dawn. [ saffron .

She had kept her hidden.

Confined to the gates of the Victor's Village, Saffron had stayed put in her comfortable world. Mace, her family, the children, the cat that had found a home in her own -- it was all perfect, for a moment. Childishly she pretended that there was no world outside of where she stood, as if this was all there was to her life. No Games, no damnation, no graveyards. Simply her people, her home, the summer sun on her bare skin.

And it was so easy to stay, straying only from one house to the other, dancing in the living room with Mace, believing in her youthful ignorance. So she stayed: partly out of bliss, partly out of fear, mostly out of survival instincts, because like hell were they going to take her daughter away from her before she'd seen even seen daylight.

She'd dreamed of her. Little girl with dark hair and kind grey eyes, freckles and flowers and the summer sun. Mace would often look at her with a quizzical glance when she mentioned her so surely: not he, she. Something within her knew that the little girl holding Myara's hand in fields of gold was hers. Theirs.

When the gold turned red and the flowers grew thorns and the floods came spilling from the heavens, she'd wake up shaking.

//

Fire spit, flames dancing, Saffron would sit with her mother in the dead of the night and stare her demons down.

"I don't think I can do it," she'd whisper, words broken and tripping over fear.

Of course you can" her mother would sigh, a warm hand resting on her own.

"I'm too selfish. I'm too..."

Childish.

"You can. You can, my darling."

Tears spilled from her eyes, heat from the fire singing her cheeks - or perhaps it was regret. "How do you know that?"

A pause. Thoughts in limbo, salt staining Saffron's lips, an absence of response burnt holes in her skin.

Then her mother spoke.

"Because you are half of August Lowe and he loved you more than anything in this world."

Fields of gold. Dark hair, freckles, kind grey eyes, a hand to hold.

Half of her, half of Mace.

And suddenly she understood.

//

The last thing she remembered before she woke up screaming was the sunset.

A panic like no other, between the rigid arms of Mace and Reggie gently nudging the children to the Lowes with their tired eyes and blankets, reality settled in her chest and chaos took hold on her body.

A stranger in the night - vaguely recognisable, a voice murmurs Doctor - the room cleared and she craved the familiarity of pain that weapons brought. At least she could see her wounds, judge their impact, look up at her enemy and strike back with sheer will to survive.

And then that faded, too.

Flickering, fading, her vision betraying her, cool hands made of nothing grasped at her throat and dead eyes bore holes in her skull. Invisible to the rest, the ghosts brought on a swelling rage from within and she begged to be heard, if only they'd listened, if only she could have told them that something was

w

r

o

n

g

-

"Why'd you ta


ke our li


ves?"

Lucy seethed. "Wh

y does she get t

o live and

Red, 

red, 

red, 

she could hear Mace y e l l i n g -
we don't?" snee
red E
w
e.

"Stop it," 

she'd gasped, 

but it was no more than breath from her ruined lungs.

"Stop it...

...stop it-"

"Yo

u took ou

r lives" a voice

r 

an 



g.

(Someone's crying.)

"Now we

take 

hers!"

//

In the comfort of a memory - steel ripping open her abdomen and life being snatched up from her insides - she floated away.

A little girl and her ghosts once more.

//

Good morning, Myara laughed. Perhaps she could follow the sound-

Good morning, Myara laughed again. Closer now-

Good morning, Myara smiled, and the world lit up.

The sun rose at dawn.

Saffron with it.

//

She woke to a world numb, bleary-eyed and empty. Morning light fell through the cracks of curtains and the clock on the wall ticked on.

Dawn. 7:03am.

A sigh stirred her from half-sleep and she followed the sound to find her mother's face twinkling beside her. Hands clutched at the fabric of her sheets, face sick with dread, Saffron dangled in a thought - swaying slightly - as her movements lit up her mother's face like she'd never seen before.

"Oh, my darling..."

She was confused at how her mother's smile crinkled into tears, how her head bared the weight of the world, how absent she felt.

"Where's-"

And then her abdomen lit up in flames and her head fell back down to meet feathers and cotton and her lungs were sucked dry, evaporated by excruciating pain.


"Momma where's-"

Her own tears spilled down her cheeks now, from the fire dancing across her nerves and hell-bound memories aflood in her mind. Absence had a name and it burned in her heart, turning rib cage to ash as her lungs choked on smoke.

"Where is she?!"

Wooden floors creaked underneath the weight of footsteps entering the room, an announcement of arrival. Mace, and beneath all it's strain her heart ached upon seeing him and his eyes. She craved his words and begged for reassurance like she had so many times before.

In the silence he spoke her language of no words at all. It was selfish to ask so much of him, but once again Mace delivered reassurance with no qualms. Gently his hands found her own and his lips found her forehead, a soft brush of hair from her face, a whisper past her cheek.

Her mother smiled and left quietly, making way for Reggie - beaming, bright, passing blankets from her arms to Mace's with caution and expertise. It is then that Saffron begins to panic - she can't do this, she can't do this, Mace passes her a child but she can't do this, she can't do this, she-

saw a face, tiny and pink and blinking and alive and perfect.

Quinn.

Saffron fell in love again.

And then she sobbed - just she and Mace and her daughter, their daughter, out of selfish love and painful guilt because she is hers. Hers to love. Hers to hold. Hers to steal away, to rip out of their palms, to drag away from a porch at four years old, to call her name across a sea of the district, to murder in ice and snow and forests and the center of a maze.

Selflessly, among tears and laughter and bitter ghosts, she leaves death in her wake.

Life begins at dawn.