Shining Seas//Gideon One-Shot//

[sbeeg]

Gideon Avery

There is something special about District Four. Other Districts have mines, or factories, or dirt but the fourth one has something no one else does- the sea. Yes, they people who live here are forced out in old little boats and forced to hook fish to be sent to Capitol bellies but there is something soothing about watching the waves rock the little ships in the distance. There is a peacefulness in the loud docks that line the shore, with the fishermen trying to sell a few coins worth of catch before turning in their haul so they might buy milk for their babies. Fish can go a long way but there are a lot of needs they do not fill. You can't clothe children with scales or heal their illness with meat. Items that are not fish are hard to combine on the rocky cliffs and shaky piers of District four, but if you're lucky you might just catch one yourself.

There's an old woman, all wrinkles and freckles with scarves and bells wrapped around her shoulders and hips who sells paper during the evening near the square. She doesn't hear too well, but she knows Gideon's face. She'll smile, showing her missing teeth and blackened gums and start counting out the usual amount of sheets. They're five for a quarter, and usually he sticks the coin in her hand and scuttles off with his few little sheets to keep his thoughts on. Tonight however was different. Having been dragged into a drinking house by a few other sailors he had been persuaded into playing a game of cards. Old, damp cards they were fraying at the edges, and whose suits were fading from the wear and tear. However, with those old dreary little cards Gideon slapped down a collection of royalty and made it out of there with pockets heavy with coins.

Naturally, the old woman smiled her smile and started counting out his five sheets of paper. She held them out to him, expecting her coin in return and Gideon, for once, returned her smile with one of his own. His thin lips pulled into a genuine grin that was hard to pull out of such a quiet boy. He pulled out a handful of coins and dropped them into her open palm. They slipped between her fingers and fell onto the stones below. She stared at the pile of money in her hand, her brown bloodshot eyes flickering up to Gideon's face. He took the five sheets of paper from her other hand and started down the alley back home. She started to call out to him, as if to say "Wait, you crazy young man don't throw your money away like that" but for once her words fell on deaf ears instead of the other way around.

She scrambled to pick up the lost coins from the ground, shocked at the mere quantity of coins while the boy slipped into the fading sunlight, his smile still stuck to his lips.