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31_days2013-01-06 04:56 pm
seta-suzume.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2013-01-06 04:56 pm
[Jan. 6] [The Hunger Games] Victor's Daughter
Title: Victor's Daughter
Day/Theme: Jan. 6, 2012 "You cannot save people, you can only love them."
Series: The Hunger Games
Character/Pairing: various District 4 OCs (an anecdote concerning a past Hunger Games), Mags
Rating: PG-13
Author's comment: I was idly writing this anecdote today and decided to drop by and remind myself what today's theme was and when I saw it I was punched in the gut with all kinds of feelings!
There isn't sitting room for all five of District 4's victors on the platform. Mags, Jules, and Shad sit. Odysseus and Tyde stand behind them.
But the wrong victors are sitting today.
Clarence Caffrey pulls the name of the tribute girl with a pretty, painted smile. "Margie Barrow!" he squeals in delight.
The cameras know exactly who to zoom in on. Margie Barrow is the daughter of a victor. One of only two daughters of victors District 4 has. Both of them (and the single boy claiming the distinction of "son of a victor") are Tyde's.
Tyde Barrow doesn't faint, but his knees buckle such that he stumbles and falls off the platform, much to the shock and concerns of those around him (Shad knocks over his chair in his haste to assist his colleague and Odysseus jumps off the stage after him).
"Volunteer!" shrieks Rita Barrow, the mother of the chosen girl, pushing at the makeshift barrier separating the rest of 4's citizens from the reaping eligible children, "One of you volunteer!" Her eyes dart between the baker's dozen of girls from the training sessions (and she knows them all by name- they often train in her very yard).
They have trained for this very reason, haven't they? Margie has had training of her own, but it was always of a lesser sort. Her odds of avoiding the reaping should have been good. And if she were chosen, there should have been someone ready and willing to take her place. Rita thought she was on the verge of losing her mind. Those girls! Why were they just standing there?!
"Someone take her place!"
It was possible that Rita Barrow's outburst was causing more of a stir than the actual reaping of Tyde's older daughter. At her mother's side, the younger girl, Tina, too young, at only eleven, to take her sister's place, shook her tiny fists in frustration and fear.
"I'm Margie Barrow," the trembling girl is confirming what everyone already knows into Clarence's microphone.
"And Tyde here is your father, right?"
"Yes," she says, "I'm the middle child."
Tina stands by and looks back and forth between the various members of her family as her sister speaks onstage while Peacekeepers restrain their furious mother. Javier, with the other eighteens, wears a very shifty look. Volunteer and risk my parents losing two children, he might be wondering, or stay put and have no way to help my sister?
Clarence uses up the time he has for Margie and moves on to picking the boy- Talen Greeb.
For the Barrow family, the horror may compound when he receives a near-instant volunteer. "I want to go in his place!" the under-sized, but tough trainee Vetch Sonwright jumps up, "I volunteer!"
There will be sponsors ready for the daughter of a victor. There will be innumerable questions about the legacy handed down to Margie from her father (she is named Margarita after both her mother and her father's mentor, Mags- "The woman I love and the woman who brought me back to her," in Tyde's own words).
But a career tribute will have more skills; better odds.
Mags and Tyde join the veritable circus as mentors for the 43rd Hunger Games.
When Margie dies, that will be the worst part (Tyde has a sinking feeling that she will die- her chances are no better than anyone else's and sometimes Tyde can still barely believe that he survived himself).
What's the worst part that will occur before the arena though? Tyde keeps thinking he's stumbled upon it, but then something even more horrible rises up and threatens to overwhelm him. Margie was reaped. None of the girls he trains volunteered for her (but he and Mags always stressed that- no one was supposed to feel like they had to volunteer just because they were trained- you trained for yourself and your family, not to be forced into sacrificing yourself for District 4- only the Capitol would force you). …He has to decide whether he or Mags should mentor her.
Margie is crying quietly as she picks at her lunch of fish and fried bananas. Clarence, who has known her for years (it was for the sake of the audience that he asked her to identify herself as Tyde's daughter), ever since he was first assigned to chaperone 4, is talking to her in a kind manner.
Vetch is mercilessly spearing peas on his fork.
When Margie meets her father's eyes, her crying intensifies and part of Tyde wonders whether he should even have come. He wouldn't be having this fight with himself now. Mags could've mentored Margie- Mags is the best mentor they have. 4 has five victors. Mags brought herself home and three of the others are her's as well. Final eight Tyde does well, but for victors, he has only Shad to his name (Shad, who he still has to tell every so often even after all these years that the victory wasn't a fluke).
Mags could mentor Margie. Mags might bring her home. She had saved Jules and he was the closest any past tribute had come to being a victor's child, wasn't he? Odysseus could take Vetch (maybe run him away from Margie- if he had to run him into the ground- if any victor could do that, Odysseus could).
But how could he walk away from his daughter? How could he turn down any precious last moments alongside her?
…maybe that answered his question. Mags and Vetch. He and Margie.
Margie (Margarita) Barrow. Fifteen years old. Three days in the 43rd Hunger Games.
Why was it, the commentators wondered, that victors' children all had such terrible luck?
The Capitol took one child from Tyde (one child of his own- as a dedicated trainer of tributes, he felt as if many others had been taken from him). They spared him the other two.
One was more than enough.
Who could say who thought it first in the vast lands and waters of District 4, but Tyde Barrow was the first to speak it in front of a crowd. "I revolt! Who's with me?!"
Day/Theme: Jan. 6, 2012 "You cannot save people, you can only love them."
Series: The Hunger Games
Character/Pairing: various District 4 OCs (an anecdote concerning a past Hunger Games), Mags
Rating: PG-13
Author's comment: I was idly writing this anecdote today and decided to drop by and remind myself what today's theme was and when I saw it I was punched in the gut with all kinds of feelings!
There isn't sitting room for all five of District 4's victors on the platform. Mags, Jules, and Shad sit. Odysseus and Tyde stand behind them.
But the wrong victors are sitting today.
Clarence Caffrey pulls the name of the tribute girl with a pretty, painted smile. "Margie Barrow!" he squeals in delight.
The cameras know exactly who to zoom in on. Margie Barrow is the daughter of a victor. One of only two daughters of victors District 4 has. Both of them (and the single boy claiming the distinction of "son of a victor") are Tyde's.
Tyde Barrow doesn't faint, but his knees buckle such that he stumbles and falls off the platform, much to the shock and concerns of those around him (Shad knocks over his chair in his haste to assist his colleague and Odysseus jumps off the stage after him).
"Volunteer!" shrieks Rita Barrow, the mother of the chosen girl, pushing at the makeshift barrier separating the rest of 4's citizens from the reaping eligible children, "One of you volunteer!" Her eyes dart between the baker's dozen of girls from the training sessions (and she knows them all by name- they often train in her very yard).
They have trained for this very reason, haven't they? Margie has had training of her own, but it was always of a lesser sort. Her odds of avoiding the reaping should have been good. And if she were chosen, there should have been someone ready and willing to take her place. Rita thought she was on the verge of losing her mind. Those girls! Why were they just standing there?!
"Someone take her place!"
It was possible that Rita Barrow's outburst was causing more of a stir than the actual reaping of Tyde's older daughter. At her mother's side, the younger girl, Tina, too young, at only eleven, to take her sister's place, shook her tiny fists in frustration and fear.
"I'm Margie Barrow," the trembling girl is confirming what everyone already knows into Clarence's microphone.
"And Tyde here is your father, right?"
"Yes," she says, "I'm the middle child."
Tina stands by and looks back and forth between the various members of her family as her sister speaks onstage while Peacekeepers restrain their furious mother. Javier, with the other eighteens, wears a very shifty look. Volunteer and risk my parents losing two children, he might be wondering, or stay put and have no way to help my sister?
Clarence uses up the time he has for Margie and moves on to picking the boy- Talen Greeb.
For the Barrow family, the horror may compound when he receives a near-instant volunteer. "I want to go in his place!" the under-sized, but tough trainee Vetch Sonwright jumps up, "I volunteer!"
There will be sponsors ready for the daughter of a victor. There will be innumerable questions about the legacy handed down to Margie from her father (she is named Margarita after both her mother and her father's mentor, Mags- "The woman I love and the woman who brought me back to her," in Tyde's own words).
But a career tribute will have more skills; better odds.
Mags and Tyde join the veritable circus as mentors for the 43rd Hunger Games.
When Margie dies, that will be the worst part (Tyde has a sinking feeling that she will die- her chances are no better than anyone else's and sometimes Tyde can still barely believe that he survived himself).
What's the worst part that will occur before the arena though? Tyde keeps thinking he's stumbled upon it, but then something even more horrible rises up and threatens to overwhelm him. Margie was reaped. None of the girls he trains volunteered for her (but he and Mags always stressed that- no one was supposed to feel like they had to volunteer just because they were trained- you trained for yourself and your family, not to be forced into sacrificing yourself for District 4- only the Capitol would force you). …He has to decide whether he or Mags should mentor her.
Margie is crying quietly as she picks at her lunch of fish and fried bananas. Clarence, who has known her for years (it was for the sake of the audience that he asked her to identify herself as Tyde's daughter), ever since he was first assigned to chaperone 4, is talking to her in a kind manner.
Vetch is mercilessly spearing peas on his fork.
When Margie meets her father's eyes, her crying intensifies and part of Tyde wonders whether he should even have come. He wouldn't be having this fight with himself now. Mags could've mentored Margie- Mags is the best mentor they have. 4 has five victors. Mags brought herself home and three of the others are her's as well. Final eight Tyde does well, but for victors, he has only Shad to his name (Shad, who he still has to tell every so often even after all these years that the victory wasn't a fluke).
Mags could mentor Margie. Mags might bring her home. She had saved Jules and he was the closest any past tribute had come to being a victor's child, wasn't he? Odysseus could take Vetch (maybe run him away from Margie- if he had to run him into the ground- if any victor could do that, Odysseus could).
But how could he walk away from his daughter? How could he turn down any precious last moments alongside her?
…maybe that answered his question. Mags and Vetch. He and Margie.
Margie (Margarita) Barrow. Fifteen years old. Three days in the 43rd Hunger Games.
Why was it, the commentators wondered, that victors' children all had such terrible luck?
The Capitol took one child from Tyde (one child of his own- as a dedicated trainer of tributes, he felt as if many others had been taken from him). They spared him the other two.
One was more than enough.
Who could say who thought it first in the vast lands and waters of District 4, but Tyde Barrow was the first to speak it in front of a crowd. "I revolt! Who's with me?!"