Hello ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, dogs and cats, dragons of all ages. This is my story about what would happen if Hiccup and Astrid were thrown into the Hunger Games. Well, I hope you all enjoy.
I don't own How to train your Dragon or the Hunger Games.
Ch. 1: Island Twelve
This is island twelve or as we call it, Berk. It's a few days north of hopeless, and a few degrees south of freezing to death. We're located in the middle of the meridian of misery. Our village, in a word, terrible. We suffer from starving to death, deadly dragon attacks, and the Hunger Games. The only upside, there is no upside.
The reaping day is today. I woke up early to go out hunting. Hunting is one of our island's main duties, along with fishing and iron mining. We've been facing starvation due to the increase in dragon attacks. The dragons have been taking our food and in return the Flagcity has been taking it out on us. The Flagcity has established quotas and when that quota isn't filled, the difference is taken out of the little food we are allowed to keep. Illegal hunting and storing of food has become a little more than common. It doesn't help the problem with the food, but it does keep us alive. Some of us, anyway.
I grabbed my ax and went into the forest. The sun was just beginning to rise, just enough to allow me to see what I was doing. I went into the spot I usually found game and waited. I chose this spot because I could usually either corner the game or scare it into one of the traps I had set. I waited for about ten minutes when a deer walked through the woods and into the clearing. I got ready, then threw my ax at the deer and hit it in its right rib cage. The deer fell down dead. I walked up and pulled out my ax. I then took out my knife and cut its throat so that the blood would drain out. I grabbed it by its antlers and started to drag it through the forest. It took me till about eight-thirty to drag the deer to the edge of the forest. It took me a while to drag it back to my house without anyone seeing me. When I got home, my parents were getting ready for the reaping as I dragged the carcass downstairs to hide it.
When I came back up my mom dressed me up in a white Greek style dress, the kind they would wear on Island One. I hated it, although I hated dresses on general. They require a lot of hassle, impair your movement, and are all around pointless. Granted if I had to choose between a dress or nothing, I'd take the dress. My mom did my blonde hair in a bun, which I hated, and I put on my boots. We couldn't afford fancy shoes, which was one of the only reasons I liked being poor.
At ten we went to the square for the reaping. The square was decked out in large TV screens, lights, and cameras. The Peaceguards were all around to prevent runaways. I signed in and took my place among the girls my age. They all took a step away from me. I was the loner of the group, never hung out with anyone, never talked unless I was talked to first (my parents at least taught me some manners), and always beat up the guys who tried to hit on me.
When the anthem played everyone looked at the stage that had been set up. Up came the high society representative of island twelve straight from the Flagcity, Zeta Tetherman. A representative who got stuck with our island, but tried to make the best of it. She didn't belong, she wore a blue dress with a pink scarf, she was also the only one who had purple hair. She was followed closely by Cheif Stoick, and Gobber. Gobber had won the Hunger Games twenty years ago. I of course being fifteen, had not seen those games. He had lost both his left arm and his right leg in those games.
I hated the games, who didn't. The only people who liked them were island two and the Flagcity. Island two had grown to like the games as they usually won, and they considered it a great honor to die on the field of battle. The Flagcity liked them because they were often times gambled upon, and none of them had to have their kids as tributes in them.
The Hunger Games had been established after the civil war when some of the other islands rebelled against the Flagcity and it's laws. They had wished to become independent and attacked the Flagcity. They were beaten, the islands had fierce rules put upon them, and island thirteen had been utterly destroyed. The Games were then established as an annual reminder of the original islands barbaricness and what it led to.
Barbaricness. They're the ones who are barbaric. I thought to myself. Taking twenty-four kids, a boy and a girl from each island, putting them in an arena, and making them fight each other to the death. For what! Nothing but their own pleasure.
I just stood there and drowned out the talking as Zeta retold the story of how the Thirteen islands and the Flagcity had once been part of a group of savage people known as the Vikings. Then an agreement had been struck that turned them into the Flagcity and the thirteen islands. There was never much detail on this part and I suspected that the other islands would never have agreed to a treaty that brought work, pain, and suffering on most of them. She then continued about the civil war and it's going and it's end.
We know Zeta. Now just get to the point where you draw the names of the two people who will be sent to their deaths. So until she did reach that point everything was a blur of words.
"Ladies first." she said with a smile.
How can she possibly enjoy this.
She reached into the bowl and did a little fancy swirling, for dramatic affect I'm sure, and pulled out a name.
"Astrid Hofferson."
All eyes turned to me as I stood there. I was shocked my name had been drawn. I knew that I was tougher than all the boys here, mainly because I had beat all of them up at least once. I was still scared though, entering the Hunger Games might as well have been a death sentence. I slowly walked up to the stage. I walked up the stairs and Zeta directed me to her left side. I looked out into the crowd. I spotted my parents, my mom was crying and my dad was trying to calm her. He didn't seem as worried, he knew what I was capable of, and that I stood the best chance of winning the games out of everyone here. Zeta then turned back to the mic.
"Now for the Boys." She reached into another bowl, did her swirling gesture again, and pulled out a name.
"Hiccup Haddock."
I heard a faint gasp from behind me when the name was called. Hiccup was Cheif Stoick's son, his only son.
Oh great, I thought, The human twig is gonna be in the games.
I did feel sorry for him though, and his dad. Hiccup's mom had died a few years back, she had won the Hunger Games only two years after Gobber did. Hiccup was not going to last one minute in that arena though. He was shorter than me by at least an inch, skinnier than everyone else, hardly had any strength at all, and was practically responsible for losing over half the food the dragons had taken this year alone. Needless to say, no one from our island was going to be rooting for him.
Hiccup stepped out of the group he was in and walked up to the stage. He had reddish brown hair that almost came down over his eyes, freckles all over his face, and emerald green eyes. Weird, for the first time I noticed he was kind of cute, only about one- one millionth cute, but still.
He walked up and Zeta made us shake hands. He gulped hard as we shook and I noticed he seemed to be starring at me with sorrowful, but awed eyes. He was obviously sad about being in the games, I couldn't say that I didn't feel the same. But where was the awe coming from? I tried to keep my face stone like, but found some sorrow coming on my expression as well. I felt sorry for Hiccup, a little guy like him wouldn't stand much chance in the games. Zeta then had the Cheif come up and congratulate us on our being picked. I couldn't imagine what this was like for Stoick, actually being forced to congratulate his own son for being sentenced to his death. I couldn't help but notice a tear seemed to be forming in his eye as he did so. We were then led into the Cheif's house and into separate rooms to say our goodbyes.
My parents came in. Needless to say they were emotional. We walked over to each other and hugged.
"Please, win and come back to us." My mom choked out as she continued crying.
"Don't worry about her sweetheart, she'll be fine."
"Mom, Dad, I promise..."
"No, no don't. No point making a promise..."my father started.
"Unless you're positive you can keep it." I finished still hugging them close.
When they came to knock on our door to tell us our time was up my father gave me one last piece of advice.
"Fight hard, if you win you win, if you don't, make sure you at least leave them with a scar." I couldn't help but smile at this.
The Peacegaurds then came in and escorted my parents out. I caught a glimpse of Stoick leaving the room across the hall. Zeta then came in and brought both of us to a car that would transport us to the hovercraft. On the ride there I undid the bun my hair was in and put it in its usual braid. I tied off the end with a piece of string I kept in the dress' sown on pocket. Pockets tend to come in handy here. When we got out of the car we were surrounded on one side by camera's and lights. We quickly got on the hovercraft and the door sealed behind us. We looked at each other, both of us had sorrow mixed with fear on our faces.
Hiccup broke the silence, "So, uh, you hungry."
