Slate Skylar

## Childhood

Beryl Flint gave birth to a healthy baby boy and named him Slate. Beryl had been homeless her whole life, and after she had her son, things were no different. Sometimes she told her baby boy foggy stories dredged up from a memory covered in morphling. I once had the love of a Peacekeeper, she told her infant son, I once had a millionaire in my bed.

If I could catch the eye of powerful men, you could do something with your life too, she’d tell him before dropping off to a drug-induced sleep.

Slate spent most of his time in the homes of the neighborhood women. Those who had recently had children and had a strong enough milk supply fed him. They kept him from crawling into the roads when the Peacekeeper vans drove by. He was as healthy as a child in Twelve could be; he was skinny, cried rarely, and didn’t quite know which of the women who held him was called Mom.

Beryl moved from place to place, mostly squatting in homes that had been foreclosed upon but not yet sold or occupied. Run-ins with Peacekeepers were therefore frequent, and life was hard. She couldn’t work in the mines, her body too ruined by addiction, which had only started when a Capitol doctor came through town and started handing out pills for pain. She sometimes found men willing to pay for her company but her reputation preceded her.

She had lived a tough life. When she was high, she was kind. She played with his hair, told him stories that wandered and twisted and made little sense. She cheered for him and cried when he took his first steps on splintered wood in a one-room house that was not theirs. She said he was her most perfect boy.

But when she went through withdrawal, she was cruel. These were the times Slate doesn’t remember, times his memory’s blocked out, but the body and the heart cannot forget.

The last time Slate saw Beryl he was six years old, gripping the hand of one of the elderly women in the neighborhood. Beryl often disappeared for days or even weeks at a time, but she always came back. It was a few months before he realized that this time would be different, that she was not, in fact, going to return for him. She hadn’t even said goodbye.

The neighbor woman, Misty Skylar, fed and housed him. Misty taught him to read and write. He fell in love with the stories she told and he allowed himself to trust her, to love her, to believe that life could be good like this. He took her last name, discarding his mother’s, though the name that remained on the government record was his real one: Slate Flint. Despite the mothers he would go on to have, he carried the name of the first one with him, stamped in ink.

It was only a few years before Misty Skylar died of a sudden heart attack. Slate watched her take her last breath, helpless to do anything about it.

And so he was on the streets. No one could take him in or spare the resources anymore to help, so he worked odd jobs, camped out in empty houses as his mother had done, and when everything else failed, he begged. Most nights he found a roof to sleep under. Sometimes people would give him food. He learned to hunt and steal what he needed. He traded at the Hob. Independence was his only option. He stayed put, secretly and quietly nursing the idea that someday, his mother might return, and he needed to be there when she did.

At the local school, which he attended sparsely, the kind teacher looked out for him. She brought him lunch and provided him with books. He acted out in class, despite the fact that he was not being forced to stay, but he was smart and excelled in reading. He loved the stories they learned in class and always caught up quickly despite his many absences. He read the books the teacher gave him by lamplight at night in the houses he squatted in, or outside in the rain, squinting, by the light of the moon. It was nice to imagine a life that wasn’t this; a way of being that was more. He discovered a love for writing that matched his love for reading, and wrote stories on scraps of notebook paper. The stories were always about what the world could be, were it not so cruel.

## Adoption

When he was 15, Slate was arrested. He was living in a shack on the edge of town and getting himself in trouble at the Hob. Peacekeeper patrols of the perimeter were getting more intense, so he had to spend more time stealing than hunting. When a Peacekeeper turned his back on a piece of fruit in the square, Slate reached out his hand, grabbed the fruit, and—

This particular Peacekeeper was kinder than most and had seen him around enough. He gave Slate two options: one, he could go to jail, which meant paperwork and processing time spent on him, a petty thief no one cared about. The other option was Hestia Ember.

Hestia gladly took Slate in. He joined her brood of orphans and misfits, and she worked to tame him. To teach him how to feel safe. For the first time since Misty’s death, he had a place to come home to every night. For the first time in his life, he had breakfast, lunch, and dinner, every day, without fail, thanks to Hestia’s Victor salary.

## Time in the Capitol

Hestia brought him to the Tower during the Games so that he could get some work and make money at the coffee shop in the lobby. He wasn’t the best employee, but he learned some skills that Hestia deemed important. For the summer, he snagged an internship at the Capitol Voice, wanting to make connections in the writing and publishing world, even if it was at the trashiest outlet of them all.

There were a few people he liked there, who recognized him as a good writer and editor despite his rough-around-the-edges attitude. He left the internship with a few letters of recommendation and some contacts who told him they’d help him down the line.

## TH3 T0MMYKN0CK3R

A few months after finishing his internship and back in Twelve, Slate assumed the identity of Meta Morphic and published the first issue of TH3 T0MMYKN0CK3R. He and a few friends used the money he’d made at the coffee shop and now, working at the Hob selling trinkets a friend made, to print up some ‘counter culture zines’ that featured jokes about ‘Narcissus Snow,’ poems, comics, and a serialized novella by Meta Morphic. While there were jokes, there were also serious pieces in the zine, as Slate’s increased exposure to the Hunger Games and Capitolites at the Tower had woken him to just how unequal and unjust the system was. TH3 T0MMYKN0CK3R was a way to try to address that.

For the 132nd Games, Slate started at the Tower as a personal assistant to one of the escorts. She paid him an exorbitant amount of money to follow her around and hold things for her. But the point of him being there wasn’t to hold purses and pens. No, he was there to open doors for the zine and expand its readership.

Over the next year, the reach and scope of the zine grew more than he could have imagined. Shortly after 132 started, he met Cress Meadowforge, who agreed to train him – something he considered a precaution, in case the revolution ever needed him. But training soon grew into more, and he’d never have pictured himself with a Career Victor from One, but he’d also have never pictured himself living in an apartment in the Capitol, earning and spending money on tech to put the zine online and on the radio, working with a group of fellow rebels who saw the world in the same way as he did.

Soon he had photography from the Districts, thanks to Alder; Cat and Nano were on the radio keeping the districts updated; the Vox Populi were growing stronger in Eleven. At the same time, for the first time, he was falling in love. Everything had come together, and as the 134th Games approached, he was on top of the world. Perhaps finally, they would all be able to end the Hunger Games forever. He quit his job at the Tower and spent the time between the 133rd and 134th Games traveling between Eleven, Twelve, and the Capitol, seeing Cress, his family, spending some time at the Cache house, and growing his network of rebel-minded people.

## Arrest

And then, in May, Zip Cache was caught with an issue of TH3 T0MMYKN0CK3R in District Three.

His sister, Link, had to think fast. The authorities, seeing Zip with a half-written article, thought he was Meta Morphic, but Link knew the truth.

She told it to save her brother.

Hours later, Peacekeepers had assembled and were marching towards Slate’s apartment in the Capitol. Cress got a call from Lex Sterling with a head’s up, and the two of them frantically began to set fire to everything in the apartment, trying to destroy the evidence. At the last minute, Cress insisted that they escape, and Slate ushered her out the window and down the fire escape first. After she’d stepped out, he closed and locked the window behind her, destroyed a few more things in the apartment, and accepted his arrest, hoping that he’d done enough to save his friends and fellow rebels.

He was taken to prison. At first, they tried to get information out of him, having no shame in beating him, but he was silent. They gave up and threw him in a cell, telling him each day that he was going to be killed the next, or the next, or the next. They would make a spectacle of it, he was sure, and that was the reason for the delay.

Meanwhile Cress, who’d managed to escape, bribed some Peacekeepers in order to visit him in prison. There, she told him that she was pregnant with his child. Horrified and alone after Cress left, Slate spiraled, losing track of the time as he was told again and again that he would be killed soon, soon, soon. He had no idea what day, week, or month it was anymore. All he knew was that Cress would raise their child alone into this horrible world that he’d failed to save.

## Reaping

Very early on the morning of July 15th, they pulled a delirious Slate from his cell, changed his clothes into something nicer, and put him on an express train. He was blindfolded but he could tell from the distance and the route that they were headed to District Twelve. So that was where they would kill him: his home. He had no idea it was Reaping Day, didn’t even know it was July until the wet heat of Twelve pressed in on him. He was pulled out of the train and brought into the Justice Building; he could tell people were already gathered for the spectacle. They pulled the blindfold off him, opened the doors, and he heard a gasp from nearby, a choked cry — Hestia, he’d recognize her voice anywhere. His name was called into the crowd by an escort who didn’t even pretend to read it off a slip of paper. “Slate Flint,” she announced, “will be our first tribute for the 134th Hunger Games.”

## Pre-Arena

For the tribute parade, Slate and his district partner, Mercuria Trout, were dressed in basic miner's garb -- it was intended to be a signal that they were no more than District kids, that they would not be elevated as the others were to a status that made them look anything but District. They would not be given the leg up that the other tributes were given in the parade.

*TW: suicide attempt, gore*

In private training, Slate earned a 9. He had originally intended to do nothing, to walk in and give the Gamemakers a thumbs up, but a Peacekeeper hit him with a baton when he entered the room, and it startled something in him, reminding him of how he'd been treated his whole life. In a rage, he'd shown off several skills: he used a knife to slash through the faces of a line of dummies. He jumped onto the last dummy's shoulders and pulled its head off, kicking it at the wall. He used a sword to slash up the rope ladder, cutting all of the ropes. Then at the archery station, he shot a bulls eye, then grabbed the arrow out of the target, broke it in half, and used the broken end to dig into the dummy's head again and again. Then he gave it a high kick, knocking the stand over. With a knife, he went to the tree station, where there were real trees. He used the knife to help him climb the tree, wrapping his legs around it and shimmying up, scraping up his thighs. Once at the top, he threw the knife at a target and hit another bulls eye. Then, with no time left, he let himself fall from the top of the tree, hoping to die when he landed on the ground. However, the same Peacekeeper from before surged forward and caught him in his arms, not allowing Slate to die.

Just before the interview, Cress begged him to try, to put in an effort to win, and so he went out there and instead of letting Calix ask him questions, he simply spoke about home, talking about Twelve and the people who had raised him: Beryl Flint, Misty Skylar, and Hestia Ember. At the end, he appeared to address Panem, but was truly speaking to his child: “I love you. And I hope to meet you soon.” A signal to Cress that he would try.

The night before the Arena, Cress gave him back his token: a bracelet from Hestia that had been her own token, but which Cress had sealed to protect it, and added a bead of kyanite to match a necklace of her own.

Before he went into the Arena, Cress, Slate, and Miller Brick from District Two devised a plan to hide the baby's parentage by lying and saying that the baby was Miller's. This would protect the child because the government would not know that it had any connection to Slate.

## The Arena

The 134th Arena was a series of three islands with a pirate ship that had been wrecked on an atoll in between two of the islands. The tributes were launched in metal cages above a bright blue sea, surrounding a smaller ship in the shape of a Cornucopia, lodged on a small sandbar. The tributes needed to find the X in the metal bars of the cages which marked a small door that they could open to find the key that would unlock the cages. Slate found his, unlocked it, and after a moment of wavering, finding his allies in the circle, he took a dive into the water and swam toward the Cornucopia.

His main allies were Nettle Berry (D11), Bramble Berry (D11), and Mercuria Trout (D12). Unbeknownst to him, the three of them had conspired with several of his friends outside of the Arena and come up with a plan for the three of them to fight to get Slate out. They would die for him, no matter the cost.

At the Cornucopia, he saw Bramble engaged in a fight, with Buster Minnel (D6) coming up behind her to join the attack. He surged forward and jumped onto Buster's back, using a tattered piece of sail from the ground to choke Buster. When Buster nearly grabbed the sail away, Slate bit his ear off to stop him, and it worked. Buster died.

He and Bramble swam away from the Cornucopia but when they spotted Davy Jones (D4) going through the dead tributes' pockets. They both played dead, floating still in the water, and Davy went through both of their pockets, taking Bramble's token but not realizing they were both still alive.

The alliance of four ended up claiming the shipwreck for most of the Arena. They took turns on watch and shared the food and other gifts they received. Cress sent Slate a notebook and a pen and he used them to write letters to his unborn daughter each day of the Arena.

On the second day, the tributes were all sent to a cave to complete a task with another tribute. Slate was paired with Calli Meadowforge (D1), Cress's sister, and the two had to venture into the cave and make a sacrifice in order to get a prize. There was no choice and no way out, so Slate cut off his ear, thinking it a fair trade for what he'd done to Buster. He then cut Calli's off for her. Unfortunately, another pair beat them to it, and they didn't get the prize, instead getting flooded out of the cave and having to run to escape.

With his newly-bandaged ear (or what was left of an ear) he explored one of the islands that held fruit, looking to bring some back for his alliance. He had climbed up a tree to knock down some coconuts when he saw Ezra McCoy (D2) kill another tribute. He descended the tree and confronted Ezra, who would have attacked him, except that he'd promised Cress not to hurt Slate. In the end, it was Ezra's loyalty to Cress that led to his death, as Slate charged him, stabbing and killing him, without Ezra putting up much defense. After he died, Slate found a note from Cress that said *"For keeping your promises. -C.M."* Sensing Cress's involvement, Slate collapsed in a panicked state against a tree and seeing the kyanite bead on his bracelet, he became convinced that he was able to communicate with Cress -- just for a brief period.

The next day, Bramble and Slate devised a plan to get back her stolen token. There was a parrot that Nettle had found which repeated back phrases, so they used it to trick Davy into coming to them. Once on board the ship, the plan to tie him up and take the token back went south, with Davy attacking. Slate's dagger fell to the side, so he used the pen in his hand to kill him, sticking it into his carotid artery.

A storm came next, nearly killing the four of them as the ship was destroyed even further and washed out to sea. Slate managed to save Mercuria, who couldn't swim, but the two got separated and Slate ended up on an island of his own for the night. He ran into Mars Wake (D2), and he became convinced that she knew what he'd done to Ezra.

He received a gift from Cress that had a note attached: *"Come home. Meet your daughter. -C.M."*

The following day, a sickly fog came over the Arena and a ghostly ship appeared on the horizon. On the ship were skeletons which could only be defeated if beheaded. Slate didn't approach the ship right away, instead heading inland and stumbling upon Helios in an oasis where there was a pool of healing water. Helios revealed that he had overheard the plan to lie about the baby's father, telling Slate and all of the cameras that he knew the baby was his and not Miller's. Slate, enraged at what Helios had done with revealing this information, threw him into the pool and proceeded to kill him.

He found his way to the ghost ship in search of his alliance but instead found Mars. The two fought off the skeletons for a bit, but Slate didn't trust her, and so when he got an opportunity, he used one of the skeletons' skulls to bash Mars's head in and kill her.

With Mars's death, the end had arrived, and the Gamemakers sent out the final monster of the Arena: a leviathan that rose from the deep. It attacked the ship, with its first victim being Nettle, who died protecting the rest of them from its attack. Slate and Mercuria hadn't yet made it off the ship when the monster attacked her, too, and in a fight with it, she killed it by stabbing it in the eye, but then died herself in the monster's grasp. It was only Slate and Bramble remaining and both of them were washed up on the shore for what the Gamemakers hoped would be a final battle. However, Bramble had other plans, and she stabbed herself in the stomach before Slate could stop her. He ran to her and held her, but it was too late, and she revealed the plan to save his life as she died.

Thus, Slate was declared the Victor of the 134th Hunger Games.

## Bombing of District 12 & Aftermath

As soon as Bramble died, the military hovercrafts that had surrounded Twelve for hours zoned in and dropped bombs on the District. Much of Twelve was destroyed, with the president explaining that it was because of increased rebel activity inspired by Slate.

When Slate woke in the hospital a few days later, Nerissa Snow herself came to greet him, bringing him both news of the bombing and a gift for the baby: a rattle with her own initials in it, a warning that his child would not be safe unless he played by Snow's rules.