"The fallen angel" and "the devil in disguise"
Two names Ares Aristo was known for, a boy who had more to him than originally met the eye. Charming the capital with his kind facade, it was only in the games did they realized just how far an angel ca...
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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞.
(woe is me)
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃
Once every year, when the schools shut for the summer and the children roamed free, twelve reapers would be let out of their gilded cages to take their sacrifices. It wasn't the stereotypical reaper cloaked in darkness with a long menacing scythe; instead, for District Nine at least, it was a petite lady, adorned in blinding colour with far too much rouge on her hollow cheeks and cracked lips, her thin glass hands brandishing a more innocuous weapon to wield at them all—a slender slip of paper.
The paper was arguably worse than the scythe, for the grain District already had plenty of those themselves to work with. The thought of the paper cast a shadow of dread over the approaching days. Hands trembled with fear as the people milled the grain and sorted out rations that would only ever benefit the Capital. It wasn't as if they could stop, even if they wanted to. The Reaping was a part of their lives, embedded into the very fabric that made up Panem with each District just being another replaceable patch stitched on.
It could be worse, just look at what happened to District Thirteen, some of the older folk would whisper when the unrest became too visible.
Still, the parents would pray the entire week leading up to judgement day. The children would write their goodbyes—a will of some sort thanking their family and friends for giving them just a brief feeling of happiness and comfort before they'd soon forget it during the games. When the day finally descended on them, nobody could sit still in anticipation and fright.
Nobody except Ares Aristo, however, who would take the rare optional break from morning work that was given ahead of the afternoon events to enjoy a rare cup of lavender tea with his grandmother, Collinsia Aristo.
Collinsia, who had witnessed child after child enter the slaughterhouse since she too was just a little girl. In fact, she'd been there, holding on tightly to her mother's hand, when the very first name had been called. She'd seen how barbaric the games had started, and how much worse they seemed to get with Coriolanus Snow's reign.
Those days, however, she didn't like to think about all too much, and her son Atlas and her grandson Ares were her most profound distractions from that darkness.
"For your journey," she'd always tell Ares the morning of a Reaping as her shaky handles rifled through the dented tin box that contained all of her most prized possessions. It was an old district tradition, a single lavender laid down to rest with the person who's passed away. It was to make sure that their journey to the next life was peaceful. A nice break before being born again into the same misfortune once more. Ares never mentioned the fact that every year, and every reaping, she seemed so sure that it would be his last cup with her. So sure that he'd be gone.
