A/N: Here is the next chappy! And please, review! Not only is it my bread and butter, I need to know which tributes you like! Only a few have their fates carved in stone, and the survival of rest is completely up to you! Anyone ready to play favorites?
It's the second day at the Training Center. After last evening's revelation, I've decided to learn some survival skills in the first two hours, then switch to observing the other tributes after lunch.
So, filled with a breakfast of oddly-cooked ham and pancakes, I'm off to hit the survival stands. I learn animal skinning, which is probably easier here than in the arena since these "animals" are just synthetic dummies, how to make convincing bird calls, and some new swimming techniques.
It's lunchtime now, and I find myself sitting next to Oakley, and today, her districtmate, once again. She still takes no notice of me when I sit down, and I wonder what she must be thinking.
It wouldn't surprise me if she were remembering the fire.
It was only a month ago when a wheat field in District 11 was somehow ignited. But the citizens were unable to put out the savage flame, and it destroyed nearly a third of their crops before it finally burned out. It's no wonder she's so skinny; I doubt there's a single family in her district that can feed itself right now.
"What do you want?" I jump, not expecting to hear her gravelly voice.
"Wh-what?" I stutter back automatically.
"Why do you keep sitting by me?" She turns to stare at me with those hollow, green eyes of hers.
"I… I want to make an alliance," I blurt out before I know exactly what my voice is doing.
"You pity me," she replies, turning to her lunch.
"No, I don't… pity you," I reply. In fact, I probably do pity her, but now that I think about it, I'm not much better off than her here. She may get some donations for herself, while I'll have absolutely no assistance from my mentors.
"Then why do you want an alliance with me?" she asks wearily.
"Well, because… I mean… The only reason anyone would want an alliance, I guess. Two heads are better than one and all," I babble. "Um, right?"
Oakley nods slowly as she eats more of her meal.
"Maddox?" she asks, turning to the boy next to her.
"I don't mind," he says, his voice surprisingly low.
"All right," Oakley responds with a monotone, turning back to me. "We'll let you join the alliance. But if you screw up once, you're gone."
I nod rapidly. "Understood. Thank you so—"
"Lunch over!" Neoptolem calls loudly. I look around the rest of the cafeteria—the Careers are already long gone—and put my plate up.
"We'll go around the stands and show our strengths," Oakley, right behind me, whispers.
"Right," I whisper back. She nods at me expectantly, and I lead the three of us to the open gymnasium.
Well, so far my only real battle strength is with the spears and javelins, so I practice that for a bit, trying to ignore the quiet comments Oakley makes to her districtmate. When I'm done, I slowly back up and let Oakley take the lead.
She starts with slingshot practice, nailing every target and dummy, and then moves on to knife-throwing; she has excellent aim, but can't throw them that far.
Maddox is very good at hand-to-hand combat; had he been in a district whose main livelihood had not been shattered, I'm sure he'd be strong enough to take down a Career. Then he backs up. We all look at each other for a moment before unanimously dispersing to different stations we've yet to try.
But instead of tackling the next survival station, knot-tying, I shadow one of the other competitors—the boy from District 6, Glaucus.
He can shoot a staggeringly accurate arrow, but he completely fails at climbing trees. I make a mental note of this before deciding to shadow someone else for a few stations.
In the next few hours, I've managed to find a few weaknesses of most of the competitors: the tributes from District 1 can't disguise themselves to save their lives—so no espionage for them, though I wouldn't have expected it from Careers, anyway—the girl from District 2, Alypso, has absolutely no accuracy skills, and her districtmate can't tell poison ivy from a daffodil.
District 3's Kalis is quite fast, but can hardly lift ten pounds, and Phemus can't aim for anything more than two feet away—it must have something to do with his depth perception.
Twig hasn't shown any weaknesses yet, but I decide to go ahead and shadow someone else after three stands; I'd like to get a little on everyone today.
District 5's Odyss isn't good at anything that requires particularly dexterous work rather than strength, and Nuray has to be the slowest runner I've ever seen.
Pich, from District 6, has no sense of balance and can't climb more than one foot up a tree.
Neither tribute from District 7 has any skill with knife-throwing, but Valer is a decent archer.
Both pale tributes from the next district have no skill in hand-to-hand combat, and they're not very good at swinging around weapons, either.
Ione, from District 9, has some sort of twitching problem; anything that takes longer than five seconds is largely impossible for her, and her 12-year-old districtmate hasn't shown anything impressive thus far.
Chara is good at using most weapons, but when her knees decide to freak out, she's left immobilized on the ground, while the boy from District 10, Zeef, has a very slow reaction time.
The girl from District 12, Randa, is no good at close-range combat, and Shaw does well at everything but always seems like he's about to keel over.
By the time I've observed all of this, I've spent all but half an hour of the remaining time. I could go back and check on Twig, but he's at the weightlifting station, and I don't think he's going to move, so I head off for some of the less popular areas.
I didn't allot myself enough time, though, and I've only learned half of the knots by the time we're called back to the District 4 floor.
The next day I watch the other tributes again, trying to pick up their greatest strengths. I decide to participate in some of the stands myself; I'm sure a few of them caught on to me yesterday, and there's nothing wrong with getting a little extra practice for myself.
Both Kyta and Bilt, from District 1, work well with smaller blades—I don't have enough strength myself to carry out most of those moves—but I'm sure with their muscles, heavier weapons won't be a problem.
Alypso can handle anything she doesn't have to throw or shoot, and Rim's probably the best here are hand-to-hand combat.
Kalis has very good aim at throwing knifes, and the other from District 3, Phemus, looks like he can lift even more weight than Twig.
Twig, meanwhile, seems to have only ever hit the stands he's an expert at: anything requiring brute strength, as well as a good chunk of the survival skills. I hope he's not trying to hide any skills as I make a note of the stands he hasn't gone to.
District 5's Odyss seems like he's good with every weapon, except the small ones or the bow and arrow, while Nuray doesn't seem to have any strengths at all.
Glaucus still hasn't shown any other skills other than arrow-shooting, and his districtmate Pich can only work with daggers.
Valer can shoot a decent arrow, but he's most skilled at ax-throwing, and Tierra's good with any sort of warfare involving knives.
District 8's tributes, Esen and Euriloc, are both very good at multi-step things, and they're both decent at thrown weapons.
Ione is very quick, and she can scale a tree in half the time it takes me. Sunil just wanders around, and has yet to show any strengths.
Chara can work with any weapon with equal skill, and the other from District 10 is good at boxing; he's too slow and gets hit a lot, but it doesn't seem to affect him at all.
Randa can throw a javelin just as well as I did yesterday, while Shaw is a quick learner of all of the skills offered.
I vaguely wonder if I should attempt to make more alliances, but three people is definitely enough. We're obviously not going to out-power the Careers. And if we're hiding, the more is not going to be the merrier.
Now it's lunchtime. I sit next to Oakley once again, but the awkwardness has disappeared now that we're allies.
"Where will we meet?" she starts immediately, the words so quiet I can barely make them out.
A meeting place. I hadn't put much thought into it; after all, who knows what kind of playing field we'll be on? I could say to meet in the tallest tree, but the arena may be a treeless length of grass or sand. I could say to meet at the deepest body of water, but there may be none.
But two things are the same in every Hunger Games: the Cornucopia and the standardized circle of tribute stands. We couldn't meet at the Cornucopia for sure; we'd get killed thrice over. And we can't stay at our circles, without anything to defend ourselves. But, if we split up for a while…
"The middle," I reply in a whisper. I think she understands that I mean the Cornucopia, in the middle of the tributes' circle, because her eyebrows rise significantly. "But after a few hours." Her expression calms down a bit, and she relays the message to Maddox. He nods at her, then me, so I know that we've settled on this.
We eat the rest of the meal in relative silence, only commenting on the food occasionally. For a minute, I think she's coming up with some sort of code, but there doesn't really seem to be anything behind her airy comments on the ham.
Now I look around to see that all of the tributes from Districts 1, 2, and 3 have disappeared. I remember with a nervous gulp that today's the day of our private sessions with the Gamemakers.
I haven't put enough thought into this. I couldn't blow their minds with anything here; my spear-throwing isn't bad at all, but they're expecting much greater things from District 4.
I watch tensely as Twig is summoned to the separate gymnasium, and Oakley looks at me with a slight, ironic smile. I try to smile back a bit, but the corners of my lips are etched too far down on my face to attempt that, so I just turn to stare at the double doors.
So, I have a few minutes to figure out how to impress them. I have use of the entire gym, and I need to show them something nothing else can do.
Well, I may be smarter than a few of the other tributes, but I don't think there are any Sudoku or cryptograms for me to solve in there.
I'd have to do something original, something no one's ever thought of doing.
"Circe Heron," calls a bored voice. I blink, and a man with short, black hair has appeared in front of the doors. I get up nervously and pad over.
Once I go through the gym's door, all of the Gamemakers' eyes are on me. I curtsy for some reason, too nervous to think straight, and, with no better ideas, trot off to the javelin station.
The dummy there gets a point through its heart from a few feet away, and I look at the Gamemakers for approval. Some are nodding, some are looking at me with bored expressions, and some are too busy drinking to care.
But none of them look ready to dismiss me, so I look around the room. I scale the tallest tree replica, but all of them seem uninterested now. Without thinking, I tear off one of the straightest pointed branches and send it flying at the nearest target, managing to hit it one ring away from the bulls-eye. Some of them seem entertained by that, but the rest are now focusing on the large turkey that's been served to them.
Good. Nothing wrong with my lack of skills being ignored.
I shrug it off, jumping off the tree and just practicing throwing my beloved weapons until they dismiss me. I nod thankfully, and I'm ushered back to my floor.
It's still going to be a few hours before the rest of the sessions are finished, so I'm left to wander about my room, gorging myself on the various types of chocolate I can order with the push of a button.
At dinner, the only topic of the night is Twig's just amazing performance at his session, how he stunned the Gamemakers with this strength and ability, and blah blah blah. I stop listening somewhere between the third and fourth courses.
The instant I'm done, I head for my room to change clothes—it's still thirty minutes before we'll meet in the sitting room to watch the scores, and I'm not going to hang around and listen to them ramble on about Twig anymore.
Just as I've decided on a loose, blue-violet top, there's a knock on my door. I quickly put the mismatching green pants I had been wearing back on and dash over to answer.
To my surprise, it's Ime. "Mind if I come in?" he asks.
"S-sure," I reply confusedly, stepping aside to let him in my room. He takes a seat on one of the plush couches.
"It's Circe, right?"
I nod as I sit on top of my bed. It's kind of sad how my own mentor isn't even sure about my name. I guess that's what happens when none of them want to waste their time helping me. But, if he doesn't care, why is he here?
"Well, Circe," he starts, leaning back, "I'm sure you've realized we're backing Twig more than you."
I nod. That became obvious the second day on the train.
"I just want you to know that we don't care which one of you wins. We'd be just as happy with your victory as we would Twig's. We just think he has a better shot at it than you, is all." He clicks his tongue. "So don't give up just because you don't see anything under a silver parachute headed for you, all right?"
I look at him blankly, but my head decides to go ahead and nod.
"All right, then. Just wanted to make sure you knew," he says, getting out of the chair. "Everyone's starting to gather in the other room to watch the scores, so come whenever you can." He walks out of the door, leaving me to shuffle through the pants that might match this shirt as I think.
Everything he said makes sense. He's just kind of ignoring the dangerously low odds of me winning without any sponsors. No one's ever managed to win like that before, and I don't think it'll happen now.
I slap on a pair of dark blue jeans before I head out to the sitting room.
Two of the short couches are occupied by Mim and Lily, and Ime and Mill. Twig's sitting alone on the last couch, but I take my seat in a chair far away from him.
The scores are just starting now, and the boy from District 1's face and name flash on the screen. An 8 materializes beneath the picture, and then his districtmate appears.
I take notice of few of the scores before me; all of the Careers, even Alypso, score high on the 1-to-12 ranking system, and to my surprise, little Kalis scores an 8—could she have done such with just her knife-throwing? I wouldn't think so, so she must have some other strengths she hasn't shown us. Then Twig appears, and his 11 triggers a whooping about the boys here so loud I have to plug my ears when my picture finally appears.
I score a 6. Personally, I'm not sure how I managed to score that high with just two skills. But I'm not going to get anything from sponsors, anyway, so it doesn't matter.
I only take note of the particularly high and particularly low scores now: Odyss scores an 8, which is especially scary when he's not even a Career. Nuray scores a 3. I think she'll get killed in the bloodbath. Both tributes from District 7 score 8's. Sunil scores a 2. Poor kid. He really shouldn't be here. Chara scores a 3—her knees must have gone out on her—but Zeef scores an 8. Oakley and Maddox both get 5's—odd how the Gamemakers saw me as the strong one in this alliance—and the last significant score is Shaw's, a whopping 9.
Everyone's up congratulating Twig now, and it's easy for me to slink away into my bedroom.
I get dressed in another nightgown, a lavender one today, and slip into my bed.
Tomorrow are the interviews. I wonder how I'll do?
But it's too late at night, and I'm fast asleep before I can think about tomorrow any more.