Kindling the Spark

Victory Party

6: Victory Party

Gale POV

The train continues towards District 5. Today has been mainly boring so far, which is good. No men being shot, no having to worry about stirring up a rebellion. I'm not sure whether or not I want to meet Aravis's family or not. On one hand, we gave her a good death so there should be no reason for them to hate us. On the other hand, it'll bring back the grief of her dying.

I remember Aravis describing her District before. District 5 is also one of the bigger Districts, not as big as 11, but still quite large. Five borders the coast and Aravis was right- it does look like a good place to grow up. Of all the Districts that I've seen, District 12 seems like the worst to live in.

The train comes to a stop and I take a look at Katniss. We are dressed in the mourning outfits, but even so she looks beautiful. "Can we not make the same speech this time?" she asks me. "It seems disrespectful to Aravis's memory." She is right. After the Capitol sent a mutt to kill Aravis because she wasn't as popular as us, describing how much we love the Capitol is likely to sound very fake and is disrespectful to Aravis.

The train doors open and we walk onto the stage that District 5 prepared for us. The crowd here seems especially sad, Aravis was probably very well liked in the Games. I look to the side of the crowd, to the tributes family section. I see a woman who looks almost exactly like Aravis and a man with dark hair and piercing green eyes. My heart clenches as I see Aravis's younger sister. Tessa.

Tessa looks around twelve years old. She has the same striking, red hair as Aravis did. She sees me looking and smiles sadly, trying to put on a brave face. I'm sorry, I mouth to her. Katniss starts off a speech that I think that she just made up on the spot. That's a good thing, speeches like this from Katniss are usually stirring and heartfelt. My mind flashes back to the interview before the Games when she talked about Prim.

Katniss describes what Aravis did for us in the Games and what we did for her, finally concluding that we had a bond that went beyond the regular alliances in the Games and that we didn't want Aravis to die. I guess that that could be seen as rebellion, but to be honest it would take an idiot not to have seen that. I doubt that the people from Five will be stupid enough to start a riot after seeing what happened in Eight yesterday on TV. If the Capitol showed it, that is. But I think that they might have because it showed the Capitol killing the rebels.

I end up nodding at the end. "I'm sorry," I say to Aravis's family, who have tears in their eyes. The speech is over now, and Katniss and I exit the stage to where our families are waiting for us. I looks around back to Aravis's family and hesitate. I want to talk to them, just to them before leaving.

"I'm going to talk to Aravis's family now," I state. "Do you want to come with me?" I ask. My mother shakes her head. She has been very on-edge since yesterday in District 8 and wants to keep strictly to the Capitol schedule of coming, giving a speech, then leaving. Rory nods, but Posy wants to stay with mum.

I steer Rory around the edge of the crowds to where the tributes families are. I don't think I ever saw the boy District 5 tribute in the Games, he was one of those average tributes that either gets killed off in the Bloodbath or in the first few days by the career pack. I think that one was a Bloodbath.

"Hi," I say to them awkwardly. They give me a small nod and Tessa looks at me with tears held back in her eyes. I do feel guilty about Aravis's death, even if I didn't actually kill her and it was essential to my survival. I imagine Posy would be a bit like this if I had died in the Games.

"You're Gale," Tessa says, wiping away some water from her eye. "You were in an alliance with Aravis," she states. I nod, wondering where this is going. Is she angry at me for being indirectly responsible for her sister's death? "You helped her- you gave her food on the third day of the Games and you helped protect her at the feast."