I do not own the Hunger Games.
CHAPTER WARNING: Mention of death.
The bodies were still hanging, swaying slightly in the breeze and beginning to rot in the midday sun.
They would be there for another week, decaying where all could see, before their bodies were finally removed to be buried in a ditch. Criminals like them would be given no graves.
"Lily? Why are them men swinging?"
Lily glanced up at the corpses, Seven's latest batch of would be rebels. They had committed the crime of vandilising the Town Hall and scribbling anti Capitol graffiti across government buildings. Their sentence had been death by hanging. There was no mercy for rebels.
"They're dead Lea," she replied. Of course, being only five, Lea had little idea of death, but she needed to learn about it sooner or later.
"Are they having fun?"
"Of course not," Marigold snapped. "They died a terrible death and were left there to rot."
Lea and Holly gazed at her for a moment, absorbing this information.
"What's death mean?" asked Holly.
"Means the Hunger Games," said Rosen, who had a decent grasp on the concept.
"It means…" Lily flailed for a moment, searching for an answer. How had she explained this to Poppy and Rosen? Had she explained this to Poppy and Rosen? Maybe their mom had done that part.
"It's like going to sleep, except you never wake up."
"Oh," said Lea.
"Can't we wake them up?" asked Holly.
Lily was pretty sure they weren't getting this concept.
Yasmin rolled her eyes. "They're not breathing no more ijit."
"And that's bad?"
"Of course that's bad!" Tulip said.
"Oh," said Holly.
"Look, it just means those men are going to stay there for a bit Lea. Next week they'll hopefully cut 'em down to bury 'em."
"Yes Lily."
They definitely didn't get it.
After a long walk, they arrived in the cluster of shops and houses of their little outpost. It was one street for the shops and a few scattered more for the civilians, closer together than their own tiny cabin. Once every two weeks, when Lily and Marigold's schedule matched up and the tesserae rations were due, the siblings made the long treck there for supplies. The Flower Sisters, people called them, even though plenty of people in Seven were named after flowers and also one of them was a boy so that nickname had become false eight years ago.
The siblings first went up to the Town Hall, where Lily, Marigold, and Yasmin could collect their tesserae rations. They passed their IDs over the desk to the Peacekeeper there.
"Why aren't you two working at your age? The Capitol needs workers."
"Please sir, it's our day off," Lily replied.
He grunted, shoving the IDs under the scanner. "I still say it was a mistake to increase those."
The scanner blipped blue and pinged. He shoved them the IDs back and they backed away into the waiting area to wait. There were a few other anxious looking teens doing the same. Many looked thin, with hollow cheeks, though there was one tall boy with broad shoulders and thick limbs. One by one, each of them was brought their supplies and filtered out, until at last it was their turn. The workers brought out the three large sacks of grain and oil, dumping them on the dusty floor, and each of the girls took one.
"Thank you ma'am. Thank you sirs."
They dragged the sacks outside, where they divided things up better into their carryalls. Soon enough the littlie twins would be big enough to come with them, which would give them another pair of arms and legs to help carry, but for today they were home with their mom and the new baby.
Not, Lily lamented, that their family had needed another baby.
Their mom paid little enough attention to her older children as it was. It was as though once they got past Holly and Azalea's age, they stopped being 'cute' and 'fun' and she needed a replacement.
Either that, or she was really determined to produce offspring for the Capitol.
Either way, Lily was pretty sure she was never having kids. She'd already done her fair share of child rearing.
"Usual stops?" Marigold asked.
"Meet you at the old tree," Lily agreed.
The nine of them filtered off into four groups: Marigold, Poppy, and Holly for the Butchers' and today the toystore; Yasmin, Tulip and Dahlia for the Greengrocers; and Lily, Rosen, and Lea for the fleamarket.
At the Butchers', Marigold, Poppy and Holly picked up a small ham and a limited amount of mince before moving on to the toystore. Next week was Lea's sixth birthday, and they wanted to buy her a doll.
At the Greengrocers, Yasmin and the twins selected a small amount of fruit and vegetables. It was hard, feeding so many on their limited budget, but they made do with what they had.
At the Fleamarket, Lily, Rosen, and Lea bought secondhand dresses for Holly and Lea, who were growing out of some of theirs and a new shirt and shoes for Rosen, who seemed to make it his mission to wear holes in all his clothing. While they passed their clothing down, and indeed, much of what Sorrel and Clover wore now had once been Lily or Marigold's ten years ago, with so many children clothes wore thin or were damage beyond repair, meaning they still needed new things occasionally.
At last they had all the supplies they needed, and one by one, each of the small trios headed out to the Old Tree a short way outside the Outpost to wait. Marigold's group was first, followed by Yasmin, and lastly Lily, who was wrestling with Lea and Rosen. She was dreading having to start bringing the littlie twins with her, but it was inevitable. Their mom would begin insisting soon enough.
"I wanted to see the doggie," Lea was whining, referring to the large Peacekeeper's dog they had passed a few minutes earlier.
"No, you can't-"
"Can't we stop by the park for a bit?" Rosen demanded, referring to the muddy field with the old rotting rope swings and lonely wooden slide at the outpost. "You never let us anymore!"
"That's because we don't have time!"
And, Lily added, because with Holly and Lea added to the fray, she couldn't manage them all.
"You can play in the field back home!"
"But I want to play here!"
"Then you'll be tired for the walk home, and it'll be dark before we get there! Come on!"
"No!"
"Then I'll leave you here!"
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
It took her getting barely a hundred yards ahead before he started hurrying to catch up, scowling and red faced.
At last, they were all together again. Lily ran a quick headcount and nodded. "Come on. Let's get going."
They weren't the only ones on the road. She could see a handful of others, teenagers like them doing the same thing: collecting tesserae rations. She and Marigold were the only ones trying to wrangle seven kids though. Often they had discussed doing this by halves and having only one of them go at a time, but most likely their mom would still insist they took all the little ones, and even with Tulip and Dahlia being a big help they couldn't do that to each other.
All together it was then, pain in the ass as it was.
Poppy, Rosen, Holly and Azalea ran ahead, off to play tag despite their carryalls. A few of the other smaller children on the road, siblings of those older than twelve like theirs, quickly joined in.
Halfway outside the outpost, the corpses were still swaying in the breeze and the air smelled like rot and decay.