A Game Of False Fates ✭ Cato Hadley

One - Edge of Seventeen

3rd of April 74PD

"The tributes representing District Two in the seventy-fourth Hunger Games are..." The district mayor says slowly, watching as every academy member hangs on his every word and the parents of the potential tributes each wait impatiently for the decision. "Ebony Stein and Ajax Dumont."

Cheers fill the square as the chosen volunteers walk to the front of the plaza to shake hands with the mayor after he pats them both on the back. Ebony looks confused, the seventeen year old failing to hide the bewilderment of being selected on her face as she looks between the line of twenty girls and the automated scoreboard above her. In each of her trials, the young girl has placed second and the board providing a summary of the trials also has her sitting in second, only behind the fifteen year old Clove Kentwell. The same fifteen year old who is staring daggers into Ebony's head as she takes in the praise she is surrounded with. Ajax, on the other hand is smiling ear to ear and his father can be seen with his hands in the air celebratorily. The young children in the temporarily erected stands are clapping for their volunteers whilst the mayor speaks about the two tributes who have the potential to bring the victory home from District Two for the third year running. No one mentions the scoreboards whilst the two tributes choose their mentors for their last three months of training. To no one's surprise, Ajax chooses Brutus but doesn't fail to mention that he wants Cato to help him and Ebony chooses Enobaria. The expressions worn on the line of the unselected make it evident that this year, as with every other year in the past twenty, someone will try to take out the volunteers so that they can be replaced. "You may return to your homes, the Academy will remain open for those of you who live in the outskirts of the district but I encourage you to spend time with your families if you can."

As the lines file out, Clio watches out of the corner of her eye as her sister stands to the side of the plaza to wait for her and after excusing herself from the various district officials, she approaches. "Clove..."

"I placed first!" She declares in frustration, one hand pointing harshly in the direction of the scoreboard. "I thought you and Enobaria wanted me to continue what you started."

"Of course we do, but it's not always the worst thing to wait another year. Trust me, Enobaria always overrides the scoreboard for a reason."

Clove rolls her eyes as she retorts, "but I'm not in love with Ajax so it's not like it matters to me who I volunteer alongside."

"Ajax has been waiting to volunteer for three years." Clio reminds her, hoping that making a demonstration of the boy's patience will help her sister snap out of her anger; she hopes that refreshing Clove's memory of the fuss the boy kicked up when he wasn't chosen last year will help her realise that having to wait isn't the end of the world. But she also understands how she is feeling, remembering back to two years ago when she threw heated words at Enobaria after the mentors decided to switch up the partnerships and send Cato into the arena with Thalia instead of her. Several of the other girls and boys who weren't selected stand beside them, clustered in small groups and surrounded by family.

"Clio, sweetie, I am so happy to see you," the Kentwell matriarch muses as approaches, her voice warm and light. The woman is beautiful as always but both sisters can easily detect the coldness in her eyes as she tries to bring her eldest daughter into a hug. "You didn't come around on your birthday, you must still be too busy for little old me."

Her words, to the outsiders around them, seem lighthearted and teasing but Clio knows better. She was putting on a show to the other prominent families. The truth is, Clio hasn't spoken to either of her parents in the two months since her victory tour; only conversing with them once or twice since she returned from the arena, yet here she was casting the same old doubts that shrinks Clio back to the little girl would refuse to use up her homestay days at the academy or hiding in her childhood bedroom for afternoons at a time in hopes of not seeing her parents. "We have to go," Clio says as she looks into her mother's eyes. She wonders if she has ever loved her at all, or if she has always been just a means to receive glory and fame within the district and all of Panem.