#and Thena said I volunteer as tribute

[softquietsteadylove]

Hey i know you already make a Thenamesh hunger games au and i just can't keep my mind of it specially now, Can we ask for a part 2 of it maybe when they already in the battle field.

Ikaris was not invincible. None of them were. Thena said so herself.

Gil stared him down, his chest heaving from running through this bizarre fabrication of a tropical jungle. He needed fresh water - any water - and fast. And now he was facing down by far the deadliest tribute in here.

Well, maybe the second deadliest.

"Oi," Ikaris tipped his chin at him, "tadpole."

Gil almost rolled his eyes before he remembered his order to never take his eyes off the enemy. He gulped. Ikaris was not invincible. Ikaris had a terrible temper.

"You volunteered, right?--for your nerd brother," Ikaris grinned at him, completely menacing. He certainly had the handsomeness and charm of a Capitol trained career tribute. "Y'know my bitch companion volunteered for her brother, too. She's the reason I'm in here."

Ikaris had a terrible temper. He was easily baited. Gil gulped, "I-I thought you careers all wanted the chance to fight in the Games."

"Yeah but not 'cause blondie got me stuck here."

Thena was right, Ikaris would kill anyone, and she was top of his list.

Gil kept his weight on his feet light. He wasn't as agile as Thena, but he knew he was definitely stronger than Ikaris. Ikaris had showy muscles for a specific strength, but Gil was certain he could out strong-arm him. It was the murdering that Ikaris would have the upper hand in.

"I've seen 'er talk to you," Ikaris continued. "You know where she is?"

Gil's blood chilled. That was why Ikaris hadn't launched a spear right through his heart on sight. He was hunting for Thena - his biggest competition - first. "No."

"What'd she promise you?" Gil didn't like the smirk on his face. "A li'l, uh, fun, eh?"

Gil's stomach twisted.

"You help me find her," Ikaris fixed his cold blue eyes on him, "I'll let you make good on that promise."

"I know she'd launch herself out of the arena before she would let you touch her."

Ikaris had a terrible temper, and the effect was obvious and immediate. He snarled, baring his teeth.

Taunt him, tease him, anything necessary, Gil heard in Thena's voice. He glared at him more, "that what pisses you off the most? That Thena doesn't care for your Golden Boy act? That she's the only girl in the world who doesn't want a damn thing to do with you?!"

"Shut your filthy mouth, you loach!"

Gil gripped Ikaris' arms as he charged in at him. Thena was right about his technique being simple and sloppy, too. He used brute strength, but he didn't have skill like she had. Gil had sparred with her a few times during assessments; Ikaris was nothing in comparison. Heavier, but nothing.

In retrospect, it was probably Thena doing him a favor and letting him show off his strength, even then. She had a weird way of looking out for him, and he only hoped he would get to pay it back somehow.

Gil twisted Ikaris' arm around, wrenching his wrist the wrong way and stealing his spear for himself. This would help him fish if there was any water to be found at all in this hell.

"Coward!" Ikaris roared at him as he scrambled to pursue him, injured or not.

Gil kept running. He didn't want to kill anyone in here. Not even Ikaris.

"Get back here!"

Gil squeezed his eyes shut. Ikaris was faster than he was. He sprinted harder, but he had been running this whole time. He didn't have the stamina of someone who had trained for this their whole life.

"Open your eyes!"

Gil skidded to a stop, slipping slightly on the jungle floor. He twisted to look behind him, vines and leaves in his way. He saw a flash of gold, and Ikaris a few paces behind him. Then Ikaris had a knife in his shoulder. Two--three knives driven into Ikaris' already injured side threw him to the ground.

"Move!" Thena turned, screaming at him over the drum of blood in his ears. She reached out, gripping the shoulder of his sparkly uniform suit and dragging him with her. "Come on!"

Gil let her basically drag him with her. He looked at her hand. She had her knives, a blade of any kind being her signature weapon of choice.

"Gil!" she barked at him, pulling him behind a tree and shaking him. "Look at me!"

He blinked, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. He had been fighting Ikaris. But now he was looking at Thena, with her blonde hair in a tight braid, her pretty green eyes, her pale skin. He was in the jungle, with Thena.

"Gilgamesh," she shook him again. This was why Kingo told him that Thena had so much skill; she didn't have the personality for tribute gifts. She was beautiful, though. "Gilgamesh, look at me and listen."

"I am listening."

"Where are you?"

"The Capitol," he repeated dumbly, just staring at her. But the edges of his vision were coming back, slowly. "The Games--the dome."

"Where is your home?"

"District 4." Home, in his little shack he shared with Phastos, Dad buried on the island and barely scraping by, just the two of them.

"Who are you here for?"

"My brother." Phastos wasn't a Fighter. He was a Thinker--he was gentle hearted, and kind, and he wouldn't have survived in here. Phastos had someone who loved him. Phastos had found love, somehow, in a world like this--a love that was already hard enough. "I'm here for my brother."

"Good." She nodded sharply, slapping him on the arm. She had a sparkly jumpsuit on too, but hers looked better than the rest, Gil thought. She gripped the two - mismatched - knives in her hands. "Let's go."

"Thena," he blinked.

"Here." She said it softer, pulling out a tiny canister from the side pocket on her leg. "It's not much, but there was some rain dripping off the tip of the cornucopia."

Gil gulped down what little water it was. She was right it wasn't much, but by all the districts it was more than he'd had, and he needed it.

"We have to keep moving."

Gil swiped at his chin and licked his lips, eager for every little drop. He looked at Thena's back as she started walking ahead of him, head twitching every which way to keep a lookout for them. "Please tell me you had some of that too."

Thena didn't even look over her shoulder at him. "Have you found any food?"

That was a no. Gil huffed, gripping the spear he had gotten from Ikaris. "I was looking for water. Even if there are weeds at the bottom, I can make us something edible."

That did get her attention. She nodded, saving her words and moving along.

"You're here for Druig," Gil said, and finally got to see some sort of human reaction from her. "That's what you keep telling yourself, right?"

Thena pushed some foliage out of their way, seeming to head in a very determined direction. "Might help keep you sane."

Gil understood that well. He cleared his throat, making sure not to trip on any roots or get caught on any vines. "Phastos...he's really nice. He's funny, too. He's not that strong a swimmer, but he, uh, he like--he invents stuff? Like h-he made a contraption that helps us get the nets in faster. Like an engine that makes the arm on the boat into a fishing rod reel."

Thena paused, holding a leaf up for him to follow. She was smiling. "He sounds like a good kid, Gil."

He smiled at her too, holding up the leaf for himself. She was shorter now that he was closer to her. "What's your brother like?"

Thena waited, really seeming like she was debating answering him at all. But she sliced through a vine in front of them and sighed. "Druig is four years younger than me. He shouldn't have been in the draw to begin with, he was just born early."

He was born early, and already as young as he could be to be in the draw--no wonder she had volunteered for him without hesitation.

"We have no one else," she said more quietly, looking around again. "I made Ajak promise me that if I died, that she would make sure he was taken care of."

"I'm sure he will be," Gil said quickly. They were pretty hollow words. But he meant them all the same. She looked at him just the way he would expect, too. But he smiled, "if he's as smart as you say he is, right?"

That seemed to surprise her. She smiled again, that pretty one that made her a crowd favourite. She smiled with her teeth; he thought it was cute. "Smarter."

[waltzshouldbewriting]

The Reaping

Tagging: @ratracechronicler , @maple-writes , @nightskywriter , @rhikasa , @pen-of-roses , @aeslin-writes , @the-moving-finger-writes , @concealeddarkness13 , @makeitmonstrous , and @timefirewrites

Tia splashed her face with water one last time, for good luck, and headed out to the town square.

Things that started on the hour were said to be cursed, so of course the reapings started at one o’clock sharp. It was ten till, and nearly everyone had filled in.

Hads and his coworkers all gave Tia an encouraging wave as they stood off to the side. Tia could spot her other two brothers - Sei, standing with his wife and toddler, and Zu, who was on the outskirts - within the crowd.

Tia filed in at the back of her age group - seventeen year olds - and played with the ends of her lucky scarf. She needed all the luck she could get.

.

Somewhere else in the crowd, Poli and Art were standing side by side. Despite being nearly identical gene-wise, they barely looked alike - Art was wearing work clothes, and Poli the flashy clothes he could find in District 9.

Art didn’t believe in luck, but she still brought the broken half-arrow she called lucky, stuffed in her boot. Poli had a bracelet made from wire around his wrist, hopefully soaked with luck.

The reapings began, and Poli took Art’s hand for support.

Up on stage was the escort, who looked very much like an escort. Behind the escort were the two victors of District 9, including Art and Poli’s half brother, Res.

And Res was grinning evilly, as he tended to do.

Next to him was Thena, who looked stone-faced and immovable.

The video played, and no one payed attention.

Then, the escort pulled a slip from the bowl and spoke a familiar name.

Poli and Art both stood shocked as their aunt Tia slowly crept towards stage. She was shell-shocked, barely moving.

No volunteers.

The escort pulled another name from the bow and grinned.

“Looks like this will be a Family affair.”

No.

Poli’s hand tightened around Art’s when he heard his name get called.

No, no, no.

“Don’t be shy!” The escort called. “Come on up!”

Don’t be shy.

Poli wasn’t shy. The prospect of him being shy was enough to shake him out of his shock.

“I volunteer!” Art called, stepping in front of him.

The escort tsked. “Girls are not allowed to volunteer in place of male tributes. But there is still a place in the games waiting for you! Why don’t you both come up, hm?”

Art went wide-eyed, and frantically shook her head, but by that point the peacekeepers were already upon them.

They forced Poli and Art up onto the stage, where Tia grimaced at them.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, our three tributes!”

[softquietsteadylove]

I'm rewatching The Hungergames right now and thought it must be possible to imagine Thenamesh in this kind of situation.

"You can't hide in here forever."

Gil nearly yelped, but he couldn't help it. He had been all but trembling since they got on the transports, and now things were really setting in. They were really here, they were really going to be competing with each other - to the death - in a matter of weeks.

He really had volunteered to go in Phastos' place.

Her name was Thena, he remembered from their briefings. She was from District 2, and a favourite to win the whole damn thing. She was smart, she was strong, she was trained in blades and deadly from head to toe. And she was really pretty.

"Well?"

"S-Sorry," Gil murmured, creeping out from the solace he'd found in the equipment room. Everyone else was in the training room already, showing themselves off (or just trying not to look like a walking target).

"Don't apologise," she said immediately, crossing her arms at him. "Your decisions are your own from here on out. You have to be prepared to live with the consequences of every one of them."

"Right," he murmured, not entirely sure how to talk to the career driven girl. He fidgeted with his hands in front of him.

She paused, though, tilting her head at him. Her hair slipped over her shoulder. His eyes followed it. "You volunteered to compete in place of your brother."

Yes, he had famously volunteered as tribute, the first example of it in years, supposedly. They were from District 4, not the worst off, but not the best either. They had grown up swimming and fishing, but Phastos was a nervous kind of kid. He was better at inventing contraptions than wrestling with his fellow man.

Gil had heard his brother's name called, looked over and seen Phastos crying on Ben's shoulder, and ran forward.

"I admire you for it."

Well, he hadn't been expecting that. He looked up at her, finding a rare smile on her face. It was so beautiful it made her seem almost human. "Uh, thanks?"

She dropped her arms and her rigid stance all together. More and more she looked like a girl close to his age--a girl he could have known were it not for this shit show. "I volunteered for my brother."

Oh! He didn't even know that was allowed.

"Druig is smart, but he isn't strong," she admitted quietly, looking down at her feet. "He isn't a Fighter. But I am."

He knew that. Everyone around them knew it--Kingo had even told him that bets were passing hands in her favour. "What about the other guy?"

"Ikaris," she muttered, looking up at him again. "He's a Fighter, and I suppose I can't blame him for being angry with me. Because I volunteered, they had to re-raffle the boys' names."

Yeah, that was a pretty good reason.

"Be careful," she advised, "around him. I mean it--I may be at the top of his list, but Ikaris is vicious. I think he's the only one here more capable of a kill shot than I am."

Gil winced. He wasn't sure he wanted to see that. He wasn't going to be able to keep his promise to Phastos at all.

Thena stepped closer to him, though. "But he's not invincible--none of us are."

She seemed almost excited by that.

"Ikaris has a terrible temper," she continued telling him lethal information on her temporary teammate. "He's easily baited. And his form and technique aren't really that good, he's just strong. If you find yourself in range of him, play dirty."

Gil almost scoffed but Thena stepped in closer again. His jaw clapped shut, his cheeks flushing as he caught the scent of fancy shampoo off her hair.

"I mean it, Gil," she pressed, and he barely had to time to ask how she knew his name. "Taunt him, tease him, do anything necessary to make him lose his cool. It could end up saving your life if I'm not there."

"If you're not-"

"And stop cowering during the training sessions!" She was back to ordering him. She stepped back though, placing her hands on her hips. "I know how strong you are. You thought no one was looking but I've seen you re-rack the training weights like they're scraps of paper."

Yeah, it was from a lifetime of hauling fishnets onto the boats. It was a core workout if ever there was one.

"We might have to play their game, but I refuse to believe that our only allies are ourselves," she stated outright, gripping her fists as if she had her signature dual blades in her hands. "My advisor is sweet--maybe a little too sweet for all of this. But Ajak knows how the games work, how to get sponsors and how to poll well so people want to keep you around."

Well, that was easy for her to say, Gil couldn't help thinking. She was cool, beautiful, had that kind of unattainable don't-talk-to-me charm that could drive guys nuts. Of course she would be popular with the audience!

"I've got my eye on you, Gilgamesh," she concluded, stepping towards the door again. She looked at him over her shoulder. "Just...remember what I said when you're out there."

He didn't know if she meant in the training room or once they were really out there in the field. But he nodded, newly convinced that yeah--maybe he could make it through this. Just maybe.