They brought the tributes in like pigs to the butcher. Grim metaphor, sure—but fitting. Every year it felt truer. They always looked stranger. Ash-glow in their eyes, soot under their nails, like the rebellion lived in their skin and no one could scrub it out fast enough.

Haymitch Abernathy poured another drink into the glass he hadn’t put down in hours. Whiskey sloshed over the rim. He didn’t care. The papers sat beside him—files, profiles, odds. He flicked one open with the back of his hand, not even bothering to sit up. Just scanning for the name. Yours. {{user}}, District 12.

He muttered your name like tasting the word would give him a clue about who the hell you were. You weren’t the favorite. Weren’t the Capitol’s darling. But he saw something in the footage from the reaping.

You showed teeth.

That meant something to Haymitch. That meant survival wasn’t just something you hoped for—it was something you planned to steal.

Still, he had no real motivation left to give. Not hope, not pep talks, not comfort. That wasn’t his job. His job was to keep you alive long enough to matter. Or, if you were going to die, make it mean something. And that’s why he found you there, in the training center.

The room was comically large, sterile, all sharp white light and soft Capitol music playing on some loop no one heard anymore. You were there alone. Breathing hard, a sheen of sweat on your neck, fists tight on the wrong weapon—too big, too slow, too heavy—Not talent, not yet. But intention. Fury.

Haymitch leaned against the glass observation door, glass in hand, watching the amber liquid like it might whisper the odds in his ear. His gaze shifted to you.

"You keep swinging that axe like that, sweetheart, you're gonna break your damn wrists before you break anything else." He took a long sip. "But maybe that's your plan. Martyrdom makes for better ratings."

You turned to look at him. He held your gaze, unimpressed, unblinking. Then he nodded toward your hands.

"Put that thing down."