Kio Stone- District Two male

I'm not crazy. Usually people say that when they're crazy, but I'm actually not. I know you're not real. I just miss you…

I knew my sister wasn't real, or at least not really alive. Kaynah died in that Arena, when her former ally got her sword out just a little faster. That's the way the Games go. If you want to play, you have to be ready to lose. But it didn't stop me from missing my big sister every minute of every day. So sometimes I liked to pretend she was still here- pretend I could see her and talk to her again. I didn't want her to leave me.

You're going to do it, aren't you, she would have said if she'd been beside me in line on Reaping day. Boy, sometimes you are not smart.

Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself, I said to my pretend sister.

Don't do it. This is a terrible idea. And I would know about terrible ideas, she said.

Oh excuse me, great sage, I said.

Oh, is that how it is? Remember that time you caught a garter snake and I told you not to open the box inside the classroom? And what did you do? You opened the box. And what happened?

It got away and everyone freaked out and Mr. Catullus broke a desk catching it, I admitted.

Should have listened to your big sister.

"Odysseus Boar!"

Funnily enough, it was an Academy student this year. But Odysseus was only mediocre, and he knew he wasn't really going. I'd earned that honor. It was mine for the taking.

I know what you're thinking, Kaynah said.

A whisper of guilt nagged at me. I'd always supported Kaynah, but one day, after watching a particularly violent death in the Games, I got scared and asked her not to go. She soothed me and brushed it off, and I was doing the same thing to her.

"Do we have any volunteers?"

Don't do it.

I want glory and fame and… all that, I said.

We're already rich. Drown your mediocrity in mansions and wine.

I want to be a hero.

Adopt a shelter dog.

I want to be like you.

Dead.

I wavered as I stood, thinking about possibilities and regrets. I could make or break a future with one said or unsaid word.

"Do we have any volunteers?"

It was now or never. Years of training and generations of combat boiled down to a second.

"I volunteer as Tribute!" I blurted without thinking.

Exactly right. You didn't think.


Valerian Mercury- District Two female

I was not Pray's favorite student. It had taken me months to even convince her to train me, since I wasn't one of the top students. For months, I'd come to her private classes and asked to come in, and she shot me down every time. So I'd go out back and stand right outside the window, watching her and imitating her lessons. After I wore her down like a Maasai tracking a lion, she finally let me inside. It looked like she expected me to be a crazy dedicated and studious student. Well, I sure showed her. I was actually a huge goofball. I just really, really liked her.

"Why do you even want to be in the Games?" she asked as I dismantled a dummy, sending stuffing flying everywhere.

"It sounds like a blast," I said.

"For maybe three weeks," Pray said.

"You take what you can get," I said.

"Are you ever serious?" she asked.

"I seriously killed that guy," I said, pointing at the dummy. "Why would you do it if it's not fun?"

"Well, it is nice to enjoy your work," Pray admitted. "Are you going to wear those stupid ears in the Arena?"

"Meow," I said, feeling at my cat ear headband with one hand. "Gotta have a token. It's my signature."

"Right. I have bloodstained razor claws, and you have a cat headband," Pray said.

"Why do you train?" I changed the subject. "You had your Games, and I know training isn't the same."

Pray shrugged. "Fire burns. Water flows. A hunter hunts."

That was why I liked Pray. We were two sides of a coin. We both loved the hunt, but other than that, we were opposites. Pray was as grounded and no-nonsense as I was flighty and mischievous. Like molten metal beside cold steel…

"I had to join the Games. It was the only way I could do this." I swiped another dummy across the stomach and delighted at the spilling fluff. It wasn't that I had anything against people. They were just so entertaining to kill.

Pray surveyed the spilled ersatz blood.

"I did like that part," she said wistfully.


Kio: : / / o

Valerian: 6'1, long glossy dark hair down to middle back, freckles across nose, average but pretty slender face, ivory skin, scar down the side of her face in a straight line down the middle of left eye, has stitches for looks up and around her arm/along her collarbone and up her neck, strong arms/shoulders with long legs,wears black cat ears on her head, lip ring piercing

Valerian got submitted to me like four months ago. Finally, here she is! Tinks has been in it for the looooong haul.

Just a reminder that if I don't respond for days, it's because I'm at class and haven't seen the message yet.