Chapter Text
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I do not consent for my writing to be used to train AI. Do not feed this into AI to summarize a review. I acknowledge I don't own the copyright to The Hunger Games. But this fanwork was written by myself, without AI.
This fic explores the Districts, one in each chapter. I hope one day Suzanne Collins writes in-depth about other places in Panem besides Twelve. It is also part of my Hurricane fic series, including Where They Can't Hurt Us (We're Far From The Shallow Now) about Finnick; and the fic Rose White. This fic is set in the original trilogy book/film universe.
Faceclaims include Robin Wright as Amenity Gilding (Gloss and Cashmere's mother). And Cary Elwes as Bespoke Gilding (Gloss and Cashmere's father).
Trigger warning for miscarriage and pregnancy loss in this chapter.
SERIES FACECLAIM MASTERLIST - Brenton Thwaites as the Odairs' son Wade. Mia Carragher as Sequoia Mellark (Katniss and Peeta's daughter). Euan Garrett as Wheatley Mellark (Katniss and Peeta's son). David Henrie as Thunder Hawthorne (Gale's son). Bridget Fonda in "Snow Queen" 2002 as Finnick's 65th Gamemaker. Robin Wright as Amenity Gilding (Gloss and Cashmere's mother). Cary Elwes as Bespoke Gilding (Gloss and Cashmere's father). Kirsty Mitchell in "Barbarians Rising" as Lupercalia Varg (Cato's mother). Dana Delaney in "The Code" as Cornelia (Clove's mother). Kate Mara in "Stone Of Destiny" as Margaret Flanagan. Colin O'Donoghue in "Christina Perri's The Words" and "Carrie Pilby" as Seamus Flanagan. Alex Aiono in "Doogie Kamealoha MD" as Kai. Don DeLuise in "History of the World" as Mags' mentor Commondus. Denise Gough in "Andor" as Hortensia. Tabitha Stevens in "Lair of the Killer Clowns" as Johanna's stylist Ritzy.
"Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutant (Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you)."
- De Vita Caesarum / The Life of the Caesars by Suetonius
CHAPTER 1: DISTRICT ONE
(all that gleams is not gold)
Cashmere Gilding's phone rings.
She lets out a long sigh, leaning across the bed to the side table. "What the hell do you want, Blandus?"
Her pathetic Escort, Blandus, is still hanging on, even though it's been eleven years since Cashmere won the 64th. This year is the upcoming 75th Quarter Quell. She's dreading what Snow will invent for her Tribute kids this time.
"I have a client assignment for you," Blandus says.
In the Games Escorts Association, his type usually continue with their Victors, arranging meetings with Capitolites on Snow's orders. Blandus is no exception. Every single Victor handler is jealous of Finnick's Escort, a woman named Extravaganza. But Blandus still has District One's most glamorous siblings. Gloss and Cashmere turn a strong profit, even if their popularity is starting to wane with Peeta and Katniss on the scene.
"Who?"
"Livia Snow. She wants to watch you with Finnick. Make sure you get a full body treatment. Hair, facial, waxing, everything. Oh, and dye your eyes purple, the paperwork said so specifically."
"Better Finnick than someone else," she says. "Time and place?"
"The Mansion, ten o'clock at night. Don't be late again."
When Cashmere leaves her apartment bedroom overlooking the city, Gloss Gilding is cooking. She is so tired, that she forgets to take her birth control pills.
Her brother has become something of a chef, though the city only cares about his body. District One is a luxury region, after all, with gourmet food and liquor; their parents own a champagne vineyard. The siblings' apartment has an Avox chef, technically. Calliope only cooks if Gloss is busy downtown. People joke Calliope has the easiest Avox job in Panem.
"Want breakfast, Cash?"
Cashmere sits down at the mahogany table. "Yes, for once. I have a long day of beauty treatment." Their mute servant woman Calliope gives real silver utensils to her. "Thank you."
Gloss sets down a tray of croissants, fresh from the oven. "Who ordered you tonight?"
"The First Lady, watching Finnick and I." Cashmere bites into the flakey confection, buttery light. "Manageable as far as requirements go."
Gloss sits next to his sister. "Do you want me to pick you up after?"
She nods. "If you have time, I'd appreciate it."
Cashmere is shown right into the tanning salon as a famous customer. Every inch of her is waxed except her eyelashes, brows, and long golden hair. Cashmere has face masks, exfoliation, acupuncture, collagen for her lips. Butterfly Mutts' stingers into her skin for mild electric shocks. Dying her green eyes to purple is painful, but she has to do it.
Cashmere's dress is made of diamonds and silver sheer fabric. It is see-through, to the point that only the clusters of jewels at her tits and crotch provide any modesty. Everything else is on display. Finnick is waiting for her, in a silver outfit that would make a Capitol pole dancer blush. It's almost perverted wedding outfits for prostitutes. Though if Snow made Cashmere marry someone, Finnick would be the best husband she could find. They have similarities as the fairest Victors in the city. It is openly discussed that Finnick surpasses even Gloss in looks. Finnick and Cashmere are the prized toy playthings of the Capitol.
Finnick gives that famous beautiful smile. Everyone is in love with Odair, and Cashmere is a little, too. "Hello again, Cash." She mourns that his heart is set on Annie Cresta.
"Your eyes look irritated. You okay?"
Cashmere presses a tissue to the corner of her eyes, trying not to smudge her makeup. "I was told to dye my irises. It stings."
A Peacekeeper guard walks over to the Victors. "The First Lady is ready for you."
They are marched to the Presidential Suite. Finnick keeps the squinting Cashmere on track when she starts running into hallway furniture. It was terrifying the first time she had to perform in the Snows' bedroom. But Cashmere is almost used to it now. Still, the suite is more heavily guarded than the Nut in District Two.
Livia Snow is on a chaise-lounge chair, wearing white lingerie that is decades too young for her. She was a fashionista when she married Coriolanus, and desperately tries to cling to her beauty now at eighty-four. She has extensions replacing most of her thin, brittle hair dyed blonde too many times. Her face is waxy from so many fillers, that it makes the slightly botox-touched Cashmere look normal in comparison. Every inch of Livia is stretched and pulled and suctioned. She looks so false that it is unnerving, as if her humanity has been replaced with plastic.
"Come in," Livia purrs. "I was bored with my husband in meetings all day. Entertain me, together, the two of you."
He kisses the back of Livia's hand. "We live to entertain you." Pissing off the First Lady is a death sentence, and they have to play along. Finnick is the best of the best at the Capitol charade.
Finnick takes a condom foil from his pocket. "No!" the First Lady snaps. "I want it to be natural!"
Finnick's peacock act falters, and his blue eyes dart to Cashmere. Most of the time, they can use protection unless someone requests otherwise. Victors have had children before, either with Capitolites, or District lovers from their hometowns. But Victors are careful, not wanting to bring innocent lives into the brutal Panem machine.
"You know how many lovers I have," Finnick says quickly. "I don't want to give Cashmere something dirty, if we do it raw."
"I told you natural, and I expect you to bed her natural!" Livia snaps.
Then Cashmere goes pale. She hasn't taken birth control today. And there's no way Livia will allow medicine to be sent and interrupt her fantasy.
"What is it?" Finnick steps closer to Cashmere.
"I forgot to take birth control," Cashmere hisses.
"What?" Livia is losing her hearing.
"I've always wanted to bang Odair au naturale," Cashmere lies louder.
Finnick kisses Cashmere's neck to whisper, "Then I'll do everything I can, to avoid getting you pregnant."
He puts his hands lightly on his partner's breasts, pretending to touch her. "Gilding, you have the greatest tits in Panem." That isn't a lie, Cashmere knows she is the reigning glamour queen of female Victors.
"Touch her harder than that, Finnick!" Livia orders. "What are you waiting for?"
Voyeurism assignments are the easiest nights, like the days Capitolites only watch a Victor touch themselves without interference. Finnick isn't rough like Brutus, and he doesn't give her bleeding hickies like Enobaria. Finnick treats Cashmere well. No one in the Capitol deserves Odair.
After Cashmere's bare torso is dripping, Livia falls asleep. Cashmere finally opens her sensitive eyes, having kept them closed most of the performance. Finnick leaves the bed, pulling on the silver trousers for some modesty. He brings a towel from the bathroom, and offers it to the naked young woman. "Here."
"Thanks." Cashmere wipes herself clean, and Finnick gives her the dress. It's hard to put on, being sticky and damp. Livia is still asleep, and they aren't allowed to leave until the client dismisses them.
Finnick and Cashmere lay on the President's bed, looking at the painted ceiling. "You're too good, too decent," she tells Finnick. "Coriolanus will use it against you one day."
"I don't want other people to suffer like I do," he says.
"I stopped caring about people a long time ago."
His head lolls on the pillow, the line of his neck divine. "You care about Gloss, though."
Coriolanus Snow himself opens the door. The Victors leap to their feet. "Enjoy your show, my dear?" Coriolanus asks his wife as he wakes her.
"I did." Livia yawns. "But they complained about wanting to use a condom."
Coriolanus' gray gaze turns to steel. "Did they?"
"Oh, it was a fantastic idea to go natural. I loved feeling all of Finnick." Cashmere slaps Finnick's bicep with fake lust, because they have to keep performing.
"You can go," Livia finally says.
But when the exhausted Victors start to leave, Coriolanus feels a lock of Cashmere's mussed hair. "You look as lovely as a rose."
Cashmere escapes with Finnick. Gloss meets them outside with his car. "That took forever," Gloss comments.
"Well, the First Lady fell asleep for almost two hours." Finnick shrugs. "I'm going to dive. See you later." Finnick leaves for the cleansing ritual of swimming in his rooftop infinity pool.
Gloss embraces his sister, and Cashmere lets him. Gloss is the only person she will allow to touch her, outside of shows for Capitolites. "Let's go to the apartment. You should rest."
A month later, Cashmere has never been so thrilled to see blood in her bikini thong. At this point, she's glad that she is healthy enough to have a menstrual cycle. She almost holograms Finnick that the plan worked, but decides not to bother him. He is in District Four with the love of his life.
Cashmere dreams of the first time she was forced to commit incest with her brother. She was only fifteen, a brand new Victor. Antonius had a cameraman recording Cashmere walking in with Gloss. Her brother was seventeen at the time. "Do you know how many people will pay for a tape of Panem's most beautiful siblings?" Antonius said that night.
Cashmere looked at Gloss. "Doing what, exactly?"
"You sleeping with each other."
"Never!" the horrified Cashmere declared.
"I'm not committing incest with my little sister!" Gloss shouted, heading for the door.
Antonius took out a pistol from a hidden nook in his pleasure dungeon, and rammed it under Cashmere's chin. She was a Victor, a strong champion from District One, but she was still a girl at fifteen. "Your options are as follows! First, do what I tell you to do!" Antonius growled. "Second, you refuse and I kill her! Then my Peacekeepers kill your family at the champagne vineyard! 774 Diamond Boulevard North, isn't it?"
Gloss and Cashmere had to do the unspeakable. All while Antonius held the gun to her head, standing over the repulsed siblings. In the end, pretending wasn't enough for Antonius. Neither Gloss or Cashmere climaxed.
When they fled, Cashmere and Gloss each locked themselves in their separate rooms. Cashmere had never hurled so violently in her life.
Cashmere opens her eyes to find the real Gloss opening her bedroom door. "You were shouting 'stop' over and over," he says, worried.
"It was just a nightmare, about..." She can hardly bring herself to say it. "Our first forced appointment together."
"That appointment." His face is solemn. "I never, ever wanted to commit incest with you."
"I never did either." Her voice breaks. "I understand now why you tried to poison me at the Career Academy. The day of the 64th Reaping, so I wouldn't go into the Games."
"It wasn't from malice. I knew you'd win the Games," he says. "And I want to protect you from the Victor's life."
"I should've died before I left the Academy. I just need to be alone right now," she tells him, and he leaves.
When Cashmere wakes herself screaming again, there is another knock at her door. "Go away, Gloss."
But it is Calliope who comes in with a porcelain cup of chamomile tea. The Avox's brown eyes are wide with concern. She hands the teacup to Cashmere. Calliope's fingers sign something, pointing towards the front of the apartment.
"Gloss is gone... with a client?" Cashmere guesses.
Calliope nods. She gestures for her owner to drink. Even though Avoxes are supposed to move only on instruction, Calliope goes to Cashmere's bathroom and returns with a comb. Calliope even sits on the edge of the bed beside the woman she serves.
Cashmere drinks the calming tea, a reminder of District One, as Calliope brushes her hair. "My mother used to comb my hair," Cashmere says quietly.
She looks at Calliope. City dwellers don't treat Avoxes like people, just slave property; lower than even residents from Eleven or Twelve. But Cashmere realizes how young Calliope is. She's about the age of Cashmere herself. Calliope has mousey brown hair and not quite-beautiful face. But she is more gentle than any man in the Capitol.
Calliope hums as she works through tangles in Cashmere's hair. It's one of the only sounds the Avox can still make after her tongue was removed. Calliope once tried to scream when she dropped a scalding hot pan on her foot. The cry was strange and primal, without the tongue to form words in her mouth.
Calliope yawns, given it is one o'clock in the morning. Cashmere sees the root of Calliope's tongue, a scarred stump of the flesh that had once been whole. The Victor doesn't know why the slave is an Avox, what crime she committed to make the Capitol decree that she didn't deserve a voice. Maybe it wasn't a crime. Maybe the Capitol was bored and decided to destroy Calliope. They are capable of anything, if they hurt District children for entertainment.
The slave places the comb on the side table, and goes to the door. "Thank you, Calliope," Cashmere says. She realizes she hasn't said the woman's name in some time.
Calliope looks back with a smile and a nod, before closing the door behind her. The tea helps Cashmere sleep through the rest of the night. It's a rare occurrence.
Heading for Snow's office, Cashmere tries not to show fear.
It has been ages since Coriolanus requested Cashmere, or any other Victor. He arranges victims for his friends, but rarely partakes himself. Today is an exception. Her gown is his signature white, the statement color marking her as the property of him. A mere object. The skirt is entirely made of silk roses, covered in blossoms, and her hair is left simple to cascade long down her back.
She finds Blandus in the office that morning, with florists, General Antonius, and Peacekeepers. The state room is overflowing with white roses. "There's too many flowers," Antonius complains. "The President won't be able to walk around."
"He asked for six hundred roses!" Blandus replies. "And I will give him six hundred roses!"
Only the desk and chair are left bare, a path through the sea of bouquets to the furniture. The client request form had said for the Victor to lay back on the table. Cashmere drapes herself across it, rucking her skirt high and spreading her legs. Her limbs are clad in a white garter belt and sheer white stockings, ending in pointed stilettos.
"The President of Panem!"
Coriolanus walks in with his security. Blandus and the groveling team leave, bowing. "Wait outside," the President says, and Peacekeepers close the door. "Miss Gilding, how good of you to join me."
She forces a rehearsed megawatt smile. "I've been longing to see you." Coriolanus had been her second ever rapist in the long line of depraved abusers. He had told her then that he didn't indulge often, but she was the exception in his botanical greenhouse. Today, he has summoned her again.
He grips her breasts through the gown. "You are here to fulfill my desires, Cashmere."
He kisses her, and she tastes blood from the sores on his mouth. She shudders internally as she leans back to take a condom foil packet from her purse. "Just to be safe-"
He backhands her. "How dare you," he says coldly. Coriolanus is so powerful, he doesn't need to raise his voice.
"Wait, I meant to be safe because I have an STD!" she lies. "I have syphilis!"
He throws the condom into the fireplace, and he grabs her cruelly by the jaw. "You're lying. Now lie back and think of Panem. And your loved ones I could kill, by snapping my fingers."
When he finally collapses into a brocade chair, she is terrified. There was no rubber separating them as a protective barrier. He is so old, his sperm count could be low. Perhaps he is past his prime. She clings to the hope that he can't knock up women any longer.
When Cashmere goes to the car in her ruined gown, Calliope is waiting with the Gildings' Avox driver. "Where's Gloss?" the Victor asks. "Never mind, I can imagine the answer."
Cashmere shakes in the backseat, removing her heels murdering her feet. Calliope goes against Avox protocol, and puts an arm around Cashmere. The Victor lets the voiceless woman comfort her.
Cashmere wakes to her body sending her alarms. She barely makes it to the toilet before she pukes.
She doesn't know why. Did some Capitol food not sit well with her? Is she sick from a strange new drink? Cashmere doesn't mention her illness to Gloss.
But it keeps happening.
She vomits almost daily, before client meetings, and the scheduling conferences with Blandus. She even hurls onto Antonius, the Defense Minister; he punches her stomach during extreme rough sex in his pleasure dungeon, and she retches. Antonius never requests her again. She should be sick on Capitolites more often.
But she hurls during days off at the city apartment, when she isn't even amidst breakdowns or trauma episodes. It happens when she is relaxed too, during brunch with other Victors, and dinners with powerful men.
"I'm calling a doctor," Gloss finally says as he holds Cashmere's hair back from her face. She kneels in a shimmering gold minidress on Flickerman's bathroom tile. They are at Caesar's wild party, music so loud that it shakes the building. She can hardly hear her brother. "I saw Dr. Apollinaris at the bar, he loves working on you."
"Yeah, he loves looking at me naked on his surgery table, and sculpting my face," Cashmere retorts. "His specialty is plastic surgery, not... this." Nerves spread through her entire body.
"What are you talking about?"
"Gloss..." She draws a trembling breath. "I need you to get a pregnancy test."
He stares at her. "What?"
"I think I'm knocked up."
"Someone will see me buying the test!" Gloss protests. "Photos will be all over the news before you can blink!" Then his eyes brighten. "Calliope can buy it! No one pays attention to Avoxes!"
Gloss leaves before Cashmere can answer. She's too ill to stop him, but it's not a half-bad idea. But if a Peacekeeper catches Calliope... The bathroom door is left ajar, and Cashmere sees Finnick partying with Enobaria. Then Prisca plants a hand on Finnick's ass. The retired aging woman is infamous in the city, as the 65th Gamemaker who first raped the underage Finnick at his Victor's Gala.
Odair glances at Cashmere, but she shakes her head. She wants privacy, something secret for once in her life.
Gloss returns, closing the door to block out the world. "It shouldn't be long." He offers a hand, and Cashmere takes it gratefully. "You really think you're pregnant?"
"I skipped a period, I'm sick all the time. And I was with men very recently who didn't wear condoms."
Gloss looks up. "Who?"
Calliope walks in just then, and slips a pregnancy test to Cashmere. As the door swings shut, Calliope is seen standing guard outside the bathroom.
Gloss helps his lightheaded sister upright. "With all the Capitol's technology," she says. "You'd think they'd invent better tests than peeing on a stick."
Gloss turns away. Cashmere hikes her gold miniskirt. "It's not like you haven't seen every inch of me before," she says dryly.
He keeps staring at the wall. "I don't actually want to see you half-naked, thank you very much."
She re-adjusts her dress, and places the stick in the cup. "And now we wait. You can look."
"So who didn't use rubber?" Gloss turns. "Wasn't it Finnick?"
"Livia forbade him and I to use protection, yes. But it can't be Finnick's baby, our appointment was six months ago. I only skipped this month's period." Cashmere pauses. "I wish to Panem it was his kid. Finnick would be a greater father than Coriolanus ever could be." She thinks of Coriolanus' legitimate son, Martius Snow. The man fears his dictator father, even while Coriolanus' three-year-old granddaughter Rosalba is spoiled.
Gloss stares at her. "Are you having Snow's child?"
"I think I am." The timer goes off, and there is a plus sign on the test. "It's positive."
Tears spill down her face. She crumples to the floor, leaning against the wall, and pulling her knees to her chest. Gloss sits next her, and puts an arm around her. "What the hell do I do?" Cashmere sobs to her brother.
She hasn't cried in a long time, but she isn't Lyme or Enobaria. Cashmere is still capable of emotions, and this has pushed her to her limit.
"We'll face this together, and I'll help raise the baby as their uncle," Gloss promises as he holds her. She leans into his embrace, which she doesn't do with anyone else on earth. But it is in a chaste, familial way, and nothing more. "I'll never leave you, Cash."
Gloss convinces their Escort that Cashmere has the flu. And the Gildings are finally allowed to go to District One.
Cashmere has a slight, hardly noticeable bump that she can hide. She is still afraid on the train that someone will notice, and wraps herself in a loose pink sweater made of her namesake luxury wool. Cashmere wishes she could buy a hovercraft to escape the city even faster. But Snow bans private plane ownership.
The sunlit hills of One soothes Cashmere's corroded soul. She feels like a broken mirror, goldleaf peeling and glass cracked. Still beautiful, but fractured. Trying to hide emerging wrinkles, their parents greet them warmly at the train station. Amenity Gilding and Bespoke Gilding passed tanned beauty and golden hair to their children.
"Welcome home, darling!" Their mother Amenity embraces her daughter. The parents believe their children enjoy life in the megalopolis. Gloss and Cashmere feed lies that they are happy to sleep around in the Capitol. It is their way of protecting Bespoke and Amenity. The siblings will do anything to defend their father and mother.
"What's wrong?" Bespoke asks. Their father notices the panic in Cashmere's eyes.
Cashmere shakes her head. "Not here."
"Let's talk in private," Gloss says.
The family strolls outside in their champage vineyards. The lush grape vines wind around fences, and Bespoke has even dismissed the farm workers for the day at Gloss' request. There's a slight chance no one can hear them outdoors. The grand farmhouse, and the pointless Victors' Village homes, are undoubtedly tapped.
Cashmere finds the courage to speak. The words require more bravery than fighting in the Games ever did. "I'm pregnant. And I think the father is Coriolanus Snow."
Amenity stares at her. "Pregnant?"
"Honestly, Cash, what are you thinking?" Bespoke says. "Your head has been turned by the Capitol!"
"A bit of fun is one thing!" Amenity adds. "But being this careless? You're smarter than that!"
"Snow wouldn't use rubber!" Cashmere shoots back. The scolding about her so-called promiscuous ways is too much. As if she asked to be sex trafficked. Never fighting back, to protect the very same parents judging her. "I couldn't refuse-"
Before Cashmere spills too many secrets, Gloss steps in. "Don't shout at her! She took three tests, all came back positive. This is reality, and we need to support her."
Amenity puts a hand on her daughter's swell. "Sweet goddess Hera, you're really expecting. We're having a grandchild."
Cashmere moves back, hiding her bump with her sweater again. "I'm giving up the baby, Mother. Coriolanus can never know they exist."
"Surely the President deserves to know that he will have another child," Bespoke says.
Cashmere is fragile with fear, and she's grateful that Gloss speaks instead. "We can't smear Coriolanus' name, that he was unfaithful to the First Lady," her brother invents. "Cashmere has decided to keep it a secret from the world."
"No one can know." Cashmere clutches both her parents' hands. "Swear that you won't tell a soul. Promise me!"
"We promise," Bespoke says.
"I swear." Amenity blinks back tears. "I just want to meet our first grandchild."
Bespoke sighs. "Where are you giving up the baby?"
"Not the Capitol, someone will find them." Cashmere gnaws at her lip. "Maybe here in One, but that might be too obvious. Hell, even District Eleven or District Twelve. No one would think to look there."
"What about Two?" Gloss suggests. "There's Peacekeeper bastards coming out of the woodwork. We can write a note that the kid was fathered by an absent soldier."
"Not a bad idea. But travel between Districts isn't really possible," Bespoke points out.
Cashmere raises her chin. "I am Cashmere Gilding, I can find a way!"
"I'll contact Lyme or Enobaria," Gloss says. "Brutus talks too much when he's drunk. But they can keep a secret, especially Lyme."
Amenity's eyes are bright with ideas. "There's mountain cabins all over Two. We can have the birth there, someone else can take the baby to an orphanage."
"We?" Cashmere says.
"You can't exactly go to a hospital, can you? We'll pay a midwife to be descreet. Or I can deliver the child myself."
Cashmere unwillingly answers Blandus' call demanding to know where she is.
"The doctor says I have syphilis," she lies. "I can't meet clients, and I can't Mentor for the 75th." There is no universe where she will be able to hide pregnancy on the sidelines of the Games. The Quarter Quell announcement is soon, not long before the Reaping. She will be on camera constantly if she guides Tributes to whatever new horror Plutarch Heavensbee invents. "Gloss can Mentor solo this year."
"You're just getting out of your responsibilities," Blandus complains.
"I have a fucking STD, Blandus!" she shoots back. "I can tell the Games Escorts Association that you knowingly spread syphilis across the Capitol by pimping me! Want to get banned for life as an Escort?" He hangs up without responding.
Amenity goes on a spending spree for days. Cashmere knows her mother has always been a consumerist shopaholic. But she is gone for ages.
Cashmere is tired all the time. One afternoon, she wakes to finds Amenity in one of the many guest rooms. There is a crib halfway built, and plush Tribute Parade toy horses. Amenity is folding a small mountain of baby clothes in what has become the nursery.
"Mother, what the hell? You realize there can't be evidence that the kid exists? We have to return this!"
"I might not have a future with the child. But I have to do something." Amenity sniffs. "I've always wanted grandchildren. What kind of a grandmother would I be if I didn't buy a onesie? For the day you have to send the baby to the orphanage?"
Cashmere sobers. She knows this is hard for Amenity, as if it isn't destroying Cashmere. The young woman goes to the stacks of baby clothes. "The kid can't have a hundred outfits covered in gold sparkles. It's too noticeable."
"Then pick the one you like. I bought clothes for boys and girls, since we don't know the gender yet."
"I have a feeling it's a girl," Cashmere admits, and her mother nearly swoons. Cashmere sorts through clothes in pink, yellow, sapphire, ruby, with gold embroidery or lavender lace. She finds a deep violet-purple outfit, warm and simple, easy to miss in the shadows. They can't have Two's soldiers finding the newborn before the orphanage does. "I like this one."
"And I found a cashmere blanket to keep her warm. I thought it was fitting."
Cashmere stares, appalled, at the cream blanket which Amenity offers. She tears it from her mother's hands. "This is like writing on the kid's forehead that she's mine! Being this obvious is dangerous!"
Leaving indignantly, Cashmere pauses at the front door, ripping off a corner and hiding the fabric in her pocket. She marches out to the vineyard's bonfire, where workers toss withered stems and branches. Cashmere throws the rest of the cashmere blanket on the burn pile, watching it go up in flames. This is how she protects her secret daughter.
That warm night, Cashmere sits in a chair on the porch, gazing at the stars over the fields. Bespoke joins her. Amenity and Gloss are cooking together in the kitchen behind them. "If things were different," her father says in a gentle tone. "Would you want to keep the baby?"
Tears well in Cashmere's eyes. She can't answer. "Yes. If the Games didn't exist, if we lived in a better world. I'd want to keep Marigold."
"Are you going to name her Marigold?" Gloss says. He is listening nearby with Amenity.
Cashmere nods. "Privately. District Two will give her some military name, Julia or Drusilla." The name Albina appears in her thoughts, but she can't say it aloud. "But she will always be Marigold to my heart."
She sighs. "There's a part of me, wishing I could have a normal life as a mother. To be there for every moment. Hold my child forever when she's born, never imagining giving her away. Seeing her walk and run in the champagne fields." Taking her child to the Capitol's evil is not even on her mind. "Going to the first day of school, never explaining what the Games are. Having her safe with me. Loving her until the end of time."
She swipes at the tear that falls. Bespoke puts an arm around Cashmere. His other hand brushes her stomach where his granddaughter grows. "And I wish you could have that life with her," he tells Cashmere.
"Snow said to come to the Capitol," Blandus orders on the phone. "Or General Antonius will shoot your parents right in their damn house. In front of you."
Cashmere tries not to cry when she has to tell her parents. "Gloss and I, we have to go to the Capitol. Tomorrow morning after the Quell announcement."
Bespoke and Amenity embrace their pregnant daughter. Then Bespoke leans down to kiss Cashmere's small bump. Amenity holds the swell where life grows. "Grandmama loves you, Marigold," Amenity whispers as she kisses Cashmere's abdomen, "and Grandpapa loves you."
Bespoke looks at Cashmere. "We love you, Cashmere and Gloss, more than you could know."
Cashmere thinks, I love you more than you could know, to sell my body to shield your breath in your lungs. "I do too" is all she says.
"I'll protect her and my niece in the Capitol," Gloss promises their parents.
"Gloss has always looked after me," Cashmere says.
The night before the Quell news, Cashmere falls asleep quickly.
She dreams of giving birth in some cabin, her father and brother at her side as Amenity catches the baby. Cashmere leaving her daughter at the orphanage's steps. For Panem's sake, if Cashmere sees Marigold (likely called Albina or Julia or Drusilla) as District Two's Tribute in the Games, Cashmere might commit suicide. The dream morphs into a life where her daughter wasn't sired by the dictator, and the mother isn't pimped by the Capitol. Finnick could be the father, loving only Cashmere. Or perhaps she could have a quiet life in One with a handsome young jeweler from her District, showering her in diamonds and asking nothing in return.
Snow appears on the television. Cashmere clings to Gloss' hand to her right, and her mother's fingers to her left. Bespoke holds Gloss' shoulder, supporting his son. "The 75th Quarter Quell will only Reap existing Victors into the Arena," Snow decrees.
Bespoke is shouting and Cashmere can't breathe and Gloss is throwing a chair at the TV. Amenity is questioning how they can do this.
"Because they can!" Cashmere unconsciously puts an arm over her abdomen, stalking to the hallway like a hunted animal. She slams the bedroom door behind her as Gloss' curses echo in the house.
Agony stabs Cashmere, low, and she looks down to see blood gushing down her legs.
Bespoke carries Cashmere out of the house. Gloss drives, because Amenity loses her mind with fear. Cashmere sobs brokenly in her father's arms in the backseat. She's never cried this hard, not even after her first client appointment at fifteen. Bespoke strokes her hair, like he did when she was young and afraid of thunderstorms. "I've got you," Bespoke tells Cashmere as his daughter's blood stains his shirt.
"Save Cashmere!" Bespoke is usually above begging, but he pleads with the nurse. "Heal my little girl, please!"
The Gildings bribe the doctors to change the charts to appendicitis, instead of pregnancy miscarriage. The donation is enough to build a new hospital wing. "Won't that affect the vineyard?" Gloss asks by his sister's hospital bed.
Bespoke's face is resolute. "I don't give a damn about the vineyard."
Blandus walks in, and Cashmere throws the cup of water at his head with a scream. She wishes it was glass, not plastic, to slice open his head. "Get away from me!" she screeches.
"I heard you had appendicitis," her Escort says. The raging Gloss goes between Blandus and the gurney. "I've been sent to make sure you attend the Reaping this morning."
The entire Gilding family helps Cashmere stand in her hospital gown. Amenity calls Uncle Palladium Barker, who brings clothes from the house. "I hope to Panem they don't Reap you with a ruptured organ," Palladium says as their Victor uncle leaves. Gloss shoves Blandus into the corridor, so Cashmere can change. Bespoke has to stop his son from breaking the Escort's neck.
Gloss helps Cashmere stagger from the car. They are immediately surrounded by Peacekeepers. "Be careful, she..." Amenity panics as the parents are forced away. She and Bespoke can't help their children anymore. "She has appendicitis!"
Backstage, Augustus Braun is shocked at how terrible Cashmere looks. Blandus complains that the stiff young woman moves too slow. Palladium trips the Escort; the Victors can't do anything else with so many officers around. Even the stairs behind the scenes are torture. Gloss faithfully helps Cashmere up each step as she shakes like a leaf.
"It hurts like fucking hell," Cashmere gasps.
"I know, I'm here." Gloss keeps her from falling. "Look at the outfit Palladium brought me. I look like I'm wearing a hospital sling as a shirt." The joke elicits a pained laugh from his sister.
When they reach the stage, all eyes are on the pair. Cashmere gathers the marginal strength she still has, and strides with confidence for the cameras. When she stops in line with the others, she grips Gloss' hand like a vise. District One has two living female Victors, the rest having died from old age. Only the fifty-something Desirée remains, along with Cashmere. Desirée might not win, but she will be fine enough in the Quell.
"Gloss Gilding!" Blandus announces.
Gloss has to leave his sister, glancing back at her. Uncle Palladium tries to stabilize his niece.
"Cashmere Gilding!" Blandus says with relish.
Desirée does not offer to go instead. She probably hasn't heard about the so-called burst appendix. "Volunteer, Des, you selfish bitch," Palladium growls when Cashmere has to answer the call. "Mags did for Cresta, because Mags has a heart."
Desirée stays silent.
Cashmere walks forward, with a line of miscarriage blood running down her leg. The high heels only make things worse. But she beams, because that is what Cashmere Gilding is trained to do, smile and bear the pain like a killer doll. Blood has been on her hands, red lipstick on her mouth.
Amenity and Bespoke had been overjoyed when their children were chosen for the 63rd and 64th Games. Now Amenity openly sobs during the 75th Quarter Quell, as her husband struggles against the Peacekeepers. "She has appendicitis!" Bespoke shouts. "You can't take our daughter!"
The second they are out of sight, Gloss lifts Cashmere into his arms and carries her. He takes her straight to her train room, informally belonging to Cashmere after years of Mentoring. Setting her down carefully, Gloss searches his sister's eyes. "Are you okay?"
"No," she says flatly.
Palladium leans through the door. "Guess I'm Mentoring you again. I told Desirée to go to hell."
Blandus barges in. "Wish you had smiled more. Snow will think you aren't happy-" Gloss punches him in the mouth, breaking one of Blandus' teeth.
Cashmere doesn't leave her compartment room. Gloss brings pads, because she refuses to use tampons after a miscarriage. Palladium gives meal trays personally to his niece. They forbid Blandus from entering her train car. She preserves the cashmere blanket corner, careful to keep it from fraying.
The District One team goes into the Tribute Center. It's strange to be Tributes themselves after so long. Finnick laughs with Brutus, and Mags smiles silently. Johanna is arguing with her stylist Ritzy like usual, and Chaff and Haymitch are already buzzed. Haymitch has a gold bangle on his wrist for some reason. As the outliers, Katniss and Peeta take in the mingling Victors who arrive with strong alliances and old friendships.
Blandus slaps Cashmere's sensitive stomach, barely healed, and she cries out in pain. "You need to lose weight if you want sponsors, fat cow!" he laughs.
Gloss tackles Blandus violently to the ground. "I'll fucking kill you!" Gloss growls. "You worthless waste of space!"
"Break it up!" Finnick shouts. He and Enobaria try to pull Gloss off the suffocating Escort. But Gloss punches Blandus over and over and over. Brutus intervenes to stop Gloss, the only thing keeping Blandus alive.
His face bloody, Blandus is taken to a Capitol hospital by Peacekeepers. Gloss and Palladium help Cashmere to the District One quarters. And Calliope is waiting for them.
Innocently, Calliope gestures to Cashmere's abdomen.
For some reason, this is what breaks Cashmere. Not the Reaping rigged by Snow, not Blandus being a pathetic piece of shit. It is the caring, questioning look in another woman's eyes that undoes Cashmere.
"I lost it!" Cashmere screams. Palladium hurries to close the door. "The baby died, I had a miscarriage! Because Snow can't handle not controlling Victors, controlling me!" Cashmere has cried oceans of tears during the pregnancy journey, oh so brief. But now she sees red. Fury pours through her veins.
Gloss tries to take her arm. "Keep your voice down!"
Cashmere pushes him away. "Who cares? The child I kept a secret is dead, so why hide it anymore!" She is hysterical with grief. "I don't even know if Snow was aware I was knocked up! I couldn't protect Marigold even if she was born, and I couldn't protect her inside my womb!"
Cashmere starts throwing anything she can get her hands on. Crystal vases, decorative knick-knacks, coffee table books. Feathers fly from the pillow she rips open. She takes a painting off the wall and smashes it over a chair. Cashmere's knees hit the floor among the luxurious debris. "My child is dead, and I never met her!"
She leans so far that her forehead meets the marble floor. And Cashmere screams with all the rage of a Victor.
Cashmere pushes herself to get back in shape. But it's brutal on her body. Throwing her favorite knives with Gloss is easiest, because it requires the fewest muscles.
"Gloss is making one final dinner, the night before we go into the Arena," Cashmere tells Finnick after training. "We're inviting the old gang. Except the newcomers, Mellark and Everdeen."
"Sure, but I might be late." Something shifts in Finnick's blue eyes, but she's in too much pain to inquire. "I have another meeting right before."
Gloss cooks a storm in the kitchen.
The banquet fills the table. Haymitch, Seven's Blight and Johanna, Three's Wiress and Beetee are noticeably absent, along with both of Four's famous Victors. But in the Center's District One dining room, Enobaria and Brutus compare scars at the table. The two Morphlings, Nash and Anani, get wasted with Seeder and Chaff.
"Did you see Mags anywhere?" Woof asks Cecelia.
"So the rumors are true. You found love with Mags later in life," Cashmere says with envy. "It's been so long since I felt anything, really. That I forgot what happiness looks like."
Finnick walks into the dinner with the other missing Victors. "How dare you start getting high without us?" Johanna jokes bluntly. Now Odair wears Abernathy's bangle.
"Chill out, Mason," Blight sighs. Cashmere manages a faint smile when she sees Mags reach for Woof's wrinkled hand.
Finnick takes a hit to his vein, and passes the morphling syringe to Cashmere. "Here."
She shakes her head. "Not tonight."
"I can't remember the last time you turned down morphling," Finnick comments, perceptive as always.
She looks around the table, to the Victors watching her. "If I tell you, it won't leave this room?" Cashmere announces.
"We promise," Finnick replies.
She thought she was past the heartbreak, but it stabs her again. "The Quarter Quell news gave me a miscarriage."
Everything goes still as the Victors process her words. Even Johanna and Enobaria, the least maternal in the room, are shocked. Mags is crying already.
"I am so sorry," Finnick says honestly. Cashmere can see the wheels in his head turning, calculating the date of their au naturale pairing.
"You weren't the father. Snow was." At Cashmere's words, Finnick is relieved and crushed in the same moment. "And Snow doesn't know the Quell rule change killed his own child." Cashmere wonders if she is actually going insane.
"Holy Panem, Cash," Finnick breathes. "I should've let Gloss take out Blandus."
Johanna leads a toast to curse Snow. Cashmere leans against Gloss. "You would've been a wonderful uncle," Cashmere whispers to her brother. Then Mags walks over to tightly embrace the blonde, holding the young woman.
Each Tribute has to present tokens to the Head Gamemaker. Finnick tosses the gold bangle to Plutarch, who nods and moves on. Cashmere lays down the cashmere blanket corner. "Approved, given it's not a weapon." Plutarch's fingers run over the fabric. "What's the significance?"
Cashmere can't stand watching someone else touch the blanket that would have been wrapped around her child. She takes it quickly, protectively. "A sweater made by my mother."
Cashmere cries prettily during her joint interview with Gloss. She feels sick having to beg her own abusers to sponsor her in the Arena. To "save" her, so they can keep hurting her after the Games. But they need sponsors, and Cashmere is a performer.
At the end of the night, Peeta reveals that Katniss is having a baby.
Cashmere's head whips to look at Katniss, who is surprised as anyone else. There had been a story about a secret wedding. But Cashmere studies Katniss, looking for familiar signs of pregnancy. Cashmere is hit by a wave of her own pain, and Gloss puts a hand on her arm in support.
Cashmere finds Katniss outside the elevator. "Are you actually pregnant?" the blonde woman demands.
"I... yes." Katniss avoids eye contact. She escapes into the elevator with Haymitch and Peeta.
The Gildings return to the quarters on the ground floor of the Tribute Center. "Her chest isn't growing, and she's still flat as a board," Cashmere says. "Still, the girl is seventeen. Her body might show differently than I did."
"I don't believe it's real, it was just a strategy. Never thought you'd care so much about a rival Tribute," Gloss comments.
"I might be a Victor, but I am a woman!" Cashmere declares. "And I was - I am a mother!"
The opening day of the 75th Hunger Games is upon them. Blandus and Palladium trail after the Gildings as they head for the tubes beneath the Arena stadium. "Cashmere, remember, audiences want you to be even more trim this time," Blandus says, setting Cashmere's teeth on edge.
"I was fifteen last time. Panem forbid I look like an adult woman at twenty-six," Cashmere snaps in a biting tone. The blanket fragment is concealed in a pocket over her heart. She had to bribe a Gamemaker stylist to alter Cashmere's uniform.
"Try to workout in the Arena. And another thing-"
"Blandus, come with me. I want to discuss sponsor deals," Gloss interrupts, a dark look in his green eyes. "Cash can go with Palladium."
Grateful, Cashmere watches Gloss leave with their Escort. She wonders how much longer her brother will be alive. Finnick, Brutus, and Enobaria are their strongest rivals. Though Johanna, Katniss, and even the kind, strong Peeta can all hold their own. Everyone else is too weak-willed or too old to pose a threat. The Gildings are the epitome of Careers from District One, with years of muscle and dangerous beauty. Yet this Games is unlike any other.
The Arena is a lake surrounded by jungle. Rising from her tube, Cashmere sees Gloss on a podium. She looks at Enobaria and Brutus, hoping their alliance together is real. But Odair exchanges a nod with Katniss. Finnick isn't joining the Career Pack even though he is from a damn Career District.
Cashmere jumps into the water, gritting her teeth from the pain. Gloss ignores the Cornucopia, and swims towards her instead. He helps his sister onto one of the stone pathways. "Cash?"
"Get the knives!" she tells him.
But Gloss remains at her side. His hands were clean when they parted. For some reason, now there is blood already on Gloss' hands, but he hasn't killed a Tribute yet. The red is streaked and water-logged after swimming. But it clearly has been under his nails before he entered the Arena. "Enobaria is getting your knives, I'm staying with you!"
Gloss shields Cashmere during the Bloodbath. She normally would be ashamed to be treated as weak. She is a Victor in her own right. But Cashmere's body has limits she can't ignore. She bashes in Chaff's head with a rock, and Gloss briefly leaves to get a sword.
The Career Pack meets on the beach after Finnick departs with his alliance. Cashmere hopes she doesn't have to kill him, and that Finnick doesn't have to kill her. "You okay?" Brutus, breathing hard, asks Cashmere.
"Managing," she says. Cashmere's abdomen is on fire, but she can't show weakness in the Bloodbath.
Enobaria gives the set of throwing knives to Cashmere. "Here."
"I killed Blandus for you," Gloss tells his sister. "In the room before I went in the tube."
That explains the blood on his hands. "Which will affect our sponsorship," Cashmere points out.
Gloss laughs bitterly. "What are they going to do, put me in the Arena a third time?"
His sister puts a hand on his arm in gratitude. "Thank you, truly."
"We should go," Brutus says.
They spend the day hunting weaker Tributes. Finnick's alliance stays hidden somewhere in the rainforest. Cashmere finds it hard to keep up with the Career Pack. Enobaria is swift like a mountain goat. But Cashmere clenches her jaw and pushes herself on.
The Career Pack finally stops for the night. Cashmere is so tired, that she doesn't complain when her friends give her a pass on keeping watch. Enobaria stands guard first. Brutus snores a few feet away from the sleeping Gloss. But Cashmere takes out her treasured blanket fabric under the moonlight.
"What's that?" Enobaria asks.
"What I would have wrapped around..." Cashmere tells herself not to say anything else. The cameras are always listening.
"Oh." Enobaria's eyes widen. The fang-toothed Victor from Two is not warm by any means. Brutus has kids and even a grandson, though Enobaria scares away any man who dares to look at her. But Enobaria is still a woman. She reaches out a hand, and Cashmere takes it. "I'm sorry."
Cashmere cries herself to sleep. Then she has a nightmare of Mentoring the twelve-year-old Marigold in the Games when her daughter is the Tribute for District One.
They kill frail Tributes as time passes. Some are downright easy, with how geriatric some of the Tributes are. Cashmere improves when they get a sponsor's jug of fresh water.
"Finnick and Johanna are at the Cornucopia!" Cashmere hisses.
The Career Pack stalks the rival alliance. Gloss slits Wiress' throat, an easy target. Cashmere screams when Katniss' arrow fires into her brother, and Johanna plunges her axe into Gloss' stomach. The axe blade is torn from his body. Brutus and Enobaria enact revenge, and Cashmere holds Gloss on the rocks.
"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you longer." Gloss coughs blood at his lips.
"You did protect me. Thank you for everything," Cashmere says through her tears. The cannon sounds as his eyes fade. "Gloss!"
With a scream of rage, Cashmere takes Gloss' sword to hunt down Katniss. The girl isn't pregnant anyway, and Katniss murdered Cashmere's brother. Cashmere tackles Katniss, the blonde raising the sword for the final blow. And then a familiar trident sinks into Cashmere's chest.
Cashmere looks up at Finnick's blue eyes filled with tears. Katniss crawls out from underneath the dying woman, and Finnick goes to Cashmere. "I'm so desperately sorry," he tells her. "Katniss has to live so Annie lives. But I never wanted to hurt you, Cashmere."
Cashmere doesn't understand, but it hardly matters now. Her ribs are shattered, caving in. But she looks at the sky, knowing every camera is on her. "Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutant," she says bitterly to the abuser who fathered her child. "Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you."
It is a Hurculean effort for her to move, to take the blood-stained cashmere blanket from her uniform. Cashmere looks at her brother. "At least I'll see Gloss again soon," she chokes through her tears. "And finally meet Marigold."
It is the first time she has said her daughter's name on camera. Finnick wipes at his own tears. "Marigold would have been beautiful. Goodbye, Cash." He has the kindness to wait to remove the trident until she dies. To spare her the pain of it being ripped from her body.
Cashmere is dead, her life of suffering at an end. Her body is thrown into the lake by the spinning Cornucopia, bashing her bloody. She floats in the waves, the opposite of beautiful after a lifetime of glamour. But it reveals, symbolically, the effect of the Capitol's depraved abuses.
When the hovercraft raises her from the Arena, the cashmere blanket is still clutched in her cold fingers.
Cashmere wakes in a field of wildflowers. It couldn't be more different than the Capitol. She knows she is dead. But she feels peace that she hasn't felt in her entire existence.
"Didn't take you long to join me."
She turns at Gloss' voice, and he is beside her. They both have skin perfect without blemish, each scar healed. Gloss smiles. "Welcome to the afterlife. No one can hurt us here."
"I suppose we wait for our parents to follow us," Cashmere replies.
"Mama!"
Cashmere gasps when she sees a golden-haired child running towards her. The girl is Marigold Gilding, what she would have been at age six if she had lived. She has blonde curls and Coriolanus' gray eyes. But it is her mother's smile reflecting from Marigold's face.
"Marigold!" Cashmere cries.
"That's her?" Gloss asks.
"Yes, my soul recognizes her!" Cashmere runs, and sweeps her beautiful daughter into her arms.
"I waited for you," Marigold tells her mother.
"All that glisters is not gold—
Often have you heard that told.
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold.
Gilded tombs do worms infold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been enscrolled.
Fare you well, your suit is cold."
- The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
AUTHOR'S NOTE: For Livia's botox later in life, I drew inspiration from Donatella Versace. I know Gloss and Cashmere's deaths are different in canon. But I've always felt Cashmere and Finnick are friends with so many similarities, and it would be heartbreaking if he had to end her life.
I can't believe I have to say this. Despite what some fanon says, I am absolutely opposed to Gloss and Cashmere being incestuous, by their own choice. Ever. Now, the Capitol is the Capitol. But in my fics, they are NOT attracted to each other in normal life.