flower fest / valencia siblings

It was on a saturday when the songbirds came back home. Eleven in springtime was a charged thing: All of it yawning alive, vibrating with energy. The fields that'd been dry for the longest time turned green again and with the increase of rain, the bogs in the furthest reaches refilled just in time to prevent any serious damage. The citizens had been celebrating springtime and pinned a flower fest, so the entire district square was decorated with them: bottle brushes and climbing roses and beautiful buttercups and the plumpest gardenias either of them had ever seen. The littlest children ran around making daisy chains and flower crowns, those who could afford it ate cotton candy or tried new kinds of freshly brewed floral teas.

At the center of the square, they'd built a silly little hedge maze just close enough to the stage that you could hear the sub-par live music from even the very center of it. It was when one of these songs finished but before the next song could start that River Valencia heard a familiar chirp. Her head snapped up into the air, mouth full of sugary sweets, just to be sure, and there they were: three little birds flitting about from tree to tree, whistling their tunes and singing along to the guitar.

"Finally," she whispered. Laik raised a brow and tried to follow her line of vision to no success, so she explained: "The birds. Mom said they'd probably be later this year, on account of the rain."

"Oh. Anyway, what was I saying?" Laik wasn't exactly the type to care about birds. They were also in the middle of telling a story when River interrupted, she realized.

"Something about scarves?"

"Right! So I was like, 'Chiara literally gave it to me. If she wanted you to have it, she would've given it to you.' And then she was like 'But she was my daughter and blah blah', so I was like 'Oh my fuckin God just literally take it if you're gonna make a big scene otherwise.' I mean I didn't say it like that, but you know what I mean."

"Oh." River wasn't exactly the type to care about scarves. Luckily enough, they reached the outer edge of the maze at that point, and foot traffic was heavy enough that River and Laik both had to turn sideways to squeeze back out. On the other side, they could see the annoyingly-large screen the Capitol had rolled out when they'd interfered, because they always had to interfere. The entire section was covered in cherry blossoms and lotus flowers like the ones in the arena, and the screen displayed live footage from the 93rd Hunger Games. The crowd of people who'd gathered to watch all gasped as Karl Jardens killed two careers in a matter of seconds.

"He'd be hot if he wasn't so creepy," Laik decided.

"You know, I did know a boy named Karl who also spelled his name with a K," River explained, changing the subject. She couldn't remember much about that Karl, now that she considered it, but Karl with a K was the kind of name a person couldn't forget. She found it a bit amusing, she supposed. Sometimes she would be doing something random, like cleaning the baseboards or eating lunch, and she would remember Karl with a K and exhale a small laugh.

"What? There's no way you knew him. I didn't even know him and everyone in school says he was my age. I know everyone my age." Laik thought they were trying to be funny, maybe, but they had a tendency to come off as simply domineering without meaning to. River narrowed her eyes. Something about the way they said 'didn't' like Karl was already dead set her teeth on edge. Everyone, even those at the very bottom being stomped into the mud, had gotten so used to the system at this point that it desensitized them. Made them view tributres as characters instead of people. River would've hated to know people talked about her like that if she ever-

"Why would I lie about that? Besides, it definitely isn't the same guy. I mean- I guess it could be, but the Karl I'm thinking of looked a little different. I think he taught me how to make a paper airplane when we were little."

Laik considered this.

"Two Karl's... Weird."

"Yeah, I guess."

Laik perked up as they caught sight of a friend from school- "Oh! There's Jenna. I'll see ya later. Do you mind letting Paco out when you get back? Dad let Diesel off the chain so I've kept him inside all day." They didn't so much wait for an answer, so much as they knew the answer upon asking. With a brisk peck to the cheek and a "Love ya, sis," Laik was off in one direction, toward adventure, and River was headed in the other, back to the familiar place she'd known like always.