Northern Water Tribe

The klaxon rang throughout the icy plains, loud enough to make the tea cups in front of Sehun shake. Concernedly, he looked at his grandmother, old and frail. She seemed undeterred by the sound, even though it made him grind his teeth in annoyance. It must be the decades of constantly hearing such a noise that made her desensitized to it.

As it ended, he decided to get up out of obligation to his nation. His grandmother looked up at him then, eyes glazed but wise beyond what he could comprehend, her silvery hair and the lines on her face a testament to all the hardships she had to go through to be able to raise him for two-and-a-bit decades.

“I’ll be going now,” he bid, pausing at the tent’s flap.

“Will you be back for tea?” she asked quietly, despite knowing that there was still a chance that he won’t.

“Of course,” he answered with conviction, careful not to seem as afraid as he actually was, so that he won’t infect his grandmother with this…irrational fear.

It was his last year to be able to participate in the Games. Next year, all he’d have to worry about would be maintaining his job as a fisherman.

Surely, this year…he won’t get picked.

 

Southern Water Tribe

“They’re here,” Krystal murmured as she looked up at the sound of the bell tolling at the tribe walls. “How annoying.”

“Come on,” her friend urged, dragging her along by the wrist.

“Ah~ It’s such a pain,” she complained as she ran through the streets towards Central Square. Already, teenagers and adults in their late 20s flocked into the area according to their age. Just three years ago, she was in the front row. Now, she was near the back, almost at her last year of being eligible for the Games.

People in white overcoats called ‘Peacekeepers’ – stupid people from the Main Nation of Panem who come each year – still weren’t wearing enough layers of clothing to stop themselves from visibly shivering every two seconds. Even though it wasn’t cold here as it was in the Northern Tribe, they were at the other end of the world, so the temperatures were still below zero.

She wondered if their electric batons also gave them heat; that would make more sense. She wouldn’t ever know, though, because their faces were covered in helmets that seemed to make them imposing but only made them seem like try-hard comic book superheroes.

“Eh? Even if you do get picked, you’ll probably win! You’re the best bender in our age group, just like your big sister is in hers!”

She pouted at that and crossed her arms as she fell in line. She hated being compared to her sister. Just because she was better in…well…everything… “Yeah, well, that’s obviously not good enough, is it?”

 

Eastern Air Temple

The shift in the air was enough for the inhabitants of the temple to be alerted of the representatives of Panem. With those huge contraptions they called ‘air ships’, it was impossible for air benders to not detect them. They could’ve at least used the train station at the bottom of the mountain.

Calmly, the benders used their unique mode of transportation to order themselves into neat lines in the City Circle. Some conversations were struck while the representatives and the Peacekeepers got ready for the annual announcement and picking of the unlucky tributes for the year from the lot of fifteen to twenty-three year-olds in the gathering group.

Tao stayed silent as his friends bragged about their new achievements in bending school.

He never had to go there; he’d been trained by the master of air bending of the century because of his inborn prowess, and so never had the chance to join the others. He even struck out on his own for a while a few years back (much to his master’s disappointment), but he came back nevertheless out of being homesick.

The guys have tried to make friends with him due to his reputation as the most rebellious air bender in history and, since they bothered, he figured he should try as well.

As the group settled, the air became heavy with tension – they all knew who arrived.

In front, bound head-to-toe in chains, covered in a metal sheet, stood the notorious Song Qian.

If Tao was the most rebellious, Song Qian was the most dangerous.

Hand-picked by the master two years before him, Song Qian used her knowledge to lash out at the Fire Nation for killing her half sister, Park Sunyoung, during the initial wars before peace and the Bending Games were instated. She killed a hundred soldiers – including two generals – before she was detained.

It was only because of the Air Nation’s unmatched persuasive skills that Song Qian narrowly missed her death sentence – it was in exchange for a thirty-year imprisonment at the Eastern Air Temple…inside the mountain. It was the most well-guarded prison in the east, being surrounded by sixty feet of rock from above and below, and thirty feet on both sides. She was also covered with bindings to make sure that she won’t be able to use her bending to escape, and they had to bring her to the Tribute ceremony via careful air bending.

To be fully honest, Tao wouldn’t even want her to be unleashed in the Games, even if they were in the same team.

 

Ba Sing Se

Kai smiled widely at his master at the sound of the alarm. “So can I go now?”

His master – and older brother – looked at him with a raised brow, evidently amused. “It’s not like I can stop you.”

He raced out of the arena before his brother could let out another breath.

He told Choi Jinri that he would pick her up today so that she wouldn’t be too scared.

No matter how much she’d been training with him in secret to get to his level (despite the fact that she didn’t even need to, since she probably surpassed him in natural skill) of earth bending, she was still quite scared every year for the past three years she’d been eligible for the Games.

He kept reminding her that she was the one who discovered and taught him the basics of metal bending. In fact, he’s not quite as good as her when it really came down to it – she discovered the art after finding a piece of metal stuck in her father’s leg when he came back from his farming duties. There was no medical help available at the time, and since she was learning medicine, she tried taking the metal out by herself without touching the wound.

Even though she succeeded in taking the metal out, her father still died of infection. Maybe that’s why she thought she would rather learn about medicine than hone her skills in bending.

Either way, he would still carry memories of her wiping his without even trying when they were children. He’d been taking the glory ever since she stopped, and people soon forgot about her and instead hailed Kai as the ‘Hundred Generation Prodigy’, but she never seemed to have minded him taking the title that should’ve been hers.

He clenched his fists and kept running.

If she ever entered the Games, he knew that she wouldn’t hesitate. She was around enough bloodshed in the clinic where she studied medicine, and he surmised that if she was pushed hard enough, she’d push even harder.

But, as he approached her and noticed her uneasy expression, he knew one thing for sure: she wouldn’t want to be in the Games in the first place.

 

Ember Island

“Is that really it?” Yixing asked his twin sister. “Yiyun…have we done it?”

“Why are you asking your sister while your mentors are still here, eh?” Lo asked, cocking a silvery eyebrow at the pair.

“It’s not ‘Yiyun’,” the tomboy berated, smacking his sore arm playfully. Despite it, Yixing did not flinch; years and years of living with her made him accustomed to such (unintentional) torture. “It’s ‘Amber’! My name is Am-ber!”

“Hush, you two! The alarm is ringing…you must go!” Li said, grabbing them both by the scruff of their sweaty uniforms and practically kicking them out of the ground their humble abode.

“Hey, hey, shouldn’t you be more gentle?” Yixing bemoans, even though he knew it would do no good. “I am the Prince, you know!”

“Shut up, Yixing!” Amber told him as they simultaneously tripped on their own feet when Li let go. She huffed and took off her shirt, revealing semi-tan skin glistening with sweat, her chest hidden beneath two layers of bindings. “Let’s just go, okay? Even if we’re royalty, we’re not exempt to being Tributes.”

He was unruffled at the sight – she was his sister, after all, and they’ve both seen more of each other than they’d care to admit. He took off his own top and almost sighed at the cool wind that brushed his bare skin.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he told her, waving her off.

Tiredly, they headed towards the Main Square.

He wondered what would happen if they did get picked after five years of being eligible.

Yiyun would definitely beat everyone’s with her lightning bending – something that only she has managed to master – and her unique blue fire bending. Yixing, despite being older than her by a few seconds, knew that he was only inferior to her because of this. They had the same style of bending, and if they ever had to fight against each other, neither would win – they knew each other too well.

If they ever had to do that, Yixing would definitely sacrifice himself for his sister.

But it wasn’t like they would get picked this year…right?