A/N: Written for the Happiness Thrown Away contest on Caesar's Palace.
The Capitol takes its first piece of her when she is seventeen, though she doesn't realize it at the time. She stands proudly in front of her district, basking in their warm, enthusiastic applause, which the crowd gives willingly. After eight years of hunger and dead children, a strong, capable volunteer with an actual chance at survival is more than welcome.
District Four has had volunteers in the past, but none like her. The others were bitter young men and women, seasoned warriors who had longed to show the Capitol that though they had lost the war, they had not been defeated. Their bravery gained them nothing in the arena; each came home in a wooden box.
Margaret stands tall and strong in front of her district with years of training behind her. Unlike those fallen tributes, her muscles are earned through hours of sparring, not time on the fishing boats or clashes with Peacekeepers. She does not fight for her beliefs, but she will kill for applesauce and corn syrup. Four's children will go hungry without the Year of Plenty that surviving the Games will provide. She loves the people of her district too much not to win for them.
Gentle hearts like hers are not meant to kill, but she doesn't know that yet either.
.
.
Only after her Games does Margaret begin to understand what she's lost. The Games have injected their poison into every facet of her life. Nightmares now plague her sleep, and guilt gnaws at her in her waking hours. The weight of the children she murdered seems to press down on her, and her shoulders sag in shame. Gone is the young woman who proudly volunteered. In her place stands nothing but an empty shell of a woman.
Sometimes, she sits on the steps of the Justice Building and watches the children roll their carts of food home. She likes to watch their faces light up at a small jar of honey or a bag of grain. Mostly, though, she is glad that the children are not rolling home tesserae rations. It makes everything she went through seem a bit more bearable.
.
.
Though Margaret remains childless, she soon becomes a mother. She devotes herself to her pupils, teaching them to tie knots, charm strangers, and kill children. Her students love her, giving her nicknames and sharing their lives with her. Their Mags comes to love her students in return, and they become the children she will never have.
Every year, the Capitol demands another piece of her. Each summer, she stands on the stage and waits for her children to volunteer, a part of her hoping that they do not. She has taught them too well, and nearly every year, two strong voices ring out the words she dreads hearing.
Margaret always does everything she can for her students, and some of them survive. Most of them don't. She mourns with their families, but there are other tributes to train. She cannot dwell on any of her lost children for long.
.
.
And so the years pass. Her vibrant red hair fades to gray, and a spiderweb of wrinkles spreads across her once-youthful face. The rest of her district forgets that Mags was originally nothing but a nickname given by her first year of students.
Her soul has grown old along with her appearance. The Capitol has taken so much from her over the years that sometimes it feels as though there is nothing left of the girl who went into the Games. No matter how many children she cares for and trains, every child's death hurts, but Mags has grown accustomed to pain. She has long since accepted that love is unlikely to bring anything but heartache.
.
.
But the times are changing now. For the second time in her life, District Four erupts into violence. The Peacekeepers succeed in squashing the initial uprising, but the anger that has simmered for so long in the districts can no longer be contained. Mags can sense that change is coming, and for the first time in over half a century, she truly feels hopeful for the future.
Snow tries to destroy that fragile hope. Live on national a national broadcast, he reads a card that breaks the hearts of Victors across Panem. The other Victors cry, drink, and rage at the announcement, but Mags only smiles grimly at her television. Despite Snow's motives, she knows this will do nothing to quell the rebellion. The president is only fanning the Girl on Fire's flames.
.
.
Mags again stands in front of her district, as proud of volunteering at eighty-three as she was at seventeen. She directs her steady gaze towards the camera until her son pulls her into his arms to kiss the top of her head. She smiles, hoping that the Capitol can see the love she still has for her students, and that they will understand how they are tearing district families apart to maintain their way of life.
Though she postures for the sake of the rebellion, her true reason for volunteering is, in her eyes, selfish. Mags cannot stand and watch as the Capitol murders yet another of her children. She will accept any pain for herself, but she will not allow Annie Cresta to suffer in her place.
The few fragments of herself that she still has, the Capitol can take. She will sacrifice them willingly for love.
A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Feedback is much appreciated. Thanks again!
~finnicko-loves-anniec