Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games or any of its original characters. This applies to all the chapters.


So... this is my very first fanfic! I've been working on it for about three months, but I decided to wait until it was finished to publish it. For now, I'll upload the prologue and Chapter 1, and I'll try to upload the rest as often as possible.

I decided to write it because I thought there was an outrageous lack of Marvel fanfics at the time xD Anyway, I thought he deserved some recognition and a bit of romance too. I tried to stay as close to the books as possible, with the addition of some of my favorite details from the movie.

Also, I based it on a fairytale (my next two Hunger Games fics will be based on Snow White and Beauty and the Beast).

I really hope you like it, and I'd be thankful to get reviews :)


"She has given us a knife: here it is, see it is very sharp. Before the sun rises you must plunge it into the heart of the prince; when the warm blood falls upon your feet they will grow together again, and form into a fish's tail, and you will be once more a mermaid, and return to us to live out your three hundred years before you die and change into the salt sea foam. Haste, then; he or you must die before sunrise."

-Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

Prologue

"Mags?"

"Hm?"

"Are you asleep?"

"Not anymore."

The two elderly women are sitting on the porch, rocking their chairs and facing the sea below, while the gentle summer breeze caresses their faces marked by decades of nightmares and dreadful memories.

"I think someone's coming." Mags doesn't even open her eyes while she's speaking. She knows her best friend is losing her hearing, but she doesn't want to concern her.

Marina turns around on her chair just in time to see her youngest granddaughter, Serena, running towards her. She instantly knows something's wrong: there are tears streaming down the six-year-old girl's face, and she's approaching the house Mags has been sharing with Marina in Victor Village for the past three years as fast as her short legs allow her.

"G-Grandma!" the child can barely talk, she's practically choking on her tears.

"What's wrong, sweetie? Who made you cry?" Marina holds Serena in her arms and places her small head on her chest.

"I-It was Marina. She said something t-terrible."

The old woman frowns; she should have known better. Her oldest granddaughter, aged seventeen, was named after her but the resemblance ends there. The girl really needs to learn to shut that mouth of hers sometimes.

"What did she say?"

"Sh-she said that if she gets reaped tomorrow she will k-kill anyone who comes across her in the arena. And th-then I told her she was a bad person. Sh-she got m-mad and said 'You think I'm a bad p-person? If I'm a bad person, so is Grandma. She k-killed a lot of people when she was my age, you know? And so did M-Mags. If you don't believe me, go ask them'".

Marina feels Mags retracting next to her. She knows what she's thinking; she shuts her eyes and it all comes flooding back, even after fifty-three years. The countdown. I'm going to die. The Cornucopia, golden and somewhat beautiful, with promises of food and weapons. I need to get there. The blood. Why is there so much blood? The sound of the cannon, once, twice, until there was no one left but her and the boy from District 1. The look of surprise, followed by panic, in his face when she threw that trident, pinning him to the ground, and then strangled him with the special hitch Mags had taught her while being her mentor. I won. I'm going home. The Capitol called them "The Miracle from District 4": two girls from the same district, best friends, reaped in consecutive years- and, against all odds, since they only had each other, both victors. They were called a miracle because Mags was her only mentor, and they were both fifteen at that time. She should be chasing boys with me, not getting me ready for slaughter.

She grabs her granddaughter's shoulders and softly pushes her away, so she can look into those coal-dark eyes, so similar to her own and so unusual in District 4. She's the only one, out of her six granddaughters, to have inherited those eyes.

"Reena," she starts, addressing Serena by her nickname. "Your sister is right; but you have to understand that I had no choice, and that I am not proud of what I've done- I still think about it everyday. And sometimes we have to do whatever it takes to come back to our loved ones. Even if that means taking one person's life." Or five, she mentally adds.

"Like in that story you told? About the girl who lived under the sea?" Serena is looking at her, wide-eyed, suddenly forgetting about crying.

"Exactly."

"But… in the end she couldn't do it. She loved the prince too much, right? Even more than her own family. Even if he didn't love her back. And so," she straightens up and applies her 'important grown-up person' voice. "She died and turned into foam."

"Yes. That's the other thing about that story. We must be very careful about who we get attached to. If you start loving the wrong person, you might end up hurt. Do you understand me?"

Mags is now pretending to be asleep, but she has listened to every word. She agrees with her friend; anyone who has been in the Games would agree.

Serena and her grandmother are suddenly distracted by the sound of children's laughter: a boy, around twelve years old, and a girl, around nine, are playing in the waves. Serena lets out a loud cheer; despite being a few years older, these are her playground partners, who are always glad to have a smaller friend to be the baby when they are playing house. They look up and start calling "Reena!"

"I'm coming!" she answers. "Can I go, Grandma?"

"Of course. You don't want to keep your friends waiting!"

Mags opens her eyes in time to see Serena running down the path leading to the beach. When the girl joins her pals in the water, she feels a chill down her spine. She doesn't know why, but she's just had a bad feeling about these three children: dear Finnick, who is facing his first reaping tomorrow; little Annie, so reserved and already showing the beautiful young woman she will be; and her own best friend's granddaughter, Serena.