musically yours ♪

task 001 // the grand heist

They stole Winnie’s guitar, and she’d do anything to get it back. 

Losing it felt like a missing limb. Like something that kept aching, but could not be soothed. There was nothing that she could do, either. She’d have broken into the Justice Building if she were a different kind of person, but the fact is, Winnie would not intentionally break the law. 

She sometimes spends her days wondering what it would be like, if she and Rowan teamed up and slipped into the Justice Building, dead of night, to take it back. To dress in dark colours and carefully weave around corners, finally finding the prize, lit with soft lighting, a heavenly glow. 

Stellina snorted. “Yeah, because that’ll attract sponsors. It’s just a silly little party trick.” Her parents certainly hadn’t been impressed after the shock factor wore off.

Watching the man’s reaction to the errant knife, and the girl’s obvious upset, Stellina moved one of the two knives she had left into her dominant hand and threw it at the trainer’s hat, knocking it from his head and onto the floor. “Whoops,” she said unsympathetically. “I missed.” Taking a step towards him, she tossed her final knife from hand to hand casually. “You try that again and you’re out of this life, bucky.” She smiled sarcastically and turned back to the girl. 

“Are you okay?” she asked gently, lowering the knife to her side.

Winnie was thankful to have the girl create a distraction while she took a moment to breathe deeply and push the panic attack back from where it loomed over her. She held for four seconds, then exhaled the way Rowan and her had practiced. She imagined him next to her, a hand on her back, encouraging her as she brought herself back. And when the knife hit the trainer’s hat, Winnie even smiled a little. 

“I’m okay,” she said, her voice soft. “I-I’m sorry about that, I just... I didn’t know, and he was...” she felt the panic rising again and stopped mid-sentence to breathe and push it back again. “I’m okay. Thank you.” She paused, smiling a little. “That was... that was super cool. Could you teach me how to do that? How to throw them more focused?”

Rowan was beginning to feel like he was suffocating. Being forced to stay in this building for a prolonged period of time was torturous. He craved the forest, craved the feeling of tree roots on the bottoms of his feet, craved fresh air. But whenever he found himself at the front door of the building or on the roof, he found a peacekeeper shoving him back inside or a trainer telling him off for being someplace he wasn’t supposed to be.

Freedom was something that was a luxury around here.

So, if he wasn’t allowed to leave, he figured he would find Winnie, and that he did, finding her working on something in some corner of the training room in classic Winnie fashion. She wasn’t going to give up, he loved that about her.

“Yes, show me, show me, you incredibly talented human person, you.”

Winnie grinned as she pulled him across the room. “It turns out I can do more than just guitar, Rowan, I’m actually good at this.” She nearly skipped as she brought him across to her snare, gesturing to it with a bright smile. “Tah-dah! Look. It hooks little animals, which is super sad, but, if you have to do it, you have to do it.” She took the model squirrel and tossed it onto the trap, grinning as it snapped up the little toy, letting it dangle in the air from the little sapling holding it in place. 

“You can even make them for people, although it’s more difficult. You need more wire, and a tree strong enough to support a person, but it’s possible. The trick is,” she explained, crouching beside it and pointing to a little notched stick. “You’ve got to hook these together, because that holds the branch down, and if someone steps in it without looking, then they’ll knock the hooks apart and, well...” she pointed to the snare with the squirrel toy dangling from it. “That’ll be them. By the leg.” 

She turned back to Rowan. “I was thinking, something like this could help us if someone tried to sneak up on us. Even a simple trip wire. We set those up near where we’re sleeping, and then no one can get the jump on us, right?”

task nine // chariots

Winnie squeezed her eyes closed as the stylist assistant snagged a knot in her hair with the brush, wincing in pain. “Sorry, doll!” the woman chirped, her styled hair bouncing around as she moved around her. “You’re a little tangled, there!”

She hadn’t been excited when Calliope marched her down to the stylist bay and pushed her into a cubicle of brightly coloured people. She had been especially mortified when they forced her to strip down to absolutely nothing. Winnie had never liked being out of control. She didn’t care if her hair looked a little off, or if her clothing had a little rip or rough patch to it, if she got to style it herself. Rowan didn’t care about those things, neither did her family, and no one else’s opinion mattered.

But it turns out, these people cared.

Actually, they cared a lot. Maybe too much.

see you later // task two // the reaping

Winnie woke the morning of the Reaping with nightmares. She woke safely in Rowan’s arms, practicing timing her breathing with the rise and fall of his chest. He was there, like he always was. Winnie always had a feeling of dread, that wasn’t new for Reaping Day. It was just closer, like it surrounded her rather than floating over her head.

The one thing that she’d feared was going to come true. It was going to be worse than her wildest dreams. But as she and Rowan moved through their routine, ate pancakes at the table with the Sycamores and walked to the square hand in hand, Winnie didn’t know that. She thought she was always prepared for the worst. But you can never really be ready for your life as you know it to be over.

As the afternoon continued, Winnie had set up camp at the traps and snares station, working carefully with a patient trainer and a few coils of wire to work on some simple traps. Tension and balance were things she understood, and wire was not foreign to her, but it was the act itself of making traps that she wanted to understand. She was a quick study, and hummed to herself as she worked. “Loop it under, then over, then around the corner, fasten it tight and tip it off...” she softly sang under her breath, committing each unique loop to memory.

Winnie looked up after finishing one of the tougher snares and spotted Rowan approaching. She waved him over with a huge smile and hurried forward to meet him with a quick kiss. “Want to see what I made?” she asked softly, taking him by the hand back to her collection of traps. // @ofvigilcnce

“Good guess,” Skye said, pointing the plant in her hand at the girl. “Not everyone lives in a world full of love, no matter how many pretty words you put in a song.” 

Skye felt a little bad at making the girl feel uncomfortable. But only a little bit. Even though she was thrust in this awful situation - stupid Capitol - Skye didn’t need someone reminding her of what she didn’t have. Skye shrugged at her comment. “It’s your loss then. If you don’t have what it takes to write that potential last song, what can you do?” 

Winnie frowned. “That’s quite sad, then,” Winnie said, looking back to her leafy plant and studying its texture. “Because love isn’t just about a partner or a friend, or even family, you know. It can be about loving yourself, too. I’ve got songs about that. And if... whoever, doesn’t feel that, then I just feel bad for them.” Winnie looked back up to the girl with a soft gaze, trying to read her. 

There was a moment, a very brief one, where Winnie worried this girl was right. That she didn’t have what it took, that she’d die with an unfinished symphony lost to the world from a vacant brain. But Rowan had worked so hard to help her build up her confidence, brick by brick, and she pushed as hard as she could to make sure this girl didn’t topple it back over. She looked from the girl, to the leaves, back to the girl, before focusing on her book. “You can’t force songs, just like you can’t force anything,” she said quietly. “You just have to wait for it to come.”

“There are a few interview things I want to go over with you, as well as ask you how your training is going. But,” she said, getting up to walk to the table with the box, “first thing’s first. This is for you.” Lysetta took a seat on the ground, her morning tea balanced on her palm. She crossed her legs, looking excited at Winnie. 

“Right, of course,” she agreed, delicately sitting on the sofa next to where Lysetta sat on the floor. She leaned forward to take the box, her eyes lit up with excitement. “Really? For me?” Winnie balanced the box on her lap. It was lightweight, too big to be baked goods but too small to be a customized coffin. She couldn’t think of anything in-between.

Lifting the lid from the box, Winnie’s eyes flooded with tears instantly. She picked up the ukulele, shining and brand-new, from the box in front of her and choked on a sob, holding her other hand to her mouth. “How did you... I didn’t... You...” She looked over at Lysetta in genuine surprise. “You didn’t have to do this, I’m gonna die in, like, a week,” she admitted, drying her tears. One hand still locked around the neck of the ukulele, in disbelief at the feeling of it under her fingers.

She shrugged casually. “They aren’t my thing, no. I mean I can juggle them.” She took three more from the rack, leaving her original with the other girl, and began to expertly throw them in the air, quickly getting into a rhythm. She finished after a short while with a flourish, giving a little bow as she caught the last knife’s handle. She’d been desperate to learn anything that her sisters hadn’t already touched when she was twelve, and juggling knives had been unclaimed territory in the Minuet household.

“Unless you wanna do that, though, I’m not much use.” She turned towards the target and threw the solitary knife in her right hand at it, pulling a face as the blade embedded in the leg of the human-shaped cut-out. “See? That’s not gonna kill anybody in a hurry.”

Winnie stepped back forcefully as the girl started chucking knives into the air, a hand instinctively pressed to her lips in shock at how easy she made it look. Surely, she had practiced for a long time, and the kind-hearted part of Winnie knew that she’d be an asset if she could get this girl to work with herself and Rowan. But the practical part of Winnie knew that a girl this lethal would be a death sentence to befriend. The best she could do was try not to climb the ranks of her hit list.

“That’s... impressive,” Winnie admitted, still slack-jawed in awe. “You should bust that out at the interviews, I’m sure everyone would love it. Or in the Arena.” Winnie watched her throw the knife quickly into a target and nodded. “That’s better than I’m capable of. Watch.” She stepped forward, held the knife between her trembling fingers, and chucked it. It went far to the right, hitting into the metallic racks of weapons on the wall to the side. A trainer cursed loudly. 

“Hey!” he pointed at Winnie. “Watch it. Don’t throw weapons you’re shit at. Try that again and you’re out of here.”

“I-I-I’m, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she babbled, holding back the tears as she called her apologies across the room, feeling her cheeks grow crimson. 

Lysetta did it. She had to pull some strings and talk to a bunch of different people, but she got a ukulele for Winnie. It had taken her a few days and she felt bad seeing the girl somewhat deflated every so often. She walked across the threshold of the District 10 living room and placed the box that held the ukulele onto the table. Lysetta fixed the bow that sat on top of the box and looked it over. Hopefully it would put a smile on her face before she had to put them back on schedule. 

Lysetta basically skipped over to Winnie’s door and knocked lightly. “Hey Win, could you come out to the living room for me? Make sure you’re ready because we have some things we have to go over before you head downstairs today.”

She brushed the hair out of her face, as she positioned herself on the sofa to see Winnie walk in. This felt right. These kids needed something good from her as she ushered them from place to place unceremoniously. 

// @winniesycamore

Rowan had gotten up before her for a quick wardrobe fitting, and Winnie had chosen to stay in bed, snuggled in the soft blankets for a little while longer. She wanted to get up and into training, and to join Rowan, sooner, and as she was fixing her hair into two long braids, she heard the knock on the door and Lysetta’s lilting voice greeting her. “O-okay!” she called, her fingers fumbling over the braid. “Just a minute!” 

She finished dressing and stepped out into the living room once her hair was in place, her pressed training uniform on and her sneakers tied. The gift box drew her attention immediately and she wondered who it might be for. Was there a birthday she didn’t know about? “Good morning,” she greeted softly, her eyes darting back to the box again. “What did you need to see me for?” Winnie walked over to the morning spread of pastries and took a scone before returning to Lysetta.

winnie sycamore // moodboard

bonus:

“Love? Like you love your dog and your truck?” she replied, laughing. “Or like love your boyfriend? Are you sure it’s love and not ‘you guys were just in the same place and you thought, what the hell?’’“

Skye nodded, picking up another plant and playing with it in her fingers. “You might want to write one before you go in the Arena. Who knows how long a nice girl like you will last in there.” 

Winnie looked at her with a strange kind of contempt. She didn’t dislike the girl at first sight, but she didn’t quite understand why she was already being so defensive when Winnie had spoken hardly a paragraph to her. It was almost as though she was the kind of girl who was so used to people disliking her that she accidentally gave them a reason to. “Well, no, I don’t have a dog, or a truck. My family, or, my boyfriend, yes.” She froze at the girl’s words, shaking her head. “No, we’ve known each other since we were kids and fell in love a few years ago. You sound like love isn’t something you know well,” she offered softly, a little sad for what she missed out on.

She furrowed her brow a little in a mix of worry and annoyance. “Y-you never know,” she stumbled over her words, shaking her head. “I’ve started, but I don’t have a guitar here, or a ukulele. There’s a piano in the lobby, but I don’t play that well, not well enough to write on. I don’t write well without an instrument.”

Ada wasn’t going to entertain the idea of, nor any of the other tributes watching, attempting to become well versed in a weapon in a mere three day’s time. If the time came when she needed to slam a knife into someone’s neck, she would be able to do it. No one required training to know how to preserve their livelihood. That came naturally. Wanting to preserve one’s livelihood was a different story, but one she didn’t want to contemplate and tucked away for another day. 

“If you’re looking to memorize something, associate it with something you won’t forget,” she suggested. “Something ridiculous or something actually memorable. Nothing too long and maybe something funny? I don’t know which direction I’m facing right now, but if I did, I could tell you all the others by reciting, “Never Easley’s Stupid Wireless.”

“That’s the plan,” Winnie agreed, greeting the other girl with a cautious smile. “Music helps me the most, honestly. If I can match new words to a melody I already know, that should spark something later on. I mean, it worked for math. Surely it’s got to work for this, right?” She paused, looking down at the berries. “Maybe goofy lyrics will work in my favour here. I don’t exactly have the time to make them perfect.”

Stellina smirked a little to herself. That thrill she felt course through her veins when someone was afraid of her had yet to grow old, it seemed. “They’re throwing knives, see?” she said, flipping the knife again, this time catching the blade, taking care to avoid touching the edges, before holding it out to the other girl handle-first. “You can tell because they’re sharp on both sides. Not like normal knives, which are only sharp on one.”

The girl’s wicked little smile brought a shiver down Winnie’s spine. This was what she was afraid of, the criminals here who weren’t afraid to flaunt their ability to kill. Combine that with the fact that she was definitely a Career, and Winnie had officially found the person she was the most afraid of. “Throwing knives,” she said quietly, taking the knife by the handle gingerly. She studied the blades, her heart racing. If she could learn to throw these, then she might be of some assistance to Rowan. 

“That... that makes sense,” Winnie replied, still struggling to meet the girl’s eye. She darted her gaze around, unable to find a comfortable place to rest it. “I guess you know a lot about these. You seem... skilled?”

“Ooh, are we singing?” Proserpina asked, coming over to the edibility station. She had no business being in the training centre now that the tributes were all in there honing their abilities, but sometimes she needed to take a little break from her needlework before she destroyed her entire studio again. 

“Nightlock berries are smooth on the bottom, but if you eat them then they taste really rotten,” she sang. “I mean, I presume they taste rotten. I haven’t really tried them. Obviously.” She cocked her head to one side as her eyes skimmed over the page of the book that the girl had open. “Blueberries have cute little bumps, and they’re totally okay to snack on for lunch.” She winced slightly. “I’m sorry, I’ve never really tried song-writing before. I normally just go with stuff people have already written.”

“I think it’ll help me remember things,” she said quietly, looking over at the stylist with curiosity. When she started singing, Winnie cracked a smile, shaking her head a little as she laughed. “I like it. They probably don’t taste good, but anyone who’s tried them... well, they can’t exactly tell us.” 

She nodded to the woman’s words, understanding. “That’s alright. You did pretty good for your first try, it’s taken me years to do stuff I feel is good enough. And sometimes, I still come up with terrible lyrics. Part of the process, I guess,” she admitted, flipping through the book and admiring a leafy plant that could be used to ease pain. She was ready to commit that one to memory. Just in case she or Rowan got hurt. 

Skye let out a laugh at the girl’s reaction to her. She listened to her as she took Skye’s suggestion to heart, improving the rhyme, at least a little bit. “At least your lyrics have truth to them. Can’t be said for some of the stuff that comes out of here.”

“Soon you will probably be able to write about death, huh? Doesn’t song writing come from experience of whatever? There’s going to be plenty of it around here soon enough,” she said, nonchalantly. It was true, this girl would probably have some emotions about the whole thing soon enough. 

Winnie smiled, a little nervous but masking it with well-practiced external calm. There were songs that came out of here that were hers, somehow, a mystery that was nowhere near the top of her to-do list to solve. “Thank you,” she replied softly. “I don’t think I could write about anything that I didn’t really believe in. Honestly, I mostly write about love. Not death or fruit.”

The girl’s words surprised Winnie, and she nodded. She couldn’t help but to agree. “I just hope I’ll have the chance to,” she said. “To actually live long enough to write a song about it.”

Skye was tired. Even a night of shenanigans never made her feel like her bones were weary and worn out. She decided to find a station that she could sit down at, maybe learn something, but mostly rest, hopefully alone.

She wandered up to the table full of plants and greenery, picking up one and taking a seat on the cushions on the ground to examine it. Skye felt at peace, twiddling different plants in her fingers and looking at the book that she had placed open in her lap. It was educational, but boring. After a few minutes, Skye wanted to get up, but she heard a voice on the other side of the table. 

Skye listened in, smiling at this girls song. It was a little bit of a ridiculous song, but her voice was very melodic. Once she trailed off, Skye spoke from her cushions on the ground. “Maybe you should find something to rhyme with berry? Scary? Hairy? Prairie?”

“Oh, shit!” Winnie jumped, taken aback by the presence of the girl on the floor. “I’m sorry, you scared me a little,” she admitted, her cheeks flushing. “I didn’t see you there. I didn’t know anyone was around.” She raised a brow, taking in the girl’s suggestion. 

“You’re right, berries does hit better syllable-wise than learn does. I could also add all before probably, like this is all probably useless to learn, and that avoids a full restructuring of the melody.” Winnie drummed her fingers on the table, parsing out the syllables carefully. “I like scary. It’s the most fitting word for this place. Berries won’t help if you’re stabbed, that’s just scary?” Winnie shook her head and laughed, looking back down to her books. “This is why I don’t write about fruit. Or death.”