𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗼𝗶𝗮 ♛ ꜱᴇᴊᴀɴᴜꜱ ᴘʟɪɴᴛʜ

♛𝘁𝗲𝗻♛

The next day was sure to be an interesting one.  It was finally here, the day where all the mentors would officially meet their tributes.

Aurelia wasn't too worried.  She had gotten Jessup to speak to her already.  Nowhere near as much as Coriolanus had gotten out of Lucy Gray, but more than anyone else had besides that 

It seemed as, for the first time in quite a few days now, Snow was landing on top.

The family motto was one of the most important things to the Snows, and it always has been.  Throughout the darkest nights of the war, where the bombs were much too loud and much too close for sleep, the remainder of the once great family would whisper amongst themselves, reminding each other of how amazing and easy their lives would be once the war was over and how they would completely recover all they had lost.

Perhaps the whispers didn't come true, but at the time it was one of the only things that kept them alive, fighting.  Fighting to survive was the one thing the Snows had never given up on, and though they lived with a constant mask on, a facade not displaying how humble their true reality was, they had made it this far.

And that was why it was so important that today, the twins made a good first impression.  They needed this more than anyone knew, more than anyone could know.  And it was for this reason Aurelia decided to forget about what happened with Sejanus and focus, completely focus on getting this right.

♛

Fifteen minutes.  That was all they had to meet their tributes and attempt to complete some paperwork that had been assigned for the Capitol records.  Fifteen minutes to get these children headed straight for slaughter to tell them their address and parent's names. 

Aurelia felt like a terrible person as she made her way down the stairs into the hall the tributes were in.  Just this morning, the mentors had a discussion about how to get people to watch the Games in the first place.  Some ideas popped up, like making it the law, and Sejanus was questioning whether the Games should even exist.  Then, Coriolanus had suggested adding betting and odds on tributes.

She knew he was going to say something gruesome and immoral, but she absolutely was not ready for that.  Since the class was over, they ended the discussion there, but Aurelia's mind was still spinning around it.

On the one hand, it was a brilliant idea.  People, especially people in the Capitol with too much money to blow, love gambling and placing bets on things.  Usually it was dogfights, or races, but now it was going to be actual humans.  

On the other hand, Aurelia couldn't support it.  It went completely against her moral code and just felt wrong.  It didn't make much sense to be feeling this way, but she realized at some point along the way, she had transformed these tributes into real people in her mind.  Lucy Gray wasn't just a prized fighting dog, and Jessup wasn't just a racehorse, with no viewed emotions or human tendencies.  They were real, breathing human beings and it made Aurelia feel nauseous to know what was going to happen to them in only a couple of days. 

And now, once again, they were being treated like animals.  Shackled by their wrists to one of the twenty-four tables around the room, the tributes looked as beaten down as ever.  Aurelia took one deep, long breath, and made her way towards the table marked 12B.

Waiting there was a boy, her boy, although she hated thinking of him like that.  His eyes, dark as coal, met her light ones.  She felt some sort of tension there, which, she assured herself, was natural, looking at the circumstances.  She offered a small smile before sliding into the chair opposite him.

"Hello, Jessup.  Do you remember me, from the zoo?"

He gave a sharp nod, looking down at the table.  "Haven't been speaking to many other people recently," he muttered, harshly.  The boy glanced up to see her reaction, and Aurelia forced herself to keep her face blank.  She glanced around quickly, to see if anyone was watching, only catching a few glimpses of mentors trying in vain to get their tributes to open up.  Nobody was paying attention to her and the boy from District Twelve.

The girl leaned in the smallest bit, and lowered her voice to a whisper.  

"Look, I'm going to say this one time because I don't really want to be caught saying it and get executed for treason.  I hate this just as much as you do, and I understand that you hate me because of this whole situation, but I am doing my best here with what I have been given.  I don't want to die, you don't want to die, so maybe we can work something out, but if you're just going to be unresponsive then I will leave right now because I hate wasting my time."

Jessup stared at her, eyes slightly wide, for a moment, before he smiled with a bemused shake of his head.

"You've got spirit, talking to someone twice your size with that kind of attitude.  You know, I really thought you were going to be one of those little Capitol princesses, but maybe I was wrong."

"Oh trust me, you were wrong.  I could name the girls in this room who are exactly that though."

He laughed, a small puff of air from his nose, but a laugh nonetheless.  "That's not why you're really here though, is it?  You got questions or something?"

♛

"Age?"

"Eighteen."

"Alright, those are the basic ones.  You want to talk about your family?"

At that, Jessup seemed to disappear into his mind, looking wistfully off into the distance as if he was seeing the most beautiful sunset.  Aurelia tilted her head just the smallest bit, and he seemed to snap back into reality.

"Sorry, yeah, uh, well my parents are Adam and Ruby Diggs.  I have a younger brother, Adam Junior, but we call him AJ, he's nine.  And my mom's about to give birth to another kid in just a couple weeks."

Aurelia sensed something had changed in him since he started talking about his family.  His tone seemed sadder, more restricted.  The girl felt an overwhelming sense of compassion.  Her heart hurt for this boy, even though she barely knew him.  She knew how it was to be separated from someone you love, whether it be through death or a situation like this.  It was terrible, remembering what happened to her mother.

Barely registering what she was doing, she reached across the table and grabbed one of Jessup's hands that was still shackled.  She gave him a sympathetic look, and said, "We can stop talking about it if you want."

She looked around, after feeling eyes on her coming from the direction of the District Two tables, but when she looked over, all she saw was Sejanus pleading with his tribute to no avail.

"No, it's okay, I just... I was supposed to be there.  My family barely provides for itself even with my tesserae and my father's and my work in the mines.  AJ is too young to take out tesserae and... they won't make it.  They'll all starve, or get sick, or something.  All because of this."

"I know," muttered Aurelia with the faintest smile.  "Thats why we're going to try to get you home, okay?  I'm going to do everything I can."

♛

heyy new chapter

i genuinely loved writing this

also i cried writing the part about jessups family lmaooo

its just so sad to think about ykk

but they're bonding!!

and their little budding relationship is actually so cute

also we're almost at 1.5k reads??? hello?? thank you all so so much

QOTC: thoughts on jessup so far?

drink water now pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeee

love you all <3

-jess