A rose and its thorns.

Chapter one: The (un)lucky pot.

For @ZeddiTheSecond, the only reason I'm posting this here. You're lucky I love you.

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Seven-thirty.

That's what the little watch face read when Lily turned to look at it.

Seven-thirty on the dot. The early morning sun already making an appearance, welcoming the new dawn.

She couldn't sleep. Not on July fourth; not for the past three years and counting.

Today was the official start of the Sixty-eighth Hunger Games. Sixty-eight years and counting since the rebellion.

It was strange to think of it. That in a sense, it was both a distant yet living memory.

If her grandparents were still alive, they could of told her of it. Sometimes they did, when she was smaller, only to be scolded by her parents for putting 'unpleasant' imagery in her head.

"She has to learn." They'd snap, bitter. "She has to understand our ancestor's mistakes."

The subject of their ancestor's 'mistakes' always lead to a fierce row between them and her Ma where they wouldn't speak for a week and she'd be banned from asking.

Lily never understood her grandparents' terror. Not even when she was forced to learn of the Games history in school or watch it play out on the TV.

She never knew the terror till she turned twelve and was forced to march to the square, had her finger pricked and blood smeared on that small paper slip.

When she became a potential tribute.

That their ancestor's act of rebellion caused innocent children to be sent off to the slaughter every year. That their attempt to gain liberation just caused an even more tyrannic rule under the fist of the Capitol.

Lily understood why her grandparents were so bitter about it. She was too, beneath her dull acceptance, a fiery anger forced to be dormant.

She wasn't chosen that year, obviously. A fifteen-year-old girl was, loosing her life to that year's victor, the legendary Gloss Terth. Her name soon forgotten about, left to the history books.

Still, the fear would always linger. Every year when one more slip got added to the bowl with her name. That she could be sent to certain death at any moment.

She was seventeen in a month, meaning she'd only have two years left till she was free.

Two years too long.

Tried of tossing and turning, Lily decided it was best to just get up, gently uncurling herself from the smaller form that clung to her.

She decided to put on her strewn clothes from the previous day. Knowing she'd be forced into something proper later on.

She didn't even bother with her hair. Shoving it into a ponytail, out the way.

"Lily? Where you goin'?"

Noan had woken up. Staring at her from under the blanket, his eyes masked with sleepiness. Even then, her little brother's gaze was intense.

They both had pa's eyes, a deep hazel. Though were lucky to acquire ma's good eyesight, not needing thick reading frames that made his eyes appear two times bigger.

"For a walk. Go back to sleep, buddy." Lily whispered, gently tucking the sheets back around him, ruffling his hair.

It was something they shared with ma this time. Thick and dark and wavy—unruly almost. Unlike pa's springy red curls.