Zella Waneta, District Two, Lunch on the first day
"So I think we all need to discuss a few things." Titania said, and Zella would have punched her in the face if it would have done any good. What was this girl thinking? Sure, they very much did have talk over strategy, strengths and weaknesses of all of the careers, interview angles so that they weren't stepping over each other for sponsors in the early games. But the fact that Titania had brought it up was particularly galling. These were her games, it was her year to shine. Yet here was a punk from One who thought just because she had a famous mom and a trendy undercut she was going to lead the careers.
"I agree." Zella said forcefully, deciding that now was a good time to take over. If she let this girl talk too long the other careers might get confused and start following her without realizing who was actually leading them this year. "How about we all say our weapon proficiencies, just so we know what we're working with?"
"I'm a sword guy." Dash offered. At least something was going right. The relationship between Zella and her district partner was still rocky, but they were both strategists at heart, and had spent the past few days looking at the other tributes together. He was falling in line rather well as her lieutenant, and she was glad to have him on her side. Even if his parents were filthy rebels.
"Also a sword." Elixane said.
"Spear." Cordelia said
"Really? Wow, I thought I would be the only one using a spear." Ashlar said.
"Well I do tridents, too." she replied.
Titania laughed. "One of the reason I picked polearms was because most careers don't specialize in them."
"Three spear users. Really? Well my parents are going to feel real bad about shaming me for choosing a boy instead of a spear like a good Four boy." Seaward joked.
"I use darts." Diamond offered, looking rather smug with himself about it.
"Well I use both a sword and bow. Which means that despite the spear thing, we have a good mix of close medium and long range proficiencies. That's going to be useful." Zella said.
"You seem to have a good head for this sort of thing." Titania said. Which pissed Zella off a bit. She was trying to hate this girl, why was she giving her a compliment?
"Thank you. It's what I do best." she said.
"I think you should be in charge of strategy."
Well, that conflict was over quickly. Zella was back to hating her again. Was this girl delegating? What was wrong with her?
"What did you just say bitch?" Zella said, then drew herself up as tall as she could given that they were all sitting down.
Titania unfortunately didn't seem bothered by the sudden aggression or profanities. "I had meant to start out with this, but we got a little sidetracked by weapons. We probably need to talk about who we want to lead."
Zella was absolutely furious.
"Like it's your fucking decision."
"It's all of our decision." Titania rebutted, "And the sooner we hammer it out the sooner we can work together as a team. So, I think it would be easiest to start by asking who doesn't want to be leader."
Seaward raised his hand almost immediately. He was soon followed by Cordelia, Dash, Ashlar, and Diamond. Only Zella, Elixane and Titania remained. Zella had to admit that was pretty efficient. But only to herself because she wasn't going to give this asswipe any ground whatsoever.
"Don't the careers usually follow whoever gets the highest training score?" Elixane asked. It was pretty clear she believed that would be her.
"We could." Titania said, "But the best fighter won't always be the best leader. And we would have to wait until the end of training to figure out who's going to do it, which strikes me as a lot of wasted time. I also think that it might be a good idea to split duties up. For example, Zella could be our strategist. Help us draft plans of action, distribute resources, brief us on tributes. I saw you in the holohall earlier Elixane and your combat skills are exquisite. So maybe you could lead us during the actual battles."
Elixane seemed pleased with this. Zella thought less of her for it. It clearly showed she was weak willed.
"And what would you do?" Zella asked.
"This mostly." Titania said, "Lead discussions. Solve conflicts. Keep us all one cohesive unit. There's eight of us this year. That's a lot of room for disagreement. So we need someone who can keep us all talking to each other."
"Well you've just got it all figured out, don't you? This is absolutely ridiculous. Are any of you actually falling for this dyke's bullshit?"
The quiet descended so quickly that it made Zella dizzy. Everyone was staring at her now, but not the way she wanted them to.
"What did you just say?" Dash hissed. Right. He had a thing against homophobia. People were absurdly sensitive sometimes. But she could tell the mood had soured.
"I'm sorry." she said, "That crossed a line."
Titania was unreadable. But she nodded in acceptance of the apology.
"I think for the moment we should try the three leader strategy." Elixane said, then glared icily straight at Zella. This had clearly been a strategic error. She was going to have to gain control of the careers a different way.
"All right. I accept."
Nettie Sue Monroe, District Nine, Lunch on the second day
Rust was sitting alone again.
Nettie Sue tried to not care about it. It wasn't her business what Rust did or didn't do. She was in the middle of the Hunger Games, her own survival on the line. This wasn't like back in school where it was just the two of them against the world.
And yet, she couldn't get it out of her head. She had never been popular, and still wouldn't consider herself popular now. But it turned out that she had some talent with a bow, which meant a few of the outer districts were attempting to get her into an alliance. It made sense, since there were eight careers this year. The more people willing to have your back the better your chances.
It was a shame that Nettie Sue didn't believe any of them. Lots of people said they would support you when the weather was good. They would smile and reassure you and promise that nothing bad will ever happen to you. But none of those people were ever helpful when her father came home in an alcohol induced rage, or the girls at school bullied her so badly she dreaded getting up in the morning. It was difficult to know whether or not someone would be worth anything at all once the shit started to really hit the fan.
That was why she had started hanging out with Rust in the first place. Everyone in District Nine knew the circumstances of his birth. And like small minded people, they perpetually held it against him. She knew that Rust could handle the rough times because they were always rough for him. He was possibly the only person in their school who was bullied more than her.
Nettie Sue looked over at Rust dining alone one more time, and made a decision that she knew would define the rest of her life.
She took her lunch tray and sat down right across from him.
"I don't need your pity." Rust said. He didn't look up when she sat down, and Nettie Sue guessed that she didn't even know it was her. She remembered when she was younger she could tell someone was near her by the way the shadows moved. She hadn't looked up either.
"I'm not here because I pity you, you moron." Nettie Sue answered, which was true, "I'm here because I need you to swap me lunches."
That last part was only partially true. Mariana had kept her word about talking to the Avoxes, including the ones who prepared meals at the training center. Her portions were smaller than the other tributes, and only contained food that her prep lead personally approved of. Thankfully Nettie Sue was coming up with interesting ways of skirting her rules. She took some of the warm grain she had on her plate and shoveled it onto Rust's.
His eyes went wide. "Is that quinoa?" Rust asked.
Nettie Sue nodded. "Wild right?"
The thing she found particularly hilarious is that Mariana clearly had no idea what she was talking about. Quinoa was something that everyone in District Nine knew about. It was considered one of the greatest luxuries the district had to offer and reserved solely for the Capitol. Nettie Sue had once witnessed a public execution where the man's crime was stealing a handful of the grain. Yet here they were, giving it to her as some sort of punishment for her body. They had given her less than the other tributes, but the portion sizes were still the equivalent of two meals at home if not the entire day. She was constantly bombarded with fresh fruit and rich, leafy greens.
Mariana had told her she was restricting her diet, but Nettie Sue was eating more than she had in her entire life.
"I don't get it." Rust said, "The stuff they're giving us is good, don't get me wrong. But you're eating like a queen over here. Is that Spinach?"
"Bok Choy. Which is mine because it's delicious. Though I might give you a taste if you're nice to me."
"Exactly my point. Why are you trading this food away?" he asked.
She had to admit he had a point. Nettie Sue didn't hate any of the food that had been prepared for her. There were some things that were so full of flavor it made her feel uncomfortable eating it, remembering the times she had gone hungry and the people in her district who still were. At this point it was more the principle of the thing than anything.
"I don't like bullies." She said simply,
That seemed to answer the question to Rust's satisfaction. He nodded, and offered her some of his burger. It was delicious, like everything in the Capitol. And more importantly Mariana would lose her perfectly styled wig if she knew that Nettie Sue was eating it.
"So why are you really here?" Rust asked. He was a sharp one, always had been. Nettie Sue liked that about him.
"I want to be allies." she said, "Don't get me wrong it's not like I like you or anything. But I don't know any of these people. I don't know what they're capable of."
"Do you know what I'm capable of?" he asked, and Nettie Sue couldn't tell if he was challenging her or curious.
"I know your darkest secret." She said rather matter of factly, "I know the worst you've got. And I've also seen you fight against it for years. You're a good kid Rust."
Rust looked away, clearly uncomfortable with compliments. "You don't know that."
"I don't know much of anything right now. We're in a strange city, about to fight strangers to the death. It feels a bit like elementary school again, doesn't it?"
Rust giggled.
"Come on, we made a good team back then. We can do it again." she continued. Rust paused for a full minute, a look of concentration on his face. But she knew that it was merely for show. Finally he nodded and Nettie Sue smiled.
"Excellent." She said, "This calls for a celebration." She took her bok choy and split it in half, mixing some of it into her bed of quinoa and the other half in Rust's. Then she took a bite.
It was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted.
Demetri Donovan, District Five, Lunch on the last day
Demetri had not been this close to Lucien before. He had seen him at the parade, of course. And they would pass each other now and again during training. But they rarely talked, and there was always a casual distance between them. Except now Lucien was sitting right in front of him at the lunch table, hair perfectly coiffed and back enviously straight. The boy was beautiful, certainly. Demetri didn't care for boys like that but he had eyeballs. He looked less than a person and more like a work of art. It made Demetri alternate between staring too long and
"Don't you usually sit with the girl from Eleven?" he asked. Stupid question, but it was all he could think to ask. He was confused and perhaps a little suspicious about what the boy was doing over at his table. But he had to admit that he also didn't want him to leave. Demetri had tried to find friends, or allies, or even someone to talk to. But it had been hard for him. Everyone was focused on training for the games. Which he knew he should have been, but it wasn't quite that simple for him. He had meant to spend equal time among all of the survival stations, but had ended up accidentally spending three and a half hours at the knot tying section. Well, if they arena was full of rope he knew he would be fine, but wasn't entirely sure it would do much good otherwise.
He had thought that at least he would have Tesla to depend on. They were from the district after all, and when they had first boarded the train she had stuck to him pretty hard. It was both terrifying and reassuring to have someone depend on him, and he had made it a goal in his mind to keep her as safe as possible. But once it was revealed in the parade that she had been purposely reaped, Tesla had been far more withdrawn. She ate lunch with him during training, and was in fact sitting just to the left of him, but they hardly spoke. Demetri was starting to worry about her. Although he thought that maybe worrying about himself was more important.
"Oh yes, I'll go back to Carlotta in a moment." Lucien said. Right, Lucien. Demetri had gotten so distracted he had forgotten for a moment that the boy from eight was there at all, "I'm here on her behalf as well, actually. Haven't you heard? Five is the new Three?"
"What?" Demetri wondered if he always talked in riddles.
"Now that Three has decided that they want to go play soldier with the other upper districts, the role of the smart district falls to Five. Unless you aren't smart." Lucien said.
"I'm plenty smart!" Demetri protested. It was strange to say that so aggressively. He was used to hiding his grades and test scores, dumbing down everything he said and trying to avoid conversations about fusion or atoms. People didn't really like smart people, and Demetri very much wanted to be liked. But he had a sense that in this case his intelligence might be an advantage. Plus, someone saying he wasn't smart would be wrong. He couldn't just let wrong things pass without correction.
"Excellent." Lucien smiled, "So here is our proposal. I'm the looks, Carlotta is the brawn, and you my dear boy are the brains. Together we've got everything we need. You can even bring this darling here. She's adorable, and everyone has been talking about her after that gossip at the parade the other day."
Tesla shook her head and tried to hide her face in her arms.
"I think Tesla is of the mind that alliances made before the Hunger Games actually start are a little impractical, since you don't actually know who will be near you or what supplies anyone will have. Or who will die in the bloodbath."
Lucien laughed. "See, that /is/ smart! Clearly District Five is one to watch this year. So how about you? Are you thinking about going alone as well?"
Demetri didn't like the word alone. What he had said earlier was true, Tesla and he had talked about it before the chariots. Anything too formal was bound to break apart quickly. Although they said they wouldn't go after each other, and if they were in the same area would definitely consider working together. Demetri felt that was probably still true, even if circumstances had changed a bit. But he hated being alone. It was the worst feeling in the world. And if he was going to die, which was likely, he wanted to die among people who cared at least a little.
"I think an alliance is probably a good idea." He said, "So yeah. I'll join."
Lucien let out an uncharacteristic whoop, then was back to being composed. "Wonderful. Always good to have a genius on our side."
Demetri wasn't entirely sure he was a genius, but he appreciated the compliment.
"Ww do need to figure out what to do if we get separated though." Demetri said, "Because we probably will"
"I learned in the fire making section how to make patterns out of smoke. Would that work?"
"Only if you wanted to lead the careers right to us." Demetri answered. Lucien's face fell, looking like a kicked puppy, "But it's not a bad start to an idea. Maybe if we set the fire, but meet somewhere else, the careers will be drawn to the smoke but we'll already be gone."
Lucien started to beam again. "Like… we could set the fire, and that would be a signal to head back to the cornucopia?"
Demetri was worried that with as many careers as there were, there would probably be someone guarding the cornucopia at all times. But he was also stuck in the logistics of how to signal where to meet in an unfamiliar area while avoiding telling everyone else where you were as well. This at least had a chance of working. And the careers would definitely be led away, so even if someone was there, it would be much less of them.
"Yes. that would work." he said.
Lucien smiled once more, "Welcome to the team, Five."
AN: I guess when everyone praises you for how fast you are, it will inevitably happen that you get a chapter that takes a while. In my defense, this chapter is large. And also I was sick. So… life happens. I'm technically still sick, but in the 'laying around doing nothing' way and not the 'staring at nothing for five hours because my brain is leaking out of my skull' way. So I should be able to update the next chapter a little quicker. Time moves kind of weird in this chapter, so I hope it makes sense. Anyway, thank you for reading. Please review!
