sixthiterationlogs | Be the spark that ignites a revolution

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Be the spark that ignites a revolution | mingle post

WHO: Haymitch Abernathy
WHERE: somewhere near the village
WHEN: August 2
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Mentions of child death)

This is not something Haymitch ever wanted to experience. He's seen too many kids die, some before they even made it to Peeta's age. After both Peeta and Katniss had made it out of the arena alive, this was something he had thought they could skip.

This is also not something he expected to be at the head of. In District 12, it would have been Peeta's family. Here, in the absence of Peeta's family, the duties fall to Haymitch, as the one who knew him best, and the traditions of his home.

Peeta had asked them to paint his coffin, which isn't part of the usual funeral in District 12, but is so very fitting for Peeta. Haymitch is nowhere near as skilled at it as Peeta was, but he has enough skill to paint a crude symbol of a circle enclosing a bird clutching an arrow. It won't mean much to anyone not from Panem, but it's the only way he can think to honor what Peeta meant. And a promise to keep fighting for a world where innocents don't die for entertainment, whether they're killed by a mutt or by another person.

He doesn't have much to say, instead letting the painting do the talking. There are no appropriate words for this situation, anyway, and none that he's willing to share with relative strangers. He listens in silence to any words that anyone else might have to say.

Once everyone else has had their say, Haymitch steps up next to the coffin again. He only has a few words to add: "For the honor of his sacrifice." The Capitol's words, intended for a fallen tribute, but more appropriate than ever in this case. Here his sacrifice had been not for the supposed glory of gluttons living out their lavish existence in isolation from those who actually made that existence possible, but for the rest of those living here.

He adds something to the end of his statement, something that most here can't know isn't typical of a funeral in Peeta's home. It's a particular three-fingered salute. and if the Capitol's watching, well, they already know Haymitch is a threat. There's no point in attempting to hide it now, and there's nothing more that can be done to punish Peeta for any imagined infractions.

He lets his hand fall back to his side and steps back into the crowd.

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She came because she felt she should, that it was the right thing to do, but now that Rose was standing there with a bunch of people who probably thought of Peeta as a friend, she was beginning to regret that decision. The last thing they needed was to have a walking reminder that others had lived while he had died and with the weight of guilt for what she truly believed was her role in it? It’s no surprise that Rose is as far back from the the mourners as she could possibly manage.

With her arms folded across her chest and her face a stern mask, everything about her telegraphs her desire to get away. She almost wishes there’d been more talking, something to occupy her mind. Not that she would have really heard what was said, but dumb noise had to be better than her own thoughts.

When all is said and done, Rose tries not to race off but she doesn’t linger long as the group breaks apart. She doesn’t want or need to see his coffin lowered into the ground and so she tries to slip away quietly, heading in the opposite direction of the Inn. The bruises that still cover her body makes her move gingerly as she wanders off, heading towards the river that she knows will only serve as another reminder of things she wished would stay buried. It seemed like a day to punish herself, however, so why not cram as much shit as she could possibly manage, into one afternoon.

[Feel free to catch her at any point in time. Or not… because lbr she’s a moody asshole right now.]

She didn't know the boy, but had heard what happened during the fight. It was chilling to think how close she had come to sharing his fate, only being spared because of the barricade she had put up in front of the jail. While this wasn't a loss that she felt personally, the funeral served a purpose for her as well. So many she knew and loved had come into the village and were taken away quickly. Her brother, her lover, her surrogate family. Now, she was alone. This was a chance to say goodbye to them as much as it was to the young man who gave his life for the village.

He was so young, that was what made it tragic. Death was a rare thing and seemed to hit them hard, but it was those that fought beside him that seemed to feel it the most keenly. She noticed Rose standing away from the rest, her face hard. When the funeral was over, she tried to slip away from the rest. While she might want to be alone, Margaery felt concern and compassion for her. She was careful to steal away to her side without anyone noticing, looking at her with a worried expression.

"How are you?" Both mentally and emotionally.

She’d gotten just far enough away where she thought she was safe from any who might think to follow, Rose’s pace slowing to match the injuries that were her constant reminder of the fight. Between the hot springs and a steady diet of peaches, she was coming along much better than she could have been, but it wasn’t the instantaneous relief she received when spirit magic was used to mend her too numerous to count, wounds.

Margaery’s voice dragged her from her swirl of thoughts like the snap of a rubber band, the look of surprise that touched her features, tinged with confusion. It was something people here seemed to do. Go after people, make sure that they were okay and while she supposed it wasn’t a foreign concept for her back home. She was never the one people went after, even when they probably should. Rose was the one who protected others, took care of them, made it better. In those rare moments when she’d been the one who needed to be looked after, people just didn’t seem to know what to do.

“Uh-” She shook her head, clearing the uncertainty from her eyes as she did so and raised her shoulders in a noncommittal shrug, as if that would sell whatever bullshit would leave her mouth.

“Fine.” One of those words she’d said so often now that it had lost all meaning. “We weren’t friends or anything…” As if that alone meant that this woman didn't need to worry about her. As if that meant she wasn’t allowed to feel anything about Peeta’s death.

She was at least standing, which wasn't always guaranteed with these sorts of attacks. These beasts were vicious and the last time they attacked, a number of people had been grievously wounded. There had been attacks and losses, not simply human, but animal as well. At a time when food was still scarce, it had hurt them as deeply as any claw mark.

Rose was still a stranger to her. While she had seen the woman as often as she saw everyone else, they had never stopped to talk to each other before. It didn't remove the concern she instantly felt for her. She had been a member of the group that had fought the creature. The loss to their number seemed to hit the others hard, so it was safe to assume it was the same for Rose.

"No, but when someone is killed in battle, it still stays with you." She couldn't speak from experience, but she knew her brother felt the loss of his friends. "He was young and kind, from what I have heard. It's senseless."

But death was always senseless, that she knew from experience.

She’d not been here the last time the Wendigo had attacked, but Rose knew something about these sort of things. Creatures that were larger, stronger, faster than she was. Creatures who seemed to want nothing more than to destroy with no thought for the damage they left in their wake. She knew what it meant to lose people in the blink of an eye, and what it meant to try and rebuild after the devastation. She knew it, but it wasn’t something you could ever be fully prepared for and she’d foolishly believed that in this place, she’d never have to be.

They all stayed with you. Every death. Whether you knew them, saw it happen or even if they’d come at your own hands. Death wasn’t something you could sweep under a rug, no matter how hard people tried. Back home they’d turned doing so into an art form, but it wasn’t like that here. Rose wasn’t sure which she preferred, now that she was in the middle of it.

“He shouldn’t have been there.” She said simply, though not without feeling. He shouldn’t have been out there and she’d known it, only she hadn’t tried to stop him. It could be seen as admirable, his willingness to give up his life in order to try and help others, but it didn’t have to be that way. He didn’t need to fight when others could have done so in his stead. He didn’t need to fight when she should have made him get out of there and get help the second he got hurt.

“He got hurt, and he stayed… and he shouldn’t have.” Because she’d told him to lead it away, to be their bait. He’d stuck around to follow her instructions and it had cost him his life. “He shouldn’t be dead.”

Having only faced the Wendigo barricaded in the jailhouse, she couldn't imagine how it was to fight the creature in the woods. Its strikes were swift and precise, even through small holes in the door and a broken window pane. The way it moved, it defied her expectations, faster than anything she had seen before and far stronger than anything she had heard of before. It was a monster and no matter what they did, someone was likely going to die. It always brought death whenever it appeared.

Death was common in her world, whether you played the Game of Thrones or not. Life was a gamble. Smallfolk were pawns to the games of their lords and lords sought power by any means. She had learned to feel nothing, believing herself to be weaker if she did. However, death still affected her. Not simply the ones her grandmother had inflicted, but the ones that had come as a result of her games.

Then there was her own. While she had come to terms with it, she still found herself haunted during the night. A flash of green or a rumble of the ground was enough to shake her, no matter how far she moved forward.

"No, he shouldn't have been." He was young and innocent, but those were the ones that death stalked the most. "He wanted to protect the village." She didn't know the boy, but she recognized his idealistic attitude. "I doubt anything would have convinced him to go back, but it doesn't make it any better."

Youth and innocence didn’t go hand in hand in Rose’s world, in most worlds for that matter. Peeta had been no younger than any newly marked Guardian to come out of the Academies. Those who lived purely to fight creatures, not all that different from a Wendigo.

In some ways she found a Strigoi worse, because unlike the creature who looked every bit the part of the monster it was; The Strigoi looked just like the Humans, Moroi and Dhampir that they used to be. It was funny how that illusion of humanity could make you hesitate, even when everything you’d learned from the time you could walk and talk that doing so meant death.

“He didn’t have to. We have other fighters.” Maybe they were better, maybe they weren’t. At the end of the day it probably didn’t matter. They hadn’t been willing, or at best hadn’t known and she couldn’t fault them for either of those things. It didn’t change the fact that he didn’t have to do it, and his choice had ended in his death.

She felt like she should have dragged him back, even if he wasn’t willing. Should have forced him to put his own safety ahead of those who remained in the boarded up Inn or in their homes. Maybe doing so wouldn’t have saved his life, but now she’d never know. She’d always wonder if there wasn’t more she could have done, if only she had listened to her instincts. It wasn’t easier to accept death when you did everything you could have, but it was easier to sleep at night.

“People who had less to lose.” People like herself, the ones who didn’t have the kind of ties that Peeta seemed to have if that pearl was anything to go by.

There was always something more to innocence than youth, though it was sometimes hard to separate the two. Joffrey had been far from innocent despite his youth, but even then, he was still a young boy at heart, needing love and affection. He was a monster and he was a boy as well. Tommen though, he was young even after becoming a man. Innocence was embedded in him and was likely going to last for the whole of his life.

It was possible it was the same for this Peeta. He seemed to have the sort of manner and spirit that reminded her of Tommen. While there was something in him that marked toil and sorrow, he still had a warmth in his eyes that she understood to be kindness. He was the sort that life was never kind to, but still remained kind to all in return. It never ended well for such people.

"We do, but we don't always have a choice in these things." She said gently. "We all must help in this village and I imagine that he wanted to do this. There must have been someone he wanted to protect." A friend, family, something.

Did she carry guilt for Peeta? Did she take his death on her heart? "There was nothing you could have done." She offered softly, reaching to place her hand on Rose's arm. "Death is always a great deal to lose to. It doesn't matter if you have someone here or not. If you had died as well, it would be just as painful a loss."

She had seen the same in Peeta as well. It was his eyes. The look she always expected to see in a warrior. He didn’t have it. Not that it made him soft or incapable. It was the look of somebody who hadn’t been so hardened by what they’d seen and done that it aged them in inexplicable ways. The look the Guardians wore as they walked the halls of the Academy. The look she saw in the eyes of many of the people who lived here. But Peeta? He retained that spark of life and light. He may have seen horrors. Lived through them. Inflicted them but he was still somehow, whole, in a way that so many weren’t.

“Which is exactly why he shouldn’t have been there.” Because you take stupid risks when it comes to the people that you love. You’re willing to sacrifice everything in order to give them, just a chance. It was like that between her and Liss but she was different in a way, because Rose would always be expected to sacrifice everything for the sake of others. Her training demanded it. In a way, her race demanded it.

“You weren’t there.” No anger, just. Fact. Rose knew what she was capable of. She knew the choices she had made and while she knew she had done much to try and save Peeta, she also knew it hadn’t been enough. If she’d done everything right and he’d still died… maybe it would be easier to bear but she hadn’t, and she knew it. Even if others didn’t.

“I appreciate you saying it and all… but it wouldn’t be.” And she was surprisingly at ease with that fact, though perhaps it was because it’s what she was always taught to believe. While the death of a Dhampir wasn’t celebrated, it was, at least, expected. The death of a Moroi however, that was a tragedy. A Dhampir, a sad inconvenience.

“I can’t cook. I can’t hunt. I can’t really do much of anything to contribute around here.” She could fight, which came in handy when there were Wendigos around but that was about it. “And I don’t really know anyone here…”

Elena. Elena would hurt. Would grieve for her but Elena would be okay. Elena knew a thing or two about loss and she could overcome it. “If I’d died, it would have been sad because… nobody likes it when somebody dies, but there wouldn’t be the hole left that there is now.” Realizing how all of that must sound. "It's okay. I know that's how it is. There's nothing bad in telling the truth."

"Life is never kind to such people." She said softly. Whatever happened in this village, she had to wonder if he would ever have escaped this sort of fate? The world was darkness and you needed to be cynical and realistic to survive. Innocence and kindness were often a liability. Perhaps she was not so hardened as she used to be, but she understood the game and the way that fate worked.

"No, I wasn't, but I know this creature and I know what comes of these fights." How many years had she been here? How many lives had she seen destroyed? Perhaps not simply killed. Friends were made here, lovers found and it was all take away on the whim of the Observers. Nothing lasted and this creature was a manifestation of that. Innocence lost.

"You can learn such things." She offered. "When I came, I knew none of these things either. Others taught me and I could help you." If that meant something? "You know me now. I'm Margaery Tyrell." She shook her head. "Every death in this village leaves a hole, whether we knew someone or not. Whether they are new or not."

Finnick doesn't go to many funerals, though he's been responsible for causing plenty. But by the time he gets back from the Capitol, his dead tributes have always already been buried. He goes to their graves alone, after he gets back. Once he knew there'd be one for Peeta, though, he'd wanted to come. Wanted to make whatever futile gesture he could to the dead boy, to apologize for breaking his promise to protect him, and Katniss.

He's trying to keep himself numb. He'd learned to do it long ago, learned to switch off what his mind was screaming at him and go through the motions. It had been the only way to survive in the Capitol, to do what he needed to do without killing somebody. Today, he just needs to get through the day.

The paint had been his. It had shown up on his and Annie's porch that morning and it was clear what it was for. Clear, but an unexpected gesture. Finnick joins Haymitch in painting the coffin; art has never been Finnick's skill, not like Annie, or Peeta who'd painted himself so perfectly into a riverbed that he'd disappeared in the arena. But the little swallows, sailors' symbols of luck, aren't difficult, and neither are patches of color that Peeta had apparently asked for.

The funeral song is harder; it carries too many memories with it. But it's from District Four, and it's something he can offer. So he sings, and after he's done, he joins in Haymitch's salute. He doesn't know what it means, but he knows it was a farewell to Katniss from her district, and to Rue from Katniss. And a little more than that, too. He's not brave enough to paint a mockingjay like Haymitch did, but the salute is a little rebellion too.

Later, his face still carefully blank, he follows the others who had wandered back towards the Inn, where he stands against the wall, arms tightly crossed across his chest as if that could hold in the shame and the guilt. He'd worn the red suit he'd been given the day gifts overflowed in the Inn's main room, and now there's dirt on the sleeves from helping to lower the coffin into Peeta's grave, but Finnick doesn't care.

Right now, he doesn't care about anything much.

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Be the spark that ignites a revolution | mingle post

Rose ][ OTA

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Finnick Odair | OTA