A/N: This is the introduction to my idea for an eventual Finnick Odair/OC fanfiction spanning the length of the 62nd Hunger Games to the events of Mockingjay. I hope you all enjoy! Every chapter's going to start with an epigraph, but some chapters will end with one as well to either set the tone, convey transition or just if I'm feeling like being a dramatic AF bitch.
Even the strongest blizzards start with a single snowflake
-Sara Raasch
She was happy once. There was a time in her life when her face rested in a smile and her eyes glowed with excitement. Back then, her laughter rang out through the air, and she never failed to brighten people's day. Her care and love echoed through her words and actions, and try as they might, no one could ever put her off when she set her mind to being their friend.
She used to run around for fun. Swimming was for sport. Wrestling was only a game, and spears were just for fishing.
Once, in days long forgotten, she could sleep through the night.
Later, people would find that hard to believe. In no small part because everyone who had witnessed such a thing was dead by the time anyone thought to ask.
Even asking Cascade herself would have proved fruitless. It was so long ago that she hardly remembered.
The last time, before it all began, when Cascade was well and truly happy, was the day before the Reaping of the 62nd Hunger Games.
The last time, until it all ended, when Cascade was well and truly happy, was the day before her brother disappeared.
Crude, stone steps wound their way around the edge of the cliff and down the hill to the beach below. The steps were centuries old. No one had an exact timeline of their construction, but it was well known that they predated the rebellion. Some even claimed that they predated Panem itself.
The steps were made out of the same dark, slate stone that covered the cliff face and dotted the hillsides above with boulders. No doubt the stone had a name once, but it was long lost to the people who lived amongst it. They called it jet, after its flawless shade of black. It was a strong, durable material; good for building, and even better for blades.
After fish and all things ocean, District 4's greatest exports were the onyx-colored knives made from the rocks littering the north end of the district. Each was polished until it gleamed like glass and was crafted with the finest edge known to any man.
Saltwater sprayed up from waves crashing against the cliff far below, and plumes of mist settled puddles into the dents worn into each stone by centuries of feet. More than one man had lost his balance on these rocks and cracked his head against the sharp lip of the step behind him, and more than one woman had gone teetering off the edge of the cliff, dashing against the rocks below.
It was a slick, treacherous landscape, yet oddly peaceful. There were no tourists here, no city folk or rich vacation homes, no bustling streets, and no shopkeepers shouting out their wares.. The land was a wilderness of sorts, and though many had tried, it refused to be tamed. It carried itself with the air of a place that moved at its own pace. Time slowed down, and its people slowed down with it. Anyone looking out over the scene would've been forgiven for expecting an old man to be sitting on a bench near the cliff's edge with a flask in his hand and a story on his lips. What greeted the nonexistent visitors that day was a far different sight.
There, making her way down the ancient, carved stairs was a tiny, young girl. She wasn't any newcomer. She knew how Ms. Canall's aunt had fallen to her death, how Mera's grandfather had died after a slip, and she was acutely aware of the time that couple from the Capitol had come galavanting around the cliffs for the novelty of the thing only to take a wrong step and feel the precipice crumble beneath their feet.
None of it slowed her down. It never had before.
She moved across the stones with surprisingly sure feet, splashing her way through pools of seawater and running headlong down the steep, winding path.
For such a young girl, she looked a little wild, in the sort of way that only really develops when people are older and more haggard. She was a person on a mission that only existed in her own mind, slightly crazed but absolutely determined.
Her hair was so weighed down in salt that it could hardly fly back from her face as she ran and instead flopped lifelessly against the back of her shoulders. Legs, short and far more toned than most girls her age, were covered in minute cuts, splatters of mud, and thin blades of grass. Her arms were fully exposed in a thin sleeveless, summer dress she wore, and pale skin peaked out from under the strap. The tan line formed over her shoulders and across her thighs lined up perfectly with the gauzy blue fabric, as if the fading color of the dress didn't already tell the world how often she wore the thing.
In the crux of her elbow was her only companion, a small basket woven from reeds with a strip of white fabric draped over the contents.
"Daven," she started shouting the name long before he was in earshot. "Daven!"
The girl hit the beach at a sprint for the water, shouting his name as she went. "Daven! They're here!"
Daven was wading out against the tide not far off the shore. Even as she drew closer, he didn't hear the voice shouting after him.
A little boy at his side was holding the other end of Daven's largest net. The net was probably the most expensive thing Daven owned, but it was by no means cherished. It was a tool, put to work every day and only brought in every night because Daven himself needed the rest. He didn't have the kind of money where one got to cherish nice things.
His ears were occupied with the barrage of questions being thrown at him, and the crashing of waves against the cliffs they stood in the shadow of did not help with all the noise. Daven's dull grey eyes were too busy cautiously scanning the water and glancing off towards the danger of the rocks to catch what his ears had missed.
Behind the pair, the little girl had set her basket down in the sand and was jumping up and down, trying to catch the corner of one of their eyes. "Daven, look they're here!" She shouted.
It was the boy who spotted her, when he turned to ask Daven another question. Daven inattentively gave him a grunt in response, and the boy poked his shoulder in frustration, thumbing back towards shore.
Glancing to the beach, Daven motioned for the boy to haul in the net.
They hadn't been doing much fishing. It wasn't the time of day for any of the bass to congregate anyhow, not that the boy's incessant talking wouldn't have scared anything away. Daven had really been trying to teach the kid how to work a net. His father thought it'd do the boy some good, and his brothers, all younger, weren't exactly up to the task.
"Try not to let it trail, Delta," Daven instructed as he took a step back and watched the boy work. "It'll knot if you don't pull it in right, and that'll make loads of work in the morning."
"How long does it take you to untangle a net?" Delta asked, dragging up the last of it in arms that were far too short for the task he'd been assigned.
Daven wrapped up the line and hefted the whole thing over his shoulder. "Depends how bad, sometimes it's hours. Can't afford to be too quick about it. We don't have the supplies to repair it that often."
Delta peppered in a few more questions as they waddled through the seabed back to the beach. "How long does it take to patch a net?" "How often do you have to do that?" "What puts the holes in the net?" "What do you use to fix it?"
Daven mumbled out responses to all of them, trying to remain polite, but he couldn't hide his relief when the little boy ran off the second his feet hit the sand. "Thanks for the lesson, Daven!"
"Was that Mr. Lim's son?"
Daven chuckled and deposited his net in the sand. "He's paying me extra to teach him how to use a net. He's hoping it'll put him off going to the Academy."
"Well he's silly." The little girl flopped back and sunk several inches deep. It was just early enough in the day that the sun hadn't quite finished warming up the beach, and she relaxed back into the coarse sand as if it was her bed.
"Enough of that," Daven kicked a toe full of sand in her general direction. "Sit up, Cade. It's already sticking to your hair."
Cascade pouted but followed instruction without any real complaint. Daven was right. Her hair hadn't completely dried from the dip she'd taken in the cove that morning, and a thick layer yellow grain was clinging to the damp patches in her locks, adding to the weight of the salt. Her curls were stretched out under the heavy strain and, for one of the few times in her life, laid flat down her back.
"What have we got?" Daven sat down across from Cascade, the basket perched between them.
Cascade's lips turned up in a faint smile. "They're purple this year." She pulled back the thin sheet of white fabric that covered the top of the basket and leaned over to look inside.
Her hair obscured Daven's view, but after a quick glance she leaned back and tilted the basket for him to see.
Nestled in the bottom, lying on top of a second piece of plain white cloth, were three purple water lilies. The tips of each petal were a deep shade that faded almost to white as it approached the base, and at their centers were the usual bright yellow eyes.
They were beautiful flowers, far more beautiful than the muted white color they'd been given last year.
"Cover them back up," Daven motioned for Cascade to put the top back over the basket. "We don't want any bugs to get to them."
Cascade dropped the sheet back in place and let the basket teeter flat on the ground. Her smile fell with it.
She watched the basket like it was haunting her. Her eyes, cool and grey like her brother's, stared at the sheet as if they could see straight through it to the cluster of flowers underneath.
Daven dropped a hand to her knee and squeezed, "Hey now, what's that?" He called her back.
Cascade shrugged, blinking away the look and turning her eyes up to meet Daven's. "I just wonder about them sometimes. Don't you?"
"No," Daven answered honestly. It was something he'd promised himself a long time ago, that he would always answer her honestly. "But I remember them, so I guess I don't have to wonder."
Cascade's brow furrowed, and she turned back to the basket. "I wish I remembered them."
With a heavy sigh, Daven reached over the handle between them and lifted the little girl over into his lap.
She got like this sometimes, morose, especially this time of year. The district was plastered with reminders that she was too young to be reminded of, and even though she knew what all of them meant, it would never be the same. Remembrance banners hung in the streets; posters were plastered on shop walls; water lilies were passed out to every door. District 4 united together in their loss and pain, bound together by their shared suffering and understanding.
Only Cascade didn't understand. She suffered, but she didn't understand. That served to upset her even more, and she had every right to be upset. Really, who could blame her?
Certainly not Daven, he had his own days. Less now than he used to, but there were still nights when he woke up crying, nights when Cascade would be the one telling him everything would be okay.
In the beginning, Daven had wondered which of them had it worse. He'd wondered if it was worse for him to remember what they'd lost or for her to have never experienced it at all. He realized early on that if he kept wondering about things like that, dwelling on his pain, then he'd finally get an answer to that question. Yes, she had it worse because he made it worse.
"Believe me," Daven took to brushing his fingers through her hair, absently picking away the sand crusted to it, "They wish they were here to, but since they aren't, let's make a deal."
"What kind of deal?"
"I'll remember them for you. Anything you want to know, you can ask, and I'll tell you." Daven promised.
Cascade looked up with a soft, hopeful smile. "Really?"
"Really," Daven promised.
Cascade spent the night bombarding Daven with as many questions as could come to mind, so many she put little Delta Lim to shame, so many Daven almost regretted making such a ludicrous promise to her. Almost.
He told her about the times their father taught him to fish, the times their mother baked him cakes for his birthday, the times their sister braided his hair like a fishtail, the times their mother had to cut out the braid there were so many knots in it. He told her, too, about father arguing with him when he wouldn't wake up early, about their mother scolding him for eating the last of the fish, about their sister making fun of him for swimming so slow.
He answered every one of her questions, even when he felt like he was starting to lose his voice, even when he wasn't entirely sure of the answers, even when he didn't really want to give the answers. Some of the questions made him laugh; some of the answers made him cry.
Daven was her memory and her family, and with him she was loved and she was safe.
Summer will end soon, and childhood as well
– George R. R. Martin