Author's Note
I do not own the Hunger Games.
Here we go with our first meeting with the other tributes! As a note, I have done my best to make sure every submitted tribute features a little in the Pre-Games chapters. However, some of them feature more heavily than others, and some don't start to feature heavily until the arena chapters. So if your character doesn't show up a lot, don't worry yet!
The two of them met up in front of the elevators. Both had been dressed as coyote/wolves, identical other than the colours, Hyperion in shades of brown and Luciente in shades of white and yellow. Their costumes were soft, downy fur with large, bushy tails, and their faces had been painted to match. Small pointed ears protruded from their hair and their gloves narrowed down into clawed points. They'd even been given prosthetics to give them fangs.
Luciente was kinda hoping she could keep those.
The elevators were large and glass, briefly rising upwards through darkness before breaking into light. The doors swooshed open and they stepped out into a large warehouse-esque hall. Some of the other tributes were already there, standing at their stations or gathered in small groups of three or four. Their station and chariot was marked with a large '10,' with the one stylised to look like bull's horns. Hyperion flicked it. "They had a theme."
One they'd had to discard, evidently. Or maybe materials being reused from last year. The boy had been dressed as a bull, he remembered.
"You want to take a reading?"
Luciente looked up at him with those pale eyes and smiled. "Oh, please."
He took her hand and they moved away their own chariot and on past Nine, which was a golden wood and had been decorated with strands of green and gold plants. Their tributes didn't appear to be here yet.
The boy from Eight was sat on the back of his chariot. He was thin and pale, wearing a pale pink suit of some shiny material. He lifted his head to watch them pass with large, frightened eyes. Luciente offered him a slight smile. Shy, jumpy. District Seven's station was empty, but the two from District Six were talking by their chariot. The girl was in a pink and red dress with an enormous puffy skirt patterned with trains, while the boy was wearing some kind of old-timey uniform in colours bright enough to give anyone a headache, neon orange trousers, a vivid, rainbow coloured jacket buttoned up on the right with a hat adorned by lights that kept changing colours. Hyperion wasn't quite sure what he was meant to be, a psychedelic meltdown possibly.
The boy grinned up at them. Nervous, cheerful, anxious.
"Nice costumes doggies."
"Nice hat," Hyperion grunted back.
Luciente stopped by the girl. She looked pale and frightened, even under the makeup, with her hair teased into more angelic looking ringlets than the messy curls from the reaping. Luciente took her hands and pressed them tight. "It's going to be alright. It'll all work out."
The girl jumped and shied back. The boy frowned, hesitant, very clearly trying to keep his chin up and look brave. "H-hey, keep your hands off her!"
"I- It's alright Wylie. I'm sorry, I don't remember your name from the reaping."
"Luciente. What's yours?"
"Arielle Wayne." She glanced at her District partner. "This is Wylie."
"Hi!" He thrust his hand out.
Luciente hissed through her prosthetics. He skittered back a little, as though trying to put his chariot between him and them. Like he could hide in that outfit.
"Nice to meet you Arielle Wayne. I'm betting on you."
Hyperion tugged at her arm and led her away.
There was no sign of the tributes from Five and the copper haired boy from the reaping, so they continued on to where the girl from Four was stood by her chariot, glaring at the Peacekeepers stationed around the warehouse. Her skin had been painted a scaly grey and her lower half encased in a long, black, fishtail flicked up at the end. Angry, Luciente understood, bitter.
"What?" she snapped, revealing jagged yellow prosthetic teeth fitted over her own.
Luciente grinned, showing off her own fangs. "It's not us you're angry at."
She curled her upper lip, but her expression softened slightly. "I don't want to imagine having to enter the Games with my brother."
"Bastards, all of them."
The girl stiffened. "What did yo-"
Hyperion pulled her closer and forced her onwards. District Three's station was empty, while the pair from One and the girl from Two were gathered by the next chariot. Hyperion led Luciente past and around.
"Loving the tails!" shouted the girl from Two, who was wearing grey armour that didn't look as though it fitted quite right, broad at the shoulders and narrow across her chest. Repurposed, Luciente understood, but why?
"Cute ears," said the girl from One, reaching out towards Luciente's. She was wearing a short black dress studded with some kind of glittery black stone and a floor length white fur cloak. "Your costumes are cuter than ours."
Luciente snarled and snapped at her fingers. The girl yanked her hand back with a yelp.
"Hey!"
Hyperion wrapped an arm around her waist, drawing her close and pulling her in front of him. "Don't touch her."
The girl from Two scowled. "Was that a threat?"
"It sure looked like a threat," said the boy from One. "You want to start something Ten?"
"I want you to keep your hands off my sister."
The boy from One looked Luciente up and down, his gaze crawling over her. "You sure she wants that?"
Luciente growled and flashed him her teeth. Hyperion prompted her onwards. Soon enough they were out of earshot of the four Careers and circling around to the back of the chariots.
The District Eleven pair came from the elevators as they did so. The girl was wearing a flowing white dress with flowers woven into her hair and around her arms, while the boy was in some kind of pitch black armour, complete with a heavy helm that he didn't appear to be able to see much out of, as the girl was leading him by the arm.
He knocked into a support pillar and stumbled sideways, slamming hard into his District partner.
"Ow! Noel!"
"Sorry."
"Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm fine. Sorry again."
District Twelve's chariot was painted black, with two black horses. The
girl was already there, wearing what almost looked like dungarees over a dirty white shirt, her skin smeared with black dirt. There were tear marks in the black dust across her face and her lips were scrunched up.
"What are you two meant to be; the Capitol's lapdogs?"
Luciente said nothing, but she did look her up and down. The girl scowled. "What's that meant to mean?"
"Shepherds with dying lambs shouldn't cry wolf."
The girl screwed up her face. "Is that meant to be a fucking insult or what?"
Bitter, spiteful. Luciente turned to move on, but the girl slid from her chariot and stomped her foot.
"Oh that's it, just walk away! Like you think you're better than me just because you're older and prettier!"
Luciente growled softly, tugging at Hyperion's arm to draw him onwards. She'd seen all she needed to see of this angry little girl.
"At least I'm not a criminal!"
Hyperion paused, glancing over at her.
"Yeah, that's right, we all saw you at the reaping!" Angry tears welled up in her eyes. "I might have been a mess but at least I wasn't in a prison uniform!"
Hyperion growled under his breath.
"So it's not like you've got any right to go off looking at me like I'm dirt; I'm not the criminal or the freak going round growling at people!"
Hyperion punched her.
The scrawny little girl was thrown backwards and flung across the floor, and they were surrounded by Peacekeepers in a heartbeat. One of them swung their baton for his head and he ducked it, pulling Luciente sharp behind him.
"Don't move! Hands where we can see them! What's going on here?"
Do this, do that, good doggie.
A woman with pink hair had rushed over to Twelve's fallen tribute and was fussing around her.
Hyperion curled his lip. "My fist slipped."
Luciente gazed at the Peacekeepers around them. Most were taller than her, Capitol bred most likely, though many were less muscular than Hyperion.
"There is to be absolutely no fighting between tributes before the Games begin."
Oh, and what were they going to do to them? Kill them slightly sooner than the arena might?
Luciente curled her fingers around his wrist, squeezed it hard.
A soft, low, humming noise filled the air.
"You will come with us to return to your station."
That humming sound grew louder, shriller, and several of the Peacekeepers began to rap their hands on the right sides of their helmets.
"You will remay-"
The shrieking reached a painful crescendo and many of the Peacekeepers let out cries of pain, struggling to wrench off their helmets so they could rip out glowing blue devices fitted around their ears. Those that were having trouble getting the helmets off (including the Commander), doubled over, scrabbling against the buckles. A number of the other Peacekeepers in the area began to jog towards them, but as soon as they neared those on the outskirts of the circle they began to double over too or back off, clutching to their helmets or trying to rip them off.
Hyperion pulled Luciente round in front of him. "Let's go back to our chariot."
The tributes from Eleven had made it back to their chariot, and the girl was stood, staring wide eyed, at the frantic Peacekeepers. They continued on to their own station and the large dark wood chariot with its chestnut horses. Up ahead, the girl from Five was speaking to the boy from Nine, who
was wearing a golden dress of some sort, with a crown of wheat perched on his dark brown hair, by his chariot. He spotted them as they approached and waved them over. "District Ten, right?"
"That's us," grunted Hyperion.
He leant around him to squint at the Peacekeepers. "What's going on over there?"
Hyperion shrugged.
"Nice tail," said the girl from Five.
"This coming from Little Miss Sunshine," he snapped back, looking the girl pointedly up and down. She was dressed as what looked like a miniature sun, in a long golden dress with lights strung over her chest and down her skirt and a large, pointed headdress.
"Touche dog-boy."
"We're wolves, apparently."
"Looks like coyotes to me," said the boy from Nine.
"See, that's what I said."
"You two are siblings, right?" asked the girl.
"Yes."
Her gaze flickered between them briefly. "Are you looking for an alliance?"
"Are you offering?"
She shrugged. "If you like."
"We'll think about it."
She gave him a thin smile. "Don't think for too long dog-boy."
"Wolf," Luciente said absently, pulling at Hyperion's arm.
"I still say you look like coyotes," said the boy from Nine as they left.
The little girl from Eight had arrived, wearing a soft yellow dress that looked like the same material as the boy's suit and crying softly into her balled hands. Luciente gave her a sweet smile as they passed, but Hyperion could see exactly what she had her eyes on.
Fuck, he could punch her sometimes!
The girl from Seven was half naked, quite literally. Her lower half was wrapped in a brown skirt that looked a little like stylised tree roots, but it was almost like they'd decided not to be bothered with the rest of her costume, spray painted her brown, and left it at that. She was leaning against her chariot, gasping for air and shaking.
The boy from Five was stood by his chariot, dressed to look like⦠a crescent moon, Hyperion was pretty sure. That would make sense with his District partner as the sun.
"Hi!" chirped Luciente.
He blinked and looked up at them. "Um. Hi?"
"You're from Five, right?"
He glanced at his chariot. "No, I'm just hanging out here for fun."
Luciente smiled. "We're District Ten."
His gaze jumped to Hyperion. "Yeah, I- remember."
"What's your name?"
"Nathaniel. Nathaniel Volkner."
"Nice to meet you Nathaniel Volkner."
They were interrupted by a voice blaring from somewhere above them. "ATTENTION TRIBUTES! PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR CHARIOTS AND AWAIT LAUNCH."
"Nice to meet you too," mumbled Nathaniel as Hyperion pulled Luciente away and back towards their own chariot.
The girl from Nine had joined her District partner and was dressed to match, her hair loose down her back with flowers woven through it. She had climbed into their chariot already, looking down at them curiously as they passed.
"ATTENTION TRIBUTES. MOUNT YOUR CHARIOTS. REPEAT, TRIBUTES MOUNT YOUR CHARIOTS."
Luciente sprang up into their chariot, wrapping her fingers around the handrail. Hyperion stepped up behind her.
"ATTENTION TRIBUTES! LAUNCH WILL BEGIN IN ONE MINUTE."
Hyperion squared his shoulders and glared at the metal roller doors at the front of the warehouse. Luciente glanced over the girl from Six and the little boy from Five. The boy from Nine glanced back at them and raised his eyebrows. They didn't meet his gaze.
