A/N: Not going to say this is my first Hunger Games FF because I have another one I'm working on which is a longer one but this little one-shot popped into my head whilst at uni this morning and I couldn't leave it! Hope you enjoy! Also, implied Hayffie at some point but can be read on a surface level as friendship if you're one of the crazy people who doesn't ship them ;)
I'm not an idiot. I know what people think about me. Effie Trinket; vapid, away with the fairies, oblivious to the real world.
Let them think it. I play my part well. But that's all it is: just an act.
It never used to be. When I first started as an escort, I suppose that really was me. I had been brought up in the Capitol after all, so what reason did I have to not be that way? The Hunger Games were a part of my life growing up, as they are for every Capitol citizen. I would eagerly await the Tribute Parade, wanting to see the beautiful, intricate designs the stylists created. I would watch the interviews whilst judging the tributes and, as I grew older, debating with the people around me on who would come out that year's victor. Then came the grand event itself: The Hunger Games. I remember the days when I would make a fuss about going to bed, because I didn't want to miss a single moment of them.
The Victory Tour, held six months after the end of the Games, was another exciting event on the calendar of every Capitolite. We would watch the footage as the victor made their way through each of the twelve Districts before they finally arrived back in the Capitol for the Grand Celebration: a night filled with food, music and dancing.
It was why I had wanted to become an escort when I grew up. As soon as I was old enough, I applied for the training so that I would be ready when a position became available. I learnt how to keep the people around me to a strict schedule, always making sure to leave enough time in case of unexpected delays. I learnt how to walk, talk, dress and behave like an escort.
I wasn't surprised when the role I finally landed, after years of training and waiting, was for the escort of District 12. New escorts always started with District 12; available roles in other Districts were for promotion only. The thing was, District 12 was seen as the least glamorous of the Districts, and the last time they had a victor was at the 50th Hunger Games. That was another reason the new escorts always got stuck with them: Haymitch Abernathy. The infamous, intolerable drunkard of District 12. Why he chose to spend all his money on liquor I would never understand. Or, at least I thought I would never understand.
The first few years were, as I had hoped, exciting. True, there was never a victor from 12, but as an escort I still got to be involved with the glamorous events that came with the Games. It was the 69th Hunger Games when things changed. For the first time since I had been escort, two frightened twelve year olds were reaped. I could hear them on the train that first night, sobbing relentlessly, and I could not help but feel guilty; it was by my hand that their names had been picked from the reaping balls.
They continued to weep at night whilst we stayed at the Training Center, and I was woken at least once each night by their terrified screams as they suffered nightmares, or their desperate calls for their mothers. That was, when I managed to block out the crying enough to get to sleep in the first place.
Over those few days, I began to understand Haymitch Abernathy. The drinking was not something he did for pleasure, but something he did to distance himself from reality. It blocked out what was really happening, and numbed his emotions. Of course, I would never stoop so low as to drink myself into oblivion the way he did, and I frequently chastised him for the habit, but I at least understood why he did it.
My way of coping was to go on as I always had. Shoulders back. Chin up. Smile on. The makeup I wore every day was no longer my only mask; I now hid behind the laughter and smiles expected of a Capitolite.
