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MIDNIGHT
(District 7, Lumber)
In the silent darkness of her bunk, Merida can hear the soft clack each time the train rushes over a break in the high-speed rails. Years ago, when she was small enough to hide behind the old overstuffed armchair in the corner of his office, she overheard her father discussing the railways with one of his team foremen. Long ago, before the districts made war against the Capitol, all of Panem was linked together by iron tracks that ran right across the ground, over thousands and thousands of wooden crosspieces. The forests of District 7 supplied the foundation for the veins and arteries of their great nation.
Now, of course, the trains hover on mile-long bars of magnetic metal, and their maintenance is in the hands of another district. Every metallic clack carries Merida another mile away from the cool green shade of the tall, sighing trees where she ran and played and practiced with her little wooden bow.
But still. There was a time when her forests would have spanned the country from sea to sea, supporting every turn of the wheels, all the way to the Capitol. Nothing can change the truth of their history; and stories have power. Merida hugs her pillow to her chest and smiles fiercely into the dark.
The odds are against her surviving this game, and she knows it. She has known it since the moment her mother cupped her face tenderly in her hands, with the lines of age suddenly painfully sharp around her eyes, and assured her that they would do everything within their power to help her fight her way home. Elinor Dunbroch's voice only shook a little. It was hardly noticeable.
But Merida had never heard her mother's voice tremble before.
Still, she has her advantages. She's been wandering the forests since she was small, and she knows a thing or two about survival. She can wield a knife or an axe. She will have her family's money behind her in the Games. And if they can send her a bow, she'll be nigh unstoppable.
Something squirms uneasily in her stomach when that thought crosses her mind - something intangible and cold. Suddenly she remembers her father's strong, warm grip on her shoulders, as he bent to look into her eyes. Whatever happens, he'd told her in his rumbling north-forest burr, ye're still our own wee lass, and we are proud of ye. Dinnae forget that, darlin'.
Merida shivers, and turns over, burying her face in the soft mattress. Whatever happens, she thinks, stubbornly, as the train bears her on and on through the unfamiliar night. Mile by mile, ever closer to that first step into the arena and, most likely, the end of her life.
She is a DunBroch, of the northern woods. There must be some path left to her, something she can do, to truly make her parents proud.