A/N: And today we have District Nine! :D I like this pair a lot, just as I like every pair of tributes I've gotten xD this is going to be hard, killing them off. Well, anyways, enjoy. We're not even in the Capitol yet. Let's not start thinking about our Victor quite yet. (Screams inside when I realize I haven't the slightest idea who'll be Victor.)
Trigger Warning: Profanity
Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends
Ring out the bells again
Like we did when spring began
Wake me up when September ends
Saffronelle "Sage" Alumius, 15
Resident of District 9
Laborer and Student at Reynolds High
My olive colored skin glistens in the light of the sun-bulbs as I toil over the golden wheat field. Sweat beads at my brow, and I breathe in and out evenly, liking the feeling of the balmy air sliding in and out of my lungs. The artificial sun beats down on me, but my wide sunhat blocks the sun from burning my face and neck, although my arms are tinged red a bit from their exposure to the sun. Sunscreen's hard to come by in Nine.
You might be a little confused. Artificial sun, sun-bulbs? What are those?
Nine is a mostly industrial place to most people's surprise. One of the four main port cities, Sorghum, is one of the most industrialized. We produce flour and breads and cheap alcohol for the Districts, along with other products with our grains. All of it takes chemicals and gasoline and machinery to do. But to produce the best, fastest growing, hardiest, cheapest to grow grain in Panem, it needs to be genetically modified. That's where the greenhouse labs, sunny and natural on the fringes of the smoggy, mechanical beast that is Sorghum, come into the equation.
In these greenhouse labs, agriculture specialists from around the District, some of the richest people in our District, work to breed different species of grain to get a certain genotype and phenotype out of them. They breed them for their hardiness, their speed, their price tag, their durability, their flavor, and their uses. The specialists are usually cooped up in their labs, cross breeding varieties and splicing genes and all that jazz. Then, when they have a new variety or species of grain they want to try out, they come out of their labs and enter the vast majority of the breeding facility; the fake fields.
There are several fields, which, using special Capitol technology, can have their temperatures and terrains changed to match that of the places this grain will be grown over the vast expanse of our District. They plant their new types of grain and watch to see how they grow and fare, and how they turn out. They observe and study, and look on while people like me and my friend Aluma till the fields, plant the seeds, and water and raise the grain plants. I often wonder why they don't use machines for this job, but then again in the tiny villages that are sprinkled out throughout the back country of Nine, most people plant and raise their crops by hand. I guess machines raising the plants would add an extra variable or something of that ilk.
A tinny bell rings out throughout the greenhouse, and we all immediately stop working. The lunch bell. Many of the older workers hang up their sickles and scythes and watering cans, instead picking up their silvery lunch pails supplied by the laboratory owners to feed their workers. Aluma and I, along with some of the other teenagers that work here, hang up our supplies before grabbing our backpacks and burlap lunch sacks from one small, off shoot room by the door. I heave my book bag over my shoulder, lifting the heavy, book laden bag rather easily. This work in the laboratories has made me decently strong, and very strong compared to most of the people that live here in Sorghum. People in the port cities and usually weak and tired. Not me.
Aluma and I laugh uproariously at jokes we crack as we walk with the other kids towards our sector's schools. Rutledge Elementary, Rhye Middle, and Reynolds High are all connected into one super-complex of a school that contains well over four thousand kids on any given day. Our laughter slices through the shaded, quiet avenues of Sorghum. The air's stifling, as little wind gets past the thick curtain of uneven buildings to cool off the people street level. Sorghum is a down trodden, ugly place, but I make up for it in my joy and hilarity and optimism. Well, at least when I'm not...off.
"We have to tell the others that joke!" Aluma mumbles, still in stitches, as we approach the schools. One boy who works with us, a couple of years older, glares at us. Nothing could mess with my happy right now, however. I just strike him down with a smile before Aluma and I march into the school. We split to go to our respective lockers, and we meet back up in the communal lunch room. Other kids start coming in. Since nearly everyone in the city of Sorghum works once they hit age 6, the age minimum for working in the factories, school doesn't start until lunch time, when every kid is released from his or her job to go to school for a good four or five hours before they can either head back to work or head back to home. Homework is sparse and teachers are lenient, and it's a system that encourages trouble makers and an overall sense of "I don't give a fuck." At least my friends and I try to do decently in school. We all succeed most of the time.
Aluma and I sit down at our usual table, and I stare at her flowy black hair. I reach out and start braiding it French style. My own braid, with my red hair, is a French braid. Aluma doesn't object. She's used to me touching her hair and randomly tapping or poking her. She's just so cute, and I love playing with her hair and looking at her. She's the best friend a girl could ever ask for, and I'm happy to be friends with her.
Soon enough the other core members of our friend group are sitting at the table. Wheata, Trish, and Iliana all work in the factories. I brush some soot off of Trish's shoulder when she sits down on the other side of me, and she just grins tiredly.
"Wanna hear a joke? It's dirty and I think we woke up the whole West Side laughing when Aluma told it," I say with a slight grin to cheer them up. Trish and Wheata perk up, although Iliana just sags even more, opening her lunch sack. Iliana has a rough home life. I go sit down by her and start braiding her hair as Aluma prepares to tell the joke, acting like its the best joke on earth, not a dirty little sucker of a joke that makes you laugh hard until you realize it's really not that funny.
"Well, a orphanage girl and the Capitol Liaison's son meet up under the assorter..."
Everyone's in giggles for a couple of minutes, and I laugh along too. It is a good pump you up joke. Even Iliana hiccups out a few warbling laughs, and I squeeze her tight before moving back to my seat between Aluma and Trish. A few kids take away our extra chairs, and another girl we know well named Centra sits down and starts chatting with Iliana. I smile and dig into my lunch, admiring my friends.
Leaving the lunch room later in the day, a boy a year younger than me walks past and knocks my books out of my hand. I turn and look at him sharply, and he scurries off. What a fucking brat. He thinks he's soooo cool, messing with a fucking freshman. He better get his ratty ass 8th grade butt over in the Rhye Middle section of the complex before I clobber him. Children like that, so insufferable.
I'm just in a sour mood all day. All of my teachers are grouchy and ugly, my classmates annoying and thick headed. I huff and puff and roll my eyes, not raising my hand, not writing down answers, not giving a flying fuck about anything like the kids I sometimes despise. This life rocks. Who wouldn't want to not care about anything? It's so relaxing, and no one expects anything of you. The world is terrible anyway.
Leaving my last class, too complex Algebra with prissy Miss Scotte and a class of fucking delinquents, I spot Aluma standing by my locker along with Wheata. Trish and Iliana are already gone. Trish leaves twenty minutes early to go get a quick two hour shift in after school, and Iliana is in the counselor's office like she every Tuesday and Friday. What a twerp, she can't even deal with the fact that her mother yells at her.
"Hey, Sage, are you okay?" Aluma asks. "You seem to be...riled up again." She puts a hand on my shoulder, and I huff and step out of her grasp.
"I'm okay, leave me the fuck alone."
"Saffronelle Anne Alumius!" Wheata barks. "You never swear! What is wrong with you?!"
Aluma folds me in a hug and tells me to take deep breaths, to calm down. Annoyed, I follow her instructions, and finally she lets me go when my mind is clearing and my emotions are tampered down. I just sigh and look down at my shoes, quivering a bit.
"Th-thanks," I manage to mumble. I don't know what happens, but sometimes out of nowhere I get stuck in bad moods like from before. I'm usually cheery and optimistic, and I love class. Just some days, I get...riled up, as Aluma says. I squeeze Aluma's shoulder and smile at Wheata as we walk out of the school. I'm happy that they've brought me back down to earth. Maybe I should start visiting the counselor just like Iliana.
Once we reach the front entrance, I split from Aluma and Wheata. We all live on the same avenue about two blocks away from here, but I need to head about a block in the opposite direction to go pick up my little sister Rini from the agency. I hug Aluma and Wheata, and tell them that I'll see them for our weekly Friday sleepover in a couple of hours. Iliana and Trish live about a block from our houses, closer to the school. This week the sleepover's at Trish's house.
I skip down the sidewalk. Not many people are out at this hour; not many people are out period, excepting the mass release times of six and eight at night when the adults, everyone 19 and over, are released from work after long shifts that start around twelve hours prior to the release. A homeless man shuffles by and ignores me, rubbing his empty stomach. I don't have anything on me to give him.
Another block over, and we're in one of the mass meccas of the city, where important buildings for that sector of the city are. Each of the six sectors of Sorghum have their own Mayor, Capitol Liaison, Head Peacekeeper, and Board of Education President, among many things. One omnibus Mayor governs the entire massive city. My destination is the Capitol Liaison's house, ironically the home of the boy, Claudius Templesmith, that me and my friends were just joking about. No one pays me much attention as I approach the Capitol Liaison's house, although a gardener pruning the shrubs of the President of Laboratories' front yard gives me a sour look. He must be rather new. I come here every single weekday, after all. I pound up the steps and pull open the door by my own accord. The new gardener gives me a sharp, ruddy faced look, and I'm tempted to go explain everything to him with a smug smile. I'm tempted to tell him the Cinderella story of Rini Alumius, but I keep my mouth sealed shut, instead walking into the Capitol Liaison's house.
I immediately hear snapping and popping, and I grin as I walk into the sitting room. Rini poses in an elegant golden dress, a staple of hers, a poster proclaiming "THE CAPITOL IS ALMIGHTY!" in one hand, a small, fresh sheaf of barley and wheat in the other. She smiles and poses and repositions and flutters her eyelids. Rini is the perfect model. She's the prettiest woman I know, and I'm not saying that because she's my little sister. She's stunningly beautiful in her youth, and when she grows up she'll be able to seduce even the most steadfast and solitary men into a relationship. The Templesmith's think she's pretty, too. Claudius, their son, is her age, and he's taken a liking to her. It also turns out that they need a poster child for Capitol propaganda aimed towards District Nine, and Mrs. Templesmith is a great photographer. It turned out that the Capitol was willing to pay a lot for a pretty poster child, and now Rini Alumius' face is plastered across the billboards and walls of District Nine. Our family has gone from the poorest in my friend group to the richest in a matter of months, and it's all due to Rini.
"Sage, darling!" Rini shouts, setting down her poster and sheaf and running to my side, clinging to me in a tight hug. She likes to pretend to be fancy in the Templesmith household; she really likes Claudius as well, and wants to impress him.
"Here's the week's earnings, Sage," Mrs. Templesmith says politely, handing me an envelope stuffed with cash. I thank her, and then I lead Rini out of the house. The gardener looks at us, surprised, recognizing Rini's face. She waves graciously, and he waves shyly back. I grin as I lead my emerging-as-a-District-celebrity sister down the sidewalk, squeezing her hand tight. Thanks to her, the possibilities in life are endless. I don't have to be stuck in a factory for the rest of my life.
Thanks to her, I can be Sage Alumius, and not some poor girl dying in the slums.
When you tear it all apart, it's just DNA
Destroying what we fear
Hate is such an ancient game
When we're all that we have left, yet we aim to kill
Pretending that we're made of steel
Living in a battlefield
Gonna count up the chromosomes, do the math, make a clone
Someone who will understand so I don't feel all alone
Luke Saturn, 17
Resident of District 9
Laborer and Student at Harvey County Academic Center
There's a wavy strip of land, miles and miles long and wide, between Nine and Ten that confuses the locals. There's no signs, no fences, no markers of any type. Nine overlaps into Ten and vice versa, our two massive Districts melting together a bit at their edges. Harvey County is half true Nine, half Midland, as the seemingly shared space is called. Some people ranch, some people milk, some people plant, some people harvest, and some people leave because the area just makes no sense. But I live in the Midland, and I love it here. I'm considered a fully fledged citizen of Nine since I was born in one of the port cities before my parents moved out here when I was three to escape the traffic and smog and violence of the giant port cities like Sorghum and Durum. That's why I have pale white skin and spiky, white-blonde hair unlike almost everyone else in the town, who have skin varying from light olive to deep, midnight dark black. Many people out here, however, don't have a District allegiance really. Our small village, Ropin, is officially marked a village of Nine by the Capitol, although a fourth of our residents were born or lived in the solidly Ten part of District Ten. The only reason it matters if we're Nine or Ten is because of the Reaping, and then only two kids are taken every year from Ropin and sent to the Capitol. No one's ever been Reaped from Ropin in the biggest port city, Durum, and I sincerely doubt anyone's been Reaped out of the Midlands before. Heck, a colored kid from the outer villages only shows up in the port cities every couple of years as the final tribute. Usually they're just frail, skinny, paler-than-snow port citizens that usually are on the younger end of the spectrum when Reaped, exactly the way I would have turned out had my parents decided to keep our little family in Durum. Then again, if we'd kept ourselves in Durum, we'd live a shitty life, but at least I wouldn't be the only Saturn left alive.
Surter skips ahead of me, smiling. He's 11, and his back is still somewhat straight, his smile still carefree, his eyes clear, his mind gullible. I love the kid. He has a ton of younger siblings, a bedridden grandmother, and two parents who can't work hard enough to provide for all of them. They're the only people left in the world that I'm empathetic to. I met Surter when he was six, all alone, working in the fields and quivering, unable to lift a sheaf of wheat, not to mention a sickle or a scythe. I helped him learn and become stronger so he wouldn't be kicked out. He reminded me of my father, happy and kind and naive, unburdened by the world somehow despite growing up a poor child in Durum. Since all of the kids in Surter's family are too young to take tesserae, I take some for them. I don't really care; I could care less if I went into the Games. I don't have much to life for. What life will I have? After I'm out of Reaping age Surter's family won't need me to help them anymore, and no girl or guy will want to start a family with me; I am notoriously cold, emotionless, solitary, and a little mad to most. I'm not really mad; they just don't understand my opinions. Life is rough; I learned that too early. Everything is earned, nothing is given. Anything good in life is flimsy. People are horrible, despicable creatures. I am offputting. I would make a terrible husband and father. So all I have in life is my field duties. I'm good, but it's boring work.
As Surter stops and waves for me to catch up to him, a sharp whistle pierces the air.
"STAMPEDE!" the field supervisor screeches, and everything falls to shambles. It's the first time Surter has seen Luke Saturn scared; hell, it's the first time anyone has seen Luke Saturn scared since he wandered into the main town from his family's little hut on the fringe of the town, bloody and dusty and his eyes bugged out, tears dripping down his round cheeks as he screamed and screamed and screamed.
In the Midlands, Nine and Ten overlap. We've been over this. Well, the Midlands are the crappiest parts supply wise in both Nine and Ten. We receive the worst sickles and scythes, the worst plows, the worst livestock, the worst hoes, the worst seeds, and the worst fences. Animals break free often.
It was a sickly hot day in July when my innocence was knocked out of me in the same fashion of the life being knocked out of someone when a full grown steer, angry and riled up, smashes into their chest and plows them to the ground.
I was sitting inside on my cot, a board book in my hands. It's sad how clear the details are of that day despite my young age. I can't remember anything from birth to age seven except this day, this wretched day. I remember the board book was mostly blue and had pictures of sea creatures inside of it. I was using my chubby little fingers to flip through it; I couldn't read, but I loved the pictures. Mommy was outside tending the garden, and Daddy was getting the eggs out of our family's tiny little chicken coop. We had a nice house for Ropin, as my parents had saved up while still living in Durum.
The steers had broken out of their pasture several miles away, and shouts and calls of stampede spread like wildfire throughout the city and countryside, but our tiny ranch house was so far set back from the others and so secluded, behind a small grove of trees, that no one came to warn us. I put down my board book after flipping to the last page, and I stood on my wobbly little legs and looked out the windowpane to see the enraged steers crumple both of my parents into the ground. I didn't know what really happened until the steers were long gone and I went to ask Mommy and Daddy why they were sleeping on beds of red grass. I asked how they got the grass to be red. I poked them for hours until the sun was setting and I knew something was wrong. I stumbled all the way to the center of town pleading for help. People came out and took me inside, and the memory blurs and fuzzes and my next memory is working in the fields at age 8.
My parents were claimed by a herd of stampeding steers, so when I hear the yell I break down. Mad Luke, the cold, dead-inside boy who lost his parents too early, screams his head off and sprints as fast as he can away to safety, to the safety of his Mommy's arms and his Daddy's voice.
"SURTER! RUN!" I grab him by the waist. He protests, and starts pointing at something, but I scream for him to shut up. I heave him over my shoulder, and I sprint as fast as I can. Suddenly there's a rock underfoot and I'm flying to the ground. Surter rolls out of my arms, groaning quietly, and I quake in fear, whimpering, tears streaming down my cheeks as shadows approach, covering my body. I curl in a ball and wait for the hooves to plow into me.
"Hah! Mad Luke's a little baby at heart!" I open my eyes to slits to see two annoying kids a year older than me, Terrance and Copler, laughing. They hold the whistle, and Terrance is the field supervisor's son; they have almost the same exact voice.
"Scared of a itsy bitsy cow, Mad Luke?" Copler asks, guffawing. "What will they do, kill ya?"
I leap to my feet, growling, and punch him so hard that I knock his lights out in one punch. Terrance quickly disappears, and I kick a shower of rocks and dirt onto the passed out Copler and leave him there, walking to Surter's side and helping him to his feet.
"Let's go boy," I snap. "Your momma will need that week's salary to go buy dinner." Surter doesn't say a word, just dutifully following me.
A/N: Today we had Sage and Luke, courtesy of maiakenna and Aldon Blackreyne. Thanks for this awesome pair. Today we also had the biggest chapter yet (me writing for like an hour straight and writing way too much for one tribute happened again xD).
Again, overboard, this time on Sage's POV. Hey, I am counting this into my Nano word count, so what the heck? xD
I meant to get this out yesterday, but life happened. No double weekend post again, but with Thanksgiving break approaching I'll get a couple of chapters out by next Sunday, don't you worry. :D
Thanks for reviewing, everyone! We're probably going to break 200 reviews before we finish off the Reapings and I cannot thank you guys enough. I know I always almost say this but it needs to be said repeatedly BECAUSE Y'ALL ARE THE BEST!
And, one last note before questions: I think I made a backstory for Claudius Templesmith in Sage's POV? Daaaaaamn Tracee.
Who did you like better, Sage or Luke? Overall thoughts on this pair? Predicted placements? Thoughts on the writing?
Until Next Time,
Tracee