{ lump sum // sue & elya

He spins a leaf in between his fingers as he stands at the plant station.

Healthy, edible, whatever the trainers had wanted to call it. The forests of District Seven had been his classroom, and the thick, snarling branches had been his teachers. His hatchet had been his writing tools, and the trunks he split his papers.

"Rule number one..." His grandma had said, with her memories laced between her words. 

"Learn to make your own lunch." 

Food, actual food came and went within the homes of District Seven, and with it's sudden disappearance the pains and emptiness of hunger would fill it's place. It was an all too familiar battle for those that resided within the protection of the dark tinted forests, one that was felt and abolished with the coming and leaving of the seasons. 

The one thing that remained the same, deep rooted within every blood droplet and vein of every starved civilian

was the forests. And so they'd learned.


He pops the leaf in his mouth, instinctual cringe at the taste following the action.

"What kind of parent names their kid Sue?" 

There's one mouth half full with drooled over leaf bits and another who's edges had curled up into some half smile. Feet sleeping inside a bed of leaves, body tilted half back into the abyss as she sits, one eye open, watching.

The other closed. Permanently.

This was Elya Johnwayne, District Two mastermind of everything that could be seen with only one eye.

The girl was a danger, he'd heard mumbled sentences speak. And she looked the part. 

He sticks one long finger into his mouth, digging up into his gums for a leaf stem that had nestled it's way into a spot where even his tongue couldn't reach. He pulls it out, flicking the stem onto the ground, bits of spit flying off with it. 

One chuckle, he grins. 

"Guess it runs in the family. Father was named Lucy, and my Grandpa was named Bella." 

He puts one hand on the table and leans on it slightly, before shrugging. 

"They said it makes a man tougher when he doesn't have a manly name to rely on." 

He scratches his beard, readjusting his body so that he stands upright. 

One long finger extends towards the black abyss that has swallowed the District Two's eye, bits of dried leaf stuck around his fingernails. Images of the train flash through his mind, and oh, what a joyful ride that had been. 

It had been worth it, he guesses. 

"Now, what happened there."