Challenge: Sea Life
Title: Starfish
Author: godsdaisiechain
Fandom: Hunger Games
Type: Fic
Characters/Pairing: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair
Word Count: ~200
Rating: PG
Summary: Annie Cresta thinks of Finnick.


If people were like starfish, everything would be different.  That’s what Annie thought.  Her father had showed her how a starfish always grew back, good as new, no matter how many pieces you chopped it into.  It was a lesson, he said.

She wished she could grow back new. Grow back her heart and mind and soul.

She did it every year.  Every year since her Games, the year she came back, half mad, half savage, all grief and horror.  The year Finnick sold himself to save her, which drove him nearly as mad as she was, truth be told. Most of the time she was too clouded to notice.  And her mind hadn’t become really clear until she married Finnick. Until she knew he was safe.

And then he got eaten by mutts.

She slashed the starfish quickly into five arms, tossed them back, then grabbed another starfish and slashed.  One for each year since the Games and one more for each person she loved who had died.

And a last one for that boy, Gale, who threw himself into his work and staggered about, hollow-eyed under the loss of his heart and soul to a hail of silver parachutes.  A boy who would have been different if he had fallen in love with a softer girl instead of Katniss Everdeen.

People commented on how many starfish there were along that beach and how many of them had one long leg, but no one ever admitted to knowing where they came from.