Hello again, it's me, welcoming you back to Intros IV of BT!

Yet again, my fab collab partner, Remus98, and I are updating on the same day, how iconic! Together we're continuing to progress through the Echo Verse to give you that great content :D
If you have a tribute in Into The Abyss, please don't hesitate to wander over there – hell, wander over there anyway!

This time around we have Catriona (by Firedawn'd), Oren (by District11-Olive) and Vailea (by contemporarydancer2) and I hope you enjoy them! Thank you to those authors for submitting these tributes.

Thank you to FireflyLlama who gave Vailea's POV a quick once-over after I rewrote it!

Thank you to FireflyLlama, Firedawn'd, Remus98 and goldie031 for your lovely reviews and to symphorophilia for his awesome messages.

i feel i'm going under

'cause my heart is bleeding colours

only for you…only for you

Catriona Zarei, Eighteen
District Six Female
06:01

Retribution called her name.

Get them for your old man.

Murder was such a funny little thing. Catriona had lived her life around murder; the streets of Six had never been a safe place for anyone and a girl like her was just a drop in an ocean of drug addicts and dealers, cartel gangs and common knife fights. Fortunately for her, she had a Father who would teach her the ropes of what a life of crime was like.

Farroukh Zarei was everything Catriona had wanted in a Father.

He had nurtured her and developed her, shaped her and taught her about what life was like, and about how life was supposed to be. She saw the masses and grew into a community of people who taught her the ways of this world. She used to grin at the children laughing in the rain, as a fleeting rush of joy brushed past her. She used to see people crying over their dead loved ones and cried with them, a flicker of sadness lying at the pit of her stomach. Once the people were gone, Catriona always returned to what she was doing, a smile dying on her face or the tears drying up in seconds.

Get them for your old man.

How life should be lived was a complicated concept, but not one that Catriona was a stranger to. She believed in her ability to be free, to pursue the world in all of its madness and understand it, to allow it to teach her and for her to teach it. She held no care for anyone else's desires because her own judgements were sound within themselves. Seeing her own Father's independence had driven that into her and she was fiercely dominant, an intensity and thirst for understanding the world's greatest mysteries alight in her eyes, aflame in her soul.

As her eyes looked through the window across the hills where the great turbines stood, a bowl of cornflakes sat itself down in front of her, scraping lightly against the table. Her head darted up, blank and empty before she spotted Roisin grinning down at her widely.

"I brought you breakfast," he offered warmly.

Catriona's lips broke into a bright smile. Roisin had looked after her well over the past couple of years, and as anyone should, she'd informed him many times of her appreciation for everything he'd done. Roisin didn't have to do what he did, and yet here he was on a morning like this, making sure she had food to eat and clothes on her back.

"Thanks," she told him, her tone grateful.

Yes, he'd been good to her, she knew that much. Roisin had done so much for her, yet he wouldn't have needed to if her Father was still here. She was drifting off this morning, and while typically she considered herself to be an alert individual, she allowed herself this time to let herself think. She didn't mind if Roisin noticed it.

Get them for your old man.

Perhaps a part of her still blamed herself? Maybe she shouldn't have been a detective of sorts for Roisin back then. Her Father had been so angry, yelling at her about meddling in his affairs, for a Father was a drug dealer, and his daughter was supposed to wait for him at home, not pick her fights with scoundrels and scum who would love to see her dead in a ditch somewhere.

She'd always forged her own path, but perhaps she had gone too far that time?

Her Father watched himself in the reflection of her eyes and had seemed shaken, although she'd never known why - or perhaps never accepted why – he seemed so thrown off. Had it been her? Was it wrong of her to remain silent and let him yell at her over and over about the importance of her wellbeing and the value of her life while she watched the spittle fly from his mouth and the vein bulging in his forehead? Was she too, supposed to be angry at him, for yelling at her, or sad for betraying his trust?

He'd stared at her for a moment more before he left. She'd assumed he'd wandered off to sell something like he always did – Farroukh Zarei was a reputable dealer with a lot of desperate customers.

Get them for your old man.

Hours passed and she hadn't worried. She'd assumed that he was working to keep them afloat as he had always fought to do in the hardworking way he did. When sunset came, however, a sense of unease passed through her – concern, perhaps – that made her wonder where he was. She'd stayed up all night waiting for him, expecting him to return to her as he always did, smiling all the way when she was a little girl.

He never came.

Instead, a messenger came to her house and told her of the news.

Farroukh Zarei had died from an overdose.

A stillness had settled on her shoulders; grief, probably, as all children grieved for their loved ones when their parents were lost to the grave. Maybe-

An overdose.

Wait. That didn't make sense.

Her Father had never taken drugs himself and had stressed the importance of keeping her own body clean. He'd always told her that she was never destined to live amongst the low-lives, ingesting poison into their bodies and letting it fester within them. Her Father had always been one to sell the drugs, yes, but never to take them himself.

Get them for your old man.

She'd suspected foul play.

Anyone would have told her she'd gone mad, driven to the edge by wild desperation. Even so, she had to know. There was more to the story than what she'd been told, she was sure of it.

She'd wandered to the clinic where her Father had been treated and took watch. Day after day she waited and pondered, evaluating and piecing together every single detail. Her Father's death wasn't the only one that crept up over the last two years; several others met their end to the same fate – an overdose, each of them tied to drugs just as her Father had been, in need of medical help for one reason or another. That couldn't be a coincidence, right? She could see the clinic's twisted pattern and the way it flicked its tongue like a venomous snake, searching for the next person to slaughter.

An inkling of anger had long overcome her and she found herself on the edge. She would find out who'd committed this crime and they would take the fall for it. She'd swiped a few files from the clinic when they were least expecting it, and the mysterious reports had been covered up, with a few common ties linking them all together.

Names.

Valerian Istan was the name at the top of her list. She was confident that he was the culprit, the reason for all of this. He'd been in too many places, too many times, the one who always seemed to be there when the deaths occurred, in one way or another. She'd seen his face before; a pale creature who seemed so quiet and gentle, yet her Father's words said otherwise.

It's always the quiet ones.

Here he was, a murderer who continued to flourish afloat a bed of coked-up corpses. He was the one who deserved her wrath, her retribution, her anger. She would squeeze the life from him with her ice-cold hands if she had to.

Get them for your old man… her Father had once hissed in her ear, the jagged metal of the pistol poking into her palm.

Get him, she would, for retribution called her name.

Soon, she would let herself dance in its flames.

Oren Hewitt, Seventeen
District Five Male
07:15

The flames of his anger were never quelled.

Every morning, he'd gain his fair share of bruises. Maybe it was Nilam, pushing him out of his way as he dashed to the bathroom to brush his teeth, or the twins, Kain and Jonael laughing at him as they jabbed him with their bony elbows. As the youngest, he was always pushed to the side, the one that was forgotten, leaving his heart to well up with resentment, only for him to squash it back down and allow it to simmer in his chest.

He was boiling over, bubble by bubble, comment by comment. Simple words were just that: words, and yet the sayings of his brothers wriggled underneath his skin like hungry leeches, just waiting for his armour to crumble once again and leave him seething away, just waiting to go to school. He'd just sat down at the table when the day's events had begun and the teasing commenced, like clockwork.

"Oi, Oren, what's that look on your face?" Kain asked, nudging his twin and prompting Jonael to speak up.

"Hey sad sally, look alive!" Jonael laughed and promptly pulled back his spoonful of soggy cereal, tossing it directly into his brother's face. "Nice, I got him!"

Oren's vision blurred as he quickly wiped the gunk off his face, the cold milk dribbling down his cheek. He could always take his brothers and their way of bantering, and while he'd gladly shout and scream at them over and over, he knew that nothing would come of it. His Father was a nutcase; that is to say, he was fucking useless. He used to whine about his brothers and their teasing, but half the time his Father would order him to stand up for himself, and the other time he'd yell at his brothers, which only prompted more teasing.

Perhaps bullying could be a better word, but Oren would never attribute his life to that. Maybe having a Mother in this wretched household could garner some kind of gentle attention and discipline that the boys so desperately needed, but since his Mother was long gone, he was left to live with his three petulant brothers and his good-for-nothing Father.

To say he was angry was an understatement.

To say he was furious was a fallacy.

He was beyond that, so far beyond the edges of his own feasible sanity that he could barely remember life when he wasn't angry at something or someone, at a situation or a person. There was always a reason, mind, mostly his brothers and the way he was pushed around, always the weak one, the scrawny one, the one who nobody gave a damn about and the one who was always lesser. Maybe there was a part of his brothers that did care about him, but it was such a rarity that Oren was used to the day in day out failures that was his Father's parenting.

"Boys!" his Father called, spotting the twins cackling away, poking each other relentlessly. "Get your shit together. Remember today is another day that we have to live to the fullest. A confident man is a strong man, and a strong man is a provider."

If Oren knew anything different about parenting, he would have known that living his life to prove he was enough of a 'man' was nothing but a short-sighted, old-fashioned fallacy. Yet, Oren's Father had always been keen on the idea of a strong, resolute man, and if Nilam, Kain and Jonael were going to be big and strong, then Oren was to be just as powerful and domineering as the rest of them.

This was a man's world, and Oren was determined to be anything but a boy.

While his brother's lived life in their early adulthood, Oren was still fresh-faced at eighteen. If his brothers weren't laughing at his long dark hair for "being a girl", then they were pushing him around, chastising him for how thin he was or how his grey eyes didn't "get him a fuck already".

"Yessir!" Nilam, Kain and Jonael chanted. Oren joined in too, but mumbled the words, thankful that he was able to blend in, but not quite for long enough.

Hale Hewitt always enjoyed sitting at the breakfast table and talking to each of his sons, and Oren was no exception. Oren barely replied to his Dad these days; why bother trying to connect with the one person who left you to be so isolated in all of this hurt and hate? He hated his Father for making him so bitter and vengeful, and he hated his Father for not realising the damage he had done.

"How's school, kiddo?" his Father asked, his tired eyes smiling at him across the table.

Oren wished he could spit out his food or scream and shout, ridiculing his Father for every pathetic mistake he'd ever made, but instead, he simply remained silent.

"It's fine I guess." he shrugged, non-committal.

"Fine is Oren's natural setting," Nilam joked. "Maybe he'll say something special someday!"

Oren winced at this and glanced up at the worn clock on the wall.

It was time to leave the house.

"Gotta get to school," he told his family, standing up and scuffing his feet on the way out of the door. "See you later."

"Have a great day, son!" his Father called to him on the way out. "Make sure you show 'em who's boss!"

Oh, he'd show 'em alright.

He set off at a brisk pace down the street, heading directly for his school in long, determined strides. Every inch of him was burning up, and he was a bomb just ready to blow.

"Hey Oren," his friend Daven spoke, sidling up to him and matching his pace.

"Sup guys," Zamir walked on the other side of Oren, politely greeting them, but nothing more.

Oren preferred his friends that way. There was nothing beyond the surface, no meat on the bone or something hidden beneath the calm water. The three of them made up part of a large group of kids at their school that practically ran the place, and for once, it was nice for Oren to actually feel in control of something in his life for once.

His first target of the day was right ahead of him, pottering in, wearing shoes too large for his feet, glasses askew and a mop of hair tousled upon his tender head.

"Hey, kid!" Oren called, a slight grin rising to his face as the boy turned around and blanched, clearly shitting himself about what, or who was about to approach him. Oren's Father had always taught him to assert himself and to assume power and authority, and that was one thing Oren knew just how to do. He'd do it as well, no matter the cost. As long as he seemed like the strongest guy in the room, then there was no room for debate about how much of a man he actually was.

Oren grabbed the younger guy by the scrawl of his collar, pushing him up against a wall. Drawing on his reserves of endless anger, he sent a sharp punch directly into the poor kid's nose, snapping his glasses clean in two. Several of the kids around him gasped or laughed and gathered around to watch the spectacle.

Sweet release…channelling his anger was almost too easy.

Another two punches were enough to keep the kid crying through the first class of the day, but Oren finished his display off with a kick to the boy's hip, which sent him sobbing and sprawling to the ground, scraping his hands across the concrete. The boy wailed, beads of blood rising to meet the air from his fingers, angry scarlet dribbling from his nose as the tears mixed with the stream of red, and a smattering of bruises already beginning to creep across his pale skin.

It would leave a mark, but that was the point. Oren always started fights and made them quick by finishing them only moments later. The marks would last a couple of weeks at most; enough to remind people not to mess with him, and that he was the kid in charge here, the one who wasn't to be pushed around.

He had to remind them of his power and his strength.

With this notion, he would allow himself to forget a forbidden question.

Who was he really reminding?

Vailea Centalian, Eighteen
District One Female
19:32

She had to remind herself to be humble.

Being District One's volunteer was an honour as much as it was a title, yet seeing Hugo fuming about it the other day had given Vailea a taste of sweet satisfaction. Rivals were rivals, after all, and having her moment to shine while Hugo whined about it in the background? Priceless.

"He's still mad at you," Millicent smirked, twirling two silver daggers.

Millicent had been Vailea's sparring partner for years, as well as a faithful friend. Just because Vailea couldn't focus on an upset Hugo right now (a volunteer must practice, after all), it didn't mean that she couldn't get second-hand enjoyment from Millicent giggling over it.

"Of course he is," Vailea laughed, angling her rapier in preparation for an attack. "It's about time he got knocked down a peg or two."

She narrowed her eyes and blew away the wispy blonde strands of hair from her face, evaluating Millicent's posture and body language. She wasn't the type of Career to barge their way into battle - she was smarter than that. Analysing one's opponent took practice, as did crafting the perfect moment to strike out of thin air. It was best to strike hard and fast when the opponent least expected it.

Vailea darted forwards with a lunge to Millicent's left, which the girl dodged, swinging downwards at Vailea's elbow. Vailea anticipated this and moved backwards to accommodate the close-ranged attack and blocked the dagger with the hilt of the rapier, pushing Millicent back and swinging again, causing her sparring partner to move further backwards. Taking this opening in her stride, Vailea shot forwards again, jabbing swiftly and continuously, Millicent fumbling to keep up with the speed of her strikes. Every move she made was a calculated one, a practised movement executed to perfection with a meticulous edge. Every strike was exactly where she needed it to be at exactly the right moment until she'd gotten her friend up against the wall with the rapier's blade at the girl's throat.

"Impressive, good form."

Ah, sisters.

Adrenilda Centalian was one of Vailea's three triplet siblings, an experienced fighter and arguably a technical critic. While Elon was sparring Hugo on one side of the room and Ione chatted avidly to a nearby trainer, it made perfect sense that Adrenilda had been the one to swing by to check on her little sister's progress. Her family always seemed destined to be trainers who taught tributes, and yet none of them had really won or experienced Games themselves. Then again, who'd want mentors training potential tributes? They had enough nightmares to deal with.

"Thanks, Ren," Vailea responded carefully. "I'll make sure to keep practising."

"That you will," Ren answered tensely. "This is an incredible opportunity. Some people don't get that chance."

Vailea could hear the venom in her sister's tone, the jealousy that draped itself around her words. It wasn't her fault that Ren had been reaped when she was the chosen volunteer. It wasn't her fault that someone then volunteered for Ren, raining on her parade. Yet, it was her fault for being the one who got the one chance Ren had trained her whole life to get. Vailea just had to live with that.

"Of course," Vailea answered diplomatically. "I'll make sure to make it count."

"Make it count, you will," Ren sighed. "Your sword work is great, but your footwork is shoddy. Tighten it up, you don't have long left."

"Thank you, sister." Vailea nodded politely and sized up Millicent once again.

As Adrenilda strolled on, her blue eyes rolled to the heavens and met Millicent's identical, unimpressed look.

"Wow, buzzkill 101 right there," Millicent huffed. "You really do have a loving family, don't you?"

"Cut it out," Vailea smiled. "Sure they're not perfect, but who else is, right?"

She kept that part short. Family was always family, but the memories of her past were foggy and twisted. She could remember a lot of things, but there was a particular memory that was pure confusion. The day her Mother died was never a pleasant one, but what frustrated Vailea the most was that she couldn't remember it, despite being on those stairs at the mere age of four. She wanted to, obviously, but every time she racked her brain for an answer, a headache would flare in her head, too painful to remember...

She was four years old, stood at the bottom of the stairs.

"I've had enough of this, Ravi," her Father was shouting. "Why do you have to keep doing things behind my back?"

Her little head peeked through the woodwork bars on the staircase, gazing into the dim sitting room, the carpet a serene cream, with the wallpaper decorated in geometric squares, colours of cherry, sky and ivory slotting together to create a masterpiece. Her young eyes sought out the silhouette of her parents. Her Father had ushered her siblings upstairs, but brave little Vailea had found her way down the stairs in the hopes of discovering what was going on.

"I'm doing what's best for our children, Arsensio," Ravi pleaded. "Please, don't you realise how important it is to keep our family close?"

"NO!"

The edges of her vision became fuzzy with an amber glow. From beyond the clouded shadows, she could hear the sound of a gunshot and her Father yelling in panic.

A robber had broken into their house that day, shot her Mother, stolen some trinket and left before Arsensio Centalian could fight them off. To this day, a pain unlike any other settled deep in Vailea's heart, for the killer had never been found. She just wished she could understand, or at least remember what it was she'd seen. She wanted to ensure that she had all of the pieces of the puzzle so that she could slot them together and find the answers she'd been looking for.

Aside from her triplet siblings and her younger brother - the mischievous and ever so annoying Benedict - the Centalian family had always been a typical one. Her Father was a wealthy businessman and they'd never known true struggle, like most in District One. Perhaps it was the mysterious trial and conviction of her aunt and uncle, whom she'd held so dear, that made her family life all the more confusing. Paired with the robbery, Vailea had spent many hours wracking her brain as to how it all fit together, and whether or not she was making a fool of herself. There were connections here that she was not making, and it frustrated her. She was always the one to understand the mess, to find a solution, so why couldn't she find one for the thoughts that wandered around in her head?

"Nobody's perfect," Millicent reminded her. "Still, you'd think you'd get more respect around here, being the chosen volunteer. I don't envy you though. I'd rather be a trainer!"

"I think you'd be a great trainer," Vailea agreed. "Just as I will be a great tribute. I'll win the Games no problem, right?"

"Right!" Millicent laughed.

The duo hung up the equipment and began packing their bags to head back home. Vailea had been hesitant to work with someone else in the training centre, but she had to admit that Millicent helped to perfect her techniques when she needed it the most. It was thanks to her that she was standing here today, preparing to fight for honour and glory.

She just wished she could say the same for her family.

If there was a way to make things a little more perfect, then she would wish for it. Maybe her Mother would still be alive, or at least, the killer caught and prosecuted. Karma sure did like to circle back around, so maybe whoever did this would experience some kind of hardship. Revilanthe Dior had few, if any, enemies and it just didn't make sense for anyone in the District to see her as some kind of villain.

Her Mother had been a lot like her, careful and considerate, but also prepared, aware of how to rid herself of her own saboteur. Vailea hoped that she would be able to understand her life one day and find a way to understand herself as she was now.

First, however, the Hunger Games.

Murder-solving came later, provided she survived of course. Luckily for her, her cutting edge advantage was more than ready to make its first slice.

It's a shame she knew that the other tributes wouldn't be so fortunate.

There we have it, another three tributes introduced, how exciting!

Catri's delivering retribution, and she's ready for it. Her vs Valerian, what do you think of that?
Oren's got a lot of pent-up anger. Is there sadness beneath that anger, and will he use it to his advantage?
Vailea's more tactical than your average Career. What did you think about her mysterious killer situation?

I hope to update around my birthday later this month, so fingers crossed for that! Speaking of birthdays, a big Happy Birthday to my collab partner Remus, whose birthday is tomorrow. Happy Birthday, King, I hope it's a good one :D

With another three tributes written, we only have a handful more left to meet. I hope you're as excited as I am! :)

Over and out!
~Mental