Chapter Text
Hearthstone hated District 12.
He hated the smell of death and hopelessness, of ash and hunger. He hated seeing the people, dejected and malnourished, he hated the desolate lands and the unforgiving, merciless Peacekeepers in their stark white uniforms. He hated the coal, the horrible coal that was found in the mines that could light everything up in a horrible blaze. He hated that some people would call him ‘Coal’, stating that his actual name was simply a more elaborate word for the mineral. He hated District 12. There was only one thing he liked about the abhorrent place, one thing that kept him from volunteering for some random kid in the Reaping.
He liked the woods. Loved them, even. He loved drinking in the sunlight and scaling the trees. He loved the flowers and the wild animals and the freedom of being away, away from 12 and away from everyone there who knew him, which was quite a few people seeing as he was the only one there from the Capitol. But was he really? He didn’t quite know. His father was born in the Capitol, he knew that, but had sent him to this District. He was often referred to as the ‘Capitol Ghost’. This was not only because of his pale complexion, with bleached white hair and skin that, despite all his hours spent in the forest sunlight, looked like he was born from the moon itself, but because he was always seen around, alive, despite not working. At 16 years old, he wasn’t old enough for the mines, didn’t work anywhere else in the District, and had no family living with him. He survived through the checks his father still sent the Mayor to provide Hearth with a place to stay, and the game he hunted in the woods with Inge.
Inge didn’t necessarily hunt, she didn’t have the stomach for it, killing animals who’d done no wrong, and therefore was the essential gatherer of the two. She was extremely knowledgeable on the herbs of the wild, as was the rest of her family (which he had never met), which kept him alive many a night in this dreadful town. The game he hunted with his trusted bow, the only thing he was allowed to bring to District 12 from the Capitol, made him the money he used to buy clothes and arrows, and he used what remained in meals and stews. He and Inge would meet in the woods daily to hunt and gather, and on good days would return to their homes with breads, soups, and (on rare occasions) cakes after trading with the shop owners and black-market dealers of 12. They made a wonderful team.
Today, he was walking towards the campsite that he and Inge met at daily. He looked down and smiled when he saw their makeshift signal-fire blinking. Instead of a fire, which was obvious from afar, they had come up with a system using a part of a drone that they had found in the forest. When turned on, it blinked a light blue, and it was their signal to each other that, even if they weren’t currently at the camp, they were nearby and would be back soon. It was Inge’s idea, and he thought it was brilliant, seeing as audio signals wouldn’t work for him.
He sat down on a log and turned off the Blinker, as they had dubbed it, and waited for Inge. As he did, he caught a squirrel scampering across a tree branch overhead and shot it down with an arrow. If Inge had found some good herbs, they could go to his house and have a decent pre-Reaping meal.
Inge returned with a bag stuffed with the riches of the wilderness, which were mostly different types of edible plants. She smiled at him and signed Good morning. He nodded, holding up the dead squirrel, which she scrunched her nose at a bit before giving him a thumbs-up. Food was food.
After a quick conversation about what they each thought today’s Reaping would bring, they both headed over to Hearth’s house to cook a quick meal and get dressed for the event. The stew was good, thanks to Inge and her spice-finding magic, and their clothes, courtesy of Hearth’s father, weren’t bad either. He had on the same outfit he wore every year, a white suit with white dress pants and black dress shoes. They were sent to his house in a different size every year on the day of the Reaping, the only contact from his father he ever received. Inge wore a sky blue dress that matched her eyes, and black boots with knee-length white socks. Her blonde curls wove freely around her face and shoulders, unusually clean and bright for District 12. With food in their stomachs and their best clothes on, they walked to the common courtyard for the Reaping to commence.
Blood was drawn to mark them present, and then they got into sections for the Reaping. Hearth moved over to the mass of 16 year old boys, and to his right, on the other side of the large pathway between them, Inge stood with the 16 year old girls. He watched the large screens above the extravagant stage raised in the square for this occasion, which displayed a sort of Reaping orientation video, depicting war and famine from the district rebellion giving way to the peace and prosperity brought by the Capitol’s victory. It was one of the extremely rare occasions when he was grateful that he couldn’t hear. At least it spared him from the lies being shamelessly spit out by the Capitol.
He wasn’t too concerned about his or Inge’s names being called. Both of their names were in the bowls from which names of tributes were drawn only 5 times, and he knew of many citizens who had applied for tesserae, placing their names in more times in exchange for food. He thought that, if nothing else, he may be able to get out of being reaped by playing the ‘Capitol Boy’ card, as much as he’d hate it. Still, as horrible as life was, he wanted to live. Better alive and hated than dead in the Games.
The Capitol people didn’t use sign language, and neither did most people in poorer Districts such as District 12, so he had to struggle to read the lips of the person calling out an unlucky child’s name behind the mic; ladies first, as always. His blood ran cold when he saw Inge step onto the stage, one hand nervously toying with the ends of her dress. His hand immediately shot up, and with his other he pushed his way out of the crowd and onto the empty path.
I volunteer! He signed, over and over, though he knew nobody except Inge could understand, and she stood frozen in shock. He knew it wasn’t allowed for boys to volunteer for girl tributes, but he’d be damned if the Peacekeepers tried to stop him. First Capitol boy to live in District 12 as a normal citizen, why not first boy to volunteer for a girl? What did the Capitol care, as long as they could kill another innocent child?
Any time a Peacekeeper or that horrible Capitol citizen placed in charge with calling names tried to stop him, he simply stared them down, eyes cold and filled with defiance. The eyes of his father. This was not how he’d expected to play his ‘Capitol Boy’ card, but he would.
He walked onto the stage slowly but confidently. His hands were clenched by his sides, and he only used them to guide Inge, who had tears in her eyes, off the stage and back onto the stone courtyard. When she was back with the girls, away from the stage, he stepped up onto it. Nobody made a move to stop him.
He was filled with relief. They would let him go to the Games instead of Inge. She didn’t have to fight, or kill, or die. She could stay in District 12 and trade and eat herbs and use his house however she wanted. He might die, but then all she had to do was survive two more years and then she’d be safe from the Reaping. Safe from the Capitol. He straightened his tie with hands that had finally started shaking and stared at the announcer, silently urging them to call out the boy who would be joining him to get this thing over with.
After a palpably tense minute, the announcer stepped cautiously to the bowl filled with names of the boys of District 12 written on slips of paper. They stepped back to the mic, and he looked to the crowd of boys to see who would be the one to join him, since he was standing behind the announcer and couldn’t read their lips. He watched as the crowd parted to let a shorter boy that, despite his height, had to be about his age, through to the pathway. The boy had warm brown skin and black hair that, at its longest point, reached about the base of his neck in short curls. His dark eyes were unfocused and his pupils were dilated to such a degree that he couldn’t tell where they stopped and his irises started. He wore a three-piece suit: a suit of dark stormy gray, a cream-colored vest, and a light teal dress shirt with a sort of warm-bronze colored bow tie. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his tan dress pants and walked to the stage without uttering a word. He looked so stylish and sophisticated compared to the rest of District 12 that Hearthstone was astonished he didn’t notice him earlier. Between the two of them, District 12’s tributes were very well-dressed indeed.
Tributes. That was right. No matter how well dressed they were, he and this boy were now nothing more than tributes. They would be forced into a kill-or-be-killed Arena to fight other tributes, other children, from Districts 11-1, and they may even have to face each other down. There could only be one Victor, after all. The reality of it all started to sink in. The fact that he’d just created by volunteering to spare his friend.
He was going to the Hunger Games.