District Nine

Fonio wasn't expecting this, but it is what is in the end anyway.

Obviously, one couldn't hopefully expect the Hunger Games to come knocking on your door and tell you "Hey, you have been selected to participate in them, even though you are past reaping age and should be protected from that. It´s obvious this is unfair and that the president is a fuckward, an ignorant guy who does nothing right and should die from a poisonous disease, one that "The Father" could produce for him with just a blink of an eye. And few of his better assassins of course.

It´s obvious that the person who was behind all of the other schemes that was having Father being reaped. How could it happen? There weren't supposed to be any bowls, I mean, papers on the bowl with the name "Farro Zizania" on it. How could it happen? They had taken out all the papers with their names just before the Reapings could start, before everything anything could happen if this quasi-quarter quell. This couldn't be happening, they were the strongest of the district, the most intelligent people in it, and their ways of doing stuff proved that certainly them right in it.

The father led them with a quick-thinking mind and a great process to follow, but you knew that if you didn't adhere to the commands of the leader, you would go down, in both history and life, as a traitorous son of a bitch that doesn't do anything for his leaders and can't comply with them. That´s why he had to do what he did at the moment.

He had to volunteer. If he didn't, his brothers could have killed him, too. Sure, they are family and family is supposed to never harm each other, especially in hard times, but he was never a normal family, no. His was always a tremendous affair of a family that will never be stopped by anyone or anything, not guns, not peacekeepers, not other "families". Nobody will ever dare to do anything to do them and get away with it.

But, whoever had made "Father" be reaped had been a smart man, or woman. They had attacked them where they had no place to hide, where they couldn't escape from the grasp of the so-called "President of Panem" Myriad Laurentine Graeme, who had his hands in illegal matters much more than they had. It was pretty obvious that he only wanted the father to be taken out because of his deals and his bargaining. And that the only way to put an end to all of that was keeping Farro, father, and safe from the reaping forever and ever, meaning someone had to step up and be a man.

And he was one hell of a man. One hell of a brave and courageous man-

"You are so stupid!" someone said from afar. Wait, no; it was closer than he thought. Very close, if he heard correctly. Like if it were coming from something in front of him…

And indeed it was.

"How could you be so dumb Fonio?! HOW?!" Farro Zizania asked with a fury and a rage unseen on such a stoic man, even when he was faced with the decision of killing child spies from other families or not. How could a man so rigid be the one to wear such anger on his face? Was it possible, or was it just an illusion?

Apparently, it was not a magic illusion, as, after him, Cruenta and Grosti Zizania appeared. Cruenta looked so worried, while Grosti had a face filled with disdain towards him. But why, why were they so angry? That was the question he was looking for.

And apparently, the three of them were going to give him the answer in much, many loud voices.

"HOW?" Farro said again. "How could you do this? We were so close, so damn close."

Fonio did not, literally, understand a single shit of it all. He was just standing, well, sitting there with his hands on the table, trying to make all the pieces of the puzzle come together.

"What are you talking about, father? Did I do something wrong in saving you from eternal death?"

"Yes and no, idiot. Because I wasn't going to die." Oh, now he was so sure of himself that he wasn't going to die in a death match with another 23 people, well 22 and that woman Laurel that seemed older than life itself.

"Oh yeah, what were you going to do? Manipulate all of the other contestants into thinking that you would have their family members assassinated or killed by your best assassins? Oh, wait, you can't, because your best one, your son, is now going to do the dirty job you should be doing if I wasn't there to save your ass. And these two behind can't do much of a job if it doesn't involve counting money, don't you think?"

"HEY!" Grosti yelled.

"It´s true," Cruenta whispered so one could hear him, but he forgot he was in a closed room and that everyone could hear him there.

Farro was getting angrier and angrier. "Idiot. I had a plan with one of the Gamemakers to let me win easily, so we could have a lot of money legally and we could do a lot more business than we do nowadays. Do you get me?"

No response.

"Fonio, are you there? Fonio, Fonio? FONIO?"

"FONIO, pay attention for God's sake!" Birra Daster yelled at him, which was as loud as noises the train made while they passed during these train tracks. He wasn't paying attention to the environment, that's all. What happened had been an illusion, a trick played by his mind, he wasn't going to the Games, it was absurd to think like that. Maybe he had drunk too much the night before, maybe it was all a dream, maybe…

"Come on, you got to pay attention if you want either you or Laurel here to survive!"

"Fuck."

The reapings were beginning to get tough to watch for Laurel Autumn. Especially with all the little children getting reaped all of the sudden. She couldn't believe what she was seeing, the pain those people were suffering, the families that will be turned apart because of these horrendous Games. She didn't want to see them, to talk about them or even hear a single bit of their words, of the murders that will be done in name of "punishment" and "law". It isn't right, it isn't fair. Why should they be killed for something they had no participation in? Why should the Capitol punish the Districts for something that is just in the past that no one can change, that the lives that had been taken can't be untaken? Why does this in God´s name should this be happening to her, to Fonio, to all of them? She is sure none of them wants to truly kill someone with their bare hands or to have blood on their fingers. Because, naturally, people don´t want to kill, or so Laurel believes.

For her, all people are inherently good and with no idea other than to be good to others. Like her grandchildren. They are the sweetest creatures in the world, and she loves them dearly, always showering them with gifts and laughs and hugs and smiles. She treasures the faces she remembers them having, Harvest always angry about everything and trying to have her way through most of it, but everyone just having a good old laugh about it. Including Reese, who is most of the times calm and chill, like the young people used to say back in her times, now just being a word everyone uses for when you are not irritated.

But that isn't the problem here, no. The real problem is that she is one hundred percent sure she is never going to see her grandkids again. Maybe she made a mistake in grabbing the silver bracelet when it was handed to her by Nate, always ready to talk and the first to think things through. Maybe this time the adventurous and outgoing twelve-year-old didn't have any good recipes in his oven, and just went with the first one they could get for her. For her to have one bloodied death bed. For their one thing to give her of themselves for the rest of their and her lives.

"Pay attention," Birra says, pointing to the television, but all that Laurel can see is two people who are in love and married are going to have to kill each other one way or another or have to see the other die. She sees the man going full mad man and attacking the peacekeeper, while the woman tries to be strong, but fails too. She sees a boy the age of Nate, her youngest grandson, gets reaped and again, like most people who don't instantly do, he tries to be strong, to keep it together and be a man of his own. But he fails, he falls during walking.

In a situation like this, he would usually say something funny, and everybody else would laugh. But the reaping is not something funny, not at all. It is a burden on humanity, a curse against the world, a suited man in a broom. He falls and starts crying while still having to walk up the stage, and the escort, that damn fucking escort of the Capitol, that damn bird that makes you wish the phrase "Don´t shoot the messenger" didn't exist so you could actually do it, just smiles. She smiles at the poor boy's disgrace, and then she wants to go there, get inside the TV, and break the bones of the escort, and hug the poor little guy Terry forever and keep him safe, take him to her family and turn it into a haven of sorts, somewhere where they could all stay safe from each other and the Capitol.

But no, she can't do that. She is trapped here and there, in this train that is going to hell.

She can only see as a poor girl who must be nuts or out of her mind take her hand up to the air and says the curse words.

"I volunteer!"

She must be in real need for something because she can sense some sense of lust for something when she decides to speak up after some Lana kid gets reaped. Or is it greed? Or envy? She doesn't quite get her right now, as she only has seen her from the TV for the moment being.

She decides she wants to get out of her way. She is respectful towards others, and she always tries to show it. Not because she is egocentric or that she feels good being good and that's why she does what she does, no. It is simply that that's how it should be.

Then District Nine comes next. Fonio volunteering for his father is a great move, but also bad, since all the District had come up with the idea of having Farro get reaped to get rid of him and had rigged the whole process, since he was the mafia leader, and then Fonio came along and ruined it. Though she didn't take participate in that. She never does. As said, she usually stays out of people's ways.

And then she comes along, her eyes wide open when she is called up the stage, her family worried, crying. Her daughter, Nate, Reese, Harvest, all worried as hell. She doesn't want them to see her down as much as she is already because she is old, and sad and lonely because she has no friends left alive and Oliver, how her dear Oliver is gone and with his own family, and she can't do anything but to wait for them to call her from above and bring her with them.

They can´t see her die painfully and without a purpose, they can´t.

But... the baby and the eight-year-old that come just after her on the TV give her an idea that seems unbeatable...

Birra seemed like she was about to go nuts.

These tributes, they are starting to get on her nerves. First, they don´t pay attention to her, then to the reapings, and now they prefer to train separately. Well, it was Fonio who furiously decided it, but Laurel didn't seem to mind. What the hell was wrong with these people?

Last year it had been simpler. It had been a fourteen year old girl and a thirteen year old boy, which meant none of them really stood a chance, since the girl wasn't a female Finnick Odair and the boy wasn't a prodigy from D3 who could do anything he wanted with electricity or create magic traps or whatever he wanted to with his bare hands or nature itself. No, the girl was simple and non-appealing, actually insulting her most of the time, and the boy had known the fate he had coming in the future, so he had decided to just cry his way into the games and didn't move when the gong had sounded around the cornucopia. He placed twentieth, and the girl had died a few days in.

She was already preparing for death to happen to Laurel. She was an eighty-year-old woman for God's sake, how on earth would she survive all the measures and cruelty of the games? It was impossible for her to make it out alive in any way.

But Fonio had a chance, and she was going to take it. She had heard of his family, and what they did around the district and their connections with the peacekeepers, the mayor and with the other districts in general. He was a cold man and he could easily pull it off it kept himself together. He just had to be smart, intelligent, sly like a fox and cunning like a rat. If he just did that, he could win and bring another victor home.

She could have someone who could help her deal with her stuff when she couldn't see Mayalen in the Victors meetings. She just needed him to win... desperately. But how, how she could make that happen?

Maybe she could sell herself to the Head Gamemaker… No, she was a woman in a relationship, and she was the strictest one in her whole lifetime. It wouldn't happen. Maybe she could manipulate the sponsors into doing what she wanted and giving everything they had to Fonio… No, she was too aggressive and repellent to do that. Oh, she could maybe-

No, that wouldn't work either. She had to come up with something quick and fast so she could do it and make it work.

But what could that be?

And just like that, the call came.

The phone rang intensely, and Birra felt like it was in her heart - the desire to pick it up and talk to the person on the other side.

"Hello?" they said.

"Hello, Leana, what´s wrong? You sound nervous."

"Is this a safe line?" she said, sounding even more worried.

"Mmmmhm" Birra muttered.