A/N: The next chapter! Sorry it's been so long, but we have had a lot of school work and other commitments and haven't been able to get together. Updates should be weekly from now on :)

The train purrs softly beneath me, a magnetic whirr of five million dollars' worth of Capitol investment, instated just over 25 years ago, to mark the inaugural Hunger Games, the first, I suspect, of many.

That year, the winner had been District 1.

A flush of pride, tainted in my thoughts with annoyance and a glint of irritation rises to my cheeks. We are the glorious District, the shining pinnacle of all that the others can achieve. I refuse to let my District down.

Out of the corner of my eye, I snatch glimpses of my closest competitor. He's tall, broad-shouldered, armed with muscles born from pulling iron carts through mountains and climbing the sheer faces of cliffs. Even relaxed, he holds a silent air of ruthlessness, an unacknowledged but well appreciated hint of brutality that shifts beneath the hardness of his features. He has Ruby's eyes.

I wonder if he has Ruby's weaknesses too.

Ruby. I can't let her death weigh so heavily on me. Surprisingly, she was my first kill. I have injured others in the past, but, in training, we never killed anyone, or anything for that matter. I know that I will have to kill more in the Games if I wish to survive, but if this is how it affects me, then I am going to have to learn to keep my emotions in check.

So I settle for assessing the opposition, leaving my emotions to drown in the cold complacency of my thoughts.

Ruby favoured her right arm, and from the way Garne leans on his as he pulls at the plush string of the carriage seats idly with his left hand, he relies on it too. She was small, she depended on being quick enough to outpace her enemies, fast enough to dodge any blow that might come her way before knocking them to the ground in a rapid series of strikes.

Speed clearly isn't Garne's game. His stocky build and rough-hewn arms hint at raw strength – and if he's even a shadow of his sister he'll favour brawn over brains.

I am so busy noting my partner's weaknesses that I don't notice as the door to the compartment slides open smoothly, a man with a neon green wig perched precariously on his head striding into the room, still wiping the crumbs of lunch away from his mouth.

"Oh. You're here."

He sounds disappointed, his brown eyes dismissing us with a casual flicker. His eyebrows follow suit, and I can't help but be mesmerised by those glimmering ivy-coloured caterpillars wriggling on his forehead. I would've laughed, if the man hadn't interrupted my stuttering attempt at a snort with a short sigh.

"Five years and I still haven't seen a replacement, good God! You people need to up your game here or I'm going to be stuck baby-sitting tributes until I'm 90."

"Garne Mirrorslash."

He throws the filthiest look in his tribute's direction. "Did I ask for your name?"

Garne has no response.

"No. That's right. I didn't. Wouldn't expect the likes of you to show such respect, anyhow. My name is, Magnificent."

This time, not even his stuttered interruptions can stop the spray of laughter that erupts from my and Garne's mouths. Honestly? Who does this man even think he is? A God? What kind of man has that name?

He shoots poisonous glares between the both of us, rolling his eyes with all the dignity he can muster.

"And yours are…?"

"Jasmine Silverflown."

Garne doesn't even bother to grace the man's question with an answer. His position is clear, he has given his name out once, and he doesn't intend to do so again. The oddly named man takes this turn of events in his stride.

"Suit yourself. You won't be acting so haughty when you come face to face with the others in the Arena, of that I can assure you."

Garne refuses to look at him, his eyes trained on the TV on the opposite side of the carriage. Out of thought, he runs his hands across the arm of the sofa, stroking the spiral shaped patterns as he watches faces flicker across the screen in a blaze of images and numbers.

A figure catches my gaze. She's like us, a career, and danger radiates from her features. Hard blue eyes, high cheek bones and a mass of thick black hair that falls in a fishtail plait, all hall-marks of one of our closest rivals, District 4. I look across at Garne, and our line of sight catches in a flurry of unspoken thoughts.

It's Magnificent, of all people, who breaks the uneasy quiet.

"Damn you've got some fierce competition in there."

"Have we?" My voice is barbed, and elicits the smallest smile from my fellow tribute.

We lapse back into a tense silence, Garne cracking his knuckles in salute every time another face flits across the monitor.

Fourteen days of the train's travelling has already warranted all twelve of the Reapings, and the purple hued presenters have been reduced to idly discussing the odds of us dying with blunt statistics and the odd off-handed comment about the "unpredictability of the arena."

They're referring to three Hunger Games in particular, the 2nd, the 21st, and judging by Magnificent's excessive eye-rolling and his attempts at nonchalant yawns, the 19th.

The 2nd had been a girl from District 12, a shock to the Capitol, some upstart who owed her success to the warren of the early arena, given to collapsing itself on the unsuspecting heads of the careers. I bite the inside of my mouth. We'd been cheated that year.

The 21st - even our Districts begrudgingly admitted that Balitz had outwitted us.

And the 19th? Magnificent had been no one's first choice, even when he had simply been Magent, and he'd been the smart-mouthed idiot who'd volunteered ahead of sword specialist Havant. He'd had his time the next year, as the 20th Games' victor.

The competitors for this year have none of their predecessor's charm, and hopefully none of their luck.

Garne chuckles. "Looks like we have a cripple on our hands."

"That and a little girl."

I turn to Magnificent. "Between the handicapped and children, do you reckon you could actually teach us anything?"

He doesn't answer, and in the background the television still whirrs, and the frozen images of a sullen faced, dark olive skinned girl and a pale, wide-eyed wisp of a child stare out of the display with vacant glares. They'll be no competition at all.