Little Liars ✢ The Hunger Games

The Reaping - Crow

It wasn't long before the pair had simply merged in with the many others headed towards the town square, everyone dressed in what little they had by the way of nice clothes. Asher didn't stand out - and even if he did, the second-eldest son of the mayor was hardly someone to get excited about seeing.. Nobody paid attention to Crow either, not as they walked in Asher's shadow, people too caught up in their own anxieties for the day to worry much about two lone kids heading to the square.

An outsider might have looked at them and considered them siblings with how they had attached themselves to each other by the hand, latched onto each other as they headed to the Reaping.

Siblings from different fathers, perhaps, but siblings nonetheless. Crow might not have even been insulted at whoever said it.

Asher would have smiled one of his bright grins, and ruffled their hair, making some teasing comment to them. They knew how the routine went at this point.

Once they reached the square, they joined the line for registration with all the other kids of Reaping age, the adults all gathering at the outskirts of the square, settling in to watch whatever happened. They could spot the ones that betted on it, hustling around from person to person, debating the odds with their little notebooks in hand. Age, status, even whether they'd cry as their name was called. Crow always thought of them as vultures, carrion birds picking at the carcass left behind by the grief and anger the Reaping caused.

There was an electric energy in the air as Crow and Asher followed through the line towards the Peacekeepers that would check them in - the nerves and fear in the square so tightly packed that it created a fog almost too thick to breathe in. Crow's heart gave a flutter in their chest, batting against their ribs, but they kept their face carefully neutral.

Everything was going to be fine.

Looking up, Asher was starting to feel it as well, a tension to his jaw as he looked off into the square. Following his gaze, Crow saw a head of sandy hair in the section for the twelve year olds. They didn't need her to turn to know it was Laurel, Asher's sister, at her very first Reaping. He must have been eating himself up with nerves on her behalf.

Crow wondered what he'd do if she got Reaped, as unlikely as that was. Would he shout and scream, and watch his sister die on nation television? Would he retreat into himself, broken by the grief of losing her? Or would he do something stupid, like volunteering to go in with her, keep his little sister alive and sacrifice himself at the end of it all?

Crow knew Asher, knew his love for his siblings that ran through his veins like blood. He'd gotten in trouble just a few months ago for fighting, when he'd taken the boy that had been teasing Ethan and knocked half his teeth out.

The only reason he'd not gotten a whipping for it was because he was the mayor's son, and because Crow had run a few streets over when the Peacekeepers showed up and started screaming bloody murder to get their attention off of him.

The pair of them made a good team like that.

Soon enough, the pair were at the head of the line, Peacekeepers waiting expectantly.

Crow, rather obligingly, held out their hand, letting it be grabbed in a rough, leather-gloved, grip, a prick at their finger drawing their blood. Their hand was dragged towards the scanner, smearing their blood on the surface until their ID popped up, their name and a photo of them at twelve, scowling and angry showing on the screen.

Their attendance was confirmed, and they were free to go. They dragged Asher into a hug, a rare show of physical affection, and didn't bat him away when he ruffled their hair fondly.

It was a just-in-case hug.

For if things went desperately, badly wrong. Crow and Asher had both trained as best they could in their grove, but getting Reaped was still the worst case scenario.