A/N: Today we have a quicker chapter, the alliance Mortem made up of Jayce & Miriam. I had a snow day on Monday, and I was like "I'll totally finish this!" Hopped outta bed, saw that I had a 101 temperature, collapsed back into bed, stayed home thru Wednesday, unable to write, and feeling under the weather since. :/ Eh, I'm fine though, no one cares about me! You care about Jayce and Miriam, don't you? I totally get it, don't worry ;) Enjoy reading about these two, I really hope they're loads of fun to read about ;)

Trigger Warnings: Profanity

Go on now, go. Walk out the door

Just turn around now 'cause you're not welcome anymore

Weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye?

Did you think I'd crumble?

Did you think I'd lay down and die?

Oh, no, not I!

I will survive.

Oh, as long as I know how to love I know I'll stay alive.

I've got all my life to live.

I've got all my love to give.

And I'll survive,

I will survive, hey, hey.

It took all the strength I had not to fall apart.

Jayce Newman, 17

District Five Male

I wipe a smear of liquidy cheese from the macaroni I ate at lunch from the corner of my mouth, wiping it on my pants. Everyone else is now filtering back out into the Training Center. The girl from Two had picked up some throwing knives, and my little District partner, Bernie, is intent on learning edible plants as her hands fumble across the screen, incorrectly matching several pairs of inedible plants. I trudge through the Training Center, unsure of where to go, basically just loafing around the room. I don't feel so hot, my muscles are a little tired from dabbling at the weight lifting station earlier, and I just sort of feel tired and worn out already. My eyes rove over to one corner of the room. A complicated agility course, called the Gauntlet, stands starkly out against the other small stations. My eyes lock on the station next to the course, however; flexibility. A woman with long brown and yellow hair goes through basic yoga poses at the station, and it looks calming and healing. I walk over to there. The woman perks up when she notices my approach, and she stands, grinning.

"Hello, I'm Berlinda, you can call be Berli!" she squeaks, her voice high and ultra feminine. She quirks a somehow waggling smile and I'm a little put off, but I restrain myself; this could be helpful, I bet. "And you are?" she inquires.

"Jayce Newman," I mutter, rubbing the heel of my right hand against my forehead. "Let's get started, I have a headache."

"Ah, migraines are no fun," Berli breathes. "First, just a simple touch of your toes. Then bounce up until you are standing on your tippy toes. We will repeat the motion until you feel the pain ebbing away, and then we will continue into some more traditional poses."

Berli hums as she bends over, her fingertips grazing the toe of her shoe. She then slowly and fluidly reaches up to the sky, standing on her tippy toes, her well muscled legs quivering a little as she keeps her balance well. I follow her example and do the same thing. I can barely touch my toes, and I lose my balance on my tippy toes, staggering off of the mat and almost falling down. I hiss in dissatisfaction as I scramble back onto the mat.

"It's okay honey," Berli giggles, her voice light and airy and barely audible. "Find your center, your zen. Dig deep, and push everything else away."

I sigh before reaching down and brushing my fingers against my shoes, then I go on the tips of my toes once again and I manage to keep my balance. Then I bounce back down to my toes, faster this time, and back up. I repeat the motion until I'm moving quickly. Berli puts a hand on my shoulder.

"Slower, honey," she whispers, her golden eyes shimmering under the Training Center lights. "It's not about speed or prowess. It's about cleansing."

I nod, and we continue to do the exercise for another couple of minutes at a turtle's pace. I find myself drifting away from the world, imagining Delilah kissing me, sunsets out on the porch with my parents as we'd play the only two board games we owned, either backgammon or mancala. Then the images in my head aren't concrete any longer, they're just blissful swirls of color and whispers of distant memories that don't form complete remembrances-

Suddenly something rams into my side, and I fall onto the mat, my nose almost breaking as my head slams onto the tile beside the edge of the mat. I stumble to my feet, clawing at my eyes before looking up to see the little girl from Ten standing there, looking shocked.

"Sorry," she murmurs, wringing her hands together. "I can't walk straight after the Gauntlet."

"Are you okay Jayce honey pie?" Berli whimpers, her fairy-like voice actually sounding concerned.

"Oh yeah, I'm good. Don't know about my dumbass attacker here, though," I grunt, glaring at her.

"Hey man, I'm sorry," the girl sighs. "Purely accidental, I promise. I'm Miriam, by the way." She outstretches her hand.

"I'm Jayce," I mumble in reply, taking her hand and shaking it lightly. She squeezes back with surprising force.

"Fishy handshake," she says under her breath, and I have no idea what she means, and I don't really care. She looks up at me, her arms crossed. "You aren't very enthusiastic, are you, mister?" she asks me, looking right into my eyes.

"Well, I am about to die," I grunt as we walk away from the flexibility station as Berli waves, hyper and excited that someone actually came to her station for once, probably.

"You know that the Gamemakers are watching, right Five?" Miriam inquires, tapping her fingers against her thigh as we walk. She keeps asking me all of these questions. "Sure, Private Sessions is where they grade you, but they take your attitude in training and your demeanor and the stations you try into account, too. Higher scores translate to more sponsors, and more sponsors means a better chance of surviving the Games."

"Seems like someone is Ms. Smarty Pants and the expert of all things Hunger Games," I grunt.

"It's not like it isn't common knowledge, it was the first thing Oxen talked to Rufus and myself about last night after the parade. Didn't your Mentor strategize with you last night after the Parade and all?"

"She was too busy cuddling up to my puny District partner and knitting with her," I reply curtly. "Are you done interrogating me?"

"You might just have a shot, Five, with that attitude of yours," she utters quietly, and I want to roll my eyes almost. Who made her Empress of Odds? Oh. Sarcasm. Of course. All thirteen year olds are Empresses of Sarcasm, or at least think they are, so I shouldn't be too surprised I guess.

"You might just have a shot, Ten, with that attitude of yours," I snark back. She's really getting on my nerves. I feel sleep deprived and worn out, probably from staying up so late for the Parade last night and then getting up so early today to come here to the Training Center. I expect Miriam to recoil or frown, but she doesn't even react; it's like she didn't even hear me say anything, but of course she heard me. I am walking right next to her, after all.

"The moment you give up hope is the moment you're dead," Miriam whispers, her eyes gleaming with a faraway look. She isn't talking to me, really, and I decide to leave it be. This little girl sure is crazy, but I am crazy too. We might just get along, I guess.

You told me something that scared me to death

Don't take me home

I can't face that yet

I'm ashamed that I'm barely human

And I'm ashamed that I don't have a heart you can break

I'm just action

And other times reaction

Miriam Park, 13

District Ten Female

I came to a conclusion last night. Rufus had gone to bed early to rest up for training and Fixtata was at a dinner party, already trying to gather sponsors for the two of us. Oxen and I were sitting alone at the table, snacking on pastries, and I asked him my chances going solo. He said near zero. I asked him my chances of going with an ally. He said a little above near zero. At least he's blunt, and not treating me like a little toddler like a lot of the adults in the Capitol. I know I'm young for the Games, but just because thirteen year olds are young in Games terms doesn't mean we're all babies.

But anyway. I realized, to further myself and heighten my odds, I need an ally. It was pretty easy to cut options right away. The six Careers were off the board. I'd rather have not associated with the boy who was on death row or the screaming grandson of some obscure Mayor, and there's no way in hell I'd enter the pitiful gaggle of younger girls who have nothing better to do but cry and hold each other. The pair from Three was too chummy to enter into a comfortable, productive conversation with, same thing with the boy from Eleven and the girl from Seven. The girl from Eleven and the boy from Twelve seemed to be flirting, well, at least the Twelve boy, the Eleven girl just was blushing and failing to speak. Rufus was just not a good fit with my personality, and I'd probably slit his throat if I was forced to spend a night alone with him in the arena. He's not terrible, he's just not my kind of company, complaining about having money for Snow's sake.

That left me with none of the girls and a slim selection of boys. Five, Six, and Nine, to be exact. Nine looked like the only communication he makes is through withering glares, and the Six boy was all the way on the other side of the room from the agility course, hefting large weights around. Strong, but too strong? That left me with the Five boy, so I hopped off of the Gauntlet and stumbled his way. Knocked him over after he found his "zen", got him angry, asked him lots of questions, and some how succeeded on getting him to spend more than two minutes speaking with me. Now we're at the fire making station, and as we start practicing with flint and steel before learning to make fire without it, I start up conversation.

"Struggling, eh?" I inquire, striking the shiny rod of steel against the smooth bar of flint. Sparks fly off of the two tools, landing on my pile of plant fibers and wood chips, failing to catch fire. Jayce's hands tremble and he struggles to hit it with enough force. Finally he lines them up right, and a shower of sparks rain down on his little wooden tepee, with roots and grasses sticking out of it. It's much better constructed than my own, and catches fire easily. I make another bright shower of sparks after congratulating Jayce, and several hit my leaning structure. It collapses soon after and sets itself out.

"Struggling, eh?" Jayce mocks.

"Are you just going to keep repeating everything I say and continue to be an ass?" I question sharply, tossing the flint and steel onto the ground next to my slightly burned, collapsed pile of twigs, leaves, and other plant matter. Of course he's getting on my nerves, and I'm letting it get out of hand; it seems like I'm not going to have any allies, I guess. It was still terrible odds anyway. I'll make it work; I have to.

"How about I ask some questions?" Jayce barks in reply. "First off, can I help you set up that mess of sticks and plant fiber?"

I roll my eyes and hesitantly nod yes. The instructor, Fiyera, is busy helping the other tribute at the station, the slim girl from 8 who keeps rattling off plant names as if she's keeping them memorized, and writing some new ones in a little journal when she comes up with them. Isn't she supposed to be burning the plants, not drawing them? Fiyera snaps her fingers and the girl sets down her journal, and I turn my head back to our side of the station, where Jayce has separated the sticks from the loose plant materials like the roots and grasses.

"So, you pile all of the plant matter into the middle," Jayce murmurs, taking my hands and forcing me to clump it into a neat pile, not a single whisper of a root sticking out or anything, really. "Then you stack the twigs around it, coming in almost like a cone, and if you have anything to tie it together you can if you want. If we're using big logs that just can lean on themselves, but it'll be harder to do that with these little twigs."

After we've set it up and it's structurally sound, I strike the flint against the steel, and sparks shower down onto the wood and leaves and grasses and such. As the sparks catch onto the plant matter and set it on fire, Jayce recoils, holding his brow.

"Ow!" he hollers, rubbing his eyebrow. "One of the sparks got me in the face."

I laugh hysterically, but then I end up blowing out the fire with my loud, wheezing laughs, and almost knocking down the entire wood-grass structure as well. I sigh, gathering the materials once they've cooled and dropping them into the big orange bin that contains all of the plant materials from which to build something to burn from. Jayce does the same, and then we get up, surveying the room for our next station to go to.

"Which one next?" Jayce inquires, still grinning and still enjoying flipping the script and asking the questions. He hasn't asked much yet, really.

"How about throwing knives-" I begin.

"Ok, ok, slow your roll honey, we can so do crossbows! Crossbows it is!" Jayce cheers, smiling widely at me.

"I said throwing knives," I reply flatly

"What? You want to do crossbows?"

"I don't have to ally with you, you know," I growl, and he looks at me, head cocked.

"So we are allying. That was going to be my next question," Jayce says with a small smile on his face. "Now, come on. Let's go learn crossbows. They seem pretty easy, and if we're good boys and girls and the Careers don't slaughter us too early, maybe the nice sponsors will send us one."

We both chuckle at the thought of that; the tired looking, usually pessimistic, handsome Five boy and the headstrong, shockingly gorgeous thirteen year old Ten girl. Oops. There's something wrong with that statement, isn't there? No way Jayce is handsome.

I tell him the joke and he just shakes his head. We approach the crossbow station, but I grab his elbow, stopping him and turning him to face me.

"One last question, kid. Why are you allying with me? Outta pity?" I ask him, folding my arms across my chest.

"First off. Four years older than you, buckaroo. You don't call me kid. Second off, it's the right thing to do in my opinion, so I'm doing it and hopefully we'll both make it to the end because that's what always happens to two person, weak Outlier alliances, isn't it? Kid."

"Of course, sir," I say in a mocking thick Upper Capitol accent. "And once you stop acting like a monkey with a stick up its ass, I'll stop calling you kid. Kid."

Jayce just rolls his eyes and walks up to the magenta-haired crossbow instructor, and I hang back right behind him, smiling and shaking my head slightly. It's a shame I'm going to have to kill him if I'm going to go home and cure Mom and play soccer ever again. Well, at least I accomplished my mission. I have a "protector" of sorts now, even though he's tired and a downer and likes to prod jokes about myself at me. Our odds just ticked up a little, I guess. A little past zero is better than just past zero, that's for sure.

A/N: Ah these guys were really fun, and I had a great time revisiting them and making them meet up and become allies. I always find it so hard to believe how many alliances there are in SYOTs; like, in canon there were only the Careers pretty much at the get-go, and how do you make friends and trust them with your life in only a week? But yeah, I tried to make it believable and I'll be doing the same for everyone to come. Okay I went on a half-rant tangent, sorry XD Hope it was a really fun read!

Have your thoughts on either changed? Who did you like better, Jayce or Miriam? If I told you I have four main tributes in mind as possible Victors, who would you guess that they are? (Remember these are just preliminary thoughts and none of these four will probably end up being my Victor XD)

THANKS FOR ALL OF THE REVIEWS I LOVE YOU ALL 3

Trivia:

Jayce (1 pt.): What is the flexibility trainer's name?

Miriam (1 pt.): What station did Miriam want to go to instead of crossbows?

Until Next Time,

Tracee