Chapter 6
When I wake up, there isn't a pain in my neck from the pillows, or an untrustworthy stain on the sheets. I makes me feel uncomfortable, even though it really shouldn't. Honestly, the cleanliness and beauty of of my bedroom should put me at ease, make me feel happy, but instead I feel alien, stuck on a planet I don't even understand the language of.
"Get up!" someone yells through the door, interrupting my thoughts.
"In a minute!" I call back, still half asleep.
"You have an hour before the training centre opens," The person tells me.
I sigh, but manage to motivate myself into getting out of bed.
Breakfast is the same as supper with food piled high on the table. Rilien feasts, carefully loading pancake after pancake onto his plate, but after the bloated feeling I felt the other night, I'm not so motivated. Blight eats with us, but Johanna isn't there.
"Where's Johanna?" Rilien asks, piling on his fifth pancake, a hungry look in his eyes.
"Sleeping," Blight responds.
"Isn't she supposed to be mentoring us?" He remarks, reaching for the butter.
"Lay off," Blight orders.
Rilien doesn't sound very happy about it, but he does. I watch as he dumps a bucket of a dark sauce onto them. It spills over the edge and cascades onto the plate. I can tell it's going to overflow, but I can tell Rilien doesn't care.
"See this, Katniss?" He asks, pointing at the sauce, "It's what the Capitol makes with the sap we collect." Rilien cuts a piece of pancake off and drowns it in the sauce, "It's delicious."
I dip my spoon into some of the extra sauce on his plate and ate some. Sweetness filled my mouth.
"So this is what the Capitol does then, takes something we made and serves it themselves," I mutter.
Once we'd finish, Blight leads us to the training centre.
"It closes at five, so don't waste time," He tells us, before opening the doors and leaving.
"Shouldn't he be training us?" Rilien asks.
"Probably," I respond, scanning the centre. Everyone's there. The career districts are showing off, killing targets with impeccable skill. I feel drawn to the bow and arrow, but I remember Blight's advice to avoid them. Hesitantly, I turn away from them.
"I'm going to the axes, try to get with the careers," Rilien tells me. I nod and look around the training centre for something to do. There's about two dozen different weapon stations, a few survival stations and even a climbing net. I head to the climbing net, there's a few ropes wrapped around the tree. I won't need them to climb it, but it would be an easy thing to start on.
Just before I start climbing, I notice Peeta stadning next to a nearby tree, a pallet of brown paints next to him and a paintbrush in his hand. His left hand and forearm look like brown mush.
I walk over to him, "Why the painting?" I ask. Painting can't effect your survival ability. It can't make sure your food isn't poisoned or kill another tribute.
Peeta grins at me, "Look," He says, lifting the hand he'd been painting on. He puts it against the fake tree. His hand blends expertly into the complicated wood pattern, matching it almost perfectly.
"How do you do that?" I ask.
"Back in Twelve, my parents own a bakery and I decorated the cakes," He tells me. There's a sadness in his voice and a remorseful look in his blue eyes.
"Huh, so your a baker then," I say.
"Yeah, I have some great baking skills that will definitely help me win in the arena," He tells me, bitterly.
"Well if you need to ice a cake, you're practically guaranteed to win," I tell him.
Peeta sighed, "Yeah."
"If you teach me how to do that, I can teach you how to build a fire," I propose.
Peeta nods, "That would be great." He takes my hand and presses it to the tree, "Now what you need to do first is understand the pattern of the tree."
By the end of our little session, I can make a hand look like a tree, from a far enough distance. I'm nowhere near Peeta's level of skill, but it's still something.
"Fire now?" He ask. I nod and walk over to the station, with Peeta in tow.
The girl from Eleven, the little twelve year old was at the station too. She listens to my instructions using them, trying to pretend that she's figuring it out for herself. I don't mind, she's going to need every advantage she had.
"You volunteered, right?" Peeta asks, rubbing the flint against a stone, "Why?"
I shrug, "I couldn't let Prim die."
He looks up, "Prim?"
"My sister. She's only twelve. There was no way she'd even stand a chance in the games, she started crying once when I told her the rabbit we bought from the market was for supper," I tell him, a faint smile playing on my lips, "What about you?"
Peet shrugs, "Not much to tell. Got reaped, sent here." He's bitter about it, I can tell but I don't press it.
Peeta and I end up sticking together for the rest of the day, all the way until five o'clock, when the centre closes. We reach the seventh floor in no time and just as the doors close again, with only Peeta in it, they reopen.
"Peeta?" I ask, "The twelfth floor is five more floors up."
"Do you want to do this again?" he asks in a rush.
"Don't see why not," I respond, before the doors close and he flies off to the penthouse.
I walk back into the apartment, where Blight, Johanna and Aiola wait with a huge pile of food.
"Where Rilien?" I ask. I'd seen him talking to the careers when Peeta and I were leaving.
"No idea," Blight responds.
I sit down on one of the luxurious chairs the Capitol offers and reach for some meat dipped in red, delicious smelling source, until I hear a cough. Aiola glares at me. I try to take it, but Aiola coughs again.
"What?" I ask.
"No food until everyone's at the table," She says, sternly.
"Aiola, come on, I haven't eaten in hours, I'm hungry," I tell her.
"And leave Rilien to come back here to an empty table with half eaten food?" She says with more dignity then I though anyone could have.
I look at Johanna and Blight, "You can't be taking this seriously."
"Aiola has been with us for many years. Take it seriously," Blight orders, though I can see a slight smile on his face. I spot Johanna dipping her finger into a sauce and managing to lick it off before Aiola even notices she moved.
I sigh, at home we never had any rules like that. If there's food on the table, you eat. Of course, you wouldn't eat it all, often enough I didn't eat enough so that Prim could have more. Mom did that too, but not nearly as often as I did.
Every once in a while, just to piss Aiola off, I reach for something. Each time, her coughs get louder and louder, until she has an actual coughing fit. By the end of that, Johanna is smirking and Blight is muttering about immature tributes.
When Rilien finally makes an appearance, everyone chows down.
"What took you so long," Blight demands.
"I was talking with the careers," He tells us, with a bite of chicken in his mouth. Aiola coughs loudly, glaring pointedly at his chicken and Rilien apologizes to her, sarcastically.
"Good," Johanna says, "Just don't become too friendly with them."
"Are you allies then?" I ask.
Rilien nods slowly, like he's unsure of himself, "I think so, I mean they don't shot me death glares anymore."
That's probably as good as it's going to get for a non career tribute.
"And Katniss? Allying with the careers?" Blight ask.
I shake my head, "They aren't particularly impressed with me. Spent most of the day doing survival skills."
"Most of the day?" Rilien snorts, "The guy from twelve was teaching you how to paint your arm for at least an hour!"
"The one you met with Haymitch?" Blight asks.
"The drunk guy?" I ask.
"That'd be him," Blight responds.
"The guy's name is Peeta," I tell them.
Blight bits his lip, "Don't spend too much time with him, alright?"
"Why?" I ask, doubtfully.
"Only one comes out, Katniss. And if it's him versus you at the end, well I'd rather it be you than him," Blight tells me.
"Fine," I lie. We'd already made plans and the likelihood of him and I surviving to last two were so small it would never happen anyways. I'd probably get killed on the first day and Peeta would die in the bloodbath.
Blight doesn't look convinced and we spend the rest of supper in silence.
Once I'd excuse myself, I go up to the roof. It's my favourite spot in the city, which wasn't saying much considering I've barely left the training centre. The hard wind pushes my hair in my face and the cold air makes me shiver. I sit on the edge of the building, with my legs just hanging there, over the busy Capitol road. I stay up there for a few hours, just watching the moon rising. I had noticed the absence of stars last night I'd been up here, but I blamed it on a cloudy night, but tonight, it was clear, but still, no stars appeared. The Capitol even found a way to ruin the sky.
I must of fallen asleep on the rooftop, because when I open my eyes again, the moon is on the other side of the sky. I go back to my room and lay on the plush bed. It doesn't feel right, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the Capitol, the hot water is endless and the beds are perfectly made every time I arrive, but in the districts, you had the fight tooth and nail to even get enough food to last a month. It isn't fair, but then again, there isn't anything we could do about it.
Alright, so I hope you enjoyed thanks for reading!