District 4 Pre-Reapings

QUIANNA RAFFERTY (17)

DISTRICT FOUR FEMALE

Don't let anyone tell you what you can and can't do.

It was a simple principle that Quianna Rafferty had always stuck by. The daughter of tax collectors for the Capitol, it was fair to say that growing up, she wasn't exactly the most popular girl in District Four.

But she had managed to turn the tables around in true Quianna fashion.

Despite her parents' strict rules and sky-high expectations, Quianna had managed to live out a life of her own, marching to the beat of her own drum and consistently rebelling against the wishes of her aristocratic family riddled with greed and a thirst for riches and wealth.

After all, Quianna thought with a slight chuckle. I can't be everyone's favourite girl.

She marched out of her school, a fairly prestigious one in the heart of District Four, right by the sparkling blue waters of the ocean, a dazzling smile that she had perfected over the years plastered on her face as she looked straight on, her eyes gleaming with bubbling anticipation. She flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder, casting a flirtatious wink at a group of boys and girls who were gathered nearby, dressed in sports jerseys. Most of the group flushed a bright shade of red, and Quianna chuckled to herself.

She never did love any of the numerous boyfriends and girlfriends that she had acquired over the years, they were simply pawns to serve her purpose, just people she could manipulate to do her bidding before she dumped them.

She brushed aside a strand of hair from her fringe as her younger sister, Gwen, or Guinevere, if you were of the fancy sort, hopped to her side, that cheeky smile of hers never ceasing to brighten Quianna up.

"'Sup, Qui?" she snickered, giving Quianna a good slap on the back. "Found another poor sucker to make out with?"

Quianna rolled her eyes. "No, idiot. The Games are coming soon, I can't be bothered by having another fellow clinging onto me now," she told her, putting her hands on her hips as the pair walked down the boulevard of palm trees, their footsteps brisk with the knowledge that time was not on their side.

"Oh right, you're planning on volunteering. Such a noble thing to do," Gwen chided, sticking her tongue out at her.

"Shut it, Gwen," Quianna murmured, but she couldn't resist a smile. They were halfway down the boulevard and nearing that secret shed that they always frequented when just then, a voice called out to them.

"Hey! Where the heck are you two going?"

Quianna groaned as she turned on her heels. Of course, it just had to be her.

She clucked her tongue as the annoying figure of Rio Afferty, her older sister, the heir to the majority of the Rafferty family riches, and the Queen of All Things Fucking Annoying herself, stood before them, a stern look in her steely eyes as she raised an eyebrow at the pair, an eyebrow that was too bushy. No wonder she doesn't have anyone lining up to flirt with her, Quianna scoffed silently. "We're going to do our own shit, now beat it, Rio!"

Rio's eyes blazed with fury. She hated people defying her orders, being the spoiled rich brat that she was. Her foot stomped against the ground and Quianna could almost see smoke billowing out of her ears and nostrils. "Now, listen here, you two, I-"

Before she could continue, though, Gwen, who had snuck into that secret shed, the old, abandoned one standing dully in a row of other old, abandoned sheds, had grabbed their can of red paint and she flung it straight at Rio's face. Quianna burst into peals of laughter as Rio let out a frankly ridiculous, high-pitched shriek, holding her hands out helplessly as a wave of paint crashed into her, staining that fancy white dress of hers, as well as her face, a bright shade of red.

To be fair, her face is always red with anger anyway, Quianna thought, giggling relentlessly as she did so. She needs to fucking chill.

As Rio screamed and hurled insults at the pair of them, hollering with absolute rage that was totally hilarious, Gwen tossed Quianna her paint and paintbrushes, and the pair ran off, cackling as they high-fived one another, making a beeline for their usual spot in the slum areas of District Four.

"We're totally gonna get grounded!" Gwen called out as they rounded a corner, narrowly missing a young man on his bike.

"Well, fuck that, " Quianna shouted back, laughing as she climbed over a wall and jumped over the other side, her boots sloshing onto a mound of mud but she didn't care.

This was the place her parents forbid her to venture into: the slums of District Four.

So, naturally, Quianna and Gwen frequented the place nearly every day after school.

Because this was where the fun truly began.

The slums were not very expansive, but they were there, a messy collection of broken shacks and half-ruined huts where people dressed in rags clamoured about their business along the muddy, dirt roads that were filled with trash, dead animals and even human waste.

The sights and smells of it were enough to make most people gag.

But not Quianna Rafferty. No no, she inhaled this putrid stench, and to her, it wasn't a pungent odour that was as foul as Rio's sense of humour.

It was the sweet smell of rebellion.

She skipped across the crooked pathways, making sure to strike a grin at the people who she came across, even if they only ever responded with a hollow stare, perhaps stunned by her outfit, which was certainly a stark upgrade from what they had to wear. Quianna, however, did not mind their stares and sometimes even glares of jealousy. She sauntered straight towards that huge, concrete slab of wall that stood in the heart of the slum, looming over the entire area. The residents parted ways, their stares beginning to glimmer with a gleaming curiosity as they began to chatter amongst themselves in hushed voices.

"What are we gonna draw today, Qui?" Gwen asked, nudging her playfully.

Quianna didn't even need to think. She grinned, having already figured that answer out a while ago. "A painting of our good old sister Rio falling facefirst into a mound of dirt," she said matter-of-factly, twirling her brush around.

Gwen's eyes widened with glee. "Ooh, yes, now that's a good idea. Oh, she's gonna be delighted when she hears about this."

"Oh, she will be most delighted," Quianna agreed. "Should I draw a painting of my useless, birdbrained ex too?" She was talking about her recent ex-girlfriend, that dumb daughter of one of the trainers at the Academy that she had only dated in order to receive special, additional, personalised training sessions at the Academy. Oh, she had been nothing more than a pea-brained chatterbox, and Quianna had been more than happy to dump her that morning, in front of the whole class.

In fact, she had only ever loved two of the uncountable number of people that she had dated, just a shame a couple of blunt remarks on her part had driven both of them away from her, beyond the reach of her wounded heart.

"Nah," Gwen said, shaking her head. "Save that for after your victory."

"Alright then," Quianna replied with a shrug. "Now, let's go."

As she dipped her paintbrush into the can of paint, she could just picture her parents' shocked gasps when they inevitably found out about her antics. Oh and the fact that she had eaten ice cream from those street vendors, a horrific sin in their books. "What?! No daughter of ours is going to go around and vandalise random walls in this filthy part of town!" they would probably scream at her.

But she didn't care.

Quianna was a rebel at heart, and her family wasn't going to stop her from working on these 'masterpieces'.

And they weren't going to stop her from volunteering either.

RONAN AQUARIUS (18)

DISTRICT FOUR MALE

There's got to be more out there.

A simple thought that had spurred Ronan through his childhood, and it hadn't left him through his teenage years.

Just a shame his parents weren't too keen on his misadventures. They viewed him as nothing more than a bad influence on his little brother Morgan, who was their golden boy, that nice, disciplined, strong potential Volunteer that they loved so dearly.

Ronan was the complete opposite of Morgan.

But did he care? Heck no.

On the eve of the Reapings, as he exited the school building, his hands jammed in his pocket, he caught a glimpse of that popular girl, what was her name again? Quinoa? No, Quianna, perhaps? Whatever. She was busy shooting flirtatious winks and grins at all the other simps around her, being the total slut that she was.

"Ugh, I can't stand her," he murmured to no one in particular, lifting his chin in indignation as a couple of passers-by shot him a weird look. It was fair to say that Ronan wasn't very popular around here. In fact, he may or may not have driven a whole bunch of people away from him. But so what? He was better off without those irritating pricks who mocked and teased him anyway.

"Neither can I, Ro," his boyfriend, Yukine, said, nodding in agreement as he slid up next to him. "She's going to volunteer, isn't she?"

Ronan nodded. "Yeah, but her attitude is gonna get her into trouble in the arena."

Yukine scoffed. "Funny you should say that."

Ronan shot him a withering glare. "Oh, shut it, Yuki."

Yukine chuckled as he marched forward, slinging his backpack over his broad shoulders before grabbing Ronan by the sleeve and pulling him along. "You can't stay mad at me for long, Ro, you never can."

He has a point there, Ronan thought, but he decided against giving in. "Oh, really?"

Yukine rolled his eyes. "Yes, really, now, Llyr wants to meet us at Katherine's Rocks in precisely ten minutes so-"

"Wait what the fuck?" Ronan gasped.

"Jeez, Ro, mind your language," Yukine murmured.

"Oh shut the fuck up," Ronan grumbled. "But Llyr wants to do what?"

Yukine raised an eyebrow, tapping his foot against the dirt path. From the corner of Ronan's eye, he could see Quianna and that sister of hers skipping off to goodness knows where, but he didn't care about those two rich sluts at the moment. He shifted his attention back to Yukine, who sighed and shook his head, clearly disappointed in him. "She wants to go cliff diving, we agreed on this, like, just yesterday, remember?" He said each and every word very slowly and with a loud voice, as if he were speaking to a baby, trying to get Ronan to understand his words very clearly.

A dawn of realisation struck upon Ronan and a rush of guilt rushed into him. He had forgotten again! "Oh, shit-"

"Kindly stop swearing please," Yukine chided.

"No can't do, Yuki, now, we're running late, aren't we? So come on, let's go!"

With that, they ran off and hopped onto their bicycles, both of which were quite old and a little rusty, but they couldn't afford new ones, so this was the best that they could do with. Yukine shouted a reminder to Ronan to don his helmet, something that he never could quite remember to do, and with that, he zoomed off into the streets. Along the way, he almost bumped into a gross young couple who were smooching in the streets. He cycled past them, just narrowly missing them by the length of a catfish whisker. "Hey, watch it!" the girl screamed, pulling away from her boyfriend.

"Why don't you go get a room, you filthy little animals?" Ronan shouted back, rolling his eyes as he swerved his bike around a fire hydrant, the towering cliffs of Katherine's Rocks appearing in the distance, and Ronan could just make out two figures standing on top of the rocks, dressed in swimsuits and pacing around the area, making animated hand gestures that made Ronan gulp.

Oh shit we're already late. Llyr and Nerida are gonna kill us.

He pedalled at full speed, charging ahead, ignoring the fact that he almost missed the net of a volleyball court, before ditching his bike and bolting towards the two girls, huffing and panting all the way. "Sorry, I, uhm, am, uh, late," he panted, struggling to catch his breath.

Llyr crossed her arms, giving him a firm glare. "Maybe you and Yuki should quit wasting your bloody time snogging off in the corridors then."

"We weren't snogging, you dumb prick," Ronan snapped, before a flop of his hair tumbled over his eyes, causing him to stumble to the ground.

Nerida snickered. "Oh, sureeeee."

"Shut the fuck up, Ner."

Giggling, Nerida pranced over to the edge of the cliff and peered down at the ocean waves. Ronan quickly joined her, dusting off some dirt on his pants. The ocean currents weren't too strong today, and the wind was fairly gentle, merely a light breeze that caressed his hair as it floated by. The squawks of seagulls could be heard in the distance, as they soared through the royal blue skies, gliding past the warm sunshine like distant angels in the sky. The water was a magnificent blue, thanks to cleanup efforts initiated by those Victors Mags and Jolien, and he could see a dolphin bursting out of the water in the horizon, letting out a squeal of delight as it feasted upon a fish.

But there was one other reason why Katherine's Rocks was Ronan's favourite place in Four.

From this vantage point, he could look on not only the grand ocean horizon, but also the vast expanse of land beyond.

And lucky for him, today was a clear day, meaning that he could see far and wide, all the way to the borders of District Seven. It was fairly obvious where the line between the two Districts was, so long as you could observe carefully enough. The forestry was denser on the District Seven side, and there were significantly more clouds over on that side. Ronan longed to be able to explore this mysterious land of lumberjacks, where, according to local lore, 'waves of music danced across beautiful trees as artists basked in the melodies of nature, surrounded by gentle creatures'. It seemed fantastical, magical, an enchanting place, and Ronan so desperately wished that he could visit this forbidden place once in his lifetime.

In fact, he wanted to explore even beyond Panem.

Because surely, there had to be other civilisations out there, right? What lay on the other side of District Four's southern border, a place marred with dense jungles and rivers full of deadly crocodiles and bull sharks? He had only been there once, to the borderlands of Port Penasco, on a sailing trip with Yukine, where the Panem Navy forbade them from venturing any further south.

That only fuelled a greater desire and an unquenched wanderlust for adventures beyond.

"Hey, Ro," Yukine snapped his fingers in front of his eyes, snapping him back to attention. "You ready to do this?"

Ronan nodded, taking off his shirt and taking his place beside his three friends. His parents most certainly would not approve of this, but fuck it, who cared? "Three, two, one, jump!"

Sponsor Question:

What did you think of Quianna and Ronan? How far do you think they'll go in the arena?

A/N: There we have it, our first pair of tributes from District Four! Thank you to contemporarydancer2 for Quianna and TheWatcherofTheVoid for Ronan, I hope I did them (some) justice. Sorry if this chapter is quite bad, I'm still trying to get to grips with SYOT writing and I know my dialogue is quite frankly not very good so please bear with me for a while. And yeah, that's it, when we get our next pair, I'll start on the next pre-Reapings/ Reapings (depending on their forms), thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you guys next time. Cheers :)