Dazzle Carlton

District One

Dazzle was pretty, she knew that for a fact. She commanded a presence because it was what she was good at. She captivated attention because it was how she had cultivated herself. Instead of being wealthy and strong, instead of training in swords and spears and the art of being airheaded or pretentious, Dazzle had perfected herself to be everything anyone wanted her to be.

But the moment she stepped into the room with her preparation team, she was swarmed with no way of telling what she needed to do to take control of the situation. They fawned over her eyes and her curly blonde hair, they frowned in concern at her unshaved legs, they patted her head and said in condescending, hissing voices that she shouldn't worry, they'd make her even more beautiful than she could ever dream of.

She was shaved and thrown into a chair with a sink behind it, tilted back so her hair fell into the bowl, and her head was vigorously massaged as they washed her hair. Someone at her feet had tugged her shoes and socks off and they were painting her toenails a shiny blue color. At this point, she was only wearing a bra and underwear, and while it wasn't like she'd never had control of a situation in which she was naked, she felt totally exposed here.

"Your name is so nice," one member of the team said. Her name was Donna and her hair was at least a foot tall above her head, but still managed to look feathery and light. "You know, everyone's saying that 'Dazzle' is a dying name trend, but I just think it reflects the heart of District One so well, I think it's just wonderful."

"Donna's not all looks," Tiny—a very small and short man with a loud laugh—told her with a comparably reserved chuckle. "She knows her stuff, too!"

Eventually she was stripped down until she was wearing nothing, and she was given a silvery robe that felt like satin on her skin. She walked into a room away from the preparation team feeling like every other girl in District One. She felt flawlessly beautiful, something she knew she was always just shy of without the money to achieve it back home. She felt unconquerable, but still completely out of her element.

"Good afternoon," her stylist greeted her cordially as she fingered through a rack of dresses—none of which looked like chariot costumes. They were in what seemed to be a study-like room, and she wondered if the stylists were allowed to work here throughout off seasons to prepare looks for fashion lines or for future Games. It looked like it, from how homey this woman had made the room. She walked over to Dazzle and held out a hand dyed hot pink. She didn't have a lot of experience parsing out Capitol fashion, but she was pretty sure that was shoddy temporary dye on the woman's hand. "I'm Mikalangela."

Dazzle shook the woman's hand, taking in as much as she could see about the woman without obviously giving her a once-over. She seemed pretty formal, like she was used to high society, and absolutely obsessed with fashion. She had a lot of modifications that Dazzle had never seen before, so she assumed that Mikalangela kept up with all the newer trends. "Dazzle," she said, although she knew her stylist would know her name. "Can I ask what you have in mind?"

Mikalangela's eyes crinkled up, the wrinkles sticking out to Dazzle. Plenty of popular aging Capitolites got their wrinkles and other blemishes dealt with when they were as rich as a Games stylist, but apparently not hers. "Why don't I show you instead?" she asked mischievously, and motioned for Dazzle to go behind a heavy blue curtain in the corner.

Dazzle was guided out of the Tribute Center when she was dressed, and all of the tributes were being shown which chariot would be theirs. Dazzle walked past a lot of strong candidates, and for a brief, terrifying moment she thought they were going to show her to the chariot where a weak-looking tribute in a wheelchair was. But Mikalangela deposited her in the next empty chariot, and adjusted her hair just a bit before disappearing.

She couldn't tell from her outfit where the other tribute was from, although Mikalangela had told her that all the costumes this year would incorporate both districts in the partnership. It was honestly… shitty. She had tried to justify it in her head since the moment she laid her eyes on it, but she was just really disappointed. It was mostly just a really slutty dress. It had bright blue lacy ruffles around her boobs, and the neckline dropped all the way down to just above her belly button. The rest of the material was really nice and comfortable, and extremely shiny. It moved interestingly, she supposed, swishing around with every tiny movement and catching a lot of light. The bottom of it also had the same royal blue ruffles, and it just barely reached her fingertips when her arms were hanging down. Her heels were just the same royal blue as the ruffles, and were sort of velvety.

It was… boring. Not even Capitolesque, in her opinion. Her hair and makeup were normal. What the fuck was going on this year? Did she just have god awful luck?

She recognized her partner as soon as she saw him walking into the open space where the chariots and horses were being kept before they took off. Their outfits were clearly reflecting each other, much more than any other district she'd seen so far. It was the strong-looking boy from Eight, wearing the same silvery material with blue ruffles. His shirt was just a vest with nothing underneath, and his belt was lacy and blue, with two large puffy balls of the silver fabric hanging off on thin silver strings. She was pretty sure his shoes were just black tennis shoes.

Well, the outfits were horrible, but this wasn't so bad. He was from an outer district, but he looked very strong and put-together. As long as he wasn't obnoxious, she could live with this.

Before she opened her mouth to introduce herself, a hand clapped onto her bare shoulder and she whipped around to see District Four's prodigy waltzing up to them. "Good afternoon, Dazzle Carlton!" he said with a wide, toothy grin.

Fuck's sake!

"And you?" Carloman Longstaff asked, giving Kubya a curtsy. A curtsy.

His outfit was nice, too, of course it was. His head was sticking out of a giant roundish fish with soft blue spikes, and he wore fishnets underneath the massive fish costume. The Capitol would love it.

"Oh." He glanced over at Dazzle, like she would know what to do. "Kubya Kaczka."

"Partnered with a Career, huh?" Carloman said good-naturedly. He put his arm around Kubya, smashing him into the ocean green fish costume. "This will be an interesting year, don't you think?"

It took Dazzle a moment to realize that he directed this at her. When she looked at him fully again, she just nodded and climbed into the chariot carefully. Already she could tell she wanted to be nowhere near him.

Kubya and Carloman talked for a moment in loud voices once her partner was comfortable with the intimidating face of a victor's son in front of him. She heard them talking about how Kubya got so strong, which she supposed she was interested in enough, if Carloman would just leave.

"Oh, you bake?" Carloman asked.

Kubya nodded, clearly trying not to be modest with his biceps hanging out of the silver and blue vest. "Yeah, there's a lot of lifting that has to be done at the bakery," he explained. "It's actually a kosher bakery, one of the only in Eight."

"Oh, that's cool, man." Carloman clapped him on the shoulder with a sincere smile. He was clearly the strongest contender in the fucking arena, and he was actually making friends with this District Eight baker? Just over him bragging about his Jewish bakery? It was kind of neat, but not enough for her to care.

"Hey, I should head up, but be nice to Miss Carlton," Carloman said, nodding chivalrously over to her. She pursed her lips and waved at him. If she was going to make her place in the Career pack, she'd have to do what she planned all along: manipulate them. And she couldn't do that if they all hated her.

But after Kubya and Carloman said goodbye with a fucking chest bump, she decided… maybe letting the Gamemakers kill her would be worth it, if she could kill Kubya.

Audrey Simmons

District Three

Audrey hadn't been able to focus since they put bright yellow fishnet over zeir face. Zey supposed that the costume this year was technology-related, although zey could see very clearly that zeir partner was from one of the agriculture-based districts. There were purplish leaves hanging off various points of zeir brightly-colored jumpsuit, and zeir jacket seemed to be a screen. It kept flashing different colors and making disturbing noises, like when technology glitched and sparked.

Zeir partner was waiting at their carriage before zey left the throng of tributes being guided around or clinging awkwardly to their district partners over their unfamiliar Quell partners. Audrey and Ferrin had left the Tribute Center at the same time, but zey didn't feel attached enough to the kid to stay close to him. He was nice, and zey pitied such a young and small boy being reaped, but zey wanted to survive, too.

Zey couldn't remember which district zeir partner was, which zey realized when he held his hand out to introduce himself. "I'm Icho Griffith," he told zem. "You're from District Three, right?"

Zey were pretty sure that the proper thing to do was to acknowledge that zey knew where Icho Griffith was from too, but zey hadn't paid that close of attention to the recaps. Well, zey did, but only to the people who zey hoped zeir partner would be, and Icho didn't make the list.

"Yeah. I'm Audrey," zey said. Zey ran a hand over zeir head, a nervous habit of zeirs, and it shifted the fishnet around zeir head and face off to the side. Zey inhaled in irritation and tried to fix it.

"Yeah, I don't see how this is a mixture of Eleven and Three," Icho said, but he seemed more giddy about it than anything else. Not extremely irritated like Audrey was—even though zeir stylist didn't seem awful. Originally zeir outfit was planned so zeir prosthetic stuck out and was lit up, for whatever reason, but when Audrey said that made zem uncomfortable, the stylist went into a frenzy to fix it.

"I guess the leaves are Eleven," Audrey said. Much more of Icho's outfit was plant-based than Audrey's. Off his shoulders were several branches bearing apples, with fairy lights twisted around them. It all looked so tacky. Audrey could see what the stylists were going for, but maybe their plants were all fucked by the district combinations.

"It's so stupid." Icho looked down at himself and laughed, leaning his head back so it leaned against against the glowing apple tree he was sprouting. "These Games are a joke. It's awesome!"

Audrey's shoulders tensed up a little bit. Zey got the feeling that Icho was going to annoy the shit out of zem, if only because zey didn't understand what he was saying at all. "It's not awesome," zey said. "Who's going to sponsor us like this?"

"Who cares?" Icho's laughter died off, but his smile didn't. He turned to Audrey more fully, glancing around for a second. "They're sabotaging themselves. Especially with all the District One nonsense. The people are standing up again. Do you think they can handle a third uprising in only two centuries?"

Audrey blinked. "Uh, yeah, I do, actually."

Icho drew back away from zem, like zey had punched him in his arrogant face. Now zey knew that he was going to piss zem off. It was just zeir luck that zey would get partnered with a rebel who was undoubtedly going to quickly lose the Capitol's favor with his whiny, holier-than-thou rebel remarks. The Gamemakers would be eager to wipe him off the map, and wouldn't care if Audrey was quickly killed too.

Audrey didn't want any more conversation between them, so zey walked slowly up to the front of the chariot where the very well-behaved horses were, slowly stepping back and forth but not trying to leave their ties or jostle the chariots. Audrey didn't actually know how horses acted, so maybe these were averagely-behaved horses. They seemed pleasant, though, for being so big. Zey reached zeir hand out toward the one on the left, a big brown one, and stroked the side of its face. Zeir heart rate picked up the pace considerably when it jerked its head to the side slightly, after only letting Audrey stroke it for a moment.

"Okay," zey whispered to zemself. So no one was on zeir side here, not even the horse. Zey just wished anything had gone right this week. Zey wished that zey could at least think back to home and know that they would be okay no matter what, but not even that was possible. Because Ivan had to be missing.

He was either seriously hurt, or he'd tried to run away. Which meant he was either going to end up dead if they didn't find him, or he was going to be imprisoned for skipping out on the reaping. It made zeir stomach sick to think about. If zey made it home to Three, the first thing zey'd do was ask about him, and zey knew that there was no good answer.

Why even try?

Judah Tines

District Six

Judah was one of the first tributes out of the Center. Their stylist pointed up to the sixth chariot back and wished them good luck before he disappeared.

He was a really nice guy. He took into consideration that Judah bound their chest, and the outfit he had planned for them was already pretty gender neutral. The outfit kind of sucked, but they hadn't expected anything spectacular. A lot of the chariot costumes turned out pretty less than great, from what Judah remembered on television.

They weren't sure if they should go out to their chariot yet or not. The only ones who were already there were the furthest-back pair. They couldn't see both of them, but it looked like one of them was the boy from Thirteen. They only remembered him from recaps because he seemed kind, but also strong. That was something they would want in a partnership, but apparently he was already taken by the boy sitting next to him.

They wondered what it would be like if this was something that they could all choose. All the Careers would be pairing up as fast as they could, the District Fours hooking up with the District Twos, and probably the smaller girl from One would have to find an outer-district person to rope into the alliance for her to have any purchase in it all. The boy from One, who may as well have been a rich kid from any non-Career district, would be left to fend for himself.

Who would Judah choose? They would try to talk to the boy from Thirteen, or maybe the girl from Seven. She didn't seem like the kind of person Judah would get along with, though. She seemed way too confident on the reaping stage, and Judah was way too scared of all of this. They would probably just get in the girl's way.

"Are we partners?"

Judah turned around and saw the girl from Five lit up in what started as a purple glowing gown, but around the legs transformed into uncomfortable-looking poofy pantlegs. Judah glanced down at themself: their outfit glittered a bit, and was loose and flowy around them. But they didn't see as much resemblance as there was between the boys in the back chariot.

"Oh, um, I don't know," they said. They pointed to the carriage that they'd been told was theirs. "That's where I'm supposed to be."

The girl squinted a bit—maybe she needed glasses she couldn't afford back home—and pointed at each chariot, counting back from the front and mouthing numbers to herself. She seemed really lost, and maybe a little bit younger than Judah. "Oh, no. Sorry," she said. She started to walk away but stopped herself. "Sorry. I'm Natalia."

Judah didn't want this conversation to continue. They weren't partners, and they didn't know how long it would be before they all had to board for the ceremony. It just wasn't the time for a conversation right now. "I'm Judah," they told her anyway, because they weren't exactly going to be outright rude.

"Do you want to be allies?" Natalia asked.

Judah's heart clenched anxiously and time started to race. They couldn't take forever to answer, but their gut response was no. Natalia seemed like a perfectly normal person, but she was way too blunt for Judah's liking, and it wasn't early enough to be forming alliances. What if they told her yes now, and later on changed their mind? Would Natalia kill them in the bloodbath to get revenge or something? That sounded extreme, but what if?

It was a race against time to find the best excuse they possibly could.

"I'm actually…" Judah swallowed down their pride. "I really don't want to burden you, so I think before I give you an answer, you should think about my downfalls."

"You're actually what?" Natalia asked coolly, unaware or undisturbed by how weird Judah was being. Was she just strange herself? Or was she messing with Judah because it was easy to mess with them?

They felt so bad for lying already, but they didn't want to be rude to Natalia. Maybe later they would be allies, but Judah felt like they needed to see what training was like at least. They had to have some kind of strategy. They wanted to ask Athena and Oscar if allying with a younger tribute like Natalia would be a good idea before they made any sort of decisions.

"I'm— vegan," they blurted out. They weren't, but they remembered when their sister Lia had talked about vegan trends in pre-Panem history. Judah had never met a vegan in their life, and they weren't sure if it was a dead thing or not. Maybe it wasn't in Five, and it would be a believable excuse, but in case it wasn't, they wanted to get as far away from Natalia as possible. "I actually— my partner is calling me over."

Judah still didn't see anyone at their chariot, but they saw Balisong wheeling themself to theirs, so they hurried over to the familiar face.

"Someone just asked me to be allies so I told her I'm vegan," they said impulsively. They felt comfortable around Balisong. Since they had the pronouns thing in common, it sort of felt like they were in this together to Judah, even though they couldn't win together.

Balisong quickly crooked their wheelchair to the side, stopping their wheeling in place to look up at Judah. "What?" They ran a hand over their face, which made Judah want to draw into themself. Were they irritated? They shouldn't have told Balisong about that; now they were just going to get embarrassed.

"Nothing, never mind," Judah said in frustration. They tried not to show it in their voice, but they definitely sounded short. They went over to their chariot and sat in the carriage, crossing their arms and trying to focus on not crying over something ridiculous like this situation. There were clearly much bigger pictures to focus on here.

But they had just fucked up the only person who was going to ask them to ally, honestly, and there was no way they would ally with Balisong. Their district partner probably thought they were incredibly weird now, and anyway, they tended to be kind of cold to Judah. Or that was how it seemed, anyway, and Judah was too sick of dealing with awfulness in Six to deal with someone with a bad attitude in the arena, too.

They would just have to make it on their own.

Sin Adams

District Seven

"Welcome, welcome, one and all," Sin muttered underneath his breath as he stood in front of the mirror, looking at the outfit that his stylist had just subjected him to. He was wearing a big fur coat, something that he was sure his mother would fawn over. He wasn't sure exactly how it related to District Seven until his stylist came up behind him with a jacket fashioned out of what looked like twigs and leaves, with wide open holes to see the fur coat underneath. He was also wearing a flower crown over his wispy white hair, and cooler sunglasses than the ones he came with.

"What was that?" Gene asked. Sin wasn't sure what it stood for, but it was way too bland to be its own name for a Capitol stylist. That was what he insisted on being called, though, and Sin wasn't one to question why someone preferred a nickname.

"Nothing." He turned around

Sin just shrugged as he turned back around. He felt like he looked ridiculous, and he wondered what his partner was going to look like. And who they were going to be.

He hoped it wasn't a Career. He felt like maybe he could even deal with a little kid, but he was sure that a Career would just send their district partner to kill him and get him out of the way.

"Are you ready to face the world?" Gene asked with a grin on his face. He held his hands outstretched in front of him, a grand gesture to Sin's costume. "You look amazing, darling. District Seven is going to shine this year." He stepped forward and ran a hand through Sin's hair. He was sure that his stylist was going to do something with it, since it was just sitting on his head like a fluffy mess, but Gene said he liked the way it looked. That would make one of them there.

He wished it wasn't so white, as he had every single time he'd tried and failed to dye it before. But it hit him: he was in the Capitol now, where they had real hair dye, and he didn't have to pay shit for it since he was one of their Hunger Games victims.

They started to walk out of the Tribute Center, out in the hallway toward the elevators. He was going to ask Gene what he thought about dying his hair, but another handful of districts were also riding down with them. The District Nine boy and both from District Ten, he was pretty sure, were heading down with their stylists, everyone sitting in complete silence. Except for the stylists, who started chattering amongst each other, complimenting their peers' work.

When they were away from the others on the main level, all of them exiting to the city circle at different paces, Sin swallowed down his anxiety over asking such a simple question. "Hey, Gene," he started, and his stylist pulled his eyes away from the lines of chariots and horses. Sin could hear the dull roar of Capitolites sitting out in the stadium seats lining the city streets for occasions like these. "What do you think about dying my hair? For the interviews and stuff?"

Gene's eyes lit up excitedly. "Oh, you'd let me? Really? Any color? That would be great, Brooksin." He moved closer to Sin and put an arm around his shoulders as he guided him toward his place in the order. "We could really work with that, make it wonderful—"

He interrupted Gene's gushing before it went on too long. "Sin," he told him. "Call me Sin, not Brooksin."

"Oh!" Gene's eyebrows shot up. "I can do that. I apologize, Sin."

"You didn't know." He even gave Gene a bit of a half-smile. "Thank you. Right here?"

He looked up at the chariot they'd stopped at after Gene nodded. His stylist slipped away, going back to socialize with the others in the back. Sin recognized his partner as being from Eight, a pretty average-looking kid maybe a little bit younger than him with glasses and something similarly ridiculous on for their costume. Sin didn't hop into the chariot yet, but he held his hand out to shake.

"Hey, I'm Sin," he said. "District Seven." Was that necessary? He wasn't sure, because there was a chance his partner would remember from recaps, and even if they didn't, it didn't change much. They weren't going to refer to him as Sin from Seven.

"Patch," they answered, a little quietly considering how loud it was out there. They shook hands and Sin stood awkwardly next to their carriage, wanting to pet the pretty horses but unsure if that would make him weird to his partner. A handful of the tributes already out there were standing away from their chariots altogether, closer to the Tribute Center, mostly hanging around their district partners. He didn't know where Wilda was, and he didn't know if he cared to. She intimidated him.

"Hey, I'm gonna…" He trailed off and wandered back to where the mass of other tributes stood. There was no one to talk to over there, but he felt less uncomfortable standing in silence and observing here rather than next to Patch when they weren't talking. They were a good partner, though. Sin wasn't disappointed. They didn't look weak or strong, just kind of like a really average person, and average was something Sin could be happy with. He wasn't much different than average either, really. Other than the fact that he had to wear his sunglasses all the time.

Someone bumped into Sin—not hard enough to knock him down, but enough to jostle him. He turned to see who it was, startled more than annoyed, and saw it was the guy from the elevator, the one from Nine. He had been talking to his district partner, it seemed, and wasn't paying attention to where he was going.

"Sorry," he said, over and over again as he held his hands out in placation.

"Hey, it's okay," Sin said. The guy's district partner looked between them with wild eyes, like she also expected Sin to snap on him. "It was an accident, right?"

The guy nodded. "Yeah, I should've been looking—"

"It's okay," he insisted, feeling bad now that the guy felt so bad. "I'm Sin." He held his hand out to shake again. Maybe he'd feel better if Sin introduced himself, made things friendly. Cole would be proud of him for being so nice. And Morrell and Lucy would probably tease him for not acting super cool.

"I'm Kyle," the guy answered. His district partner trailed off. Kyle glanced over at her for a second before turning back to Sin. "I should probably go…"

Sin nodded. He hated being given so much attention over something as small as being bumped into. He just hated extra attention at all, so he was grateful that his costume seemed no better or worse than many of the others out here.

When Kyle was gone, Sin finally felt he could consider him without being weirder than he already was. He had a really strong jaw and… okay, dreamy eyes. He was hot. Sin would definitely have a mini crush on him if he was back home.

He wasn't back home, though. He went over to his chariots, ready to sit in awkward silence with Patch in case any other hot guys wanted to bump into him. It was stupid to even be so nice to him. It was stupid to be nice to anyone but Patch. He crossed his arms once he was in his chariot, slumping back against the seat and putting his feet up in front of him. This was more like Sin, the cool guy that everyone around him saw. This was where he felt safe, shielded from the nice Kyles and the intimidating Wildas. This was where he'd force himself to remain until he stepped out of the arena.

Emma Locke

District Ten

James wanted to make friends here. She'd watched him make polite conversation with four other tributes at this point, as the two of them stood out of the way and watched others make their way over to their carriages. When he first met his Games partner, he was exceptionally sweet to her. Emma thought that was fair enough, because the girl was only twelve, if she remembered correctly. But then he was super sweet to Emma's partner too, when she tapped on Emma's shoulder to ask if they were sharing a chariot.

And then he was nice to the guy from Four, the fucking Career, when he came over and patted them both on the shoulders, saying jovially, "How are you two? You're twins, right? That's exciting! Not with this Quell twist, though."

Emma was glaring at him like it could strike him dead right there. She prayed to deities she didn't believe in for a bolt of lightning to bring him quickly and loudly out of existence, and felt bitter anger when she looked up at the sky and saw nothing but cloudless black.

"Yeah, the twist sucks," James said timidly.

The Career squeezed James's shoulder and Emma tensed up. She watched how he moved closely. It would be ridiculous of him to try to hurt one of the other tributes before they got to the arena—everyone knew that was against one of the very few rules—but she didn't like the energy this guy had around her naive brother. She couldn't do anything if he decided to hurt James, though. The guy was a tank.

"I'm sorry about that," the Career said. He patted James shoulder and walked off, giving them finger guns as he walked away. "Good luck to you guys, anyway! You look great!"

Emma turned to James and punched him in the shoulder. That guy wasn't allowed to lay a hand on her brother, but she could give him a bruise any day of the week. That was how it should work—he shouldn't be allowed to kill either of them.

"What are you doing?" she hissed at him. "Jesus, James!"

He turned to her with a frown, rubbing the spot she'd hit. "Hey," he muttered under his breath. He looked down at his bare shoulder like she'd hit it hard enough to cause any immediate serious energy. "I'm just talking to the people."

"You're going to get close to them, like you always do, and then how are we going to kill them?" she said. James just… needed to be more like her for once. She had endured him begging for her to be more outgoing their entire lives. She had listened to his every single plea as he wasted all of their time wanting her to be better, and it was finally time for him to fucking sit down and realize that she was protecting him.

He could be pissed at her all he wanted. She had heard enough of it on the train ride over, from James and their mentor. Their escort thought her volunteering was a spicy twist of events, but the other two barraged her for hours about how stupid it was, and she knew that—she knew it as soon as it was over, and she knew her parents were miserable, and she knew that if she died and James didn't he was going to feel awful, she got all of it! It was taking all of her energy not to let this outburst pour out of her. She couldn't break down or scream with all of these other tributes watching. All she could do was snap at her brother, and punch him in the arm, and take deep breaths to avoid crying.

"Well, I'm not going to kill anyone," James said, holding his chin up all high and mighty, and the arrogant little idiot started to march toward his chariot like she was going to let that slide.

The parade was really going to start soon now, but she couldn't just let him walk away on that dumbass comment. She grabbed his arm and twisted her brother so he had to listen. "Excuse me?"

"I'm not going to kill anyone unless I absolutely have to," he told her again, as if that fucking answered any of her unasked questions. "You heard me the first time."

She threw her hands up in the air, and didn't care that some of the other people around them were starting to notice that they were arguing. Whatever, she wasn't here to make friends. They could think whatever they wanted about her and James.

"So you just want to get us killed, is that it?" Emma asked him.

James shook his head and wiped quickly at his eyes. Emma felt herself deflate, but she couldn't let this go just because James was crying. But shit, James was crying, and that made her feel awful. "Yeah, well, you've already done that," he whispered, and turned around to get on his chariot. This time she let him go, planted in that same spot with her eyes tilted up at the sky for at least a minute.

Don't cry, she told herself, over and over again, until she was no longer at risk of it. She went over to her chariot but didn't get on yet. She didn't want to talk to Divya, and she didn't know exactly when they'd be taking off. She dug her fingernails into her hand and focused on that, letting her mind go blank and her face turn stony. James wasn't going to help them win at all, so she needed to look like competition enough for the both of them.

Carion Ferron Coal

District Twelve

Carion was bored with all of the tributes. The Careers talked to each other closer to the front of the row of chariots, with some tributes sitting in the back talking to their district partners. Carion wanted to get in their heads, but he couldn't get a read on any of them if they were all avoiding each other like they'd catch cooties if they mingled between district and Quell pairs.

He realized his partner was the girl from District Seven when she walked up to the chariot he was sitting on, staring at him with slightly raised eyebrows. On the one hand, he was very pleased. She was a tank, and would probably be a damn good fighter. On the other, why was she looking at him like that?

"I'm Wilda," she said, climbing into the chariot.

Carion nodded to her, holding out a hand politely. She was the only person he would tolerate here, no matter how awful she was. When she shook his hand, he told her, "I'm Carion."

Her eyebrows knit together and her lips turned up in a look of questioning. "What, like flesh?" she asked.

"What?" Where did that even come from? "'Like flesh'?"

She nodded, looking past him as she did so. She came off as really cocky, and he had only been around her for a few moments. He guessed that wasn't the worst—he could knock her down a few levels—but he was still really confused about what the fuck she meant.

"Carion, like flesh," he repeated to her slowly. Maybe she needed the extra time to process what he was saying. Maybe she didn't realize what she just said made no fucking sense.

She laughed a little bit. He could read people well enough to see that she wasn't trying to be rude or demeaning to him, she was just genuinely fucking entertained about something. So for a moment Carion thought she was just in on this weird joke with herself, but then she said, "You've had this name your entire life and you didn't ever connect these dots?" When he just raised his eyebrows at her, impatient, she explained, "Carrion means, like, dead flesh, buddy."

Carion blinked at her. How was he supposed to know that? No one went around calling rotting birds on the sidewalk carrion. It wasn't like anyone else had walked up to someone who could easily fuck up their life in District Twelve and called him rotting flesh, although he was sure there were a plethora of people who would like to. Now she was going to be smug about this, he could sense it. Well, he'd nip that at the bud.

"You think it's appropriate to call people rotting flesh, and you don't expect anyone to be confused?" he asked, like he'd known all along that he understood what she was saying. It was the only way he could think to get the high ground on her.

She rolled her eyes with a little smirk and faced forward, crossing her arms over her costume. "Don't pretend you knew."

Well, he couldn't just childishly insist that he had.

"You know, I thought I had met uncultured filth back in District Twelve," he threw back at her. She had already tried to humiliate him and they hadn't been interacting for five minutes. Why not aim high? Maybe it wasn't such a good idea, but she physically could not kill him without dying in the Games, so he felt pretty safe.

He didn't need her help. It was only a bonus. He'd have his victory wrapped around his finger tighter than all the tributes he'd con before the first training day was over.

"Wow," she said under her breath. "I got lucky, didn't I."

There was a jolt through the crowd as all the tributes got on their chariots, with the Opening Ceremonies about to begin. It was going to be a fun ride, he was sure of it.

sorry for the long wait, i've gotten busy again so i'll probably have slow updates for the time being. next chapter is gonna be a shorter one tho so it won't take this long!

since not all of the partners are explained here, here they are:

Hall & Carlo

Neha & Abilene

Ferrin & Judah

Sedna & Rachel

Natalia & Balder

Balisong & Kyle

Sin & Patch

Kubya & Dazzle

Divya & Emma

James & Emerson

Icho & Audrey

Carion & Wilda

Aren & Zeke

i'm super excited to officially be in Capitol events and to announce the partnerships! let me know what you think. which partnership are you most surprised/excited about?

chapter question: which partnership do you think will hate each other the most? which do you think will get along best?