A/N: SIKE! Ha ha! XD Not the first day of training, my friends. The first morning! Every tribute is getting 2 Pre-Games POVs; one from training, and one from some other random time during the Pre-Games, which will mostly be these mornings and evenings. If the Reapings & Chariot Rides happened on a Sunday, the Games will then start on a Sunday. And guess what! We also have to check in with our friends, the Mentors! Since they're mine their POVs will vary in length and depth, but you'll want to read them since they'll be check ins with possibly your tribute(s) depending on what Districts they're from. Enough rambling! Onto the story! Enjoy your read! Today we have one tribute, Sage Alumius, along with a Mentor, Woof Parsons from Eight. Enjoy!

Trigger Warnings: TBD

We can build a tree house in the pine trees

We can keep our secrets buried underneath

Wild flowers crash between your fingers

Clinging to the wild things that raised us

Compass points you home,

Calling out from the east

Compass points you anywhere

Closer to me

Woof Parsons, 21

Victor of the 17th Annual Hunger Games & District Eight Mentor

Uriah hobbles out of his room, bleary eyed and exasperated when he spots Gaia and I sitting at the breakfast, munching on breakfast thoughtfully as we plot for breakfast. Uriah snaps his fingers at the Avox serving us and points to Calico's door, signaling him to go wake up his charge. The Avox bows his head respectfully before darting over to the door and slipping inside the room. A couple of moments later, the Avox slips out, and soon after that Calico emerges, just as grumpy and apathetic as his Mentor. He tugs on his tight black training outfit in discomfort once he sits down at the table next to Uriah and across from Gaia and myself. Gaia's also wearing the almost rubbery black training uniform, a silvery 8 stamped on their chests, sides of their shoulders, and napes of their necks on the rich black shirt. Gaia seems pretty comfortable in hers, too engrossed in our planning and the delicacies spread before her to care about her clothes.

"So, I can't stress this enough, survival skills are essential," I murmur before snapping a piece of crisp bacon in half and chewing on one end. Once I swallow, I say, "Water always comes first. Food and shelter can wait. Water is the most essential thing. Depending on the arena, shelter may come before food."

"So I shouldn't spend much time at edible plants?" Gaia replies quietly, gobbling up some cantaloupe excitedly, but looking a little disappointed by the prospect of skipping the aforementioned station. "Like you know I love botany and I'd love to learn more, you know?"

"Yeah, I get it," I mumble, eating the other part of my bacon strip. "Just don't spend all of your time there. You've got to learn some other skills too. I'd suggest looking into that blowpipe, like how to wield and make one. Focus on that, another survival skill, and then edible plants too if that's where you want to go."

"It is where I wanna go," she affirms, biting her lip. "Might as well have fun, eh?"

"Ex-exactly," I stutter back, almost choking on the corner of toast in my throat. Uriah's sullen gaze is also locked on Gaia now. She looks up at me, confused.

"Did I do something wrong?" she inquires innocently, stabbing a cube of watermelon and mashing it to a pulp in her mouth, some juice dribbling down her chin. She dabs it away with a nice silken napkin, which she shakily puts back on her lap.

"I-it's, um, eh..." I trail off.

"It's the thing Woof said to me on his first day of training," Uriah grunts. "Don't get hysteric, Parsons. Don't believe silly omens, my boy."

"Might as well have fun, eh?" Calico squeaks from his seat, where he's cutting expertly and politely into a bagel so he can put cream cheese on it. "See? Doesn't do anything. I'm still probably going to die anyway. So yeah. Myth debunked."

A retort bubbles in my throat, but I push it down. The kid's still in shock; if he's still dead set on dying by Private Sessions, then it'll be time to talk to him Woof. Obviously Uriah is a great fit for the kid, encouraging his tendencies to mark himself as a Bloodbath. Give it time, Woof. Give it time.

Silence falls like a thick cloak over the table, blocking everything else out. My hands are a little unsteady as I try to spear some honeydew, and I meet Uriah's stern gaze, his dark brown eyes smoldering with worry. He might be an asshole, but he's my Mentor and one of my only friends. He's usually less grumpy and much more nerdy when there's no tributes involved. When he has to take care of kids, though, he turns into a cranky guy who acts like he's a grandfather and he already seems like one; his hair is starting to fall out, and his face bears the first wrinkles. He is in his 40s, but he looks older than that here. He looks like some old miser back in Eight who yells at the urchins who sleep too close to the porch of his apartment complex.

Once we're done with breakfast, we have around a half hour or so until the tributes have to get down to the training facility in the basement of the Tribute Hotel. We like to be fashionably early, around ten minutes so, so we have about fifteen to twenty minutes until we have to depart. Calico claims the living room, flicking through channels and guffawing at the strange people on the screen talking about scandals and things not appropriate for a fourteen year old to be listening to, but I better not bother him. If he wants to survive the Games, he's going to see worse than wife beatings or sex scandals. Uriah teeters off back to his room to freshen up and get away from the rest of us, and Gaia and I stay seated at the table, ignoring the loud noise from the TV and Calico's chuckles.

Gaia fumbles with her already braided hair, done by the Avox this morning, and it comes loose. She swears quietly under her breath and tries to fix it herself, but her hands are shaking too much; she's obviously pretty nervous and jittery for her first day of training as she should be.

I kneel down behind her and take her long dark brown hair in my hands, expertly braiding it. My younger sister, Twill, always needed her hair braided after my mother left our family for her side guy, leaving my father to support two young kids. I push those memories away; they're not important. My mother's dead from lung cancer, and my father and my sister live happily in the Victor's Village with me, or at least as happily as they can. Twill's even engaged. They're the reason I fought so goddamn hard to get home, so I could be with them. They were my motivation. I wonder what Gaia's is as I braid her hair.

"Tell me, Gaia, why do you want to go home?" I whisper.

"For my little brother and sister, Bobbin and Satin, and my mother. My father died a while ago." Ah. So she's in a similar situation. There's so many parallels between us. I wonder...

"What else, Gaia? You know you can trust me, honey."

"For myself," she mutters, squeezing her eyes shut. I finish the braid and tie it off.

"Exactly. For yourself." I don't have to say more.

I had a dream that the sun in the sky

Was feeling so lonely, he started to cry

The rain on our windows kept us inside

All of the morning, and into the night

Alone in my dream room, I want to love you

Alone in my dream room, my body above you

I'm just a man on the moon

I'm not coming down anytime soon

I'm just a man on the moon

Feet off the ground, I'm floating in you

Sage Alumius, 15

District Nine Female

I wander through the field of fuzzy, pastel colored flowers that go up to my knees, their comfortingly sweet smell tickling my nostrils. I pluck a butter yellow one out of the ground, tucking it behind my right ear. I pick up another flower, and this one morphs into a huge dandelion, the little furry seed pods that float in the window all gleaming and made of solid gold. I blow with gusto, and the dandelion explodes, the hundreds of golden shards, almost, of the seeds eclipsing everything in the light lavender colored sky. They start to rain back down to earth as peaceful pinks and purples and blues and silvers, and I sway carefully through the sea of flowers, a bright smile on my face. I pluck dozens out of the ground, forming a terrific bouquet.

I hear noises ahead, and I look up to see my friends, lead by Aluma, wandering the field nearby, looking for me with big, goofy grins on their faces. My parents and Rini flounder along nearby, Rini throwing handfuls of rose petals everywhere and my parents holding hands as they survey the land around them in absolute wonder. Even Claudius Templesmith and his family are there, Claudius chasing after Rini as they giggle, and Mr. and Mrs. Templesmith taking pictures of everything with their bulky black cameras, the white camera flashes sending patterns spiraling through the air. It's magical.

Then my friends come close, and they start to point and laugh. What? What are they laughing at? Claudius starts laughing, too, while Rini looks dismayed, starting to cry quietly. Mr. and Mrs. Templesmith are chuckling as they snap pictures of me. What the hell is wrong that they're all laughing or crying. My parents look at me disapprovingly, picking up Rini and then floating off into the lavender skies until they're so far gone I can't see them anymore. They're...they're leaving me?! My hands ball into fists as the others crowd around me, and then all the kids from school, all my co-workers at the lab's fields, every urchin I've seen on the street, every teacher I've ever had, even Unity and Luke and Cravat and my Prep Team are here. And they're all laughing, calling me names, crying from whatever is so hilarious about what I am doing. I'm not doing anything! I'm just standing here!

"You look so ridiculous!" Aluma leers, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. What...what am I doing?!

The skies turn blood red in an instant, and a glass tube, thick and soundproof, rises around me. I can't hear anything any longer, and everyone's stopped laughing. I see a thousand pairs of eyes filled with utter fear as with a wave of my hand, the sea of pastel wildflowers suddenly catches fire. I watch them scream and cry and try to run as the flames soar higher and higher, consuming them all, and I'm screaming, slamming my fists against the glass over and over until it breaks, thick shards slicing into my palms, blood flying everywhere as the fire leaps forward, engulfing me as I scream and spasm-

"Ms. Alumius," a hollow mechanical voice beeps. I sit up in bed, sweating bullets as I look around wildly, swiping my hands up and down my arms. I can still feel the fire licking at my limbs, the horror filled eyes of my friends as the flames encompassed them, the fleeting image of my family leaving me to be heckled at as they faded into the lavender colored sky. I let out a rattling breath, suppressing tears of confusion, as I look up at the Avox before me. She holds a small box in her hands, which seems to be able to speak for her. She looks at me in similar confusion, kneeling beside me. I expect her to speak again through the box, but she doesn't. I look at its glassy face and see the time floating there in greenish holographic numbers. It's just an alarm clock, specifically set to wake me.

I smile weakly at the Avox and climb out of the sweat soaked sheets, sighing. She points to the adjacent bathroom, and then at the pile of Capitol approved training clothes that I'm expected to wear to training. Ah, training starts today! I'm honestly a little excited. I can meet new people and make some allies and hear all about the other Districts and learn how to wield weapons or survive off of the land. It should be a good time.

As I climb into the shower after shedding my silky lavender pajamas that the Avox gave me last night, I can't stop thinking about my dream. What was that? I had one of my signature outbursts of passion, and everyone was set alight and even though it was fake, I watched everyone I know die except for my family, but they abandoned me. I'm not generally a superstitious person, but an insane dream like that must mean something.

Once I'm out of the shower, I've calmed down a little, the warm water having lulled me into a better state of being, washing away some of the terror from my hybrid of a dream and a nightmare. I slip on the stretchy black pants and shirt made of some special athletic fabric I'm guessing to increase mobility. Silvery 9's are stamped on my chest, shoulders, and nape of my neck, and I trace the one on my chest contemplatively for a moment before I tie up my strawberry blonde hair with a dark purple hair tie I find among dozens of hair ties in the bathroom. I walk back over to the bed, finding a pair of black socks and a pair of black and silver tennis shoes. I put them on quickly as my stomach gurgles for food before stepping out of my room and walking over to the table.

A sort of groggy Unity sits at the table, sipping from a mug of steaming coffee. Luke eats slowly and quietly, alert and fully awake, trying to pace himself and be polite although his eyes are alight at the variety of foods piled at the table. He said he's from the villages even though his skin is paler than mine, but I guess not everyone's darkskinned out there. Anyway, the village kids don't get lots of food usually. Neither do the city kids. Wow. No wonder Nine sucks at the Games. Our Escort, Patrisa, is dressed in a simple dark purple dress with green accents that goes well with her strangely colored lilac skin and green hair. She smiles welcomingly at me, delicately nibbling at a croissant as she looks over some sponsorship forms piled before her. There's not a lot, but there's enough that it surprises me.

"Nine's always a hot spot for betters who like to bet on the unexpected winners," Unity announces cheerily. "And with you two being the best pair I've had in probably a decade, we have even more betters than usual. Not that we have a lot, per say, but we have more than some Districts like Three or Six or Ten thru Twelve, usually."

"And...usually, we get lots of sponsorships from people trying to shake up the betting tables for whoever will die first or whoever dies in the Bloodbath," Patrisa whispers. "You know, 'cause we usually have crap kids that die in the Bloodbath, so lots of people bet for one or both of our kids to die first."

"Oh that's terrible," I mutter, astonished, but not really that astonished when I think about it. Of course Capitolites would bet on who will die first.

I pile lots of pastries onto my plate along with some bacon, sausage, and fruit slices. I try to pace myself as well like Luke, and I find myself full before I'm even halfway through all the foods I have selected to try. They're all so good. I guess I shouldn't pile anymore in, though, I can't puke in training.

"Yeah, you guys should probably lay off the food until after training," Unity comments good naturedly, not judging or anything. "We had this kid in the 10th Games. He ate so much food that he threw up everywhere in the training center during the Gauntlet. It's no surprise he cut it in the Bloodbath. That was when they used to do the Gauntlet, however. They scrapped that test about six years ago if I'm right, Patrisa?

"Yeah. That was rough. It was a giant obstacle course and if you didn't make it across you couldn't score higher than an 8," Patrisa announces, finishing her croissant and picking up a slice of juicy pineapple. "Lots of kids got hurt doing it, so they cut it."

"Interesting," I reply, setting down my cutlery. I look over at Luke, who's starting at the half eaten jelly donut on his plate thoughtfully. He hasn't said a single word since he sat down at this table. I wonder if he's scared, or if he's just not a talkative kid. "So what should be work on at training?"

"Usually I tell kids to do whatever they think will help them, to relax and have fun," Unity sighs. "That's because my kids usually don't have a chance even if they work as hard as they can every single day in training. Now you two have an actual shot. Split your time between survival skills and a weapon. Choose something common, like daggers or throwing knives, or something familiar. Sickles are usually in most Cornucopias since they're easier to wield and carry and lots of Outliers can use them, same with daggers, making the Games more interesting. Focus on water and shelter and food; things like snares and knot tying can come after you perfect those skills, they're secondary to finding and purifying water, building a shelter, and edible plants and insects."

"Good to know," I murmur with a smile. Luke just nods a little, not looking at any of us.

"Oh, look! We have five minutes till training starts!" Patrisa whines. "I lost track of the time! Darlings, we must go!" She stands hurriedly, walking as fast as she can over to the elevator. Luke and I spring up after her, climbing in along with her, Unity entering soon after us.

"To training!" I say with a big smile on my face, and Unity laughs a little. I think of my nightmare, of the good laughs turning to bad laughs, the peaceful meadow turning to a fiery hell. My smile disappears, but comes back quickly. It's just a dream, Sage. Calm down.

A/N: I hope this was good! Next chapter will be the first day of training! I'll do training like this. Each chapter will be an alliance. So for the next two chapters, we have the Careers all in one chapter, and the alliance of Miriam and Jayce in the other. The next training day might be half of the non-allied and another alliance, and so on. Just an FYI :)

Who did you like better here, Woof or Sage? Thoughts changed on either of them?

Trivia:

Woof (1 pt.): What is the name of his sister?

Sage (1 pt.): What color is the sky in her dream?

Until Next Time,

Tracee