Disclaimer: I don't own THG or the quote or the tributes.

Happy belated birthday to DustyStroodle228—I'm glad you counted the last chapter as a gift.

And this is the last pre-Games chapter, so expect a quicker update. Excuse my terrible knowledge of chess in this chapter, my dad tried to teach me once and it didn't end well... so sorry for any mistakes on that. Also, I don't think I say how much I love reading every review I get. Thank you so much for reading guys!

~The Interviews~

A friend of mine, now retired, was then a major exec at a major bank, and one of her jobs, the last four years, was the farewell interview.

~Unknown~

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District 4: Fawn Nolan

"Okay, so you remember how I told you that the interviews were, like, the most important part of the Games?"

"Yup." In fact, I can recall the entire exchange perfectly—the way he smiled when he described what it felt like to talk in front of an entire stadium of pod-people, how many sponsor points he received as a result of his wittiness...

"Earth to Fawn!" Zane's tanned hand is a blur moving before my eyes.

I frown at him. What the hell is he doing? "I'm listening."

"Good." he says, smiling. "As I was saying... you have to multiply that by ten now. Got it?"

"Their importance?"

"No, their uselessness. Yes, their importance. What else is there?"

I turn away from him. He never gets upset with me, and I really don't want him to start now. Not when this is our only day left together. Well... the last one where I haven't killed twenty-three other people, at least. And I plan on making the very best of it, not that Zane will help me out. He's too busy trying to be a hotshot mentor. I bet Finnick wouldn't be as difficult to get along with.

I hear him sigh and I picture a look of regret on his face. "Look... I just want you to get sponsors, that's all. You're part of the Careers and they're notorious for stabbing their allies in the back. If you have sponsors, they'll be less likely to chop your head off."

"You act like I can't fight them—or anyone." I point out. "And you're the one who spent six hours a day training with me."

"One against four is never an easy fight." says Zane ruefully.

"Five."

"What?"

I roll my eyes. "Five. One against five. Angelina let Almandine Bandica join us."

"That's not good." Zane sounds upset, but I can hear a bit of his lighthearted tone seeping back into his voice. "Which leads me back to sponsor points... you have to have them."

"Fine. But I don't even have an angle or anything. What am I supposed to do?"

He starts thinking. I mean, really thinking. He is so deep in thought that I can actually make a few jokes about the smell of burning hair. If I didn't know any better, I'd say we switched brains, because I'm the one who makes informed choices. I'm the one who scoffs at his "funniness." His word, not mine.

"Play up your intelligence." he says after awhile, knocking on the side of my head.

"What?" I'd thought he'd give me something better to work with.

He sighs theatrically. "You notice a lot of crap—you're smart. Use that. No one ever uses that angle."

I think about it. He's right, of course. I've never seen anyone play up having a brain before, at least not anyone not from District 3. Most Careers are either deadly or sexy. Other districts are shy or funny or sweet, and anyway, for the past few years the District 3's have been too weak and small to act like anything other than scared.

But will it keep people's attention?

Fawn Nolan: The Smart One.

Caesar will probably mention my two dead siblings—Zane already told me that, and I could use their mistakes, like I did with my training. Only this time I'll be talking about it, not practicing it.

Simple enough, I suppose.

"You really think this could work?" I ask.

"I know it will," says Zane, who suddenly sounds wise beyond his years.

Sounds good to me.

"Alright, then." I say.

And then we start practicing.

Zane pretends to be Caesar, and he sounds almost exactly like him, right down to the inflections on the end of his words. I have to stop answering his questions several times to laugh—he's just that funny. And then I realize something: I haven't even chuckled since my since my sister died.

Wow.

I've spent more than half my life being unhappy, and on today of all days, I'm beginning to have a little fun. I'd say I hate irony, but I don't think I do—not now, but that will probably change the second I'm standing in that tube, waiting to be launched into the arena.

But... for once... I just decide to live in the reality of this moment.

District 2: Adrian Perham

The interviews are held in a large stadium that is almost the size of Snow's house, but it falls just a few square feet short of elaborate.

It looks like a Colosseum, which is a word we learned last year in school. According to Mr. Chambers, they are huge arenas where people fought to the death, much like we are about to. If it wasn't so wrong in terms of karma, I'd probably be laughing right now.

The attendees from the Capitol get the best seats, which are built in to the stadium walls, and we are forced into twenty four chairs lined up in a waiting area, sort of like with the Chariots, only that room was both darker and larger.

A blue man comes into the room, holding a purple clipboard in his hands. "District 1 female?"

Angelina practically flies out of her chair. "Me! That's me!"

"Okay, you're up." He takes a pencil from behind his ear and writes something on his paper.

Two double doors open and Angelina smooths out the wrinkles from her overly-bedazzled skirt. Her name is announced, though she leaves about two seconds ahead of time, running down the long red carpet. I shake my head, her behavior is angering the Karma Gods, I just know it. I hope I don't get any of her bad luck by being her ally... that would suck. Badly.

And to make matters worse, her angle is obvious from the first question Caesar asks.

"So Angelina, how are you enjoying the Capitol?"

"Oh Caesar, it's amaaazing!" Does she have to draw out every syllable? And do eyes normally roll that far back into a person's head? Is she having an orgasm on the stage?

I cringe... ew.

"Is it better than life in District 1?" he actually sounds genuinely interested in what she has to say.

She answers almost immediately. I bet she doesn't even breathe... "It's about the same. Like, we have a really huge house and I have a huge bed..." She reaches forward and puts a hand on the dude's inner thigh.

She just hand-raped Caesar Flickerman.

"Oh look!" he says, running a hand through his orange-colored hair. "We're out of time! Sorry Angelica ."

She looks like she wants to protest, but she is interrupted by a loud buzzer.

The blue guy returns and ushers Scout Penumbra, who is dressed in a button-down shirt and khaki pants, onto center-stage. He seems really uncomfortable being around all of these sparkly rainbow people, but he tries not to let it show.

Caesar crosses his legs, still bothered by Angelina's sexual assault—the poor guy.

"Nice to meet you Scout." he says, trying to maintain a calm face.

He snorts.

And that's it.

"What do you think your odds are. Being from District 1 must be an advantage, don't you think?"

The cameramen zoom in on his face. I can see every muscle in his face twitch as he tries to smile as politely as he can (and maybe it's the jumbo-screen,) but he can't pull it off. Those eyes of his look too calculating for kindness.

"Sure."

He volleys yes and no answers back and forth until the buzzer rings again and he is told to go to another waiting room on the other side of the stadium.

Mercy is next.

And after she goes... I'll be up.

She also seems bothered by the Capitol attendant sent to retrieve her. I'm starting to think every last one of us hates the way these guys act, whether we're from a rich district or not.

At first, Caesar appears to be semi-relieved. The tributes from District 2 usually do well in the interviews and score tons of brownie points that way, but I can tell you that Mercy and I will be the exception.

Our mentor has advised my district partner to do whatever she can to be likable, which she is clearly attempting to do, though she keeps looking at the mentor's section for confirmation. And Gabriel gives her as much sign-language advice as he can. It's funny, really. Part one of the universe's payback has started.

"What about guys?" Caesar asks, "do you have a boyfriend back home?"

That's when her head snaps back to him. "Lots of them." she sneers, and again, I feel bad for the guy. Today's not his day.

When it's time for Mercy to leave, I close my eyes and hold on to my necklace. It's going to be okay... I've been nice lately... I haven't even used those faulty saltshakers in the dining room. I also try to remember what Gabriel told me. Act sane. Because, somehow, having lucky numbers for my lucky numbers is weird—even for me.

Vexon Dale—I finally learned his name—makes yet another check mark on his schedule and says, "District 2 male, on deck."

I take two deep breaths and take my position in front of the doors.

The walk from the holding area to the two chairs sitting in the middle of a platform. It has bright lights and the stage is raised, and I'm sort of afraid I'm going to fall on my ass. The yelling doesn't help, either. Everywhere I look I see blue people, green tattoos, purple stripes, cat-like faces, dog ears—it's fucking crazy.

"Hello Adrian."

I nod to Caesar, taking my seat. It's really comfortable, at least comfortable enough for me to relax just a little bit.

I wait two more beats before I say anything. "Hey Caesar."

"You look a little tense." he observes. He doesn't say it to be mean, he's trying to help.

One. Two. "A little."

"You know what helps me?" Caesar doesn't wait for a response. "Talking about my family."

One. Two. "Good idea... I have a sister."

"Really?" He raises his eyebrows. They're yellow, not orange like his spiky hair... he looks like a flame. "What's she like?"

I only count to one this time. "Crazy."

He laughs. "I know what you mean. My sister's pretty insane too. Does yours spend hours in front of the mirror?"

"Yup. But my girlfriend, Gen, spends even more time in there than my sister does." I roll my eyes.

"Oh, you have a girlfriend! Did she give you that necklace?"

"This?" I touch the wooden charm again. "No, it's my good luck charm."

"It couldn't hurt, could it? Having a good luck symbol. It might keep you alive."

"Right." I say, nodding. "I have a bunch of them. Rabbit's feet, clovers, magnets..."

"Well, here's hoping they help you." Caesar tells me, winking as a loud noise—the buzzer—makes me jump out of my seat.

I hope so, too, I think, but something reminds me that I'm going to need more than luck to win these Games.

District 5: Ransom Sage

I sigh.

The amount of hot girls in this waiting room is getting smaller and smaller by the three-minute mark.

The District 3 girl, Sukara Ravo, mutters to herself as the giant blueberry guy leads her to the doors. She's kind of cute... actually, she'd be ten times hotter if she wasn't so damn pissed off all the time. So far, she's yelled at her district partner for wearing a tie that matched her dress, kicked a chair for something I'm not sure of, and glared at me. But that's probably because I'm so sexy—I hope.

She is argumentative from the very start.

Sukara makes a big show of stomping her way down the carpet and literally flopping into her chair.

Caesar attempts to smile at her. "Hello Miss Ravo. Don't you look nice?"

"No." she thinks it over for a minute. "And neither do you."

I laugh, Caesar's eyes narrow, and the crowd whispers nervously.

A few insults later, Suka leaves the stage the same way she entered.

I don't pay much attention to Clint's interview, because, you know, he doesn't have boobs, but from what little I did hear, he was very calm. Almost philosophical, I guess. It looks like he's the orange guy's new favorite—I don't think Clint insulted him once.

Anyway, I perk up considerably when Fawn Nolan's face came on the screen. I expected her to play the sex-sells angle, like everyone from District 4 does, but boy, I've never been more wrong about anything.

She's acting smart.

And now that I really look at her dress, it doesn't even show any cleavage... damn it!

I slump in my seat, defeated.

Mr. Blue-flavored Pop-tart calls out, "District 4 male!"

Cameron puts on a winning smile and strolls right on through the double doors.

Good God, he's going to be charming... I wonder if this will leave all twelve of the female tributes fawning over him. Well, I guess so; it worked for Finnick Odair.

Cam talks of his girlfriend, Cora Glass, and I picture her as a blonde bombshell with a massive chest. She hates wearing bras—or any sort of clothing for that matter. Who cares if Cameron describes her as modest and respectable?

Certainly not me.

His three minutes end. The crowd boos.

Autumn is not happy to leave the room, but I feel safer with her gone. Less creeped out. Which is really fucking weird, because I hadn't even realized that she was bothering me until after she left. Even though she's my district partner—who I should probably ally with—the way she watches everything gives me a serious case of the willies.

She might be the very first one the Gamemakers kill off. And it's just a guess, but I don't think they like thinly-veiled comments about the Capitol's evilness. But who the hell knows? I might be wrong.

But probably not.

"District 5 male?"

I jump, tearing my eyes away from Fern Gresham, who is decidedly way hotter than Autumn. About a five and a half on Ransom Sage's Patented Sexy Scale.

I quickly pull my shirt down. All of this girl-rating isn't good for my over-active libido—especially because I'm going to be on national television in five seconds. The blue man taps his foot and groans, all but pushing me out of the doors.

I spot two semi-normal Capitol girls in the crowd and wink at them, but they only wrinkle their noses at me.

I shrug. And I take the seat Caesar offers me.

"So Ransom, Angelina wasn't impressed by the Capitol, are you?"

"Yup." I say, "but I wouldn't mind going to District 1 to see if her bed is as big as she claims—you know, for investigative purposes only." I wiggle my eyebrows.

Cue a sincere laugh from Caesar. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. Surely you have other things to do, how about winning the Hunger Games? Can you do it?"

I flex my muscles. "Of course, I'm a stud muffin."

"That does seem to be an advantage... tell me, do you have any other talents that might come in handy during the Games?" He puts his hands on his chin.

"I'm very flexible."

"Really?"

I nod, "Yup. Just ask the ladies."

"I'll keep it in mind," Caesar says, and something tells me that, if I make it to the final eight, he will certainly be asking Mila about it.

Soon, all of the females in Panem will be swooning over Ransom Sage—just wait and see.

District 11: Lily Flores

The Hunger Games are just like chess.

The arena is the board and the tributes are the pieces.

Most of us are pawns, inconsequential, but I can already see that some of us will be just a little bit more than that. The victor will be someone who is able to avoid the violence. Not entirely, of course, but the main objective in chess is to guard the king, meaning that the pawns, rooks, and knights will fall and ultimately someone will be placed in checkmate, the safest king emerging as the winner.

I wonder if the others know that we are only here to protect whoever wins the Games.

I follow a green woman with scales on her face into another room.

I'm told we aren't allowed to leave until every single tribute is finished their interview.

Great.

I look around the room, my eyes landing on a small girl who has earned the pity of the whole Capitol. Wendy is wiping her nose with a tissue, as she spent three minutes blubbering about how she is going to die. The boy, Fallon, stands next to her. He was very mean during his interview, but his anger was directed mostly at the "losers" in District 6.

Pawns, I decide.

The sevens aren't allies. In fact, I think Almandine is a Career, but that is a stupid move on her part. They will kill her in her sleep. Beech was very nice during his interview, which everyone found boring, but I think that it was a nice change of pace. Genuine niceness. I mean, I get being polite... but nice? Not in this situation.

The District 8 tributes—Drizzle and Skylark—talked mainly about each other... you know, for the most part.

I think they might just be on opposing sides, whether they know it or not.

Fern was quiet, another pawn, but she talked about her writing during the interview and said nothing about her family... odd, but okay.

Rowena... she interrupted Caesar a lot, although she was a little bit more open about her personal life. She told all of Panem about how her father died—total sympathy card—and I think I saw Caesar shed a tear or two.

Bengal is the only one to hop off of his chair and run into the new room.

"Did you see me Bee?" he shouts, running over to his ally.

Bee chuckles lightheartedly. "Yes. You did great, Bengal!"

"Wendy?"

"You were awesome." she says, attempting to smile.

Pawns, I think again, turning my head to watch Brandon's interview on the big screen over my head. We are all pawns.