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Chapter Text

To All Citizens of Tomorrowland:

Greetings, and a happy wishing day from magical Buena Vista!

King-President Mouse is once again delighted to announce the commencement of this year's preliminary festivities for the annual Hunger Games.The Games shall formally begin in three days' time, at an as-yet-unrevealed location where Buena Vista Imagineers have been hard at work preparing a suitable arena for this year's exciting group of cast members to compete in.

This year marks the 64^th anniversary of the Hunger Games. As per tradition, the Games will be presented live to all citizens of Tomorrowland free of charge for the duration, for dual purposes of citizens' enjoyment and education.

From each of the kingdom's twelve districts, twenty-four cast members have been selected, representing one adolescent girl and boy apiece from each district. These cast members, who will be presented tonight for the citizens of Buena Vista as part of the traditional Main Street Parade, are listed as follows by district, name, and age, in female-male order:

District W-1
Rapunzel Gothel, 18
Hercules Olympus, 18

District A-2
Vanellope von Schweetz, 14
Emperor Kuzco, 18

District L-3
Snow White, 14
Arthur Pendragon, 12

District T-4
Pocahontas Powhatan, 18
Kenai Bear, 18

District D-5
Penny Forrester, 13
Lewis Robinson, 12

District I-6
Wendy Darling, 13
Jim Hawkins, 17

District S-7
Jasmine Agrabah, 15
Aladdin Cassim, 18

District N-8
Ariel Triton, 16
Eric Prince, 18

District E-9
Audrey Ramirez, 18
Wilbur Robinson, 13

District Y-10
Alice Kingsleigh, 11
Christopher Robin, 10

District C-11
Anna Arendelle, 18
Fa Ping, 16

District O-12
Tinker Bell, 14
Peter Pan, 12

We in Buena Vista would like to offer these lucky young men and women our sincerest congratulations...and our envy. After all — you're going to the Hunger Games!

May the odds be ever in your favor, and may all your dreams come true.

Sincerely,

The Offices of King-President Mouse

✦ From Your Tomorrowland Capital of Buena Vista ✦

Chapter Text

PART I – THE CAST MEMBERS
Wishing Day, District Y

The day of the annual wishing is always abrim with excitement. Some years, Alice supposes she liked it—the great air of busyness and agitation present throughout the normally quiet woodlands of District Y, the sweet cakes and tea taken in the late evenings to mark the event as a celebration. A few years older, now, Alice has come to understand that wishing was only celebration for her family because her sister's name had not been drawn from a glass orb on a slip of paper. Alice's sister, eligible for the Games starting the year before Alice was born, never had to be brought forth before the crowd and hailed as a female cast member for District Y.

This year, Alice sister is 22 years old. That's twice the age of Alice's own 11. And to Alice, it seems very nonsensical to observe that her sister grows more and more serious about the wishing year by year, ever since she stopped being eligible at age 18:

"And you must promise me that you will stand still and pay attention this year during the VIP escort's speech about the history of Tomorrowland," Alice's sister says to her, while bustling with her jars of makeup so as to make both of them presentable at the square. "It wouldn't do for you to be observed on-camera again having one of your little flights of fancy, while every man, woman, and child in Buena Vista watches from you their television screens. ...Alice? Alice!"

Interrupted from her daydream, Alice sighs. She lowers the crown of freshly strung wildflowers in her hands (picked that morning, in the grasses outside the outmost edges of the forest) from the table to her lap. Because it's wishing day, she's sitting impatiently at the bedroom vanity while her sister helps her both prepare with makeup and oils—their family has more money than some others in their district, so the two sisters have never taken the Buena Vista-proffered tesserae that would increase their likelihood of being chosen for the Games. However, it is customary to dress nicely for the wishing no matter your chances, because everyone in the district will be present at the square on television.

"I listen," Alice tells her sister absently, mulling all she knows about today over in her mind. She doesn't bother to specify, whether she's referring to listening now, or at the reaping.

Eleven years old. One slip of paper counting last year, and now another one for this year. Two chances in so many girls' names, she ponders. Wouldn't it make very little sense, if her name was chosen?

Alice's sister sighs at the younger's obvious distraction. Primly, she leans forward to apply another layer of powder to the Alice's nose. "Would you kindly remember to listen, then, during the wishing this afternoon?" she asks Alice, tone exasperated.

Alice rolls her eyes, and asks, "I'm sorry, but how can one possibly pay attention to a speech without any acting in it?" She holds up her wildflower crown again, a gleam of imagination in her blue eyes. "That old fuddy-duddy, Rabbit White, is so boring when he talks from his slip of paper in front of the microphone. If you're telling a story, there should be costumes, and scenery, and grand playactors making heroic gestures!"

She places the flower crown atop her own head, admiring in the mirror the way it rests over her long blonde hair. Her sister watches this from behind the small bench beside the vanity, pursing her red-stained lips in disapproval.

"My dear child," she says dryly, "there are a great many worthwhile stories in this world that don't have those sorts of things."

"In this world, perhaps," Alice says, dreamily. "In Tomorrowland-world, in Buena Vista-world. But in my world, all stories and speeches will be acted out!"

"Your world?" The elder raises an eyebrow at Alice. "What nonsense."

Alice brightens. "Yes! Nonsense, that's it!" she says, sitting up very straight upon her stool. "In my world, everything will be nonsense. The capital will be the districts, and the districts shall be the capital. Instead of choosing boys and girls from the twelve districts, only the people in Buena Vista will be eligible for the Hunger Games. All of them old with gray hairs! And the rest of us shall watch them kill one another at home on our television screens, eating biscuits and drinking our cups of tea until we burst!"

"Alice," her sister interrupts sharply, reaching forward to pluck the crown of flowers from the girl's head. In its place, she ties a black ribbon over Alice's hair, plain and elegant with a tidy bow at the very top.

"Don't go saying such things on wishing day, Alice," her sister goes on, tone becoming increasingly urgent as she eyes the ticking grandfather clock by the wall. "I worry enough about your manners as it is. We've been very lucky, you know, to live the life that we lead in District Y. We have never wanted for things like wishing day dresses, and grain to eat at mealtimes every day...people like us do not have, and keep these things, if they're always spouting silly nonsense about make-believe worlds where Buena Vista is not in charge of the districts. Are you listening to me, Alice? Please, Alice, if you would so kindly pay attention...!"

Alice is paying attention that afternoon, when the escort from Buena Vista draws her name.

"Alice? Do we have a Miss Alice here, then?" Rabbit White repeats, his tone fretful as he glances out at the roped section of eligible girls through his tiny pair of round spectacles. "Oh, please hurry! There's really no time to stand around waiting, my dear, for you see we're running late. Yes, late—the broadcast is running terribly behind schedule; oh, we're late, we're late, we're late! Hello, is that—Alice?"

It is Alice. The crowd parts around her, and Alice steps forward, dreamlike. From somewhere very far away, she hears a cry of anguish at the back of the crowd, in a voice that sounds very much like her sister's.

The tall trees and greenery around the plaza seem different to Alice, somehow, as she walks, more ominous than they would be on a normal day. As she approaches the temporary stage where White awaits—feeling like the last bit of realness in an apparition, one too-small eleven-year-old girl wearing a lovely blue dress and pinafore in a wash of cameras—Alice cannot shake the ridiculous notion that she is somehow taking her first steps into another world.

Two chances in all of a thousand, she thinks frightfully to herself, raising one trembling hand to wave bravely for the nearest camera. Two chances, and they chose me.

What a curious, nonsensical world indeed!