A/N: We got a LOT of great submissions for Two. This was a very hard District. I loved pretty much every character submitted. If your boy or girl doesn't make it this time, I'd happily take one of them next Games. :)
NOTE: The female tribute refers to her transgender sister as male and uses male pronouns. This is not meant to offend anyone. Ardin just does not fully understand what being transgender means, as it is not a widely accepted to be transgender, especially not in Two. I am sorry if I offended anyone, this note has now been added. I meant to add this note from the get go but forgot to. Again, I am so sorry. Thank you.
The wasted years, the wasted youth
The pretty lies, the ugly truth
And the day has come where I have died
Only to find, I've come alive
Ardin Varnell, 18
Resident of District 2
Chosen Volunteer and Academy Graduate
"Ardin, dear, stop pulling off your gloves," my mother hisses, her brow creased in anger.
I don't object, letting my gloved hands fall flat against the dining room table. My mother stares at my splayed fingers with ill disguised contempt, and I sigh, slipping my hands off of the table, settling them, perfectly folded, in my lap. My mom smiles graciously at me, and I nod. I should be nice today. My mother's usually a nice woman. Social events, especially ones she hosts, bring out the bad side to her.
Everyone has a bad side. I learned that early on. A bad side cannot be avoided. A mother, rapping her daughter's knuckles with a soup spoon until they bleed when she won't hold her cutlery correctly. A father, indignant and screaming when his ten year old daughter, tired and bruised from the Academy, wants to quit. A brother, looking at his twin in disgust when he finds out that his twin would rather be a girl. That twin brother, whenever someone insists that he is male, and will always be male. A sister named Ardin whenever anyone tries to get too close.
My father walks in with my twin brothers, Rickon and Theon, both sixteen years of age. They're all dressed in matching navy suits, and me and my mom are dressed in navy cocktail dresses. My father's suit is already rumpled. Rickon looks proud and dashing in his suit, and Theon looks uncomfortable, like he doesn't want to be dressed in a suit. I know that he secretly wishes he was wearing a cocktail dress like me and mom. Of course I know, since he is my brother. I still love him to pieces whatever his gender is, but I do not think that Rickon feels the same. When Theon revealed that he wanted to be transgender four months ago, he drove a wedge between all three of us. Rickon's uncomfortable with it, Theon wants to do what he wants to do, and I'm stuck in the middle between them. They're slowly pulling me apart. Hopefully I'll be strong enough to pull them both close, and mend the gaps between us. My family, and my friend with benefits, Vincent, are the only people I really, truly care about in this world, along with the future wife I may end up discovering some time down the road. Everyone else can go to hell for all I care.
My mother is hosting this dinner party. Our guests are the Trabador family. Their mother fought in my father's Capitol battalion during the Dark Days. They have two daughters, one a year older than the twins, one a year younger, who are stunningly beautiful. But most importantly, the father, Attucks Trabador, is the head of the board that will select which tribute will be entering the 22nd Hunger Games in a month.
They've narrowed it down to two boys and two girls. The other girl is named Venia Turrettes, and she's three inches off of seven feet, huge and hulking, her body rippling with muscle. She is a monster with a mace and a sword, and is similar to Lucia Theonis in quite a few aspects. But she cannot maneuver well, and she's average speed. She is hopeless with bows and arrows, along with spears. After the 20th Games, when clubs were the only things found in the arena, Careers had to be well rounded in nearly every weapon. Venia is not well rounded. She's also wicked, and decently smart, though nowhere near as good of a tactician as me. My prowess with tactics and long range weapons, along with my exemplary manners at this dinner, will definitely be the reasons I earn the spot.
The Trabador's arrive soon afterwards. Mrs. Trabador is dressed is a forest green gown that was obviously crafted in the Capitol, a thick necklace of pearls draped around her neck. I know Mrs. Trabador well. She is a stuck up woman, who lead my father's unit into war during the Dark Days on the loyalist side, and reaped many benefits from helping cull the rebellion in Two. Her unit ripped it out by its roots and tossed it up and down until its nose bled and its body was dismembered. Her two beautiful daughters, named Tullia and Allania after President Snow's faithful wife. Now that's even a little extreme to a loyalist family like mine. Mr. Attucks Trabador is the last to enter the room. His left leg is metallic, since his real one was blown off in the rebellion. He smiles lightly at my parents, but his eyes harden when he spots me sitting perfectly at the dining table. He sits down across from me.
"Ardin," he hisses.
"Mr. Trabador," I say respectfully, grinning brightly.
"Oh, cut the crap, Ardin. I don't give a flying fuck if you're respectful. Now come with me into the parlor or somewhere else and show me some of that ability to spin tactics on the fly," Mr. Trabador barks curtly. I stare at him, shocked.
"Attucks!" Mrs. Trabador shrieks.
"It's fine, Mrs. Trabador," I reply swiftly. "Excuse us, mother?"
My mother glares with hatred and passion, red faced, at Mr. Trabador.
"Harriett," my father murmurs, and she sighs, letting us go.
Mr. Trabador and I walk down to a room at the end of the hall, my father's office. He pulls up a chair as I gingerly lower myself into my father's plush, spinning chair. This is always only my father's chair. I have never sat here before.
"Now what would you do if, say, a team of four Outliers, all armed, surrounded you, and you were weaponless, Ardin?"
I pull out a sheet of paper and begin to sketch and chatter, letting it all fade into the background as I focus on the pure act of figuring out the best way to approach the situation. Within two minutes, I've laid out my plan of action, and Mr. Trabador looks at me, incredulous.
"Hello, Volunteer for the 22nd Hunger Games. Would you like to head back to the dining room?"
If you're sick, if you're sick
If you're sick of it
Every single day
I chase my own tail
Like the bad inside of me
Has gotta get, gotta get, get away
Tyberios Palatium, 18
Resident of District 2
Chosen Volunteer and Academy Graduate
I wake up with the pounding, like I always do. It's an ever present thing, filling my head, pushing everything out greedily, hungrily. Fingers of pain, digging their way into my brain, nails worming their way to the inside of my forehead, dance inside my skull. I hiss and groan and kick, and then force myself to sit up in bed. The covers and sheets fall away from my sweat soaked body. I rub my one hand across my forehead, massaging the bud of the pain instinctively, like I always do. My other hand searches frantically for some clothes strewn across the floor. I pull on boxers, shorts, and a dark green t-shirt, and then I struggle to pull socks over my feet as I stagger out of my bedroom door.
I stumble my way through the hallway and down the stairs, banging my shins against the banister, almost tripping myself a couple of times. I can hear a door crack open, and the frizzed red hair of my sister peeks out of the crack. Her head emerges, and her ugly frown curls downwards.
"I don't need the complaints, Fulmia!" I shout. "I know, I know, it's fucking four in the morning, but it's bad today, alright?!"
Fulmia rolls her eyes, mumbling something about her idiotic little brother being a suicidal adrenaline junkie. Oh fuck her. I really cannot stand her, and this isn't some foolish sibling rivalry crap that a lot of siblings who train have. Fulmia never wanted to be a tribute. She just enrolled in the Peacekeeper task force, and she gets shipped out next year to boot camp over in the Capitol. I never wanted to be a tribute either, until three years ago, one of the new trainers saw my chronic headaches on my files, and said that, if I won, my earnings could buy me treatment. I've looked into it. Unless I want to waste away money on the Panem Lottery or become a Peacekeeper and eventually save up enough money for treatment by the time I'm seventy, then pretty much the only plausible to earn a cure is to enter the Hunger Games and emerge Victor. And who hasn't dreamed of being a Victor? Sitting in the Academy's gym at orientation when I was only eleven. The pain had sent me there, to train, to exercise, to get the heavenly rush of adrenaline that would momentarily ease the pain, wiping it away like moisture being wicked away from my forehead with a towel. I sat in a crowd of other kids, ages six to twelve, and marveled as Clay, Brick, Headmistress Serephina, and our newest Victor from that year, Scylas, strutted out, Headmistress at the front, Scylas at the back. Headmistress gave an impassioned speech welcoming us, and I was struck with a sense of awe as I watched her wave regally as she left the podium. Previous Academy graduates that had become Peacekeepers and other prestigious things took the podium, but my eyes were focused on our four Victors, and I knew then that I wanted to be one of them.
Of course, reality kicked in by the time I was a teenager. I realized what the Hunger Games were, truly realized the pain, the terror, the insanity that it caused. But, then again, I dealt with tremendous pain every moment of my life. Why would dying be any different from waking up with a silvery blade of red hot pain cracking apart my skull and cleaving my brain into two sizzling halves?
I reach the front door, and I pull on my velcro shoes. Yeah, an eighteen year old guy, hunky with muscle and standing at just over six feet tall, wearing velcro shoes. They're easier to get on when the pain is terrible like it usually is in the mornings.
After pulling the velcro straps tight hurriedly, I unlock the front door and surge out, slamming it behind me. I can just imagine a red faced Fulmia roaring my name, but of course I'm already out of the door. She can't do a fucking thing, and that makes me laugh. I immediately start out at a brisk sprint, running near my top speed down the road. My shoes tear at the asphalt as I pound down the streets. Soon everything fades except my rapidly fluctuating heartbeat and the crisp early morning air being sucked in and gasped out by my lungs. Soon my arms and legs tingle, and a bloody taste creeps up the back of my throat. I keep running until I can't, and the blissful, numbing pain in my legs and abdomen makes me collapse. The asphalt bites into my knees, and that makes me smile as I lay there on the empty road. Only trees, silent sentries, stand on this road now. It's velvety black, not even a hint of the sun yet. I close my eyes and breathe, my chest rising up and down at a feverish pace. I don't feel the pain in my head for a good couple of minutes, and I savor that time, wrapping myself in it and falling asleep. Half asleep, whispers of pain in my head tickle me awake, the pain quickly becoming more intense. I stagger back home, holding a cramp in my side, trying to ignore the returning throb of pain in my skull. All I focus on is the asphalt beneath my feet, and the sweat slowly dripping down my cheek, off of my chin, splattering on my drenched chest. I close my eyes, and breathe in the cold morning air. As I head back home, fingers of the sun gingerly hook themselves over the horizon, bit by bit lighting up the frozen black night. The pain's returned full force, but the sunrise distracts me enough to keep the pain at a bearable level.
When I return home, I crash through the door. Fulmia's ready to make a comment, perched on the landing, but I push past her, running up into my room. I put on my Academy uniform, and then I'm out the door again after greeting my parents as they wake up. Fulmia glares at me, and I ignore her. I set off at a hard jog towards the Academy, two miles away. The run lessens the pain, and the day of fighting and working out will distract me even more. My life is lived on a hard, adrenaline filled schedule. The value of something in my life is weighed by its ability to get me high off of adrenaline and to push my headaches away. Everything is about making the pain better. Entering the Games will be more of the same.
A/N: District Two's lucky volunteers are Ardin and Tyberios! Thank you, LokiThisIsMadness and Nemris, for this pair of amazing tributes! :)
Just a reminder, the Mentor poll is up. If you haven't voted yet, go ahead and do so. After a few more chapters I'll post a new poll about something or other that is related to this story xD
If you guys want to do charts ranking the tributes (Love, Like, Neutral, Dislike, Hate), that would be helpful so I can see your views on the tributes. You do not by any means have to do this, its just a suggestion. :)
Who did you like better, Ardin or Tyberios? Overall thoughts on this pair? Predicted placements? Thoughts on the writing?
Until Next Time,
Tracee