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Cashmere hates the beginning of the Games for several reasons: the bloodbath, the fact that the mentor booth was overcrowded and smelly, the influx of paparazzi trying to make a story out of just about anything. But she particularly hates the stupid ego the elites of the Capitol got, sitting at the club like they were special VIPs, just because they had sponsor money to give. They expected the mentors to clamber to their every need, to comply with strange and humiliating kinks, and treat them like big shots, just to give their tributes a shot in the arena.
Cashmere usually could avoid this, because District 1 had a decent sponsor pool to begin with, but she sees Elin sitting in a booth with some idiot councilor trying to get sponsor money for 6. Elin was almost 40, there had to be a limit to the debasement of victors, right? Graham is there from 9, too, sweating a bit from whatever he took to deal with this bullshit, chatting with some prissy-looking Capitolite in a cocktail dress.
Even though Cashmere hates this tradition, she's still at Illyria, because ultimately, she does need to try to get something more for her tributes. They had gift money, but gifts were pricier every year. She sees Enobaria at the bar and sits next to her, deciding she is better off a little bit drunk if she wants to flirt with anyone tonight. Enobaria is sipping her favorite red wine, wearing some stupid strappy black dress, her braids tied back.
Cashmere feels bad. She and Enobaria usually spend a lot of time together during the Games, because they were friends, and it's not like they could see each other during the year. But with her commentator duties, Cashmere has been busy. She wants to tell Enobaria about Seneca Crane, ordinarily would, but she had made Johanna swear not to tell anyone so she feels like she ought to do the same: that the fewer people know about that night, the safer everyone is.
"How are your tributes looking?" Enobaria asks, after she finishes her glass. The bartender begins to pour another before Enobaria even asks.
Cashmere shrugs. Gloss spent more time with them, really. "They seem alright. I hope they come through. I guess the Academy people are getting impatient that Gloss and I haven't gotten a victor in 5 years."
Enobaria laughs. "Try 10 years."
"Has it really been that long?"
"I won in 62, now it's 73."
"Fuck, we got old so quick."
Enobaria doesn't answer, and Cashmere follows her gaze to where Johanna and Finnick walk in from the Training Center entrance. He leans down to say something to her and she laughs, and then he squeezes her arm before walking off towards the billiards tables. It irritates Cashmere, sort of like Haymitch does. Because why does Finnick have a whole fucking girlfriend in his own district, and then a spare in the Capitol? It just seems greedy.
Cashmere is so focused on this that she is unprepared for Johanna approaching Enobaria and her at the bar. "I need your help," she says, before flagging down a waiter and grabbing a drink.
"What?"
"My tribute, the girl. She's worse than useless. She's blind, and she's got no pigment in her skin or her hair, so she practically glows. She's only 13."
"Wait, like literally blind?" Cashmere had seen her trip at the parade, but thought the girl was just nervous.
"Literally blind. She's like a mascot in town. Just sits on the porch at her dad's shop and greets people. Sweet as can be. She can't hold a weapon. She can't even run in a straight line."
"Fuck." This is Enobaria, who usually doesn't give Johanna the time of day. Cashmere knows that Enobaria is thinking the same as she: how could someone not volunteer for someone as pathetic as that?
"So you're asking for a mercy killing?" Cashmere asks, trying to understand what this is about.
Johanna nods. "I told her to just jump off the launch pad early, but she won't do it."
There's something there making Cashmere's teeth clench. Shouldn't they give the girl a fighting chance if she doesn't want to kill herself? But she is only thirteen, and completely blind. Johanna is asking for a swift death, instead of dragged out suffering. "What will you give in exchange?"
Johanna looks unprepared for this question and opens her mouth without an answer ready.
"I should be able to get my boy to do it. He's a good shot, and doesn't seem to like unnecessary violence." This is Enobaria. Cashmere recalls her arena, with blinding white light alternating with pitch blackness. Perhaps Enobaria sympathizes with the girl.
Johanna nods, satisfied. "Ok. Good. What do you want?"
So she had been prepared to trade. But Enobaria just shrugs. "Got any hand-rolled cigarettes?"
Johanna hands them over, and the deal is done.
Later, after Cashmere meets with her client and gets driven back to the Training Center, she can't calm down. She knew the clients always had stupid requests right before the Games, but it had been a long time since anyone had asked her to do some of the things she'd be asked to do tonight, and so even after the shower, she still feels filthy.
She reaches in her purse to see if she still has a trank, but instead finds the little ball of morphling taken from Seneca Crane's hotel room. She doesn't have a syringe, so she just unwraps the plastic, dips her finger in, and shoves a bit of it up into her gums in the way she's seen Elin do a hundred times before.
And the relief is instant. She feels hot and cold, and a little like she's melting into the bathroom floor, but she can't even remember why she had been upset. She manages to drag herself back to her bedroom, and she remembers the pink paper. She digs it up from where she had tucked it into her suitcase and stares at it, waiting for her brain to catch up to what her eyes are looking at.
PANEM: YOU ARE SLAVES
FREE YOURSELVES FROM THE TYRANT SNOW
THE REST OF THE WORLD ARE GUTLESS
BUT YOU CAN DO IT — RISE UP AND SEIZE YOUR NATION
The whole thing is laughable now. It's stupid. But it's the exact type of thing that someone like Johanna would believe. She imagines Johanna even now working on some plot against Snow. It makes her nervous, and the adrenaline against the calmness of the morphling makes her dizzy. She tucks the pink paper safely away again and gets dressed, then takes the elevator down to the 7 apartment.
Johanna answers the door after a minute, obviously woken up from sleep. "Cashmere, what the hell? Are you alright?"
"You can't change anything. You will never manage it. So don't get yourself killed. Don't get me fucking killed."
"Are you high?" Johanna pulls her inside and closes the door behind them. "What is going on? Do you have any idea what time it is?"
"If you were just sleeping, fine, that's fine."
Johanna stares at her, as if trying to figure something out, and then seems to drop it. "Yeah, I was just sleeping. And you should too. You can sleep here if you want, if you stop being a fucking freak."
She lets Johanna lead her to her room, to the stupid soft oversized beds they have in the Training Center apartments. She gets in on the side that was obviously unoccupied, too tired to even consider the strangeness of sleeping in the fucking 7 apartment. The morphling is making her boneless. She wants to sleep more than anything, and she only has a few precious hours before the Games begin.