//food for thought// [Anzie]

Althea Perch

After winning the Games, after all the show and tell and parading around. After another Victor has come and slithered back into their District, and another, and another. What do you do with a Victor then? Evidently, you invite them to dinner at the Mayor's house. A lot.

If Althea had a dollar for every time Fabian suggested inviting that pretty little boy over she'd be as wealthy as everyone in the Capitol combined. However, this was the first time that he invited the boy over and neglected to attend himself. Instead, he was across the District sorting out crab fishers or something of the like. So tonight it would be just Althea Lassandra Dials Perch, the career who grew up to be the Mayor's wife, and Blaise Krigel, the boy who grew up to be Victor.

She could just about vomit.

Althea swept through the dinning room, pointing out the chipped china and ordering a new one to be put in its place. That's what her life had become. Pointing out the most minuscule things in order to avoid offending the high profile guests who often entered her home. It had been so long since District Four had a Victor she didn't know what to do with herself those first few weeks waiting for the child to arrive back home. Fabian had ordered the best of the best, but Althea felt no need for more crystal to be polished because some little shore rat got lucky. He was strong, but his technique was sloppy. He had leaned to heavily on others, in her opinion. After all, the woman still had her career journals in her closet. All of her strategies, plans, and thoughts all packed into aging pages.

She should be visiting for dinner now. An older, respected Victor who had won the glory when she was supposed to. Who had raised her voice and volunteered when she was eighteen like she had planned her entire life. Instead she was here, as close as possible to the ones who actually grabbed the glory when teenage hormones had gotten the best of her.

Love. She gave up a crown for love. How pathetic. If only she knew what exactly it meant to throw away her only opportunity at glory. She tossed her late nights in the training center stabbing dummies with her trident away in the trash to be hidden in a man's shadow for the rest of her life. She wanted to be Victor Althea Dials, but instead she was Mrs. Fabian Perch. She was nothing. That night, huddled in the sand under the dock she had promised that Perch boy she'd stay with him. In a moment of weakness between whispers of love and sloppy inexperienced kisses, she had promised. With that promise, her life had been washed out to sea.

She was barely allowed to let her children train in her place. Over the years Fabian's spirit had grown as soft as his stomach and he was uneasy about their eldest children training to fight. She only had love now, but love does not win you glory and fame. It sticks you in a big house with children you never wanted with a man you adore in the most complicated of ways. It also makes you host dinner parties.

Her heels clicked the marble floor as she crossed the heavy wood doors. Dinner would be served in half an hour, but her guest would arrive any minute.

If only Mr. Krigel knew exactly how much she envied him. Just how far she would be willing to go to snatch that crown off his pretty little blonde head.