When The Canary Sings

There's Our Girl!

First Person: Becca Blue: 

The sky is a gray void and the wind nips at my face as I lay in the dead grass of the meadow. The withered wildflowers surround my body as the winter weather kills them. There hasn't been any snow this year, so it's a barren winter.

"Do you have to go?" Will's voice pierced the quietness, his voice kind of echoing on the cold day. He laid in the grass next to me, braiding a few long strands of dead grass. I rolled over and looked at him.

"No, I can just stay here and never ever go back." I smirked.

"Really?" He smiled, I could see his smirk.

"You're such an idiot." I laughed, hitting him with my scarf. He rolled all the way down the hill that we sat on, and when he finally stopped, he looked up at me. "Look what you did!" He exclaimed, playing hurt. "My shirt was actually clean!"

"I like it better dirty," I laughed, flopping back onto my back. A few seconds later, I heard Will sit down behind me. I picked up my head and laid it in his crossed legs, I felt his hands in my hair, gently braiding it.

"It sucks when you're gone." He said, I hummed in response. "Everything is already so dull in winter, and when you're gone, it goes from dull to duller."

"What does that mean?" I laugh, craning my neck to look at him. He just laughs.

"You don't know how special you are, Becca Blue." He says, "your shows, they keep everyone going. Especially in winter." He says.

"It's not like we're starving anymore," I smile, "I mean, the food parcels and the extra money. I think that's why morals been up." I smiled.

"Sure, we aren't starving anymore." Will laughs, flicking my forehead. "But we're still being worked and worked and worked. So when those miners, or the street-sweepers come to the Hob after a long day in the freezing cold, they find warmth in you. Your music."

"It's our music." I corrected, despite the fluttering in my stomach.

"Still," he says, continuing to braid my hair. "You're like this light, and without it, Twelve falls back into this shadow." Will says, and I chuckle.

"How poetic."

"I am a poet."

We fall back into a comfortable silence as he braids my hair. I close my eyes and let my body melt. My tattered coat wrapping around my arms. I may be a victor, but I liked to wear my old clothes. For example, my navy blue coat that was barely navy blue anymore because of all the colorful patches that covered the holes made by falling or playing.

The air seems to freeze, and again I am thrown back into the arena, remembering the nights I sat huddled and freezing. But then I remember the boy who I sat with, the boy softly braiding my hair. Then, small flakes of white snow start to fall.

My body must have tensed up, because Will stopped braiding and looked down. I got a good look at his face and how the snowflakes gently coated his eyelashes. "You okay?" Will asked, his hands still gently holding into the tiny braids in my hair.

"Yeah," I said, "fine, just cold I guess." I smile dumbly, staring into his sky blue eyes that seem to get brighter in the cold. He smiles and continues to braid my hair.

"I miss you coming through my window." I say.

"I think if Haymitch found me anywhere near your room, I'd be shipped off to the Capitol and have my head displayed on the front gates." Will laughs, pulling away and wiping away one of my tears. Faintly, the town bell rings.

"Speaking of Haymitch, I think I left Milky on the table."

"He's gonna freak," Will laughs, lightly slapping my arm and making a jaw-dropped face.