Finding Courage (OPEN)

[ziodyne]

KATRI DUNBRYLL

The weather that day was messed up. It was sunny, but the wind was blowing so hard that the cold bit at Katri's cheeks. Her pale, numb hands were clasped together, trying in vain to draw warmth from each other. Her oversized jacket, once her brother's, was flapping around her thighs in the unforgiving breeze.

If Katri was thinking rationally, she would scold herself for being out in weather like this. She was needed back home, by her useless mother and drunk stepfather, most of all by her younger sisters. Food was scarce; they were all going hungry.

Instead, she was here by the fence, staring out at the meadow and the forest. She couldn't bear to see her family's pained, hungry expressions, her sisters' chalky, colorless cheeks. Katri and her brother, Aiden, had gone for two days without dinner so they could eat. . . still, it was hardly enough.

Me and Aiden, she thought.The breadwinners of the family.

A split second after she thought that, she shook it off. No, only Aiden was the breadwinner. He worked in the mines all day long while their idiot stepfather drank his existence away. All Katri did was plod around, doing chores.

Why am I still the one doing chores? Ottilie and Pleione are old enough. When I was their age. . .

She stopped herself. Complaining was bad. There were hundreds of Seam residents worse off than she was. It would be selfish of her to think that.

But still. . .

She sighed and looked out at the horizon. Katri's lips were dry and chapped, her stomach was growling, screaming for sustenance. Any sustenance.

I wish Aiden was here. . .

At the thought of her brother, an idea struck her like her stepfather when he was drunk and angry and wanted to take it out on her. She still had the scars from his beatings.

I should be helping Aiden.

Her eyes instantly traveled to a nearby tree. It was dead. It's been dead for as long as Katri remembered. But it was what was hidden in the tree that mattered to her. Something she hid in there when she was twelve, after shooting her first bird.

Maybe. . .

She cautiously approached the tree, unsure of her idea. Kneeling down beside it, she heard a little voice in her head screaming at her to stop, this is wrong, you'll be punished if you get caught.

She ignored the voice and reached her hand under one of the roots, knowing there was hollow space underneath it. After feeling around, she felt it. Rough, splintered wood, carved into a curved shape.

Katri hesitated, but finally pulled it out.

Her bow. Amateurly made, but good by that standard.

Her hand made another trip inside the hole and returned with five arrows, wrapped carefully in leather and bound by string.

Holding her treasures tenderly in her small, rough hands, she looked back over the fence. Suddenly the wind wasn't cold, but inviting. Calling her, persuading her to break the rules for the sake of her family. For the sake of her brother.

Should I. . .?

[mina]

Violet Blackthorne


I wish I had brought my hat. It's cold out - even though it's sunny and spring like, it still feels like winter. I can't wait for summer, but at the same time, I'm afraid to wish for time to move too fast. Every day Grace and Jonah start to look thinner, and it's becoming ever more painfully obvious that they're following in my undernourished footsteps, no matter what I do. Even though I get more food, as they grow and as the family grows, a small amount doesn't go as far as it used to. That's why, even though it's cold, and even though my jacket it grossly insufficient to the task of keeping out the wind, and even though I forgot my hat, I'm outside.

I head to the fence. No, not to hunt or escape or anything like that. I'm much to scared of the peace keepers to ever actually cross the fence. But I'm not too scared to go right up to it, listen for the buzzing, and if I don't hear it, stick my arm through.

See, there's a bush that I'm pretty sure only I know about, and it produces just the sweetest berries in the district. At least, in my opinion. I come out here a couple times a week with a bucket and just fill it with as many ripe berries as I can. There's always more growing to replace them. I'm pretty sure it's magic, because it only stops for the coldest, snowiest months. We eat it ourselves, and I make whatever we can't eat into candies. I made up the recipe myself - I boil them in water until they turn into a syrup, and then drop it into little glops on a piece of paper. When they dry, I wrap them in little bits of paper, and sell them at the Hob at my mother's jewelry stand. I make enough to buy more paper, usually.

I'm almost there now, when I see that someone else is there. My heart stops, and for a moment I'm petrified that someone has found my bush. But no - she's at least 10 yards to the left of it. It's behind an abandon husk of an old shed, and the figure is nowhere near it. I relax. That is, until I see what's in her hand.

"Whoa," I breathe, finding myself irresistibly drawn to danger. Shoot - now I've given myself away. I clap my hands over my mouth, dropping my bucket. Foolish Violet. There's a poacher here, you've got announced yourself to her. There are so many ways that this is dangerous - either the Peacekeepers will find us and assume we're working together, or else she'll kill me so I don't report her. Both thoughts are too much for my mind to handle, so I freeze. Maybe if I stay still enough, she'll ignore me.

I have the defense mechanisms of a scared rabbit. I'm dead meat.

[ziodyne]

KATRI DUNBRYLL

Katri jumped at the sudden sound. She leapt to her feet and whiplashed around, concealing her bow and arrows behind her back in the process. Once her eyes focused, she found that she was facing a girl with a shocked expression on her face and a bucket at her feet. Her mouth dropped open as well, and she racked her brain for words. All that came out of her mouth was a tiny gust of air.

After a few seconds, she finally managed to choke fragments of sentences out.

"I'm not. . . What are you. . . Why. . . Um. . . It's not what it looks like!" she said. Katri could feel her heart pounding furiously in her chest. What if this girl turned her in? For a second, she contemplated taking off and running home without looking back. But what if peacekeepers came knocking down her door in the middle of the night? What if she had to have her tongue cut off and be forced to wait on the people at the Capitol, the very people she despised? What would happen to her family then?

"Oh my God, please don't tell anyone!" she pleaded. It was the only thing she could do at this point.