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iv. if she could swallow the sun
WARNING: the end of this chapter contains intense and triggering material involving sexual assault. do NOT read past aphrodite's district 1 speech if this is too distressing for u.
DISTRICT TWO IS cutthroat.
A military district at heart: children here are born to fight. It's not that they're born braver than kids from other districts, or stronger, or smarter, or whatever. It's just that the Capitol decided that they were the ones who should have grit and fire and steel in their bloods, and so this is how they are raised. It is tested, all this cosmic metal of theirs. They face trial after trial and are broken and damaged in countless ways. Still, they fight. Maybe it's not what they would have chosen ━━ not every kid is born with their fingers curled around the trigger ━━ but they were born to fight. It's what they know. It's what they do best. It's all they can do.
In District Two, justice and revenge are dishes best served warm, where the lines between right and wrong don't exist anymore. In District Two, people become judge, jury, and executioner. The weapon that hands out the sentence. The last thing you'll ever see.
In District Two, you are born gatekeeper of an endless war.
Now that her games are over, Aphrodite is delivered back to her home by a speeding bullet train and left to be mortal again. No longer a girl of divine anger and violence. The blood on her hands has dried.
Every morning, Aphrodite wakes when the sky is still night-bright, cool as ice, sharp as a gunshot, vast, vast, vast. Infinitely quiet. Polished street lamps light her way as she wanders through the pre-dawn streets, hands shoved into her jacket pockets.
Eventually, the big, hallowed Victor's Village becomes a blip on the horizon. She cuts through the central square, past the white expanse of marble steps leading to the Justice Hall. Straight towards the mountains glowering over them.
The largest mountain is where the Academy is. The Nut was established directly after the Dark Days, when the Capitol had lost 13 and was desperate for a new underground stronghold. They had some of their military resources situated on the outskirts of the Capitol itself — nuclear missiles, aircraft, troops, but a significant chunk of their power was now under an enemy's control. Of course, there was no way they could hope to replicate 13, which was the work of centuries. However, in the old mines of nearby District 2, they saw opportunity.
From the air, what most people call the Nut just looks like another mountain with a few entrances on it's faces. But inside are vast cavernous spaces where slabs one stones had been cut, hauled to the surface, and transported down slippery narrow roses to make distant buildings. There's even a train that facilitates transporting miners from the Nut to the very center of the main town.
