Chapter Text
The first and only thing Jyn feels for a long time is relief. It seeps into her veins, strengthened and ballooned outwards by the alcohol already thrumming through her body. Other emotions will come she’s sure; a whole goddamn symphony but for now it’s a relief – and she leans back on the couch beside Chirrut and laughs.
No more mentoring.
For good, seeing as the chances of surviving two hunger games are nonexistent, even with the odds in her favour. Which they rarely are. She thinks, briefly, of the four children she and Chirrut were forced to take under their wings the previous years. None of them lasted longer than the bloodbath. Each death, another firm black line on the inside of her forearm. It’s almost ironic that the only reason she can afford the tattoos are because she’s a victor.
She glances at Chirrut. He’s holding himself very still while she lets out a final, rasping chuckle and then falls silent.
He reaches out and takes her hand.
+
They train a little bit. Neither have lost shape during the years since their respective games but Jyn’s combat skills are slightly rusty and Chirrut insists they at least re-familiarize themselves with the basics. Jyn doesn’t argue; as a victor, her days are hardly full. The rest of the district, the baker Jyn visits and the butcher and even the farmers on the street who pass her by throw pitying looks her way. It’s nice to know she doesn’t have anyone left to disappoint by failing to return.
She visits her mother’s grave the day before the Reaping and perches on the hard earth in front of it.
‘I’m going back,’ she says quietly. The air smells of dirt and mildew. 'The Quarter Quell this year - 'all tributes will be reaped from the pool of existing victors.’’
She hadn’t meant to memorize the words but of course they scorched themselves into her mind anyway.
‘It’s better than having to mentor anymore tributes. I don’t know how Chirrut did it for thirty-one years by himself.’ She plucks at a strand of grass and twists it between her fingers. 'Now he’ll never have to do it again.’ Then she stops talking before she can think much harder about her mentor and only remaining friend. About how he’ll be killed in the arena alongside her.
The plot of land beside her mother’s grave is bare and dark and empty, but Jyn ignores it. My father is Galen Erso. My father is probably dead. My father is as good as dead. I can only hope my father is dead. I will soon be dead too.
That night after dinner, before going up to her bedroom, Jyn takes Chirrut’s hands in her own and kisses the space between his eyes. She’s never been soft – never gentle, but she needs to say it before she can’t anymore.
'Thank you,’ she says, a little gruffly.
'Sleep well,’ he replies, the same thing he says every night. She doesn’t.
+
The day of the Reaping she stands alone in a roped off part of the town square, squinting up at the stage. A young woman pulls Jyn’s lonely name out of the large glass ball and reads it off with her voice high-pitched and fussy sounding. Instead of paying attention, Jyn stares at the woman’s fingernails – which are extraordinarily long and pointed, and a bright orange. When Jyn climbs to the platform, not a single person claps. They just stare at her, and she at them. Saying goodbye in the only way they know how. Several parents stand with their children and bow their heads. It’s a thank you for the two games she’s participated in instead of their families, and a thank you for the food. Jyn inclines her head back.
'And may the force be with you.’
Then she and Chirrut are pulled away from the town square by Stormtroopers and forced onto the train.
Jyn notices vaguely that it’s different from when she was first chosen. Then she had been given time to say her goodbyes. This way is less painful because she isn’t standing in an empty room, listening to the murmurs from her fellow tributes family slip through the wall between them. Her own guardian, Saw Gerrera, had been long gone even then.
Codo Daffju’s family had been there, though. Whispering their prayers, reassuring Codo that they loved him and would see him soon. Maybe when she joins him at last, they’ll forgive her for surviving when their son didn’t.
The food is, as always, far too rich. She picks at her plate of fresh vegetables and seasoned meat and thinks almost wistfully of the meal she would be having at home. The people of District Ten never went hungry but they never ate more than exactly what they needed either. Second helpings, even desserts are almost taboo there, so watching the fussy woman from the Reaping carefully add more food to her plate feels offensive in a way that aches in Jyn’s bones. She sips her water and looks carefully at Chirrut instead, who is sitting across from her. Finally, the silence is broken by the woman, privately nicknamed ‘Nails,’ by Jyn because of her lurid orange talons, who says,
'Why don’t we watch the other Reapings?’
Jyn shrugs, and Chirrut nods once, so Nails leans forward and flicks a switch on her end of the table. A television flips into being on the wall opposite Nails, already glowing with the Emperor’s insignia.
After only stepping into the victor’s circle two years ago, Jyn barely recognizes half the tributes. The winners of last year’s games and an unprecedented, never-before-seen twist where the siblings were raised in separate districts and brought together in the games – the golden twins – are both re-selected. Rather than being a surprise, it spikes in Jyn a suspicion that generally only exists in her unconscious or when she’s too tired to fight it. A suspicion fueled by the idle chatter of Nails at dinner, mentioning the lack of seafood on the table. The suspicion that something is shifting.
But with less than a month left to live, Jyn pushes the suspicion aside, choosing instead to focus on more tangible matters. Like how one of those glowing twins may end up killing her. Despite knowing many more victors than Jyn, Chirrut only reacts once during the Reapings. The reaped tribute from District Three is a young man, Stordan Tonc. However, he takes barely three steps towards the podium when from behind him a rough voice calls,
‘I volunteer.’
The crowd parts, and Jyn watches a wiry looking man with tangled hair step up onto the platform and gaze out over the people of his district. She knows Baze Malbus; everyone does. Famous for winning the games at 12 years of age through a show of bare survival instincts that shocked the Capital citizens with its brutality, Baze Malbus then added to his persona by refusing to appear onscreen for the next thirty-seven years. Even when mentoring other tributes his face hasn’t been shown on camera since the game. Until now.
But Jyn knows him best from the evenings spent with him and Chirrut in the Capital, eating the extravagant food and watching the games. She knows his smile, his rough laugh, she knows how his hands catch Chirrut’s under the table. Clumsily, she reaches out to touch Chirrut’s shoulder and he smiles.
‘I expected as much,’ he says.
The other tributes pass in a blur. It’s a relief that all of them have passed into adulthood so there are no tributes younger than eighteen years old. Unfortunately, there are several who are well over fifty and watching their slow progress to the stage alone is almost laughable. Almost. Jyn is thankful that at least she hasn’t quite reached that stage yet. When she falls into bed that night her dreams show Baze and Chirrut holding hands as they melt into a torrential rain that sweeps Jyn off her feet. She wakes in the early morning desperately needing to piss.
+
Her stylist is new. He looks her age, perhaps a bit older or a bit younger depending on whether she looks at his eyes or his hands.
'Bodhi,’ he says, twitching a little with his fingers. He’s not like anyone from the Capital she’s ever met. Especially when the next thing he says is, 'I’m sorry.’
'Sorry for what?’ she asks, brusquely. Patience is not something afforded to the people of the Capital if she can help it.
He shrugs, looking determined and tentative in equal measures. ‘That we broke our promise.’
Jyn clamps her mouth shut. She doesn’t have to ask what promise that is. He means the unspoken agreement between the victors and the Empire - the deal that in return for playing their game you would be left alone for the remainder of your life. Provided you behaved yourself. 'I’ve learnt not to expect too much from people,’ she says.
People. The Empire. Life. Bodhi nods his head several times, and as he does so the neckline of his simple white shirt slips down slightly to reveal a large, pale scar. Jyn’s eyes slide to it, then away again. 'Do you have any ideas for the opening ceremony?’
'I - yes. I have one.’ Bodhi looks sideways at her. 'Do you trust me?’
Jyn doesn’t trust anyone besides Chirrut. Possibly Baze, if pressed. But the scar is still visible and something about Bodhi reminds her distantly of her father. She shakes her head. 'No.’
Bodhi nods again. His fingers twist together but his voice is strong when he says, 'I think you’ll like it.’
+
It’s a body suit. Covering her from her feet all the way up to just below her chin until only her hands and head are left visible. The prep team, a bunch of twittering birds that flit around Jyn’s head, brushing her hair, waxing her upper lip, have left her face make-up free which is a surprise. Bodhi zips up the back of the suit and steps around to her front.
'Look in the mirror,’ he says. Jyn does.
District Ten - livestock. The suit is red and raw looking, like the meat slabs in the butcher’s window. For a moment, Jyn is truly confused. The suit is hardly beautiful or mesmerizing, it boasts none of the normal Capital showmanship. It’s a slab of meat. She is a slab of meat.
Then it hits her. She turns to Bodhi, eyebrows raised, to find him mirroring her expression. At his sides, his fingers move aimlessly. They exchange something through gazes and facial gestures and by the time Jyn turns back to the mirror, she likes Bodhi. Not trust, not yet, but she likes him. That’s three people now left in the world.
Hopefully he understands that this garment isn’t only a statement, but a prophecy. Then he says,
'Your interview clothes will be pretty different to this,’ with an appraising flick of his eyes, and she knows he does. The outfit she wears to her interview before the game will be clothes fit for a last day alive.
+
Not knowing where Chirrut is - and not filled with any deep desire to see her best friend and last remaining family member portrayed as an emotionless slab of meat - Jyn moves down to the ring where the horses and other tributes are gathered. They mingle easily, the atmosphere unlike any other game she has witnessed or participated in. These are colleagues. They’re peers. They are friends. And underlying the socialization is a roiling energy she’s never felt before. Baze appears by her side within moments of Jyn’s arrival, looking her up and down. When they make eye contact, he smiles grimly.
'That is a daring stylist.’
'He’s new,’ she says, and Baze grunts.
'I doubt he’ll become old.’
'Well, it’s a rare occurrence.’ Jyn raises her eyebrows at Baze’s wrinkles. 'You’ve done well.’
Baze grips her shoulder, briefly. His very being is the definition of solid, she can feel the weight and the strength behind that simple gesture. But Baze is agile too. And kind, and vicious. A mismatch of traits shoved into one body. Chirrut appears behind Jyn and moves to stand next to Baze.
'Fancy meeting you here,’ he says, in his teasing way. Baze stares at him with a mixture of rueful amusement and blazing anger.
'This is what the force willed, is it?’
Chirrut nods and Jyn steals away before Baze can reply. The argument isn’t even really an argument anymore, more a worn script of dialogue that they’ve memorized by heart. The kind of thing you could turn to when bigger things were pestering to be addressed, like how in a few days you could, probably would, be dead. Jyn hopes briefly that they die together. Able to hold hands 'till the end. That’s really the only thing left to hope for.
She moves carefully through the remaining tributes, not speaking to anyone but watching them interact with each other. Most of the career district tributes are together, forming a large group to the side of the room. The golden twins - Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa - stand by the District Six horses and cart. Han Solo, the other District Six tribute, Leia Organa’s mentor from the previous year and her rumored lover stands with the twins, chatting to them. He and Leia are interestingly dressed in clothes decorated with roads that map out the veins in their bodies. Leia’s dress is long and white and the roads congregate on her chest, above her heart. Hair is a soft brown, pulled into a ponytail. Beside them, Luke Skywalker of District Nine is especially golden looking with wheat forming a halo around his head. They look so young, barely eighteen the pair of them. Jyn has to move away.
Leia is at Luke’s side, pushing his blade away from his chest and holding out instead what appear to be a handful of berries. In the back of Jyn’s mind she recalls the death of another tribute, just a few hours ago, the corpses’ lips stained purple.
‘We’ll die together,’ says Leia, holding her brothers hand. 'I won’t let you die alone. Not now.’ Then in unison they bring the berries to their lips - Jyn watches, gripping the arms of her chair –
'Stop!’ calls Orson Krennic overhead. His voice is almost frantic. 'Stop! Ah, I now present to you - the dual winners of the 74th annual hunger games!’
There’s only one other tribute not taking part in the socializing. The male from District One stands apart by the small table laid out with food and drink, sipping a glass of water besides a tall avox. Jyn watches absently as he puts the drink down and wipes his mouth, his fingers fluttering oddly by his cheek. The avox takes the cup and backs away, pushing through a door that leads to the training center and the tributes quarters. The tribute stays facing the closed door for a moment and Jyn gazes at him, then he turns and begins to move towards his chariot. Young, a little older than she is but young still - twenty-three years old. With dark hair and dark eyes, dressed in a simple suit that glints a deep red when it catches the light. Cassian Andor.
+
Cassian Andor. Winner of the sixty eighth hunger games. Cassian Andor - known for being quick witted and sly; he’d survived by falling in with the careers, as was expected, and then killed them during their sleep after most of the other tributes had been disposed of. At the time, Jyn had found his tactics despicable, cowardly even. But that was before she’d entered the arena herself. Now when she looks up at him again from her chariot, she feels almost nothing except a steady certainty that if anyone is going to walk out of this alive, it’s him.
The horses start to move. Chirrut, standing beside her, faces forwards and allows the normal tilt of his lips to be smoothed away. He looks empty without it. Jyn follows his lead, smearing all emotion off her face and gazing blankly ahead, ignoring the crowd. Gripping Chirrut’s hand tightly in her own. When she catches sight of the giant screen projecting images of the tributes, she’s pleased to see how…nothing she appears. She is memorably unmemorable. Another slab of meat in the Empire’s games.
Bodhi will not survive long now, she thinks, but he won’t let himself be forgotten.
+
'Do we have a strategy for…anything?’ Jyn asks over breakfast. They have no mentor – District Ten only ever scraped together two victors, so they’re in charge of themselves. In a way they are both each other’s tribute and mentor. It’s far less painful this way, because unlike the other tributes she looked after Chirrut knows the Empire. He’s played this game before. Now he puts his glass down on the table and breathes in deeply, considering.
'Do you want a strategy?’
Jyn shrugs. 'It’d feel weird not to have one.’ It’d feel like she’d given up. She hasn’t given up. Jyn isn’t sure she could if she wanted to. What she has done is accepted her fate – that she’ll be killed in the 75th hunger games. But she doesn’t need to broadcast that fact to the whole country. 'Maybe we can discuss it with our allies at training.’ She means Baze, and Chirrut knows that, but Nails doesn’t.
'That’s very smart,’ Nails says, nodding foolishly. 'Allies in a game like this could mean the difference between life and death.’
Jyn never learnt the woman’s real name. Her last stand, she’s decided, is that she’s never going to. Chirrut smiles gently and raises his glass to his lips.
+
Of the twenty-four tributes, exactly half fail to appear at training on the first day. The golden twins and Solo are there, as well as Baze. District Two, District Eleven, the female tribute from District Four and Cassian Andor are also gathered around the doors to the training hall when they open at 10 o'clock. The head trainer, a man with another name Jyn won’t learn (but this time not out of defiance; she just wasn’t listening when he introduced himself) gives a quick rundown of the day’s activities – as if every person gathered in the room hasn’t had the events leading up to their game branded into their minds forever. Jyn remembers standing in-front of the door in preparation for her first game. Codo had been beside her. When the doors opened she went straight for the edible plants test and didn’t move until she’d achieved the highest score. In her game the knowledge was useless, but it was always better to be safe than sorry.
This time she moves to the knot tying station. It’s one she barely looked at before, but now it seems like a good place to start. The instructor is halfway through explaining a simple knot when Luke Skywalker steps beside Jyn and picks up his own piece of rope. He smells like earth and honey. Jyn thinks that the Empire could send him to shower as many times as they wanted, they’d never get that scent off his skin.
The instructor nods at him and tugs on her own demonstration knot. It slides easily back into a length of rope.
'Simple but strong,’ says the instructor. 'The square knot is one that will hold.’
Jyn stands there with Luke Skywalker in silence, working to perfect her own knot for a good half an hour. When Jyn is satisfied, she replaces the rope on the table and moves to a different station. The other twin, Leia Organa is with the camouflage instructor, attempting to replicate a pattern of moss on her skin. Jyn joins her. Leia offers a small smile.
'Jyn Erso,’ she says. Her voice is strong.
'Leia Organa,’ Jyn supplies. She watches the instructor for a moment, wondering what the young woman by her side is feeling. Is she sad? Terrified? Tiredly resigned to her fate? Or burning with the same fire that Jyn saw on her face the night she and her brother vowed to die together rather than kill one another.
Leia Organa is one to watch out for.
She moves through the rest of the stations slowly, joined by various tributes throughout the day. Baze shoots practice bullets into the target dummy’s left eye for two minutes without wavering. Han Solo scales his climbing rope a little faster than Jyn does and when they both hit the floor, he looks vaguely smug about it. Jyn bites her lip, trying not to smirk. Just because she’s ready to die doesn’t mean that when the time comes she won’t be ready to kill, too, and making any attachments this late in the game is more foolish than Jyn will allow herself to be. Except for her quietly blooming friendship with Bodhi. But she feels that doesn’t count. After the opening ceremonies, his days are just as numbered as hers are - and more importantly he isn’t going to be joining her in the arena.
In the final half an hour before lunch she finds herself moving towards the hand-to-hand combat station. Her mind is tired. She doesn’t want to think anymore. At the trainer’s instructions, she pulls off the jumpsuit she’s wearing and steps onto the small ring in her undergarments. A white sleeveless top that doesn’t hide the black tally marks on her inner forearm, and tight fitting shorts made of black lycra. She’s stretching her arms above her head when he joins her, wearing the same white top and black pants. Cassian Andor. She lets her arms dangle down at her sides, gazing at him. His eyes meet hers, shift away again.
‘You have thirty minutes on the clock. No drawing blood. First to yield loses.’
Jyn breathes in, and out.
'And begin!’ calls the trainer. Jyn rushes Cassian. With a thrill that travels all the way down her spine, she can feel her mind closing off, allowing years of muscle memory to take over instead. For the next few minutes everything is a blur. Jyn hooks her leg between Cassian’s own and he stumbles.
He pushes her to the ground, pinning an arm across her chest.
She knees upwards.
He dodges.
They don’t fight for the full thirty minutes; they barely skim fifteen before it’s made clear they are evenly matched. The match ends with Jyn’s legs locked around Cassian’s neck, his hands on her ankles. His skin it hot against hers. Jyn moves back from Cassian, breathing heavily. He’s looking at her. His expression is trademark blank, a perfect mask except for the beads of sweat on his temple. Jyn flicks an eyebrow up at him, leans down to pull him up. There’s a long moment before he takes her hand. The motion of helping him to his feet brings them close again, and for a second Jyn almost says something. Instead she turns and wanders off to find Chirrut.
+
The next two days of training pass in much the same way. Similar to the opening ceremony, there is a sense of comradery between the tributes, as well as a sense of betrayal. Jyn finds herself hoping both dissipate before the games begin or she might do something stupid like try to protect the other tributes. And in a game with only one winner, sticking your neck out for anyone else is at best pointless.
Lunches are rowdy, the tributes discuss their private sessions with the game makers like it’s an in-joke between the twenty-four of them. Which, one could argue, it is.
‘You could just stare at the judges for the full quarter of an hour,’ Jyn tells Baze on the second day. 'You’re pretty scary.’
'I might say the same about you.’
'Maybe I’ll walk around a few times without bumping into any of the equipment,’ Chirrut says mildly. 'That’s generally enough to impress most of the people I meet.’ Jyn smirks into her food. It would be easy to assume that after a game like Chirrut’s people would have learnt to stop underestimating him. When the tributes he had gone up against in his own game had taken one look at his pale eyes and deemed him as good as dead with or without their help, they had effectively lost right then and there. But one victory and thirty-two years later he still walks into a room and people hold their breath like he’s going to careen into a wall at any second.
'These scores are irrelevant anyway,’ Jyn says. She digs her knife into a potato. 'It’s not like a four is going to get in the way of legions of dedicated Capital fans.’
'Haven’t got any,’ Baze grunts.
'Your reputation carries you along pretty well though.’
'Maybe you could preach to the game makers.’ Baze nudges Chirrut in a way that means they’re holding hands under the table again and he can’t give it as much heft as he’d like. Chirrut shrugs innocently.
'You never know what might happen.’
'I know what won’t happen.’
Jyn fills her mouth with vegetables and glances around the lunch room. Cassian Andor is, again, alone. Or at least he isn’t in the company of any other tributes. The avox from the first day is back at his side, standing by the table. Cassian offers his plate to the avox and Jyn frowns. It isn’t unheard of for Capital folk – and only very wealthy ones at that – to have several avoxes who attended to them personally rather than working as convenient pieces of furniture for large workplaces or hotels. But for a tribute? Avoxes aren’t allowed in the districts. Maybe Cassian Andor just found himself a particularly loyal avox that was assigned to his district. Maybe he enjoys the power he has over them. If an avox is given a task, they can’t refuse. They must see it through to completion. So technically he could have requested to be followed everywhere and have the tall avox constantly at his beck and call. Perhaps. Perhaps. Jyn thinks about his eyes, his soft face. It had come very close to hers several times during their fight. Cassian Andor is another puzzle Jyn doesn’t have the time or the means to figure out.
+
That night she and Bodhi gather in the large District Ten living room with Chirrut to watch the other tributes’ games. Partly out of curiosity, partly to know what to expect when she reaches the arena. They sit on the couch and Jyn allows herself a small luxury, pouring out a mug of hot chocolate. She wraps her hands around it and inhales deeply.
'Should we start?’ Bodhi asks, looking at the tapes stacked on the table in front of them. Jyn nods.
'I’ve already seen Chirrut’s and Baze’s,’ she says. Bodhi slides forwards to remove them from the pile. ‘I hardly plan on taking either of them in a fight, anyway.’
Chirrut, sitting on Bodhi’s other side, laughs softly.
'Should we go in order of districts then?’ Bodhi picks up the first tape case on the pile and waggles it in Jyn’s direction. She takes a sip of the hot chocolate.
'Why not?’
The video begins right from the Reaping, and Jyn realizes whose game it is instantly. Fifteen years old now, but still with the same eyes. She feels she shouldn’t be surprised as she watches Cassian Andor move onto the stage, along with the other tribute from his district - a seventeen-year-old called Pendra Siliu. District One. He has none of the quiet calculation of the Cassian Andor she fought with. This Cassian is all elbows jutting through skin, hair falling in his eyes, his fists clenched and his gaze darting as the ceremony continues.
The video skims over the days of preparation, showing clips of the tributes practicing in the training hall, the opening ceremony. After his private session, Cassian is awarded an eight, which is good but somehow less than Jyn expects. The only thing that is shown in full is his interview. Sitting in a deep blue suit, Cassian comes across as charming and forgettable. There’s something about him - the way he holds himself, his expression maybe - that culminates in an entirely unmemorable tribute.
Then the games. His arena is large, a maze with individual paths that remain night or day for the entire week they spend in there. Cassian joins the careers, apparently skilled enough with the crossbow he collected from the cornucopia to be considered an asset. He kills along with the rest of them, but Jyn, leaning towards the screen, realizes two things that had escaped her notice as a child watching the games live. The first thing is Cassian’s reaction post-kill. The rest of the careers whoop, caught in the adrenaline rush of a fight and the euphoria of surviving, and Cassian laughs with them - but his hands shake. Every time he lowers his weapon, another cannon-shot fading into the still air, Cassian clips his crossbow to his back and presses his hands into his legs as they tremble.
The second thing is - for the entirety of the game he does not lift a finger against anyone younger than himself. There weren’t many tributes fourteen and below that year - both tributes from seven were thirteen, the female from four was twelve - and Cassian does not harm any of them. At certain times, it seems as though he goes out of his way to keep them from harm. A misguided feat of kindness if that really is his intention; but kindness none the less. The girl from four almost dies of thirst on the third day, having skipped the cornucopia and chosen to make it to a more sheltered area - foregoing supplies as payment. She is shown lying on the ground in the middle of one of the maze paths when Cassian appears. He holds a finger to his lips, drops his own bottle of water beside her, and vanishes again.
She dies later, struck through the heart by a sharpened vine that cuts across the maze, but it’s a much quicker death than dehydration would have been.
Finally, there’s only Cassian, the careers and a resourceful boy from District Five left. That’s when Cassian makes his move. Watching it now, it’s clear he struck in the nick of time, taking down the career pack before they had time to gather themselves and see him as a threat. Then he and District Five are driven to the center of the maze where, weapons lost, he’s forced to drown the older boy in the lake by the cornucopia. The last shot Jyn sees of Cassian before the tape cuts out is him slumping to the ground and Krennic, his voice the same as ever, announcing cheerfully that Cassian Andor is the winner of the Sixty Eighth Hunger Games.
Jyn swallows the last dregs of her hot chocolate and says nothing.
+
The final training session is half-hearted at best. Fewer tributes show up than on the first day until Jyn is left alone in the training room. Even Chirrut and Baze disappear, Baze shooting her one of his rough smiles before he vanishes. Jyn doesn’t leave. Instead she makes her way around the various stations, familiarizing herself with weapons she’s never used before, because the alternative is going back to her too-fancy quarters and sitting on the too-comfortable couch, watching the minute’s tick by. And she’s never been one for idleness. Eventually she has to be asked to leave so they can prepare the Training Centre for that evening. She does return to her room after that, and steps out onto the balcony.
The air is cold so high up, moving sharply across her face. Goosebumps raise on her arms and shoulders, and she looks out over the Capital until Chirrut appears by her side.
‘Enjoying the view?’ he asks. Jyn says nothing. ‘No, I never much cared for it myself.’
The corner of her lip curls involuntarily, and she follows him inside.
+
Down again at the Training Centre, only six tributes are actually present, the three districts before her own. Jyn waits quietly, sorting through all her options. She could exhibit her new-found skills with a trident. Or paint something. When she’s called into the room, she still has no idea what to show them.
She walks in, closing the door behind her, and turns to face them. They’re gathered around a table of food. Orson Krennic, the head game maker, and the rest of his peers. A line of men who have spent the past few months brainstorming creative and entertaining ways to end her life.
'Ah, Jyn,’ Krennic says. Like he knows her. He leans forwards. 'Before we begin I’d just like to say on Galen’s behalf that he’s sorry he can’t be here right now. Your father has important work that needs his attention, but he hopes the force is with you.’ Then he nods and sits back, leaving Jyn to drown in the centre of the room alone.
+
Chirrut finds her on the floor of her bedroom. She knows because his arms encircle her, lifting her up. She blinks, trying to make sense of her surroundings. The carpet under her hands is in shreds. They’re in their quarters. Of course they are. But how did she get there?
That seems vastly less important than what she has to say, what she has to tell Chirrut right now or she’ll undoubtedly do something weak and stupid like cry.
'He’s here,’ she says. Chirrut deposits her onto the bed and then retreats to the seat beside it, his face turned to the ground. 'My - Galen. Galen is here.’ For a moment Jyn wonders if that means Saw Gerrera is also here, hiding, ready to be revealed at just the right moment to cut her down. She curls her hands into fists and digs the nails into her palm. My mother is dead. My father is as good as dead. My mother is dead. My father is as good as dead. How many times had she repeated those words, like a child’s rhyme, over and over again? And she had dealt with it. Her mother was dead. Her father was as good as dead. She had been done with it for so long and now –
‘Stay here sweetie,’ Lyra Erso is saying. The door had swung shut behind Galen less than five minutes ago, and now Lyra is preparing to disappear too. ‘Stay here. Saw’s coming, he’ll look after you no matter what happens – but you have to stay here, you understand?’
Jyn nods like she does. She doesn’t. She waits a few moments after her mother leaves and then pushes the door open herself and steps out onto the quiet street.
Everyone is asleep. She looks left, right. Searching. Her mother is walking swiftly down the road to where their town meets the fence. Jyn follows. Her palms are warm and damp, her small fingers tingle and in her chest her heart has grown twice in size and is crushing against her windpipe. Lyra turns the corner. So does Jyn.
She stays a few paces behind her mother, moving slowly, keeping to the shadows. She knows she’s being disobedient. She has to keep hidden so no one finds her and tells her to go back to bed. It’s because of this she only rounds the end of the street in time to see the flash, to watch as her mother crumples to the ground. Her father, flanked by Stormtroopers, screams his wife’s name.
'He’s a game maker,’ she spits out. There are seams holding Jyn together that she patched up ten years ago, and now they’re threatening to split. Threatening to spill her everywhere. She looks at Chirrut. Her skin is too hot and too tight; she feels any sudden movement could cause her to bleed out onto the white blankets. 'Chirrut,’ she whispers.
When he says, 'all is as the force wills it,’ it doesn’t feel like a prayer. It feels like a promise.
Jyn grasps the saying with both hands and slips into unconsciousness with the words echoing in her mind. All is as the force wills it.
+
She’s allowed to stay asleep until midday. When Jyn awakens, it’s to the sound of Bodhi knocking on her bedroom door. She pads over to it and pulls it open, not bothering to get dressed first.
'Your score,’ Bodhi says immediately. He pauses, looking at her. 'Do you - they’re replaying the tributes scores on television. Do you -?’
Jyn follows him out into the main room. All the terror and the pain she felt on hearing Galen’s name has receded overnight, leaving her pleasantly numb. Krennic could be lying. It could have been a tactic designed to unhinge her, for whatever reason. Or he could be telling the truth. It doesn’t matter. The Empire has played their last card and now Jyn has nothing left to lose. As she sits in front of the television, the screen blurring slightly before her, the thought circles steadily through her mind. A new mantra.
'Jyn Erso scored nine points.’
I have nothing left to lose.
Bodhi doesn’t ask what Jyn did in her session, which is lucky because it’s little more than a blur. She remembers choosing hand-to-hand combat. Her sparring partner is faceless in her memory, and she attacks without reservation or thought.
Her knuckles have scabs on them now, as she flexes them. She looks away, gazes instead at the table showing all the tributes scores. Baze scored a ten. Chirrut, ten. The golden twins, matching elevens.
Cassian Andor, five.
Jyn blinks.
Five. He scored a five? For a moment the fog that descended across Jyn the previous night recedes, leaving her feeling sharp and bright. Cassian Andor, famously intelligent Cassian Andor scored a five. Why? Could this be an angle he’s taking? She looks across at Bodhi who’s squinting at the screen.
'That is an awfully low score,’ says Nails. She sounds vaguely pleased. Jyn closes her eyes briefly. Cassian’s original ploy was to present as forgettable, not anyone to spare a thought about. That was how he’d survived. Surely he doesn’t think he can pull the same strategy?
Then the television is switched off and Nails gets to her feet in front of Jyn.
'Today is the day of the interviews!’ she says happily. 'So you’ll need to spend the day working out how you’ll present yourself this evening.’
'Ah -’ Bodhi interrupts. 'Actually, ah, we already discussed it.’
'Oh.’ Nails looks between the two of them. 'So you have something worked out for tonight?’
'Yes,’ says Jyn shortly. They haven’t, of course. But she isn’t going to spend the day practicing to win the favour of the Empire. She may be a monkey, but she won’t dance.
'Well then.’ Nails clasps her hands in front of her. 'I suppose the day is yours.’ And she bustles off. Jyn mouths nods a quick ‘thank you,’ to Bodhi, before rushing back to her room. A little over twenty-four hours left. She pulls on something loose and unrestrictive and heads back to the Training Centre.
Then, again, she trains.
+
Her outfit is simple. A dress (the first one she’s worn in a long time) that cuts to her knees and hangs loosely. It’s light and soft and clings to her shoulders, patterned with black and white. Bodhi does her hair so that it curves slightly around her cheeks, her eyes are lined with spangled streaks and sparkles. Looking in the mirror, seeing the almost beautiful creature staring back, Jyn clenches her fists.
She would rather be naked.
All the tributes sit on a raised platform next to the stage where the interviews are held in the order of their districts. Chirrut is beside her. All the other tributes look resplendent and gleaming. They are the Empire’s finest. Points of hope and pride for the districts. And tomorrow they will kill each other without mercy.
The part of her that awoke when the golden twins were reaped whispers what a clever tactic this is. A brilliant ploy to remind the districts that even the tributes, even the very best of them, will fall to brutality and violence. There is no hope, says the Empire. Not even your victors are outside our control.
She ignores it, and tastes bitter saliva in her mouth.
Saw Gerrera would be so disappointed by everything she is now. How passive, how silent. Where are the teeth I gave you? Where is the fire? The skills he imparted upon her in the years after her mother died, while he acted as her guardian. She won the games because of what he made her. And now there’s barely a flicker of that left.
As she reaches the stage, the lights are blinding.
+
‘So, Jyn Erso.’ Fodesinbeed Annodu rests his hands on the arms of his chair and smiles welcomingly at her with two mouths. ‘Welcome back.’
As the host of the Hunger Games, Annodue is privy to all the Empire’s most expensive medical treatments, and it’s obvious he hasn’t bothered to hold back. His head has been removed of all hair, his skin is a light green, but his most striking example of body-modification is the second mouth he gave himself. Now both move in sync, opening so he can speak again. It’s oddly mesmerizing. ‘How are you feeling tonight?’
Jyn presses her lips together and says nothing.
Annodu leans back, looking her up and down. ‘You want to know how I’m feeling, Jyn?’
She doesn’t, but he answers anyway. ‘I’m feeling nostalgic! The last time we were talking you were such a little thing, and now here you are all grown up! Do we remember folks?’ he turns to address the crowd with a good-natured laugh. ‘Who would have thought that delicate little girl would be sitting here in front of me again one day!’ The audience laughs along with him, and Annodu grins at Jyn.
‘I kid, of course. We know you’re no one to be trifled with, huh?’ he winks. Jyn is about to get out of her chair punch Annodu in both his mouths when he says, ‘so. Grown up Miss Erso seems to have a few tattoos now, hm? Why don’t you tell us about them? I’m sure we’re all dying to know.’
Jyn allows herself a sharp smile. This is something she doesn’t mind sharing. She holds out her arm, so the row of small black lines is clearly visible for the cameras. ‘It’s pretty simple,’ she says. ‘Each line represents someone I’ve killed playing your games.’
There’s silence across the room. Annodu, ever unflappable, clears his throat. ‘And your dress!’ he says. ‘That Bodhi Rook is something, isn’t he folks! Why don’t you give us a twirl?’
‘Why don’t you?’ she asks, still smiling that small, sharp smile. It feels brittle in her mouth, like glass. Ready to shatter and draw blood at any moment. Annodu laughs, and the audience does after a moment, a little confused.
‘Come on. Give us a little spin.’
Jyn is about to refuse again, when she catches Bodhi’s eye from across the stage. He’s sitting in the front row. When they make eye contact she sees him swallow and then nod. Jyn grits her teeth. Then she remembers the outfit from the opening ceremony.
Maybe…
She gets to her feet and lifts her arms just slightly above her waist, and spins. She stops after just one, but it seems to have been enough. A real smile is tugging her lips now as she stares down at the dress. What had before been checkered black and white is now softly gradient-ed gold and red. Smooth fabric has become patterned with thousands and thousands of tiny feathers.
There’s a story about an animal the Empire once created, decades ago, during what was referred to as the ‘Clone Wars.’. A bird that could withstand fire attacks from the rebels and drop aerial bombs on the fighters. However, the Empire made a mistake. The bird could survive the attacks – but to do so it had to revert to its infant stage. So instead of being the weapons they were supposed to be, the rebels merely had to deal with fluffy, helpless chicks falling from the sky. Eventually the Empire let them loose in the wild, intending for them to die out, but the rebellion took them on as an insignia. A creature that, in the face of fire, would be reborn stronger than before. A phoenix.
And now Jyn, standing in front of the whole Empire, is a phoenix.