"President snow used to sell me. My body that is."- Mockingjay, Chapter 12
MAGS (5)
Mags Flanagan, aged 72. District 4/The Capitol
And life goes on.
His family adjust to Victor's cove. Tomas Odair and his eldest son still go out fishing on their little sail-boat, but they give away their catch to their old neighbours and friends, being now exempt from the fishing quotas that plague the rest of District Four's fishing families. Instead they buy their fish (perhaps the very ones they themselves caught) from different sellers up and down the docks. And not only fish. They bring back crab and cockles and whelks, and sit on the front step to eat them.
Finnick's mother, Kay, helps in different ways. When she first started buying extravagant art pieces and unnecessary clothing from the dockyard marketplace Mags had though she was starting to lose sight of herself. However, as the pieces begin to stack up in one of the unused spare bedrooms, Mags starts to realise her angle and begins accompanying her as she trawls the market stalls.
Envelopes begin arriving. All written on the same familiar, rose scented paper Mags had seen a thousand times. They are all invitations to parties, dinners, openings, premieres. Finnick doesn't even think of saying no- whether this is down to his desire to attend these events or the little chat Mags had had with him about refusing the Capitol, she's not sure. Instead she walks him to the station each month, slipping a few sugar cubes into his coat pocket as she hugs him goodbye.
Whilst he's away she watches him when he appears on the holo, dressed in wild Capitol outfits, tight against his tanned skin. He's always surrounded by wealthy Capitolites, famous actresses and models and designers. He's always smiling in the footage. Is it real? Does it touch his eyes?
His sea green eyes. When he comes back she always searches those eyes for signs, but so far she hasn't seen it. It hasn't started yet.
When he's home, she takes him along to the weekly Victors' dinners. They all gather at Marions's house. Triton bakes a cake, or a pie or a pudding, and they take it in turns to cook. Coral and Thalassa have taken to fussing over the boy when he turns up, and he, for his part, turns on the charm giving the two women flirty comments and cheeky smiles. He even manages to make Adrian smile, which is a nice change from his normal nonstop stream of complaints.
The nightmares become fewer and farer between. The boy no longer spends hours sitting out alone on the sand dunes staring at the sea. Instead, Mags thinks he might even be going to visit his old friends from time to time.
Finnick is settling into him life as a Victor.
XXX
"He had another argument with his brother this morning," Kay Odair is telling her as they watch Finnick sitting out on the backstep, tying knots in an old net.
The rest of the family is out- the little girl, Sammy, at school, and Finnick's father and brother out on the fishing boat presumably.
Mags sips the weak cup of tea that Finnick's mother had made for her when she arrived, and tries to work out how she ended up mentoring not only Finnick, but his entire family as well. She's never been particularly good at comforting words and false smiles, but doubts that they will be needed here in any case. Kay Odair isn't a stupid woman, and what she's really asking Mags to do is to confirm what she already knows.
"Well, as you know, it's not only the Victor who needs time to adjust to all the changes," Mags says simply.
A gentle breeze outside ruffles Finnick's bronze curls, and he angles his face down a little to see the net he's working on better. His shirt sticks to his sweaty back, the sun blazing down over his long brown body.
"Hayden's jealous. Seeing Finn on the holo all the time…" Finnick's mother is talking again. "Not that they've ever got on well. But I suppose I just hoped that Hayden might be there for his brother a bit more. You know, considering everything. But Hayden seems to have got it in his head that Finnick is living a wild life of fun and parties…"
She breaks off, shooting at intense look at Mags. "It's not like that though is it?" She poses the question as a statement. "Because I know my son. He's a sweet boy really, not matter what sort of act he's put on this year. A sweet, gentle boy. This isn't him really. He doesn't choose this, does he?"
She's asking for the truth but Mags can't give it to her. Or at least not in so many words. She's conscious of the bugs that are inevitably placed all over this house. It would be safer not to say anything.
She shakes her head. Kay sucks in a breath but there's no surprise in her face.
"Is this normal? For new victors I mean?" Kay whispers. Perhaps the bugs haven't gone unnoticed then. Or perhaps it's just that Kay is oddly perceptive.
"Sometimes," Mags said. Kay obviously reads between the lines of that one. She glances over at her son, still tying knots outside. Her hand trembles a little as she raises her mug to her lips to take a mouthful of milky liquid.
"Is he safe?"
"For now."
No one is safe in the Capitol. Especially not victors.
XXX
The 66th Hunger Games comes and goes.
Finnick looks nervous as his prep team come and fit him into his Reaping Day outfit. It's some sort of metallic looking jumpsuit that looks ridiculous everywhere outside of the Capitol but the boy doesn't protest as they paint him into it. They watch from inside the Justice Building as all of the children in District 4 file into the square, penned into their age groups.
As they walk out on the stage, Mags offers Finnick her arm, gesturing at him as if it's to help her walk. The boy smiles at her ploy but still accepts the comfort she's offering. They follow the other Victors slowly, spreading out across the back of the stage, behind their escort, Geena who this year is wearing a puffy purple monstrosity. Mags sees Finnick's brother Hayden standing at the back of the square with the oldest boys. This is his last year in the reaping pool, and Mags wonders if it's a relief for him, or whether Finnick's survival last year has spurred him on.
He doesn't volunteer.
Adrian and Coral go to mentor this year. Mags had half been expecting to see an envelope with Finnick's name on, summoning him to the Games, but it never comes. Perhaps the president feels the boy is too young to mentor just yet. Maybe he's just saving his cards.
(District Four's tributes don't make it far past the bloodbath. They never do the year after a win.)
Instead, the party invitations keep arriving and Mag's fear keeps growing. But in the end she knows when it will happen.
A few months after the 66th Hunger Games, an envelope reveals plans of the extravagant
party being thrown for Finnick Odair's sixteenth birthday in the Capitol.
It's not the first time the Capitol has celebrated a Victor's birthday, but it's not common either. It's the sort of event that is only planned for the most famous and beloved Victors, and it's often only planned to demonstrate the strength of the Capitol and the futility of refusal. Quite simply this is a power play. Mags understands this at once.
The boy realises something is different about this envelope when Mags insists on accompanying him to the Capitol.
He gives her an inquisitive look as she boards the train next to him.
"Did you get an invitation too?" the boy asks.
"Yes," she lies. She should tell him. She can't tell him. She can't find the words.
Instead, they sit in comfortable companionship together as the train leaves the platform and speeds them away to the one place they can never escape.
When they arrive the next day, its starting to become dark. They are ushered quickly to the Tribute Centre, a Victor's home in the Capitol. His prep team gets to work almost at once, whisking Finnick away and complaining about how late they are and how little time they have to prepare him. If anyone is surprised to see Mags they don't mention it. She sits in the kitchen area of District Four's floor, trying to work out what to do.
It's several hours before he reappears, dressed in a glittering skin-tight outfit, and she's still not sure what the right answer is. The only thing she's been able to decide on is that she needs to say something.
She opens her mouth to start but still nothing comes out. Of course nothing comes out. What is there that she can possibly say to make this alright?
The boy is talking to her about something his stylist, Metella, said. She looks at him again. His face is animated, mouth curving as he talks about something amusing. He has a streak of red glitter running along his cheekbone, curling behind his eye. Sixteen. Only sixteen. His jaw is a little tighter than when they first met, his shoulders a little broader, his legs a little longer. But it's still so young. Mags can remember being sixteen, before her own games. So naive, so little comprehension of the world and her place in it, no matter how grown-up she had felt then.
The boy falters a little in his tale, obviously realising something is wrong. He's just as perceptive as his mother.
"What is it Mags?" he asks. She tells him to sit down at the kitchen table with her. When words finally leave her mouth they're not what either of them are expecting her to say.
"I'm not coming to the party tonight," Mags says to the boy.
He raises a newly plucked eyebrow at that, obviously wondering why she's bothered making to journey to the Capitol for an event she's not planning to attend, but he gives her space to continue.
"Do you remember what I said to you on your Victory Tour, boy?"
She's thinking back to the conversation the two of them had had late at night on the train as the horror of the Games had finally began to sink in.
"You told me that I have to become the person that they think I am?" Finnick offers. He's right, that is what they had discussed but that's not exactly the point Mags meant to make.
"That's part of it boy, but I believe the exact words I said were that you must never disagree with the Capitol. It's a lesson that every Victor learns at one time or another, and I think for you that time is going to be tonight."
He tilts his head, narrowing his eyes as he tries to understand. He's not going to get there by himself. Too young. Mags elaborates for him.
"The president is probably going to ask you to do something tonight. Something that is requested of a lot of Victors. Something that is… something awful that he has no right to ask of you."
She feels disgusted with herself, saying these things to him. She should fight back. She wants to shout and scream and rage all the way to the President's Palace until she's right in his face telling him exactly what she thinks of him and what she wants to do to him. She imagines the fishhook sinking into his eyeball, the wet sound it would make, just like the boy in her games. It would be so easy and it would be so much better than that snake deserves.
But instead she's here with a boy of sixteen telling him that he should let himself be manipulated by a system designed to tear him down. She feels sick.
"It's not my place to tell you what decision you should make," she says. "No one will judge you either way, especially not me. However, I just want to make you aware that if you say no there will be consequences."
"What sort of consequences?" his brows scrunch as he tries to read her expression. "What is he going to ask me?"
But all Mags can think is too young, too young. She feels the tear slipping down her cheek before she is even aware that her eyes are wet
"I'm sorry boy", she whispers. "This is all my fault. I shouldn't have let it come to this. I should have let you die in that arena." His eyes widen a little at her confession, but still he moves his tanned finger to her cheek to wipe away the escaping tear.
"No Mags. It's not your fault. You saved me," he whispers back.
"No," She closes her eyes. She can't look at him right now. "I knew that this would happen. I should have let you die."
XXX
She doesn't go to the party.
She stays at the kitchen table as the light grow dimmer and dimmer.
She doesn't have to wonder what choice he will make. She's always known. She chose to mentor him because she saw herself in the boy. He will say yes. Just like she did.
XXX
When Mags was a child the world had been at war. The Dark Ages, they called it now, but even decades later Mags can still remember the bright lights that had burned up the sky before exploding in the air. She remembers sleepless nights spent cowering under the kitchen table with her brother and grandmother as the bombs fell around them outside. She remembers the unrelenting terror that her parents wouldn't be coming home, that one of the screams in the night might belong to them.
She remembers that even in the middle of that she had managed to sleep, but her dreams were not her friends. Full of shadowy figures and blazing fires and people dying, she hardly ever slept through the night without waking up.
When she won the Hunger Games however, her dreams were black and empty and instead the terror was in her waking hours when she saw her face in a reflection and remembered what she was capable of. What she would selfishly sacrifice to live. Who she would sacrifice. Then, sleep was a welcome relief if she could find it, from the horror of being awake, of being alive. And though she dreamt of murder and betrayal none of her imaginings could touch her in the same way as the terrible knowledge of the truth.
Now, Mags isn't sure if she sleeps or not, her racing mind turning over her own loss of innocence. The rough hands and sickly sweet perfumes and too soft sheets. The revulsion that coated her skin that she could never wash off, no matter how often she scrubbed her skin red and raw. Her mind brings up the bright eyed face of the boy. Too young. The images swirl together until she's not sure what she's seeing or where she is and who is there. If she sleeps, she does not recall the dream.
XXX
When she next opens her eyes it's light and she's still hunched at the table and the boy is standing in the doorway.
The red glitter on his cheek is smudged and his hair is a mess, but he's here and he's whole. If his eyes are a little wider than normal, or his steps a little slower than usual, Mags doesn't mention it. Instead she simply stands, and draws him into her comforting arms and holds him as his body shakes.
(If her shoulder becomes a little wet where his face presses into she doesn't mention it either).
She's not sure how long they stand like this, but when it's over Mags finds her jar of sugar cubes and they both sit back at the kitchen table, crunching.
It's still early and the sounds of a city waking up filter in through the open crack of the window.
When his hands finally stop shaking, the boy speaks.
"It's going to be like this now, isn't it?"
This is how their relationship has always been. The boy understands far too easily, far more willingly than Mags wants him to. Too accepting, too mouldable. The perfect pawn.
He starts drumming his fingers on the tabletop.
Mags can't look at him.
"It's not going to stop." There's an edge his voice now, something dark creeping in. "If the Capitol says dance, I dance right?"
The rhythm of his drumming makes something hot pulse in her brain. Mags squeezes her eyes shut.
"Look at me," he commands sharply, and she forces down the beating in her head. She opens her eyes.
"How long?" he demands, fingers stilling.
"Until they've had enough," she tells him.
What she doesn't tell him is that that day might never come. They'll take every part of him that he has to offer and drain it dry and then try to shake him for more, until one day they will have stolen all of him and not even Mags will be able to help him find the way back to himself.
No.
She's the only protection he really has from the Capitol, and even that's not enough.
She determines then and there that she will never let that happen to the boy. The boy who reminds her so much of herself at that age. She makes a silent promise to him now: to always be there when he needs her, to always hold him when he cries. To always tell him the truth when he needs to hear it.
Boy, being a mentor sure isn't just a day gig.