"Water"

A/N: Imagine having normal structure during intros. Also, three straight tributes whose names start with A. Kinda wild. Anyways, I really had fun with this intro, and it was fun playing around with what was already a super dense and narrative-based backstory and bringing it to the page. Hope it turned out well!

~This chaos, this calamity, this garden once was perfect

Give your immortality to me; I'll set you up against the stars~

Ariya Arden, 18

At six years old, I decide that I love water.

Ashuah gave it to me for my birthday. The toy was pumped full of water, and when I squeeze the trigger it blasts out, soaking anyone who stands in my way. He got one for himself too, and we battle through the clean quartz house, soaking it so that we slide along the floor and bang into sofas and knock over vases.

We wage war through the wilderness of our home, ducking around pillars and dolphin diving along tiles as we glide through our newly created waterpark. A cackling laughter is coming from me, and Ashuah is the same, all laughter and dripping wet hair and clothes that stick to the skin and have to be peeled away, all while our laughter continues to echo throughout the large, empty house.

At eleven years old, I'm weak.

Koronai and his friends are always sure to let me know that. Idiot, stupid, brainless, retarded, all the words come at me like a flurry, every day on repeat. I'm tired of going home crying every day, having to try and pretend the words don't hurt me when they do. I'm tired of the names. I'm tired of the crying. I'm tired of feeling weak. I'm tired of being weak.

The academy halls are empty, everyone is off in class or at the gym, all except for vain, idiotic Koronai, who's in the bathroom like he always is, probably checking out his muscles or something stupid like that. He always thinks that he's better than everyone else, me especially. All he cares about is how he looks, so well, maybe I can make him look like the weak one for once.

It was hard to get the bucket on top of the doorway, with all the water in it and with how high the doorway is, and especially doing it all as fast as possible so that nobody catches me doing it: but it's there now. I've always loved water, so what better way to prank the person I hate most in the world? Let him be on the receiving end for once. I want to see him crying, him being pointed and laughed at, him, him, him hurting. Is that so much to ask?

There's a swirling in my stomach, not like pain or even fear, it's a tingling sort of excitement and thrill. I've always loved pranks, but this feels different. Just a bit more wicked, purposeful, deserved. Maybe that's it.

I don't have any more time to think about it, because the bell rings and suddenly the hallway is crowding up, and I can feel sweat building up on the back of my neck. Someone is gonna notice the bucket on the door, or even worse, someone will walk through and it'll be them that gets drenched, and then Koronai will walk out of the bathroom and start laughing at them, claiming it was his prank, like some cruel prank the universe is playing on me.

But the universe must hate Koronai as much as I do, because it decides to wink back at me as Koronai pushes the bathroom door open just as someone yells to watch out for the bucket. It's like one of those clichés, everything travelling in slow-motion as Koronai looks up, his eyes seeming to widen as the metal bucket falls down. But there's no water spilling, soaking him and leaving the hallways singing with laughter. The bucket falls like a brick.

There's a loud dinging sound as the metal bounces off his head and falls to the floor. The bucket rings out as it spins to a stop, and Koronai is still beside it. A gash marks his forehead, and blood spills from it. Someone screams. A teacher comes running, demanding to know who did this. Whispers and murmurs flood the halls. On the ground, Koronai is moving now, writhing in pain while the sound of what must be sobbing can be heard coming from him.

And I smile.

At twelve years old, I become a Career.

I hated the academy at first. It's all stiff and formal and they actually care if you have messy hair or didn't feel like showering and just threw on some jeans. They have a uniform, and a list of rules that has more words on it than I know, and I should've hated everything about it, especially since mom and dad only threw me over here in the hopes that it would tighten me up. But. . . I kind of love it.

Sure, I wasn't into it at first. After the bucket incident, they pulled out a full investigation to figure out who was the one who did it. Koronai ended up dropping out, maybe from the nasty concussion it gave him, but I like to think it was because of the embarrassment. Laying there on the floor, sobbing and bleeding while everyone was there to see, it was too perfect. And of course they never thought it was me. Even when Koronai accused me they just scoffed and didn't even bother questioning me. Weak, dumb, brain-dead Ariya, how could it be her?

My parents knew. They knew it the moment I walked in the front door with a shit-eating grin and told them the news. They pretended to be worried, and annoyed, and upset, but I saw the look they shared when they figured it out, and I just know it had to be pride. Pride that I fought back, and gave that punk what he deserved.

Still though, a new academy was inevitable, and they shipped me off the day after my twelfth birthday. At first all I could see was the rules. The poshness and the militant way in which it was run, all the regulations and procedures. It was my personal hell, a place where I couldn't roam wild and do whatever I wanted. There was no chaos, just order, and I hated it.

And then they put a weapon in my hands. The feeling of steel on my skin, it was the same type of thrill that I got from watching that bucket falling. The same joy that came from running through our quartz house, sliding and diving and splashing with water. And there was the power that came with it, too. Sure, there was the thrill of driving a sword into a dummy, or chucking an axe into a target, but that had nothing on the simple joys of toying with people. I'm better than almost everyone else, and I have been for a while. And that means I'm not dumb, or dim-witted, or any of those other words they used to call me. It means I'm strong.

All I have to do is destroy. And nobody has ever been better at that than me. There's no stupidity when it comes to tearing a dummy apart. No dumb way to tackle some kid who thinks he can take me in a fight. It's just me, in the moment, sweat on my tongue and my knuckles bloody and their eyes wide with fear or narrow with determination and it doesn't matter. Because I'm there, in the moment, and there's nothing but me, winning. And everything else can fall away because it doesn't matter.

The cafeteria is loud as always, and I'm at a table with a bunch of other kids who are training, and none of them are as good as me. I hear them laugh at all my jokes, and giggle and point when I sneak over to someone else's table and loosen the top of the salt shaker. And I know I could do whatever I wanted right now. I could jump onto a table and shoot an arrow at some unsuspecting trainer, taking off their hat and emptying their bladder. They'd drag me into an office, but I would hear them all laughing or cheering as they haul me off, and they'd scold me and give me detention but it'd be worth it for the way that everyone laughs as I'm at the center of the room in that moment.

And the academy would pretend to disapprove, but they wouldn't do anything to get me to change, because they know. They know that all those things people said about me as if they were a bad thing. As if it made me weak. The idiocy and the chaos and all of it, it's what makes me special, and they know. That all those things are what makes that sound, that special sound when I swing a sword, that power that sings in their ears and mine.

At twelve years old, at thirteen. At fourteen and at fifteen. At sixteen: power sings in my ear, and I am on top of the world. And at seventeen years old, I climb even higher.

I'm in my dorm room, Maeva and Vella are there too. I just got done training, and I'm drenched in sweat and that tingling, nervous energy is running through my veins and making me jitter as I pace back and forth. Maeve and Vella are talking about something, homework or a book report or something else like that, something I don't care about. It doesn't matter what they're talking about, honestly. It could be a story from training, a memory of one of the hundreds of pranks I've done, or a dare to do a new one, and I still wouldn't care. Because right now, all I can think about is Nefeli Naysaras.

I could go on about how she looks, from her hair to her eyes to her skin but none of that is what makes my heart beat a little bit faster. It isn't what brings that tingling feeling in my gut, the same feeling I got from swinging a sword for the first time, and watching that bucket fall, and slipping on wet quartz with water-guns. There's something more, an energy that she has that meets mine and fits against it like a puzzle piece.

She's a popular kid, though, and I'm 'popular.' People know me, and laugh at me, and that's great and I wouldn't want it any other way but it makes me the jester, and makes her out of my league. As if that would stop me from asking her out.

And, apparently, as if that would stop her from saying yes. "Take me to the place that makes you happiest in the whole world," she had said. And she smiled, and she walked away leaving me standing there completely still and glad she turned around because I didn't know what to say or what to do with my mouth that felt like slacking off and dropping to the floor.

"You good, Ariya?" Maeva asks, and I barely register the question.

I turn to her, and crack a wide smile. "Duh," I say, and I walk over to her bed and push her down jokingly. "I'm always good. Or, no, whatever's better than good. That's me, all the time."

"You mean great?" Vella pipes up, and I roll my eyes.

"Wow, thanks professor!" I say overly-enthusiastically. "Seventh period English has to be my favorite class at the academy!"

Maeva snorts, and the two turn back away and go back to their conversation, school and boys and grades and the future and blegh. I want to tune it all out, and so I burst out the door, not even bothering to change out of my pajamas. The halls are empty, and quiet enough that I can actually think, think. Think about what place makes me happiest in the whole world. And the answer is so easy that it actually makes me smile and even laugh just a little bit, because of how obvious it is.

I've always loved water, after all.

I bring her to the lakeside the next morning, and I can tell it isn't what she was expecting. An arcade, or something silly like that, she tells me. That's what she expected. But back when I was little, before it was training and the weight of a weapon in my hand that made me happy, I had to search harder to find those happy moments. And the lake, well, that was away from everything else. Away from the names that I don't care about and I never did care about, and Koronai and all those goons that tried to hold me down and made my life miserable. It was simple. It was water. Where I could splash and play and laugh and Ashuah, Ashuah, and I would be partners in crime, pulling off pranks and heists, stealing fun from a world that seemed like it didn't want to give me any.

And now there's only fun, fun and nothing else, because I'm strong, and strong, and only strong. And coming here still makes me happy, and happy, and only happy, and I don't care about any of the other things that come tied to this place. About Ashuah, who drifted apart, no, didn't drift, pulled himself apart from me. About the Arden family, and the long, dignified line that seems content to push me aside, no matter how much I succeed or rise the ranks. But it doesn't hurt, doesn't hurt. And it doesn't hurt.

Nefeli approaches the lake, and her eyebrow is raised and when she looks at me I smile and she walks closer, turning away from me. And it's quiet, and awkward, and I can't take it and I run forward and push her in. And she screams, or maybe laughs, I can't tell, and she reaches up her hand, her eyes impossible to see as water drips from her hair and down her face. So I reach back, and she takes my hand, and I'm falling forwards.

Water surrounds me. My eyes open wide. And water surrounds me. I pull myself up, gasping for air as I'm met with the sound of laughter, and I can hear myself laughing too. Her eyes are bright and vibrant and full of life and energy and that pounding in my chest, the tingling in my gut, it gets faster, stronger until it's all that I can focus on. Pounding, tingling, and the taste of saltwater, sweetness on my lips.

I'm seventeen years old, and I decide I know what love is.

At eighteen years old, I stop climbing, and I start to drown.

Nefeli brought things I'd never had before. More than just a feeling, it's something even more intangible than that. That same thing that attracted me to her in the first place, that energy and ability to seemingly match me in a way that nobody else ever has. She brought simple things too. Cold nights, curled together by the fire. Sharing drinks and dipping our toes into the water, until it's so late into the night that we're not even tired anymore, and we should be wondering where the time went but we're so focused on that moment with each other that we aren't even thinking about that. Her, falling asleep in my arms, leaving me holding myself awake, not wanting to drift off, wanting to know that I'm there, holding her, for just a bit longer.

But Nefeli brought other things too. She brought friends, and their type of chaos isn't my type of chaos. It isn't pranks and jokes and that untamed energy. It's a bunch of guys, bringing drugs and beers and me having to watch them, and Nefeli too, drifting off into somewhere else. Screaming, howling, tossing trash and syringes and cans into the lake. My lake. That special place, except it doesn't feel the same anymore. It isn't the calming, the intimate, the private of the water. It's loud. Just like everything else.

But I have Nefeli. And that's worth it. And things are still perfect. Still happy. Still great. And nothing, nobody, can take that away from me.

But there's always an asshole willing to try.

I'm eighteen years old, and Nefeli shows up on my doorstep. Battered. Bruised. Bleeding. And the blood isn't the only red in my sight. She tries to say something, but falls over before she can. I barely catch her. I hold her, and I take her to my bed, and set her down. I reach out, and brush back a loose strand of hair.

My hand feels cold. I feel cold. I don't have to wait by Nefeli's side to ask her who hurt her. I don't need to wait. I already know. Vasily Vourdes. Nefeli always put off repaying him, brushed it aside. Said it wouldn't be a big deal.

There was always an asshole. But I'm not eleven years old anymore. I'm not weak. Never weak. Always strong. Always. Vasily's face flashes across my eyes, the same way Koronai's did before. The bucket, falling. Blood, pouring from his head. Tears, spilling from his eyes. I see the dummies I slashed. The axes I buried deep into their head, imagining a different face behind it. Koronai, Mixon, Radi, all their faces. And the sound as my sword would cut through the dummy, the soft, crinkling sound that almost sounded like flesh being cut open and I picture their blood spilling out. The same as Koronai's on that hallway floor.

I picture them every day. With every swing of the sword. Every time my fist connects. Every time my eyes close, and I see that same thing. A bucket. Falling. And the water, laid out around him. And I close my eyes, and this time it's a new face that appears. But I don't want to cut. I don't want to hit, or slash, or swing, with my eyes closed and my mind somewhere else. Because when I close my eyes, it isn't just his face I see.

I can see water. And well, drowning is fitting for Vasily Vourdes.

It isn't hard to bring him to the lake, he's been there a dozen times before. I told him I want a fix. He thinks more people are coming. A hang out. Drinks and drugs and girls and everything else that he wants. The list is short. It's about to become much shorter. Gurgling water, feeling it fill his lungs. Well, there'll only be one thing he wants then. One person who can give it to him. One thing I want.

I don't bother with any weapons. I don't want them. I point something out in the lake, and when he bends down, I lunge forward. My hands wrap around his throat, and I force him down. I have him face-up, and I want it that way. I want to see his eyes, dark and mixed with rage and fear, while his body and arms thrash and punch and kick and I just hold him, pushing him deeper, and deeper. And I watch his eyes, and see them dimming. I can feel the currents as they rush through my fingers, as if it's the middle of a storm, waves rocking against me. And I can see it, feel it, him, slipping away. Further. And further. And my gut is tingling.

And then he's above water again, and my grip is lost, and he's grabbing me by the hair, and he's throwing me, and the back of my head hits something sharp, hard, and it's my eyes now, and I feel blackness in them, and. And.

And I'm eighteen years old, and like water always does, it's slipped through my fingers.

I wake up in a hospital, and things go by in a blur. A concussion they say, and a bad one at that. A scar, noticeable and ugly. Lucky to be alive. Expelled from school. What were you thinking? Idiot. Impulsive. Disobedient. Psychotic. A disgrace. Ruining the Arden family name. Disappointed.

Stupid. So. Fucking. Stupid.

I barely notice the people that come to visit me. Mostly, I notice who doesn't. Nefeli. My parents tell me I'm being shipped off to District Three. To focus on my studies, they say. To avoid going to prison, they say. To stop disgracing the Arden name, they mean. I tell a friend that I'm being sent away, to let Nefeli know, to tell her to visit, before I'm gone, maybe for good. I wait, but I already know she isn't coming.

My gut still tingles, but it doesn't feel pleasant anymore. It doesn't make me feel alive. Free. Wild. Strong.

I'm eighteen years old, and I fucking hate District Three.

Life isn't exciting anymore. It isn't spontaneous. I go to classes, and I can't understand anything that's being said. My concussion doesn't help. The headache hasn't gone away like it was supposed to. I get the feeling that it never will. There's no more training to focus myself on. There's no music in my ear, no strength. No chaos. No excitement. No strength.

No anything. It's like I've been hollowed out.

It's my second month at the university when someone reminds me the reapings are tomorrow. They ask me if I'm scared, and I don't respond. They give up and walk away. But my mind is spinning, and I can feel a tingle in my gut, not a strong one, not like the falling of a bucket or the taste of salt-water, but it's something.

I can volunteer.

I can go back.

I can show them all.

That I'm not weak.

Never weak.

They can think I don't stand a chance. They can laugh at the jokester who got kicked out of District One. The idiot. The ridiculous. The stupid. They can say it all again. They can underestimate me all they want.

I'll volunteer, and power will sing in their ears when they see a sword in my hand, and I'll get it all back.

I'll spill rivers of blood if I need to.

At six, eleven, twelve, seventeen, eighteen years old, I always loved the feeling of water.

A/N: Thank you so, so much to Dawn for Ariya. Her form was absolutely amazing, and bringing her to life was so much fun. We finally had an intro that had a linear narrative! Even if that linear narrative hopped more than a bunny. Also, no mentor POV again b/c since Ariya is a Career her D3 mentor isn't super relevant to this story. Next chapter will bring us to D2, so get excited for that! In the meantime, thank you again to Dawn for this amazing character, I hope I wrote her well!

Trivia (1 point): Which tribute so far is your biggest spirit animal?