Adrian Pucey pleads not guilty. (hardening) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-01-15 21:35:00 |
|
|||
Her children lined up before her in their best clothes, solemn and quiet, as she walked down the grassy path to the house in Victors’ Village (not home -- she might have lived here for twenty years, birthed all her children here and watched them grow, but it would never be home). Lacey stood tall and straight, holding baby Robin in her arms with dry eyes and a steady gaze; a woman grown, almost, facing the world straight on. Lopp was next to her with his Adam’s apple bobbing, gangly-limbed and at least an inch taller than when she’d left. Little Mast clutched his half-brother’s hand, eyes red and nose running until Lopp put a handkerchief to his face and made him blow.
Her children, minus one.
Juniper hadn’t cried when Bluejack had died, leaving her a widow, or long before then when her father had died, leaving her half an orphan. There was no word for what you were when your children died, but it didn’t matter much -- she hadn’t cried for Birch, either, and she wasn’t about to. Mourning didn’t mean much, in her estimation. It certainly didn’t make her father, her husband, her son any less dead.
“Well,” she said at last, when they’d all been standing silent for a good minute or two, the little ones staring at her with big eyes. “We should go. They can’t start the funeral without us.” She moved forward and touched each child, one by one: smoothed little Mast’s hair, patted Lopp’s shoulder, cupped Lacey’s cheek and took the baby from her.
When she looked at Ash Blight, the lone scrawny thing that had managed to come through the 41st Hunger Games by hiding himself away while the rest killed each other, all Juniper could think of was her son Birch. Birch, who’d been so like his father, big and strong and handsome, who’d gone off to the Games four years ago and fought like a lion and came home in a pine box like all the other Tributes she’d sent to all the other Arenas. Nothing like this quiet boy who cringed away from contact and hid away from the world.
Mentoring a Tribute to victory for the first time in twenty-five years was supposed to taste like success. She was supposed to be proud, and happy as Clinton was happy, grinning next to her on the stage. But watching while the boy leaned on his stick (his leg still healing), while the district stood in attendance and the festive banners flew above them, the only thing she tasted was bitter and sharp.
Clinton clapped her on the back, later, during dinner at the mayor’s house. “Smile for once, Junie,” he told her, deep in his cups and flushed with it. “I am. I’m done, I’m through, I’m passing the torch. You girls are gonna have to whip this kid into shape on your own.”
Juniper nodded, unsurprised; Clint had given nearly forty years to the Games, mentoring every boy who hadn’t come home, and now this one who had. District Seven couldn’t require any more. “We’ll do what we can. Would be nice for him if you’d stick around a while.”
“Ah, he’ll do fine. Nobody’ll miss an old stump like me, anyway. Truth to tell, I reckon they’ll be glad to see the back of me in the Capitol.” He grinned, his eyes crinkling around the corners, and for a moment she could see the young man he’d been when Juniper was a girl, handsome and charming. Well, none of them were young anymore.
None of them but Ash Blight.
She glanced at the boy, sitting alone at the table, staring at his plate while the conversation went on without him; he wasn’t much to look at, that was for sure, and he hadn’t been much to watch in the Games either. Why he should have won and not one of the stronger, faster, better kids Seven had sent these past twenty-five years since Juniper’s own Games, she’d never know.
“I know that look, girl. Go easy with the kid.” Clint’s eyes were kind as he patted her shoulder. “I wish it could’ve been your boy that let me retire, too, but there’s not a one of us that ain’t lost somebody to the Games. Just the way it goes. And I know it ain’t the same as having Birch back, but Ash is yours now. Look out for him, June.”
She ducked her head, acknowledging his words. Clinton usually wasn’t wrong. And Birch was dead and Ash was alive -- she couldn’t change that now.
The silence was so absolute that the blood rushing in Juniper’s ears was loud as a drumbeat. Her vision had gone dull, grey around the edges like a washed-out photograph. All she could see was Robin standing stock still down in the square, the girls around her drawn back as far as they could like being Reaped might be contagious. Juniper’s youngest, her baby, fourteen and small for her age, with her lips parted in surprise, her teeth showing very white and a little crooked.
The Peacekeepers moved in and got her walking, and at that Juniper stood up despite herself, taking three steps toward Robin as she climbed the stairs. Someone -- Laurel -- reached out to her, but Juniper ignored the touch as she moved forward. All the cameras were on her and her girl.
Her little girl, her baby.
“Ma,” Robin said out loud, surprise still written on her face, and Juniper bit the inside of her cheek until it bled, until she could taste salt and iron on her tongue. Her face was calm, though, and she kept it that way.
“All right, my girl,” she said, low, and rested a hand on Robin’s shoulder. The girl was trembling like an aspen leaf. She was afraid, and well she should be. “All right, now. I’m here.”
She didn’t hear the other girl’s name, or either of the boys. She had four Tributes to guide to the Arena this year, but the only one she could see right now was her baby.