Hera Dalenka. District 2.

The boy's ignoring her.

He's been doing that since they've stepped on the train. She thinks. Hera isn't quite clear on that. Glaring, scowly, resentful; he cycles through those feelings like they're on a merry-go-round. It's fun, staring at his face, and trying to figure out what he was feeling in moments there and then. What was his name again?

She knew she'd asked. Maybe a few moments before. It's floating away from her. K. It started with a K.

It doesn't matter. She's swaying. She's in cool-crisp fields. She's loved by the winds. She's soaked in snow. She's swollen in euphoria.

And Hera feels victorious.

(She doesn't remember how she's got to this stage. She never remembers, really: it's a jolt and everything she's thought dissolves, and then she's in the soft mist, in the pretty bliss.)

It doesn't matter, anyhow. How she got here. She's on a train, she'd volunteered to play, she'd—

(She'd plunged into the remnants of her drugs before the Games. It was after the ransacking: her fingers had rummaged for her, and she'd drifted in a haziness, and colours of all white-kaleidoscopic sorts ate at her eyes. Emotions pulsed in her skin, it's your last time, anyway, better not let em all go to waste, before you go cold turkey, ey?)

Yes, better use up all your supply. It's what you deserve before you die!

She blinks. And lets out a half-laugh. It's shaking under her breath. Die, but those words aren't really what she's feeling, even if she sees her father and her mother's eyes, not really, what sticks is cold turkey, and it's those words that coalesce in her stomach, that squeezes her baby-soft skin, that knots a strangled creature in her throat.

(When will she crash? It's soon, she knows, in the glimmer of sense that resides in her, through the stars that puree their glow upon her skin. She's stayed too long in bliss. It'll cave under her, and she'll gasp for breath, and she'll rummage for powder, feather, snow, anything that'll spring wings on her back and infuse her with the freedom of air. She'll look, she'll find, she has pockets and she'll have to have something, somewhere, right?)

Her fingers slither into her clothes. Hera's jaw goes gaunt. It's only the fluff of her pocket she feels. It's empty. It's empty—how can it be empty?

Nobody's touched anything of hers. She thought—she had to have a little packet near. It couldn't've fallen out after the Reapings—maybe it titled out when the escort raised her hand a little too high in the air, or maybe it spilled on the ground when she was being probed towards the trains, or maybe it was K, what's-his-name, her District Partner, he had to be staring at her like that for a reason, right? He couldn't have—but his eyes, they tell Hera he knows, wet and so raw in his anger, he knows something about her, and—

(He's taken something from her soul. He sees her, so clear, he's piercing.)

It constricts her, so tight, gathers ice in the pits of her gut and weighs her down. It's becoming clearer now, her District Partner's face, that scowl on him, she squints, she can almost make it out, he's not blurry anymore, she can tell—

(No. No. Hera's never gotten this high before. It can't be so quick. She's still in that happiness, she's still in bliss, she's still—she's still okay, she must be, she needs to be, she—)

She closes her eyes.

It's ridiculous. She's on the trains (metal and wheels, a chugging machine, moving a dozen miles an hour, that's wild), she's volunteered (her parents' dreams, she's in clouds), she has a twelve-year old for a District Partner (that doesn't happen in District 2, never ever, only competent volunteers, like Maeve last Games), and Hera's high amid it all (in the worst places possible, that was a dare from her friends, and she'll be going cold-turkey soon, soon, now—)

(Hera closes her eyes and stays in her bliss. It's a pretty feeling that stays through her skin, moment-by-moment, second-by-second, and if she lasts long enough, she'll last for eternity there.)

Rhodos McNamara. District 4.

Rhodos gazes at his feet, and at the way they shake under the rumble of the train.

It's a calming sort of sound: a rhythmic quiver, perhaps, that strums against his skin. A low noise, a low bass, maybe, a sound that he might be able to incorporate in his compositions. It's too quiet to be a star of a piece, but it'll add another layer to a thrum that he quite likes.

He's averted his eyes away from Althea's, ever since they'd boarded the train. She had looked vindicated; almost victorious, after she had ascended the Reaping stage, but she'd immediately shut down after—face closed-off, a coolness to her stance and her poise. It was the same type of dignified air that he'd seen his parents bolster up in the Victor afterparties; but unlike them, she was practised, and truly a part of the aristocracy.

Althea Ivory. He recognises the name. He knows her. He'd seen her in every single Victor afterparty of Four—throughout their District's win-streak, up until the 53rd Games. Althea's father and her mother had been the hosts to Kani Fairchild's Victor afterparty in the 49th Games, to the leadup of the volunteering of their son—Talon Ivory, was it?—in the 53rd Games.

His family had gained extended invitations to the Ivory's parties, and his father had often bragged of being a friend of theirs. Rhodos had always thought that acquaintance would be a better way to put it, but, polite to a fault, he had never said anything.

They had seen each other around the parties. Or at least—Rhodos had. He remembers watching Althea in her hazel dress, the colour matching her chestnut hair, chatting up a few other wealthy party patrons. Her winning smile made the rich to fawn; it made the less-fortunate look.

He had become accustomed to seeing her perenially. There's one particularly awkward incident he remembers, where his parents had managed to snag the Ivory's for a talk, and had left him beside a high table next to Althea. He didn't quite know how to start conversation, because while he could carry a conversation easy, Althea had appeared so composed and cold, and so he'd fumbled under the quiet darkness of the blue lights. Althea hadn't bothered to say anything, either, so they'd stewed in that excruciating silence until their parents had returned for them.

It'd always stayed in the back of his mind that she would volunteer. Aside from the party patrons, he'd seen her around the Academy, her name ranking somewhere amid the top three in the leaderboard. He'd seen Althea with her gaggle of friends; a dozen of them that would do anything upon a whim of her wish. Universally-praised, he assumes: she's good at what she does.

But he didn't quite expect it to be… this Games.

And Althea's just like how she is during the Victor afterparties. He knows that she's nice; he'd seen her act around the patrons and her friends, after all—but there's something about her cool insouciance that disturbs him.

Rhodos's mind races. Althea… he should say something to her. Anything. It's quiet in the room, as it is, now, except for the hums of the train's chugging. He'd usually be quite content to stay and listen to the rhythm; as he had with Mrs. Larimar, where she'd turn on the stereo and they'd bask in the music together.

But this silence is suffocating.

"You're… the Ivory's daughter, right?"

(And after he says it, he winces at his own words. It'd sound as if he wasn't paying attention, but he didn't mean it like that at all—he was just finding somewhere to start.)

Althea's head jolts up to meet his. A defensive air permeates her gaze, and Rhodos's gut plummets.

"I am," she says, after a long pause. And there's no lie about it—the eyes that meet his are cold. "What about them?"

She's on edge. And Rhodos wants to slap himself, he wants to backtrack. Wants to pretend that nothing had happened at all; they could stay in the silence again, and not this one festering with tension.

(But despite it all, despite the weight of the atmosphere the fettering his heart, he feels a warmth line his chest. Althea doesn't like her parents, he thinks, realises, either.)

Rhodos can't say something like that outright, though — it would be brash, and he'd end up on the receiving end of a glare, and then he'd wither inside for what he'd done to her. But that idea strings in his head—doesn't like her parents; no more than I do?—and he can't resist.

"… how are they?" he says, after a long while. Rhodos isn't quite sure why the words spill from his mouth; but they do, anyway. "… decent?"

He gauges Althea's face, carefully, for any sort of reaction. He's scared he'll make her shut down; that she'll end up closing-up even more, that puzzle reconfiguring into an enigma, and then he'll be left with nothing but regret, stupid, stupid, Rhodos—

Althea snorts, loud as a cow. "Yeah, sure."

He stills. His eyes widen, slightly, at the implication; and Althea sees him, the ways his eyes go, and her face reconfigures itself. Her expression morphs into a point of impassivity again—like she hasn't said anything at all—and stays there.

(And it shrivels Rhodos's stomach into discomfort, because damnit, he'd messed up, and now she's uncomfortable, probably, that was the last thing he'd wanted—but at the same time, it rises a hope in him.)

(Perhaps…)

Althea Ivory. District 4 Female.

There is something that clenches her heart after her words leave her mouth.

Yeah, sure. It's too offhand, too quick, too caustic, too insouciant, too casual. It's a slip.

(She'd make them with Kani, just fine, when they were in bed together under the basking night, in a home together where it's just them against the world. But it's only in the haze of Kani's arms; protective against the shrapnel of night stars, when Althea would let her secrets leak from the crevice of her heart.)

But she is in an empty train, and she is a dozen miles away from home.

Althea looks out of the windows. Rhodos's gaze lasts upon her—prying, guilty, hopeful, any of the three—but Althea doesn't turn to him to speak.

(It's already too close to her chest, the subject of her parents, and the last thing she wants to do is to bring them up. It drives a chink in her armour, because Rhodos knows, now, that she isn't a fan of them— and that leaves her exposed. It's the type of thing she'd only mention to Kani, because that's the only place it's safe to say, without the needles of the air pricking her skin, a reminder that the knowledge would be used against her.)

It's why she stares off into the windows. She's sat lengthwise across the plush seats, an arm plopped on one of her raised legs. It's how she keeps her eyes away from Rhodos while maintaining the same pretence—aloof, impartial, uncaring.

(It wasn't in her plans, really, to act like this at all. Her plan was to sway her District Partner over, to convince them to ally, and it was this which would provide her a stepping-stone towards the Victor's crown. Already a leg-up from Talon, who thought it'd be a good idea to make death threats to his District Partner seven times over.)

But Althea hadn't expected Rhodos's name to be called. It wasn't like she knew him, really, at all—she'd seen him around her parents' Victor afterparties, a few years ago, before Talon bit the dust—and that was all there was to it.

But something else had tugged against her: when she'd seen him dragged about by his parents, being shown-off like a racehorse. Her stomach had clenched at the way he smiled like a gleeful puppy. So eager, so quick to please. Gazing up to his parents for approval, and it was practically pitiful, the way he'd acted.

"Althea…?"

It's hesitant; it's uncertain; it's barely there. Althea wants to look away from the window—but she can't quite even form the words against her throat to speak. They latch against her throat and leave her so sullen, so quiet, so wordless.

"You don't like your parents?"

Rhodos. Again. Persistent; prying. It entrenches a dryness in her bones.

She should shut him down. Yes, no—it's revealing too much. To an enemy; a competitor in an Arena, somebody that'll meet the skewer of her spear in a week's time. Rhodos is a person she barely knows; and Althea's weaknesses glitter upon her skin like links in chainmail ready to go: my family's shit, my parents don't believe in me, but I'm volunteering anyway, going against the grain, what do you think?

Althea'll do it with a smile, and then she'll laugh it off, easy: the people will blink, and they'll guffaw. She'll please the sponsors that encroach upon her: charismatic and funny and sarcastic, would you look at her? Althea Ivory for District Four, please!

But is that hope in Rhodos's eyes?

"They're…" and Althea swallows, she doesn't know why the words extricate from her throat, but they do, and she lets up a breath, admits, "… they're not the best."

(She hasn't been this honest to anybody that wasn't Kani before.)

It's uncomfortable, waiting for Rhodos's response. Althea flicks her eyes over to Rhodos's, temporarily, and she feels a thickness fight itself against her skin: she needs to make sure it isn't surprise, isn't realisation, isn't calculation that makes its way across his features, that'll tell her so well of the mistake she's made. And of what she'll have to do to him for it.

Relief—is that what it is?—washes through Rhodos's eyes. "I'm sorry to hear that," he says, quietly. "Mine aren't, either."

He lets the words linger upon the air, and Althea doesn't know how to feel. A roil of thoughts wrack through her brain: for what they mean for her, what they mean for Rhodos. What they mean for both of them.

But it's comforting, almost, having the quietude swallow them together. And she doesn't mind the silence, not as much as she should, at all.

A/N: And that's it for all of our trains! Sorry this was slightly late, but we're doing really well with the buffer chapters: I'm up to the Night Before now. I have a question for everyone—what are our initial thoughts on the dynamics shaping up so far?

Let me know your thoughts—and as always, thank you so much for reading.