Chrys Gerhart. District 1.

It's cool, the way Dior considers him.

It's awkward, too. Every jostle the train makes fluctuates through them, like the shakes of his bicycle on the bumpier roads of Coal, and Chrys is caught between commenting something dry and maybe icebreaking (like, this's real fun, that should work, right?), or settling for just keeping up with the staring game that they've got on right now.

She's taking him in. She's considering him, (his face, his shaggy buzzcut, his pale blue eyes), observing him, (his slight muscles, his lean strength, his maybe-power), watching him, (his actions, what he'll do, what he makes of her), she's thinking.

And it constricts a tight ball in his stomach, once Chrys realises what exactly it is she's doing.

She's thinking about how she'll kill him.

(It shouldn't unnerve him. It shouldn't rattle his breaths—it shouldn't settle so deeply in his bones. Really—he'd known that. He'd prepared for it. They were competition, after all, and there was one Victor, after all, but—)

(He hadn't expected it so early.)

Chrys lets his eyes flick away from Dior. Carefully. Casually. As if he'd barely noticed her staring.

(It wasn't as if he was intimidated. Chrys was the intimidator here—he was the person that trainee kids scattered at the sight. He was the one that cared fuck-all for all but Nemesis and Clay. He was the machine at training and that was all anyone but his family would see of him in District One. Brazen; terrifying; strong.)

What he does, instead, is that he checks in Dior's threat level. He's made up the system when he was thirteen and fresh into the Academy, only a face in a sea of em that'll be all but forgotten unless they were good enough to be remembered. He watched them all in training; in breaks; in aftersessions, and he'd rated them all, on the scale of one to ten, how much better they were than him. He'd take in their skills, their strategies, their abilities. And he'd make up a plan to beat them.

He'd rinsed and repeated till everybody in the Academy (in his grade, at least), represented no more than a one. It was only with that which he steeled himself enough to volunteer, that knowledge that he was the best in One, else he wouldn't've been able to deal with Emilio's terrified eyes (Chrys, I'm—I'm scared, I don't want you to die), Nemesis's grinning salute (I'll see you on the other side), or his father's pained smile, (Chrys, please, don't do this, I don't want to say goodbye…)

Dior's a solid ten. She's perceptive (been analysing him since he'd stepped on the train), she's powerful (he'd seen her in the training centre, saw glimpses of how she switches from sickles to knives, wielding them like they're water, silver shards that'll cut in their dance), she's stoic (so aloof, feelings and a lack thereof, it's got to be advantageous).

But most importantly, she's cold. She wouldn't have a problem taking a life, or two, and she'd take twenty-three of them all to climb her way to the Victor's throne. When Dior had strolled onto the Reaping stage, he'd seen her conviction. Rod-backed, chin up, gazing down. The people had parted for her, like the sea's waves themselves. There was a gaunt glint in her eyes, so determined in their coolness that he couldn't miss—and that's shackled a coldness into his stomach that stays with him, still.

It shakes him, because—how did he miss her? He couldn't have— he made sure he'd taken everybody into account, he had to— but he'd forgotten about Dior Marini.

And Chrys is going into the Games with her.

(And that fact is as heavy as stone in his chest; it weighs him down and sinks into the soles of his feet. Nauseousness bubbles up against his throat, and the vertiginous shuddering of the trains take him, but nothing can keep his mind off Dior Marini's eyes.)

And now, it is only Emilio's words that echo in his head—those he'd dismissed and shrugged off and smiled at and reassured and forgotten—

You could die in there, Chrys.

It solidifies, like ice, in his heart.

(And for once—Chrys feels terrified.)

But he shoves it back in himself, smiles up a bravado, and gestures to the girl on the other side of the train. "Don't think we've met properly yet. I'm Chrys. And you?"

Dior Marini. District 1.

Her District Partner's… interesting.

He's confident. But he isn't exactly cocky. He swears like the tributes from Four. She'd heard him in the Academy—his rough baritone had ricocheted across the walls, and it had irritated her; she was trying to train, and she didn't need any distractions, particularly absurd ones like his. But he shifts when he talks to trainers, to Victors, to escorts—he changes for the people that matter.

Chrys is brazen: Dior had seen how he fights. Demolishing trainers like they were nothing; butchering dummies with increasingly convoluted battle manoeuvres that made her roll her eyes. But he is introspective. Analytical, perhaps. He'd been watching her since they'd arrived on the trains, and she had found herself looking back, with a same sort of wariness tightening her jaw.

Chrys's arms are sprawled over the row of seats and his eyes are on her. He's waiting for her. His head's tilts, slightly, and she knows what Chrys expects.

(There's a coldness that coalesces in her throat.)

"Dior Marini," she says, and she lets her name linger in the air between them. It simmers between, like frothing mist, pricking against her skin. It's unusually hot, here, despite the draughts of air that ruffle through them from the train's ceilings.

(Mattie Marini, those were the words that should've been spoken here, now. Mattie Marini, not Dior, Mattie should've been the one going into the Games, should've been the one entering, coming out victorious, not dead, her neck glistening in an eternal chokehold, not gone somewhere, bleeding away in a ditch, forgotten—)

"I've seen you around the Academy," Chrys says. "You train well."

Dior nearly snorts. Of course, tethers on the tip of her tongue. Why else do you think I'm here?

(Because you're inadequate, because you should've been here two years ago, Dior, if only you'd trained well enough—)

"I've seen you, Chrys." Dior says, and she orders the words carefully on her tongue. "The Machine."

He flushes. He rubs the back of his head, ruffling through his shaggy blonde hair. But it's not in embarrassment; it's pride, instead, that lingers upon him. "That I am," he quips, and that is all it is to that.

It constricts Dior's stomach tighter. He's here because he's the best. She'd heard that stupid nickname throughout the Academy. So much on the lips of younger years; children looking up to Chrys Gerhart in far too much awe, of trainers glancing at Chrys in an admirable light, of Capitolians, even, being told of the top kid of class fifty-six's nickname: The Machine. All embodied in how he'd fought through training sessions; destroying everything in his vicinity with precision, wrung in so much power, but Dior could see that it really was for show than any actual strategy. Still, though, it made an air of intimidation that warned anybody that got too close.

(It made her sneer, then. It still makes her sneer, now.)

"What are you doing here, Chrys?" Dior says. She tilts her head to the side; relaxes back against her seat; fixes a glance onto him. It's tinged with a tightness: she knows exactly why he's here. He's here because he's on the top of his classes. He's here because he wants glory, wants prestige; she can see it in his eyes, in his smile.

Chrys stiffens, under her gaze. It's a minuscule change; a ripple across his skin, like a lion's prickling mane.

"Well," Chrys finally says, after what is too long a time broached between them. "We're not here for the same reasons."

Dior thinks about Mattie; about the Victor's pendant that should've lined down her collarbone; about the silver string that had intertwined her neck, instead, and the red that leaked from its embrace.

No. We are not.

Kiernan Alcraiz. District 2.

He's uneasy.

Hera's there, on the other side of the train, sitting on the rows of seats like it were a bed. She's got a dazed smile on her face, one so dull and away that it leaves him unsteady. Hera's in her world, Kiernan can tell. He's too familiar with that look on her face—that unreality inscribed on her face, that floaty distance that goes through her eyes, that giddy smile—

Kiernan can't care less, though. He can't—he shouldn't, it shouldn't matter—not at all. She's dead and he's here and that's what should matter right now.

(It constricts his stomach. Yes, that's what matters now. That he's here. That he's fucking here at all.)

He grips against the seats underneath him. They deflate under his palms, plush-soft against his touch. His fingernails dig in, till the cover rips. He focuses his eyes on the carpet in front of him. It's made out of grey wool: and it's given way under his feet, weak against the soles of his feet, too, so easy under his step after he'd entered onto the train.

Everything in the Capitol has been only wispy so far; the fluff and pomp that dresses their carriage is like cotton clouds and sheep's wool. It's so incredulously pulpy that it isn't quite real. Maeve would've liked it; would've loved the ethereality of the place: the mushy sofas, the slushy winds, the effervescent blue drinks.

Kiernan wonders what it'll feel like to have it collapse underneath him.

(And Hera's incessant laughter resounds throughout the air, still, despite where he stares, and he hasn't found it harder to breathe then.)

Kiernan wants to go. No, not that—he wants to do something. Punch her? Yell at her? Shake her out of it?

(It's almost ridiculous, fathoming the thought, but he bristles still. Her laughter's still high-loud, and it makes him want to—)

Kiernan's eyes snap up towards hers. He isn't gonna take it anymore—no, and the words gnash out of his teeth, mangles in ways which he knows how, and he knows what he's about to say, stop-it-stop-acting-like-that—

Hera stares at him. Her hazel eyes stare back at him. She isn't lying across the length of the seats, she isn't anywhere near. She's sat up, and she's looking at him, with—

(Not blue. Not blue eyes.)

And Kiernan jolts. His words—what words were they anyway, excruciating words, words he can't remember—fall back into his throat. And he stares at her, as she cocks her head at him, considers him.

It dries his mouth out. It swallows a stiffness back into his throat. It roils feelings inside of him, pain-anger-hurt-joy-why—

It makes him want to laugh.

She's still high in her haven. She's still there. And still she's staring at him with pity, so much patronising pity that he wants to scream, because it's just like that night, then, with Maeve and him high-up in their bunker bed and—

"Are… are y-you okay?"

Kiernan's heart drops into his stomach. Snow shifts through his skin, worms through him, knots his chest, so tight, he can't—

(Does she seriously have to speak like how she speaks, too?)

A splutter exits his lips. And he gasps, he can't—no, he can't take out his inhaler, he can't seem weaker than he already is in front of them all now. Hera's still staring, scrutinising, she's opening her mouth, now, speaking, now—

"Kiernan… that's your name, right?"

He closes his eyes. He opens them, again. "Yes."

Hera's still incoherent. Because nothing that indicates she hears him flickers over her expression, and he's about to scoff, because of course he'll have to deal with another mentally fucked-up person again, of course she's his District Partner, of course he'll be going through the Games with her—

"Are you okay?"

It's quieter, now, her words. There's a slight, sad, understanding that stays upon Hera's eyes. Recognition. Understanding.

(Understanding?)

"I'm fine," he says, tight, and the words roll off his lips— before he can stop them, before he can control himself at all. "You'd reminded me of someone I... used to know."

He breaks away from Hera's gaze, and stares off into the too-high windows that blur the landscape beside him.

But he still feels the weight of her eyes upon him.

A/N: I'm sorry for the slightly late update! But I have a reason: I've just spent four hours plotting out the entirety of TTATTS, and it's safe to say that I'm done! So… now with our storyline planned… it should be smooth sailing from here.

Next Update: Sometime between July 19-22.