Frazier Nelson, District three, Aries,

"And now the moment you've all been waiting for." Kallia Haversham said brightly, "Let's welcome our very first tribute, Frazier Nelson!"

The buzz of the Capitol stage reminded him of his father's station, a bright busy thing that always felt more like home to him than his actual house. Nelson Manor was a large but cold place, much like his father. Ever since Frazier's mother had died, there'd been very little warmth in his life. The stage wasn't warm either, but the spotlights gave off heat and he decided long ago that would have to be good enough.

"It's lovely to meet you, Miss Haversham." He said, grasping her hand with an enthusiastic shake.

"Please, call me Kallia."

"Then Kallia it is, darling."

The crowd erupted with laughter, like he knew they would. When dealing with a live audience, it was less about actually being funny and more about hitting a specific beat. During some shows, there were lights that told people to laugh or clap. But Frazier was so used to the give and take of live performance that he could tell people what to do with merely the tone of his voice. His smile was its own applause sign.

"So I noticed that you've brought a guitar on stage. Were you planning on showing us some music?"

"I sure was, Kallia. Did you know that outside of my career training, I actually tour around District Three doing rock shows?"

Kallia let out an amused gasp, "I didn't! How wonderful."

The crowd whooped and hollered after her reaction, a signal in its own right. Frazier was glad to have another professional here to rely on. That was all he could count on most days. Show business. The art of glamor and misdirection. He could fall into a rhythm here, one that made it terribly difficult to remember that he was scared.

"Yes, I suppose I'm a minor celebrity out there. So I thought that I would show you one of my songs."

"I think we'd love to hear it." Kallia smiled and gestured out to the audience, who responded with applause, "How about we hear your favorite song? The one closest to your heart."

In that instant, Frazier decided he didn't like Kallia any more.

The tricky thing about art, at least for Frazier, was that he couldn't lie. Sure, he could put on ridiculous outfits and stage intricate concerts full of gore and choreography. But the music itself only ever came out as a reflection of himself. That was one of the reasons that he went so over the top in his performances. Because if everything else was an act, people might think the music was too.

Frazier had planned on showing one of his more energetic songs, a party anthem that didn't stray too far from his persona. But he knew he couldn't play it now, not as Kallia's brilliant silver eyes stared at him and implored him to play something real. A simple energetic bop would ring false, no matter how much stage presence Frazier put behind it.

"All right." he said, losing some of his bravado, "I wrote this one about my mother."

He plugged in his guitar to a small amp his prep team had made sure was on stage, fiddled around slightly to make sure everything was in tune, then began to play.

Thunder rolls doesn't make a sound

Lightning strikes doesn't hit the ground

I feel the storm rise deep in me

But I'll never set it free

Frazier felt the familiar pressure of the guitar strings as everything but the music faded away. In District Three, they often said that smell was the sense most closely connected to memory. But as he played, he felt like he was once again a child sitting in a hospital room. Tuberculosis was supposed to be eradicated in Three. Yet his mother had caught it. Even more, she'd died. Something about Capitol rationing. He never let himself think too hard about it, knowing at the end of those conclusions led a dangerous thought.

Birds fly by but they never sing

Winter, Summer, never fall or spring

I smell flowers in my memory

But I'll never set them free

This was a song he'd never performed in public. It was too sentimental, too raw. Unlikely to be a best-selling single. That was the true virtue of his music, how much money he could make from it. If his father had taught him anything, it was that. Yet he'd written this song anyway, and now he was playing it in the interviews before the Hunger Games. Sloppy, he could hear his father say. A waste of good publicity.

For some reason this just made him play harder.

The world stops like the breath I hold

And I'm turning blue by and by

Fire burns but I still feel cold

And the stars blink out the sky

Because most days I know

All that's left of you

Is the storm inside of me

So I'll never

Never

Never

Set it free

It was the end of the lyrics, but Frazier still had the need to play. So he poured all of his pain and confusion and desperation into a frenzied guitar solo. It felt like every time he hit a note, a part of his heart healed. So he wrenched every note that he could out of it, placing his whole body and soul into the solo, until he finished and collapsed breathing heavily back into his chair.

There was a dull pain in his fingers, so Frazier raised them up and looked at them. Apparently he'd played so hard that he was bleeding.

"That's all the time we have for now." Kallia said into the stunned silence, "But everyone give it up for Frazier Nelson, the bloody guitarist."

The crowd erupted in applause.

Revalie Satyr, District Ten, Taurus

"Ok, that's it. You can just kill me now." Revalie said.

Blaire raised an eyebrow as she tightened a sash around Revalie's waist. It was a reddish orange, meant to match her hair and positively contrast against the dark green dress she was wearing. The whole situation reminded her about when her father was mayor and her and her sister were paraded around like dolls to promote his image. She hated it then and she hated it even more now.

"Seriously. I can still hear that damn song in my head. Do you remember anything the girl who went after him said? Do you have any idea what BV is saying right now?"

Blaire's eyes flickered over to the stage, where the boy from One was giving his interview, "I'm pretty sure he's talking about his father."

"Are you sure about that, or do you just know that BV's always talking about his father?"

Her mentor fell conspicuously silent.

"They should just give him the trophy and throw the rest of us into a meat grinder. In the eyes of the Capitol, that damn Three boy's already won."

"So you're just going to give up that easily?" Blaire pulled the sash once again, causing Revalie to gasp, "He's fighting for his life, same as you. So fight harder."

"I'm going to." She muttered, "I just wasn't expecting that I'd have to throw dirt in anyone's eyes until the Games actually started."

"The Games start the moment your name is drawn. But don't worry too much. You've got this."

"What makes you so sure?"

Blaire smiled at her, although her eyes were as haunted as always. Revalie always felt a kinship in those eyes, although she wasn't entirely sure why. Possibly something related to her missing memory. It always disappeared when she reached for it, like fog.

"Because when I first met you, I wanted to pitch you off a building." Blaire said, "Now I don't. Clearly you've got a way of making people like you."

"That is truly the faintest praise."

Instead of answering, Blaire merely turned her around and gave her a slight push. Revalie stumbled slightly but recovered as her sign partner left the stage and she took his place in the interview chair.

"Now Revalie, I think it's best if we just start out with the elephant in the room." Kallia said, "This isn't the first time you've been the talk of the Capitol, has it?"

"I don't know, it's not like we get Capitol Weekly over in Ten or anything." She replied, "Although someone told me you've made movies about me. Plural. True Crime is big here, huh?"

There were a couple of anxious giggles and Revalie cursed herself under her breath. She was going to try not to be angry. Suddenly she became entirely too aware of her arms. They were crossed, they shouldn't be crossed right? She placed them down to her side, though that didn't feel right either.

Kallia leaned forward, eyes earnest, "That must have been very difficult for you. It can be hard enough losing your father at an early age. But being accused of his murder? At thirteen? I'm not sure I would have been able to handle that."

There was something about the woman's honest sympathy that got past Revalie's guard. The only people who had ever talked to her like that was her uncle and sister. Everyone else seemed primed to hate her.

"It was hard." She agreed, "Is hard. I don't think it ever really went away. My mother… well she still thinks I did it. And everyone sort of believes her. Because what kind of mom would say that about their child unless it's true?"

Revalie felt her eyes moisten and she brushed the forming tears away on instinct. She knew that the Capitol fed on pain, that if she cried and looked beautiful and asked for sympathy she could expect at least a few of them to sponsor items. But that simply wasn't her.

"Look, I know that you've got the best intentions here." Revalie said, "You just want people to know who I am before I go into the Games. That's… morbid, but overall pretty great. The thing is, I'm not thirteen anymore. I'm not a scared kid being raked across the coals in an entirely too public murder trial. I'm just a butcher who has too much of a temper and gets in fights and would move the world to protect my sister. So maybe we should just skip the bad memory trip and talk about the fact that I'm a badass?"

Kallia smiled a bit and pat Revalie on the knee slightly. The action sent a jolt of blind panic through her and she jerked away. Thankfully only Kallia seemed to notice.

"I think we can do that. So tell me, Revalie. What makes you a badass?"

Revalie smiled widely, "Oh let me count the ways."

Eli Slater, District Four, Virgo

District Four was a strange district when it came to the Hunger Games. They were considered a career district, certainly. But they hardly had the intense infrastructure that One or Two had. Even Three at this point may have a more robust education system than Eli's home town. He'd heard rumors that at first they were survival academies, meant to help children prepare for the dangers that awaited them if they became fishermen in the deep sea. That was what separated Fours from everyone else, Eli decided. They lived a life of comfort most days, but there was also danger. The Hunger Games was just one way that you could lose a child.

As he waited for his turn to talk to Kallia Haversham, Eli wondered if his parents cared that he could die. Unfortunately he doubted it. They were probably worried about the Slater Legacy, but that wasn't Eli himself. His parents weren't too old to have another child yet. Most likely they would make another heir and move on.

It was a distasteful thought and one he didn't want to be thinking about right now. He should be focusing on the positives, feigning confidence until he truly felt it. Besides, if he had anything to worry about it was his interview and not whether or not his parents cared if he lived or died.

"So tell me about yourself." Kallia said. Eli froze.

This was the weak point of District Four career training. They were concerned primarily with the Games themselves, and not any of the pomp and circumstances leading up to it. Yet because of particularly famous victors like Finnick Odair, people expected him to be good at this. Eli did love to talk, and loved to debate even more so. But he never thought about what his words might seem like to others. He had a sneaking suspicion that other people thought he was a jerk.

"Oh I can't say there's that much interesting about me." Eli began, "I'm a Slater, obviously. Pretty sure that there's a Slate or Slater out there in every district. They have been selling ships and weapons since the first rebellion. Got rich off that. Long live war profiteering."

Laughter. Eli was surprised that joke landed. He thought that saying something like that would come off as crass. Or worse, rebellious. Eli was rebellious, but he didn't exactly want to make that known right now. The very people who sickened him were the ones who might decide whether he lived or died.

So. No pressure.

"Did you know that there is a Slate from District Two who is also a tribute this year?" Kallia asked.

Eli nodded, "Yeah. Nixie. We're distant cousins I think? Reeeaal distant. But we've talked a bit since we both got here. She's nice. I mean, completely crazy. But nice."

More laughter

"Although I heard there's a lot more Slates in Two and the Capitol then in Four." Eli said, "A lot of them bought themselves up. Only my family stayed in Four, and it's gotten smaller over the years. They say my parents and I are the only ones left."

Why was he still talking about this? Eli hated his family. Hated the expectations and the double standards and the money. Why did one family even have all that money? He'd tried to give some away to kids from school when he was younger, but his mother stopped that. She then took him to a charity auction, to show him how to give back the proper way.

Eli remembered saying back then how convenient it was that the proper way came with a tax break.

"I bet your parents are very proud of you being here right now." Kallia said, "You're a credit to your district."

Eli barked out a sharp laugh. Did he just laugh in Kallia Haversham's face? Maybe everyone he'd ever met was right and he did need a filter. "I'm pretty sure my parents would have preferred it if I hadn't. I'm an only child, you see. I was always supposed to take over after my father. Take over in this case means having a shit ton of money and lording it over everybody."

More laughter. Was the Capitol actually liking this?

"But sometimes, you just have to do what you believe is right." He continued, "No matter what anybody else thinks."

The audience erupted into applause and Eli hid his face between his hands. Hopefully anyone who watched it would think that he was merely overcome with emotion. What he was really doing was laughing.

The Capitol truly was stupid, wasn't it?

Eli was here to do what he felt was right, but not to bring honor to his district or whatever patriotic reason the Capitol seemed to think he meant. The Hunger Games was just a way to put him in the right position to start a revolution and fix Panem. They were applauding their own downfall.

Let them clap, he thought to himself. Let them cheer. It's only a matter of time until I bring it all crashing down.

Nixie Slate, District Two, Capricorn

The Hunger Games had been an absolute nightmare for Nixie. Her outfit during the parade was absolutely horrible and whenever she tried to use a computer program at training there was a steady chance that it would glitch out. There was a part of her that expected this. District Two was a proud District, and there were rumors of what happened to those who didn't respect the council's decision. She knew the risks when she volunteered for the Games. Well, she thought she knew the risks. It was one thing to hear about things going wrong for wayward tributes, but quite another to experience it.

Nixie looked down at her dress, which was more wrinkled than a paper bag and similarly colored. She'd never quite understood the point of stylists, or any of the pre-games really. But now she suspected that the entire role was dreamt up so that here in the ninety-fourth Hunger Games, Nixie Slate could look like an utter laughing stock.

A member of the stage crew stopped and looked over at Nixie in confusion, which made her stop thinking about poor fashion choices for a moment. "Aren't you the other Capricorn?" He asked, "You're supposed to be on standby."

"I thought this was standby."

"No. Other side of the stage."

Yet another moment of sabotage. Nixie would have been amazed at how influential District Two was in the Capitol if she wasn't so pissed off. The joke was on them, anyway. She was an incredibly fast runner. After dodging through other tributes, crew members, and one giant rack of clothing, she finally arrived on stage, panting heavily.

Not the best first impression, but better than being late.

"Nixie!" Kallia said in a voice that made it sound like they were best friends, "It's a pleasure to meet you tonight. Please take a seat."

The response took her by surprise. With just a few words, the woman managed to divert attention away from how unconventional her approach was and focus it back into a traditional interview. That was the nicest thing anyone had done for her so far. Was Kallia Haversham unbribable?

Nixie couldn't help but smile at the thought.

"Of course." She said, sitting down in the interview chair, "It's lovely to meet you tonight. Although I'm mostly looking forward to when we get to talk for a second time."

Kallia laughed, and the crowd did as well. It was the first bit of recognition Nixie had for a while and she was absolutely starving for it.

"You seem quite confident that you're going to win."

"I sure am." Nixie answered, "I belong in the Games. It feels like I've been preparing for this my whole life."

"You're a career then? What do you think makes you different than the other careers this year?"

Nixie shook her head, "It's not that I'm a career. Or not just that, at least. The academy can teach you how to fight, but it can't teach you how to kill. I've been doing that since I was five."

The audience let out a horrified gasp, the kind of response Nixie hadn't gotten when she talked to the doctor a few days ago. It filled her with satisfaction. She was a monster, after all, and she deserved to be treated as monstrous. That was the thing that frustrated her the most about all of the sabotage. She was coming out as incompetent or unlucky. What she needed was to appear dangerous.

"Could you elaborate on that?" Kallia asked.

Nixie nodded. She was glad the woman asked. People needed to know what happened. People needed to know exactly what she was.

Nixie barely remembered the day she first became a killer any more. It was long ago, and a five year old's recollections are shaky at best. Her and her sister were bathing in the tub, her mother had to go do something, and when the woman returned only Nixie was alive.

Her parents said they forgave her, of course. They said it was an accident, that they shouldn't have left a baby unsupervised with a five year old. But their voices rang hollow, no real emotion to it. From then on, Nixie knew what she was. She was a killer, capable only of destruction.

This was why she would take on any pushback from her home district for volunteering out of turn. In the Hunger Games, killers were celebrated. They were needed. What was she supposed to do if she wasn't a tribute? Have a normal life? Such things were beyond her.

"It was my own sister." She said, reveling in the reactions from the crowd, "I was jealous of her, I think. For taking up all of my parent's attention. So one day when they were both distracted, I drowned her in the bathtub. I can still hear her cries in my head sometimes."

"Does that bother you?" Kallia asked.

For a brief moment, Nixie truly could hear her sister's cries. She felt the fear and shame and pure confusion that she felt on that day. Then she forced the memory back and smiled brightly.

"Not at all. It just motivates me even more."

Hebe Dagnus, Capitolite

The interviews had finished, tributes were being escorted back to their rooms in the tribute complex and Hebe knew that she probably should go soon and talk to her mentee Valency. But also, she was playing cards. At the moment it was the most important thing in the world to her.

"David, can you please stop staring at tribute rankings and play a card?" She snapped at him.

Her fellow mentor tore his eyes off his personal screen for a split second and tossed a card face up haphazardly. "It's important information." He said, "Your girl is doing pretty well, by the way."

"I thought she would. What about yours?"

"Not so much, but Millie's strengths aren't easily shown in interviews. She'll blossom in the Games."

Hebe placed down another card then peered over to David. He pulled his cards away, but let her see the article he was looking at. Valency did seem to be rather consistently talked about in the social channels, as was Frazier Nelson, Carnation Banyon and Revalie Satyr. She considered that information as her eyes darted over to one of his tabs.

"Are you looking at Victor rankings again?" she asked.

"You just don't because you're consistently in the twenties."

"There's been almost a hundred victors. Twenties is good."

David shrugged, "I don't know if I could bear it if I ever dipped under top fifteen. Anyway, I'm just one under Lucy Gray Baird on this list. One of these days I'll rank higher than her."

Hebe laughed. "You're never going to rank higher than Lucy Gray Baird. She pretty much invented the modern Victor. You're just scary."

"Hey." David said, "I'm scary and tragic. That's two things going for me."

"Fair enough." She said, then placed down another card. This was the only card that truly mattered despite the fact that they had been playing for hours.

The queen of diamonds.

Running a rebellion was a difficult prospect, and one of the things she needed to consider was security. If one of them got captured, there had to be a way to make sure the Capitol couldn't use them to find the rest of the rebellion. So anonymity became their biggest strength. Hebe was one of four main leaders of the resistance, but she didn't know the identities of the others. They talked behind curtains, at times and venues set up by intermediaries who only knew one other leader.

Intermediaries like David.

He looked at the pile for a moment then placed down the king of clubs. "I know you host a watch party, but if you can get away for a bit tomorrow maybe we could have drinks at the bar one Hope Street. We can get a private room. You can meet some of my friends"

"I'd appreciate that." She said, then placed another card down on the pile. "So it looks like you won. Bye."

David chuckled slightly. "Goodbye Hebe Dagnus. I'll see you tomorrow."