|℃| Ice Queen {Askance} (Cadence One-shot) |°F|

Before becoming a gamemaker, Cadence had never really understood how steadfastly tributes could refuse to die.

But after the absolutely dismal bloodbath, she had quickly discovered just how bad it could get. Oh, what she would have given for an opening battle like the fifty-ninth. The following day had been worse, if that was possible. She and Glamour had unleashed a veritable menagerie of muttations to menace the tributes with and only a single pair of tusken had managed to kill anything, (And that was still better than the pair of tributes that took the whole day to kill a single stallion as the horse mutt basically danced around them.) Granted, she was pleased that a mutt she had designed herself had struck a fatal blow, but when the bloodbath failed to make a viable dent in the tribute population, the following day was supposed to make for that.

It didn’t.

So she had pinned her hopes on the next day instead. The third day had started off with such promise; after manipulating a large number of mutts into a frenzy, a horde of them had torn through the northern half of the arena, stampeding over plants, rocks, and tributes. When the dust had settled, all eight of them began hacking away at each other almost immediately. The lower ratings from  the previous day spiked quickly after that, culminating when the district nine girl removed district ten's chances of another repeat victor with a knife to the eye. Even better, rather then running away, his allies decided to stay and fight it out. Such an event was rare, and as Cadence watched, the ratings shot even higher. 

But then they started to go back down and she knew exactly the reason. According to the readout she had been getting from their vitals, at least two if not three of them had only been inches from death all the seven tributes had decided to split. Missed opportunities aplenty. Cadence grimaced. Many Capitolites liked seeing what tributes did on days where there weren’t any fights as it added to the drama, but if a couple more tributes didn’t hurry up and croak soon, there would be no days free from blood. At the end of the day, Cadence’s job was to make sure that a decent number of tributes died in a quick and entertaining manner. With the games being almost four days in and more than half of the little bastards still alive, Cadence was starting to think that the higher ups were going to be very displeased. The thought made her stomach grumble.

In fact, she felt that it was about time for a lunch break. It was pretty obvious to her that there was nothing else for her to do but let the rest of the fights play out and so after making sure the mutt technicians were squared away, she excused herself and made for the executive park.

There were more than a few bistros, bars and diners in the area, and Cadence knew exactly which one she needed to go to to get her mind off of work. A little hole in the wall bar called Fleur de Mousse. Not the ritziest of places, but they knew just how to make her day better.  She ordered a triple and found herself a seat near a viewing screen.  Things were heating up in the river bed as an alliance of tributes ran afoul of the careers. Or perhaps it was the other way around; because although it was obvious that the careers were shedding far more blood, the boy from eleven with the ridiculous name killed the girl from district two in a single stroke that lopped her head clean of her shoulders with almost surgical precision. 

While she was annoyed to see a career fall when the careers were almost always crowd favorites, she had to admit that the sunlight glinting off of the sword in the slow motion replay was a nice touch. Especially when they replayed the beheading from seven different angles. Apt, given what Tiger’s training score had been. “Good gracious!” Caesar Flickerman was saying. “It looks like this potato slices back!” In short order, the district eleven tributes and their companion made a run for it, probably hoping the career pack was too stunned to give chase. Not that they made it very far before the district six girl disturbed a solitary kantutzan. That ought to keep the viewers on the edge of their seats.  Cadence turned back to her purchase and scowled.

"Congratulations." she muttered under her breath. "I hope you tributes are happy with the level you've made me stoop to." 

With a sigh of resignation, Cadence bit heavily into the decadent triple chocolate cheesecake, savoring the intertwining flavors as the dark, white and milk chocolates fought for her attention. “This has got to be against the law.” she moaned. Of course, she was wroth with herself for going off her diet, but hot damn the cheesecake hit the spot. Fleur de Mousse might have been a bar, but the food they had on their menu has leagues ahead of the bakery across the park grounds. The rest of the dessert vanished slowly as she tried to draw out the time it took to finish it. Once it was gone, she ran her finger across what was left of the plate and licked it off, not wanting a single crumb to go waste, feeling that if she was going to cheat on her diet, she felt that she might as well go all the way.

Sitting back in contentment, she idly watched a nesting spider menace a pair of tributes before getting up and starting the long walk of shame back to the gamemaker headquarters.

Thankfully, Glamour had been nowhere near to see her actually enjoy something.