(A/N): Hello there! It's Streak, ushering in another fanfiction chapter! However, this one is different- it's screening's first chapter in our collab! *Throws confetti* Congratulations! Now, onto screening's amazing chapter!
Julia held a thin, curved knife, perfect for cleaving flesh from skin. It was designed to follow the grain of the meat perfectly without piercing the skin and leaving clumps behind on the filleted flesh, and she held the length of the tang against her finger so as to precisely follow the curve of the skin.
A fish, perfectly filleted, was picked up and packed in salt as she let it fall to the worksurface. Another fish, gutted, decapitated and ready for filleting, slid to her worksurface.
To her side, the crate of packed, salted fish was closed with the seal of District 4, a thin packaging slip placed on top to reveal its destination to the District 6 couriers. It would presently arrive at the Capitol, a crate of salted flesh, courtesy of the Cryy family, a gift to the people that subjugate her.
Her mother stretched and rised beside her from where she had been gutting and decapitating the fish ready for Julia's precise knife. She picked up a high-pressure hose and sprayed the shop worksurfaces free of blood and detritus, the liquid draining to the streets, before picking up a waste bin of the discarded fish flesh.
"If they keep raising these quotas, this nonsense is going to end up taking longer than the actual shop," Her mother sighed as she hefted the waste bin outside. Julia picked up the hose and began cleaning her knives as the boy who had been packing the crate stood ready beside her. Julia nodded at him.
"Thanks for the help packing, Miles," she said with a sigh. "Unless you wanna help with everything else, I think we're done here."
Miles mock-saluted Julia, rolling a crudely built trolley underneath the crate. "Hey, not a problem, I got quotas to meet the same as you. But, uh, if you wanna make my life easier, next time can you have the crate packed before I turn up?"
Julia smiled and nodded, although she was unsure how they were really supposed to do such large preparations more quickly than she and her mother already did. "No problem."
Miles smirked. "Good, cause next time I'll be charging for my services. This pretty face isn't for free, ya know."
Julia shook her head with a vague smile, pretty certain that underneath the joking he was entirely earnest about expecting payment next time he had to help them. "Yeah, yeah. See you at the Reaping, right?"
"Naah, I'm gonna skip out on that, it's boring," Miles deadpanned, rolling the trolley out of her shop. "You know, it's not as though it's mandatory or anything."
"Juust get out, Miles," Julia said with a grin, raising the hose half-heartedly in his direction and hovering her thumb over the high-pressure switch. Miles pretended to be afraid of her watery wrath, wheeling the trolley out faster, but something seemed to occur to him as he passed the threshold of the shop and he turned back.
"You know, I've been hearing rumours that you're planning on volunteering when you're eighteen. That's not for real, right? You're like, five foot one."
Julia bit the inside of her cheek. "Five four."
"Not answering the question."
Julia groaned; she set the hose back on the worksurface and absently rearranged their for-sale fish in its iced refrigerator box. "I dunno... Can't be in the shop all my life. I know I'll be up against the Career volunteers, but I fancy my chances. Besides, it's three years away, I can make my mind up between then and now."
Miles scrunched up his face with distaste. "Sounds like a death wish if you ask me."
Julia didn't like where this was going, because she had heard it enough from her mother and brother. "Yeah, I didn't ask you. Get out, Miles."
Miles frowned, seeming to grasp something in the vestiges of memory- he hovered in the doorway a moment more as he spoke.
"This isn't about your dad, right?"
Julia didn't warn him this time. She raised the high-pressure hose and flicked the switch, and Miles disappeared from the doorway with a yelp and a flick of now-sodden blonde hair. She flicked off the hose, returned it to its place on the worksurface, then sighed heavily, picking up her filleting knife and a heavy whetstone and bringing them both together. Sharpening her knives kept them from becoming useless and untenable for work, and the action was a therapeutic movement of sorts.
Her mother put her head back round the door. "Julie, I'm out to the docks now, so if you need anything-"
"-Nah, I'll be good. I'm fifteen, I'll survive the five minutes alone."
"Mind the shop, okay?"
"Sorry, when you come back it's gonna be in flames."
Her mother shook her head fondly. "Sometimes I wonder how I ended up with a cynical child like you."
"Just luck." Julia grinned, returning to her knife and whetstone. "I might be out for Reaping when you get back, but I'll shut up shop when I do."
"Come back after, alright?"
"I always do."
Although, she mused, one day, a few years from now, I might renege on that particular promise.
Maybe she should have felt bad about that, but she knew Miles had hit a little too close on her motivations, and she knew they were honourable enough to warrant abandoning her family, if only for a little while.
Her father, only a year ago, had died when his ancient, rusting trawler had collapsed from the strain of twenty years at sea. All other hands on board survived, being how close they were to the shore, but her father had moved a little too slowly, and luck had moved to punish him- a shark took his leg, and only a few hours later his life, a proud man bleeding out red pride on the sand.
Julia's family, just her and her mother and her brother, had recieved the standard bereavement payment, but it was not enough, never enough. Her brother worked at the docks, her mother and her at the tiny shop that was little more than a shack with an unlocked door, but the money was never enough to make them unworried by the rent collectors. Julia had asked to go to the Training Academy, to raise money, but horrified by the prospect of her child entering a death match, her mother refused to let her.
The one option left open to Julia now, too old to train and too young to earn, was to volunteer, at eighteen, when she was at her peak age and fitness. She trained herself, when she could- her height was an issue, but she could handle a spear or trident as well as any District Four citizen could, and she was nigh-surgically proficient with handling a knife.
If she could win, in a few years time, she could bring the security of money back to her family- she could bring back the honour her father had lost.
She could only hope, when the time came, she volunteered as any Career would.
Nutcase, Miles thought to himself absently as he picked at his sodden clothes. Julia Cryy, the fishmonger's girl, daughter of a dead dad and probably the closest to volunteering that a non-trained citizen got, had soaked him head to toe just for pointing out what a dumbass she was.
Well, he mused as he wheeled his rickety, thrice-mended cart through the crowded seafront streets of District 4, we'll see who's having the most fun when you volunteer.
That being said, he wasn't too sure of the answer himself. He wheeled the crate of Cryy goods to the trainyards, signed off the purchase and narrowed his eyes against the sun as a paltry number of coins rattled into his hand.
After all, he wasn't having all that much fun himself.
Usually this would only be the beginning of the work day, but frankly he had been surprised to get even this much done prior to the Reaping today. He rattled his heavy cart back across the even busier streets, jostling and swearing for a path through the stone and wooden pathways. District 4 had been built for practicality, but only when there had been a few thousand residents, not tens of thousands, and despite their newly entrenched Career status in the Games, the Capitol never managed to bestow them quite enough to go towards public funding.
Still, while Miles could carve a path through the crowd he was fairly content. If he slammed past a considerable number of people and irritating little kids in order to carve that path, it made his life more difficult but it didn't dent his insular contentment all that much.
Home was little more than a room, in a dilapidated house made into apartments, but to Miles it was home nevertheless. He was fifteen, but he lived alone- it was easier this way.
He did not miss the community homes he had been pushed between. He did not miss the feeling of dislocation, of dependence on the District to care for him now his parents were gone.
He struggled to make a living as a courier, but he would rather live on the knife-edge of poverty and make his own way than live dependent on people that were also only trying to make their own way.
A klaxon sounded in the distance. Miles bit his lip and looked to the sun-kissed sea.
This year's Reaping was more fearful to him than most.
Julia had known the drill of Reaping all her life, but if she was to believe the rumours told to her, this one would be different.
She lined up, had her blood and fingerprints recorded, her retina scanned and she was placed in a group among the other female fifteen year olds. Among the male fifteen year olds she could see Miles Lanitch, still soaked from her hosing him. She smirked slightly to herself, before remembering where she was and dropping her smile with uncomfortable memory.
While it was true she was planning to volunteer in a few years, Julia had never liked the pageantry of the Reaping- and especially the Reaping itself. And while usually some person from the Training Academy would present themselves in place of the Reaped, this year there was nobody. An apparent in-house fight had killed many of the potential volunteers for this year's age range, and permanently disabled many more- knives were dangerous in trained and angry hands.
But in any case- this year, the Reaped would have to take their place in the Games.
Julia was afraid for them, no matter who they were. The Games should not be wished on those who did not choose the glory of fighting in them.
The Capitolian escort took the stage, as did the Mayor, and as did the Mayor's daughter, who was quietly escorted to her place amongst the potential Reaped. Julia blinked in surprise. Tannen Finn, a girl she had seen for years, was eligible for Reaping now? It did not seem right. Somewhere in Julia's mind, Tannen would always be too young and innocent to be subjected to the Reaping.
Videos were played of the devastation of the Dark Days and Panem's rising anew. The Capitolian hovered her hand above the first bowl.
"As ever," she trilled in a tone that only spoke of joy, "Ladi-i-i-es fi-i-irst!"
Her excitement grated on Julia's nerves. The microphone attached to the Capitolian rustled with the thousands of slips of paper she delved her hand through.
One slip was drawn.
One slip was read.
And the name was Tannen Finn.
She was the Mayor's daughter, and Julia had seen her for too long, and to Julia this did not seem right, a little girl in pigtails crying as she was half-dragged to the stage. Julia wanted this and Tannen did not.
Julia wanted this. Perhaps not so soon, but she wanted this.
She did not consider anything else as she raised her hand and raised her voice.
"I volunteer!"
Miles stared in horror as Julia Cryy swept past the sobbing Tannen Finn to take the stage. Sure, he had expected Julia to volunteer- one day. But now? Now was suicide. She was only fifteen, like him- what chance did she stand in the arena?
If the Capitolian noticed the tense atmosphere she did not comment on it, and she bounced to the bowl of male names.
Miles had taken tesserae enough times to know his name was in that bowl too many times to count.
And when his name was read, nobody volunteered in his place.
And when he laughed hysterically and half-collapsed where he stood, for the first time he missed being dependent to another.
Perhaps another would have saved him.
With thanks to kkfanatic22 for Miles Lanitch, and PotatoGodiss for Julia Cryy.
Ah, hello everyone! You may have noticed a tonal shift between this chapter and the last. The reason is that, well, I'm not the same author. I'm screening, and I'm the second half of this lovely collab with Streaking Shadows. Hi!
For anyone who reads both this and my own SYOT, Jacquerie, I just want to quickly say that this will not affect my update times for Jacquerie. Believe me, I can ruin those without anything else to compete for it. ;)
But in any case- I hope you're enjoying us, and I'd certainly encourage you all to drop us a quick review to tell us how we're doing thus far! :)
-screening