Omar Beatriz-Calvert- District Ten male, 15

The horse in front of me was all cut up with the layers peeled back so I could see all the parts. I wasn't a butcher, though. It was a textbook and I was studying to be an equine zoologist. It was about the only higher education opportunity available for someone from Ten. I'd always been a good student and my mother said I could really make something of myself. Here in Ten we raised livestock and processed meat, but there was something else we did, something not everyone knew about. We also bred and trained the horses used in Capitol ceremonies. It was our most prestigious claim to fame, and the horses we sent had very specialized training. Some were even genetically enhanced. That part wasn't usually done in Ten but it was our behavior scientists who determined what needed to be changed and how to start changing it. If I stayed at the top of my class and aced the standardized tests all Districters took, even though we never got to go to college, I had a shot at being offered a job at one of our equine specialty plants. It was the closest thing to college I could hope for.

I just had to make it through three more Reapings. Reaping day was the worst day of the year for obvious reasons. I didn't like to talk about it, and I hoped people didn't know how scared I was. I didn't want to scare my younger cousins, since we all lived together on our farm and we were on top of each other every day. I tried to put on a brave face for them, but sometimes I felt like it was all a lie. Why should I try to convince them there's nothing to be scared of? There IS something to be scared of. I might die. THEY might die. We should all be scared.

After the worker pricked my finger I peeled back the bandage and looked at the blood. It was such a tiny little red drop standing against my finger. I'd always wondered about all the things in my body. I could scrape together books from our tiny library and from sympathetic friends, but I'd never be able to study like I wanted. If I'd been born in the Capitol, I could have been a doctor. I could have spent a decade in school; just learning about more and more things. But I was from Ten, where school ended at eighth grade for most people. I had a couple of friends who couldn't even read. The Capitol didn't think we needed that. We just herded sheep and milked cows. Why would someone like that need to go to school?

Sassafras was wearing a wool coat. I guess she wanted to be District-appropriate, but it was sixty degrees out. People think that farms are always warm in the summer and cold in the winter. Actually Ten had a huge range of weather. Sometimes it snowed in April, and sometimes it was forty degrees in December. It was warm this year, so Sassafras looked like she was meltking in her coat. She kept wiping sweat off her face, and pretending she was just checking her makeup.

"Cowgirls first"! Sassafras said, beaming as she reached into the bowl. "Bess Carver!"

Bess? Oh, no.

Bess wasn't my best friend or anything. I didn't even know her that well. But I'd seen her around, and she was a really nice girl. She was built like a bull but she always used that to help people and make things better for everyone. And she was almost always smiling. It tore me up to see her walk to the stage wiping away tears. She stood next to Sassafras hugging herself with her huge arms.

"And now the fellas! Or should I say, the COWBOYS!" Sassafras crowed. She reached into the other bowl.

"Omar Beatriz… no, BeatriZ-Calvert!"

This munst be what it feels like to die. It felt like everything stopped. I felt cold all over, like my blood stopped flowing. Everything seemed… gone. Like I was already a ghost and I was just figuring it out.

Somehow I got to the stage and stood next to Bess. I wasn't sure but I thought we were both crying.

Bess Carver, District Ten female- 17

I'm big. I'm strong. I can bend a horseshoe and one time I ripped a book in half. It wasn't a huge thick novel, to be honest, but it was about 300 pages, and it's really hard to rip a book that big. I can't wrestle a bull but I think I could probably wrestle a wolf. I weigh more than a wolf since I weigh 170 pounds and a wolf weighs about a hundred pounds, I think. And I can punch. A wolf can't punch.

The great thing about being big is you can help small people. That was why I liked getting bigger. The bigger I got, the more people were smaller than me, so I could help them.

A lot of people in Ten hated work but I had a really fun job. I was the one that moved the hay bales from the field onto the wagon. I loved grabbing onto the hay twine and slinging the whole hay bale like a frisbee right onto the wagon. The only thing I had to watch out for was making sure there were no people right when I was about to throw. One time I knocked Mr. Otis right off the wagon. There was grass on the ground so he was okay but he was pretty mad at me.

"Coming through!" I yelled as I swung the hay bale. I'd taken to warning people, just in case I didn't see someone up there. I chucked the bale and bits of dried grass flaked off of it as it swung up and landed on the wagon. I liked the first part of the day the best since there was only one layer of bales hten. After we reached three or four layers of bales I had to climb up on the wagon and set them down since even I couldn't throw that high.

"I bet I can get more than you." I said to my friend Otis. Otis jr, really, since he was Mr. Otis' son.

"You ALWAYS get more than me." Otis said.

"Okay, I bet I can get more than you AND Rosie." I said.

"How many do you have so far?" Rosie asked.

"I dunno, I didn't count." I said.

"Well at least we have a chance then." Otis said.

I got thirty-one before Otis and Rosie wanted to take a break. Otis got seventeen and Rosie got twelve so I did win by a little bit.

We were walking to the water station when we passed by Merino. He was walking kind of zig-zag, like he'd been drinking or something. He was panting like a dog and as we passed by him he stumbled.

"Hey, are you okay?" Otis asked.

It seemed like Merino didn't see him. He kept walking for another step, then sat down and kept panting.

"Uh oh. Stay here, okay?" Otis said to Merino. He turned to me and Rosie. "He has heat stroke. Or just exhaustion, I can't tell."

"Is he okay?" I asked. He sure didn't LOOK okay. His face was all red and he was still panting.

"He just needs to rest and get some water." Otis said. Rosie ran ahead to bring back some water.

"Can't rest." Merino wheezed. He tried to get up and I tried to get him to stay down. "I haven't made quota."

"Don't worry about that." I said. "I'll make extra and we'll write them down as yours and you can go home, okay?"

"I only got thirteen bales." Merino said. He was a really skinny bookish guy, and I knew he often got up early to care for his siblings since his mom was dead and his father had been sick for months.

"Don't worry. I can get a hundred bales if I have to. I did once." I said. "You just go home."

"Are you sure?" Merino asked as Otis helped him up.

"Of course I'm sure. I LIKE throwing hay bales. And I like helping people. You're doing me a favor."

OKay so like everyone else, I LOVED Encanto, so when I saw Bess was bsaically Luisa I got super excited! That's why her first paragraph is bascially her own song lol. Also i found out her faceclaim is a powerlifter named Mahailya Reeves and she's super cool-looking, everyone should check her out!

One more thing: submitters can pick their own alliances but I'm just gonna play matchmaker and say Bess and Omar should definitely ally!