They Will Live On Forever

A Hunger Games One Shot

a/n: So I wrote this because I was given a little bit on inspiration while writing my multi-chapter HG fic, that is obviously yet to be published, and I got an idea like this and just went with it. I've always been interested in the Quarter Quells, and I wanted to kind of look at the motivation behind a District for picking certain people, but then I started writing and it took off a life of it's own. And hopefully it will tie into my multi-chapter HG fic that I plan I publishing. I hope y'all enjoy, and please remember to leave reviews! :)

xoxo,

Lexi

I was young, or I felt so young when my name was called. It didn't make sense to me. Out of everyone in District 10, why would they have voted me to become a tribute. I was in shock. I was turning eighteen tomorrow. I was sure I wouldn't be reaped, but here I was, the one that my district voted to go into the arena, Anderson called my name, "Tempest Montgomery" in a clear tone when he pulled the voting results out of an envelope. I looked at my best friend Alma and gave her a soft smile squeezing her hand and walked up on the stage, forcing a smile to everyone. When David's name was called, that was when I understood. David and I have the same birthday, this would've been both of our last reapings. The District voted for the two of us because they knew, by sending us there we would be hurting the least amount of people. David and I shook hands and everyone applauded, knowing that because of the sacrifice they were forcing us to make, so many of them would be safe.

David and I were rushed inside of the building, and put into two separate rooms to await our friends and family saying goodbye.

Alma was first. My best friend gave me the biggest hug she could muster, which is saying something about the very petite girl, who always looks emaciated by choice not by situation. Alma just doesn't eat, she never really has. This year, when I didn't have to worry about the reaping anymore I was going to change that. I guess it's too late for that now. Alma couldn't speak through her tears, and as she left, tears started to fall from my eyes too.

My mother, father, and siblings all flooded in next. My family is one of the biggest in our District. There are ten of us total. Mom, Dad, my six older brothers and sisters, and my younger brother. We created a pow-ow, much like we had three years ago when my oldest brother was reaped, this time there were more tears. Flash had actually stood a chance in his games, we all knew the truth. I didn't stand a chance. Not only was I not the strongest tribute, but I wasn't all that crafty. On our farm I stayed with the sheep and the cows, caring for the young, caring for the baby animals, making sure they all had enough to eat. That was my role in my family, making sure everyone was cared for, and had everything they needed. Not a very good quality when entering a death match.

Mom had to pull my little brother away from me when the peacekeepers told them they had to go. There was still twenty minutes left until David and I would be lead to the train where we would be sent to our deaths. I was hoping he wouldn't come, but sure enough he did.

"Micah, you didn't have to. Just... just leave... please..." I pleaded to my boyfriend, who turned nineteen a few days ago, and had managed to make it through all of his reapings unscathed, how all of my siblings but Flash and little Cloud had, and how I almost had.

"These are the last twenty minutes I may ever have with you Tempie. I'm not leaving." Micah said concretely. It was seconds before I fell into his arms with my tears streaming down my face. Knowing I would never return to the man I loved and hoped to one day marry...

On the train David and I were silent. The two us have always been good friends, with our birthdays so close to each others, but right now we both needed silence, not talking. David was an only child who lived with his grandparents. Everyone in town loved him and he was quite the playboy. I had seen Alma visit him, I had suspected they were a thing but that was the first concrete evidence I had seen.

Our mentors, a burly man named Caucus and a frail looking woman named Juno try to give David and I advice as we watch the recap of the reapings from all the other districts. Neither David or I listen. We've both already come to the conclusion that we're dead, even if our mentors won't accept it.

Once the recap is over David and I just turn to each other, and with a single word, we seal our fate, "Allies?" We ask each other. Knowing that if the two of us stick together we might last longer, but in the end we will all die anyway.

Caucus and Juno just look us, see that we have already determined their fate, shake their heads, and walk away. That is when David and I start to plan, we constructed a way that maybe one of us would be able to come out of the games alive.

The first thing that I noticed about the Capitol was that it was beautiful, but in a cruel way. Once the train arrived David and I were rushed through everything, sent to our stylists who put us in what looked like sheep's clothing, which was actually more clever than the usual look of cows. Before I knew it, the tribute parade was over and we were sent to go sleep in our bedrooms for training the next day. That's when I began my letter.

The letter was to Micah, to Alma, to my siblings, to my parents, to my dead older brother, to everyone in my district. To let them know that it was okay that they voted me to go into the games, that I understood why they chose to take my life above everyone else's. That I loved them all, even those that I had never talked to, and that I didn't blame them. It told Micah just how much I loved him, and how upset I was that I would miss out on the beautiful life we had planned on having together, and that when he moved on, got married and had children, to tell his children stories of us, and to maybe name one after me, if he didn't mind too much. I told Alma to eat. I told her to stop forcing herself into starvation, to eat, because I was going to die fighting giving her a chance to be able to. I told my siblings to stay strong, and to remember the good times not the bad. I told my parents not to worry, that I would be the last child they would lose to these horrid games. I told Flash, that I understood now, that I understood everything.

Training went by quickly. I learned how to start a fire, how to throw a spear, how to create camouflage, how to throw an axe; I learned how to find shelter, which berries and roots could be eaten, and which ones couldn't; I learned that I was much stronger than I ever expected, and that I was talented with throwing knives.

Training was over, I threw knives in my session with the gamemakers and got a decent score, a seven, David got a nine, and both of the tributes from one, two, and four got tens. Everyone in this games seemed to be close to eighteen, it was as if every district understood, send the oldest, to save the youngest. Something I realized during training, but that all of us realized during interview night.

My stylist, put me in a blue and white dress that flared out, and was tighter in the bust. David was in a blue suit and we matched in that way alone. Caesar Flickerman didn't seem to be as composed this year, he seemed more... disheveled almost. The announcement for the Quarter Quell, the first of many, had shocked everyone, even Caesar it seemed like.

All the tributes seemed poised and well put together this year for once. But there was a common theme to all of their interviews. They all seemed upset that they had been reaped right before their lives could truly begin. It was a note that rang true in all of us.

When it came time for my interview, I talked about my family, about my older siblings, about Flash, who some of the crowd seemed to remember. I talked about Micah a little bit vaguely, only saying that I was going to miss someone back home very dearly if I couldn't make it. And that I was just so hopefully that I could make it back home so I could live my life. I also mentioned that I understood why my district chose David and myself, but barely, as to not dissuade the meaning of my letter.

At the end of all of the interviews, when Caesar sent the program home, and told everyone to watch tomorrow (because they definitely had a choice), all the tributes were looking at each other, all of us understood each others pain, and it was almost as if we all made a pack. We would all die swiftly until the final two this year, there would be no torturing after the blood bath, all deaths would be clean. We all deserved that.

The next morning, before I got on the hovercraft which would take me to my death, I handed Caucus the letter. "Make sure they get this back home. Please." I told him, with a very feint smile on my face.

He nodded and then sent me off to my death. With only a single phrase and a hug, "I'm sorry about Flash."

I nodded and got onto the hovercraft. I sat next to David and he squeezed my hand reassuringly. The arena was waiting.

I got into the tube and waited as the countdown happened, possibly the longest sixty seconds of my life, before the gong sounded. Once it did however, I was a goner... The tribute from District one managed to get a knife at the cornucopia and stabbed me right away. As I faded the only thing I saw was Micah's face, and his open arms, welcoming me home...

Many people in District 10 wept on the first official day of the 25th Hunger Games. Not only had Tempest died in the blood bath, but David hadn't made it much longer after that. He had seen Tempest fall, and had run towards her, holding her hand as her life faded. Little did everyone know, this is what they had planned. To die in the beginning and to send Tempest's letter back home, so that their small spirit could live on. Tempest's letter wasn't just one telling everyone that she loved them, it was one that would one day ignite a spark.

Micah was the first to read it, and soon it was spread across the whole district, and put on display in the small Capitol-esque building in the town square. Only Micah knew the code that Tempest had written the message in, and he was the one to tell the mayor it, and to teach the code to his children so they could pass it down.

Micah did move on and half children, with Alma of all people, who did begin to eat. They named their only son David, and their only daughter Tempest. Neither of them were reaped, and grew up to have their own children, both knowing the code, and both passing down their names, keeping the spirit of the two almost eighteen year-olds alive. When it came time for the rebellion nearly fifty years later, it was Micah and Alba's grandchildren, Temp and Dave (short for Tempest and David respectively), orchestrated the rebellion in 10, working together with their brother Dalton who was already in 13. Always carrying the message that one of their namesakes had left them:

Mockingjays are much like Phoenixes, they are reborn, and always worth the wait...