Many thanks to Ro-Lee and vampluver19 for reviewing!
Guest: I can't remember the last time I read Mortal Instruments, but I recall enough of the basic idea of the series that I might be able to manage a meeting scene based on it...
For Queen-Maggie-pevensie
Yu-Gi-Oh
"It's only a children's card game." That's what the Capitol newscasters all insist, tittering, whenever someone raises concerns about the gravity of the Hunger Games. "It's not like anyone dies playing it!"
No indeed, Ember thinks grimly. It only traumatizes its players and keeps them well-supplied with nightmares over twenty years later. Even the players, like her parents, who win. Or maybe especially the winners. After all, it's the winners who stay in the arena the longest, surrounded by mutts and traps and all sorts of horrors.
If there is such a thing as a national card game, then for Panem, that's the Hunger Games. Once, a long time ago, it truly was only a children's game: schoolchildren would have "duels" on the playground and swap the colorful cards, and the monsters only ever existed in ink and cardstock. Then, years ago, Coriolanus Snow came along, purchased the brand, and completely revamped it. His company invented holographic technology that could bring the cards to life—sight, scent, sound, and even touch in certain prototypes.
The popularity of the Hunger Games became astronomical, to the point that adults became addicted to it as well. And one day, when Ember's parents were teenagers, Snow Corporations began to host an annual Hunger Games tournament. Twenty-four children would compete, televised, in an arena to prove who was the best duelist, and the last one standing would gain untold fame and riches.
The problem? The game is too damn real.
"I thought I died," Maysilee once told Ember. "The Gamemakers like to spice things up when there's a lull and force us players to duel against them. So they activated Birds of Paradise, the monster card with the candy pink birds. Sometimes I can still feel them skewering my neck."
Haymitch has his own horrors to relive. "I was facing my last opponent, a girl from District 1. I was almost out of cards. I played a spell card, Force Field. It reacted with her trap card, and she became stuck in the middle of an inferno. And the thing about playing the Hunger Games in the arena versus outside of it is that in the arena, the Gamemakers can make you see, hear, smell, feel anything. To this day I get nauseous at the smell of barbecue."
"What happened to the girl?" Ember remembers her younger self asking her father. "Was she okay?"
"Physically, yes. But last I heard, she's permanently checked herself into a psych ward. Every so often she's convinced that she's being burned alive."
Despite their experiences, Haymitch and Maysilee have taught all their children how to play the Hunger Games. However much Snow bastardized it, they still fondly remembered the more innocent game of their childhoods, and they wanted to share that with Ember and her siblings. Of course, Snow Corporations holographic technology is banned from their house. But not the cards themselves.
Ember loves the game. She loves the strategy, she loves the artwork on the cards, she loves the history behind each card, she loves the thrill of competition. Like her older brother and sister, she's competed in all the local District 12 tournaments, and she recently won the district-wide Hunger Games contest. But she can never rise above that. District 12 is poor enough that it can't afford to frivolously spend money on Snow Corporations' technology, just to make a card game more exciting. But in the bigger tournaments, you can bet that they'll have holograms waiting.
And her parents have forbidden her from going anywhere near games or competitions where they'll have Snow's tech. On one hand, Ember understands their reasoning. Her parents have had their own traumatic experiences with it. And she knows that they deeply regret allowing her older brother, Ashton, to compete in the regional tournament when he was twelve. His victory caught Snow's attention, and somehow, Ashton ended up playing in that year's Hunger Games. Her brother won, but now he has his own demons with which to contend.
Their family tries not to talk about Rain's career choices too much. Ember's sister, Ash's twin, currently works in the R&D department at Snow Corporations.
But that doesn't stop Ember from wanting to prove herself. Yes, it's "only" a children's card game, but she knows she can play at a level beyond any of her competitors in Twelve.
The sand is warm beneath Ember's feet as she trots along the beach. She's visiting Ash, who moved to District 4 a few months ago, to be closer to his friends and to benefit from the restorative sea air. The Hunger Games is much more popular in Four than in Twelve, and Ember has already played several games with strangers in the few days she's been here. Nothing fancy, they just found an empty table or clean patch of ground where they could lay out their cards. Players in Four seem to favor maritime themed cards, which has required her to change her strategy. It's been great fun.
"What? No way, Glimmer, you totally cheated."
Ember's ear perks at the sound of the squabble. She looks over at a quartet huddled around a blanket on the sand, where a game has just concluded. "Sore loser," a blond girl retorts to the boy who accused her. "You can't stand that I always beat you, Marvel."
"You do not always beat me."
"She would've beaten you in the next two rounds anyway," a petite brunette snaps. "Now move, dumb-face. It's me and Cato's turn to play."
Cato?
Ember knows that name. He's a boy from Two who just won the Western Regionals, and he's a shoo-in to qualify for the upcoming Hunger Games. Seized by curiosity, Ember wanders over, just as the next game begins. Cato, she immediately notices, is an extremely attractive boy. Like his friends, he's dressed for the beach, swim trunks and a loose unbuttoned shirt that exposes his entire chest and abdomen. He easily trades barbs with the brunet girl, his opponent, but never loses that intent look of concentration and thought in his eyes. Ember's attention vacillates between the game and that intense expression.
The duel is close, but Cato wins. The girl—Clove—huffs but accepts her loss, a tad less sourly than Marvel did.
"You gonna play or not, Girl on Fire?"
Ember realizes Cato has turned his pale blue eyes toward her. Girl on Fire? Then she remembers that she's wearing a vibrant red, orange, and yellow cover-up that Annie Cresta thought was extremely flattering on her.
"Yeah, come play with us! The more the merrier," Marvel enthuses.
"Do you have a deck?" Glimmer asks.
"Always." Ember's deck rests in its protective case in her cover-up's pocket.
Clove sighs. "Well, come on over. Someone needs to take down Cato's ego a few notches. You think you're that person?"
Ember wanders over to them. "I might be. I'm Ember."
Cato raises his eyebrows. "Abernathy?"
"Er, yes. How'd you know?"
"You won the District 12 tournament. I keep track of these things. And you have a famous family." Cato looks at her searchingly. "Winning your district's tournament would have qualified you to compete in the Eastern Regionals. Why didn't you play?"
Ember definitely isn't about to blab about her familial drama to four strangers. "It's complicated."
"Were you afraid you'd lose?"
Her eyes flash at the blond boy, whose expression would be inscrutable were it not for the flicker of mischief and challenge in his eyes. "More like I was afraid of everyone's hurt feelings and tears when I won," she retorts. She sits down decisively across from him. "I hope your ego's wearing padding, because it's about to fall a long way down."
He smirks, and they clear the board for a new game.
I have a really huge soft spot for Yu-Gi-Oh, in case it wasn't obvious from that incomplete Yu-Gi-Oh fic that's been languishing on my account for the last few years. Queen-Maggie-pevensie gave me the perfect excuse to blend it and Hunger Games together. Thanks for that!
Again, if you have any ideas for meeting scenes, send them my way in a review!