Even from safely inside the building, the roar of the crowd outside was deafening in his ears. Ignacio Boole stood uneasily upon the chariot, the chestnut coats of the horses in front of him gleaming under the piercingly white lights they were all standing beneath. He wasn't used to this; his prep team fawned over him as he stood, trembling, waiting for the Tribute Parade to begin.

"Oh, Ignacio, don't you look fabulous!" one of them squawked in their funny, twisted accent. They smoothed out his lab-coat that he'd been stuffed into, making sure there were no creases in the thick white fabric. "Like a true lab worker! Like you're in the forefront of a technological breakthrough!"

Ignacio didn't know how to tell them that the workers of District 3 didn't often wear lab-coats to work. He'd worked in his father's factory almost all of his life as a welder - as somebody who assembled the 'technological breakthroughs', and never once had he worn a lab-coat. A dark blue apron smeared by oil and singed by sparks, mayhaps, but never once a lab-coat.

Circe Galvan, the other tribute from 3, was ushered up onto the chariot next, her own lab-coat being sleeveless and only just reaching her upper thighs with it's short, skimpy cut. While Ignacio's own was at least scientifically accurate - if not hugging him a bit too tightly to accentuate his broad figure - Circe's was a mess. It only buttoned up to about her mid-chest, leaving the skin beneath exposed to reveal her collarbones and sternum. If Circe had been thrown into a lab in that outfit, she'd surely be dead within a few days from chemical exposure to all of that bare skin.

Ignacio rolled his eyes as he watched District 3's stylists pat each other on the backs, gushing over how the two of them looked. "You understand that we never really wear these, right?" he called over to them, watching as they blinked confoundedly at him. "And, even if we did, the state of Circe's is an honest-to-goodness health hazard."

Circe looked over at him with anxious eyes as she fought to pull her garment down further over her legs. The poor girl - she was only fourteen and was already subjected to these Capitol nuts wanting to stare at her bare thighs. The thought made bile rise in Ignacio's throat.

Being thrown into the Hunger Games, where he would almost certainly meet his demise, was bad enough. That was enough to make him - a fully grown man at 18 - scream and cry and have a panic attack on the train to the Capitol. He didn't even want to begin thinking about how Circe would have felt.

He'd thought the inevitable death would be the worst part. He'd expected to spend his every day worrying about the pain of being stabbed, or having his throat slit, or worse - having to face the idea of killing somebody else. But, he'd barely had time to worry about all of that. Instead he'd been slapped in the face with the weird ways of the Capitol: their food and fashion and grooming methods. It was a strange place - a sickening place, with ways of life so baffling they threatened to make Ignacio sick.

And now, he had to watch a bunch of grown adults sexualise a child. Gritting his teeth, Ignacio pushed aside the prep team's hands that danced all around him and put one palm on Circe's back in an attempt at comfort. "Are you okay?" he asked her.

The girl looked embarrassed - uncomfortable - fright and humiliation lighting her eyes. "I'm okay," she said through a trembling voice. Ignacio couldn't help but feel that she wasn't. He'd never had any siblings, but the way he felt right now - as though he needed to protect this girl - made him feel the closest to having a sibling that he'd ever had.

"Just stand close to the front of the chariot," he said, taking a step forwards as the girl followed him. "That way, they won't have a great look at us."
She smiled in return, but it was interrupted as their stylists - Ignacio hadn't cared enough to remember their names - piped up over the chatter of the rest of the room. "Oh, darlings! Take a step back, would you? We can't see your wonderful coats!"

Ignacio cupped a hand around his ear. "I'm sorry?" he called back. "I can't hear you over the noise!"

"I said-!"

But they were cut off as the large set of double doors before them - grandiose, with golden swirling patterns atop the silver steel - began to open. The screams and calls of the crowd outside flooded the room, bouncing off each wall to hit their ears a thousand times louder. No words were intelligible - nothing in particular was being said, or chanted; instead, it seemed each member of the Capitol was simply fighting to be heard over one another. They hollered and bellowed, whistled and shrieked. They sounded like a pack of apes squabbling, screaming incoherently just for the sake of it.

He felt his legs begin to shake. Ignacio hated how all of this had gotten to him. He'd always prided himself on his confidence - on his stubbornness and seemingly-indomitable will. Ever since his name had been called, though - at the reaping, by that stupid pretentious Bianchi - he'd felt anxiety for the first time in his life. Crowds made him nervous. Public speaking made him nervous. People looking at him, and flattering him, and screeching at him in their excitement made him so nervous he felt his knees threaten to give way beneath him.

Ahead of him, the horses of District 1's chariot began to prance through the door, and the two tributes lifted their arms to embrace the crowd. Ignacio pushed his glasses further up his nose.

District 2 began to pull away next, their horses' coats seeming to glow beautifully in the sun as the tributes' Peacekeeper costumes reflected white painfully against his eyes. Ignacio pressed his hand against Circe's back, and the two of them shuffled even further up against the front of their chariot, trying to make their costumes as indiscernible as possible.

"Do you wanna link?" Ignacio offered Circe the crook of his elbow, and the girl took it immediately, wrapping both of her arms around it. Their horses began to trot, the chariot wheels began to turn, and before Ignacio could comprehend it, the burning light of the sun was beating down upon them.

Once they were outside, the cheers were so overwhelming - so raucous and cacophonous - that they simply melded into one large buzz, like the sound of drills in the workshop back in his district. Heading down a straight road, barricades separated hundreds - if not thousands - of the Capitol's inhabitants all fighting over one another to get a glimpse of the tributes. Ignacio felt Circe's hands tighten around his arm, the girl cowering and trying to make herself as small as physically possible as wind whipped through her hair, styled into a sleek black ponytail. Ignacio's shoulder-length hair had been tied back into a similar ponytail, but it looked far more stylish than how he usually did it himself, scraping it back into a bun atop his head so it didn't get in the way of his welding.

Huge screens lined the street the chariots raced down, and he watched with horror as they showed the beaming faces of District 1's tributes, the clamouring grins of District 2's, and then the shocked and frightened faces of himself and Circe. They looked terrible in comparison - with no vigour or magnetism like the careers before them. Ignacio was okay with that. He and Circe simply looked normal - as startled as anybody should be in their positions - and the less attention that would be drawn to them, the better.

He watched as the cameras panned down to their arms; Circe's white knuckles gripped onto Ignacio's muscled bicep as if for dear life. Somewhere beneath the discordant din of the Capitol, Ignacio supposed a commentator would be making comments about it, but he didn't care. He just wanted this to be over with - wanted the screams out of his ears and to be back on solid ground, settling his stomach that had begun to bubble with a sort of travel sickness.

Most of all, though, he just wanted to be safe. To be back with his family, in his home, in his District. Once, he'd thought his life was boring, but oh how he desperately wished to be back in that routine. He mentally cursed every time he'd taken his normal life for granted. Now, he was scared, anxious, and was about to die; he had about as much chance of surviving the Games as he had in becoming a famous stylist in the Capitol. Zero.

He couldn't even begin to think of how scared Circe must have been in comparison. This girl was too young for this - too pure. Ignacio made a mental note to himself: he would ask Circe Galvan to be his ally, and he would protect her until the bitter end.

With the parade over, the tributes of District 3 were finally shown up to their rooms by their mentors and stylists. Bianchi Leclerc had dashed over to them as they'd dismounted the chariots, discomposed and looking rather flustered. She'd babbled a little frantically about the general schedule, but had then scurried away again.
"She seems busy," Circe giggled as they'd entered the elevator.

"I'm surprised her wig hasn't fallen off by now," Ignacio remarked back. The two had shared a laugh as the pristine elevator had dashed up a couple of stories, eventually opening its doors and allowing the District 3 crew entrance onto their assigned floor of the Training Centre.

Luxuries now failed to impress Ignacio Boole. The train-ride to the Capitol had been a real shock to the senses - had almost rattled Ignacio with its magnificence compared to the metropolitan uniformity of District 3. After reaching the Capitol itself, however, and being utterly oversaturated by fanciful opulence, Ignacio found he could now look past it.

The tributes were shown to their bedrooms, and were told to get changed and unwind before dinner. Circe looked incredibly relieved; she'd barely stopped pulling at the tiny lab-coat dress ever since she'd stepped foot in the chariot. Once dismissed, and the rest of the crew began heading into the main lounge area, Ignacio turned to Circe, catching the girl just as she was about to head into her room.

"Hey, Circe," he started, watching as she looked at him with her big, dejected eyes. "I don't suppose you'd like to be my ally, when the Games begin?"

Her lips parted as she gave him a look of shock. "You want to be my ally?" she almost whispered.

Ignacio shrugged. Now that he thought of it, a big eighteen-year-old choosing a shaky young girl as an ally was not a common occurrence. Ignacio had a well-built physique; his days of manual labour had given him thew to his arms and a broad, muscular figure. At a glance, he supposed he looked more than capable of taking on a few careers despite the glasses upon his nose giving him a somewhat intellectual air. In actuality, Ignacio could not have killed a baby bird if it had sat helplessly in his palm; he had no fighting experience, no skill with weapons other than a welding torch, and an utterly non-existent drive to kill. He may have looked like a contender, like an unlikely partner for a fourteen-year-old girl, but he and Circe had more in common than anyone knew.

Alongside these facts, Ignacio Boole had an almost paternal instinct to help this girl - this poor young lady who assuredly did not stand a chance in these Games. "I want to have your back. If you'd like."

Circe Galvan beheld the man before her for a long moment. Eventually, however, her face broke into a shy smile. "I would like that."

A rush of warmth flooded Ignacio's chest. Trust. The first time he'd felt anything close to happiness in this entire forsaken experience. Not only did Ignatio now feel like he had a friend, but he also felt a resolve; now, he had a reason to fight. If not for himself, he would fight for Circe. If he couldn't make it out alive, he'd help the girl.