Chapter 8: St. Patrick's Day
Songs used: Now We Are Free, Edge of the Moon, Heartland, and Harry's Game, all by Celtic Thunder
Kelley is already awake and dressed when Edward stalks out to the kitchen for breakfast. He doesn't have a single clue how his brother could possibly be so awake so early. Kelley gives his brother a smile.
"Morning!" he chirps.
Edward grunts, and puts a bagel into the toaster. He still has to get dressed, wearing his T-shirt and sweatpants, dark red hair sticking up everywhere. He isn't wearing his glasses either, he's too tired to put them on.
"Happy St. Patrick's Day! The day where everyone tries to get kisses because they're Irish and then nobody kisses the real Irishmen!" he laughs, Edward smiles. "Maybe you'll get lucky and Artelind'll give you a kiss!"
"Shush," says Edward with a sigh. His ears go red, though. Kelley grins at his brother, flipping brown hair out of green eyes as Edward puts peanut butter on his bagel and starts to eat it.
"We've gotta get going if we wanna get to the festival on time! C'mon now, you still have to get dressed!"
Edward laughs a bit, knowing that they still have much more time than Kelley claims they do. He goes to his room and changes clothes. He checks his Snapchat and sees the little pink box light up, featuring a lazily-taken picture of Artelind's dark ceiling with a message of good morning. Snapchat is a good thing for her, messages with pictures. Edward uses it most all the time.
He sends a lazy picture of the floor returning the greeting as he runs a brush through his hair. Then, he brushes his teeth, throws on some shoes, and goes back to Kelley. Together, they get into Edward's car, where he prepares to drive them to the place where the town holds its St. Patrick's Day festival. Edward parks and the brothers get out, going into find the others.
"Morning Edward! Hi Kelley!" greets Rue, waving. Edward sees a message from Artelind saying that she's going to go to the festival and sneaks a selfie to respond as he goes over to talk to his friends.
"Hey Kelley!" Bonnie and Posy join their friend, who smiles at them.
"Hey!" he says cheerfully.
"Are you ready for the day?" Bonnie asks. Posy shrugs, Kelley gives a short nod.
"Sure. It's Edward's big time to shine, but I'll be there to back him up."
"Yeah… Does he know what he's doing for college?"
"Lucky him got accepted into his first choice. So he knows what he's doing."
"Oh, that's great!"
"Rory isn't sure what he's going to do. He might go to technical school. Or start out undecided and do some general classes."
"Yeah," says Kelley, "That's good."
Abri and Kuzey arrive together, chatting together and smiling at the others in greeting. Abri had immediately wanted to hear all about his time with Pax from Liberty, but she hadn't gotten all the details before he'd gotten embarrassed.
"Hey guys!" Locke says, temporarily removing the sax reed that had been sitting in his mouth to flash them that pretty smile of his.
Abri smiles back and plays it cool, "Hi!"
"Happy St. Patrick's Day to you guys!" He puts the reed back in.
"You too," says Kuzey, smiling and waving at Jason, who is putting his trumpet together.
Locke smiles and goes to put his saxophone together, and the others follow suit to put their instruments together.
The others start to show up and Mr. Everdeen and Prim prepare people for the stage. Locke and Jason get their instruments out and begin to warm up with the rest of the pit. Afterwards, they are approached by a very familiar face, with bright green eyes and dark hair.
"Hey Panem!" Everyone glances over, glancing at each other to see who will step up.
"Hi Finn!" Rue smiles at the boy, remembering his bright smile and eyes. He puts the breaks on the wheels of his chair to talk to them.
"How're things going?"
"Not bad," she says.
"I just wanted to come over and say good luck defending your title." He chuckles, and the others smile.
"Good luck to you too," says Skeeter. Finn gives a small salute and smile.
"Since we won last year," says Edward, "You can go first."
Finn grins back at them. "Gladly. I've gotta go find my group. See you guys out on the stage." He undoes his brakes with a wink and wheels away. The Panemites go out and take seats to watch the others sing.
Their first song has a moderate tempo to begin with. The first one to sing is a boy with dark brown hair, tan skin, and bright brown eyes. He sings in the Irish language, "Anol shalom,
Anol sheh lay konnud de ne um shaddai,
Flavum,
Nom de leesh,
Ham de nam um das…
La um de…
Flavne..."
Which translates to, "Healing to me
And freely to you from Sol Omnipotens
Yellow
Wings of Joy
Warmth of Day,
Sun of Dawn
O Sun of Yellow…"
The song stays moderate with quiet back-up harmonies before the tempo picks up slightly and a girl with blonde hair picks up from where the first boy left up. "Un da la pech ni sa,
Un di-i lay na day,
Un ma la pech a nay,
mee di nu ku."
The translation is, "Shine now, O Great I Am!
Shine now, O He Who Was!
Shine now, O Great to Come!
Now we are Free!"
The song picks up in tempo and the background voices get louder as another is featured, a boy with tan skin and dark brown hair pulled back into a short ponytail.
"Dwondi.
Dwwoondi
Alas sharum du koos
Shaley koot-tum," translating to:
"Jesus,
Jesus,
True Sun of Liberty
Healing you free," which concludes the song with a dramatic long note.
The crowd claps and the setting is changed, Finn is alone, his fingers spread out over keys of a keyboard. The song isn't much more upbeat than the past one, but it is more heartfelt. Finn takes a deep breath before he starts to play.
"She sings him a song,
He loves to listen…
He reads her a story,
She plays a sweet tune.
Chopin and Mozart,
She loves with her heart…
Her guardian angel, looks down from the moon…"
Kelley and Edward exchange a look. Finn plays and sings quietly. More heartfelt than any of them really thought the jokester to be.
"He sang this for his college audition," Skeeter says quietly.
"How do you know?" Rue asks curiously.
"I saw him…" He reflects back to that summer when he'd gone to a preview day and saw the smiling boy greet him.
"I'm going to sing a show-tune and a really nice one called Edge of the Moon. It'll be odd, singing by myself without the others. But I want to pursue music. Be a teacher. Pass on my love of music to others. It's what I was called to, I think. Which is why I want to pursue that love."
"Yeah," Skeeter said with a small sigh, shuffling the music in his hands nervously. "Me too. I want to be like Mr. Everdeen and make people excited about music. Because I love what I do, y'know? And I want to pass it on."
"That's nice. Is that what Rue wants to do as well?"
"She's looking at music therapy, actually. Teaching those in need music to turn their lives around. She… Kind of already has some experience with that." He scratched the back of his neck with a small, awkward smile.
"Oh, yeah. She seems like she'd be really good at that."
"I know she will be."
Finn gets called into the audition room and gives Skeeter a wink and a small salute. "Good luck," he says.
"You too."
"She prays for the vision,
He hopes she won't see it.
She wishes for winter,
He knows it won't come…
Summer and Autumn cry whisper the wind song…
Her guardian angel looks down from the moon."
The others are all sitting and watching intently, nobody else sings a single note except for Finn. The others had no idea he was so talented. They thought he was just another body belting stuff out with the rest, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
If we do end up at the same school, thinks Skeeter, he's going to prove to be staunch competition.
Finn sings the last verse quietfully and with a lot of emotion.
"Her guardian angel looks down from the moon…
She waves her goodbye from, the edge of the moon."
Everyone cheers and claps for him, and he gives a bow before the rest of the singers from earlier join him and take bows together. The Panem High singers all get up and get ready for their turn.
Panem's first song is one that takes some heavy orchestration, called "Heartland." Moderately-paced, but extremely dramatic.
Skeeter and Rue sing the first couple of lines together: When the storm is raging,
And thunder rolls,
Deliver us from the ocean,
Save our souls!
The chorus is a repetition of, "A thiarna dean trocaire!
A chriost dean trocaire!" which means:
"Lord, have mercy!
Christ, have mercy!"
The second voice is sung together by the two freshmen, Vardaman and Gaylen.
"When the winds are howling,
Vigil keep,
Shelter us and save us,
From the deep."
The chorus is repeated, and the group of students just enjoys singing together. Skeeter can't fend off the thought that his time in high school is coming to a close and soon he'll be on to better things.
The next part is sung by the junior girls, Bonnie and Posy. "Thank you, Lord you have brought us, safe to shore," the sophomore girls, Ashley and Priscilla, echo the "safe to shore," before Bonnie and Posy continue,
"Be our strength and protection evermore."
With the next chorus, Edward gets more nervous. He'd never been too confident in his singing voice before. Kelley's part is next, and he sings,
"Dean Trocaire
Dean Trocaire!"
The others join for the next moving line, "A thiarna."
The chorus is repeated again before a dramatic key change into the last chorus to bring it all home. The enjoyment of singing together is evident, and Edward gets more nervous for his feature, though he's been singing it constantly for weeks.
"Harry's Game" begins soon after the song is over, a song entirely in Gaelic. The other voices are just background to Edward and he takes a deep breath before he starts to sing.
"Imtheochaidah soir is siar,
a dtainig ariamh,
an ghealach is an ghrian."
The translation is, "I will go east and west,
To the places from whence came,
The moon and the sun."
The voices add layers that make Edward's melody shine out, as he sings the chorus:
"Fol lol the doh fol the day
Fol the doh, fol the day…"
"The moon and the sun will go
And the young man
With his reputation behind him
Edward wants to go into the sciences, not really into music. He still likes to sing, but couldn't see himself making a life out of it. He's following his passion going into school, but can't ignore the impact that singing has had on his life. He's afraid that when he gets to college he won't have time for it. He's become determined to make time, even if it's just singing or humming in the dorm. He's not ready to give up his singing yet. He sings the last part in Gaelic after some repetition of the other parts to the song.
"Imtheochaidah a dtainig ariamh-
An duine og is a chail ne dhiadh."
"I will go wherever he came from-
The young man with his reputation behind him."
The crowd bursts into applause and cheers. Edward goes red and ducks his head in a sort of bow as the others take their bows. He spots Artelind's face in the crowd, surrounded by other friends that he could care less about. She's clapping and smiling at him.
This year's festival was the most fun of them all, he decides.
.
After the festival, Edward finds Artelind quickly and heads over to her after bidding farewell to the others.
She waves at him, reaching for her phone from her pocket.
"Hey," he says.
"Good job," says the cellphone, in its monotone voice. Artelind gives Edward an animated smile to try and add some more kind of pep into the words. Edward laughs.
"Thanks," he says. She nods. The two of them hang out in silence for a bit before Artelind realizes that her friends that were with her from Liberty have disappeared.
"That's strange," says Edward when she points it out to him in that monotone male's voice on the phone. He thinks he knows why everyone wanted to leave them alone.
"Want to walk around for a bit?" asks the man on Artelind's phone.
"Sure," says Edward. They walk for a bit before he finally gets the courage to brush his hand against hers. The next time he does it she takes it. They walk for a while, hands connected. They'd done so much snuggling it wasn't anything weird or awkward of butterfly-inducing. It was just… Warm. Normal. Simple. Edward likes it much better that way. So does Artelind.
Artelind stops and reaches for her phone with one hand, still holding onto Edward's with the other. She types in some words.
"Happy St. Patrick's Day," says the man on her phone.
"You too," says Edward. There's a slight pause before he speaks. "Y'know… You're supposed to kiss the Irish on St. Patrick's Day." He adds a teasing tone to it so she has the chance to shrug it off as a joke.
"I don't just kiss anyone," says the man on the phone, Artelind looking at her with raised eyebrows.
"Oh, yeah. I understand," he says.
But soon enough her lips press his cheek, causing him to full-on blush. She smiles at him.
"Good day." Says the man's voice, and she gives him an inquisitive look to show it was a question.
"Yeah," he says. "Great." He grins. Maybe he shouldn't be starting something with someone so close to both of them being off to college, but… Dammit, he'd been getting to know her since he was a sophomore and she's great! He can't help it, he really can't.
They keep walking, hand-in-hand. A kiss on the cheek is a simple gesture, but for the time being, Edward couldn't be happier.
Even so, he's going to be teased relentlessly by his brother and friends later on.
Eh. He'll deal with it when it comes.
.
"Kuzey! Good job!" Kuzey was hoping to find his brother before he found Pax, but Pax found him first. The Liberty boy comes running, floppy hair swishing in and out of his eyes beyond his glasses. "I saw you there, in the pit. It was really nice!"
Kuzey smiles slightly, feeling nervous. Luckily, Abri quickly notices him and goes over to his aid.
"Hi there," she says. "You must be Pax."
"Oh. What's your name?"
"I'm Abri."
"Oh, yeah! Kuzey's told me about you!"
"He's one of my very best friends," says Abri, and Kuzey smiles. He takes her hand for support, and she squeezes it encouragingly.
"Were you singing?"
"Playing, actually."
"Oh." Pax's ears flush. But he's not about to admit he spent the whole time watching Kuzey. He just looked so damn cute! "Well, good job."
Abri grins at the flush, and can basically read his mind. "Thanks," she says.
"Mhm," Pax nods.
The conversation is interrupted when a boy that looks older approaches.
"Kuzey!" he calls.
"Ori!" Kuzey hugs his brother tightly. He misses Ori terribly when he's away at college.
"You were all so good!" Ori gushes.
"Thanks," says Kuzey, smiling. Then, he turns to the others. "This is my big brother Ori."
"Nice to meet you all," says Ori. He smiles at Abri. "Oh, you must be Gio's sister! You look a good deal like him!"
"That's right," says Abri, smiling. "Gio comes home next week."
"I'll have to see him! It's been much too long since I talked to him face-to-face."
Ori glances at Pax, one of his eyebrows raising slightly. "And you are…"
"Pax," he says, seeming slightly nervous. "One of Kuzey's friends."
Ori glances at his brother and notices how his face is pink with embarrassment. He puts an arm around Kuzey's shoulders. "Nice to meet you, Pax. I hope you and Abri take good care of Kuzey."
Pax smiles and nods. "Of course."
"Well, why don't we all get some lunch? I want to get to know Kuzey's new friends!"
"Sure," Abri says.
"Sounds good!" Pax agrees.
Ori leads the way and the others all follow. Kuzey squeezes his brother's hand, glad for the support.
Because damn.
Pax has no idea how much Kuzey already adores him.