Elara Aspen | District 7 | 16
The Night Before the Reaping
Warmth surrounds me like an embrace. Our tiny fireplace casts a yellow, slowly-shifting glow over the living room carpet. I can feel a pleasant burning in my knuckles and fingertips as I brandish a poker, shifting the wood to best catch the flames. Just a room away, my grandparents are squabbling over the best way to store the leftover casserole. And it is bliss.
Grandma and Grandpa have a go at least once a day. When I was littler, I tried to play mediator. They dismissed me every time I expressed concern, usually with a laugh or a wink or a shake of the head, before picking up right back where they left off. Bewildered, frustrated, I eventually stopped trying to convince them. But over time, I came to realize that they only ever really argued over the small things. The quickest way to get to the grocer on a crowded Sunday morning. How much snow we're expected to get tonight. Whether to shoo away the birds building a nest on the windowsill, or to wait and grab the eggs.
No, all this back-and-forth of "We can't eat leftovers for breakfast, Edgar, I'm making griddle cakes!" and "If we put it in the icebox it'll take forever to heat back up tomorrow," is just the surface layer. Underneath are two people that are as steadfast as they were the day they married. Though you wouldn't know it by sight, they were always unified where it mattered. Supporting my mother. Providing a home for me. Practically raising me from infancy.
I finally hit a sweet spot. The wood hisses and crackles in response; I could swear it sounds contented. Satisfied with my work at the fire, I scoot backward and climb into the vacant spot on the couch. My mother sits there as well. Her warmth is stronger than that of the fireplace. Rather than fall back into the cushions of the couch, I curl up into her side and lean my head against her shoulder. Her smile, already amused at listening to her parents, only deepens.
She refocuses on her weaving. Slowly and deliberately, she ties precise knots into the row of strings splayed across her lap. Perhaps, if I make it through tomorrow, I will find a completed friendship bracelet at my place at the kitchen table. It's a craft in which both of us are well-practiced, spending the few, quiet hours we have to ourselves weaving side-by-side, occasionally asking the others opinion on color or pattern placement. She always gave me hers, and I always gave her mine, and over time it felt less like gift-giving and more like one of those beautiful facts of life, a constant you wouldn't imagine living without.
We're both fond of the floral patterns. The white knots she ties in between the strands of forest green look like flower petals.
She pauses to plants a kiss on the top of my head. "How are you feeling?"
They're the first words she's spoken since dinner. Like me, my mother is soft-spoken. But she works a job that demands her to be in constant conversation, whether its giving the workers at the paper processing plant their instructions for the day or negotiating quotas with Capitol representatives. Her return home is the only chance she gets all day to rest her voice. So the times we spend together in near silence are, for both of us, restorative.
But as for how I'm feeling…neither of us has forgotten what day it is tomorrow. We haven't been avoiding it, exactly. Reaping Day is more or less the whole reason we're here. The four of us—my mother, my grandparents, and I, have been having these intimate feasts on the same day each year for the past five years. No one says what they're for, acknowledges outright what day it is. But I know why they insist. They want to give me something positive to hold on to, during the hour when I will need it most, and possibly, if my worst fears come true…
Terror will come soon. It does every year. But not yet. Here I am warmed from the outside in, from the surface of my skin to the deeper layers only certain people can reach. Here I am surrounded by those I trust. I can suspend myself in the peace of this moment, of the flower petals manifesting between my mother's fingers, of the peals of laughter beginning to emerge from the kitchen. This shelter may be temporary in time, but it always remains for me to come home to.
With my mother, I feel safe. It's been this way since the moment I was born. Probably even before then, if I had any recollection. I suppose most other women in her position—just out of school, at the start of their career life—might have taken my coming to be an inconvenience. My father did, wherever he is now. But my mother resolved for me to never know suffering. She recruited my grandparents. She worked herself to the point of fatigue, but she would always return smiling. Not once, during the years she worked her way up in the paper plant, coming home late but making sure to pour all her free time into me, not once did I ever get the impression that she was embittered or burdened for having me. I feel safe, because she chose for me to be.
How am I feeling? I don't need to answer her. She knows.
Night has fallen. No one wants to go to bed much; that would mean the end of our last guaranteed full day together. But even a moment in time such as this can't last forever.
It does help that Mom and I are spending the night. She insisted I take the one other bedroom: "I've slept on much worse than your grandparents' couch." I protested, of course, but she brushed it off. And, opening the door to my childhood bedroom, I can't help but feel grateful that she did, because this room is saturated with memories
There's the quilt Grandma stitched together for me, and the small collection of well-worn books stacked upon the dresser. I also see a handful of my earliest friendship bracelets strewn about—full of gaps and unevenly-spaced knots. Evidently I never brought myself to throw them away, even after I'd mastered the practice.
I glance out the window and see that darkness has settled. Years ago, I might have been woken early by Grandpa just as the sun began to rise. I would hear him splitting logs outside this very window. I would join him, and like any sensible parental figure, he would have guided me through the axe motions himself, his calloused hands adjusting the positions of my arms. We would keep at until we were too sore to continue. Then we would brew some hot tea in the kitchen and drink it on the porch so we could admire our handiwork. In the months between winter and spring, he'd point out the snowblossoms beginning to unfold from the sheet of frost in the yard. Those were always Grandpa's favorite—the early bloomers. He says winter is when we need flowers the most.
What a lovely fantasy that is—that this is the morning I could wake up to instead.
I lay my head on my pillow and wrap myself in the memory. Despite what I know, deep down, will take place tomorrow, sleep comes easily.
Mickey Romalas | District 7 | 16
The Morning of the Reaping
Sleep would not come last night.
I tried. At first. Tossing about in my bed—none of the usual positions felt comfortable. Focusing on my breathing—I gave up on that idea after I started to hyperventilate. Quieting my thoughts—hah, good one.
I gave up trying after an hour.
It's barely dawn now as I tread a familiar path through town. It's too early for me to be out, so I keep to the shadows. The dew-damp pine needles muffle my footfalls. I know the route so well I can trace it automatically, which is a good thing, because exhaustion has settled in where sleep should be. I feel it in the ache behind my eyelids, in the labor it has become to breathe. The only thing preventing me from falling asleep where I stand is my heart, beating too frantically for slumber.
My mind is just as active, conjuring up images so vivid I may as well be dreaming. Our vacant Capitol escort reaches for me with a stark-white hand and a leer. I mount the stage—it is suddenly the height of a skyscraper. Cameras press on me at all angles as I struggle to answer a question I don't remember. I stumble off the stage, except now it's a cliff. My body smashes against the ground. I die slowly of starvation. I am burned—no. I am decapitated by an axe I don't see coming. I am torn apart by mutts, waiting in agony for the killing blow.
Over and over, these scenes play in my head like a film reel. I do nothing to stop it. As horrible as these probable futures are, it is the only way to distract from the far-worse scenes of the past.
I continue to slough along at a steady pace. I stop only to pluck a large, white wildflower at the base of a fir, and again when I reach my destination.
There isn't much to distinguish our medical center from the other buildings in town besides a faded, wooden cross on the awning. It doesn't tend to see much activity. Most of the heavy-duty medical equipment in District 7 is distributed to our lumber mills, more likely to be in the vicinity of injuries needing urgent treatment. So the town center is left with some basic medical and life-sustaining equipment, an over-the-counter apothecary, and bed space. Most of the time, the only people who occupy beds are the ones who can afford them. Occasionally, a more desperate case will come along.
And her window, one floor off the ground, is slightly ajar.
I take hold of the flower in my teeth and begin to climb. The stones are damp, and with my fatigue it feels like I am climbing upwards through sap. But there are footholds. I've scaled trees worse than this.
The girl in the bed is small, with choppy, brown hair. Her skin, marbled with burns that are beginning to scar, otherwise glows a soft white. She is still fast asleep when I enter through the window, breathing imperceptibly beneath an oxygen mask.
"It's me again," I whisper. I place her flower on the corner of her nightstand with the others I've brought her this week. Then I kneel next to her bed and give her hand a light squeeze.
Sara…well…I haven't known her for very long. But in the short time I have, she's become the my one tether to sanity. She's the only one who I can speak of about my past and all my secrets, the only one who would understand.
My last visit was only just yesterday, but to her, even small, mundane details are news of the outside she wouldn't have otherwise. So I tell her everything. I tell her about trying to adjust to life in the community home. About how my two new roommates, both twelve-year-olds, got caught trying to hide a snake under the floorboards of our bedroom. About how yesterday's rations were actually stomachable, something Ben—god, I wish you were still here—might have been able to make into a decent meal. About the wildflower patches growing freely in the ill-kept backyard—she'd like it, I think. About the harsher punishments and stricter rules—including a curfew, which I am breaking by being here. Not that it will matter now, I have to keep myself from saying.
All the while, what I really want to say churns beneath the fragile layer of small talk. But I'll get there eventually. Sara is patient. I'll come to her bedside to gush nothing but tears and garbled nonsense. And she will wait quietly until I get every word out I need to.
She must. After all, Sara has been in a coma for three days.
I know next to nothing about her. Even before her hospitalization, she has never spoken a word to me.
But I need her. If death were to take her too, it would hollow me out. It'd be as if a piece of me were lost forever.
"There's something else," I say gently. How the hell is that—that I am able to keep my voice steady when, inside, this one statement brings another series of flash-forwards to my violent end? I do my best to suppress them. After all, this is the whole reason I am here. No one else knows what I am about to say, what I am about to do. Sara, at least, deserves to hear it from me.
"I'm going to volunteer today. For the Hunger Games."
A strong emotion pushes past my sluggishness, and when, after a beat, I identify it, I feel like laughing. It's relief. I will no longer be spending sleepless nights agonizing over the decision. It's made. It's out in the open. It's final. There's nothing more to decide.
I'm still the only one who knows about this, assuming this girl lying comatose isn't in the middle of a bizarre, out-of-body experience—no, that's creepy. But saying it aloud, in a strange way, sets my course. There's no turning back now.
I try to picture what her reaction would be, if she were truly present. Stunned silence? Horror? I feel like she would at least demand I explain myself.
"If I won," I go on, picking at a small burn scab on my own hand, "I'd be rich enough to pay off a Capitol doctor to come treat you like you need. Maybe even send you to the Capitol to get fixed there. Then, you'd wake up. And I'd get to meet you. Meet you proper, I mean." I swallow. I don't like what comes next. "And if not—if I don't…well…that's an innocent live saved, right? No matter who it is. Even some kid I don't know. Better their life spared than mine.
"It might be the one decent thing I've done in my life," I mutter finally.
Growing up, I never wondered as to whether I was a good person. Maybe because I thought it not worth considering. The answer seemed obvious. I knew right and wrong. I was kind to the people I was closest to. My friends—Ben, Koby, Osaka, Wally—I liked them all. I never doubted they felt the same.
I may have taken that for granted once, but no longer. Not since the night I looked over my shoulder to see my former life disappear in a plume of smoke over the mountain.
What did I have to say for myself in the end? That at least I wasn't a complete nightmare like—that monster—Reginald Taber? But even that I now call into question.
Good people don't destroy.
Good people don't self-combust, taking everything and everyone they've ever loved with them.
But maybe, if I could save a life, somehow make up for the ones I've lost…
"You'll see, Sara. It will be worth it."
Elara Aspen | District 7 | 16
Though we've made plans to walk together to the ceremony, I don't manage to track down my friend Halston until midmorning. I finally find him seated on a bench in the pediatric ward. The harsh light from the windows bleaches his already pale face. Outside is a constant drone of nervous twittering, but this cool, stone hallway, the only noises are my footsteps and the loose shaking of his leg.
"I didn't expect to find you here," I say. I take a seat next to him.
On a normal day, sure. While he doesn't have an exceptional head for medicine like his mother, I've known him to volunteer whole weekends in the wards, reading to the bedridden patients. I'm the one he probes for book recommendations.
But it's Reaping Day. We're due a little selfishness today, but of course, he doesn't see it that way.
"We're understaffed this morning," he explains. "Most of the nurses have kids in the reaping this year."
When I point out that this includes his own mother, he gives a half-chuckle. "We're used to it. Besides." He seems to stare at something distant, though the paper he holds is hardly eight inches from his nose. "Someone has to deliver the bad news."
The paper is stamped with the Capitol seal. I know what this is. Pediatric patients can apply for release from the Reapings under the most dire circumstances. Usually those dire circumstances amount to the patient's deathbed. They would also have to be deemed untreatable by a Capitol examiner.
I scan the notice. My eye catches several important phrases revealing the patient's diagnosis. Comatose—three days. CO Poisoning. And then, rubber-stamped in glaring, red letters: Denied.
So this patient is as eligible as anyone in this year's Reapings. It also means that the very doctor who conducted their examination could have them fixed up in minutes at the Capitol. Maybe even on the train.
Halston reads into my silence "They found her in the Calgary fire," he explains.
Walden Calgary was, I suppose, the closest thing District 7 had to a philanthropist. He spent his earlier years as a carpenter and an architect. He could have retired comfortably. But he chose to stretch his savings thin, building a large cabin further up the mountain and taking in a handful of orphans who otherwise would have been subjected to the demeaning conditions of the community home. From what I hear, they loved him dearly. Most who knew him did. It had been a horrible blow to the district when his cabin went up in smoke, taking almost everyone inside with it.
"It's awful," I whisper. I know this means, on some level, this patient's condition isn't without hope. But supposing she did get reaped. Imagine—waking up from a days-long sleep, only to be cheerfully welcomed into the Capitol and told you had a week to prepare for the Hunger Games. I would think I was still trapped in a particularly disturbing nightmare. "If only I…"
I can't find the next word.
If only I…what? If only I had been there, at the time of the examination? What would I have done? Whispered my objection until someone so much as spoke over me? Stood up against the nearest wall and felt bad?
We continue to wait for visitors. Halston insists there's at least one—someone took out tesserae for her to keep a small flow of oxygen running. But if they end up not showing, then we're the only visitors she has.
It's not where I would have chosen to wait out the morning before the Reapings. I would rather be outside, tracing familiar paths through the woods, see the sun sparkling between the leaves, catch what could be our last glimpse of town from halfway up a mountain. If this is my potential last day I spend alive in District 7, I don't want it to be shared with the dying.
But I stay. I stay because it's Halston, and though he's got a different way of thinking about things, it's always, always a kinder way.
It's not the first time I've been unsettled by one of his pre-Reaping rituals. More than any other day, Reaping day is when he talks about the future. About how he wants to quit the lumber mill—it was only something we all did to build strength, anyway. About how he knows a carpenter who could teach him how to make splints. It feels wrong to me, talking so openly about a future you may be a day away from losing. It's like tempting fate. But I've studied his face when he gets like this. And I can read from every animated expression how important this is to him. This is more than a way of letting out a few nerves. With that hopeful smile and eyes fixed to some faraway point only he can see, the future is his escape, the way my dearest memories are for me.
So, despite my unease, I had humored him, and told him my desire to one day be a paper or lumber plant manager. "Like my mother."
"Elara," he had said then, a teasing smile on his face, "no offense, but you couldn't manage an ant farm."
That was before I knew him well enough to anticipate his jokes and respond in kind. But the other reason I had no words to respond was because he was right. I could work hard and excel in school all I wished. And I did. But it wouldn't be enough if I had no authority. I don't think I would even particularly enjoy management. At least, not while I couldn't lead.
"But what if I could?" I had replied. But this was not to Halston. This was hours after the Reapings had ended that year, as I lay in bed with my quilt tucked up to my chin and allowed myself to think of the future. "But what if I could, one day?"
In the end, no visitors came. So when Halston was called to the medicine counter to help distribute the day's round of pain relievers, I volunteered to deliver her notice myself. She could simply be sleeping, I think as I stack her papers neatly on her bedside table. Her skin still appears to be ablaze—mottled with blistering red and ash-white—but her expression is neutral. She could be blissfully unaware of the terrors in store today.
But is that fair to say? I examine the girl more closely and wonder how I didn't see it before. With her hollow cheeks, tight lips, creased forehead, she looks more at pain than at peace. Where is her mind, truly? Still somehow aware of the Reaping? Reliving the memories that gave her those awful burns?
Before I leave to find Halston, I notice a fresh, white wildflower on the corner of her bedside table, still shimmering slightly with the remains of morning dew.
Mickey Romalas | District 7 | 16
The odds must be looking down kindly upon me, because I make it back before curfew. Then, the day begins for real.
I'm…not exactly energetic as I go through the routine of brushing out my hair and scrubbing down my arms and legs and changing into a set of plain clothes. I'm still too tired. But there's something almost like strength to my movements. A purpose. Not once that whole morning do the visions of the night before come back to plague me.
The Reapings are held just outside of town. Our escort, I'm told, is fond of the forest backdrop, looks majestic or whatever. In past years, it's been marginally calming: less claustrophobic. But now, as we file into our places, I see some of the townsfolk looking with unease up at the redwoods that will be captured in the shot. No doubt thinking of that gruesome death from last year's Games. I don't blame them. I don't know how the Gamemakers got so many cameras so close, but they truly covered her death from every angle, right down to the last detail. The whole district watched as she burned—maybe don't think about that particular death?
Well, in any case, someone in this crowd will be saved from her fate, or worse. I picture the unease and the fear on the faces around me replaced by relief. They'll go home to their families, grateful to be alive another year. They may even remember me.
The tension reaches its peak. The first name is read. The poor girl who ascends the stage when her name is called—too innocent for this. She's trembling from head to toe, and I feel regret that nothing I do from this moment can help her.
Another name is read, but my pulse drowns it out. It won't matter. Whoever this boy is, they will have another chance at life. And I am ready to give it to him. I am wired like a runner preparing for the shot that will start the race. I even stand on the balls of my feet, my hand fluttering at my side—wait. Who was called?
Because nothing has happened. No one ascends the stage for what feels like a minute. The Peacekeepers are starting to mobilize.
Then, I see it: a forceful motion from the throng of eighteen-year-olds up front. A shoving motion from within the crowd itself. And then, a furious, high-pitched screech.
I freeze. It can't be.
I flash back to the moment our escort reads the name. I try to recall the shape her mouth makes, try to count the number of syllables—please, anyone else.
But no—amidst protest, more shrieks from up front, and the unmistakable tension of barely-there violence, the crowd sacrifices its tribute. And Reginald Taber ascends the stage.
Reginald Taber. Thick as a tree trunk, with the wit to match. His hands constantly clenching and unclenching. His reedy voice spewing venomous expletives at the escort, the crowd, his cowering district partner. His wide face reddening, his eye bulging, eyepatch straining.
Reginald Taber. One of those people who seemed to have more time than he deserved on this earth and always used it in the pursuit of making others' lives miserable. I knew it. His own peers knew it.
This is who I stand poised to save: the one person, more than anyone in District 7, who I would sooner see dead.
My mind has shut down. Not two minutes ago, it was clear with purpose. Now, it's just empty.
No elation, though I know this is exactly what he deserves.
No relief, even knowing that the District will finally rid itself of a monster from within. My home will become a better place, and it won't require my death.
No grief, even as I imagine Sara, all that remains of my world, remain where she is, losing her champion.
All that's left is a void, and a decision must fill it. I was so sure I was about to do the right thing—am I still?
When a team of lumberjacks fells a tree, there is always a spotter among them, ready to bark an alert to their team at the slightest movement. Once a tall enough tree begins to tip, there is no halting its motion, no catching it with your bare hands. You have one ultimatum: get out of the way or be flattened.
Whatever else I am at the moment, I am that tree, and my tipping point was this morning, when I confessed to Sara my intention to volunteer. I can't rightly say it's anything but momentum that brings my whole life crashing to the ground, and the last thing I see is her peaceful, sleeping face before I let everything fall.
"I…I volunteer."
I push to the stage before I know fully what I am doing. I ignore the whispers around me, stunned and questioning. I wonder how many are aware of the particular history we have, Reginald and I.
I took his eye; he took my home. Funny how things escalate.
Maybe it's a good thing I'm calling it quits for us here, before things get worse—but how much worse? He already has a body count.
I hear Koby's voice as we stare each other down. Don't provoke him, Mickey. He's violent…sick…not right. Whether he knows it, he's rigged to explode, and you don't want to be there when he does…
Well, Koby, as I'm sure you're aware, it's a bit late for that.
To my horror, I realize he's beginning to laugh. It's a kind of breathy, erratic chuckle I've only ever heard from him once, not even a day ago. "Exactly what you deserve, Romalas…" For an instant, I wonder if he actually might be stupid enough to admit what he did on live television.
Instead, he laughs harder. His fists continue to clench and unclench, more frantically than before. His cheeks are cherry-red now, and his eye sparkles—almost like the fire he set is inside him now. He has not been humbled. He thinks this is absolutely priceless.
Suddenly he stands up straight, eye blazing, pointing directly at me.
"You…haha…think this changes anything, Romalas? WRONG!" He shouts it suddenly, switching in an instant from glee to…anger? I hold my ground. "I—owe—you—nothing. You're gonna die and I'm gonna enjoy it. So have fun getting blown to bits."
Like the rest of them. He doesn't say it. But it hangs between us.
A Peacekeeper approaches from behind to restrain him, but not before he spits directly in my face.
Elara Aspen | District 7 | 16
I can't breathe. I can't see. I can't even think.
All I can do is clasp my hands in front of me to keep them from shaking. And continue stepping, one foot after another. It's a long walk to the town center. Other districts stage their Reaping directly in front of the Justice Building—I've seen it on TV. Immediately after the final anthem plays, they are ushered indoors, away from the crowds and cameras. That silence will be a gift. But first, we must be paraded for all to see.
My hearing is on overdrive. Whispers, mostly: a swarm of them. My district partner is muttering something as well, far too quietly to be meant for me. His gaze is fixed on the ground, his hair falling into his eyes. My district partner, who volunteered for this…
Someone calls my name from somewhere behind me. I'm sure it is my mother. For a moment, I forget myself. I let longing and panic take over, twisting on the spot and crying for her, but my path is blocked by two Peacekeepers. One of them grabs my upper arm.
"Please," I choke out. "Please, I—" but whatever I had imagined I would say vanishes. The Peacekeeper's squeeze isn't hard, but it shatters what remains of my will.
Forced to continue my forward march, I try desperately to catch a glimpse of something familiar. Nothing is recognizable. Funny, I've likely walked this very path a hundred times. But if I were blindfolded and dropped here and forced to recreate this entire scene, with the Peacekeepers and the film crew and the curious spectators blocking my field of vision from both sides, I'd never know it. I want out. Out of this crowd. Out of this Peacekeeper's shadow. Out of this nightmare.
I keep my head bowed. It helps drown out the tumult around me. It also helps hide the tear that falls hot on my cheek.
I'm still not able to make out the mumblings of my district partner. I think he could be singing something. Though he barely opens his mouth, and his song is so quiet it is practically tuneless.
The singing stops. Somehow, I'm aware he's looking at me.
"Did I do the right thing?" He asks. He could be talking to himself just as much as me.
I bring myself to look at him. My district partner. A sharp face, a tightened jaw, a pair of restless eyes.
And he wants to know…if he did the right thing? By volunteering? By offering up his life to save someone else's? I think back to the reaped tribute, the boy with the eyepatch, who had screamed horrible things at me, spat at him. Spat in his rescuer's face. Who would do such a thing? What was the story I couldn't see?
I try. I try to read him, like I would usually be able to. But I take too long. I watch as something, some bit of life, drains from his eyes. And I know. No matter what it was I had meant to say, my silence spoke louder.
Author's Note
To any new readers, welcome! To any old readers, welcome back! Allow me to explain the rather large gap in between my story's publish date and update date.
After…a little under three years, I think? I have decided to revisit this project. I'm in a place in my life where free time is more predictable (not abundant, but predictable), and I think I can finally aspire to produce a finished product.
Which brings me to the fact that, yes, this is an OPEN SYOT! :) I want to account for both the old and new audience, so this is how its going to work. A couple weeks ago, I reached out to everyone who had submitted a tribute who I have not already written for (I'm keeping D5 and D10 regardless because, surprise, I love them). They will have first dibs.
I'll keep my bio up-to-date with both a submission form and the list of tributes. If you're interested in submitting, the empty slots are yours for the taking. The slots that say PENDING indicate that I am still awaiting a confirmation from that writer. If enough time passes and I don't hear from them, I'll assume they're inactive and open up that slot.
Thank you to liliblossoms and AlexFalTon for your tributes! I know it's been a long time coming, but hopefully they were both worth the wait.
Lili—Elara's nickname/title card is based on a real flower called a snowdrop, which blooms early and has a unique appearance like its head is pointed down. I discarded many more generic ideas before coming across this one, and thought it suited Elara well! I did exercise some artistic license with the name (snowblossom) because I wanted it to be instantly recognizable as a type of flower.
Alex—this was probably a very different Reaping scene than what you had imagined, but I hope it was still to your liking. I had to do it; moral dilemmas are just…*chef's kiss* But yeah I probably made Mickey even more unstable so I'm very sorry about that. 0:)
And with that, we've finished District 7! Not much action for these two (yet), but definitely a lot going through their minds. What do you think of them? How do you think they'll play off each other?
Cheers, and catch you on the next chapter ~
Grey