The rest of the Twelves since idk why not.

Tarabel Aspen- Rising to Victory D12F

Paradoxically enough, it was better for me not to train. I already had the skills I needed, and training just risked someone noticing me and remembering I had more skills than you'd think. I could learn little supplementary skills, like knot-tying or things like that, but what was best of all for me was to be completely forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind, so no one would even bother to look up tapes of my Games and learn about me.

If training was out of the question, that left talking to my mentor. Since Haymitch seemed more interested in our lounge's bar, that left Nubu.

"So, I guess... how do you win?" Surely an auspicious start to my learning experience.

"It's different every time," he said, then shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, I know it's lame, but I kind of think mentors only go so far. I only know what worked in my Games."

"Maybe I should be more specific. Over all the years, what skills would you say are most useful?" I asked, seeing he was right.

Nubu thought for a moment. As I waited I picked at the food on my plate, which was amazing as always. Even with my higher quality of life- perks of an insanely dangerous job- we just didn't have access to things like these in Twelve. We would never waste the time and calories to pluck and gut a partridge, but now that I'd tasted one, I could see why someone would.

"Water purification," he said. "And shelter-making. But that might not apply here. It seems that resurrection Games are more likely than usual to be indoors or developed."

"I was thinking that, too," I said. "They seem to have a theme going on. There was the temple, then the graveyard, then the Indian thing." The last one had been pretty cool for me, since I was Indian by descent. I never thought I would see the stories I grew up with come to life. "But what do they have in common?"

"Religion, I suppose. But I don't think that could be the answer," Nubu said. It definitely didn't mesh with the Capitol ethos. If you asked them, the state was God.

"They all had foreign elements," I mused, though the graveyard only showed that with the Mexican sugar skulls.

"There has to be something." Nubu looked off pensively. "Anyway, it might be a good bet that it's something somewhat urban, whatever that means for your training."

Urban. Not necessarily inner-city, but constrained. Perhaps inside, or an enclosed area. Sprinting would be more important than long-distance running. Any camouflage should be focused on garbage and not greenery. And with food more readily available, there would be fewer deaths by starvation and more Tribute-on-Tribute violence than ever.

Peach Unk- We All Fall Down 12F

Here I was again in the lovely Capitol, waiting for another wonderful Games full of potential. Somehow I wasn't overly optimistic. But I had these next few days, and as long as I didn't do anything entirely egregious, I was pretty much left to my own devices.

So what could I do that would annoy the Capitolites the most without making trouble for myself or my family? My first thought was to clog all the toilets with random junk, but I discarded that idea pretty quickly. That would only make trouble for some poor Avox. Same for graffiti, while dropping water balloons on people might come with stiff consequences.

It was during dinner that I had The Idea. It was a lovely meal of some fancy fish covered in potatoes so they looked like the fish's scales. Bit weird, since no one likes eating fish scales, but I guess it was "art". Looking at that fish, I had a wonderful, awful idea.

Since the Capitol wildly underestimated the deviousness of Tributes, there was a room service nook in the wall where we could order things as long as we didn't get too crazy, in which case they'd cut us off. Or maybe it was just me who was devious, since the continued existence of the nook implied most Tributes were well-behaved. In either case, I made a most humble request off the menu: a simple snack board. I'd ordered one before and knew it came with various crackers, cheeses, spreads, and the like. Including a little dish of caviar, which I'd tried for the novelty but hadn't really cared for. I didn't see the appeal of little raw fish eggs... until now.

The thing about little raw fish eggs: they're very small. Easy to overlook, even. Easy to drop into hard-to-reach places nonchalantly, so the person watching the security camera wouldn't notice what I was doing.

Oops, there's a little crack in the floor paneling here. One fish egg, dropped.

Hmm, air vent's a little dusty. Couple of fish eggs, tossed back as far as I could get them.

Bed's a little lumpy, better fluff it up. Handful of fish eggs, sandwiched between the mattress and support.

Fish eggs, fish eggs everywhere. Not making any trouble now, and wouldn't be for the next few days. It wouldn't be until I was in the Arena they'd start smelling. Just a faint little tinge at first, enough that they'd say people from Twelve sure were smelly. The days would go on, my little stinky presents asserting themselves more and more. Finally, they'd go nuts trying to find them. And they better hope they find every single one...

Theo Mulroy- Circle of Life D12F

I'd never felt so adrift. My family was so far away I didn't even know how to access my grief. To compound that, it seemed hardly anyone from my own Games had returned. Brad was back, but... ew. Adira wasn't here, and I hated how they'd just thrown someone like that away. Adira had so much to her. She was the one who had brought our alliance together. She had her undying optimism in the Capitol, which had seemed so weird to me at first. The longer I knew her, the more inspiring it was that she could continue to see the slivers of goodness in people who had hurt us so much. She was a person, and I hated how the Capitol picked through us to decide which was "worthy" of trying again. Why Brad? Why not Adira?

Strangest of all, Hlenn was here, but not as a Tribute. It wasn't that I thought Hlenn couldn't win, it wvs just so unusual. She had definitely been the most unusual of us. If I hadn't known she was a normal person, I'd have thought she was some fey-touched being just sojourning among humanity for a while. The way she naturally talked like poetry, the way she always seemed to be looking at something no one else could see... it just struck you.

In all my life, Hlenn was the one thing that had not changed. She'd aged, of course, in the decade since I last saw her, but her dark skin hid the wrinkles. She wore a long, flowing skirt with several layers, decorated with beads. She had cowrie shell earrings and some lines tattooed on her face that hadn't been there before she won. Something was different, though, and when I saw it, it hit me like a punch. They'd taken her freckles. They used to be beautiful.

"How's the Victor life treating you?" I said, trying to keep things light.

Hlenn smiled shyly. I got the feeling she didn't show her genuine smile to everyone. "There's plenty to be happy about."

"Wow, talk about damned by faint praise," I joked. "Not too many of us back, are there?"

"I can't say I miss Mark, but you two... I miss," she said, her smile fading. "I'm sorry I ran away when you died."

"Don't be," I said. "She would have gotten you, too. I'm glad you got out of this. And know what? She's not back, either."

"I was surprised. Second place, you'd have thought," Hlenn said. "I'd say good riddance, but I'm sure she had her demons, too."

"You think I can make it this time?" I asked, smiling crookedly.

Hlenn got that faraway look. "Sometimes the smallest bird survives the forest fire."

"Always the riddles," I said affectionately.

Hlenn looked right into me. "Sometimes I don't know what else to say."

Elara Angelo- Over and Over D12F

Someone saw something in me. At this point I didn't know what it was. Someone up there thought I could win, despite so many proofs I couldn't. Was it just for their amusement, that they were just waiting to watch me fail again? Did I have some obsessed fan high up in the Capitol hierarchy who was convinced I just needed the right chance? So many people who'd gotten so close, and they thought I could do it.

Someone thought I could do it after thirty years. I didn't think they appreciated what that meant for me. It had been thirty years since I first went into the Arena. My grandparents were certainly dead- the ones who hadn't died before I left of winter fevers or hardship. My parents might well be dead, too- people didn't live long in Twelve. Most people, including myself, never even knew all their grandparents.

I didn't know what to expect when I pulled up the news on the wall computer. I just wanted to see what was happening in Twelve- if anything had changed, if maybe things had improved.

It was like a time capsule. When I found a news story about the latest mayoral inauguration, I saw the exact same buildings I had left. The Justice Hall, the Reaping Center, the general store, the run-down old rec center some Capitolite do-gooder started and didn't finish. It was like I'd never left. The only difference, the only difference at all, was more chips in the paint and more holes in the roofs.

Scanning over the people in the picture, I didn't recognize any of them. Probably some of them had just grown and didn't look the same, but I couldn't make myself believe that was the majority. No, most of the people I'd known were gone. Frozen, starved, sick, bleeding out after childbirth- gone. A generation had passed by. In Twelve, that went so much faster than elsewhere. We had kids young, while we were still strong. We died before they were grown. Left on their own, many of them died as well. Like salmon straining to reach the end of the river before they were picked off, we scraped by barely sustaining our population.

There were more blue eyes than I remembered. The merchant children were healthy and well-fed. I wondered if they'd overtake us. Used to be they were the minority, but time marches on. They ate, we didn't. That couldn't last forever. I didn't resent their fortune, but I wondered what would become of my people. So few green eyes I recognized, so little olive skin that seemed familiar. An entire people was dying out. Someday it might just be me, recycling over and over.