District Seven's Amber Haigh's POV:

My feet dangle over the side of the fence as I watch the little kids stream out of the middle school gates, I had stuff to be doing back at home but I'd promised Taylor I'd walk with her home from school now the nights were getting darker. After the bell rings she's one of the first kids out of the gates and I jump off the fence to stand with her and wait for Aspen to appear at the gates.

"Come on kids" I say as I set off in the direction of home "I want to be home before dark tonight"

"What about Ivy" Taylor gasps, as if I'd just made a grave mistake in forgetting my other sister.

"She's staying behind" I say "she has her extra lessons on Fridays remember"

"Oh yeah" Taylor sighs coming up and taking my hand "I forgot" she still looks nervously over her shoulder as we leave the school grounds.

As we walk home Taylor chatters about her day at school, about the axe practice they had in the morning and the other lessons in the afternoon, I nod as she talks and make appropriate noises but my mind is elsewhere. I know once we get home I'll have to find the three of us something to eat and then I'll need to tend to the garden and heat some water to wash our clothes. Aspen follows behind a few steps, trying to appear too cool to need to walk home with his big sister.

The walk home isn't too bad today as the sun stays up just long enough for us to navigate along the paths, I hope Ivy remembered her torch for the trip home or she might be stuck in the school till morning again like she did during the snow storm last year. Taylor had stayed up all night watching at the window for any sign of her sister. I understand her protectiveness of her big sister completely, she's scared of losing her, just as she almost did two years ago as Nymphaluna frickin' Fay pulled her name from that shiny bowl of hers. Luckily that was the year Picea Stein decided she wanted to prove something to her three older brothers and took her place. She made it to the final four Picea, we really thought she could make it home, but Jute Mallot put a stop to that.

Taylor still struggles with the memory of that day and has become very attached to her big sister while Aspen like me and Dad just moved on and focuses on the day to day. I suppose it's because Taylor is too young to remember that worse things can happen, she was only a baby when Mom died after all.

We've been home long enough for me to cook up some rabbit and green leaves when Dad arrives home, I actually hear him before I see him as he swears loudly.

"I heard that daddy" Taylor gasps as he limps in through the door.

"Sorry sweetie" he says as he perches on a chair, "can't believe I just went over on my ankle like that." He pulls up his trouser leg and begins to rub his ankle.

"You'll be okay for work tomorrow?" I ask him as I look at the ankle; it's a bit swollen but doesn't look broken.

"Sure thing" he replies "I'm always good for work" he smiles as I pass him over a bowl of rabbit stew.

We sit down and eat, as dad shares a story about seeing a deer at work and Taylor tells him the same stories that she told me and Aspen on the way home. Aspen talks about him and his friends and me, I don't really have any stories, I'd spent the day in the paper mill mixing large batches of pulp with Ava and Maple, two sisters I work with.

"You must have done something fun" Taylor says with a sigh, "me and Aspen have told stories"

I think for a moment and have an idea, "Okay so there is one thing" I say with a smile, "It's a good one too" Taylor leans in her eyes opening wide and I begin "Okay so Maple was telling me about what she saw the night before last at work earlier, see her and Ava were walking back to their house and they were taking a back road and they looked into the trees and saw a" I pause dramatically and Taylors eyes seem to widen even further, even Dad looks interested while Aspen just focussed on his stew "a bear!" I exclaim and Taylor jumps back with a scream.

"What a load of bull" Aspen announces

"Language" Dad scolds

"I'm sorry but there are no bears in the district, the fences keep them out" he says "Maple and Ava were lying"

"They are moving the fence at the moment" dad says "rumour is that the whole district is being moved further south, it's too cold up here and the wood grows faster there."

"Would we have to move house then?" asks Taylor "if they move the fence"

"Maybe eventually but it'll take years to shift the district" Dad says as the door opens and Ivy steps through the door and lets a cold blast in through the door.

"Brr it's started to snow again" she says as she turns off her torch and closes the door behind her, she pulls off her boots and steps up to the fire.

"How are you're lessons going sweetie?" dad asks as I stand up to get her some stew

"Good" she replies "Miss Rayner says I should pass all my exams easily"

"And does she think you'll make it into the capitol program?" Dad asks

"I should do, but it's tough, only a few people are taken each year"

"You're a shoe in" I say as I pass her a bowl of stew, Ivy had been studying extra hard for a chance to work in the justice centre in town, they needed good minds to help the capitol run the districts and only the best are ever chosen.

"You're a genius" Taylor gushes "You'll get that job and then in a year or two you'll be mayor I know it"

Ivy laughs and almost spits out her stew "maybe not that soon little sis" she says with a smile "but one day who knows."

Taylor and Ivy continue to laugh and joke with each other as Dad leaves the table to read in his room for a while and Aspen heads outside to weed the vegetable patch, I leave them to their spaces as I wash out the bowls from dinner and tidy the kitchen the best I can. I used the last of the rabbit I caught two days ago for the stew so I know I'll have to be up early to hunt one down before a day at the mill. I yawn and scratch my hair, pulling out a twig as I do so, looks like I'll have to fit a shower in there as well.

"Leave those" Ivy says stepping up behind me at the sink and taking the bowl I was washing from my hands "You cooked I'll clean"

"You've been studying" I say "you need to rest"

"I've been sat on my butt all day" she says "Taylor will help me won't you"

"Of course" Taylor says with a grin as she jumps up and grabs a towel from the side "I'll dry if you wash Ivy"

District Seven's Lem Davenport's POV:

"Look" says Thorne as she looks down at me from up her tree "I can see all the way to my house from here, come join me"

"I'm not really a heights person" I reply eliciting loud laughter from up in the tree "I'm not joking" I say defensively.

"It's easy" she yells back "just use the knots as hand holds, you're tall enough to get up to the bottom branch pretty easily and then it's a doddle."

"No" I reply crossing my arms defiantly, as I do so I feel two strong hands on my shoulders.

"You being a wuss again" asks Micah my older brother "You know I was climbing that tree since before I was twelve"

"Yeah and" I reply, Micah just laughs as Thorne climbs down from the tree.

"I'd better be off" she says "it's getting dark. I'll see you tomorrow Lem"

"Yeah see you tomorrow" I reply as she scarpers off down the lane towards her house.

"You're an idiot bro" Micah tells me as we turn and head towards our house.

"What because I wouldn't climb the stupid tree" I say "There are plenty of other jobs for me to do once I leave school"

"No because Thorne obviously has a thing for you."

"Don't lie" I say punching him lightly on the shoulder "You know I used to have a massive crush on her, but she turned me down."

"Yeah when you were nine bro, how old are you now?"

"I'm sixteen Micah." I sigh,

"Then that's plenty of time for her to change her mind" he says "You should totally ask her again."

"What's the big deal with my love life all of a sudden" I ask as we walk through the vegetable patch outside our house "You've never cared before"

"Because life is short and sucky" he sighs "And you should be happy"

I shake my head at him as we step through the front door and I begin to unlace my boots, "You need to calm down" I tell him.

He scratches his head and relaxes his shoulders a little, "You know I don't like this time of year" he sighs.

"The reapings not for a couple more weeks" I reply "You just need to keep calm till then, anyway we've always been safe so far."

"Yes so far, I'm eighteen now, my name is in there as many times as it could possibly be without the tesserae"

"And there are plenty of eighteen year olds with tesserae slips in too" I say "The odds are still pretty low"

"S'pose" he says "Still we're changing the subject, you should ask Thorne out again."

"Maybe"

Micah drops the subject at last and heads up to Dads office to chat to him about something to do with work, Dad is a manager at one of the big lumber mills and Micah works with him too. They're making me finish school first but when I'm done I'll probably end up working there too. When I was sixteen I told Dad I wasn't interested in his lumber mill but he'd just told me of how generations of Davenport men had worked there as Micah had pointed out how useless I'd be as a lumberjack.

I had tried to point out that there were other ways of making a living but it was no use, we weren't a merchant family and I had no skills in carpentry. So off to the mill I was destined to go.

It was all rather depressing when I thought about it, spending the rest of my life in these forests, I was never a fan of the nature that suffocates me regularly, if I spend to long around the damp trees I come out all blotchy with teary eyes and a runny nose. Thorne and my other friend Joel think it's kinda funny, they say I must be allergic to the trees or something.

I'm sitting in the kitchen chopping up some onions for dinner when mom walks in; she yawns as she drops her bag and begins to pull out the plants she's bought from around our section of the district.

"The O'Neils had a great potato crop recently she says, "I managed to get four large ones from them for a good price." I help her pile the vegetables into our ice box and put the onions into the broth I was making.

"Do you want to help me make some nutty bread" she asks as she pulls out a packet of yeast from the bottom of her bag.

"Sure" I reply as I pull out the sack of grain we bought last month and begin to scoop it out into a bowl. As I add the water and yeast and begin to mix, she pulls out a small bag of nuts, and begins to grind them in a pestle. I smile as I watch her grind the nuts, I really love these little moments of life and I do really want to have someone to share them with when I leave home, Thorne never struck me as a baking kinda girl but I know she'd be happy to go and gather the nuts high up in the trees. I smile as I think of her laugh and the way she lightly jumps up trees like a squirrel or something, gah, I was getting another crush on her wasn't I?

Head Gamemaker Otho White's POV:

The tall green trees of Seven stretch out in our next shot as the camera swoops down dramatically onto a busy District square. The people look relaxed as Nymphaluna dances around the stage for a moment as she welcomes the crowd. Syrio always had a thing for Nymph, he admitted it to me one drunken evening a few months ago and I could see why. Long thin legs stretch upwards to a stick thin body that's draped in a little green dress, topped off with a head of peach pink hair that she's pinned in a neat little bun. You'd have to be blind not to appreciate that beauty, but I didn't feel that way towards her, or any other woman, or man for that matter.

But that wasn't important, what was important was who the two young people Nymph would be pulling from her little glass bowls were and how they would fare in the arena.

"Ladies first" she announces as she grabs a slip from the middle of the bowl "Amber Haigh" she grins out to the crowd where after a moment of shuffling a girl steps out of the crowd, the first thing I notice about her is her bright red hair, she also looks pretty fit and not overly skinny. She talks small little steps to the stage and it feels like an eternity till she's finally up there with Nymphaluna who asks for volunteers.

"Boys then" she says when the wind answers her call.

Amber fiddles with a locket around her neck as Nymph steps up to the boys bowl and grabs a name from around the middle.

"Lem Davenport"

Shocked gasps come from a couple of places in the crowd and the camera pans past a shaking older boy before settling on a younger boy who must be his brother. He looks tall but isn't very strong looking, walking up to stage with a mouth open in shock, he doesn't get replaced by a volunteer and shakes hands with the female tribute before the camera cuts out.

I turn to watch the goodbyes but don't get much of use from them, just weeping siblings, parents attempting to stay strong and the odd friend. The boy does admit his feelings for a girl who comes to visit him who responds by shouting at him that he should have said so earlier and he was 'a fool who better not die on me'.

A/N: thanks to WishMakerDeluxe for Amber and RealFiction for Lem, I've tried to stay as true to their descriptions as possible, hope you like them.