Augustus Braun, 50
Victor of the 67th Hunger Games, District 1
District 1 had had a considerable number of new Victors since Augustus started mentoring, but he had never felt as confident in a pair as he had with Amos and Chardonnay. It was no secret that the viewers in the Capitol were getting tired of the typical District 1 tributes that they saw year after year. There was something about the blonde tributes with green eyes who are either sexy, brutal, or some combination of the two that were adored years ago, but were starting to get old. Tributes like Augustus and Cashmere.
It was still hard for Augustus to digest the fact that he was old news, even though he had fallen from grace years ago. Though, in his heart, he knew that he had been for a long time. Panem's Favorite Son, the Cavalier Career, had grown up and gotten replaced over and over. Not only with boys from 1, but ones from 2 and 4, and even more attractive ones from outer Districts. The higher the District number was, the more embarrassing it was. He hated feeling like the country loved Atticus Fennell more than they had ever loved him.
Maybe people were moving away from rooting for the tough guys, the ones who can win without half trying. There were always some people who rooted for an underdog, and that number seemed to be growing exponentially over the years. Did that mean that his tributes had less of a chance than he originally thought?
No, it couldn't. Audience reception and sponsoring played a part in the Games, obviously, but there was no denying naturally good tributes, and Chardonnay and Amos were two of the strongest competitors of the year. He could already tell. As long as they worked together as a team, there would be practically no stopping them.
Both of the tributes were up early to eat breakfast before training started with plenty of time to spare. It was interesting to see how they moved almost as one as they prepared virtually the same meal for themselves in complete silence. Oatmeal, nut butter, berries, honey. Amos added cinnamon. They listened and nodded respectfully as he and Cashmere went over the plan for the day; find the kids from 2 and 4, assert dominance, learn everything you can. Neither of them interrupted or asked any questions, but he could tell they understood completely what to do. He almost thought that they would have done exactly what he was telling them to do even without instruction.
Augustus admired how ready they both were to learn and get better. A lot of his tributes in the past got to the training center thinking that they already knew everything there was to know. And while they did usually know a lot, there was always more to learn. This year's District 1 tributes got that. They both wanted to be the best they could be, and neither of them would let their pride stand in the way of doing so.
Hudson Firth, 18
District 4
The first time that Hudson's alliance was all together was chaotic, to say the least. He knew that he was always a bit more laid back than the rest of his peers at the Academy, but he wasn't ready for four of his five allies to have sticks up their asses. The only person who seemed even remotely like someone that Hudson would get along with outside of the Capitol was Hera. She was probably the best looking girl of the year, but the girls from 7 and 10 came close.
Everyone else in Hudson's alliance had already gotten on his nerves one way or another. Castor had treated him like some kid of pervert just because he had complimented some of the girls there, Donnie went all feminist on him, and Amos didn't have the balls to have a different opinion. And Risso, who, as his District partner, was supposed to be on his side no matter what seemed to take every opportunity to go against him. It was just like home. Nobody wanted to listen to him because he didn't fit their idea of what a District 4 tribute should be. It wasn't his fault he wasn't Roman Lake or Finnick Odair. He was his own person, and just because he wasn't typical didn't mean that he shouldn't be taken seriously.
When he and Risso got down to the Training Center, they were only the third pair to make it, after (big surprise) Districts 1 and 2. Donnie and Amos were wearing matching silver tunics, Hera and Castor were wearing blood red, and Hudson and Risso were wearing teal. He was just glad that he and Risso made it there before any of the outer Districts. He didn't need to give the others anything else to criticize him for.
"Now that we're all here," Donnie said. "I think that the first thing we should do is figure out a leader of sorts."
"Don't you think we should wait?" Risso asked. "Wouldn't it make more sense to show each other what we can do and pick the most skilled person to be the leader?"
"I thought about that, too," Castor said. "But I agree with Donnie. We'll need someone to be more or less in charge while we go through training."
"We can always reevaluate later if we think we made the wrong choice," Amos added.
Hudson was certain that they'd make the wrong choice. Because there was little to no chance of them deciding on him, and he knew that he was the one who would actually be able to lead. If there were any other tributes who compared skill-wise, he wouldn't even be part of the alliance. Besides, he doubted Hera would walk away from the group, and he didn't want to leave her.
"So how are we supposed to know who to trust?" Hudson asked. "We only met each other yesterday."
"Maybe we could all just talk about ourselves for a few minutes, and why we want to be the leader," Amos said. "And then take a vote."
The group agreed on ranking their favorites by weight; each person's top choice would get three points, second choices would get two, and third choices would get one. Once everyone placed their scores, the one with the most points would be the leader. They decided to give their speeches alphabetically, so Hera was first.
Hera talked briefly about how skilled she was in combat, but the majority of her speech was about how, as the tribute with the most charm and sex appeal, the group would get the most our of sponsors if she was the figurehead of their alliance. As self-centered as it came across, Hudson couldn't argue with her logic.
Risso stressed the fact that since she and Hudson weren't close back home, she would be the most impartial leader of the group. It seemed like a direct diss against Amos and Donnie, but Hudson couldn't stop thinking about the implication that she wouldn't prioritize him over the rest of their allies.
Next was Amos, who told everyone about how he had learned leadership skills from his father who ran his own company, and how he had used those skills to help out the younger kids with learning how to fight.
After Amos, it was finally Hudson's turn. The point of his speech was to show that since he wasn't as stuck-up as most of the others, him being the leader would allow the group to have fun and relax sometimes. He noticed Donnie and Risso giving him the stink-eye, but he told himself to ignore them. He didn't need their votes.
Donnie had objectively the most compelling argument, though Hudson knew that he wouldn't vote for her regardless. She bragged about how she volunteered in the same program as Amos back in District 1, but the main part of her speech was about how her biggest goal was to see the alliance succeed, and she would do everything she could to make it happen.
"I'm not actually interested," Castor said. "I think most of you would probably do a better job than me, and I don't want anyone to waste their vote."
By this time, most of the other Districts' tributes had already trickled in, so they had to make the last part fast. They each grabbed a piece of paper from the podium by the door and wrote down their choices. Hudson gave himself three points, then two for Hera, and one for Risso. He didn't want to give Risso any points, but he couldn't bring himself to vote for Amos or Donnie.
Once they all wrote down their scores, they handed their papers to one of the trainers standing near them to tally, as a way to make sure it was fair. Castor came up with zero, as was expected, Hudson and Hera each had five, Risso had eight, and the pair from District 1 tied with nine points each.
"So, should the four of us do a tie-breaker?" Risso asked. Everyone nodded and muttered in agreement. "Okay, well my vote goes to Amos."
"I'm sticking with Donnie," Castor said. "She was my first choice to begin with."
Hudson glanced over at Hera. Since they each got five points, he got the feeling that she had voted the same way as him; three for herself, two for him, and one for Risso. She rolled her eyes.
"Donnie," she said.
"Amos," Hudson said. At least he was the lesser of two evils.
"Great," Donnie said. "That's still a tie."
"I know this is a little weird, but maybe it could be both of us," Amos suggested. "If we need to, we can vote between the two of us at the end of training. But for now… I mean, we definitely work well enough together."
"I'm fine with that if everyone else is," Donnie said. Nobody said anything against it, but the tension in the air was thick. "Okay, so it's settled."
Two leaders, both with allegiance to each other over the others. What could go wrong?
Gwyneth Calder, 16
District 8
Winnie didn't think she'd ever felt quite as out of place as she did in the Training Center. She was expecting the six tributes from 1, 2, and 4 to be intimidating- she had mentally prepared for that. What she wasn't prepared for was how the girl from 10 and the boy from 3 kept acing the plants test, the boy from 12 consistently hit the middle of the target with his arrows, and the girl from 6 threw knives with an intensity that even gave the trainers pause. How did they know how to do that? Was District 8 the only District in Panem that didn't teach that?
She kept looking to Aris out of instinct, only to find him doing his own thing. Last she'd checked, he was working on building fires. The boy from District 3 was there too, but they didn't seem to be talking to each other. He hadn't formally said that he wanted space from her, but Winnie got the feeling that if she asked him to team up, he'd say no. She turned to her headband for comfort, the one that her mother had hand embroidered flowers on. She reached up to her head and touched it lightly, cherishing the feeling of the familiar fabric on her fingertips.
Winnie decided that if she was going to train on her own, she would start off at knife throwing. The only other person there was the girl from District 6, and while she did have a deadly accuracy, something about her made Winnie trust her. She seemed nice, which Winnie knew was ridiculous since she had volunteered.
"Do you mind if I help this young lady next?" the trainer asked the girl from District 6. The girl smiled and grabbed her water bottle as she dabbed the sweat on her forehead with her sleeve.
"Sure thing," she said. "I'm gonna take a lap."
The trainer took a few moments to explain the very basics to Winnie; how to hold the knife properly, how hard to throw it, and where she should aim. She acted like she understood, and hoped it was easier to do than it was to understand. She picked up one of the smallest knives from the table, as if to trick herself into not being intimidated by the weapons. As she took a step back and wound up her arm like the trainer taught her to do, she felt herself bump into someone. She squealed and let the knife fly from her hand without meaning to. It didn't go far, but it was enough to send Winnie into a spiral. What if she had hurt someone? She hadn't, but what if she had?
"I'm so sorry," Winnie said before turning around. She squeezed her eyes shut and crossed her fingers. She hoped that whoever she just bumped into would go easy on her in the arena.
"Hey, it's okay," the person said. Winnie turned around slowly and opened her eyes to face a girl a few inches taller than her with freckles. She was wearing a forest green long-sleeved shirt and black leggings, and she had a black 7 pinned to her left shoulder. It was a nearly identical outfit to Winnie, but she was wearing pale purple and had an 8 pinned to her. She noticed that each District pair was wearing the same color. Winnie felt sure that this girl didn't want to hurt her.
"I'm sorry," she repeated.
"It's really okay," the girl said. "I'm not hurt or anything, I promise. I love your headband!"
Winnie reached up and touched it again. "Really? Thanks! My mom made it."
"That's really impressive. I do some embroidery work at home, but nothing that intricate yet. My mother says patience is a virtue that I haven't quite mastered."
Winnie laughed, but the girl looked at her with confusion. She got the feeling that what she had said wasn't supposed to be funny, so she returned her face to normal. The girl introduced herself as Ophelia Briar, and asked if Winnie would mind if she practiced throwing knives at the same time as her.
"So, is the headband your token?" Ophelia asked between throws.
"Yeah," Winnie said. "Do you have anything you're bringing in?"
"Kind of."
Ophelia told Winnie the best story that she'd heard since leaving District 8. She said that she hadn't thought to pack anything from home, but when she was saying goodbye to her family after the Reaping ended, her mother had given her an embroidery hoop with a piece that Ophelia had been working on at home. She said that her mother even packed the needles and thread so that she would have something to do in her downtime.
"Only thing is," Ophelia said. "The Gamemakers confiscated the needles. They told my mentor that they might give me an unfair advantage if I brought them in. So I just have this half finished piece."
"That's better than nothing, I guess," Winnie said. "Maybe you could ask someone for some needles, just to use until… You know."
"Yeah, maybe."
It was still hard for Winnie to think that in less than a week, she'd be getting lifted into the arena. She'd accepted it, obviously, but it was as if the less she thought about it, the less likely it was to come true. If she focused on the present hard enough, could she trick her mind and body in staying there forever? Maybe her body would be going into the Games, but her mind could stay right here, badly throwing knives and talking about needlepoint with Ophelia.
No. Even Winnie knew that was a stupid plan. The Games were going to happen, and Winnie was going to be a part of them whether she liked it or not. It was up to her to make the absolute best of a bad situation, and that started with not going into it alone.
"This might go without saying, so I'm sorry if this is obvious," she started. "But do you maybe want to… team up? You know, train together and then stick together in the arena?"
Ophelia grinned. "I thought you'd never ask."
Bramble Hawthorne, 18
District 12
As much as Bramble hated being away from home, he did have to hand it to the Capitol; they knew how to eat. All his life, hunger had become a neutral feeling that could more or less be turned off and back on at will out of survival. He had learned how to ignore his body's hunger cues at a young age, and his rumbling stomach, starry vision, and pounding head quickly faded into the background of his day to day life until he told himself that it was time to eat.
Being in the custody of the Capitol reversed 18 years of training his body in a day and a half. Ever since he first stepped foot on the train in District 12, the scent of food flooded his system, and he couldn't focus on anything else until he had eaten to his heart's content. It was already becoming a problem. As soon as the trays and pans of food started to come into the gym in preparation for lunch, Bramble completely lost focus on practicing with the shiny new bows and arrows, the ones that were so different from those carefully crafted by his father's hand. All he could think about was how he would feel after his meal.
It took every ounce of self control for him to not sprint to the line as soon as the lunch bell rang. He carefully put the weapons back on the rack where he found them, unlike some of the Career tributes who he noticed simply toss their supplies on the ground for someone else to pick up for them. He headed for the line, delighted to see that while he was far from the first in line, there was more than enough food for each of the 24 tributes. He tried not to think about what would be done with the excess.
After loading up his plate with meat, vegetables, and bread, Bramble headed for a table but stopped in his tracks. He hadn't expected very many people to be eating together yet aside from the six Careers, but already he saw the girls from 7 and 8 sharing a small circular table, as well as a few District pairs. Would sitting alone put an early target on his back? Everyone knew that single tributes were easier to take down than ones with allies- especially if the attackers were in a group. He was close to taking a small table in the corner and hoping no one would notice him by himself when his District partner gave him a small wave and a timid smile from a table by the drink station. He let out a small sigh of relief. He hadn't talked much to Buff aside from their interaction before the tribute parade, and while they were far from his first choice of allies, at least they were better than nothing. Besides, it was just lunch. It wasn't like they'd be stuck together for the entire Games.
"Learn anything useful today?" Buff asked as they pushed their food around with a fork. They never wasted time on smalltalk, which Bramble appreciated. Life was too short to waste on "hi," "how are you," and the like. Especially now.
"Mostly brushed up on old skills," he said. "No point learning something new until I can perfect what I'm already decent at. What about you?"
"Jack of all trades, master of none," they said. "Little of this, little of that. I'm just waiting for something to stick. What drew you to archery?"
Bramble thought about telling a lie, but decided against it. At least one of them was going to be dead in the next couple of weeks, and if it wasn't both of them, his money was on Buff. His secret would literally go to the grave.
"My dad taught me," he said. "When he was a kid, he had this friend that he used to go hunting with in the woods. He taught me and my sisters and my cousin, I guess to preserve her legacy or whatever."
"Legacy? What happened to her?"
"She died. In the Hunger Games, actually."
"Oh." Buff put their fork down. "I'm sorry."
"It's fine. She was asking for it." Bramble noticed the aghast look on Buff's face and decided to clarify. "No, literally. She volunteered."
"Oh, I remember her," Buff said. "I mean, I remember hearing about her. We've only had one volunteer."
"Yeah."
Bramble resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Somehow it always came back around to Katniss. He couldn't blame Buff, though. He had done it to himself this time. He went back to his food, shoveling a forkful of glazed beef into his mouth, and it seemed to melt on impact. Every time he ate something new in the Capitol, he swore it was the best thing he'd ever tasted.
"My aunt was in the Games, too," Buff said after a moment. "She won, though."
District 12 only had one living female Victor: Donica Jade Tenor. Bramble hadn't known that she and Buff were related, but maybe he should have. They did have the same last name, and it wasn't particularly common.
Maybe it was a good thing that he was seeming to join forces with his District partner. The Capitol audience liked Donica well enough, at least as far as Bramble remembered. He was only two years old when she won, but he vaguely remembered parties in the streets and tasting sweet foods all the time; oranges and chocolates and pastries dusted with cinnamon sugar. She won the 84th Games, but she was the first Victor from District 12 in over 30 years, and the first female Victor from 12 that anyone could remember. The celebrations lasted for years after their last parcel day.
Bramble wondered if people would be that excited if he won.
Arius Finley, 17
District 9
Arius had spent the morning trying and failing to pick up new skills, so by the time lunch was over, he was in need of a mood booster. He needed to do something that he knew he was good at, if only to remind himself that he stood a chance in the Games.
The worst part about training, at least so far, was watching as the Career tributes walked around the Training Center with their chests puffed out like they owned the place. He watched with his teeth gritted as they floated from station to station, effortlessly perfect at everything that they tried. The boys from 1 and 2 disarmed trainers with swords like it was nothing, the pair from 4 threw spears from distances Arius didn't even know were possible, and the girl from 1 barely broke a sweat as she chopped limbs off of dummies with a double-bladed ax. Even the girl from 2, who seemed dumb as shit, didn't shoot a single arrow outside of the bulls-eye.
Arius wanted to kill every last one of them. He didn't just want them dead. He wanted it to be him who made it happen. If they could kill kids every year like it was nothing- celebrate it, even- what was stopping him from doing the same to them?
He decided to take out his anger at the one station he was saving for when he really needed it: hand to hand combat. The only person there was the skinny boy from District 5, clad in bright blue, who was sweating and panting while he practiced his punches on a dummy. Arius figured they had the less experienced tributes practice on mannequins first, to avoid any serious injury to the trainers. He watched as the boy threw punches to the jaw and gut, and noticed that his thumb was curled in under his fingers. Arius spoke almost without meaning to.
"You're going to break your thumb if you keep doing it like that," he said. The boy stopped and looked over, but kept his fist clenched. Arius took a few more steps toward him. "Can I…?"
The boy nodded. His jaw was clenched and his chin was raised ever so slightly. He was scared, but trying not to come across that way. He reminded Arius of all of the new fighters in his ring. He reached out and touched the boy's hand, moving his thumb so that it was outside of his fist and laying across his first knuckles.
"Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart," Arius said. "Then step into it. Make your arm straight. Try that."
The boy took a breath, then threw the punch the way Arius had instructed him to. The dummy fell backward, then bounced back forward on its springs. He hadn't been watching him for long, but that was without a doubt the best hit he had seen him land. He turned back around to Arius, and his face twisted into a smile.
"Thanks," the boy said. "I don't know why they didn't teach me that in the first place."
He gestured toward the instructor assigned to the station, who was perched on a stool lazily reading a magazine. The front cover was a picture of last year's Victor, Pierre Reese from District 3, sitting in front of a chess board. The headline boasted "Smart AND Sexy: How This Sweetheart Won It All!" Arius laughed. Of all the things wrong with that title, the most egregious had to be describing the sunken-cheeked 17-year-old Victor as sexy.
"Kind of funny you'd expect them to actually help us," he said. He smiled, and the boy visibly loosened up. "Name's Arius."
Arius extended his hand and the boy shook it. His handshake was firmer than he had expected, but he didn't let the surprise show on his face. Never let them see you surprised. Never give them the upper hand.
"Teo," the boy said. "Do you know how to build traps? I can show you if you want."
Truthfully, Arius had no clue how to build anything that would trap even a squirrel. He had tried for a little while before lunch, but he got frustrated quickly and tore the fishing line into pieces before moving to edible plants, where he had a bit more luck.
"That would be great."
Teo was a surprisingly good teacher, and explained how to tie different knots better than the instructor that had driven Arius to rage earlier. When Arius made mistakes, Teo didn't get frustrated or snap at him, but gently corrected him with the exact right amount of condescension. Arius couldn't fault him for that, though. Teo knew more than him. He was allowed to act like it, to an extent.
Arius and Teo didn't have an awkward conversation where they formally asked each other if they wanted to form an alliance, and Arius was glad for that. He didn't like serious conversations like that. He was more than happy to continue working quietly with Teo, cracking jokes every once in a while. He found it a lot easier to learn new things when someone else was learning at the same time as him. It made him feel less stupid to know that it wasn't just him that didn't know these skills, but that there were a select few people who started with an unfair advantage.
He couldn't shake his hatred for the Career tributes. They acted like they were full of natural talent and simply better than everyone else, but that just wasn't the case. Arius knew he could fight, and he knew that if he had received formal weapons training as well, he could be even better than they were. They were so privileged and they didn't even know it.
He had to prove that he was better than them, for himself and everyone watching. And there was only one way to do that.
Chevvy Carnegie, 17
District 6
Chevvy was surprised by how easy it had been to make friends leading up to the beginning of the Games. Initially, he had thought that he would stick with Lumi for as long as he could, but that ended up being a bad idea for a few reasons. Firstly, she was almost sickeningly positive. While he appreciated that she was trying to put him in a good mood, he knew that if he had to deal with her in the arena telling him to "look on the bright side," his head might actually explode.
More importantly, though, Chevvy knew that if it came down to it, he would not be able to betray her in the end. Intentionally or not, this girl saved Torque from an even sooner and more painful death. In the end, there was just no way around it. Lumi deserved to live more than he did. She was kind to everyone, and had put her own life on the line to save his girlfriend. Not to mention, if Chevvy lost to Lumi, there was not a doubt in his mind that she would use some of the winning money to help Torque.
Chevvy didn't want to die. And if, by some fluke, Lumi died before he did, he knew he would keep fighting. But he also knew that he would instruct his allies to leave her alone, and if it came to the two of them in the finale, he would sacrifice himself. Sure, his family would be sad without him, but he knew that he would not be able to live with himself if he let the person who saved his girlfriend die so that he could live.
He hadn't known them for long, but Chevvy trusted his allies not to hurt Lumi. He was afraid, based on the recap of the Reapings, that all of the other tributes would be insanely strong and vicious, or scrawny kids who would definitely die in the bloodbath. Fortunately he was wrong, and he had become fast friends with Everett and Tohias, from Districts 7 and 10 respectively. Everett said that he and his District partner decided that, while they wouldn't kill each other on sight, it was a better arrangement for both of them if they stuck in different circles. Tohias said that his District partner wanted nothing to do with him, or any man for that matter. Chevvy didn't feel like explaining the whole story of why he wouldn't be allies with Lumi to his new friends, at least not yet, but she seemed more than happy running through the various training stations solo, occasionally stopping to chat with whoever would give her the time of day.
Chevvy was happy that his allies all had different physical strengths. Everett told the boys about how he had learned to pick out edible mushrooms, and while Chevvy had never enjoyed mushrooms in his life, he knew that it would be something he'd have to live with if that was the only food source they could find. Not to mention, he knew how to swing an ax. Tohias was extremely strong- deceivingly so, in fact. Chevvy was surprised that more District 10 tributes didn't win the Games, given how many could seemingly slaughter a pig then throw it across a field without batting an eye. Chevvy's biggest strength so far seemed to be that he was comfortable fading into the background and helping the others when they needed it. He was always a good follower.
"Do you guys think you could actually kill someone?" Everett whispered. The trio of boys were practicing tying small pieces of ropes into knots, and the conversation had been stagnant for a while.
"Yeah," Tohias said without hesitation. "I mean, we're going to have to, won't we?"
"I guess…" Everett's voice was almost inaudible.
"It doesn't sit right with me either," Chevvy chimed in. "But, I mean… If my life was in immediate danger, of course I'd do it."
"I know," Everett said. "I'm sure I would, too. But do you think you actually have it in you to strike first?"
"I don't think so," Chevvy admitted.
"I just hope I don't have to," Tohias said. "But we all know that most successful kills aren't in self defense. They're the people who hit first. 'The best defense is a good offense,' or whatever."
"I don't think that's how the saying goes," Chevvy said.
"Yeah, definitely not," Everett agreed.
Maybe it was naive of him, but Chevvy did have to agree with Tohias, at least about hoping that he wouldn't ever have to strike first. He knew that it was the Hunger Games, and soft people almost never win, but stranger things have happened. It wouldn't be the first time that a Victor minded their business until the end of the Games and only ever killed anyone at the end, when they were immediately threatened. Those Victors also usually got to live most of their lives in peace. The less interesting the Victor, the less time the Capitol fixates on them.
Maybe Chevvy could be that kind of Victor. He could cure Torque of her illness, and then the two could live a quiet, happy life in Victor's Village. That was all he wanted, really. Peace and stability. He didn't want to have to worry about his girlfriend's health.
He should stop calling Torque his girlfriend, and he knew it. She had agreed to marry him, after all. But he couldn't shake the feeling that if he moved to more serious language, it would only hurt him more when one of them eventually died. He couldn't help but wonder what would happen first. Would Torque finally succumb to her illness? Or would Chevvy be made the latest victim of the Hunger Games?
He really hoped that Lumi could help her.
Orabella Lenwood, 14
District 3
Very few of this year's tributes seemed to be able to measure up to Orabella, and she couldn't tell if that was a good thing. Sure, it meant that the majority of her competition would be out easily before her, but she wasn't stupid. She was tied as the youngest tribute of the year, and was far and away the smallest. She knew what she was capable of, but she knew that nobody else would be able to tell. More importantly, she knew that she would not be able to survive on her own. But how was she supposed to form a bond with someone if those who were good enough didn't think the same of her, and those who were willing to join her weren't good enough?
She didn't like to seem like she thought she was better than anyone else. She was, but she didn't like people to know that she thought so. She didn't want to have to stoop to a level that was, for lack of better phrasing, beneath her.
She genuinely had problems with almost all of the tributes in this year's Games. The Careers were all arrogant pricks, as usual. Ramsey, the girl from 5, and both tributes from 8 were all clearly weak, both physically and mentally. The girls from 6 and 7 looked sensitive, like one person yelling at them would cause them to burst into tears. Some of the others seemed like they could make decent allies, like the boys from 5 and 9, or the pair from 12, but they were already in alliances with each other.
So, Orabella set her sights on a few girls; the ones from 9, 10, and 11. They all seemed relatively serious, clearly the no-nonsense type of people who would actually help Orabella in the arena and not make reckless mistakes that would get her killed. Of course, she wouldn't talk to any of them yet. She still didn't really know what they were like or how they would perform. She'd keep her eye on them during the next day of training, and then approach the ones that she felt confident about before their individual training sessions in two days. Or she would wait for them to approach her.
Orabella's first day of training was mostly uneventful. She had practiced with a few weapons and survival skills, but she only did each for about an hour at a time. How proficient did the Capitol want her to be in all of these skills with two and a half days of practice? She figured that she'd probably just have to use what she knew, so instead of focusing on things that she knew she'd never master, she had spent most of her time people watching. She had brought her metal case of colored pens with her and spent a decent amount of time creating color coded notes of the tributes and their strengths. She was determined to learn everyone's name.
She learned that Arius knew enough about combat to help Teo more than the trainers did. She saw that the pair from 12 were hanging around each other, but neither of them seemed thrilled with the arrangement. And she learned that Luminara knew too much about each station to be a coincidence. She also saw Hera and Hudson duck into a janitor's closet for about ten minutes and come out with their clothes wrinkled, but she didn't think that was of the utmost importance.
Orabella did not want to spend dinner with her District team, but she knew that she had to. Aside from the fact that she needed to eat as much as she could so that she'd have more stamina in the arena, she knew that despite how useless everyone in her suite was individually, she was going to have to rely on them to make it out alive. She wasn't sure how much good a scrawny technology nerd, an old lady with a failing memory, the youngest Victor currently alive, and a dumb Capitolite would do her, but it couldn't be negligible. She had to put up with them for her own sake.
So, despite her wishes, she sat around the long oval table in the kitchen, stuffing herself with chopped salad, crispy potatoes, and the meat of some animal that she couldn't name so that her mouth was too full to make a mean comment.
"How did it go today?" Pierre asked. "Either of you do anything fun?"
A mouth full of food may have been enough to keep Orabella from saying anything rude, it allot the potatoes in the world couldn't have stopped her eyes from rolling to District 12 and back. She and Ramsey hadn't done anything fun that day and he knew it. She was sick of him acting like he was more than a few years older than them; like it had been decades since he had been in their shoes rather than just a year. Still, at least he was better than Wiress who just sat there mumbling to herself and spilling food in her lap.
"It was fine," Ramsey said. "I learned how to start a fire."
Orabella thought back to all the freezing nights where she and her sister huddled together under a threadbare blanket around a tiny campfire that they had made together from whatever scrap wood they could find in the urban terrain of District 3 and bit her tongue to keep from snapping. How was it possible that she and her District partner had grown up just blocks away from each other, but worlds apart? She couldn't imagine being his age and not knowing how to keep herself alive.
As if she needed another reason to carefully vet her allies. Finding people who could pull their weight might be a bit harder than she had originally thought.
College is hard.
I just want to get this out of the way while I'm still pretty early in the pre-Games process. But I can tell that some characters are being seen and heard from a bit more than others at the moment (specifically Districts 4, 7, and 12), but it's going to even out a ton by the time the bloodbath rolls around. We're obviously going to see more of the characters who would naturally show up in other characters' sections (think about the Careers; we're six times more likely to see them than someone who isn't in an alliance), but I'm going to have the representation be as proportionate as possible. The people that we're seeing a lot of right now will be seen less later, and the ones who aren't being portrayed a ton will come more toward the center.
Vote on the poll or you're smelly. I don't make the rules.
1. Which established alliance is your favorite so far?
2. What are your thoughts on the Career alliance?
3. Thoughts on Augustus?
4. Any predictions?
