~Save--Me-/-From-/-This--Curse~{Meg!}

She should have been scared. It was her first reaping after all. She saw all of the kids at their first reaping, crying and screaming, or white and silent. Which portrayed more fear, she couldn’t tell, but their mother and older siblings held them tight and told them that everything would be just fine. And yet, sometimes, it wasn’t- sometimes even the twelve year olds were forced into the games, forced to turn into monsters that they weren’t even old enough to feature in their nightmares. Shetty knew that, no matter how small, there was still a chance of her being reaped, but this year, the odds certainly were in her favour.

And so, when she exposed her eyes to the spectrum of coloured dust dancing in the steaming sunlight coming from the cracks in the truck’s roof, she was not afraid. She did not cry or scream, not was she white and shaking. Perhaps the roots of her teeth were slightly numb in the way that indicates nervousness, anticipation, but more in anticipation for the day to be over and for the reaping to have not affected her family, as it usually did. Perhaps.

The dress that hung like a lacy blue ghost on its hanger was actually her performance costume, for the rare occasion that someone was sick and she had to stand in. She didn’t like the thing- it was much more elaborate than anything the other girls wore, and it was becoming slightly too tight around her growing shoulders. It restricted her movement, and although she knew that she could not outrun the reaping, she didn’t like feeling as if she couldn’t.

Ok, so maybe she was just a little bit worried.

Arden tugged on her own dress behind her, a mirror image if not for the different clothing and the varying heights. Silently, she tied her own dress and then turned to slide a ribbon into Shetty’s hair and hang a necklace around her nape. Shetty had herself plaited it out of the tail hair of one of the show horses.

“I’m not worried, Arden” she said, but her shaky, quieter-than-usual voice said otherwise. Her sister stayed mute, just put a hand on her shoulder and held it there for a long moment. It seemed as if she knew the little girl was too smart to fall for the ‘you’ll certainly be alright’ line.

---

The nervous energy glowed off the younger side of the possible tributes. On the stage was the mayor, the usual master of ceremonies, and Lethe, the only recent victor that district 5 had managed. Shetty could not remember too much of her Games- at the time, she had been considered too young to watch the gore unfold. There was something about a lizard, a pet, and Shetty found that beautiful, sort of exciting.

There was a lot of excitement. It was exciting, not in the usual sense of the word but in the fact that there was a flow of edgy electricity rippling through the crowd. By the time a hand went into the glass ball full of names, her stomach was squirming as some of the foals did when lead with a halter for the first time, trying to get away but restricted. Although she would have sworn otherwise, and for the sake of protecting her mature reputation would have struck up a doddery conversation, now Shetty really was pallid and noiseless.

The name called was not hers. With her sigh of relief a boulder rolled off her shoulders, and she could have shaken herself. Of course she had not been chosen. Her name was there once out of all the hundreds of thousands of slips of paper. And yet, some stranger whose name was not in there many more times than Shetty’s was being sent off, a lamb to the slaughter.

Taking a second to flash a lightheaded smile at the girl standing next to her, who looked a little like she was going to vomit, Shetty relaxed. Her and Arden were safe, and if eighteen-year-old Freisia had not been reaped then there was no chance of Andal or Haff gaining a place. The serated edges of her new adult teeth showed themselves once again, this smile a real one. They were safe.

“… Ferde”

Freisia must have got herself into trouble. was the first thought that raced through her mind. It did not occur to her that the boy’s reaping had not yet happened- Shetty had seen the low-cut dress that Freisia had been wearing, she must have once again got herself mixed up with the wrong crowd. But she saw her brother pushed forward out of the boy’s side of the teenage flock, and she knew that, unfortunately, that was not the case.

“No.”

Her brother. Her simpleton brother who saw good in everyone. The one who talked nonstop though his body to the horses, who worked without rest, but only very rarely talked to his family.

There’s no way he can win- he doesn’t understand how the Games work, how they need to be played if one is to come out alive. She may have only been 12, but Shetty Ferde had deciphered the Games perfectly- that they were just for show, for whoever could put on the best act. Freisia would do well. The fact that Haff was physically strong wouldn’t even get him any sympathy sponsorship, because his disability was not visible to the naked eye.

---

Shetty was the first to leave the farewell room. There was not much to say,to a boy who was not likely to reply, really. You just had your thoughts, and then came away, the first of two funerals. Rather than make an evident show of her emotion, like Freisia, she would rather have contemplations by herself. And so she was standing, back against the corridor’s papered wall, when she met Lethe Turner.

“Do you want to sit? You’ll probably feel better.”

She almost laughed out loud. Yeah, because sitting down would really help with the pain of sending one’s brother to the knacker’s yard. It was hard enough with the horses. On stage and on the Games viewing, Lethe had always appeared ethereal, and full of feeling, unlike the career victors who were a hundred different shades of the same grey. This comment, however, did not bode well with that judgement.

“Lethe,” she started, the first syllable sticking itself to the gap between her front teeth as if it never wanted to let go.

“Haff’s not right. In the head. I know you’re meant to be his mentor and whatnot, but you have to understand. You have to look after him. He doesn’t understand what he’s doing. All he knows is the horses.”

Her cluttered words had all the maturity of a lifetime’s experience, and all the innocent bluntness that only a twelve year old could get away with. Her words spoke the untainted truth.