Caoimhe Genet [District Six]

Caoimhe Genet -- eighteen -- female -- District Six

Your parents want to know what you're going to do with your life. They don't say it like that, of course; they ask about your prospects and your plans for school with the warmth and sanguinity of people who know that their audience will come around to seeing things the proper way eventually. After all, they both have fancy degrees; who wouldn't want that? Caoimhe, they say, have you thought about your major this week, as though it's a done deal that you'll have a major, and you hear clear as day the undercurrent of when are you going to stop wasting your time with this swordfighting business?

You think you'd be less frustrated if they tried to force you to stop, instead of assuming that someday you'll agree that you're too clueless to plot out your own life, because then it would be a fair argument. They've always been passive-aggressively hands-off, though. The first time a classmate said you fight like a girl and you said duh, they emerged from the subsequent parent-teacher meeting with a perfect willingness to help you find a new name and a perfect refusal to say it without the hint of a wink and a nudge. Everything you do is a phase unless it matches their own lives, and they certainly didn't spend their teenage years in a namesake mask and a shimmering bronze coat.

(You didn't bother to tell them when you had your records changed yourself, last week, on your way home from school on your eighteenth birthday. By the time they find out come next Reaping, you'll all be busy not-arguing about school again.)

What they don't understand, or maybe don't care to understand, is that you don't get in the ring for lack of any better ideas. Yes, it pays for your estrogen now—no joke, since you think everything manufactured at the College of Natural Science labs technically belongs to the Capitol—and you fully expect it to pay your rent when you graduate high school and move out, but you would stay no matter how many side jobs you had to pick up. The hollers from the audience and the clang of blades, the swish of your costume as you put it on, the laughing banter at practice—those things are your home now. You love the rush of blood to your head as you flip into the ring and the adrenaline of a blade inches from your nose, but not as much as you love the rush of shared delight as you spin your sword with a flourish and the audience ignites.

You're not a fighter, you're a performer. An artist.

Your little brother started following along last year, which probably isn't winning you any further points with your parents. Truth be told, you're not entirely sure how you feel about it, either. It's a little weird to have your kid brother meeting all your friends, and whenever he's in the audience you're keenly aware that while the Peacekeepers placing bets in the back might not be willing to arrest anyone who puts their entertainment at risk, that moratorium might not always extend to the spectators. Even children—especially children, if you're pessimistic.

He loves the pageantry, though, and you love him. In the end it's always hard to say no when all you want is to give him the encouragement your parents never quite muster.

The problem is that he's better at school than you are, but he still wants to be a quieter sort of artist, and your parents might see even less point in that than in your own career choices. Exercise might be the only point they see to crossing swords, but it's a point, and there's nothing like that about drawing. He's good, though, good enough that you managed to talk the costume designer into hearing out his input once in a while. You hope he'll be able to leverage that connection someday; for now, it's just fun to crowd onto your bed together and watch his hands dance across a sketchpad while you try to explain where you want to go next season.

And, okay, maybe it's a little flattering to hear him out there cheering about how his big sister is the coolest thing since ice and you have to bet on her. A little.