cedar rylan halt | d12 | fin

cedar rylan halt
17 | d12 | male

Dad doesn't know that he knows about the others, and he plans to keep it that way. Cedar was the first baby left in a wine crate on Arbor Halt's doorstep, but he wasn't the last. It makes sense, he thinks. That there would be others. With no other options, what desperate new mother wouldn't gamble on a champion, a folk hero, a wealthy stranger? If Cedar knows one thing about his dad, it's that he's most likely to disappoint when he's being underestimated, and most likely to surprise right when anyone thinks they've got him figured out. And that he's only one person, and can only handle so much at one time. The others went to the community home, he thinks. He followed his morbid curiosity there once upon a time — he wanted to know about the little siblings that might have been. But then what? What was there for him to do but rub it in that he'd won the lottery on timing? That pure chance had landed him a more comfortable life than most of District Twelve has ever been afforded? It seemed too cruel; he went right home before he could muster the courage to knock. Before he could muster the courage to look at his own alternate timelines.

They've been under the radar lately, and that's perfectly fine by Cedar. He's liked the attention that comes with being a victor's kid about as much as his dad has ever liked the attention that comes with being a victor. It could be worse. He's never minded the mornings that he's had to step over his dad's sleeping — passed out? — figure curled up on floor on his way to school. Every time he's ever had to drag Arbor back into the house from the porch on the morning has always felt like returning a favor in small installments.

He liked the trips to the Capitol when he was too little to know better. Lights, colors, sounds, spectacle, it was always a picture of what the world at its best could ever aspire to be. He doesn't remember exactly when he stopped complaining about District 12 being so grey in comparison, he only remembers the sad glance exchanged between his dad and Aranica the last time he asked about it. It was Kieran who eventually explained — because it was always Kieran who explained anything, for better or for worse. None of the new faces each year ever made the trip back because they'd died. Arbor and Aranica (and Heron, every once in a blue moon) made that trip because once upon a time, they'd been the ones to do the killing, and now they were bound to the Capitol, to their terrible games and their terrible Games, for the rest of time. That had been the gist, anyway, even if the delivery had been a bit more... Kieran-y.

He understands why Kieran moved to District 10, but he still misses him the same way he misses being in the fourth grade and the way he misses riding around the halls of the bullet trains to and from the Capitol on his dad's shoulders. And increasingly, regretfully, he misses Kieran the way he misses everyone else from the trips to the Capitol. The way he used to hang out with the Miles, back before — before whatever reasons their parents had to stop talking. The way he misses Juliet and Mason. The way he misses Aranica whenever she's made herself scarce — or whenever Arbor has. The way he can't shake some of the faces that took the train to the Capitol with them, but never came back.

Eventually, Cedar stopped tagging along. He's still not sure if it was actually against whatever rules are in place for the children of victors, or if it was just too uncomfortable to have him along for the ride once the tributes started being classmates or siblings of classmates or just too close in age for anyone's comfort. When he was little, he supposes, he was more like an emotional support toddler or a stand-in younger sibling. Tributes could be like Mitchell Laws: Ruffle his hair. Tell him that he reminds them of their kid brother. Lie about how either boy would be special some day. Go on to die just like everyone else.

And then there was nothing left to tag along to. There were phone calls — shouted phone calls — about someone missing, about babysitters, about Hyacinth Mortuus. About intent and spotlights and taking the heat and other people being targets for awhile. His first reaping wasn't a reaping. The escort got up on stage and asked for volunteers, and for the life of him Cedar Rylan Halt will never understand why the request wasn't met with stone-faced silence. Maybe that's his privilege, having a victor for a father. Or maybe that's his curse, having seen the Games up close all his life. He's thought about it before. Given other options, he'd rather not go out like that. Maybe he's never been as good at empathizing as he's ever thought — but given the choice between an easy death and a hard one, he'd pick the easy way out every single time.

He's not quite sure why the hard way out has never picked him. Even for someone as young and naive as Cedar has ever been, he could only spend so much time in the Capitol without getting a full sense of what everyone there thinks of his father. And no one who spends as much time in the Capitol as Cedar has can truly, honestly believe in the integrity of the slips of paper housed in little glass bowls. The Reaping exists to punish enemies and dissidents publicly. And if people like Bellezze are to be believed, there are few people in living memory (emphasis on living) who have raised as many hackles as Arbor Halt.

He's been bracing for it — the last few years especially. In hindsight, it was no surprise that he wasn't summoned the year that Mitchell's brother was: what sort of lesson would that be, anyway? Watch your son die; watch your son live; watch your son die again — maybe, when we feel like it. It would've worked on Arbor, he thinks. The infamous victor, legendary mentor Arbor fucking Halt, has already been cowed and rendered near-toothless by a handful of slips of paper that show up in a glass bowl once a year. Cedar Halt, they say. Cedar Halt, Cedar Halt, Cedar Halt. They could say anything. Drink your whiskey, they may as well say. Stay home. Does it matter? Don't make any sudden movements.

He wishes that he didn't do that. It's been years now — so many years. Decades. But in hard times, people need legends. They need their folk heroes. They need their champions. There's nothing that Cedar can do to give him back any quicker. He can only grow older little by little with the waxing and waning of the moon. If he were bolder — or dumber — he might do it. Say those two words that make the inevitable into reality. They could both quit pretending. His dad could get on with the rest of his life — the rest of his duties. Cedar could willingly lose this lottery to make up for the one he had no right to win as an infant. If only he could muster the courage, he'd do it.