[A/N] Just a heads-up - Not all of the chapters will be from Tirion's point of view.
Tirion's POV
I arrive home about a half-hour after the sun has completely risen. My mother waits in our old, rickety rocking chair close to the door, like every morning as she awaits my return. She jumps up the second I enter the house.
Years have passed since the deaths of my siblings and my father, but still she is a tiny bit too excited when I walk through the door, a little too nervous whenever I leave the house, slightly too eager to have me at home. Still living in fear that something will happen to me, her only living child. Anything could, really. I could be seriously injured in the woods, perhaps, and die because I couldn't get the proper help in time. I could be caught and arrested for hunting, and whipped badly or shot as punishment. I can only imagine the anxiety and terror she will have to endure each and every day when I turn eighteen and have to work in the mines, a place of perpetual danger.
Not that I'm exactly looking forward to going into the mines for twelve hours a day, six days a week when that time comes. I hate feeling cramped and closed in anywhere, let alone in the darkness that seems almost tangible, like a living, malevolent force engulfing me and pressing on me, suffocating and imprisoning me – that darkness that only comes from the poorly lit recesses of the underground.
It's nothing like the light blackish-gray shade of coming night in the woods, where I can see the natural world around me lulled to sleep, and look up and see the beautiful blue of the darkening evening sky, adorned with the breathtaking, shining red-gold jewel of the setting sun, as the cool twilight breezes quietly whisper through the trees and grass and gently toss my hair around as I make my way home.
No. The crushing darkness I will be trapped in is nothing like the quiet pleasure of the woods falling to night. I dread the day I will be cursed to endure that darkness for the rest of my life. The mines are an especially haunting place for me after the violent death of my brother. I can still see his young body, gasping his last breaths, every part of him spattered with his own blood…
For what has to be the thousandth time, I force the memories of death to the back of my mind, force my face to stay mild and not register emotion, desperate to keep the flash of pain and memory from my mother.
I occupy myself by laying the results of my morning hunting and trading on the rickety kitchen table after brushing off the coal dust. A multitude of herbs, a particularly plump rabbit, two loaves of raisin bread, a handful of freshly picked blackberries, a bunch of ripe strawberries, three red apples, a good-sized lump of not-quite-stale goat cheese, and a small package of something my mother would never have expected.
"Tirion, what is this?" she asks, puzzled, as she picks up the crinkly, thin white paper package and turns it in her hands. She takes in a surprised intake of breath as she opens it and finds the treats inside. Four vividly colored, elliptical candies and two still-warm cookies, one chocolate and the other sugar. She turns to me, her mouth forming a distinct 'O' of shock. "Tirion, how did you get these?"
"Lek gave them to me." I smile, remembering the insistence of the youngest child of the owner of the sweetshop in town.
"I had just finished trading with his father for the apples – he was feeling nice today and gave me three instead of two, because of…you know." I see a shadow pass over my mother's face at the mention of the reaping, and know that my face must look the same.
"Well, anyway," I continue, hoping to keep our thoughts off the reaping and on the food. "He gave me the apples in exchange for the two fish I caught - you know how he enjoys them – and after he had gone back into the store and I was leaving, Lek came running over to me. He pushed the package into my hands and said, 'You'll like these. They're good. You can share them with your mother.' I was speechless for a second when I saw what they were and what Lek was doing, but I recovered and thanked him after a few moments. Ruffled his hair a little, too, he can never keep it neat anyway. He grinned, then put a finger to his lips and said, 'Just don't tell my dad!' and then he ran back inside."
My mother smiled. "What a sweet boy."
"His father would kill him if he found out, though. But I think," I say, unable to keep the present out of the conversation any longer. "I think he was just giving me a reaping day gift, like his father giving me the extra apple."
"It's still a good thing for a boy his age to do for someone else," my mother says, frowning. "What is he? Six?"
"Seven, I think. Remember you made that red shirt for him?" I remind her.
"I think it looked very nice on him," she says, remembering the young boy excited at the new clothes.
While I put food on the table by hunting, my mother supports us by making clothes, when we have made enough money between us to purchase cloth and other necessary supplies. Personally I think she is excellent at her work, and so do her customers, who thank her with many heartfelt words and a bit of food if it can be spared.
We take it thankfully. I have only made out so well today in my trading, for an adequate haul of game, because of the atmosphere of reaping day. It's not exactly comradely, but we do feel obligated to stay together, in a sense, as the people of the poorest district coming closer in the face of the Capitol's most sadistic torment: the Hunger Games. Some people in the town might think themselves superior to those from the Seam, but on reaping day, or any other day for that matter, we are all the same.
We are all under the rule of the Capitol, and none of us have any power to stand against this force of many, these people I have never seen – save for Peacekeepers – who make us live in poverty and darkness and suffering. My mind races with sudden thoughts of darkest hatred for these phantom tormentors on this day, reaping day, the epitome of the year's grieving. Why was this eternal hardship forced upon the people of the districts? Why do we suffer for their gain? Why should we? Why, if we, the district people, can support this great and all-powerful city by our efforts, why can't we use that same effort to do something about our current pitiful situation? We could do it. We could, if only there were some brilliant idea, some well-thought plan…
Everything inside me freezes suddenly when I realize what I have just been letting myself think, and a chill of fear runs its icy fingers down my spine. These are dangerous thoughts. This way of thinking will only lead to pain. It is nothing of use in the way of putting food on the table, or ensuring the safety of my family and friends. In fact, such ideas of rebellion would throw them directly in harm's way. It could get them whipped or worse, and it would surely get me, the instigator, publicly executed.
It would be too costly to get myself killed for such a cause that will bring about nothing. I can't afford to do anything foolish and get a bullet through my head for my trouble, and leave the ones I love alone. No, I'll be smart and silent. I will not let such a thing happen to me. Like it happened to my father…
"Tirion?" my mother asks. Her voice breaks through the torrent of unsettling thoughts. I suddenly become aware that I'm clutching the corner of the kitchen table in a grip so hard my knuckles have turned white, I'm clenching my teeth down in the soft flesh of my inner lip, which is screaming in protest, and my muscles are tensed to the point of aching, but my body is shaking all over. "Tirion?" she asks again, frowning in confusion at my sudden change and taking a tentative step forward. "What's the matter?"
I give myself an internal shake, and quickly try to compose myself. I can't let my mind take me off in a completely wrong direction like that.
"Nothing," I assure her, and I am relieved to find my voice steady and normal. "Just…thoughts."
This does not calm her, I can see it in her expression, but it is enough for now. She understands.
"So," I say to break the tension. "What should we eat now?" I drag a smile onto my face and make a sweeping gesture to the food. But before my mother can answer, we hear the knocks, and then the familiar, noisy opening creaks of an old wooden front door in desperate need of repair.
~0~