noah. d12.

Sometime between the 28th and 52nd Hunger Games the Monoghan family somehow managed to climb out of the ruined Seam and into the merchant villages of Twelve. Don't ask Noah how, or why, because she doesn't know. There's a reason for that. No mother or father wants to tell their children that their parents and their parents' parents their and parent's parent's parents did absolutely anything and everything to survive.

Children don't need to hear that. Not one, not two, not eight. The Monoghan children certainly looked like the starving kids in the Seam - tall, lean bodies, big brown eyes with olive skin and bright smiles  - but they hardly ever ventured to the edge of the District. Instead they spend their days soaking up their electricity and warm food as if it were nothing but ordinary. Little do they know their origins began in the slums of Twelve, kids just like themselves coughing up smoke and blood all those years ago. 

Ignorance. That's all it is. Noah is no different. She doesn't count her blessings, simply appreciates them, waving hello every morning and carrying on about her day. Wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, she brushes back dark mops of hair and dabs on some cherry juice for lip stain, puts on her mother's brass earrings for good measure. Simple things. Luxurious things for a place like Twelve - but how would she know? You don't know what you don't know, and in Noah's world ignorance is bliss.

In the Monoghan household there is no such thing as tessera, nor hunger, nor hate. All nine children and their mother and father figure it out - sharing rooms, not beds. Stories, not food. Smiles, not anger. It makes them happy, but many would frown upon their parents and call the children stupid. Noah's not stupid - she's rather bright, with a curious mind and an aptitude for exploring. She knows to follow warning signs and turn back when someone tells her to. She can read and write and although speaking doesn't come easy her thoughts are always talking. 

Don't take her for rude or shy - Noah wants desperately to say hello, to talk about ideas and thoughts and what shape the summer clouds are making. Or about what she had for breakfast that day, where she got her skirt, show off the socks she embroidered herself. So desperate she is to speak but her throat swallows her words and a stammer comes out instead - so she just sticks to smiling and nodding and whispering small words, easy words, words that she can slip out of her lips without detection. She was a quiet baby, a nervous child, lost in a sea of siblings. At some point in her growth spurt those things collided and spoken words became the most impossible thing on the earth.

It's frustrating not being able to speak sometimes, but Noah's creative enough. A notepad and pencil sits in her pocket for the difficult days. One might find Noah Monoghan greeting them with a bright "Hello!" in the morning and then not hear a word from her for weeks, instead engaging in a conversation of lead and pictures. How quaint, one might think, copper spoon in her mouth instead of dirt and it silences her, unable to spit out what she wants to say. Ironic, as if she were paying for her ancestor's past sins. 

With nine children under one roof a home is bound to be chaotic. As the third-oldest Noah understands how to help and how to ask for it, how to give and give back, how to function amidst a busy, bustling family. Playing pretend, the ones still reapable march down to the Square and hold their heads up high - only to watch clouds and point at birds, not wait for their demise. The Monoghans weren't made for fighting. Noah certainly isn't. The reaping is just another day to her siblings but as she stands in her place, legs shaking, palms clammy, Noah's mind turns to full speed and she starts to think how, or why, or what if, with no way and no-one to communicate how she feels.

Whatifitsmewhatifitsmysistersmybrothersthelittleonesicouldntevenvolunteericantspeakicouldntvolunteeritsnotgoingtohappenmaybeitsnotitsokaywerenotinthereitsjustthereapingnotesseranotesseraoddsluckchanceicantdomathicantevenspeakicouldntsayivolunteeriwuoldntiwouldntevenificoulddoesthatmakemeacowardyesicantwhatif-

Not even the strongest, most powerful thoughts could stop it. Not even the deafening silence that falls on the Square between the Anthem and the plucking of a name from glass bowls. The loudest sounds in the whole wide world, and only mute little Noah Monaghan can hear them.

Afterwards one of her sisters finds her and takes her hand, breaking the seventeen year old from her petrified stillness. "C'mon Noah," they sing. "Home-time now."

"Home," she whispers, it tastes like comfort.

Blissfully ignorant to the two souls who have departed from their own homes forever, Noah takes her sister's lead and leaves her worries behind for another day.