Disclaimer: I did not create and do not own the Hunger Games universe or anyone or anything originating in that universe. I make no financial gain from this story whatsoever.
Glimpse
"Primrose Everdeen!"
Elsabet barely winces. She is the very image of a stoic, hard-bitten Seam woman. After all, she'd always known this was a possibility. They all knew it could be theirs. Luck of the draw. And Elsabet has never been lucky.
One daughter, then. No husband, one daughter. Her circle is shrinking even further. And Katniss… oh just say it, she scolds herself impatiently. Katniss has been taking care of herself since she was eleven. Katniss doesn't need mothering, especially not the watered down version of it that seems to be the best she can do.
Elsabet is startled to find herself watching Prim walk away and wishing she'd never had children, wishing she'd never married Robert, wishing she'd listened to her mother and never left her own people in the Town. Her self-contempt rachets up another notch. The only outward sign of this is a narrowing of her sky-blue eyes.
Prim was always hers, her chick, her acolyte. Prim, who even as a toddler had looked up at her with adoration, like Elsabet was the exemplar of everything a girl should aspire to be. Sweet, biddable Primrose, who looked like all the family she'd left behind. By the age of two, Prim rarely ever cried. Katniss, very much Robert's chick, had thrown stomping, screaming tantrums right up through age five.
She watches Prim tuck in the back of her shirt. Her little girl, the last daughter, and Elsabet feels the circle tightening around her, contracting. The world is closing in. She doesn't mind very much. She was really never cut out to be a mother, anyway. For the best, she thinks. Not that it is. Not that it matters. One of the other women lays a hand on her shoulder and Elsabet automatically lays her own over it. She doesn't recognize the other woman at all, and that doesn't matter either. Mentally she nudges the little blonde toward the stage, away from her, shrugging off the weight of the girl. Yours, now, she tells the pink lady. Take her and go away. Only the boy's name left now, and that's of little and less importance to her. It's almost over, and Elsabet is grateful for that. She feels very tired.
A shriek rises above the world, knifing into Elsabet, and she jerks away from the strange woman's hand with a suddenly repulsed gasp, like she'd just noticed it wasn't a hand on her shoulder but a big old wood spider.
"I volunteer!" Shrieked again, a wild cry that resembles a hawk's scream right before it dives. What's happening? What is this?
"I volunteer as Tribute." Stronger, steadier. Unmistakable. Katniss?
"Katniss?" Elsabet whispers, so low that none of the surrounding women can make it out. She's shocked, underwater, trying to make sense of a world that has started to tilt and spin around her. She hadn't remembered that you could volunteer. Katniss? The pink woman said Prim. They're both in the aisle, surrounded by Peacekeepers, both her daughters, her sweet little girl and the one that reminds her so forcefully of Robert. Not both of them, Elsabet thinks in rising panic. No. Not both of my girls.
The hand grips her shoulder again, pushing her into the ground. The sky is darkening. The air is squeezing the life out of her, constricting her chest.
No, not the air. Prim clings to her with desperate tightness, wrapped around her, crying into her dress. Primrose, returned. So- that's one. Back to one. Elsabet looks down at the little golden head disinterestedly for a moment. Ten she encircles the shaking girl in her arms. The last bit of Robert Everdeen climbs the steps onto the stage wearing Elsabet's dress.
"Robert," Elsabet murmurs the name like a prayer. Robert would never have allowed this to happen. "Robert, they've got Katniss. Robert?" She used to think she could still feel him near her sometimes, after he'd died. Now she thinks she was a very foolish woman. She's the only one here, and she isn't enough to change anything.
The town drunk/local celebrity/ Capitol catspaw, looking like a Town-Seam hybrid himself with that blond hair and those reddish gray eyes, slings an arm over Katniss's shoulders; Elsabet aches to slap him. She can't give Katniss to them, can't nudge her strong-headed elder daughter away in weary resignation. Katniss won't be nudged. Katniss had been saying, "Back off!" at the age of three, saying it in a high-pitched baby voice that had made Robert chuckle even as he looked at his wife apologetically.
Well. Perhaps Katniss isn't hers at all? Elsabet nods to herself. Not her daughter, after all. It had been a frightening close call, but the girl on stage isn't one of hers. Whatever her dead husband may have been, Elsabet is Town. There isn't a dark-haired person in her whole family. Limited gene pool, she supposes. You marry within your own people. Anyway, she's very tired and it must be almost time to go home. Elsabet thinks she'll take a nap before fixing dinner. She's dead on her feet. Dead like her husband, and dead like Robert's girl.
She looks doubtfully at the little girl in her arms. This one is hers, certainly. One. They'll both go home and sleep.