A/N: I know I said this wouldn't update until December, but three things made me change my mind. One, my NaNo is coming on better than I'd expected (33,047 words out of 50,000!) so it seemed okay to take a break. Two, it was bothering me that I hadn't finished the Reapings. And, three, in the UK (and Commonwealth) today is Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the end of WWI, so given that WWI is the theme of this fic, I thought it seemed appropriate.
Next week, I'll post an explanation of how I'm going to organise this fic. After that, hopefully, normal service should resume. Thanks for your patience!

6 - The Larks, Still Bravely Singing

In Eleven, the sky seems wider, stretching clear and blue over orchards and fields. Despite the obvious poverty of its people, Eleven is a beautiful District, green and fresh-looking to a Capitol eye, and the cameras spend more time scanning the landscape than they do the huddled masses of bony, hungry-looking children in the stockade. The corn is ripening on the hills, and the ordered rows of fruit-trees are a far cry from the trees in the other wooded Districts, which grow higgledy-piggledy and wild.

The Mayor of Eleven is a woman, tall and dark, her cropped black curls streaked with grey. She speaks solemnly, slowly, and at length, which would be less of a problem if anyone there hadn't heard the whole speech before. By the time she steps down, giving way to the Escort, the whole of Panem is bored. It's a relief to change hands to Steffi Frost, who is young and bright and cheerful and whose unnaturally white skin makes her stick out like a sore thumb among the dark citizens of Eleven.

"Happy Hunger Games, District Eleven!" she trills. "And may the odds be ever in your favour!"

She's greeted by flat silence from the crowd, which doesn't seem to bother her in the slightest. Her ruffled silver gown flouncing around her, she trips up to the Reaping ball with a bright smile of her black-lined red lips, plunging her gloved hand into the girls' names. "Sift Grange!"

Her first thought, oddly, is a weary Of course it would be me. Her last Reaping. The last time she could be Reaped. When she'd got ready that morning, slipping into her too-small dress and fastening the sleeves with safety pins around her swollen wrists, it had been with the silent promise to herself that this was the last time she'd ever have to do it.

Well, she was right about that, at least. It's the last time she'll ever have to be at a Reaping. In fact, it's probably the last time she was ever going to be free, even the limited freedom offered in Eleven. The last time she'll ever be home. The thought slides into her mind like a chip of ice, and suddenly, without any kind of in-between stage, she's terrified. She's going to die. She isn't going to slave on for decades and then collapse, as she's always assumed, she's going to die, and suddenly the long thankless struggle of life looks friendlier than it ever has.

But the fear is distant and unimportant. She feels like she's left her body, like she's looking down at herself, the tall, bony, ebony-skinned girl with careful twists of hair barely moving against her shoulders as she starts up to the stage. Everyone is watching her, and so she watches herself, too, without thinking how can I look right? or how can I seem strong? She still walks with her habitual stoop, a little knock-kneed, her face remarkably blank. Up onto the stage. Shake hands with Steffi. Step back to the back of the stage to wait. Somehow, more important than any of that is the feel of her worn green skirt against her bony thighs, the light breeze in the air, and the smell of compost wafting in from the fields nearby.

Of course it would be me. She should have seen it coming. But she didn't. At least it wasn't Coppice.

As Sift steps back, the applause rises listlessly, to more or less exactly what's required by the Capitol, and then peters out almost at once. Only Steffi keeps on clapping more than a few moments, and she looks like she's struggling a little to be unfazed. She's only at the start of her career, a new Escort this year, and her inexperience shows. As the silence stretches out around her, she stops, looking a little uncertain, and lets her hands drop to her sides. There's a moment before she springs back into action, her smile plastered back onto her face.

"And now, let's hear a big hand for our boy Tribute... Husk Sarter!"

You're joking. The thought comes flatly, then again, angrily. You have to be joking! His fists clench and unclench at his sides, and his jaw shifts slightly, but he's already moving, steadily and calmly, out of the stockade and up to the stage. The cameras catch him as he walks; his black shirt, ruffling slightly in the rising breeze, his solid build, the almost-red of his brown eyes. He looks phenomenally, icily calm. Under the surface, though, he isn't calm at all; his anger bubbles up like tar, and, paradoxically, it's what keeps him moving so calmly, his expression flat and unreadable.

Striding up the steps to the raised pallets of the stage, his hands swinging loosely at his sides, he starts towards Steffi, who holds out her hand and greets him enthusiastically as the lacklustre applause starts again. "Husk! It's such a pleasure to meet you!" she enthuses, as she comes closer.

He looks at her with disgust. She is thin, fussy, surgically enhanced to the point of inhumanity. Her smile's too wide, her eyes too vacant, everything about her is shallow and false. She's the Capitol incarnate, and with a sudden roiling surge of hatred, he bunches his fist, grabs her outstretched hand, and punches her solidly in the gut.

The applause stops dead. Everything stops. Steffi doubles over, wheezing, tears of shock streaking her eye makeup as her scarlet lips part in an O of surprise and pain and her white wig slips drunkenly over one eye. For a moment, everything stretches out in a long moment of silence, shock, horror tinged with an odd admiration from the crowd. Husk smirks, satisfied by the ripple of shock and the obvious effect it's had on Steffi – and they can't do anything to him, not really. He's already condemned. That's showed her.

And then the moment ends, and reality piles back in. The Peacekeepers lunge forwards, one of them pulling him back so hard that it feels like she's ripping his arms out of their sockets. Steffi half-straightens, her blue eyes big and teary, her arm wrapped over her stomach, and has to be helped back to her seat. She seems to be in shock. Hell, the whole District is in shock.

But not Husk. Husk is still smiling.

Normal service takes a little while to resume. The mayor is as shocked as everyone else, and without Steffi's proper withdrawal to give her her cue, she needs a little push to get back to the podium. Despite her experience with Reapings, she's never seen one like this, no more than anyone else has. All through her reading of the Treaty, her eyes flicker uncertainly to Husk, still held by the Peacekeeper, as if she's afraid she might be next.

When she eventually finishes and signals for the tributes to shake hands, there's a moment of uncertainty. Eventually, the Peacekeeper holding Husk lets one of his arms go, but only one, marching him to the centre of the stage with her hand on her truncheon. Sift eyes her fellow tribute warily, but neither of them offer their hands first. For a moment, they're frozen there – the tall, dark girl with the lopsided face and hunk of scar tissue over one eye, and the younger, smaller, lighter-skinned boy in the Peacekeeper's grip. Panem holds its breath.

At last, they shake, and almost as soon as their hands touch, Husk is pulled away again, frogmarched off the stage as the anthem strikes up. Sift follows after a moment, with a sidelong glance out at the audience, and the cameras move on to the twelfth and last Reaping. Here, the chaos of Eleven is easily forgotten; the square is packed, and none of the crowd are any more excited than usual. After all, none of them know.

The Escort is Zona Fairweather, young and a little nervous, although she has potential. This is her first year, too, after the regretful disappearance of Celia Blesser, who until last year was the Representative. Zona is tall and curvy, with cobalt-coloured eyebrows which arch too high for her face, and although she falters a little on her way up to the front of the stage, her smile is wide and dazzling and her "Happy Hunger Games!" is, if anything, a little too enthusiastic. Out comes the first name and, with a flourish, she unrolls the paper.

"Piper Rhuste!"

Piper's horrified. Of course she is. But hot on the heels of her fear and shock comes the much more familiar bubble of excitement. She gets to see the Capitol, and be a star! She'll meet Caesar Flickerman, and get to see inside the Remake Centre, and if it's brutal and terrifying and horrific, so what? She'll be fine. She always is.

So her response isn't fear, or rage, or sadness and shock. It's a "Me? Cool!" as she all but skips up to the stage, her perpetual smile barely faltering. On the screens, the cameras track her progress, and she looks up at them with interest. She hasn't seen herself like this before – it isn't like looking in a mirror, really. She can see the back of her head, where her curly black hair hasn't been brushed properly, and the crookedness of her teeth, looking whiter than they actually are in contrast to her dark olive skin. It's weird, seeing herself like that, but she guesses she'll get used to it over the next few days, when the cameras are always on her.

"Piper," Zona greets her warmly, shaking her hand. "Congratulations! May the odds be ever in your favour."

"Your dress is falling off," she answers, and smiles brightly at the Escort. "Don't they have sleeves in the Capitol?"

Zona blinks, letting go of Piper's hand. "Um..." she says, rather unprofessionally, and reaches up to adjust the low neckline of her sleeveless dress, which is indeed working its way down. "Thanks?"

"You're welcome." If Zona's being sarcastic, Piper doesn't care. She waves to the cameras, and gives Zona another cheerful smile, then steps back into her place on the stage, looking out at the packed square. Somewhere out there, her mother's watching. Piper just hopes she sees the bright side.

Zona seems equal parts reassured and thrown by that first tribute. Her smile widens, and she's lost a little of her hesitation as she moves up to the boys' Reaping ball, but it's noticeable that, for the rest of the Reaping, her eyes keep flicking down to her significant chest, and she keeps fiddling with her dress, trying to rearrange it so it's just so. She's tugging at it with one hand even as she delves her hand into the ball of names.

"Ash Ember!"

It takes him by surprise, but only for a second. The chances weren't high that this would happen, but so what? He's ready. He wouldn't have chosen it, of course, but he's ready, and anyone who thinks otherwise has got another think coming. If he can fight the older boys from the mines, why shouldn't he be able to fight older boys from other Districts?

He isn't scared, that's the thing. He walks out from the other fifteen-year-olds, where he sticks out a mile off with his Seam looks among the merchants, and strides up to the stage with his arms swinging casually at his sides. They can throw what they like at him. Big brutes from Two, or trained fighters from One, traps or pitfalls or just straight-up violence. He's got something they don't have, and that's guts. So he's not scared, because he knows he'll fight whatever they send his way, and with that confidence unique to teenage boys, he knows he'll win against whatever it is. And even if he doesn't, he'll go down fighting with his face towards the foe.

"Bring it on!" he says out loud, as he pumps Zona's hand, and grins from ear to ear. Now that he thinks about it, now that there's no turning back, he's kind of looking forwards to it. It's a challenge, and he thrives on challenges; it's like someone's thrown down the gauntlet, and he's always up for fighting when someone does that. And, after all, there are only twenty-four of them.

The odds are totally in his favour.

The Mayor steps up, and for the last time today, the Treaty is read. For the last time today, there is that handshake, that air of ritual. The cameras focus in on the tributes - she lanky and tall, he tiny and skinny, but both with Seam looks and both, unusually, still smiling. Their smiles have very different kinds of excitement to them, but both seem more excited than anyone expects outside the Career Districts, and they shake hands enthusiastically.

When they step apart, Ash's hands going into the pockets of his black slacks and Piper mussing up her already messy hair, the applause sounds almost genuine. It isn't often Twelve gets tributes who seem to have so much confidence. It's refreshing, and not a little reassuring – and, of course, it's an excellent note to finish the show on. It couldn't have been better if it had been planned that way.

Now, as the anthem strikes up one more time and the cameras pan over the applauding crowds, it's easy to cut out at the end, easy to move on. That's it, for now. The Reapings are over.

Let the Games begin.