A/N--Thanks to hungergamesLaura31 for requesting I do a Glimmer Oneshot. This was very fun for me to write :).

Disclaimer--I do not own anything that sounds familiar :).

Enjoy :)!


I can feel everything so acutely surrounding me. I can feel the sting of the Tracker Jackers, I can feel the soft breeze as it blows through my blonde hair. I can feel the mud and grass and leaves burying themselves in my back. But I can't feel my beauty anymore. It is as if it is gone from me, now. Deserting me, even as life deserts me.

"You're so pretty, Glimmer, darling! Don't waste your life in the Games," my mom says to me, trying to discourage me from volunteering, this, my last year. "If you stay here you'll marry a nice man who loves your beauty, and you'll be happy and pretty forever!"

"But I don't want someone who loves my beauty, Mom!" I shout at her, trying to explain how I feel, how I've always felt. "I want someone who loves me! Why can't you understand that?"

"Don't be silly, hunny. Glimmer will be fine in the Games. She'll find some big, strong brute that becomes infatuated with her, and he'll protect her right to the end. Not to mention how many sponsors will be falling all over her pretty face!" my dad says. He's all over the idea of me volunteering. He even has faith in me, faith that I will win. The only problem is the reason he thinks I will win.

"I can take care of myself!" I shout, and run out of the room. The Reaping is tomorrow, and I will volunteer. Then I will show them all that I'm more than just a pretty face, I can be deadly, too.

I didn't even have a chance to be deadly, yet. In my life, my beauty was the only constant I had. I could always feel secure in the fact that no matter what else, I would always be beautiful. I don't feel very beautiful now, though, as I lie here in the mud and the blood and the stings. I feel like my skin is just oozing ugliness. I want to yell out to the Capitol, Look at me now! I'm not very pretty now, am I? But I just can't find my mouth. My perfectly full lips, hiding my blindingly white smile of straight teeth. I can't find that, I can't find my beauty.

"Ha!" my mentor scoffs. "It shouldn't be hard figuring out what angle to use for you, huh?" I just look at him, not really caring that he finds my gaze, and I quote, 'a strange mix of creepy and alluring'. He can think whatever he wants. And sure, I'll use the sexy angle for my interviews, getting sponsors and whatnot. But that doesn't mean that's all I am. I am more than just pretty. I'll show everyone, starting with Marvel.

I abruptly turn my stare on the male tribute from my district. He gulps in a swallow, and I switch my look from sexy to deadly in a heartbeat. His face falls, and I don't need to be able to read minds to see exactly what he is thinking. If I was going for my dad's plan, I would be sweeping him off his feet right now. It wouldn't take much to make him fall for me. Just a few bats of the eyelashes, shy-but-sweet waves, and a little encouragement, and he'd be all over me. But he isn't very strong looking anyways.

If I was really trying to follow through on the plan my father wants me to use, I would set my sights on that Cato boy from District 2. Though he seems pretty intent on killing and nothing else, I bet I could sway him to me if I wanted. We're already allies, all the Careers are to be hunting in the same pack again this year, as per usual. But if I really wanted him on my side,--loyal to me and only me--I could manage it. I don't though. I'm going to take care of myself. I'm not some Damsel in Distress who needs a big strong boy to save her pretty little butt. I'm Glimmer. I am my own person. I am smart and strong and sexy, and a killer. I will kill. I will win these Games, and I won't even need any help.

I feel the light leaving me, just like everything else. The thing that makes me me. Not my beauty, per say, but my light. The thing that makes me glimmer, that makes me Glimmer. I wish I had it back. Now I feel bad for taking my beauty and my light for granted. I want it back. If I could go back, I wouldn't want more. I would be happy with just being pretty and underestimated and alive! I wouldn't care that people only loved me for my beauty, I would take that. At least than people would love me. Oh, I wish I could have my beauty back! Why are you leaving me, beauty? Won't you come back? I need you, now! I'm sorry, I need you!

"What do you mean you want to be more than just beautiful?" Salacia, the female tribute from District 4 asks me in shock. We are throwing spears at a dummy, the only two left at the spear station, after our district partners left. "I'd give anything to be pretty like you. How many boys must be throwing themselves at your feet? How many sponsors must be throwing themselves at your feet? You'll never be without inside the arena! You'll have anything you could ever wish for. And if you win, you'll have any boy in the entire world!" She looks wistful, as if she envies my life. Silly girl.

"No, Salacia. It's not all it's cracked up to be," I reply, trying to make her understand. I like Salacia, and if anyone were to understand, I thought it would be her. I guess I was wrong. "I like being pretty, but everyone thinks that that is all there is to me. I'm more than just beautiful, you know." To prove my point, I chuck my spear at the dummy, severing its head from its neck. Salacia's eyes go wide.

"Of course you are more than just that. But don't ever wish away your beauty, Glimmer. It's who you are."

"No, that's what I'm trying to say. It's a part of me, but it isn't all of me." I shake my head and saunter off to the next station, leaving Salacia confused.

Take my beauty then, Salacia. It didn't get me very far. Neither did my strengths. Look at me now, and tell me that my beauty is who I am. Though maybe it is. I am now losing my beauty, and I am also losing myself. Losing my beauty, my light, my life. I'm losing me, losing Glimmer. I know I'm dying, I can feel it. And the beauty continues to rush out of me, bit by bit, then all at once.

"This is a very pretty ring," my mentor tells me, inspecting it, beginning to hand it to me, then snatching it away. "Too bad it's poisonous, huh? You could have kept it on that pretty finger of yours."

I scowl at him. "I don't know what you are talking about," I say, then beam at him with one of my award-winning pretty Glimmer-smiles. He falters, as if my smile has blinded him, then shakes his head.

"Like anyone will believe that. Too bad, though. It would have gone well with those pretty green eyes of yours."

To die by poison, as I had planned to take away someone else's life, seems an appropriate fate for me. Though, if I had used that ring, then at least whoever I killed would have still died looking pretty. Not like this, not horrid and bulbous looking, covered in welts and the bite of death. I know that I don't look beautiful now. Now I really am more than just a pretty face. I am an ugly face, a dead face. I don't feel like I am Glimmer anymore.

"Remember," says my stylist right before the Games begin. "you're more than just a pretty face. You may be insanely gorgeous, but you've also got something that no one else out there has."

I smile at her, glad that someone finally understands me. "What's that?" I ask, sounding like a little kid and not caring.

"Something to prove." She smiles at me, and then I am taken into the arena.

I hate to think that I'll always be remembered as just a pretty face. But then at least I'll be remembered. So remember me now, as Glimmer, the beautiful one, the determined one, the pretty face, and the girl with something to prove. I guess when it all comes down to it, when you're at the point of no return, the moment you die, it doesn't really matter that you've been nothing more than a pretty face. It doesn't matter that no one ever thought of you as anything more. It only matters that I knew who I was. That I knew that I was something more. And in my mind, I'll always be more than just a pretty face.


A/N--I hope you liked it :) If you want to read a poem about Glimmer... Haunting the Loser Chapter 11. I really recommend you read it, it's mine :).

Review please!