Next chapter! This time, we'll be seeing training, I think, and seeing why this District 6 girl is mentioned so much. Yay. I like her, I do. I have no idea why, but I like my District 6 girl with her weird name and colouring. Maybe because of stuff I have planned for her.

Chapter 4 – Preparation

We entered a lift, and were informed by Ceres that we each got a floor to ourselves per district, and it went in number order. She pressed a button with '11' on it with her freaky purple finger, and I felt the lift jolt and shoot straight up to the high floors. The lift felt awkward, and I was relieved to be out of the confined space when we reached our large floor. Fully furnished with a dining area, seating area, doors that lead off to bedrooms, a TV area (with a TV about as wide as I was tall), and a big meal laid out on the dining table. Ceres shoved us both, telling us to go and get changed, and then come for dinner.

I said a quick word to my brother as I walked into my room, which was double the size of our house at home, at least. The bed was huge, a canopy bed with flowers engraved in it, the posts made to look like trees, the sheets green and orange and red. The room had walls painted like an orchard in the summer, and everything seemed to be made out of rich wood that wasn't even found in our district, but still… somehow it felt somewhat like home.

I walked around the room, touching all the gadgets and random items, stripping out of my costume, laying it on the bed, then shyly getting an Avox to assist me figuring out how to work the thing that gave out outfits to use, thanking them quietly – glad it wasn't the one from my District – then changing into a white, floral printed dress that went to my mid calves, though I think it was made to go to knees or higher on a taller person. I tied it tightly around my waist with a ribbon as it was much too big for my small body, then started to brush my hair out as I fiddled with one of the other gadgets.

Over the course of only five minutes, I managed to start up some strange music, set weird lights flashing around the room, make the window turn into a view of some very, very freaky looking scene with two men, all of which only went away after I turned the whole room off with the apparent power switch, and then back on, leaving the room normal again. Carefully I then messed with the same buttons, this time getting the music to be soft, like the stuff we hear back home from other people singing, the lighting to be a golden colour like a sunset, and the window to show a living orchard. I relaxed a little, feeling almost like I was at home, but in a better time. Though slowly, the happy feeling descended into a feeling of loss, something I missed, and homesickness took over. Yes, District Eleven was a hell hole filled with starving people, but it was home, and those starving people were my friends and family.

I had just started to cry when Ceres opened the door, looking ready to yell at me for being late, but for some reason her face softened when she saw me crying. I looked away, but heard the clipping of her heels as she walked over the wood covered floor, then felt the bed sink as she sat beside me.

"Oh little one…" She said softly, her accent not so obvious, as I felt an arm wrap around me, "Missing home?" I wasn't sure why this pawn of the Capitol was being so nice, she was always such a sour mutt of a person, never caring when she pulled out names of tributes to shove into this death pit. Granted, I had never seen her behind the scenes, only ever in District 11 at the reaping, but why would she be any different? She hated having our District, she wanted a stronger one. But even so, I nodded, "Oh dear… I know… I know… we get so many young ones from your District… I had thought perhaps with your brother here it wouldn't be so daunting, but I suppose the fact you will lose him or die with him is a lot to handle…"

I looked up at her, stunned. She laughed softly, before looking sympathetic, something that didn't quite fit her altered features.

"We Escorts can be sympathetic too, dear. We see the games in a slightly different light from other citizens. Whilst some of us do enjoy the show itself, it is hard watching the children we have tried to help, die. That's why some of us want better Districts, because they normally have one come out alive every couple of years. Well, that as well as the fact they're cleaner," I couldn't help a small laugh at this, and I could almost hear her strange skin stretching as she smiled, "Don't worry dear… we'll be doing whatever we can to get you out of these games. And you know Salix will protect you. You'll see your family again."

I just nodded, not knowing what to say. She smiled, and then shifted me to her lap suddenly, making me jump and her laugh again. She told me not to be scared, then saying something about my hair, and I felt her hands begin to lace through it, skilfully threading it around itself, and I soon felt that it had been braided. She gently lifted me from her lap, guided me to a mirror and held my shoulders, smiling.

"See, you should keep it out of your face, it lets your pretty and cute features show. Looks are important," She smiled softly; then walked out of the room, "Come now dear, it's time to eat."

I was stunned, to say the least. She was… actually rather nice. When on earth did that happen? Shaking my head and fingering with my braid, I slowly exited the room and went to take a seat, sitting next to Salix, who was giving me a look. I shrugged at him, assuming Ceres had had a sweet talk chat with him too, giving him a 'what the hell' look which he returned, then laughed at, before beginning to eat.

"So, training is tomorrow," Salix said, looking up at our mentors, "Any tips?"

"Don't immediately show them what you're good at. Work on new skills, or skills that Careers won't even look at," Seeder said, leaning back a little, apparently having already eaten her fill, though Chaff was still eating rabidly, "Try out some of the weapons, but once you've got good at it, don't over-practice it. And if you really must, make sure that the Careers are focused totally on something else, and when they're looking, do it average or badly. Careers are the biggest problem for tributes like you two. Salix's brawn is already a factor that will attract attention, don't give them any more reason."

"Survival Skills," Chaff spoke up, "Make sure you do them. Gee, Seeder, surprised you didn't say that. It's normally you who points that out, and I'm the one talking about weapons," He laughed, and continued to eat, before taking a huge gulp to swallow, and sitting up, "But in all seriousness. You need survival skills a lot. Arenas vary so much, that any of the skills could be important. Plus, there are often hints in what they give you as to what the arena is like."

"Right. Survival skills," Salix said, "Of course. Isn't that how you won your games, Seeder?" I looked over to the motherly victor, seeing her nod, wringing around her wrists.

"I tried the whole alliance thing, at first. But… that didn't work out so well for me, so I tried to survive out on my own. I had a fair number of scars from Gamemaker traps because of it, but only two kills under my belt. My arena was… ah, what was it…? It was thirty or so years back now so my memory is faded…" I knew that was a lie, from what I had seen, no Victor ever forgot their games, no matter how hard they tried. Guess that was a lucky thing about the fact I was almost certainly going to die, "I… I can't quite recall. But either way, they helped." I wondered how bad her arena had been if she was pretending to forget it, but going by the looks on Chaff's, Ceres' and her own face, I decided it wasn't a good idea to even so much as dwell on it. Chaff looked guilty for even bringing it up.

"So, be good but not too good?" Salix said, receiving nods, "Alright then. And for the individual things?"

"That's where you have to shine. If you haven't got your skill to a level that's super impressive, then show them a number of skills you've gotten fairly good at, including survival. They rank it higher than you'd expect, but if you have weapons… use them," Seeder said.

"They're usually drunker than me by the time they get to District Eleven. They order food and drink around District Seven, are fairly drunk by nine, and are paying no attention by eleven and twelve. You really will need to make an impression. Normally, the head Gamemaker is watching all the way through, which is the only reason scores don't disappear in the later districts, but even so," Chaff said.

After that, everything fell silent again; spare the crazy babble from Ceres, who was back to normal again. Once food was taken away by Avoxes, we headed back to our rooms. I pressed several buttons, and was soon given a pair of baggy orange pair of silk night clothes, and leaving my hair in the braid, I laid down on my bed – a small dot in the middle of the large mattress. The sheets were soft, warm – not coarse, itchy and cold like the sheets at home. I thought about Acca, lying in bed either alone or with Taxus, probably crying. Or talking about how pretty we looked, which was something better to imagine than tears falling from her amber eyes.

I tossed and turned, attempting to fall asleep, but was unable, despite the room and comfort of the bed. Despite my full stomach. Despite all these luxuries I didn't have only a couple of days ago. I would feel much better back in my real bed. The itchy, coarse sheeted bed. I don't care for comfort, the only real comfort I need is being safe at home, not to be here, ready to be sent to my death. I will never be comfortable here. No matter what. These silk, soft, sheets and fluffy, comfy mattress that forms to my body perfectly now I'm still, will never be…

Okay, maybe I can fall asleep now.

I had barely felt like I had even slept when I woke up, Ceres banging on my door, telling me about how the day was going to be 'So very busy!' and that I needed to get myself up and ready for training. Right, training today. Me, a tiny little twelve year old and the shortest in the games, trying to find some ability with a weapon that will soon be used to kill someone. Right, because that's going to be so fun.

I took forever to get up, not wanting to get out of the comfy bed, and found that an outfit of an orange one piece jumpsuit with a black shirt over it, with the number '11' on the bottom corner and shoulder. I left my hair in the braid it was in, though as soon as I exited the room, Ceres was suddenly all over it again, saying it needed to be out of my face even more whilst we were training, tightening the braid and redoing it too, as a 'French braid', which pulled at my scalp almost painfully, but true to her purpose it did mean almost every bit of hair was out of my face.

Salix's hair was even back in a small ponytail when I saw him, and he was in a similar outfit to me, but in a black jumpsuit that wasn't as tight fitting as mine, with an orange jacket. He waved, and I hugged him tightly, quickly inhaling as much food as I could before we had to get to the training room, which I knew would be soon. When Ceres yelled at us for nearly being late, we scrambled to get last minute pointer reminders, and then were ushered quickly to the lift, which took us to the level the training centre was on.

When we arrived, everyone else was already there, and the woman in charge looked at us with annoyed eyes. Ceres apologized for us, then left hastily, leaving me to cower by Salix's side, making me look even more pathetic than I already must do. Everyone stared at us, the Careers now eyeing up Salix's muscle power, before they all turned to the woman as she dismissed them to the stations. She came and gave us a brief talk about the centre, then walked away.

"Where do we start?" I asked, looking up. Salix shrugged, looking around the many stations. They were filled with weapons, plants, paints, strength building equipment, dummies, various other things, everything to help you survive or kill.

"Guess we should begin with the survival stuff. We should ace plants rather fast, and then we can try fires, and other stuff," He said after a moment, walking toward the station, soon followed by me. He looked through the database of edible plants and berries, and both of us saw some we recognised. I quickly named some of them off, and we tested each other, and used the actual test feature on the computerised part of the station. He managed to get eighty four out of one hundred, and I got ninety three, so we both went through and revised them again. We couldn't be sure that it would be any use, the arena could be barren, and we could have only meat or cornucopia supplies to get by on, if we even got any, but any knowledge could be useful. So we perfected our knowledge.

"So, which ones are the ones that are fatal in small doses?" Salix asked me. I named off a few, going in number of quantity of the plant or berry that it would need to kill, then getting to the worst one of the lot.

"Nightlock, you need only swallow one berry, and the poison releases so fast that it doesn't even need to reach your stomach, it passes through tissue into your bloodstream, and you die instantly," I said, leaning back on my hands as we had now sat down.

"Correct," He smiled back.

"You should try some camouflage!" We then heard from the station next over, both of us turning our eyes to see the albino girl from district six, her hand waving us over. I stood, and looked to Salix. He shrugged, standing also, and we headed over to her. Her painted arm, trying to mimic the pile of leaves, wasn't that good, probably something to do with how she was squinting. Her eyes must be bad, "Hiya, I'm Norell. Or North, either works to be honest."

"I'm Olea," I said, Salix also introducing himself, as she told us exactly how the station worked, and we started to try it, "District Six, right?"

"Yep. Hence the direction inspired name," Norell said, brushing a hand over her frizzy white hair, whining as she got paint in it, splattering some of the messy curls with various colours. I painted my arm with patterns of leaves, and smiled lightly, "District Eleven, right?"

"Yep," I said, "Pretty obvious I guess."

"Oh man look at those show offs, I bet you could do that course ten times better than them Olea," Salix scoffed, looking over at the Careers who were jumping across the gauntlet, barely making a slight wobble, never falling off. But they weren't perfect, that was sure.

"You good at stuff like that?" Norell asked, raising an eyebrow. I shrugged.

"I jump between trees and climb them for a living…" I didn't feel this girl was a threat to us, it didn't seem like a bad thing to tell her what I was able to do and why.

"Maybe you should show them up!" Norell said with slight urgency, "They need some sort of sense knocking into them!"

"I'd rather not become a prime target…" I jittered a little, and Norell sighed, shaking her head, muttering a sorry, "No, it's okay… I could. But, you know," I looked over at it, and shrugged, "We could all try, and I'll do my best."

The other two both agreed, and we walked over to the gauntlet, getting in line, watching as Shimmer darted right across it, blocking the swinging padded arms, not missing a step except for one or two on the descending section. I gulped lightly, she was the last of the careers to go across, but seeing us they smirked and stayed at the end. Norell tried to dart over first, and to be honest she could have worked in the trees if she were from our District, but she didn't see one of the padded clubs fast enough, and she fell off, landing on the mats and grunting. The Careers laughed.

Salix took his turn next, and whilst he hit the clubs away easily with his bulk, it also worked to his disadvantage, and as he was out of practice with jumping between things, he quickly stumbled and landed on the floor, though managing to land in a crouch on his feet, so the careers only snickered lightly this time. Their eyes soon landed on me, however, and as most of our tributes have been past climbing age, or killed in the bloodbath, I know they don't know what the tiny district eleven kids are like. They probably expect me to fall like Salix, and not be able to push away the clubs like Norell.

I jump straight over the first step onto the second, do a quick flip over the first club, landing steadily on my feet on the fourth step, looking briefly at the careers who looked rather stunned. I then realised that I had done enough to shock them, and maybe it was best to make it look like a fluke, so when the next club came for me, I let it hit me, and got thrown back several feet into a wall, gasping for air after it. Salix rushed over, not long followed by Norell, and tried helping me sit up as I clutched my gut, completely winded. The careers were laughing harder than ever.

"Oh my god I'm sorry! This was my idea, eek!" Norell squeaked, hands over mouth. I shook my head, taking deep breaths to try and regulate my breathing, having felt a lot worse from falling from trees in my early years of work, soon managing to get my breathing under control again.

"Let's go try the shelter or fire building stations," Salix said, helping me to my feet, checking I wasn't injured badly, "My god I never thought a person could be thrown that far."

"When you're as tiny as me, I guess you can be," I coughed, taking another deep breath as we headed off to the other stations.

We went through most of the survival stations more than once during the morning session, and by Lunch I had figured out most of what we needed to know in those areas, though we would go back to them tomorrow. Salix went to grab some lunch for us when lunch came, and I observed the groups that had already begun to form in the lunch room.

Of course, the Careers sat by each other, eating and chatting, though Angry Brows was giving Gold dirty looks, probably due to the exchange I saw the night before between him as Angry Brows' district partner, which I don't even wanna think about how it could have ended. Shimmer wasn't talking much, and neither was Kara, but they passed in words to the conversation every now and again, with Gladiator (Grizzly face) being by far the loudest of the group. No one else would be weaselling their way into the group this year, I don't think.

District 12 was sat together, and so were District 3, which wasn't that uncommon an occurrence. District partners often stuck together. Some other Districts sat in partnerships, also, but I also saw that seven and nine seemed to be building up a four way alliance, and District 10 were sitting completely apart from anyone else, including each other. The girl scared me, though she was only two years older than me, I think. Her eyes didn't look quite… sane.

"Hey, can I sit by you?" I looked up to see Norell, holding a tray of food, which appeared to be a rather simplistic set of sandwiches, a piece of fruit, and a glass of something. There were two sets, hinting that one was for me.

"Sure," I said, patting the floor beside me as she took her seat, gladly accepting the food she handed me, "How you found today?"

"Hard. I can barely see, so my aim is worth nothing really. I mean, when I was given a temporary pair of glasses, I could fire a bow, and I can do some survival stuff. But I don't think my chances are that high," Norell sighed, sipping her drink.

"I damaged my back on that wall; I mean it's nothing serious, but its aching like hell… the supervisors are really damn strong," I said, sipping my own drink, glancing to Salix as he started walking back with the food, smiling a little, "Hey… Norell?"

"That's my name."

"Would you like to be our ally?" I asked, without actually realising what had come out of my mouth until about ten second later, hearing her speak.

"Hm… well… I like you. Yeah, I'll team up with you; it'll be nice to trust someone, to have a friend in the death pit," She smiled, putting a hand on my shoulder, "So, Allies."

I nodded, half not believing she'd accepted, "Allies."

"Besides, us younguns should stick together anyway, and with your brother we may beat the odds and get somewhere in this thing," Norell said, shrugging, "Hey, what about Cata?"

"That the other twelve year old?" Alright, maybe what she was suggesting was risky. Groups of kids often did stick together, if there was more than one, but they rarely got far. By most standards.

"Yeah, him."

"Yeah who?" Salix asked as he sat down by us, chomping down on a small sandwich. Considering everyone else was already eating masses of food, we were eating a surprisingly small amount. I guessed that Salix, and apparently Norell, were smart enough to realise that starting a cut down on the food to get used to being hungry before the games restarted our lack of sustenance would be a good idea.

"Cata. Norell agreed to be our ally… you know, young ones stick together. With big muscly Salix to protect us as much as he can," I said sweetly, sticking my tongue out, "Poor kid's on his own… maybe giving the little people a shot this time might be nice…" I took a bite of food, and smiled sweetly at him once more.

"Well… risky as that sounds, I don't see that much of an issue with it. But we're going to have to train extra hard, that kid tried the weapons today and he didn't do so well," Salix said thoughtfully as he chewed his food, stretching out a little as he glanced over at the red head.

"Ah, that's something too! We didn't do any weapons today, Sal. We need to do those tomorrow, preferably first before we go back over the survival skills," Seeder told us we have to learn some weapons skills, and we have none. I didn't particularly think we were going to have many skills past throwing things, but we have to cover every base I suppose. Salix's solemn nod in reply to this statement showed he didn't particularly want to have to learn how to kill people, just as I didn't, and no doubt Norell didn't.

"Who's going to go recruit the cow boy then?" He said after a small moment of awkward silence. Norell quickly volunteered, crawling over to the boy and offering him a muffin. He looked up at her and looked a little scared, but she must have said something (I couldn't see her mouth) because a moment later he was nodding and taking the muffin, biting it happily as he picked up his food tray and scuttled over to our group, shyly waving a hand and nearly spilling his food in the process.

"I-I'm Cata… Short for Cattle, but… I don't like that name, its… kinda ridiculous…" The timid boy said, letting out what I could clearly tell was a deathly nervous laugh.

"My real name is Northel. I know the feeling," Norell said, leaning back on her hands as she chewed something in her mouth. Raising my eyebrow I gave her a look, and she simply gave me a slow, pointed nod with a straight face. Immediately, I burst out laughing and she followed me by doing the same. Salix started to snicker a little, and Cata tried to smile and laugh – he nearly did – and as I briefly glanced around I could see that the careers, and everyone else for that matter, were giving us weird looks beyond weird looks. I guess that people laughing in the training centre wasn't normal. Oh who am I kidding, of course it wasn't. This may be the place where alliances are formed but it wasn't a place where people laughed.

We fell silent again.

When I wrote the end of this chapter, I actually hadn't touched this story in a long time. I read a little bit I had already written before, and I found myself wanting to write it again. It'd been a while since I looked over my plans, and since I also hadn't read the books in a long time or watched the movie in some time either, I may be rusty on some details but I think my plans will get me by. This is a side project for me, but I enjoy writing it, so I'm going to keep doing so. A lot of this was probably written ahead of time to get a schedule going. I hope I'm doing as well as I feel I may be! I really like my characters!