"If I'm going to cry, now is the time. By morning, I'll be able to wash all the damage done by the tears from my face. But no tears come. I'm too tired or too numb to cry. The only thing I feel is a desire to be somewhere else"- The Hunger Games, Chapter 4
MAGS (4)
Mags Flanagan, aged 71. Victory Tour
Finnick comes back to them slowly.
For weeks all Mags can see when she looks at him is the same empty eyes and numb features that he had turned on her in the Capitol hospital. He's quiet where before he was talkative, and he's content to simply follow Mags around when she visits him, or to just stare into space. Mags has seen plenty of Victors before so it's not the first time she's seen something like this happen, but there's something about this boy, so young, so similar to herself, that resonates with her and so she finds herself worrying. She must be getting old.
The other Victors try to reassure her.
"He just needs some time," Coral tells her at their monthly gathering. "We all needed time to adjust, and it must be especially hard considering he's still just a child really. The poor boy."
The others had all chimed in similarly, and urged Mags to bring him along to dinner next month.
"You know how much it helps to have other people around who understand," Adrian had said when Mags had tried to argue the boy wasn't ready for them all yet. "Besides, that boy is going to need all the support he can get considering what will happen to him. Does he know yet?"
Of course he didn't. Mags couldn't tell the boy. She'd had many unpleasant conversations in her life, but telling a fourteen year old boy that the Capitol would want to use his body for their own selfish sexual pleasure was something she couldn't even find the words for. Besides, now was not the time for that. He was still getting over the whole murder and death issue, she didn't need to add to his already full plate. It might not even happen so why get him all worried about it now?
Triton had looked at her sadly when she had voiced that last part. "Don't be delusional, Magsy. That boy's card is definitely marked."
But she ignores them all, and keeps quiet.
She goes to see him as often as she can. Sometimes they talk, but mostly they are quiet. Mags solves the problem of long silent stretches by teaching the boy some new knots- old knots that Mags had been taught by her father as a girl. It's good to focus on something different. Knots keep your mind busy and away from everything else that's going on inside your head. For a few hours you're thinking about the rope and your fingers and you can forget. That's good. Besides, knots are familiar when you're from District Four. And familiar can be just what you need when everything else in your world has changed.
The other Victors begin to join in. Adrian starts it, one day inviting Finnick into his garden. Mags finds them a couple of hours later, weeding his vegetable patch and pruning flower bushes. By the next week Finnick has started to grow his own potato and runner bean plants. Seaton takes him out surfing at the Victor's Cove private beach, Kai gets him to start practising yoga, and Mags even catches him doing a jigsaw one day over at Coral's house.
And as the weeks pass the life began to creep back into Finnick Odair's eyes again. The silence between them lessens and the tension in Mag's heart began to lift. And then finally, about six weeks after Finnick Odair wins the 65th Hunger Games, Marion, District 4's oldest Victor, finally manages to make the boy laugh. That's when she knows he's coming back to them.
XXX
When Mags had won the Hunger Games they had demanded she produce a talent. Something that the Capitol could talk about and turn her into because she was their Victor and they owned her. It had seemed stupid. Find a talent, some hobby, to play at whilst the rest of the District were hard at work. As if Mags wasn't a part of her District family anymore. (She wasn't. They had separated her and she had become something else). Marion wouldn't let her be stubborn and refuse.
"Never refuse the Capitol," he had taught her. It only took her a lifetime to see what he meant.
So in the end she had settled on something she already knew. Knitting was basically knots and nets and it was useful. She could give away the things she knitted to help people who needed it much more than she did it.
Finnick Odair finds it much harder to choose a 'talent'. Part of it is he doesn't want to copy someone else's talent. There are a lot more Victors now than there had been when Mags had won her games. As a result there are a lot more 'talents'. Adrian gardens. Triton bakes. Thalassa sails. Seaton surfs.
There's also another obstacle.
"I want it to be something completely new that I've never done before. I don't want it to be something else they can take away from me," Finnick says.
The problem is that whatever Finnick Odair does is going to be a big deal because he's Finnick Odair. Mags doesn't push it. She decides to let it come to him on its own. However, she is surprised when he finally settles on something.
"Poetry?" She asks, double checking he had indeed just told her his talent is going to be poetry.
"Yes," Finnick smiles. "It's perfect."
"Do you even know how to write poems?" Mags asks.
"It's easy. Just write a load of nonsense and then everyone tried to guess what it means. They all think they know me, that they're looking into my soul or some rubbish like that but actually it doesn't mean anything. I don't want to give them anything." Finnick says.
"Besides, I've already written one," he adds and thrusts a scrap of paper at her.
'The Monster' it's entitled.
It's form was monstrous, cloaked in blackness of night
Like the childhood nightmare that still haunted your sleep
My terror was tormented by the knowledge of right
And the debt left to pay left me shaking and week.
The creature gnashed its terrible teeth with want
Recallling echos of a time, once ago, when I
Missed the clarity that should have been just in front
Of the aching sockets of my now blind eyes.
Oh! To think once that I should be so wretched now
Cowering away from that which should be mine.
The miserableness of my nature showed how
My fragile spirit belonged to this long foretold sign.
The great beast opened its jaws, and swallowed me whole
'Till my air ran black and my flailing limbs felt calm.
A spiralling tranquillity took hold of my soul
And lifted all my fears with its trembling palm.
"And this means nothing to you?" Mags says. To her it reeks of guilt.
"What could it mean?" Finnick shrugs off. He's pleased with himself.
"Ok," Mags says.
"Ok," Finnick says.
"Maybe you should write something a bit happier next time though." Mags tells him.
Geena, their District escort, seems to think that Finnick's new 'talent' is an amazing idea. To her, it's all very exciting- a poor district boy, thrust in the limelight suddenly, penning his deep thoughts and sharing them with his new platform. She sets him up with a big Capitol photoshoot, in which the photo will be splashed onto the front cover of one of the leading Capitol holozines.
Finnick's prep team arrives bright and early and bustle their way into Finnick's new kitchen. Mags recognises the three Capitolites as the same people who had been working on District Four's tributes for years now. They must have been the same three that had worked on Finnick during his games. However, the stylist following behind is new. She has long brown ringlets, held back by some sort of orange headpiece. Her boots are the same orange shade, with tall spiky heels and she appears to be dressed in a long knotted overcoat reminiscent, Mags thinks, of a net.
"I thought that Adilia Craven was his stylist?" Mags asks one of the prep team, a man with purple feathery hair who Mags thinks is called Pliny, as he rushes past with a box of brushes and lotions.
"Metella's the best," Pliny gushes, slowing to talk to her. "The president personally requested she work on Finnick."
Mags doesn't like the sound of this, but she hopes it doesn't show on her face. The president interfering with her boy's stylist can't possibly be a good sign.
As the new stylist gets to work the tight feeling in Mag's throat diminishes a little. Metella is far less leery than Adilia had ever been, and instead seems to view Finnick as an extension of her 'art'. Mags approves of the way she asks Finnick about his preferred colours and styles, every so often writing something down in a little fluffy notebook. They end up dressing the boy in a simple loose fitting shirt and a pair of shorts.
"A simple district boy," Metella declares with such obvious satisfaction that Mags can't find it in her to point out that the Capitol cut of the clothes is far from anything that citizens of District Four would find themselves wearing.
XXX
The Victory Tour is gruelling.
They start, of course, in District 4. There are speeches and interviews and suddenly there's food and before Mags can even draw breath, Finnick is shaking the major's hand and they are heading out of the station on a tribute train.
"That wasn't so bad," Finnick remarks as the train turns the last corner out of District Four and the view of the ocean disappears from sight.
"Day One, boy," Mags reminds him cynically.
It turns out, of course, that she is right. By day five Finnick is beginning to waver. By day six he's beginning to disappear again. The skinny, dirty, children of the outer Districts were always difficult to see. The grim faces of their citizens didn't help, and neither did the fact that Finnick seemed to have killed a tribute from half of the stops (9, 10, 11). But it's when they reach District Seven that Mags can really see the boy is struggling.
He stands on the stage of District Seven's justice building, staring unblinkingly at the holo of the female tribute, Rupalia, his ally for a time. He recites the speech he'd been handed on the drive from the station- all about the generosity of the Capitol and his luck in the games. For a moment Mags thinks he might say something else, something about the girl who had saved his life and nursed him back to health in the arena. However, he remains silent, and simply heads back off the stage and to the feast held in his honour. What a good little Victor, Mags thinks sourly.
Later, he shakes another major's hand and reboards the train with Mags, his mentor, Geena, his escort, and all the prep team. It's not until after dinner, and he's back in his room on the train that Mags hears him crying. She stops to listen outside the door for a moment, before she moves inside the room and sits down next to him on the bed. She pulls the boy's face into her shoulder and just lets him weep. There's nothing she can say to make it better, and there's nothing she wants to say, but she hopes he's comforted by her presence all the same. When he's finished she wipes the tears from his cheeks and leads him into the kitchen to get him a glass of water.
The carriage is empty. Everyone else has probably gone to bed by now. No one had pulled the blinds, however, and the world outside the train window is pitch black. Somehow it's comforting.
Mags and Finnick lean against the counter near the sink and he drinks.
"They don't care, do they? The Capitol." Finnick asks suddenly. "About the children that die. It's just a game to them isn't it?"
Mags sighs. She's not sure what to tell the boy. He's so young and already so cynical. It's not right. It's not fair.
After a moment, she settles on the truth.
"Sometimes it's easier for people not to notice bad things that are happening." Mags says simply. "They don't want to feel responsible for making a change."
"But they are responsible," Finnick insists. "How can they just stand by and watch and not do anything?
All Mags can do in response is shake her head sadly.
"Well I'm going to do it," Finnick declares. "I'm going to tell them its wrong. I'm going to make them change."
Mags feels her heart suddenly stutter in her chest.
"No!" she says, grabbing his tanned arm tightly. "No Finnick. You must never do that. You must never disagree with the Capitol."
It disgusts her to teach him this lesson- this rule that she's stuck to for most of her life. She wants to tell him his instincts are completely right. He should fight back. But she can't see any other way for it to be. Mags is a Victor, and the one thing that Victors do best is self preservation. And this boy especially needs to learn this lesson now. It's much better to accept that now that no matter what you do, the Capitol will always win.
The look he gives her is slightly hurt, but then there's something that looks like understanding in his features.
"The Game doesn't stop does it?" he says slowly. "I have to become the person they think I am?"
I hope you're ready, Mags thinks.
Finnick finishes drinking his water silently for a few minutes. The noise is loud and he sets his glass down next to the sink. Rattling, the train carriage turns a corner, and lights from a distant town draw strange patterns on the kitchen counters. Finnick traces the edge of a long shadow with his index finger. Mags can still see the tear tracks on his cheeks. Then there's almost a hint of a smile on his face as he spies a glass bowl on one of the work surfaces full of little white lumps.
"Sugar cubes," Finnick says, quietly. "Marion likes them in his coffee."
"Well I think they taste better on their own," Mags replies, picking one up and popping it into her mouth. Marion had been her mentor once and, just like Finnick, just like all the District Four Victors, he had introduced Mags to the simple joy of a sugar cube.
Mags offers the bowl to Finnick, and he takes one in his long tanned fingers.
"Whenever you're feeling sad boy, sometimes it helps to find yourself something sweet."
Finnick's eyes are still a little red but she thinks he's going to be ok.
XXX
They make it to the Capitol.
The platform is swarming with people when they arrive and it takes ages to fight their way off the train, through the crowds, to their waiting car. Everyone wants to see the boy, their Victor, to touch him, to connect with him in some way.
"Finnick," they shout. "Finnick, over here!"
He looks a little overwhelmed, but still he waves and smiles which only makes them scream for him louder. This is the Game, Mags knows. This will always be the Game.
When they finally reach the tribute centre, his prep team fuss over him like usual.
"Aren't you so excited?" One of them, Lesbia, says cooingly as she applies a smoky colour to his top eye-lid. "Your first party!"
"Everyone is going to be there," a second, Pliny joins in, fluffling at Finnick's hair. He launches into recalling a list of numerous celebrities that were rumoured to be attending tonight's Victory Party.
They dress him in skin tight striped trousers and a shirt made out of the similar net-like material that seems to be the current craze in the Capitol. Mags can tell the boy is not entirely comfortable in the outfit but he doesn't say anything.
They get ready to leave, Geena appearing at the last minute before they step into the waiting car, wearing a bright red dress made out of the same net material as Finnick's shirt. It flares out behind her, pooling on the ground to show off a ridiculously high pair of heels in the same crimson shade. She talks non-stop on the drive to the presidential palace and Mag's wishes there was way to shut her up.
"Are you nervous?" she whispers to the boy as the walk up the drive toward the mansion house where the party is in full swing already.
He smiles at her encouragingly and shakes his head in response. "This is what I'm good at," he whispers back.
And he is. The boy is charming and sweet and funny. He makes rich Capitol businessmen laugh, he dances with several Capitol women that ask him, and even tries to convince Mags to take a spin with him around the floor. They all swoon over him.
"I just knew you were going to win," they all say. "Right from the beginning."
"You were so clever with those nets. Do you really learn to fish like that in District 4?"
"How do you like the Capitol? Isn't everything so wonderful and civilised here?"
They love him here, and Finnick plays the role so well. It's almost hard to believe this is the same boy that cried on her shoulder only the other night.
Mags wonders how long he has before they want more of him.