:| Surprises Before Daybreak |: {Orange!}

Tears streaked through the dirt on her chubby cheeks. A baby faced Oriole looked up at her mother from the doorway, her hands covered in a mixture of mud and blood. “Mommy…” the little girl sniffed. Robine jumped from her bed and ran to her daughter, scooping her up in her arms, trying to protect her little girl. “What is it baby? What happened?” her melodious voice soothed Oriole, and she started sobbing as the images from outside flooded her innocent mind. Robine sat on the bed when her back began to ache under her daughters weight and slowly rocked to and fro, trying to get the child to calm down enough to speak. When Oriole finally quieted, she lifted her big blue eyes filled with tears to meet her mothers. “Daddy and I…” the little girl sniffed and her mother began wiping the muck from her hands with a cloth. “We… we found a lamb.” Oriole buried her face into her mother’s soft breast, trying to hide from the sight and smells from what she had just seen. “What was wrong with the lamb?” Robine cooed, running her fingers through her daughters’ curls. “It… it was.” A fresh set of tears began running down her face. “A dog had gotten it. It was gone! Just like in the Games!” she said hurriedly and began sobbing. Robine gently hushed the girl and rocked her again, her heart aching for her daughter. Oh how young she was to be carrying such a burden. Her delicate little heart cared so much for others. It broke Robine’s heart to see her like this. “Ori, death is a part of life,” she said softly, pulling her baby’s head back to look into her eyes. “It can be tragic and terrible, but it can be just as beautiful.” Oriole sniffed and wiped her face, trying to keep her vision clear to look at her mother. “I don’t know how that could be beautiful.” Robine smiled sadly, wishing she could shield her daughter from the world. From what would inevitably happen to her. “You’ll find the beauty in it. Just how you find beauty in everything else around you. You’re so good at finding the beauty in life, Oriole. Never quit looking for it. Promise me,” she said and pulled her daughter into her chest. The little girl nodded and curled up in her mothers’ embrace, feeling secure in her warmth. “I will, I promise.”

The chill in the air was what woke the young woman up. She sighed as she looked up at the grey sky, realizing that the day would be bleak and cold. The soft bleating of her flock around her roused her from her stupor and she stretched, trying to get the frost out of her joints. The brown and black mutt walked up and licked Oriole’s face. She rubbed his head affectionately and stood, surveying her flock to make sure everyone was there. When she realized something was amiss. “Shad, where’s the sixth lamb?” The dog looked around, and sniffed some of the sheep. One was bleating and looking around frantically. Oriole sighed and walked up to the ewe and gently rubbed her head, trying to calm the frantic mother. “Don’t worry, I’ll go find her,” she said and the sheep eased slightly. Oriole reached for her staff and turned to Shad, standing dominantly to tell him she was about to say something important. "Make sure you keep the sheep here. The entire flock. If some happens, call for me, I shouldn't be long.” The dog yipped and sat firmly, as if to say he would stay right there. Oriole smiled and patted his head, turning to head toward where she spotted some tracks.

Stupid lamb, wandering off. Doesn’t she know what could happen to her? Oriole thought to herself as she trudged through the dead grass, using her staff as a balance so she wouldn’t slip on a loose rock or some mud. A few months earlier, a lamb had run off and she never found it. She did find where it had been though. And where two men had grabbed it and taken it. The poor creature probably ended up being their dinner. That made her so angry. Sure, Ori knew that people were desperate and needed to eat, but these sheep were her livelihood. More than that, they were her family. Without her sheep, Oriole would have to take tessera to have enough food for her father and herself, he didn’t make much working in that death trap of a factory. Oriole knew she could never work in a factory. She was too attached to the outdoors. Especially this land. Her mother had grown up here, and it gave her the years she had with her mother. This is where she learned how to be a shepherd. This is where she had found Shad in a sack by the river. She could never leave this place, it was a part of her.

The tracks were getting fresher by the minute, and Oriole knew she was getting closer. She began whistling, the whistle she always used to call stray sheep to her. The older ones knew it and knew to come, but the lambs were never as easy. The small tracks led through a ditch and then came over a bank. When Oriole came over the embankment she saw the lamb, and another person. The young woman was instantly defensive and she gripped her staff tightly, ready for a fight. “Hey!” she shouted to the other girl who looked about her age and she ran over, hoping the other girl wouldn’t grab the lamb and run off. The lamb looked over and bleated happily, trotting over to Oriole. She quickly stepped in front of it and held her staff ready, looking at this mysterious woman carefully. “What were you going to do with her?” she asked accusingly, her stormy blue eyes dark and foreboding as they glared toward this person she had found with her little lamb.

ooc// sorry it's so long! I just had so much muse! don't feel obligated to write as much as I did. ^^'