02 — Character Introductions I
Amaldine Chisna (18) — 9:40AM
District Twelve / Two weeks until Reaping Day
"I can't give it to you! My mama's just had another baby! We're already starving!" The little girl in front of her squeaks, her voice wavering as Amaldine backs her up against the wall of the alleyway. The excuse doesn't make Amaldine feel sorry for the girl; her family wasn't the only starving family in the district, after all. If they were, Amaldine wouldn't be doing this. Besides, the basket of bread and other assorted goodies hanging from the girl's arm doesn't scream that they had to scrounge around for loose change in order to afford to eat that week. The girl probably doesn't know the difference between being slightly hungry and actually starving.
She bends forward a little, getting into the girl's face. "That dress is probably worth two months of my pa's wages," she snarls. "You're giving me that basket whether you just hand it over or I take it by force." She goes to grab it, and the girl pulls away as best as she can given the tight space they're in. "Do you think I'm joking?" Amaldine seizes the girl's upper arm tightly. The girl whimpers. "Give it."
The girl's bottom lip trembles. "You're one of the nasty ones," she says, and Amaldine has to give it to her that she's brave, even if she looks as if she's on the verge of caving in. "My papa warned me about people like you."
"Cool. Glad to know whatever talk he gave you was effective." Amaldine rolls her eyes. "But I don't care what you think about me. You look like one of those spoiled brats up from the merchant's end, so your opinion is irrelevant. Now hand over the basket," she draws a fist back. "I don't take joy in it, but I'm not averse to punching little girls."
That seems to do the trick and the girl slides the basket from her arm, shoving it towards Amaldine who takes it with a grin. She steps backward, and the girl runs from the alleyway, screaming over her shoulder that she's going to alert the first peacekeeper that she sees. Amaldine laughs at that. If the peacekeepers scared her she wouldn't be cornering little girls in an alleyway, would she? It's not as if she hasn't been caught before. The public whipping isn't much of a deterrent at this stage; she's used to it, and although she's sore for a while after it doesn't completely wipe her out anymore. She can still steal baskets of food from merchant girls naive enough to enter the alleyways she beckons them into.
Like she said; she doesn't take joy in it but she's not going to stop doing it. It's better than risking her life down in those mines for abysmal wages. Maybe it doesn't make her popular with the others her age and maybe there are people who wish all sorts of unkind things on her when she's walking along the streets, but she's not starving and that's what matters. Her parents might get angry and say that she's a terror and they raised her better, but they eat the food that Amaldine steals all the same. It's that or starve.
With the basket hanging from the crook of her elbow, Amaldine emerges from the alleyway into the sticky heat of summer in District Twelve. Her dress flaps around her knees as a gentle breeze blows and, all things considered, it's a nice day. She strolls through the marketplace and all the way back to the Seam without being approached, so she assumes that the girl hasn't actually told anyone yet. Probably too scared to admit that she was scared by a shabby Seam kid. Oh, how Amaldine wishes she could be a fly on the wall to observe the conversation that would ensue when the girl turns up empty-handed with no money.
"Again?" Amaldine's ma asks, lips pursed and hands on her hips as Amaldine enters their small home and places the basket on the kitchen counter. "Dina, how many times do we have to tell you that you can't keep doing this?"
Amaldine shrugs. "I stopped listening three years ago," she mumbles as she sorts through the basket. "Maybe if you and pa didn't decide to have so many damn kids and mouths to feed then I wouldn't have to do this." She breaks off a bit of the loaf of bread, stuffing it into her mouth. "Besides, it's not as if I'm stealing from the kids around here. Half of 'em I steal shit from could do with being hungry for a few days anyway."
"I don't know where we went wrong with you, Dina, I really don't," her ma tuts. Amaldine rolls her eyes. "Put it all back into the basket and hand it in to the peacekeepers. Tell them you found it somewhere, I don't care. We're not doing this anymore."
"What do you mean you're not doing this anymore?" Amaldine demands, turning to face her ma. "Oh, so you're just going to let the boys starve because you want to pretend that you suddenly have morals?" She slams the cupboard door shut as she puts the bread away. "Some fucking mother you are."
Her ma's nostrils flare and that's when Amaldine knows that she's crossed a line. Still, she's not backing down. The food is hers now. She took it fair and square. If the girl really was starving and wanted to keep the food so badly then she would have put up more of a fight.
"You're unbelievable, Dina, you really are," her ma shakes her head. "Keep the food for yourself if you want to. But if I catch you giving any of it to your brothers then you're out. Your pa and I can manage to feed everyone with what we have. We have morals and as of now, we're sticking by them. This has gone on long enough. I'm not playing this game with you anymore; you're not helping anyone with what you do, you just enjoy taking things that aren't yours."
There's a stony silence in the kitchen once her mother finishes her tirade. Amaldine glowers at the older woman, hands clenching into fists as she has to bite her tongue as not to say something that she'll eventually regret. It's bullshit. Everything her ma said was bullshit. If their morals were so strong then they wouldn't have eaten all of the foods that Amaldine brought home on other occasions. It's too late to start giving a shit now. Besides, Amaldine wasn't wrong in taking it; that family more than likely had all the food they needed and more. Amaldine wasn't wrong. She's never wrong.
Eventually, the silence is broken when Amaldine's youngest brother starts wailing in the next room, and her ma storms out to go and see what's wrong. Alone, Amaldine glares down at the scratched surface of the kitchen counter. She's not going to stop, she decides, it's better than starving. Better than going into those mines. It'll keep her fed, and if her parents want to be foolish then that's up to them. As soon as the reapings are over, she's moving out anyway. Into one of those one-bedroom shacks at the bottom of the Seam. She's sure she can find a relatively cheap one that one of the merchants are renting out. Better there than here.
One of her younger brothers, Jett, walks into the kitchen, eyeing her up before he runs the tap for a glass of water. "Ma says you need to stop getting into trouble, Dina," her says absentmindedly. He turns to face her, tilting his head to the side."Why can't you just take tesserae like me and Argon do? That helps and it's not illegal."
"You wouldn't understand," she snaps at him, shaking her head. "You're just a kid, you don't know anything. Tesserae doesn't help as much as what I do, I don't expect you to know much, you go to school in Twelve after all, but you should at least know that. You're risking your life for shit all and you're going to regret it when your name is pulled out one day."
Jett bristles. "Why are you always like this, Dina?" He asks. "You're always so mean for no reason!"
"Maybe I'm just sick of little boys acting like they know everything," she retorts. "Now get out and leave me alone."
She half expects Jett to argue, but he doesn't. He throws his empty cup into the sink and crosses the kitchen to his bedroom where he slams the door. Amaldine gets up from where she's sitting, just as her ma calls out and asks what's happening and quickly leaves the house so that she doesn't have to deal with whatever lecture her ma was going to try and give her now.
Amaldine just can't wait to finally live on her own. She can do what she wants then. And she's sure they'll all come crawling back to her when their cupboards are empty and their pay doesn't cover everything.
Yeah. They'll switch back to eating what she steals eventually. It's not a matter of if; more of when.
Penelope Acosta (17) — 7:00PM
District Eleven / Three days until Reaping Day
Penelope pauses for a minute in the branches, wiping the sweat from her forehead as the sun beats down despite it being the evening. She doesn't take long, though, because below her she can see the peacekeepers patrolling and she'll be damned if today is her day to be one of those unfortunate ones to meet their demise at the end of a peacekeeper's gun. Too many go out that way due to stupid mistakes, and she's not going to be one of them. She can't be. Because if she doesn't go home then who's going to take care of everyone?
There's only another hour or so left of her shift, anyway, and she doesn't want to die after doing all this work. If it ends up being the way it goes, then she'd rather it be early in her shift because at least then they're not using her for as much unpaid labour. All of the workers are already criminally underpaid; she's not doing it for free. Or, if she does it'll be—literally—over her dead body. And maybe that's a grim thought to be having on a summery Friday evening, but it's not as if she has much to look forward to when her shift ends. Grumpy and tired parents with even more grumpy and tired kids. Going home isn't exactly a relaxing affair.
But she'll be glad to get out of this heat, even if it means listening to her sisters screaming at each other or her brothers whining that they're bored. It's not as if she's not used to it, and she knows that they'll all grow out of it eventually. Or, at least, she hopes so.
She works until the whistle signals that their shift is over, and shimmies down the trunk of the tree where she drops the apples she was carrying in the bucket. Smiling at her partner, a quiet girl she only vaguely knows, Penelope bends down to grab one handle of the basket whilst her partner grabs the other. Unsurprisingly, a bucket full of too many apples to count is very heavy.
"Good work," Penelope says breathlessly as they hand over the buckets to the peacekeepers and join the queue for their daily wages. "Today was hard."
"It was," the girl agrees, rocking back and forth as they wait. "You're good at reaching those top branches, I'll give you that."
"Thanks," Penelope smiles. "Years of practice, I guess. I've been up there every Summer since I was eight. Somehow manage it still, even though I've grown. I think I'd rather be on the ground, though. More shade."
The girl shrugs. "It's still hot down there," she says. "And sometimes your aim isn't so great when you chuck the apples down. I almost didn't catch a few," she gives a nervous giggle. "It was pretty stressful."
Penelope grimaces. Accidentally smashing an apple is a good way to end up with a whipping. God forbid you deprive the Capitol of any fraction of their produce. "I'll try work on that," she says. "Sorry."
"It's fine," the girl shrugs. "I'm Lemon, by the way."
"Penelope." She reaches out to shake Lemon's hand. "It was nice meeting and working with you. I hope we get to do it again."
"Yeah. Me too," Lemon grins as she reaches the front of the queue. She turns to talk to the peacekeeper, and Penelope distracts herself by watching the peacekeepers sifting through the buckets of apples that the workers were bringing to them, looking for any apples that weren't suitable to be shipped to the Capitol.
In an ideal world, those apples would be returned to the district and given to those who needed them. Penelope doesn't know exactly what happens to them once they're removed, but she knows that whatever it is they're probably wasted. Once in school, a boy loudly proclaimed that they just threw them out because they were greedy and if they didn't get them, no one could. She doesn't know who reported him, but someone must have because he wasn't in school for the next two weeks and when he returned he had only nice things to say about the Capitol. It was scary, and more than a little unnerving, and since then Penelope has been wise enough to keep her mouth shut about her views towards the Capitol. Even in her own house. In Panem you can never be too careful.
She waves goodbye to Lemon as the girl departs, and Penelope steps up to the desk. She states her name, her employee number, and the hours that she's worked. It takes way too long for the peacekeeper to take all of her information, but she tries to keep a neutral face. They've been in bad moods recently although Penelope doesn't know if she blames them; if she had to stand around in this heat wearing a whole suit like they have to, she'd be pretty grumpy too. Maybe not pull a trigger on anyone who frowns at me grumpy, but...
Penelope takes her wages with a quick thank you, leaving the orchard quickly. Her hands sting and her feet hurt and all she wants to do is eat and go to sleep. She can't do that straight away though; she has her responsibilities and if she goes to sleep then the kids won't get dinner and there's no way that she wants to deal with the terrors the lot of them will become if they have to go to bed on an empty stomach when they don't have to. It's different when there's nothing in the cupboards for them to eat but if there's food in there and they don't get it then there's hell to pay. Penelope doesn't want to take the risk of letting the kids wake up her parents.
Stopping at the market to grab a few things, Penelope manages to get pretty good deals on food that would have otherwise been thrown away.
She even cops some mince at the butchers. Her siblings will be excited about that because meat is something that they rarely ever get. Only when there's a decent deal on it.
"I'll give it ya for two coins," the butcher says, and Penelope's jaw almost open at that price. "Only 'cause it needs be cooked a'night and yas look like ya need it."
"Thank you!" She almost yells, handing over the two coins in exchange for the meat. "Thank you so much. You're going to make a bunch of kids happy, I'll tell you that!"
"Am glad," the butcher smiles. He leans over the counter. "You takes good care of 'em kids now. They's lucky to have someone who cares about 'em like you."
"Thank you, Mister," Penelope smiles. "Have a good night, and thanks again!"
She practically skips the way home. Today's shift might have been one of the most grueling in a while, but maybe this is a sign that things will start getting better. Or just a reward from whatever god is watching over her, rewarding her for her good luck. She doesn't know what she's going to make with the mince, but given what she bought at the market it might just have to be mince and veggies. Or maybe there's some rice in one of the cupboards.
A boring meal, maybe, but a filling one. Besides, the kids will be so caught up on the fact that they have meat to even worry about what the meal tastes like.
"Guess what I have?" She singsongs as she pushes open the front door, and all eight of the kids emerge from their various rooms to greet her. She pulls the meat from the bag to a chorus of gasps.
"How much did you pay for that, Penny?" Hazel asks.
"I bet it was a lot!" Juniper adds.
"You didn't spend all of your wages on it, right?" Violet has her arms crossed over her chest, eyebrows raised. "Mom will be mad if you did."
"This whole thing was two coins," Penelope announces once everyone's quietened down. "So no, Vi, it wasn't all of my wages," she looks pointedly at Violet. "Now who wants to help me cook?"
To her delight, there is rice in tucked away in a cupboard and she washes it before setting it to boil. Azalea and Honey help her cook, and it's entertaining to watch them try and peel the vegetables. She helps them a little, but at seven and nine it's something that they should really be able to do by now. Either way, the meal is filling and she goes to be feeling as full as she has done in a while.
As she drifts off, all she can think about is the butcher. She's never really thought about how just one action can change an entire person's day.
It's a heartwarming thought to fall asleep to.
Eirlys Kelley (12) — 7:30PM
District Eight / Two days until Reaping Day
Eirlys takes a run-up before she kicks the ball, sending it flying towards the alleyway that she and her friends are using as a goal. It soars over Georgia's left shoulder, and before Eirlys knows it Uriel is lifting her above his shoulders in celebration. She pumps a fist in the air once she's back on solid ground, running around her friends in a circle as she pretends that she's on live Capitol TV winning the soccer championships. Eirlys Kelley, youngest player ever, scoring the winning goal that will win her team the trophy and the grand prize of however much money is needed to buy her momma and poppa a new house where the roof doesn't leak, they all get their own beds, and the kitchen window isn't stuck open all the time.
"Good one, Eirlys," Geraldine grins, wrapping an arm around the smaller girl's shoulder as they take a water break and try to catch their breath. "There was no way Georgia could've saved that one."
"Thanks," Eirlys grins, flopping down onto the cobbled pavement as she takes a swig from her water bottle. Uriel flops down on her other side, still panting, and Georgia, Thomas and Olivia join them not long after, the group of them basking in the warm rays of sun.
She stares up at the kitchen window of their apartment, seeing a flicker of movement as either her momma or poppa walk past. She wishes that she could go out further, closer to Uriel's house where there's enough space to set up proper goalposts and have the proper two goalies instead of just one that both teams have to share. But her parents refuse to let her out of their sight, especially recently when the crimes in the district have been getting worse.
Eirlys doesn't understand why the people in Eight are so mean. Not only do they steal and hurt people, but Eirlys listens to what they say about others at the factory. She doesn't do too many shifts, can't with school in session, but the other girls there are rude. They laugh at her a lot for playing soccer. For living inside of her head all the time. For the friends that she has. Hell, the last time they went to Uriel's, Larissa, the daughter of the mayor, and her crew had cornered them. Stole the mostly deflated ball that they had been playing with. That was when Eirlys's parents put a stop to it. It wasn't the first time it had happened, and they said that it wouldn't be the last.
But maybe if Eirlys, Uriel, and the group just talked to Larissa, just got her to play one soccer match, Eirlys is convinced that it would change her mind. She's tried a couple of times in the school yard, but Larissa always tells her to get lost. Eirlys's poppa says she's naïve but Eirlys just likes to think that she's kind. Momma says that the girls being mean to her are only doing it because they're unhappy about themselves. Why wouldn't Eirlys try to cheer them up a little?
Almost as if she'd summoned them with her thoughts, Eirlys looks to her right to see Larissa and her crew approaching. This isn't good. If her parents see this, then she won't be allowed outside at all. She grabs the ball, tucking it under her arm as the others all get to their feet too, apprehensive as they watch the other group get closer and closer.
"Good luck for tomorrow," Larissa says, smiling. She glares at Eirlys, making the girl's skin start to crawl. "You'll need it."
"Eirlys!" The call makes them all jump, looking up to the broken kitchen window that her Momma is looking out of. "Get in right now. Geraldine, Georgia, and Thomas that includes you too. Your momma's want you home. Uriel and Olivia, you walk each other home, alright?" There's a pause. "And don't you nasty little girls try anything, or I'll tell your mommas all that you've been doing!"
The girls' faces drop, and so does Eirlys's as she gathers up her things and storms into the stairwell of the apartment building. She watches as Uriel and Olivia go one way with Larissa and the others disappearing the way they came. She waves goodbye to Geraldine, Georgia, and Thomas as they enter their apartments on the bottom floor, and then takes the stairs up the seventh floor.
She drops her soccer ball by the door, kicking off her shoes as her momma appears at the end of the hallway.
"Why'd you do that?" She whines. "We were fine. We were gonna play another match, and I was gonna ask them if they wanted to play."
"I wasn't about to watch my little girl get bullied," her momma says. "That doesn't make me a bad person. Now go and wash your hands before dinner. It's almost ready, and you wouldn't've had time for another match anyway."
"If you didn't want to see it you should've just looked away from the window," Eirlys mutters under her breath, stomping down the hallway to the bathroom. Thankfully her momma doesn't hear. She washes her hands and takes a seat at the table between her older and younger brother. Dorcan smiles as he plays with his matchbox car, and Gethin just wrinkles his nose.
"You smell," he says. "Can't you go take a quick shower before we eat?"
Eirlys glowers, already in a bad mood. She kicks him hard under the table, retaliating when he kicks back. "You're fifteen," she snaps. "Act like it."
They stop when their momma tells them off, setting down bowls of watery soup with slices of stale bread. Gethin turns his nose up when she places it in front of him and Eirlys rolls his eyes as he starts to argue that this food isn't healthy for them. A few months ago he'd started hanging out with some of the richer kids at school, Larissa's older brother and the like, and he'd changed completely. He used to play soccer with Eirlys and the rest, making up the seventh member of their group. Three players on each team and a goalie. It was a perfect balance. Now they have to have a team of two and a team of three. It's frustrating sometimes.
When Eirlys gets to the Capitol championships, though, she'll be on a much bigger team. She'll get to play on an actual field. She's never seen a field in real life before; the only grass that she gets to see is the little clumps that sometimes sprout up from the cracks in the pavement, but she can already imagine what it will feel like to skid across as she celebrates her winning goal.
"Mom is it okay if I go to the reaping with Peter on Monday?" Gethin asks, pulling Eirlys out of her thoughts. She notices that he still hasn't touched his soup. "We'll meet at his house and go straight there."
Their momma shakes her head. "We're all going together," she says. "You know Reaping Day is a big deal, Gethin. Especially for people like us. Your friends don't have to worry that much. That morning might be the last day we're all together."
Gethin rolls his eyes. "You're being dramatic."
"Momma?" Dorcan speaks up. "What happens if you go into the Hunger Games?"
"You die." Eirlys cuts in without even thinking about it. Gethin kicks her under the table. She turns to him. "What? He's six. He needs to know." She turns back to her momma. "I'm right, aren't I? You do die. On TV."
"You are right," her momma nods, leaning across the table as their poppa distracts Dorcan with a joke. "But let's remember that Dorcan is only six, Eirlys. You didn't have to phrase it like that."
She apologises sheepishly, turning her attention back down to her soup. There's a tug on her sleeve, and she looks down at her younger brother who looks up at her with his big brown eyes. "Are you going to die when you're on TV?"
Eirlys shakes her head with a loud laugh. "No, Dorc," she says, and his face lights up. "I'll be on TV for soccer. That's different."
Gethin huffs from beside her, looking between their parents. "Right. We've told Dorcan that you die in the Hunger Games already, I've been told that I can't be with my friends on Monday morning because mom's being dramatic," he says. "So, which one of you is going to tell Eirlys that she's not going to get on TV with her subpar soccer skills?"
"You're just jealous," Eirlys retorts, kicking him under the table one more time. "But that's okay. You don't get to move into the house that I buy Momma and Poppa with the prize money."
That seems to do it for Gethin, and he gets up from his seat, storming out of the room. They eat the rest of their meal in silence, even Dorcan.
When Eirlys settles down in front of the TV once everything is washed up, dried and put away, she wonders if maybe Gethin is right. She watches the Capitol women on screen with a longing in her heart. But there have been players from the districts before. Maybe not District Eight, but if Eirlys is going to break the record for the youngest player ever, then it wouldn't hurt if she was the first player from Eight, either.
Uriel, Georgia, Geraldine, Thomas, and Olivia already believe in her. Dorcan, too. She doesn't know what her parents think about it, they always go quiet when she mentions it, but even without their support, Gethin is outnumbered anyway.
She doesn't need her brother to support her when she supports herself. She'll get to the Capitol one day. Mark her words.
AN: Hey! In Writing here with the first set of tribute introductions!
Yeah, it's 2AM but I'm a third year university student with no lectures before 12PM any day of the week, so there's no way I have a normal sleep schedule. I'm super excited to finally get the ball rolling with these lovely tributes that have been submitted so far, and I hope that you enjoy this chapter!
There will be eight chapters of tribute intros before a reaping recap. I'm yet to decide how exactly I want to structure said recap, but I have a while to plan that out so it'll work out fine. As it stands, I'll be doing three intros a chapter. I haven't yet decided on who I'm going to have in the next chapter but as soon as I'm decided they'll be on my profile beside the POVs completed.
Please let me know what you thought of these tributes, who your favourite tribute is and who your least favourite is. I'm curious to know!
Thank you to TakeTheCrown for Amaldine, Errabundus for Penelope and Acaronar for Eirlys. I hope that I have done them justice, and if you have any concerns about their portrayal just PM me!
Also, I was thinking of setting up a Discord server for this story if that was something people are interested in? I'm on Discord a lot, and it's probably the best way to reach me, since I tend to miss PMs for a while unless I'm actively on the site. I also thought that it might be cool for you readers to interact as well. Just let me know if this is something you'd want to join and I'll see about setting one up. I don't know much about setting up servers but I'm sure it can't be too hard. I'll manage somehow. (update: I have bitten the bullet and created one — link is on my profile)!
Whew, this AN is long!
Anyway. Thank you, everyone, for reading, I'm going to head to bed now. I hope that you all have/have had a good day! See you with the next chapter whenever that shall be!
-In Writing.
P.S: Why is there such a discrepancy between the word count on Word and the word count in doc manager? Somehow in the process of copy and pasting this from my word document I gained a whole 400 words (the Word count was around 4,500 whereas in doc manager it was around 4,900 before this note). Not an issue but just weird.
P.P.S: Technically every spot in this SYOT is taken (crazy!), but I'm still going to keep the status as open whilst there are pending reservations as it is possible for people to drop out and not submit!