Yttria Noxus- District Three female
When I got Reaped, I could cry and give up and wait to die, but that wasn't me. This wasn't a tragedy, it was a survival story. No matter what the Capitol did, my life was no one's but mine, and I was going to fight for it.
For my first day training, I learned to fight. I picked up a spear and a crossbow for the first time. I felt their weight in my hands and knew I'd picked them up with the intent to kill someone else before they could kill me. The spear was for the cavewoman in me and the crossbow for the scientist. The spear was easy to make and easy to learn. The crossbow was an invention of intelligence and physics, allowing me to propel projectiles with far more accuracy and strength than my human body on its own. I remembered everything from all the books my parents were always reading and writing. I was going to be the first of us to live it.
The second day, I put into action what I'd sown the day before. As I learned, I also searched. I looked at the other Tributes, analyzing which ones would complement and enhance my skills with their own. The Games were always the Careers' to win. Not this time. I wasn't going to be an easy target for them. What I couldn't fight on my own, I would do with numbers. That was how humans rose to the top. We made tools that made us better than what we were, and we worked in collective to achieve what we couldn't on our own.
I started with some conditions. First, I only wanted female allies. In my heart I knew that was unfair, and that it might even get me killed. I knew there was no real reason to exclude half the human race based on chromosomes, and it was kind of ironic I would do that when I considered myself such a feminist. But maybe it was the very irrationality that led me to my decision. So much of the Games would be instinct. In the split second where action would determine life or death, I would understand a fellow woman better than I would a man. We would act quicker and more cohesively, and that could save us.
Next, they needed skills that balanced mine. I knew weapons, chemistry, and some plants. I needed trackers, or shelter-makers, or medics. I needed sprinters and girls who could life things beyond me. And last of all, my secret, shameful condition. I didn't want anyone significantly stronger than I was. Alliances can run deep, but survival runs deeper.
At the end of the first day, I had my picks. At the start of the second, I came for them. I came for Paloma Bennett and Othella Fline.
Paloma Bennett- District Ten female
I sat alone at lunch, looking at the other Tributes. Most of them looked back at me, in between nervously watching still other Tributes. None of it still seemed real. It seemed faraway and blurry to me that I'd had a chance to let someone else die and I'd actually fought against it. It didn't make any sense that I was training to go into an Arena to fight other kids until all but one were dead. If I closed my eyes, I'd open them and I would be in bed after a nightmare.
When I next blinked, it wasn't my room that appeared. Instead I saw the girl from Three coming my way. When I first saw her before the parade, I thought her hair had gone white from fear, like something from a scary story. Now I could tell it was dyed, which probably told me something about what kind of person she was. She didn't care about people staring. She was bold and knew what she wanted. She had her own ideas and lived by them.
"Hey," she said, stopping before my table. She didn't have a tray, so she must have come just to talk to me. "I'm Yttria."
"I'm Paloma," I said. I wondered if she already knew that, since she was obviously gunning for me about something.
"I'm looking for allies," Yttria said. "I'd like to ask you." She had an air about her that it was more of informing me than asking me. It might have been arrogant, but it wasn't. It was just confident.
"Why me?" I asked.
"I want to make an alliance that can oppose the Careers. Not fight them, but make them not want to come for us. I want girls, and I want people that have skills that fit with mine. I know chemistry and weapons. You know shelters. We'll be stronger together," she said. Again, she said it like it was true, as true as something you'd read in a textbook.
I hadn't thought of allies. I hadn't thought much of anything. I'd been lost in a daze of knowing I was dying and reeling over and over at how quickly it had come. Yttria was as unwavering as I was lost. She had a steely look in her eyes and an unfeigned boldness in her bearing that let me know she was a leader. Whether she'd lead me to death or victory, I couldn't say, but I wagered she could.
"All right. I'm in."
Othella Fline- District Eight female
"You're a cute little thing," the Capitolite woman said, her old eyes crinkling as she carefully sat next to me. "Why so sad?" She dug in her purse and came out with a rainbow sweet. I took it politely.
"My imaginary friend is mean," I said. And I'm in the hunger Games. Really it was a silly question, but to be fair that wasn't why I was sad. I was sad about Hadley.
"You should tell her to stop or you won't play with her," the woman said.
"He never leaves me alone," I said.
The woman's face shifted. "Does he scare you?" she asked.
"No, he's not real, so he can't scare me. He just always says mean things," I said.
"I don't think he sounds like a friend at all. Does he tell you you should hurt yourself?" the woman asked.
"No, I don't think he ever did that. He tells me scary things, like that I'm going to die soon," I said. He wasn't really wrong about that.
"I think you should tell a doctor," the woman said. She seemed sad for me, which was very kind of her. "Sometimes some things get crossed in our head and things like that happen. They can help you not have to listen to him anymore."
"That's what Tillo said," I said. My mentor and I had been getting along pretty well until then. Tillo didn't like kids much and she was pretty prickly in general, but she put up with me since I wasn't loud or fussy. Then I mentioned Hadley and she started talking about doctors and setting up an appointment for me. I agreed to make her happy, but I didn't think anything would come of it.
"I think you should listen to Tillo, not the other guy," the woman said.
"Thanks. Maybe I will," I said.
When Yttria came to me asking about an alliance, I didn't mention Hadley. He was there in the background, making faces at her and telling me no one would want me as an ally and she would just betray me, but I didn't listen. I was going to listen to someone real this time.
Bit of a mixed metaphor, since Yttria is both the fighter and the leader. She's more a Buttercup in my opinion. Othella is obviously Bubbles, so that's taken care of. Blossom is also the most level, so I guess that fits Paloma.
