Mags Diver [D4 victor] (![]() ![]() @ 2014-04-24 01:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! 57th games, - capitol, victor: 11th mags diver |
WHO: Mags Diver [D4 victor].
WHAT: Final reflections on Shad and other things as she packs his belongings.
WHEN: The final day just before the trains leave.
WHERE: Four's quarters at the Training Center.
STATUS: Complete narrative.
The Games had been over for two days and the train back to Four would be leaving in mere hours. And there was little else Mags had left to do as a mentor aside from packing up Shad's belongings to take back home as promised, along with the anonymous pine box that was as plain and identical to every other one before it -- as much an equaliser between tributes and districts as death was. She wondered if cannery families sent the bodies out to sea or scattered ashes on the waves like the fishing ones along the coast did. And then it was back to her work. Shad didn't have many things to put away, but what he did possess, she handled with slow, deliberate care. His Reaping clothes -- the last things his parents and brothers would have seen him wearing while he was still alive and with them -- were neatly folded with soft creases and slightly rumpled. It didn't seem right to have them pressed with sharp edges and every wrinkle steamed flat by Capitol machines, all traces of life and use erased. The little tin fish that had been his district token was tucked into a pocket that she buttoned shut, giving it a small pat as if she was putting the thing away to bed for a long sleep. For a moment, she almost considered throwing in the shirt he had worn during his private training session, and she smiled and shook her head as she looked over the loosened and torn seams along the sleeves. She remembered the night before the arena when she had asked him if he could share his secret of what he had done to score a 10, and he had told her what he had done. That had gotten a laugh from her, and she almost thought he could win if they thought so similarly, despite everything else. Almost. She'd known from the start that it was too soon for Four to have the Capitol's favour again after the last two years, despite his skills and promise. The arena's destruction that had pushed him towards the feast and accidentally caught the girl from One when she stopped running might not have necessarily been for him the way the wax statues had been for Miranda, but surely the Gamemakers wouldn't have minded if he had fallen as well. Perhaps the lightning that had stopped him from grabbing the shield that would have protected him from Pompeia's sword the way his knives could not had been a little intervention as well. She couldn't know for sure. And she had been around too early and too long to dwell over should have won and deserved to win, as if the Games were truly about victory. Not when it should be should have lived and didn't deserve to die -- not just for him, but everyone else. Perhaps there were people who'd say Shad had at least died a glorious and honourable death in combat like any Career would want if they couldn't win. But Four didn't do glory like One or honour like Two -- they were practical, and she knew Shad had trained and volunteered for a chance out of the drudgery of the canneries. He had that now, in a way. But it was a grim choice, between poverty or almost-certain death in the arena -- or as much of one as volunteering was at all. If it hadn't been him, it would have been someone else. There were others who may have said he shouldn't have won anyway, not with what his final words had been. Not the girls. Mags had shook her head and sighed then, and she did the same now, though for different reasons. She had never approved of his sexist attitude -- hated it, even -- and said as much, trying to get him to stop before he left. If not because it was the right thing to do, then at least for his own sake. And she appreciated the effort at least, even if it hadn't sunk in as his last words had revealed his true self in his final moments. But if he had lived, he could have come to know better, been taught to show more respect and mean it. She was sure every single victor in Four -- not just the women -- would have eagerly done so. That would never happen now that he was dead, just like so many other tributes, Careers and outliers alike, who had died in the past and continue to do so without the chance to grow -- up, better, and old. Mags, however, was also a Four and therefore practical herself. And she didn't have time or purpose for what if and wondering what Shad would have been like and how he could have grown up if he had lived and won. She took one last look at the belongings in his box and closed the lid over them. And that was it. |