My eyelids flicker, filtering in the soft light of dawn. I roll over, wanting to stay in the hazy warmth of sleep, but it’s too late.
I sit up slowly, my wavy, oak-leaf green hair falling against my cheek.
A feeling of dread washes over me, and it takes me a second to remember why.
Today is the reaping.
The seventy-fourth Teyvat Hunger Games will begin in exactly three weeks, once the tributes have been chosen.
The games started almost exactly seventy-four years ago, after the Great War was won by Snezhnaya, and they decided to remind the districts who was in control.
There are six regions, and they are all divided into two districts. Eastern and Western Monstadt, Northern and Southern Liyue, Narukami Island, Kannzaku, and Yashiori Island, Watatsumi Island, Seirai Island and Tsurumi Island, Eastern Sumeru, Desert Sumeru, Northern and Southern Fontaine, and Eastern and Western Natlan.
Each year, two tributes are chosen from each district, one male and one female.
They then fight to the death in the Teyvat Hunger Games.
Last year, a girl from Gandharva Ville was chosen. Her name was Nasrin, and I guess I saw her around sometimes. She died in that year’s games when a tribute from District Nine stabbed her with a tree branch.
There was a lot of blood and screaming, and later that day Nasrin’s brother nearly committed suicide. It just goes to show how horrible the Games really are.
Anyway, this year I just have to hope it’s no-one I know.
Or myself.
I am usually more optimistic than this, I promise.
“Collei?”
“Coming!”
I walk out of my bedroom, stretching. Tighnari sits at the table in the kitchen, scribbling something on a piece of paper.
“Get dressed, Collei. We have to go to the- the reaping soon.”
Tighnari’s voice hitches slightly on the word ‘reaping’. He’s lost a fair share of people he knows to the games.
I shudder to think of the day when all the small, sweet children who crowd around me and my sewing will be eligible to participate. Most of them are nine or ten, and still have a few years to go until their names are put into the reaping bowl.
I open the cupboard door for some breakfast, and wince. Our rations for this week have nearly run out.
The districts have different ways of sharing out the little food we have. Sumeru tends to trade for it, catching whatever we can in the rainforests and hoping we can trade it for something good. Tighnari is adamant I won’t sign up for Tesserae, when they give you bags of grain in exchange for putting your names extra times in the reaping bowl.
This is Tighnari’s last year of eligibility, though. Once he’s unable to get Tessarae, he’ll have no choice but to let me get it instead. I haven’t told him yet, because I know how he’ll react. Still, what other choice do we have?
Tighnari won’t tell me how many times his name is in the bowl, but I suspect it’s around forty-six.
I have to tell myself forty-six is a low number compared to thousands of other names, but I still scare myself to death worrying when the male tribute’s name is called.
If Tighnari went into the Hunger Games, I’d be alone. He’s the closest thing I have to family, after I was abandoned outside Gandarva Ville, about two weeks after I was born. He found me and asked his parents if they could keep me, and when they both died a few years later, during one of the many disease epidemics, he was old enough to fend for himself.
Now he’s all I have left.
“Tighnari?” I say. “We’ve… the rations…” The tone of my voice says the rest. “I’ll have to… when you collect your last Tesserae, I’ll sign up.”
He’s on his feet in a flash, whatever he was writing forgotten. “What? No.”
I wince. I knew he would react like this.
“We don’t have any other choice. There isn’t enough food for the both of us, even with the Tesserae.”
“Collei…” he pauses, and I can see the unhappiness and indecision on his face. “I’ll… think about it.”
I let the subject drop. I know ‘I’ll think about it’ means he’ll put it off until he’s forced to make a decision, but what else can I do?
I fiddle with the green dendro Vision hanging on my belt. For years, Visions were outlawed by Snezhnaya, but eventually there were just too many district citizens getting them, and they had to lift the ban. It’s illegal to train with a vision, but I do it in secret in the forest, when no-one's around. People sometimes have Visions in the games, and it usually gets especially gorey and ‘exciting’ when they do. Tighnari has a Vision as well, and so do a couple of other people I know.
I go back to my room, pulling on clothes. We live in a four-roomed house on the edge of Gandarva Ville, so decrypting that no-one bothers to charge us rent.
I grab my bow and arrow from the case under the bed. We have an hour or two before we have to begin the long trek to Sumeru city, where they do the reaping.
I’ll go and check the traps I set in the forest, see if I can get anything for breakfast. We’re not allowed to, but since the only people who are actually allowed in the forest are the forest watchers, no-one notices. Besides, Tighnari is a forest watcher, so he’d be able to bail us out of trouble.
I walk back to the kitchen. “Going to check the traps.” Tighnari nods, still focused on whatever he’s writing.
I open the door and close it behind me, once again grateful we have a lock. This is still one of the only houses no-one bothers to rent that also has a lock built into the door.
I walk down the path of wooden planks, towards the ground. Most of Gandarva Ville is built around a huge tree, and the rest of it spreads out beneath me.
I stare at the view for a second, wondering whether today will be the last day someone ever gets to see it.
“Wait- Collei!”
I turn, surprised. Tighnari is standing at the door to our house, waving frantically. A man with brown hair and light skin stands beside him.
“Kamran’s travelling from Caravan Ribat, and he said that the path is blocked near Pardis Dhyai. We’ll have to take a detour, so we need to go now.”
I jog back to our house, cursing whatever caused this detour. I was looking to have at least a few more hours of freedom, but that’ll have to wait until we get back.
Tighnari steps away from the door to let me in. “C’mon, we have to go in a few minutes.”
I grab my thicker pair of boots from the cupboard in my room, and shove them on. Tying back my hair with some string, I debate about bringing my jacket, and then decide against it. It’s summer, so I probably won’t need it, and it’ll just be more weight in my bag.
What else do I need? We’re only going for the day, and we’ll come back later, sometime during the night. The walk to Sumeru City only takes an hour.
Food? No. I need the rabbit to trade for something else tomorrow, in the market, and what else have we got? Not much, that’s for sure.
I walk back to the kitchen. Tighnari’s putting on a cap, one of the ones that has holes for his ears. Whenever we sell one, we have to patch the holes. Lucky for him I’m good at sewing.
Eventually, we’re both ready. Outside, I see streams of people making their way to the gate at the edge of the town. The reaping for both Eastern Sumeru and Desert Sumeru will be held in Sumeru City, so there’ll be thousands of people there.
“Okay,” Tighnari says. “Let’s go.”
End of chapter One-
Tysm for reading!! so uhh I deleted the earlier thing abt being unable to post the rest of the chapter bc I literally couldn't, so I had to edit the story. It was originally around four pages long, now its three :(
Oh well...
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