a casual welcome | dersders

[Wonder]

jordan snow, district 10

She hadn't written much since the shepherd boy had died.

Darius had been only a few years older than Jordan when he was reaped, on the brink of turning nineteen in a couple of weeks. Funny how they'll get you like that. She remembered seeing his dazed and confused look as the Peacekeepers dragged him up to the stage by his toes. Lines dragging in the dirt behind them leaving a trail. He'd never been the present-in-the-moment type, and that's why they'd stuck him on the farms with the sheep, "couldn't do any damage out there." But Jordan knew he was harmless. When his calloused fingertips brushed through her long fiery strands, it wasn't the work of a monster but that of a loving and caring misunderstood boy.

Before he'd left, Darius had confessed he'd loved her. She knew. If actions spoke louder than words, then Darius had spent months screaming at her window. She could not love him back. Never would. But still, she held his weeping head as he admitted his fear in the face of death. Jordan had even let him kiss her as their final goodbye, not saying aloud what she knew to be true: he'd never return home. Like a valkyrie leading a fallen gladiator to Valhalla, Jordan had kissed Darius and led him to get stabbed in the eye in a desert hellhole. The Games were not a friend to any. Hopefully, he'd found what he was looking for in Jordan's lips and not the dead flesh she'd felt on impact. The frozen lips of the corpse she felt in her nightmares. Jordan found herself longing for the simple nature of the shepherd boy from time to time, his unconscious presence was somehow comforting in its emptiness.

She still resided in the Orchards all these years later. Tenured, she would joke. No one would laugh. Perhaps she was past the need for their services. After all, Jordan was old enough to find some livelihood now. Ileana had. But she fancied herself as the unofficial welcoming services of the community. She helped usher the new little ones into the home, teaching them the bearings of the land and how to work.

Ileana had finally come to join her sister at the Orchards, hesitant at first to leave their younger siblings alone once again after Jordan had abandoned them years before. They were now together in the betrayals to their family. But Ileana was stronger than Jordan ever been and quickly had found her lay of the town. Jordan didn't resent her sister. After all, it had been the happiest she'd ever seen her. Young, in love with a young farmer boy. Soon she figured, Ileana would move out to Warren's farm and start working full time with his mother. He had a good family too. Jordan had met them on a couple of occasions. Jordan served as Ileana's guardian at this point, though Warren served as more of an annoying little brother than a son-in-law. Both the Snow sister's trusted the boy, and if he ever broke Ileana's heart, Jordan would - do something? She wasn't the violent type.

She hadn't felt comfortable sharing stories in the years since Darius had died. Those who remembered Jordan's story circles would whisper about them on occasion but dared not ask her to do them again, sensitive to the loss of her friend. But even Jordan knew the time for mourning had long passed, and her friend was no longer anything but a distant memory and an excuse for her own mediocrity. The reality was Jordan didn't move forward because she stopped herself from doing so. Jordan's head had grown clouded by the idealization of what she'd built up the Orchards to be: a utopia. But the creeky floorboards and moldy wallpaper of the well-lived-in home told a different story. No one paraded around singing the praise of Julia Orchards anymore. It simply was what it was: a landmark for those who need refuge in a time of crisis, and as such, Jordan manned her position to guide the inhabitants like she once had with Darius, to retribution and a higher purpose.

She snuck a hardcover book beneath her arms and gravitated towards the front lot. An old willow tree wept over the yard, its tendril-like extremities creating a layered level of shade to anyone who sat beneath. It had long been Jordan's favorite place to read. The willow tree provided a relaxing recluse from the beating summer heat. Shoeless, Jordan tip-toed beneath the tree, dirt wriggling beneath her toes. Donning a white floral-patterned summer dress, she carelessly threw herself to the ground, uncaring about the stains it would bring. Perhaps she no longer told stories, but she still read them, still helped create them. Maybe one day they'd come back together again.

[thequipguy]

callen evanson, district 10

Working on a farm was simple, you had chores that needed doin' and you had animals that needed carin' for. Callen liked all that, didn't take no extra effort to simply do what was needed. But deliveries, market work, dealing with people...that weren't no simple task for Callen. Callen was a nice enough boy, he was always flashing his smile, he was courteous and friendly, but humans are much more complicated than any cow or pig. You see, when a cow or pig wants something, they just make it clear, they'll make noise, walk over to their troughs or water buckets, they'll bite you. Callen can read, but he ain't a mind reader, and people ain't always saying what they want or need, and they ain't gonna bite you neither...well hopefully.

Callen, being the oldest of the Evanson children, not only had the most farm tasks to do daily, a task he was well suited to do and enjoyed greatly, but he also had the responsibility or handling deliveries, which he ain't entirely fond of. Where a pig will eat whatever you give 'em, a person ain't so simple. Spuds, roots, vegetables all come from the ground, so they ain't always pretty, meats and dairy products can sometimes be a bit messy or smell funky, but that's natural...try telling that to some people. Callen had a lot of patience, but nothing wore it down quicker than someone criticizing the look of some meat or saying it's gone bad. Callen just slaughtered this meat, he's been doin' it for years, he's been around it all day, and even if it had gone bad, you won't get sick from it, Callen never has.

But for every complaint and crotchety old man saying how the food used to be better, there was a kind lady or loving family that saw these deliveries as a Godsend. Callen was lucky to never get too hungry, but District 10 wasn't known for wealth and frivolity, and seeing someone hungry always made him want to be able to do more. Callen's father had always said "Mercy is a gift you get back in spades, and the kindness shared returns tenfold." So sometimes Callen would add an extra carton of milk or piece of meat for the next delivery, it's not as if a little bit missing could ever be noticed by the Capitol.

As his deliveries dwindled with a hard day's work, Callen's moppy hay-colored hair began to stick to his sweat-covered tan skin. His clothes, today a shirt with some worn overalls and very dusty, dirty boots, were left with the residue of the meats and produce he had been managing all day, and the smell could be confused for a wandering shepherd's flock. Callen headed with his final delivery down past the old Orchard lot in the district. Callen wasn't much of an explorer, he ain't looking for no ghosts or secrets, he had a job and a purpose. Walking past, Callen spotted a girl resting under a tree in the Orchard's yard, in a flowery dress that was sure to get messy, reading some book, t'ain't one Callen had seen.

Callen didn't recognize this girl, was she an Orchard? For a moment, he wondered what was going on in her life, what life did she lead that allowed her the free time to just read? Was she a part of a larger family and didn't need to work? Had she snuck off to read this book? Now what kinda book is worth getting in trouble for? It soon dawned on Callen that he had been absent-mindedly starin' at this stranger for longer than was acceptable and began to feel incredible embarrassed.

"Howdy, ma'am! Hope your book is good!" Callen blurted out to try and cover for his lack of situational awareness. Hopefully she ain't thinking I was trying to stare. I ain't trying to be a nuisance. Maybe I should apologize? Callen's mind was immediately flooded with fear, did he just do something stupid? How would his daddy rectify this situation? [/div]

[Wonder]

jordan snow, district 10

In the years she'd stayed at the Orchards, Jordan had begun to build a library. Small, at first, just a couple of children's books she'd snuck from their family bookcase when she'd run away. Those were comfort novels. With notes of affection scribbled on the inner-covers, these books remained as undeniable written proof that once upon a time, her parents loved her. In desperate evenings, she would trace these words with her fingertips and think of home. But fairy tales did not make a library - far from it.

A gentle stack of books on her nightstand turned overnight into a crowded corner. Exchanging small chores for books, Jordan spent weekends off from the fields trading for luxuries in any way she could find. Often they would be waterlogged with brittle pages dried out in the sun. These books would have sections missing from dripped ink, but she knew how to read between the lines. After all, Jordan had once been a storyteller. There was a mission to these books: fill in the blanks, and Jordan loved a challenge. Her rescue books were often her favorites.

At first, she could say she'd read every book she owned. But that was when the collection was in the tens. Now, her library staggered an entire wall of her small cozy bedroom. Lined on uneven wooden planks, hastily nailed to the wall, hundreds of books offered wealth beyond any of which Jordan had ever owned priorly. No longer the selfishly hidden nook, Jordan's room now served as a sanctuary for learners. Her ancestors lived on these pages: storytellers. They were legendary silver tongues who figured out how to beat death, earning immortality in stories passed down in text and song. She told their histories.

The interruption startled Jordan at first, who thought to be alone. A male tenor cut roughly through the calming breeze. She could hardly see him saunter toward her at first, hidden behind the layered leaves of the ever-growing willow tree. Instinctively, she shut the book tight as though she had something to hide. Nothing was interesting about the book. She wasn't learning to build a bomb or anything crazy like that. There was no rebellion forming at Julia Orchards. It just seemed like a breach of privacy, an intrusion. The relationship between the reader and the book is sacred and in those moments alone -

Gripping the book across her chest, she turned to face the boy as he approached: average height with a gentle face, slender and non-threatening in stature. Jordan's eyes trailed to the boys' hands, calloused and dirt-filled, holding baskets with bottles of milk. Milk delivery. Right. The weekly milk rations for the Orchards. She smiled warmly and genuinely, inviting him forward. "Hiya!" She cooed, trying to hide all the anxieties she'd had mere moments ago. "I've got to be honest," Jordan said, huffing out the last syllable to indicate her humorous intent. "I've been reading the same page for the past fifteen minutes."

Gently placing the hardcover book to her left side, Jordan pushed off the ground to get to her feet. She brushed the dirt from her hands, clapping them together then brushingly them aimlessly across her sundress. "I suppose you're here for that then," she said, pointing to the milk.