When in her favor
The odds were entirely in her favor.
Thumb.
Just wait for this afternoon, she needn't worry.
Crack.
She should be ecstatic, joyful even. Were she to leave she would get what she's always dreamed of for three agonizing years.
Crash.
Why were her hands moist? She wasn't nervous, was she? She wasn't afraid. No. Others should though. They might get elected randomly and snatched from some loving family and some well-organized community. For all she knew, her choice might be saving someone's life, a life that should not be wasted. Hers however, well, others agree she should die, but in the right way.
Thumb. Crack. Crash. The tree trunk she's been axing into for the past few minutes fell, a thick one, quite rigid too. She tossed the ax aside and sat before the firewood she's been gathering, game bag by her feet. She's axed into a wild boar earlier, one of the common beasts in the thick forests surrounding district 12. She felt for a towel and rubbed her reddened hands and face. Scowling when it came out damp, she ditched it and craned her head backwards, staring the sun in the eye. Today was the day of reaping and she was to be the prey this time around.
The other residents in 12 agreed she should die, those who were poor mainly. 3 years ago, in haze, she had grabbed gasoline and stolen a flamethrower from the peacekeepers office, poured the toxic liquid on a bunch of stuff, and ended up burning half of the hub.
So of course they wanted her dead. But her doing today would only prove them wrong. That her footing is more stable than theirs and when she's crowned, they won't dare send acidic glares in her direction no more.
The next time she gets back to 12, she'll be a victor.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Mikasa Ackerman had the best of odds.
She was skilled, possessed quite of a sheer force. However, were it not for the fact that she lived under the roof of the victor of 29th hunger games "Hannes Barnaby", that she has been excessively training for 3 years and that she had no acquaintances at all save one, she would not be volunteering for the games.
Those were her three motivations.
Well, there was a fourth but she lived to stray from that mention.
10 am, the sun was blazing. The victors' village was deserted, the usual. Her game bag was blobbing up and down, heavy with the boar's body. The firewood was stalling her stride, once before one house, she dropped the wood and filed in without hesitation. The windows inside were still draped and she took notice of the dim atmosphere. Hannes was lying on a plush sofa, liquor fixed in the crook of his armpit, sending his disgusting snores. Mikasa spared him one glance before pouring a jar of ice cold water in his face. He shot forward, his bottle diving like a missile and meeting the ground with a crash. He glared at her.
"That was the only one left!" He complained audibly. She slammed the bag on the wooden table and extracted the contents. The gray furrowed boar, a head-less rabbit and a squirrel.
"Skin those." She commanded, rather impolitely. He was used to lack of respect on her part. By all means, she couldn't have cared less.
Back in her room upstairs, she readied the tub, rinsed dirt off her knuckles and her nails then washed her black hair. She dressed in a simple dress, one of her mom's, a gray one. She let her hair wave down to her shoulders, studied her expression in the mirror and scowled. This, this is how everyone would see her this afternoon at reaping, she would glare and glare and glare just to make sure her point was made.
She hated everyone in 12.
She hated everyone.
When she descended, the room smelled of warm bread and sugar. Armin, bringing loaves from his family's bakery. She acknowledged the sight of the young man with his blond ponytail and his work attire. Armin was probably the only one she didn't hate, and the one friend she had left that she so sincerely was beginning to regret having to leave behind.
"Today's the day, eh?" Piped Hannes, finally sober. Armin gave her a blank look and offered her the tiny white box. Chocolate chip cookies, used to be her favorite, and somebody else's favorite…
Bad memories were ferociously assaulting her. It was bad enough that she had to give herself as a fresh tribute, it was worse if she had to relive all the sad events related to the games. Events that stormed away with her family, and fixed this dark look in her regarding everything.
They sat on the porch. His arm was reassuring but she tried distancing herself from him as much as those three inches of gap between them could offer. Armin leaned in.
"Mikasa, this is suicide."
"You don't say."
"You don't have to do this." He insisted.
"Yes." She glared at him fiercely "Yes I have to."
"He wouldn't want you to volunteer Mikasa." Armin pleaded. She stood abruptly, no more memories, no more. She wanted to curl right there and start crying.
Eren wouldn't want you to follow him where he went, once in the games you'll be dead.
Yes. I would be dead. But I would finally get to be with him.
Unless I fight. Unless I fight to win.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
She was determined more than ever, when they took their places in rows depending on their ages. Armin was standing a few rows back, where parents and adults were installed. Armin was already 19, she needn't worry about him. He had a vague clue about her intentions when she started her training regime under Hannes' intensive supervision. He tried to change her mind ever since.
The woman walked up the podium. Hange Zoe, ever energetic, ever ecstatic, tapped the mike and spoke up, welcoming them to the reaping where the tributes to the 57th hunger games were to be chosen. Her hand snuck inside the transparent giant ball and pulled a single paper reading "Mina Carolina". Mikasa knew Mina. She recognized Mina as she dazedly took her way the podium. She saw disbelief in Mina's face when she stepped up and mouthed loud enough for the peacekeepers keeping them in tow to hear.
"I volunteer as tribute."
So Mikasa took the girl's place, rising beside the restless woman from the capitol and speaking her name aloud. The crowd which she expectedly assumed would be satisfied with this outcome was deathly silent. She knew those people hated her, she'd burned down their only hub; she didn't mean it but still. When it came to bread, they were unforgiving.
She wasn't surprised when they refused to clap, but she was genuinely and utterly taken aback when she saw them slap their fists up their hearts and their other fists behind their backs, the traditional gesture of district 12 where you show respect for the living and bid farewell to the dead.
When Hange Zoe walked to pull the boy tribute's name, Mikasa was already lost to the world. The fact that her own people recognized her volunteering and enlisting in the games in Mina's stead was quite surprising. When Mikasa was 13, she's heard the news that turned her entire world upside down. Her adoptive brother who was literally 3 years older than she was at the time and have been elected for the 54th hunger games, was dead, killed rather brutally. She was in the forest at the time, hunting. When she came back to the village, everyone gave her that look, expectant, grievous, compassionate all at once.
She blacked out after hearing about Eren, waking before a burning hub and people screaming their heads off in the middle of the night. People swore it was her who sneaked in the shut hub and burned it down. She was 13 and had no memory of the ordeal. Their compassion in her regard turned to loath.
Eventually, the peacekeepers had to let her go since they held no clues against her. Plus, the capitol who normally ignored 12 had been discussing burning the market down and building a new city hall in its stead. To them, she's done them a huge favor. That fact made her hate herself and the world around her even more.
She woke to the sound of Hange's cheerful comment "My, my, yet another volunteer." Mikasa's gaze traveled to where the crowd steered away from one boy, one who was walking up the stairs with peacekeeper rifles digging in his back. The boy stood next to the abrasively grinning Hange.
"What's your name my boy?" She tilted the mike to his side, just slightly.
"Levi." He said, and she remembered him immediately.
Oh no.