A Part to Play // Hunger Games

22 // Possible Peace?

"Being social is absolutely exhausting" - Against All Odds (angel2213)

***

The youngest Victor was finally back home at District Five, that year's Games nothing but a memory to eventually resurface during her sleep. And she was so very happy to be back.

One of the perks of being a Victor was to have an incredibly persistent case of paranoia, but she was long used to it, not really caring too much about it, thinking about how it actually made her more careful and expectant. It also meant that it was now practically impossible to scare the young girl, that had - as she'd put it - mastered the ancient techniques of Unagi. That was also why Josh had made it his master goal to get a good scare in on the girl, hence the reason for District Five's Victors Village to hear something other than terrified screams caused by nightmares, they could actually hear laughing, and it had brightened the entire Village's mood.

That's how the young girl found herself comfortably sitting on the Victors' private beach with not only Josh, but also Dania, Pietro, Turner and Ulisses - the other two previously unknown Victors to the girl, who became a lot more social ever since the pair of troublemaking friends decided to set traps all around the Village, to try and scare the other.

Who knew that acting like actual children could lead the two youngest District Five Victors to properly meet their other neighbors? Aria was just relieved that she could relax and slowly start to let her guard down, opening up to new people.

***

"Joshyyy!" The Victor called, jumping on her honorary brother's bed, waking him up with a smile on her face.

The young man groaned and turned around, trying to tune out the annoying young girl, treasuring his precious sleep. She couldn't exactly blame him, or even complain much, seeing the girl was the exact same, usually sleeping in as much as she could muster to, not really bothering to actively get out of bed before ten in the morning.

"C'mon you lazy git, get up. We're going out with Dania and Pietro today. You've got to get up." The black-haired girl called him, shaking the young man awake, just like he did to her when he would wake the teen up.

After about half an hour, both Victors were finally able to leave the house, each time they had tried before, one of the two getting caught up doing something, making them unable to leave just yet.

Walking towards the public market, the young people met their other two companions, Dania waving them over.

The older woman was on the shorter side, but still stood about a head taller than Aria, with ashy blonde dyed hair, sun tanned skin and warm and welcoming chocolate brown eyes, wrinkles prominent on the corners of her mouth, permanently etched to her face as the woman tended to smile a lot.

Then there was Pietro. He looked somewhere around his early thirties, with long-ish brown hair and dull, yet warm brown eyes. The man was nice once you got to know him, but was way too shy to come out and meet people, not being the sanest person out there. He had two acquaintances, Turner Wood and Ulisses Indigo, who had won the Games pretty close to him, all three of them being around the same age.

Turner had dark blonde, beach wavy hair, the tips naturally lightened by the sun, and ocean blue eyes. He could often be seen surfing, or just enjoying his time alone in the Victors' private beach, making his skin a deep shade of tan. While Ulisses had dark skin, similar to Layon's coffee tone, sporting deep and dark brown eyes that held a lot of pain within them. His hair was styled in medium-lengthy, dark brown, almost black, afro curls and he had a single earring on his right earlobe. The three Victors weren't what you would call friends, but they were close enough, eventually hanging out together and taking turns mentoring, as Dania's rotation schedule was a lot sparser.