Both of the District Eleven tributes looked shattered. They were used to long hours and exhaustion, but nothing had quite prepared them for the sheer bustling activity of the Capitol. They always needed to be somewhere different, or there was always someone trying to talk to them, or they had to concentrate hard, especially in Skyler's case. She'd found the interview training difficult, even though Oak tried to make it interesting by making sly comments about the various Capitol people who came to visit and gawp at them through the windows. They'd stuck together in training and competed with each other, ignoring almost all the tributes from richer districts. Out of all the pairs, they'd got along best, with only one little disagreement. Skyler had insisted that they should be friends/ allies with the twins; Oak had disagreed because he found them annoying. The matter was settled when they both fell asleep over the meal they'd been eating and had completely forgotten the argument when they woke up.
Skyler yawned as she made her way to the chair, her feet dragging despite all the practice at walking. She tried to stifle it with her hand but she was just so tired that it was like trying to hold back a tornado with an apple tree. Martina noticed, patting the chair with a smile. "It's been a long night, hasn't it?" she said.
Skyler nodded, forcing the fog of her brain to remember what she'd practiced in interview training. "Yes, I suppose it has. But it won't be my last."
"Brave words indeed! So tell me, honey, what makes you different to all these other tributes?"
"Um..." She couldn't think. Her brain just kept reminding her how nice it was to just switch off for once. Eventually she came up with something. "I'm...I'm no more special than any of them. And we've all got our reasons, our skills" - she had to fight back a yawn again - "but we've all got our weaknesses too. Mine are different to everyone else's. So...so that might work to my advantage," she finished lamely. Martina nodded as though she'd found it fascinating.
"I think that's very wise of you," she reassured her. Skyler gave her a small smile, her eyelids starting to droop. Her stylists had done a good job of covering up the dark circles etched under her eyes but there were other signs they could do nothing about, like her head hanging slightly, her eyelids flickering closed and the small yawns that she kept biting back. It was only eleven o'clock.
"Skyler, are you still with us?" Martina laughed. Skyler shook her head to clear it. The fog was getting thicker now and she wasn't thinking straight at all.
"I don't...I'm just so tired. It's been a busy few days," she explained, prodding the bruise on her right arm. She'd got it by accidentally wandering in the way of one of the Career tributes while they were waving a small stick around. Her glasses were perched askew on her small little nose, gleaming in the light and hiding the colour of her eyes. Her hair was fighting its way out from the thin plaits the stylists had forced it into.
"So you've been working hard at training then?"
"Yes, yes, very hard indeed. Show the others we're not just your average Eleven tributes," Skyler murmured, remembering the little phrase that Daisy had suggested. Even to her it sounded ineffective. She was just so tired. The buzz and bumble of the crowd swam before her eyes. She envied little Fiona so much right now; the girl was asleep in one of the back rooms, or maybe already back at the training building.
"That's right, honey, you tell them!" urged Martina, patting her hand. She didn't have the energy to snatch it away although Martina's hand was warm and damp. It was impossible to tell if she was tired or not; her face was plastered with so much makeup that it made her skin look rubbery. Her famous eyeliner was smudged into the small crow's feet starting to cluster around her eyes and her hair was probably almost half of her body mass. And she was small. Skyler reckoned that she would probably reach up to her shoulders. It was disorientating. Martina usually looked so beautiful, so full of life and youth. But she was getting old. Older, anyway.
"Love your shoes," Skyler mumbled. Her own shoes were simple little flats, which were at least comfortable. Martina leant forward, revealing most of her chest, and patted her yellow skyscrapers proudly. "Thank you, honey!" she chirped. The girl was about to drop whether the crowd were watching or not, but she decided to try and get them involved anyway. "Don't you all love them too?" she asked.
A couple of women cheered, while the men rolled their eyes and groaned good-naturedly. "You and your bloody shoes!" shouted Martina's husband.
Skyler chuckled quietly. They were awful shoes really, too vivid to stay clean and horribly impractical, especially for running and climbing and wandering through fields. They would probably give her a bad back when she was older, too. But she supposed that they were amazing if you lived in the Capitol and you didn't have to do anything.
All these people could do with a few days of hard work and a few months of starvation, like she and everyone else in Eleven faced on a regular basis. Only four days ago she'd been living in a crumbling house with a leaky roof, watching matchstick children slowly starve to death climbing trees, her back baking while the trams clattered constantly and every so often she could hear the sounds of the Peacekeepers beating or even shooting someone. Here there was so much noise it was a wonder people heard anyone. Everything was fixed almost the second it was broken, and it was all coloured like children's paintings. It had no personality, no homely feel, no real imperfections. She imagined that it was impossible to feel as attached to this place as she was to her flawed Eleven, but in that case why did they fight back?
Her head spun and she tried to focus on whatever Martina had just said. "Excuse me?" she muttered.
"Your family, honey. Talk to me about them."
"They're very small. Me, Ma, Pa, Vintage. She's my little sister. She's waiting for me back home." This was good. She'd rehearsed for this, kind of. Martina leant forwards, pretending to be interested. Almost every tribute had a story like this but she had to act like it was new to her.
"How little?"
"Thirteen. She looks a lot like me."
"Cute!" was Martina's comment, and it was echoed by many of the crowd. Skyler nodded, forcing down the yawn that was bubbling up in her throat. This was her chance to get herself on the same page as the others. "I love her more than anything else in the world. And I'm planning on going back to her."
"And do your plans usually work out?"
"They've never failed."
This was very good, but she ruined it by drooping forwards slightly. Martina smiled sympathetically. "You're done now, honey! Now you go back to your seat and get a good rest. It's a big day tomorrow!"
Most of the tributes suddenly realised just how big a day. Dark, Amber, Klaus and Tile didn't bother to hide their massive grins, all of them believing that tomorrow would be the first step towards being famous. Almost everyone else started twitching, fiddling or, in Cherry's case, crying.
Oak wasn't unaffected, but he pretended to be, straightening his suit as he passed Skyler. Her feet were shuffling. He was proud of her. She'd given everything one hundred percent over the last few days. "Well done!" he mouthed at her as she passed.
"I'm so tired!" she mouthed back, with a smile.
"Oak, honey!" Martina called, reaching out to shake his hand. He did so graciously, bowing his head in respect. "Hello," he muttered.
"Oh, aren't you sweet! So, Oak, tell me a bit about why you might win the Hunger Games."
"I think Skyler said them all," he said, so quietly that Martina had to shove the microphone further towards his face, "We're all good at some things and bad at others. Even the Careers have their weak points. Just gotta make sure we use that to our advantage. Everyone has a chance at winning." He adjusted his suit again; a dark blue blazer jacket with crisp white shirt and black trousers. He'd never worn so many clothes before and it was stuffy and uncomfortable and as soon as he could, he was taking off the jacket. Then he looked down at his hands. It was better than looking out across the crowd anyway.
"Very sensible," agreed Martina, "So out of all our tributes here, considering that you know more about their strengths and weaknesses than we do, who are you the most..uh...wary of?" She didn't want to say scared; she was supposed to avoid anything to do with fear. The rule book had been torn up tonight, though.
Oak glanced up at her, dark eyes beaming, before looking back down at his slender hands. He looked, she reflected, like a young boy nervous about speaking to a girl. Though he was seventeen. "Myself," he whispered.
Martina and the crowd were surprised by this and muttered accordingly. "Why's that, honey?"
"I don't want...I'm worried what I might do, to survive, you know," he mumbled, "I don't want to be a killer and if I have to I'm worried it might change me." The crowd cooed lovingly. A few of the more intelligent, who weren't that drunk yet, had to admit that they knew what he meant. Before the Games Enzo had been the nice guy, like Oak, although he'd played the crowd a bit more. Now he had violent mood swings and looked almost constantly in a bad mood. The Enzo of four years ago wouldn't have dared to interrupt the interview like he had tonight.
Martina crouched next to his chair and put a comforting arm around his shoulder, although it was obvious that he wasn't going to cry. His eyes were shining in the lights with a kind of inner confidence, so bright that Martina was taken aback.
Oak knew that this was going well. The crowd were lapping up his scared little boy act, not that it took much to fool these idiots, and they'd already counted him out. They wouldn't expect him to do well, let alone to do well without giving them what they wanted; murder. He hadn't been lying about not wanting to be a killer.
"I'm sure you'll be fine, honey," Martina crooned, and he had to wonder how many of the tributes she'd said that to before were now dead. All of them, he'd bet. He wasn't sure that he'd be fine, but he was certain about one thing.
He wasn't going to give them what they wanted.
"I hope I will," he muttered, "Maybe the odds will be in District Eleven's favour for once!" He twisted his hands together.
"That's the spirit!" cried Martina, and the crowd, practically pulled on a string and taught to recognise certain cues, cheered happily. Ugh. They were happy at the thought of watching him die. He refused to give them that satisfaction.
"You've got a great training score; what do you have to say about that?"
He shrugged, glancing up at her and then back down again, "It doesn't matter. Okay, so I can shoot a dummy. It doesn't mean I can shoot a person."
Skyler watched proudly, occasionally wiping her eyes to try and keep herself awake. They'd been in interview training together but even she wasn't sure that Oak was acting. She knew that he hated this place, like her, but it was impossible to tell.
"Very true! My, aren't this bunch intelligent! I think it'll be an entertaining Games this year!" exclaimed Martina. The crowd roared happily. Oak gritted his teeth and started resolutely at the floor. He wasn't entertainment, he was an actual human being. They could physically see him, up on stage. How could they still act like he was just a character on a screen, to be killed off when the producers got bored?
He couldn't say any of this without giving himself away. So he said nothing while Martina calmed the mob down. "Well, Oak," she said, her eyes flickering to the little timer, "Your time is nearly up, so is there anything you want to say before you go?"
Go to my death, he thought absently. "Yes," he said out loud, "I realise this sounds a bit...cliche, but this is meant not for you people out here, but for the people watching back home. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I might have to do to you all. I don't want to take your children, your brothers, your sisters, your boyfriends, girlfriends, friends. And I'm sure, deep down, they don't want to take me either. Please understand that."
There was absolute silence as he shuffled back to his seat, head down, hair falling in front of his face.
Skyler smiled at him and promptly fell asleep.