When they're called for lunch, Embelia rushes right to Korren, placing her hand on his wrist and stopping him when he opens his mouth to speak.
"Do you trust me?" She whispers, eyes darting around the room to see Cassius approaching with his allies.
"Yes, of course-"
"Then trust me now, and I'll explain later."
"Uh, okay?" Korren looks confused beyond words, and his brows knit tightly together when Embelia releases him and makes her way over to what remains of the career pack.
She holds her head high and looks over the group as they greet her with varying reactions. The two boys, Cassius and the boy from one, look to be a mix of eager and interested while their counterparts meet her eye with disgust– and though the girl from one tries to hide it with a condescending smile, Embelia can see that she's as unenthusiastic about this as she is.
"Hey!" Cassius greets with a big smile. "Come, sit, I'll introduce you to everyone."
He beckons her forward, leading her and the others to a table in the centre of the room. Embelia waits for them all to sit, scattered across the round table, leaving two spaces for the newcomer. Her options are beside the boy from one, or the girl from two. She contemplates turning around and changing her mind then and there, but she's too determined to see it through. She sits beside the boy, placing her across from the girl from one, who still looks at her as though she's a meal. Embelia, boldly as she can manage, gives her a polite smile.
"So, everyone, this is Embelia," Cassius begins as he digs into the pasta on his tray. It seems he's the only one not treating this like that business meeting that it is. "Embelia, this is everyone. Emerald and Plaid are from One, and Venus and I are from Two, but you know me already."
"So, you know plants, huh?" asks Plaid. His hair is golden blond, the same as his partner's, though where her eyes are a pretty brown, his are a striking green, and they bore curiously into Embelia.
"Yes," she says. She picks up the fruit on her tray- a peach this time. She's not an expert on peaches like she is on oranges, but it's quite small. She wonders if, even in the luxury they've been given, the tributes are getting the Capitol's unwanted seconds. She glances up at Plaid, and notices that his nose is crooked, not symmetrical like the rest of his face. An imperfection in a perfect face. "What's your specialty?"
"Ah, well that's a secret," he says with a proud grin. "Maybe you'll see."
"Well that doesn't seem fair," Embelia says. "You know my strengths. My weaknesses." She spares a pointed look at Emerald, who purses her lips.
"He's predictable, you can guess," says Venus. Her voice is deep, it makes her sound older than she is– though Embelia's certain she's at least a year her junior. Of the Careers, she seems the most stoic, the most no nonsense. Like she knows there's no need for teasing and condescension when power speaks for itself.
Embelia looks at her, then the empty seat between them, then back at Plaid. (Who looks frustrated with his ally.)
"A sword?"
Plaid's lips press into a thin line and he pokes at his food. That's answer enough. A tiny chuckle comes from Venus, and Embelia tries to hide the smile on her face by looking down at her food.
"Anyway," says Emerald, clearing her throat and folding her hands on the table. "I think it could be fun to have an outlier join!"
Embelia's lips pull into a frown.
"It's a dynamic they don't usually see, and you don't seem like bad company. You're always making your district partner laugh. Really loudly, actually."
Embelia thinks of a snide comment that she seems to have made Emerald laugh, too, but she swallows it and simply stares at her as blankly as she can manage.
"Can I ask you something, Embelia?" Cassius chimes in after a tense silence.
She nods.
"What do you think Korren can give you that we can't offer tenfold? 'Cause he can't protect you like we could, that's for sure."
Where does she begin? There's the fact that she doesn't fear a knife in her back every time she turns around, or that Korren treats her as something more than just a means to an end. He treats her as a friend, an equal. And none of these careers, handsome and perfect as they are, have a smile that lights up a room like Korren's.
She sets down her peach, and wipes a tiny bit of juice from her lips. She thinks of Bay, and the mistake that had led to eleven lashings. What would he say? Something clever, something perfectly worded and impossible to refute. He'd say it with such confidence that even if it were a bold faced lie, you'd believe it. She wishes Bay was here, to guide her and to save her hide like he'd done so often before.
"He's from home."
When they return to their apartments in the evening, Korren immediately rounds on Embelia. His eyes are wide, eyebrows raised expectantly.
"Well?"
"Let's just wait for Seeder and Chaff?" Embelia says with a tense smile. "I won't be turning my back on you, if that's what you want to know."
"That was at the top of the list, actually," Korren says, laughing breathily and stepping away a few steps. "But I have so many questions."
"So do I," she jokes, adjusting her hair and sighing.
Narcisse is the first to appear, looking a little more normal today– well, for her. She wears a baby pink mini dress, with a stiff structure decorated with vines and white flowers. It's lovely, and her dreads are a cream white to match the flowers. Embelia would never wear it (it's much too short for her own comfort) but it's not outrageous. Though, her face still has that awful circle of white on it.
"I heard a little whisper," she says, beckoning them toward the living area. "That someone has been mingling with some of our inner districts!"
Embelia takes a seat on the plush sofa, and Korren sits a few feet away. She gives Narcisse a smile, and nods.
"How'd you hear so soon?"
"Oh, I have my sources. I'm looking out for you kids, don't you worry! How exciting!"
"Exciting is a word," came Chaff's voice as he descended slowly and carefully down the staircase, watching every step with intense focus. "It's all anyone will talk about."
Embelia can smell the whiskey from where she sits.
"Braun does not like you, Hackett, I can tell you that much."
"Augustus Braun?" Embelia questions.
"Yes!" Narcisse delights. "I'm told his boy, Plaid, has his heart set on an alliance with you! Won't listen to a word Augustus says!"
"Really?" says Korren. "What on earth did you say to them?"
Embelia blinks, looking around the room and seeing Seeder enter from a room off the kitchen. She almost breathes a sigh of relief at seeing the woman, her hair long and pin straight down her back. She feels surrounded by far too much energy, she's desperate for Seeder to sit down and mediate the room's excitement.
She watches as Seeder takes a seat on the other side of Narcisse, and feels Chaff fall into the space between herself and Korren. She awaits words from the older mentor, but when she only receives a calm and open look, encouraging her to continue, she swallows.
"Well," she begins. "I didn't think I was charming enough for any of them to go against their mentors. But I suggested, and they agreed, that if the cornucopia doesn't provide food, then I'd assist them in finding safe food to eat."
"That is interesting," Seeder says with a slight hum. "I've not known the inner districts kids to consider that sort of thing, who approached you?"
"Cassius, from Two," Embelia answers. "After their argument with the kids from Four. He told me he wanted to ensure that he covers all his bases."
"So, what?" says Korren, voice a bit clipped. "You're loyal to them instead?"
Embelia turns to him, ignoring the sting in her nose from Chaff's half empty glass. "No." She shakes her head. "Not at all. I plan to kill them."
"Oh!" Chaff laughs, amused as always. "Big ideas! And how do you plan to pull that off?"
Embelia pauses, opens her mouth, then reconsiders. She glances at Narcisse from the corner of her eye. She's a gossip, she's proved that much. If the other escorts are so willing to spill their tributes' inner workings, who's to say she won't do the same and it won't get back to the career pack?
"I'll pull it off as long as you all trust me." She looks, now, to Korren. She addresses all of them, but she stares right at him as she repeats the question she posed to him just this afternoon, "Do you trust me?"
Korren's eyes flit downward, to where he picks at his nail.
"It's only if there's no food at the cornucopia," Embelia presses, ignoring the affirmations of trust from the others. "It's a huge if."
"Of course I trust you, Em. But I don't trust them."
"You won't have to worry about them for long."
"Ooh, I just love your confidence!" Narcisse squeals. "You two are such a treat!"
Embelia's eyes tear away from Korren, to give their escort a tense smile. "Thanks."
"Be very careful," warns Seeder with a frown that etches worn lines between her brows "This Cassius, he seems smart."
"Oh, he is," Embelia agrees. She sits up straighter, giving Seeder a smile. "But I'm smarter."
The next day is their last of group training, and Embelia divides her day between Korren and the careers. She spends most of the morning learning a few spear techniques from Plaid- he claims that if she's going to join their group she needs to be able to fight a bit. That doesn't fill her with the sense of comradery she's sure he hoped to create, it fills her with dread.
The idea of fighting any of these trained killers makes her want to abandon all her plans and end it at the starting line, because she knows she doesn't stand a chance. She took a peek at the odds last night, and despite the Capitol's strange penchant for her stoic aloofness, her odds of winning are ridiculously low, where her peers all look as though their spots in the top are already guaranteed.
She does learn quite a bit about handling a spear from the blond, though, which she supposes could help once she cuts them loose… she refuses to dwell too long on how willing she is to cut these four lives short in order to save her own.
After lunch, she rejoins with Korren, and returns to the plant station. She'd refused to teach the careers a thing, and instead convinced them to teach her so she could help in more ways than one.
"Man, you're good," Korren says as he chews on a cloudberry. "There's no way they can take you out if they're totally reliant on you!"
"That's the idea," she says. "I think they know that, too, they were really pushing for it."
"Mm," he says, face scrunching up as he pops a berry into his mouth that mustn't have been quite ripe yet. "Sour!"
She covers her mouth as a scoffing laugh leaves her, nearly sending her own berry flying.
"Did I just poison myself?!"
"No! It's just not ripe yet," Embelia assures. "They wouldn't let us actually eat the dangerous ones in training."
Korren swallows the sour berry with a face, before he cracks a smile of his own. "Are you ready for tomorrow?"
"Ah." She considers. Tomorrow's private session promises to humiliate, she's convinced herself. Where her new allies in the careers are certain to impress with their violent prowess, Embelia already knows that her brain can't put on quite the same show. She's put a lot of thought into how she can up the showmanship of her skills, but falls short each time. She'll just have to hope they're charmed by the charisma everyone claims she oozes but she isn't trying to give. "Sure. I'll do my best… what are you planning to do?"
He glances around the room, to the station instructor who seems annoyed that he's been ignored by the pair for three days now. He's looking right at them with his chin resting on his hand, and when the two teenagers meet his eye he scrambles to look another way. "I'll tell you afterwards? Don't want to spoil anything."
Embelia nods. "We'll recount our sessions down to the second," she says. "I think you'll do really well."
"And I think you'll do the same."
The waiting is the worst part. The sitting amongst her peers, watching them each disappear into the gym and come out minutes later. Some would come out glowing in confidence, like Venus, who had come out with that same smug smile on her face that Embelia had grown used to. Others came out shaking, like the little boy from Three. Though he had been shaking from the moment he'd taken his seat beside Venus– from what she'd seen of him in training, Embelia knew he'd failed at almost every challenge except the memory games. Another day she might've found it in her to feel bad for him but today she can think of nothing else but her own session.
Embelia watches them all, silence ringing loud in her ears as she stares. Some notice her, others are too focused on remaining calm and collected. She thinks, at some point in her hours long haze, she meets the eye of one of the girls across from her, maybe the girl from 6. She looks frightened and averts her eyes.
Even Korren is quiet today. Finally, after hours of waiting she hears, "Embelia Hackett, District 11."
She stands, she glances back at Korren. He gives her a smile, and she returns it. And she heads into the gym, tightening her ponytail as she goes.