Enjoy:) I love hearing what you all think will happen, but to keep the element of surprise I can't tell you what's going to happen;)
I was going to upload tomorrow but I said I would do it today... wish me luck, I've got a history essay on the abolition of the slave trade :/... wish me luck
"No, hold your elbow higher." Katniss instructed, pushing my right elbow higher, making the bow and arrow go level with the bullseye. "Aim... and now release."
I did what she told me, and the arrow struck the wall a foot away from the target. I sighed in frustration, and Katniss's brow furrowed. "It's useless." I let the bow drop to my side.
"Maybe knife throwing?" Katniss suggested.
"Sure. Why not." Just another thing I'm useless at, I thought. Katniss picked up two jagged looking knives and threw them both at the target. They both struck in the middle. Katniss went up to the target and took both knives.
"It's just like threading a needle. See the opening, be accurate, and be powerful." Katniss told me.
"I've never threaded a needle before." I muttered under my breath. I took one of the knives from Katniss. It was surprisingly heavy. I took a deep breath and tried to see the target as Katniss saw it. Come on, Wren, you got this.
THe small yellow circle in the middle- that's where I want to hit the target. That target is my enemy. I want to- No, I need to do this.
I drew my hand back and hurled the knife towards the target. It stuck inbetween the blue and the black, wobbling backwards and forwards. Katniss nodded. "It's a start." She nodded. "I want you to try something. It may seem difficult at first but it's the best thing to get you trained."
Katniss walked towards a fighting area with black figures in the shape of men. "When one of these lights up, you need to strike it where the target it. If you don't, some of them throw knives, others spit fire. Life or death situation."
"What?!" I exclaimed, backing away. "No way."
"Yes way. In the Games, when someone is chasing you and you know they have the upper hand, adrenaline and insticts takes over. Your actions and reflexes become sharper." Katniss pushed me gently towards the fighting centre.
I stepped nervously towards the middle, marked by a red circle. I took a shaky breath. There were weapons hung on racks around the room. Some of the figures had weapons on them as well."Ready?" Katniss asked. I nodded, not trusting my voice. For some reason I felt like I was being betrayed by my mentor. Why would she risk my safety just to get me trained? It's not like it was going to do me any good in the moment, when I was going to be terrified, with no time to think.
"Ready. Begin. 5...4...3.." An electronic voice counted down. I took a knife from the closest rack to my left, and got myself ready. A beep sounded behind me, I spun around to see a that one of the figures had a light on its leg, lit up. I threw the knife towards the leg. It didn't hit it, and an arrow shot towards me, skimming past my leg, so close it ripped my black pants.
I gasped and flinched away from the arrow. My heart pounded faster and my eyes narrowed. That time it was just an arrow, next time it could be something worse. A beep sounded to my right, and I spun around and sinc I had no weapons I gave it a powerful flying kick. I smiled with triumph when it rewarded me with two small throwing stars. Two beeps sounded behind me- two figures were lit up. One light was lit up on a figure's chest, the other figure had a light blinking on it's head. I threw the first throwing star and it struck the head neatly. The other one skimmed the figure's chest and embedded itself into the figure's arm.
A compartment opened up in the figure's chest and fire burst out. Some flames landed on my clothes, setting fire to the hem of my top and the material on my thigh. I pounded at the flames to put them out, but not before it gave me bad burns. Another beep sounded to my side, but I was too focused on my burns. Clay pellets pelted my left side, making me cry out in pain.
"Come on! Focus!" Katniss yelled. "Pick up the bow and arrow!"
I looked up, towards the figure I struck before I was burned. A bow and arrow was my reward. I picked it up, just as another beep sounded. It was a figure advancing towards me with a long knife.
"Thread the needle!" Katniss called advice to me. I put the arrow in place. I pulled the string back. I lifted my elbow. I aimed at the advancing figure and I let go. It struck dead in the center. The black figure stopped. Everything stopped. And then all the black figures receded, sliding backwards.
"Well done." Katniss gave me a pleased smile. I wasn't done though.
"Again." I ordered.
"Well done. I'm proud of you." Katniss told me two hours later. I was covered in a fine sheet of sweat, my hands were callused and still healing even though Katniss gave me skin regenerate cream specialised for burns an hour ago. "And now you need to go see Peeta. He's in the training hall down on the second left." Katniss threw me a towel.
"OK. Thanks." I smiled at her gratefully.
"Are you sure you don't need some more healing cream?" Katniss looked at my hands, turning them over. "You told me you could climb trees."
"Yeah, I can. Me and my friends used to climb up trees all the time to get away from the teachers we hated. I just haven't done it in ages." I said defensively. "I'll just wrap them up in bandages and the skin'll get thicker- which should make it easier to deal with spiky bark and stuff, right?"
"I've never heard anyone from the Capitol be so happy about getting rough skin." Katniss wrapped soothing blue bandages around my palms. It made the pain in my hands go away.
"Well, things change." I glanced up at her. "See you after the interviews." I told her. Caesar was holding another interview for both of the mentors of the sponsors tonight.
"Yeah, bye." Katniss said absentmindedly. She was already arranging everything to be ready for Phox. I slipped out of the room silently, while Katniss was humming a song to herself.
Down the hall, second on the left. Peeta was just finishing with Phox, showing him how to paint himself as tree bark. Peeta looked amazing, but Phox looked like a little kid had gotten loose with paint.
"Just keep trying. Remember to be fine on the small details." Peeta encouraged, though underneath his smile he looked a bit hopeless, and almost relieved when he saw me. "Wren, good you're here. Phox, Katniss is waiting for you, second on the right."
Phox used a tissue to wipe the paint off his arm, but it left greyish-brown smudges up and down his arm. Phox left the room without saying anything else. "Please tell me you're more artistic than he is." Peeta looked tired.
"Yeah, I guess I'm OK, but he's amazing. I've seen him draw." I pointed towards the direction Phox left. "Do you think he's faking?" Peeta considered it.
"It is possible. Johanna Mason pretended to be weak when she was a really good fighter." Peeta's brow furrowed. "I'll talk to him later. Right now we need to focus on you. How'd your session with Katniss go?"
"Great, actually. She's a good teacher." I told him. Peeta smiled proudly because of his wife. His wife. It was hard to believe they were married- and married so young, at 18, though I heard they did it officially with a proper ceremony a few years after the rebellion.
And I can't believe Peeta's a father. His daughter is very young, staying with her grandmother and godfather, somebody called Gale, I think, back in the rebuilt remains of District 12. I was so sad when I heard his and Katniss's unborn child was miscarried in the Quarter Quell.
Peeta raised an eyebrow at me. I realised I was staring. "Sorry, your arm is..." I trailed off, not knowing how to end my lie. Thankfully, Peeta was distracted.
"If you're patient and talented, I could teach you how to something like this." Peeta offered.
"Really?"
"Depends on your artistic flair, really." Peeta smiled, and picked up a paintbrush. In a few minutes he had painted my hand the same texture as burnt wood.
"That's amazing!" I breathed. Peeta smiled modestly.
"Come on, food and survival first, painting later." Peeta took my shoulder and gently pulled me towards a bunch of rocks, twigs and flint. "Now,in the Games, using a fire isn't reccomended. It's a good way to get you spotted, killed, burnt and if it's windy there's a slight chance you could set something on fire. But if you desperately need it, you need to know how to build one and start one. So. Build me a fire."
I shrugged. It seemed easy enough. Fire equals big no-no unless I want to die. I gathered the rocks and put them in a circle, then filled the middle with bone-dry twigs and bits of dead grass. "There." I said, pointing towards my fire. "I built you a fire."
"You need to start it as well, Wren." Peeta said gently.
"Oh. Uh, OK." I said hesitantly. Building a fire, I could do- it was common sense. But starting it was a whole different story. I knew that friction burned- enough to make a spark? I didn't know a lot of science- I was thumbing through costume surgery magazines, too bored to listen to the teacher. Not that she was a good teacher anyway, she didn't care much about science as she did about excessive glamouring. In the space of three months she gave herself cat claws, whiskers and ears, dyed her skin turquoise with black stripes like a cat and then encrusted her body with paw-shaped jewels- her obsession with cats (tame, domestic housecats, which were rare and she had 3 of) was taken one step too far, especially when she added sharp cat teeth.
I picked up a rock and the piece of flint, and banged them together. Nothing happened. I did it again, scraping the flint and rocks. Orange sparks flew from the rock towards the twigs. They didn't catch, though. I narrowed my eyes in detirmination, and repeated the action again and again. After about a dozen tries, a few sparks caught onto the dry grass, and built up into flames, and then a roaring fire. I sat back on my heels, satisfied.
"There." I told Peeta, pleased with myself.
"Yes. And not that it's not good, but it took you seven minutes and fifty-two seconds." Peeta held up a stopwatch. "And if you're on the brink of death through starvation or cold, seven minutes is not good enough."
Peeta stamped out the flames with his foot. I wondered why it didn't hurt him until I remembered he had a prosthetic leg. "Again." Peeta told me, handing me new twigs. I rearranged my fire and did everything I did before, over and over again. It took me five more tries before I figured out the closer I get to the heart of the twigs and grass and stuff, the better the flame would catch on. I flinched away from the burning heat of the flame.
"31 seconds. That's a significant improvemet." Peeta nodded, pleased. "And now that you have your fire, you can cook. I can teach you how to cook meat, but not how to catch them, you'll learn that at the whole group training session. Peeta glanced at his watch. Fine, I have one hour to teach you how to disguise yourself before you have to go to that."
"Right after?" I exclaimed. "With no rests inbetween? Thats a bit harsh."
"If you know what's good for you, you won't complain. You need to be as prepared as possible. It isn't against the rules but I'm pretty sure the other trainers didn't put as much effort into pre-training training." Peeta said this while mixing paints.
"Pre-training training? Is that what this is?"
"Yeah. OK, disguise basics, you need to blend with your background, be subtle, and it's not all about paint. I once disguised myself as a rock using mud." Peeta pointed towards a variety of things in the corner of the room. "Makenna and Elijah will dress you up in something to camoflauge you, but that can only go so far."
"OK, so what do I do?" I asked, eager to start. Peeta started teaching me how to get colours out of natural resources, like mud, berry juice, and, to my disgust, animal faeces. I had a feeling I wouldn't be using the latter to disguise myself. He then showed me how to paint and blend the colours on my skin, and then how to spot someone disguising themselves, just in case an enemy happened to be a good artist. An hour seemed to fly by, and before I knew it Mollie was dragging me out of the training room, down the glass elevator and into another training room, one three times the size of Katniss and Peeta's training rooms combined.
I hated every moment I spent there. Forget the fact that Phox ignored me, Roman kept glancing at me to see what I doing, and Raff and the other 'Careers' looked at me like I was the meal they had been waiting for after starving for months. I shuddered when I got out the doorway, forcing myself to walk and not run towards Mollie when she appeared at the doorway.
"Well? Anything to worry about?" Mollie asked me. Phox didn't say anything.
"Thistle and Ottilie aren't anything to worry about, unless they can kill us by tying weak knots." I said. "Raff and the other Career-type people are, obviously, vicious. Roman is skilled but he doesn't seem to care about anything, which can't be said for Mallory, who I think is trying to start off the whole starcrossed lovers thing again, cause she follows Roman around everywhere, and blushed whenever he does so much as sneeze." I sounded surprisingly annoyed. Mollie was deep in thought, until we got up to the room.
"You're going to have to sabotage yourselves." Mollie said.
"Excuse me?" Phox looked at her as if she was crazy.
"Phox, it's not like you don't have experience in that area." Mollie said cruelly to get him to shut up. "Wren, you'll get to show your skills to the head Gamemakers, and if they give you a bad mark, you won't seem like a threat."
"But if she doesn't seem like a threat, she'll be among the first to die." Phox interrupted. Mollie ignored him again.
"The only problem is, the Head Gamemaker, Django Valentine, is not a man who's easily fooled. If he thinks you're lying about your skills, he will deliberately make the Games harder for you to get a good show going." Mollie bit her lip nervously.
"Well, I have to try, don't I?" I said, already coming up with a plan. "I'll do it. But I need to talk to Katniss and Peeta first, otherwise if Caesar asks them how they think I'll do, they'll give me away."
"Wren, they've already started the interviews." Phox turned on the TV.
"District 11." I murmered. "We've still got time- we need to go. Now!"