I suddenly have this urge to write an AU of my own fanfic where Finnick’s dad ends up actually going to the Games and dying. It’s sort of adorable, actually. Finnick never gets trained as a career. His mom marries Josiah, the baker, and Finnick has two younger siblings. He’s best friends with Noah and crushing on Annie, the pretty career girl who’s started coming around the bakery and talking to him A LOT. Annie is best friends with Maya, Emory’s sister. Emory would end up winning the 65th Games instead of Finnick. Unfortunately in this universe, Katia has to die of cancer since Finnick can’t get her medical care. But then he and Annie get married, and neither of them ever goes to the Games, and they become part of D4’s rebel network through their connection to Emory and Maya — with Emory now in Finnick’s canon role as a rebel spy. Would anyone read this? Am I insane? 😆
Astilbe: a plant native to the woods around their home, thriving in shadowy places where others don’t bloom, bidding its time in the green gloom before the conflagration of color comes. A flower of patience, of reaching to the elusive light.
“If it weren’t for the war, Papa never would’ve been lured to Five with the prospect of new opportunities and greater wealth. The Beaumonts wouldn’t be the wealthiest family in the Capitol—far from it—but it’d be a modest living.
I wouldn’t be in this arena if it weren’t for Two. I wouldn’t be in this position in the arena if it weren’t for Cassandra.
She deserves to be an ugly corpse.”
Pandora Beaumont of District Five is declared victor of the 15th Hunger Games. It isn’t enough. She still has one more score left to settle.
Pandora's one of my crueler victors. Choosing to make her from Five might seem strange, but trust me, it was intentional. I plan to explore it more at a later date. Enjoy!
Working on Blood in the Water and my other Hunger Games fics, I so often find myself imagining these vivid back stories for side characters, and most of the time it gets compressed into just a few throw away lines or omitted entirely. Which is sad to me because I want to tell those stories!
With that in mind, I’ve started on a new side project. The eventual goal is to have 24 short stories, one for each tribute in the third Quarter Quell. I’m going in district order, so first up is Cashmere from District One!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Welcome to Ad Meliora! I've spent a long time crafting these characters, and I hope you all love them as much as I do. This story stars Mica Hawthorne, 18, the son of Gale Hawthorne and Vesta Gable (OC), as well as Wake Odair-Cresta, 19, the son of Annie Cresta and (the late) Finnick Odair, along with several other original characters I've made to fit the THG world. For now, Mica lives in District 2 with his parents after graduating from the Capitol Academy, and Wake lives with his mom in District 12.
Please be forewarned that this prologue contains mentions of marital tension, divorce, and accidental pregnancy.
The tension filling the room could put a live wire to shame. Something sparks and pops between the locked gazes of my parents as Dad enters Mom’s office.
“Gale,” she greets him coolly, her voice clad in iron. When she sounds like that, I know she means business. It’s the tone she’s always used for important client meetings, or to tell me off when I’ve done something stupid. It’s never a good sign of what’s to come.
“Vesta,” Dad responds in kind, taking off his coat and folding it before draping it over the nearest chair. The Military Strategy Unit insignia flashes at his collar. Solid steel from the smelting plant on the edge of town. “You look well.”
Mom presses her lips into the thinnest of lines, her expression unreadable. It’s been months since they last saw each other, since my Academy graduation. They were probably thrilled to never need to see each other again. After all, I’m the last thread bridging the chasm of their failed marriage, the only child neither of them expected.
“Mica.”
My name feels wrong coming from his mouth, even though he’s the one who gave it to me. I miss the days when it was Mike, or even Mikey. It falls from his tongue now with the finality of a rockslide, an end that I’m not ready to accept. My heart thuds against my ribcage as I look up to face them both.
Dad refuses to sit down in the chair next to mine. He stands with his back to the window, everything about him guarded from the crossing of his arms to the cold, flat look in his eyes.
“Tell your father what you told me,” Mom insists, shifting a pen between her fingers as if she needs somewhere to focus her energy. I know the feeling all too well.
I swallow against the knot forming in my throat and turn so I can face both of them at once.
“I enlisted as a Peacekeeper, and they want me. I ship out in a month.”
I don’t know how I expected him to take the news. Deep down, I wondered if he might try to talk me out of it, wanting to save me from the calamities of combat he saw firsthand during the Mockingjay Rebellion. But that’s not who my father is. Sometimes I think he finds solace in the heat of battle, comfort in strategy and logistics instead of his own family. There were several months, even when we lived on base, that my mother came home to a cold and empty bed. He’d sleep in the barracks with the soldiers who actually put their boots on the ground and return to his desk in the morning, making only short stops home in between. Mom always told me he was off doing something important, and that I needed to be patient, but I could see the strain behind her smile.
“I’m happy for you,” Dad finally says, his words measured to a fault. “It’s a good thing, serving your country.”
Mom breathes in like she wants to say something else, but they share a look that stops her thought in its tracks.
“Oh, and um, one more thing.” I wait until I have their attention again before I say the next words, knowing they can’t be taken back once they’ve left my mouth. “I’m going to District Twelve.”
