Happy Friday, my friends, and welcome to the first of a very exciting new series of posts! This is the first of the Panem et Princesses one-shot writing projects. Someday maybe they’ll become full-length short stories, but for now, they basically turned out as single-scene glorified headcanon. That being said, they were super fun to write, and I hope you’ll consider joining my email list so you can read each one as it comes out. Hope you enjoy!
Aurora and the Poisoned Crown
Aurora Rose is the reluctant darling of District One and stepdaughter of the Mayor. Forced to compete in the Pageant of Valor, she and her partner Phillip were “selected” to volunteer for this year’s Hunger Games. On the night their victory was announced, however, Aurora’s life was threatened as a poisoned crown placed her in a months-long coma. Now, Aurora must come to terms with her stepfather’s betrayal, her mother’s secrets, and her own future.
A sneak peak…
It snowed sugar on the morning I was born. At least, that’s what my mother used to say. She would go on and on about the impossibility of snow so late in the season, exclaiming that the flakes taste sweet on your tongue and glowed, crystalline, in the dawn light. She named me Aurora, she said, because my hair seemed to glow with that same golden light, my nose and cheeks pink from the chill in the air. My blue eyes blinked up at her that day, reflecting the sapphire sky. I was a miracle, she told me, just like that snowy day.
She said I was her true love, that we needed nothing in the world but each other, and as long as we were together, nothing could harm us. Then a man came to our house, dressed all in white like the snow outside. Even as he trailed his fingers through my mother’s golden hair, he would glance at me from the corner of his eye, and his gaze was as cold and lifeless as the marble columns that held up the front of our house.
As I grew older, people began to comment on my beauty, saying that I had the same golden hair, ruby lips, and sapphire eyes as my mother. Then they would glance at the man I called Father, their brows wrinkled in confusion. If he really was my father, then why didn’t I have his nose or chin? Everyone knew he wasn’t, but most were too polite to mention it. We weren’t like the outlying districts, after all; we were civilized, almost like the Capitol itself. So rather than making veiled comments about my parentage, my stepfather’s fancy friends would limit themselves to gushing over my exquisite beauty, and if they put a little too much emphasis on how closely I resembled my mother, well, there was nothing she or I could say about it.
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Conclusion
I hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s Panem et Princesses story hook. What would you do if you grew up in District One? I’d love to know!
Happy reading!