He woke up in a haze of warmth and comfort beyond the groggy feel that sleeping pills left him with. He was enveloped in such deep comfort and nested warmth that he didn't even register the compulsion to get up with the dawn; he just closed his eyes again and settled back in comfort. It had been too long since he had last slept, and he was glad to ease back into it.

He should have known better than to fall asleep without the pills, but he hadn't been thinking straight.

He was back with the Reversers at night- Cutch Hassan beside him as his superior, Dane Twill behind him as his lackey. The Black Bands held a significant amount of territory that spanned the train station as well as other infrastructures, and other gangs were always trying to smuggle drugs and other illicit items from their territory. Cutch lead the Reversers, which did as it suggested- it turned back the other gangs with a vengeance.

This was before anything had happened. Cesal was content, if faintly annoyed by Dane Twill- the guy was desperate to please, and had latched onto the Reversers' second in command. Cutch just thought it funny that Cesal had a fan, and despite Cesal's begging had never reassigned the kid.

But the Soiled Hand had, that night, decided to become cocky; a large shipment of Morphling had arrived at the station, and Cutch had given Cesal half the group, told him to secure the Soiled Hand members while he ensured nobody else was using it as a diversion.

Cesal was fourteen years old then, and while these gangs were naturally entirely within or below Reaping age, he should have known he was too young to lead others.

He should have known.

The Soiled Hand had brought too many members for half a patrol group to deal with; and Cesal was a fighter, he never backed down, and he just kept hitting, he didn't even register the guy with the knife swinging at him before it was too late, before-

Dane Twill, small and eager to please, sprung in front of Cesal. A knife dug deep into the kid's stomach. Blood was everywhere, hot and wet on Cesal's hands as he tried to hold the boy's guts together in his hands. The night was loud, roaring in his ears. The heat was unbearable, Dane was screaming, it was Cesal's fault he was dead, it was his fault-

Cesal woke up, wrestling out of the thick covers and the overbearing heat. He gasped for air, jumping out out of the bed, hands clenching at nothing with rivulets of imagined blood rolling down his hands, tacky as it matted into his arm hair. Gasping, eyes wide, he dragged his sweat-drenched hair back, again, again, pacing the cool tiled floor and staring at the dawning light of the Capitol.

He was standing in the capital city of Panem, watching the sun rise, but in his head he was still there, years ago, his hand slipping through wet flesh, recoiling in horror as in his desperation to keep Dane from bleeding out he pushed too far into his ripped and torn stomach.

Cutch had found them with the patrol group- had alerted the authorities anonymously. Unauthorised weaponry was the one matter Peacekeepers were not lenient about when it came to gangs. But it was not enough to save Dane's life, and it hadn't been enough to save Cesal's psyche.

Sleeping pills were hard to come by in District 8, but they stopped the nightmares- and after months of saving himself from the horrors of his sleep, his body stopped producing any of the necessary chemicals to tell his mind to sleep.

He knew, because doctors had told him, that eventually he could regain his ability to sleep if he slowly reduced the dosages he took. But then the nightmares would return, and so Cesal was stuck.

He took deep breaths, flexing his hands, feeling the reattached fingers of his left hand try to match the fully operational fingers of his right.

The city was quiet so early in the morning. It was strangely comforting. Cesal caught his breath, settling himself in the day. He dragged back his sweat-drenched hair again. And then, with surprised contentment, realised he had the capacity to fix something immediately.

He padded across the room to a bathroom larger than his and his siblings' rooms combined. The shower was large, glass walls and chrome fixtures- it was fitted with hundreds of buttons, and besides the 'on' button absolutely none were labelled at all. Cesal hovered his hands over the buttons, temporarily overwhelmed by the excess of choice.

Then he got over being overwhelmed, and mashed as many fingers as he still owned against the buttons.

Unfortunately, this was not a good idea, as bright blue, boiling hot water that smelt of stawberries and roses began cascading onto his head.

"Fuuuu-ck!" He leapt from the shower, only partially slamming his side against the glass doors. Steam leapt from the shower cabinet. Cesal groaned. "Damn Capitol." He pulled a large, obscenely fluffy towel from the rack on the side, wrapping it around himself. He was clean enough; he was pretty sure he had melted off half his skin, anyway.

The mornings, as it turned out, weren't the Capitol's style; especially after the chaos of last night. While his fellow tribute Resta Hurst was awake soon after him (tearfully nursing her fractured arm from being flung from the chariot of wheeling horses), their escort and their mentors didn't appear to take him to training until several hours later. At this point, Cesal had already discovered the wonders of the in-room catering services that produced food at the touch of a button, and had consumed several large breakfasts while observing the cityscape from his bedroom window. He was almost content, despite what awaited him.

As he was escorted downstairs with Resta (flanked, oddly, by several Peacekeepers), he picked at the uniform he was wearing. It was tight-fitting against his skin, emblazoned with an '8'; it felt glitzy, and looked like it would be a pain to get off with his limited movement in his left hand. All in all, it was flashy and held no practical use; and for god's sake's, it was-

"-Bright red." Cesal looked at his glorified jumpsuit with unabashed horror. Resta was too busy whimpering in pain to comment, but his escort tutted.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand style, Cesal."

"It's the same style as last night- a wreck." His quip wasn't made in the best company- his escort sucked in a breath in horror, and around him Peacekeepers bristled.

Cesal, for his own safety, remained silent until the Peacekeepers had left him to the Training Halls.

He stood in a line of twenty-three other tributes, observed by black-screened cameras on all sides, and a lot that he reckoned he hadn't spotted yet. A woman faced them back, an old Career victor of some description flipping a lance from hand to hand. She paused, regarded the tributes as if seeing them for the first time, then flipped the lance to one hand and swung it with all her strength. It hummed where it swayed in a foam target.

Eyes returned from the wobbling lance to the Victor. Clearly, thirty years hadn't diminished her ability.

"In a couple of weeks," the Victor said with impassive calm to the children standing before her, "All but one of you will be dead. These next three days are here to give you all a fighting chance at being that one person."

Cesal felt the ripple in the tributes around him- the primal instinct to live, against all odds.

"You all want to kill," the Victor said, ignoring those that clearly didn't, "But do not forget that you don't know where you might end up in a few days. You could be in a forest, a desert, a mountain; any skill taught here could save your life. You need to know them all if you want to live to see the winter snows."

With that, they were dismissed, and the line slowly broke apart. The obvious Careers walked to the weapons racks immediately, making quick and sharp discussion amongst one another. A tall guy with a '2' on his shoulder seemed to be leading the pack. Others made unsure headway in the same direction- the stocky, crying girl from 4, the guy from 7 that had burned his paper tuxedo.

Cesal, along with others, wandered off in unsure directions to different training stations. Cesal was about to find one to stay in alone, before he noticed a guy with blonde hair, the number '12' emblazoned on his training suit. The guy that had gotten him his sleeping pills.

Cesal followed him to the plants station, telegraphing himself clearly enough to permit the 12 kid to know he was there. The guy looked up at Cesal with surprisingly little interest as he crouched down beside him in a bed of newly planted foliage.

"Enjoying the plants?" Cesal quipped, plucking one between his fingers and surveying it.

There was a strange silence between the two of them. Then 12 guy spoke with stilted amusement.

"That's poison ivy."

Cesal's smile dipped. "Son of a-" he flung it away from him, and it flopped unceremoniously on the floor. "Poisonous how?!"

12 guy shook his head. "Not like that; they wouldn't want you dying before the Games begin." A thread of irony ran through his voice, and Cesal found himself liking the kid. "It gives you a rash, but they've put some jewelweed here; that'll keep it from binding to the skin." He deftly plucked a few purple-flowered plants from the ground and handed them to Cesal, who promptly mashed them into his skin without being asked twice. The 12 kid raised an eyebrow but didn't comment.

Silence stretched between them for a moment- Cesal rubbing the plant between his fingers, 12 kid inspecting the plants on the bed in front of him.

"So I'm Cesal."

"I know. I remember."

"-Right."

"You volunteered for someone named Cutch Hassan."

"-Right." Cesal didn't like that the 12 kid had a good enough memory to remember even who he had volunteered for, when he couldn't even remember 12 kid's name.

"Family?"

"We look like family?" Cutch Hassan had very little ethnic similarity to Cesal- almost to the point of making the question absurd.

"He could be a cousin."

"You think I'd volunteer for my cousin?"

"I think you volunteered for him for some reason."

Cesal was starting to dislike this vein of interrogation. "I just love the cameras, kid."

"Kid? You're at least 3 years younger than I am."

"I'm seventeen." 12 guy sat back and surveyed Cesal.

"Wh- I'm sixteen! I look fourteen to you?!" Cesal stood up in defiance.

12 guy almost, almost, smirked. He stood up to match, highlighting that while Cesal had the advantage of wiry muscle, there was five inches of height difference between them both.

"Yes."

Cesal glared. "Listen, kid, I'm making an alliance with you here, so stop being a dick."

"I'm sure threats are how all the best alliances start off."

"You know your plants. I'm a city guy. Together, we span a hell of a lot of the potential arenas out there. You're from 12, right?"

"-Right?"

"So you've not got a lot of fighting experience."

"Yeah."

Good- it'll make you easier to kill when you're not useful anymore, Cesal mused.

"Let's just say I've had a lot of experience with that. You keep us from dying of a mild rash, I'll keep us from getting stabbed to death. Sound like a deal?"

The 12 guy surveyed Cesal for a moment. Then he cautiously extended a hand. "Fine."

"Great. Now what's your name?"

I promised myself I'd cover more than just Cesal and Emil making an alliance, but god damn I've been excited to get going with tribute interactions. This is the first of a few training chapters, so you'll see more soon.

Enjoying the potential alliances so far? Concerned by anything? Please do let me know. :) As ever, thank you for reading this far. We're getting closer and closer to the big chapters, and I'm excited to get the characters there.