"elowen, if you say those three words again i swear i will put an axe through your skull."
"go to sleep, johanna."
╰┈➤ In which Elowen North of District Seven, dealing with fresh trauma from her Hunger Games, falls in love with Seven's other feisty...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
For the first time this week, I don't wake up with a pounding head. This is especially strange considering today is interview day and Rowan goes into the arena tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning, she'll be gone.
I get to Rowan's room just before Aeneas does. He looks surprised to see me. "Oh, good morning, Elowen. I thought you would still be in your room."
"Morning, Aeneas." I rest my hand on the handle of the door to Rowan's room to make it obvious he won't be needed to wake her up. "I'll wake my sister up. You can head to breakfast."
Aeneas keeps opening and closing his mouth, as if trying to decide whether he wants to object or not. Eventually, he just nods. "As you wish, Elowen."
Rowan lifts her head up at the sound of the door opening, and she smiles when she sees it's me.
"I thought you would still be asleep," I say, closing the door behind me.
A faint grin creeps up on Rowan's face. "I didn't get much sleep. I'll be fine, though."
"That's normal, don't worry." I stroke the redhead's cheek. "You have your interview today. With the way you've been interacting with the Capitol citizens so far, I'm sure they'll love you. You'll be fine."
"El?" Rowan asks. "Do you think they'll ask about Kaede?"
"They definitely will." I open the door just a crack. "Breakfast in five minutes."
-
"How did Rowan do?" I ask. Johanna had spent the first four hours of the day teaching Rowan what Johanna calls "pointless manners that only the Capitol cares about".
Johanna plops down on the couch unceremoniously. I take a seat down next to her. "Well, I guess your sister wasn't a huge pain in the ass," she says.
"That's good?" I reply.
Johanna rolls her eyes. "She was fine, great, even." She starts picking at her nails. "Most of the other kids I've had to train were practically brainless."
Rowan peeks her head into the room just as Johanna is saying the word "brainless". She raises her eyebrows.
Johanna smirks and stands up. "I'll leave you two to do whatever interview stuff."
-
Finding an angle for Rowan's interview is the among one of the easiest tasks I've had to do since arriving in the Capitol. My sister has an outgoing and sweet personality, and tends to smile a lot. She is also young enough to elicit feelings of sympathy from both the Capitol and District crowd, which is another positive factor.
"I think you'll do great," I say after our four hours are up and the prep teams and stylists will burst into the room at any given moment. "You're already a Capitol favourite. Which is saying something, considering our district is heavily ignored in general." The Capitol naturally gravitates towards the tributes from the Career districts because they are usually the strongest and have the most love for the Capitol.
