?” Percy asks Judy, referring to Annie’s unresponsiveness. “Or is it just shock from the bloodbath?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

Percy huffs. It’ll be hard to have an alliance where one of them can’t stand the other.

“I can take the first watch,” Percy tells Judy, knowing he won’t be able to sleep tonight anyway.

“Sure, but I’m not going to sleep until they show who all died today.” Right, Percy remembers now. Mags told him about this. Every night, they put up the faces of who died that day in the sky. It’s a good way of keeping track of who is still alive, but Percy is not looking forward to the reminder of Lace and Nero’s deaths.

They lay out their sleeping bags under some trees that will hopefully offer shelter from the rain, and without prompting, Annie climbs in beside Percy, clinging to him like an octopus. Percy lightly touches the side of her head where a bruise from Nero’s sword is already forming. He’s trying not to think about it, but Percy is concerned about how Annie’s going to survive the games once he dies. He hopes Finnick will take care of her, and that she has enough sponsors in case she needs medicine or food.

Once the Panem anthem starts, Percy clings back just as tightly as Annie is, grateful for the comfort of another, living person beside him. Judy and him move just slightly so they can see the projection through the trees and rain clouds.

Emerald’s face is the first to be projected in the sky after the emblem of Panem. She looks dangerous in the picture, like nothing could take her down. But that wasn’t the case. One wrong move by her ally, and now she's forever eighteen. Percy’s heart aches for her and for her family. He’s seen his mother worry for him, so he can only guess how hard it must be to outlive your child. A part of him is glad he’ll never have to suffer that fate.

At his side, Annie whimpers, and buries her face in Percy’s neck. She’s mouthing something, and he has a horrible feeling it’s Emerald’s name.

Lace’s face is next in the sky, and Percy remembers what it was like to snap his neck. He remembers the taste of his blood. He can practically taste the iron even now. He holds Annie tighter. Right now, she’s his rock as much as he is hers.

Andromeda is not in the sky, but Nero is. The other child Percy killed today. He drove an arrow through his throat, a horrible death. He forces himself to look at the picture. To memorize his face. It is the least he owes him.

The next six tributes in the sky are people Percy hardly remembered, as guilty as he feels saying that. He tries to remember the tributes who aren’t in the sky, who are still out there somewhere. Judy and Annie are fine of course, safe under Percy’s protection, and Trenton, Judy’s district partner, is also notably absent from the morbid projection. Percy isn’t surprised. After the Careers, he was the tribute who most seemed like he knew what he was doing. Little Will and the girl from 12, Daffodil, are also still alive somewhere in the arena. Percy hopes they were able to get some supplies. He’s sure they’ll need it.

The boy from 12, Matthew, is the last face in the sky. Percy remembers how small he was—even for his age—trembling in his humiliating costume at the Tribute Parade and struggling during training. To his credit, Percy never saw him cry. Not that he would have judged him if he had. No one earned it more than these tributes—these kids, stolen from their families.

With that, the projection is done, and they are left in the dark. The only sounds are the leaves rustling, and Annie breathing heavily at his side.

“Good night,” Percy whispers. He hears Judy shuffling, but she doesn’t respond.

Surprisingly enough, Annie does though. He’s just able to make out her quiet “night,” mumbled into his neck. He wonders if it’s reflexive. She’s shown no other signs of awareness of what’s happening.

He hopes she’ll be better soon, though he knows trauma doesn’t work like that.

In no time at all, Judy’s breathing evens out, and she is asleep, likely suffering from the effects of a major adrenaline crash. But Annie stays in a half-awake, delirious state. She occasionally lets out a quiet sob. All Percy can do is hold her.

The rain doesn’t let up, and a small trickle is able to get into their sleeping bag. Sleeping in cold water cannot be good for Annie. Percy pulls the string at the opening of the sleeping bag tighter to let less rain water in. Then, weighing the pros and cons, he uses his powers to dry the inside of the sleeping bag. Annie practically melts into his side in relief.

Percy is thankful he is able to offer her some sort of comfort in this sh*tshow. At some point, she even manages to fall asleep. It feels like a miracle.

He spends the rest of the night staring up at a tree just a little to his right. He’s pretty sure it’s a Honey Locust due to its prevalent, sharp thorns, though it’s a bit far from the river valley for it to be growing. He wonders how much research the gamemakers actually put into their arena designs. Do they just put plants wherever they feel like it? It’s not like most district citizens have the knowledge to call out inaccuracies.

Besides, they have bigger things to worry about. Like their dead children.

A movement in the dark catches Percy’s attention. It’s not a tribute or a big enough animal to worry about thought, it’s just a bird. Percy watches it idly. It’s a medium sized bird with muted colors for plumage, cute but not very notable—except for the struggling mouse it has in its beak. The mouse kicks and struggles for a brief moment, before the bird gives it a good shake and it settles down, seemingly accepting its fate.

With a brutal decisiveness, the bird impales the mouse on the Honey Locust’s thorns, spearing it right through its little rodent heart.

That’s me, Percy thinks as he stares at the dead mouse. The bird has started pulling it apart, taking large chunks of its flesh into its mouth. Percy catches a small whiff of blood in the wind.

That’s me.