Mocking the Odds (A Hunger Games/Tom Hiddleston Fanfic)

The Reaping

The smell of fresh hay is what wakes me; I must've rolled over on the bale onto my face. Stifling a massive sneeze, I swing my legs over, causing the hen pecking around my feet to fly onto the ground with a squawk. Groaning as I make the effort to stand, I stretch everything in my body, reveling in the feeling my joints made as they popped and the straining of my calves. 

Today was the day of the Reaping. The day many dreaded, and few anticipated here in Panem. 

Climbing down the ladder from the loft, my makeshift home, I almost step on Holmes, my faithful companion and protector of the barn, who's yapping at me and running around excitedly in circles. 

"Hey, boy." I whisper, crouching down to eye level. "You know what day it is today, don't you?" Ruffling his fur, I'm rewarding with a loud woof and lick to the face. "Eurgh, I have to look decent today! My hair's going to get all ruined now because of you." I giggle, chiding him halfheartedly. Not that it was any better in the first place. District 10 was one of the nation's poorest, with very few supplies to spare or money to spend without need. But then again, who'd have time nowadays to even try and think of that, when all we can worry about is whether or not the beef we're sending to the Capitol is decent enough for them to eat?

Grabbing a clean blanket I usually cover one of the horses with, I make my way to the back of the barn, where a washroom for the animals stands on the right side. Stripping my work clothes and kicking my dingy boots off, I grapple for the tap and turn it on to the hottest it could go. It takes a minute for the water to come out, but with a rattle of the showerhead a hot jet of water splashes onto me. I stand for a few minutes in the steam, breathing it in; sometimes the temperature of the water wasn't what it was supposed to be, so at shivering times in the winter ice water would sometimes come out, and it was better off not taking a bath in the first place to avoid catching hypothermia. Today was a good day, when the tap did as it was told. Reaching over for the shampoo, I squirt a few precious drops out and massage it into my hair, the suds splattering to the ground. After the shampoo's all been rinsed out, I stand under the water a little while longer, letting it work out the knots in my back. 

Finally stepping out and already aching to get back in, I wrap the blanket around me and pad over to the tack room, where I've laid out my one and only dress, a gift given to me after the death of my family. Perching the blanket precariously in a jumble on my head, I slip the dress on, always amazed at the foreign feeling of silk against my skin as the memory comes flooding back. 

"Oh Reyna, I'm so sorry." Mrs. Nicholls, who would later become one of the people I held dearest to me, held me tight as I could do nothing but numbly stare at the bodies of my mother, father, and sister as they were zipped up in black body bags and taken who knows where by a group of Peacekeepers. "You did the best you could."

It was never good enough. I had tended to them feverishly as they all lay in bed for weeks, ridden with some kind of bacteria that was in the cow's milk we all drank. Surprisingly enough, I didn't experience any of the symptoms, but sometimes wish I had. The look on their faces as they spewed blood out of their lungs was enough to haunt me for the rest of my life. 

As the sole immediate family member, I inherited everything: the barn, the livestock, the few possessions and money we had. The latter didn't last very long, for one particularly hard winter brought even more poverty to the district, causing the cattle to eat brittle, frosbitten grass, and thus resulted in less demand for meat. No one liked a cow that wasn't eating as much as it usually did. So the money for supplies that season came straight from the family's savings, and disappeared as soon as it was thrust upon me. 

Shaking my head to jerk the nostalgia away, I pull on my boots again, the brown leather cracked beyond repair. Rubbing my hair through and through with the damp blanket, I comb the snarls into their natural waves, which would become even softer once they dried. Finding a scarlet ribbon, I tie it into a bow in my hair, matching the color of my dress. I throw my dirty clothes into the washbin, already filled halfway with steaming water, and make my way to the double oaken doors at the other side of the barn. A rough nicker comes from one of the stalls of the horses, and I make my way over as a shining bay with a star across his forehead pokes his head out.