Echo // [Sarita + Nino]

Sarita watched the rain through the hole in her shawl. It was one of the few things she kept with her from District Eight, a gift from her little brother on her birthday so many years ago. It was ragged now from the hard salt winds of District Four, but it gave him comfort during the night. She shifted in the sand, huddling her knees closer to her chest. The sun peeked through clouds, trying to perform its dazzling rise but upstaged by blank gray.

The shower soon waned into a drizzle and the girl finally stretched her cramp limbs and crawled across into the open air. Sarita had found a couple of usual sleeping spots in throughout the district, but her safest bet was this old shop by the shore. It stood on wooden stilts to keep the tide out, leaving ample room below it for her and any other street rat to shelter beneath it. The owner didn't mind and Keepers rarely wanted to soil their boots for a loitering charge. It was a much different arrangement than back home.

Rain was only to be seen in the Cold House. Sarita would watch the droplets slid down her windowpane, following their paths with the tip of her finger. Mother never let her go out in the rain, especially after Aria and Bran. Caroline Wolfe so wrapped up int he fear of losing another child chose to suffocate one instead.

Sarita tried not to think about mother, but she couldn't help but smile at how angry her mother would be to see her sleeping in the sand and walking around in the rain.

The girl pulled her worn, blue shawl over her head and started up the beach. Her stomach rumbled, but she had grown used to that noise. Hunger was now an old friend, one that didn't bother her as much as it did a year ago. Her feet had grown thick callouses, and she loved them. She would run her fingers over the rough skin and savor the feeling of being something strong.

She followed the docks winding pathways as the District woke up to a roll of thunder. Boats launched onto the ocean and hawkers appeared at corners with baskets full of spices and fruit. She took in a deep breath, letting the smells linger in her nose and throat.

The morning stretched on, the rain coming and going in lazy spurts. Sarita followed the docks past the point where she usually stopped. The district was so big it would take a decade to explore every inch of it, but she had nothing but time.

She waked over the wooden slats, and noticed the further from the main beach the worse the buildings looked. Stone turned to wood, walk ways turned to mud, and full faces were gaunt. The dock was, itself, in a jarring state of disrepair. Large holes dotted the walk way, and Sarita decided it was best to keep her feet on solid ground. She hefted herself off the platform, and landed in a miniature valley with a small canal cutting through it. Calloused feet in threadbare shoes carried her across its bank, weaving around small houses that dotted the edge of the water. The canal grew and split and shrunk again, never seemingly wanting to be the same size as the last few feet. Thin boats slipped cut through the water, pushed along by men holding long poles.

Thunder clapped over the district, bringing with it another wave of storms. The lazy sprinkling turned into a shower and Sarita quickly began looking for somewhere to ride out the storm. She clambered up the muddy banks to a dirt path that connected all the shacks and structures nearby. None of them looked exactly safe, but Sarita was used to making compromises.

The rain grew into a downpour, drenching any person and anything still outside. Soaked to the bone, Sarita ran for the nearest building. It was bigger than the shanty houses, with a set of stone stairs under an awning. She darted under the dark covering, sitting on the steps to catch her breath. Cold rain dripped from her hair down her neck, a large drop holding onto the tip of her nose like a fat teardrop. She threw her shawl off, wringing as much water out as she could before doing the same with her hair.

Huddled in her thin dress, Sarita looked around the alcove. The stone steps looked well used, smoothed over from hundreds of pairs of feet. A door stood at the end of the steps with no lantern to light the way too it. She stood, tip toeing down the steps to look at the door. In the dim gray light she could make out something on the face of the door. She drew her hand across it and felt the rough carving in the wood. Three lines, pointing from the ground to the sky. Not exactly a lot of information.

Sarita put her hand over the door handle, gently twisting it. The door inched open.

Sarita Wolfe was not the stealing type. She had lived in Four off of the charity of strangers, and the occasional odd job. Most doors around the beaches and docks were locked, unless of course it was a shop of some sort. This certainly didn't look like a store, and if it were it must be a bad one. No sign, no light, nothing. Maybe it was abandoned. Her mind drifted to the gondolas outside. There was only one way to truly find out.

She pushed open the door and wandered inside.