Hey! It's Pawprinter!

This story is a one-shot now, after it was edited.

This is a story about my OC, Lexus Annette Deryl, better known as Lexi. She is a girl that lives in District 6. This story takes place before the 49th Hunger Games when she is 15. This is just a story about her life at home, before the 49th Hunger Games. She's a fighter in the local ring. Lexi lives with Aston (her twin brother), Rebecca (her cousin, Aran's sister, 16), Aran (her cousin, also Rebecca's brother, 15), Shelby (her cousin, only child, 15), Brunella (younger sister, 12), Ford (younger brother, 8) and Kiva (younger sister, 5). They live alone since their parents either died or are unfit to raise them.

Lexi is my character in Hutsune's story "An Arena of Stone: Untold Sories of the 49th HG." If you want to read Lexi's journey after this story and about her family, read the story above. It's the best story I've ever read. More information about this story and other's in the final author's note!

Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games!

Enjoy!

Readers of Hutsune's "An Arena of Stone: Untold Stories of the 49th HG": You might notice that Lexi acts different in this story than that story. This is because, in this story, Lexi hasn't entered the Games yet, so she is different. That and I am really bad at characterizing her. Like, even though I tried in this story, she is either too soft or too uncaring. I just can't write her like Hutsune does. It is impossible. Her writing is extremely hard to live up to when writing the same characters. Hope you understand. Thanks!

Melting Snow

November 26

It was the day of the first snow.

I woke up with myself curled right up against my twin, Aston's, shoulder. His arm was wrapped around me, squishing me to his side. My face was pressed right up against his shoulder, his sleeve wet from drool trickling out of my mouth. I couldn't help but crack a smile. He was so oblivious in his sleep.

My name is Lexus Annette Deryl, but I go by Lexi. I'm an average girl from District 6, district of medicine and transportation… Well, I'm mostly average.

The one thing that doesn't make me average is that I am the leader of my family of eight. Our parents are all dead, or they just don't care.

You see, there's this district creep that's running around looking for new victims. He's murdered and raped my older sister, my mother and my aunt. After that, my father went off the map, my other aunt died in childbirth, my one uncle I wasn't sure who he was, and my other uncle was killed tragically.

If I was to ever run into this creep, I'm sure my fighting skills would help me with dealing with him.

It's been this way for a while, but we've all learned to live like this.

I lived in one really old house with eight other people, four of them being my siblings. Aston, my twin brother, was eleven minutes older than I am, but it was decided when he nearly burnt down the house by using the oven that I would be in charge. My other sister, Brunella, was unique in our family since she was the only one with red hair. My youngest brother, Ford, was eight years old and my youngest sister, Kiva, was only five.

My one year older cousin, Rebecca, was like my older sister. When her mother was murdered by the district creep and her father killed, she and her younger brother were given to my family. Aran, her younger brother, was my cousin that was the same age as me, 15 years old.

My other cousin, Shelby, was also the same age as me. In a few months, she would be married. Sure, she would still live with us for a while after she got married, but after that she would move out with Audi, her arranged husband. They were both currently saving up for that.

Currently, we were all scrapping by because of each of our jobs. I was a fighter in the local ring, Aston and Aran both worked on trains, Rebecca sold herself to whoever would buy it for the day, Shelby went to school and taught the rest of us subjects, and the three younger ones went to school. Brunella offered to skip school to get a job, but I wouldn't let her. She was only twelve years old!

"You're up, good," Aran said. He stood a few feet away from the edge of the windowsill that both Aston and I slept on. He wore some of his worn out clothes along with some of his winter gear.

"What time is it?" I asked sleepily. Aran shrugged and looked at the front door, where the clock hung.

"Around seven," he answered. "You have an hour until you have to get them to school." I nodded. Aston stretched beside me.

"That soon?" Aston muttered through a yawn.

"Better start getting ready, don't want to be late," Aran pointed out. I nodded in agreement. "As for us, we have the day off!" Aston smiled happily.

"Good. Honestly, I'm just happy to get away from Avalon. She. Is. Beyond. Crazy." Aran nodded his head in agreement.

"Oh, you guys are so rude to her," I told them. Both of the boys scoffed.

"You haven't met her, lucky for you. If you had, you would be happy to hide from her too!" Aston exclaimed. I rolled my eyes and stood up from the bed.

"Aran, can you help me shovel?" Rebecca called from the front door. She was clad in her mittens and her winter hat. She wore Aran's old wool sweater and her old runners. Aran looked from us to his sister, a horrified expression on his face.

"You are not allowed to shovel. Your ankle is screwed..." Aran muttered. He turned from us and jogged over to Rebecca. She twisted her ankle the other day, but she still wasn't going to rest. I turned to Aston. An expression I found hard to read was on his face.

"Ummm… Hello?" I questioned tentatively.

"Hey," he said, his expression still distant. Aston looked down at his sleeve and touched it cautiously. "Errr… Lex?"

"What?" I asked.

"Umm… Is this your drool?" He questioned. Aston was pointing at his sleeve, a smile growing on his face slowly.

"Pfft, no." I lied quickly. "We should get ready." I took a step backwards, a laugh bubbling out from my lips as he stood up and mirrored my actions. A full grin was spread across his face.

"Lex!" He lunged forward, wrapping his arms around me. He lifted me off the ground. I wiggled around in his hold, but squirming only made him tighten his arms. Aston started tickling my ribs, making me laugh uncontrollably.

"Ash… Aston, stop!" I laughed. Still he kept tickling me.

"Lex?" Brunella called. Aston stopped his attacks and put me back on my feet. I gasped for air as we both turned to face our little sister.

"Yeah?" I breathed. She was wearing her winter gear and had two shovels in her hands.

"We have to shovel quickly before school," Brunella said. I looked out of the window behind me, into the snow-covered streets. It was perfectly beautiful, but it was going to take a while to clear the snow from the path.

"Oh, alright," I agreed, taking a shovel and a wool sweater. We started to walked to the front yard, where Aran and Rebecca were shoveling already.

"You're not off the hook for the drool, Ms. Lexi," Aston called after me. I turned around, my tongue stuck out at him.

"You can't do anything unless you can catch me!" I teased. He laughed at me as I ran out the door after my youngest siblings.

I walked back from the school after dropping off Brunella and Ford at school. Kiva held one of my hands in her tiny one as we trudged through the untouched snow. The beautiful frozen water was still falling mercilessly from the sky, making it hard to see far in front of me. The snowflakes would melt once they touched my skin and they stuck to my thick brown hair. The wind was strong, blowing snowflakes into my face.

It literally felt like I didn't have a nose anymore.

My skin was nearly frozen on my gloveless hands and bare neck and face. My ears were covered by my hood from the wool sweater, luckily. My socks and shoes were wet and snow filled as I stomped through the mid-calf high snow. It looked as if we were the first, and only, ones out on the street. I almost envied the people still indoors. I was wet and cold, but we only had a few more houses to go until we were at home.

While I was miserably walking through winter weather, Kiva was bouncing around and having a grand time. She would pick up snow off the ground and throw it high into the air, running through the small storm she made with a wide grin. Her hands were mitted, a hat covered her ears and a long scarf was wrapped around her neck so many times that I almost couldn't see her eyes. She looked happy though, not at all cold.

"Lexi, can we play in the snow when we get home!?" Kiva asked excitedly. I frowned at having to spend any more time out in the cold and wet.

"Oh, I don't know, Kiva," I answered. My hand that wasn't holding hers was shoved deep in one of the pockets to try to gain some warmth. "It's really cold."

"Not really!" Kiva argued. "You are just thinking of being cold. Think of how much fun it would be. We haven't played in the snow in, like, forever." I laughed and shook my head.

"I know, silly, but I don't want you sick."

"I won't get sick. Cold, maybe, but we can always come back inside for cocoa. Rebecca can make some for us, if she isn't out!" Kiva told me.

"We'll have to see. Aston and Aran are off work for today, you could ask them to play," I told her. She huffed and pulled her hand out of mine, crossing her arms in annoyance.

"I want to play with you ,though!" She whined. By now, I could see my house and the two boys outside with shovels. Every few seconds, a huge cloud of snow would rain down from where their shovel let it fly.

I stopped in the middle of the road, a smile lifting my lips as I formulated a plan of attack. Kiva turned to me, her little eyebrows raised in question.

"Alright, we can play out in the snow," I told her slowly. Her face lit up and she hugged me tightly.

"Yay! Oh, Lexi, this will be so much fun!"

"Buuutttt," I drawled, "we are going to attack Aston and Aran," I said, a smirk on my face. She looked shocked for a second, before a smirk matching mine appeared on her tiny features.

"A snowball fight!?" She asked, excitement lighting up her voice. I nodded my head and she squealed in delight. "Oooo, this will be so much fun!"

"We have to be quiet though, as we sneak into the house. We'll go through the back door and I'll grab some extra mitts and possibly a scarf if the boys found any," I told her. Kiva nodded enthusiastically. I ducked onto the other road that crossed by my house and ran into my backyard. As soon as I was in the house, my muscles relaxed as the heat hit me.

"Rebecca?" Kiva called through the house. No call answered hers. She crossed her arms and sighed, clearly disappointed.

"She's probably working, Kiva," I told her. She uncrossed her arms, but continued to frown.

"What about Shelby?" She asked me.

"She's at school then she's going to Audi's, remember?" Kiva nodded her head.

"I know," She mumbled. Kiva looked at the winter gear scattered along the door. She smiled widely. "Go get you're mittens, Lex," Kiva told me happily, forgetting about the two older girls. She pushed me to the front door, where mittens were lying on the floor. I picked up the first two I came by and slipped them on my hands, along with a scarf around my neck and a hat on my head. "So, what's the plan?"

"We're going to burst out the front door and push them into the snow," I answered simply. Kiva giggled.

"I'm too small to push either of them in the snow, Lexi," Kiva said. I shrugged.

"You never know, Kiva. I believe that you could do it if you tried," I told her. She beamed a smile at me. "So, who do you want to push in the snow?"

"I want Aran," She replied after much thought. I nodded my head. That would mean I would get to push Aston in the snow.

"Alright," I told her. We walked to the front door and my hand rested on the doorknob. "On the count of three. One… Two… Three!" We burst out the front door, only to be instantly covered in an unthinkable amount of snow. Aston and Aran were both laughing hysterically as I sputtered and whipped my face frantically. "You guys!"

"I told you that you weren't off the hook for the drool!" Aston said between laughs. I bent down, took a handful of snow, and flung it at the general direction of my brothers without looking up from the ground.

I took off running through the white blanket, fear of my brothers overwhelming my fear (more like dislike) of snow. Because of the heavily falling snow and from the amount of snow shovelled from the path to the lawn, the snow was piled up to my thighs, making it increasingly hard to run.

A snowball hit the back of my head, some snow sliding down the back of my sweater. I screamed as it hit the only part of my body that wasn't completely frozen.

I spun around just in time to see Aston smash a heaping clump of icy wonder in Aran's face. The snow I held in my hand hit the ground in shock in seeing Aran covered in snow stuck to his skin.

Aston and I both broke into a fit of giggles at seeing Aran's shocked face. I began to run towards Aran, but was stopped by more snow being dumped down my back.

I screeched again, my back arching, as I spun around to see the culprit. Kiva was running away quickly, laughing madly. I found it hard to believe that she was able to walk, never mind run, in this amount of snow.

Then, she tripped and fell face first into the coldness, disappearing completely from my view. The only way I could tell that she was there was from the giggling sounding from where she fell.

I reached down, picking up snow in my hands and flung it towards Aston. It hit him in the chest, some splattering to his Aran once again. Both boys growled playfully and took more snow in their hands.

Laughing, I sprinted away from them, only to fall flat on my face in the snow.

Kiva was giggling beside me, only her little eyes showing through the snow. The only evidence to tell me how I ended up in the snow was her hand was wrapped around my ankle. She had tripped me.

"I thought we were on the same team!" I gasped. She smiled and pushed more snow into my face with her little foot. I sputtered and pulled out of her grasp. I stood up, just narrowly missing a large amount of snow being dumped at where I used to lie. Instead of hitting me, it piled onto poor Kiva.

I laughed at the now moving snow pile below me and laughed even harder when Kiva's snow-covered head popped to the surface.

Aston's arms were around me once again, tickling my sides. I was forced to laugh once again, this time throwing all of my weight backwards. We both went tumbling to the ground. He tumbled on top of my legs, face first into the snow. Luckily, I landed on my back and only a few lumps were on my face. I quickly brushed all of the snow off of me.

I quickly got up from the ground and began running at Aran, who was mercilessly throwing snow at Kiva. She was running around wildly again, this time her hair lumped with snow.

I flung myself at Aran, pushing both of us into the snow. Soon, us two were lying in the snow beside each other, giggling until we were both blue in the lips.

Actually, the blue lips were most likely resulted from the freezing weather.

Aston came running up to us just to be tackled to the ground by Kiva. They landed on top of both Aran and I with a puff of snowflakes flying up from the ground to join the ones flying from the sky.

"Mission accomplished!" Kiva cheered. She high-fived me and climbed off of the three of us. She brushed some loose snow from her outfit, a full grin on her face. "Now, I'm going inside for a nice cup of hot cocoa. You guys are crazy for wanting to play in this cold weather."

I could only laugh harder.

It was later in the day. Rebecca was still gone, Aston and Aran were both at the Market and Shelby was still at Audi's. So, it was only me in the small house, with the three kids. They were far gone into sleep, so I basically had the house to myself.

I was sitting on the bed looking at the door. Brunella was curled into my side, her red hair flowing down my legs. On the floor was Ford and Kiva. It was hard to tell whose arm was whose as they were a mess of limbs. I usually slept on the hollowed out window cell with Aston, seeing that I didn't have nightmares when I was with my twin.

There was a knock on the door making Brunella to turn in her sleep. I rubbed her arm and got up from the bed and navigated my way through the bodies on the floor. I opened the door and Byke stood tall leaning on the doorway. His brown hair was tousled like always and his green eyes were shining.

"Hey, X," Byke greeted. I smiled and pulled him inside. Byke was my partner from the ring. We were pretty close since we had been partners for a while.

"Where were you?!" I asked. "I thought you died." Byke snorted and rolled his eyes.

"I was trying to find some game for tomorrow," Byke mumbled. He dropped a sack onto the floor. "Sorry I scared you."

"So, you got game?" I questioned, changing the subject. He poked the sack with his foot and nodded his head. He owed me quite a few favours, so whenever my brothers were too busy to get us food, he would hunt for my family.

"Sure as hell did," he answered. "When do I not? I'm great at hunting." I rolled my eyes and shook my head. I opened the bag and looked up at Byke with my eyebrow raised.

"Byke, this is a bunch of store bought crap," I said, my eyebrows raised. "Seriously? Crackers? Marshmallows?" I asked. Byke smiled his supposed dazzling smile and leaned easily against the door.

"Hey, I had to fight a crazy old grandmother for all of this. Mind you, it was my crazy old grandmother, but that doesn't change much. I think she would have killed me if I gave her the opening."

"My goodness, you're such an ass," I laughed.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Byke chuckled. I shook my head and moved the sack closer to the wall I looked up at Byke, who still had a smile spread across his face. "Listen, I need to go. My sister wants me to pick her up from some friend's," He said with the roll of his eyes. I nodded my head in understanding.

"Sure."

"I'll see you tomorrow at the ring, yeah?"

"Yeah, of course. Where the hell else would I be?" I asked. Byke nodded his head and pulled open the door behind him. He started walking out into the dark street. "See ya."

"Yep," He held his arm above his head as a wave.

"Oh, hi, Byke," Another voice said from outside. I squinted my eyes to see Shelby walking up to our house, dressed in winter gear much too large for her small frame.

"Hey, Shell," He greeted. Shelby walked up to the house, a smile spread wide across her face. She came inside and shut the door behind her.

"Oh, Lexi, you'll never guess what!" She gushed, pulling off the winter garments.

"Who's are those?" I questioned, curiosity getting the best of me. She threw the hat to the floor.

"Audi's," she said with a smile. "He knew I was walking home and I didn't bring winter gear there. He let me have some of his."

"That's nice." She pulled off the final piece of clothing. Shelby took my hand and pulled me to the windowsill. She sat down, pulling me with her.

"So, guess what?"

"What?" I asked. She let out a giddy laugh and took hold of my hands.

"Audi's mother gave me fifty dollars for the dress I made for her last week!" She said excitedly. I felt a smile spread onto my face.

"Really? That's great!" I said. "That pays for Brunella's school fees." Shelby nodded her head in agreement.

I looked back out of the window. It wasn't really a window; it was a hole in the wall that my mother fixed with glass, when the glass broke none of my family knew how to fix it so they just put old plastic from the dump all over it. So now it was a cold spot in the house and also extremely loud. I pulled my blanket around my shoulders, bringing me some warmth.

There was a bang outside and shouts came from there. I looked over to Shelby with a sigh. She shook her head and leaned against the side of the sill. There were more shouts and it sounded like glass breaking. I leaned into the other side of the windowsill and closed my eyes.

"I wish people would just shut up," I mumbled. Another bottle was smashed followed by many screams.

"I know," Shelby mumbled. "I guess that's what we get for living in the lower end area."

"Well, they should shut up," I continued. It sounded like flesh against flesh, and liquid on the gravel. There were shouts of order and screams of pain.

"Sadly, that'll never happen," Shelby sighed. "Stupid, since we aren't all animals or crazy in this neighbourhood."

"Hell, in the district, Shell. Stereotypes are just crap to us around here," I said. She nodded her head in agreement, a frown on her face.

"And we have children here," She snapped at the window. The big commotion was gone, but there was still a lot of noise.

"The sad thing is that they still don't give a damn and they never will," I muttered. I looked at the three sleeping children. It was so unfortunate that they had to grow up in such an uncaring and unsafe environment.

The door swung open, letting the sound of laughing flood into the house. Aran and Aston walked into the house. I jumped out of the bed, my legs sweeping the floor.

"Oh, hey, you two!" I called, a smile lifting my lips. I jumped up and walked over to my brothers, Shelby following behind me.

"Hi, Lex, Shell," Aran said. He ruffled my hair. I stood on my tip-toes and ruffled his hair in return. Aran laughed and pushed my arm away before looking to Aston.

"Awww, you still annoyed from when Kiva kicked your butt?" I teased. He rubbed the back of his neck.

"You wish. Us boys totally won," Aran said with a wide smile. I laughed.

"Suuuurrrrreeee," I drawled. "We both know the girls won."

"I'm sorry, did I miss something?" Shelby questioned.

"Yeah. Basically, the guys," Aran pointed to himself and Aston, "kicked Kiva and Lexi's butts during a snowball fight." Aston shook his head 'no'. Aran either ignored him or didn't notice him.

"Aran, Kiva tackled you once. You don't have much of a leg to stand on here."

"So, a battle against the genders?" Shelby questioned. Us three nodded at her. She nodded her head and skipped away.

"Anyway, Kiva had a ton of fun. I think we should do it the next time we are off. It would be best if everyone was off too," I told the boys. I turned away from them and looked at Kiva.

"Are you sure you want your butts kicked again?" Aran teased. I spun around to glare at him only to watch as snow hit his face. Shelby stood behind him, her hand pressing the snow further into his face.

"Shell?" I questioned lightly. She smiled and pulled her hand away from Aran, letting the snow fall to the floor.

"Ummm… Girls rule," she said sheepishly. Aran pulled some snow off of his face and threw it at Shelby. It hit her shoulder lamely.

The door opened once again and Rebecca stepped into the house.

"I'm home." Rebecca mumbled. Aran stopped laughing and walked over to Rebecca and pulled her in a hug. Aran kissed her hair and then pulled away. He looked over her body. Rebecca sighed. "No need for that, I didn't get anywhere." She mumbled. Aran smiled, relieved, and pulled her back in a hug.

"No money offered?" Aston asked. Rebecca shook her head.

"No, not much-" She stopped midsentence. Her hand reached up and touched the snow that had dripped onto her head. Rebecca looked up at Aran. "Ummm… Why are you covered in snow?"

"Aston, Lexi, Kiva and I all had a snowball fight, which we won for the record," Aran started. Aston snorted and shook his head 'no' behind Aran's back for the second time that night. Rebecca bit her lip to keep from laughing at Aston's childish antics. "Shelby then threw snow in my face." Rebecca laughed and pulled away from her brother.

She skipped up to me and ruffled my already messy hair. The need to ruffle my hair must run in the family, seeing as her brother had done the same only minutes earlier.

"Girls for the win!" Rebecca cheered. "I want some action with this. Christmas Day is the next day we are all off, I believe, so we'll kick their butts then."

"I take offence to that!" Aran pouted. Rebecca stuck out her tongue teasingly. A yawn escaped my lips and I looked at the clock on the wall. It was quite late considering I had a match tomorrow.

"I'll see all of you in the morning," I said, deciding I should get to bed. "Goodnight." I said.

"I'm going to shower then come to bed," Aston told me. I nodded my head and walked over to the windowsill. I sat down on the edge and pulled my mother's journal out from my shelf.

I was given her journal after she was killed on Market Alley. It gave me a better understanding on who she was and how my family was before I was born. It showed me how my father was before many people he loved all were killed and he turned into a drunk. My mother was really nice, just like I remembered her. She didn't deserve to die. The district creep, on the other hand, did.

I must have read around ten pages before Aston plopped down beside me.

"Move over, I'm cold," Aston pouted, breaking me away from the journal. His hair was dripping still, showing me that he just got out from the shower. A towel was around his shoulders, catching most of the water before it hit the pillows. I put my bookmark in the page and put the journal back on the shelf. When I looked back at him, he was already in his place beside the so called window. "Hurry up," he whined like a child. I laughed and climbed in beside him, shivering despite the thick blanket on top of us.

"Damn, it's cold," I muttered, shivering once again. Aston looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

"Oh, come here, you big baby," Aston said with a smile. He threw his arm around my shoulders. Heat spread from his body to mine. I sighed, content.

"How the heck are you so warm?" I mumbled, curling up to my twin's side. Aston just laughed.

"You're just cold," Aston said. I just smiled and sighed. We lay there silently for a few minutes while Rebecca, Aran and Shelby all went to bed. "Goodnight, Lex," Aston mumbled.

"Goodnight." I snuggled my face into his shoulder. "See you tomorrow."

"When I wake up then, I better not find any drool on me again," he joked. I cracked a smile.

"I love you too." he kissed my forehead and I closed my eyes. I fell asleep quickly after that, thinking of my upcoming match and how I would guarantee drool on my twin's shoulder.

EDIT: This chapter was edited to hopefully give Lexi a better characterization like she was originally planned to have and written by Hutsune. Also, Byke was REALLY annoying me. I had to cut him from the chapter. I still wanted to write him the slightest bit, so I added the stuff about the food at the start. And I found Byke/Lexi really cliché and annoying. Sorry if you liked it, it wasn't working for me. Thanks for understanding.

So, if you loved it or hated it, leave a review! Constructive criticism is appreciated!

Speaking of feedback, I would like to know which character is your favourite out of the mentioned. Just put your favourite character in your review. The options are: Lexi, Aston, Aran, Rebecca, Brunella, Ford, Kiva, Shelby and Byke.

So this story is about Lexi before the reaping. For those readers that don't know, Lexi is the girl tribute for District 6 for the 49th Hunger Games. To see more of her in the Games (along with more of the family and the reaping), check out Hutsune's story (more about the story below).

***Here are a list of stories that have to do with Lexi and the world she lives in:

Hutsune's An Arena of series. Currently, there are two installments, "An Arena of Stone: Untold Stories of the 49th HG" and "An Arena of Glass: Now-told Stories of the 51st HG."Lexi is written how I imagined her perfectly (unlike this story), so I suggest you check it out! You can find it through my favourites or through the search bar.

Also, I have two stories that are part of the An Arena of universe.

The first one is about Vitz and Corolla, two young adults that live in the orphanage. Vitz is the other tribute for the 49th Hunger Games and Corolla is his girlfriend. To read it, you can go to my profile. It is called "District 6 Chronicles, Book 2: Imagination and Creation" It is based approximately three months after this story. It's a one-shot, like this story.

The second story is about the rest of Lexi's family after the Games. It mainly follows mainly Shelby (but Aston too) for the first half of the story. For the second half of the story, it follows Aran, Rebecca, Brunella and Audi. To read it, you can go to my profile. It's called "District 6 Chronicles, Book 3: Forever Gone" It is based around two years after this. Also, a one-shot.

I hope you check out these three stories!

Any questions? Just PM or ask in the review!

Thanks for reading!

Until next time,

Paw

xxx