Malakai Mottershead [District 13]

"Are we figments of our gin? Are we long-lost orphaned kin?
Or the mad descendants of a writer's pen?"

Malakai Mottershead

Male -- Seventeen -- District Thirteen

"So what do you think I should do?"

She waits for a moment, but as the answering pause slowly stretches into a silence, she realizes what happened. Still, just in case, she sets down the plate she's putting away and turns to glance at the table; sure enough, her brother is slumped in his chair, head resting on one arm while the other dangles over the edge of the tabletop.

Sighing, Minerva crosses the threshold from kitchen to dining room and kneels down so that her head is level with Malakai's. Unsurprisingly, his eyes are shut and his breath slow. "Thought you were just drowsy because it's so early. Stopped taking meds again, huh?" she asks, the sigh still in her voice.

Going on is pointless—he'll only hear her if he's dreaming—so instead she pulls out the chair and lifts him. Although she doubts he'd ever know the difference, carrying him as gently as she can is second nature, and easy besides; he was born tiny and, their parents joke, never got much bigger. Even Meera passed him up sometime this last year, and while it's true that he's sturdier than he looks, it's also not a high bar; Malakai looks, and always has, like a strong sneeze would knock him over.

Reaching her brother's room, Minerva kicks open the door and shoves the light switch with her shoulder, doing her best not to knock Malakai around too much in the process. It's getting harder to carry him; he's starting to twitch, and for all that his limbs are short in proportion to his body, they're plenty long enough to smack her in the face. "Calm down, Mally!" she hisses, but gets no response—unless perhaps the foot in her hip is her answer. By the time she's gotten the light on, it's all she can do to get across the room and dump him on his bed. "What," she groans, rubbing the kicked spot, "has gotten into you?"

"Min!" Malakai's voice is pitched even higher than usual. Minerva raises an eyebrow as the hand on her hip stills. "Get away before it eats you!"

Ah. Reluctantly—the newest round of medications was supposed to tamp the dreams down a little—Minerva cracks a smile. "What's going to eat me, Mally? I can't see it."

"The Jabberwocky! Hurry, we don't have the right swords!"

Smiling, Ner reaches over to start straightening the covers balled up at the foot of the bed. She won't put them over him until he settles down again—the last thing he needs is to get himself tangled up, try to fix it, and hit his head when he rolls over and crashes to the floor, which wouldn't be the first time—but she may as well get a head start. "It'll be okay, Mally. I'm a champion Jabberwocky fighter, I'd like to see it try."

"Don't say that, you'll encourage it!" he groans, flopping one arm around in an attempt at some gesture that probably went off a lot better in his mind. He seems to be starting to calm down, though; his voice is headed back toward its usual sleepy speed.

Blanket successfully readied, Minerva settles into a more comfortable position to wait. "All right," she concedes. "But just you watch. If it comes after you, I'll get a sword."

Malakai smiles and opens his mouth as if to reply, but the only thing that comes out is a snore. Minerva blinks, a little surprised; she was expecting that to take a lot longer. Maybe she was wrong about the meds. Shrugging, she decides to just accept it and stands, shaking the blanket once to make sure it's still straight. In one fluid, well-practiced movement, she flips it over her little brother's body, where it settles so that only his head peeks out—at least for now. No doubt he'll have thrown it half-off within the hour.

As if on cue, Malakai shifts, making a sort of pawing motion with one hand as he rolls from his back to his side and half-curls up. When he's still again, the corner of one sneaker—Minerva wants to take those off, but she knows he'll be furious if he wakes up unshod; he's going to be annoyed enough that she tucked him in—and his right hand have emerged from under the green. Rolling her eyes, Ner reaches down and laces her fingers through his. "Can't make anything easy, can you?"

The fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around hers. "M'n... va... Jbza... vwa... dog."

Chuckling to herself, Minerva extracts her hand, tucks the blanket back over the bits of him that have escaped, and runs a hand through the fluff of his light brown hair. (Not that she can tell the difference afterward—his hair always looks like he's just slept on it, usually because that's the case. Keeping it cropped to his ears disguises the untidiness a little, but not enough to make any truly appreciable difference.)

She's halfway across the room before the rustling starts. Unsure whether to be exasperated, amused, or concerned, Minerva glances back over her shoulder. Perhaps sensing her sudden absence, Malakai is flailing about a little—only to fall silent and curl up again. "Sleep tight, Mally," she whispers.

His eyes snap open. Minerva goes entirely still, not wanting to frighten him if he's woken up already—but the dark brown irises are staring at something far away from her, and as she watches his eyelids drift back down.

Shaking her head, Minerva turns to head back to the kitchen, where dishes still wait to be washed.

---

Sometimes, Malakai knows he's dreaming. That doesn't mean he can do anything about it; he could probably learn lucid dreaming, but it sounds like an awful lot of effort, doesn't it? Still, from time to time something from the real world seeps in that just doesn't fit.

Luckily, this is one of those dreams. Minerva had done it, whispering "Sleep tight, Mally," which was such a strange thing to say as they ran from the Jabberwocky that it had knocked him into realization all at once. The dream Minerva abruptly vanished, and he'd rather like her back even if she isn't really his sister, but after his earlier terror, it's nice to fight a monster safe in the knowledge that if he loses he not only won't but can't get eaten.

There's an annoyance factor, too, unfortunately. His years of being teased for falling asleep in class are long behind him, and with them the vast majority of his resentment toward his own brain, but it's frustrating to never know when he might need to walk somewhere and not be able to move his legs, or realize he spilled all his secrets to a classmate in his sleep, or suddenly nod off without warning in the middle of advising his sister on her bad date, or... the list is endless. Adjusting his medication feels like a never-ending process sometimes.

While Malakai contemplated all of this, his dream-self carried on its fight with his dragon-esque adversary. Now the creature stomps on him, and the entire world goes black—

—only to rematerialize moments later in the form of his own dining room. No one else is with him, but the table is set for tea. Malakai grins and thanks his subconscious gleefully as his dream-self carries him over to the table. This is more like it! There's no treacle tart, but there's a teapot big enough to feed an army on the table, and judging from the steam he doesn't even have to go to the effort of boiling it and carrying it about.

Then Malakai, through the eyes of his dream-self, notices the cats.

All sensibility goes out the window. Normally when he's in one of these states and his dream-self panics about something, he makes some effort to stay calm, just in case the thrashing and shrieking translate into real life. This time, as the unconscious Malakai goes tearing out of the room, the conscious one lends his full support, completely aware that it's still a dream and completely aware that he doesn't give a damn because those are cats and they are chasing him. Move faster, you useless dream! If this was real life I'd be out of the District already!

The dream-self continues to flee at an agonizingly slow pace. The cats barely have to lift their paws to trap their quarry; they back him into a corner and then simply sit there, licking their lips and giving him expressions that for all the world he could swear are grins.

"What do you want?" the dream-Malakai squeaks. (The not-exactly-awake Malakai executes a mental facepalm.)

"Storrrrry," purrs one of the felines, swishing its brown-and-grey tail lazily.

"All right," dream-Malakai says. Conscious-Malakai, busy with a fresh bought of panic, can't help but be impressed by the resolve in his voice; apparently, he's either much braver or a much better actor than he is in real life. "Story. I like stories." This is true. "I've got a story." This is not true. "Just... um... hang on..."

The cats don't like that at all. Two of them get up and start pacing, lashing their tails from side to side; several more bare their teeth, with a couple hissing angrily. With a gulp, dream-Malakai launches forward, spitting out the first words that come to mind. "Okay, so once upon a time- it's a faerie tale, right, those always start like that- there were these three girls. And their names were, um... Meera, Murphy, and Meltem. One day, they got bored, so..."

The longer dream-Malakai speaks, no matter how much he rambles and trips over his own words, the more placid the clowder becomes. One by one, they stop stalking in circles and close their mouths. After a while two or three curl up, flip their tails over their eyes, and appear to fall asleep. As if they needed this example before they could rest themselves, the other dozen or so begin to follow suit, calmly making themselves comfortable and then drifting off. Once the last succumbs to the wave of sleep, dream-Malakai kicks the wall loudly; when none respond, he moves away from the wall and starts to step carefully over the rolled-up cats. Still speaking, he makes his way back in the direction he came from. "There was nothing to do in the well, so they drew all over the walls. They weren't very good at it, but they did it anyway. They drew all kinds of things- mousetraps, and..."

Dream-Malakai steps out from the loose half-circle of cats. Without a single glance back, he walks as fast as he can back to the dining room table.

Story still unfinished, as usual, he drowns his fears in tea.

---

"What is going on in here?"

Minerva drags herself to a stop so fast that she almost falls over. The oldest of her younger sisters has blocked the doorway, a scowl on her face and a violin clenched tightly in her hand. "Is a little peace and quiet too much to ask for? I'm trying to practice—"

With one hand, Minerva makes the universal signal for quiet, one finger against her own lips. The other gestures behind her at the sleeping form on the bed. Instantly Murphy's face softens, and she nods as she backs out of the doorway, allowing Minerva to slip out behind her and close the door. Even after the soft click, both girls keep their mouths shut until they're in the dining room, several hallways away from Malakai.

"Has he gone off his meds again?" Minerva groans, collapsing into a chair as Murphy sets her instrument and bow on the table. Now that Malakai is in bed and the immediate concern is gone, all the stress can come pouring out. Between an over-insistent date and struggling to catch up on everything she lost track of while she had the flu, she already has more than enough on her plate.

"Give him a break, Min," says Murphy, as she goes to the counter and starts putting away the remaining dishes. "I think this new mix just isn't really working. Anyway, if he does go off them it's his business, you know?"

"A regular sleep schedule—"

"—is the base treatment for a lot of things, yeah—look, did you have a regular sleep schedule when you were seventeen?"

"What about sleep?"

"Other than the fact that I'm not getting any?"

Looking drowsy, Meera and Meltem appear in the dining room and take seats on either side of Minerva. Hurriedly Murphy finishes putting up the last few pieces of silverware and then joins the little conference, speaking as she moves. "Mal knocked out and Ner is worked up."

Meltem snorts derisively, and the other three shoot sharp glances at her. "It's not like he does it on purpose," says Meera, who—perhaps because she's always been seen as the little one of the family, despite being only one year younger than Meltem—is far more sensitive about her own migraines than Malakai ever has been about his narcolepsy.

"Sure."

"Meltem," Minerva says, her own irritation drowned in sudden defensiveness. "I don't know how things work nowadays, but when I lived here full-time we did not treat our siblings like that." Actually, she and Malakai used to say worse, but that's beside the point. It was always to each other's faces, and always got over it soon enough; she doesn't like this simmering disgust that Meltem seems to be developing with everyone around her. Leaning forward, Minerva continues, "As long as Mom and Dad have me in charge here, you need to treat the rest of us with respect whether you want to or not. Clear?"

"Crystal," Meltem mutters.

Ignoring Murphy's amused look, Minerva settles back into her chair. Pushing her own stress and her annoyance with Meltem out of the way, she asks, "What got you two up?"

"You," Meera says. "I heard you from our room, and when I got up to come out Meltem-"

"I was already awake because of the violin-"

"-got up with me. I didn't know-"

"Sorry about that, Mel."

"Nah, it's fine. Nicer noise to wake up to-"

"-what the noise was, but then-"

"-than the alarm."

"-we got out here and I heard you talking about Mally. Is he okay, Min?"

Minerva had been laughing at the mayhem of the conversation, but Meera's question sobers her. She inhales deeply, holds it for a moment, and then exhales. "I don't know, Meer," she finally says. "I really don't know."

"He'll be fine," Murphy says confidently, emphasizing her words by tapping on the body of her violin with one short fingernail. "He always is."

Minerva hopes that's true, but she isn't so sure. Five years isn't a long time, but between that and circumstance—Minerva is the only one of the Mottershead mob to remember, albeit fuzzily, what life was like before their parents got to Thirteen—she's always felt much older than the others. At eleven, she was six-year-old Malakai's go-to sobbing shoulder when teachers claimed he fell asleep on purpose to get around his lessons or other students picked on him. She was the one who convinced her parents not only that he didn't mean it, but that they ought to ask a doctor about it.

No longer is Malakai the nervous wreck that he used to be. He has friends; he's found a niche, albeit a small one, and he's no longer mortified by his frequent, involuntary naps or sleep-talking. In fact, most of the time he's downright cheerful nowadays, constantly ready with a smile or a laugh. Even now, though, she's too used to worrying about him to stop.

Minerva jumps, realizing that she spaced out completely. "I know, I know," she says, waving a hand at the three faces peering at her. "I just... you know me. I worry about everyone. Mally, you three, Mom and Dad..."

"We all worry about Mom and Dad," Meltem says softly.

"Yeah," Minerva agrees quietly, surprised not by the emotion but by the display of it. "Yeah, I guess we do."

After all, it's hard not to worry about two people who are spending time in the Capitol, masquerading as legal citizens in order to gain intelligence that may or may not actually be useful. Meltem might be the most anxious of all of them, though. Never having made many friends her own age and having held most of her siblings at bay for one reason or another, Mel had always been closer to their parents than even Minerva herself. For the two to go gallivanting off, risking their lives in who knew how many ways... well, it wasn't going to be easy on her.

All at once, the house's alarm clocks start blaring. The four sisters jump, then sit paralyzed, staring at each other in half-shock. Meltem is the first to start laughing; one by one the other three join in, leaning on the table or back in their chairs as stress dissolves into giggles.

"All right, I can't take that any more." Still laughing, Meltem rises and heads off down the hallway to the room she and Meera share. A moment later, one set of alarms vanishes. The other three sisters get up as well, reluctant to start the day but all too aware that in District Thirteen, punctuality is a necessity.

"I'll get Mal's clock," Murphy says. "Since I'm already-" a yawn interrupts her- "dressed and all. Should I try to wake him up while I'm there?"

"Nah," Minerva tells her. "Get him up if he's already awake, but he's got some allowance for scheduling issues, it's fine if he misses breakfast."

The younger of the two nods and, holding her violin's bow carefully, scurries off. For a moment Minerva draws breath to call out, but then lets it out, smiling and shaking her head. Murphy will notice that she left the violin on the table soon enough.



Lyrics are from "The Girl That's Never Been" by Escape Key, which is based on "The Cheshire" by Bill Kte'pi.