Well, at least Helena doesn't know her District Partner.

It's the only positive she can find in this shithole of a situation she's found herself in. This was supposed to be an easy day: she'd go to the Reaping, she'd hear two other kids sentenced to death, and then she'd go on with her life.

It could have been anybody else, any of the hundreds of nobodys standing in the town square of Five. But no. That stupid, vapid Capitolite had to choose to end the life of the only person in Five that stood to amount to something.

(Of course, to win the Games is also to amount to something. Helena would be lying if she said she hadn't looked at the wealth and fame that came with Victory and dreamed of somehow getting it herself, even though nobody born in Five has done so since the Second Rebellion. The idea of volunteering certainly pulsed in her mind, but the risk always felt greater than the reward.

And as sure as Helena is that she could stand alone on top of any summit, as willing as she is to push anyone down who dared approach her side, she would still prefer that the mountain beneath her not be made of corpses.)

(But now that she's here, now that the opportunity has presented itself to her, there is no doubt in her mind that Helena will make it out a Victor.)

A presence over her right shoulder pulls Helena out of her thoughts. She looks up to find a servant stepping away, a bowl of soup sitting on top of her plate. As she picks up her spoon, Helena feels herself sit up a little bit taller; she could get used to this life of being served.

The servant moves around the table, placing another bowl in front of the woman to Helena's right: her mentor, Chenille Fabray.

(Not that Helena thinks she needs a mentor. Nor is she particularly interested in taking advice from, of all people, Chenille Fabray.)

Though Chenille represented Five in her Games, Helena is among those who don't truly consider her to be from Five. Along with many other loyalists, Chenille and her family were relocated to Five to work in and secure the power plants after the Second Rebellion. While divisions between Native Fives and New Fives have started to erode in the last decade or so, some still bear resentment that a Native Five has not won the Games.

And given the hand she's been dealt, Helena Nikolina fully intends to be the first.

In theory, the most obvious obstacle standing in the way of that goal is Helena's District Partner, Kedara Lumot. But as Helena sizes up the girl sitting across from her, Helena could not be less worried.

Kedara is at least four inches shorter than Helena, though looks far younger than her sixteen years in her poofy pink dress and fluffy afro space buns. The girl put on a brave face at the Reaping, but now that the cameras are off, Helena can feel the waves of anxious energy emanating from Kedara.

All the better, as far as Helena is concerned. Worry breeds weakness, after all, and weakness means one less threat; Helena is not a betting woman, but if she was, she'd put money on Kedara dying in the Bloodbath.

As the carriage door slides shut behind the server, Chenille places her elbows on the table. "So," she begins. "In a normal year I'd start with a simple question: would you prefer to be mentored together, or separately? I'm still going to give you two that choice, but before I do, I want to make sure you understand what makes these Games different from most other years. Because this year is a year that is divisible by five, which means two tributes can win provided that they are from the same district.

"Now. This is my fourth time mentoring for a Games such as these. From what I've seen, there are a few ways that I've seen this rule affect tributes' strategies."

Helena's gut reaction is to scoff. She has no interest in winning with someone by her side. Besides, from what Helena's seen so far, Kedara is just as irrelevant in these Games as she would be in any other. Helena sees no reason to change her strategy because of some rule that won't affect her in the first place.

"Think about it this way," Chenille chides, giving Helena a look. "Regardless of how the two of you might feel about each other - either now or in three days' time - you are each the only people who do not benefit from the death of the other. Taboos around killing your District Partner in these Games are obviously higher than normal - and yet, the longer the two of you are both alive, the more dangerous you are to everyone else."

Helena purses her lips. She hates to admit it, but Chenille does make a good point.

Surely this will be her only one.

"Does everyone think that way about District Partners?" Kedara asks between spoonfuls of soup.

"I think it depends," Chenille responds carefully. "Some of my compatriots are more aware than others of the… paradox, I guess is the word, of these Games, and so they give their tributes basically the same strategic heads up that I gave you. I don't know how many of those tributes would have realized that on their own, or how many tributes from other districts could come to that conclusion without help."

Helena would have. She's sure of it. It might have taken her a moment, but she does not doubt that she would have gotten there eventually. A primal need to be right burns in her chest, her mind desperate to find the next point first.

"So it feels like, then," Helena suggests, words tumbling out of her mouth, "there's an inflection point of sorts in these Games. If not a lot of tributes are aware of the paradox then it's safe to ally with your District Partner. But if a lot of tributes are aware of the paradox then it might be safer not to ally with your District Partner, but then you're not allied with the one person who has no real reason to kill you."

"Exactly," Chenille exclaims. "Good thinking."

Helena feels her body calm. She had no reason to be worried. Kedara never would have thought of something like that.

(Worrying is weakness. And weakness will get her killed.)

"So in that case, how do we know which way to go?" Kedara muses. "Like, what the best thing is to do strategically."

"I would rather we not decide anything like that until we meet the other tributes in training," Helena asserts. "Or at least until we watch the Reapings tonight. We want to make sure we're on the right side of the inflection point to increase our own odds, and I think we need more information before we can make that choice."

Well. To be more accurate, Helena wants to make sure she's on the side of the inflection point that benefits her more. If Kedara is just enough of a hindrance that she can be puppeteered, Helena wouldn't be opposed to keeping her around. But if she's too much of a liability - or not enough of one - Kedara needs to be as far away from Helena as possible.

Chenille nods. "Good instinct. But what I actually think will be the most useful is touching base after the Opening Ceremonies tomorrow night. We might get some information tonight from whatever happened at the Reapings, but only if both District Partners know each other. By tomorrow night, though, they'll all have had conversations with each other, maybe like ours or maybe not. That will give us a much clearer sense of who is getting along, who is not, and who might be pretending one way or the other."

.○◔◑◕●.

"Alright. Talk to me. I didn't get to be in the hangar, so I didn't see what you saw. What are the big points?"

"Where should we start, Chenille? Cores? Outers?" Kedara asks.

"Wherever you want," Chenille replies, placing a mug of hot chocolate in front of each of her tributes. "Oh, and by the way, you can call me Neelee."

"I mean," Helena suggests, "I think we should start with the pairs we were most interested in during the Reaping, just in case we don't have time to talk about anything else. You had your eyes on Four and Seven, right, Kedara?"

"Yeah," Kedara replies. "Though honestly, at first, it was more from a general threat perspective. Like the taller girl from Four has the absolute craziest muscles I've ever seen, and the boy from Seven's arms look like those of a full-grown lumberjack. And… yeah. They looked strong, and also pretty confident."

Kedara sips her hot chocolate, a pleased smile coming to her face. Surprised - and before she fully registers what comes out of her mouth - Helena mutters, "That's it?"

"Hm?"

"Like, is that all you saw, Kedara?"

"It's all I noticed. But I saw more things. Like the pretty outfits!"

Helena can't help but let out a laugh. She knows that her grasp on the inner workings of a person's brain is far above average, but she didn't expect to be paired with a partner so subpar! Kedara might as well hand the win to Helena on a silver platter.

"Do you have something to add, Helena?" Chenille asks, raising an eyebrow.

For the briefest of moments - just a fraction of a second - Helena hesitates, as a small, nagging voice wonders if Kedara is hiding something from her. It feels unlikely, she realizes, that someone could look at the pair from Seven for any amount of time and not notice anything about their relationship. Only someone so socially oblivious could…

Helena's thoughts trail off as she looks over at Kedara, sitting with a pleased face, sparkling eyes, and swinging feet. She doesn't even seem to realize that Helena threw a thinly veiled insult towards her.

And a lightbulb over Helena's head, bright as the spring sun, melts all of her worry away.

(If Kedara can't see what's right in front of her, she's not going to have even an inkling of how to use this information to her advantage. There's no reason for Helena not to share as much as she'd like, because there's no way it could come back to bite her.)

"Honestly, there's a lot," Helena begins, somewhat smugly. "For instance, the Fours stood closer to each other than a lot of the other pairs did. Closer even than the Twos did, and the Twos trained together. The shorter girl from Four even seemed a little bit relaxed around the taller girl. I think the Fours are going to work together - even if it's not the optimal strategic move. Not as sure about the Sevens."

"Interesting," Chenille muses, chewing on Helena's words like gum. "And really good to know. What other pairs caught your eye, Helena?"

Helena's watched enough of the Games that she's noticed a pattern, a pair of tributes whose choices have always impacted the direction the Games take. "I was focusing on the Capitol tributes. I was curious if I could get a sense of whether or not the Careers - like the Ones and the Twos - seem interested."

"And?"

"Well, I couldn't exactly go up to them. Like, I'm not stupid enough to go up towards the Cores. But from what I could see, it didn't seem like the pairs from One and Two were as interested in the Capitolites as the Capitolites were in the Ones and Twos."

Chenille pushes in further. "Did it seem like any of them knew each other? Or at least knew of each other?"

"How could they know each other?" Kedara jumps in. "They're from different districts."

"Core District privileges," Helena reminds Kedara. "They have open travel between them. I bet people from those three districts meet all the time."

"But that doesn't mean these specific kids know each other, right?"

"Not directly," Chenille interjects. "But they may know of each other."

She pauses. Helena picks up on it, and nudges, "Say more."

Chenille takes a moment to choose her words. "There's a lot of speculation among the Outer District Mentors about the extent to which the One and Two mentors talk to each other before selecting tributes. Nobody really knows, and nobody has asked, but there are some years where it feels like the tributes are clearly selected to be a group of four rather than two pairs of two. And in those years, it's very plausible that those kids are, at a minimum, being given heads-ups about each other."

"Are the Capitol kids ever in the loop?" Helena asks.

"Much more rarely," Chenille admits. "And remember, though Capitol tributes are always volunteers, not every Capitol tribute has training; it's about a fifty-fifty shot. But if they are in the loop with the Ones and Twos, it's usually a sign that they do."

Helena thinks for a moment. "I couldn't get a read on the relationship between the Ones and the Twos. I don't think the Ones and Twos knew the Capitolites. I'm not sure who knew of whom."

"That might be something to keep an eye out for in training tomorrow," Chenille recommends. "Have an eye for potential allies too - we can and should circle back to that in a sec - but the Cores' dynamic often dictates how the Outers' Games go."

.○◔◑◕●.

"Well," Helena says, collapsing into the couch. "I think these could be a really interesting Games."

"Yeah. What happened today?" Chenille asks, offering Helena a bottle of water. "I heard rumblings but-"

"One of the Ones got into a massive fight with one of the Twos," Kedara gushes, spinning around on her barstool. "They were sparring and then someone I think hit a bit too hard and then they were yelling back and forth really loud and it looked and sounded bad. One even had to be taken out of the room."

"Which one?"

"Girl from One," Helena clarifies. "The Two that got into the fight looked thrilled when it went down - and even more thrilled when the One was kicked out of the room for the day - but their District Partners didn't seem all that happy."

"Were the Capitolites involved?"

"Not at all," Kedara replies. "They didn't even stick together, really. The girl sort of hovered near but clearly not with the Careers, though she didn't display any interest in the weapons stations. Meanwhile, the boy stayed clear on the other side of the room."

"Yeah, except they were checking on each other the whole time," Helena points out. "I think they were doing something similar to us: pretending to stay apart when, in reality, they're working together to at least some degree. Not only that, but the Careers were also keeping an eye out for the Capitolites - well, until they got into their fight, of course."

"Checks out," Chenille replies. "That lines up with the intel I got today, too. I'm sure this will come up in the interviews, but the girl from the Capitol comes from big, big, big money. I don't know all the details, but I got the sense that, despite not having a seat in the Sunedrion, her father has a stake in every industry in Panem in some way or another. The definition of old money. I think the Careers would do almost anything to keep her in their ranks - unless their internal politics were getting in the way."

Helena opens her mouth to ask a question about the Capitol girl. But before she can even get a word out, Kedara says absentmindedly, "I wonder if her dad knows my dad."

"Huh?"

Kedara's eyes widen. "Oh," she says sheepishly. "I guess I forgot to mention it. My dad's one of the Chief Engineers in Five. His father was one of the only Native Fives who was allowed to keep his post in the Engineers' Guild after the Second Rebellion, and he personally ensured that my dad was the one to take his spot."

Helena raises an eyebrow. "So you come from money, too."

"I mean, not Capitol money. But yes, we're well enough off that we have status in Five."

Ideas flood into Helena's brain. She pushes her first thought - why the fuck was this not the first thing she told her team about - away, more interested in figuring out the best way to use these newfound sources of money and influence to her advantage.

And more importantly, how to keep the two of them at the very least apart - and at best, at odds.

(If Helena had looked behind her, she would have seen a confusing, disappointed look on Neelee's face. But Helena didn't.

What is there ever to see behind her?)

.○◔◑◕●.

"OK," Neelee asserts. "This is probably the last chance we'll have to talk about alliances before the Games start. Walk me through what happened today so that I can follow up with the other mentors, and so we can seal the deal tomorrow."

Kedara and Helena exchange a look. "I have a feeling what happened with you was simpler," Helena offers.

"Yeah, probably," Kedara agrees. "I honestly had a pretty easy go of it. The Fours had already pulled in the Sevens by the time I approached them - yes, both Sevens. I told them what we agreed upon: that my DP had revealed something about herself that made me deeply mistrustful, that I couldn't see a world in which we got back together, and that my father's influence and connections might be valuable assets to an alliance's sponsor bank. The Fours and Sevens took some time to talk but at the end of the day, agreed to welcome me into their alliance."

"Excellent," Chenille gushes. "Perfectly according to plan." And Helena has to agree. Kedara did exactly what she was asked to do, no more, no less. She's positioned herself exactly where she needs to be: right where Helena wants her.

(There's still one concern nagging in Helena's mind: that with her subpar observational skills, Kedara has missed at least one key detail that might put their plan in jeopardy. But anything Helena can think of that Kedara might have missed feels like more of a danger to Kedara than Helena.

After all, it's Kedara who will be in striking distance of the two strongest non-Core tributes, not Helena. And if Kedara goes down, the worst that happens to Helena is that she might lose her eyes on those tributes.

So there's really no reason to be concerned.)

"Helena, do you want to go?"

Helena takes a deep breath. "Well… it didn't go the way I wanted it to, exactly. But given the time we have left, I think I did as well as I could."

Chenille nods understandingly. "Sometimes that's what you have to do. Let's see if we can help you make the best of it."

"Well. Like we planned, Kedara and I split up when we got downstairs. We did a great job of acting like we'd had a big fight, if I do say so myself, and then we avoided each other all day. Then, I headed over towards the weapons to scout out the Capitol kids. The Capitol girl was still lingering near the Careers without really engaging with them or the weapons they were using. Since she didn't seem to be doing anything, I decided to chat with her first.

"We talked a bit, and before long, she was talking pretty openly to me about the internal dynamic of the Core alliance. Turns out, the Ones and Twos are only interested in taking her this year, not her District Partner. She says that they said they don't want her and her DP to conspire against them, but that she really thinks they think her partner would be a weak link. She thought that put her in a tricky position because she's nervous about abandoning her DP - something about his dad working under her dad, and she feels an obligation to protect him. Especially if they can both win.

"Based on what she told me, I thought I might have the opportunity to peel her off from the Careers. But the more I talked to her, the more I realized that she was far more concerned about her own survival than her District Partner's. So I decided to pivot to her partner. I had a much easier time getting him to see that going with the Careers would be dangerous for him, and he was so grateful that he was more than willing to work with me."

"I thought a lot of the reason you wanted the girl was her dad's money," Neelee points out.

"That is true. But even if the boy isn't as rich, his parents definitely have more than the richest people in Five. They'll be able to give us what we need. And besides, I think he's a safer ally.

"If I was with the girl, I think we'd be the Careers' target. In that scenario, she would have broken off from the Careers, and I don't think they take 'betrayal' very kindly. But this way, not only do the Careers not think the boy is a threat, and not only are we not drawing their ire by pulling in their likely source of funding, but I know the girl is grateful for me keeping her partner safe. She thanked me before we went upstairs. Furthermore, I know that she doesn't want anything to happen to him, so I feel very confident that she's going to do whatever she can to keep the Careers off of our trail."

There is, of course, more to the story, information Helena wants to keep close to her chest. Because as unafraid as she is of Kedara, as little as she thinks of Neelee, she knows neither will take too kindly to the core reason why she's not afraid of the Capitol boy.

Helena knows she can control him.

The boy is fifteen. He wears massive glasses that make his eyes look four times bigger than they are, that only magnify the anxious look that never leaves his face. The sort of look that says, "I really don't know what to do next."

Helena has no idea why he volunteered. He would have had no chance of succeeding in the Games on his own; most likely, the boy would have died in the Bloodbath. But being with a Helena, with someone who can make decisions for him, must make him feel like he has a better chance at winning.

He doesn't. Not under Helena's thumb. But for as long as the boy believes he has a chance, Helena herself has a better chance at keeping him under her control.

(And right now, Helena would rather think about the things that will be under her control than all the variables that, soon enough, won't be.)