Chapter Text
Lina Gray learned quickly that there was three things in district 4 that could ruin you: being beautiful,being talented and being remembered. She carried all three , tucked beneath her small frame. Her voice was hers alone but sometime it didn’t feel like that when Lina knew she could sing when the sea was loud enough to keep her secrets.
Barefoot, she walked along the tide, she let the cold water curl around her ankles. Her skirt clung already to her legs soaked dark with salt and sand mixing in the folds. She watched as the tides rolled rolled in and out of, like it was living thing breathing beneath the fading light of the late afternoon. Lina lifted her face to sun as she sang softly enough for the gulls to hear but not neighbors.
The song was old—older than District 4, older than the nets drying on the docks behind her—but she kept it soft. She had been taught early that songs could get you noticed. And being noticed, in the wrong way, was dangerous. Her mother had learned this the hard way. Elara Dove Reed had once walked the streets of District 4, singing loudly for anyone who would listen. But now, when Lina passed by the window, all she could do was hum quietly, her voice weakened by illness yet still carrying the weight of memory.
The melody wrapped around her like hug, it was warm and soft.She closed her eyes as she sang the last lines, imagining that her voice could reach her mother, reach Poppy or reach someone who needed to hear that she was not alone. Her song faded, and for a moment she liked to think the sea listened and approved of her.
Turning to leave, Lina walked toward home each step was bringing her closer to her small house where family waited.a fishermen as she passed. He knew her of course, everyone in district 4 knew Elera Dove Reed daughter. When he offered her a small fish,she accepted it with a small smile. Even if they were better than other discrist, food was still sacred and such generosity was precious.
Inside, the familiar steps of herb and salt greeted her. Poppy Wren her little sister was already seated at the table having already sat the table even if she unaware if her big sister would bring food or not. Poppy Wren was only nine years old, but she understood enough to know the weight of hunger and loss.When Poppy was born her father was lost to the sea and never returned as they say in here that we always return to the sea, if it wasn’t for the midwife who took pity and gave them scraps of food we wouldn’t have survived that day. Lina had named Poppy both for the first time for the first time they had eaten after their father death, and for hope that her sister will grow like songbird, free from burdens.
She set the fish on the table, and Poppy face brightened with delight. Lina smiled as Poppy savored the meal. Across the room, their mother , fragile and pale from sickness from illness, leaned against the windowstill. Her lips were soft , her lips curved in a faint smile as she watched her daughters eat. Even while sick Elara carried herself with quiet grace. For a brief moment Lina allowed herself to rest in small certainty : here at home, they were safe.
But the sea was never far from her thoughts, and she knew that Finnick waited there.
Evening fell like a blanket, and the horizon turned the color of ripe peaches. Lina slipped from the house silently and made her way down the familiar path to the rocks by the shore. Finnick was already there, crouched over the nets, his hand deft and careful. He looked up as she approached, and a grin was already on his face, the same grin that had greeted her too many time to even count, that grin that had never failed to make her chest feel lighter even when worry about her family pressed on her.
“Have you been waiting long?” She asked, setting beside him brushing away the damp hair strand that fell down her eyes.
“Not long.” He said with a shrug, already beginning talking about the story about his top ranking in the academy class, about a knot that he recently learned or about something minor that made him beam with pride. Lina laughed, a short sound that the wind carried with her.
For a moment, the world narrowed to the two of them, the rhythm of the tide and the quiet safety of shared history.
Then water splashed her cheek, cold and sharp. She at once sprang up to her feet with laughter being pulled out from her lips. Finnick raised an eyebrow, a playful challenge already in his face. Lina ran, chasing him toward the edge of the tide, the sound of their laughter was heard down to the street. For a few stolen moments, there was nothing to fear.
But the sea does not keep secrets forever.
Morning came quickly, cruel, and relentless. Lina awoke with tightness in her chest, already dreading the day. It was reaping day and she was thirteen, but old enough to know that the games didn’t care for innocents. She remembered the girl from their district who had been taken at twelve- the girl whose death had been brutal that Lina's mother forbade her from watching that year.
Dressing carefully, Lina brushed her until her hair was finally tamed down, wore her simple dress neatly, and helped Poppy with her own clothes. She gave her sister sister an encouraging smile knowing that the whole family was tense knowing that the odds were never in our favor. Turning to her mother, she said softly,” I ‘ll come back. I promise” her mother nodded faintly, too weak to answer, but her eyes held love and concern.
When she reached the ocean again, the familiar rocks were smooth under her bare feet teeth. The smell of salt and sulfur filled her nose, already has become a comforting smell for her. Finnick was already waiting as always, his presence steady. Even as she offers him a small smile, one of courage, he still noticed her trembling hand.
“won’t you sing a song for me?” He asked quietly like he knew that was the only thing that would calm her down.
Lina hesitated. Her mother’s warning echoed in her mind “never sing for anyone, not strangers and no friend either. But she could not refuse Finnick. His face that was looking at her with expectant, held her attention and she felt a warm feeling spreading through her heart.
Closing her eyes, she let the wind carry her voice through ocean.
“ Salt,salt, sea so wide, rock me where the waters hide, hold my name, teach my feet where not to row “
Her voice carried through the gulls and the tide, fragile like a sound would break it. She glimpsed Finnick, who watched her with quiet wonder and continued:
“Hush now, tide, hush and stay, take the dark and drift away, if I am lost, if I am afraid, sing me home, salt, salt, wave”
For a moment, it was like the world seemed to pause- the water seemed to quiet down, the wind softened and even the gulls seemed to stop flying to listen.
Then a sharp, metallic voice cut through the moment. The loudspeaker blared, slicing through the calm like a blade. The sea seemed to vanish. Lina’s stomach turned, the time had come.
The 65 hunger games would begin, and the tide of her life, once so familiar would shift forever.