A/N: All characters are mine except for the excellent Heliquo, who belongs to aimmyarrowshigh. Panem belongs to Suzanne.
I don't dream, but when I wake up to my ringing clock I know I've made a mistake. The reaping is at noon, and on weekends and holidays we sleep till nine. I've given myself two and a half extra hours to think about the reaping, about the two children who'll leave and not come back. Maybe they'll be children that I know. Maybe it'll be me. I try to read, and I turn the broadcasts on quietly, but all that they're talking about is Reapings and that's the last thing I want to watch.
I decide to go for a run instead. I pull out my school sports uniform from the closet, tie my hair back in a horsetail, lace up my shoes, and stretch a bit before I head out the door.
I've always been a good runner. Mother liked to get up early and run, and she didn't like to slow down for me but sometimes when I asked she'd take me along and we'd run around the lakes, over by the Plant, through the shop way. By the time I was ten, I could keep up with her. By the time I was twelve, she sometimes had to tell me to slow down, and I fully understood why she didn't like running slow. When I hit that perfect stride, nothing else matters. It's me, and the ground, and the wind on my face. I can't think about anything else. It's exactly what I need now.
"Good morning, Shan!" Neela, the baker, is opening up her shop on the edge of the square in anticipation of the crowds to come later that day. "Happy Hunger Games!"
"You too," I say, and run past her. The barricades are already erected, and I think I see a few bookies setting up their stations. It makes me nervous. I take the longer path, avoiding the square, and I don't see anyone as I run around the Plant and the reservoir behind it with its massive waterfall. I do three laps of my course before I decide I'm hungry and head home.
The Liskers are still asleep when I get back to the apartment. I find my towels, tiptoe down the hall to the communal shower, and wash myself with the cold water. There isn't any hot today; I thought there would be, what with the Reaping, but it seems it's all been used up already. I dry myself off, run a brush through my wet hair and put it up in two buns, the way it usually is. Presentable enough.
When I come in, Rivassa is sitting on her bed in her underwear and the little white bra she doesn't really need but wears anyway. "Happy Hunger Games, Rivassi-ke."
"Why does everyone say Happy Hunger Games?" There is too much bitterness for thirteen years in her voice. "The Hunger Games aren't happy. They're only happy when you win."
"And when you don't get picked," I add, searching for my special dress in my closet. I've had the same dress, a light brown one of Quilla's, since I got to the Liskers'. I've only worn it on reaping days and for weddings. "Here it is." Quilla's cleaned it, but I still remember the imperfections in the fabric where I clenched it in my hands when they called Matias's name last year. I shiver a bit.
"I'm scared," Rivassa says.
"Rivas, come here." She's put on her green reaping dress, a hand-me-down from the girl upstairs. "Listen to me. Your name is in that bowl twice. Twice out of about two thousand slips. I have nine slips in there. Seven because I'm eighteen and two extra because I had to take out tesserae for me and Sorima the year I was in the Home. If anyone here's getting picked it's me."
She looks down a bit. "You really miss him, don't you."
"We all miss him."
"But you miss him more," she says. She looks at me with those serious dark eyes, so brown as to be almost black: the same eyes as Matias. "Sometimes you say his name while you're asleep."
I sit down on the bed. "Yes, I miss him very much."
"Did you love him?"
If this were my real sister Sorima I would tell her to go away, shut up, that's not fourteen-year-old business, but Rivassa is different. She's smart. She understands feelings. No one can lie to her.
"You know, Rivassi-ke," I say. "Maybe I did."
She nods. "I know."
"Want me to brush your hair for you?" I ask. She scoots and sits down in front of me, and I brush out the fine brown locks one hundred strokes, the way my mother always did for me and I pretended to do to Sorima with my little brush though she didn't get hair till after Mother died.
Quilla knocks gently, not like her usual knock to get us up. "You ladies awake?" She opens the door a crack.
"Good morning, Mamma," Rivas says, smiling.
"Good morning. Shan, I have something to show you - would you follow me?"
I get up. "I'll finish your hair as soon as I get back, Rivas," I say, and follow Quilla to her room. Lindo must be in the shower because I don't see him anywhere. She rummages in her clothes-drawer.
"I thought, since it's your last Reaping, and that old thing of mine is a little small, you might want to wear this," she says, and pulls a white dress out of the drawer. I gape. There's silver embroidery on the short sleeves, and it's gathered just below the chest to make me look like I've got more than I have, which isn't much. The underskirt is overlaid with a layer of floaty white cloth, the kind that costs fifteen a yard at the tailor. I don't want to think about how much Lindo and Quilla have spent during the past few days.
"Quilla, you didn't have to do this - did Rivassa get one too - ?"
"Think of it as a goodbye present," she says firmly. "Next Hunger Games, you'll be in a house with your friends, and you'll have happier occasions to wear this dress than the Reaping."
I mentally note to pay her back in whatever way I can once this is all over and done with. I'm no seamstress, and my attempts at cooking usually end in explosions, but maybe I'll pick up my fiddle again and write them a tune. Maybe. I haven't played in years. The Capitol banned all music from before the Dark Days except for the stuff they heard in concert-halls. They still play it in the Capitol sometimes. They thought it wasn't "dangerous." My mother had been an expert fiddler, and I remember her stories about just how dangerous that music could be. But I'm nowhere near close to playing dangerous music. I'd have to start with the littles' learning books.
"Let me see how it looks," Quilla says, clapping her hands a bit, like a little girl. "Go on!"
I obediently take off the old brown dress and let this beautiful white dream slide over me. The sheer material floats a bit before it settles on my body. "Well?"
When I move, the overlay ripples behind me like a trail of cloud. I've never worn anything so beautiful.
Rivassa pokes her head in. "Shan, you look like you're about to get married!" she giggles.
"No getting married just yet," Lindo says. He's returned from the shower, wrapped in a towel. "A bit young for that, don't you think, Quilla?"
"Well, we were only twenty..." she clicks, pulling a loose thread out of the neck of my dress. "Here, Rivassa, let me pin your skirt. You want to wear your lucky silver star?"
"Everyone looks beautiful," he declares. "You girls mind giving me some privacy so I can make myself fit to escort these three lovely ladies to the Reaping?" Lindo usually isn't this exuberant on any day, let alone Reaping. It's an attempt to chase away the ghost that hangs in the corner and will not leave.
Rivassa is shaking a bit as we head for the square. Her grip on my hand tightens as the crowds grow thicker and the yells of the vendors and the bookies grow louder. We fight our way through the mass of people, all in their best clothes, towards the white-uniformed Peacekeeper with her clipboard of names.
"Shan Lorimer, eighteen," I tell her. She searches for my name in the Ls, makes a mark with her pencil, and inclines her head to indicate I should join the other eighteen-year-old girls in the enclosure nearest the stage on the right. I wait for "Rivassa Lisker, thirteen," to join me, to walk her to her enclosure. The Peacekeeper watches us go, a look of almost-pity in her eyes. She'll recognize the name Lisker, if not because she was stationed in District 5 last year, because Matias's death has been aired over and over again on recaps of the 54th Games, Special Edition: Top 10 Horrific Tribute Deaths, Most Monstrous Tributes, and the like.
We reach the thirteen-year-old enclosure. Rivassa squeezes my hand tight. "May the odds be ever in your favor," she says, and walks in with her head held high.
I continue towards the stage to my own enclosure, greeting those I know from school. Morella is leaning on the barricade to keep herself upright, and her face is drained of blood. If her name isn't drawn, there'll be dancing early into the morning on Water Street where she lives. There's always an extra big celebration in the houses of eighteen-year-olds, being that they're out of danger. Morella's name is in there thirty times on account of all her younger siblings that she wouldn't let take out tesserae. Looking at her now, I wonder if she doesn't regret that decision just a little bit.
I hear hisses from the crowds as the Repros arrive. Repros have always been looked down on in District 5. Like if they had a choice they'd be Repros. I don't quite understand the reasoning of it, but that's the way it always is. Chmiela, Lyvriel, and Alegria are walking down towards the eighteens enclosure, hand in hand, Alegria still not quite steady on her feet.
"Happy Hunger Games," Lyvriel drawls. "Look at what Fart-face is wearing this year."
Our Capitol Escort's name is Arno Sartovace, but for obvious reasons everyone calls him Fart-face. Every year he shows up in a different outrageously colored outfit, and this year is no different. This year he wears a fluorescent orange suit with a green and orange striped tie, and shiny blue patent shoes. The ensemble clashes interestingly with his bright red pompadour. He preens up on the stage, dramatically fanning himself with a large black feathered fan though it's not more than sixty-five degrees out. Next to him sits Mayor Gill, and next to her the four living District 5 victors. Maelln is at the end. Her hair and irises are dyed white, her lips tinted the palest pink. The bright sun has shrunk her pupils enough so she looks blind.
When the clock on the Justice Building chimes twelve, the Reaping starts. Hovercams buzz around the square as Mayor Gill reads the story of the Rebellion, the Treaty of Treason, and the beginning of the Hunger Games. Her face is blank, like the walls of the Justice Building. Everyone here remembers how three years ago her daughter Reza was reaped and she had to watch as a girl from District 8 ran her through with a sword at the Cornucopia.
"A time for repentance and a time for thanks," Mayor Gill says wearily. "And now, let me introduce our District 5 victors. Marink Marnoma," she says, and an old man, swaying a bit on his feet from the grain liquor, stands up and weakly waves.
"Chari Farla," she reads. Chari's a woman old enough to be my mother. Her hair's in a long plait draped over her shoulder, and she's fiddling with the end. Her two sons are in the reaping ball, and there are rumors that the Capitol sometimes rigs it so the children of victors get picked. It raises viewings, so I'm told.
"Heliquo Lax." He's about thirty-five, but he looks younger than he looked last year. Maybe he's had surgery. I wouldn't be surprised. Like Maelln, he spends more time in the Capitol than he does in the Victor's Village here.
"And last of all, Maelln Daren." Maelln stands up and blinks her white eyes. I hear some disgusted reactions from the crowd. For a splitsecond I think she looks at me, but with her eyes it'd be hard to tell. It's not like she'd recognize me anyway.
"Heliquo and Maelln will be mentoring our tributes this year," the mayor says. "And escorting them will be our honored guest from the Capitol, Arno Sartovace." Sartovace waves, flashing the crowd his gleaming smile, and takes the microphone from the mayor. He gives the same speech every year too. His words blur.
"What're you thinking about?" Lyvriel taps me on the arm. "Boyfriend?"
"He wasn't..." I glare at her and she shuts up.
Everyone suspected. Everyone poked at me about Matias like they poke at any girl who spends a lot of time with one boy. We never went courting out in public like some do here. We never did the do either, though I thought in the showers about how it'd feel to unbutton all of him, push my fingers through every angle and hollow, wrap my legs around him and have him fill me. We kissed in shadows sometimes, and we slept in the same bed a few times in the winter when I said I was cold. We agreed it wouldn't have been good to see two people living under the same roof, practically brother and sister, lovebirding. Now if he were alive I'd lovebird him in public till his ears burned red like Fart-face's hair. But it's not good for me to think about these things.
I look at Lyvriel and decide I was too harsh. I know she'd give anything to be poked about some boy she was sweet on. Repros, obviously, aren't allowed to court. They're kept away from the boys. "Sorry," I whisper, and reach for her hand.
"And now, the announcement of our brave tributes!" booms Sartovace, as he does every year. "Let's start with the gentlemen, shall we?" He reaches into the first glass ball and withdraws a slip, which he unrolls so slowly it's almost painful to watch. On stage, Chari Farla's lips have disappeared into a thin line.
"Kalle Nuritin."
Chari collapses in relief. A sigh rises from the parents surrounding the square; it's not their child. Their boys are safe for another year. Kalle Nuritin. It's a name I've heard somewhere before.
A boy with his hair in a dark, curly horsetail emerges from the fourteen-year-olds enclosure. No one cries his name or screams in the crowd. An orphan, then. Sorima might have known him. He's in that awkward middle of puberty stage, the beginnings of a mustache looking out of place on his pale face. Kalle climbs the stage, trying not to let his terror show.
"Now, are there any volunteers?" Someone laughs and is quickly silenced. No one volunteers in District 5 unless a Repro's name gets drawn and a Thin Girl has to go.
"Then, the ladies." He crosses the stage to the girl's ball, reaching in. Morella looks like she's about to faint again. Chmiela and Alegria take my hands and squeeze, and I'm thinking not me not me not Shan Lorimer not Shan Lorimer and
"Rivassa Lisker."