Carameuse Heloise, 48
Capitol Citizen

"Valerie and I have done nothing to make ourselves suspects in this case," the man with the golden eyes hisses at Carameuse. His face seems to be turning red with anger at being forced to go through this interview, and his wife nudges his arm to calm him down. It's a subtle gesture, but Carameuse notices it nonetheless - for every ounce of rage that Flavian Cateo has, his wife has two more of composure.

She won't let her guard slip. But he… well, he might.

"Valerie, I'm going to have to ask you to keep with the others. I find it best to conduct interviews in solitude." Carameuse chooses to ignore the man and responds directly to the woman, whose amber eyes widen before her mouth opens in a silent O of acknowledgement. It's like she's just woken up from a trance as she nods, standing up to leave. "I do hope you understand."

"Oh, of course. It's completely on me to have intruded on your privacy like this." Valerie turns around to walk to the other side of the car, where she leans over the counter and asks the bartender for a drink. Carameuse considers asking the woman to leave the car so that only the suspects - and the peacekeepers - will be here, but she decides against it. Perhaps it's best to have someone not connected to the case to ease the tension.

"Alright, shall we begin where we left off?" Flavian asks, seeming to have composed himself all too quickly in the time that it took for his wife to leave. "Now, I didn't do anything to be a suspect here - my wife and I are humble citizens, in her service."

"The Cateo couple, rising stars in the world of gamemakers and celebrity-dom, with your television show together," Carameuse murmurs to Flavian. "You two were found to be quite radical by President Ember - perhaps too radical, especially with the avid demonstrations that your followers held in front of government buildings declaring that Ember needed to resign. Add that to the fact that you've had shady dealings with rebel-sympathizing companies, and one could build a solid case against you. But most importantly, you were found with weapons in your luggage."

"I -" Flavian seems at a loss for words, sputtering for some appropriate response. "But why would there -"

"Ms. Heloise!" the sound of Carameuse's name seems to be more like a shriek than a call, and Cassia pushes past a table to move towards them. Carameuse looks past the woman to see the others - the bartender and peacekeepers included - crowded around something… some… someone.

"What is it, Cassia?" she asks, already knowing the answer.

"Oh - oh - oh -" Cassia nearly bursts into tears, but swallows her fear away to reply to Carameuse. "Ms. Heloise… Ms. Heloise, one of the others - the man… he's dead."

Callous Lecket, 17
District Ten Male

"Am I ready for the Hunger Games?" he murmurs to himself while he dresses in the uniform that they're supposed to wear in the training centre. It's shapeless enough to not reveal anything, so he's not too uncomfortable in it - although he doesn't like the feeling of the fabric very much. He'd rather wear something soft, something ragged and torn and genuine.

He wants to go back home.

"Hey, we're supposed to be heading down soon. You're coming, right?" Ceres pokes her head into his bedroom as Callous starts putting on his shoes, tapping a foot in impatience. "You gonna hurry up, or?"

"Yeah, I'm coming," Callous replies. He pats himself down, satisfied with his appearance, and tries to straighten up his shoulders. His mother's always said that he looks better when his shoulders are ramrod straight, that he looks stronger, bigger when he looks confident, but Callous finds it too hard to do that anymore.

It's too exhausting to pretend that he's fine all of the time.

He blows up at his thin hair to get some of the long, blonde strands out of his face - he hates the way they tickle against his forehead, but he hasn't gotten the opportunity to cut them yet. The hair settles back down in a place that's comfortable, and he follows Ceres - grabbing a muffin from the table along the way. He might be dying in a few days, but he's still hungry. "So, what did you want to ask me?"

Ceres laughs, more than a little nervously. It's surprising to hear that from her - she's been nothing but composed throughout this whole trip. "I'm supposed to ask you to join this alliance I'm in - it's nothing too big - I mean, it is. The boys from Five, Six, Seven, Eight, and Eleven are in it, and so are the girls from Nine and Eleven. We're bigger than even the careers right now - and the more people the better. If we can get ourselves ready for the bloodbath, we might be able to get rid of them. We could kill the largest threats before they have a chance to start murdering, Cal."

"I…" he ponders the thought for a moment, thinking of the careers with their sharp swords and practiced muscles. They wouldn't let a ragtag alliance cut them down that easily, yet… if they had a chance, just one…

He wants an alliance, too. It's just that he hasn't had the chance to approach anyone yet - he's been practicing throwing axes and working with knives, trying to learn what he can. It keeps his mind busy and off of the fact that he's supposed to die - it keeps his mind away from remembering that he's fine with dying.

"Well, are you in or out? I don't care if you're not going to join, but I wouldn't mind having you. You're strong enough," Ceres remarks. Callous blushes - he hasn't thought of the fact that everyone else has been observing him as much as he has them. "So?"

"Yeah, I'll join you all." The words come out of his mouth before he has a chance to properly think about what he's saying, and he chides himself mentally for making what could be his final mistake. But he's said it now - there's no going back. He's part of an alliance.

Even if it means that he's now a target of the careers, it's nice to know that someone other than himself has his back.

They take the elevator down to the training centre, Ceres stepping off first to head towards the group of teens that have already made it into the centre. "Jackson will be pleased - he's been recruiting like mad to get everyone into the alliance. I guess he's making sure no one can be approached by a career before they're by us, you know?"

"It makes sense," Callous replies. It's a formidable group - the boys from Five to Eight are all here, with the girl from Nine, the pair from Eleven, and themselves hurrying to join them before the careers get here. That's, what, nine tributes? It's almost double what the careers have, especially now that the girl from Four isn't part of their group.

They just might have a chance after all.

Hex Hertz, 16
District Twelve Male

"Hey," Antimony says when he reaches the edible plants section that Hex has been waiting at for the past half-hour. "Electra's coming soon, she just has a few things to take care of upstairs."

"Sounds good!" replies Hex, giving the boy a grin. They had met on the first day and liked each other well enough to strike up a tentative alliance - letting Antimony's district partner into the group after she asked to join, although Antimony had heaved and hawed about it for a while before caving in. The fact that she knew every edible plant by heart after looking at them just once didn't hurt their decision, though.

"That one alliance is starting to get monstrously big," Antimony muses as they start to sort the poisonous plants from the edible ones. Hex puts a harmless piece of mint on his right, taking care to not mix up the two categories. He doesn't want to look like a fool in front of Antimony. "I wonder if the careers will cut them down to size, or if they're the ones in charge of these Games. I'd bet more than a few sesterces that they'll kill a career in the bloodbath - how about you?"

"I don't know." Hex looks over at the group - there's over eight of them now, all working to build a fire once more. They spend a lot of time at the fire-making station, stopping only to practice other skills, eat, and attempt to recruit more people for their alliance. But most of the other tributes have already made up their minds of where they stand. Himself, Antimony, and Electra don't want to join the group out of fear that they'll be noticed by the careers, and the girls from Six, Eight, and Twelve have joined forces as well. There are quite a few alliances this year - perhaps they're a result of the fact that the boy from Six had campaigned so ferociously to make an alliance to rival the careers.

No one wants to be the person left behind.

"Well, this isn't the year to not be in an alliance. I think that the girls from Four, Five, and Seven, and the boy from Nine are going to regret not being in one - oh, wait, someone's approaching the Nine. Are they accepting him, too? They're almost half of the field this year by now - this is wild. Imagine being a gambler this year!" Antimony lights up at the thought on betting on which tributes will make it through the bloodbath, his mind alight with possibilities. Hex admires the way he can think his way through every scenario - it's almost frightening to see how enterprising he is.

"He's a smart guy - they'd want him. Oh, hi Electra!" Hex waves to his other ally, who blushes as she takes a seat at the table. "Are you ready to race again?"

Electra nods with a giggle, and they all take their share of plants. "Ready, set, go!" Hex shouts, and they quickly sort the foreign plants. Electra finishes far too quickly for them to have a chance of beating her, but she smiles and claps when Antimony finishes a few moments later. Hex finishes last, but he's satisfied with his results - the instructor soon tells him that he's gotten over ninety percent of them correct.

He likes those odds.

"Well, it's soon time for the private sessions," whispers Antimony as a career passes by their table. It's the boy from Two, who heads in the direction of the bathroom instead of bothering to look at them. The three all breathe a sigh of relief, and Antimony continues his train of thought. "Who do you think will do the best?"

"Girl from Five," replies Electra quickly. The boys stare over at her, surprised, but nod along with her. Electra's usually right. "She knows more than what she lets on. The girl from Five will do the best."

"That makes sense, but I'm going to guess that the boy from Two or the girl from One is going to take the highest score," Antimony says with a thoughtful glance. "I like playing it safe when it comes to scores - I gamble a lot."

"So I see!" Hex says with a chortle. He hasn't learned too much about Antimony's past, but he knows that the boy from Three works with horses - and other, more dubious methods of work wouldn't surprise him. "Hmm, I'll guess that the boy from Six will do the best - he's solid and strong. Maybe the careers are weaker than we think."

"They aren't," whispers Electra. They all glance over at the careers, who are discussing something quite intently, and a shiver passes down Hex's spine.

He doesn't know what to think anymore.

Aeson Humpford, 18
District Two Male

"So, what are we doing?" Tourmaline looks to the rest of the group, waiting for an answer. "None of the outliers are going to join us, even if we tried."

"We already have," murmurs Aeson. They had asked the girl from Ten to work with them in the arena, but she had flat-out laughed in their faces before walking back to the too-large alliance that's now the central focus of the training centre. It'd be amusing if it wasn't so dangerous, an alliance that could crush the careers in one fell swoop.

They have to be prepared. They have to be ready.

But he doesn't know if the careers are.

"Kill them all, I suppose," Duchess says with a laugh. He hasn't been taking this very seriously - Aeson's starting to get annoyed with the boy from One. But he's a smart, cunning competitor - someone that'll be a help to the alliance. And none of them can afford to make enemies within the careers when they're so vastly outnumbered. "We'll get rid of the biggest threats, and stick together. Two on one for each of the guys or something - I'm sure we can get rid of the little ones easily. Once we get three or four to die, the others will think twice about fighting us."

"True, but what do we do if they overwhelm one of us?" Tourmaline's frowning now, obviously trying to plan their best course of strategy. She pushes back her dark curls of hair and thinks, her eyebrows scrunched up as she tries to think of something that they can do. They all must feel truly stumped by this point - this isn't something that they were ready to confront. There has never been an alliance this big, something that could crush them all if the outliers played their cards right. "I just - I can't think of a thing. We're just going to have to gun for their strongest ones."

"Snake's head," Enyo says quietly. They all turn to look at her, and the girl blushes a brilliant shade of scarlet. "Cut off head, the rest… you know."

"So we'll stick to our plans - that's settled, then," Aeson says with a tone of finality. Tourmaline nods curtly, and they all settle back into their seat. Fraser still looks a bit confused by the metaphor, but he does his best to pretend that he understands.

And then he feels the burning again.

"Sorry, gotta go to the bathroom again," he calls to the rest of the careers as he pushes away his seat and hurries to the lavatories. Duchess looks at him oddly, then laughs about something that Aeson can't hear. They must all think that he's a fool - or maybe worse, but they wouldn't know what it's actually about. They wouldn't, would they? They can't. No one knows, no one except his family and himself.

He can't tell them.

A few moments later, he's finished with his business and splashes some water onto his face. He can't keep going like this - not when he has to enter the arena without the medication. And the medication's just barely helping - what will it be like when he has nothing to lean on? How will he justify his disappearances in the arena every half-hour?

He's going to have to up the medication rate, ask one of the victors what he should do, anything to make sure that he won't get caught up in this. He's not letting a silly mistake of ignoring this urinary tract infection to stop him from getting killed - no, this is his Games to win. He's going to win. He just has to find a way.

When Aeson hurries back to the careers, they've left the table and are getting ready to form a line for the private sessions. Their time together is coming to an end, he realizes. They've all formed an opinion on him, whether it be good or bad.

He knows what he has to do. If he can perform well here, if he can get himself a score to rival the others, if he can prove that he deserves to be here, they won't question a thing. He just has to keep everything under control. He just needs control.

He just has to wait a little longer.

Quick chapter today to wrap up training! Thoughts? Good to see that a good chunk of y'all are still here for the most part - especially the four people who review every chapter bc they are the REAL heroes :D

Enjoy the chapter! I'll see you soon with the private sessions. Until next time, TheAmazingJAJ