Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games.
A/n: I just realised that there are *more* characters in the character list now. I swear someone waited till i was halfway through to do this... I may do the new additions after chapter 44, if i get the time to write them... Anyway, for now, enjoy!
27) Mags - Kick
The strange thing is that when people looked back on Mags' life, they only really remembered the sweet-natured woman she became. All they talked about was the way she mentored the tributes and treated people. How she always looked out for people before herself. The way she faced death in the Quarter Quell so that Katniss and Peeta could live. Selective memory is an odd and amusing thing.
Maybe it's because most people who knew Mags as a teenager and young woman have since died. Mags won the twelfth Hunger Games – long before most people's time. But those who did would attest to her cruel way of speaking and her merciless way of treating people. Maybe influenced by the Games, maybe not. But the fact is, Mags was not always the loving person everyone in the new Panem remembers.
What changed her was seeing the children of District 4 learning to swim. As soon as they could walk, children learnt how to swim in District 4, in order to maximise production. But there are always some who are slow to learn in any class. And it was these children whom Mags came across one day when walking by the learning ponds.
One girl was struggling, thrashing her arms around and crying. The next thing Mags knew, she had jumped into the pond and was holding the girl afloat, ignoring the trainer who was telling Mags the girl had to learn by herself. She often ignored people who were talking uselessly. It seemed to work somehow.
When Mags let the girl go, she immediately started thrashing. Mags started shouting for her to kick. No one was going to disobey a victor. The girl kicked. Mags showed her a basic swimming stroke, all the while shouting for her to kick. Then the instructor successfully evicted Mags from the pond before she could do anything else (such as teach the butterfly, perhaps).
The next day, Mags walked by the pond again where the little girl – apparently ignoring the death glares of the instructor – called for Mags to watch how well she swam. And after that, it was addictive; Mags simply jumped back in the pond and helped the other children to swim (with her usual cries of 'kick, kick, kick') until the instructor evicted her.
One day, the instructor stopped evicting her and told everyone to refer to her as Trainer Mags. It seemed like quite a promotion from 'victor', at least in this instructor's eyes. She could have said something cutting but she didn't. For the first time ever.
The change in her from then on in was remarkable. She'd gone from being the merciless victor to a 'child-at-heart' adult. One of the most beloved victors. The one everyone in the district remembered for years to come. Capitol spectators assumed she was famous for some violent kicking in her Games because of how the kids in the district would chant, 'kick, kick, kick' when they saw her on Reaping days. But everyone else knew differently.
The Hunger Games change people for the worse, they say. But, for Mags, there seemed no doubt that whatever had been awoken in her, it had changed her for the better.