𝐒𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐓 𝐒𝐄𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 | 𝑭𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒄𝒌 𝑶𝒅𝒂𝒊𝒓

𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐎𝐍𝐄.

The Witch.

Orion clung to Rosie, just like he did in the room before she got dragged to the Games, except there were fewer tears. 

She compared their situations—all that changed. They weren't in a house that was falling apart more and more with each passing day. They weren't in clothes that in no way fit. They weren't hungry. They weren't cold. Their situation, on paper, was far, far better. Orion had shot up like a rocket in the past few months, the steady, consistent and more balanced meals showing. Her Uncle had the colour back in his skin and wasn't wasting away on the sofa anymore.

They were both better off, but Rosie was not. And for that, she felt guilty. She should be thankful for her life, and not wondering if it was worth it, all the pain and suffering she was dealt and the pain and suffering she inflicted on others.

She didn't let anyone know how she felt, they couldn't understand the immense guilt. Except Kit, who could simply see it weighing on the girl; they never spoke directly about it, but they skirted around the topic in a way that let them know they both were suffering in the same way. It was strangely comforting.

"Getting tall, aren't you?" She smiled at the boy. He nodded, tipping his head up to look at his older cousin.

The time for her to leave on her Victory Tour was slowly drawing closer to her. She'd go all the way to District 12, then numerically down until she reached the Capitol. The day of the Victory Tour party ended just so happened to be her fifteenth birthday. Convenient. She was thankful Kit was coming with her and thankful Lois was not.

She'd finally met Lois a few weeks ago—and she wished she hadn't—, the woman looked like Death in physical form. Withered, sunken, dressed in tattered clothes despite her generous allowance. Rosie couldn't help but jump as the older woman—possible witch—grimaced and extended a gnarled finger at the teenager. Apparently, she was making too much noise. "I can hear children laughing and dogs barking", she'd accused. Rosie and her family's house was across from Kit's, right at the back of the Victor's Village which boasted a dozen houses. Lois' house was at the front, and she was old as Hell, so Rosie didn't understand how she heard. That thought was unnerving. 

That cemented Rosie's opinion that Kit was correct. She was a witch.

They say the good die young, Rosie decided that was the only reason the woman was alive.

And when Rosie tried to explain she couldn't stop an eight-year-old having fun with a dog, the woman whacked her with a cane and stormed off—slowly. It was more of a hobble really. Rosie was surprised she didn't mount the cane and fly back to her house.

It wasn't like Orion and Tony were out in the garden at night, Orion was dead to the world by nine and Tony was curled up before that.

When she'd gone to Kit with the interaction he thought it was funny. There was a lot of "I told you so"s, mixed between breathless laughter.

"Do you have to go tomorrow?" He asked. Despite steadily getting older, he still clung to the girl who, for a long while, was the only stable parental figure in his life. Now his father was firmly on the tracks so he had two figures. "I thought you weren't going anywhere again?"

"I'm not going back into the Games, O. I have to travel around to make the President happy, then I'll come back. I'm going to need to do a few things, I need to do this because I won, okay? I'm the lucky one, try and think about it like that." She suggested, he nodded, walked back to the table and continued doing homework. Rosie got a real sense of pride when she saw what he was dressed in, warm clothes, clothes that actually fit. No longer was she stressed every time he complained his shoes hurt his toes or his ankles got cold from ill-fitting trousers. And she didn't have to ignore her own ever worse-fitting clothes.