A/N: We did it everyone, finally through the intros!

That being said, very big trigger warning for this chapter. This is probably one of the darkest intros I have written.


Chapter 11:

Iroha Kinoshita, 18, District Six

Six Months Before The Reaping

Iroha sits completely still on the cool ceramic seat, shoulders rigid as she stares down at her watch, counting the seconds as they tick by. Five minutes. Five fucking minutes she has to wait. She can't bring herself to do anything else in the time while she waits to find out what is going to happen to her, yet waiting is excruciating. Five minutes to wait and contemplate the results for the test that took her two weeks of extra work doing miscellaneous tasks for the Maxwells, just so she could have the confirmation now instead of waiting another month.

She doesn't know if she can wait another month…she needs the time to figure out what she's going to do if the result turns out the way she thinks it will…

Four minutes.

"Fuck me," Iroha mutters under her breath, thankful that Noah is in the other room, very preoccupied with his toys and unable to hear her say that word. She can only imagine what Kayden would do to him – and her – if he heard Noah repeating that word…

"I can't do this," Iroha says as she stands up, starting to pace the small bathroom, taking only two steps before having to turn around and go the other way, all the while keeping her eyes glued to her watch. What is she going to do if that test turns out positive?

God, she knew that this was going to happen. It was only a matter of time until it happened again, yet she didn't get them out of here before Kayden could have another thing he holds over her. How is she supposed to leave and support not just Noah, but possibly another kid?

Iroha spares a glance down at the test sitting on the counter, taunting her with the ability to ruin her life further, before bringing her focus back to the watch. "Two more minutes, you can do this Iroha," she mutters to herself, even as she shakes her head and isn't sure she believes that. She knows what the result is going to say. Her period is late for two months. If she shuts her eyes, she can still feel his disgusting warm breath on her neck, feel his weight pressing down on her as he forced himself on her, night after night for the last few months. If she were to roll up her sleeves, she'd find hand shaped bruises on her arms from where he'd pin her down, trap her beneath him. No doubt there's other bruises on her from him, but she learned years ago not to look too closely at her body. It only makes her feel more trapped than she already is.

It all started when she turned eighteen…Kayden claimed it was a birthday gift for her, but Iroha knows better. She knows Kayden has never done anything nice for her for the sake of being nice and there's always a reason behind it. She was trapped with him when he first brought her in to live with him, kicked out by her parents for what he did to her. When Noah was born…she didn't have any way to pay to keep him alive. She was just fifteen…still practically a child herself. But Kayden, he was an adult with a job. He could keep them alive.

Until Iroha was old enough to support them on her own.

She was nearly there…carefully saving up her money and hiding it from Kayden who always comes home too angry before drinking away the night to search through her belongings. But she must not have been carefully enough… The damn bastard must have known she was trying to leave him and wouldn't be able to afford to leave if she had another child.

Finally the five minutes pass, yet Iroha hesitates to look at the pregnancy test, afraid of what it will tell her… Suddenly she's feeling fifteen again, like that naïve girl that fell for Kayden's honeyed words and believed he cared about her. But she is not that girl. She is a grown ass woman who knows how to survive. She's survived this far with Kayden, she will survive whatever the results of this are. And she will figure out a way to get out of here, with either just Noah or both kids. Kayden will not own her if the results of this test are positive, no matter what he thinks.

Iroha bites her lip as she stops her pacing, staring down the stupid little piece of plastic. "It's just an object, it's not going to hurt you," she reassures herself before finally reaching towards it, scolding herself internally when her hand shakes. The test spells it out clearly to her, even adding a little smiley face just to taunt her with the fact that she's pregnant at the hands of an abusive monster.

Positive.

Iroha lets out a heavy sigh as she slowly sits down on the bathroom floor, not trusting her legs right now. This…is her worst nightmare coming to life. She's done so much to try to stop Kayden from having control of her, to keep him from trapping her here. Yet he did it.

Immediately her mind starts turning, planning out how she is going to get out of this. She'll fight tooth and nail to get both of her children out of this shithole. Kayden already treats Noah horribly, she won't let him do that to another child of hers. Hers. Not theirs, and especially not his. This is her baby and she would give her life to keep them safe.

She tries to remember back to when she had Noah – memories she likes to avoid most of the time. She's probably somewhere between one to two months along. Iroha pulls up her shirt, staring down at the flat belly, trying to control it from growing. If she can just hide this from Kayden, she can by some time to get out of here before he knows. She has…maybe two to three months before she can't hide it any longer. Thank God it's winter and she has the excuse of baggy sweater. By time it's warm out, she'll be long gone from Kayden.

"Where's your mother?"

Iroha quickly looks up at the sound of Kayden's muffled voice, not expecting him to be home yet. "Fuck," she mutters under her breath as she picks up the pregnancy test, trying to find somewhere to put it until she can get rid of it, somewhere he won't find it. She cannot let him find out. But as his footsteps approach the bathroom door, Iroha quickly tucks it into the back waistband of her pants and pulls down her sweater over it just as she hears Kayden stop in front of the bathroom door.

"Iroha?" Kayden asks, his tone immediately telling her that his mad at her for who knows what reason, or maybe even for no reason.

Iroha takes a moment to compose herself, putting on the mask she wears around him, before opening up the bathroom door. "Hi babe."

"Is everything alright?" Kayden asks, his eyes filled with a moment of false concern for her, but Iroha learned the truth long ago about him. She's not the young girl who falls for that anymore.

"Yes, I'm fine, please don't worry about me" Iroha tells him quickly, putting on her best smile as she avoids meeting his gaze for too long at a time. "Just last night's dinner not agreeing with my stomach."

"It better be just that and not something you'll give me," Kayden tells her as he steps into the bathroom, closer to her and making her instinctively take a step back from him. But Kayden quickly reaches out to her, putting his arms around her waist. "You know I can't take off time from work, not when I have to support you and - what's this?" Kayden asks as his hands freeze up on her back and Iroha curses inside her head, knowing he found the test. Fuck, she didn't hide it well enough and now he's going to know…and she has to do damage control to stop him from getting angry about her hiding it.

"I was planning on surprising you about it," Iroha quickly lies as Kayden pulls the pregnancy test out from where it's tucked into the waistband of her pants, afraid of him growing angry at her keeping it from him. Kayden starts to stare down at the results and Iroha quickly continues, "I was going to surprise you and Noah at dinner time with the news that he's going to be a big brother. But then you walked in early before I had time to even plan the surprise!"

Iroha silently urges Kayden to accept this excuse, fearing what he'll do if he thinks that she was keeping it from her. Hell, even if he believes her, he'll still probably lash out at her in some way. "You're pregnant?" Kayden asks slowly and Iroha obediently nods her head, knowing it's the response he'll expect.

"I am," Iroha confirms and inside she's screaming at herself for having to tell him this information. Fuck, she was supposed to keep this a secret until she was long gone from here.

"Good," Kayden answers her, sending a chill down her spine. She knew it. She damn well knew it that he was trying to keep her with him by bringing another child into it. "You better give me another boy."

"That part is up to you," Iroha says with a small laugh, trying to joke herself out of the situation. But she can see right away that he doesn't appreciate the joking, so she puts her hand on her stomach, "I can feel it, it's a boy."

It's complete bullshit, but then again, most of what she tells him is bullshit. Bullshit he usually believes.

"I should have known this. I could see a glow about you," Kayden tells her as he picks up a bit of her hair, running it through his fingers gently before suddenly grabbing onto her hair and pulling her head back, forcing her to look up at him. Iroha bites her lip, stopping herself from crying out at the pain, but the lack of response from her seems to just further fuel him, making him tug on her hair harder and strain her neck. He leans in closer to her and she wants to cringe away from his hot breath on her cheek, but she stays still, keeping up the image of his perfect submissive partner. "Our children deserve to have united parents. We'll get married and you'll raise my children."

"B-but what about the Reaping?" Iroha asks, scrambling for any sort of reason to prolong the wedding, terrified of being legally bound to him. If that happens…he'll get the children taken away from her, she just knows it. "I know the odds are low – thanks to you supporting me and keeping me from taking tesserae… But it's not impossible. I just…" Iroha lets out a dramatic sigh, even willing her eyes to start watering a bit. "I just don't want you to lose your wife in case the worse happens to me."

Kayden thinks about this for a long minute, still holding Iroha in place by her hair, and she stays absolutely still…waiting and waiting, silently hoping he won't realize that Noah would be his for sure if they were to get married and the worst happened and she was reaped. Maybe she should take out tesserae to increase her odds of being picked if she can't get out, anything to get away from him. Finally, Kayden nods his head and the tension in Iroha's shoulders relax, but not for very long. "Fine, I can wait until after the Reaping. We'll go the next day to the Justice Building and get married. Iroha Ward, sounds much better than Iroha Kinoshita."

Kayden leans down to give her a kiss on the cheek and Iroha feels nothing but disgust inside at his touch, taking that small moment to let her anger show on her face. When he pulls back, she's all smiles, his ever submissive partner. "It sure does, babe. Now how about I get started on dinner? I just need to wash up for a moment."

"Don't take too long, I'm starving," Kayden tells her, giving one last pull on her hair to remind her of what he'll do if she takes too long. And she won't…if she's in the bathroom too long, he'll lash out at Noah instead, and she'll take any abuse from Kayden to keep Noah from it.

Iroha gives him a pleasant smile before he lets go of her and steps out of the bathroom, leaving the door open. She gently shuts it and leans her head against the door for a moment, taking a few shaking breaths as she tries to put herself together. Getting trapped here by being Kayden's wife…that's her worst nightmare, worse than the fear of the Games that every District child has.

Six months to get out of this hell hole while Kayden will be doing everything to stop her from leaving him with the children…

Fuck.


Belinda 'Bee' Morvay-Maxwell, Escort for District Six

Bee had thought they were well into retirement, but, well…when asked to come back to be an escort, they couldn't exactly say no. There was no other District for them than District Six with the people they consider their second family. And their little girl is all grown up now and they can handle being away from her for a few weeks at a time. She's so grown up now that her best friend is even part of the escorting team – with a little bit of help from Bee writing a letter of recommendation. Bee hopes everything went well for Iris, but they just didn't have enough time to call her since her Reaping is right before Bee's.

Despite the familiarity of it all, Bee still gets a little bit of nervousness as they head out onto the stage, making their hiccups flare up. They try to keep it covered up, not wanting Sonja and Mari to worry about them, but one slips out right when they stop at the microphone, sounding throughout the District. "Excuse me," Bee says quickly, feeling their cheeks heating up a little in embarrassment. Why are they nervous? They've done this for so many years! "Hello, District Si – hiccup – Six! District Six! Hello District Six, good to be…back…here…" Bee trails off with another hiccup, realizing they are just starting to ramble to cover up the unexpected nervousness.

Bee takes a glance back at the victors, finding Dampero subtly giving them a thumbs up of encouragement, so Bee takes a deep breath – followed by another hiccup – and adjusts the new jacket that Dampero gifted them, a weird tradition they have. But tradition brings comfort to them, letting them get back into the Reaping. "Right, well, I am Bee Morvay-Maxwell, back in District Six and it is time to pick some names."

Bee makes their way to the first glass ball of names, a little skip in their step but not too much, knowing even in flats they can be a bit clumsy. Bee looks over all the slips in the bowl for a moment, trying to get some sort of feeling about who to pick, before finally reaching in and choosing. They make their way back slower, feeling the weight of what they're about to do, more than when they were young, before they had a child born in the Districts. "Alright, the first name is Iroha Kinoshita."

Bee waits on the stage for the girl to step out from the crowd, and they can't control their gasp of surprise when they see the girl who leaves the front section. Iroha wears a loose fitting blue dress and sweatpants under it, but it doesn't do anything to hide her bulging belly. Bee covers their mouth with their hand, trying to hide any reaction they're feeling at the sight of the expectant mother, knowing too well what it is like to be a parent. Iroha does her best to put on a smile as she takes the stage, barely meeting Bee's eyes, but her nervousness shines through.

Bee begins frowning when Iroha stops next to them, taking a glance back at the victors to try and figure out what they should do. But the looks of concern on their faces do nothing to help them, so they clear their throat as they face the crowd again. "Are there any…volunteers for Iroha?"

Bee waits and waits, hoping someone will be brave enough to step forward to take the place of the expecting mother, yet no one does. Bee puts a hand on her shoulder, but quickly removes it when Iroha flinches away at their touch. "We'll get you through this."

Iroha doesn't look too convinced by this and Bee distracts themself from her by going to pick the second name. They can only hope the second tribute won't cause such a terrible pit to form in their stomach like Iroha did…

"And the second tribute is…Dresden Kahlo," Bee tells the crowd softly, wanting to be off the stage already. The boy steps out from the seventeen year old group, very stoic as he keeps his shoulders back and makes his way up to the stage, standing out from the different clothing he wears – different in both style and obvious wealth. He takes the stage without saying anything to Bee or Iroha, his gaze out of focus and clearly deep in his thoughts, so Bee turns to face the crowd instead, "And are there any volunteers for Dresden?"

As is typical in Six, no one volunteers for Dresden. Bee takes a look at their two tributes, slowly starting to feel overwhelmed at the task that is ahead of them, and also a worried mess at the idea of an expecting parent being one of their tributes. "Very well, District Six…your tributes are Iroha Kinoshita and Dresden Kahlo."

As Bee gestures the tributes towards the building, Dampero gets up and makes his way over to them, dropping his voice into a whisper to not be overheard by the tributes. "We need to do everything to help her and that child," he tells them and Bee notices Iroha's pace slowing as she barely turns her head to listen to them.

Bee nods their head, glad to see they're on the same page like usual, but feeling as if he might have other reasons for his concern. After all, he's not a parent like Bee… "I agree…more than you know."


WE'RE FINALLY DONE WITH INTROS! Finally! Very big thank yous to 66samvr, House Elf Liberation Front, and CelticGames4 for patiently waiting this long to see Iroha, Dresden, and Bee respectively! Seriously, thank you for being patient with me as I slowly got through all of the intros, I greatly appreciate it!

I've been so excited to get through the intros so we can get to the fun stuff in the pre-Games and start seeing this group of tributes interact with each other! Especially since at the time of writing this A/N, I have written through the private sessions and so I have quite a few interactions and alliances written out already. But I would still like to hear who you are hoping interacts! Who knows, perhaps it will influence so arena events/run ins.

RQ #11: Which of the featured tributes is your favorite based on the intros? (It's okay to say your own, just say at least one other that isn't yours lol XD)

Also right now the SYOT Alliance forum is hosting Aprilooza, a fun daily event for the month of April to build up the community! I hope you check it out and join in :)

Alright I will see you in a week with the Reaping Recap chapter! It should be a good refresher of all of the tributes while also revealing some additional information about them!