Title: Awake and Sing
Author: A Crazy Elephant
Summary: Or "Let the 10th Annual Hunger Games Begin!"
Category: Action/Adventure/Drama
Chapter Word Count: 3,772
Disclaimer: The Hunger Games universe and related characters do not belong to me.
Author's Notes: I'd like to again apologize for the delay. Real life took over. Again, I thank everyone who's read this far – you have no idea how much I love seeing the hits tick up. I'd especially like to thank those of you who've reviewed, alerted and/or favorited this piece – those lovely little notifications of your support make me deliriously happy. ^.^
Chapter Fun Facts: Saoirse uses the Irish Gaelic words for 'girl' (cailín) and 'boy' (buachaill)
Feedback would be most appreciated. = )
5 – Training
After the speeches, we are driven to the Training Center.
Like everything else in the Capitol, it is beautiful. Luxurious. Modern. I'm still so rattled from standing before the man who demands my death that I can't bring myself to care.
Minerva meets us on the receiving floor of the Training Center. The other chaperones are there. Some of the stylists too and the Capitol Reps for the handful of districts without mentors. The actual mentors are all absent. We stumble out of our chariots, all 24 of us in varying degrees of absurd. The breezy chariot ride and the sweat from standing under thousands of spotlights have not treated the costumes well, especially those of us whose looks relied heavily on body paint. Even Saoirse and Dio's careful paint jobs show small streaks and cracks. Up close, it also becomes apparent how lucky we were in terms of stylists. Saoirse and Dio are not only lovely people, but they did not elect to stick us in heavy coiled wire suits like the 3s or nothing but black body paint to represent coal like poor District 12.
But Minerva doesn't let us study our competition for long. She almost instantly begins gushing about the fabulous first impression we have just made. How clever our stylists are. All the sponsors who'll be interested in us. How beautiful we are all cleaned up.
I don't think Minerva got Saoirse's message either.
"Now!" Minerva titters as she herds us toward the bank of elevators. The other Tributes and chaperones are crowding them and it's hard to hear Minerva's instructions. "We'll watch the recaps and then it's straight to bed with both of you! Tomorrow begins training and we want you rested and ready!" She waves us into the first open one. The District 2 Tributes and one particularly sullen boy in the tree suit from 7 end up squashed in with us. Minerva has been lost in the push and waves us on as the elevator doors close.
Keepsie had called the 2s Herculean. I know what that means. Grandfather tells those stories from time to time out on the trawler. Stories about impossible heroes. Strong, great and deeply flawed. Keepsie hadn't been exaggerating.
District 2 is positively enormous.
They have to be Eighteens, both of them. Their stylists have them painted like stone statues. Every muscle is perfectly defined. Every angle of their faces. They're both impossibly beautiful.
"What are you supposed to be, 4?" Girl 2 sneers at me. She is tall and lean. Not scrawny or thin like me, but muscled and solid. Elegant features. Brown eyes. I can't even begin to imagine what colors her hair and her skin might be, she is so caked in paint, like white marble. "A drowning victim?"
"Selkies, actually." Flynn corrects her. I'm grateful he does. Given how rattled I am, I don't trust my voice to stay strong to do it myself and I certainly don't need to give them another excuse to think me weak.
"Selkies?" Boy 2 has at least fifty pounds on even Flynn. He's a darker marble color than she is and his eyes are darker. Harder. Colder. "Is that some District 4 word for 'drowned'?" The 2s laugh at their joke. Girl 2 looks triumphant and eager, like she can't wait to tear out our throats. Boy 2 has something else in his eyes when he watches me. Something greedy. I don't like it. I'm unbelievably grateful when we reach their floor before either Flynn or I have to reply.
"Hey." Boy 7 says when the 2s have gone, the doors hissing closed behind them. He's taken off his leafy headdress and carries with him. "At least you weren't sexy trees." He points to the bark patterned loin cloth and the body paint they've stuck him in. "My mother had to watch that." He snorts. I can't resist a small smile as the doors hiss open on our floor.
"I didn't even think about that." Flynn muses when we're out of the elevator, leaving Boy 7 to ride the rest of the way alone.
"W-W-What?" I ask. I am unbelievably grateful I didn't have to speak in from of the 2s, because my voice wobbles again.
"My mother had to watch me looking ready to seduce lonely fishermen's wives on national television." He says. I can't help but giggle.
"What?" I ask with a chuckle. The seriousness of his face and the complete foolishness of his observation are unexpectedly hilarious.
"Saoirse didn't tell you that part of the selkie myth?" He asks. I shake my head.
"J-Just the part about loosing the skins and being trapped with on land." I say.
"Yeah, well, there's all that, but male selkies are supposed to prey on lonely fishwives whose husbands are out at sea too. Break their hearts." He snorts. "Dio thought it so romantic."
"W-Well," I say. "At least we weren't naked." I observe. "D-Did you see District 12? Nothing but coal dust. My grandfather would have had a heart attack right there in front of the Justice Building if we'd been naked."
"I can't imagine – " Flynn begins, but the elevator hisses open behind us. Minerva arrives. She's found Saoirse.
"You looked phenomenal, my cailín!" Saoirse applauds me. She tosses an arm around my shoulders. Kisses my cheek for good measure. "And you, me buachaill!" She tosses an arm around Flynn too. She is so small, even in her impractically high heels, she can't reach his shoulders and just gets his middle instead. She doesn't seem to care. "Just brilliant!"
"Sponsors will just line up for them!" Minerva agrees brightly. The elevators hiss open again.
It's Thom and Dio with a couple of stylists, the Tributes from 11 and the District 12 Victor. Dio waves to one of the stylists as he leaves. Thom shakes 12's hand.
"Shep." He tells the District 12 Victor by way of a goodbye. District 12, Shep, nods and Thom turns to us, the doors hissing closed behind him
"Oh. Thom! Weren't they simply marvelous?" Minerva gushes.
"Yeah, yeah, just great." Thom has clearly not been concerned with how the opening ceremonies went. He doesn't care how we looked. It's clear he's still distracted by whatever happened with the District 11 Victor. Saoirse, at least, seems to notice.
"Is Daisy going to be all right?" Saoirse asks quietly.
"No," Thom answers. "But she's not out for blood with a pair of pinking shears." Thom answers. "Cobb and Shep got her down. That reminds me," He rounds on us. "Word from Shep is that District 2's tired of losing and has got themselves a pair of real fighters this year. Crazy to boot." He says. "Watch out for them."
"All ready met them in the elevator." Flynn admits. "Not the brightest, but certainly the biggest."
"And ruthless too." Thom continues. "Sounds like 2's putting their kids to work."
"Isn't that against the rules?" I ask. "To train them before hand?"
"Sure, but who's to say what counts as training?" Thom answers as we move into the apartment. "We spear fish in 4. Spear translates as well to a person as well as a fish, buts it's part of our industry. Can't very well forbid us from working the trade, can they?" He explains. "If 2 has started putting their children to hefting stone slabs and swinging pickaxes, who's to tell them they can't? Nah, just watch out for them. They've not won a Games since the beginning. Makes them awful sensitive."
"5, 8 and 10 have never won." I observe.
"5, 8, and 10 aren't getting the supplies that 2 is." Thom reminds me. "They haven't decided it's an honor to win the Games."
"An honor?" Flynn sounds horrified. "Are you serious?" I have to admit - I don't understand it either. It's not a shameful thing, certainly. There are certainly perks in the wake of a Games Victory. Extra food. The temporary benevolence from the Capitol But there is nothing honorable about children forced to do the unthinkable just to survive.
"2's always had a warrior's spirit." Minerva reminds us. There's something brisk in her tone. Like she doesn't like where this conversation is going and is quite ready to get back to discussing shiny things. "They're simply trying to put it to use." She explains.
"Brings the Capitol's favor." Thom explains. Minerva waves us to the plushy couches before the windows of the apartment and the blank wall over the mantelpiece. I get the feeling that the empty space is actually a telescreen. I'm not wrong. It flares to life for a recap of the opening ceremonies as we sit. I end up squashed between Saoirse and Dio. The flounce in Saoirse's skirt and the brim of Dio's ridiculous hat creep into my personal space. I don't mind. There's something comforting about the closeness after standing so alone and so exposed before our executioner and the entire nation.
"So? You won. We only got the extra rations for a year and the Peacekeepers were as hard as ever." Flynn observes. Thom, surprisingly, doesn't say anything just gives him a hard look. One that says he'd love to answer that question honestly. But that says the answer to that question might very well count as treason. That says it's because District 4 hasn't bought the Capitol line, hook and sinker like 2.
"Thom isn't nearly as charming as Dom." Saoirse explains to cover the silence. As if someone was listening in. It occurs to me that they probably are. "He's the District 2 Victor. Very first Hunger Games winner – boy's got charm oozing out of his ears. Knows how to lay it on thick." Saoirse and Dio giggle. Thom doesn't look offended. Even Minerva smiles, like we're away from anything remotely like resentment toward Capitol policy and back to the pretty things she prefers. We settle in to watch ourselves looking sad and longing, ride through the streets. Minerva oohs and ahhs all over again. Saoirse and Dio congratulate us on following directions and selling the selkie look. Thom grumbles about how damn lucky we were not to be as naked as Shep's kids from 12 or as weighed down with feathers or wires like the 1s and 2s respectively.
When it's over, Minerva announces bedtime to prep us for the first day of training. Thom snorts something about having to meet someone and sulks off to the elevators. Capitol attendants appear to lead Flynn and me to our rooms. Saoirse waves them away and the stylists take us to our bedrooms instead.
The opulence has become completely unsurprising at this point. My bed is larger than Grandfather's skiff. The carpet is plush. The bathroom tiled in polished marble. The shower with its fleet of buttons, which spit out a library of different salts and soaps.
"Listen cailín." Saoirse says, as she shows me how to work the many controls in the room. The attendant summons. The shower controls. The remote, which control music and ambient noise. Makes a joke or too. She shows me bedclothes, a silk gown like the one from the train. And the training outfit I'm require to wear tomorrow, tight trousers and shirt in a meshy sort of fabric I've never heard of.
When she's finished these explanations, she sits me down on the bed. Wipes away the makeup on my face with a cloth from the bathroom. "Now you listen, my cailín." She says seriously. "Tomorrow begins training. This is your chance to make sure you know how to survive. The Gamemakers watch, but don't you worry about them. Worry about you."
"Shouldn't Thom be telling me this?" I ask. Saoirse just clicks her tongue. Scrubs at the selkie eyes she spent so long tracing on this afternoon.
"I'm sure he'll say something similar at breakfast." She says. "But it's important. There are always a million ways to die in the Arena even without the other Tributes out hunting. Make food, water and shelter your top priorities. I want you coming home, Mairead." There's something I haven't seen before in Saoirse's eyes. Something desperate and pleading. Like she can't stand to send away another child. As though now that she no longer has an immediate role to play in my ensuring my homecoming, she's let herself worry about me.
I'm touched.
It has so far been the greatest show of concern for my current predicament than anyone, Minerva, Thom and Flynn included, has so far displayed. She doesn't tell me I'm going to die. She doesn't tell me any more about sponsors or the viewing audience. She's telling me about things I can control.
"You'll all look the same tomorrow. Same outfits. No make up." Saoirse continues. "Don't worry about standing out until the end. The first few days just learn and master. Promise?"
"Promise." I say. Saoirse believes me and pulls me into a hug.
"Good love." She says. Saoirse breaks the embrace and pats my cheek. "Try to sleep, my cailín." She says. "You need it."
She didn't have to tell me so.
The moment I've scrubbed the rest of my makeup off, pulled on the silk nightgown Saoirse set out, and laid down, the complete exhaustion I've been ignoring hits me hard. With the stress of being dolled up and paraded before the man who ordered my death and the entire nation on top of not sleeping more than an hour or two the night before, I'm completely wasted. I don't even have time to think about District 4 or what anyone thought about the selkie costumes. I don't even have time to miss my little pallet in the rafters or Grandfather's snoring below me.
I'm out the moment my head hits the pillow until Minerva raps at my door to invite me to breakfast. Begrudgingly, I follow Minerva's latest instructions. I don't sleep in. I shower. I dress in the training uniform Saoirse laid out for me. I head for the living area.
By the time I reach the breakfast table, Minerva and Flynn are all ready there. Saoirse and Dio are noticeably absent. The stylists, it seems have gone back to their workshop to craft the perfect interview looks for us. Thom too is missing. He, according to Minerva, was called away for pressing social engagement after we were hurried off to bed and is still sleeping off the remnants of the evening's activities. She sounds disapproving, but she doesn't say anything else. Even when Thom finally does drag himself in wearing two-thirds of a three-piece suit looking for all the world as if he's been keelhauled.
"Any words of advice for this morning, great mentor?" Flynn asks. He's dumped the cold stoicism he had on after the Lottery. He's even abandoned that little bit of charming cheek he had on last night when we discussed our selkie suits. He seems to have decided to play Thom's game of snark instead.
"Yeah," Thom drops into the seat across from Minerva. One of the Capitol attendants pours him a cup of coffee. "Learn something useful and don't show off. Save that for your private session with the Gamemakers." He says. "Let the others know you aren't weak, but don't show them your greatest strengths." This isn't half bad advice. Flynn seems to thinks so too, because he tones down the bitterness in his tone.
"Should we try to form alliances?" Flynn presses.
"If you want." Thom shrugs. "Helps some in the beginning, but just remember you'll still have to kill them there at the end." Whatever happened on last night's social engagement has left Thom worn out. He's not evening snarling when he speaks. "If you don't think you'll be able to kill your new friends, go it alone. Now," There's a grimace creeping back into his face now. "Take a lesson from Mags here and shut your trap so I can eat my damn breakfast, Moses."
After we eat, Minerva herds us down to the Training Floor where stations featuring every possible sort of survival tactic and self defense imaginable have been set up for us. Districts 1 and 2 are all ready waiting for us, but there is a steady stream from the elevators.
When all twenty-four Tributes have assembled, we are run through a set of mandatory hand-to-hand combat drills, which are to be repeated at intervals throughout the day. There are general obstacle courses as well which we are repeatedly subjected to. By the time they cut us loose to choose out stations, my body is burning and I'm sporting an impressive bruise across my tailbone from where the hand-to-hand instructor flipped me.
But I ignore the aching and the bruise. Instead, I do exactly as Saoirse suggested and make for the survival stations.
Edible plants. Fishing. Snares. Even camouflage.
If I'm going to die, it's going to be because one of the Tributes kills me. It will not be because I was too ill equipped to find basic necessities. It will not be because of my own stupidity.
But after two days of working the stations, I find out it may not be entirely necessary.
Without Danny here to upstage my knots and fishhooks, I'm the star pupil.
Fishing, knots and snares, even hammock tying. I excel at. The trainers all look impressed. The knots and snares instructor teaches me a dozen of his most difficult tricks and while my work isn't quite as tight as his, it is considered satisfactory. I earn a pleased look. Grandfather would be proud.
Edible plants takes a bit longer. A full afternoon. But by the end of the day's training, I feel assured that I can successfully feed myself in the event I make it through Day One in the Arena.
On the third day of Training, at Thom's encouragement, I start testing out weapons. Thom's social engagements are many and almost always leave him tired enough to give solid advice without any nasty observations tacked on in the mornings so long as he gets to eat his eggs. So after two full days of making sure I'll be able to eat and won't freeze to death, I start looking into armaments. I have no plans to actually engage anyone once in the Arena of course. That certainly won't stop them from coming to me. Having some way of protecting myself can't hurt.
At least, it wouldn't, if I were at all capable with any sort of weapon.
It takes all of a morning to figure out that weaponry is not my forte. Swords, spears, maces, pikes, and tridents are all much too heavy for me and my aim is tragically bad. Even if they weren't, I'm not fast enough for fencing and the others require too close of quarters for my taste. After a few hours at the archery range, I can at least hit the stationary target. But it would take years for me to hit anything like remotely like a kill shot and even longer to do the same to a moving target. At knives, I prove fair if only because I've dressed fish for Gram for years. But throwing knives is another matter entirely and I find myself with the same trouble as my archery skills. Any raw talent I might have had would take years to shape into a useful skill.
The only weapon I prove the least bit competent with is the slingshot. My wrist and arms are strong enough to withstand the tension. The aim is easy. Straight between the posts. By the end of the session, I can pick off the row of targets lined up and even the moving set.
Of all the unthreatening, unhelpful things to be good at, I am good with a slingshot.
Thom roars with laughter when I tell him so at breakfast the next morning. If I wasn't quite so embarrassed and disheartened I might laugh with him.
"A slingshot?" He howls. "A damned slingshot? Oh Mags! You would!"
"What can you even kill with a slingshot?" Flynn asks with a chuckle. He, of course, excels at all the things I cannot even begin to pick up. Like Thom, spears, tridents and pikes seem to be his specialty.
"Gulls, maybe." Thom laughs again. He's still looking rather rough around the edges this morning and his mood as of late has been dreadful. We haven't even seen him except at breakfast in days. But this seems to have cheered him up considerable. "If you caught them just right."
"Well!" Minerva, of all people, comes to my defense. "At least it's something. She won't be completely helpless out there." She reminds them. "Good for you, darling." She smiles encouragingly at me.
"Work on something else for today." Thom is still chuckling. "Bows, knives. Something useful. Can't hurt to diversify. Even if you can kill something, there's no guarantee they'll have a slingshot." He reminds me.
This observation sends a fresh pang of dread into my stomach.
I haven't been thinking about the Arena and what the Gamemakers will have in store for us. Not really.
I've been thinking about things in terms of ordinary wilderness. Terrain found in Panem. Completely ignoring the fact that there is no guarantee that our Arena will be such.
There's no telling what the Gamemakers will have devised for us.
Some years, they are traditional terrains. Forests and deserts and mountains found in Panem. Especially in the first three years or so. Since then, they've started mixing it up. Thom's Arena, for example, had been an island. Tropical, like the ones you can see from District 4's oceans if you're out far enough. Filled with all manner of poisonous plants and animals, the only safe food a particular form of tree nuts and some fish out of the surrounding water. Another year, the District 12 Victor's year, I think, had been a true stone labyrinth, full of locked doors, hidden wells and poisoned springs. Last year, Keepsie's Arena, had been overgrown orchards, where all but a few tree yielding any kind of edible fruit. There had even been a year where the Cornucopia had been loaded with nothing but weapons, leaving the Tributes to fend entirely for themselves in the cold and rainy forests and another where there had been nothing at all and Tributes had had to fashion their own weapons from the wilderness.
Our Arena could be anything. The Gamemakers could be generous or miserly. And in only three days, we'll find out for sure.