Bruten Burke
I wake at dawn, same as always.
Establishing a routine is important when your life revolves around your eighteenth year. Repetition makes the days blend together enough that you can almost trick yourself into thinking that the years go by quickly.
Almost.
But now, now is the time when I get to progress. There's a goal on the horizon more weighty then "run there faster than last time" or "hit that dummy slightly harder than you've ever hit before".
Other kids my age have been working for years, learning the trade of the town, establishing their places in the community. My best friends just got married and now live in their own tiny apartment on the other side of town. And then there's me, the guy who spends his days trying to moderately improve skills he's had mastered for years.
It's hard not to feel stuck watching everyone grow up around you while you're waiting for the one event that will define your entire existence.
My hands shake slightly, whether from nerves or anticipation I do not know. I'm facing the end, one way or another.
Breakfast is longer than usual, as I allow myself the time to savor my meal. Yes, there's nothing quite like the wooden taste of baked tuna and dry toast at the ass crack of dawn. Taste assures that the schedule slip is slight, and I continue on to my morning workout.
Some might feel themselves justified in keeping a light workload on a day like today, but I am nothing if not a creature of habit. And besides, bucking the routine I've kept for about as long as I can remember on the absolute last day I will be stuck in it feels almost profane. Like shredding your old baby blanket. Sure you've outgrown it, and maybe it's a bit old and smelly, but it's kept you comfort through many a night, and it deserves a little respect for that.
I shake my head and grimace a bit, ever thankful that telepaths are restricted to the realm of fiction and thus cannot bear witness to my, infrequent of course, slips into sentimentality, and make my way downstairs.
My father is a touch controlling, I'll be the first to admit, and to him the idea of leaving his sons' training to any old random stranger would seem ludicrous, regardless of how much time and money it'd save or the fact that he's a foreman who's never thrown a punch in his entire life much less swung a sword. Dad's not one to sweat the small stuff. So, due to an unexplained stockpile of cash and an ego larger than all of Panem, we posses a state of the art gymnasium below our modest two bedroom one bath house.
The minutes pass like hours as I work myself just hard enough to maintain what I've already got.
Not because it's Reaping day, but because it is Tuesday.
I bite my lip and groan. I can be such a downer in the mornings. There's something about how the harsh fluorescent lights reflects against bare concrete walls, combined with the earthy chill of being underground that makes me feel like the only person in a very small, stagnant world. It sounds stupid, but.
The workout ends after an aching eternity of rep after rep after rep, sweat pooling like cold grease on my skin, and I dash upstairs to check the clock in the kitchen. 7:30. Reapings don't start for another hour thirty minutes.
I ruffle my hair and grimace to myself, debating whether or not a quick jog is in order. I grab a glace of orange juice, the thin, watery piss that dad insists on buying because he 'only has so much cash to burn on your bullshit', and sneak a glance out the tiny window over the grey, utilitarian sink.
The morning fog hasn't had a chance to burn away. The whole world looks like the gunmetal grey of our tiny, sparsely decorated house has infected it, leaching alk the color and life from the District. Not, I think somewhat bitterly to myself, that it had much of that to begin with.
"No, screw that." I think aloud to myself. I scowl to myself and choke down bile. I grip the edge of the sink tight enough to sting and force myself to laugh.
"I'm no runner; I'm a warrior." I crow, striking a pose and pursing my lips like a pin up girl. It's not even a joke, really, and a far cry from my usual wit, if I do say so myself, but sometimes you just need a bit of silliness in your life to make it seem a bit less...
It's all right. There's only a little while left.
There has to be something a healthy, reasonably attractive eighteen year old warrior can do to pass an hour or two.
I glance at the clock once more.
7:31.
Dad is asleep, mom is working, my brother is... gone, Magnus and Slater are probably busy, and despite devilish good looks I've somehow managed to keep myself unattached, so.
...
Wanking it is then.
Demonica Forest
I stalk though the numbered and gridded streets of Central District, peering through thin wisps of grey morning fog and shivering at the damp chill against my exposed back and arms. Maybe my little black dress wasn't the most sensible of choices, but it will hopefully make a good first impression on the Capitoltes, who are rumored to be even more sex-obsessed than even the horniest of District teenagers.
A piercing wolf whistle sounds behind me, cutting through the damp quiet of morning.
Speaking of horndogs...
I roll my eyes with disgust, even as I force myself to smirk flirtatiously in the direction of the all too familiar hoots and hollers of the usual pack of dogs in boy-skin suits that populate our oh so lovely District.
Someone who obviously believes he should know me elbows his way in front of a crowd of around seven boys of Reaping age and makes a show of strutting and posturing like a barnyard cock in front of the henhouse. He winks and trails his gaze over my body with all the subtlety and grace of a landslide.
"Hey, girl. Why don't you hang with us for a while? Plenty of time yet before the Reaping, you know. Lots of things we could do, heh." He says, punctuated with an awkward jerk of his hips, and a flex of biceps like overstuffed sausages.
I shudder in revulsion. Anger curdles in my stomach and I very nearly can't stop my hands from balling into fists.
"Sorry boys," I say with an exaggeratedly coquettish pout. "no time for babysitting. I've got things to do, tributes to slay, you know. Girl stuff."
With that I turn and strut away, making sure to sway my hips in that awkward, unnatural way that boys seem so fond of, taking vindictive pleasure in their impotent frustration.
I am told that I am pretty. The drooling of mindless louts has convinced me that this is true, though God only knows what fool decided that a pert ass and large tits are more desirable than the broad shoulders and calloused palms that most of the district's women sport. Seems to me that anyone who's not suffered a recent blow to the head might be better off looking for a partner who can carry their own weight, but then again asking a boy to be sensible is like asking a mountain to curtsy.
It is a rare woman indeed who can survive a lifetime of hard labor looking soft and waifish, and an even rarer man who does not believe himself entitled to such a prize.
But I am not an object to be earned, no trophy to be locked away and coveted, brought out only to be paraded around for the sake of one boy's already bloated ego.
Not that girls are all that much better. Though few enough of them want to own me, adolescence seems to have hit every one of my peers with the stupid stick regardless of gender, and now all anyone can think of or talk about are backsides and whose they'd like to hump.
I suppose I should be grateful; natural good looks are a potent weapon against the crotch-for-brains masses, and nature gifted me few enough of those. I have no shame in using what I've got to get what I want. No one should.
The square of as bleak and grey as the rest of the District, the enormous monolith of the Justice building overlooking an awkward merging of asphalt streets and concrete meeting ground, set up on a jutting shelf of black marble that serves as a stage, surrounded on all sides by looming stone buildings that give the claustrophobic impression of a prison cell. The eternally grey sky and thin, watery sunlight that trickles through the near constant cloud cover does not help.
The crowd huddles skittishly in the center of the square, looking for all the world like a group of frightened children instead of the hardened quarrymen they are.
I roll my eyes and sniff before strolling towards the sign in table.
After a quick, efficient, twenty minute stint in an ever growing line of bored assholes, I manage to join the crowd of people who were smart enough to get here early so that they could dodge waiting forever to sign in only to wait forever for everyone else to get their shit sorted out.
The Mayor's speech starts after the usual amount of faffing about waiting for Peacekeepers to round up all the strays and get them all signed in and accounted for. It's the same speech every year in essence, but at least our Mayor tries to vary up the word choice. So, after being wished a beatific and auspicious 31st Hunger Games, we are introduced to our brand new Escort, a bubbly little troll who babbles on and on about how very glad he is to be here with us, this most proud and talented of districts, oh yes, we of the Eight whole Victors, blah, blah, fucking blah.
I roll my eyes and god I do that a lot. It strikes me that if the world doesn't stop being such an irritant my eyes just might roll hard enough to pop right out of my head. Possibly at lethal velocity. Maybe even straight into the heads of assholes who just. Can't. Shut. Up.
He finally gets around to the actual Reaping bit of the Reapings, and I am shouting before he has even made a step towards the ball.
No one challenges my claim. I hear that in District 1 prospective tributes duke it out right there on stage for the honor of volunteering, but that's way too interesting for good old D2. Ever since volunteering became an almost legitimate career choice we've held a contest months in advance in order to prevent anything from livening up our Reaping Day.
I stalk towards the stage, mindful of the cameras pointed at me from every direction, and even more mindful of the people watching what they are recording. I hold my head high and arrange my face into the appropriately confidant smirk, the kind of look that says "I could win this even without your help, but don't you want to be a part of this anyway?" Hopefully.
The first thing the little troll does when I get to center stage, however, is irreparably shatter whatever aura of cool I've managed to generate by shoving his microphone right in my face and shouting directly in my ear.
"Oh my, what a lovely young lady and such a great sport, volunteering like that! I can already tell you'll be a just marvelous representative of your marvelous District! What's your name, gorgeous?"
I grit my teeth and push the mic back a few inches with a motion that might be slightly rougher than called for. "Demonica Forest," I purr. "And I-"
"Marvelous! It's so great to meet you, deary! Isn't she just a dear, folks? Let's give her a round of applause, yes? Such a dear!"
What a twat!
I grit my teeth so hard they feel like they might crack and god I just want to punch that squarely bastard right in the fucking mouth. Maybe he'd finally stop talking with his jaw wired shut.
My face feels hot, and I am acutely aware of everyone watching me struggling to keep my cool. My stomach churns with mingled shame and rage, but i choke down bile like a good little girl while the Troll skips over to the male bowl.
My male counterpart actually waits for the Asshole to draw a name, like he'd even think of not volunteering, no sir. Daddy's boy like him wouldn't even think about disappointing our Esteemed Head Peacekeeper like that, not after Daddy Dearest managed to win Father of the Year by banishing his eldest to D12, the unwashed butthole of Panem, for the crime of not wanting to risk his life for a jerk on a power trip.
No, there's no way someone like Bruten Burke could be strong enough to go against his father's wishes, for all his 6'2" of solid muscle.
He shakes hands like someone who wants very much to lead people around by the nose. Which is laughable, given his complete and utter lack of motivation beyond "Make Daddy love me."
I smirk to myself and he smiles back with a calculated openness obviously designed to earn my trust. But I'm no blushing D12 hick to fall for the machinations of a meathead with Daddy issues.
I'm a Career, and I plan to win.
AN: Bah. I feel like I've irreparably fucked up their characters. I just. Sort of. Read the profiles and started writing stream of consciousness style and then came back after writing 3000 words to find that the end result didn't exactly conform to the forms. Sorry about that. Also sorry for the shortness, but.
In other news, nobody submits female tributes who are supposed to be good leaders or are dumb or ugly or unfeminine. And nobody submits males who are sensual and manipulative. SO, I guess what I'm saying is, give me ladies who are burly or big nosed and pimply, sociable and leaderly. Give me males that are seductive and flirtatious and don't work well with a group. Give me people with dwarfism and autistic people, people with sensory processing disorders, cripples, religious people, anything that's not just. Prettywhitesmartquickseductivenicebland.