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Like all victors in District One, Palladium had quickly realized that the promises of pride and glory he had always been promised and dreamed of were nothing but lies.
How the promises of riches, honor and love was all just a facade. A lie so ingrained in him and everyone else that they could never even fathom to question it as anything but truth. He, and everyone else were completely unaware of the dark horrors lying within, never becoming aware until it was too late. It’s the most hollow realization of any victor from a career district, one which changes everything as the very foundation of one's core beliefs are forever changed.
Palladium had been no exception as everyone was nothing but lies.
Of course he still got the honor, the glory and the love from the citizens of his district, of course he did. He couldn’t get anything but that as their victor. But what the rest of the district doesn’t know were the hidden truths, and the lies of with their honor and duty emerged from. Their pride was based on a lie, as they were all too unaware of what was going on, as traditions of glory and sacrifice were all perverted and corrupted. Their tradition was not simply that of protecting the weak by sending the strong, and being rewarded by strength and resilience, and protecting the rest by showing bravery and courage. The life of a hero that he was promised from being willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for his district and for its innocents was coated in sin, and based on a lie.
And Palladium had coated his hands in blood, and killed, being just as naive as everyone else, only thinking that he would be worshiped as a hero until the very end. It was what he was made for, after all. He had trained his whole life, it was his destiny to go in, and fight for his district and show love to the Capitol.
Palladium has choked two twelve year olds to death with his bare hands. He has impaled a fourteen year old with a spear right in the center of his chest. He has sliced a fifteen year old’s stomach open with a sword and left her to bleed out with her organs falling out of her body as he moved on to use the same sword to stab a sixteen year old in the back, a sword he had abandoned in his victim as he bled out because it took too much time and effort to pull out back out in the heat of battle. He had snapped an eighteen year old’s neck in the heat of battle while she had tried to lunge at him with a knife to the throat in one of the final confrontations between careers. He had violently lashed, cut and hit everywhere he could at another eighteen year old in a starved pained frenzy between life and death, his own arms stained with blood and shrieking from pain as he was desperate for a last killing blow. He had torn and bit and spit, carved and kicked and finally slashed through the muscle of his throat while he felt a knife in his own side in the final heat of battle. In the end he had made the last kill too, followed by fanfare and celebrations as he had been on the verge of passing out through the aftermath of raw adrenaline.
Palladium has killed seven people inside of the arena.
Killing other children is different from killing the criminals he had needed to practice on. It has been different every single time. Like a sin he can never wash off, yet in the end, he still never regrets spilling the blood, especially when their deaths had guaranteed his survival. He still had a duty and a goal to work towards, and he hadn’t intended to throw any of that aside. His plan had been to go back home, and he had succeeded where most tributes failed.
Each kill had been more intense, more animalistic, more instinctual as the pain and starvation of the games had weakened him, and his natural instincts for survival and making it home had taken over. Each kill had been more frantic and filled with joy, as each cannon had put him closer towards the end, and getting to come back home. Granting him the honor of receiving the glory that he’s worked his entire life for. His birthright. Each kill had gotten him closer to receiving what he had been promised, and the honor that he had always deserved from being such a hard worker, and someone who had truly dedicated his entire life to the Capitol. Each kill had been proof of his strength, and his endurance, and how he had refused to give up.
Palladium had been willing to die for his country. He had been willing to contribute by being the needed sacrifice, but he would have gone down trying, and he would have done his all to prove his honor and his worth, and that he was deserving of the honor. It was an honor to live for Panem, and it was an honor to die for Panem as well, especially when dedicating his entire life for the cause of being a victor.
He had been foolish to think that the arena and the murders would be his challenge, and the life of a victor being the easy part. Now, he’d take the arena again every single day, even if it had broken him irreparably. Back then the anguish and guilt was controllable, it was pushed aside with a goal, and the knowledge that the games were a simple part of life, and that these other tributes needed to die anyway. The game would never end with more than one winner, and if everyone else had to die, why couldn’t he be the victor? The end result would be the same anyway, as grim as it was, but it was a necessary tradition. That he could live with, even spilling the blood of children, because it’s not his fault that other districts didn’t put the resources into training their strong to save their weak like they do in One, Two and Four. It’s not his fault that others didn’t have the consideration to be the sacrifices to make sure no one unprepared went into the arena. It wasn’t his fault the other districtics didn’t do their duty towards their citizens when he had done his. The games were what he was made for.
And the aftermath was everything he wasn’t.
From the very beginning, he had been unlucky to be introduced to the new hidden way of life. Of the resignation, of the constant perfect masks, and of now being a puppet, instead of being a person. To the outside, he was a proud and smiling victor showing pride and strength and a strong spirit. To the ones who knew, to the other victors, they knew the truth, and knew that he was nothing more than a slave in a gold plated house. Nothing but a bird with clipped wings in a gilded cage kept for show, a bird that would never have a true taste of freedom.
Palladium spends his life having to follow a tight leash. The president had been evidently clear from their very first meeting so very soon after his ceremony after the games. He had made it clear what was expected of him, and the consequences that would transpire if he said no.
Palladium would be a fool if he didn’t take the president's threats seriously. He would be a fool if he ever endangered his family. And he would be a fool if he had somehow lashed onto a false sense of hope which was no longer there. All he could do was accept his fate, knowing that there is no other option, and that any choice in the matter was nothing more than an illusion unless he wanted to experience pain and loss.
He had known from that moment what no one else knew. Being a victor didn’t give you glory, not really. Sure, it provided the district with food and happiness and celebration, but he was no longer living, not really. His autonomy had been stripped away from him the moment he had been declared as the only tribute left with a still beating heart, transitioning from tribute to victor, and into a lifetime of secret slavery. Of course his youth only makes him all the more sought after.
Palladium had always known that he was attractive, and as it turned out, the Capitol agreed. One always made it a point to send the pretty ones, it was part of their pride, of their trade. The makers of luxury items had to be the most beautiful, most prideful, the ones who carry themselves high. And in return, they were the most popular to the Capitol. And Palladium was a popular victor, one who was already remembered from his raw power and bloodlust in the games. He’s sought after, more often than most others, as his life becomes nothing more than being a toy in a game he could not win. He's in high demand throughout the years as this because a cursed routine more nights than not.
He’s alone in his own hell, and he already knows the price he would have to pay if his tongue would ever slip. No one is ever allowed to know, no matter how close. It’s impossible to protect anyway, when his lips are forcibly sealed with the threat of the lives of his loved ones.
With time passing, it eats at him.
Seeing Panache eats him. Panache, who had been born specifically with the aspiration to one day compete in the quell. With the aspiration to bring even more honor to the family, giving them two victors instead of one. Their family had sent many tributes, so far only he had made it out, but many cousins had made it close. Out of all of them, Panache seems to have a shot, and the determination, and it makes Palladium feel so much worse as he sees Panache dedicate his life, and throw himself into training with the same intensity that he once had. He sees Panache’s aspirations, he sees that he can’t consider any other life than entering the quell and bringing home glory.
Whenever Palladium hears him speak about it, whenever he hears Panache smile and confidently boast about how he will one day be crowned the victor of the second quarter quell, and then be honored even more than his cousin because of his feats, Palladium feels his heart break in two. Because if Panache wins, Palladium knows exactly what kind of hell awaits him, and he would not be able to protect him.
When he sees him, all he is reminded of is his youthful spirit before it had been crushed, and before he had made aware. Deep down he hopes that if Panache goes into that arena, that he will never come out. Secretly wishing for his death is an act of love stronger than Panache would ever realize.