I do not own The Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins does.

I do own the OCs.

Nicky drew a deep but quiet breath as he followed Morpheus out of the tunnel and towards the chariot, ignoring Riva and her stylist behind him in favor of scoping out the other Tributes. They weren't all here yet, but as he trotted past the line of chariots towards the front, he inspected the ones who were.

Twelve and Eleven both looked typically underfed and despairing. They'd already lost. Ten wasn't there yet, neither was Eight, but Nine was. The boy looked pretty hopeless but the girl had a look in her eye that told him she was a fighter as surely as if there was a buoy there, bobbing above her head to mark the spot. Seven was almost the reverse of Nine, with a waif of a girl that couldn't be more than thirteen, if that, and a giant of a boy even taller than Uncle Murrow. Six and Five weren't there and as Nicky stopped between the Four chariot and Riva he glanced up ahead, past the empty Three chariot to the two ahead of it.

The slender (but whipcord strong) girl and boy from One stood stiffly beside their chariot, shimmery silvery fabric wrapped around them, looking less confident then they had on the reaping recap. He noted that they had almost as little skin covered as he did.

The Tributes from Two were both huge, the boy at least twice his size (and he was tall for his age) and the girl almost as big. They were both volunteers, like both from One. Riva was a volunteer too, that was how they did things in Four. The Victors chose the volunteers from the older kids that really trained, and they had decided that Riva would be the one to volunteer if a twelve or thirteen year old girl was reaped. A boy named Reed was to be the boys' volunteer, only he hadn't had to, because Nicky had turned fourteen two weeks ago.

No, not Nicky, can't be Nicky anymore, he thought, brutally crushing the images of Aunt Ena that rose to mind with her nick-name for him. I have to be Finnick. I have to be a contender.

I have to get home.

The other districts were beginning to emerge, filling up the chariots around them but Nick-Finnick didn't look back, so he only saw the scrawny pair from Three, who were both probably about his age and looked terrified.

"Hey! Easy there!" he heard a woman's voice murmuring. Curious, Finnick glanced up towards the horses where a familiar looking woman was feeding them something.

It took a moment, but Finnick figured out where he recognized her from. He couldn't remember her name, but she was a Victor from Ten. She'd won about ten years ago, when he was still pretty small. Back when he still had a whole family. Back before…Everything.

Without realizing it he had drifted closer, close enough to see the little white cubes the Ten Victor carried in her free hand. He tilted his head and squinted a little, trying to figure out what they were.

"They're sugar cubes."

He startled when she spoke, and jerked his gaze up away from her hand towards her face, already taking a step back and an apology rising to his lips.

"It's a'right lad." She said in a soothing tone, similar to the way she'd talked to the horses. "'M not mad at you. It's a'right to be curious." She held out the handful of white. "Would ya like one?"

Finnick almost took another step away but he stopped himself. Instead he hooded his eyes and glanced up at her from under his lashes. Not in a shy way, but in the way that always got him extras when old Muriel Hayden handed out cookies. "But you're feeding them to the horses?"

The Ten Victor laughed and tossed one into her own mouth, the fancy twist of brown curls piled on her head swayed. "Don't mean we can't eat 'em too. They're really good." Her accent was different than Four's, but it was closer than anything Finnick had heard from anyone else. He couldn't help but be pleased at that. She held out her hand again and Finnick slowly took one and peered at it for a moment. It was grainy, like the sugar in the bowls on the fancy tables upstairs in the restaurant that catered to the few Capitol tourists that came to their part of the district, only this sugar was clumped together in a little cube.

Warily, he put it in his mouth and crunched it in his teeth.

This is good!

The Ten Victor laughed again and stuck another into her cheek. "I like 'em better if you suck on 'em a bit before you bite into 'em." She held her hand out to Finnick again just as Morpheus hurried over.

"Come on gorgeous!" He trilled in that horrible, breathy voice that made Finnick's head hurt. "Into the chariot with you!"

The Ten Victor smiled a sad smile and tipped the rest of the sugar cubes into Finnick's hand. "Here. Have these." And she hurried off towards a flight of brightly lit stairs where she was met by another Victor from her district and together they climbed the stairs towards the roar of the crowds.

As Morpheus chivied him into the chariot beside Riva, Finnick glanced down at the sugar cubes in his hand. Guess I might as well have something sweet. He thought sardonically as he tossed another into his mouth and crunched it just like the first.

The chariots started moving and out of the corner of his eye Finnick saw Riva grab hold of the railing on the side to steady herself, unused to the floor moving beneath her feet. Guess she's not fisher-folk. He turned his gaze ahead of them as they came out into open air among bright lights and more people than Finnick had ever even known existed.

Game face on. It's showtime.

I will shamelessly admit to being fascinated by Districts Four and Ten in particular. As a native rural Texan, can I help being drawn to the two that are closest to me both geographically and culturally? Also, I will not usually be writing accents, but I wanted to emphasize it in this story so...
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