64th Reaping [D4]

"It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?"

"It's a mockingjay." My sister spoke quietly, perhaps admiring the workmanship of the small paper figurine sitting on my nightstand.

My hands were fumbling with my bow tie, a pale blue accoutrement against a pale blue over vest. Underneath it was a pure white shirt, and below that, raven black pants, dress shoes, and virginal white socks running far above my heel. The lowest point of the pants went beyond my ankle, so this was not really noticeable. All the same, the soft fabric was pleasing to feel on my normally overworked ankles.

"Not a bad eye you've got there." I complimented her with shooting a glance her way.

I hadn't been overworked this week though. Mother and father wouldn't allow for it. Nationally, Reaping Day was a holiday, but to a career district, it was treated more accurately as the coming of the messiah. So mother and father made sure I took it easy for the past week or so, to keep me rested and relaxed. Afterall, it's not everyday you get the chance to sent your child off to the slaughter, and it would be best to stay in my most tip-top shape if I was to have any chance of seeing my district or my family again.

Even being the career that I was, the Reaping was not certain.

"God Gaff, let me see that." Rose said, annoyed at my inability to tie a simple knot. How ironic considering who I was and where I lived.

"You'd think a 'deadly career death machine' such as yourself could tie a knot. You're from District Four, you moron." She told me without malice or spite, just simple candor. I laughed. It wasn't often that I did that.

"Do I look like a 'deadly career death machine' to you?" I asked her with a smile.

"No." she agreed, tightening the knot around my neck, then loosing it as to be a bit more comfortable.

"Now help me but this bow into my hair. You can do that right can't you?"

She handed me the bow and turned around, and went to work, knotting the girly fixture around her braid of red hair. I did this much quicker than I was able to knot my own bow tie (if I had been able to knot my own bow tie.)

Ripred, what does that even say about me...

"Children, come downstairs." Our mother demanded in a tone less imperious than we were used to. We shot each other a look that only the two of us could fully understand and headed out of my room, down the stairs to meet our parents.

Father's eyes were on his wrist watch. Of course they were, when was he ever not thinking about the games? Mother looked stern, but there was a lighter edge in her face than usual.

"We've got to go. The Reaping starts soon." Mother reminded, as if we could have possibly forgotten that.

Father dropped his forearm and his gaze didn't even bother to focus on his two children for a moment, heading straight for the door. He begin to walk briskly towards it.

"Well, let's get going then." Father commented as he opened the door vigorously and headed out towards the road. Mother shot us a look of slight sympathy and followed him suite.

"Ready?" Rose asked.

"No." I replied.

A moment passed and then I looked her square in the eyes. Bright green, just like mine. I shrugged my shoulders.

"So what are we waiting for?" I told her, and then promptly followed my progenitors out onto the pavement.

[break]

"It's a mockingjay." I commented.

"Not this time it isn't." My sister told me as we walked towards the square, a few square feet behind our parents, walking side by side in silence in a way that was vaguely reminiscent of a military march.

"It's a mockingbird." she told me as I scrutinized the filigree on the ring.

"Mockingbirds are extinct. Nobody's seen them in years. I've never seen one." I pointed out the obvious.

"Yeah, but this is one. The lady at the store told me so. It's not like I've ever seen one, and she's always been fair with me, so who am I to disagree?" Rose shrugged her shoulders.

My gaze went from her back to the small trinket I held in between my fingers. It was a ring, golden colored, with what looked to be a bird as it's crest. I slipped it on my right ring finger.

"Thanks sis." I told her in a voice still mesmerized by the small object, my gaze still fixed upon the object now wrapped around my finger.

"You're welcome." she replied promptly, then turned her own gaze back to my present, another of my small, paper figurines.

"It's a tracker jacker." I told her.

"Not to size, of course." I added.

"Could've fooled me. On both counts." She snarked without looking at me. That was okay, I wasn't looking at her either.

The square was as sprawling like it always was on a day like that. Excitment filled the air, not dread like you could practically feel through the TV screens during the Reapings at other districts. No, the people of District Four loved a good fight, and the games rarely denied one to them. Hell, the games were just about the only think you could get on TV that came in clear anymore. Not like anything else ever did, of course, except for maybe the propaganda networks.

Which were every network these days.

I felt my ring nervously as I eyed the crowd.

"There." Rose nodded her head towards the pens for the fourteen year old boys and the fourteen year old girls. It looked something like cattle being pent up for the slaughter, but that was nothing new.

"Come on." Rose began to walk towards the pens, and I began to follow her. After a few steps, we hazarded a couple of glances over at our parents. Dad looked proud, but in a subdued way, which looked more than a bit odd, like his lower jaw was trying to eat the upper half of his face. He nodded at us slightly. This was the closest we were going to get to "I'm proud of you both."

Mom looked a bit more emotional, but just a bit more than bone dry, that is. Her eyebrows cocked into something I could mistake for worry, and she moved her had slightly away from her side to give it a small wave towards us.

And that was it.

Rose and I stuck together a little longer. Until we finally made our way through the crowds and to the pens together. Then the time came for us to part ways.

We hugged for a few moments longer than we had originally intended to, and then headed wordlessly over to our respective pens. There was nothing we could say to each other that we didn't already know, so why bother saying it?

A muscled my way in to my pen in the same why I imagine my sister did with hers. With our elbows.

When the district escort began to speak, one of those funny looking men from the Capitol, who looked very short but was of course to far away for me to correctly judge, began to speak the same words that had been spoken sixty-three times before this.

"It is time," he started illustriously.

"To once again send two of our own children to the Capitol to compete in the Hunger Games. Let us begin the Reaping!" he finished grandiloquently.

I personally thought that everyone from the Capitol (I had seen, anyway) was a bombastic fool, but then I reproached and reminded myself that there are worthwhile people everywhere, even the Capitol.

Not that I had met any as of late...

...or ever.

"Ladies first," as tradition went.

The small man went to the reaping bowl, filled to the brim with every reaping eligible girl in the District and selected a slip.

"Locust Lovelace!" He shouted importantly.

Never heard of her, I thought. From somewhere in the crowd, I thought I saw an older girl moving towards the stage. Rose was safe, but then again, when was she even in danger? Even if she had been reaped, with the slim odds she had as my family was generally well off enough not to have to take out tesserae, someone would have volunteered for her. I guess she could have not allowed for volunteers to take her place, but why would she do that? I was the career, not her.

I was broken out of my reverie by the escort obnoxious, booming voice.

"Gaff Grimsdottir!"

My face had not changed one bit, staying just as emotionless as it generally always was, but at that very moment, the world I knew around me stopped.

Faces which searched the crowd for movement, sighs of relief or dissappointment, all froze in place. I was alone. Completely and utterly alone.

Then came the time for me to precisely examine my choices as to what comes next.

For starters, how I choose to react to myself, a fourteen year old boy from District Four, getting reaped, was of paramount importance. Any smart kid knows that the games begin for a person as soon as their name is called. I had to play an angle. If I was surprised, if I was scared, if anything other than what I intended registered on my face, I was a dead man. No one wants to give their money to a weakling or a sobbing mess.

Then, what came after?

Well, I could figure that out at the justice building. For now, I had to play the games.

Time returned to it's ebb and flow around me all at once.

And an amused smirk was the first thing that registered on my face.

I closed my eyes, dropped my head down towards the deck, feigned a light, nearly inaudible chuckle, shrugged my shoulders, lifted my head up, and briskly began to walk up to the stage.

I kept my hands in my pockets the whole way there, and when I made my way up the stage's stairs, a shot a sly smile at both the escort and my newly minted competition.

I caught a glance of my sister in the crowd, but I couldn't find my parents. She had this glazed over look in her eyes, and she was staring on level with the stage, not at what was occurring on top of it. She finally inched her had up towards me, and soft concern finally etched itself onto her face. I winked reassuringly at her and when the time came to take my competitors hand, I shook it firmly and enthusiastically.

The games, my games, were finally ready to be played.

[Gaff Grimsdottir accepts his position as tribute]