Alma Coin calmly made her way into the pen where the females eligible for reaping were kept. She was glad she only had two more of these pick-a-death fests to get out of the way. Alma may have been clever, but she also knew that she was nowhere near the strongest or best fighter in the district. This was shown nowhere better than at the after school workout programs that had started a few months ago in the hopes of giving them a better shot of winning the games, and she was strongly hoping that, on the off-chance she would get reaped, that one of the stronger girls would realise she had no chance and would take her place.
The overly flamboyant escort made the same, dull speech she made every year that Alma had learned to tune out and drew a name from the females' side. It took an elbow to her ribs and a sideways glance for Alma to process what she was hearing and realise that her name had, in fact, been the one called.
The seventeen-year-old made her way up to the stage with a neutral expression she had a feeling would one day become her standard.
Unfortunately, her classmates hadn't realised that she'd have no chance on wits alone, and Alma Coin boarded the train to the Capitol with the male tribute, a guy from school named Ferro who was a significantly better choice than her; the escort whose voice Alma always tuned out; and the district's 26 year old victor/mentor Caminus, who got into arguments with the escort more than he ever even looked at his tributes.
During training, it was her emotionless demeanour that seemed to scare the other tributes more than any actual skill she had, but that along with Ferro's strength was enough to garner them some interest from District One and the male from District Four for an alliance. All but Alma had muscles and a reasonable amount of fighting skills: Fleece and Emerald from One from a class required at their schools that seemed similar to Two's program, and Actinic from Four's from years of swimming and apparently fighting off angry fish called "sharks," which everyone else had assumed just meant kids at school who had insulted him. They kept her around because Fleece seemed like he had some childish crush on her and Ferro had convinced the others that she may be of use concocting plans to hunt down other tributes.
The five of them had decided that they'd need to make a bid for the Cornucopia at the beginning since none of them had strong enough "nature" skills to know what plants and animals would be edible and Alma didn't trust Emerald and Actinic to not poison the group. Their alliance secured it without much damage to themselves, though several other tributes had died trying to take it, and Alma even thought she saw two broken alliances look like they might be trying to team up as they fled.
Most of the arena appeared heavily forested, though by climbing a tall tree near their camp, the alliance members could see several deep chasms dotting the woods. They had also taken to using the tree to gaze out over the arena in search of smoke from fires or other signs of tributes, though that came to an end four days into the games when Emerald fell and broke her left leg in two places, both of her arms, and several of her ribs. Her effort to keep from showing her pain was obvious, but Fleece, quick to grow frustrated or angry, found it annoying.
He came back to the group a few minutes later, spattered with blood and justifying her death by telling the three of them that she'd just be a burden with all of those injuries.
Two days later, the alliance that Alma had seen forming on their flight from the Cornucopia returned, sans the girl from Eight who had died the day before Emerald. The remaining four members died in the skirmish, but not without managing to take Ferro with them, thanks to the boy from Ten, who was unusually agile and had managed to confuse him before stabbing with a knife that someone had dropped.
Alma's alliance came to an end with the death of the girl from Three ten days after the games had started. Actinic had dared to climb the tree for the first time since Emerald's death and seen smoke from a fire a little less than a mile away. Actinic and Fleece had left Alma behind to ward off any of the wild animals who might try to steal their food.
In the end, they should have worried about Alma stealing their food more than they had about the animals, because that's what she did. She had found a hollow under a fallen tree two days prior and hid the best supplies in it while Fleece and Actinic were out hunting the girl from Three. When they returned, Fleece blamed Actinic from luring him away from the Cornucopia to pull off a scheme that he had clearly been planning with a girl he hardly knew since the beginning. Actinic, already a defensive person, kept saying that he didn't do anything without any actual explanation, which had only fueled Fleece's anger. Fleece pulled out his sword and began slashing at Actinic, who started dodging. However, Fleece didn't appreciate Actinic's dodging technique and picked up the pace, pushing forward. Actinic continued dodging as he backed up, narrowly avoiding crashing into several of the surrounding trees.
Alma barely managed to scramble up the nearest tree as the two teens moved passed her, Fleece's sword nearly giving her a haircut as she slipped and rolled upside down, hanging onto a branch like the sloth mutations that had killed a couple of tributes a few days prior. She soon reoriented herself and kept climbing to see if she'd be able to tell where the fight had gone.
Though she couldn't make out Actinic or Fleece through all the leaves, the should of rustling branches showed the direction that they had gone until Alma noticed the chasm they had come to. Actinic must have noticed where he'd backed up to ask well, because the branches suddenly started to shake much more violently, and Alma couldn't detect any lateral movement.
Soon, however, she realised that she had climbed too high into a tree that was too weak, and the trunk felt like it was beginning to bend under her weight. She scrambled down, but as she neared the bottom, the tree came down with a deafening crack. All of the noises from the boys' fight suddenly ceased, and Alma knew she'd need to defend herself. She picked up a branch that looked sharp from where it had snapped off of the falling tree and ran.
After lopping around to one side, Alma ran the chasm, heading towards the general area that Fleece and Actinic had been fighting. She had planned to follow their path and sneak up on them trying to find her, but the two were still at the chasm, slowly coming around to face each other and resume their fight.
She hung back when she noticed that they weren't looking for the source of the noise. It was only when Fleece began pushing Actinic back and into the chasm when Alma realised that this fight wouldn't go the way she had wanted and that she needed to get involved. She took her branch, ran a little ways back into the trees, and circled back behind Fleece just as he was giving the last push for Actinic to fall into the gaping hole in the ground. Alma rushed forward, branch lowered, and rammed Fleece into the pit after his rival.
Alma began to slow her run as she neared the chasm that the last two of her alliance members had fallen into, but there wasn't anywhere near enough distance left, and she leapt, wondering what the Capitol would do when all of them had fallen into the gorge and died. She was midway over the hole and still giving the idea a good ponder when two cannons fired off and a crane reached down for her mid jump. Her last thought before the adrenaline left her system and she slumped over was that she couldn't believe that ramming someone with a branch had worked.