From there, it was simple.

I began my training.

Countless hours of sweat, blood, but never tears, were poured into my strict workout regimes. The instructors wanted to make sure that I was flawless in my execution of, well, everything.

"She never misses" Lizo, my personal trainer, said regarding my knife skills. And he was right.

And while my foraging and agility were becoming more and more refined everyday as well, I still struggled with anything strength related.

If you gave me a knife from 30 feet away, I could pierce an opponents heart within half a second.

If you gave me a sword from 3 feet away, I would stagger backwards and it would clatter to the ground.

It wasn't like I wasn't strong. When it came to hand to hand combat, I was able to gain an edge over much larger opponents with ease. Two quick dodges and a sharp hit to the neck and they were all mine. I just couldn't seem to get the technique of any other weapon except my knives.

Obviously, this infuriated me to no end. I was going to be a Career tribute. Sure, I was only twelve at the time, but in 5 or 6 years, it would be me volunteering at the Reaping.

Me, standing next to the ridiculously dressed woman from the Capitol.

Me, being interviewed by Caesar and charming all of Panem.

Me, returning to District 2, the youngest female Victor in all of history.

"You're holding it wrong" a voice called over to me, shattering my delusions of grandeur.

"What?" I frowned, puzzled as Cato walked over to me, a relaxed grin on his face.

"The sword. You're holding it wrong. Right now, it looks like you're holding a really long, awkward-looking knife. If you hold it more vertically, you'll have better control over it and it will actually seem like it's what it's supposed to be: a sword" he said as he grabbed my wrist and tilted it upwards, radically improving my grip. In one swift movement, I lunged forward and slashed a training dummy in front of me. Its right arm plopped to the ground with a clean cut.

"I'm not an idiot, I know how to hold a sword" I grumbled as I turned to Cato, my expression quickly changing from one of annoyance to one of suspicion.

"Why are you helping me?" I questioned as I narrowed my eyes. I had witnessed Cato's brutality firsthand many times, as a favorite sport of his was tormenting some of the younger kids at the CTF. Just the week before he had broken a boy's nose all because he took a spear Cato wanted to use.

Cato just shrugged, saying nothing.

I rolled my eyes and threw the sword to the ground, crossing my arms. My fingers toyed with the knives strapped to my sides.

As he watched this, Cato began to smirk.

"Oh, what? Gonna throw some knives at me?" he taunted, laughing aloud.

"You know what, keep it up and I just might" I growled, at what I hoped was menacingly. However, it was a little hard to be intimidating when the one you were trying to intimidate was a good 9 inches taller, 50 pounds heavier, and 2 years older.

He raised his hand up from his waist and I immediately tensed up as my hands instinctively gripped my knives and my arms poised to throw them.

"Woah, easy there Clove" he said as he ran a hand through his hair, his muscles bulging.

I relaxed slightly, my hands leaving my knives as I folded my arms across my chest, still stumped as to why Cato, one of the best recruits in this whole program, would waste any time working with, or even helping, me.

"Why are you helping me, Cato? I'm the newest, the youngest, and the smallest one here. Isn't there someone else that you can patronize? Because I have actual work to do" I said as irritation oozed from my voice.

But Cato just laughed as he snatched the sword I had discarded up off of the floor. He then turned and paraded back to his corner of the CTF, swinging the blade side to side, hitting targets as he went. No one dared go over there, out of fear of him, but I couldn't help but watch, mesmerized. The way he swung his sword was almost an art form in and of itself. It was as if every slice, every cut, was a brushstroke and he was an addicted painter. Unfortunately for the dummies, they were the canvases.

I turned my gaze away from him and shook my head to clear my thoughts. I thought to myself that I really needed to focus and get back to practice, so I whipped a knife from my belt to the target on my right. I heard the familiar sound of knife splitting foam target, but something felt off. As I focused my gaze directly on the target, my eyes widened and jaw dropped.

There was just no way.

My knife was planted about 3 inches to the left of my usual bulls-eye.

I had missed.

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