PROLOGUE
the sea
Did you know pomegranate's grow flowers alongside them when they sprout? The attractive scarlet, variegated, but mostly red flowers. Just over an inch long, their petals grow crumpled. They grow disfigured, next too a fruit, silent stars they are. They were Annie's favorite flower, she begged for Sage to deliver a bouquet her way each time the pomegranate shrub in her backyard was ready too harvest. She never accepted the fruit, even if Sage left them for her, they would stay put on the counter and rot. Annie's scarlet's listened to her, as red as her hair and as messed up as she was. She told Sage they did not need the attention, but should get more than what they deserve. Sage promised she would start growing scarlet's just for her, their own section in her backyard right beside her pomegranates. Annie didn't like this idea, she said the whole point was that they grew alongside something else, keeping it company and giving life too two things at once.
The scarlet's lain around Annie's casket were beautiful. Fresh, red, thriving, the same words Sage described Annie as in her speech when asked to say a few words about the passing girl. Sage barely got through the eulogy, she did not want to bury her friend this way. Distract 7 sent down a casket made of birch, a tender act. The funeral was silent, not many came. Sage, Annie's parents, the florist she would talk too down at the markets, and a grief-stricken Finnick. Slumped down and shattered, Finnick was more than just grieving. He focused on the sounds of the ocean, he wondered how the water had betrayed him. The service was held cliff-side, as all funerals were in District 4. To be buried in a graveyard above the ocean or to be dropped down in it were the only options one had when death claimed you. Annie would be buried. It would be sick otherwise, she had drowned herself in the bath.
Sage saw Finnick's signs, subduing an instinct too mourn. Sage cut off the eulogy forthwith. She did not need to add herself too the list of people who felt remorse for him, neither of them needed to hear anymore stories of Annie in the past tense. Nodding her head solemnly to show the speech was finished, she walked back defeated and stood sniffling beside her broken friend.
"Hey, riptide." Sage spoke, she found Finnick sitting in the sand by his adored ocean. His head was covered by his arms, buried into his knees, teasing any ounce of strength he attempted too showcase. Sage made herself a seat next to him, gathering the sand into a small pile and rubbing it down with her palm too nothing once more. She repeated this until Finnick lifted his head, allowing the salt tinted air to hit his face fresh with tears.
"Hey there, seaweed." Finnick's voice was choked. "Is she gone?"
Finnick left the moment the men began lowering Annie into her grave, he could not just stand there while these strangers were going to be throwing dirt on her beautiful corpse. He saw her dead body twice and he could not take a third. Sage let Finnick hopelessly make his leave while she held on to Annie's mother's hand, which was calloused from her line of work. Finnick could not be there for his departed's mother and Annie could not be there for him, so Sage was there for both of them.
"She's gone. Her mom's back home, we threw so many scarlet's in with her I wouldn't be surprised if a tree started too sprout through." Finnick let out his prominent chuckle he used in light of difficult situations, his blond hair leaving his face from the light breeze pushing opposite of the pair.
"I think waters jinxed now, how many people have died in the sea, Sage?" Sage let her dark hair lie over her shoulders, her head turned to look at the boy. His stare did not leave the waves breaking, sometimes Sage thought his only true love would be the waters. His admiration lasted through the roughest of patches; returning back from the games, he guarded out everyone who refused too sit by the shore for hours. A broken vase thrown at the wall between an argument with Sage, late midnight strolls too silence the thoughts the world descends on every human. She couldn't get him too leave it's side.
Finnick continued to speak. "I got her to sit by the ocean once. Not even by it, it was way, way up on the shore. I would joke all the time about how much I loved her, but she hated my ocean. She hated the water, so why did she choose to die in it? Do you think she did it for me? She didn't leave anything for anyo-"
"Finnick, hey." He ran his fingers through his hair, slightly pulling to rid of knots. "Annie passing is neither of our faults, especially yours. Ocean's all yours, but life is open game for anyone, and she decided she didn't want it anymore." Finnick sighed, a last few tears leaping off his chin and onto now wet sand. "You know she loved you. I could never calm her down during her attacks, she would scream and scream until you shown up. Given the circumstances, you've got to be fair."
Finnick turned his view to the onyx living in Sage's eyes. "I told her the second she got home from the games she was safe. No more pain, but I think being home just brought more and more." The sun was lowering, calling the moon for her placement. "Tomorrow, I'm going to wake up and not know what too do. How long is that going to last?"
Sage stood, sand falling off the faded orange floral dress she was wearing. It was soft and had wrinkles up to their sixties. She had pulled it up from the depths of her clothes, knowing Annie would be pleased in her choice. She could just see her smile. "Come here, this is what we're going to do now." She extended her hand, a few tears balancing around the rim of her eyes. Finnick accepted, Sage leading both of them towards the big blue. Their toes were being washed, their feet being pricked by a few seashells underneath. Finnick squeezed Sage's hand, smiling and laughing through a cry. She could see the memories he was thinking of playing through the air, Sage quietly in the background of them all; Finnick pouring kane beer into a mason jar on bonfire nights, their laughs over raspberry pastries. His light humming to ease her down enough to stroke her ginger hair away from the freckles lining her jaw. Annie telling him about her honeysuckle dreams they would have for lunch and dinner. Finnick reassuring himself, constantly. She is okay, she is asleep, she's snoring, she's breathing, she'll wake up, until then she is okay and when she woke, he would love her even more. They were all floating along in the air the two were inhaling.
Sage tugged on their interlocked fingers and walked them into the waters, almost waist deep. The shore was enough distance away for the break of the waves to become faint, to remind Finnick that he is not the only thing that breaks. Sage's dress rose above the mass pool of unknown, she did not mind. She played with the twirl it gave her, the lightness, swaying her hips in the eventide, watching Finnick in his natural habitat. The boy emerged his whole into the waters, coming up with a smile and shaking his drenched hair. Water droplet's hanging off their noses, they floated on their backs in the water, venerable too anything that might live in the sea. The moon appeared and disappeared in one spell, the two still there when the sun arose with kitten breath. Through the light of the new day, Finnick could swear on seeing the petite redhead lingering way, way up on the shore, waving, telling her two old friends to go on without her. Sage could swear she saw her walking towards them, too water she was no longer afraid.
next chapter soon. xxx