Chapter Three
Their home until the actual Games begin was located in a tower of the Training Center exclusively designed for the tributes and their teams. Each district had its own floor reachable by a beautiful crystal elevator. They had never ridden one before, so both of them watched the people on the ground floor shrink as they rose into the air with fascination. Despite having grown up climbing the trees in their orchards, it didn't prepare them to be so high up, or the feeling of having forgotten their stomach far below them from the speed of they were climbing up the floor levels. For some reason, Will had thought it would be at least somewhat similar.
With them were their two mentors, their stylists, and their escort, Lucretia, who had appeared almost out of nowhere gushing their praises. Apparently, Rosie's innocent hand-holding had been very well received by the sponsors. "At this point, not allying in the arena will be taken extremely badly and will lose you a lot of support." She warns them shrewdly. "The people want their team of tragic siblings. They want their new Cashmere and Gloss."
"But one of us will die, even if the other wins the Games." Rosie quietly says, finally coming out of her Parade-created high.
"Oh, they aren't thinking of that yet." The older woman waves a hand dismissively. "Give them until the Launching. They'll realize it then. And then they'll be already so attached they'll do everything in their power for the two of you to survive for as long as possible."
He exchanges a glance with his little sister and decided not to comment. It was clear they would never understand what goes on in the minds of the Capitolites. At times, they seemed so smart, after all, someone had to think up something like the Games, which no matter how cruel were terribly effective in reminding the Districts of what will happen should they ever contemplate the idea of rebellion again, but at other times they could also be such idiots.
"Lucretia will be helping us find sponsor deals for you" Seeder explains the younger woman's continued presence. "Only we, as mentors, can close the deals, but she can assist in winning over potential sponsors to our side by using all of her many, and I mean many, acquaintances and friends. Her large social network is one of the numerous reasons she was chosen as an escort. It's a requirement to apply for this job. Aspirants are immediately out of the running if they don't know two or three sponsors prior to applying for the job."
"I will also be chaperoning you when your mentors are busy. It's just so easy to get lost in here if you don't know where to go."
The doors of the elevator slide open, and their quarters are revealed to them, for the first time. They were so big they could fit the entire orphanage with no problem and then have some space left over. The walls and floors seemed to be made of marble and everything looked so strange and alien, Will couldn't fathom how anyone could be comfortable living in such a cold place. Their rooms were located on a mezzanine, and they could lay almost all of their siblings comfortably on their beds alone. The entire residence was filled with what seemed like hundreds of unfamiliar and doubtless unnecessary gadgets, while their windows could zoom in and out on parts of the city at their command or show various nature scenes. In the corner hangs a mouthpiece, into which you need to only say a type of food you want from a gigantic menu, and it will appear in barely a minute. It was soulless and impersonal. It didn't look lived in. It's been barely a day, and he already missed having to step over piles of blankets and having to watch for toys under his feet.
Their dinner is served nearly as soon as they arrive. The food was excellent and worthy of the Capitol; soup and greens and more fresh meat than he had ever seen before, but the whole time he feels tense, picking at his plate like he never had before. There had always been too little food to waste it by pushing it around with a fork and not eating it. It was the servers, he knew. All visually-pleasing young people, dressed in white tunics who wordlessly kept their plates and glasses full. He'd heard of the Avox, naturally. How couldn't not he when his own parents were supposedly ones too?
He barely recalls them, but he knew they had tried to run from the District. They had been caught, and only he had been spared by the Peacekeepers because he had been so young. He'd been given to the orphanage, and they had been sent to the Capitol to face their punishment. Now, Will cannot help but peer at the faces of the Avox both fearing and hoping to recognize the vaguely remembered features of his parents; his father had his pale hair, but he inherited his eyes from his mother. Both had been tall.
Beside him, Rosie continues to chatter happily, unaware of his inner turmoil, but Chaff appears to be staring at him in concern. He doubts the man knew what was bothering him. He might have been the talk of the District for a while, but it had been years since then. Still, he avoids eye contact for the rest of the dinner. He had no wish to speak of it.
Eventually, Seeder crosses her utensils on her plate and pushes it to the side. "As you are no doubt aware, tomorrow is your first training session. We need to discuss how we want to play it." She says.
"What do you mean?" Rosie asks, wiping her mouth with a piece of soft cloth.
"I want to know what you're good at." The older woman explains. "What you can do and what you can't, what you need to learn before you enter the arena."
"We can skip the plant stations right off the bat." Chaff declares swirling his glass of wine. "You don't need it, and it'll be a waste of time."
"I'm pretty decent with a slingshot." He says hesitantly. "Me and the boys make them out of whatever material we find lying around then shoot down birds for lunch. Wood, twine, plants… whatever works."
"I'm fast," Rosie mumbles, picking at bread. She's aware she doesn't have much to offer in terms of combat. "no one's ever caught up to me when we race or play tag at school."
Their mentors exchange heavy glances. "Well, at least you're not entirely useless." Seeder sighs. "Tomorrow stick to the survival stations. Concentrate primarily on the fire-starting, the knot-tying, and the shelter-making stations. We'll figure out the weapon situation later."
"Let's go watch the replay of the opening ceremonies and then it's off to bed for you, kids." Rosie's stylist, an orange-haired woman called Leto, says.
And that's what they did, despite him not being all that eager too with his thoughts always returning to the next day's training. They had made a target of themselves by sticking so obviously together, now everybody will be looking at them for weaknesses, and those… those they had plenty. And they will be perfectly visible for all at the training.
Morning comes too quickly. He slowly drags himself out of bed and into the washroom, head pounding and mouth feeling dry. There, he takes a long shower, reveling under the hot spray of water. He was never going to get tired of that, and he is likely to miss it the most of the Capitol luxuries when he enters the arena.
Sometime during the night, an outfit had been led out for him beside the wardrobe, Will notices slightly disturbed once he was more awake and leaves the washroom. He wasn't exactly a light sleeper, but neither did he think he'd sleep through anyone walking around in his room. More than once he'd been woken by his various siblings trying to sneak out at night. Getting the hint, he puts on the uniform which consisted of tight black pants and a short-sleeved shirt and after an instant of hesitation decides to pull his hair into a small tail instead of leaving it loose as usual. He didn't want it distracting him today by sliding into his eyes at the wrong moment.
Still not feeling ready to face the day, he nonetheless makes his way to the dining room for breakfast. Seeder was already there and he joins her at the long board set up just to the side of the table. Slowly, he loads up his plate with eggs and sausages which he eats rather unwillingly, forcing himself to choke it down. He will need a lot of energy later, and his customary piece of fruit will unfortunately not do.
Chaff and Rosie also come down, both looking miserable. He suspects the older man was hungover given the amount of alcohol he consumes on any given day and his sister had probably slept as well as he, which means not at all. They had decided the previous evening to stay in their separate rooms at night in preparation for the Games. If… when one of them died, the other needed to be able to sleep alone, or they would not last long. Dying from exhaustion because they couldn't fall asleep would be humiliating. Their siblings would never let them forget it.
After breakfast, which had been a silent and glum affair, Lucretia shows up to take them down to the training rooms.
Located below the ground level of their building, the gigantic gymnasium they will be training in with the other tributes is filled with various weapons and obstacle courses. With just a glance, he could identify stations for archery, spears, swords, and hand-to-hand combat. The rest are harder to classify, being small areas of forests, deserts, or rocky terrains. That's where they were going to learn the essential survival skills.
They aren't the first ones there, but nor are they the last. Silent, they go join the tense circle of waiting tributes as behind them the elevator doors slide open again and another pair steps out.
Soon, a tall and athletic-looking man marches into the room and faces them. "My name is Meleager." He introduces himself. "I am the head trainer here at the Training Center. Which one of the twenty-four of you standing before me today is left alive in roughly two weeks depends on how well you pay attention to what I'm going to say to you at this very moment. Statistically, most of you will die of natural causes; ten percent from infection, fifteen from exposure, that's already six, twenty percent from dehydration, that's another five. Do not, I repeat, do not ignore the survival skills. They just might save your lives. Additionally, there are four compulsory exercises; here, here and the two over there. You will do them, whether you want to or not. That is not up to debate. And one last thing before you are dismissed; there will be absolutely no fighting with the other tributes. You will have more than enough time for that in the arena. May the odds be ever in your favor, tributes."
Dismissed, they start breaking off to the numerous stations. The Career Tributes head to the weapon stations, of course, to show off and intimidate the field. It works. They are larger, heavier than the rest of the tributes, having been fed and trained their entire lives for this one moment, and they know what they are doing, unlike the rest of them. He's glad for once for his height, a taller than average for his age which so often made him stand out in a crowd with his classmates, and while he was thin, he was strong, having spent most of his life doing back-breaking work in the orchards in any weather.
"Come on." He tells Rosie. "Let's try the fire-starting station, then I'll show you how to use a slingshot."
"But didn't Seeder tell us to avoid the weapons?" She asks nervously, eyeing the District 1 male, Ajax, wield a spear.
"If we don't show some fighting capability we'll be the Careers first targets."
And that's the last thing the wanted. They needed to look somewhat competent for the Careers to decide they were more trouble than it was worth that early into the Games. It would give them time to hopefully find a good hiding spot to hole up in until there were fewer competitors still kicking. Therefore, they needed to show that they could fight which meant he needed to teach Rosie some fundamentals. A long-range weapon, that needed little training and little skill, was easy to use and could be made by them from anything if the Gamemakers didn't provide one, would fit her perfectly, Will had decided after some thought. A bow had been the first weapon he'd had considered, but Rosie was both too weak to effectively use it and didn't have enough time to properly learn.
That evening as they're eating dinner, he poses the question that's been bothering him for a while. "Can you teach us?"
"Teach you?" Lucretia repeats confused.
"How to fight." He clarifies putting down his knife and fork. "I don't want to approach some of the combat stations with the other tributes watching, and I thought it'll be good to hide some of our new abilities."
Seeder looks considering. "Do you know anything about fighting? Can you properly punch something, at the very least, without breaking your fingers?"
"Dirty fighting mainly." He shrugs in response. "I've gotten into a few schoolyard scraps. Didn't always win, but the other guy never came out of it looking like a fresh daisy."
"And you have to have your thumb on the outside of your fist when punching someone," Rosie adds proudly. "Basil though me that. He also said to go for their eyes, either with my nails or just throw dirt at them or anything really as long as they're blinded even if it's temporary. And he said to take groin shots when I can, and that'll work on the girls too." Then she wilts suddenly. "Not that I ever had to do any of this."
He furrows his brows, confused. "When did he teach you this? Why?"
"He said it was just in case someone decided to bully us and he wasn't around to teach them a lesson. He made sure all the girls at the orphanage knew what to do whether we wanted it or not." She explains in a mumble.
"That is already a decent start." Chaff says. "You have no idea how many people unconsciously avoid fighting dirty even in the arena."
"Don't try to drag it out. If you can, run." Seeder advises. "Take advantage of your terrain, anything can serve as a weapon whether it's a rock of a twig."
"The Matron suggested poisoning if we got ourselves some alliance." Claims Rosie.
"That is a good idea." Seeder agrees. "Most of the Tributes won't recognize poisonous plants as well as you two. Now, here's what you're going to do. Try the bigger weapons during training; swords, axes, you know which ones. They'll be our distraction. When you come back, Chaff and I will teach you some defensive maneuvers for when you will have to fight for your lives. Because you will, that's inevitable so don't look at me like that, Rosalie. Some knife-work and some wrestling won't be a bad thing either." She glares at them unsympathetically. "I better not catch you slacking off."
"Yes, Ma'am."
As if they would. This was too important to not pay attention. They had little enough time as it was, they weren't going to was what they had by daydreaming of all things.
And so, it went. During the day, they spent hours in the training rooms, spending most of their time on survival stations, but making sure to try out the numerous weapons too. To his great surprise, Will finds himself not too bad with axes, though he certainly was not a natural. Rosie, on the other hand, turns out to be passable with spear throwing, as long as the target wasn't too far or moving. They try camouflage but abandon it almost immediately, neither of them having the artistic talent for it. Trap-making goes well for both of them, possessing deft fingers from years of braiding baskets from dry grass. He enjoys the tracking course and goes back several more times for additional instruction.
The two evenings that had that left before their private sessions with the Gamemakers were spent by them receiving personal help from their mentors. As promised they were taught some blade-work using their dinner knives, and some hand-to-hand where for Rosie especially, they concentrated on using her height to their advantage because of her much smaller stature. Demonstrating on each other, their mentors also showed them where to strike best for a faster death, and which wound will bleed out the most. For example, according to Seeder, if they can get a good enough hit into the throat of their opponent, even with a light bare-handed punch they could crush their larynx. From there, only a surgical opening of the airway, and prompt medical attention could save them.
On the third day during lunch, tributes start being called out. First the boy, then the girl, from highest District to lowest. Once they left, they didn't come back.
"What if I do bad, Willy?" Rosie whispers as Nyle of District 4 is summoned. He leaves, throwing a smile and a wink in their direction to Will's irritation. He just couldn't understand why the other boy was so fixated on the two of them. He could swear he's been practically following them from station to station.
"Then you do bad, flower." He replies absentmindedly. "Remember that one tribute who won with a score of three a few years back? It just means we won't have many willing to sponsor us."
"Oh, right."
He glances at her and pulls her hand away from her mouth. "Don't bite your nails." He tells her entangling their fingers together. "You'll do fine."
Some three hours later, he's finally called. The only ones left by then, other than his little sister, were the two skinny District 12 tributes and they shrink back away from him as he passes them.
He enters the gymnasium and instantly frowns up at the Gamemakers sitting up in the stands. They were drunk.
He sighs frustrated through his nose, but there is nothing he could do. And it wasn't as if he was going to impress them much anyway. He heads towards the nearest woodland survival station and after fashioning himself a serviceable slingshot in a couple of minutes, moves towards the obstacle courses.
At the orphanage, they had a game. They would climb the highest branches of the trees in their backyard, or the beams of a barn and swing off them. The one who could make the most challenging leap, the most impressive mid-air twist, the most precarious landing was crowned the winner. He was among the best, being narrowly beaten out of first place by Aster.
Clenching his make-shift slingshot between his teeth, he climbs up the hanging ropes, runs across the bridges daggling from the ceiling as fast as he could and balances on narrow beams.
Clenching his make-shift slingshot between his teeth, Will climbs up to the rope net that hung stretched across the ceiling of the gym. He shows off some of his more impressive jumps and then suddenly to all appearances slips. The few watching Gamemakers exclaim in shock, jumping to their feet. Evidently, they didn't want their tributes injured days before the Games begin.
With his knees caught in a trapeze, he hangs upside down and giving the Capitolites a mocking sneer, takes out a rock from his pocket, and snipes a dummy in the head with his slingshot. Letting go, he flips in the air and lands on the ground shoulder-rolling forward. He stands facing the Gamemakers.
"You may go." One of the men nods approvingly, and Will listens, tossing his slingshot into the bushes of the fire-starting station.
He'd shown speed and agility, and some combat skills at the same time. He wouldn't be breaking any records with this. But, he won't be in the lower scores. Maybe he'll get a respectable six, or a seven.
I don't own the Hunger Games.