Cierro Opere (17)-District 1

Cierro looked down at the gravy-drowned roast beef digging into the cloud of mashed potatoes on the golden china. She knocked around the pearly cauliflower with her silver fork as a long-haired man with golden eyelashes sat in front of her at the wooden table. The sun had just risen above the giant mountains surrounding them poking the low clouds. The train whirled past and formed a blur of grey stone and blue river streaming downhill from the Capitol district.

"What we need is to bring back the Career culture into these Games," the mentor said in a high-pitched squeal. "To do that, You two need to prove especially useful. The others last year had no great skills. With that said, I've watched both of you for a while."

"I can only imagine what you do during that time," Erik Scall said with a grimace.

Cierro frowned and looked up at the blonde-haired teenager. "Was that a joke?"

Erik looked at the glum girl. "What was a joke?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

The mentor took a quick swig of cranberry juice and licked his lips. "We need likability. And we need it from both of you. Erik, say something to me."

Erik balked. "Say what?"

"Just something. Enchant me."

"Can't you ask Cierro to do that?" He asked.

Cierro held her palm out. "I'm thinking about strategy. Leave me alone."

"No you're not," Erik said loudly.

The mentor slammed his fists onto the table, shaking the cranberry juice in the tall glasses. "Somebody do something. We don't have much time. The moment you get off this train, everyone will be watching you."

Cierro put a finger up to her lips to quiet the aggravated man. "I don't have much to say. Erik?"

Erik cleared his throat. "Well, I'm Erik Scall. I've been training for twelve ye-."

Cierro stopped Erik. "Who cares?"

The mentor snapped his fingers. "Exactly. They're Tributes that have been training since they were in their mom's placenta. I doubt you're any different. Give me something. Cierro, judge for me."

Erik sighed. "I'm decent with swords and I can read people we-."

"Boring. I can read people, too." The mentor said. "Isn't there something unique about you?"

Erik's cheeks started to burn with a light tinge of pink. "What else can I say? I went to school, I trained, I go home, and my dad ignores me. I'm trying my best here."

"Any friends?"

Cierro rolled her eyes. "He had plenty of friends. Everybody knows him at the Center."

The older man raised an eyebrow. "Okay, then we'll use that. You two can be allies, and Cierro can ride off of your popularity."

Cierro rubbed her crooked nose and stared at Erik. "You're not cut out for this, are you?"

Erik balked. "What's that mean? I've been training since I was a kid."

"Everyone has a game plan until they have a knife in their throat."

"I'm as ready as anyone else. I saw you a few times, and you did great. Why are you being so negative?" Erik asked.

"Why are you so nervous?" She asked. "If you're so prepared, why are we still arguing?"

"You're a good tribute," Erik said quietly. "But we need to make friends to get anywhere. You know why? Because every time somebody tries to do things alone, they get killed. Everyone else knocks them down. If you don't belong to a group, you don't exist to other people. That's why I work so hard for my friends. Cierro, we need to help each other and the others. Otherwise, nobody gets out of this."

Cierro crossed her long legs as the train rumbled further through the lowering sun. Most of the Career packs splintered out before they reached even the final eight tributes. The issue would be creating any progressive pack to reach a victory point. She feared that Erik was actually looking for a bond between them.

Erik sighed. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have blown up like that."

The tall, blue-eyed teenager stood up and stretched. He shuffled over the carpet towards his bedroom. "Could you wake me up before we get there?"

Cierro nodded. "Yeah. Make sure you gel your hair a bit more. I know you've been worried about that."

Erik chuckled. "You overheard me on the track?"

"No. I just assumed."

Erik smiled. "My girlfriend at the time was telling me to use it more. So I did."

Cierro raised an eyebrow. "How'd that work out for you."

He looked down like he was examining the particles of dirt on his scuffed shoes. "When I was a kid, my mom didn't want me to be in the Games. She said that making friends was more important. She wanted me to be more social. I guess that's why I put so much importance on it."

"So you value yourself based on how many friends you have?"

"It's that or value myself by how much I bench press or how many abs I have. And trust me, they're people that actually do that."

"What douchebags." She said in a monotone voice.

Erik laughed softly. "I guess it takes one to know one."

Cierro leapt to her feet. "You're saying I'm a douchebag?"

Erik gasped. "No! I meant other people. People like me and the other careers. Wait, I-I mean the Careers in the past. I'm sure this year's Careers are strong and humble and will win."

Cierro rolled her eyes. "It's fine. I'll wake you up."

Erik blushed again while he walked into his room and closed the door.

"He's totally gay, you know."

She heard her mentor choke on the cranberry juice. "Why the hell would you say that?"

"It takes one to know one." She said with a shrug.

Larissa Savoy (15)-District 7

The pink hair matched the explosion of colors from the dusk hovering over the city as it bounced down the walkway of the train station. The teenage boy walked on red platform shoes while he adjusted the polka-dot tie in his red vest. The tall, grey buildings twinkled with the ignition of warm apartment lights and office cubicle desk lamps.

With a gentle stop, Larissa pushed open the limousine door and hopped out of the stuffy leather coffin. Her District Partner climbed out behind her. Xenophon frowned as a freckled, brown-haired man with pockmarks on his face popped open the trunk and started to lift out an antique store's worth of baggage.

"The guy doesn't need to bring the whole District with him," he said. "He barely stays in Seven anyway."

Larissa silently nodded. "Our hotel."

The black monolith's windows were one-way sheets of glass. The entire exterior paled next to the lighter skyscrapers dotting the city horizon. It was a black hole in the center of the city; a pillar that swallowed up its occupants and spat them out in a jumble of nerves entering the arena.

Their mentor prodded them forward through the glass doors. The lobby was a museum of white marble invading the floor and walls. The ceiling reached up to the glass top of the atrium showing the rest of the building reaching into the sky. In the limestone behind the main counter, the Panem flag hung over with an observant eye over the large expanse of the empty lobby. Only tributes could use it this time of year.

"Marble, huh? Wonder how many 'volunteers' that took?" Xenophon said snidely.

Larissa glanced at him. "Could you not get us killed?"

Xenephon ticked. "You think they give a shit if we say anything like that? That's the problem with Panem. It's just spend, spend, spend. How are we going to spend what we don't have?"

The trio entered the elevator. The rising sarcophagus squealed as the hydraulics pushed it up through the dark elevator shaft.

"That's none of your business, kid?" The man said to him.

Xenophon crossed his arms. "It actually is. Do you know why we can spend so much and owe nothing? Because we print money out of thin air. That's it."

The red electronic sign beeped with every passing floor. Larissa bit her lip. "So how do you expect that to help us in the Games?"

He scoffed. "The Games? They might as well cancel it, because there's nobody to pay for it. They tax us into oblivion, and then they try steal anything we make. In fact, if you read a newspaper for once in your life, you'd notice that Kirkland signed a tax on stamps. Fucking stamps! Like we even mail anything to anybody now."

Larissa felt like the elevator was actually slowing down just so Xenophon can vent. She felt her eyes water in anxiety.

"The justice system doesn't exist here. We live under Marshal Law. If the court or Kirkland says something is right, it's right. End of story."

The mentor rubbed his forehead. "You complaining about this won't solve anything. Guess what? That money that you says comes out of thin air could save your life in a few days."

Larissa turned towards the fuming blonde-haired male. He was a hair shorter than her. "I'm sure what your saying is really important, but nobody cares right now."

"Why not? This country's financial health is at stake, and all you're worried about is if you'll survive something that is probably inevitable to happen."

"You're saying I'm going to die?"

Xenophon took a deep breath and balled his hands into tight fists. "No, I'm not. I'm just saying that it would suit everyone better if they listened to me. Do you know anything about inedible plants?"

"What? No, but I-."

"How about using arrowheads for fishing?"

"I wasn't really fishing much back i-."

"Starting a fire?"

"You made your po-."

Recovering from a broken leg?"

"Chokeholds to snap necks?"

"There's a book on that?"

Xenophon glared at her. "There's an answer to everything if you open your eyes and stop brainwashing yourself," he said with a grin. "They're teaching us what to think, not how to think. And that's how they keep us prisoner."

"Stop this. That's treason talk," the mentor shouted. "I don't care how smart you are? You think Peeta Mellark was smart?"

"No, but his hormones apparently were," Xenophone chided.

"You're insane. You'll get us blasted off of Earth if you talk like those revolution idiots. Shut up before we all get arrested."

Xenophon frowned. "Do you realize I may be here only one time? What if I do die? Anything I'm thinking will just erode with my body or whatever the hell they do to those. I need to say what everyone is thinking; otherwise we'll just be a majority with a minority mind. Isn't that something that should be given to us? A right to actually say what we mean? Or is that too revolutionary of an idea?"

Larissa felt sweat glisten at her hairline while the two males bickered. Xenophon was getting annoying already, and his mentor was making things a lot more uncomfortable in the tense elevator. The walls were already close enough to her without strangling her. She felt her throat tighten with her chest. Her heart kept working into overdrive as the elevator crawled up the building.

Finally, the doors slid open. Larissa almost collapsed into the grey-walled hallway. She hit a pillar with a flowerpot, but she hunched over to regain her breath.

She felt a hand on her back. "Relax. What's wrong?"

She looked up at her mentor. "He irritated me."

Xenophon balked. "Seriously? Because I'm right and your wrong? Way to prove sexist stereotypes correct."

The mentor shot him a crude look.

Xenophon sauntered towards the doors of their living arrangements. "The truth hurts, doesn't it. Like getting burned by fire. Tell me if you figured out how to heal yourself from that."

Larissa felt annoyed, but she was glad to be out. Ultimately, she was worried she had alienated Xenophon already. She was a loner, but going through the Games by herself was the last thing she wanted (other than dying). He was an arrogant, conceited know-it-all.

He was all she had, but he seemed like he didn't need her.

She had to prove her worth to somebody, or these Games would be over with the first footstep beyond the mine platforms.

Thank you for your patience once again. I appreciate all of you.

Remember, one of the more lucrative points gainers for sponsorship is to involve other people into reading this. Please do so. This will benefit all of us. It is easy for a writer to get discouraged when his or her constituents are not reading, especially when this SYOT, at it's core, has always been for you.

Any suggestions, questions, or ideas are appreciated. As long, flowery, and/or as constructive as possible. A discouraged writer doesn't like to write, so let us make sure nobody in this writer-reader relationship is unhappy.

I will answer any questions for 1 extra sponsor point as well. Ask me a question about 2016? Gay Marriage? My writing inspiration? Greek debt? You name it. I'll answer!

Finally, I want to have fun and make a long term bet with all of you. If you get this right, I will give the winner(s) 100 points and a special weapon of my choice to their tribute (just one if they have multiple).

Ready? The question is:

Who will be the first Republican candidate to drop out of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Race?

For those not following politics, start following it. I warn you that a number of tributes and non-tribute players are about to get really sassy as far as social and political commentary goes, so good luck. You have 14+ options to choose from.

Thank you very much. You are great reviewers, and I plead that you stay that way. Otherwise, I would have no point in writing this. The inspiration and drive is in your hands just as much as it is in mine.

See you very soon!