Heya, I do realise there was rather a large gap between my last entry and the one before that and I am sorry. I've just been so busy with school and other commitments this kind of had to take a back seat. But I'm determined to finish this story and I hope a few people will stay with me to stick it to the end. Anyway I really hope you enjoy it returning to the computer screen and feedback is greatly appreciated! Even if it's criticism I'd like to know what isn't working for you. Rant over, read and enjoy!

Training and Tributes

Grantaire and Clara walked side by side into the training room. Scanning the area, it was easy to see who were the ones to avoid, and who were the ones to do the avoiding.

The head trainer called an announcement and all the tributes gathered in a semicircle in front of him.

'Welcome all tributes,' he began. 'Now as you can see all around you there are different stations at which I recommend you all spend some time. I don't want any of you to be disillusioned, it isn't just other people you are fighting for you life, it's nature itself. I have no doubt each of you will combat starvation, dehydration and have to endure any number of natural disasters the arena puts your way. Therefore I cannot put enough emphasis on the survival skills. Learn how to wield a knife by all means, but you can't fight a good fight on an empty stomach.'

It would be a push to say half the tributes were still listening to him. They were all surveying the competition; Clara and Grantaire were no exception. Grantaire skimmed over all of them, barely taking into account their district, let alone any other information, but Clara had spent her life reading people and so was far more studious. She looked at each tribute in turn, deciphering what she could about every single one.

At the edge of the pack were the tributes from Districts 3, 7 and 10. They all looked uncomfortable and as if they wished they were anywhere but where they stood. The tributes from 6 looked surprisingly career worthy and this did not go unnoticed by the already established careers. Who of course, were right in the middle of the crowd. The tributes from one and two had already made their alliance but without either of the tributes from four. Clara took particular notice of the girl from 4. She stood slightly apart from the rest of the group with her eyes fixed on something far off in the distance. Her district partner looked like he stood as close as possible to her without offending her, and Clara knew that she would be protected in the arena.

She caught the eye of the girl from 2, and remembered her name was Avalon. She had bright blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. It looked as if nothing could get in her way of winning, not even her district partner, a muscular boy with a dead expression named Benedict. Clara felt discomfort as she remembered they were from Enjolras' district. She found trouble reminding herself that he was not a Career, he was different from them. She hoped for his sake they would not be the ones to kill her.

The head trainer's droning voice suddenly stopped, and the group began to disperse. The Careers ignored every single piece of advice, and headed straight for the deadly weapons stations. The tributes from 4 went straight to the knot tying station, and everyone else went between the survival stations.

Clara ambled over to the forest simulation, and methodically began to build a fire. She'd learnt to do this during her stint running around in the woods, and so learning how to work in the wilderness had become second nature to her.

Grantaire had befriended the girl from District 9 and they were working together at the archery station. Clara soon lost interest in her fire and fell back on her favourite pastime, people watching. Her gaze fell on Grantaire and his new friend, when a tall figure came up beside her.

'So, we're just going to pretend we don't know each other?'

Clara snapped out of her daydream and suddenly produced a remarkable resemblance to the only there some of the time tribute from District 4. This was the boy she had been trying to avoid ever since she arrived in the Capitol. When she had seen him just in front of her in the parade, she had wanted to jump down from the chariot and leave Grantaire to represent 12 on his own. Unfortunately, her very hands on stylist had a different vision.

'Clara?'

Reluctantly, Clara looked up.

'What's the point?' she asked.

'How can you look at me like that?'

'What are you talking about?'

'It's like you're not even seeing me! You're just staring not….I don't know, taking anything in.'

'Call it a coping mechanism.'

'You're not that selfish,' the boy replied knowingly.

Clara stood up to face him. 'Sorry, just had a rough few days, the reaping, the parade…'

'No need to explain. Don't forget the rigorous beauty regime they've put us on, they're always so much harder on the outlying districts.'

'Well we consider a bath with clean water an event, I didn't even realise there were ways of styling your hair beyond a hairbrush.'

He gave a light laugh, which made Clara soften slightly.

'I don't know why you did what you did, at the reaping I mean,' the boy began.

'Please don't ask why, it's all I've heard from anyone and if I haven't told one person I'm hardly going to tell the other.'

'You didn't let me finish,' he warned. 'I was just going to say I know you must have had your reasons, and I think you were very brave.'

Brave was not a word Clara would associate with her actions. But she was very grateful finally there was someone not pressing her for answers.

'Thanks,' was all she could muster in response.

'Come on, do you think you could cope with this face for a few more stations? I wouldn't want to leave such a beautiful girl alone with these sorts,' he asked, gesturing to a few careers having just pushed Grantaire and District 9 girl off the archery station.

'Okay, but no alliance,' she said firmly.

He looked confused. 'Why not, it can't hurt.'

Clara gave a devilish grin. 'I think it would just be too distracting.'

The boy laughed again. 'For me or for you?'

Clara looked back over her shoulder. 'Do you want to learn which plants can kill you or not?'

Benedict gave a raucous laugh at something his district partner said to him. They all looked over at Grantaire. He did his best to ignore them.

'So what kind of things do you do in 12?' Jennifer asked.

'Sorry?' he said, turning back to her.

'What happens in 12? What do you do with your friends?' she repeated, completely unphased that he hadn't been listening to her the first time.

Jennifer was a sweet girl with light brown chestnut hair who had immediately befriended Grantaire on noticing he appeared as a bit of an outsider. His district partner had seemed distracted by one of the other tributes and he was standing rather awkwardly next to her. Unable to resist a lonely wanderer Jennifer took him under her wing and they had been inseparable ever since.

'Well…I guess..not much really,' he finally gave her an answer. Grantaire was a man of few words.

'It's the same in 9,' she continued on happily. 'We have to make our own fun!'

Grantaire smiled, and silence washed over the two of them.

'The Careers look really good this year,' Jennifer pointed out, as Avalon hurled a spear narrowly missing a trainer.

'All four of them were volunteers,' Grantaire agreed. 'Doesn't exactly give the rest of us much of a chance.'

'Don't say that,' Jennifer pleaded. 'We can't think like that.'

'You really think I have a chance of winning?' Grantaire raised his eyebrows.

'You never know, the Careers always have a weakness,' Jennifer said looking over at Benedict terrorising the boy from District 3. 'Their massive ego.'

'Do you really think you do?' Grantaire asked cruelly.

'You have chosen the Atlas Herbania Fruit, if you eat this your insides will continue to swell for a period up to 1 week. You will suffocate slowly and there is no recovery,' Clara read from the card they had chosen for dinner.

'Okay, maybe we need some more practice!'

Clara nodded in agreement. 'But I feel like trying something else out.'

'Lead the way.'

Clara scanned the room. There was archery; she was already pretty good at that. Survival skills, covered, apart from a few slip-ups with the edible plants. Throwing spears, which incidentally stood up were taller than her, she decided to avoid. Her stamina was pretty good but she needed some offensive skills. She decided on the knife throwing station, the Careers having just left it.

The trainer showed Clara how to position the knife in her hand, and then demonstrated a perfect throw. Seven attempts later, it seemed this would not be Clara's method of defence, but the trainer wouldn't allow her to give up.

'Seriously, I don't think I'm going to master this. Don't worry I'll get over it,' Clara joked.

'Yes you will, if you just relax,' he said gently.

'How can I relax if I know the weapon in my hands could be about to end another person's life?'

'I'm about to quote what any mentor would say to a tribute battling their conscience, it's them or it's you.'

'Then I think it's going to have to be me,' Clara handed over the knife and turned to walk away, but she crashed right into another tribute, sending both of them tumbling to the ground.

The Careers were killing themselves with laughter, and even Grantaire and Jennifer couldn't supress a giggle.

'Sorry,' Clara said, not really taking in what had just happened.

'No worries,' the girl said, in a beautiful lyrical voice.

Clara eventually realised this was the tribute from District 4.

'I wasn't really looking where I was going,' the girl continued.

'Me neither,' Clara smiled. 'I was too worried about this guy behind me stabbing me in the back.'

It wasn't really funny, but the girl from 4 laughed.

'I'm Annie,' she said.

'Clara.'

'What a beautiful name!' Annie exclaimed. 'Suits you down to the ground.'

Clara really didn't know how to respond, she wasn't exactly used to hearing compliments. But Annie carried on regardless.

'I saw you having a go at knife throwing, I was trying to learn how to use a bow and arrow, but the end game didn't really appeal to me.'

'I'm the same,' Clara looked down.

'I could tell,' Annie smiled sympathetically.

Clara frowned. 'How? What do you mean?'

'It's not a bad thing!' Annie said hurriedly. 'I just meant, well..' she struggled to find the words.

'She means your obviously a bright girl, with incredible physical ability. You get into position and line up your target as effectively as any Career that has ever graced the arena, but you have one fatal flaw.'

Clara and Annie turned to the knife-throwing trainer.

'What's that then?' Clara asked.

'You think before you act.'

'I've always been told that's a good thing,' Annie pointed out.

'In usual circumstances, it is. But these are the Hunger Games, girls. There is no place for a conscience, there is no place for humanity.'

Hearing a Capitol resident speak so detrimentally about the Games stunned the girls into silence.

'What's your advice then?' Clara looked directly at him. Annie stood firmly beside her.

'Look around you. These are not the people you came in with this morning.'

Clara and Annie looked around. The Careers were in their element, mastering every simulation and piece of equipment in the Capitol's imagination. However, slowly but surely, their opposition was starting to show. There were always a few in the Games, maybe a girl from 7, or a boy from 3, who always came out fighting. And sometimes, the Careers couldn't beat them. There were victors in every district, no matter how few, and in the training room, Clara could see how they were born.

The feeble boy from 10 was now hurling a spear straight through the heart of a dummy. Annie's district partner was completing the final archery simulation with perfection. Even Grantaire and Jennifer had spent enough time on the hand-to-hand combat station to become formidable opponents.

Annie was the first to turn back to the trainer. 'It's our turn isn't it?'

The trainer nodded. 'If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to turn you girls into killers. No compassion, no mercy. Agreed?'

'Agreed,' Clara and Annie said reluctantly.

'Do you want your friend to come and join us?' the trainer asked Clara.

She glanced over at Callum. She thought of all the time they had spent working together. Life had seemed so simple then. Unfair, but still simple. In some far off part of her imagination, she could have seen herself settling down with Callum, the bridge between 11 and 12 really wasn't that wide, and with extraordinary luck, they could have been happy together.

Now only one, more likely neither, would make it to their eighteenth birthday.

'No. The arena is no place for romance,' Clara said with ice in her heart.

'It most certainly is not,' the trainer agreed.