"Lizzie?"
"Noel, how many times- it's Elizabeth! You're not five anymore, you can pronounce my full name."
"Lizzie?" This time, his tone was clearly amused.
She sighed, pulling her long hair behind her and letting it weigh itself down on her back. She could tie it back, but District 7 was cold in the early mornings, even in late summer. She dragged out her answer.
"-Yes, my annoying dearest little brother?"
"Why are we here?"
Elizabeth smiled at her brother wryly, before jumping up on a tree log and turning to face him.
"Good question, Noel- when a man and a woman are really happy together-"
"-Ew! Lizzie, no!"
"You asked, Noel."
"You're a terrible big sister." He jumped up on the log to join her, and she jumped off and lead the way through the forest.
"I'm a brilliant big sister."
"You still haven't told me why we're here, though."
"Damn! My brilliant ruse to take you off-track didn't work?"
"What does ruse mean?"
"Aaalright, okay. You know what day it is today?"
"I'm not stupid, sis."
"Well; on today there's a lot of security in Forestry Zone 7, because that's where the Justice Square is and that's where the Reaping's done."
"And?"
"And, that means there's very little security in Forestry Zone 6, hence us being here."
"And walking here."
"Was that a complaint, Noel? I think that was a complaint."
The young boy shook his head as he stumbled to keep up with her long strides.
"Course not!" His tone suggested a different opinion.
"Course not." She shook her head softly. "Look, I didn't really want to do this today either, but a friend asked me to, and I can't leave you at school today so-"
"Is this the same 'friend' that got you almost killed last month?"
"I wasn't almost killed, I was just a little too close to that forest fire-"
"Is it the same 'friend'?"
Elizabeth paused, looking upwards at the oak trees that towered above them both. In the chill of the morning, her breath just about fogged up and dissipated into the air above her.
"You're too clever for your own good, l'il bro, has anyone ever told you that?"
"Yes."
Something emerged in them both that was painful. The cold air shot daggers into her lungs.
Their mother had told him that. Only a few years ago.
Their father still used it mockingly when he was drunk and angry and grieving.
She had almost forgotten.
"Hey! 'Lizabeth!"
The call was a welcome interruption to her memories. She pivoted in the midst of the forest, watching a young man jog up to them both. He smiled to see Elizabeth, but frowned on seeing her small shadow.
"What's with the kid?"
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Hi to you too, Chal."
Chal pulled his coat closer around him and sighed. "Will I get an explanation if I ask?"
"No."
"Alright, okay- don't let him touch this shit, whatever you do." He flicked his gaze to Noel. "Ya hear that? Don't put your kiddy hands on this shit."
"Kiddy?" Noel said incredulously. "You're Lizzie's age!"
Elizabeth started walking with Chal at her side, Noel behind them trying to keep up.
"Which is a year away from adulthood, Noel," Elizabeth admonished with little force behind her tone.
"-Lizzie?" Chal questioned with a tiny, vaguely smitten smile in Elizabeth's direction.
"It's Elizabeth." She corrected automatically. She would permit Noel to shorten her name, but Chal wasn't even a friend.
"Sure, sure." He didn't sound so convinced.
"So what's the plan?" Chal was leading the way, not Elizabeth, and she wasn't so certain this wasn't because of the same psyche that had caused him to lead the larger action last month; and, no matter what she had told Noel, had almost killed her.
He shifted his backpack, grinning. "We'll get workers in trouble for another fire- so this time, we're going to make it look like someone else."
"Why? If they know we're angry-"
"-They'll call it the work of a deranged few and ignore us. If we make it look like multiple groups, then it's unrest of the masses- serious-"
"-Something that'll make them want to crack down on the whole district?"
"Don't be a Debby Downer, Lizzie." She hated it when she was put down for questioning an action, and she hated it when people called her that that didn't know its origin.
"Elizabeth."
"Sure. Look, this is going to work out. I brought some- this-" Chal shrugged off his backpack, pulling out a translucent plastic box. "-This."
Elizabeth stared at the box, then at him. "Are you kidding?"
He frowned. "What?"
"This is your idea of action? Some dieback fungus?"
"-It's deadly to trees, it'll mess up the Capitol's-"
"It's deadly to logging quotas!" Elizabeth snapped, before flicking her eyes to her mildly distressed brother and calming down. "We do things to get the attention of the public against the Capitol. Not undermine them by fucking-messing up our own citizens to get at the Capitol."
Chal sighed, threw his hands up in the air.
"So this was pointless?"
"It was a pointless idea. I'll show you a better plan this afternoon." She has a few ideas for the Justice Building she'd like to try out- vandalism and arson are certainly in the timetable.
"Okay, fine. We'll hold off until this afternoon, but you better have a good idea; otherwise, you just wasted us an hour of walking in Forestry Zone 6, of all places, on an optimum day of least security."
"I'll have a better idea- and next time, share yours with the revo group before enacting them."
The mutter Elizabeth just catches under Chal's breath as they walk away appears to rhyme with "pitch".
Reaping day was her least favourite day, as it meant letting Noel out of her sight. He wasn't Reaping age yet, but he was startlingly close to it- it seemed not so long ago he had been just her baby brother, lying in their mother's arms.
Their mother was gone now, and Noel rested in the arms of a far more worrying provider.
She couldn't live with herself if one day he was forced to go to its heart.
They stood in the centre of Justice Square, in Forestry Zone 7. Elizabeth pulled back her hair, strawberry blonde and now tangled by the brush of too many oak trees. It rested heavily on her back.
A middle-aged woman in pink and green, clearly trying to hide her age with her overbearing makeup; this was not the escort Elizabeth recalled.
"Hiii!" She announced, voice bubbling with excitement. "I'm Sisyphia Maurice, and I'm your new escort!"
When she was met with requisite silence, Sisyphia seemed shocked. Elizabeth couldn't help but smirk slightly at the stupidity of the Capitolian- what did she expect, resounding applause? It was Reaping day.
"-Well," Sisyphia continued with a slightly haughty tone, walking to the first bowl, "Ladies first!"
She put her hand in the bowl of slips, extracted one with fingers tattooed in swirling gold.
She read it, and Elizabeth heard the screams of her brother before she heard the words of the Capitolian.
"Elizabeth Adews!"
Her brother will not stop screaming, and she moves to go to him, to comfort him, but a Peacekeeper wraps one armoured arm around her torso and she is unable to move. She could fight, but she was hardly the strongest of women, and she knew she couldn't win. Not now. Not anymore.
She watched her brother stand in dumb shock, screaming and screaming, until a man stumbled forward and clapped a large and dirty hand over his mouth.
No. Anyone but him.
But she cannot fight and she cannot stop him and she is dragged to the stage and she does not realise until she is there.
Next to her, Sisyphia seemed shocked as well.
Elizabeth did not notice. She did not notice much until the male tribute was read.
"Turner He-"
"I volunteer as tribute!"
Elizabeth looked up in shock, because Chal was walking to the front and stood beside her. She stared at him in unmitigated horror, because she could not understand, not remotely.
As Sisyphia announced District 7's tributes and stepped back to let them stand together for the cameras zooming in, Chal leant in subtly to murmur in Elizabeth's ear.
"Against the Capitol without harming the citizens; great idea. Glad we waited until the afternoon for this."
Chal thought this was a plan. Chal thought this was a plan. Elizabeth could barely think past her horror at how his leaping into the fire at her vagaries had just cost him his life.
She could barely think past her brother with her father's hand clutched around his mouth.
She couldn't defend him from her father now, and he was so young.
And Chal expected her to do something against the Capitol when she had no clue what to do.
The sun was hot in the sky now, but Elizabeth thought her breath was still fogging
Elizabeth Adews was submitted by AbbyCoraby123- with thanks to them.
With this, all seven submitted tributes have now been revealed, and we are firmly getting through reapings. This point would be most prudent to ask your opinions on the tributes, and who you believe I have chosen to survive the bloodshed to follow.
As ever, thank you for reading this far.