Ofrenda (Offering)

She was falling, tumbling and rolling and it hurt it hurt-

"Stupid bitch!" Her Daddy was screaming at her mother who just stared at him. She hadn't moved for twenty minutes, locked in a strange hunched position by the kitchen table. Annie knew that nothing could wake her from those strange episodes and that they just needed to let them pass, but her Daddy had been drinking that night, the cheap booze he could get by the docks and had probably forgot, because at the sight of his wife he was thrown into a rage and raised his fist. "I come home and this is the bullshit I have to deal with!"

"No, stop!" Annie cried, jumping between her Mama and her Daddy. Annie was shaking and terrified but she couldn't let him hit her mother.

"Don't you fucking tell me what to do!" Her Daddy screamed, and Annie felt pain skitter over her skin as her Daddy grabbed Annie by her hair and threw her against the table. Her arm hit hard, and she sobbed and crumpled on the floor. "I work hard every day to put food on this damn table, and I this is all I get! A wife who's off in her own Lala land I-I-"

Suddenly her father collapsed on the ground, heaving in his sobs. Big fat tears rolling down his cheeks as her mother continued to stay frozen by the kitchen table. It was then that he expelled the liquor in his belly on the floor, and just continued to sob helplessly before Annie walked over to him. He father immediately embraced her, and even though he smelt like vomit and booze, she let him rock her back and forth.

"Annie, Annie baby, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I'm a bad Daddy." Her father's voice came haltingly as his tears soaked the collar of her dress. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"It's okay." She told him firmly. "It's okay. Go get cleaned up, Daddy. I'll take care of all of this."

She helped her father into the bathroom, getting him to at least wash his face before helping get a clean shirt over his head and get him into bed. He collapsed onto the sheets, and Annie made sure to turn him on his side before leaving, relieved that she didn't need to travel down to the docks to retrieve him like she had to most days.

She limped into the kitchen only to see her mother had moved from her spot and was scrubbing the floor with a well-used rag. Annie felt as if her legs were about to give out, so she settled on the floor next to her mother as she mechanically wiped the old wood.

"Mama." Annie croaked her throat so dry, as she felt the back of her dress begin to grow oddly warm and sticky and she couldn't remember if it was blood or her father's tears, but how she couldn't remember even though she knew there was something she was missing.

"You're making such a mess." Her Mama said emptily as she continued to scrub, "A shower maybe is coming from the sky."

"Mama, look at me." Annie said, trying to catch her mother's eyes but they were wandering as she continued to scrub with those raw hands. "Look at me."

"The sun was so bright…the sun and the-the hair. It's so that I can't make it work." Her mother said, trying to form a sentence with words that were so jumbled together. Annie was so used to it that it shouldn't have phased her but something was different that day, it was only spurring on her desperation.

"Mama, please. Look at me." Annie on the verge of tears sob because her ribs hurt so bad and her back was on fire, as her apathetic mother swayed on her knees. "Mama."

"Shut up." Her mother snapped, and her face twitched as if attempting to summon an expression but not quite being able to conjure one, "You shut up. The girl is asking me something."

"I'm not just a girl, Mama. I'm your daughter. I'm Annie." Annie said desperately trying to get her to cling to whatever vague recognition her mother had of her, but it passed as quickly as it came on.

"No, no, no. I'm cleaning before the bad men comes up. You go to the other place, you're making a mess." Her mother ordered and something broke inside Annie. Devastation wracked her form and suddenly all she could do was to grab her mother by the shoulders and try to force her to look.

"Why won't you look at me?" Annie screamed, as she began to shake her mother who was as limp as a ragdoll in her hands. "Why won't you look at me, Mama? Please. Please, I don't want anything else from you. I'll-I'll do anything. Anything! I'll take the beatings and everything else and for the rest of my life I'll stay and take care of you and Daddy. So please…please…just look at me."

"The place…the place I need, the cleaning supplies from the closet. The floor is so dirty." Her mother said and Annie just stared at her and then looked over at the cleaning supplies by her mother's feet which she had already gotten from the closet even as her mother unsteadily walked over to the closet and stood there, leaning against the door.

This wasn't her mother. Annie thought, the odd realization coming forth in her mind. Her mother was kind and gentle and always smiled at her. Annie's childhood had been hard, but every day she had come home to her mother's hugs and kisses until she was eight and this had become her reality. This was a stranger who had rooted itself in Annie's mother's body. It was a stranger, and Annie was all alone.

And so she crawled back to her bedroom and laid on the floor, not bothering to take off her blood and tear soaked dress even though the way it was sticking to her cuts was so painful. She did the only thing she knew could curb the pain, and allowed herself to fall asleep for what seemed like a moment until she received a nudge.

"Get up." Her Daddy snapped but she was so feverish and weak. Had the cuts on her back gotten infected?

"I can't, Daddy." She said, her voice rough and so tiny, and the side of her face was wet and her eye stung because it was caked with mud, but how could there be mud in her house? "Can't I just sleep more?"

"You have to go to school." Her father growled trying to forcibly sit her up even though the room spun and her ribs had to be shattered and she sank back on the ground, "I can't have you be missing more days, you hear? Get your lazy ass up now!"

"I can't…" Annie sobbed, so confused and terrified as images of blood and gore splattering onto a mountainside flashed underneath her eyelids.

"Get to school!" Her Daddy roared so loud she thought her ears might burst and with fumbling fingers and weak legs she scrambled to her feet and began stumbling forward as she swayed and shivered and realized she didn't know where she was going. The sandy, dusty road she lived on was gone and replaced by a dark forest and rain that pelted her skin so cold just like the mud that was splattered on her legs and it stung and she pitched forward as she slipped, trying to grab onto a tree as she tripped and sank into the mud trying to swim but the mud was devouring her and she was sinking into it and she couldn't even remember why she was fighting it because everything was so far away, her Daddy's voice, the Games-The Games-

She blinked and she was standing up.

The girl from Ten was lying on the ground, brokenly sobbing because her guts were spilled onto the wet ground. She had been dragged from the Cornucopia so that Diamond, the girl from One, could have her "fun". "Fun" had ended up being several stab wounds to the stomach that had purposefully missed her vitals, a black eye, and missing teeth. Annie had already swallowed more vomit and cried more tears then she had thought possible, and was almost thankful for the relentless rain that washed them away before the Career pack could realize her weakness.

"What do you want to do with her?" Thespus, the District Two boy asked, looking on with a smile as the District Two girl Bellona stayed tucked into his side. It had been popular talk that they were together, and they had volunteered together to come into the Games. Not for love, but just for the sick thrill.

"I say let her collect water. Maybe the birds will use her as a birdbath." Diamond laughed like sharp edges along with her District partner Sheen and Kai, Annie's District partner, just looked on in barely veiled digust and Annie couldn't take it anymore.

"I'll take care of her." Annie said, praying that her voice didn't waver. "Go ahead and get started making camp. We'll get sick if we stay in the rain for so long."

"She's right. Let Four take care of the sharkbait." Sheen said, motioning to both her and Kai. "They're used to being all wet. I don't want to be waterlogged for much longer."

"Fine." Diamond said shortly, turning so that her blonde hair whipped water in their direction and the four of them stomped off. Kai looked at her, before pulling out his sword.

"Let's get this done." Kai said and Annie glared at him.

"You go with them." She told him angrily.

"Why are you mad at me?" Kai demanded, "I got you a place with the Careers! You're safe!"

"Because you signed up for this." She told him before looking him straight in the eye, "Because you're disgusting! Now I'm going to let this girl die with dignity, so you go back to those…those monsters like you belong!"

"You shut up." Kai told her and she just got right in his face.

"Or what? You'll kill me? Go ahead then. Prove I'm right!" She hissed and she watched with satisfaction as Kai's face went white, and he stomped away. Immediately she turned attention to the sobbing girl on the ground. "Hey, it's okay-" The girl made a keening half-sob half-scream as Annie picked up her hand, unknowingly because her arm was obviously broken, ignoring the feeling of gore she got on her knees. "It's okay. I'm going to make it quick okay? Just-Just do you have any family?"

The girl nodded weakly her brown eyes watery and wide like a puppy's as Annie tried to be discreet as she pulled out her knife.

"In District Four we…we believe that your ancestors are always with you. And that…when you die you join them." Annie said, beginning to sob as she lifted up the knife in her shaking hand because she had to do this, so that Annie could live and so that this girl didn't need to suffer anymore, "So just think about them, okay? You'll-You'll be together again one day in a place where there won't be any more pain or sadness. I'm so sorry this happened to you. I'm so sorry."

The girl closed her eyes as Annie brought her arm down with force, and the canon rang out. She sat back staring at the dead girl's body, and the blood all over her hands because she couldn'tcoundn'tcouldn't and she could only see red gushing onto the mud and the dead girl the girl she had killed she had killed someone she had-

She was running and tripping away and she heard someone calling after her but she couldn't make the red go away. All she wanted was for it all to stop, why wouldn't it stop?

"Annie!"

The voice was loud and concerned and she felt a hand grab her but she thrashed wildly, digging her fingers into the sand.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." She sobbed and she threw herself onto the ground, curling up in the sand, digging her nails into her arms because she couldn't do this anymore and she needed to be punished for living. She couldn't bear to live when so many people were dead. "Don't make me kill anymore, please no more!"

"Annie, stop! You're hurting yourself!" The voice sounded desperate and alarmed and she felt iron cold hands grabbing her, the District Two boy who would make her watch it and Annie couldn't breathe anymore. "Annie! Annie, it's okay! It's not raining."

Raining. Raining like the day her parents died, raining like in her Arena when it was always raining, always, always, always raining until her skin forgot what it was like to be safe and warm and dry and the sound was forever embedded in her ears and nightmares.

"It's not…raining." She said slowly air coming back into her crushed lungs, the shadow figure who had grabbed her hands loosened. They weren't the cold wet hands of Thespus, they were warm.

"It's not raining. You're safe." The voice that Annie began to associate with tousled copper curls, and green eyes that were so concerned and sad. "Do you remember who I am?"

"Finnick Odair." She answered immediately. "You…are two grades ahead of me."

"That's right. We went to school together." Finnick Odair said letting her sink onto her knees. "And if I'm here, what does that mean?"

"I…I'm with you."

"And there is absolutely no way you are in the Hunger Games. And you will never have to kill anyone ever again, I promise." Finnick said surely as she began to absorb the fact that she was outside, in the backyard, with her screen door flapping in the wind. It was dark out, and Finnick was wearing shorts and nothing else. It looked as if he had just rolled out of bed. A sharp pain drew Annie from her thoughts on Finnick, and Annie hissed at the stinging sensation of her gouges in her arm.

"Why are you out here?" Annie asked confused and Finnick shrugged.

"I was…going through something very similar in my bed and heard you scream. You were…having a flashback I think." Finnick said and Annie touched the scratches only to see blood dripping between her fingers, painting her hand red.

"I was dreaming…and awake. I don't know how to describe it." Annie tried to say as she began to shiver because even though she was reaching for the nightmare but except for a few details it was slinking back into the black cesspools of her mind, "It was so real."

"Don't worry. How about you some over to my house. I'll get you bandaged up, okay?" Finnick asked, reaching down to help Annie up after she nodded, helping to support her trembling legs.

He led her into his house which was mostly dark before he flipped on the lights, dazzling her for only a moment. Finnick's home was nice, but the best way to describe it was empty. Unlike Mags, he had let his Capitol stylist take care of it, and didn't really add anything of his own. He sat her down at his couch before going into his bathroom and retrieving a first aid kit. When he returned he gently applied antibiotic before wrapping her upper arms in gauze.

"I'm sorry." Annie said guiltily while Finnick just shook his head.

"Are you kidding, Annie? This isn't an issue. I'm glad I was awake." Finnick told her, finishing up his wrapping. "If you don't mind me asking, what was it about?"

"I think the…the District Ten girl." Annie said softly, shaking her head because she just couldn't reach to grab the fading vestiges of her dream. Then again, how could she? Those memories were just too gigantic. She would never be able to hold of them, and if she tried they would just overwhelm her. If those memories came to dominate her life, how could she go on living?

"I figured as much." Finnick said as he sadly shook his head. "That was a mercy kill. You shouldn't feel so bad about it."

"I still killed her."

"She was dead anyways." Finnick informed her and she glared at him.

"Have you always been so callous and cold?" Annie snapped, feeling herself get uncharacteristically angry. Finnick looked up at her, his eyes widening and his face draining color and immediately she felt guilty. "Sorry, I-I didn't mean to lecture you. I don't really know anything about-"

"You're right though." Finnick said, holding up a hand to cut her off. He just looked tired and his eyes were so ancient. "That was something cold. In Training we are taught how to separate killing from ourselves, and to even view some killings as honorable. But you're right. Killing is still killing. That you recognize the truth of the matter like that just shows how good of a person you are. I really wish I was like you, Annie."

"You wish you were like me?" Annie said in total shock because she doubted anyone who had ever met her had ever wanted to be like her.

"It's just like you just said. I'm cold, Annie." Finnick said his voice reflecting the pure emptiness in his movements. The way he slowly made his way back to his bathroom to deposit the first aid kit.

"I didn't mean it like that!" Annie said annoyed at herself more than anything. "I don't think that about you at all."

Finnick didn't answer her and it was then that she caught a chill and remembered what she was wearing. One of the floral, feminine slips of a nightdress that her stylist had shoved into her dressers, and like the feather of an exotic bird's feather it was light and the color of rose. Normally no one saw her at night so she didn't care for what she wore and sometimes her sheets got hot. How perfect she thought, tears of embarrassment threatening to course down her cheeks. She had run out in the middle of the night caught in a nightmare, only to be led to Finnick's house and cared for like a child, dressed in a silly nightgown that did nothing to cover her skeletal body as she berated him. She was truly no better than he was in regard to the fact that she had murdered, but he was so whole. The true difference between them was so obvious to her while she was sitting there and completely exposed. Her mind was broken, barely any better than her own mother's had been, and her body was disgusting. She was too skinny, all of her bones popped out from strained skin, she was all ridges like a Sea Horse and just as disgustingly frail, but certainly with no beauty to compromise. Instead she was gritty with mud and sand and sticky with sweat, and absolutely horrifying. He was a young Sea God, ferocious in battle, as beautiful as the storm that had torn her house down and just as vicious, but also as soft and sweet as the waves kissing the shore. How could two people, born in the same District, both competing in the same terrible Games be so radically different?

"Annie?" He asked concerned as Annie felt a hiccup burst past her teeth. Her eyes were stinging and she crossed her arms over her nonexistent chest and just wished she could curl up and disappear because it was all so mortifying.

"I…I…"

"Hey." He said gently, reaching out to nervously touch her hand. He did it shyly, as if for some reason it was a new action even though on TV he kissed and touched other girls all the time, though obviously he was just touching her as a comfort with nothing underneath. "Hey, it's okay. It's late. You're tired and you had a bad dream. I would be snappy too. The best thing you can do is go sleep."

"That doesn't excuse anything! Stop acting like I'm a child!" Annie told him grasping her hand away from his gentle touch, "Get mad at me! I just told you that you were cold and essentially heartless and you don't care at all!"

"What would that accomplish, Annie?" Finnick asked, an edge of frustration surfacing in the tone and Annie was glad.

"It would show me that you're still a human! Or did they take that away from you in Training too?" Annie told him forcibly, stomping her foot on the ground. "I-I'm mad and upset all the time! I always have been! I'm sure you have problems too! Get mad about it!"

Finnick looked at her evenly and she couldn't stand the look in his eyes. The sort of emptiness that existed in the eyes of the fish that were gutted in the market, the total void of life and feeling. How a person could live like that was beyond her, Annie thought horrified. What in his life had forced him to become that way? She remembered the boy in the schoolyard who had been full of unbridled energy, who got mad and punched and kicked, and who laughed and smiled as his Mama took his hand. What had happened to that boy?

"You should go home." Finnick told her firmly, and she just looked at him with tears rolling down her cheeks.

"What happened to you that made you like this?" Annie asked him, staring at him.

"I was like this to begin with." Finnick said resigned, "Which is why it's best if you go home now."

She turned from the house and ran as fast as she could.

From an early age Annie had learned how to survive terrible things. It was easier than one might think, for all she had to do was go somewhere else. Sometimes she would think of gardening with her Mama before her Mama had disappeared into her mind and had never returned, or the one time her Daddy had taken her to the market to pick out a new dress and she had deliberated between the blue and red one for twenty minutes, or sometimes just the moments when she sat on the edge of the beach and let the waves tickle her toes, but no matter what she would think of it always took away the pain.

Annie couldn't remember most of her Games, and when she had been brought in front of Caesar and the crowd she had only made it through three minutes of the bloodshed before throwing up upon the stage and staying there, heaving helplessly before people took her back stage. She only remember bits and pieces: standing in front of a sea of faces looking on at her with relief and sadness as she stood as an offering to the Capitol's voracious appetite for blood, a dress that glittered like scales, a knife and the slippery sensation of blood as brown eyes looked up upon her, gore and blood splattered against a white mountainside, falling and crawling while consumed by fever and hiding in the bushes, and the way the arena filled up like a fishbowl and how easy it had been to pull down the last career into the icy depths, offering one final death to the waters and to the Capitol for her release. Other than that, what had been about twenty days of her life, the memories of one of the longest Hunger Games ever, had disappeared from her memory, only to haunt her in her dreams. She was told that the Careers had poisoned her and the male tribute with a mushroom from the forest strategically put in their rations, a boy whose name and face she didn't dare to recall or else it would send her back into darkness had been beheaded, and in a state of fever and total hysteria she had fallen and rolled off the side of the mountain breaking three of her ribs, dislocating her elbow, and fracturing her skull. That she had been seemingly whole during the entire Games until that point, and none of the doctors could figure out what had changed. They told her that maybe it had been the shock from the fall, or the fever from the poison. But Annie didn't tell them what she thought. Maybe she had been hiding like a hermit crab, like she had every time the Headmistress had punished her or her Mama stood there in the kitchen with a knife in her hands and she had only emerged when it had been safe. She had simply never allowed the memories to take hold in her, so instead they all just slid away.

And for the most part she was safe from those memories. Every day she went to Mags' house and helped her weed and garden because Annie knew that despite her objections Mags was getting older and her joints were aching. She went to the dock and swam and weaved nets. She cooked and baked, always making too much, and then went to the Marsh Home to share in the things that she had too much of. One of the only things she had done with her Capitol blood-money was depose the Headmistress who had brought Annie and the other girls such suffering and had personally hired a much better woman for the job. Annie happily watched as the girls who had been as thin as Annie had once been began to put on weight as she made sure to donate as much food as she could to their diets, three more crates of supplies daily then the Capitol stipend gave. As long as the girls didn't have to take out tesserae so that the Headmistress couldn't line her pockets with the extra cash saved like what had caused Annie's name to have been entered into the reaping bowl 20 times, Annie would be happy. It was only when she heard the whispers of others about her experiences that made her want to hide away again. During the first couple weeks home she had stayed away too long, but now she was determined to stay in the real world. To go down to the docks and meet up with her father's old friends, or just to do something nice for other people as often as possible. But in any case she was determined to turn the tragedy into something good.

Those few months before Finnick and Annie's odd midnight exchange had been so nice. Finnick Odair had started to assimilate himself into her routine. Finnick had started simply by coming over for breakfast after he worked out in the morning, but eventually it evolved into something more. Annie started running with him sometimes, and taking trips into town with him. Sometimes he went with her to the Marsh Home to help the girls, others he took her out on his boat and they fished. But it was the sort of friendship that developed naturally. For Annie who had been for most of her life crippled with terror and unable to make a lot of friends, it was a nice change. She of course loved the girls at the home with all of her heart, but she viewed them more as younger cousins, sisters, and aunts, rather than friends. But Finnick had been becoming a friend, and eventually something more to her, though she was positive the feeling wasn't mutual.

She was visiting the home when what she knew had been the topic of whispers finally came to a head.

"So tell me what's going on between you and Finnick Odair." Cora, the eldest girl at the orphanage told her as she combed out a younger girl's hair. Cora was a surrogate elder sister of Annie's, and a nursemaid to all the girls. Cora had lingered on past reaping age to try to care for the younger girls as an employee and keep them fed with her income. At times she could be almost distant and cold, but she was fiercely loving, and would do anything she could to help the younger girls. Annie remembered clinging to Cora in the Justice Building after her name had been called, and the way Cora had silently cried into Annie's hair.

"Nothing is going on between me and Finnick Odair." Annie answered as she continued to help scrub the floor.

"Are you sure he ain't trying to sleep with you?" Cora asked worriedly before fourteen year old Missy, whose head was resting in Cora's lap scoffed.

"Finnick Odair wouldn't want to sleep with her. That boy's Uptown through and through. His daddy owned a big boat and they probably ate nothin' but swordfish steaks and he went to school to learn to skewer kids like shrimp kabobs." Missy said with an exaggerated twang, crossing her arms over her chest. Annie tried not to react too harshly to the way Missy was relying heavily on old District Four stereotypes, but the usage had been deeply ingrained.

Uptown was the wealthiest section of Four with gorgeous town houses or mansions that had a view of the whole District and the sea from the top of the hill. They were the politicians or mayor, boat captains, inter-District fish mongers, shop keepers, shipbuilders, and factory owners. You knew a person was an Uptowner if they talked like the Capitol, and looked down on everybody else. Pierside was the slums of Four, where all of the girls from the Marsh Home were from. The homes were old shanties on the low basin, often swept away or flooded by bad storms like her own home had been, and the work was by the docks, spending monotonous hours hauling in catches, repairing or weaving nets, scrubbing barnacles or any other form of manual labor. Most tesserae was taken out by kids from this part of town, and there was a distinct accent and a different language that went along with it that the eldest of Pierside still spoke in. It was said that before the Dark Days, this accent and language had been widespread in Four. But it had become illegal and now it was only whispered between those by the Docks and to a lesser degree at the Cannery, while Uptowners would happily turn in a person speaking in it to the peacekeepers for sport. Uptowners hated the Piersiders who had their District identity and kept Four from joining the ranks of the super wealthy Districts of One and Two. Piersiders hated the Uptowners for their Capitol loving way, and mostly because they viewed the Hunger Games as an honor sport.

"I had to kill too." Annie reminded the girl, breaking out of her thoughts so she didn't get stuck there, before Cora gave a sigh.

"You didn't have a choice." Cora said firmly, "You are different from that boy. That girl from ten woulda have been continually gutted by those bloodsucking Careers and you took mercy on her, and that Career bitch from One woulda torn your throat out with her teeth like a goddamn Enobaria imposter. You're a good girl who was put into a bad situation. Them Uptowners don't got no sense about them. They volunteer themselves to kill children for the honor."

"Finnick didn't volunteer." Annie pointed out before another girl named Ida, who was more Annie's age rolled her eyes from where she was cleaning.

"He was trained and at the top of his class. He was vicious, Ann and he woulda volunteered one day. You don't want to be caught up by a fella like that, no matter how pretty. Because those Careers are shiftier then snakes." Ida told her, before they moved onto the much more pleasant topic of the girls' school crushes.

She had their warnings in mind when she visited Mags for the afternoon. Mags smiled warmly at her arrival. Mags, to her, was the grandmother that she had never met. But perhaps more ornery and with a much greater temper. Only once had Annie seen in Mags the gorgeous and supple golden haired girl who had hidden in a swamp and had dragged child after child to their doom like it had been shown during the recaps of the Games. It was when Annie had woken up in the hospital crying and desperate to run away as the doctors tried to pump synthetics into her to make her more appealing, and Mags herself had run in, armed with only her cane and had beaten the twenty year old doctor back with that cane and a tongue lashing, leaving all of the doctors and nurses terrified. Mags had proven to Annie that she was not only a protector, and a good mentor, but a true friend. Since that day, Annie was sure that every day no matter what Mags only continued to cement that opinion in her mind.

"Good afternoon, my dear." She greeted in the old language.

"Afternoon." Annie said back shortly before wincing at her own tone and asking back in the old language, "Is there anything you need me to do today?"

"Nothing, little bird. Come sit with me a while." Mags cooed, and Annie melted and sat beside Mags, only to feel her old, withered hands upon her shoulders. "You always keep your hair up in that scarf. Why not let it down for a little? I'll comb it for you."

"My hair's too dratted thick. I can barely get a comb unstuck in it." Annie warned the old woman who smiled, eyes glinting at the obvious challenge.

"Now, now. Let me see what I can do for you, dear." Mags said, as excited as a little girl might be before standing up and walking down the hall to her bathroom and retrieving a box. Out she pulled an old comb, painted with blue dolphins, and some bottles of what looked like golden liquid in a bottle. First she untied Annie's headscarf, letting loose her seaweed thick and knotted hair, before dolloping a sizable amount of liquid between her fingers that Mags warmed by rubbing between her palms. After that she slowly began to work it into her hair before slowly and softly beginning to run the brush through. The hypnotic motion nearly put her to sleep, and she tried to remember a time she had been treated so gently but was unable to recall such a moment. "Annie dear, how are you feeling? You look like you have something on your mind."

"I'm alright." Annie said softly, "I'm just…everyone thinks something is going on between Finnick and I."

"Is there something going on between you and Finnick?"

"Not that I can tell." Annie said recalling his easy smiles, the way he would help her carry things by taking them out of her hands with warm, strong fingers, the way his broad shoulders seemed like they could carry any weight with ease. She shook her head, trying to get those thoughts from rattling around in her brain. "He's hard to read, so I normally have no idea what he's thinking."

"He's a good boy. He's had it rough, though." Mags said sadly, "I'm just glad that I'm not the only one looking out for him anymore. He has a tendency to take on too much by himself."

"He does." Annie agreed.

"You make him very happy." Mags hummed and Annie felt herself flush.

"What?"

"You do, little bird. Finnick has always had a gentle, sensitive heart, but he does his very best to hide what he is feeling. He feels other's pain as his own."

"You think so?" Annie asked quietly.

"You two are very alike in that regards." Mags told her, pressing a kiss to her temple. "I'm glad you are there for him."

"I wouldn't be so sure." Annie said warningly, "We're kind of fighting right now."

"You two will make up. Just give it time and keep trying your hardest. That's the best you can do at this point. If it does not work out, I'll set that boy straight." Mags promised her with a joking wink, placing down the comb and touching Annie's shoulders. "Now, do you want to keep working on that quilt?"

Annie smiled at the old woman and nodded.

The taste of blood and vomit in her mouth as she crawled forward, one arm useless at her side, blood pouring down her cheek as the world spun and continued to spin, being unable to breath because of the stabbing pain in her side. She was caked with mud, soaked with rain, and unable to remember how she had gotten there. All that drove her forward was the need to move until she couldn't crawl anymore. She lay in the bushes, sobbing, begging. Please, please let me just die. I'm so sorry I was bad, just let me die, she just wanted to fall asleep and never ever wake up ever again-

Annie shot up in her bed, her skin totally soaked with sweat before she stumbled out from the tangles of sheets and raced to the bathroom while bile rose in her throat. She sat there hunched over the toilet, dry heaving as her stomach roiled and churned like the sea before a storm, before allowing her cheek to rest upon the cool porcelain in an attempt to cool her feverish skin.

She stayed there upon the bathroom floor, looking out the window and to the sky that was pearly with the morning light. The sky had never looked like that in her-her-before. It had been dark and constantly raining, so much so that for at least in the nightmarish visions that she only recalled at night, that everything had been wet and cold. The mountain sides, the only place safe from the mutt bears that where hidden in caves, ready to charge, and the wildcats that haunted the forest, disappearing into the rain and fog like shadows, had been fraught with the dangers of mudslides. The sun had not shined once, and the only time the rain had lightened even for a moment was when the anthem played so the children still left alive could view the ghosts of dead children that were painted on the sky without their faces being stung by the downpour.

She tried to listen to the gentle splashing of the waves against the beach, knowing that sound had never occurred during that time, and it helped root her to this reality. Those nights had buzzed with the sound of falling rain, and still rattled about in her head, stinging her and terrifying her like wasps. She was so in tune with the sounds around her that she was acutely aware of the sound of a door opening and closing in the nearly quiet Victor's Village. She forced herself from the toilet and to the window, where she watched Finnick Odair exit from his home next door in work out clothing. From the window she watched as he not only ran three times around Victor's Village, which had to have totaled to about seven miles, before going into the back of the home. He walked down the pathways that led down to the beach and went for a swim, before getting out and beginning to throw what she recognized as a practice javelin between intervals of push-ups or jumps or squats. It was only after doing all of those things until he was visibly exhausted that he disappeared back into his house.

Deciding that after watching Finnick's totally dark and still home for a few minutes without any indication of his return and beginning to feel gross, she changed from her sweat-soaked nightdress to one of the other nightdresses she owned. With the shawl that Mags had knitted for her tossed over her small shoulders she quietly tip toed out onto her porch, and to the hammock that swung there in the breeze. Annie burrowed in there, snuggled between throw pillows and draping herself with her shawl. Annie let the sea breeze rock her, and the comforting constant sound of the waves drown out the rain from her nightmares.

She heard footsteps and the sound of a door closing, and so she wasn't surprised when Finnick's face appeared from the side of her hammock. He looked tired, and so sad. But he tried to smile at her, though it obviously fell short at his eyes.

"Hi." He greeted awkwardly, "Can we talk?"

"Yeah of course." Annie said before laboriously getting out of the hammock, stretching her stiffened muscles before sitting down upon the porch step with him. He was wearing only a tee shirt and shorts, his feet caked with sand, but he smelled of shampoo and fresh laundry, and his curls dripped with the remnants of what she assumed was a shower.

"Did you have another nightmare?" He asked drawing circles on the sand with his toes and she nodded and he just sighed heavily. "Same here."

"What do you have nightmares about?" Annie asked, and watched as his jaw worked and his eyes grew darker.

"The Games. Other stuff." Finnick explained vaguely. "The heat and humidity gets to me, it's too similar to the jungle. I get really sick."

"Sick?"

"Like you do. I throw up a lot, sometimes." Finnick said before saying longingly, "I can't wait for winter to get here."

They sat in silence for a few moments, before Annie could no longer take it.

"Are we okay Finnick?" Annie blurted out anxiously. "I really don't want to be in this weird fight anymore. I just…what I said wasn't okay. Please forgive me."

"It's okay Annie, I forgive you. Really, I promise." Finnick promised her. "I wasn't really mad to begin with."

"I just…Finnick, you've helped me so much these past few months. I just want you to be able to talk to me. I don't want you to feel like you're alone." Annie admitted, "Because you're not."

"What do you want to talk about?" Finnick asked softly, his voice warm and honeyed and she looked at the absolutely gentle expression on his face and felt a shiver run up her spine.

"Tell me something about you that I don't know." Annie said, "Maybe about your family."

Immediately something else welled up in his face, far deeper than love, sweeter than sorrow.

"Sure. I-sometimes when I used to have nightmares when I was a little kid, my mom used to always make me tea and sit with me and tell me stories." Finnick said his voice full of nostalgia. "I used to pretend sometimes that I had a nightmare, just so she would do that with me. She had these stories…from before the Dark Days. Her grandmother's grandmother held on to them. God, there wasn't anything more beautiful than those stories."

"Stories?"

"Yes." Finnick explained, "Old tales. How about you and your family?"

"When my Daddy, after he got home and if he wasn't too drunk and hadn't spent too much of our money, he would buy me little presents or sweets or…maybe something he found at work. When we would sit together making fishing hooks, he would braid a ribbon in my hair or tuck a flower behind my ear." Annie explained, running her fingers through a section of her hair, trying to find the long lost remnants of her father's warmth.

"You loved your father?" Finnick asked her and she sighed.

"I still do." Annie said before she felt her eyes sting. "He wasn't perfect, not by a long shot. But I still love him. And it makes me guilty, because I stopped loving my mother."

"What are you talking about?" Finnick asked concerned and Annie sighed and pulled her shawl around herself tighter.

"My Mama was just so sick, but not a normal kind of sick. Her mind didn't work right. She didn't know or care about me. It was like living with a stranger and it tore my Daddy apart and made me hate her." Annie told him, before he gave her an understanding look.

"My…father is like that." Finnick said before saying bitterly, "He ruins everything he touches."

"He's a ship-builder, isn't he? I know that he has one of the best businesses in the area." Annie asked, trying not to pry too much. Annie knew for a fact that Finnick had a blistering resentment for his father. She had never seen his father visit Victor's Village once, when Annie and Finnick walked together by his father's store front Finnick would purposely jut his jaw forward and glare, and she was under the impression that they never spoke.

"Yes." He answered shortly, "It helps when you have a rich son to line your wallets to provide the best materials."

"Maybe you should stop giving him money then." Annie offered and he scoffed.

"I pay him not to talk to me." Finnick explained shortly. "He's a lying, cheating bastard and I hate him with every ounce of my being. I became a Career to get away from him… and if anything worked out in my life, it's that."

At that moment Annie was completely speechless. She had simply never had any idea, mostly because Finnick was so good at hiding in plain sight, and she had been so judgmental. Annie had assumed he'd had a nice, easy life just because he had grown up in Uptown, but certainly his childhood had been as hard as hers if he had willingly went to the Academy just to get away from his own father.

"What about your mother?" Annie asked immediately concerned and he just looked away mournfully.

"You don't remember that she died?" He asked and she shook her head before he continued, "It's okay. It was a long time ago. Around the time of the hurricane I think."

"I'm so sorry, Finnick. Was it…"

"No. It wasn't my dad. At least not directly. She was…always strange. She came into my room, and she didn't tell me any stories. She just…held me to her heart until I fell asleep. That night, she threw herself from the seawall into the shallows, and her body wasn't found. She had been…trying for months, and finally she got what she wanted." He said before breathing out, his eyes trained on the stars that were just beginning to fade into pearly morning light. "That would be the dream that haunted me. In it I'd…climb the wall, stand on the edge, and I would fall. I always thought I would join her in the darkness. In the sea. But, I never did. I always wake up."

"I'm glad you always wake up." Annie told him, taking his hand hesitantly. He smiled at her, and in that moment this was enough. His eyes, his tired smile, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, their feet touching under the sand, and the early morning light as it slowly but surely broke through the darkness of the night.

"I'm glad you woke up too." Finnick said after a moment, intertwining his fingers with hers and not saying another word.

She didn't let him know how much she agreed.

Ofrenda: Literally meaning offering. A Day of the Dead altar that is created for an individual person who has died in order to welcome them.

This takes place in the summer, probably the August before Calaveras.

When the sea monster Cetus threatened Aethiopia with divine punishment from Poseidon, it was the princess Andromeda who was chained up on the rock and was saved by Perseus. This was the first "princess and the dragon" trope ever recorded ever.

I bring up this story because, firstly in my head canon Annie's full name is Andromeda, and secondly because Annie was offered up as sacrifice to the Capitol to prevent the "punishment" of disobedience. Its great poetic license right here.

The more you know.

Another thing to note is, so many people seem to cast Annie as being the poor provincial girl just sort of tossed into the Hunger Games. I wanted to keep with that in the general sense, but to make it make more realistic. Annie clearly has been through some terrible things in her life, and suffers from intense PTSD. However this also works to her advantage because, as she puts it, she learned to sort of shrug terrible things off, putting a wall between memories and herself. In this way, she was best suited for surviving a Hunger Games. Putting Annie back into situations would trigger the reactions seen in the book and even in the beginning of this story, especially if she had undergone torture. Also, I've made it pretty clear that mental illness does run in her family. That might also have something to do with the state she is in during Mockingjay.

And why did I write and put this up before LS? Because I had most of this written before Halloween and Calveras and Ofrenda were meant to be a two shot series for Halloween, but midterms and college athletics ruined my plans for a Halloween bonanza. Fuck it. Sorry. Happy Thanksgiving I guess.

I'm working on LS, I swear. It will be updated soon!

In any case, I hope you all enjoyed. Leave a fav/alert/review to let me know you care. Until next time~OMGitsgreen