Steam Powered // [Mag & Marina]

Magnesia ran a towel across her forehead wiping away another layer of sweat. She’d stepped out of the training center ring over an hour ago but still the sweat prickled along her hairline. It had gotten worse postpartum. She didn’t mind the sheen but when the salt trickled into her eyes she couldn’t stand it.

Just outside the center, she dropped her gym bag and began to rifle through it. There were clean old shirts, all of them too heavy to be suitable, another pair of sneakers, plenty of period products, her shower cosmetics, and one clean pair of pink socks. She took them out, weighed them, then proceeded to knot them together.

All the while a steady flow of people went about their own routine lives. Except it wasn’t so routine in Four any more. Not since Nixie Summers had declared herself impervious to death.

As Magnesia knotted the socks together she watched the Careers and would-bes. There was an energy to the air, something that almost crackled with hope. Nixie Summers, to be sure, deserved to be celebrated. But it was almost as if everyone in Four had won something too. Even Nixie’s much older sister, Marina.

Magnesia hadn’t been consciously tracking Marina’s movements. But as soon as her thoughts named her, she couldn’t help herself. She finished the knot, making the two socks into a loop, and pushed it against her hairline to catch the sweat. Then, she scooped up her bag, and for a moment she followed Marina. She did not seem to have the same Career commitment, nor clearly the ambitions, of Nixie. There was something almost fragile about her, something anxious. Surely she was too old to be reaped herself. Magnesia knew all too well that sometimes aging out of the Reapings was only the beginning of life’s troubles.

She fell into step with Marina, letting her gym bag serve as a buffer between them. “Coming or going?” She asked, keeping her voice a determined neutral. “Because if you need a sparring partner, I’m not quite out of steam yet.”