𝐆𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐘 & 𝐆𝐎𝐑𝐄. ᵀᴴᴳ[1]

3

      THE NEXT MORNING WAS NOTHING SHORT OF EVENTFUL. Sage had gotten barely an hour of sleep; he tossed and turned and whenever he would begin to drift off, the sounds of the train would jolt him awake. Whether it was a door closing, or footsteps outside his door. A couple times, he heard the command door open and shut, and he would jolt awake fully expecting to see Prim making her way into his room. It was a reminder that would possibly be the only real memories she had of him; she was old enough that she could forget things about him by the time she was old enough for the reaping.

      By the time that Effie Trinket knocked on his door, he was already awake. And he had been for a few hours, pacing his cabin and watching his soundings outside the train change. Now, they were travelling through the mountains, which he had never seen before. He was used to the thick forest outside twelve that would be damaged by a strong storm— these mountains looked indestructible. It was like they were being brought to another cage that surrounded the arena.

      After he took five minutes to freshen up in his bathroom be taking one of the soft clothes that sat on the counter and covered it with cold water; he pressed it against his face a few times— the cool water was enough to wake him up a bit. Despite not being able to sleep, he was still exhausted. He then made his way to the dining car for their team meeting as Effie called it.

"Just in time," Effie beamed, her colorful look that she had worn to the reaping was freshened up with new makeup and a pale face. "Haymitch was just about to begin, weren't you, Haymitch?" she said as she looked to the middle aged, disheveled man for agreement as the same two avoxes from dinner begin to unload a cart of delicious smelling food onto the table. Deedee who already was seated beside Effie, was watching them with wide eyes.

"Yeah, I was just about to begin sharing my lifesaving advice." he said, his tone held a certain amount of sarcasm that irritated Sage. Then even more irritating to Sage was how Haymitch poured himself some coffee, and then pulled out his flask and poured some of his amber colored whiskey into it.

"I'm sure you were..." he murmured as he lowered himself down into a seat. And as soon as the words left his mouth, by the sound of Effie's small gasp he knew they came out louder than he had intended.

"Sage!" she began, "Have some manners!"

     He didn't respond. He wasn't one to ever talk back, not really at least. Sure he could have an attitude with his mother when she would ask him to do something, or with their principal at school when he threatened to report Sage to the peacekeepers for selling small pelts to his classmates. And he knew that Haymitch would join the list of people he would get an attitude with; Effie not so much. Sure, she was a bit of an odd ball, and her perfume was horrendously overwhelming. But she seemed nice enough, and she didn't seem to be mentally capable of understanding why Sage would be irritated to be there in the first place. So instead of saying anything, he began to load up his plate with breakfast— if he was going to die, he might as well enjoy himself how he can. And some frenchtoast, which was something his mother would make whenever she could, and some strawberry syrup with blueberries was something he could enjoy.