Lorelei's body was on fire.
She was drenched in sweat. The pain came in tides – in, out, in, out. She could hear the ocean, taste the briny air, feel the sand between her curled toes. It all seemed a world away. She gripped her husband's hand, and he urged her on. Roland tried to be courageous, but his voice held a tremor that betrayed him. He was just a boy. A child.
We both are, she thought.
"It hurts," she said, moaning as another contraction struck her.
They had become more frequent. The dull ache radiated from Lorelei's back to her core. Her swollen belly was rock hard and fit to pop. She gripped it, rubbing it gently, hoping that it would assuage her suffering. It didn't. She cried out as the pebbles beneath her thighs reddened.
It went on for hours. Minutes. Days, possibly. Lorelei couldn't tell. Time didn't exist.
A ripping sensation dragged an agonized scream from her throat.
I've been torn apart.
"The child is docking," the fisher-nurse said.
Her husband pressed his lips to her burning cheek. "It's a gift from the sea, Lori. Remember."
The nurse grimaced. "You have to push, girl."
She did.
The salt-monk led the procession.
His hymns were resounded by the chorus of priests and priestesses around him. It was a haunting sound, rising in volume and intensity with each passing moment. It was lyrical, too, shifting in pitch and speed – a foreign tongue, but familiar. It had been the language of their people a long time ago. The intricacies and structure were lost to them, but the songs and litanies remained.
They always would.
River was stripped bare, dressed only in a loincloth to spare him his modesty. He was up to his waist in the ice-cold water. The sharp sea wind cut against his skin, like broken glass, and his teeth chattered helplessly.
Mother and father stood at a distance, sullen and grey-faced, not wishing to interfere. River had pleaded with them, he didn't want to do this, it frightened him, but his begging had been ignored. He needed it, they said. It was tradition. And nothing, nothing, got in the way of tradition.
"We offer this child to the water, where his body shall be washed of cardinal sin, his mind cleansed and purified," droned the monk. "He shall emerge from the depths, restored, and begin a new life, unstained."
River felt a hand on his chest, and another on the back of his head. The monk forced him down, no warning, beneath the freezing pool. It was eerily quiet. He could hear the sound above the surface, dull and distant, as if it were from another room. Another world. He looked down. His skin was ghostly pale. The clergy-song was faster, louder, and River realized that he had run out of breath.
He clawed at the hands holding him, but his childish muscles did not have the strength to lessen their grip. He could feel the water entering his mouth, his lungs. River kicked and struggled and did everything he could, but his vision blurred, his limbs sagged, and he strayed out of thought and time.
River opened his eyes. The light stung. His mouth was dry. Everything hurt.
The salt-monk towered over him. His mother and father knelt by his side, their hands clasped in prayer, zealous pride plastered across their faces. A priest spoke, deep and pious and serious.
"He has persisted. Through the drowning, the boy has been left behind, beneath the waves."
There was a cry of affirmation from the crowd. "The man has risen. Go in peace, to work and serve."
River was forced to his knees. There was the click of a gun and he felt the cold muzzle against his neck.
They had been ready for this. It was only a matter of time before the rebels came for them. No loyalist family was safe in the current climate. He had been dragged from his bed, his father and mother beside him, in the middle of the night. Blindfolded and bound, they had been led barefoot for several hours before stopping here.
Their sight was restored to them. They were in a dilapidated warehouse. No, a refinery. Years ago, before the war, it would have been whirring and humming with the sounds of workers and machinery. Now, it was abandoned, covered in filth and rust, a home to rats and cockroaches.
An execution chamber.
There was about a dozen of the rebel soldiers, one to every captive. The rebels were armed to the teeth, their faces hidden behind dog-eared balaclavas. They started to discuss among themselves about setting terms and who would represent them at the bargaining table. The more sensitive of them debated as to whether they would need to kill a loyalist to prove to the Capitol that they were serious. They all snapped and fought, and the conversation seemed to go on and on and on in an endless loop.
River's father spoke quietly and carefully from the corner of his mouth. "I don't want you to look."
"At what?" River breathed back. "Where's mother?"
"Just don't look. Please."
River's next question was on the tip of his tongue when the shot rang out.
Some of the more dissident rebels had gotten frustrated. An argument had broken out. In the heat and confusion, a desperate hostage had made a run for it. He made it halfway to the doors before a bullet struck him behind the knee. He stumbled, stopped, then tried to hobble on.
The next slug blew his head clean open.
It was a frenzy after that. The air was thick with red fog and screams.
"River, I wa –"
His father's words were cut suddenly short. He jolted forward, as if pushed, and collapsed into River's arms. He looked up at his son, blank eyes staring, mouth agape. A trickle of blood ran down from the corner of his mouth. River tried to rouse him. None of it worked. He wasn't breathing. River shook him, desperate, but he was dead.
After a while, everything went quiet.
"We've got a kid," said one of the rebels.
River was hoisted to his feet. His hands were shaking. He was frightened. He was furious.
A handgun was forced against his temple. "Should I kill him?"
"Do it," River said, wanting to sound brave, but desperately hoping they didn't.
An officer shook his head. "No." He spat onto the ground. "He's going to run and tell the Capitol what happened here." He turned to River. "Won't you, lad?"
River agreed, and they let him go. A couple of them shot at his heels as he left. Just for fun.
He ran, faster than he'd ever run in his entire life, until his limbs gave up on him and he couldn't run any further. He collapsed at the feet of the first white uniform he saw, breathless and hysterical.
River returned two days later to collect his father's body. The rebels had already burned it.
Remove the scales, cut the belly, pull the innards. River knew how to gut a fish.
It was the first thing he learned how to do on the trawler. Well, that, and not to run his mouth. It was a lesson that cost him a tooth and his fair share of bruises. His insolence was a bad habit from the community home that he still hadn't been able to kick. His mother and father had been strict on manners, decorum and social etiquette. But they were dead and gone, and River's graces died with them.
He was thirteen when The Dark Days ended. He'd spent six months in the orphanage before turning himself out to the streets. It was dreadful in there. Overcrowding, unsanitary lodging, beatings, bullies, stray hands and creeping eyes… no, River couldn't bear it. He escaped that particular level of hell and found a job on the docks.
Post-war, the district needed to return to full operation and meet its former quotas as quickly as possible. The harbor was bloated with desperate captains. River landed a job right away. In return for his labor, he got food, lodging and a pittance of a salary. It wasn't a lot, but it was more than enough to get by. They taught him how to use a pike, tie knots and catch his own dinner, too. He picked up a dozen different skills in no time at all.
One night, the first mate hopped up onto the main deck with a maniacal grin on his face. He had a dusty bottle of rum in his hand. It tumbled out of a loading crate, he said, but nobody cared if it was a lie or not because this was a luxury. Sure, they could lose a hand for possessing it. But once it was gone, and the bottle broken and swept up and tossed away, it was gone for good.
None of them could handle it, so after a glass each, they were tipsy and slurring. River's head was swimming. He couldn't concentrate, giggles bubbled up out of nothing, and he was talking nonsense. They drank late into the night, and one by one, the crew passed out until it was just him and the captain. The pair of them sang old sailing songs that River didn't know the lyrics to, toasted to the wisdom and generosity of the Capitol, and made crooning, silly exclamations of love to the sea.
He didn't notice it at first. The captain's hand on his lap, patting it in a familiar, comforting way, before the movement evolved into a gentle, intimate caress up his thigh.
River stared at him.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
The captain smiled. "Tryna make you feel good. Sit back."
He grabbed at River intimately. The younger man stood up, spluttering objection and shouting profanities, but the rum had made him inarticulate. The captain advanced on him, and River struck out. He punched him, over and over, his righteous rage intensifying with each blow. He had the captain beaten black and blue and purple.
The older man's dizziness caused him to lose his footing. He tripped and fell overboard with a loud, dramatic splash. There was a faint paddling noise as the captain tried to pull himself back aboard. He looked at River, too drunk to help himself.
"Help!" he cried. "Help me!"
River didn't dive in after him. His knuckles were red with blood. He was utterly consumed by panic and, in the comedown from his rage, he just wanted out. He sat down on the deck, curled himself up into a ball, and tried to ignore the sounds of the drowning man.
An hour later, everything went quiet. It was the worst sound that River had ever heard. Worse than the guns or the screams.
He resigned the next day, lying through his teeth and citing discomfort at the captain's sudden disappearance. After that, River slept in abandoned hulls and shipyards for a year. His lack of guilt for what he had done scared him, and he felt his self-imposed isolation served as penance.
The captain washed up a month later. River was never found out.
Before the sun even rose, Hodharbor was already abuzz with movement. An accumulation of a port, harbor and marina, it was the largest docking space in the district. The jiggers and liners and dredgers swept across the bay, out to the fishing line's perimeter to bait and catch and haul. The docks were bustling with business, cargo being unloaded, tugboats pulling about larger commercial vessels. It was a stone's throw away from the district's tourism hub, a prime spot for Capitol visitors to sail a yacht or engage in a spot of fishing. They wanted to feel like a hard-working district hero for a day. Experience the district life first-hand, without the setbacks. The war changed all of that.
River had been there since dawn, lugging around a squeaking cart behind him. It was filled to the brim with fresh clams he'd dug up himself. Technically, it was illegal to sell your own district produce, but River didn't plan on getting caught. He belted out his prices, as loud as he could, hoping that perhaps he could strike a deal with a couple of hungry ex-soldiers, or some sailors that might want sustenance for their trip.
He was negotiating a deal with a Peacekeeper when the first bomb hit.
After the Dark Days, the Capitol had been more alert than ever. Their spies in the districts kept them fed with information. There had been fractions of the rebel collective that had evaded detection, conspiring in secret in the orchards and coalmines and train yards of Panem. They needed to be weeded out and uprooted before they caused any further provocation. The Capitol wouldn't take any chances. The rebels were traced to several locations. Some were confirmed. Others weren't.
Hodharbor was one such place.
There was no warning. No evacuation put in place. The wooden ramps exploded in a cloud of splinters and fire. Sea mines detonated in the deeper part of the wharf, capsizing warships and sinking nurse-boats. Limbs and heads and body parts rained down on those unlucky enough to witness it. River dropped his cart with a crash and dove into the marina. The fighter jets soared overhead, dropping bombs and pelting bullets at anything that lay in their path.
It was a massacre. By the end, over two thousand people had died, with hundreds missing.
A rescue team found River eight hours later. He had clung to a piece of wreckage to stay afloat, sustained a head injury, and was half-hidden under the flotsam and jetsam.
Still, he was alive. It was a miracle.
The Hodharbor Disaster was the deadliest isolated attack in District 4 history. It was unsurpassed in its number of casualties until the night of the Mockingjay Uprising seventy-four years later.
River wasn't surprised to be going into the Hunger Games.
It's just my luck, he thought, as he traipsed up to the stage, heavy-footed and sulking. This was just the pearl inside of a dung-filled oyster.
He was quite the sight. Covered in tattoos. A shark-tooth necklace. Whale-bone bangles clacking dangerously. The rain plastered his long, black hair to his slender neck.
His district escort, Leonidas, was the most clueless, color-blind moron that River had ever met. He beamed up at River, chattering nonsense. He tried to enthuse him from the moment they left the square. River hardly listened, but he caught a few words, such as 'privilege' and 'honor' and 'opportunity'. It was all a load of chum. If Leonidas found River's snorts of indignation offensive, he didn't say so. He seemed to genuinely think that he was excited about his circumstance.
Their mentor, Doris, was an old woman with milk-white eyes, lost to chemical burns, and a single wooden leg that she dragged along behind her. Amazingly, she was as cheery and spritely as anyone of her age and health status had a right to be.
With all that said, she was also very, very drunk.
"Only time of the year I get the chance," she said with a wink, as she took another swig of wine.
It wasn't the best team, but River thought they might, mightmake a cursory attempt to help him.
He was wrong.
The cracks began to show almost right away. On his partner's side, at least. The girl, Shell, was fifteen, a canner's daughter, and completely out of her depth. She spent the entire train journey crying her eyes out, asking if she could go back, insisting it was all a mistake. This irked Leonidas, who snapped at her through gritted teeth, his feathered hair comically swaying to and fro.
"Don't be so ungrateful, girl! This is the chance of a lifetime, and you're acting like a brat!"
She dissolved into fresh tears, snot running down her face. River scowled at the older man.
"Just leave her be," he said quietly.
Leonidas was taken aback. "Excuse me?"
"She's upset. Leave her alone."
"Who do you think you are?!"
River almost laughed. Almost. He raised his voice to a shout.
"Storms save me, you really don't get it, do you? Or are you as stupid as you look?"
Leonidas looked aghast.
"I am your escort! You can't speak to me like that."
River stood up and stomped out of the train carriage, slamming the door behind him so hard that the glass pane shattered.
And then the fool of a man was screaming, obscenities and insults flying from his mouth.
Later, he visited River in his room to let him know that his manners were unsatisfactory at best, and if he was lucky enough to make it back, he was going to have somebody to answer to about his behaviour.
As River found out, he was right.
The tributes, for the first time, were lifted into the battlefield from a chamber beneath the arena.
It made sense for a more dramatic, sensational start to the amphitheater experience – for the crowd, at least. Most of the competitors felt an instant panic or shock as they caught sight of their surroundings. The arena was flooded with crystal-blue water. It lapped around their toes, splashing their feet and heels. Those from the urban districts exchanged nervous looks. And that wasn't the only thing. Following on from the positive response to the previous year's events, the Gamemakers had gone ahead with the continued inclusion of mutts. Sinister shadows moved slowly and ominously beneath the water's surface, loitering around the pedestals on which the tributes stood.
River wasn't paying attention to the others. His eyes were fixed on an outcrop of rocks roughly forty feet away from him. At its peak, there was a glinting cornucopia of deadly weapons. River zoned in on a steel spear, long and sharp, a more refined model of the wooden kind that he used on the trawlers. It was meant for him, he knew it, and he was the only one here that could wield it properly.
The gong rang out and River leapt into the water. It came up to his chest, but he had miscalculated its depth and hurt his foot as it struck the ground. River thanked the gods for the pool. If he had had to limp his way across a dry, open space, he would be dead ten times over already.
He began to wade through the terrain. It was pure dumb luck that he was left largely unmolested by the schools of piranha that tore the flesh from the tribute's bones. River had heard the stories before, back home, of the shipwrecked navy rebels, floating in the sea for days, picked apart by genetically engineered sharks.
It was not the way he was going to die.
River reached the outcrop and climbed its smooth, wet surface, ascending it as swiftly as he could. He had to put his hands and feet in the right place, but with his bad foot, it took a bit longer. He pulled himself over the ledge, his adrenaline racing, and hobbled to his spear. He snatched it up, a smile of relief breaking out across his face.
There was a sound of displaced air behind him.
Without a second thought, River spun into a defensive stance. It was done just in time. The move deflected the downward sword strike with the spear's thick hilt, and the rebound sent his attacker reeling backwards. The male tribute from District 2 was bigger and meaner than he was. He bared his teeth at River.
"You're lucky they made the arena 'special for you, Four."
River leaned on his spear, observing his nails in disinterest. "I didn't know quarry rats could swim."
"Real funny. You know how to use that thing?" he asked.
River took an offensive position. "Only one way to find out, blockhead."
If River had been smarter, or had a more strategic mindset, he'd have told himself to partner up with this boy, not patronize him. Together, they could guard the ridge from any other potential tributes that might have begun to climb it in the hope of nabbing some supplies. However, the concept of alliances had not yet been solidified. The early Games' confrontations were generally between two individual opponents in a confined space. Of course, as the necessity for a more drawn-out, narrative-driven competition became obvious, River's survival methodology and approach to what a tribute should do became more nuanced and thought-out.
In that moment, however, it was just him, his spear and a brutish boy from District 2.
The fight didn't last long. The mason boy's temper and aggression seemed to be a way to overcompensate for his lack of skill with a sword. He swung and parried and deflected, but his technique was messy and clumsy. He went down after five minutes, when he didn't move quick enough to block a lightning-fast blow to his ribs from River's spear. The subsequent kick sent him tumbling downward, to the gnarling, gnashing teeth that waited for him far below.
River didn't have time to stare. The other tributes had reached the Cornucopia.
It was just like gutting a fish.
The trumpets sounded an hour later.
River stormed into the hospital room. He hadn't slept in days. Dealing with a handful of his disgruntled peers and the media and the girl's family had taken its toll. If it weren't for the Capitol stimulants, he might not have made it through. It had been a tough year.
The girl laid in her bed, her frizzy brown hair and cherub features scrunched up in concentration. She was eating a mixed fruit salad and watching one of those ridiculous, over-the-top Capitol soap operas. They never aired in the districts. The only broadcasts they received in 4 were mandatory viewing about the Games. Or work.
River stood there for a moment, suddenly at a loss for words. She turned to him and smiled devilishly.
"And you said girls don't win the Games."
River had been a victor for over twenty years. He had gotten comfortable in its routine; the preparation, training and screening, selection of the volunteer, the sponsor spit, the storyline, choosing alliances. The lot. Lately, though, the routine had been disrupted. There had been rumors. Rumors of planned peaceful protests and demonstrations, plans to have the districts refuse to watch the Games. They had been swilling about since the Tenth, since the incident. River had flatly ignored them.
He still remembered Hodharbor.
"Don't put any wind in the rebel's sails, okay? It just spells trouble for us," is what he told the others.
He did everything he could to deter sedition in District 4. River knew that being the district's first victor afforded him a certain level of respect. If he had that privilege, he would use it. To prove that the victors and the district were on the Capitol's side. He endorsed and turned up to officiate Capitol visitations, and convinced some of the others to do the same. He organized photo-ops and write-ups about exemplary citizens and exceptional fishing teams that surpassed their yearly quotas. He openly applauded Thorn's regime, despite its increasing severity and the president's deteriorating overall state. River didn't care, if it meant that no further penalties would be enforced.
He was at his home in the Victor's Village, reviewing his trainees for the next round of cuts, when the anthem began to blare, and his plasma television screen lit up.
President Thorn was no longer the commanding, strict man that had led the country out of the Dark Days. He addressed the nation with quivering jowls and blood-shot eyes.
Each district must vote on its male and female representative.
A vote. The district had to choose.
There was a high, piercing scream from the house next door, followed by a rapid, furious knocking at River's front patio.
He sighed, got up and went to answer it.
After Snow ascended to power, each of them received a message.
In their own way.
River's was a sardonic, rough-and-tumble fisherman's whelp. He had pleaded for the chance to learn from them. Despite the other victor's reluctance, River understood that some people just needed someone to have faith in them. When he did, he was one of their trainees, and he was good. But he made the crucial mistake of boasting about it. He gave up a lot of information to a reporter writing an article about districts as holiday spots.
The boy wasn't stupid, just mouthy, but it didn't matter either way. The Capitol permitted the Careers to train, as long as they kept their stinking gobs shut about it.
He was found floating downward in a canal not long after.
The boy wasn't reaped. He didn't volunteer. It wasn't... the Games. It was murder.
River supported the Capitol. He always had. But he loved his district, and his boys, far more.
"I'm getting too old to fight," he told Mags. "I just…" He paused. "Let me do what I can."
He had never seen her smile the way she did in that moment.
They called his grandson up.
Snow knows, River thought. He knows what we did.
It was another warning. Another one.
River was not what he used to be. So many of them weren't. His lean, sea-hardened body had become fleshy and wrinkled, his jet-black mane fallen out from the Capitol's miraculous but rigorous cancer treatment. He could only get around on a cane these days – despite his protestations, the spirited, athletic, beautiful victors didn't want him overexerted. River honestly didn't see the fuss.
As if on cue, Noden put a hand on his shoulder. They both knew. He couldn't do anything to help.
The thing is, his grandson would never be Games material. Even if he were older – storms, he's only twelve – he wouldn't have a chance. He put on a brave face on his way to the stage, at least. When Ambrosia Crinkle asked for them, there was a flurry of volunteers that ran to replace him.
As was custom, the first one to reach the platform was chosen. River didn't recognize him. He must have been one of Mags' trainees.
Ambrosia shoved the microphone in his face. "And what's your name, handsome?"
The boy looked out to the audience with sea-green eyes, his bronze hair rustling in the breeze.
"Finnick," he said. "Finnick Odair."
River's funeral was a modest affair. The victory of the sweet - but slightly mad - girl had meant that the burial of an old, irrelevant victor was permitted to be a quiet and private event. District 4 had been at the forefront of the news for the last few months. The Capitol didn't need to spend any more money on them.
It had been a natural death, an incredible feat for a victor of his standing. Mags led the congregation. She wasn't religious, never had been, but it had been an important aspect of River's life and she didn't want to ignore that. Sure, he hadn't practised the old way of things for some time, but he still held faith in it. And Mags didn't make fun of someone for having faith. It was the only thing some people had. The only thing that stood between giving up and carrying on. Between life and death.
A circle of District 4 victors stood around River's body, heads bowed in respect at the first of their kind. His daughter and grandsons were present too, crying silently.
The ceremony had to be discreet and covert. Snow's Law had impacted district religion harshly. Mags took a deep breath and pressed her hands together in prayer.
"We commit this man, River Cruickshank, to the sea, where he shall undertake his final voyage, from this life to another. May your journey be safe."
"May your journey be safe," the others resounded.
The two men rolled the body into the sea and River hit the water. His grandchild, the one who had been reaped, held back his tears as he tossed in a wreath of water lilies after him. Both man and flowers descended peacefully together to the quiet, sandy floor of the seabed, free at last from the fears and expectations of the world above.