CHAPTER II: DISTRICT TWELVE


Mavis Marigold, 14;

District Twelve Female, SHE/HER

-A WEEK BEFORE-


The Marigolds used to be great, her father tells her. Generations ago, their power once extended all throughout and among the breaches of District Twelve, sporting fame and success wherever they went, with every surface they touched. They were once respected, idolized- they once were regarded as superior to the mongrels who claimed to be their equals.

Who could've anticipated that one day, all this glory would be obliterated? All of it has been lost, and today, as of recent generations, the way charred wood turns to ash, the Marigold name has been reduced to the surname of poor, unsightly cheesemakers from the Seam.

It was what plagued Mavis as soon as she woke up, and yet also what motivated her to rise each and every morning, and today was no exception to that. Some days, it was harder than others to get back up, but her mission remained the same at the start of each new dawn: to restore the Marigold line back to its former glory, by doing absolutely nothing but waiting for the prestige that would surely be reclaimed once the universe decided to align the natural order of society.

Mavis made to get up, joints and ligaments groaning in protest from another night of ill rest. It was a peculiarly bright morning, the girl noted to herself, shuffling around on her sooty, beaten slippers. Dazed, she glanced at the homely clock adjacent to her cot.

It read 10:11 AM.

She had forgotten it was Sunday. Mavis clamped her teeth down on the inside of her cheek harshly, gnawing on the flesh. That's definitely going to leave some sort of mark. She couldn't believe that she had forgotten what day it was; most Sunday mornings, Mavis would wake up at the break of dawn in order to secure an early spot in the tesserae line, hours ahead of the Seam scum that always gathered at the forefront, but unfortunately her routine had left her mind. She clutched her hands close together to her chest and spouted a quick prayer, eyes squinted, lips mouthing frantically; hopefully Father doesn't berate me for forgetting.

Her slippers roused the soot that covered the floor in lethargic, lazy piles as she tiptoed throughout her tiny quarters. She took off her nightdress, her eyes averting from the ugly burn marks that constellated up and down her arms. She put on her finest garment: a second-hand silk dress, given to her years back by her best friend, a rich merchant girl. It was long sleeved (of course) and its once delicate, white skin was now speckled and smeared with ash spots. It was hopelessly small for a girl of her age, but Mavis's malnourished frame slipped into it with ease, and nothing more than a few broken seams. Truly nothing the other Seam rats could adorn would be able to compare with her own feminine visage; Father always reminded her, with albeit a stern hand, to remain ladylike and dignified even in the faces of inferior beings. A lump swelled in her throat as she prepared herself to bear the brunt of her father's hand.

Mavis shuffled hastily into the den, anticipating his abuse upon arrival, but it seemed that he was still passed out from yesterday's dinner of alcohol and air. He was slumped against the moth-ridden sofa, stiff and grotesque as a possum in rigor mortis.

A small puddle of relief welled inside of her. It looked like she wouldn't have to encounter either of her parents, her father being still unconscious and her mother working the early shift at the coal mines. To outsiders, it was a questionable thing, having the mother as the only working member of the family, but Mavis and her father strongly shared the sentiment that the Marigold family was too good for menial labor in the coal mines. He refused to do anything but the bare minimum, because they were destined for better things than a thankless life in the Seam.

It was taking quite a long time to assume the lush life she so very much coveted, but Mavis had no doubt that it would come in due time, none.

Before she left the house, she peered into the basin full of water her family used as a mirror. It was covered with a slinky film of soot, the water's surface hazy and tinted with a monotonous grey, but she could still discern the gossamer blonde of her hair and her blue eyes. She observed these features haughtily; they were reminders that her looks were on the same tier as the rich merchant girls, save for the layers of grime and dust. There was no reason for her to have to live alongside the ugly, dark people of the Seam when she looked the way she did. Her miserable shack had not a lick of food on the table, no fine salts in the cupboard, and not even a single ember pulsing in the fireplace. It was what the lowest scum of Panem deserved, but she couldn't understand why she had to be lumped in with them despite being blonde and white, like a pearl among coals.

Satisfied with her appearance, she slipped out of her house and into the streets, heading on the beaten path towards tesserae collection. Usually, it wouldn't take more than the lesser part of an hour, but usually she would wake up at the break of dawn. Today's errand would rund much longer than usual, not even mentioning the fact that she had to go by Jessica's later to pick up some meat.

Tesserae collection was always a humiliating experience, and week after week she would repress her memories of Sunday morning. Today, her late arrival only exacerbated the situation; she felt pathetic and sick standing next to the dusty, dark people of the Seam. Mavis thought of her father's reminders and straightened her posture; she couldn't afford to look less dignified than these people. How dare they even breathe the same air as her? They didn't deserve anything. She struggled to maintain these thoughts, her only saving grace the thought of her trip to Jessica's house post-tesserae. When it was finally her turn, she took the tesserae package from the handler nose upturned and sashayed from the stink of the Seamgoers.

Once she was away from everybody else, she hurriedly packed the tesserae in the bottommost quarters of her pack. She couldn't risk getting caught with the bundles for when she went down to the merchant neighborhoods; not even her sooty dress or her frail stature could compete with such a blatant marker of poverty. With her blonde hair and white skin she could pretend she had the wealth she so desperately sought for, but the presence of tesserae would blow the illusion to dust.

She was glad that her visit to Jessica's house coincided with her tesserae trip. Mavis loved visiting the merchant's area– watching the gradual distinction of architecture as she walked down from the Seam to the merchants' area was cathartic for her, and reassured her that the Marigold family would eventually ascend back to where it belonged. It was just the natural way of things.

Although walking around in the rich parts of District Twelve was her favorite pastime, it just reminded her of how she existed in a limbo between the rich and the poor. She didn't belong anywhere, not really; even when her looks coincided with the image of wealth, her actual financial status didn't align to that of the snobby merchant kids. They took for granted what she deserved, especially the dark ones. They would never be able to fully appreciate the finer points of wealth, would never perfect the image of richness, because even their dainty silks and ornaments couldn't cover the taint of their skin.

She passed her favorite house on the street, a white two-story with gleaming windows. She was almost at Jessica's. Eager, Mavis picked up the pace.

At long last, she reached the house at the end of the block, the house of her best friend in the world, Jessica Tillamen. She knew everything about her; she was fifteen years old, the daughter of an esteemed butcher, and above all else , blonde and white. She hopped eagerly onto the front steps of the merchant girl's house and pressed the doorbell with gusto. Within seconds the doorknob turned; a young girl's eye peeked out warily through the sliver of the door, searching for suspicious activity until she realized it was just Mavis.

The door opened wider now, yet still an ample space remained in between the two girls. Jessica donned a white blouse and a khaki skirt, of which Mavis observed with slight envy. The merchant girl glanced over at the doorbell, eyes narrowing as she caught sight of the slight film of dust that covered the doorbell. Noticing this, Mavis self-consciously rubbed her tinged-gray fingers on the cuff of her sleeve; she should've remembered to wash her hands at the coin-littered fountain that lied at the neighborhood intersection, like she always did. Why was she forgetting so much today?

Jessica looked at Mavis, her arms crossed together. "I told you to use the back entrance so no one would see you." Her voice was low, monotone and plain unamused.

"Oh!" Mavis squeaked in reply, arms splayed out in a caricature of surrender. Jessica winced involuntarily. "I'm so sorry! I'll, I'll head to the back right now, don't worry about it!" She forced out a giggle but it sounded more like a frantic mating call than the carefree, airy sound of the merchant girls. She ducked away and took the dark, beaten path towards the back entrance, a stark contrast to the pristine cream porch she had just been on.

Jessica was already waiting for her by the time that Mavis stumbled into the back.

"So, what's going on with you, Jessie?" Mavis said, a poor attempt at mimicking merchant girl speech.

The other girl crossed her arms again, shifting uncomfortably. "Okay."

Mavis paused as she waited for the other girl to ask about her, but when she realized that it wasn't going to happen, she volunteered her own response to the ghost of the question. "Yeah, I'm doing okay, too! We have so much in common!"

Jessica did not respond. After a few moments of staring back and forth, the merchant girl unfolded her arms. "Wait here," she ordered, and walked back into her house. Mavis could hear the girl rumbling through doors and cabinets, and after a few minutes of this, she began to grow antsy.

She made to knock on the door when out bursted Jessica, holding a dropping, bloody brown bag as far away from herself as possible. A couple flies swarmed around the package, gravitating towards its reek of iron and rotting meat. Jessica, on the other hand, couldn't have appeared more averse to the scent; she held out the bag with as much length as her skinny white arms could muster, clenching her nose tightly with her other hand.

"You should've come by to pick it up yesterday, but I guess it's still good enough for you," Jessica said, her voice nasally and almost drowned out by the buzzing of the flies. She shoveled the bag of spoiled meat into Mavis's arms. Her heart twinged as she took it from her.

As soon as the bag left her grasp, Jessica ushered out a clipped "bye" and almost immediately slammed the back door shut, barely long enough to hear Mavis's weak "goodbye!" in response. Although she and Jessica were best friends, Mavis couldn't help but feel as if the other girl was ashamed of her.

She collected herself and plastered a smile on her face as she got ready to head back home. One day, her life of eating spoiled meat and collecting tesserae would be over. One day, Jessica and the other blonde merchant girls would welcome her into their inner circles. One day, she would never have to be associated with the poor, dark epsilons of the Seam, ever again.


Artan Steffins, 15;

District Twelve Male, HE/HIM

-A WEEK BEFORE-


"I can't believe that he left him behind," Artan said, his voice painted over with awe. "I really thought he loved him."

He was perched on his mother's desk, watching as she put away stack after stack of papers into their respective slots. Most afternoons, after the school day was over, he would head over to either her or his other mother's classroom. It was quite convenient that both his mothers were school teachers, and even more so that one of them was an English teacher. He spent evening after evening in these rooms, but he didn't mind it one bit; it was almost like a second home to him. He often used the spare time to bury his nose in a book or four, delving into fictional universes for hours at a time.

Today, his latest thriller was a book titled Lake Solaris. He had stumbled upon it at the shabby, unassuming science fiction section at his high school's library. Usually, Artan would snub his nose at the titles derived from this genre, but this time around, he had found himself uncharacteristically engrossed in its contents. It was disturbingly interesting; Artan had never encountered a book so confusing, so gruesome, with contents so taxing to decode. But he would crack it regardless- he always did.

His mother smiled. "Who's to say he didn't?" she responded, still nonchalant as she catered towards her busy work. Artan frowned, sitting on the thought. It was an odd question. He thought of all the people he loved: his mothers, his friends, and Melisande.

Oh, Melisande. He had only been together with her a short while, but those eight months had already flown by exeptionally fast; already his girlfriend had become one of the most important people in his life, among his mothers and his friends. Leaving them behind, for any reason at all, would be the last thing on his mind. Why would he ever abandon someone if he truly loved them?

"Hypothetically, if he really loved Riolio, he would stick around. It just seems counterintuitive to me that he would drive a physical wedge in their relationship on purpose."

"Think more critically about their characters, Artan." Mrs. Steffins inserted the remaining papers into her desk. "You know that Curarr's afraid of his image going down in Riolio's eyes, but he's even more afraid of putting him in danger's way. My interpretation is that his vanity is important to him, but not at the cost of Riolio's life."

"Well, I kind of get what you're saying, but it still doesn't make any sense. From our point of view, we just see him pack up his belongings and leave; there's not even a single piece of internal monologue that discloses what he's thinking about the whole situation. I feel like if Curarr actually cared, then the author wouldn't have bothered writing this chapter in such a limited, detached perspective." Satisfied with this statement, Artan crossed his arms and leaned back, smug. "That's why I think that he never loved him. It was all an act."

His mother clicked her tongue chidingly, but he could almost hear the upturn of her lips. "I must say, that's a compelling argument. It definitely holds some water. But you have to understand that you can't just look at character motivation in just one way; it's cliche, but love is complicated. It's not as cut and dry as you think, not like how you and your little girlfriend are."

Artan choked on empty air, sending his vision whirling and his face aflame- how did she know about him and Melisande? "It's- we are not cut and dry! What we have is very complicated and, and deep, thank you very much!" Why couldn't he think of a better word to use than deep? It was as if his vocabulary had abandoned him entirely. He cringed at himself internally, his face still warm.

"All right, I'll lay off." She raised her hands in mock surrender, and made to lower them before abruptly stopping mid-way. "Hey, Artan, can you stop by your mom's classroom to pick up the documents she missed today?"

"Mom's room?"

"Uh-huh. She didn't feel good today, so she told me she wouldn't teach today. Said she'd do some unfinished work instead."

"Okay, Mother."

"It'll only be a pinch."

He sighed, exasperated. "Ma, I already said okay."

"Oh?" She blinked. "Well, that was certainly easy. Be quick, your mother's waiting for us at home."

He nodded hastily and hurried out the classroom, all the while rolling his eyes. For the amount of literature analysis that Mother did on a daily basis, she tended to be quite absent-minded.

Artan walked towards the adjacent end of the hallway, lights dimmed in anticipation for the end of working hours. He spotted Ursa Steffins engraved in cheap, chrome letters on the door's nameplate, and made to unlock the door handle before something stopped him.

There were noises coming from inside the room. It was a girl's voice- no, two voices, breathy, giggly, careless, and muffled by the door. They must've belonged to some of his stupid peers. He peered inside the room through the grated window of the door, but the side where the sounds were coming from was completely obscured.

At this point, he could've done one of two things; he could've backed away from the door, leaving to instead find a staff member or even Mother to resolve the disturbance. He could do without bearing witness to the childish antics of his peers, and he wanted nothing more than to remain uninvolved with them.

The second option was to open the door and personally mortify the both of them. It definitely wasn't the first time Artan had been presented with these two options- the kids at his high school got down to lots of, ahem, troublemaking- but more often than not he would take the former route. However, this time, something from inside him tugged at him to confront the situation head-on.

And so, he did. He chose the latter option, and regretted it almost instantaneously. The rebound was visceral and searing, but he couldn't imagine that anyone else would have a different reaction to seeing their best friend and girlfriend making out inside a dark classroom.

Love's not as cut and dry as you think, huh? Artan wasn't expecting to test that statement so soon- to be precise, just a minute later, soon.

The scene would be locked in his mind forever. There she was, sitting atop a desk, the curve of William's body flushed against hers. It was the same William that rode bikes with him each evening in elementary, the same William he purposely matched class schedules with for Ninth Year, the same William he went to the bakery with just that same morning. William had known that Artan and Melisande had been dating for months, eight to be exact- how could he do that to Artan, after they had been friends for so long?

And Melisande… he remembered being so enraptured by her on the first day of school. Everything about her, from her kindness to her intelligence to her pretty brown hair had caught him hook, line, and sinker. Those sweet eight months ago, Artan had fallen for her, and he had been elated to find out that she returned his feelings. But now, he realized that their love had been false all along, false and fleeting.

Artan couldn't breathe; he felt like a fish out of water, suffocating and heaving with every breath he took. Melisande looked breathless as well, but in a completely different way, blissed out and not at all ready to stop. Their lips weaved in and out, unsure yet desperate, stitching as effortlessly as Arachne's loom. William's hands roamed her collarbones, her shoulders, down to her torso and back up to the nape of her neck. His hands stroked through her wavy brown hair devoid of both care and subtlety; did he know it smelled like strawberries? Did he even care?

They could've done this shit anywhere else, for God's sake. The last place he would have expected them to pull something like this was in his own mother's classroom. What did he do to warrant such treason, the two of them desecrating his safe haven like that?

He didn't know which betrayal to feel worse about; he was Othello, watching as his trusted advisor Iago and wife Desdemona backstabbed him simultaneously. Even his clenched fists couldn't ground him enough to stop him from shaking. Artan's heart throbbed violently and a lump formed in his throat. His breath threatened to hitch in his throat, the turbulent feeling merciless and unrelenting. And as if they could hear his rapid heartbeat, they pair turned around and met his eyes.

William caught sight of him first, his expression dazed as if still recovering from vertigo. On the other hand, Melisande looked as alert and startled as a gazelle. "Artan," she started, her voice cracking at the end of his name, fragile and tinny in his ears. He couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes- all he could see, all he could feel was just a persistent throbbing of red. He pivoted on his heel and stormed out the room.

He could hear her stumbling off of the desk, unleashing a cacophony of dissonant school-ware and a torrent of swears from William. "I... I didn't mean it!" she cried.
What the fuck was that supposed to mean? How could anyone mistake the expression on her face as anything but euphoric, reckless as the blooming of dandelions in the springtime? His eyes stinged, and he rubbed at them furiously as his footfalls echoed throughout the hallway. No matter how hard he rubbed though, he couldn't relieve the pressure, polyphonic and unrelenting, from inside his skull.

Strangely enough, his footsteps weren't the only one he could hear; there were more footsteps echoing behind him, and they only grew more and more insistent. Oh, for the love of Panem, he couldn't do this right now. He was seething.

"Artan, please! It was only a kiss!" Melisande's footsteps grew louder and faster and suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she had caught up with him and was matching stride. William, however, was nowhere to be found.

Artan stopped abruptly, spiteful, sabotaging Melisande's momentum. She took a brief moment to collect her balance. "Let me explain," Melisande began.

That was the very last thing Artan wanted to do, dead last aside from maybe the idea of kissing William square on the lips. She reached out to touch his shoulder, but Artan batted it away with the back of his hand and snarled. "Don't fucking touch me."

She blinked back tears. "Me and William, it's not like that. It was just-"

"How long?"

"Huh?"

"How long has this been going on?"

Melisande had the nerve to look confused. "What, you mean us?"

"Us? Us? So what, you're dating each other now? You love each other?" He sneered and threw his hands up theatrically. "Actually, you know what- I don't care! You're both sad and pathetic and deserve each other."

Yet again, his vocabulary had abandoned him, but it was the last thing on his mind. Melisande's mouth was agape, but he shushed her before she could emit any sound; Artan wasn't in the mood to hear excuses, and who could blame him? This was easily the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Fifteen years of life spent in relative comfort, now tattered to shreds after witnessing such colossal betrayal.

He bounded through the exit doors of the school and into the open air, leaving Melisande in the empty corridor. It looked like he wouldn't get those documents after all, but truthfully, Artan couldn't bring himself to care; Mom would just have to do without them and Mother would have to head home by herself, seeing as he wasn't in a mood compatible for company.

The wind was biting and rabid, signaling a cold front right before summer. Fitting. Even more sour than the weather was the acerbic taste left in his mouth. Resentment gathered in thick clumps inside his head like residual coals of rancor, and his thoughts only tended to the embers. Melisande and William were going to pay for this; he wasn't sure how, but surely, he'd be able to come up with a revenge fitting enough for the both of them.


DISTRICT TWELVE REAPINGS

July 4th, 12:06 AM

Female Slot: Mavis Marigold - 12 slips

Male Slot: Artan Steffins - 4 slips


a/n: hey sexy motherfuckers. we've secured the official d&d cast and so now this shit is finally getting a move on! the goods are live on my ffn profile as well as on the syot blog desireanddamnation . weebly . com, courtesy of the loml ladyqueerfoot. in lindsay fashion, it is "very fun and sexy". you must check it out. for all, thanks for submitting, and for those of you who secured their bag, hopefully i can do your kid justice.

1. thoughts on mavis and artan?

2. what's your fav ice cream flavor

thanks for reading and have a blessed morning/noon/evening/night, wherever you are.

$wag im out this bitch

brooke