What the Water Gave Us [Ines/Maggie]

m a r g u e r i t e

Ready or not (Uh-huh), here I come, you can't hide
Gonna find you and make you want me

Maggie felt like crawling out of her skin.

When their scores had finally been read it felt as though whatever weight had been hanging over their heads had finally been lifted. But instead of settling before their inevitable turn toward demise, Maggie found herself floating away.

Conversations lingered and disappeared around her head. Time felt jumbled, as though she could wake up tomorrow on her way to her reaping. And the other tributes, even the ones she’d spoken to, what were their names, their stories, and who did she have to watch out for?

She collected herself early one morning so that she could go to one of the holodecks and shut out everything. Except instead of trawling through the other tribute files and reapings, Maggie conjured up a babbling brook in a sun specked forest.

Say what one wanted about the capitol, but the fact that any of this magic was possible spoke to their desire to succeed. She knelt down to the river and cupped her hands through the water. She pulled off her boots and trudged down through the mud. She put her hands on her hips and sighed, taking in the unnatural sun. A mist sprayed her and the heat from above cast a certain spell, though she could admit it wasn’t quite as perfect as they wanted it to be.

That was the capitol, too, she reasoned.

She turned her head at last toward the glass door and spied the girl from eleven peering her way.

Ines was a curiosity, if only because she came from a place that Maggie knew so little of. Each of their tributes were deadly, and she’d heard rumblings the former mayor was a known traitor.

“Come on in.” Maggie offered. “The water’s warm.”