Caspia had returned from her private session with a wide smile on her face and she'd spent all evening buzzing in excitement to hear their training scores. Throughout dinner she'd gone for all the traditional District 4 foods and finally they'd sat down in front of the television, Caspia leaning forward with anticipation. First, a 10 for Eden and a 9 for Madeline, both excellent scores. Then, an 11 for Chaska and another 9 for Gloria.
"I'm not surprised but Chaska's score is amazing!" She commented eagerly during the break provided by the District 3 tributes scores. "I wonder if he did something cool in the Gamemaker session."
She shut up again to listen to their own scores, grinning at Killick when his score of 10 was announced and then bouncing once in her seat when 11 flashed up on screen.
"Killick! We did so good!" She cried excitedly. Half of her was still trying to pay attention to the other tributes training scores, it was probably wise to know which tributes were the worst threats, but the rest of her was busy being excited. Sharnaz and Sienna, that girl Eden had been speaking to, seemed to be the strongest non-careers, their scores just falling lower than Madeline and Gloria's. She snorted at the final score, Reyna's. The rude girl had got exactly what she was deserved.
Now the final tune of Panem's anthem rang out to close the training scores and Caspia turned again to look at her District partner and mentor. Edmund seemed to have been so excited he'd knocked his glasses wonky. He'd been the honourable victor of the 6th games, so having him get excited for them was wonderful. He asked them what they did in their private sessions and Caspia shrugged, though her face was still glowing.
"I just asked the strongest looking trainer to spar with me. It was pretty fun actually, they were really good!"
She hadn't been expecting such a high score, Caspia had just wanted to show off doing her favourite thing - sparring. She wondered what her family and friends back home were thinking now. No doubt her best friend, Kari, was jumping around and talking a mile-a-minute as she usually did whenever something exciting happened.
She looked to Killick now, interested in what went down in his own training session.
———
Felix Prestman | District 12 | Location: Cafeteria | Tags: Maverick
Felix had spent the evening feeling slightly queasy. He had been surprised at how much he'd enjoyed the 3 days of training, learning new skills with Penny. He had continued to steer clear from all the weaponry stations but the survival stations had been helpful, and at least he'd learnt some stuff. Problem was that now that was all over. There would be no more training. The next time he would see Penny, if he saw Penny again, was in The Games where they'd be under the constant threat of death. Nothing was going to be the same, and now he was sat waiting to see how terribly the Gamemakers thought he'd do in the game.
The first scores were the Careers and they were terrifyingly high. There were a few non-Careers with pretty high scores too. When Penny was revealed to have scored a 6 his anxious expression dissolved into a small smile. Above average! He couldn't say he was too surprised, the District 8 girl was incredible - the way she'd picked up knife-throwing and all those other skills so quickly. At least one of them wasn't completely useless.
He continued to watch until finally it was his turn. His mouth fell partially open when his score was revealed to be a 6 too. All he'd done in the private sessions was go through a few of the survival skills stations, focusing mainly on the First Aid one. Without any fighting skills he had been sure he'd score poorly but it seemed the Gamemakers had liked him. He wished Penny was here instead of Reyna so he could congratulate her and share his happiness over their shared score. That thought was only reinforced by the sound of a slap.
"Oh.." He winced, having looked up and saw Reyna's 1. She clearly wasn't too happy with that, destroying everything she could get her hands on before finally stomping off to her room. Felix couldn't pretend that he felt sorry for her, she hadn't said a pleasant word to him this entire time. He gave Maverick an uneasy smile of sympathy - that slap had sounded painful. His mentor congratulated him with a grin before asking him to make a promise. Felix wasn't entirely sure he had much hope that he would survive at this point before even entering the arena but he wouldn't deny his mentor.
"Okay." He replied firmly, "I promise - I'll try my best to stay hopeful."
Maverick had won the Games when Felix was 10, and he could only remember brief flashes of those games - the ruthless Tom, Maverick's district partner being used a bait, the games ending with an honourable fight with the final Career where his mentor was saved by the District 10 boy.
"But how did you do it?" He asked softly, "- not lose hope, I mean."
