you know it's not a day for heroes {lyndis' victor AUs}

They laugh.

"Slow down, girl," one of the men hoots. "You're a victor now. If you keep eating like a starved tribute, you'll get fat."

"And who wants a fat, ugly victor?" the second man adds. "The -"

"I think I know how much I want to eat, thanks," I scowl back at him. It had been a long day already, stylists and speeches and autographs and - even the little children of the district would come up to me and tell me how 'bad-ass' I was for killing people, for lopping off people's limbs with a sword, for the blood on my hands. Compared to facing off against Asha Lumiere, a couple Capitol men were nothing to me.

"Aw, come on, wipe that frown off," the man chuckles, a tiny smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. "Besides, the best dish isn't even here yet. Rumor says, it was inspired by your Games."

"By which part?" I say coldly, glaring straight into the man's eyes. The same sort of glare I'd given Samira Hart before impaling her in revenge. "The poisonous muttations? The severed harpies' feet? Or maybe -"

"She's a fiesty one," the first man stage-whispered to the other. "No, no, of course not," he says. "I meant the fish that you caught from the rift valley."

I remember now. A crude fishing hook had yielded enough fish for each of us to eat several, and it had been the fullest meal my allies and I had had in days. So full, in fact, that we had been unprepared when the other alliance had swept down from the mountain and ambushed us.

I held Kimmie's hand while she died.

The fish in question were scaly, unappealing fish that resembled particularly rough chunks of ocean rock, one of the few types that District Four tended to keep instead of shipping to the Capitol. It wasn't worth the trouble when most Capitolites would rather have something easier to eat.

Until now.

The months before the Victory Tour the docks had been more packed than I had ever seen them, boxes and pallets and pallets of boxes being moved day and night to satisfy the increasing demand. There was no room for fishermen to save any of it for their families; what was once a staple of District Four was now too valuable for the citizens to eat. The bread and oil the Capitol sent in exchange for Parcel Day was far more affordable to trade for.

Eat your fish, little one, and you'll grow big and strong, my mother's words echo back to me.

Strong enough to kill five people? Strong enough to live with it afterwards?

"Oh my Ripred, take a look at this!"

A woman in a bright orange wig, holding a small tureen of sauce, interrupts my thoughts.

"Do you really eat this in Four? It smells like something died in here!" she said, wrinkling her nose and holding up the bowl to my face. "They should just serve some proper Capitol food for the tour."

"Smells perfectly fine to me," I blurt out, but that's not an answer the woman would accept, beause her grating voice continues,

"You people just have no taste! This would never be allowed in the Capitol. Now excuse me, I'm going to get myself far away from that vile stench."

She pushes the sauce bowl into my hands and rushes away to whisper to another woman wearing a wig just as brightly colored. The man from before comes back with a tiny portion of meat that he urges me to try. I bite into the flesh and it is so raw that blood oozes out, coppery and metallic against my tongue, and for a moment I remember drops of Samira's blood that I watched drip from my blade.

"What the -"

"And this is how you make a proper pork chop. I had to order them to, or the guy back there would never get it right."

"Well excuse me if we care more about not getting sick than for what the Capitol thinks tastes good -" I had had enough.

"You don't understand anything. Come on, you gotta learn to appreciate the finer parts of life. This is the way all the Capitolites do things -"

"And who says they're right?"

As soon as I'd said those words, the laughter dropped from the men's faces, and I realized that I'd made a huge mistake. Victor though I was, I would never be considered equal to a Capitol citizen, and for someone like me to question even such a meaningless opinion - well, that was like treason, wasn't it?

There's nothing in their eyes but pure conviction, conviction that the Capitol was right and being against the Capitol meant you were wrong and dangerous and 'uncultured'. They took and took and took until even thoughts as simple as how to cook meat or whether to enjoy fermented fish sauce were called into question, down to deeper ones like what emotions to feel or what dangerous opinions to stop holding.

I have seen that kind of look on two people before. The last time was the conviction that Ansgar Todd held as flaming knives with embedded prayers whistled through the air, and even towards the end he had still seemed assured that Ripred existed to help him to victory. Someone so utterly convinced they held all truth within themselves - if you were not careful - would suck you in and make you doubt yourself until you began asking them how to think.

I made the mistake of trusting a man like that once. I don't plan on ever being so vulnerable again.

Twenty-three lives in my hands - and for what? What good was being a Victor? I look around.

I did not gain freedom - the Capitol dictates even more of my life now. I did not help District Four prosper - one look at the fishermen who worked longer hours, the children with swollen bellies from too much bread and not enough of anything else, told me all there was to know there. I did not even have a family that I would have spared from a year of tragedy. I had the will to survive and precious little else, and that was what got me through the Games, but what good is mere survival without meaning?

Rachel had a father that she wanted to make proud. Kimmie had her siblings to go home to. Even Pillar and Myara, who I'd considered mortal enemies my entire time in the arena, had their victor cousins working tirelessly at the control room to bring them home.

I had no one.

Was twenty-three lives a price worth paying for a selfish and lonely existence?

Snow calls me into his office when we get to the Capitol. I nod and smile and say the things I am expected to, and my slips of the tongue yesterday remain unmentioned. He smells like danger and like bloody roses - there are rumors of Victors who refused to fall in line and found their families dead of mysterious causes shortly afterwards.

I have no one.

I have nothing to lose.

Just that thought makes me steal a glance at the sword displayed in the room, fantasizing about slashing Snow's throat and leaving him to bleed out on the plush throne he's sitting on. His dangerous glinting eyes morph in front of my vision, becoming the icy blue of Asha Lumiere's as he stares in disbelief and crumples to the floor in a pool of blood in front of me.

I wouldn't get that far. The sword is behind a glass case, and surely Snow had precautions against such a method of assassination.

I imagine myself vilified, Snow a martyr, a second set of Hunger Games installed every year to punish such a rebellion. Another man identical to Snow rising up to take his place. Nothing changed.

Still - if I can barely stand the past few days of the Victory Tour, I'll never be able to live like this, year after year, property of the Capitol, bearing the isolation and the scorn and misplaced worship and never being allowed to admit that all I've gained is a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment my name came from the escort's lips.

Some victors turn to alcohol. We've all seen Arbor Halt, eyes glazed over, tumbling about, barely mentoring his tributes. But I find the little colorful drinks only make it harder for me to forget. It settles like syrup in my stomach and then all the frustration, all the anger, all the helplessness rises up and overflows from my lips and my body and my head until I want to smash the intricate glasses against the ballroom floor.

I want to throw the food on those banquet tables to the fishermen who deserve it, overturn the table, and bash them against the ground until they are piles of kindling. I want my old familiar sword back in my hand, where I can swing it with ease and decapitate every one of the vapid heads in the room. I want them to feel every slash of knife against skin, every broken bone in the arena, every pang of hunger as a child starves on the streets.

So it's not guilt. I've long since abandoned guilt. I can't afford to feel guilty over the lives I've taken if I want to survive. It's scorching fire, blistering hatred. And alcohol is no help against that at all.

There is a time and place for everything. To make alliances, or to swear revenge. To hold firm, or to placate. To stab, or to parry. But ultimately, if twenty-three others sacrificed their lives so I could stand here, then there is only one way to honor their memory.

By burning the Capitol down.