Tell Me A Riddle, Mama [open, reaction]

Tallow hadn’t moved from her brother’s side since the garden. At home and all through the walk into town she’d stayed tethered to him the way a child clutches a balloon tight, terrified of Scutcher somehow floating away. At eight years old she’d promised to protect him, to keep him safe and from hurting not really knowing what it entailed. Seven years later and she was weary with it, beaten down and broken having failed in her oath so many times along the way. One girl wasn’t any match for the evil in the world…but for some reason Tallow really thought she could have given it a run for its money.

But with tonight had come a new promise, Together we’ll make them hurt. And it was one she intended to keep.

As strange and as sick as it sounded, for the first time Tallow had derived some pleasure from killing a pig in the smokehouse. They’d selected a few of the sick ones, who wouldn’t have fetched anything at market anyway and strung them up squealing. Whatever trepidations she’d felt about making Scutcher kill one of his beloved pigs today of all days vanished when he stood next to her, calmly talking her through the best way to hold her knife and where the vein was. “Quick and sharp and clean,” he said stoically. “She won’t feel nothin’.”

If only Noreen Lexington had been given that dignity. It was a messed up world where their pigs were afforded more comfort, more honour in death than their people. Scutcher’s jaw was stiff, a strange curl in his lip as he sent his knife through the Pig’s main carotid artery. Blood gushed forward, black as night almost and hit the plastic bucket positioned below with a splatter and then ebbed like waves on a beach. She could see her brother’s shoulders shudder with a kind of release and for the first time saw their father in him.

What would become of them now that they knew the full extent of the world’s cruelty? Tallow was almost frightened to find out…but she knew that she couldn’t run from it anymore than she could the dawn. Tallow took his advice and plunged her knife into the pig before her. Their lives were awash with crimson, this was little more than a drop in the ocean.

Tonight, to mark the passing of Noreen Lexington, the Tansy children would paint the whole world red.

Scutcher carried his load with more ease than Tallow, but he’d always been used to heavier burdens. Her fingers turning white as she clutched unto a large plastic vat of pigs blood, she struggled to load it onto the wheelbarrow before threading a hand through one of the loops on Scutcher’s belt buckle and pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I love you,” she whispered to him, it wasn’t news but it always bore repeating. The sun didn’t dare follow where they went, and began to drop from the sky as though turning away from the face of the earth in shame.

“It won’t help,” said Scutcher, at some point on the way to town, his fingers wrapped around the wheelbarrow. “It won’t bring her back.”

“It aint about feeling better though, is it Noodle? It’s about making them feel worse. And it will, trust me.”She turned to flash him a wicked little smile, but all there was to be found in her brother’s eyes was pain, like the deep vats of slowly clotting blood he pushed. It made her want to do this more than ever, it wouldn’t help- he was right. But hurting someone else could almost be as good as. Especially at a time like this.

Tallow figured that if they passed through town she could flatter and flutter her eyelashes into getting one of her friends to help push the barrow and dispense of the pig blood. They had no connection to Noreen Lexington other than that she was one of them, but that wouldn’t matter to her friends. The sort of people that were always happy to destroy something. Glass windows shattered with stones, burning trash cans and drowning birds. They understood what Tallow was feeling right now even though they tried to call it beautiful.

The truth was it was ugly, ugly, ugly. And Tallow didn’t even care.

So they didn’t head immediately to the Community Home, the Embersatt place where they would mark out the traitor with blood. Instead, Tallow led Scutcher towards the district square and from there hopefully to a few bars she knew her friends frequented.

They would have played Noreen’s death on the big screens here tonight, the sound of her last choking words broadcast across the streets and the rows of houses the way they had played the last days, the last fragmented hours of her life for all to see. To torture Tallow’s brother. She’d held his hand during the interviews and watched the way his eyes never flickered from her face, never dared to blink in case he missed her and it seemed so far away now. Further yet were the reapings. Scutcher screaming, Jack screaming but everyone else staying silent.

Tallow could have gone in her place even if Scutcher couldn't. She didn’t though and had to wonder if every girl in District 10 of reaping age, most of them not married and not mothers, would feel the same sting of guilt that she suddenly did. If they didn’t then they deserved a badge of crimson too.

The games were allowed to happen because they were all weak and they were all afraid. People called the winners heroes- but as far as Tallow could tell they were just as weak, slicing and dicing up children because they were terrified of what would happen if they didn’t.

“Stop,” said Tallow, raising her arm out to Scutcher’s chest as she spotted a figure almost in the square, sitting beside a capitol marker. Tallow gestured to her face and pulled up the kerchief she’d fixed around her neck, to cover up her nose and mouth signalling that Scutcher should do the same as well as pulling up the hood on their sweaters. Tallow wasn’t a total idiot, and she had some experience with vandalism before so she’d made sure to grab the kerchiefs up at the house.

Only seeing Scutcher’s eyes he could have been anyone, looked sort threatening even- if you didn’t see the depths of sadness swirling through robin’s egg blue.

They had to pass the figure, there was no getting around it. But honestly she doubted he would care. Since when had anyone in district 10 spoken up for anyone else? They could torch a house to the ground and the neighbours would watch through their net curtains like watching carnage on a tiny screen. But as they grew closer she noticed the stone, and then the carving in the marker.

Noreen Lexington.

Tallow met his eyes and had known him from his profile. A drunken night, another life. That didn’t matter because when she nodded at him, her hair hooded and her nose and mouth covered it was for another reason. Kinship. United by her name. It steeled her heart and her nerves.

“This is the place,” she said to Scutcher.

It was bigger than starting a petty feud with some Community Home kids, bigger than a knife in the back. Tallow couldn’t help but keep dwelling on the reaping, standing in the middle of the district square and letting the capitol take Noreen. Letting them take anyone at all. They were all to blame, and all had blood on their hands. No more words, no more talking and weaseling and trying to justify things. The whole sorry district deserved to burn.

For making Scutcher sad. Okay so Tallow’s priorities were still a little petty. But she was beyond caring and she’d promised to make them hurt.

“Nice work,” she said to Elias muffled through her bandanna. “Tasteful. Not too over the top.” Her hand found the lid on the first bucket of pig’s blood. “Bit small scale for my liking though.”

It smelt heavy and metallic like rust, jet black but staining the sides a vivid red. Tallow used a smaller bucket to scoop out a sizeable amount of pigs blood and, throwing her weight behind it began to scatter blood along the floor of the district square. Her heart was pounding as the enormity of the act hit when the first smatter of pigs blood did. Any minute a peacekeeper could come, any minute they could get shot or arrested or worse. But even if they caught them now, it was still done, no one could stop it and it was there for all to see. So let them do their worst- she didn’t care, so long as Scutcher was by her side.

He took his own bucket and began to throw blood too, the scent rising over the whole place, staining the ground. Scutcher threw hard and it splattered along the length of a building as though someone had messily died up against it. Tallow caught her brother’s eye and sent him a reassuring little wink. It won’t help. It won’t bring her back…but that wasn’t the idea.

It was on her hands, spattered on her eyes but Tallow didn’t care, just kept on throwing blood. Little by little they transformed the district square, until it looked like something more likely to be seen up on the big screen.

Now how was that for a blood bath?

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Doing
deep thoughts
thinking
talking
hearing
enjoying

Slipping through the darkness like a shadow against a wall was something Swallow-Anne was pro at. She had no need to be seen as she climbed out the window of the Community home and headed back towards the District Square. They had just come back from watching that girl Noreen die, a pretty horrible death, hope I don't go that way. Noreen was Tallow's brother's...thing? She was married with babies but still that boy lusted after her like there was no tomorrow. And now for Noreen there wasn't.

If these f-ckers think I'm staying in there tonight they're out of their mind. Her body moved quickly and quietly down the long dusty road as she adjusted the bandanna over her face to cover all but her eyes, it didn't matter what kind of dangers were lurking in the dark. Swallow-Anne could handle herself and anything life threw at her. Like this damn deal with Noreen. It was right that she died. She was a mother, and not like her own who popped her out in the middle of the District Square all hopped up on morphling. Noreen Lexington would have been a real mother.

All around her the animals hooted and cooed in their nightly routines, but in her mind tonight wasn't going to be so routine. The dying breaths of that mother, the blood spilled so easily, it was all on the hands of the Capitol and the people like her who didn't step forward that day and it wasn't okay. She wasn't going to sit by and let this fly. After seeing the way Scutcher was broken, seeing that husband of hers wandering around like a ghost of himself, it was too much.The f-cking Capitol doesn't get it, no one gets it. When you're a mother you're not supposed to leave. You're not supposed to f-ck up and Noreen didn't f-ck up. She deserved to see her babies.

The soft patter of her feet almost echo in the silence leading up to the small town. The screens were still in place from the view earlier, where all the people not lucky enough to own their own tvs stood, huddled together watching Noreen struggle for her last breaths. You can still see the blood splatter in your mind. The bars in town still were raring on, their lights glowing in the darkness, normally Swallow-Anne would make her way into them, convince a few guys to buy her drinks and wake up on a random stoop the next morning. Not tonight though, tonight she was down here for Noreen.

Sloshing sounds around the corner caught her attention as a smile spread along her pale face. She wasn't the only one wanting to cause a scene, a familar frame stood before her, someone she would know a million miles away. "Always gotta find trouble don't you girl." she grinned, voice hardly above a whisper as she walked up to her best friend. Tallow Tansy may not have been the nicest girl in the world, but to Swallow-Anne she was the closest to a sister she'd ever have, and that made her nice as pie.

Tallow's brother was there too, tossing that vile smelling blood all over the place, and rightfully so. Scutcher hadn't been the same since the death, and who could blame him, he lost one of the few things he loved. Swallow-Anne moved over to him swiftly, wrapping her arms around him even though she hardly came up to his chest, and squeeze tight. "I'm sorry. She should've come back to you." her words were mumbled into his chest, but she pulled away quickly and dipped her hand into the bucket of blood walking over to a closed store front and writing in big letters:

NOREEN LIVES IN US

Looking back she smiled to her friends, because she did. Noreen lived in them all now.

They weren't alone in the townsquare it seemed more and more people were joining in. Noreen may have died, but her memory...that wasn't going anywhere.

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Isis Jacobs hadn't woke up that morning without hearing the news. Noreen Lexington was dead. It had been broadcast on every screen all across the country. The mother of twins, the twins that were taken away from her, was dead. She was killed. She was dead. She hadn't gotten to come home to see her children's faces. She hadn't come home to see her husband. All because of the cruel Games that the horrible Capitol decided to start sixty-one years ago. She had just stared at the screen that day, watching the group of attackers stab Noreen. Including her own district partner. She could feel the whole of the district come to a stop, to a pause. Everyone was mourning for Noreen.

Isis had stepped outside, walking towards the district square. She stepped in, wearing a dark jacket and dark pants, her boots stepping in a dark liquid that was littering the district square. She didn't even notice, her eyes trailing down from the sky to the ground, where her eyes widened. The blood was dark, too dark for human blood. She smelled the dark liquid and recognized it as pig's blood. So much blood meant multiple pigs were slaughtered. She wrinkled her nose, but noticed the multiple people flinging the blood all over, and one girl was writing on a storefront.

NOREEN LIVES IN US

The dark liquid was dripping everywhere, and the smell was so overwhelming she lifted her shirt to cover her nose. Her eyes glittered with defiance, and she looked around at the multiple people who had cloths on their faces. The two people in the center seemed to be the focus of them all, and they looked fierce and sad at the same time. The smaller figure was obviously a girl, with the longer hair, and she looked more fierce than the taller male figure. She recognized them both, but the male was more familiar. He has eyes that were known as the eyes of one of the men who were close to Noreen, but she had no idea what his name was. She knew Noreen's husband, Jack, but the other man she had no idea about. She stepped into the square thankful that she was wearing darker clothes, and she looked at the blood all around.

Seeing at bucket of pig's blood, she smiled grimly and scooped some, flinging it in all directions. She realized that the purpose of the blood mihgt be related to the initial Bloodbath. She hated that day, so she tried to avoid it, but this time it was unavoidable. With the hope of the district being that Noreen would come back with her twins, the tenth district was enraged. And Isis was too. She would not brush this aside. The Capitol needed to suffer. "This is your fault Capitol. This is your punishment coming to bite you in the ass," she whispered, flinging the blood everywhere.

No need to stick to a posting order, guys, just ensure that enough people have had a chance to post in between yours to keep things fair (3 seems like a decent number)

A few splashes of blood curled and unfurled like a flower and the angry children sprang from the ground like saplings. Always gotta find trouble don’t you, girl? Tallow shrugged, trouble seemed to find her more often than not, but she always turned to face it. As far she could. Go home, Swal, she should have said to her friend- and to the rest of them, this aint gonna end well. But when did it ever? Honestly and truly? Next year, standing in these same spots who’s to say it wouldn’t be her name in place of Noreen’s, or Swallow -Anne’s or anyone else here? They painted their own ill omens onto the district square and couldn’t pretend to be surprised when the portents began to run true.

“I am the trouble, girl,” she said, her grin of course not visible through her bandanna. Tallow lifted her foot and kicked the bucket violently, the last few litres spilling out onto the square, spiralling like a Rorschach test. Tallow could see knives and fangs and talons in the swirling patterns so what did that say about her state of mind?

Whats with the blood? Two sisters, bold as brass came up to them and asked. For someone who always seemed to have something to say, she surprised herself by not having a ready reply. Looking around as though for the first time, Tallow looked at the earth. What’s with the blood? But the blood wasn’t new. It had always been here.

Tallow watched Swallow-Anne hug her brother while he sniffed in his short grief filled breaths. That she should have come back to you wasn’t going to make him feel any better. She watched another man carve a message into the defaced statue and a girl plunge her hands into the bucket of blood. They were all so young, all so beautiful and all so doomed. At least if they got screwed today it would be on their own terms, with the smallest modicum of choice. The smell of the blood on the air was intoxicating, it made them forget themselves, churned up a feeding frenzy in the sharks in their stomachs.

Or maybe this was all just over thinking things? Perhaps Tallow shouldn’t try to give these feelings names and humanize them, shouldn’t try to find anything constructive in the destruction or any method in the madness. Just accept it for what it was; a bloodied, primal howl. Ugly, ugly, ugly.

Her older brother spoke for her, which made for an interesting reversal of roles. “We wanted to make them hurt,” said Scutcher, his hands thick with the stuff, clotting over in clumps, turning to black. Was that the reason why? Tallow had…she hadn’t forgotten had she? Gripping one of his wrists lightly, alabaster smeared crimson, Tallow stood on tiptoes and pawed a bloodied palm across his face, giggling only slightly. It was the sort of laughter that balanced on the edge of a precipice between pure joy, fear and a strangled sob. Never once did Tallow’s gaze stray from her brother’s eyes. There were still tears lurking in them.

Don’t try to give these feelings names. Don’t humanize them. There is no humanity here.

Swallow-Anne had smeared in large letters, Noreen lives in us, across a wall. She would be the heavy sense of guilt squeezing at Tallow’s stomach then, that sounded exactly like a gallon of blood tipped against the earth. Tallow didn’t particularly want Noreen Lexington living inside of her.

Scutcher was watching Swallow-Anne write, mumbling through his bandanna sharply so he couldn’t breathe, “I wanna go home. It stinks. There’s too much blood.” From somewhere, they heard a glass shatter and Scutcher flinched.

But somehow Tallow couldn’t bring herself to leave the carnage. She couldn’t hear Jack’s yelling, hadn’t noticed him enter but if she had done she might have reluctantly agreed with him. She didn’t know the woman as well as Scutcher had done, Noreen probably wouldn’t want this.

Especially the part about being dead. Tough titties, said the capitol. Screw you, said Tallow Tansy. It was time to watch the world burn.

“I wanna go home!!”

The peace keepers would be coming, that thought had occurred to Tallow from the very beginning. They had written the ending already- now it was up to them to make the journey to the finish spectacular. But she shouldn’t have brought Scutcher, that was becoming obvious. He didn’t need this today. Things might take a turn soon, and innocent vandalism could turn violent, especially when the peace keepers came.

“Okay,” she said with a nod as someone ran close by her.

“Try and stay safe, Noodle?” she said quickly and her brother nodded solemnly. “You should take him home, Swal,” said Tallow to her friend, not really knowing why since between the three of them none of them were that equipped to look after themselves let alone anyone else. So beautiful, so young, so doomed. Drunk on adrenaline, Tallow threaded a hand through Swallow Anne’s hair, another through Scutcher’s. She bent down and kissed Swallow Anne on the mouth through her bandana and then did the same to Scutcher, eyes closed, lingering a little longer than a kiss between siblings should.

“Tallow…come too.”

She shook her head. “I’ll be home in a bit. I aint finished yet,” she winked at her brother again, the twisted curl of a mischievous grin beneath the bandanna, a gleam in her eyes that still weighed heavily in her heart, the effort of maintaining it a little hard to bear. It was difficult to watch him go, but she was still doing this for him. Together we’ll make them hurt.

She stopped beside the dealer, tipping her head up to admire his work and couldn't help but snigger at the beautiful bastard's vandalism. placing her hands together, Tallow rewarded him with a soft round of applause.

Stooping, Tallow scooped up a fist full of rocks from the wheel barrow in a palm still sticky with blood. She didn’t know if she was the first person to start throwing stones but surely she had to be throwing with the most pain and hate, clutching with white knuckles and throwing so hard that they began to ricochet from the walls.

The first of them bounced off a wall impotently, but the second and third found windows. Shop windows, good peoples windows probably, but they watched the same as everyone else, sat back and did nothing just like Tallow had done. Not my problem, not my family. Now Tallow made it their problem.

Together we’ll make them hurt.

And them was everyone.

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"She's gone, Mari. It's not fair!" Little Annabelle wailed in my arms, her tears soaking into my cotton shirt. I stroked her hair, making quiet shushing noises as she trembled against me. Her small fingers picked at the beads along my collar as she sniffled. She seems somehow smaller, more vulnerable than she has ever been. Ever since she got home from school, all red and puffy-eyed, she has been held tightly, as if I could make the pain go away. I just just keep rocking her, quietly murmuring reassurances.

Inside, I wanted to cry myself. I wanted to break down and curl up and just let it all out. Never before had a Tribute from our District been someone I knew, even in passing. But Noreen had been kind to me, and we were on our way to being friends. At least I thought so. Her family weighs heavy on my heart. If I had lost Annabelle or Peter or Logan, I don't know what I'd do. Probably sink into a fairly deep depression, unwilling to believe it was true.

For now, I have a soggy 12-year-old to calm down. Noticing that her sniffling has started to slow, I look down at her, forcing a smile. She looks back up at me with those same red eyes. "How about you go with me to town today? I still have some trading to be done." A slight nod is all I get as she stands, wiping her swollen cheeks. I follow her and brush her dark hair back from her face, lifting her chin so she looks up at me. "It'll be okay. You'll feel better. I promise."

In just a short few minutes, I have her bundled out the door with a bag in her hand. She walks slowly in front of me, her head down and her feet kicking small stones along the way. I had hoped to shield her from the horrors of the Games for a little while longer, but she had latched onto the beautiful Noreen from District 10. Part of me wanted to warn her not to become too attached, that most of the Tributes from our District don't make it, but a larger part of me held onto hope. That the person in the fight isn't as important has what they were fighting for. I don't know much about the other Tributes, but I doubt any of them had as much to live for as Noreen. Still it was her life the cannon sounded for.

As we near the town square, strange noises begin to float through the air. Shouting and glass breaking. I pull Annabelle close to me and peer down the street. People were yelling and throwing rocks, shop windows shattering on impact. The was blood everywhere, on the walls, on the ground, in people's hands. It seemed the whole town had gone mad. Annabelle whimpered next to me, pressing in close to my side. I pushed her slightly behind me and began to go when I noticed Duck among the crowd. He was going to get in trouble, arrested if her wasn't lucky. "Stay close, Anna." Dodging the people in the street I found myself next to Duck, worry etched on my face. He was smiling, watching chaos around him. It almost took him a moment to even notcie I was there. "Are you crazy? Get home! You're all going to get arrested!"

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