Trigger warning: mentions of abuse in Elias' sections.

Chapter 6:

District Six

Elias Pilkvist, 17

Five Years before The Reaping

"Do you know why you're getting the surgery today?"

Elias stares up at the doctor with wide eyes that he soon turns to his mother, needing her to tell him what response he is allowed to give to the doctor. He knows why his legs need to be amputated…anyone can see the way they have been broken again and again, never quite healing correctly to the point that Elias can no longer stand on them without falling over. But is he allowed to tell the doctor the reason?

His mother levels a glare at him and shakes her head. Elias keeps his mouth shut, not wanting to go against what his mother tells him. He does not want to be punished again for being wrong. He already has had too much of that from not being good enough at fighting in their training.

"He knows," his mother speaks up to the doctor and Elias nods his head in agreement with her. "He is simply nervous about the operation and doesn't want to speak."

Elias is confused by her lie to the doctor, but does not know how to even show that confusion. Showing emotions was never taught by his parents along with how to fight people. His father always said emotions would only get in the way of winning and that is why District Six has not had more victors. But like they taught, he stays quiet. He catches his mother looking at him again and nods his head in agreement to her statement.

The doctor still continues to give him a weird look that Elias does not what she wants. It is certainly not a look that anyone in his family has ever given him. Those looks are all angry and never looking pleased with him. "Very well," she says gently before smiling at Elias. "Is it okay for me to examine your legs once more?"

Elias looks to his mother for guidance and when she nods her head, Elias does the same as he turns back to the nice doctor. The doctor gently pokes at his legs – or, at least, Elias assumes she is gently touching them by how she barely moves the legs around as she frowns at them. "I can feel multiple fracture points and healing places… How in the world did he receive so many fractures?"

Elias remains silent, just like he is supposed to whenever anyone asks about his injuries. His mother takes over for answering, fixing the doctor with a look that Elias has received many times before getting in trouble. "He is a clumsy child and falls often. His condition makes it so he doesn't notice the fractures right away."

He can only watch as his mother hands some gold over to the doctor. She is correct that Elias doesn't notice the fractures most of the time, except for the one time he was able to hear the bone snap from the cane smacking his legs. The doctor stares down at the gold for a minute before tucking it into her pocket and smiling pleasantly at his mother. "Very well, Mrs. Pilkvist. We will need to amputate both legs just below the knees. Will we be supplying prostheses for him?"

"No," his mother answers immediately, sounding disgusted at the thought of paying for the prostheses. Which she probably is…she has not stopped telling him since they found out a month ago that he needs the amputation how much of a disgraceful burden he is on the family and she is right… They tell him often how poor he is doing at training. They must be right with how often Elias is punished for not being good enough to win fights against the others. "We had a pair made. We're not spending even more money on him to have some fancy Capitol prostheses."

"Of course," the doctor answers, making Elias confused once more by the pleasant smile on her face but there is a hint of something bad in her voice. Something Elias cannot name but is familiar with hearing from his father and brother Nils. But when the doctor turns her attention to Elias, the nastiness is gone from her voice as she explains things to him. "Alight Elias, we'll take you back to get started on the surgery. We're going to put a mask on you and you will take a couple deep breaths and then you'll be asleep. By time you wake up, we'll be done with the operation. Do you have any questions?"

Elias does not have any questions because he does not understand much about the operation. Not that he would even ask them if he had them. He was told clearly before coming here to stay quiet by his mother. So he simply shakes his head at the doctor, but stops partially as an innocent question pops into his brain and he asks before thinking of the consequences, "Should I be afraid?"

The doctor gives him a smile of pity at this question. "It is understandable to be afraid of a surgery like this. But I have done this several times and every surgery was a success so you have no reason to be afraid of any consequences."

Elias simply stares at the doctor, not knowing if he should respond to her because he does not feel afraid at all. People are supposed to trust doctors so why would he be afraid of her?

"Well let's get started," the doctor says before motioning in two people that move to either side of the bed Elias is sitting on. They start pushing him out of the room and down a long hallway and Elias just stares ahead, trying not to look at his mother as she walks alongside him. He saw the look on her face and he knows that he broke one of her rules about talking to other people. He doesn't want to be punished again…

She leans over to Elias to whisper to him and he can hear in her voice that he will definitely be punished later for speaking up. "Say one other thing and you will have to lose the rest of your legs. Are we clear?" She waits for Elias to obediently nod his head at her. He understands exactly what will happen to him and he doesn't want to lose more of his legs. "Good," she says before stepping back from him and speaking louder to the doctor. "Don't waste any pain medication on him. I'm not paying for that when he doesn't need it."

Two Years before The Reaping

Elias does not know what he did wrong. He waited exactly in the spot that his parents told him to wait every year once the Reaping finished – the bench right outside the flower shop by the Justice Building. He has waited for hours now and still his parents have not showed up to take him home. They must have gotten busy doing some shopping in the city after the Reaping. Why not use the trip out here for another purpose?

But yet…the sky is getting dark now. They have never taken this long to get him. And no one else has even stopped to talk to him, just leaving him to stare out blankly at the crowd that has been thinning out over the day until only a few people now rush to get home before dark.

Behind Elias, he can hear the tinkling of bells as the door to the flower shop opens. He does not turn until the shop owner stops to the right of him. "Hey kid." Elias takes a few seconds before looking up, confused if the owner is actually talking to him. He blankly stares up, just like his father always taught him to do. The owner starts looking weirdly at Elias before clearly his throat, "Why haven't you gone home yet? It's not good to be wandering the streets at night at your age."

Elias shakes his head at this, still staring up at him for seconds that start to drag on, trying to figure out what he is even allowed to tell the shop owner. "I am supposed to wait here for my parents."

The owner lets out a sigh as he keeps staring down at Elias before shaking his head. "Kid…I don't think they're showing up. Best to head home on your own."

Not…showing up? Why would they not do that? Elias stares at the owner as he heads back inside the shop and locks up the door before flipping the open sign to closed. Elias vision starts blurring and he tries blinking to clear it, confused by what is happening. He does not even know how to get home… But the nice man told him to go home. He is supposed to listen to adults.

Elias stands up, taking a few seconds to get his balance on his prosthetics before staring around the center square of town, trying to figure out which way they entered in the morning. But it looks so different at night than in the morning when it was full of people. Elias just starts walking, picking a direction to go in that he thinks is correct. He keeps walking, staring ahead and avoiding looking at people, just waiting until he will finally see some buildings that he knows as being the apartments near his home.

And yet, the sky keeps growing darker and the streetlamps turn on as Elias keeps walking, still not finding his home. Less and less people start to pass him on the street. He has no idea how long he keeps walking around, just doing what he was told to go back home.

"Hey! Are you alright?"

Elias stumbles over the sidewalk at getting startle by the voice, but he catches himself and keeps walking. He does not like getting spooked at all but he is not supposed to tell anyone that. And he is sure the person is talking to someone else. Even if they are talking to him, he is not supposed to talk to strangers.

"Wait!" The girl calls again and he hears footsteps running towards him. A girl catches up and walks next to him, staring up with wide eyes and a look Elias has never seen given to him. "What happened to you? Your legs are bleeding!"

Elias stops walking to look down at this, blinking emotionlessly at the blood dripping from where his legs were amputated and down the black prosthetics he wears. "Oh," is all he says, not sure what else to tell her. He had not even known he was bleeding, unable to feel the pain of the wounds.

"Oh? That's all?" The girl asks him in disbelief and Elias looks back up to stare at her blankly. Her face looks kind, but Elias was told not to talk to people that look like her. These people would hurt his parents if he tells them what he does. "Don't you have parents to look after you? It's almost midnight."

Elias thinks over his response, fighting against being told not to talk to strangers, yet wanting to talk to this girl. She seems very nice and the first person to say anything to him tonight since he started to try and find his way home. "I do not know where they are."

The girl starts frowning at this, looking down at Elias' legs once more. "What happened to your legs?"

"I am not supposed to talk about it to anyone," Elias tells her, falling silent as he waits for the punishment that would normally come to him from saying something like that. But the girl keeps looking up at him with concern and his parents are nowhere to be seen. "That is what my parents and Nils tell me."

"Well they're not here and I'm not letting you keep walking around with those injuries," the girl stubbornly says and starts walking again. After a few steps, she turns back and waves at Elias. "Come on, you're coming with me. I don't live too far from here."

"Okay," Elias says obediently before starting to follow after her.

She keeps talking away, glancing back often to make sure he is still following her. "I'm Cecy, by the way. Do you have a name?"

"Yes, I do have a name," Elias answers her question as she slows down in front of a tiny shack tucked between two factories.

"Well, this is my home," Cecy says fondly, staring at the small shack with a smile before turning back to Elias. "In we go. And you didn't tell me what your name is."

Elias follows Cecy inside the one room shack. There is not much in it, barely enough for one person to live in, but it feels like a comforting home to Elias. More comforting than his own home ever was. "Elias," he slowly responds, still looking around in wonder at the small shack Cecy lives in. "Do you live here on your own?"

"Yes I do, now sit," Cecy commands as she points at one of the two mismatched chairs and Elias quickly obeys her. Once sitting, Cecy stares down at his legs, her young face full of concern before she grabs a rag and dips it in water. "How did you not notice this?"

Elias watches her start wiping away the blood from his prosthetics, confused that she is doing this for him. He does not even know her. "I do not feel pain," Elias tells her, getting a wide eyed look from her. "Is that weird?"

"A bit," Cecy says with a short laugh before turning back to her work. "Can I take these off?" She asks him and he nods his head at her. She gently removes them, revealing open sores from where his legs were amputated. "Who made these? And how can you walk on these? They're terrible. I can't let you leave until I fix them."

"Okay," Elias agrees to her but knows he cannot stay here forever. "But I have to find my parents."

"Sure," Cecy says as she sets the prosthetics down on the table gently next to a bunch of pieces of metal and tools to tinker with them. She looks around the small shack, sighing before turning back to Elias. "You can stay with me until you find your parents but you have to pull your wait. I can barely pay for myself, let alone you too. So what can you do?"

Elias stares at Cecy, trying to think what he can even do. He only knows what his parents have taught him over the years: how to be obedient and how to fight. "I can fight?" His words turn into a question, unsure if he should even tell Cecy this. But the young girl is being so nice to him and he likes her.

Cecy grins up at him at this, "Yeah? Well Elias, have you ever heard of District Six's fighting rings?" Elias shakes his head no at her. Surely she is not talking about the fighting rings his parents and their friends put him in. "Well you'll see what they're all about soon. And once I have these fixed we'll see just what you're made of."

Four Months before The Reaping

"Cecy, I need your help," Elias says right away as he steps into the shack, having thought about what he was going to say to Cecy the entire walk home from the fighting pits.

"Hi Elias," Cecy looks up from her tinkering at the table of the shack, her warm brown eyes hidden by the goggles she always wears while working on things. She gives Elias a warm smile that he always loves seeing when he gets back home from the fighting rings. "How did the fights go tonight?"

Elias thinks over his response as he sits down at the table with her, trying to figure out what exactly she means. "I won the fights. I also got a letter from someone saying they are a representative of some man in the fighting pits. They did not tell me who it was, just that he is important." Elias stops talking, unsure about asking her for her help after she already helps him with so much. But if the letter will help out Cecy, he will do whatever it says. Anything for her. So he pulls out the letter from his jacket and holds it out to Cecy, "Can you please help me read it?"

"Of course," Cecy takes her goggles off and puts them around her neck before taking the letter from Elias and opening it. She moves her chair over so Elias can read the letter as she reads it aloud. Her lessons are always enjoyable and he finds himself grinning as Cecy starts talking, "Elias, you have made quite a stir in the fighting pits I run. Enough to catch my attention. I would like to offer you the opportunity to become my personal champion. Should you keep winning, you'll earn triple what you're making now." Cecy gasps at this and Elias looks at her, worried she is in pain or something from her gasp. Instead, she gives a proud smile as she stares up at Elias, "Elias…this is amazing! Wow" she says quietly to herself before turning back to the letter. "But who is this person?"

"I do not know," Elias tells her honestly, although he wishes he could give her an answer. He thinks over everything he knows about the man that runs the fighting pits, the man who wants Elias to be his champion. "No one knows who he is. I heard someone call him the Faceless Man."

"Then that's what we'll call him," Cecy says as she looks back down at the note, reading it again silently. "Triple the pay… We'll be able to finally save up enough to buy that house we want. Elias…" Cecy looks up at him, her face immediately growing concerned for him. "Why are you crying?"

Elias does not know why he is crying. He is just so happy at the thought that he can help Cecy buy that house they always walk past and talk about how they would paint it all sorts of colors, just like he has painted their shack. "Because I am happy. That money will help you out…" Elias hesitates, staring at Cecy for a few long seconds as he blinks his eyes and wipes a hand across his cheek. When he looks down at it, he can see the glistening tears on his fingers from the tears he could not feel running down his cheeks. "Are you not supposed to cry when you are happy?"

Cecy pats him on the arm and gives him a smile, one he studies for a few seconds before doing his best to imitate her. "Not usually unless you are very happy. Then it's tears of joy."

"I am very happy," Elias continues his forced smile at her. Why would he not be very happy right now?

"So am I," Cecy tells him, still smiling at him and making him feel even happier. "How about I make some bread and butter pudding to celebrate?" Cecy asks him, smiling proudly up at Elias. "I'm proud of you."

Elias' eyes start watering once more and this time he knows for sure that they are happy tears. He loves her bread and butter pudding, even if he can't taste it well. But Cecy makes it for him and that makes it special. And she is proud of him… She is the only person who has ever told him that they are proud of him. He does not know what the feeling inside of him is, but he knows he wants to keep feeling this. So he will do whatever it takes to be the Faceless Man's champion and keep winning fights. "Yes please."

Courtney Cassini, 16

One Year Before The Reaping

Courtney didn't know what to expect dinner to be like the first night after the divorce was finalized, but she is quite happy with what it's turned out to be. It's more fun than any of the dinners ever were with her mother there, always trying to stop her from having conversations like the one tonight. So at least there's one bright side to all of this – Courtney can fully be herself with no one telling her otherwise and her father is so much happier now that his wife is no longer there and being negative towards everything Courtney does. And she'll admit, it's rather nice to go a full day without getting told she can't be interested in engineering simply because she's a girl. Why should her gender have any impact on her hobbies and career plans? It's silly, but no longer a problem.

No, her problem right now is convincing Leanne that she's wrong about using hovercrafts to travel into space.

"Leanne, you're simply not getting it," Courtney tells her friend, able to see the annoyance in her friend's eyes from losing one of their speculative arguments. "A hovercraft is not going to be able to withstand the pressure of space and make it to Mars. Not without some serious alterations to the structural design of the craft and the engines."

"Well you're simply not listening to me!" Leanne responds and Courtney can tell she's starting to get upset from the argument, which isn't want Courtney wanted at all but she is simply stating the facts.

"I am listening to you and that's how I know what you're saying is incorrect," Courtney tells her friend, keeping her voice calm. She wouldn't really call this an argument, more of a scientific discussion, one they have often. "I do study this stuff."

"But pre-Panem society was able to successfully get into space with way less technology than we have today. That's why I'm telling you hovercrafts would make it to Mars!" Leanne doesn't look convinced that she's made Courtney listen to her and turns to Courtney's father. "Come on, Mr. Cassini, back me up here!"

He holds up his hands defensively, amused smile on his face as he watches the two girls have their discussion/. "I'm staying out of this debate."

Courtney can see Leanne growing upset and tries to end the debate so her friend doesn't feel so bad about losing. There's no sense in getting upset about logic. And why ruin her day by getting upset at something trivial like this? "How about we just agree to disagree? And then another day we can continue and you'll see you're incorrect."

Leanne puts her fork down loudly, staring at Courtney for a few seconds before suddenly pushing back her chair and storming away from the table without another word. Courtney just turns to her father, confused by what she did wrong. "Why did she get so angry? I just told her the facts."

"Courtney," her father says carefully, trying to keep his tone calm. "I've learned over the years that women can get very upset over things that you think are trivial. And most teenage girls are not as logical as you and tend to overreact without thinking."

"Oh…" Courtney answers, not realizing she did something wrong. But she didn't, she was just presenting the facts. "I should probably go talk to her then."

"That's a very good idea," her father answers immediately, clearly about to tell her that.

Courtney sets her napkin on the table and heads towards the stairs where she can hear Leanne stomping around upstairs. Hopefully Leanne doesn't stay mad for long, there's no reason to get mad about this. She counts the fifteen steps up and once at the upper level, she pauses to hear where Leanne went and heads towards her room. But when she reaches the doorway, she stops in panic at the sight she sees. "Leanne, what are you doing?"

Her friend looks up from her hands holding a pair of scissors and a t-shirt as Courtney quickly walks into the room. Courtney gasps when she realizes what shirt her friend has been cutting up and quickly snatches it away before any more damage can be done. "I got this shirt the very first time I saw BTR in concert!" Courtney's eyes start watering as she stares at the holes in the shirt, one even cutting through her favorite member of the band.

"I'm so sorry," Leanne tells her, voice quivering as she tries not to look at Courtney. "I-I don't know what came over me. I was just so angry and you weren't listening to me!" Her friend's eyes start watering as she looks at Courtney just staring down at the shirt, trying to figure out what to do about it. "I-I'm sorry, I shouldn't have touched your BTR shirt!"

Courtney hates seeing her friend upset and any small bit of anger she might have had at her friend quickly dissipates. She can tell Leanne genuinely feels bad so why should Courtney stay mad? "I suppose I can still wear it… Might have to wear a tank top under it or something." Courtney holds up the shirt, able to see right through the shirt where it would be right over her chest. "Okay definitely need a tank top under it."

"Are you…" Leanne hiccups as she starts wiping away at her eyes as Courtney glances over at her. "Are you mad at me?"

"No," Courtney says with a sigh as she takes another look over at her shirt. There's nothing she can do about it now so why stay mad at Leanne? "I do own seven other BTR shirts. And now you just made me a one of a kind tour shirt!"

Leanne lets out a small laugh at this but shakes her head at Courtney. "I don't know how you're not mad at me or how you always find a way to find something positive. I wish I was more like you… If I was, I wouldn't have done this."

Courtney suddenly hugs her friend, wanting to cheer her up. "Carpe diem, Leanne! Just gotta keep reminding yourself that life's short and there's no point staying mad about things you can't change." Courtney steps back from her friend, keeping her hands on her shoulders as Leanne still doesn't want to look at her. "Am I happy you cut up my favorite BTR shirt? Of course not. But it's done so time to keep moving forward! You'll have to do something a lot worse to make me not want to be your friend."

"Worse than cutting up your BTR shirt?" Leanne asks in disbelief, knowing just how much Courtney loves the band. Anyone can tell by simply looking around the room and seeing all the posters hanging. "I don't know what I could possibly do that's worse than that."

"Me neither, so looks like you're stuck being my friend for a while."

Five Months Before The Reaping

"This is terrible."

Courtney stares out the window of her bedroom on the second floor of the apartment at the large amount of snow that accumulated overnight. There has to be at least six feet of snow by her best estimation, which is usually pretty spot on. She doesn't even think she can see out the windows at all on the first level with how high the snow is. And it doesn't seem like it's stopping anytime soon.

"What's terrible, dear?" Her father asks as he walks over to her. He stops next to her at the window and hands her a mug of hot chocolate, a rare treat that he usually only gives on special occasions. Like, say, a snow day that's shut down the entire city. "You don't have class today and everyone is off from work. Well," he chuckles to himself and shrugs when Courtney turns her attention away from the snow and over to him. "I did tell my boss I would still do some work from home. Why waste a day when there's still stuff that can be done?"

"That's true," Courtney answers softly before taking a sip of her hot chocolate. Well one bright side of today is getting this drink. "I do have a project to replicate a hovercraft design just based on pictures of them in a CAD software. I was planning on doing that this weekend but why not get it done early?"

"There you go, kiddo," her father smiles as he holds his mug towards her and she lightly taps her mug against his. "See, not the end of the world that we're stuck inside. And I can even work on your project with you a bit."

"Yeah, but I needed to go outside today," Courtney starts frowning, sighing dramatically. Her father gets an amused smile, recognizing her teen angst over a band. She gestures to her shirt, still torn up from the mishap with Leanne. "BTR's new cd is out today and I was going to go to the record store after class to pick it up! Now we probably can't even get out the front door!"

"Courtney," her father starts, tone telling her she's missing something very obvious. But she simply doesn't know what it is, all she can think about is how everyone else is going to hear Beyond The Realm's new songs before her. "Even if you could get out of the house – which, you can since I was shoveling early this morning – everything is closed."

"Oh," Courtney responds, staring back out the window at the snow falling once more. "You're right. Well, I suppose the songs will still be there tomorrow. And if I waited 55 days since the announcement, I can wait one more day."

Her father pats her on the shoulder at that and gives her a warm smile. "There's my positive daughter again. You can't help that we got this snow storm. No one was predicting it would be this bad."

"It was just the combination of the right conditions to create this much snow," Courtney grins up at her father. "It was the combination of a low pressure system moving over the entire length of the lake that was at a much higher temperature than the storm, thus creating unstable atmospheric conditions at lower elevations. Thus, that happened," Courtney gestures outside at the feet of snow surrounding them.

"Yes, that happened," her father shakes his head at the snow but when he turns back to Courtney, he has a proud look on his face. "I'm glad I have you around to explain the weather and space. What would I do without my own personal weatherperson?"

"Well you could just listen to the news report," Courtney answers matter of factly, turning away from the window towards her desk to grab her work to bring with her to her father's office so they can work together. She always loves the days working with him and she's just going to focus on that today and not the cd she could have been listening to right now. And why wouldn't she enjoy spending the day with the person who has always encouraged her to pursue whatever interests she has, unlike her mother? That might be the best part of the snow day. "Well best get to work. The sooner we get started, the sooner we can make lunch."

Her father chuckles at this as she sets down her mug so she can start gathering all of her stuff from her desk, counting each item to make sure she has everything she needs to work on her assignment. Design paper, reference photos, pencils, pencil sharpener, eraser, headphones and BTR's last cd. Seven things, excellent. Once all the supplies are carefully balanced in one arm, she picks up her mug of hot chocolate again and turns around to face her father, finding him standing in the same spot and smiling over at her. "Well?"

"I raised a workaholic," he chuckles while shaking his head at her, but she can tell he's not really disappointed in her.

"You're the one that taught me your work ethic," Courtney answers him as he walks over to her, ruffling her short hair and just making her grin up at him.

"Oh I'm aware, your mother only told me that every day," he laughs a bit as he motions Courtney over to the door and follows after her. Courtney listens to him as she counts the steps down. "You're corrupting our daughter!" He starts, raising the pitch of his voice and making it nasally to mimic his former wife at her worst, making Courtney nearly snort out her hot chocolate she was unfortunate enough to be taking a sip of at that time."She should be playing with girls, not dreaming of space and running around with those boys she calls friends. She even picks her nose in public!"

Courtney laughs loudly at him as they reach the bottom of the stairs, struggling to keep from spilling her hot chocolate. His impression is just spot on. "I was doing that before I ever became friends with the four guys and I'll probably still do it for a long time."

"Didn't matter to her," her father laughs a bit more before letting out a content sigh as he holds open the door to his office for Courtney. Stepping inside the small but cozy space, Courtney just feels right in place. The desk takes up most of the room, about 15 square feet of the room, nearly half of it, organized efficiently with her father's work regulating the delivery schedules and paths of the many trains traveling around the country. One wall is taken up by a few scarcely filled bookshelves that she's all read, opposite the wall with a big map of Panem covered in the railway lines.

Someday she'll have her own office just like this. But instead of a map of Panem, she'll have a map of the stars.

"But it doesn't matter anymore what she thinks," Courtney finally responds as she takes a seat across from her father and sets down her stuff, careful to not disturb any of his work. "All that matters is we're happy with our work and I don't know about you but I'm very happy studying astronomy and engineering related to it."

Her father gives her a proud look at this as he sits down in his spot, crossing his hands on his desk and just looking at her for a few seconds. "Courtney, just make sure to have some fun today," her father says before they can both get fully started with their work. She glances up at him from where she was organizing her supplies on her half of his desk, a little confused because this is fun to her. "It's a rare snow day and you're still a teenager. Do you think anyone else is actually doing work today?"

"Probably, yeah," Courtney answers with a shrug of her shoulders. "Why not take advantage of a day off to get work done? It means less stress later and my weekend can be more open now."

"Well how about you work for half the day and then invite your friends over? You're not too old yet to have some fun out in the snow." Her father pauses to laugh a bit before continuing, "That is assuming they can actually dig their way out of their houses. They can even stay for dinner if they want."

"You're right," Courtney nods her head at him as she starts smiling at the thought of the terrible, and by terrible she means totally awesome, snowball fight her friends will try to start in this weather. It would be a waste of a snow day to not have some fun out in the snow! "Okay deal, I'll work on this project until after lunch and then call around to see who can actually make it over!"

"Courtney, the probability of this being a really bad idea is very high."

"Leanne, don't be a party pooper!" James calls at her friend, staring up at Courtney crouching on the roof right outside her window on the second floor. She can see her best friend shaking her head at Courtney, but it only makes her grin.

"Yeah, Leanne, what James said," she calls down to them in the small yard where they stand, struggling to move around in the high snow. "I've did the calculation on this and it will be fine!"

"But you're jumping off the roof of the second floor into a pile of snow!" Leanne says in a loud whisper, nervously glancing down at the first floor to make sure Courtney's father doesn't hear her. It's unlikely he will since he's been on a conference call for the last hour.

"I know and it's going to be awesome!" Courtney calls down, still gripping her windowsill. She can't help her grin as she stares down at them, always loving heights – she's spent so many nights sitting on this small bit of roof and staring up at the stars with her father. Really, he's the one to blame for her love of heights. And she loves getting challenged to do crazy things. Which is exactly what James and Kendall knew when they bet Courtney wouldn't jump off her roof into the snow. It's a shame that only two of the guys could make it over today to see this, but her father had said they might not be able to dig their way out of the snow. Logan couldn't and Carlos was at his grandmother's house, helping shovel the snow out of her front porch. But at least two of them could make it over!

Courtney can tell Leanne still doesn't look convinced at all by this. "Come on, Leanne, I did the math, it's just a simple projectile problem! I'm only falling fifteen feet but it's more like seven with how high the snow is. Gravity is barely going to have any time to make me pick up velocity and cause an injury."

Leanne sighs at her and shakes her head some more before turning away from Courtney. "If you get hurt, I'm going to say I told you so."

"Reasonable and I wouldn't expect anything else from you," Courtney responds to her friend, still grinning about the jump. Leanne just worries too much and life is way too short to not do some crazy stuff sometimes. "Alright boys, give me a countdown!"

The two boys cheer at this and Courtney laughs in excitement as she lets go of the windowsill, making sure she's steady crouching down and ready to jump forward. Last thing she needs is to lose her balance while jumping and hit her head on the roof. She gives a thumbs up down to her friends and they start the countdown.

"Three! …Two! …One! GO!"

At go, Courtney braces herself before jumping forward, letting out a yell of excitement when her feet leave the roof and she starts falling towards the huge fluffy pile of snow. She's barely in the air before she hits the snow, sinking down into it but not reaching the ground, just like she expected from her calculations. She starts laughing from the adrenaline rush as snow starts falling onto her face and she wipes it away. She can hear James and Kendall cheering some more at her jump but also the crunching of snow as Leanne makes her way over. Soon enough, she sees her friend's concerned face peering down at her and Courtney grins up at her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah that was awesome!" Courtney laughs some more as she puts her hands out to try and sit up, only for them to sink farther into the snow. "Okay I didn't think about how I was actually going to get out of here."

Leanne shakes her head down at Courtney, clearly trying to fight off a smile on her face in an attempt to not encourage Courtney from doing more things like this. "I should just leave you down there for scaring me."

"You could but within 30 minutes I'm going to start getting frost bite," Courtney tells her as she hears the boys starting to walk over. "And while this would be an interesting story to tell my kids someday about thirty years from now, I do prefer having all ten toes."

"Alright, alright," Leanne says, finally unable to hold in a laugh at her friend. "James, give me a hand."

Thorichelle 'Thori' Asia Shamon, Escort for District Six

Thori could barely sleep the night before. All she could think about all night is everything that could possibly go wrong today. She didn't want to go to District Six – or any of the Districts, for that matter. What if the mentors try to influence her into using drugs? She's heard that's a problem here. Or what if a vehicle malfunctions and hits her? And what if someone knows about her family and attacks her?

She wishes she could have just stayed back home in the Capitol, figured out some way to delay her family from basically making her take a job related to the Games. She could have tried to be a Gamemaker or something, at least then she wouldn't have to be talking to people. But when President Xavier personally called her parents and asked if someone in their family could be an escort, they simply couldn't say no.

And if the President of Panem is asking the Shamon family for an escort, something bad must be happening with rebels. There's no other reason he would allow a sixteen year old to be an escort unless he needed her loyalist family involved. But why did she have to be an escort?

Thori's been dreading the mayor finishing up the speech, knowing that means it's time for her to go out on stage. When her name is called, she can barely force her feet to move forward onto the stage, fear almost keeping her locked in place. She tenses up as she steps outside, ready for the crowd to start yelling at her or throwing things at her, all for who she is related to. But when they just give a small bit of obligatory applause, she only slightly relaxes her tense shoulders as she steps over to the microphone. "Hi-" she cringes at the feedback from the microphone and takes a step back, already wishing she could just get inside and hide from the crowd staring up at her. She anxiously puts arms behind her back, fidgeting with the ends of the gold sleeves. "I, uh…I'm Thori, your escort?" Her voice raises into a question, unsure what she's even supposed to be doing. She hears some snickers in the crowd and immediately looks down at the stage, wishing desperately she was anywhere but here right now. "Yeah, uh, let's just pick the tributes."

Thori quickly walks over to the right side of the stage, stumbling over her gold boots. She briefly shuts her eyes, trying to pretend she didn't just trip over her own feet in front of all of Panem. But she quickly opens them back up, more afraid of not being able to see what's going on around her. Thori just picks a name quickly from the bowl and all but runs back to the microphone, desperate to get this over with already. "Elias…Pilkvist?"

The boy section starts rustling and Thori cringes at herself. Great, she picked the wrong tribute first. Everyone is going to make fun of her for this. But now she has to worry about how the person she picked is going to react and she hopes he won't scream and yell at her.

But no one moves towards the stage and Peacekeepers start moving into the crowd. As they reach Elias near the front of the crowd, he cries out at them. "No! Cecy! No, don't take me!"

Thori immediately starts feeling upset for the boy having a breakdown at being reaped, knowing it's all her fault. He keeps crying out for Cecy and Thori just wants to hide from the crowd. It's all she can do to keep from crying at the boy panicking. She caused this.

"Elias!" A girl calls to him as Elias reaches the aisle between the sections, practically being carried up to the stage by the Peacekeepers. He stops his crying at his name, turning to look over at a girl hanging over the rope around her the section to look at him. "It's going to be alright. Just quiet down and go with them, okay?"

Elias nods his head at her and stops yelling, but as he gets closer to the stage Thori can see tears still falling down his cheeks. The Peacekeepers drop him on the stage next to her and when he's barely able to catch himself, that's when Thori glances down and notices the prosthetics on his legs. Oh God, losing a leg is one of her worst fears and he lost both.

Elias stares down at her, eyes still crying and full of fear that Thori knows she's matching. She can't handle looking at the boy older than her that she just picked to go to the Games and turns back to the crowd, but that's almost worst. "Is ther-" she stumbles on her words as she tries to ignore the crying boy next to her. "Is there any v-volunteers?"

No one steps forward for Elias. But no one has volunteered in Six since Jarle did nearly twenty years ago.

Desperate to end this disaster of a Reaping already, Thori just goes to the other glass sphere full of names. But she hesitates before picking a name and turns back to stare at Elias. Who else's life is she going to ruin?

She should have just told her parents no to doing this.

Trying not to think about it, Thori picks another name and returns to the microphone and just quickly says the name. "C-Courtney Cassini."

Courtney doesn't wait for Peacekeepers to escort her onto the stage, stepping out from among the other sixteen year olds, a hesitant smile on her face as she approaches the stage. She looks so casual for the Reaping, wearing a nice jacket over a torn up Beyond The Realm shirt. But at least she isn't looking at Thori with fear as she reaches the escort, smiling up at her and hiding the disappointment in her eyes.

Thori has to look away as she realizes that Courtney is the same age as her. In a different life they could have been in the same class together at school. The only thing different about them is just the place they were born. Thori could have easily been in Courtney's shoes.

"Any volunteers?" Thori squeaks out, trying to stop the panic at the realization she's having thanks to Courtney being reaped. "No? Okay I guess we're all done then!" Thori quickly blinks her eyes, trying to keep it all together and not start crying in front of Panem. "Go ahead and shake hands?"

Thori watches them and Courtney sticks her hand out first while Elias stares at her for a few seconds before taking her hand. As soon as they're done, Thori starts taking steps backwards to get off the stage as quickly as she can. She never should have taken this job. How is she supposed to work with two people her age? How is she supposed to help them when she's not even an adult yet?

And the worst part she's slowly realizing is that she might have just picked two people her age to go to their deaths.

It's been a little while with this story but I'm officially on winter break so time to make some good progress on this story! Big thanks to Little Knight Mik for Elias and Platrium for both Courtney and Thori! They were both a lot of fun to write for very different reasons and I hope I did well with them! And now we have officially passed the halfway point with the intros, woo!

As always, I love to hear what you think about these two! And what do you think about Elias' condition given the quell twist? For anyone who is curious and would like to read more, it is called HSAN2! Oh and anyone spot the connection with Thori/know who her family is?

Okay I'm hoping to have D7 out next weekend! So hopefully I'll see you then!