{ i don't even think to make corrections // anzie }

[attr="id","aHalt"]

Arbor Halt, thirty one, bearded and weary, was more than grateful for the 70th quell twist. With his luck, he'd half expected to be managing half a dozen tributes minimum — but fortunately, it seemed the Capitol was no more interested in giving District Twelve another shot at the crown than Arbor was at feigning to make an effort.

It was nice. Instead of having to feel guilty for all the responsibilities he would invariably wind up shirking, Arbor instead found himself with an all-expenses-paid, no-obligations month-long vacation to the Capitol. He dropped his bag on the bed and immediately fixed himself a drink — whisky, neat — as soon as he and Cedar got to the tribute-free District Twelve suite that had been his home away from home for the past decade and a half. The five-year-old zipped off to find his friends — pausing only to assent to Arbor's yearly mandate that he not bother the other victors if they were busy with their tributes — leaving the old victor to settle into a cozy chair with the finest drink he'd had in the last year.

His other friends weren't quite so lucky. Julian and Cricket were stuck with twice as many tributes as usual — most of them ghosts of the dead — although he expected the seasoned Careers would be thrilled to have double their usual odds of winning. And poor Leon Krigel had been stuck with three tributes to manage by himself. Worse, one his little brother. Several years the youngest in his own family, Arbor never had to worry about mentoring his siblings. When his brother's kids came of age, however, he was forced to shepherd his nephew off to death — in the last quell, actually. It wasn't the same, he knew; a nephew wasn't a brother. But to hear the abject horror in his brother's voice from a thousand miles away the second that flail turned Brendon's head to a pulp — the knife twisted in his heart was the same.

When his glass was empty, he set it down on the end table. With a sigh, he rose from his chair. His feet and guilt brought him out of the suite, down the hall, into the elevator. Before he knew it, he was knocking on the the fourth floor's mahogany door.

"Hey, Krigel?" He ran a hand through his hair, trying not to notice how much his hairline had begun to recede in recent years. It occurred to him that half the reason why he'd come to this floor was because there was more than one Krigel, and as such he ought to specify: "Er, Leon?"