"And maybe it's me,
But it all seemed like lifetimes ago,
So what do I say to these faces that I used to know?"
Naya Illumina, 17, District Four Female
Naya walks into the training room perfectly punctual, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, not a strand out of place. It is her full intention to commandeer the craft of the Career pack and sail it to her victory, though the meaning of the Games might be more grim than the trainers made it sound. That's all just trivial technicalities though, because Naya Illumina can justify murder to herself if it's for the greater good.
Naya's life has been full of waves. Her home life was never steady, her Career status could've been compromised at any moment, yet Naya stands firm in the tumult. Today is no different.
Naya has always believed that nothing can be accomplished if one simply sits still and waits for life to become better. Naya is a girl who takes charge, and that's what she intends to do with the Careers... miniscule in number though they may be.
The training room is well-stocked with various stations, varying in type. Naya wanders the different rooms and areas while she waits for the others to arrive, and is overjoyed to find a lap pool. The blue water is tempting, especially since she's alone. The surface is smooth and serene, and even looking at the water calms Naya's nerves.
Not that she's nervous. Perhaps excitement is supposed to feel like this.
She's excited, too. She worked so hard for this, spent hours training, days enduring her father's snide remarks and lazy attitude, and now it might finally come to an end.
Naya Illumina doesn't intend to die in these Games. She is confident that she'll win.
After her conversation with the President, she's even more sure of herself. At the time, she'd figured it would be uncouth to mention her ploys without holding a proper meeting, and she also just wanted to get a feel of who the President is.
He seems nice enough, though perhaps a bit inexperienced. Vulnerable.
Naya sighs, tearing her gaze from the crystal depths of the water. It's not the ocean, but it's still water, and Naya is sad to leave it.
She's always had the knowledge that the beauty of the environment will not last forever, and is in fact diminished by the day. Though her confidence that she'll save nature and the ocean has been renewed, she still worries that she'll fail, or that somehow, some earth-shattering incident will destroy the world beyond repair.
She reenters the main room, immediately picking out the Tributes she's had her eye on for the past day. They're all scattered about, but Naya hopes she'll be able to corral them all together. And she hopes they'll accept her as leader.
No, she knows they'll except her as their leader. Yes, that's better.
The Tributes are all dispersed like seeds on the wind, wandering aimlessly amid the various stations. Naya stands beside the archery station, wields the bow and shoots at the target, landing a perfect bull's-eye. Over the years spent training, Naya has become quite a good shot, though her aching foot does throw off her balance somewhat. Nonetheless, her display is impressive enough to draw a spectator, who wanders over to the station. It's the boy from One, Marquis Kennedy, whose hulking build suggests that he's a trained Career.
He grins at her, a goofy smile that completely offsets his intimidating build, but Naya smiles demurely back all the same.
"Good morning. Marquis, yes?"
He grins and nods. "Yeah yeah, nice to meet you. You're a Career, right?"
Naya nods, standing a little taller. That worthless piece of garbage Caldwell Kingsen thought he could shake her with his stupid rock and his Volunteering, but Naya is still held in high esteem, and still her calm, regular self.
"I've been training for quite some time," she responds, and Marquis nods.
"Same. My friends kinda roped me into it. I thought... well, I thought it would be some kind of competition, but nothing like this..."
Ah. So he's one of those brainwashed Careers from One. She smiles all the same; she can't fault him for being a little disconcerted by the sudden revelation that he'll have to kill children in just under a week.
She smiles sympathetically. "You're still welcome in the alliance, if you want."
He looks slightly torn and uncertain for a moment, but then nods and smiles again. Before he has time to say anything further, she spots the boy from Two walking toward them. Tremor Atilius, if she remembers correctly.
So her plan is working, so far. With her luck, she'll be leading the pack—she's certainly qualified... she just hopes Caldwell doesn't ruin everything.
She told him in no uncertain terms as they were returning from the orientation dinner that he'd better not show his face to the Careers, that she didn't want to be in any alliance that involved him and that he deserved every bad thing the universe would undoubtedly throw at him. Hopefully that'll be enough to keep him out of her way; she isn't going to lower herself to his level and get violent, because she's got more important things to do than deal with him right now.
Important things like her Career pack slowly forming. Tremor himself looks sort of like a sculpture, with his smoothly chiseled features, his oval brown eyes and his perfectly full lips. He just has the look of a boy with a lot of secrets to reveal, and Naya wants to know them, despite herself.
She's hoped, among the chaos of the Games, that she could find a friend, not someone just joining her because of a formality. So she smiles her kindest at the mere two Careers standing beside her.
"It looks like that's all of us? Tremor, you're a Career, I presume?"
He shakes his head, a curt motion. "I have Peacekeeper training, though."
Even so, Naya's impressed by his stylish clothes, his confident air and his fairly muscular build.
"Well, you're certainly welcome to join our alliance all the same," she says.
Tremor nods. "Thank you."
"I trust you two will not object if I lead this alliance for now. I assure you, I'm fully trained and I have a plan."
Her plan, of course, is to win, and subsequently save the world. But Naya was not just an environmental activist. She stood up for all the broken and downcast, because she too has felt powerless. Crushed beneath her father's words, unable to speak or form thoughts, her voice completely stolen.
A small part for her hopes that if she can't save her father, who's deteriorating into addiction, or her mother, who's long since died of an overdose, perhaps she can save something else. Perhaps if she just tries hard enough, she can save everything else.
Here she is, at the beginning of that journey, with a small alliance forming behind her and a chance, a hope. That has to be enough for now, until Naya can seize that hope and singlehandedly turn it into a reality.
...
Tremor Atilius, 18, District Two Male
They're smaller than he anticipated, the Careers; just him, Naya and Marquis for now, though it's only been a few minutes since Training began in earnest. Naya, who's so boldly asserted herself as leader, looks perfectly put-together, without a lock of hair loose in her her perfect ponytail or a speck of dust on her person. She's a Volunteer, a designated Career, probably beloved by the Capitol. And Tremor envies her immediately, with a sudden passion.
He's recently fell out of favor with the Capitol, for something he must've done wrong, which he still just cannot comprehend. What will his purpose be, if he's on the same level as the rebels; just another body to be thrown away? What can be said now for his brave effort as a Peacekeeper, destroying anyone who so much as spoke up against the Capitol, if he's now being punished?
Who is he, if not a human gun?
Marquis is off chatting it up with the Capitolite standing sentry in the room, which just leaves him and Naya.
"So," says Naya, breaking the silence. "You're a Peacekeeper?"
He nods. "The youngest to graduate, and the best there is."
Her face clouds over. "Hmmm. I see. And what exactly do you do as a Peacekeeper?"
"I kill anyone who resists the Capitol," he says through gritted teeth.
Naya pales slightly, then sighs. "That's nice. I'm going to save the Earth from its own demise, but I suppose you must feel important."
Tremor bristles. Usually he's calm, cool and collected. But this girl is beginning to send him over the edge.
"My work is important," he manages. "And don't you trust the Capitol in saving the environment?"
Naya exhales, her chin high in the air. "Well they haven't done much to prove their activism, now have they? I've taken it upon myself to actually do something about it."
Fine, then. She'll be his first target once the Games finally begin. He's completely fine with murder, as long as it aligns with the interests of the Capitol.
He's grown up on stories about the brutal war, how his parents fought valiantly on the side of the Capitol, and how they got brutally crushed by the rebels. All his life, he's been wanting to get his revenge. The rebels and their unreasonable evil were the ones who stole away his parents, and he will see them pay. He's willing to commit any sin, cross any line, to see them utterly eliminated.
They're interrupted by a girl coming toward them with a bounce in her step. They both see her coming from across the room, so exaggerated and enthusiastic are her movements. She doesn't look much older than fifteen, and Tremor's immediately on edge.
"Hi!" the girl says, her voice much too squeaky and loud. "The name's Wren, can I join you?"
Naya looks utterly surprised. "We're... the Careers," she says carefully. "You're cute and all, honey, it's just-"
"Yeah I know," says Wren, and Tremor isn't sure to which of Naya's statements she's responding to. "But I'm going to win these Games. So I figured I'd better have good allies!"
She beams with a confidence no child should ever possess.
Naya looks slightly pained. "Wren, you seem nice, and I think we could be friends," she says soothingly. "But it takes skill to be a Career, and age. I really hope you find someone who'll be your ally, but we just-"
"Nah, whatever!" Wren doesn't blush, but Tremor can see her dismay. "I'll be looking out for you in the Arena."
And she skips away as freely and confidently as she came.
Tremor can't say he'll watch out of that little girl, because in a way, all these people in the Games are on the Capitol's blacklist, which makes all of them Tremor's enemies.
He just can't think about it too hard. Otherwise he'll start wondering if that makes him the enemy, too.
Being with the Careers isn't ideal, especially with a leader so overconfident and rebellious. But he needs the other Tributes to know he's a threat, that he's not one to be messed with. He's always been the most relentless Peacekeeper, the most brutal. And that won't stop during the Games; he will only be more merciless now that he's bound for the Arena.
But really, he's a good person. Living his parents' legacy, helping the Capitol who stand for the greater good. The rebels are the villains, the he hasn't regretted killing them for one second of his life.
He just doesn't understand why nobody else sees it like he does.
If he ever wants to get back into the Capitol's good graces, he has to prove himself, fight harder than ever for the great cause. He just sees winning the Hunger Games as his next big mission, the next order he's following.
It makes everything easier. To trust in the Capitol without question, even if they never trusted him. He still doesn't understand that, still feels rage simmering deep within him at the thought that the Capitol would betray him like this, after all he's done for them.
But Tremor is a creature of momentum, a creature of habit. If he just wins these Games, just kills all the other Tributes, everything will make sense again.
He's always been a good soldier, a perfect weapon. And he knows that's how he'll always be, because until every rebel and criminal is wiped out, Tremor Atilius will not be satisfied.
...
Jacqueline "Jack" Baylor, 17, District Ten Female
She stays away from the Careers.
Not that she planned to join them in the first place. She's far away from Two now, her past safely out of sight; she's outrun her devils. But... she overheard Tremor Atilius, the boy from Two, bragging about his peacekeeper training. Which means that he inevitably knows her father.
Her father, prideful Peacekeeper trainer, whose reputation was spotless to the public, yet who treated his children more like initiates to be whipped into shape than his own kin. Her father, who could make Jack feel so small, reduce her to tears within moments. Her father, who would yell at his children for the smallest things.
He was supposed to be gone. Jack and her siblings ran away from him. They're happy now.
And yet here is a boy that could very well have been trained by the man who can still make Jack's hands shake and her eyes overflow, even from miles away.
"You okay there, sis?"
Jack looks up. She's been training at the survival stations, since she's already pretty proficient at weapons—and also, the Careers are standing over there. Beside her is the girl from Eleven, who looks maybe sixteen or seventeen. She has artificial flowers in her hair, and her nails are artfully done. She smiles kindly, and to Jack it feels like a summer breeze.
"H-hi, sorry. I'm fine, thank you." Jack schools her face into a calm and serene mask, though she can still feel the sting of tears behind her lashes.
"Name's Britta," says the girl, shoulders thrown back in a nonchalant posture. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"Jacqueline," she murmurs, a little in shock.
She's been hoping to make allies, even planning to seek them out herself, but here's this utterly cool-looking girl, coming to say hello.
"Me and Darla've been lookin' for another friend! Birds of a feather flock together, am I right?" says Britta jovially. "'D'you like to join us?"
Jack exhales softly, trying to dispel the memories of her past. They can't catch her now.
"Of course."
Darla turns out to be a very quiet girl dressed in black, who smiles in a closed-off way but doesn't do much else. Britta acts as if they've known each other for a thousand years, but Darla hardly looks up from the complicated snare she's engineering.
Oh well. Jack will take what she can get. She doesn't really judge people based off first impressions; after all, she prefers to stay cool and guarded around new people until she's gotten to know them. The only people that know about her childhood are her three friends and her siblings, and Jack intends to keep it that way.
But these two seem nice, welcoming even. And Jack knows that she can't keep running forever, even if she so excels at the skill. She can fend for herself, and she's always been independent and outspoken.
But friends are hardly unwanted.
The news about the Games scared Jack, and still scare her. She's always been neutral about the Capitol, not really wanting to take either side on the matter. But now... well, Jack doesn't really like to think about what she'll have to do in order to survive.
She trained at the Academy for a time, yes, but she never really thought about it much. Nobody did. The trainers were adamant about how much of an honor the Games would be, and about how special an opportunity it was to Volunteer. Of course, Jack was selected against her will, but how could she live with the guilt of ending another person's life? Of ending a child's life?
"You're looking a little shaky, girl," says Britta. "You want a break?"
Jack shakes her head. She cannot stop moving; even now, she wants to be perfect. She just won't think about it—how she could die in a few days, how she could have blood on her hands—and focus on her new allies, and her chance at winning, however farfetched it could be. She just needs to train hard.
"Let's try the weapons," says Jack resolutely.
"A go-getter. I like it," says Darla softly, and the trio make ∠ way over to the weapons.
Thankfully, the Careers have moved off to another station. Jack isn't ready to face those particular demons right now. Little steps toward improvement are all she can take. But even small steps mean progress.
It took Jack a long time, after they'd moved to Ten for her father's job, to strike up the courage to leave her home. Her older sister Kiera had already left, but Jack spent many a night tossing and turning, unable to move a muscle as she tried to convince herself that it would all be okay. She knew it was the right choice, but it still felt like moving through quicksand as Jack finally left that awful house and found a new job, a new life.
Back then, she hesitated. And Jack is still uncertain, and afraid, and anxious. She still avoids things instead of meeting them head-on.
But Jack knows one thing for certain. She's done running.
Of course there are moments where her aim will falter and fall, and Jack doesn't know how long this beautiful feeling will last.
But with Darla and Britta cheering her on, she lifts a spear from the rack, takes aim and lands true, a perfect hit.
All Jack knows is that the world can sometimes be cruel, but she won't succumb to its darkness today, with her new friends by her side. She will never stop searching for the light, even if it's scarce.
"I've got a good feeling about you, Miss Jacqueline," says Britta, and Jack smiles.
She's at peace, for now. Though she can sense the coming storm brewing on the horizon, an ominous hum in the air, she ignores that in favor of this one moment.
In all the turmoil of her life, kindness has always been a constant, and she doesn't intend to change that, no matter where life takes her.
...
Callisto "Cal" Novella, 17, District Five Male
Cal spends the better part of the first day chasing his sister.
He feels like it's his moral duty to protect her, to stick with her. Even if she's escaped the brutality of their parents and is basically their shining star, Callisto knows that everyone has a story and is going through something. Besides, he loves her, even if she's been practically running away from him the entire morning.
She wants to stick to the weapons stations. Callisto himself openly rejects the idea of wielding a weapon, and just wants to focus on survival skills so that he can get his sister out of this mess.
He's been thinking about the Hunger Games nonstop ever since he found out their true nature the night before. He wishes deeply that he has his collection of books, tucked inside his little reading nook at home. Maybe then it would be easier to puzzle this all out.
The more he thinks of the Games, the more anxious he feels. What would be the completely moral way to go about this? Even participating in such a thing is probably immoral, and allying with anybody else besides his sister would be wrong, because he'll essentially be using them and will have to betray them eventually in order to protect Colby. But what will he do if Colby doesn't accept him? Where will he go?
He gives up on trailing in his sister's wake while she dances from one station to another, her efforts to learn the skills largely unsuccessful. He walks over to the survival station to learn all he can; he's got a good memory, so if he just gains enough knowledge, he'll be able to teach everything to his twin.
He flips through his notecards, the lines he keeps handy in case anyone tries to talk to him, and approaches the station.
When his parents started... well, comparing him to Columbia, Callisto started to wonder why. He started questioning what made a person good or bad, what was right and wrong, and why people did what they did. He wanted to know how his sister got so much praise, and his parents treated him like gum on the bottom of their shoe. He wanted to find the answers.
So he turned to reading. Even if he hasn't been very successful with becoming a good person, he can at least excel at this.
Callisto approaches Colby, who is trying to aim a slingshot with minimum success.
"Colby..." he says, his voice coming out as a hesitant whisper.
"Uggh!" Colby turns around, her expression one of disgust. "What do you want?"
He pauses, carefully constructing his response. "I... I learned a lot about identifying plants and making snares and camouflage. I thought you might want to learn about them as well."
Columbia's hands are on her hips as she stares at him levelly. Then she sighs.
"Look, Cal. If you want to work with me, you'll have to agree to something first."
He nods slowly. There's one thing he cannot do, which is coincidentally something that Colby uses in copious amounts.
And that's lying.
"If I want to win this Games, I'll have to lie. A lot." Her voice is rich and lilting, and her words flow like honey, while his are slow and separated. "So if you want to be with me, I can't have you contradicting me at every turn. You want me to win, right?"
He realizes now with full force that if she wins, he will die. Is that morality? Putting others before oneself?
He's never been able to lie. His inability to do so has ruined the twins' relationship, and he doesn't want Colby to die because of it.
"Callisto," says Colby impatiently.
"Sorry."
He always does this, gets lost in thought, and nothing ever comes to a full resolution. It always goes round and round, 'til he's back at the start. Is it so wrong for him to want everything to make sense?
"Fine. We'll compromise. You teach me about weapons," she says.
"I... I don't know anything about weapons," he mumbles.
"I'll handle that department then. And you can make sure I survive."
He can do that. He may not be able to do everything right, or get all the answers, but maybe it won't matter if it means Colby being safe. She was always the important one, the girl who was going to save their company. And Cal hasn't contributed anything to the world.
He's always hoped that one day he'd be a storyteller, living somewhere safe and tranquil, with just his books and his own side of the story to write. And maybe if he's lucky, Colby will be there too, and somehow everything will work out so that their hopes and ideals are all realized.
But Cal knows that can never happen now. So his last hope is getting his sister out of here in one piece.
As he tries to teach her all that he's learned about survival, she doesn't seem to be picking it up quite as accurately as him. And she also stubbornly refuses to truly listen to him, despite his calm patience.
This is going to be a bit more difficult than he anticipated. It's never really been easy, since his ideals have clashed with his parents and Colby's, who are arguably the only three people he really knows. He hates everything about these Games; the excess, the violence, the lying and the manipulation.
But his only option now is to keep Colby safe, even if she doesn't particularly want his protection or need his help.
But he needs her. And maybe, eventually, she'll grow to need him, to see him, too.
...
HI. It's Monday. How are you all? I hope you're having a good day and that your week is fabulous! So in this chapter... things happened. Naya's taking charge, Tremor's feeling a little bitter, Jack allied herself with some fillers, and Cal is just trying to keep his sister safe. And for the chapterly Broadway song to remind you all that I'm a theater kid, we've got "Breathe" from In the Heights. Anyway, it turns out, training is a hard thing to write, but it was also so fun so I hope you enjoyed. Just wanted to thank you all for the reviews and all that, they always bring a smile to my face! I'll see you next week, the first Monday of my summer break (yayy, more writing maybe!), with training Day Two!
Much love,
Miri