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She is standing still but the world around Maysilee is spinning in fast colours, she’s not sure what but she knows she’s looking for something as she scans the area around her. But with flashes of teal and yellow and white whizzing past her it’s hard for her to make out anything. Then her eyes catch on something, someone, a face she will know until her last breath.
His eyes aren’t on her, she tries to call his name but her throat tightens until she can’t say anything, she tries to take a step but it’s like her feet have been buried within the field they’re standing in and no matter how hard she pulls they don’t free themselves. But her struggling must’ve made enough sound and finally he turns to face her, his dark eyes meeting her blue ones for the first time in years, for the first time since she’d kissed him goodbye as he headed to the mines.
Only a brief second passes as their eyes meet before a blade pierces his chest and she startles awake.
Her breaths rattle out of her shaken and startled as her eyes fly open, she instinctively reaches to the other side of the bed she lays on but before her hand even makes contact she knows no one will be there. She retracts her hand quickly from the empty space and drags it down her face, muffling the sigh that escapes her lips.
Ever since she was a young child she’d had nightmares about the Hunger Games, about her being in them, about having to watch those she loved participate, they’d died down after she’d aged out but have since reared their ugly heads in the two years since their eldest had become part of the reaping.
And now today, on the morning of the reaping for the 74th Hunger Games, they had two children in the reaping. And she couldn’t even have the simple comfort of her husband by her side to help deal with the nerves that made her sick to her stomach every Fourth of July.
President Snow may not have been down in the mines of twelve that day, there to set off the explosion and subsequent cave-in that had killed nearly 30 men, but in her heart he’d always hold the blame for her husband’s death.
She sat herself up and quietly slipped out from under the sheet that had tangled around her legs as she’d shifted in her sleep, silently she shuffled past the toddler that slept soundly in his own small bed in the corner of the room. Jasper had been up well into the night, crying and whining whenever Maysilee moved from the side of his bed to her own, and she wasn’t going to wake him up any earlier than she needed to, a grumpy three year old was the last thing she needed today.
Closing the door softly she makes her way down the hallway and opens the next door, blindly flicking on the light briefly blinding not just her but the two girls inside. One thing she can count on from the Capitol until these games are over is that the electricity will flow constantly and the district's lights won’t flicker like twitchy birds.
“Ugh, mama,” Seraphina whines so similarly to how Jasper had been just hours before it makes Maysilee stifle a laugh. But their daughters are far from toddlers anymore so instead she tuts just like how her mother used to when she and Merrilee were young.
“No ‘mama’,” she says fiddling mindlessly with her wedding ring as she leans against the doorframe, “The both of you need to get up, long day today.”
Maryella, easily the morning person of the three siblings, stretches like the cat Primrose had taken in, the cat that continued to hate everyone but the young girl. As she stretches her limbs press against her younger sister, annoying in a way only a sibling can be, causing Seraphina to groan again, stealing more of the blanket that lays over their shared bed to bury herself away from the light, only the ends of her blonde hair now visible.
When their middle child had been born with tufts of bright blonde hair and her blue eyes Maysilee and Wyatt both had been under the impression the girl would be her near twin, unlike her older sister who had all the colouring of her father. But they’d been wrong, Sera may have the colour of her eyes and hair but that was where the similarities had stopped, in every other way she was her fathers daughter.
“She looks exactly like Wy did at that age,” Kennedy, one of Wyatt’s older brothers, had mentioned in a forced casual tone as the two of them watched the girls dress up Jasper in their own old baby clothes. He’d held tightly in his grip a drink strong enough for her to smell from her own seat on the other side of the table as he smiled tightly at her. She had leaned back in her seat, trying desperately to stay away from the lure of alcohol on the first anniversary of losing Wyatt.
The similarities made it hard sometimes, on bad days she couldn’t look at any of her children’s faces, a fact that only made her feel even worse.
What kind of mother can’t look at her own children?
But luckily today wasn’t a bad day, a day where all she could taste was coal dust on her lips and all she could feel was a cold hand in hers, the future she’d seen for herself since she was 19 crumbling in front of her afresh like it had on that dreary fall day. No, instead today was just a day where something bad was happening, something she had 40 years to learn how to deal with.
So instead she smiles, pushing herself off the doorway, “And don’t wake your brother please, I need him to sleep a little longer,” she says as an afterthought.
“Yes mama,” the girls agree as Maysilee slips out of the room and makes her way to the kitchen.
As she passes the threshold she kisses the tips of her fingers and presses it lightly against the photo kept on the counter of her and Wyatt on their wedding day. A mindless act now but one she had had to train herself into to fill the gap that was left when she could no longer kiss him good morning or good night.
She lit the stove easily and began to heat enough water for their shared breakfast of plain oatmeal, even before Wyatt died money had been a worry but once they were down an income it became Maysilee’s daily concern. She was just glad that on the days their funds stretched the thinnest she could send her kids to have dinner with Merrilee or her parents.
She runs her finger through her hair, a vain attempt to brush out the tangles from her sleep-ridden hair, as she waits for food to heat, humming an old song she remembers the covey had played frequently at the Hob when she and Wyatt had just begun dating. Her deft fingers braid a few strands away from her face quickly before she fills two bowls with the oatmeal, placing them on the dining table as the two girls shuffle in, Sera being guided by Mayella’s hands on her shoulders as she rubs her eyes tiredly.
As the two sit down, thanks for the breakfast muffled around the spoons already in their mouths, Maysilee slips into the adjacent bathroom and grabs a hairbrush and hair ties, beginning to brush Maryella’s hair as she eats.
Maysilee knows her daughters can do their own hair, they’ve been doing it for years, even before Wyatt died. She remembers how he’d praise the braids they’d done on their own or the others' hair, even as they were falling out of the hair tie they’d haphazardly tied to the end of it. But even so they let her do their hair with little fuss on days she just needs to pretend they are still young and Wyatt is just down the hall getting ready for the day, that he’ll enter the kitchen and try to teach Maryella how to flip his scrip coin over her fingers like he does to keep her sitting still and help Sera eat her breakfast.
She finishes Maryella’s hair quickly, just two braids on either side of her head tied in the back, patting her lightly on the top of the head as she finishes before moving on to Sera, brushing it back into a ponytail.
“The two of you can spend the morning with your friends, but I need you both back home by noon, okay?” Maysilee says as she loops the tie, once, twice and then three times, letting her hands rest on Sera’s shoulders as she looks at Maryella.
“Promise mama,” Maryella says, Sera nodding along with her sister as she continues to eat.
Maysilee nods, pressing a kiss to the side of Seraphina’s head and the top of Maryella’s as she passes heading back to her own bedroom.
She slips in quietly to the dark room, breathing a quiet sigh of relief to see Jasper still sleeping soundly once her eyes adjust to the dim light. She slips into one of her nicer dresses, a light blue one with intricate white lace that borders the collar and cuffs, a dress Wyatt had loved her in, both the reaping and the fact she still had to work that morning narrowing what she could choose to wear that day. She re does her hair, straining her eyes to see herself more clearly in the mirror as she braids, taking her time to make them look good, not just practical and ties a blue ribbon, a few shades darker than her dress, into a bow in her hair.
Then, just as she had when she was a teenager, she layers a few necklaces over her grandmother’s pendant, the only one she never takes off. And just like how it had been when she was first given it the heart shaped pendant sparkles in the low light, but unlike how it had been those many years ago the chain now also holds Wyatt’s wedding ring.
She kneels beside her son’s bed once she’s happy with her hair and jewelry. She brushes his bangs away from his eyes as she gently calls his name.
“Jasper darling,” Maysilee says, laughing lightly at the way his face scrunched up sleepily, “You have to wake up now, your breakfast is ready.”
“Breakfast?” He repeats, rubbing his eyes.
“Yes, but you’ve got to get out of bed to have it,” Maysilee continues, allowing his little arms to wrap around her when he motions to be lifted up and letting him koala around her torso as she stands up and heads back to the kitchen.
She sets him down in his seat, the table empty as Maryella and Seraphina, already having finished their breakfast and rinsed the bowls, were getting ready loudly in their shared room, their voices drowning out the suffocating still that hangs heavy over Twelve every reaping.
She scoops the now room temperature oats into two bowls, one for Jasper that she passes to him, glad that he prefers the oats on the cooler side, and the rest for her. The portion is too small and the food too cold but in her years living in the Seam Maysilee knows the temperature of food means little if it’s all you have to eat and it’s better for their children to eat well.
“How did you sleep darling?” Maysilee asks once Jasper has gulped down the majority of his breakfast, more than half of her own portion still remains, her spoon pushing it around mindlessly in the bowl to stop herself from finishing too quickly and garnering the attention of her child.
“Good,” he says, mouth filled with half chewed oats before he swallows and continues, “I had a dream mama, do you know what it was about?”
“Good…” Maysilee quietly hums to herself, wondering if they’d somehow had two different nights, “I do not, what’d you dream about baby?”
“I met Papa,” Jasper informs, oblivious to the choked off breath Maysilee sucks in as the image of Wyatt’s face in her own dream flashes behind her eyes.
“Oh yeah?” Maysilee says, letting her spoon drop and clink against the worn ceramic of her bowl, the last spoon and a bit left wholly unappetising to her twisting stomach.
“Yeah, and Mary and Sera were there and we were playing..”Jasper continues, describing in detail the game they’d played in his dream with the wooden soldiers her parents had gifted him for his birthday 8 months previous as Maysilee stared at the photo of her husband.
Maryella and Seraphina both had had dreams about Wyatt since his death, dreams they’d told her about, but Jasper had only just begun telling her about his dreams at all. But Maryella and Seraphina had grown up with Wyatt, he had spent time with them, done their hair, played with them, made memories with them. Jasper had barely been a month old when Wyatt died, he’d been sleeping soundly in his baby sling, pressed protectively against her chest as she’d gone to identify her husband's body.
They talked about Wyatt a lot, Maysilee refused to let their son grow up not just without Wyatt himself but without the knowledge of who he had been, as a father, as a husband, as a person. Jasper’s second word had been ‘papa’ right behind ‘mama’ and the little boy had always known that the few photos they had been able to afford over the years of Wyatt was his father. But to hear Wyatt was in his dreams just like he was in theirs was something else. Maysilee wonders if the Wyatt in Jasper’s dreams are right, if she were to enter their son's dreams would she recognise her husband? Or would he just be an echo of the man she loved.
Her spiralling thoughts are cut off by Maryella and Seraphina, now out of their pyjamas and dressed for the morning, “We’re heading out now,” Maryella says, eyes dancing to the photograph of Wyatt and Maysilee before looking at Maysilee with a smile.
“Ok,” Maysilee says, swallowing the rest of her oatmeal in one mouthful even as her body protests, “Just make sure-”
“We’ll be back by noon,” Seraphina interrupts, Maryella grinning beside her as she says goodbye to Jasper, kissing the top of his head quickly.
Maysilee fights back the grin at her daughter’s attitude, simply nodding as she turns around to wash her own dish, letting their daughters say goodbye to Jasper who waves them away unbothered as he licks clean his own bowl. She hears the front door click shut as she washes Jasper’s, his little hands clutching the hem of her dress as he waits impatiently for her attention.
She wipes off the food that ended up on his cheeks and hands in the bathroom before helping him brush his teeth and then get dressed before leaving the house, closing and locking the door with a click as he sits on her hip.
The Sweet Shop is as stifling as it had been when she was still a teenager but she puts up with it more than how she had those many years ago. When she was younger she had the freedom to complain, half heartedly serve customers and threaten to not step back inside the shop without any major possible consequence hovering over her to make her stop. What would her parents do? Fire her? That’s exactly what she’d wanted. And then when she’d moved out and married Wyatt she left the sweet store behind, helping Asterid in her apothecary and hunting when she could to earn money as Wyatt worked in the mines.
But after Wyatt’s death and the subpar lump sum all the victims of the families affected had been given had dried up Maysilee realised her minimal income wasn’t enough to keep her children fed and housed. The income from the apothecary had always been low, Asterid mostly focusing her work on helping the Seam who were widely people who couldn’t afford to pay for any medication at all, and Maysilee had never been one to argue with her friend about that, even when she had still been firmly on the Merchant side of town. But now, with Asterid having been borderline bed ridden with grief since Burdock’s death in the same accident, the apothecary was all but abandoned, Maysilee might know the basics of it all but Asterid had always been the closest thing to a doctor between them.
And the funds she could get from hunting would sway with the weather and her feelings and the wind. Some weeks she would be able to hunt enough to both sell and keep some meat for food. More often than not though she’d barely find a rabbit that she’d keep to make sure their kids would be able to eat more than some stale bread and oats.
So when her parents had offered her a job back at the Sweet Shop about a year after her husband's death she’d agreed, even though she hated the store and everything that her continuing to work at it represented, it was better then letting her children starve. So she severed the customers with a forced smile and kept her complaints to herself.
Jasper played with his wooden toy figures behind the counter, content and more than used to the set up after years of having to entertain himself as Maysilee worked. Normally one of the teens that her parents had begun hiring to work the shop since she and Merrilee stopped working would happily play games with the toddler when there were few customers around but years ago when Maysilee had first begun working for her parents again she’d convinced her parents to give the teens the 4th of July off so they could spend the morning with their friends before the reaping in the early afternoon and that she would keep the store running the few hours it is open on reaping day.
She hands the customer their requested bag of hard candy with a stiff smile and before she begins her rehearsed line with the next customer in line she realises it’s, “Merrilee?” She asks, confused to see her sister with a small kind smile on her face, “What are you doing here?”
“Is it a crime to come find my sister to spend time with her?” Merrilee asks with a smile, moving around the counter so she’s on the same side as Maysilee.
“It should be a crime to willingly enter this store,” Maysilee mutters, quiet enough only Merrilee can hear her where she’s crouching next to Jasper to say hello to her nephew, she laughs and rises back to her feet.
“I also wanted to see how you were holding up now that Sera’s in the reaping pool,” Merrilee says, tone somber as she leans against the wall behind the counter, eyes searching as she looks at Maysilee.
“I’m fine,” Maysilee says decisively, turning back around to face the front of the store from where she’d turned to look at her sister, pushing the memory of her nightmare to the very back of her mind, “She’s fine, her and Prim will be ok, there names are only in the pool once, we have nothing to worry about.”
“Mhm,” Merrilee agrees half-heartedly, having seen right through Maysilee’s reassurances, “Well Madge went to find Katniss so I’ll be here until you close.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Maysilee says, shifting some of the sweets with the tongs so they look neater from the front of the counter, “You have a reason to escape, take it.”
“Yeah but you’re here,” Merrilee answers easily and Maysilee is far from surprised. When she’d first taken the offer from her parents to work at the Sweet Shop again Maysilee had cried to her twin and Merrilee had suggested she could work there too, just like when they were younger, and she could keep Maysilee company. Maysilee had frozen at the offer before yelling at her twin to not be an idiot and proceeding to burst into tears and collapse into Merrilee’s arms, but when she’d calmed down she’d talked her twin out of it, though Merrilee had been stubborn.
“Fine, you can stay,” Maysilee sighs, “You can keep Jasper company,” she says before turning to the next customer.
Her shift drags as it always does but with Merrilee at her side it’s not as painfully slow, though, today of all days maybe she wishes time would drag so slow it may as well have stopped, if she had to stay behind that counter for the rest of eternity she would if it meant her kids were never again at risk of being reaped for the accursed games.
But her shift eventually ends and Merrilee helps carry Jasper out of the store as she locks it behind her.
“I’ll find you at the reaping,” Merrilee says as she passes Jasper back to Maysilee’s arms, the sleepy toddler snuggling into her neck once he’s in her arms, ready for his nap before the reaping.
“See you then,” Maysilee agrees.
When she arrives home she places a now sleeping Jasper on her bed to continue to sleep before she enters Maryella and Seraphina’s room, pulling out their nicest dresses to lay on their bed for them to change in to as soon as they’re home, she grabs a plaid yellow for her eldest and a faded purple for Sera, smoothing out the wrinkles as she swallows past the lump in her throat.
She sits herself at the dining table as she waits, waits for the day to end, she wishes it was sunset already, with her children and family by her side. But instead it nears noon and the sun shines high over the District, peacekeepers walking the streets in droves. She sighs into the silence of her house running her hands over her face roughly before resting her chin on them, eyes catching on the photo of her and Wyatt on their wedding day.
Their smiles are bright and love sick as they look at each other, so utterly lost in each other and the lives ahead of them.
She can’t remember the last time she was so truly happy without the heavy tinge of grief in the back of her mind, not like she is in the photo. It would have had to have been after Jasper was born but with Wyatt dying just a few weeks later the first few months of Jasper's life are little more than grief stricken days, sleepless nights and pulling herself together long enough to keep their kids alive to her memory.
The sound of the front door opening and two pairs of footsteps pull her back to reality and she sits back in her chair to see Maryella and Seraphina kicking their shoes off in the doorway.
“Your dresses are laid out on your bed,” Maysilee tells them as they enter the kitchen, “Get dressed quietly, Jasper is sleeping.”
“Ok mama,” Maryella agrees easily, giving Maysilee a quick hug where she sits, Maysilee swallows thickly, patting her daughter's arm before she shoos the two down the hallway, left again with her own thoughts. But the quiet isn’t so oppressive with the sounds of their daughters shuffling around in their room, whispered voices just making their way to Maysilee’s ears, though she can’t quite tell what they’re saying. She sighs and rises from the table to grab the hair brush she’d used that morning.
Once the girls are dressed she redoes their hair, a half up half down style in Maryella’s dark hair and a long braid down the the centre of Seraphina’s back, adding the same blue ribbon in both of their hair that adorns her own.
Maysilee tells her daughters to put their shows back on as she wakes Jasper up, “Come on buddy,” She says as she runs her hand through his hair, he grumbles as he rubs his eyes tiredly but allows Maysilee to put his shoes on and then pick him up.
The streets are loud as the population of District 12 make their way to the Justice building, young kids hold on to their parents tightly, adults keep their heads down and away from peacekeepers and their blank helmets, teens begin to file into long lines, tears in their eyes or their backs straight and eyes dry as they stare blankly forward as they get their fingers pricked one by one.
Maysilee puts Jasper down, his small hands grabbing the hem of her dress as he presses himself against her leg, her daughters both hesitate to join the line and she turns them around by their shoulders before they can find the wherewithal to and presses a kiss to each of their foreheads.
“Show your sister what to do,” She tells Maryella, “Don’t cause any of fuss, either of you, and go find your friends, I’ll see you both after this, ok?”
“Ok,” They both reply weakly before they blend into the crowd, hands clutched between them. Maysilee takes a few shuddering breaths before she reaches down and picks Jasper back up.
“Where are they going?” Jasper asks confused, twisting in Maysilee’s hold to try and spot his sisters again.
“Just to line up,” Maysilee answers, desperately trying to keep their son as oblivious to the needless death that surrounds them as she can, “We’ll see them soon.”
Jasper doesn’t argue further, just laying his head back against her shoulder as he frowns.
“Maysilee,” a voice calls out, and Maysilee turns to find Merrilee weaving through the crowd, Asterid trailing behind her, “C’mon, sooner we’re in sooner we’re out, right?” Merrilee continues, Maysilee hums in agreement with her twin, following behind her as they make their way close to the barrier that separates the kids in the reaping pool and the rest of the population of 12, her shoulder brushes against Asterid’s.
“How’s Prim?” She asks her friend, not even bothering to ask if Asterid herself is ok, she already knows there’s no way she could be.
Asterid blinks, her eyes are as distant as they had been for the past 3 years, they're nothing like the ones she remembers from their youth, but she knows she’d be nothing but a hypocrite if she were to ever mention how they scare her sometimes, to see just how far away her best friend is even when she’s right in front of her, she knows she’s changed as well.
“She’ll be fine,” Asterid eventually replies, “They all will.”
Maysilee nods, stopping beside her sister as Asterid takes up her other side, they are barely a few feet from the oldest of the kids in the reaping and if Maysilee were to strain onto her tiptoes she would probably be able to find the back of Maryella’s head in somewhere in the middle of the crowd. Ever since Katniss and Madge had turned 12 and were a part of the reaping they’d aimed for this spot, closest to their kids, closest to keep them safe if they could. Maysilee still remembered as shots had rung out during the 50th Games reaping and the way Woodbine Chance’s blood and brains had splattered across the dirty ground. She places Jasper down, leaving one of her hands on his head as he holds on to her, as the other grabs her sister's hand.
The officials, from the Capitol and the District, make their way on stage, followed by a stumbling Haymitch Abernathy, no doubt blackout drunk as he nearly falls into the Capitol escort. Maysilee winces at the sight, she still remembers how he had been before he’d become a victim of the Hunger Games, not that she’d really known him that well, but a decade stuck in close proximity to each other in school left an impression, and it certainly hadn’t been an impression of a drunk.
The Capitol’s video plays, the same one that has been playing for as long as Maysilee can remember, she swallows down all the complaints that always sit on her tongue as she watches it but she doesn’t try to hide the unimpressed glare
“I just love that,” the Capitol escort says with a smile, Effie, Maysilee thinks her name is. The Capitol garb the woman wears is a bit of an eyesore as she stands on stage under the bright sun, her makeup makes her look sickly pale especially against the deep purple she wears. But even as Maysilee side eyes the escort's sense of dress she is still glad it’s a different woman to the escort that had prattled onstage when she had been younger. The horrid woman had always looked like she’d just killed some poor animal to stick in her hair or like she had someone standing right behind her in her shadow who’s job it was to pull all the skin of her face as tight as they could, Maysilee guessed the look had been to hide wrinkles but if anything the way Maysilee could make out the crevices of her skull from where she had stood in the crowd made her look closer to death then any wrinkle would have.
“Now the time has come for us to select one courageous young man and woman for the honour of representing District 12 in the 74th annual Hunger Games! As usual, ladies first,” Effie continues before she steps away from the microphone and moves to the glass bowl filled with girls' names. The large screen above her shows as she hovers her hand over the slips of paper theatrically before dipping her hand down and grabbing one, she purses her lips as she reads over the name and moves back to the microphone.
“Primrose Everdeen!”
Maysilee has had nightmares like this, where those she loves are reaped and she can do nothing but watch, and as the world goes silent around her she reasons this too must be a dream, that she will soon wake up in her quiet, empty bed and she will have to live today again but now it will be some other poor child sentenced to their death.
The camera stays on Effie for a second as her eyes scan over the crowd in interest before it cuts to Primrose in the crowd.
She looks so young with fear on her face as she looks around and looks at- Sera.
The bow in her hair is crooked and her eyes are teary as she looks back at Primrose and the sight of her daughter on the screen makes Maysilee release a shuddering breath she didn’t realise she was even holding and the quiet noise of shuffling feet, chirping bugs and Effire beckoning Prim on stage flood back to her. Maysilee can see Sera and Prim’s clasped hands between them, hands that don’t separate even as Prim begins making her way towards the walkway, only dropping from each other as Prim takes another step.
It isn’t a dream.
She feels Jasper turn his head to look up at her, feels Merrilee’s grip tighten painfully around her hand, feels Asterid freeze completely beside her, she keeps her eyes solidly on the screen.
The district is quiet, so quiet in fact that Maysilee can hear Primrose’s shuffling footsteps as she makes her way through the crowd to the middle walkway. Once Prim passes the rest of her peers Katniss suddenly appears behind her from where she’d been standing closer to the back of the group.
“Prim! Prim!” Katniss calls out to her sister, struggling against the peacekeepers that surround her and try to subdue her, Maysilee’s jaw tightens as she fights to keep herself from jumping the fence and pulling the assholes off of her niece, “I volunteer, I volunteer!” Katniss calls out as she shakes the peacekeepers off of her and all eyes turn to her, “I volunteer as tribute!”
“I believe we have a volunteer!” Effie exclaims on stage, shock barely concealed behind her typical facade.
She hears Asterid let out a strangled sound beside her but her friend keeps her face impressively passive, just a hand on her chest as she watches Katniss run to Prim onscreen with the peacekeepers now out of the way. Katniss wraps Primrose in a quick hug before the sisters have a quick hushed conversation, Prim’s cries echo over the still silent crowd and Maysilee spots Katniss’ friend Gale move from his own spot in the crowd to grab a still screaming Primrose and bring her to Asterid who wraps her daughter in a hug, patting her hair soothingly as she begins to cry.
Merrilee beside her reaches around to lay a comforting hand on Prim’s back but Maysilee’s focus stays on Katniss now being herded to the stage and to a beckoning Effie who prattles on, Katniss deserves the sole attention of someone who loves her.
“What’s your name?” Effie asks once she’s maneuvered Katniss beside her, Maysilee can just hear her quiet reply picked up by the microphone, “Well I’d bet my hat that was your sister, wasn’t it?” Effie continues and Katniss responds with a quiet yes. On screen her face looks blank and distant with shock, the reality of what exactly she’s volunteered for only just now setting in as she looks over her fellow residents of District 12.
“Let’s have a big hand for our very first volunteer, Katniss Everdeen,” Effie says with a smile, beginning to clap to encourage the crowd to do the same, but the citizens of 12 stay silent before one by one they raise their hands in a three finger salute, a gesture of thanks, admiration and saying goodbye.
“And now the boys,” Effie continues, rightly seeing any attempt at garnering applause is futile.
The boy tribute is pulled without fanfare, one Peeta Melark who shuffles his way on stage as he tries to keep a brave face on. Maysilee knows the Mellarks, had lived near the bakery the family had run for generations when she was growing up, and she spots Otho Mellark in the crowd looking heartbroken but attempting to keep his face calm the same way Asterid did as he watches his son, his wife beside him looks closer to uncaring then Maysilee would like to think about. She wants to feel sorrow for the poor boy and his family but the pit that sits heavy in her stomach would swallow her hole if she fed it anymore.
The reaping concludes with the two tributes shaking hands before they’re shuffled off to the Justice Building to wait for their family and friends to say goodbye.
The crowd breaks quickly once the stage is empty, voices clamoring over each other and kids rising to their friends, siblings and parents. Prim’s cries have turned into quiet sniffling and Jasper tugs on the hem of Maysilee’s dress until she picks him up, his little face marred in confusion and upset at the events that had unfolded around him that he couldn’t yet understand. The group of them stay where they stand as the crowd moves around them, waiting for the kids to find them, those who can at least.
Maysilee spots Maryella first, jaw set stubbornly as she walks until she spots them and her lip begins to wobble, she drags Seraphina behind her by the hand, the other one free to wipe away the stray tears gathering in her eyes. Once in front of them they split, Maryella wrapping herself around Maysilee and Jasper both as Seraphina pulls Prim into her arms, the two girls teary eyed as they cling to each other. Madge appears a few seconds later, as shocked and teary eyed as the rest but determined as she looks at them gathered together.
“Lets go to the Justice Building,” she says, already beginning to walk before anyone can respond. They make it to the building in quick time, though Maysilee can hardly remember the walk there at all, her mind stuck on the reaping as she walks the familiar streets. Gale is already there when they enter and they linger quietly in the lobby until they can be let in.
“Why hello!” Effie greets gratingly cheerfully, heels clicking against the tile loudly as she stands in front of them, careful to leave a good few feet between them, “now because of how many of you want to visit our very first volunteer it has been decided the hour for visitors will be split up, three ten minutes and one half an hour. You will have a few minutes to decide when everyone will visit, the peacekeepers will let you know when you can enter.”
Maysilee sneers at the woman calling Katniss ‘ours’ like Effie has any role in her life beyond the shepherd herding the poor lamb to the slaughter, but she nods instead of arguing and turns to Merrilee and Asterid.
“Me and the kids can go during the first ten minutes,” Maysilee offers as Effie’s clicking footsteps fade away.
“I’ll go second,” Gale butts in immediately before anyone can agree or disagree.
“And then Madge and I can,” Merrilee adds, not blinking at the interruption nor dissuading the boy, “You and Prim can have the rest of the hour,” She continues quieter to Asterid who simply nods in agreement.
A peacekeeper arrives just a few moments later and Maysilee beckons Maryella and Sera to follow her from where they were silently comforting Primrose as they waited. The peacekeeper opens the door silently to expose a small room where Katniss is sitting silently on an old couch. Katniss rises to her feet as they cross the threshold but before she can more than blink Maryella has crushed her in a hug, Sera quickly joining in.
“We had to be split up,” Maysilee explains as she hangs back, “Your mum and sister will be in soon.”
“Okay, thank you,” Katniss says, sitting back down once Maryella and Sera have let go of her, the two of them sitting on either side of her as Maysilee sits across from them on a small seat, setting down Jasper so he can pull himself on to Maryella’s lap, his focus on Katniss.
Maryella talks the majority of the time allotted to them, reminding Katniss of all the survival skills she’d taught her over the past year or so Maysilee had allowed her to begin helping with hunting. “You’ll be able to survive anything,” Maryella says, “And when you get back you’ll see how well I’ve remembered everything.”
“Yeah, you’ll be fine,” Seraphina agrees, but before Maryella can continue a peacekeeper opens the door and they all fall silent.
“30 seconds,” The man announces and they rise back to their feet, each of the kids quickly giving Katniss a hug before they look away, not wanting the tears that are beginning to gather in their eyes again to be seen.
Her kids shuffle back to the lobby as Maysilee brings Katniss into her arms, holding on to her niece tightly, she pulls back but only far enough to hold Katniss’ face in her hands the same way she’d hold her own kids. Katniss had never been one to seek out physical affection, especially after Burdock’s death, and Maysilee hadn’t pushed her, she’d been the same way when she was younger and had hated when her mother had pushed her luck. But now she wishes she had, was this just her curse in life? To only realise all she’d failed to do with the ones she loved when they were slipping through her fingers?
“You are stronger than you realise,” Maysilee states firmly, holding Katniss’ eyes hoping to drill it into her, “Do not let them just make you an animal for slaughter.”
“Okay,” Katniss nods.
“Time’s up,” the peacekeeper states, reaching to grab Maysilee’s arm to drag her away but she rips her arm away from him with a glare and stalks out of the room, passing Gale as she leaves.
Maysilee leans against the wall back in the lobby, watching as Maryella distracts Prim with Jasper, time passing slowly now that she isn’t the one in the room with Katniss. She feels a presence beside her and turns to find Madge fidgeting with something in her hands.
“Aunt Maysilee,” Madge begins, turning her hands to expose that her old Mockingjay pin was what she had been fidgeting with, “I want to give this to Katniss, for good luck.”
Maysilee had never liked the pin, the make had been good and objectively it was a pretty pin but she’d never liked the animal itself, ever since she’d learnt how the birds had come to be all it ever reminded her of was the Capitol and how their sticky fingers were in every facet of her life, if you looked far back enough. But Madge had loved the pin as a young kid, and still seemed to like it if she’d had it on for the Reaping, and Maysilee had gifted it to her niece easily, even if during the days money stretched tightest she’d wished she’d kept the thing just so she could sell it.
“Sounds like a good idea,” Maysilee comments.
“You wouldn’t mind?” Madge asks.
“It’s your pin Madge,” Maysilee answers, “Has been for years, you can give it to who you want.”
“Ok-”
“Next group,” a Peacekeeper calls out, interrupting Madge who quickly makes her way over, Merrilee following behind.
Ten minutes later the same Peacekeeper returns and Prim and Asterid replace Madge and Merrilee, as Asterid passes Maysilee she grabs her friend's arm, “Talk to your daughter,” she demands, only letting go once Asterid nods in agreement.
Maysilee doesn’t trust her gut instincts much anymore, or at least not the one that tells her she’ll see the people she loves again. Growing up she’d never really had to worry about whether saying goodbye to her Papa would be the last time she’d see him or if Asterid would never show up to school again, living on the Merchant side of town she rarely had people she knew reaped in the Hunger Games and she never lose people to the mines like those in the Seam did. The only person she’d really lost had been her Grandmother, and despite how deeply it had hurt to lose her biggest confidant and support it hadn’t been a surprise, her Grandmother had been old and sick and when her parents had gently informed her and Merrilee of her passing she’d cried horribly, but not out of shock, just grief and heartache.
Losing Wyatt had been the first loss that had come as a complete shock to her, when he’d said goodbye to her that morning, a sweet kiss and a promise to see her that night, she’d believed him. She’d felt no inkling watching him walk away from their house that this was the last time she’d see him alive, that the next time she’d see him it would be to identify his body so the Capitol could keep the records of their miners up to date.
Shouldn’t she have known? Felt some cosmic force telling her to keep him home, no matter what, but she hadn’t, instead she had turned away before he’d even left her line of sight, as confident as ever she’d see him kicking off his shoes at their doorway in a few hours, that he’d scoop up their daughters with a small smile as they talked his ear off about how their day had been.
But he hadn’t, and she hadn’t known to worry until the haunting bells that signaled a mine collapse had rung loudly through the District. And so she hadn’t trusted her instincts since, if they couldn’t even know her husband was a few short hours from his untimely death what could they tell her?
A short thirty minutes later she held her kids, Jasper in one arm, still confused as he had been before, tucked in to her neck quietly, Maryella wrapped around her other side sniffing quietly where she hid her face in Maysilee’s hair, with the hand that wasn’t holding Jasper on Seraphina’s shoulder where she hugged a crying Prim, but she kept her eyes on Katniss exiting the room surrounded by Peacekeepers to dissuade her from doing anything rash.
A she watched Katniss get escorted out of the room they’d placed her in for visitors she knew this wouldn’t be the last time she’d see the girl, nor would it be when the Games began broadcasting, no she’d see her back in 12 and she’d be able to hug and hold her for longer than the few seconds she had been able to squeeze in.
She didn’t look away until Katniss was out of sight.