Thank you @dandelionsunset1210 and @mandrake-mistakes for challenging me to participate in WIP Wednesday. Sorry for ruining the satisfying alliteration of this trend, but my day was very hectic yesterday as I am lesson planning for the upcoming school year. It is for this same reason and a recent vacation to Seattle that Chapter 3 of my fic, “Embracing Spring,” is taking longer than usual to be completed. My hope is to have it up within the next seven days, though! Anyway, below is a synopsis of the story in general for any new people and the very beginning of Chapter 3.
After Katniss Everdeen makes it through her final reaping, she is committed to staying staunch in her long-drawn assertions. Most pressingly, to never allow the kind of love that Panem exploits and destroys most. Unintentionally emboldening a certain, blond baker to finally approach her does make her pause, but not even his charms seem capable of completely breaking her resolve. Because nothing can, right?
Well, perhaps watching the president get assassinated on live television can get the ball rolling.
— An Everlark “this would have happened anyway” fic.
As a cacophony of high spirits continues to channel through my community and drown me in it, I wonder if perhaps I am the last cynic remaining.
It is a ponderance that has been reverberating in my mind since that direct, yet cryptic message was received by this mysterious Alma Coin now one week ago. People heard the word ‘free,’ internalizing her as the orchestrator behind the assassination of the man who made us feel anything but, and latched onto her promises with seemingly zero hesitation. I have refused to follow suit for every minute of it.
Feeling like the dead animals stuffed into my game bag after a particularly large haul, I am packed in amongst the crowd at our dingy train station. For the first time in our district’s history, we are set to welcome home both of our tributes. It is a feat matched by every other district across Panem. No more games, so they say. No more strife, so they say. No more bloodshed, so they say. But the icy eyes of the one delivering such sentiments said more to me than any word she could ever utter: bask in your savior, so I may gain your trust before I show my true self.
As I take stock of my surroundings, I want to scream at my jubilant neighbors to see what I see. The flags turning from the brutality of red to the dreariness of gray, as if switching from the scheduled loss of life to eventually having no real life to lose at all. A blank slate in which anything can be imposed onto us. The peacekeepers having suddenly sworn allegiance in droves after visible, initial reluctance in the first couple of days, all of them with varying degrees of a haunted look in their eyes. How about the promise of a free election, yet we have yet to learn about an allotted date or meet another candidate?
Then where she comes from is another matter on its own. From the ruins of District 13, she had informed. A once believed mystical place that I used to only devote free thought to when said ruins were always shown to us. But alas, they were apparently underground the whole time and randomly decided seventy-six years was the cutoff of every other district’s suffering.
All these thoughts and details have been jumbled throughout my consciousness, but one thing has cemented itself: I simply do not trust this Alma Coin.
I will be sure to challenge other writers the next time I participate on an actual Wednesday, but this is all I have for now. Sorry for the long wait for anybody who’s been anxiously awaiting an update, but hopefully it will be worth it!
