New kind of victory.

[etcircenses]

Who| Everyone on the District Tours.
What| The Celebration dinners for all the Districts.
Where| Specified in thread.
When| The second night they are there.
Warnings/Notes| Find your district below. Leave any questions here. And please add any needed warning into your subject line when appropriate.

Comments

[shinyisfalse]

This was honestly the first time he'd ever said those words out loud. He'd said plenty of times before that he was sorry. Everyone thought that it was just because they were brought here, and he was sorry for that.

But the relief from saying this was almost terrifying for him. It was their fault. And he was almost glad to hear that tiny bit of anger in his voice.

"We didn't know that they would do this." Peeta frowned. "I think we knew... something. The rule of the games is that only one person wins, so one person lives. And we forced their hand, but we didn't." He shook his head.

"I'm sorry, that you were brought here. But we all, all of us here... we thank you."

[amplifying]

Beck saw that now.

He watched as the people danced, and raised their glasses. Even though the games were hard to imagine now, it was even harder to imagine every district sacrificing two of their kids against their will. It must feel good, having someone to go for the games for their kids. And to always be that tribute, even if it meant sacrificing their lives for it.

After learning everything about the Capitol, and how barbaric it all was...he was okay with being a sacrifice. For these people, anyway.

Beck stepped forward, a new kind of energy blossoming inside of him. "Want to join them?" He asked, smiling to Peeta.

[shinyisfalse]

Twelve had a lot of hardships. It couldn't be compared to other districts, because that wouldn't be fair, to compare them to each other. All right, district one and two could be compared to the rest, but it sometimes felt like they were just extensions of the Capitol.

But two winners in the past, before him and Katniss, and one was a chronic alcoholic. And maybe they hadn't had any winners, among the other tributes. But everyone loved them, to some degree. A rebellion may have been slowed down, but it would never die, no matter how hard they tried.

"Sure." Peeta grinned back. "Come on, have you had anything to eat yet? My family did all of the baking, we've been working on it all day."

[amplifying]

"You can cook?" Beck was so awful at cooking. If you asked him to repair something, oh sure. But he couldn't make sense of ingredients. In Argon, energy was energy. No flavor, no nothing. Not like User food, anyway.

Beck smiled. "The food's over here, right?"

[shinyisfalse]

"Yeah! I'm more of a baker, but cooking has always been the next logical step for me." Peeta nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, the food is over here."

He leads Beck to where there are multiple tables put out, and a few peacekeepers around. Very lax with this, though it usually hasn't been, especially in the past few months or so. That's the part they want to hide, but if you see the Districts, then you know.

"All of the meat was supplied by Rooba, the butcher. Well, the Capitol got it for this party, but they had to go through her for a lot of it. And the Mellark Bakery kind of did the rest, with people at the Hob helping out with little things." It was nice to show someone around in a sense.

[amplifying]

Beck eyeballs the peacekeepers. Compared to the rest of District 12, they stick out like sore thumbs. There wasn't any of those guys in the Capitol, were there?. But Peeta's not really paying any attention to them, so he falls right in sync. Better to play dumb, rather than cause any trouble. Assuming that these guys were trouble, anyway.

He looked around at the tables of food, and smiled. Despite how...simple this district looked, the food actually smelled pretty good. Beck didn't want to say he downright judged them, but he kind of did.

"This all looks really good." He said, looking to Peeta and smiling. "Did you help at all with this?"

[shinyisfalse]

Peacekeepers are standard in all districts, and Peeta never bothered to notice them now. If something was happening, sure, they could be a problem. But there were more here today then usual. And he only paid a little bit of attention to them.

Some things weren't changing any time soon. "It's all really good." Peeta laughed. "And yeah. I helped out with the cakes and cookies, here. I'm okay with regular cooking, so I didn't help with that part."

Like he had said, his family had done the baking. Of course he helped with it.