Well. This is unsurprising. Grubby faces and squinting eyes follow my route along the shabby market stalls, taking in my loose blond hair and neat, clean tailored clothing. I examine the produce on offer fully aware of every eye in the Hob on me and they are not exactly throwing me a welcome party.
The chilly reception is expected; here I am, with my golden hair, expensive clothing and a spring in my step that says 'oh, you've been working in the mines since you were fourteen? Well I had to sit through 'Capitol History' lessons for another two years. I envy you, I would much rather be out there experiencing the real world. School is just dire.' I am painfully aware that everything about me just screams 'I am the mayor's daughter.' I may as well have it tattooed on my forehead. That scary looking man with a great scraggly beard currently butchering what looks like a rabbit (although the poor thing could be anything the way the man hacks at it) looks at me as though he would willingly carve something into my forehead. Or face. Or just my general bodily area. I avert my eyes and quickly hurry past the rabbit massacre, scanning the rest of the market place and hoping to get this trip over with as quickly as I could.
I head towards the herbal stand at the back of the warehouse but a glint from a nearby table catches my eye. I come upon a stall selling trinkets and pieces of jewellery, pretty little things that shine when the late summer sun makes its appearance through the high beams of the warehouse windows. My fingers trace the shapes of the copper earrings, the rusty golden chains and the delicate lace bracelets, before they settle on a pale silver ring half swallowed by the snakelike tendrils of the explosion of treasures.
It's a fragile thing, not robust as you would assume a ring to be. Elegant swirls are engraved into its surface, entwining and looping until it reaches its centrepiece; a beautifully carved mockingjay, so carefully etched that I can see the flecks and lines of the bird's feathers and wings. Upon seeing the mockingjay, I know I have to have this ring. I hand over several coins to the girl behind the counter and shove my heavy purse into my basket, careful not to break the various vials and bottles needed for the medicine I am here to collect. Maybe it will give me a little bit of the luck Katniss has been having with my mockingjay gift, because things with mother recently have been deteriorating. Maybe the sight of the mockingjay, the symbol of Maysilee, will give her some hope.
I look at the run down scene all around me. Children in torn clothing with dirty bare feet run along the filthy floor, a group of elderly men sit in rickety chairs and pass a bottle of suspicious looking liquid between themselves, a rat scurries beneath a clothed stall before re-emerging seconds later in the jaws of a triumphant looking flea-ridden dog. The poverty is so clear to see here. It isn't just me that needs hope. The whole district is in disrepair. Poor district twelve, long forgotten by the Capitol if only to be dragged out of the woodwork kicking and screaming every year for the annual Hunger Games. The district has long grown used to sending off two of our youngest to the slaughter but that doesn't mean it gets any easier year after year.
This year is different however. Katniss has given the people hope. Finally, finally there will be a winner in twelve, the people are saying. There is excitement amongst the people of the Seam, of the merchants too. This is partly due to the fact that there could be two winners of the games from twelve due to a recent rule change; an unprecedented thought. Two winners from twelve. The star-crossed lovers, they are calling them. Is the Capitol becoming kinder? Maybe things will start to change for the better around here, for everyone. Although the sight of the almost skeletal bodies around me tells me that these are the people who need change the most.