Disclaimer: I do not own any part of The Hunger Games, it all belongs to the wonderful Suzanne Collins. Just borrowing my favourite character for a bit. :)

AN: Hello all! Welcome to my newest HG fanfic! There may be one or two other Rue POV fics out there, but this is my take. She's always been one of my favourite HG characters, so the chance to slip into her head was really quite fun. :) I look forward to writing more. So, please read on, and tell me what you think!

The first thing I notice when I first wake up is that the bed is cold, empty. My fingers grope, searching through the rough sheets for the warm bodies of my little sisters; 10-year-old Mari, and 6-year-old Skie, but they're not there. Then I register the warmth on my face, sunlight coming through the window of our home, and the tantalizing smell of cooking bacon, something I've never actually eaten, but smelt once or twice in the public market.

I must be dreaming, I realize, and squeeze my eyes shut tighter, wanting to prolong this moment of false comfort and luxury before our old alarm clock will rouse me. It must be coming soon. I wait, but don't hear the shrill buzzing that brings me into the waking world each day. Instead, I hear the sunny chatter of my sisters, though I can't make out the words.

I decide I'd better get up, wondering if I've maybe somehow slept through the alarm, but when I open my eyes, I find our little cottage is filled with light, the golden sunlight that was warming my face. And the smell of bacon is still in the air.

I sit up slowly, still unable to process the reason for the change from the normal routine. As soon as I do, I hear Rayn's bright cheerful voice "Rue's up!"

My father's face swims into my vision, as he bends down, kissing me on the cheek. "Rise and shine, sweetheart."

I focus in on the rest of the room. My mother and sisters are clustered around the tiny corner of our one-room cottage that serves as the kitchen, and Chrys and Rayn are setting the table, while Dill tries to help. A slightly faded red velvet jumper is laid out on one of the other two beds.

It's the sight of the dress that jogs my memory, connects everything. It's reaping day.

Because of the reaping, even though it's not until noon, we all get the entire day off from school and work, which means that the alarm clock that rouses my father, Mari, Chrys, and myself at five o'clock every morning so that we can go to work in the orchards at six thirty, put in a few hours before school starts for us kids, has been turned off, and I've slept until it's actually light out. It also explains the bacon smell. Even with my father working full time in the orchards, and my mother, Mari, ,Chrys, and myself working part time, we usually only have enough for the bare minimum of food. But because it's reaping day, my first reaping, my parents have spent some of our precious savings, accumulated from the fancy work my mother does late at night for the tailor, on precious bacon, as a treat for me, to supplement the rough bread made from the tesserae grain.

It's to thank me, I realize as I rise and greet my family, for the grain. It was a choice I made, to enter my name eight more times in the reaping so that we could all eat a little more, a little better.

My mother kisses me on the cheek as I take my place at the table, looking around at the faces of my family, alight with love, but with an undercurrent of fear. My mother is to my right, then my father, and all of my brothers and sisters. My brothers, Chrysanthemum, who is eight, and whom we call Chrys, Rayn, who is seven, and little Dill, who is only four and probably doesn't understand the reason for the festive atmosphere. Then there are my sisters, Marigold, who we call Mari, and sweet little Skie.

There are a lot of us, so things are often spread thin, but with my Tesserae, us three oldest working in the orchards along with my father and mother, and the fancy embroidery work my mother does on a small commission for the tailor, we survive. And we love each other. If we can live, and we have that, we're okay.

My father is serving the breakfast now. He puts pieces of toasted Tesserae bread, spread thinly with the rich grease from the bacon on each plate, then carefully divides up the bacon, two pieces for each. It's a feast. There are two extra strips of the succulent meat in the pan, and my father quickly slides them onto my plate. "Eat up, everybody"

I automatically take the two extra pieces of the crisp bacon, putting them on Skie and Rayn's plates. They immediately hand them back. "Not today, Rue," smiles my father. Right. because it's reaping, I get extra. It doesn't make sense really, because either nothing will happen to me, or the Capitol will feed me well on the train. But I don't point this out, instead accepting their kindness graciously.

After we've all eaten, we all take baths before going to the reaping. Again, they all insist that I go first, while the water is lovely, clean and warm.

I dress carefully in the outfit mother has laid out for me. Even thought the reaping, and the Hunger Games that it is a preparation for, are horrible, we are required to treat it like a holiday, which means dressing up. We don't have the money to spend on pretty clothes, but my grandmother, who died when I was nine, had a bit of money, and bought this beautiful red velvet dress for me before she died. It was a bit big for me then - whether because she told the tailor to make it for a nine-year-old, and I'm small for age, or because she was thinking ahead, I don't know - so it fit me perfectly two years ago, and was getting tight last year. But now, the sleeves would be much to tight and short, so mum cut off the sleeves and collar, fashioning it into a nice jumper that I put on over a white blouse - new, for my first reaping.

"Rue, you look pretty!" pipes up Skie, watching me as I brush out my long, dark hair. Mother comes up behind me, tying my locks back with a ribbon made from the precious extra material she cut out of the dress, and then we're ready to go.

We make our way down the narrow, dusty streets of our part of district twelve, the little ones excited, not completely understanding the day, while my parents, Mari, Chrys, and myself are more sombre, unable to stop thinking of the slim, but very real possibility that it'll be me.

Less than a block away from our house, we meet up with Elly and her family.

We have no breaks at school - lessons run straight through lunch - so that they can fit as much school into as short a time as possible, as we all work in the orchards or the fields as well, so there is not much opportunity for the children of district eleven to make friends, at least the poorer ones, like us, but I have two close friends, Elly and Ollo, who we meet one block down from Elly. We've all worked in the same orchard since we were little, and have grown up together.

Elly is with her parents and her two older sisters, who are fourteen and sixteen. It's Elly's first reaping as well, but she's about as safe as you can get, because Meg and Kell didn't let her take out any tesserae, and she's only got one entry.

Ollo's with his family as well, and although we don't mention it because we know it bothers him, Elly and I are both worried about him. He's a year older than us, so this is his second reaping, plus he comes from a family of four kids, as well as a grandmother that lives with them, so he's got sixteen entries.

We three break out to the front of our little party, and as we meet up, Elly slips the necklace out of the pocket of her pretty blue reaping outfit. Grass weaving is an old skill of the people of our district, and we use it for all sorts of practical things. There's also a custom of making luck charms. A group of people will share the tasks to make a little charm like our rough necklace, and they all reap the rewards. It was Elly's idea for us to make one for the reaping. I gathered the different grasses, because I know the plants that grow in the scruffy meadows on the outskirts of 11 best, Ollo carved the wooden token, a flower that's supposed to be rue, my namesake, and Elly did the weaving, because she has clever fingers.

We all grasp the circlet and it connects us as we walk in silence towards district eleven's dilapidated main square.

Us five kids who are of reaping age, that is, Elly and her sisters, Ollo, and myself, have to go to the large main table to sign in. Elly's line is shortest, and I look over to see a relaxed grin on her face, as well as Kell's, but Meg's is more grim. I breathe a sigh of relief. Elly is safe.

The line for Fs is longer than most of the others, for some reason, so I wait nervously, trying not to fidget, as Ollo makes his way to the front. As he leaves, I can tell it's not good news, but he's putting on a brave face, as if it doesn't really matter.

Finally, I make it up to the front. "Farflys," I give the gruff-looking peacekeeper my name before he can ask. He scans down his list.

"Rue?"

I swallow to control the nerves. "Yes."

"Main square. Next!"

Main square. OF course, that doesn't mean anything, I tell myself. But it's infinitely more dangerous than one of the side streets, where Elly and Kell were directed.

In the other, smaller districts, you see, the reaping is actually done live, but not in Eleven. Here, the names will have been drawn privately in the Mayor's office days ago. They do this simply because they just can't fit all the reaping age kids of 11 in the square at once, not along with our families, as there are about six thousand of us. Instead, they divide that number roughly in half, and each reaping, eligible kids and their families are sent either to the surrounding streets to watch on screens, or to the main square, where the reaping takes place.

This means that, by your placement, you can tell where you stand. If, like Elly and Kell, you're assigned a side street, your chances of being drawn decrease to zero. But, if, like Ollo and I, you are sent to the main square, it means there's a chance that it's you. Because they already know who will win the reaping - they have, in fact, filled the reaping ball with only the name of the person who was picked earlier in the week - they make sure to put that person in the square, and then fill it with around three thousand other kids, who will have no chance of being picked, but it's all for show.

But it means that all of us who were assigned to the square now have an equal chance of having our names in that ball.

As we part, Elly take out our charm again, and we all grip it briefly. "Best of luck" Elly wishes us, kissing us both on the cheek, before we break our circle and she slips the woven circlet back in her pocket, going off to join her parents as they head towards where they will watch the reaping.

Ollo and I lead our parents to the square, not wanting to look at the scared faces of our families. Before we break off to join the separate roped-off areas for girls and boys, Ollo grips my hand. "Luck, Rue" I try to hide the fear on my face, but he sees it anyways, knowing me too well. "Don't worry, little bird," he tries to cheer me up, using his special nickname for me, "it'll be over before you know it." And then he gives my hand one last squeeze before breaking away.

It takes a few minutes to fight through the crowd that is growing quite tight as it nears noon, but I'm secure in a group of other Twelves I know vaguely from school when our attention is called to the stage in front of the justice building.

The stage holds the two large glass reaping balls, the ones that we all know are rigged, although people watching on TV will not, a podium, and four chairs. These hold our Mayor, Arnie Hayweal, the district eleven escort, and our two living victors, a man, Chaff, in his forties, and a women, Seeder, who must be nearing sixty. Other than the fact that Chaff is missing a hand, lost in his games, they are both still in good shape.

The bell on the justice building begins to toll, marking 12 o'clock, and the start of the reaping ceremony.

First, the mayor takes to the podium, to read a story we've all heard so many times that we've pretty much memorized it.

The story that he read, the history of Panem, begins with our country rising from the ashes of the place once known as North America. We existed, reads the mayor, somewhat peacefully until three-quarters of a century ago, when the twelve districts that ring our Capitol started to rebel. Actually, there were thirteen then, but Thirteen was crushed during the Dark Days, which ended in the Capitol defeating all the districts, and, of course, destroying 13. It wasn't enough, though, just to defeat the districts. As a lasting lesson to us, a punishment, they gave us the Hunger Games.

The rules are simple. Each of the twelve districts must, every year, in a reaping ceremony, which is today, provide one boy and one girl, called Tributes, to the Capitol. They are drawn by lot, although in some of the richer districts, traditionally 1,2, and 4, people actually volunteer. These 24 kids, all between the ages of 12 and 18, are then set loose in a huge outdoor arena, holding anything from vast forest, to frozen plane, to arid desert, and made to fight to the death while all of Panem is forced to watch on television. Last one standing wins. It's punishment for us, the districts, even though the crimes were committed long ago, but also entertainment for the Capitol's citizens, who will have no one they love in the games.

After he finishes reading the history that all of us have heard thousands of times, he reads the list of district eleven Victors. Because this is how the games go: if you lose, you're dead, and your family receives no compensation. But if you survive to the last, you are given a life of wealth and ease back home, and must coach the tributes from each subsequent year.

We have had five in seventy-three years of Hunger Games. Only the two up on the stage, one mentor for each tribute, are still living.

Now is time for the event we are all dreading, the actual reaping. The Mayor introduces Arnie Hayweal, and exuberant man full of capitol affectations, and he comes to the podium, wishing us all "Happy Hunger Games!"

As he goes to the girl's reaping ball, I can't help but tense my fingers into fists. I try to calculate the odds that it's my name in that ball. Because of how the reaping works, it's not a simple one in six-thousand chance. How the reaping works is that every year your name is entered proportional to your age. Once when you become eligible at 12, then twice at thirteen, and so on, until it goes in seven times on your last year of eligibility,at eighteen. But, if you're poor and starving, as are the majority of the inhabitants of district eleven, you can add your name more times, once for a year's ration of grain and oil for each person in your family, called Tesserae. Because Elly's sisters took the Tesserae for their family, and she's twelve, Elly's name went in once. Because Ollo is thirteen, has three younger siblings, two parents and a grandmother, his name is entered sixteen times, as the entires are cumulative. And, because I'm the oldest of six kids, my name was in that ball at the Mayor's office nine times.

But still, I tell myself, It's nine in tens of thousands. Your chances are still so slim.

Even with my worry, my knowing that there's a real possibility that I'll be called, I still guess I never really imagined that the name Arnie reads when he approaches the podium would be "Rue Farflys!". Me.

AN: There you go, I do hope you enjoyed! I'm not entirely pleased with the ending, but otherwise I quite like this chapter, I think. I'm still not entirely sure about the title, I was throwing around a few, including "To Kill a Mockingjay", "Little Bird", and this one, which won out, although I'm still not sure. Anywho, I do hope you enjoyed this, and will continue reading further chapters. Also, if you wished, I've got another HG fic up, "Too Much Information" It's little different, but I've gotten some good feedback, and if you wanted to check it out, that's be awesome. :) Anywho, I'll let you go now, but thank you for reading, and please review! :)

-SkySong