CHAPTER NINE;
the gauntlets

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( warning: depictions of drug abuse, addiction )

     When Vesper awakens abruptly in the early hours of the next July morning, following another troubling dream of her faceless mother, she almost forgets Icarus is still curled up on the floor at the foot of her bed. Today no morning light floods in; low-hanging clouds at twilight give hope of no sunlight breaking through and dappling spots on the lavish carpet. It's something of a relief to her — at least there's a break from the sweltering heat that has been ongoing for days now.

Her silky pyjamas sway loosely and stroke her skin as she pulls herself out of bed, careful not to awaken him while tip-toeing to the bathroom. Just like she always used to back home, she runs her hands under the tap, relishing in the cold liquid that spills over her wrists and cleanses the clammy sweat that had clung to her skin in her nightmares. Then she lets it gather in her palms, splashing it on her face and rubbing the coolness along the nape of her neck.

     How many sleeps now? One... two...

     Two sleeps. Two sleeps until they enter the arena.

     She stares at her reflection in the mirror, trying to figure out whether she has come to terms with this reality or not. Considering she could be days away from certain death, Vesper feels astonishingly... calm. But maybe this is just her settling into her surroundings that were once foreign to her (however discomforting they are) — she'll go right back to square one the moment she runs off that podium on that dreaded morning, she is sure.

     Vesper is sure she will bounce back. After all, that's what she has always been praised for, be it in work, life... after her father died. But what else was she supposed to do? Wallow in it? There was simply no time, only the impending awareness that she and Blythe would both have to ramp up their working hours, and of course the strain in relations that came with it.

     Grief does strange things to people.

     By the time she emerges from the bathroom, Icarus is stirring and opening his eyes like a bewildered newborn. She sighs heavily and rubs her eyes.

     "Sorry," she murmurs.

     "Naw, you didn't wake me up. Wasn't sleeping too deeply anyway."

     Vesper perches on the edge of her colossal-sized bed, gathering her hair into a ponytail and tucking it over onto one of her shoulders. She meets his tired eyes that blink through the darkness and look for answers — all of which she can't possibly have. Then comes the fighting against the urge to think ahead to the arena, when he'll be mostly relying on her for his safety...

Two sleeps. Still two sleeps until then.

A gentle thud comes from next door; a sharp breath follows, pacing footsteps growing louder and quieter as they scale the hallway. Vesper and Icarus share a quizzical glance — they mustn't be the only ones awake. Perhaps it's Hermia, scuttling around to do early rounds in the morning. Or maybe Irma was restless, and went to get a cup of tea. Or—

Oh no...

Vesper instinctively strides towards the door, pressing her ear against it as she slowly turns the doorknob. It opens just a crack, and Icarus crouches under her arm to get a peek for himself. "What's going on?" he whispers, "I can't see anything."

"Dale's door is open," she says, her words dripping with dread.

She opens the door a little more, extending their view of the hallway to more than a fine line. The expanded periphery introduces a new, more grave sight — two people in glaringly white suits, clinical-looking in the dim light, emerge from his room with a distraught Hermia holding her hand to her heart. One of them enters the room again, while another stays to talk something over with her. But what?

A few seconds later, two more men in white stand at two ends of a stretcher, which cradles a frail, blue-skinned Dale on it, an oxygen mask fastened over his mouth.

Vesper's blood freezes.

"What? What is it—" Icarus cuts himself off early after poking his head past the door. Swallowing thickly, his face sets with a solemn frown. "Is... is he...?"

Dead?

She hopes not. God, she really hopes not...

Either way, there's little more time to stare numbly at the scene. Irma's figure drifts like leaves across the forest floor, obstructing their view. "You two should go back to bed," she says while trying to keep herself steady, but her voice end up trembling with worry.

"What happened?"

"I'll tell you in the morning."

"Wha— is that it?" Vesper stammers, stepping back from Irma's firm stride into her room. "You can't just leave us with that, what happened to hi—"

"Morning." With one swift motion, Irma shuts the door behind her — slowing at the last second so it doesn't slam. Locked in this strange, unfamiliar room with the harrowing image of Dale being carted out on a stretcher on its way to the morgue. No, she tells herself. You don't know that... yet.

For the rest of the morning hours, as twilight melts into dawn, and dawn breaks into sunrise, Vesper half-listens to Icarus thinking aloud about Dale and what could possibly have happened to him. She spends those agonising hours watching the shadow of an ornament on the dresser grow, shrink and distort with time. She keeps watching it until he eventually drops off to sleep, getting a quick snooze in before they will have to wake.

Hermia fails to appear this morning. But naturally, by the inner body clock crafted by her incessant wake-up calls this week, Vesper wills herself and Icarus to get up and out of bed. Never has she been more eager to walk out of that door and hear what her flock of Capitol citizens have to say — but neither has she ever been more apprehensive.

The breakfast table is so silent, she becomes disturbingly aware of her heart thudding in her chest. A few moments after they've sat down, after nothing more than a nod to acknowledge their presence, there is only the clinking of cutlery against plates, and Hermia's breathing gradually growing heavier as she suppresses what sound like tears.

     It's been almost a full minute of nothing, when Irma finally places her cutlery down and looks at them both. Somehow her eyes still glisten with that usual ethereal, otherworldly glow — but today they pool with sadness.

Dale is alive.

     But — there's always a but — only by a close shave. Moments after slinking back to his room, shaken by his outburst, he had drowned himself once more in Morphling, amongst other things. And that's how hours later, a restless Hermia decided to her rounds earlier, and came knocking on his door to find no snarky response. Another knock, nothing. The door wouldn't open. At some point she must have rammed it open, stumbling in to find his slumped figure, barely clinging onto life by a thread — unwillingly, even.

All Vesper gets from this is: Dale almost died, and you probably pushed him over the edge. Congratulations.

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The razor-sharp blade slices through the mannequin's neck like a hot knife through butter, the head tumbling from the top like a boulder onto the mat below. Another swing of Vesper's sword, and it is thrust into another mannequin's torso with all the force she can — but when she angrily tries to withdraw it, the blade won't budge.

Damn it, she curses to herself.

     She tries a couple of aggressive tugs on the handle, which slips through her sweating palms, to no avail; at last she resorts to propping her foot up against it and yanking it out with a frustrated grumble.

     Vesper sees red and envisions the mannequin as Boaz. A strike against his arm, that's for her; a slash across the heart, that's for Dale. Finally, a blow to the hip — for her mother. Reagan, the girl with no face, and yet she haunts every lapse in Vesper's thoughts where there is space to fill. Initially it had been the absent pondering here and there, but now? It's unbearable, it's constant, and dominates her every move. She always felt her absence, but didn't know it bugged her this much until now.

     She's about to deliver another attack on the mannequin when the instructor intervenes, a perturbed look in his eyes — he gives a gentle shake of his head, and gestures over to a small cluster of weedy-looking tributes behind, one of them being the boy from District Five with goldfish eyes that pop out and awkward, bony shoulders sticking out of his shirt.

Receiving the message loud and clear, Vesper places her sword back on its stand, barely brushing shoulders with the boy from Five as he cluelessly scans the array of swords like he's buying fruits at a market. He doesn't stand a chance.

But arguably neither does she right now, because she's shaking. She's shaking like mad.

Vesper hurries over to the nearest bench and lets her body weight sink onto the seat. Her fingers have a throbbing pulse, each one making her hands feel weaker, so she lets them go limp at her wrists and hides them between her thighs.

     She searches for Icarus at any of the stations, eventually locating him at the knot-tying one. His fingers thread through each loop, gaze sharpened with a precise focus, as Telle watches him with her arms folded across her chest. Once he completes the intricate knot, Vesper hears her characteristic laugh from across the room and high-fives him. As their fingers break apart, Icarus catches Vesper's eye and gives her a wave. Weakly, she waves back, forcing a smile.

     Forcing herself to get up, she starts making her way over to the pair of youngsters, when she almost walks into an all-too familiar, detestable figure.

     "Hey," Boaz hisses, "watch where you're going."

     Wordlessly, she avoids making direct eye contact.

     "Heard your mentor got drugged up. It must really suck, only having one person to rely on for sponsors, and she can't even defend herself in her own Games, let alone you punks."

     Don't. He's not worth it. Vesper's fists still curl at her sides, and it takes every ounce of strength in her body to keep them there and no higher — nowhere within the region of his stomach, his jaw or his nose. Or hey, maybe if she was feeling up to it, she could take Fern's suggestion... right where it hurt...

Lucky for him, Boaz crosses over to another station before she can be tempted to lay a finger on him. But when her eyes follow to where he goes, she hesitates — she doesn't know how she never noticed, really noticed this station before. Before her stands a towering succession of large platforms, getting higher as they go along. Between them stand instructors with padded clubs in hand, prowling in the gaps waiting for their prey, until they choose any opportune moment to take a swing at any body part, from the ankles up to the chest — it's a trap waiting to happen, and an intense test of agility and stamina. Even tributes like Hero take a tumble, forcing them to begrudgingly cross back to the beginning.

And the aim? To finish in the fastest time possible.

     Vesper is intrigued.

     "What are they?" As Icarus and Telle join her side, she nods over to Boaz at the starting line of the obstacle course.

     Icarus observes them with a nervously quizzical look, taking a step back as if he might get hit from a distance. "Looks like... a lot." He watches as Boaz jumps the first couple of flights, face contorted with concentration as he leaps over a swinging club at his feet.

"They're the gauntlets. I've barely seen anyone other than a Career try 'em," says Telle matter-of-factly. "Only folks like Talon, really."

"They're probably the only ones who could manage it."

"What makes you say that?" Vesper challenges, watching Boaz almost topple on one of the higher platforms and wishing he'd fall flat on his face. Who's to say she can't try?

"Seriously?" Icarus scoffs, cowering slightly. "What if— what if you mess up and they, y'know, try to—"

"Target me?" Sighing heavily, she flexes her fingers which had been balled into fists only minutes before, before turning to Icarus. "Maybe I can't control the fact we're in the Hunger Games, but this game? I'm not playing anymore. They may have had more training than us, but what I'm not gonna do is just sit here and let some high-bred Career talk down to me like I can't defend myself."

And she stands by that. Now, when Boaz skulks back to the beginning after tripping himself up, she forces herself to see him the way she views all of the other tributes in this room — a kid who might be dead in the next few days anyway. Suddenly she can put away the pretence forced on her and strip back his skin, really see what she's up against and how much of a threat he will be. If she can force that mentality, then surely she can force herself to not give into the fear that always looms, threatening her at every corner.

     It's enough to give her the final push. Vesper strides boldly towards the gauntlets before either of them can protest, adrenaline beginning to trickle through her bloodstream. She first steals a glance at the pompous Gamemakers above, who sit and dine with glasses of red wine being swirled in their hands; hoping they are watching. Then she looks back to the course ahead, making an on-the-spot judgement of her first move.

Well, she thinks, hopping on the spot, here goes nothing.

Taking a small run-up, Vesper hops up onto the first platform — she wobbles like a sea buoy and attempts to steady herself, but she's already losing precious time. Don't stop. She watches the route that Hero takes before her, hopping next to a platform on her left, then the one in front of that.

And it's working, it's actually working—

On the fifth platform she misjudges the distance after being thrown off by a flying club, and she accepts defeat with a controlled drop to the floor on her feet.

Too slow. She's allowing too much time for intervention. Vesper is already buzzing for her next attempt as she jogs back to the beginning, panting harder than before.

Retracing her steps, her momentum starts to build more with every new try. One, the route along the platforms clicks like muscle memory. Two, she hops over a swinging club and manages to regain her balance successfully this time, and on three, she catches up to Boaz. He may not be packed with muscle like some of his other Career friends, but he sure makes up for it in his sharp agility and speed. Although she can tell the moment he notices her swift adaption to the course, his face sours.

Too breathless to say anything, Vesper only glares at him from her platform and dares another leap. The exertion has suddenly kicked in, her calves burning furiously and the pulse in her temples suddenly visible in her periphery. Another couple of hops, near-misses from attacks by instructors that she's gotten used to, and she's almost there—

Then it all happens so fast; she's bending her knees to leap when Boaz springs himself onto the platform, and her mind tells her to do one thing but her reflexes are one step behind. Vesper is already jumping in the other direction, the club cutting through the air towards her only noticed too late.

The padding only makes the blow less fatal. Other than that, it slams into her stomach at an excruciating force, the sheer blow knocking her off her feet and landing her on the gym mat below, winded. Her chest heaves as her body aches with the impact of both hits, sprawled out as she squints at the nauseating fluorescent lights glaring down at her.

Vesper shuts her eyes to shield them from the blinding light — instead, it transports her to sunlight, and for a moment she loses herself in it. She envisions a silhouette looming over her; a head of unbelievably frizzy hair, with a toothy grin and piercing jade-green eyes locked onto hers. "Tag. You're it," she can almost hear Kirk say. It takes her back to their preteen days, back when she'd just moved to Vagary, didn't know anyone and their lighter weight meant it was less dangerous to play (although still fairly threatening). In that scrap yard where they used to run and jump, no such thought of what came next ever occurred to her... only her feet and her instinct guided her along each discarded car or rusted metal heap, which was a time trap waiting to collapse if you didn't act quick enough.

You're thinking too much, she thinks.

... See?

"Hey, you okay?" A voice she presumes is Icarus speaks above her. "Vesper?"

She'd forgotten how long she was lying on that mat — or maybe not for that long at all. Either way, she's taken aback to find the figure isn't Icarus, but in fact Levin. He is crouched down by her and leans one elbow on his knee, letting his slim hands and fingers dangle in a relaxed manner. Where did he come from? Has he been watching this whole time?

     "Yeah..." mumbles Vesper, "Fine." She starts to peel her sweaty skin off the gym mat, when Levin offers out a hand to help her up. Nevertheless, she effortlessly ignores it — purely out of being torn between distrust and... the opposite — and pulls her body weight back up onto its feet.

     Don't think too much.

     Deep breath. In, out...

She wastes no time the minute her feet hit the first platform. She imagines the tilting scraps of metal, like a tightrope balancing act at the circus, and the second she senses a shift in her surroundings she lets her gut bring her to the next platform, and the next one, and the one after that.

     A padded club flies through the air, narrowly missing her as she ducks to the side, using the manoeuvre to careen herself into the next platform — perhaps not so graciously, but at least she isn't flat on her face below.

     By the time she overtakes Boaz, she knows she is in control, simply by not controlling her every move. A swipe of the club at her feet makes her leap, finding herself on one of the last platforms before she's almost there, fingers out-stretching to ensure her landing—

     "Time!" One of the instructors at the top clicks a stopwatch, his face far too void of emotion after her achievement. He notes something down on a clipboard as she catches her breath.

     "Thirty-three seconds," he finally says.

     Thirty-three seconds. Not bad. Not bad at all.

     An embarrassingly loud applause rings out from Icarus below, who grins eagerly up at her on the top platform. A few eyes stare at him, wide and confused, but the only pair she cares about now are Boaz's — he clambers up onto the top, before springing up a little too fast as he attempts to mask the sudden bout of dizziness. His instructor waits a few seconds before revealing his own time:

     "Thirty-eight seconds."

     Almost instantly, Boaz's face crumples with envy — his scrutinising gaze draws up slowly until it meets Vesper, but doesn't rise any higher than her torso. He's ashamed.

     Good.

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Today's lunch marks the end of their time training in the gym, in which Vesper could really assess who she was up against — for now the private sessions will take place. The tributes are herded from the somewhat nerve-wrecked atmosphere in the cafeteria, and into a grey-walled room with benches for all of them. They are sat together in their pairs according to district partners, meaning Vesper finds herself sandwiched between Icarus and the boy from District Seven.

Strangely enough, she's finding it easier to identify tributes by their gender and district, not their given name. And not just out of the way it might haunt her, should she have to kill one of them.

Now is where she must show what she is really made of. What she does in that room, alone, performing to the Gamemakers, could account for all of her future sponsorships and rankings amongst other tributes (some direct verbatim from Hermia this morning, who'd managed to pull herself together despite the disturbance earlier that morning). It will be the first time the public eye, including Blythe, Axel and everyone else back home, can see just how much the odds are in Vesper Alfaro's favour.

She wishes she could have at least gone first, but since it's District order, she and Icarus will find themselves slapped right in the middle. The same goes for the interviews tomorrow.

Vesper suddenly cringes at herself. Oh GOD, the interviews...

No. That's tomorrow. A whole day away. Plenty of time to dread them, just not right now.

Only quiet murmurs between allies and district partners fill the room. Icarus nudges Vesper gently, and she turns to him, leaning forward a little so the boy from Five can't possibly eavesdrop.

"D'you have any idea what you're gonna do in there?" he whispers, sounding surprisingly presumptuous.

"Well, there's no way I'm not going to swing a sword around..." She pauses for a moment as he chuckles lightly. "But I'll probably test out some of the other survival stations too. You?"

"Similar thing. I'm getting pretty handy with a snare trap, too."

"Turns out you're handy at everything."

A loud sneeze from behind makes Icarus jump, and the pair of them turn around to find the culprit — the boy from District Eight sniffs awkwardly, staring so hard at his lap that the fabric might just catch fire. Icarus once told her his name was Calico.

"You know," whispers Icarus again when he turns back, "it's so weird to think how quickly this week's gone by."

"I know."

"It goes so much slower when you're watching at home."

"Yeah." He's right on that one. During 'Hunger Games season', if you will, the months following the Reaping tend to drag on with the constant coverage — it's especially worse when the obligatory viewing is just hour upon hour of watching a child starve to death on live television.

"And to think the interviews are tomorrow? Psshhh..." Icarus tilts his head back, wonder clouding his features. "I wonder what Axel's up to right now," he ponders. "And my parents. And my friends at school. And the others too, you know — Cheyenne, Bolt, Kirk, Blythe—"

Blythe. She wonders that too, sometimes. But only sometimes. If she gets lost inside her thoughts, she'll start envisioning her collapsed on the warehouse flaw, pale-skinned and frail like the last time she saw her. Vesper can only hope Axel is taking good care of her — or at least better care than she ever did.

     The automatic doors open to reveal Emerald, keeping her head low in a trail of golden hair that blazes behind her. But even as she's cutting a path past the benches her face is still visible — and is she... crying? It certainly looks like it, as her lip trembles with flushed pink cheeks and shiny eyes. As quickly as she emerges, she's left, and Boaz follows in after her, looking vaguely jarred. What could the District One girl possibly have done wrong in there to make her burst into tears?

     No matter. At least Boaz is out of the room.

The constant flood of tributes in and out continues, the Careers soon being completely cleared from the room, leaving only a bunch of mostly-terrified teens huddled together. Soon enough, there is a gaping space where the District Five girl was sitting next to Icarus, leaving him in an erratic state. Vesper doesn't even know what she's supposed to advise him on. Shoot straight?

She's never been great at the whole 'advice' thing — neither giving nor receiving it.

"Icarus Brunel."

Next to her, Icarus puffs out a breath she hadn't been aware he was holding in. He slaps his hands definitively on his thighs, as if he's trying to work himself up for it, before jumping up from his seat. "Well..." he trails off, and she'll never know what he was going to say next. Icarus approaches the doors cautiously — and for a moment, she really sees just how small and insignificant he looks in the doorway, with the backdrop of the giant, empty gym — before they close behind him, sealing him away from her protective reach.

The next fifteen minutes are agonising. Vesper begins holding her wrist in her hand, massaging her quickening pulse with her thumb as a calming mechanism; a random habit she picked up from her father. Her father... her brain makes one link to another—

     And just like that, her mother is looming strong in her mind once again. She imagines her sitting here, in this very seat, possibly wearing similar clothing. What was she thinking? Was she nervous? How did she do? This is driving her mad. When the first thing that should be on her mind is which stations she'll go to, instead she's dwelling on her identity-less dead mother.

The District Eight boy sneezes again, and someone else grumbles something intangible in response.

Just when the fifteen minutes are beginning to morph together into one long eternity, the doors open. Icarus steps out and, impulsively, Vesper stands up straight and looks him in the eye. How's it go? she tries to ask him, through some kind of telepathic communication.

The gentle nod of his head and his less tense demeanour replies, Not half bad.

Vesper smiles.

"Vesper Alfaro," the robotic voice calls out.

... for a moment.

A strange sort of calm takes over her then, washing over her like a warm summer's ray of sun. She recalls how powerful, invincible even, she felt jumping along those gauntlets. I can do this, she tells herself. I can do this.

     "Good luck."

     The disembodied voice throws her off the ball, and she swivels around to locate who it came from. Eventually she sees Fern, leaned back in her seat with a slouched posture, who simply nods at her with deep concentration burning in her features. Unsure of what to make of that, Vesper nods back, turning as the doors open for her.

     She can already see the Gamemakers congregated above, bathing in artificial magenta lights and still dining upon their lavish meals. How are they still ordering food? One of them she mentally tabs as Seneca Crane — the Head Gamemaker, he's identifiable by his intense gaze that makes her cower even from such a distance, and of course, his carefully sculpted stubble that rises along his cheek bones in elaborate shapes. He's pretty hard to forget from those interviews between segments of the Games.

     With a whoosh, the doors seal behind her. Vesper doesn't bother to turn around.

     "You have fifteen minutes," says Crane, peering down studiously at his expensive wrist-watch.

Vesper takes the deafening silence that follows as her cue to begin, and she quickly surveys her options. Fifteen minutes. What can she show in fifteen minutes? The best way, she figures, is to work her way up in terms of skill level. She first finds herself drawn over to the knot-tying station, where she threads her arm through a loop of rope and begins unravelling it.

     First a slip knot, then a half knot, she completes swiftly with ease. It's a lot less pressurising to complete the knots when no one's looking, but she makes the mistake of making accidental eye contact with Crane upon tying her nose knot, that she almost ties it wrong. Focus...

     By the time she's finished her figure-of-eight knot, hardly any time has passed. Was that a complete waste of time? She can't imagine knot-tying to be a particularly impressive feat for these Gamemakers. Time to move onto something a little more interesting.

     Vesper crosses over to the fire-starting station, bundling some dry sticks in her arms and carrying it over to their view. She can feel them looking her up and down as she arranges them appropriately, and it takes everything in her not to fidget uncomfortably. Carefully, she arranges some dried leaves, kindling and sticks in a small pile. She had become rather accustomed to the rubbing-sticks method, but there's simply no time, so she opts for the box of matches provided.

     She strikes the first match against the box and it snaps, the tip crumbling onto the floor. Burying her face away from the disapproval of the Gamemakers, she reaches inside the box and grabs another one. This time Vesper succeeds — on the first strike it hisses and erupts into a flickering flame. Very gently, she guides it down to the sticks with a covered hand shielding it, holding the flame there until it starts dancing along the kindling.

     Just to keep it going, she tosses some tinder in the form of pine needles onto the fire, and a minute later some dry bark, and before long she has a steady fire going. The warmth from the flames tingles on her skin, suddenly taking her back to a winter night not long ago — curled up in front of the dire little fireplace, Vesper's father had been draped weakly in a blanket as she and Blythe slept nearby on the floor. That was their last winter together.

     Not. Now.

     Satisfied she's proven her fire-starting skills, she manages to put it out just in time for her grand finale. Vesper tries not to appear too eager or hubristic as she makes her way over to the array of swords set out, just for her. She even knows which one she had been using earlier — her fingers trace its handle, remembering the feeling of it in her hands.

     Vesper presses the button to begin the simulation. It consists of the mannequins staying unmoving, but testing your reflexes in reaction to an approaching enemy, which would usually be prompted by the instructor in previous sessions. She waits for a few moments, standing in the centre of the ring of faceless mannequins...

     A low, vibrating hum sounds from behind her. Vesper spins around and identifies the mannequin glowing red at the slit of its neck — she takes one step forward and slashes the blade through the air. The head comes tumbling off in one swipe. Another hum sounds, this time right in front of her, and she slashes the arm off another mannequin— to her right, another, stabbed right in the chest, and then another, right over her shoulder in the eye. She could be doing this for days at this rate—

     "You are dismissed, Miss Alfaro."

     Vesper stops short, halfway through impaling a mannequin's pelvis. What? That's IT? Slowly and uncertainty, she lowers her sword, shuffling over to place it back on the rack of them. It definitely hadn't been fifteen minutes yet. What had she done wrong? Had she done anything wrong?

     Whatever she'd done, it is all she can do for now. The next time she holds a sword, it will be in the arena... if she even manages to get to one.

▬▬▬▬▬▬

"Oh, goodness gracious!" Hermia squawks, clip-clopping around the living room with an empty champagne glass in hand. "I always get so nervous at this part..."

     Vesper slouches tensely on the plush couch, stroking the velvet to distract herself from the impending broadcast. In just a few moments, their training scores will be broadcast — not just to the Capitol, but the whole of Panem. She wonders if Blythe and her friends are huddled around the television now, and if they know how much she is thinking about them in this very moment...

     Benedict has joined the team for the special occasion, dressed in a technicolour collared shirt with maroon trousers, a champagne bottle at the ready. "You never know," he says, winking at her and Icarus. "An underdog may emerge from the ashes."

There is a sense of the conscious effort to focus the mood away from Dale this morning, and onto the training scores — but instead it leaves an urgency that laces the air, putting everyone on edge. Mostly Irma. She sits perched on the end of the couch like a dove taking shelter, habitually twirling a long lock of blonde hair around her index finger.

Hermia manages to finally flick to the right channel, after much squabbling ("YES, Benedict, I know how to... push these buttons—") where they are in the midst of recaps from last year's Hunger Games. A panorama shot displays the arena of the Sixty-Seventh Hunger Games, a towering canyon that glowed furiously tiger-orange against the setting sun almost every night. Many tributes fell to their deaths in the efforts to climb out — Vesper recalls how shocking loud the CRUNCH of cracking bones was upon impact, making her shudder back home every time.

After the finishing shot of Augustus Braun — the Cavalier Career, brutally beating the last remaining tribute to a pulp until their face is an unrecognisable, raw hunk of bleeding flesh — the anthem of Panem fades back in, and it cuts to Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesworth chortling lightheartedly at their desks. Both look as batty as the other, Vesper thinks.

"Ah, and that was our re-cap from last year!" Caesar sighs dramatically. "Don't you just love Augustus Braun, Claudius?"

"I've got to agree with you, Caesar. Such a symbol of patriotism for our great country... a model victor, I might even add."

"... And a strapping young hunk too, don't you think?" This comment makes the two squawk with laughter once more, but the only reaction echoing it in the room is a small giggle from Hermia — and even that sounds particularly forced. Vesper simply can't remove the notion from her mind that, however stuck-up she might view Augustus to be, he's merely one year older than her and already consigned to life as a sex symbol. The same goes for Finnick Odair, and even Irma to an extent.

Do they try to force this upon every victor?

     "Now, for the moment we've all been waiting for. After three days of monitoring this year's tributes, our esteemed Gamemakers have come up with an invidious lead score for each of them."

     "Good luck," Icarus whispers suddenly.

     For what? she thinks. But still she replies, "Yeah, you too."

     First is District One, where predictably, Hermes manages to bag a score of 9, which is right in the middle of a Career's predictable range. But the next one evokes murmurs of bewilderment, as Emerald only comes out with a 6.

     "Well!" Hermia says, "That's a surprise..."

     Or maybe not. Vesper wonders to herself if that's why Emerald had rushed out today on the brink of tears. She tries to fathom if, after years of her childhood spent on preparing for this pinnacle moment, she lost it all in the blink of an eye.

     District Two passes — an 8 for Boaz, and a 10 for Hero — before the District Three emblem tattoos the screen. "Hey, it's Telle and Huxley next!" Icarus says eagerly, leaning forward in his seat, as does Vesper. She's certainly curious to see how these two fared...

     Huxley scores a fairly low, but predictable, score of 4. But it's Telle's score which sends the room into an electric frenzy. Caesar's eyes light up like a switch has been flicked, a stunned smile taking over his artificial features. With an enthusiastic flourish, he tosses his note card to the side and declares:

     "Eleven!"

     Despite it being another district, the entire team erupts into proud exclamations and complete shock over this girl. How young is she?, they ask. How did she do it? What is her secret? As a floating, holographic image of Telle's face soars up the existing leaderboard to first place, Icarus shakes his head with immense pride.

     "That's insane!" Vesper even manages to laugh, gripping his shoulder. "What the hell did she do in there today?"

     "I told you, she's super smart..."

     Which simply proves the methods of past victors alike: intelligence, most of the time, is favourable over a sharp weapon.

     They may be edging on ally territory, but Vesper takes a mental note to watch out for this girl. Telle has proven herself as a force to be reckoned with... and hung a giant bullseye mark on her back for any bloodthirsty Career to chase her down.

     In District Four, Levin scoops up a respectable 7, and Coral an impressive 9. By the time District Five's mediocre scores are rolling around, the entire team crowds obsessively around the screen — except for Irma, still sitting comfortably on the fringe. With every day passing, one day closer to the Bloodbath, Irma's restlessness only seems to increase tenfold.

     "And in District Six, we have... Icarus Brunel..."

     "Oh shoot, that's me!" he exclaims, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

     "... Six."

     A bout of polite applause rings out through the room, Benedict patting him on the back well-done. Icarus seems contented with his score, watching in awe as his number places him on the accumulating leaderboard. But Vesper thinks otherwise — he was easily one of the best archers in training with that precise aim, so how did he end up with only a 6?

When she asks this to him, Icarus shrugs. "I got a little shaky in there. You know, nerves..." he admits bashfully. "But it's good! 6 is good— no, better than good."

"Vesper Alfaro..."

Oh God. She hadn't mentally prepared herself for this. Bracing herself, she shuts her eyes, unsure of what to expect next...

"... Eight!"

"Oh!" Hermia shoots up from her seat, clapping her hands together.

An 8? She wonders what that was for, since the Gamemakers had dismissed her before her time was even up. She thought they'd hated what she had done. Perhaps it had been the opposite... and she isn't sure how to feel about that. Vesper lets her shoulders relax as Icarus tackles her into an excited hug of congratulations, watching her name fly up and wedge itself just above Levin and right below Boaz.

The rest of the scores drown out to them — notably there is an 8 for Fern, an admirable 9 for Durian, and a whopping 10 for Talon — as the team rushes around to celebrate, except for Irma, who simply nods to Vesper with a weak smile.

"Well done," she congratulates her in a low voice, her hair-fiddling starting to grow obsessive. "To the both of you."

They nod in return, just as Benedict arrives with his long-awaited champagne bottle.

"Well... HUZ-ZAH!" he cries. The cork pops off and goes flying across the room, almost taking out a precious porcelain vase (much to Hermia's horror). Benedict hops around hyperactively filling people's drink with the fizzing liquid that spills over his knuckles and falls in puddles on the polished marble floor. He proposes a toast to "their gladiators" once more, and the adults drink...

All except for Irma, who stares at an empty cushion on the couch. Right where Dale should be sitting.

"Mmm..." Hermia waves a flourishing hand in the air, trying her best not to panic over the mess being made on the floor. "An 8 is an exceptional score for someone of your... inexperienced background. That's usually the minimum expectation for a Career, you know!"

Thanks, Hermia. You know JUST how to make me feel dazzlingly inspired.

"And do you know what this means?"

"What?"

Hermia purses her rouged lips together and raises her glass to her. "You're a threat!"

"... Yay?" How is she supposed to react to that? But Vesper knows she's right. Just like Telle, she'll have a bright and clear target painted on her back now everyone else knows how skilled she might actually be. Although Vesper would rather not tempt fate too soon. If there is anything she has learned from years of watching the Hunger Games, it's this: once you're waiting on those podiums around the Cornucopia, all the odds are set back to square one.

Anything can happen.

▬▬▬▬▬▬

A/N;

WELL... it's been a while, but i finally motivated myself to write this chapter, despite having a love-hate relationship with it. i don't know why but i really struggle with training scenes, so with this chapter it got to the point where i gave up on pretty descriptions and was like "JUST GET THIS CHAPTER OVER WITH" and thank god i did, because i feel better for it... it's also super unedited so don't mind the mistakes, oops—

^^ sorry if that all ended up sounding super aggressive... twas a painful chapter to write haha

on a side note...... dale 😭

as always, any feedback is greatly appreciated, and thank you for reading!

[ published: 15th april, 2021 ]

— Imogen