I wake up screaming at about six in the morning but I can't get back to sleep so in the end I just get up. I pull on a skirt and top that's slightly too big for me and wander around the train until I find myself in the dining carriage. Maris is there: she smiles at me and beckons me over to sit with her. 'couldn't sleep?' she says. I nod as I sit down opposite her. When I look at her I notice she has bags under her eyes and around her are several banana peels and apple cores suggesting she's been here a while. I look at the brown liquid in her mug 'coffee?' I say.
she nods 'you can have some if you like, but you'd probably prefer a hot chocolate.'
'chocolate?' I haven't had chocolate since my mother died and even then only very occasionaly.
Maris smiles as she stands up to press a button by the door. A few minutes later a mildly annoyed and tired looking attendant appears to take my order of a hot chocolate. While we wait Maris describes capitol food to me, it's a pointless but safe topic. When she is explaining a fish curry to me I'm presented with a mug of brown sweet smelling liquid. I drink it quickly then regret it because it makes me feel a bit sick. When Maris sees my expression she laughs 'sorry I should have warned you not to drink it so quickly' we continue talking about food until Ceres comes.
He squeezes in beside me and says a polite good morning to Maris. She smiles and says 'well now you're here I expect we can start' she says something to the capitol assistant and in what seems like seconds we are presented with dishes by about a hundred attendants. We eat our way through it talking little and when we finish Maris sighs. 'well I guess we had better do it sometime, ok you two stand and lets have a look at you' she says. We obey her and stand up quickly. She looks at us and says 'you look quite strong Ceres and maybe if you are allies you can help Gaia but you will have to split up if you get near to the end because I don't think either of you would… never mind. Can either of you use any weapons?' we shake our heads.
'oh well, maybe you can learn to use some reasonably well in training' she says but she doesn't sound all that hopeful. 'Gaia maybe you could get sponsors by being cute but no one will sponsor you if they don't think you have a chance and Ceres you've got your sisters the capitol always loves a sob story…' she is interrupted by Xabina entering, ordering a coffee and telling us we'll be arriving in exactly 15 minutes.
Around five minutes later we are submerged in darkness for a few seconds as the lights switch on as we enter a tunnel. The tunnel goes on and on Xabina tells us we're going underneath the mountains surrounding the capitol. I wish she hadn't told me the idea of all of that mountain above our heads freaks me out a bit. Eventually we reach the end of the tunnel and we can see the capitol. It looks amazing its so shiny and colourful I've seen it on television of course but it hardly does it justice. As we pull into a station capitol people stare at us. They look so strange, green skin, pink hair, purple eyes… we stop at the station and are directed off the train into a car out of the car into different rooms … here I am presented to two capitol people. They say their names are Demitria and Laprius then get to work.
What seems like years later Demitria and Laprius leave me shivering in a dressing gown waiting for my stylist. A few minutes later a man with reddish purple hair and purple tattoos running down his arms enters. He smiles comfortingly and then says 'I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to take that off' I do, slightly embarrassed but not really I've already been through this with my prep team and really the stylist hardly looks human more like some sort of sea creature or fairy. 'ok you can put it back on now, you're a bit taller than I thought from the reapings so I'll have to adjust the dress slightly. Hmmm it's always so pointless designing costumes before the reapings this was the only one of the costumes I designed that would suit you at all. So you know that it has to be themed with your district, well this isn't quite but I think we'll get away with it' he says smiling and pulls out my costume…