𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘'𝐋𝐋 𝐉𝐔𝐌𝐏 𝐎𝐅𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐋𝐄𝐃𝐆𝐄 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑.
What District 2 victor, Saffron Creek, and prodigy, Finnick Odair, share is the very antithesis of what has been stolen from them. They test the edges of the rules that construct t...
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mountains, honeys, and jams . . . . .
Only after her mind was broken did Saffron meet Annie Cresta. She was not startled by Annie's strange habits, though. It is not strange for a victor to scream at nothing, or in someone's face if approached too quickly. And often, Annie clamps both hands over her ears and shuts down.
"I'm right here," Saffron assures her every time she's with Annie. Then, she waits.
"She's doing well," she tells Finnick every time because she knows he feels guilty. Sometimes, she finds him sitting in Annie's living room when she comes down the stairs, his chin resting on fisted hands. When she does, Saffron pulls his head into her stomach. "You can't keep blaming yourself for things you couldn't control."
"I can, actually."
"Well, you shouldn't."
On the other hand, Johanna Mason was perfectly sound of mind when they first met at a victor's gala hosted by some faceless aristocrat. In fact, Saffron was embarrassingly presumptuous regarding that seventeen-year-old. But if asked, she will say she was simply employing an appropriate amount of wariness to shield her already battered heart.
Johanna had approached her that night. "You look interesting," she said.
Saffron was wary. She thought Johanna was dangerous because she was good at deception. Only a psychopath parades as weak, she assumed. She was wrong.
"More interesting than that guy?" Saffron motioned towards an androgynous fellow who courageously wore a shirt constructed only of live moths.
"Infinitively," Johanna assured. "You seem to have free will."
Despite herself, Saffron coughed out a laugh. "I'll drink to that."
They spent the evening subtly dropping citric acid tablets into abandoned drinks, watching gleefully as guests' faces contorted into stupendously unflattering positions. Johanna was witty and dry and confident, and, to Saffron, she was refreshing like a new favorite song.
Eventually, Saffron brings the two of them, Johanna and Finnick, home to District 2. They submit their headlines to the Capitol and get on the train.
They get along well.
"Are you and Asha twins?" Finnick asks.
"No," she replies. "I'm the baby, but we both definitely look like our mother's spawn."
Finnick snorts.
Saffron and Asha Creek are remarkably similar, like a warped reflection of the other. The same charcoal eyes. The same squared brow bone.
For hours they all walk in the foothills, only returning to Victors' Village before sundown to cook with Saffron's parents. After dark they sit on the floor around the stone coffee table and play group games and Johanna slides glances at Asha.
"She's too old for you." That night, Saffron nudges her in the dark. The house is large enough that they could each sleep in their own room on a different floor, but demons like to hide in the dark and feast on the lonely. Side by side they watch the same phantom colors swim on the same ceiling.
"She won't always be."
Saffron grins to herself.
"Sweet dreams, little wolf."
That morning the victors are awake before the house and before the birds. Converging in the kitchen, Finnick and Johanna make coffee while Saffron scoops leftover sweet banana rice into mugs. The room and the people within it are pleasantly domestic. Tiles cold beneath their feet, they are cast in honey as the sun rises. Bronze skin, copper hair—syrupy.
Over the island Finnick's eyes meet Saffron's for just a moment. It is the sea colliding with dark, sunbaked rocks. The strict intersection of the vacuum of space and the dome of the sky. Then, he grins, covertly. Just for her. He winks and Saffron rolls her eyes.
"What should we do today?" she asks. They think leisurely, and it is glorious.
