It isn't but a moment after Merida, Astrid, and Flynn settle down for dinner that Toothiana comes flitting through the door and into the hotel room. She looks absolutely worn down as she lets out a deep huff, moving toward the table. Merida can feel herself scowling.

"I'm so sorry I'm late," the woman says, almost genuinely enough for Merida to believe it, but she knows this woman, and she is an incredible actress. "I met with an old friend for lunch and we just talked and talked!" Tooth slips into her seat beside Merida and straightens herself up, tucking a loose, bright red strand of hair behind her ear and into the fray of colors. "So, what are we talking about?" Astrid and Merida involuntarily exchange aggravated expressions as Toothiana eagerly awaits a reply.

"I was just about to ask them how training was," Merida says, sticking a small fork-full of whatever kind of bird was being served between her lips. It could have been a pigeon for all she cared; she feels like she is starving. Tooth claps her hands together and smiles.

"Ah yes!" She chirps. "Did you make any friends?"

"Allies," Merida corrects her with a soft, yet stern word.

"Allies can be friends, Merida," the cheery woman replies without missing a beat. The mentor can't help but roll her eyes at how right she is.

"I joined the career pack," Astrid drones, unenthusiastically, without looking up from her plate. The lump of half-chewed food that was making its way down Merida's windpipe forces it's way back up as she chokes on it, startled by the blonde's sudden proclamation.

"You what!?" She coughs, throwing the verbal daggers at her tribute, but Astrid cracks a smile and she and Flynn pass each other a sneaky look.

"Kidding!" She chuckles, leaning back in her chair, examining Merida's reaction. She and Rider must get a kick out of how the redhead's pale face grows redder and redder, for they are both grinning from ear to ear.

"That's not funny!" Merida snarls.

"You're right, it's hysterical," Flynn speaks up, until she shoots him a sharp look and he averts his attention back down to his plate.

"What are they like this year?" Toothiana asks. "The careers, I mean." Astrid shrugs.

"Not nearly as big a group as last year," she reports. "There were, what 6 of them?"

"7," Merida corrects. The faces of each one branded on the back of her eyelids makes them hard to forget.

"Right, well this time around, it's weird." She shakes her head and continues. "District 1's tributes are hellishly fierce and so they, naturally, are leading the pack. Then there's the girl from District 2: Tiger Lily Feather."

"I think she only joined so that Killian couldn't," Rider chimes in, his mouth stuffed with bread. "They hate each other."

"And then it's both Kida and Jim of District 5, but that's all." Astrid says it as though having five people out to murder you isn't a big deal. Merida chews the inside of her cheek, rather than her dinner. It's funny how, after just one day, the two of them know so much. Maybe Merida had misjudged their ability to fend for themselves.

"So no allies then?" It physically pains Merida to have to think about who her tributes will have to fight and so she'd much rather spend what little time she has left with them talking about other things: Things that don't make her feel like she's going to go insane from how helpless she is.

"I like Jason O'Connor of District 11," Flynn says with a shrug. "I mean I didn't really talk to him but he seems pretty chill." Merida nods slowly and looks to Astrid, hoping that she found someone among the throng of teens to call an ally.

"Mist Clearwater." Merida's heart nearly leaps out of her throat. Rider gives his companion a sideways glance but continues eating his dinner without a comment.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" She can't help herself. Merida snarls at Astrid like the blonde had physically stabbed her in the back.

"Miss Merida!" Toothiana gasps, slamming down her fork. "Language!" The hotheaded mentor ignores her and keeps a sharp glare locked on Astrid.

"Out of all 23 other tributes, you chose the one who just happens to be from the same District as the girl who personally wanted to murder me? You thought that was a brilliant fucking idea!?"

"To be fair, everyone wanted to murder you." She throws her dinner roll at Flynn to shut him up, but he only smirks and eats it.

"She's nothing like Oceana," Astrid says defensively. "She's cool."

"You didn't know Oceana," Merida shakes her head, trying not to lose her temper again. "You have no idea how deviously persuasive she was." Her mind flits to Peter Pan and even Jane as the memories of the self-proclaimed career pack leader's treachery come rushing back.

"Well you don't know Mist. She and Dallas aren't anything like-"

"Fucking gods Astrid, you want both of them!?"

She doesn't know why she's being called into the training building at 11 o'clock at night, but she doesn't really feel like she has much of a choice. Merida enters the stadium and is surprised at what she sees.

A man, tall and thin with skin the color of peaches is standing in the center of the room, surrounded by at least half a dozen peace keepers. His thick rimmed glasses slide halfway down his nose as he looks down on Merida.

"Miss Dunbrock, I'm glad to see you are well." His cool voice hasn't changed even slightly since the last time Merida has seen the man. "How has victory treated you? Enjoying having tributes of your own?"

She hadn't thought he looked evil when she was first introduced to the Gamemaker a year prior, but the way he speaks to her now proves that he is no different from the rest of Pitch's pawns.

"Why am I here, Mr. Thatch?"

"Please," the Gamemaker says casually, "call me Milo." Merida makes a mental note not to.

"Just answer my question," She says with a shake of her head. Thatch smiles a terribly fake smile and turns to nod at a Peacekeeper, who pulls a small, silver, triangular prism out from behind his back and sets it on the floor. Before Merida can ask what he's doing, the tip of the pyramid lights up and projects a screen into the air above them. She watches as the scene laid out before her eyes takes shape and the tribute training room comes into view.

"We looked over the security footage from this morning and we notice something rather odd about your Tribute." She can feel her teeth start to grind together.

"What did she do?" There is no point in pretending that she doesn't already know which one of her tributes is the troublemaker by now. This seems to make Milo's grin deepen into his cheeks.

"Just watch her." And so she does.

She watches Astrid move immediately toward a good sized battle axe as Flynn watches in amusement. They chatter and laugh as she throws him a sheathed sword and begins to wave her axe at him dramatically. Merida feels the heaviness of her heart begin to lighten. The fact that her tributes are making jokes and laughing shows that they are stronger than she had guessed.

This scene plays out for a while longer until the two of them go their separate ways and Astrid makes her way over to a silver and black trident on the far wall of the armory. Merida's heart begins to sink again as her tribute picks it up. Almost immediately, the blonde whips her head around to face an approaching Mist, who looks rather collected. The two girls seem to be bickering until finally, Astrid smiles and hands the trident over to the District 4 tribute.

"Interesting choice in ally, I must say," Merida hears Milo mutter, but she ignores him.

Astrid and Mist settle down with the male tribute from 4, Dallas, and they talk. Occasionally, Mist will pass a glare at her district mate and roll her eyes, but other than that, the three seem to get along fine, and that's what worries her. She can't let Astrid be sucked into Mist's web of deceit.

After a while, Astrid starts to get antsy. The conversation between she and District 4's tributes starts to fade to a point where their lips are hardly moving and Astrid's eyes are darting around the room.

"What is she...?" Merida starts to ask, but when she remembers who her company is, she quiets herself.

And that's when it happens. Mist jumps up and punches Dallas square in the nose. The two of them erupt in an all out brawl and suddenly, the whole screen is crowded with tributes and Peacekeepers, coming to half-spectate, half-break up the fight. When the madness dies down and Mist and Dallas are separated, Merida can't find Astrid anywhere.

"She never comes back," Milo says, breaking into her thoughts. She shakes her head slowly.

"You mean she left?" The Gamemaker nods and turns off the pyramid projector by tapping the top on it.

"She managed to find a blind spot in our security system in the short moments that she was there in the room and she took advantage of that and-why are you smiling? This is a serious matter!" She doesn't realize that she is grinning with pride until Milo points it out. She lets her face fall back to it's resting position and looks over at the man.

"Sorry, but you have to admit, that's pretty impressive." The Peacemakers that stand around them shuffle uneasily and Milo rubs his temples.

"I don't care what it is," his typically cool tone of voice turning hostile, "find out where she went and make sure it doesn't happen again, or Pitch will." The way he says it isn't as though he's trying to look out for Astrid; it's almost a treat. Merida clenches her fists together and narrows her eyes. His too-big-for-his-own-good glasses hang barely to the top of his nose and make such a good target for her tightened knuckles. She decides against it, however, simply because she doesn't feel like pulling the glass out of her hand after shattering the frames against his face.

"And she just left?" Esmeralda asks in shock, over the phone. "That's it?"

"Yup."

"Damn...what a fucking genius." Merida can hear the smile in her voice as the two of them talk the next day while her tributes are at their second training session. "What did she say when you asked why?"

"She said she wasn't feeling well," Merida explains, a little disappointedly. "She spent the rest of the day in the bathroom." She had secretly hoped that her tribute was doing something a little more destructive in her time out of the Capitol's eye than puking up her breakfast.

"Oh..." Es seems disappointed as well. The silence hangs between them for just a moment before she speaks again. "So allies in District 4 huh?" Merida instinctively rolls her eyes. "Of all the tributes-"

"I know! That's what I said!" It was almost as if Astrid had specifically chosen to go out of her way to pick Mist as an ally, just to see what Merida would do. Obviously, she couldn't really do anything except brood about it and hope that the blonde knows what she's doing.

"She did watch the games last year, right? She knows about Oceana?" Merida only shakes her head but then realizes that Esmeralda can't see her through the phone and she sighs.

"I don't know Es. I was kind of hoping that they'd team up with someone like 3's tributes, or at least someone who looked like they had a fighting chance. But 4..." She chews her lip.

Esmeralda and Merida talk back and fourth for nearly an hour as Merida paces the hotel room. Es talks about Eleanor and how her nightmares have subsided as of late. She even tells her about how her father seems to be more in his right mind now that the stress of the Reaping has passed. Merida is glad that her family is well, but she can't help but feel a little guilty. They only seem to suffer when she's around and that makes Merida wish she had just died back in the arena, just as she had wished several months prior. Just as she had wished it every single day on the Victory Tour.

"Did you hear me?"

"What?" Merida blinks in confusion at Esmeralda's question, sitting down in her armchair by the window. She must have space out.

"I asked if you made any friends." There is sarcasm in her voice but it seems serious enough that she can answer honestly.

"Aurora is nice."

"Ah, figures."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Es chuckles to the point where Merida can almost see her shrug.

"I just could have guessed that you'd befriend Rapunzel's mentor. She's a lot like her." Merida nods.

"They could be related." She tries to keep her thoughts out of Rapunzel territory and focus more on the tall, brown eyed woman she had come to not hate as much as everyone else.

"Is that all?"

"Yup." She decides not to mention Robin and how much she has come to loath and yet wonder about him. She doesn't talk about how she avoids Hercules at all costs after blowing chunks all over his lap, or how she thinks that Ariel must hate her for killing Oceana, or even how Aladdin had asked about her. It all seems too stupid to bring up. There is one thing, however that she has been dying to ask someone about.

"Jack's mentor is missing." There is silence on the other end. Merida almost wonders if Esmeralda had even heard her until she hears her friend sigh through the earpiece.

"Oh." She doesn't sound surprised; not even a little bit perplexed.

"It's some woman named Snow this year. Snow White."

"That's nice." More silence. The ginger starts to feel herself getting frustrated with the woman and she chews her lip.

"That's all you have to say about that?" She asks, or more, snarls.

"Well what did you expect?"

"I don't know...answers?" Es scoffs and Merida scowls.

"Look, Merida, when I'm out of the Capitol, I don't leave little pieces of myself behind. I haven't spoken to any of the mentors since last year. I know less than you do about this, I'm sure." Merida isn't pleased with this answer. "You expect too much from me if you want me to know everything about the Capitol citizens. That's more along the lines of Toothiana's expertise. Ask her." With a scoff of her own, Merida switches the phone onto her other ear.

"Good idea," she drones sarcastically. "I'll be sure to catch her between her plethora of outings from which she never returns." She pulls her knees up to her chest and leans back against her armchair. She wants to return to the subject of Jack's mentor before she gets angry at Tooth again and so she sighs. "What do you know about Snow? You have to have heard something, being a mentor all these years."

She can tell that Es is thinking by the way she is clicking her teeth together. Finally, she speaks.

"I know she won 7 years ago, and she was the youngest winner of the Hunger Games." Merida's eyes widen.

"Damn, really?"

"Mmhmm," Esmeralda continues. "She was too young to mentor at the time...13 I think...and so North continued the role. She never gained interest in it until now I guess."

"What else do you know?" She is hungry for as much information as she can get. Anything that explains the absence of her former ally's mentor.

"I know that she's mentoring the two toughest tributes these games have seen in a long time." She doesn't believe that for a second. Merida flips her hair over her shoulder and frowns.

"No way," she argues. "Flynn and Astrid said that they lead the career pack, and that it's all kinds of wonky this year."

"Then they're just as foolish as everyone else in Panem." What does she mean? Merida is scratching the top of her head in confusion like some sort of ape.

"But Es..."

"Simba and Nala are the toughest, most bloodthirsty pair of tributes I have seen in at least 8 years." Merida is shaking her head in disbelief, but says nothing. "The pack is so wonky this year because it's a trick; a ruse set up by District 1. The two of them don't need a pack to be lethal, they just want everyone to think that they do. They don't wanna be seen as individual threats. Don't let your tributes fall prey to that illusion." An overwhelming sense of failure grips Merida's heart and drags it into her stomach.

My tributes are going to die because I'm not good enough at being their mentor!

"Es-" she is about to spill her heart to this woman whom she has only known for a year, but a banging against her hotel room door makes her nearly jump out of her skin.

"What was that?" Esmeralda asks, having heard the noise through the phone.

"Someone's at the door?"

"Who?" As Merida is about to snap that she doesn't know, the banging starts again.

"Merida! Merida please be in there! It's an emergency! Open up please!" Her voice catches in her throat and she just barely squeaks out her reply as she leaps up to get the door.

"It's Aurora." Merida rushes to pull the door open and says "hold on Es," as she puts the phone down on the large table in the center of the room. The tall blonde is catching her breath, each inhale coming as gasps, as though she ran the whole way to the room. "Aurora! What's-"

"It's Astrid!" She pants. "You need to come with me, now!" She is pulling her out the door before Merida can even ask why. Her mind races with a thousand possibilities as to why Astrid needs her. The first and most terrifying is that she is dead. The image of Simba or Nala gutting Astrid right there in the training room is all too clear in her brain as she is being pulled through the streets of the Capitol city, only Aurora isn't leading her to the training building.

She doesn't recognize this part of the city. It's less crowded and more dimly lit than everywhere else. It almost doesn't feel like the Capitol, until a few feet further, Merida can make out the blur of a crowd, gathering down the street. That's when she hears an agonizing scream.

Without realizing it, Merida is sprinting ahead of her leader and pushing her way through the mob. She jams her elbow into rib cages and digs her shoulders under arms to break into the center of the crowd. What she sees makes her stomach drop.

Astrid is haunched over in a ball, against the cement sidewalk as three peacekeepers electrocute her with their stupid, shock-rods, almost simultaneously. Merida reacts without thinking and slams her fist against one of their helmets, sending the officer stumbling backwards.

"Get the fuck away from my tribute!" She shouts. "All of you back up!" She screams at the crowd, which surprises her a bit. Why is she so mad at them? They aren't the ones attacking Astrid, but they aren't stopping it.

The second peacekeeper goes to hit Merida with his weapon, but she evades him, only to find herself hit with the third's. Her entire body convulses as she hits the pavement, shoulders first.

It's not enough to keep her down. She stands, shakily; or rather, she attempts to, but the peacekeeper that she had clocked in the head sends electric currents shooting up and down her body. She catches a glimpse of Astrid laying beside her and frowns at her.

What the hell are you doing here!? She wants to scream, but her lips only twitch.

"Everyone back off! You, I order you to drop your weapon. Did you hear me? That is an order!"

The voice sounds familiar, but it can't be who Merida thinks it is. Her voice never got that stern. But when she looks up, her eyes meet Toothiana's and relief and annoyance flood through her all at once.

"This tribute is disobeying the law. She is out without probable reason and this woman assaulted a peacekeeper!" A female voice from under one of the helmets snarls at Tooth, but the colorful woman doesn't flinch. From where she lays in the dirt, Merida thinks it's actually pretty badass.

"That woman, happens to be a very important person to President Pitch. Don't you recognize her?" All three peacekeepers look down at Merida, making her feel a bit uncomfortable. Her legs have stopped vibrating and so she feels fit to stand again. Astrid, however, looks completely worn out by the electric shock.

"I don't care who she is," the peacekeeper with the dented helmet growls. "She assaulted me. She needs to face judgment!"

"That judgment is not yours to give!" Merida has never heard the woman raise her voice so angrily. It makes her shudder. Either that, or it's the volts still knocking around in her bones.

"M-Merida," Astrid whimpers, her body shaking violently. Merida looks down at her tribute sadly and frowns. Her sadness quickly turns to rage as she directs her emotions toward the peacekeepers.

"This tribute is, as of the Reaping, property of President Pitch." Her voice is weak, and she despises calling him "president", but it seems to be the only way to get through to these helmeted twits. "If she is too hurt to compete in the games, it will be your job to take her place." She isn't sure if that's the truth entirely, but it rattles them up enough to disband the mob that had gathered and start to go on their way.

"If we find her outside of training again, we will take her straight to Pitch..." It is supposed to be a threat, Merida can tell, but it holds no weight. Even they are too afraid of the crimson-eyed man to confront him with something so petty as a runaway tribute.

The three head out and before long, Aurora and Tooth are helping Merida get Astrid on her feet. Merida turns to Tooth and gives her a deepening frown.

"Where have you been?" The woman doesn't look her in the eye.

"I was with a friend."

"Don't lie to me."

"You're hardly in the position to accuse me of lying, Merida." The red haired woman twitches in anger.

"You're being evasive."

"I am not."

"Then just tell me where you were." Tooth clenches her jaw and whips her head around to face Merida. Her eyes look dull and her face looks sunken in, like she hasn't slept in days.

"My business is my own!" She says, loudly. "I expected you, of all people, to respect that and leave me to myself." Merida is stunned speechless by her former sponsor's sharp tongue. She doesn't pry any further and instead focuses on getting Astrid to walk properly.

"Quit dragging your feet," she mutters, to which she thinks she hears Astrid mumble "fuck off".

It isn't until then that she remembers that she left Esmeralda on hold back in the hotel room.

Astrid is sleeping in Merida's bed because it's bigger and more comfortable than the one in the Tribute chambers. Rider sits at the end, looking at the blonde as she rests, his forehead creased with worry lines. He taps his foot absentminded on the floor which makes Merida want to slap him, but she refrains. She is learning that this calms him down. Every time Astrid moves, or groans, his eyes light up, as though she is going to speak, or look up and see him sitting there and smile, but she does not, and so his face falls and the tapping starts again.

"I never should have let her leave," he would mutter. "I should have fought and made her stay at training..."

The minutes tick away and soon, an hour passes with no coherence from the hardheaded blonde. It isn't until the two hour mark, after Rider had gotten up and gone to bed that she stirs and groans in pain.

"Ah fuck," she hisses through gritted teeth. "It feels like they fried my rib cage." Merida perks up from her slouched position in a chair beside the bed and scowls.

"Serves you right." Before Astrid can snap at her, Merida continues. "What were you thinking, leaving training like that? You could have gotten yourself into some serious trouble!" The fact that Astrid is smirking makes it hard for her to be angry.

"I suppose being electrocuted to near death isn't considered serious trouble by your standards?" Merida only rolls her eyes. "Guess you should have set the bar a little lower."

"It's not funny," Merida retorts, hoping that she isn't smirking as well. That was the thing about Astrid: broken and beaten and half-dead, she bled sarcasm. "What were you even doing out there, Astrid?" She asks, hoping the serious tone of her voice will shift their conversation. Her tribute bites her lip and shifts her position in the bed.

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me." Merida scoffs.

"Try me." There is dead air between them for a moment while it looks like Astrid is gathering her thoughts. Her laughable tone has nearly all vanished. She takes a deep breath.

"I was looking for my sister."

Merida had always known the story of the missing Hofferston; the daughter of Ingrid and Arnheim who had been kidnapped by Pitch as a toddler as punishment for their treason against the Capitol, but she had always assumed that it was just a myth or that people had forgotten about her. She must be shaking her head because Astrid's face falls into a scowl and she crosses her arms.

"I knew you wouldn't believe me."

"No no I do!" She shakes her head more deliberately and waves her hands. "I'm just...I'm just a little confused." She doesn't bother questioning their sudden amiability toward one another. Truthfully, she is actually starting to enjoy this half-friendship. Astrid takes a deep breath, as though she is ready to release something that she'd been holding in forever.

"I always knew that Lyra was here in the Capitol, but my parents never talked about her. The only one who ever told me anything was Kristoff." She frowns at the mention of her half-brother's name, but it must be involuntary, because she continues right away. "I needed to know for myself if she was still alive. I needed to see her and I needed to bring her home. She doesn't belong here in the Capitol. She belongs in 10, with her family." Merida's jaw hangs open.

"That's why you volunteered." It's all starting to come together. Astrid nods.

"I need to bring her home, Merida." She chews her lip and looks up at her mentor. "While I was out today, I saw her. She's a peacekeeper now and she lives in a little house just down the street from where the guards found me..." Her voice trails off and Merida notices that she is shaking a little. "Merida..." Her eyes fall to her lap. "If I don't win these games..." Her voice cracks and catches in her throat, "promise me you'll bring her back with you."

She knows that she shouldn't say anything but she is stupid and so she nods.

"I promise." She is double stupid, because se knows that she is stupid, and yet she continues to do that thing that makes her that way.

Astrid falls asleep not long after that as Merida tosses around her thoughts in her head. She decides that if she's going to keep making promises she can't keep, she might as well make a list.

The first is that she'll get over Jack Frost someday.

The second is that she won't murder Toothiana at some point during this trip.

And the third is that she will somehow rescue Lyra Hofferston, a girl that might not even want to rescued, and bring her back to District 10.

The last coherent thought Merida can recall having before slipping off to sleep is I am fucked.

Author's Notes:
HOORAY FOR REGULAR UPDATES! I've been just cranking these out because I'm hella inspired by this book I'm reading (Eleanor and Park everyone should read it!). I also have this entire story mapped out and sometimes while I'm at work, I like to play it out in my head and that makes me wanna write more!

Thanks to everyone who has stuck around and kept in reading! I told you the Hofferstons would come up again in this fic! Lyra is mildly important I guess. Keep her on file XD Ps. I really loved writing badass Tooth! More of that to come, I promise! New chapter will be up by Next Friday!