She wept not ;
her sorrow was too violent for tears.

THE ROSICRUCIAN / PERCY SHELLEY

﹙ chapter thirty, act two ﹚

korralo station, district four.
february, 73 att.

                    THE TRAIN SLOWLY ROLLS TO A HALT. Mara, already at the doors the moment they open, steps onto the platform and looks around anxiously. No matter how much she breathes, there isn't enough air in her lungs ─── the scent of salt is faint yet invasive and burns as she inhales, foreign and unfamiliar. The thrum of her heart pulses through her limbs as she breaks into a run down the platform, searching desperately for some kind of ticket office or . . . something. This is not supposed to happen, and if she thinks about it too much, panic begins to creep up on her.

                    It's sometime in the early morning. The breeze is soft against her skin, her curls flying behind her, and fog curls around the surrounding greenery. Soft wisps that almost vanish when the clouds shift and the sun peeks through. The platform isn't empty, though, far from it: there are workers, hats on their heads and weathered but sharp features. They regard her curiously ─── not unwelcomingly ─── as they set into the rhythm of work. Take the crates from the containers carried on the back carriages. Put them onto trolleys and wheel them away. Repeat, with sealed crates ─── probably holding the many bounties of the sea that end up on the tables of Capitol parties.

                    She collides with one of them ─── a man, maybe a few years older than her, with dark curls and downturned lips. A wooden cross around his neck, a symbol she has never seen before; and a crate she has knocked from his hands. Some garbled apology falls from her lips and she hurries on. There's a threadbare building at the end of the platform, which is all she has her sights set on.

                    The man mutters beneath his breath, but picks the crate back up and continues. A temporary distraction, that's all.

                    The journey was unbearable. A clammy feeling buried itself beneath her skin and stuck there all throughout the morning and day. Septimus Pyre is solely responsible, of course. Mara had managed to sleep the rest of the night ─── rather, dark hours of the morning ─── away, and was ready for another day or two on the train. She'd kept to her compartment, almost going mad with fret and fear and revulsion, and the first full night went by slowly.

                    She had expected another.

                    Unfamiliar scenery always blurs by; she hadn't thought much of it when she saw the small strip of blue at the edge, where sky meets sea. Sometimes it usually is in the distance for a few minutes during the journey. But when the sea grew closer and the train began to slow, Mara knew that something was very, very wrong.

                    She is stopped in her tracks again, though, when she stumbles into someone else. The one person she hardly wants to see. Finnick blinks, stunned for a moment, a small crease forming between his brows. Then, a grin is very quickly plastered onto his face. "Oh Mara, the lengths you'll go to just to see me."

                    She ignores him ─── this is neither the time nor the place for Finnick Odair's bravado. As she walks past him, their shoulders brush: his smug expression slips briefly and he turns around to follow her. "But seriously what are you doing here?"

                    Mara ignores him again. The ticket office is small and stuffy by all accounts, though a fan hangs from the ceiling and swirls lazily. "When's the earliest train to Eleven?" She asks the ticket officer, a woman with greying hair piled into a bun on the top of her head.

                    The woman stares at her through the glass coolly. "Ma'am, there are no direct lines to District Eleven." She says, as if it's obvious ─── which it is, but Mara's mind is going a hundred miles a minute and leaping over logic.

                    If she wasn't panicking yet, she surely is now. Some small part of her knows that this is just a delay that can be sorted out, but will her father and grandmother worry for her? Will they think she's been killed? She isn't supposed to arrive for another day, but that train will soon roll in and she won't be there. Oh, why hadn't she paid attention to which platform to go to, why was her mind sluggish and slow, and why on earth would she ever trust Septimus Pyre?

                    "He lied, he lied!" She whispers fervently under her breath, fingers digging into her cheeks as she turns her back to the glass and holds her hands up to her face. She tries to regain some control over her breathing to calm herself ─── something her father has tried to instil in her, for he will not be here forever but the nightmares surely will ─── but it's futile.

                    All so that he could kiss her. Kiss her. Mara is not undesirable, not to him at least. The next time she returns, it will be to celebrate her eighteenth birthday ─── the last day of her freedom. When she was fifteen, fresh from the arena, she had told herself it could not possibly get worse. But Mara is a stupid girl who knows nothing, who tried and failed and didn't learn, didn't listen, and now she will pay the price with her body.

                    Antonia could've picked up any other slip, it could be any other girl hyperventilating in a foreign place far from home. It didn't have to be her.

                    But, it is.

                    Finnick, whom she has almost completely forgotten is there, takes her by the wrist ─── offering a quick smile to the worker ─── and leads her to a bench. He sits her down. Is Finnick Odair being gentle with her? She must look pitiful: stricken expression, eyes glassy. Marks marring her, claw streaks, red and raw against her smooth ochre skin. He says nothing ─── probably able to guess that this is something far deeper than merely getting on the wrong train ───; he only pulls her hands away so she can't harm herself further.

                    Only one side is scratched; the side that Septimus Pyre pressed his lips against. If she thinks about it too much, she can still feel it. Still see and hear him promising to buy her.

                    A thousand concerned questions swirl around him, but he settles for: "Who did this?"

                    Mara's line of sight finally lifts up to see him, to properly look into his eyes. Finnick almost forgets that he is still ─── technically ─── holding her hand on the bench, and lets go once he realises. "I did." She says, voice strangled from trying to keep it natural. But it only ends up sounding hollow more than anything.

                     Finnick knows what she means without further question; he knows her situation as it was once, and still is, his own. The almost unconscious self-betrayals, the closed wounds longing to be opened once more. ( He also ends up committing such acts if he grows restless. Small things; like biting the inside of his cheek or carving nail-shaped indents into his palms. They're harmless until they begin to draw blood. )

                     She tries to hold back a sob as she looks around, lost and out of place. He has never seen her like this ─── never so vulnerable. "I'm not meant to be here."

                    She could not tell him what happened on the Capitol platform even if she wanted to. Her voice was stolen along with her innocence; though those were gone long before she was reaped.

                    "You can deal with this. Just pivot," he counters as comfortingly as he can. "Get the next train out of here. There aren't any to Eleven, but there'll be loads to the Capitol. You can go home from here."

                    He looks over to the board displaying departures. "See? There's one in five days. Not terrible, right? You can buy the ticket now, reserve your compartment. To the Capitol, then Eleven. And 'till then, we can sort something out, find somewhere to put you up. There are plenty of inns in Korralo, and───"

                    "That's not the point!"

                    "Hey!" He says, following her as she gets up and stalks off from the bench. This isn't the first time he's reached out to her and nor is it the first time that she spurns him. But her legs are cramped from the journey and hardly stable; she sits on the concrete ground so quickly it's as if they've given way from under her. In the way of a worker carrying a crate, she just buries her head in her hands.

                    Finnick, souring a little, stands before her. "I know you don't like me, Mara, and I know you're stressed but there's no need to bite my head off."

                    Determinedly, she looks anywhere but him. Their eyes do meet once, briefly, a fleeting softness in them. She murmurs something lost to the breeze. He should go, really ─── but how could he leave her like this? He extends his hand to help her stand up, a tentative invitation. She does not take it.

                    He moves to leave; the late winter sunlight blinds her now that he's no longer blocking it. "Wait," she calls after him, still a pathetic bundle on the platform floor.

                    He stills, like being pulled away by an unforeseen current. "What?"

                    "Don't go." She says, abruptly. It hangs in the empty space between them; somehow, it sounds like a confession.

                    "You made it clear before that you don't want my help," Finnick replies. "You must be desperate."

                    "You have no idea."

                    "Try me," he says, sinking down onto the ground beside her. He rests his elbows on his knees, watching the workers begin to load the carriages. This time, when they're in the way, they shuffle back until their backs are leaning against the wall.

                    So she does. Under the weak winter sunlight, Mara starts to divulge what plagues her and begins to build a bridge across the void. They've known each other for months ─── ( years, technically, if his victory tour from eight years ago is counted ) ─── and yet know hardly anything. It starts off small, as most things do: how she has no money with her to even buy a ticket ─── all her luggage was safely bound on the train to Eleven rather than the one she got onto, and will arrive with no owner to collect it. But as she carries on talking, it starts to unfurl into something more vulnerable.

                     Finnick Odair is a good listener, surprisingly enough. He keeps quiet but throws in a comment here and there, nodding. Absorbing every word like a sponge, since they're usually intended to wound him.

                     How strange is it, that someone who used to hate him so much would reveal the truth about her failing to become undesirable? He does not know it, but he is the first person she's confessed this to. How Septimus Pyre has slowly gotten close to her, how he put her on this train all for the sake of a kiss. She does not, however, mention that he has promised to buy and have her when she returns. There are some things she cannot put into words.

                    "And on top of all that," she says, "I've tried to make amends with Antonia, but ─── she just ─── urgh. She wouldn't even look at me, much less hear me talk. And I still smell of booze from the party in this stupid dress."

                    "So," he says, sucking in his lips to kiss his teeth. "Sounds pretty bad."

                    It's not much of a comfort, but she almost laughs at how bleak it all is. Like there is nothing else she can do. He, too, exhales sharply. Mara throws her head back against the wall and rubs her face wearily. The tiny blood vessels at the corner of her eyes have burst into a crimson lattice. "I didn't know you could be like this," she admits.

                    Finnick can't help but tamper down the smallest of smiles. "Like what?"

                    "Genuine."

                    Sitting on the hard ground for this long has made his limbs stiff and aching. He arches his back, stretching out his arms as he speaks. "I can be genuine."

                    "Not up there," she shakes her head, resting it on her hands. Mara sighs, deeply honest for the first time. "It's like I'm talking to an entirely different person right now."

                     ( His throat tightens like there is some invisible hand clawing around it. Every word roots itself in his bones. How could she so personally know about him leaving his body whenever he's at the Capitol, wandering away to some undisturbed corner of his mind? How could she tell the difference so accurately after one conversation? )

                    Finnick opens his mouth to speak but at first no words come out. "There are certain ─── expectations that I have to fulfil." Shakily, he ventures a little further. "Consequences if I don't."

                    It's the closest he's ever gotten to saying it out loud. Certainly the most he's ever revealed to her. Mara's hands twist around each other anxiously as she recalls every scathing comment she ever sent his way. She fiddles restlessly with the rusted ring on her thumb; the metal of her mother's vows digs into her skin, presses into her flesh. The world is already cruel to people, she'd tell her; back when Mara was young and whole and life was simple. I took an oath to try and lessen it. You, my dear, just need to be kind.

                     I promise, Mama.

                     A promise that has been broken beyond recognition, more times than she can count. The pain is not a punishment; it's penance. "I know."

                    She senses him stiffening beside her, freezing while he stares ahead at the buzz of workers by the train. He doesn't look her way, but she can see enough to know that his expression is blank and impassive. Yet another facet of the ever changing Finnick Odair: he, too, resorts to not feeling anything at all. They are kindred in that manner, at least.

                    An age passes between them, where Mara isn't sure what to say in such a delicate moment. Did he think she'd never know? She's been blind, sure enough, not to see the signs until it was made abundantly clear by Snow's propositions to her and then Johanna ─── but, still. There are always faults in a system, chinks in armour. Cracks in a mask. They share that as well.

                    He sighs deeply, a weight dissipating off his shoulders a little. He stands, straightening himself as he looks up to the sun for a moment, rays fanning across his face. It shines weakly but persists nonetheless; the slow rotting of autumn and eventual death of winter are over. He turns, and offers his hand to help her up.

                    Finally, he says, "I'll take you to get some nice clothes, then. Ones that aren't Capitol crap."

                    The Mara of the past few months would've twisted his words ─── it wouldn't be out of character for her to make some snipe about how she isn't the first woman he's bought clothes for, or something of that sort. It's what he's come to expect. But she surprises him ─── and, in all honesty, herself ─── by placing her hand in his, fingers interlocking as he helps pull her up from the ground.

                    "That's very kind of you." She says in the closest imitation of softness. Not quite, but not far from it either.

                     As they walk out of the station, shoulder to shoulder; a sort of peace between them; she wonders if what they say is true. If sea air really does work wonders.

⭒ ➷ ⭒ ➹ ⭒ ➷ ⭒ ➹⭒

korralo, district four.
february, 73 att.

                    THE SEA IS NOT FAR. He can even make out the crests of rolling dunes. Finnick doesn't lean against the glass ─── he won't fully relax until he's actually home ─── but he watches it avidly, drinking the sights in. Seafoam sprays where waves crash against the rocky shores. Gulls are visible too, soaring above the waves and diving down in fell swoops; given how close the road goes to the cliffs.

                    Ridley, the driver, knows by now that he prefers the coastal route. It's quite a long detour but Finnick is more than happy to pay him for the extra mileage covered. He actually knows him quite well, since Ridley is usually the one to pick up whenever he calls the company going to and from the station ─── at first, he hardly spoke to the victor. And who would've wanted to? Finnick was uprooted from being merely district and called a godsend by the Capitolites. He was presented as a cut above the rest, a diamond in the rough.

                    So, what did that make everyone that he left behind ─── especially as the only object of the Capitol besides Peacekeepers that they could resent?

                    But somewhere in all those journeys to the station, perhaps Ridley realised that he was human like the rest of them. The moment he knew for sure was when a client, for the first time, paid to be brought to his place in District Four. He hadn't wanted that in the slightest ─── he knew he wouldn't be able to separate himself from the act this time ─── and the driver glanced into the mirror to check on them. Finnick, only nineteen, had looked anywhere but his client. The two shared a look lasting only a few moments, but he understood. From that night on, Ridley would speak to him.

                    In fact, whenever there was a Capitolite in the car with him, he made a point to. As he does now.

                    "And that there is my younger, my little girl," he says, using his free hand to point to an old and worn photo he keeps. It's battered and folded in one corner, and it's been in the car for as long as he can remember. "Clara. She's started school, bless her. Already top of her class."

                    Education is perhaps the most valuable thing Four can give: both the skills necessary to maintain a life and job at the docks and wharves, to keep a household together. To learn to read and write ─── because how could you possibly live without? To learn the stories, the histories. Though such lessons are regarded as superfluous from the mandatory curriculum and reserved for the merchants who can afford secondary. Finnick, whether reaped or not, still would have left school at fourteen.

                    Yet still, it seeps through the cracks. Annie can now fund a small library and her old friends sometimes sit and read in silence with her. He brings her copies from his numerous visits to the Capitol. Pocketbooks are carried on long voyages and handily kept whenever there is some spare time. People carve their names and ideas into the wooden planks of boats and posts of various shops. Weeds growing from the pavement despite the attempts to pull them out.

                    Mara doesn't know this, of course ─── or pay attention, though her brows do slant as she listens to a man speak so proudly of his daughter. He watches her carefully, as does Ridley through the rear view mirror ─── for entirely different reasons ─── but she never even looks his way. Her gaze is steadfastly locked outside the window. All he can see is her head of black curls, undone from her previous braids, spilling onto the back of her tacky dress.

                    "We've a dog as well," Ridley speaks out into the silence. His accent hangs comfortably in the air, another reminder that he is finally, finally home. "My boy's trying to teach it to play fetch."

                    "Nice." She remarks tonelessly, face still turned to the window. She's on the side of the car that faces the city but still looks out of it, drinking the sights in.

                    Ridley makes a left which extends the journey by a few minutes. Not too far away, the neat and orderly roofs of Victor's Village poke up from behind a grassy hill. Before that, the edge of Korralo meets the sea, with the rest of the city slightly further inland. Arriving is inevitable, he supposes.

                    "This lady, uh, a friend of yours?" He asks politely, "Both of you to Victor's Village?"

                    "No, I'll be staying in the city." She replies quickly and shortly. "Do you know any good inns or hotels?"

                    Finnick catches his eye in the mirror once more. This time, however, he gives the slightest nod ─── the driver exhales, the only visible sign of relaxing. "Not that many are open, lady. It's the off season right now, though April's shop has a few rooms upstairs."

                    "That sounds good."

                    "Just take us to that sort of area," Finnick tells him. "There are a couple of things we need to do in town."

                    Ridley nods, and drives on.

                    With the repeated promise of repaying the money the moment she gets home, Mara vanishes into the first clothing shop she sees after he bids Ridley a good afternoon ─── it's run by the Pascua family. He makes idle conversation with the eldest son, Luz, while he waits, knowing that while they're not . . . whatever they were anymore he still wouldn't go shopping with her. And he knows enough that she wouldn't want that either. This entire afternoon feels like a dream.

                    He bites his tongue, drawing coppery blood, and doesn't wake.

                    Mara walks out sometime later, each hand holding a bag. "Thank you," she says again, and he's unused to hearing it fall from her lips.

                    "You really are welcome. It's a vast improvement." Finnick has heard many, many scathing remarks about Mara Cayden. Gossip about her madness, comments about her skin, the colour of mud. Pointing out the slightest flaw, the clash of colours in her outfits. How she's thin, but not the right kind of thin.

                    But in this moment, he looks at her and genuinely doesn't know what they're talking about. Now in usual Four attire ─── loose-fitting linen trousers and a white shirt with a coat on top ─── she seems more relaxed. She could even be considered as smiling.

                    Luz raises his eyebrows but says nothing.

                    "Yeah," she says, as she pushes the door open with the tinkling of a small bell. "Where did he say this place was?"

                    "April's shop is a few streets down," he tells her. "You probably won't ever be in Four again. You should make the most of it while you're here."

                    "Maybe." Mara hums non-committedly; she kicks a loose rock along as they walk. Wouldn't she be at least a little interested, instead of staring at her feet?

                    Finnick is used to the cobbled streets and mismatching houses with crooked roofs, but she isn't ─── the Victory Tour was nearly three years ago, it doesn't count. Yet Mara keeps quiet, the bags swaying in time to her steps. He wonders if he should say something, or if it's better not to. Despite the carefree grin on his face and spring in his step ─── there are some standards to his appearance he must keep up ─── he secretly wonders why he even cares at all.

                    And why, more importantly, he is starting to overthink. He has had years to learn exactly how to act around women, around people ─── but this is nothing like that. Mara Cayden is nothing like that.

                    He decides it's as if talking to a friend, a real friend: Mags, or Annie, or . . . who else, really? They have a kindred sort of suffering, but Finnick has rarely gone out of his way to be around them. It's only through Mags, really, as the glue holding the residents of the village together. Those who don't know of his situation resent him, and those who do ─── they're close to him for survival, nothing more.

                    "We're nearly there," he says. "You know, there's this───"

                    "It's fine, Odair. You're exhausted as well. Go home."

                    His first thought is Victor's Village, even if that is not his home. It's not the one he was born in, the one he and his sisters grew up in, but nothing remains from before. Finnick exhales deeply. "Fine. Call me tomorrow, though."

                     There's nothing seductive about it, but the faintest crimson dusts her cheeks. Ordinarily, he'd be delighted to elicit a reaction from her ─── but this time, it's only a sign that he cannot separate himself from who he is for the Capitol. Even Mara is not immune to it. "Why?"

                    "Mags. Annie. They'll want to see you." He says, suddenly a little dull.

                    "Okay,───" A crack, harsh and sharp, echoes clearly above the general murmur of conversation. A pained cry follows it.

                    Finnick immediately gravitates towards the noise, bewildered, while she is frozen where she stands. He takes several quick strides towards the source and Mara, behind him, blanches and sets down her bags.

                    "Stop." She hurries after him. He turns, noticing how her fingers clench into fists to stop them trembling. "Nobody wants to be stared at while they're whipped. Don't look."

                    He'd ask how she knows this, but another crack, another cry, proves a terrible conclusion: Finnick recognises the voice.

                    Despite her warnings, he breaks into a run, following the sound to the main square only an alleyway out. A small crowd has formed on the outskirts of the square, faces watching in horror and apprehension and fear as a Peacekeeper, stark white armour splattered a bloody red, brings down the whip once more. He stops in his tracks, stumbling. This isn't supposed to happen. Peacekeepers don't do this ─── they're rude and have the most inflated egos, self-assured in policing the city, for sure, but never violent.

                    He has never seen their uniforms anything but pristine white.

                    Yet, there is the man, tied to a post with his shirt ripped from his back. Lacerations cut deep, jagged lines into his flesh and he is tense all over from the pain of being carved like a platter. Somebody lets out a sob and quickly stifles it as the Peacekeeper's visor turns, whip ready and raised in hand. They wouldn't strike. They wouldn't.

                    The man's head lifts. Finnick knows that tan skin and dark eyes. Malik Dunn's gaze, hazed over and unfocused, meets his own. Horror curls in his gut and he wonders if he will be sick. His mouth moves, but no pleas for mercy come out.

                    Finnick starts, moving forward to get in the way of the next strike ─── why? He never even spoke to this man, not even when he was a boy at the academy who was chosen to volunteer. Who as he stood in the reaping stands did not say I volunteer while Finnick, fourteen and frightened, walked onto that stage.

                    If he had, he pictures a scene very similar to this: only he is the one tied to a post and his body carved up. He blinks and it is himself who is blinded by punishment, whose fight drains from him with the next strike. Who is watched by a hundred horrified eyes.

                    A hand claws around his wrist and desperately yanks him back. "Are you an idiot?" She shrieks, hysteria creeping into her voice. Mara pulls him away from it, and his legs numbly follow; he cannot stop seeing himself on that post, cut bloody. He should be there and Malik should be here, dragged into the alleyway. She shakes his shoulders ─── while the two final blows are delivered ─── and there is an indecipherable expression on her face. "They'd shoot you! If you got in the way you'd be dead!"

                    He blinks out of his stupor, pulling his hand from hers. "Peacekeepers don't shoot."

                    She pauses midair, stunned into silence. Now she looks at him like he's really crazy. "They do it all the time."

                    "But Malik, he───"

                    "It was only ten lashes, I counted," she says, running a hand through her curls. "He'll be fine. You, on the other hand, won't recover from a bullet!"

                    And then she stalks off, curls bouncing with the force of her walk. Whatever brief spell of calm had come over them is over, it seems.

𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 :

( 4,785 words! )
well oh em gee this was an important chapter
this is a turning point for mara and finnick oh
just you wait the romance will be in the room
with us soon!! until then i hope the scraps are
enough🤭

but anyways, mara is in district four, which is
something i have seen done before but want
to try my own spin of. a massive thank you to
eddie since i have taken inspiration from her
version of 4's culture! i've incorporated some
some of the elements,, e.g : renaming the city
from korralya to korralo, and including things
such as valuing education, other names, hints
of religion, valuing hard work, and the general
atmosphere being warmer and more tight knit.
there is more to be explored later,, and i hope
i've done it justice <33

mara's time in d.four is very important for her
development ── both personal and with other
people ── as she gets thrown in the deep end
&& learns about herself ❤️ oh, while it may not
directly reflect reality there's a reason why they
had such different reactions to the whipping.
finnick has just never seen that before,, but for
her it is commonplace. infer from that what you
will.

i'll be taking a pause on the weekly updates, but
see you next chapter <33
──e.