Chapter 14: To Make An Alliance
Meleana Renn, District 3, Training Day
The training room was bustling with activity as the other tributes went from station to station learning (or not learning) what they could. She was in the latter half. For good reason. Actually, one could say that she was learning. Just not what the stations were teaching.
Meleana was learning how to take down the others. She studied them all, she wanted to find out their strengths and weaknesses.
She looked for the tributes with the One on their backs.
She found the girl with cropped black hair by the berry station. Meleana tried to concentrate on the girl, but was soon bored, so she searched for the One boy.
The boy from One was over by the water finding station.
Meleana really needed to learn how to concentrate better, she had never been good in her classes because she had difficulties paying attention.
She was smart though, very smart, got the best grades in her year for science. She just had problems paying attention. It was easier when she actually enjoyed the subject, like science, she loved the elements and learning how they interacted. But English? Ha, not her cup of tea. Really, who cared if a certain word was or wasn't "supposed" to be at the end of the sentence. How did they really know for sure if it was "supposed" to be there or not.
How was she going to go into an arena that she didn't know if she couldn't concentrate on one thing for more then a few seconds.
She knew the layout at her house like she knew the back of her own hand, yet she still stumbled over the ottoman in the living room and the chair in the kitchen.
Her little brother would leave toys all around the house and she had broken several bones by accidently tripping over them, even though she was constantly telling him to pick them up, he never listened to her. Brothers! Couldn't live with them, couldn't live without them.
She needed to take her time in the training center to learn how to pay attention, otherwise she'd probably trip over a snake or run into a tree branch. Neither were very good ideas.
She went back to studying the Ones, forcing herself to really look at the girl and figure her out.
Meleana was good at reading people, she just needed to force herself to pay attention, and that was always the difficult part.
The One girl kept running her fingers through her hair, and always seemed surprised when her fingers ran out of hair. Meleana tried to remember back to the reapings, the girl had long black hair then, and now she had short. Guess she had a horrible stylist.
Meleana had always had short hair, she liked it that way, it was much easier to take care of.
Focus, she barked at herself. She eyed the girl again.
She was pretty in a scary type of way. The type of girl that Meleana would never be friends with in a hundred years.
Meleana studied the girl, she really needed to learn the other tributes names. But did it really matter in the long run? Because soon all but one of them would be dead. Why should she bother to learn their names? Especially since they wouldn't be bothered to learn her name.
But did she want to be known as the girl from 3, or did she want to be known as Meleana?
If she had to die, she wanted to die as Meleana, not that girl from three.
The boy from One was big and scary looking. He was full of muscle and his face was contorted into an ever present scowl. He was not one that she wanted to mess with. Meleana could see him being able to kill someone just by pressing a finger to a pressure point.
She knew where the pressure points were on the body, she was just too weak and short to reach most of them.
The Twos were next on her list. The girl was an exact replica of her older brother, Dragan. Meleana shuddered just looking at the girl, but she took a closer look and saw that underneath of Emily's tough exterior, was a scared girl who didn't want to be here anymore then Meleana did.
The Two boy had made his presence known already, he was going to be the problematic one, the one that was going to be calling all the shots. Meleana hoped that he was stupid, like the boy from One, but this Two boy looked to be pretty smart. Dammit.
The Fours were the other Career District. The girl had volunteered, the boy had not. But both of them were with the Career alliance. They both had the classic Four strengths. Good arms from swimming in the ocean and they knew how to fish for their dinner. They could probably start a fire to cook the fish as well. Meleana had never started a fire once in her whole life. She really should have paid more attention to the outdoorsy stuff. Aside from stargazing, she didn't venture outside much. Too dangerous for her clumsiness.
She made a silent note to stay away from all of the Careers this year.
The Fives were weak, even weaker then she was. She would probably be able to kill the Fives herself. There were always tributes who were easily seen as the first to die.
Meleana hoped that the others didn't see her as a blood bath tribute, because she wanted to last as long as possible.
The Sixes would probably be blood bath characters as well, but she had thought that about Nat and Colt Henley last year and they had both made it to the final four.
She shouldn't underestimate the others, that always led to surprise and usually to a death.
The Sevens were both siblings from last years tributes. She actually didn't see either of them getting that far. Which was better for her odds. And her odds weren't that great to begin with.
She searched for the Eights. The girl actually sent shivers down her spine. Meleana would definitely stay away from her. The boy was a blood bath tribute, he wasn't worth her time. Or anyone else's time for that matter.
It was actually very soothing to study the other tributes, it helped calm her down and since there were twenty three for her to study, she didn't have to concentrate on each one for long.
She looked for the nines, and found the boy over at the hunting station sitting next to the boy from two. She watched the two of them throwing knives and pretending to hunt the cutout animals.
Two wasn't doing that great, for being a career and all. Sure, he hit the target every single time without fail, but he always hit it somewhere different. The nine boy didn't always hit the target, most of the times he missed completely, but when he did, he always got it right in the middle of the eyes.
He would be one to keep an eye out for.
She searched for where the Tens were. The girl was running around to all the stations trying to figure out what she really wanted to learn. The Ten boy was tinkering with something over in the far corner, talking to the girl from Eleven.
The girl from Eleven looked like her sister from last year, but she looked weaker and less capable of winning.
The boy from Eleven was also weak looking, but he looked like he would be a bully. Meleana had met her fair share of bullies, and she was fed up with being stuffed in lockers and pushed into trashcans. Bullying was horrible in Three.
At last it was time to find the Twelves. The girl was pretty and young looking. The boy seemed to be capable of doing something damaging.
The only ones that she hadn't studied were the Threes, Virus and herself. Virus liked to tinker with bombs, in fact, she remembered years ago when his garage had gone up in flames and he had also blown up a girl called Lyra.
Meleana hadn't thought about Lyra in ages, mostly because it was too painful to think of her. Meleana didn't blame Virus, some people in their District did, but not her. Everyone could see how much Virus liked Lyra, he never would have harmed her on purpose.
Meleana began to rank them in order from most likely to win to least likely. Her name was in the midde, near the bottom though. She would have to work really hard to move her name up to the most likely.
For that to happen, someone needed to get rid of the Careers. Because they were on the top of her mental to win list.
She needed an alliance, someone who could protect her. Maybe she should get in with the Careers, just so she could be carried to the final eight. Then she would just hope that they didn't turn on her.
But she doubted they would let her in their alliance. She wasn't anything special.
She needed someone strong, who wouldn't stab her in the back. But she was too frightened to go up to anyone and talk to them and ask to form an alliance. She envied the Six and Eleven girl, who were now talking at one of the stations. Meleana had always been frightened of talking to strangers.
"Lunch time," the Gamemaker said in her high squeaky voice, like nails scratching on a blackboard, annoying enough to make one's ears bleed.
Meleana mentally kicked herself. She had spent the whole time studying the others that she hadn't gone to any station herself. Oops.
At least she had after lunch and tomorrow. But that wasn't enough time, there would never be enough time to get ready.
The Careers were gathered around their own table, glaring at the others, but the others were too scared to even think about looking at the Careers.
Meleana felt out of place and very lonely. She found a table in the corner that was unoccupied and she sat there and picked at her lunch.
She watched the other tributes to see who the other alliances were. Virus was sitting by himself. The Ones, Twos and Fours were the careers.
The Fives were sitting with the Six boy, they seemed lost in conversation. She didn't want to join their alliance, they were too weak, condemned to die.
The girl from Six was sitting with the girl from Eleven. That was to be expected, after all, Six's brother and Eleven's sister had been in love last year. They would probably form an alliance.
The girl from Eight scared her too much, and the boy from that District had no chance.
The boy from Nine was off in his own little world. He would probably be someone to get to know. After all, he did know how to throw a knife...sometimes. He was probably very lucky. Luck always ran out though, and at the worst possible time. She didn't want to be around him when that happened.
Picking an alliance was hard work, especially when it seemed like everyone was ignoring her.
Lunch ended and they were allowed to go back to the stations.
Meleana headed to the berry station. After all, she needed to learn how to forge so she could eat while she was in the arena. And it would be easier to learn to distinguish the berries then to learn how to hunt. Unless she allied with someone who knew how to hunt.
The berry station was busy. She wasn't the only one who needed to know which was poisonous. And every year poisonous berries were placed into the arena to trick the hungry tributes.
She was not going to be one of the tributes to die because she was so hungry and was willing to risk eating a berry even though it might be poisonous. But would it be faster to die of starvation? Or poison? Brought a whole new meaning to the phrase, 'pick your poison.'
The other tributes at the station with her were the girls from Six, Seven and Eleven.
Six and Eleven were lost in a conversation, and Seven was just sitting there with her nose in a book as she saved the photos of edible berries to memory.
"I'm Meleana," she said to the other three girls, much to her own surprise. She was never the first to speak. But if she went through the rest of training with that mindset then she'd never find someone to ally with.
"I'm Rose from Eleven, and this is Delaney from Six, and I'm sorry, I don't remember your name."
"Myrrah" Seven supplied.
"All three of you had siblings from last year, right?" Meleana instantly wished that she could take that back. Because all three girls had identical looks of pain and suffering. "I'm sorry."
"Well it's not your fault," Delaney said, "you didn't make sure that our names were pulled."
"Because they had to be rigged, there's no way that seven of us were chosen by accident," Myrrah put in.
"Glad I'm not the only one who thinks that," Rose said as she turned the page in the book and saw a blue looking berry with the word "blueberry, edible" penned in underneath it.
"What's a blueberry?" Meleana asked, "I've never seen that type of plant before."
"They're delicious," Rose said, "we have them in Eleven, I've snuck a few before, but I always have to be careful not to get caught."
"They were very original when they named it," Meleana said as she turned the page and saw a black colored berry with the word, "blackberry, edible" written underneath it.
"Very original," Rose grinned, "blackberries are delicious as well, I hope they have them in the arena, the blackberries were rotten last year, so we didn't have any."
"Aw, so sad."
"I know."
"What about this berry, have you had this before?" Meleana pointed at a red berry that had the word "Strawberry, edible," written underneath it. All the berries looked so good. And being from Three, and very poor, she had never had fresh berries.
"It's my favorite actually," Rose said, "but they are the most heavily guarded."
"We should totally get the poisonous berries and slip it in the Career's food supply," Meleana said.
"Yeah, like they totally wouldn't see through that," Myrrah rolled her eyes.
"Not if one of us joins their alliance and pretends the berries are edible," Meleana pointed out.
"So do you want to be the one to join them?" Delaney asked, "Cause I'm not going to risk my life to try and end the Careers. Someone else can take down the careers, I'm not stupid enough to do it myself."
The four girls looked at each other and all of them knew that none of them were brave enough to do it.
Meleana had found her alliance. Hopefully, she'd have to make sure that they wanted her in their alliance.
Girl power for the win. Now if only the four of them could survive the blood bath.
To make an alliance, she needed to make some friends.
Trivia Question: Who was the Gamemaker mentioned in this chapter? Bonus question: What is that Gamemaker's job during the games?
The answer to the previous trivia is: 5 volunteered for the 52nd games, and 6 volunteered for the 53rd games.
~*Misty*~