Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games or any of the characters/places that were included in the Hunger Games trilogy
Too Young, Too Gentle.
Chapter 1
"Rue, time for work!" Hearing her mother's voice call for her, Rue got out of bed and grabbed her work overalls from the top of the small trunk containing her clothes, she changed into them and walked to the room where her mother stood waiting. She looked around for her siblings; of course they had not yet awakened, the sun was only just starting to rise. District 11 was one of the largest districts of Panem; it had to be to fit all the orchards. There was a fence surrounding the district that was feet high and topped with razor wire, guard towers were evenly spaced along the perimeter and there were metal ground plates to stop citizens digging their way out. District 11's main purpose was agriculture, providing food such as fruit and grain to the Capitol, so twelve-year-old Rue had to work from sunrise to sunset as a harvester, climbing to the top of tall trees to collect apples.
"Have we got any food?" Rue looked at her mother with hopeful brown eyes
"No Rue, the tesserae you took has almost run out" her mother replied with a twinge of sadness. When she had turned twelve, Rue had been required to take out tesserae, a small ration of grain and oil received each month for the rest of the year, for herself, her mother, her father and her 5 younger siblings. Rue's name was now in the Reaping 9 times.
"Okay, I'm going now" Rue started to go out of their shack.
"Rue," her mother called her back and Rue stopped to look over her shoulder, "Don't forget the Reaping is tomorrow"
"Okay, bye." Rue replied, and left. Her mother watched as Rue headed down the dirt track to the orchards and she knew she had to wake up the rest of her children for work. The weather was fairly bright and when she got to the orchards Rue picked her bag up from Bran.
"Hey, Rue" Bran called, "We need you to work hard today, we finish at 11 tomorrow because of the Reaping, don't forget to be wary around the Tracker-Jacker hives" he reminded her. Rue nodded and got to work, if she got stung by a Tracker-Jacker it would be painful, luckily medical leaves were always carried by most workers to help with the pain. Rue worked throughout the day picking fruit and emptying them into the carts, ready to be boxed up. Rue loved music, and often she would sing whilst she worked and the mockingjays sang along with her tune from the woods at the edge of the orchard, the mockingjays were Rue's special friends. Rue was always the first to see the flag that signalled the end of the working day so when she saw it she would whistle four notes that the mockingjays echoed for everyone to hear across the plantations. At the end of the day Rue whistled her four note tune and the mockingjays echoed it all around. She clambered down the tree, hopping down when she was near enough to the ground. "Good work today, Rue" Bran said as Rue signed out. She nodded, smiled and ran home.
Rue arrived to find her family sat at the dinner table, she sat down and took her small portion of food. Everyone was silent, tense at the prospect of the Reaping, before her brother spoke up. "Rue, are you nervous?" he asked and Rue heard a sharp intake of breath from her mother.
"What would I be nervous about?" She asked him
"Well there's a possibility you could be sent into the arena"
"That's enough of that dear" their mother stopped him from saying any more.
Rue went to sleep that night, realising with sadness that, if the odds were not in her favour, she could be dead in two weeks' time.
Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Too Young, Too Gentle. This was the first Fan-fiction I wrote so please don't be too mean in the reviews! The title was taken from Catching Fire, when Katniss talks about Rue during the Victory Tour: "Too young, too gentle and I couldn't save her, I'm sorry". I wanted to make a Fanfic about the events of the Hunger Games from Rue's perspective so this will follow the story of the 74th Games with Rue as the main character until the end.