As the train carrying the district Twelve tributes arrived, Lyra headed down in the elevator to wait for them, in the hope to catch them before they were whisked away for the tribute parade. Wren had put her in a blue and purple dress that went to just above her knees with deep brown gladiator sandals. Her hair had been curled and fell around her shoulders. She had on a brown bracelet that was threaded together with little, forest green leaves, their way of symbolizing both Four and Twelve.
She spotted Effie first, her flamboyant clothes and annoyingly high, but oddly musical voice. Effie of course, spotted her immediately. "Ah Lyra dear, do come over here." Lyra did as she bid and joined the group, gaining a hug from both Effie and Haymitch and confused looks from the two tributes.
"It's good to see you sweetie."
"Thank you Effie, it's great to see both of you."
Haymitch on the other hand, looked far less than pleased. The look he gave her practically screamed we'll talk about this later. Mere moments later the two tributes were swept away into the remake centre and Effie disappeared as well. Haymitch took the opportunity and grabbed Lyra by the wrist, dragging her away from the onslaught of cameras.
Once they were alone immediately he said "What the hell are you doing here Lyra?"
She felt uncomfortable for a moment and he noticed her gaze go to the floor and then back up again. "More appointments?" He asked, much more gently.
She nodded. "Snow asked me to help you mentor this year."
For a moment Haymitch was stunned into silence, before he recovered his snarky attitude "He does realize that you're from district Four right? Not Twelve? Is he completely insane?"
Lyra quickly shushed his rapidly rising voice. "Haymitch, isn't this a good thing? This way I'm not out on more appointments and you can keep an eye on me at all times." She paused, allowing him some time to absorb what she was saying, "and I can help train your tributes, Snow knows that Twelve are the least likely to win, but why did he put me here? Clearly he sees something he likes this year. Either that or he's finally realized that you spend more of your time drinking than training."
He scoffed and for a moment he looked angry, but then he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her in for a tight hug. "I missed you kiddo."
"I missed you too." She laughed and then released herself from his grip. "Come on. We need to go out by the horses or we'll miss the whole parade." The two of them then headed out to where all twelve chariots were waiting, along with the rest of the mentors, who were talking quietly amongst themselves about how they would tell their tributes to act.
Effie must have already gone up into the audience to stake claim on their seats. It wasn't long until the tributes started pouring out from the remake centre, the big brutes from Two and Ten, the blond from One, the tiny girl from Ten, who reminded Lyra of herself. The male tribute from Twelve, Peeta, she seemed to recall his name was, came out with Portia after not too long. He looked great in his outfit, like a piece of blackened coal.
Lyra headed over to him and offered her hand, which he took, albeit cautiously. "I'm Lyra Carlisle. I'm mentoring you with Haymitch."
"Peeta." He said, seemingly a lot more comfortable knowing her identity, "and that's Katniss."
Lyra turned and indeed Katniss was walking their way, completely matching Peeta in her attire, though she looked extremely less friendly than he did, in a way she seemed more like Haymitch. Her stylist was right on her heels and he was smirking like Wren did every single time she dressed Lyra in a covert attempt to make a statement in the Capitol. Oh, this was going to be fun.
After how successful the tribute parade went the group, that is, Lyra, Haymitch, Effie, Katniss, Peeta, Portia and Cinna, went to have dinner on the twelfth floor. It was a friendly affair, no matter how uncomfortable Katniss was making it. Peeta was at least making a conversational effort, he couldn't imagine that Haymitch actually had friends and that even had Katniss listening to her response.
It wasn't too late into dinner that Finnick arrived. He rode up on the elevator from the fourth floor and then awkwardly stood at the top of the stairs to the dining room and ran his hand through his tousled hair, clearing his throat. In that instant all of the eyes in the room turned to him, including Lyra's.
"What do you want Odair?"
"Ah, Haymitch, haven't changed I see. Still as polite as ever. But unfortunately I don't have enough time to continue this remarkable conversation , you see myself and Lyra are expected at a meeting with Caesar Flickerman. Do you want to set us a curfew?" Finnick asked sarcastically.
Haymitch and Lyra both stood up, Lyra quickly heading to Finnick's side. Finnick held out his arm, smirking. "Milady." She laughed breathily and gently placed her hand on his forearm.
"Keep her safe Odair."
"I will Haymiych. I will."
Together Lyra and Finnick left the twelfth floor. In the elevator they stood in silence, until Finnick spoke. "I'm sorry Lyra." His voice was soft, gentle, as if he was afraid she would break.
"It's fine Finnick. You wanted to know something that I couldn't tell you. Curiosity was only natural." It infuriated him how she could sound so clinical, so dejected. Where had his Lyra Carlisle gone?
"Please, Lyra, you have to tell me. I can help you, whatever it is, but if you keep me in the dark my mind just keeps going to the worst possible conclusions." He turned to directly face her, "please Lyra. Please." He could see her mask cracking, her stubbornness finally relenting.
"Promise me Finn, promise me you won't tell anyone. You have to promise, you can't tell anyone, not Mags, not Annie, not any-"
"Lyra, calm down, I'm not going to tell anyone, not if you don't want me to."
She sighed, running a hand through her hair, before she scoops it all up and lifts it off of her neck, revealing the barcode and then she turns so that her back is to him.
Finnick inhaled sharply from behind her and raised his hand, running his fingertips across the barcode. She can't help it, but she flinched. He went silent for a moment, before he pressed a feather light kiss onto the back of her neck.
At that point the elevator doors open and she dropped her hair down, allowing it to cover up her neck. Finnick took her hand in his and they headed to go to her interview. When they made it to where she had to wait before Caesar called her up, he quickly kissed her cheek and he was gone before she could say anything about it.
Caesar's questions weren't exactly hard to answer, he mainly asked why she was in the capitol before the games even started, to which she responded, "Oh, well Caesar, I suppose I just can't get enough of everything there is here, I mean, it's so different from what I'm used to back in Four,"
"Considering you don't see people with multi-coloured skin in district Four, I'm not surprised." Caesar laughed. "Now my dear, did you happen to watch the reapings today? It feels like just yesterday it was your reaping."
"Oh my reaping feels like a lifetime ago for me, I mean, I wasn't the only one that thought I wasn't going to make it out, I thought my life was over when in fact it hadn't even started yet." She risked a quick glance at Finnick, sat in the audience, seemingly completely relaxed.
"You certainly are a lot more grown up now than you were then." He broke off to laugh, flashing his absurdly white teeth. "But you were absolutely adorable when I first met you, not that you aren't now of course."
She chuckled, "I was a very different girl back then. I couldn't even begin to imagine being that girl instead of the one I am now."
"Ah yes, I was informed of the hardships of your childhood, your parents and both your brothers were killed in a series of unfortunate events, were they not?"
The audience made some sounds of unhappiness as she nodded, trying to shake away the memories that were threatening to swallow her. "I'm sorry for bringing up some bad memories Lyra, I just thought that this was the perfect time to commemorate their memory, do you not agree?" He aimed the question at the audience, who all cheered.
"My brother would have loved this, being spoken about on the television like this." She laughed. "Now Ceasar, I really think that this year is going to be a great one for the games. There's such a widespread spectrum of tribute calibre, do you not think?"
"Oh yes, you do always have an eye for this sort of thing don't you? I know that the girl from Twelve caused a massive stir at her reaping, volunteering for her sister like she did and I think that girl from Ten has a look of you, but we'll have to wait till after training, won't we?"
The two of them laughed and not too long after that they said goodnight. She was smiling the whole time as she bid the audience adieu and then she quickly left the stage.
Immediately after she escaped the view of the cameras and the capitolian audience she walked head first into Finnick's open arms. She buried her face in his shoulder and inhaled his strong scent. His arms embraced her and she allowed herself to be enveloped in the warmth he offered.
"Come on Lyra, lets get up to the Twelfth floor where we can be sure no cameras are watching us." She nodded and allowed him to pull her along, into the elevator and up onto her floor, where Haymitch was sat on the sofa waiting for them.
As soon as they left the elevator her breathing quickened into harsh, shallow gasps, the pace steadily rising as she fought for the air that wasn't getting into her lungs. The tears stung her eyes and her lungs burned. She could feel hands on her shoulders and vaguely hear the words being whispered in her ear, until all of a sudden the volume increased tenfold.
"Lyra, Lyra listen to me. You are fine. Just breath, alright, stop panicking and breath." She recognized Finnick's voice but no matter how hard she tried to slow her breathing, it just wasn't happening.
"I." She choked, "I can't."
"Yes you can Lyra, you can face off against anything. All you need to do now is slow your breathing. Ok? In, Out. In, out." She tried and tried, but nothing seemed to be working. The blood was pounding in her head, she felt dizzy and just couldn't breath. Memories swirled in front of her eyes, her parents, her brothers, her reaping, her games. It was like a constant replay of everything horrible in her life that she wanted to forget. She wanted to forget all of the emotions, all of the loss. She wanted to forget how Ricky had tried to get better after his accident, how she kissed him on the forehead on the morning of the reapings. She wanted to forget George and how happy he had been, how perfect his life had been. She wanted to forget her parents, her loving parents who died, pleading for their lives, for their childrens lives.
The memories were stuck to her, something she was never going to shake. She couldn't see anything in front of her any more, blinded by the rubble that remained, her life wasn't supposed to be this way, she never wanted it to be this way, she wanted that happy life, the happy family life, the happy everything, but there was nothing. All she got was death, death and loss and destruction of everything and everyone she got close to.
Finnick was in a state of frantic panic. She was right in front of him and he couldn't stop her having a panic attack. "Haymitch, what do you know about another way to stop a panic attack?"
Haymitch thought for a few moments, "Surprise. I'm pretty sure that they'll need to be surprised."
"How are we going to surprise her… Wait, how do you know how to stop a panic attack?"
Haymitch scoffed. "Trust me, every single victor of the games there has ever been has had to learn how to prevent a panic attack. Even the alcoholic, uncaring ones."
Finnick snorted, still wracking his brain for a way to surprise Lyra enough. He tried to think of what would surprise him and then he was struck by an idea. Her breathing was echoing in his head as he frantically thought through exactly how insane his idea might be. "Haymitch. You won't murder me if I stop her panic attack, right?" Haymitch nodded the affirmative.
"Alright Lyra, can you breath for me? Just slow it down."
She shook her head, her eyes wide with panic.
"Don't kill me for this." He muttered, "It'd be a crime to rob the world of my beautiful face."
He took one more deep breath, before he put his hands around her shoulders and pulled her in, kissing her gently, fearful that she might break. He couldn't believe how soft she was, how sweet her lips tasted Almost immediately her breathing levelled out and he pulled away, even though there was some part of him telling him that he didn't want to stop, she looked completely stunned, but she wasn't panicking any more.
Haymitch rolled his eyes and scoffed. "Who immediately thinks of kissing when I say surprise them? And of course it bloody worked!"
Ok, so I know this chapter is a little cliche and slow, but it is a lot more of a filler chapter before we reach some actual plot. Next chapter should introduce Lyra to Katniss and Peeta and training shall begin!
Thoughts? xxx
