This is my first Hunger Games fic, so please review. I won't ask you to be gentle; I'll simply inform you that flames will be caught, inspected, and responded to. And, if you give an anonymous flame, it proves you're a bloody coward.
She's been a sparrow, once, alighting on slim branches and singing in a soft voice that can make the meadows whisper in answer. She's been an eagle, too, flying higher than a skittering leaf on a fall day when the wind seeks its revenge on humanity. But deep at heart, she's sung with the angels by nightfall and she's flown gracefully like an ethereal fairy from tree to tree by daybreak, and that's what she enjoys most. Being an angel.
In later years, she'll reflect on that with irony as she rises up into the air (though, perhaps, not in the way she wished).
Her mother smooths out her hair, picks the seeds and leaves from it, and smiles softly as she places both hands on her shoulders and spins her around slowly. "Today is your first year. The odds are pretty good."
She shakes her head in soft regret. "I've taken tessera so many times for so long, mum."
Besides, they both know the odds are never in anyone's favor. Not here. Not now.
She doesn't know when she figured that out. Many people her age and older certainly haven't. Maybe it was waking with the bleak sun and glancing out the muslin-curtained window to find villagers already sheened with sweat shuffling among the tender stalks of wheat. Maybe it was gathering day after day, covering her ears and pressing her eyes tight from the tortures that all were made to attend. Maybe it was calling out the soft four notes and sundown, listening as the forest sang the same song in return, and watching the people trudge home, carrying the people that had collapsed in the day, tenderly drawing out certain stalks and seeds that were easy to smuggle from the pockets of their coats. Or perhaps it was watching her father on his deathbed, his hand clawing his way toward heaven, eyes dimming, dry mouth begging for food and water that the land in the measly district could not give.
She straightens a fold on her dress and calls Salvia down to watch the reaping.
The mayor reads the ceremony, highlighting the importance, how the reaping of the children shall choose only the best and brightest to be given up to their God. Which, in this case, is the Capitol.
Mayor Garlingworth stops, pauses, then clears his throat and finishes with an off-kilter, "Well, let the reaping begin." He leaves the podium, and Lymet Melrose Nermiss takes the stage, bounding up jovially and sweeping shoulder-length blue hair out of his eyes. "Well, you certainly are all excited for the occasion!" He throws his head back and laughs a deep belly laugh, his words tainted by the stark, drawling Capitol accent. "Come now, where is your enthusiasm? Let's give a cheer for this celebration!"
The clapping is halfhearted, and dies away as quickly as it can while the Peacekeeper guns are still in their holsters.
"Now, ladies first! Let's see, where is it...aha!" He laughs again as the glass sphere is brought on a bit late, wheeled by three sheepish Peacekeepers. Under other circumstances, Lymet's laugh would be infectious. The Head Peacekeeper, Oranu Rench, fingers the tightly coiled whip dangerously. The three handlers of the cart, as a tribute to their training, show no emotion except for shame. Rue almost feels sorry for them. Almost.
Her attention is drawn to the glass ball as a clacking noise tinkers around the bowl. Although Lymet wears no rings, his fingernails have been caked with polish and slathered in matte to ensure life-long durability. These are what clack menacingly against the sphere as he draws a slip out of many. Rue stares hard at the slip, hoping she can see through it, hoping it doesn't hold her.
"Mantana Fai!"
Rue breathes a visible sigh of relief, but the muttering in the crowd draws her attention again to the only man from the Capitol. He cocks his head, one eye quirked upward in what can only be a mediocre attempt at confusion. Oranu jumps gallantly from the side of the stage, bows swiftly, and addresses the crowd in a slow, sure voice.
"I am so sorry, citizens, for the inconvenience. It seems that Ms. Mantana Fai has, indeed, starved to death only two months ago. Therefore, her slips are considered void. It seems another drawing is in order. I apologize again for not updating the reaping ball. I assure you, the offender shall be duly punished."
Watching as Rench again steps off the stage slowly, Rue feels a short shot of anger flash through her body. The way he said it, dismissing it as though it happened everyday, hits a nerve. He sits in the lap of luxury, but should he not at least know the way the people he tortures are treated?
"A shame, I'm sure, since Ms. Fai must have been a pleasant young girl. Now, let us continue!"
Rue takes a deep breath, trying to calm her nerve steadily. It cannot be her. She is not the poorest person in the village, and she knows she has not by a long shot taken the most tesserae. She hears the clacking of the fingers, the shuffle of papers, and the swishing sound of the wheat in the fields blowing in the wind.
"Rue Merallis!"
And just like that, the fate of her and her family has been sealed.
She is paired with Thresh, a boy who's done plenty of work in the fields. There's a difference, though. He's strong. He's got a chance. She doesn't.
They have two mentors, Chaff and Seeder. Chaff is your regular champion: turning to the drugs to erase the memory of the Games, laughing up the tributes because the alternative is either breaking down or bearing it. Seeder bears it, which Rue admires. It takes a lot of strength to live through the Games, and even more to pretty others up for them. Does she ever see the faces of the dead tributes in her dreams? Stare at the new faces she will be embellishing for slaughter? She stops her thoughts short right there. It wouldn't do any good having them, now, when she is almost certainly about to add herself to the plethora of faceless names...or nameless faces.
It's darkened metal everywhere, meals that seem to reach the sky, and Rue tries to enjoy while she can...but she can't. She seems so alone here; Thresh has already began bonding with other people like him. But she's like no one here, only present because she took that tessarae trying to save her sisters.
Or is she?
She glances at the table to her right, and the girl at the other table turns simultaneously. Olive-colored skin, soot smeared raven black hair, and gray eyes like rolling clouds. And suddenly they're looking at each other, gray clashing with brown, and something in both minds understand each other.
Something clocks.
Rue glares down suddenly, cheeks heating up. The other girl has also turned the other way, talking animatedly with someone from her own table. But they shared that look, Rue knows it and the other girl (Katniss, she later learns) knows it too. In that single second, both recognized each other as kindred spirits and unintentionally labelled each other as allies.
She grins slowly.
Allies. She likes that.
It's numb already, the wound. She thrashes fretfully before catching a glimpse of black hair. It's Katniss, and she has to warn him.
Peering out between a bush, she sees the same grey eyes she saw on the first day, and her eye catches the two gray beads and she wants to scream out to her to run, hide, don't make the same mistake she did. The eyes nod in understanding but shake feverently, seemingly pressing, telling Rue that Katniss has to do something.
And that something comes in the form of an arrow that lodges itself into the offender's ribs...and Katniss jumping out of the bush, threatening stance already set, only to fly to Rue's side once established that there were no threats. Her lips move, but Rue can't hear it, and she says the only thing she can think of.
She has to win. I now know how horrible it is to die. I can't let Katniss go through that too. There are so many things I was meant to do. I was meant to live a life with twist and unimaginable turns...but nothing this unimaginable.
Katniss says something in response that Rue can manage to read. 'I will', she says, and that's all that matters.
Rue has so many more things she could ask for with her dying breaths-a word to her sisters? A single drop of water? But there's one thing she needs more.
'Sing,' she says, her mouth moving endlessly into that same syllable.
Maybe she didn't even say it out loud; she's deteriorating so quickly. But their eyes meet and Katniss understands, and the last chords meet her last breaths in perfect unison.
And maybe she even dies content.