#I think in a hunger games au they'd be horribly codependent

[cityandking]

branwen's game was over a decade ago; she was 16 when she was reaped and she's since grown up into the capital's culture of deifying (and destroying) victors. she was a popular thing during her game, just the right amount of wild and just the right amount of tragic (a dead mother, a capital-loyal family, a little brother she dedicated her victory to; the sponsors loved her). she understood instinctually how to play the longer, endless game after her victory and learned how to hide her fractures behind something grinning and gold.

eniko was young when he won, barely 13 and brutal about it. the media played up the underdog angle: an orphan from one of the middling districts, canny and quick and determined to survive at any cost. he was sharp and a little awful in his interviews and sharp and a lot awful in the game itself (which was a wretched one, all rain and dark corners and ugly accidents; and if someone on the gamemaker's committee had something to do with how perfectly it was suited for eniko's skillset, well, no one looked too closely. no one looked too closely at the man's death either—easier to rule it an accident than admit a victor might have taken some kind of vengeance on the man who shaped him for the games.) afterwards, he slipped seamlessly into the capital's mold—he knew how that worked, the playing-along and the promise of safety. he knew how to sleep with one eye open too, which served him best of all (he was still a kid when he met branwen, who took one look at him and decided that she wasn't going to crumble quite yet. he resented the hell out of her for it, until he loved her right back)