I HAVEN'T ALWAYS HATED SNOW. I reminisce often of how the white flakes would fall upon my nose as I looked up from the swingset in the backyard of my childhood home. I'd giggle as the soft coldness would lay on my tongue as I stuck my tongue out, my pink gloved hands holding onto the rough rope as I kicked and fluttered my feet. The pure bliss rushing through my system was enough to make me forget exactly how much the worn edges of the rope holding me uplift would hurt on summer days, when I didn't need to wear gloves to keep clear of frostbite. I reminisce of how my youth was so eternally carefree and I could just be. 

It isn't like that anymore, it hasn't ever been since moving to the Capitol. I fought and begged my father not to move, but something was coming that was beyond our family. And though I wasn't necessarily upset about it, I always had a way with dramatics. 

Sejanus, though, was silently battling a war inside about it. I could see it in his eyes; ever since my mother sat us down and told us, on the train to get us here, and when we first arrived.

Sejanus had almost a dozen friends back in the district, he'd play with the other schoolchildren, and would even invite them over sometimes. 

I, on the other hand, never had any friends over willingly. There were none to have over. I knew one girl, Mia Rowe, her father worked with my own and because of that she'd come over--an attempt executed by my parents for me to have a friend--sometimes for dinner, sometimes to play dolls. I'd tease her about being a year younger than me and she'd taunt me over my excessive usage of headbands--having a different one for nearly every day of the year. 

It was funny, in District 2, we had one of the biggest houses you were able to get--an 8-bedroom mansion up on the mountainside. But when the carriage pulled into this one on that day 6 years ago, I'm sure my jaw was on the floor. Tiny 11-year-old me couldn't believe that what appeared to be a palace was mine. 

I feel the warm embrace of my mother's arm wrapping around my smaller frame, giving my arm a tight squeeze with her slim hand. "We're going to do just fine here, Mare."