Reapings were different, in District Two. Seen by most as the Capitol's lapdog, the children of the Masonry district were not reaped. They volunteered. Not a death sentence, an honor. Instead of the grim resigning most of the districts wore like a cloak, they treated it like the celebration the Capitol advertised it to be.
The two eldest victors of Two look on, as the tulle-clad Capitol escort fed them al lines that the entirety of Panem knew by heart at this point. Aranea Serket and Horuss Zahhak, both well into their forties. As children, they were not the brash, swaggering mini-soldiers that usually volunteered. They were both the awkward, scholarly types: puzzle pieces that didn't fit with the kids raised from birth to be brutal. So why had they volunteered? Boredom, a plea for honor, or for recognition? It didn't matter, they didn't know anymore. The children they used to be were long gone, replaced by two portraits of the ideal victor.
Aranea, a great and terrible beauty even in her increasing age. She gazes upon the Capitol woman with a look of half-smugness, half-indifference that she's perfected over the years. Horuss, a hulking pillar of strength, staring sullenly at the crowd with the dark, hooded blue eyes of an executioner.
A boy who couldn't have been older than fourteen, raises his hand and bellows, "I volunteer!" Other boys look upon him with seething envy, and Horuss hears his companion chuckle beside him, throaty and low. Nothing like the tiny, bespectacled little girl he remembered. He swallows thickly as the boy in question saunters to the stage; he has a feeling that he will only be coming back by way of coffin. No matter, though. Attention quickly shifts to the girl's side of the public square, the buzzing voices a little shriller in pitch but just as excited.
He turns towards Aranea, who had drawn in a quick-and-sharp lightning bolt of a breath. He could practically see the pride swelling in her chest, and maybe also a little pinprick of fear. "Don't you have a daughter, Serket?", he asks.
She grins.
A/N: Okay, short one, I know, but the next one will be longer. I promise!