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katierosefun · 4 years

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ever in our favor

Summary: Anakin Skywalker liked to think he wasn't afraid of anything.Ahsoka Tano liked to think no one was afraid of her.Obi-Wan Kenobi liked to think he was too smart to be afraid.[or: the Hunger Games/TCW AU. Three different tributes from three different districts. A tech-whiz, a thief, and the son of a Victor who was cast into the Games on purpose. Happy Hunger Games, everyone.]

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wc: 5509

Anakin Skywalker liked to think he wasn’t afraid of anything.

He wasn’t afraid of Peacekeepers, for one thing, not when he could easily outrun any of them. Not that he had had to, not in a long time. He had once had to outrun them when he was little, back when it was easier for his mom to defend him against his stupid little tricks with the electricity or the radio system. He hadn’t meant to mess around with the radios, but he had, and he was pretty sure he somehow transmitted some music from District 11. He had thought it was rather nice, but then Peacekeepers had started looking for him, and his mother had insisted that Anakin was just a “silly little boy” who played with the dials because he had nothing better to do so please, punish me instead—

His mom had been punished that day, in the end. Tied to a post and whipped, and Anakin had screamed himself hoarse, and one of the other women had tugged Anakin aside, forced him to not watch, but Anakin could still hear the whip fall, and he could still hear his mom’s just barely restrained screams. No one had been allowed to touch her even long after the Peacekeeper had finished. Anakin remembered that it was summer, and it was hot, and he remembered being scared only then, even after his mom healed with the help of some of the other men and women in the district.

“Don’t be afraid, Ani,” his mom had said to him later that night, brushing her thumb across his cheek. “Because as soon as you’re afraid, that makes them happy.”

So he decided not to be afraid.

He wouldn’t be afraid—he won’t be afraid, not even if his name had been cast into the lottery more times this year than ever before.

Just twelve times, he thought. Things could be worse. He could have his name put in there nearly forty times, fifty times, which he knew some unlucky folks did for their families. But Anakin just had his mom and himself—no siblings, no dad. Just the two of them. Shmi and Anakin Skywalker.

Just twelve times.

And there weren’t even going to be as many tributes this year—there was only going to be one chosen per district this year for the Third Quarter Quell. Unusual, Anakin knew, but the president had promised that fewer tributes would mean an even more exciting game. Deadlier traps, higher stakes. Draw out the game longer than they had in previous years. Make people more desperate.

“You should eat something,” Shmi said now, pushing bread Anakin’s way.

Anakin looked down and found that it wasn’t the brown, hard stuff that his mom and he had to have most of the time. He found a round, soft roll instead, one without burn marks or mold or anything. Anakin looked back up, surprised.

Shmi smiled. “A gift,” she said. “Our neighbors wish us well.” She pushed the roll a little closer to Anakin. “Now go on, eat.”

He wasn’t really hungry—he wasn’t sure anyone was, not on Reaping Day, but—

Anakin tore the roll in half and pressed one half into his mom’s reluctant hand. “We’ll both need it,” he said, flashing his mom a quick smile. He stood up, forced himself to take a bite. They ate in silence.

The bread seemed to clog itself in Anakin’s throat, and for a moment, he wondered if he wouldn’t be able to swallow—but he eventually did, and then he heard the bells sound across the district.

A quiet gasp—not from himself, but from his mother, who reached over and grabbed his hand in sudden desperation.

“It’s okay,” Anakin said. He squeezed back his mom’s hand. “Nothing’s going to happen to me.” He looked at his mom, smiled again. “What happened to not being afraid?”

A silence passed, and then Shmi gave Anakin a weak smile. “You’re right,” she said after a little while. She lifted a hand, brushed her thumb under his eye like he was a nine-year old again. “I’m not afraid at all.”

“That’s the spirit,” Anakin said. He tugged at his mom’s hands. “Come on,” he said. “After this, we can listen to that music again. The singing, remember?”

Shmi’s face faltered for a moment. “You really should stop…”

“They haven’t caught me yet,” Anakin said with forced lightness. Not since he was nine years old, at least. Seven more years of getting familiar with the technology and goings-on of his district had taught him to be nimbler and smarter with what he did when he did them.

“No,” Shmi said. “I suppose they haven’t.” She squeezed Anakin’s hand again.

And they headed out to greet the rest of District 3.

Ahsoka Tano liked to think no one was afraid of her.

She used that to her advantage—she always had, ever since she was a little girl. She was smaller than most of the girls and boys her age, both in height and frame. So that made her forgettable. Peacekeepers were less likely to be suspicious of a small girl, and the others were less likely to point fingers at someone as seemingly innocent as herself. But Ahsoka knew the truth about her own self: she’d known enough about herself to use that appearance to her advantage, starting from when she was old enough to work in the fields. Her baggy clothes made for useful ways to pocket more food and sneak back to her dad and her friends.

And she hadn’t been caught once—the Peacekeepers hadn’t ever noticed, and Ahsoka had always been careful to swipe only enough in haphazard places. The closest she ever got to getting caught was the time she stole a whole loaf of bread from a Peacekeeper, but by the time he had discovered the thieving, Ahsoka and the other field workers had already been long gone, and luckily, the Peacekeeper’s dog had been close enough to be the suspected thief instead.

She got away with those little things easily, and no one ever suspected her. So Ahsoka told herself that if she got chosen, then—

Ahsoka curled her hands over her lap.

But she didn’t want to be chosen—

She couldn’t be chosen. This was only her second year. She only had her name in three times. Her three older brothers—Wolffe, Boost, Sinker, and Comet—all had their names in more times than her, Wolffe with the highest: forty-two pieces of paper with his name would be in the lottery today. Eighteen years old and covering for all five members of their family. And Ahsoka knew that next year, Boost would be the one covering for all of the, and then the year after that, Sinker, and then Comet.

A part of Ahsoka wondered if her dad ever regretted having as many children as he did—they weren’t even technically related, not by blood anyways. But Plo Koon had always been a man with more heart than he probably needed, and there were many starving babies left on porches a decade or so ago, when District 11 got hit with an unexpected frost overnight.

The only real blood relations might be amongst Ahsoka’s brothers—they had been a whole set, Wolffe being the oldest and drifting along with his younger brothers when Plo Koon found them hovering near the market.

As for Ahsoka, she was told that she had just been dropped at Plo Koon’s doorstep in the middle of the night, and that had been that. Ahsoka didn’t try to figure out who her birth parents were—as far as she was considered, Plo Koon was her dad, and that was all that mattered.

Ahsoka curled her hands over her knees. She glanced around her room—really, the whole family’s room, separated only by curtains, but she liked her little space. She fingered the hem of her skirt: a pretty red thing that fell right above her knees. She had only worn it once before, on her birthday. She thought it was fitting that she should wear it on Reaping Day.

The slight brush of a hand against the curtain behind her was what brought Ahsoka’s head up.

“There you are,” Plo Koon said, sitting down next to Ahsoka on her bed. “I figured you might be here.”

Ahsoka smiled. Tried to smile. “Do we need to go?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Plo Koon replied. He turned around, and Ahsoka smelled the flowers before seeing them first. She smiled for real this time as Plo Koon tucked a red-orange flower right into her hair. “Do you know what this is?”

Ahsoka concentrated for a moment, trying to remember, and then she said, “Marigolds. Tagetes patula, to be exact.”

“Correct,” Plo Koon said, his eyes wrinkling a little bit at the corners as he smiled. He leaned back, tilted his head, and suddenly that smile turned sad, and Ahsoka knew what he was thinking, because she was thinking and dreading the same exact thing too.

There was the sound of rushing feet and curtains being batted aside, and suddenly, Wolffe and the others were crowded around Ahsoka’s little space, breathing hard but eyes bright. Ahsoka knew that they had just spent the last few minutes running through the district—they always did, to work off the nerves and, as Sinker once put it, “to piss off the Peacekeepers one last time”—even though all the Peacekeepers were busy with the Reaping Day preparations. (“Don’t,” Wolffe would always groan.)

“Look at you,” Comet was saying, flashing Ahsoka a grin. “Nice flower.”

“Don’t laugh,” Ahsoka said, flicking Comet on the shoulder. She nodded at Plo Koon. “He got some for you guys, too.”

“That’s true,” Plo Koon said. “Come here, boys.”

“Dad—”

“Come on, I think we’ll look pretty, don’t you think?”

Some grumbling and laughter later, and the whole family had flowers tucked behind their ears.

Boost and Sinker looked at each other, snickered, and then bowed their heads, nearly knocking their foreheads together. (“You look lovely, Sinker.” “No, you, I insist—”)

Ahsoka smiled at her family. They would be just fine, she told herself. She looked up at Wolffe last, who was watching their brothers with some restrained amusement. Wolffe caught her staring, and he smiled—rare, coming from him, but Ahsoka figured that they all needed it.

We’ll be fine, she thought again. She adjusted the flower in her hair and looked out the window, where people were already starting to trail out of their homes. They would be just fine.

Obi-Wan Kenobi liked to think that he was too smart to be afraid.

Being afraid made people lose focus, made them do stupid things like run or jump without looking where they were heading. That was what he had learned from his time watching countless games, ever since he was a child. He would watch them even when his father wasn’t, because even though his father was one of the many famed Victors of their district, Obi-Wan liked to be prepared.

Which was why he had taken to learning and quietly training on his own when he was little—and then his father had caught him, and instead of reprimanding him, Qui-Gon Jinn had only adjusted Obi-Wan’s grip on the makeshift spear he had made for himself (really nothing more than a large stick that Obi-Wan had sharpened to a point).

And of course, the Peacekeepers, had they seen anything, didn’t argue. Secret training in preparation for the games was commonplace enough in District 1. If anything, it would have been strange if the Victors didn’t train their own children, blood-related or not.

Obi-Wan pushed himself away from the back door of the house—mansion, really, but Obi-Wan always referred to it as a house in his own mind. He stepped across the backyard, looked at the lemon trees that made a semi-circle around the perimeter of the yard. Obi-Wan reached out for one, scratched at the peel. Rolled it between his hands. Wondered if there would be any trees in the arena. One time the games had been a frozen wasteland, which hadn’t been fun—most of the tributes had just froze to death, with lips blue and eyes still open. There had been a desert before too, all dunes of orange and yellow sand, and that had gone poorly as well. Most tributes either went mad with thirst or simply laid down and refused to get back up due to the heat.

“Here again?”

Obi-Wan turned to find Qui-Gon standing at the back door.

Obi-Wan held up the lemon in his hand. “This was about to fall off anyways,” he said, tossing the fruit over to Qui-Gon.

His father caught it one-handed. “So it was,” he said. He looked up at Obi-Wan. “What do you see?”

“Seven lemon trees,” Obi-Wan said. “One of the trees is growing sick. We’ll have to take care of it soon.”

Qui-Gon’s lips twitched. “What else?”

Your shirt’s looser than it was last week, Obi-Wan thought. Dark circles under his father’s eyes, skin paler than normal.

Obi-Wan said as much.

Qui-Gon smiled. “Good observations,” he said.

Obi-Wan didn’t smile back. He took another lemon from the tree, found the grey rot on its underside. He frowned, tucked the lemon in his own pocket to dispose of it properly later. He looked back to his father, found that Qui-Gon’s smile had faded.

“When you go into the arena,” he said, “you’ll have to make sure you’re always observing. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan replied, walking back to the back door. He started to walk past Qui-Gon, but his father caught him by the shoulder.

Obi-Wan looked up at Qui-Gon.

Qui-Gon looked back down at Obi-Wan intently. A moment passed before he said at last, “I’m sorry that it has to come down to this.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Obi-Wan said. He took out the rotting lemon in his pocket and stepped through the back door. He threw it in the bin, where it landed with a satisfying thunk. The bin had been meters and meters away, but Obi-Wan’s aim had been perfect.

He saw Qui-Gon nod—just the slightest tilt of his head to signal his approval.

Obi-Wan looked at Qui-Gon. “When she calls my name,” he said, “am I supposed to react in any particular way?”

“Don’t look afraid,” Qui-Gon replied.

“I won’t.” Obi-Wan turned to the hall mirror, adjusted his clothes: a white shirt, dark trousers. They didn’t need any actual adjusting, not with the clothes tailored specifically to his size and shape, but still. Obi-Wan made eye-contact with Qui-Gon standing behind him.

“I don’t suppose you have any idea what the other tributes will be like this year,” Obi-Wan said, moreso a statement than a question.

“They’ll be more desperate,” Qui-Gon said.

Everyone was going to be desperate.

Obi-Wan nodded anyways, straightened himself one last time. Then the bells were ringing over the district, signaling everyone to come for the Reaping. A part of Obi-Wan wished that they didn’t all have to gather in one place—really, there was no point, when he knew that he was going to get chosen anyways. Not that anyone else did.

Obi-Wan turned to Qui-Gon.

“I’ll see you on the train,” Qui-Gon said. “And remember: play the part.”

Play the part—be the triumphant, happy Career, son of the Victor that Panem expected. Proud to get a chance to prove to the rest of Panem that he was, in fact, just as much the talented and clever soon-to-be-victor that his own father was.

Obi-Wan nodded.

There were too many people clustered in one area, and there wasn’t enough space.

Really, Anakin wished that the Peacekeepers could have chosen someplace else to hold the reaping, but the Hall of Justice had to do, even though the inside hall was too small to fit everyone inside. There were a few children in the roped-off sections outside. Anakin didn’t know why they couldn’t all be outside, with at least more room to breathe, but there was something about apparently the back mural of the Hall of Justice—a ridiculous piece commemorating the Capitol—that was perfectly perfect for the rest of the Capitol audience.

Anakin didn’t like the mural. There were too many bright colors, and the faces looked all wrong.

He turned to find his mom. She was standing at the other end of the hall, where all the other parents were. Shmi caught his eye and smiled weakly, fluttering her fingers over at him.

Anakin smiled back, but then the sound of someone clearing a throat drew everyone’s attention back to the front.

“Welcome!” a man in a ridiculously flashy, ridiculously golden suit smiled blandly at the crowd. Anakin couldn’t help himself: he laughed a little to himself. Everyone knew who Threepio was, the escort well-known for his silly little tirades about nothing in particular. “Ah, there are quite a lot of you, aren’t there—yes, more faces than last year…” An awkward little laugh to himself, which no one responded to.

“Well, yes,” Threepio said, blinking down at them all. “Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds—”

Be ever in your favor, Anakin finished for him.

“Today, we are joined by—ah, yes, Miss Amidala, hello, ma’am, so good to see you today!”

There was a sudden rustling in the crowd as everyone lifted their heads at the name.

Including Anakin’s, as he watched District 3’s sole victor walk across the makeshift stage.

She wasn’t that much older than him—Anakin remembered her own games five years ago, back when she was eighteen and he was thirteen. He couldn’t remember much then, except that he thought she was the most beautiful person in the world, with dark hair and even darker eyes. The other tribute had been his age too. Another thirteen year old boy, who Anakin watched die with a spear in his chest.

“Thank you, Threepio,” Padmé Amidala said now, tilting her head at Threepio. She looked out to the crowd, and Anakin’s breath caught in his throat.

“Now we can begin!” Threepio said in that blandly cheerful voice. He turned to the little crystal ball full of leaflets.

Anakin turned to his mother again.

But Shmi wasn’t looking at him—she was whispering something into a crying woman’s ear, probably reassuring her of whatever was to come.

And then someone jostled into Anakin, and for a moment, all he felt was himself being shoved to the ground—someone had fainted, he realized, and he looked down to shake the person next to him awake, come on, get up, don’t do this now—

The boy—because it had been a boy who had fainted right into Anakin, blinked up at him with glazed eyes. “I don’t wanna go,” he whispered.

“You won’t,” Anakin whispered back. “Just get up, before you create a scene. Okay?”

The boy only whimpered, curled in on himself. He couldn’t have been that much older than twelve. Anakin looked around, wondering if he had any siblings, anyone who could—

“Listen,” Anakin said, looking back down at the boy. “Don’t be afraid. Okay?” He tugged at the boy’s arm, forcing him upright. “Because as soon as you’re afraid, that’s when you make them happy. And we can’t let that happen, can we?”

The boy’s bottom lip wobbled.

“Can we?” Anakin repeated.

The boy shook his head.

“Great,” Anakin said. “Good.” He tugged the boy up to his feet. “So come on. Don’t be scared now—” But then he realized that there were other eyes on him, not just the boy beside him. He could feel the shift in the air, the sudden turn of heads.

Anakin paused, and then he looked up.

“Anakin Skywalker?” Threepio’s voice called. He was craning his neck over the microphone, hand over his eyes. “Is that you over there, boy?”

Anakin stared.

Mom, where’s Mom—

Anakin looked to the side.

He found Shmi staring back at him, her eyes wide and fearful, hand clapped over her mouth because—

Oh, he realized. He hadn’t heard Threepio the first time, because he had been busy with the kid—

“Anakin Skywalker, if you can come up now please—”

Anakin slowly turned back around to the stage. He heard, rather than saw, the others shift around him. People slowly stepping out of his way, creating a straight path between himself and the stage.

Anakin took one step.

Two steps.

And then he was walking across the hall, to the stage.

He climbed up, hoping that his steps were steady. He wasn’t sure if they were.

“Ah, yes,” Threepio said from somewhere in front of him. “Here we are.”

Anakin lifted his eyes. He saw a blur of a face, realized then that there was a hand guiding his back so that he could turn to the crowd. “Our tribute from District 3!”

Anakin looked to the crowd. Mom, where’s Mom—

But he couldn’t see anyone’s faces. The lights were too bright, and there were suddenly so many cameras, and Anakin could only blink at them all. He felt a cold hand wrap around his wrist, hoist it into the air.

Our tribute from District 3—

There were too many people clustered in one area, and there wasn’t even a breeze to keep off the heat.

Ahsoka swiped at the sweat dripping down the back of her neck. She was glad that her clothes were relatively light, but still. She looked over at her brothers, who were all lined up together near the back. Ahsoka catches their eyes, and they all make a face at her. The joke is clear: bored already.

Ahsoka stifles a smile and turns to the front, surprised to find that there is a different escort than the one that usually greeted the tributes. Gone was the previous Capitol man with his strange assortment of clothing and wigs, but instead, there was a pale—remarkably pale—woman with long legs and a completely shaved head save for a few elaborate purple tattoos.

“Look alive,” the escort said, bored. There was a little bit of a rustling amongst the crowd at that—look alive hardly seemed like the appropriate greeting, but—

“Ah, yes, and welcome to the Hunger Games, Reaping, et cetera.” The woman’s sharp eyes surveyed the crowd for a full second before adding, “We might as well get started. Our dear victor isn’t able to make an appearance today, caught up with very important matters all relating to the games, of course, and et cetera.”

You already said that, Ahsoka thought.

“So let’s just get this show started, shall we?” The woman reached into the crystal ball faster than Ahsoka anticipated, and something in her lurched because she wasn’t ready for it to be done that quickly—

Ahsoka blindly turned to her brothers again, and they were already waiting for.

Wolffe mouthed something: it’s fine, and then—

“Ahsoka Tano.”

Ahsoka was still looking at her brothers, so she saw the horror on their faces before she felt her own.

And then Wolffe started moving forward, which was how Ahsoka knew that wait, this was happening, and wait, what was Wolffe doing—

“I volunteer,” Wolffe said quickly, stepping out onto the path between the boys and the girls. “In Ahsoka Tano’s place—I volunteer as tribute.”

Ahsoka’s ears rang. Wait, Wolffe, no—

A silence, and then the escort smiled. Ahsoka wasn’t sure how she could be smiling at a time like this, but the escort only lifted up the leaflet bearing Ahsoka’s name. “Sorry, sweetheart,” the woman said, “but president’s orders. No volunteers for this Quarter Quell.”

Another ripple through the crowd at that news.

“Wait—” Wolffe started. “But we didn’t—”

“Of course you didn’t hear it yet,” the woman said, folding the leaflet in her hands with a few deft strokes. “News gets around the districts slow, doesn’t it? But rules are rules.” Her sharp eyes combed through the crowd. “Now, Ahsoka Tano, do come up—we’ve got a long day ahead of us, and the day’s rather hot.”

Ahsoka didn’t feel hot at all. She was cold all over.

Ahsoka looked at her brothers again. They were all staring at her, pained and wide-eyed, and she saw a sudden burst of movement—but then Wolffe was holding them back because the Peacekeepers were suddenly closer now.

It’s fine, Ahsoka thought. She looked at her brothers, gave them a tight nod. I’ll be fine.

She wondered where her dad was. She didn’t know where he went or where he was located here—probably with the other parents, but what was he doing now? She dully hoped that there was someone around to comfort him, because no one could move until she left with her escort.

Ahsoka made her way to the front, hearing only the whispers of some of the other girls as she weaved through them. For a moment, she thought they wouldn’t let her get past. It was almost as though all the other girls were desperately trying to keep her in, keep her from entering the games, and the thought almost made Ahsoka stop walking altogether.

Someone squeezed Ahsoka’s arm. She wasn’t sure who, but then someone else was touching her shoulder, another was brushing the hair from her face, another was readjusting the flower near her ear. And Ahsoka emerged from the crowd with the ghost of touches from the others in her district, and then she was at the front of the stage, looking up at the pale, long-legged woman.

“Well, come on up,” the woman said, jerking her head.

Ahsoka straightened her shoulders. Headed for the stairs. She looked to the back of the stage—thought she saw something moving in the background, but then she was being turned to look at the cameras gathered around her.

A pat on her shoulder from the woman. Her hand was cold.

“Our tribute from District 11,” the woman said flatly to the cameras. She looked down at Ahsoka, nodded her head to the cameras again. “Anything in particular you want to say while the cameras are still rolling, sweetheart? Give a good first impression for all of us?”

Ahsoka stared up at the woman. This wasn’t usually how most reapings went—she wasn’t sure if this new escort was making fun of her or not.

Ahsoka looked to the cameras.

People aren’t afraid of you, a voice whispered at the back of her head. Make them keep thinking that.

So Ahsoka only smiled—her sweetest, most naïve smile, the kind that she only ever gave when she was trying to wheedle her brothers into doing something for her. She twirled a strand of her dark hair around a finger and waved at the camera until her wrist hurt.

Obi-Wan didn’t care if there were too many people clustered around the area. He’d be separated from the rest soon enough.

He saw some boys and girls toss curious glances his way. Some sneers, but most just watched him with a wary eye. Obi-Wan already knew most of them were running statistics in their heads: trying to guess whether or not he would be able to get drawn. He was eighteen—his name would have technically only been cast seven times, and he didn’t have any need to cast his name any more than that.

Obi-Wan didn’t bother meeting the stares of those who looked at him. Let them stare, he decided. He would be under the attention of the entire country in just a few minutes anyways, and in just a few days, he would be under the attention of the entire country for hours on end. He might as well get some more practice now.

Not that he hadn’t had practice before. Being the Victor’s son always got him an extra glance or two in school, in the streets. He remembered a boy had once asked him if his father ever told him stories of the games, so Obi-Wan had made one up on the spot, just so the boy could leave him alone.

The truth was Qui-Gon didn’t tell Obi-Wan too much of his own experience in the games. There had been some clips played, of course, during each reaping—clips of his father emerging victorious out of a dense jungle with mud and blood splattered across his face, but he had been standing defiant until the very end.

Obi-Wan figured he wouldn’t get a jungle, not for his games. The game-makers didn’t like repeating themselves, and from what Obi-Wan had watched from the recordings of his own father’s time at the games, he was a little glad he wouldn’t be stuck in a jungle. There had been great bugs that sucked their victims dry of blood, suffocating mists that left their victims choking on their own vomit and spit, vines that came to life and tried strangling their victims to death whenever things got a little too slow. Obi-Wan had watched a clip of his own father use one of those vines to his own advantage, somehow manipulating them into choking one of his pursuers instead.

Qui-Gon had shut off the television after finding Obi-Wan watching that recording.

They hadn’t spoken about it afterwards, and when Obi-Wan went to search for the recording of those games again, he found that they were deleted from the television. He was fairly sure the Capitol didn’t allow such behavior, but he didn’t ask questions, and his father didn’t give him any answers.

Obi-Wan watched some of the clips from the previous games play before him now: shots of his father, and then shots of the other victors from the past in their final moments. Most of the victors were from District 1, District 2, District 4. All of the more favored districts. But there was the occasional victor from the other districts—Mace Windu from District 7, Quinlan Vos from District 5, Luminara Unduli from District 8, and most recently, a young girl named Katooni from District 12. That had been a surprise to all—the girl was no more than twelve years old, and yet everyone had watched her confuse her opponent into falling off the edge of a cliff. There weren’t any other living victors from District 12—Obi-Wan tried to imagine this child now attempting to mentor and get sponsorships for someone who might potentially be older than herself.

And now, finally, the escort—a young, blonde woman who Obi-Wan knew as Satine Kryze, although he couldn’t be sure that was her real name—all the Capitol people made up their own names by the day, it seemed. He had only ever met her a few times, once in his own home. She couldn’t have been that much older than himself, and he remembered being confused why there was a random girl in the hallway, but then she had just given him a quick, appraising look before walking out.

Obi-Wan only found out that he was to be the new escort a few weeks ago, and now, if it hadn’t been for the fact that Qui-Gon had told him that the girl in their home was to be the escort, he wouldn’t have guessed looking at Satine now: she was dressed in a particularly voluminous blue dress, her hair piled atop her head in an elaborate headset.

“Welcome,” Satine said now, nodding at the crowd as though they were all good friends. “And welcome to the 75th Hunger Games. May the odds be ever in your favor.” Her lips curled into a slight smile, as though she knew something that the rest of the district didn’t. For all Obi-Wan knew, she might already know what the game makers were planning. He didn’t put it past the escorts for his district to somehow already have some inside knowledge with the rest of the games.

And beside Satine, Obi-Wan saw his father. Still wearing the same loose shirt, loose pants that was only halfheartedly held up by a belt, but someone had applied enough makeup to reduce the dark circles under his eyes.

“May the odds be ever in your favor,” Satine repeated, and then she dipped her hand into the bowl.

And when she said his name—it didn’t matter if his name wasn’t actually on the leaflet she had pulled, she would say his name anyways, that was the deal, Obi-Wan knew, Obi-Wan pressed through the crowd without a second thought. It wasn’t difficult for him to keep his shoulders back, chin up.

Don’t look afraid, Qui-Gon had told him.

Only idiots get afraid, Obi-Wan thought. He kept his hands at his sides, mounted the stairs to the stage. Satine and Qui-Gon both looked at him, gave him a slight nod as he made his way to the front of the stage.

He looked at the cameras and smiled.

Let the games begin.

#tcw #tcw fic #star wars #the clone wars #swtcw #sw #anakin skywalker #obi-wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #thg #the hunger games #my fic #well HERE WE GOOO

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