Ello, again! I don't own UC. Suzanne Collins does. I don't own Suzanne Collins, either. Whatever. So once you start sleeping on sharp rocks and drying your hair with your third hand, that's when I will own it. Or her. BLAH! ON WITH THE STORY!
Ok, this isn't the story. This is actually sort of an apology for not updating Forgotten Land. I'm having block for it, so I probably won't be updating for a while. Meanwhile, I came up with this after re-reading Mockingjay. Enjoy!
"Willow Hawthorne!" Calls out Effie Trinket, the sixty year old woman who reaped the names. It was obvious she hated the Games, especially since they had been gone for fifteen years then the Capitol just decided to bring them back up. The color drains from my face. Effie gestures for me to come up to the stage, and I look out at the crowd and almost faint at the sight. There must be at least six hundred people of District Two. To the right, I see the area roped off for other fourteen year old teenagers, my friends Jasmine and Ian off to the side with their faces distorted into horrible grimaces. My father, Gale Hawthorne, is in the back, near expressionless but just the faintest hint of sadness. My mother went missing a few months after I was born. But daddy refuses to tell me my mother's name. My observations are cut off by Effie's high pitched voice calling out the other name:
"Ian Evenlast!" I slap my forehead and groan. Ian, my best friend. Now Jasmine looks even more devastated than ever, but she holds her tears and gives Ian a light, playful push forward towards the stage.
"Now, here are the rules!" Effie says cheerfully. "This is different from the last Games fifteen years ago. Two may win, so long as they are from the same district. Mentors will be chosen by random through Districts 1 through 13! Instead of living at the Capitol, you will just return here after everyday of practice. Is this all clear?"
Ian and I nod glumly. Effie smiles deviously and says demonically,
"Say goodbye and board the train. Then meet your mentors."
The moment I am free, I immediately run into daddy's arms. He quickly picks me up, carries me home, and whispers a strategy to me.
"Get a bow. I've taught you enough about them. Get a knife, or a sword." Being a Career, though a nice one, I am good with almost every weapon. I hear him say under his breath, 'I can't lose Willow to the Games too. Never.' But I decide it's only my imagination. Next, Jasmine visits. Her eyebrows are raised and she is hyperventilating.
"Here. Take this. My mother's friend gave it to her, and she gave it to me." She quickly fastens a golden mockingjay pin onto my shirt. I lift one eyebrow.
"Interesting. Thank you." Jasmine's mother is Joanna Mason. She kept her maiden name after marrying.
"Goodbye." She gives me a rib crushing hug, then scurries out of my living room. No more visitors. Tributes aren't allowed to visit other tributes, for fear of harming one another. I'm not hurt that Ian couldn't visit me. I quickly grab some bread from the counter, hug daddy goodbye, then rush out into the train into the second car.
It's carrying Ian and a beautiful woman with storm gray eyes and a lovely braid down her back. Her lips are a nude shade of pink, and she wears no makeup but dark purple highlights on her eyelids, just a touch here and there, to show her eyes aren't all gray, but instead more of a gray-violet. She's talking to three people, one looks forty, the other two look around fifty or sixty. I catch the words "Flavius, Venia, and Octavia" throughout the conversation. They give terse nods and she half smiles at them, then they shuffle off of the train, talking about "how nice Katniss is."They sound genuine. Well, if this is my mentor, and the three think she's nice, I just might win the games. The woman notices me for the first time, then stands up and gives that same friendly half smile.
"Hello, Willow. I am your mentor, Katniss Everdeen Mellark."