daisies [open]

[kap]

Alanna Eset

When I first enrolled in the academy, I did so with the goal of wanting to prove something to my parents. I wanted to prove to them that I didn't need to be protected anymore. I wasn't a little kid, and even though I am their child, I wasn't a baby anymore. I wasn't weak. I could protect myself.

For about a week after I brought up the idea, they insisted that going to the academy was unnecessary, but I convinced them with the reasoning that it would teach me discipline. I also told them that it would teach me how to protect myself properly, even though I was pretty damn sure that I already knew how to do that rather well as it was to begin with.

Eventually, however, after a week or so of attempting to convince them to let me go to the academy, it finally worked. Now, I was a part of the Ames Academy, and so far, I was loving it. It was everything that I ever dreamed that it could be. Allowing me to go to the academy was one of the best decisions I'd bribed my parents into in my life.

I'll admit, I've bribed them into quite a few things, but I don't think any of it has been all too bad.

I was in the Academy Square today, over near the flowerbeds in the middle of it all. I was seated on a bench across from a beautiful cluster of daisies, just watching them, despite the fact that they were flowers and weren't going to do anything exciting by any means. It wasn't like I was going to see them grow just by sitting here.

I hummed to myself as I sat there. It was an older song that I'd heard years ago, back when my mother would hum it to me. I was about four years old when she first did that. I actually remember it quite well. Then again, I suppose she could've done it before then, too, and I might just not have remembered.

She told me that the tune was called Scarborough Fair. It reminded me of the name of a tribute that I'd heard about before, named Sage Scarborough. It made me wonder if his name somehow came from that song. We don't watch the Games here in Thirteen, but we honor the tributes and their names. I often love to look at the tributes' names and wonder what type of people they are.

I started to do that as I sat there, looking at the flowers, until my thoughts were interrupted and I looked up to see what had done so.

-----

439 words