A/N: Updaaaate! Look at me, with my updating on time! Anyway, reminding you that voting is a thing, and you should do it. Enjoy the chapter!
9 - Inaction is Atrophy
Platinum and Nessa board the train together, but they could hardly look more different. Nessa poses for the cameras at the station, smiling a bright white smile and putting her everything into giving the right look to her departure; Platinum, by contrast, looks incredibly disinterested. He might as well be a million miles from the cameras trained on him. When they board the train, though, their mentors Closs and Azure ushering them inside as Flavia Honeydell gives a final soundbite to the cameras, Nessa's smile falls off her face at once and she looks just as unimpressed as Platinum.
Platinum nods to her as the train doors slide closed and the train jolts into movement. Although District One is a wealthy place and they're used to luxury, neither of them has been on a train before, certainly not to the Capitol. Platinum shows his customary disdain for everything going on around him, but as Flavia fusses after them to show them to their rooms, Nessa catches glances out of the window, enjoying the feeling of the world rushing by around her.
As the journey from One is the shortest, their rooms aren't designed for sleeping; no beds, just a bathroom and a kind of lounge, with sinfully comfortable sofas and beautiful fittings. They eat lunch together, gauging each other from opposite sides of the table, and over the rich food, Closs and Azure begin to question their tributes. The mentors are as different as the tributes; Closs, a Victor from a good twenty years ago, is solid and rugged, and his questions are sharp, direct, and without warmth. By contrast, Azure, who won the Games only three years ago, is wiry and slender, with an easy laugh that lights up her face without reaching her eyes. She's only nineteen, and dwarfed by her older compatriot, but her questions show the wit and sharp intelligence that helped her win her Games. Azure and Closs do most of the talking, while Platinum and Nessa answer in short, to-the-point sentences. Platinum offers that his best weapon is the sword, while Nessa obligingly demonstrates some of her gymnastic skills to applause from Flavia and Azure. After a couple of hours of this, on Flavia's cheery recommendation, the tributes withdraw to their own rooms to rest before their arrival.
Platinum sits slumped in his rooms, eyes closed, considering what he's learnt from the last few hours. He has no regrets about volunteering, and considers his District partner a valuable asset. He's seen her fighting before, in training, and is glad to see that she's not daunted by the cameras either. For now, she's not his competition but his ally, and it's good that she can reach a reasonably high standard.
Nessa watches out of the window, lying full-length on her sofa, as the train whizzes on to the edges of the District, and the shimmering heights of the Capitol begin to come into view. Trepidation is mounting in her gut. She doesn't like what the glittering city represents, and yet it's beautiful, threatening to distract her from what's important. Turning her face away, she focuses on what she has to; the Games ahead. She can't afford to be complacent. Losing means more than just death – it means failure.
Kassian Trove, the Escort for Two, heads into the train before the tributes, with only a brief – but dazzling – smile for the cameras. After him come the mentors, Iona and Caius, who pose with the teenagers for a moment before leaving Avius and Brooke to field the media by themselves. In fairness to them, both tributes seem to manage the attention well. Brooke is very photogenic, cold-eyed and serious but still pretty, and Avius' strong build and vicious smile mark him out as a contender. It's a few moments of flashing cameras and shouts for attention before the two of them withdraw into the train, their studied neutrality hiding Brooke's nervousness as well as Avius' boredom.
They have a few hours to kill, but Kassian prevents them taking the time to get to know each other, swooping in to congratulate them again. His nails, Avius notices with some scorn, are long and pointed, painted in a strange iridescent mixture of green and violet. Brooke hardly notices the nails, or indeed Kassian, because she's thinking of other things – things like how they're heading to the Capitol, even now, how her journey's started. She's only really brought back to reality when Caius, her mentor, starts to prod and poke her, testing her strength and making all her bruises ache. He does this with a strange detachment, like he really doesn't care.
Iona, meanwhile – the older of the two mentors, a severe-looking woman with her black hair cut close to her scalp – is looking Avius up and down, questioning him in low, sharp tones. He answers with something of a sneer in his voice, disdainful of her feeling the need to ask what his strengths are. His strengths, he tells her, are killing. That's all that matters.
At that, Iona exchanges a look with Caius and withdraws a little, beckoning him away. Avius and Brooke are left alone, while Kassian sits to one side casually sipping his wine.
"Guess we're allies, then," Brooke says, almost casually, after a moment.
The smile Avius gives her chills her blood. "Guess we are. For now."
Letitia, Tikker, and Zoe are already seated around the table when Singe and Silk make their way onto the train, rolling with the movement as it sets off. The delicate crockery in the dining room sings and rings as the train starts to move, like a symphony of tiny china bells. Both the tributes look around in unfeigned amazement at the train carriage which is even more richly furnished than the Justice Building. Out of the windows, the factories of Three rush by.
Tikker and Zoe don't talk much over the meal they all share. Both mentors seem kind of zoned out, staring at their hands or out of the window. They're both in their mid-twenties, but although Singe and Silk know that – they watched their Games, after all, and have seen them onstage every year - it wouldn't be obvious otherwise. Both women look much older. Tikker has a nervous twitch, and spills her wine in her lap twice in the course of the meal; Zoe's eyes are distant and sad, and when she does talk, her tone is melancholy. Singe sits hunched in her chair, eyes on her food, too shy to talk, while Letitia babbles brightly on about how exciting it all is and how she's sure they'll look just lovely after a few hours with the stylists.
Silk, for his part, is impatient with all his fellow travellers. He doesn't show it – he's still putting on the helpless act around Singe, at least until he knows her enough to know whether he can trust her – but dislike is seething not far under the surface. Tikker and Zoe aren't so much the problem, but Letitia is a part of the hated Capitol, and everything he's seen of Singe suggests she wants to be, which is almost worse. When he's finished eating, he slips away to his own room as soon as possible, unnoticed. He's good at that. In his room, on the comfortable bed which is softer than anything he's ever known, he falls asleep almost immediately.
Singe has more difficulty extricating herself from Letitia's conversation. She's too awkward to make her excuses, too afraid of being called back to just leave. Part of her wants to talk to Letitia in return, to try and steer the conversation towards Gamemaking and mechanics; the same part of her wants to ask Zoe and Tikker what it was like being inside the Games she's watched on repeat her whole childhood. But she daren't, and so she sits in awkward silence, hunched in her chair, for the whole interminable ride.
When they arrive in the Capitol, it's dark, but you wouldn't know it. The city blazes with light, and as Letitia goes to fetch Silk, Singe's heart leaps in her chest. The Capitol! Home of the Games! Maybe here, she thinks, maybe here she can feel at home.
At the station in Four, James poses and smiles for the cameras, blows kisses to female photographers, laughs and flexes and flirts outrageously. It makes it easy for Storm to slip onto the train with minimum fuss, but a little harder for Claretta Kingfisher, who eventually has to get back onto the station to tug James onto the train, her smile dazzlingly professional even as her long nails dig into his arm. He gives one final thumbs-up to the cameras, grinning, as the doors close and the train starts moving.
Claretta shows them to their rooms and tells them to be at the dining table in half an hour. When they're left alone, Storm turns to James in the corridor between their rooms, frowning. "How can you do that?" He baffles her with his cheerful approach to the whole thing, his brightness and flirting. Doesn't he realise they're trying to kill him?
James just shrugs, giving her a wink and a grin. "You're taking this way too seriously," he tells her. "You shouldn't let it get you down. You look so pretty, smiling's got to suit you." The flirting's almost a reflex, but the sentiment's real; he doesn't want to see her so miserable. Aside from anything else, it makes it harder for him to relax around her.
Storm's look is flat. "Thanks for your input," she says politely, "but the Games already killed my sister and brother, or didn't you know that? I don't think I'm taking it too seriously. I... They're trying to kill us, James. I'm sorry, but you need to realise that."
Something uncertain flickers across James' face for a moment, and he frowns. "See, that's you looking at the negative again. We'll be fine. And just think about what it'll be like in the Capitol! Everyone wanting you, everyone wanting to be you..."
Nobody wants to be you, Storm thinks. They just want to watch you bleed. But she doesn't want to alienate James. She doesn't like making enemies at the best of times, and when it's somebody who she'll have to share the Arena with, she knows she can afford it even less. All she says out loud, with a tight little smile, is "I'm glad you're looking on the bright side. I think I'm going to get some rest now. See you at dinner."
"Looking forwards to it, babe." James tips her a cheery little salute and a wink, smiling after her as she heads into her own chambers. Standing in the corridor on his own, though, his smile fades a little. He doesn't want to think about the stuff she's brought up, the possibility that there's more to being a tribute than just the Capitol girls. Maybe she's right crosses his mind for a moment. Then, pulling a face, he shakes it off and goes to flirt with Claretta.
The District Five tributes have to be shepherded into place at the station, and both of them almost collapse when they're ushered onto the train and the doors close between them and the cameras. Inside the train, as it judders once and starts moving, Auralio Goldfeather sweeps his arms around both tributes' shoulders, steering them through the gently rocking train to their quarters. "We'll be in the Capitol early tomorrow morning," he tells them, all business now he's away from the cameras. "Dinner is at seven. Your mentors will want to come and meet you before then, so wash yourselves up, get yourselves ready, take any clothes you want to out of your rooms, they'll knock on your doors in about half an hour. I'll see you at dinner." Unslinging his arms from their shoulders, he steps back and indicates their rooms. "If you need anything, just ask. And no tantrums, no fighting, no crying if you can help it. Calm is always best." And then he's gone, in a shimmer of golden hair and glittering skin.
Robyn and Jayden exchange looks, shyly, from under their eyelashes, and then turn away from each other, vanishing into their own rooms. Despite Auralio's advice, Jayden has barely got to the bathroom to wash his face when the memory of his parents hits him like a blade and he chokes on his own fear, starting to cry again. He continues to cry, in little bursts, while he washes his face and hands, brushes his hair, leafs through the loose clothes sitting ready in the wardrobe. He's looking for somewhere safe to keep his scrap of paper when Simeon comes in. Jayden knows Simeon, vaguely, as a visitor to the Mayor's house; the mentor of the thirty-eighth Games, a short, stocky man in his mid-forties, whose heavy red eyebrows shadow perpetually bloodshot eyes. Drink, morphling, or something else – nobody seems to know what his vice is, but something makes him pondorous and slow. He's still kindly enough, though, and he's gentle in his questioning, and when Jayden starts to cry again, tired and overwhelmed and trying his best to hide it, Simeon puts his arm around the little boy, staring over his head. "Don't fret," he says, slowly. "There's a whole District looking out for you."
Robyn doesn't have so much luck with her mentor. She's looked through the drawers and cupboards of her rooms, and decided she blends in best in what she's already wearing – it is her best clothes, after all – but when Graham comes in, blending in doesn't seem to be an option any more. He won't let her withdraw, as she wants to; he circles her, prodding and poking both physically and verbally, not letting her lapse into silence or stop to write things in her notebook. He looks her up and down and clearly finds her wanting, and when he finally leaves with a curt "We've got a lot of work to do," she could almost cry with relief. Then she remembers that this is the least of the prodding and poking she'll have to endure, and she flops onto the bed with her eyes closed, half-hoping she can sleep through the whole ugly business ahead of her.
Livvie is sulking, clearly unimpressed by her tributes this year. Isaac and Caitlin, the mentors, are sitting at their end of the table talking in undertones as though Wren and Joshua aren't even there. Both mentors seem to be completely unaware of their surroundings, with the hollow cheeks and greyish pallor of morphling addicts. The tributes are trying to keep their cool, but it's difficult to relax when the people their lives will depend on are obviously on a different plane of existence, and not in a good way.
So Wren and Joshua talk to each other instead, between mouthfuls of rich stew and soft cakes, their mouths still working on the food as they talk, both of them stuffing themselves silly and talking at the tops of their voices. Livvie turns her face away with an expression of disgust, but Wren and Joshua aren't looking.
"...So it was a prank, yeah, I'm not really like that," Wren insists, around a mouthful of bread and cheese better than anything she's ever tasted. "Just, you know, thought it'd be funny."
"Yeah, gotcha." A little rice spills out of Joshua's mouth, but he doesn't seem to care. "I thought it was pretty cool. I mean, the looks on their faces, right?" He mimics Livvie's expression when Wren froze, and is the only one who laughs, although Wren's smiling a little, too. "Wish I'd thought of it."
"You think?" she ventures, looking to and fro between the mentors and Livvie, who is sitting frozen in anger and frustration. Although she's aware they're not too impressed, and she knows she's lying about it being a prank, Wren is still happy to hear that somebody – even a twelve-year-old kid who laughs at his own jokes – thinks she's cool. Even with the horror that today's been, that's something. Swallowing her mouthful and reaching for the sparkling wine, she smiles at him. He seems okay, she thinks. If she has to spend the last weeks of her life with somebody, she's glad it's somebody who thinks she's cool. That counts for a lot.
Emalia, Anja and Sylvan all mill around Yaraminda, who sits slumped and stoic in one of the squishy armchairs, her legs apart and her face stonily expressionless. She's the first volunteer Seven has had in a long time, so it's no surprise that they're excited by her, but she's fed up with it already. She listens, but she doesn't speak, and although she eats half the food that's set out at dinnertime, wolfing it down as if she can never get enough, she disappears to her own room immediately afterwards, not letting Emalia's protests and cajoling stop her.
For different reasons, Teddy doesn't stay at the table long either. He's smiling faintly, because acting is easier than letting reality sink in, but he doesn't want to be around while the mentors and Escort fuss on about how wonderful it is to have a volunteer and how she might be a real contender. He has his limits, and it still stings that nobody would volunteer to save him.
He knocks on Yaraminda's door. When there's no answer, he knocks again. He's just raising his fist to knock a third time when she jerks the door open. She's showered and changed into a soft brown shirt and trousers which are too short for her, and her face looks thunderous, all the more so when she sees who it is. "What do you want?"
"We still need to watch the reruns," Teddy stammers, more than a little intimidated, then clears his throat and tries to imagine this is all a play, and there's no way she'll try to kill him. "And I, I wanted to talk to you."
Yaraminda considers this for a moment – not a very long moment – and then moves to close the door. "I don't want to talk to you, though. Go away."
"Why don't you like me?" It comes out plaintive and rather pathetic-sounding, but it's what Teddy came here to say. "What did I do to you?"
The door opens a crack further, and Yaraminda sticks her head out, looking down at him. "You looked at your family, kid? Leave me the hell alone. I'll come when the reruns are on." And the door slams closed, leaving Teddy to stand in the corridor, blinking. My family? he thinks, blankly. What about my family?
It's strange to watch the Reapings from outside, knowing your name will be called, that your face will be one of those showing on screens all around Panem. Lacey and Clark sit in front of the big TV screen in the train carriage, with Netta perched delicately between them and their mentors on their other sides. Twine, a recent Victor who's only a little older than the tributes, sits on Clark's left, twisting her straw-coloured hair nervously around her finger, while on Lacey's right, Spinner sits with his arms crossed, all sharp elbows and harshly twisted mouth. None of them, to Lacey's discomfort, talk.
The Reapings play out on the screen, a blur of different Districts, glittering Escorts, the applause from the crowds and the fear from the tributes. Lacey is distracted by her sympathy for the other tributes, by her familiar confusion at the ones who volunteer to kill and be killed. Clark, for his part, is distracted by his stomach, which is churning unpleasantly from all the rich food he ate, but he still keeps a keen eye on the other tributes, trying to gauge them from their Reapings. Then Eight is on the screen, and both tributes experience a weird sense of deja vu, watching themselves react to their names being called. Again, Lacey smiles and swaggers up to the stage; again, Clark corrects Netta about his name (and, sitting between them, she looks just as scornful about it the second time around). They stand together, small on the screen, the scared little boy and the overconfident girl, and as the view changes and the voiceover announces District Nine, Lacey leans across Netta to tap Clark on the arm. "You okay now?" she mutters to him, with a little smile. "You looked scared up there."
Something like a scowl crosses Clark's face, and then something that's not really a smile. "Yeah, well, it's kinda scary" he murmurs back. "Shh, I'm watching." He's still trying to get the measure of his District partner, but now isn't the time for that. Now is his first chance to see what he's up against.
Nine. Ten. When Eleven comes up, and Husk Sarter punches the Escort in the stomach, Lacey covers her mouth with her hands, but although she feels bad about it, she can't help the snort of laughter which splutters out from underneath. The look Netta gives her could cut glass, but Spinner's mouth untwists a little, like he wants to laugh as well. Clark snorts, too, the first humour he's shown since his name was called. He figures it's probably safe. It's not like anyone important is watching.
Bernard's not used to having his own room. In the orphanage, he shares a dormitory. Right up until the reruns, he's spent the afternoon marvelling at the luxury of it, even if it's only for one night – not just his own room, but his own suite, full of new clothes and new furniture, everything clean and neat and perfect. He's stuffed to the gills from dinner, his stomach tying itself in knots, and by the time he sits down to watch the reruns, showered and brushed and dressed in soft clothes that are more comfortable than anything he's ever worn, he's so wrapped up between his nausea and his amazement at where he's found himself that he's almost forgotten about the Games and about Ian.
Daisy, too, has taken her mind off it. Now she's said goodbye to her parents and the worst part is, for now, over, she can spring back to her usual cheerful self. She's spent the last couple of hours talking to Lily, her mentor, who's friendly and cheerful, if in a brittle kind of way. She's changed into a clean dress, a beautiful white silk one, and sampled every dish on the table, tried to get to know the Capitolites on the train, kept her mind on how stunning the whole journey is. She's spent some time sitting by the window, watching the golden fields blur by.
But now the reruns are airing, and both tributes have to bring their minds back to the truth. By the time all the Reapings have aired, Bernard has to stumble off to throw up in the toilet, leaving Daisy alone with Lily, Belladonna, and Lucrezia.
"Well," Lucrezia says, after a moment, as the TV flicks off. "At least you weren't the worst."
"I thought they were good!" Lily says encouragingly, with a smile for Daisy, and flicks her hair back over one shoulder. "They looked lovely. You looked lovely, sweetie," she repeats to Daisy, who smiles back at her. Belladonna sits cross-legged on the arm of the sofa and says nothing.
Lailani is fed up. She doesn't much like Avena, who's trilling and shallow and whose voice hurts Lailani's ears, and Marco, her mentor, is sitting in the corner with the liquor cabinet, not talking. The novelty of the train has worn off after hours of travelling through the vast plains of District Ten, and she ate too much. Lysander and Jareth, who've known each other forever as far as Lailani can tell, are chatting companionably in the corner of the carriage, and Lailani is already a little homesick. Cassidy would be able to think of a way to liven up the ride. Rohan would be company. Instead, she's stuck with a drunk, a shallow peacock of a woman, and two guys who won't include her. Irritably, she kicks rhythmically against the leg of the inlaid cherrywood table, ignoring Avena when she squeaks at her to stop that, stop that right now!
She hasn't had the chance to talk to Lysander since they got on the train, which is also annoying. If she's going to go into the Arena with him, she at least wants to know what she's up against. She knows him by sight – she's seen him around, at markets and passing by her ranch – but that doesn't really do it. She wants to know whether or not they can be allies, how far she can trust him. She wants to know just how much of an unfair advantage he's going to get from knowing his mentor, too.
Jareth certainly seems to think it's an advantage, although it seems like a burden on him, too. He's explained this to Lysander twice now, sighing as he sinks back into his cowhide chair. Emily, he repeats now for the third time, is never going to forgive him if Lysander doesn't win, so Lysander needs to win. Okay? And, for the third time, Lysander nods. Normally, he'd roll his eyes, but this is Jareth. He respects Jareth.
Even so, it's no overstatement to say that both tributes are bored as all hell when they finally head to bed, Lailani first, then Lysander. The Capitol lies ahead of them, though, and boredom is going to be the least of their problems. It's too bad neither of them are thinking that far ahead.
The ride from Eleven takes place in stiff, awkward silence. Steffi spends the whole time they're in the same room watching Husk as one might a wild animal, all but hiding behind the mentors. Stock and Chaff are transparently unsympathetic towards her, but Stock – who has responsibility for Husk – does tell him off at length for antagonising the Capitol so early in the game. She rants at him for a good ten minutes, in a slightly unhinged, shrill voice, her hands flying, before she lapses back into silence. When she comes back to it later, watching the reruns, all she says is "You are going to regret that later on. Not a threat, by the way. But you are."
"Oh, let it go, Stock," Chaff says, around his whiskey, and shoves the older mentor with the stump of his arm. He's the only one in the carriage who seems willing to smile about the whole thing, and smile he does; when the silence is broken, it's Chaff breaking it. He laughs loud and long at his own jokes, maybe a little louder after he started on the whiskey, and pats Steffi on the stomach, winding her up by telling her all about the guy he knew once who dropped down dead from a punch to the gut, then bursting back into that loud, careless laughter. He tries to draw the tributes in on the joke, but he has no luck from either of them; Husk sits in silent, burning rage at the world, and Sift curls up in the corner, turning her ring on her thumb and staring out of the window. She stays sitting there long after Husk has gone to destroy his room (which he does quite efficiently, and the smashing and ripping from his end of the train goes on the whole time they're watching the reruns). She stays sitting there after Chaff has finished two bottles of whiskey and fallen asleep in his chair, and after Steffi and Stock have gone to bed. Long after everyone else is asleep, and the countryside passing by the window is shrouded in darkness, Sift stays curled up in her chair by the window, with stolen bread in the fine clothes she took from the wardrobe, turning Coppice's ring on her finger.
At last, she falls asleep too, still in the soft velvet chair, and the train whispers on into the night, towards the Capitol.
"Ash! Ash, come and look at this!" Piper all but bounces to the window as the train whizzes through the tunnel and out into the bright light beyond, and the Capitol's revealed. She's seen it on TV, of course, but never like this, not real. It seems as out-of-this-world as the silk shirt and soft trousers she's wearing, or the shower she had this morning that brushed her hair for her. "You gotta look at this!"
"I'm lookin', all right?" Ash is at the next window, dragging a chair over so he can stand on it to stare out at the Capitol. His words might be belligerent, but his tone isn't; the two have cemented a kind of friendship overnight, and although Piper's so much brighter and friendlier than he is, she reminds him of his sisters enough that he can't not like her.
He can't help being amazed by the Capitol, either, even though he isn't usually bothered about things like that. The glittering buildings, the transports zipping to and fro, everything about it is bright and high-tech and a million miles from anything in Twelve. He and Piper stare out of the window, rapt, for a good minute as the train draws closer, then Piper springs away again. "I'm gonna go and get Haymitch! He ought to see this, too!" she enthuses, forgetting for the moment that he's seen it at least three times before, and bounds off down the train, her cry of "Haaaaaaymitch!" trailing after her.