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𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝
𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐀 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐘 𝐃𝐈𝐃𝐍'𝐓 𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑, 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐍, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐑, 𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐄𝐍𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐓𝐎 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊. She had no cause to cut it, or braid it like Lucy, having been kept away from the fields since becoming ill. While Lucy fretted in the fields, storming across the rows with a bucket of chicken feed and a determined attitude, Orna found herself watching from behind the fence, always just on the boundary of things, in a specially-crafted chair and a pile of books on her lap.
Despite it all—their young age, and Orna's twisted legs—the two sisters would not fall behind, and so Lucy took charge of their horses and livestock, and Orna cared for their smaller pets. And then the birds of course, though she hadn't needed to compete with Lucy for that role, for the twittering lot enjoyed the younger girl's presence, pausing on the arm of her chair as she turned the pages of this book and then the next.
"Little Bird!" Lucy greeted her sister each morning, setting her milking buckets aside and pressing a kiss to her sister's forehead, "what are you reading about now?"
"I'm not reading today," she murmured, "I'm drawing. We drew pictures of our families at school today but then Molly started crying because she couldn't add her sister in the drawing"
Molly's sister was a stockier girl with dark freckles who had died from a snake bite in the Hunger games three years prior. A bittersweet moment for the people in Ten, for it was hard to mourn the girl, when it had been the District Ten boy who won that year: Skinner Greene, a lean boy with spiky brown hair and a scythe.
"I'm drawing a picture for her that has her sister in it"
"That's very nice of you, little bird" there was a pause where neither knew what to say, and then, just before rising from her spot, Lucy noticed the way Orna's hand stuttered against the paper, and slowly, with one drop, then two, the thin paper came to be decorated with a series of tear drops. "Don't cry, please Orna. What's wrong?"
"I don't want to lose you too, Lucy. I cannot draw a family picture with just myself"
Orna Moody was a brave little girl who had experienced too much tragedy for a girl so young.
