District 12 Pre-Reapings

Aidan Ardent, 17, District 12

"That was awesome, Aidan!"

"I cannot believe you actually did that!"

With his feet firmly planted on the ground, Aidan finally turns to see his two best friends, Bridget and Kai, cheering behind him. Somehow in a single jump he had cleared the entire width of the river, a solid 10 feet wide. With a limited running start and the rapidly moving waters, it was quite the impressive feat, the kind of feat which took a certain amount of fearlessness to achieve.

"It's your turn now!" Aidan calls back, waving his arms in encouragement.

"No way! We're taking the bridge," Bridget yells as they race across the rickety, wooden bridge to meet him.

In retrospect it wasn't the wisest idea to attempt such a jump with no practice, Aidan thinks, but overtime he's come to the conclusion that it was best not to dwell on the safety or repeatability of his successes for too long. He preferred to avoid that inevitable spiral of doubt, as much as possible as it made future stunts much more difficult to accomplish.

"How have we not been friends longer?" Kai muses aloud, patting Aidan on the back enthusiastically in celebration.

In truth, Aidan, too, wished he had known Kai and Bridget longer than just a year or two. Prior to meeting his current friends, Aidan had been struggling with the intense bullying of his peers, led by a vicious boy named Blaise.

Blaise was wickedly cruel in the way that few children were, constantly attacking Aidan's personality and even throwing in jabs about Aidan's deceased father. In desperation, Aidan did his best to suppress his more upbeat and adventurous side, doing whatever he needed to become invisible and fall in line with Blaise's friends to avoid the callous taunting from his peers.

"I'm just happy to have you guys now," Aidan admits, unable to contain his grin.

"Well, we're very happy to have you too, but we should probably start to head back home before it gets dark. My brother heard that more peacekeepers are starting to patrol this area to crack down on illegal hunting and I have a feeling they wouldn't take too kindly to illegal river hopping."

"I have a feeling my mother wouldn't take too kindly to it either," Aidan agrees, "So we probably shouldn't tell Ignacia or Idalia about today's activities...they're straight pipelines to my mother."

"Younger sisters," Kai sighs sympathetically. "They really are the worst."

"The twins aren't too bad, so long as they aren't selling me out to my mother and sending her straight into overprotective mode," Aidan chuckles.

For the most part Aidan had always been on good terms with his younger sisters. At 13 years old, they were surprisingly mature and easy to get along one. Although a bit shy, Ignacia was immensely creative and gave the best advice. In contrast, Idalia had always been more social and opinionated, but had the sharpest tongue Aidan's ever seen.

"As much as I hate to keep your newfound jumping talents a secret, we'll keep it between us," Bridget promises.

Together, the three of them continue their walk, chatting and laughing about nothing and everything, all at once. By the time Aidan finally reaches his home, he's hard-pressed to say his goodbyes. Friendship like this was still so new to him and he wanted to spend every possible moment wrapped up in that feeling of trust and ease.

"Alright, I should probably go now…can we hang out tomorrow?" Aidan asks, somewhat awkwardly.

"Of course we're hanging out tomorrow," Bridget replies, matter-of-factly, "It's not even a question, at this point."

"Yeah, we obviously have to find a bigger river," Kai chimes in, rather loudly.

"Well, see you both tomorrow then," Aidan affirms, as he unlocks his door and enters his home. Upon closing the door behind him, Aidan can't help but smile to himself, "A bigger river, it is."

Emerald "Eme" Thomas, 15, District 12

The Thomas household was always bustling. Her parents awoke early in the morning for work and after returning from school, Emerald and her sister, Sapphire, would often stay up late together, giggling into the unspeakable hours of night.

Emerald had always been close with her sister, who was just a year younger than herself. Despite their small age gap, Eme took her role as an older sister quite seriously, always looking out for Sapphire, however best she could. More often than not, this meant providing a balance to her sister's uptightness and intensity with her natural laid-back energy.

Strangely, this afternoon seemed to be missing that intensity as the Thomas home could only be characterized by the rare quietness which filled the air. It wasn't often her hard-working parents had an extra day-off so their break time was often spent enjoying the simple pleasures of life, including resting their feet and taking a nice, long nap. Inhaling the scent of freshly brewed coffee, Eme makes her way into the kitchen where she finds her sister slowly sipping from a single cup of black coffee.

"No sugar? No cream?" Eme chuckles quietly as she fills her own mug with coffee, and proceeds to add two generous spoonfuls of sugar, "I thought you liked your drinks sweet!"

"Well, I was at May's house yesterday and she said that's the kiddish way of drinking coffee," Sapphire replies as her face contorts into myriad of repulsed shapes in response to the sheer bitterness of her drink, "May is so smart and put-together, I don't want her to think I'm immature or anything, so I'm trying to get used to drinking it plain."

"Oh please," Eme laughs as she moves to Sapphire's side, handing her the jar of sugar, "May is all of 14 years old, she doesn't know a single thing about being put-together."

"And you do?"

"I'm 15. I've got an entire year of put-togetherness on her," Eme replies, nonchalantly, "Besides, you can't waste your time on other people's opinions. So long as you're being respectful, you should always say what you want, wear what you want, and most importantly, do what you want."

"Does that mean I can wear your new pink dress for the reapings tomorrow?" Sapphire asks, pointedly as she pours the sugar into her coffee, rather heavy-handedly.

"You know what, I take it back. I actually have no idea what I'm talking about," Eme retracts with a small laugh, before pausing, "But if you really want it, I suppose you can wear the pink dress."

A few months ago, Eme had spotted the knee-length frock in the loveliest shade of pastel pink in the window of a seamstress's shop and had instantly fallen in love. Upon further investigation, the dress was a bit above the family's price point, but after begging the seamstress to keep it for her and reduce the price slightly, Eme saved up enough to purchase the dress for herself.

Eme didn't often always spend her savings on such frivolous items like dresses or shoes, in fact, for the most part she didn't care about fashion at all, but every now and then, some sweet, lovely thing caught her eye and well…she simply couldn't resist.

At this, Sapphire shakes her head, "I was just teasing, Eme. That dress was destined to be yours. I just wish I didn't have to wear mom's old yellow skirt from last year. I think it must be a million years old."

"Well, I think it looks incredible on you, Saph. You have the figure to pull it off. All you have to do is tell May it's "vintage-chic" and she'll be all over it," Eme replies with the flair of her arms.

"May does get excited over things when you use fancy words…"

"Well, good. Now, shall we brew a new pot for mom and day? It'll be a nice surprise for them to wake up to," Eme suggests, "Truthfully, I could actually go for a fresh cup, myself. I think I might have overcompensated and made this one too sweet."

"I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as too sweet."

"Well, that's because you're practically made of sugar," Eme teases, gently.

"You think?" asks Sapphire with a low scoff.

"Oh, I know. Believe me, I always know a sweet thing when I see it."

A/N: WE DID IT! The intros are officially complete. A huge thank you to RubyTree7 and MeTheFanatic19 for Aidan and Emerald, respectively. I'm so thrilled for the pre-games to begin. Just so you all know, the upcoming chapters will have more POVs than the intros so updates will probably not be as frequent, but I'll do my best to find a new updating schedule that works. BUT FIRST, a quick check-in:

1) Besides your own, who are your most favorite tributes based on the intros?

2) Would you like to know which POVs I have planned for each of the upcoming pre-games chapters or do you prefer to be surprised?

3) And just for fun, any super preliminary victor predictions?

Lots of love! -Anya