Tsunami Hunger Games AU

PLEASE NOTE: Most of this text rightfully belongs to Suzanne Collins!!! I give 99% credit to here for this AU. I mearly took WOF characters and stuck them into the story. 
Wings of Fire is a book series that belongs to Tui T Sutherland, thus most of the characters and  Pyrrhia belong to her. Those characters include Tsunami, Herring , Riptide, Auklet, Anemone, and the tributes, there are much more but that would take too long to list. This is the same with The Hunger Games that is owned by Suzanne Collins. She owns the names of most of the characters, such as Effie Trinket, Haymitch, Cinna, the stylists, and more. I took those names and applied them to the tribes (that are owned by Tui) and in a way made OCs. 
Now, we shove the Hunger Games and Wings of Fire in a blender and create this Chaos! Enjoy!
== Chapter One ==
When I wake up, the other side of the bed is empty. My talons stretch out, seeking Auklet’s scales but finding only the seaweed of our bed. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping.
There's enough light coming down in the bedroom to see them. My little sister, Auklet, curled up on her side, cocooned in my mother's wings, their cheeks pressed together. In sleep, my mother, Coral, looks younger, still worn but not so beaten-down. Auklet’s face is as fresh as a raindrop, as cunning as the bird for which she was named. My mother was very beautiful once, too. Or so they tell me. Across the room, Anemone, our middle sister, sleeps soundly. I love her too, but Auklet and I share a special bond. Most likely since I rescued her as an egg.
I slide off the bed and swim up to the dry part of our hut. I grab my forage bag that sits on a shelf and sling it over my shoulder . On the widest shelf that serves as a table, in a wooden bowl sits a small fish as well as a few octopus tentacles. Auklet and Anemone’s gifts to me on reaping day. I put the them carefully in my pack as I swim outside.
Our part of the Sea District, nicknamed the Dive, is usually crawling with pearl divers heading out to the morning shift at this hour. Dragons with stiff necks, sore wings, and many who have stopped trying to stand upright as the deep pressure takes its toll on them. But today the currents are empty. Doors on the ramshackle, half in water half out of water, Shacks are locked. The reaping isn't until two. May as well sleep in. If you can. Our shack is almost at the edge of the Dive, close to land. I only have to swim a few minutes to reach the beach called the Surface. Separating the Surface from the rest of Pyrrhia, in fact enclosing all of the Sea District, is a very tall chain-link fence topped with barbed-wire. In theory, it's supposed to be electrified twenty-four hours a day as a deterrent to escapees, But since we're lucky to get two or three hours of electricity in the evenings, it's usually safe to touch. A few tried to fly over it’s high walls, but are always spotted by the IceWing Peacekeepers, who are always more grumpy in the heat. Even so, I always take a moment to listen carefully for the hum that means the fence is live. Right now, it's silent as a stone. Concealed by a clump of bushes, I flatten out on my belly and slide under a two-foot stretch that's been loose for years. There are several other weak spots in the fence, but this one is so close to home I almost always enter the woods here.
As soon as I'm in the trees, I retrieve a bow and sheath of arrows from a hollow log.  There’s no real paths to follow, and always the risk of Peacekeeper’s finding you.. But there's also food if you know how to find it. My father knew and he taught me some before he was taken by the Peacekeeper’s, who thought he was getting rebellious. We never knew what happened to him. I was two then. Five years later, I still wake up screaming for him to escape.
Even though trespassing in the woods is illegal and poaching carries the severest of penalties, more dragons would risk it if they had weapons. But most are not bold enough to venture out with just a knife or small spear. My bow is a rarity, crafted by my father along with a few others that I keep well hidden in the woods, carefully wrapped in waterproof covers. My father, Gill, could have made good money selling them, but if the officials found out he would have been publicly executed for inciting a rebellion. Most of the Peacekeepers turn a blind eye to the few of us who hunt because they're as hungry for fresh meat as anybody is. In fact, they're among our best customers. But the idea that someone might be arming the Dive would never have been allowed. In the fall, a few brave souls sneak into the woods to harvest apples or edible plants, But always in sight of the Meadow. Always close enough to run or fly back to the safety of the Sea District if trouble arises. "The Sea District. Where you can starve to death in safety," I growl. Then I glance quickly over my shoulder. Even here, even in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you.
When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out or brightly flash in aquatic about the Sea District, about the people who rule our country, Pyrrhia, from the far-off city called the Capitol. Eventually I understood this would only lead us to more trouble. So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts. Do my work quietly in school. Make only polite small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than trades in the Hob, which is the black market where I make most of my money.
Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food shortages, or the Hunger Games. Auklet or Anemone might begin to repeat my words and then where would we be? In the woods waits the only dragon with whom I can be myself. Riptide. I can feel the muscles in my snout relaxing, my pace quickening as I climb the hills to our place, a rock ledge overlooking a valley. A thicket of berry bushes protects it from unwanted eyes. The sight of him waiting there brings on a smile. Riptide says I never smile except in the woods.
I fly the last few strides. "Hey, Salami," says Riptide, flashing the salami in aquatic. My real name is Tsunami, but when I first told him, I had barely whispered it. So he thought I'd said Salami. We fist bump, "Look what I shot. " Riptide holds up a loaf of bread with an arrow stuck in it, and I laugh. It's real bakery bread, not the flat, dense loaves we make from our grain rations. I take it in my talons, pull out the arrow, and hold the puncture in the crust to my nose, inhaling the fragrance that makes my snout flood with saliva. Fine bread like this is for special occasions.
"Mm, still warm," I say. He must have been at the bakery at the crack of dawn to trade for it. "What did it cost you?" "Just a squirrel. Think the old dragon was feeling sentimental this morning," says Riptide. "Even wished me luck.
"Well, we all feel a little closer today, don't we?" I say, not even bothering to roll my eyes. "Auklet and Anemone left us a fish and few tentacles." I take them out.
His snout breaks into a smile at the treat. "Thanks to your sisters, We'll have a real feast." Suddenly he falls into a Capitol accent as he mimics Effie Trinket, the maniacally upbeat RainWing who arrives once a year to read out the names at the reaping. "I almost forgot! Happy Hunger Games!" He plucks a few blackberries from the bushes around us.
"And may the odds -" He tosses a berry in a high arc toward me. I catch it in my snout and break the delicate skin with my sharp teeth. The sweet tartness explodes across my tongue. "- be ever in your favor!" I finish with equal verve. We have to joke about it because the alternative is to be scared out of your wits. Besides, the Capitol accent is so affected, almost anything sounds funny in it. I watch as Riptide pulls out his knife and slices the bread.
He could be my brother. His scales are only a shade darker than mine, Our snouts are very similar, and we have the same build. But we're not related, at least not closely. Most of the families who live at the Dive resemble one another. 
That's why Auklet and Anemone always look out of place. Anemone has light pink accents, and Auklet’s scales are a dark green. My mother's parents were part of the small merchant class that caters to officials, Peacekeepers, and the occasional Dive customer. They ran an apothecary shop in the nicer part of the Sea District. Since almost no one can afford doctors, apothecaries are our healers. My father got to know my mother because on his hunts he would sometimes collect medicinal herbs and sell them to her shop to be brewed into remedies. She must have really loved him to leave her home for the Dive. I try to remember that when all I can see is the dragon who sat by, blank and unreachable, while her dragonets turned to scale and bones. I try to forgive her for my father's sake.
But to be honest, I'm not the forgiving type.
Riptide takes the bread slices with the octopus, carefully placing half a fish on each while I strip the bushes of their berries. We settle back in a nook in the rocks. From this place, we are invisible to dragon’s flying overhead, but have a clear view of the valley, which is teeming with summer life, greens to gather and roots to dig. The day is glorious, with a blue sky and soft breeze. Perfect flying weather, if we could fly without the deadly risk of being spotted. The food's wonderful, and everything’s better with food in your stomach. Everything would be absolutely perfect if this really was a holiday, if all the day off meant was roaming the mountains with Riptide, hunting for tonight's supper. But instead we have to be standing in the square at two o'clock waiting for the names to be called out.
“We could do it, you know," Riptide says quietly.
"What?" I ask.
"Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it," says Riptide.
Moons above. I don't know how to respond. The idea is so preposterous.
"If we didn't have so many dragonets," he adds quickly.
They're not our dragonets, of course. But they might as well be. My two sisters. Auklet and Anemone. And you may as well throw in my mother, too, because how would she live without us? Who would fill those mouths that are always asking for more? With both of us hunting daily, there are still nights when game has to be swapped for supplies to keep our house together, still nights when we go to bed with our stomachs growling.
"I never want to hatch eggs," I say.
"I might. If I didn't live here," says Riptide.
"But you do," I say, irritated.
"Forget it," he snaps back.
The conversation feels all wrong. Leave? How could I leave Auklet, who is the only dragon in the world I'm certain I love? We can't leave, so why bother talking about it? And even if we did ... even if we did . . . where did this stuff about hatching dragonets come from? There's never been anything romantic between Riptide and me. When we met, I was a skinny four year old dragonet, and although he was only a year older, he almost looked like a full grown Dragon. It took a long time for us to even become friends, to stop haggling over every trade and begin helping each other out.
Besides, if he wants dragonets, Riptide won't have any trouble finding a mate. He's good-looking, he's strong enough to handle the pearl diving, and he can hunt. You can tell by the way the girls whisper about him when he walks by in school that they want him. It makes me jealous but not for the reason dragons would think. Good hunting partners are hard to find.
"What do you want to do?" I ask. We can hunt, fish, or gather.
"Let's fish at the lake. Then, gather in the woods. Get something nice for tonight," he says.
Tonight. After the reaping, everyone is supposed to celebrate. And a lot of dragons do, out of relief that their dragonets have been spared for another year. But at least two families will lock their doors, and try to figure out how they will survive the painful weeks to come.
I hope it’s not ours.
We make out well. By late morning, we have a dozen fish, a bag of greens and, best of all, a gallon of strawberries. I found the patch a few years ago, but Riptide had the idea to string mesh nets around it to keep out the animals.
On the way home, we fly by the Hob, the black market that operates in an abandoned warehouse that once held the pearls that were sent to the Capitol. When they came up with a more efficient system that transported the pearls directly from the ocean to the trains, the Hob gradually took over the space.
Most businesses are closed by this time on reaping day, but the black market's still fairly busy. We easily trade six of the fish for good bread, the other two for salt.
Greasy Sae, the bony old SeaWing who sells bowls of hot soup from a large kettle, takes half the greens off our talons in exchange for a couple of chunks of paraffin. We might do a tad better elsewhere, but we make an effort to keep on good terms with Greasy Sae. She's the only one who can consistently be counted on to buy wild dog.
We don't hunt them on purpose, but if you're attacked and you take out a dog or two, well, meat is meat. "Once it's in the soup, I'll call it beef," Greasy Sae says with a wink. No one in the Dive would turn up their nose at a good leg of wild dog, but the IceWing Peacekeepers who come to
the Hob can afford to be a little choosier.
When we finish our business at the market, we go to the back door of the mayor's house to sell half the strawberries, knowing he has a particular fondness for them and can afford our price. The mayor's daughter,
Moray, opens the door. She's in my year at school. Being the mayor's daughter, you'd expect her to be a snob, but she's all right. She just keeps to herself. Like me. Since neither of us really has a group of friends, we seem to end up together a lot at school. Eating lunch, sitting next to each other at assemblies, partnering for swimming and flying competitions. We rarely talk, which suits us both just fine. Today she is wearing a string of shiny pearls that loops around her neck and drapes around her wings.  Reaping clothes.
"Nice pearls," says Riptide.
Moray shoots him a look out of her small eyes, trying to see if it's a genuine compliment or if he's just being ironic. They are very high quality pearls, but she would never be wearing them ordinarily. She stares at him and then smiles. "Well, if I end up going to the Capitol, I want to look nice, don't I?" Now it's Riptide's turn to be confused. Does she mean it? Or is she messing with him? I'm guessing the second.
"You won't be going to the Capitol," says Riptide coolly. His sharp eyes land on a small, circular pin that adorns her pearls.
Real gold. Beautifully crafted. It could keep a family in bread and fish for months. "What can you have? Five entries? I had six when I was just twelve years old.
"That's not her fault," I say.
"No, it's no one's fault. Just the way it is," says Riptide.
Moray’s face has become closed off. She puts the money for the berries in my talons. "Good luck, Tsunami." "You, too," I say, and the door closes.
We take off and fly toward the Ocean in silence. I don't like that Riptide took a dig at Moray, but he's right, of course. The reaping system is unfair, with the poor getting the worst of it. You become eligible for the reaping the day you turn four. That year, your name is entered once. At five, twice. And so on until you reach the age of eight, the final year of eligibility, when your name goes into the pool four times. That's true for every citizen in all ten districts in the entire country of Pyrrhia. But here's the catch. Say you are poor and starving as we were. You can opt to add your name more times in exchange for tesserae. Each tessera is worth a meager year's supply of meat for one dragon. You may do this for each of your family members as well. So, at the age of five, I already had my name entered four times. Once, because I had to, and three times for tesserae for myself, Auklet, Anemone and my mother. In fact, every year I have needed to do this. And the entries are cumulative. So now, at the age of six, my name will be in the reaping twenty times. Riptide, who is seven and has been either helping or single-handedly feeding a family of five for seven years, will have his name in forty-two times.
You can see why someone like Moray, who has never been at risk of needing a tessera, can set him off. The chance of her name being drawn is very slim compared to those of us who live in the Dive. Not impossible, but slim. And even though the rules were set up by the Capitol, not the districts, certainly not Moray’s family, it's hard not to resent those who don't have to sign up for tesserae. Some days, deep in the woods, I've listened to him rant about how the tesserae are just another tool to cause misery in our district. A way to plant hatred between the starving workers of the Dive and those who can generally count on supper and thereby ensure we will never trust one another. "It's to the Capitol's advantage to have us divided among ourselves," he might say if there were no ears to hear but mine. If it wasn't reaping day. If a dragonet with a gold pin and no tesserae had not made what I'm sure she thought was a harmless comment.
As we walk, I glance over at Riptide's face, still smoldering underneath his stony expression. His rages seem pointless to me, although I never say so. It's not that I don't agree with him. I do. But what good is roaring or flashing aquatic about the Capitol in the middle of the woods? It doesn't change anything. It doesn't make things fair. It doesn't fill our stomachs. In fact, it scares off the nearby game. I let him yell though. Better he does it in the woods than in the district.
Riptide and I divide our spoils, leaving two fish, a couple of loaves of good bread, greens, a quart of strawberries, salt, paraffin, and a bit of money for each.
"See you in the square," I say.
"Wear something pretty," he says flatly.
At home, I find my mother and sister are ready to go. My mother wears some ropes of nice quality pearls from her apothecary days draped from her wings and around her neck.
Auklet is in my first reaping outfit, some pearls that wrap around her horns and she added a pretty flower tucked behind her ear. The pearls are bit big on her, but my mother has wrapped it around a couple extra times. Even so, she's having trouble keeping the pearls off of her snout.  Anemone has some pearls around her neck and a bracelet of seashells.
My mother flash’s in aquatic, Go take a nice rinse. I flash in response, Ok. I shoot out of the door catching a current and swoop off to go rub my scales with sand. 
When I come back, to my surprise, my mother has laid out some of her own pearls for me. A soft blueish white set that would drapes around my wings and neck. "Are you sure?" I flash. I'm trying to get past rejecting offers of help from her. For a while, I was so angry, I wouldn't allow her to do anything for me. And this is something special. Her accessories from her past are very precious to her.
"Of course." she says.
"You look beautiful," Anemone flashes. It looks like she may be a little jealous. 
"And nothing like myself," I say. It’s her second reaping. Anemone is still getting accustomed to the yearly horror that takes place. Then Auklet swims in. Three moons. She looks more terrified than I have ever seen her. You look pretty Tsunami. Auklet flashes. Oh Auklet. She's about as safe as you can get, since she's only entered once. I wouldn't let her take out any tesserae. But she's worried about me. That the unthinkable might happen.
I protect Auklet in every way I can, but I'm powerless against the reaping. The anguish I always feel when she's in pain wells up in my chest and threatens to register on my face. I notice her pearls have slid down her face again. and force myself to stay calm. "Pull your pearls up, little sis." I sign with a light laugh. The kind only Auklet can draw out of me. "Come on, let's eat," I say and plant a quick kiss on the top of her head.
The fish are being prepared by my mother. We decide to save the strawberries and bakery bread for this evening's meal, to make it special we say. We nibble on some seaweed, although no one has much appetite anyway.
At one o'clock, we swim for the square on the beach. Attendance is mandatory unless you are on death's door. This evening, officials will come around and check to see if this is the case. If not, you'll be imprisoned. It's too bad, really, that they hold the reaping in the square - one of the few places in the Sea District that can be pleasant. The square's surrounded by shops, and on public market days, especially if there's good weather, it has a holiday feel to it. The sunsets over the water can be stunning. But today, despite the bright banners hanging on the buildings, there's an air of grimness. The camera crews, perched like buzzards on rooftops, only add to the effect.
Dragons fly and file in silently and sign in. The reaping is a good opportunity for the Capitol to keep tabs on the population as well. Four through eight-year-olds are herded into roped areas marked off by ages, the oldest in the front, the young ones, like Auklet and Anemone, toward the back. Family members line up around the perimeter, holding tightly to one another's talons. But there are other dragons, too, who have no one they love at stake, or who no longer care, who slip among the crowd, taking bets on the two dragonets whose names will be drawn. Odds are given on their ages, whether they're Dive residents or merchant, if they will break down and weep. Most refuse dealing with the racketeers but carefully, carefully. These same people tend to be informers, and who hasn't broken the law? I could be shot on a daily basis for hunting, but the appetites of those in charge protect me. Not everyone can claim the same. Anyway, Riptide and I agree that if we have to choose between dying of hunger and a bullet in the head, the bullet would be much quicker.
The space gets tighter, more crowded as dragons arrive.
The square's quite large, but not enough to hold the Sea District's population of about eight thousand. Latecomers are directed to the adjacent streets, where they can watch the event on screens as it's televised live by the state.
I find myself standing in a clump of six’s from the Dive. We all exchange terse nods then focus our attention on the temporary stage that is set up before the Justice Building. It holds a podium and two large glass balls, one for the boys and one for the girls. I stare at the paper slips in the girls' ball. Twenty of them have Tsunami written on them in careful handwriting.
Two of the three chairs fill with Moray’s father, Mayor Shark, who's a strong, scarred, dragon with small eyes, and Effie Trinket, the Sea District's escort, fresh from the Capitol with her scary white grin and vibrant pink scales. The amount of gold, silver and jewels she had on was depressing. They murmur to each other and then look with concern at the empty space. Just as the town clock strikes two, the mayor flies up to the podium, flashes aquatic for attention, and begins to read. It's the same story every year. He tells of the history of Pyrrhia. He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained, and the event called the second scorching. The result was Pyrrhia, a shining Capitol ringed by eleven districts, which brought peace and prosperity to its citizens. Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol. 10 were defeated, the 11th, the Beetle District, obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games.
The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the ten districts must provide one girl and one boy dragonet, called tributes, to participate. The twenty will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland.
Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.
Taking the dragonets from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch - this is the Capitol's way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion.
Whatever words they use, the real message is clear.
"Look how we take your dragonets and sacrifice them and there's nothing you can do. If you lift a talon, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Eleven." To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol requires us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the others.
The last dragonet alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food. All year, the Capitol will show the winning district gifts of meat and greens and even jewelry while the rest of us battle starvation.
"It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks," intones the mayor.
Then he reads the list of past Sea District victors. In seventy-four years, we have had exactly two. Only one is still alive. Haymitch Abernathy, a paunchy, dark blue, middle-aged SeaWing, who at this moment appears to be roaring something unintelligible, flys and staggers onto the stage, and falls into his spot. He's drunk. Very. The crowd responds with its token applause, but he's confused and tries to wrap his wings around Effie Trinket, which she barely manages to fend off.
The mayor looks distressed. Since all of this 
televised, right now the Sea District is the laughingstock of Pyrrhia, and he knows it. He quickly tries to pull the attention back to the reaping by introducing Effie Trinket.
Bright and bubbly as ever, Effie Trinket soars to the podium and gives her signature, "Happy Hunger Games!
And may the odds be ever in your favor!" Her pink scales have some spots of orange, meaning irritated, after her encounter with Haymitch. She goes on a bit about what an honor it is to be here, although everyone knows she's just aching to get bumped up to a better district where they have proper victors, not drunks who molest you in front of the entire nation. Through the crowd, I spot Riptide looking back at me with a ghost of a smile on his snout. As reapings go, this one at least has a slight entertainment factor. But suddenly I am thinking of Riptide and his forty-two names in that big glass ball and how the odds are not in his favor. Not compared to a lot of the boy dragonets. And maybe he's thinking the same thing about me because his face darkens and he turns away.
"But there are still thousands of slips," I wish I could whisper to him.
It's time for the drawing. Effie Trinket says as she always does, "Ladies first!" and crosses to the glass ball with the girls' names. She reaches in, digs her talons deep into the ball, and pulls out a slip of paper. The crowd draws in a collective breath and then you can hear a pin drop, and I'm feeling nauseous and so desperately hoping that it's not me, that it's not me, that it's not me.
Effie Trinket flys back to the podium, smoothes the slip of paper, and reads out the name in a clear voice.
And it's not me.
It's Auklet.
== Chapter Two ==
One time, when I was sitting in a tree, waiting motionless for game to wander by, I dozed off and fell ten feet to the ground, before my wings could catch me, landing on my back. It was as if the impact had knocked every wisp of air from my lungs, and I lay there struggling to inhale, to exhale, to do anything.
That's how I feel now, trying to remember how to breathe, unable to speak, totally stunned as the name bounces around the inside of my skull. Someone is gripping my arm, a dragonet from the Dive, and I think maybe I started to fall and he caught me.
There must have been some mistake. This can't be happening. Auklet was one slip of paper in thousands!
Her chances of being chosen so remote that I'd not even bothered to worry about her. Hadn't I done everything? Taken the tesserae, refused to let her do the same? One slip. One slip in thousands. The odds had been entirely in her favor. But it hadn't mattered.
Somewhere far away, I can hear the crowd murmuring unhappily as they always do when a four-year-old gets chosen because no one thinks this is fair. And then I see her, talons clenched in fists at her sides, walking with stiff, small steps up toward the stage, passing me, and I see her pearls have slipped into her face. It's this detail that brings me back to myself.
"Auklet!" The strangled roar comes out of my throat, and my muscles begin to move again. "Auklet!" I don't need to shove through the crowd. The other dragonets make way immediately allowing me a straight path to fly to the stage.
I reach her just as she is about to mount the steps.
With one sweep of my arm, I push her behind me. I throw out my wings and block her from the stage.
"I volunteer!" I gasp. "I volunteer as tribute!"
There's some confusion on the stage. The Sea District hasn't had a volunteer in decades and the protocol has become rusty. The rule is that once a tribute's name has been pulled from the ball, another eligible dragonet, if a boy's name has been read, or girl, if a girl's name has been read, can step forward to take his or her place. In some districts, in which winning the reaping is such a great honor, people are eager to risk their lives, the volunteering is complicated. But in the Sea District, where the word tribute is pretty much synonymous with the word corpse, volunteers are all but extinct.
"Lovely!" says Effie Trinket. "But I believe there's a small matter of introducing the reaping winner and then asking for volunteers, and if one does come forth then we, um..." she trails off, unsure herself.
"What does it matter?" says the mayor. He's looking at me with a pained expression on his face. He doesn't know me really, but there's a faint recognition there. I am the dragonet who brings the strawberries. The dragonet his daughter might have spoken of on occasion.
"What does it matter?" he repeats gruffly. "Let her come forward."
Auklet is screaming hysterically behind me. I can hear Anemone yelling in the background. Auklet's wrapped her little wings around me like a vice. "No, Tsunami! No! You can't go!"
"Auklet, let go," I say harshly, because this is upsetting me and I don't want to cry. When they televise the replay of the reapings tonight, everyone will make note of my tears, and I'll be marked as an easy target.
A weakling. I will give no one that satisfaction. "Let go!”
I can feel someone pulling her from my back. I turn and see Riptide has lifted Auklet off the ground and she's thrashing in his arms. "Up you go, Salmi," he says, in a voice he's fighting to keep steady, and then he flys Auklet off toward my mother. I steel myself and fly up the steps.
"Well, bravo!" gushes Effie Trinket. "That's the spirit of the Games!" She's pleased to finally have a district with a little action going on in it. "What's your name?"
I swallow hard. "Tsunami," I say.
"I bet my buttons that was your sister. Don't want her to steal all the glory, do we? Come on, everybody!
Let's give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!" trills Effie Trinket.
To the everlasting credit of the dragons of Sea District, not one person claps. Not even the ones holding betting slips, the ones who are usually beyond caring.
Possibly because they know me from the Hob, or knew my father, or have encountered Auklet, who no one can help loving. So instead of acknowledging applause, I stand there unmoving while they take part in the boldest form of dissent they can manage.
Silence. Which says we do not agree. We do not condone. All of this is wrong. Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of the Sea District as a place that cares about me. But a shift has occurred since I stepped up to take Auklet's place, and now it seems I have become someone precious. At first one, then another, then almost every member of the crowd touches the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to me. It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love.
Now I am truly in danger of crying, but fortunately Haymitch chooses this time to come flying across the stage to congratulate me. "Look at her. Look at this one!" he hollers, throwing an blue wing around my shoulders. He's surprisingly strong for such a wreck.
"I like her!" His breath reeks of liquor. "Lots of ... " He can't think of the word for a while. "Spunk!" he says triumphantly. "More than you!" he releases me and runs for the front of the stage. "More than you!" he shouts, pointing directly into a camera.
Is he addressing the audience or is he so drunk he might actually be taunting the Capitol? I'll never know because just as he's opening his snout to continue, Haymitch plummets off the stage and knocks himself unconscious.
He's disgusting, but I'm grateful. With every camera gleefully trained on him, I have just enough time to release the small, choked sound in m throat and compose myself. I fold my wings, fix my posture and stare into the distance.
I can see the hills I climbed this morning with Riptide.
For a moment, I yearn for something ... the idea of us leaving the district... Making our way in the woods...
but I know I was right about not running off. Because who else would have volunteered for Auklet?
Haymitch is whisked away on a stretcher, and Effie Trinket is trying to get the ball rolling again. "What an exciting day!" "But more excitement to come! It's time to choose our boy tribute!"  She glides across to the ball that contains the boys' names and grabs the first slip she encounters. She zips back to the podium, and I don't even have time to wish for Riptide's safety when she's reading the name.
"Herring"
Herring!
Oh, no, I think. Not him. Because I recognize this name, although I have never spoken directly to its owner. Herring.
No, the odds are not in my favor today. I watch him as he makes his way toward the stage. Medium height, stocky build, dark green scales. The shock of the moment is registering on his face, you can see his struggle to remain emotionless, but his blue eyes show the alarm I've seen so often in prey. Yet he climbs steadily onto the stage and takes his place.
Effie Trinket asks for volunteers, but no one steps forward. He has two older brothers, I know, I've seen them in the bakery, but one is probably too old now to volunteer and the other won't. This is standard.
Family devotion only goes so far for most people on reaping day. What I did was the radical thing. The mayor begins to read the long, dull Treaty of Treason as he does every year at this point - it's required - but I'm not listening to a word.
Why him? I think. Then I try to convince myself it doesn't matter. Herring and I are not friends.
Not even neighbors. We don't speak. Our only real interaction happened years ago. He's probably forgotten it. But I haven't and I know I never will...
It was during the worst time. My father had been taken away three months earlier in the bitterest January anyone could remember. The numbness of his loss had passed, and the pain would hit me out of nowhere, doubling me over, racking my body with sobs. Where are you? I would cry out in my mind. Where have you gone? Of course, there was never any answer.
The district had given us a small amount of money as compensation for him being taken, enough to cover one month of grieving at which time my mother would be expected to get a job. Only she didn't. She didn't do anything but lay on her seaweed bed, eyes fixed on some point in the distance. Once in a while, she'd stir, get up as if moved by some urgent purpose, only to then collapse back into stillness. No amount of pleading from Auklet and Anemone seemed to affect her. I was terrified. I suppose now that my mother was locked in some dark world of sadness, but at the time, all I knew was that I had lost not only a father, but a mother as well. At three years old, with Auklet just months old, and Anemone just one year. I took over as head of the family. There was no choice. I bought our food at the market and cooked it as best I could and tried to keep Auklet, Anemone, and myself looking presentable. Because if it had become known that my mother could no longer care for us, the district would have taken us away from her and placed us in the community home. I'd grown up seeing those home dragonets at school. The sadness, the marks of angry talons on their faces, the hopelessness that curled their shoulders forward and their wings down. I could never let that happen to Auklet. Sweet, tiny Auklet who cried when I cried before she even knew the reason. Anemone tryed to help, but was weak from the stress and grief. The community home would crush her like a bug. So I kept our predicament a secret.
But the money ran out and we were slowly starving to death. There's no other way to put it. I kept telling myself if I could only hold out until May, just May 8th, I would turn twelve and be able to sign up for the tesserae and get that precious grain and oil to feed us. Only there were still several weeks to go. We could well be dead by then.
Starvation's not an uncommon fate in the Sea District.
Who hasn't seen the victims? Older dragons who can't work. Dragonets from a family with too many to feed.
Those injured in the depths of the pearl diving areas. Straggling through the streets. And one day, you come upon them sitting motionless against a wall or lying in the Meadow, you hear the wails from a house, and the Peacekeepers are called in to retrieve the body. Starvation is never the cause of death officially. It's always the flu, or exposure, or pneumonia. But that fools no one. On the afternoon of my encounter with Herring, the rain was falling in relentless icy sheets. I had been in town, trying to trade some mere minnows in the public market, but there were no takers. Although I had been to the Hob on several occasions with my father, I was too frightened to venture into that rough, gritty place alone. For three days, we'd had nothing but boiled water with some old dried mint leaves I'd found in the back of a cupboard. By the time the market closed, I was shaking so hard I dropped my minnows in a mud puddle.
I didn't pick them up for fear I would keel over and be unable to regain my feet. I was too weak to fly even a few wing beats. Besides, no one wanted those minnows.
I couldn't go home. Because at home was my mother with her dead eyes and my little sisters, with their ribs showing.
I found myself stumbling along a muddy lane behind the shops that serve the wealthiest townspeople. The merchants live above their businesses, so I was essentially in their backyards. I remember the outlines of garden beds not yet planted for the spring and a goat or two in a pen.
All forms of stealing are forbidden in the  Sea District. Punishable by death, dragonet or not. But it crossed my mind that there might be something in the trash bins, and those were fair game. Perhaps a bone at the butcher's or rotted vegetables at the grocer's, something no one but my family was desperate enough to eat.
Unfortunately, the bins had just been emptied.
When I passed the baker's, the smell of fresh bread was so overwhelming I felt dizzy. The ovens were in the back, and a golden glow spilled out the open kitchen door. I stood mesmerized by the heat and the luscious scent until the rain interfered, running its icy fingers down my back and wings, forcing me back to life. I lifted the lid to the baker's trash bin and found it spotlessly, heartlessly bare.
Suddenly a voice was roaring at me and I looked up to see the baker's wife, flapping her wings and telling me to move on and did I want her to call the Peacekeepers and how sick she was of having those brats from the Dive pawing through her trash. The words were ugly and I had no defense. As I carefully replaced the lid and backed away, I noticed him, a green dragonet peering out from behind his mother's back. I'd seen him at school. He was in my year, but I didn't know his name. He stuck with the town kids, so how would I?
His mother went back into the bakery, grumbling, but he must have been watching me as I made my way behind the pen that held their pig and leaned against the far side of an old apple tree. The realization that I'd have nothing to take home had finally sunk in. My knees buckled and I slid down the tree trunk to its roots. It was too much. I was too sick and weak and tired, oh, so tired. I spread my wings in the mud. Let them call the Peacekeepers and take us to the community home, I thought. Or better yet, let me die right here in the rain.
There was a clatter in the bakery and I heard the lady roaring again and the sound of a blow, and I vaguely wondered what was going on. Talons sloshed toward me through the mud and I thought, It's her.
She's coming to drive me away with a stick. But it wasn't her. It was the boy. In his arms, he carried two large loaves of bread that must have fallen into the fire because the crusts were scorched black.
His mother was yelling, "Feed it to the pig, you stupid creature! Why not? No one decent will buy burned bread!" He began to tear off chunks from the burned parts and toss them into the trough, and the front bakery bell rung and the mother disappeared to help a customer.
The boy never even glanced my way, but I was watching with my see in the dark eyes. Because of the bread, because of the red weal that stood out on his cheekbone. What had she hit him with?
My parents never hit us. I couldn't even imagine it.
The dragonet took one look back to the bakery as if checking that the coast was clear, then, his attention back on the pig, he threw a loaf of bread in my direction. The second quickly followed, and he sloshed back to the bakery, closing the kitchen door tightly behind him.
I stared at the loaves in disbelief. They were fine, perfect really, except for the burned areas. Did he mean for me to have them? He must have. Because there they were at my talons. Before anyone could witness what had happened I grabbed the loaves. The heat of the bread burned into my palms, but I clutched it tighter, clinging to life.
By the time I reached home, the loaves had cooled somewhat, but the insides were still warm. When I dropped them on the table, Anemone's talons reached to tear off a chunk, but I made her sit, forced my mother to join us at the table, and poured warm tea.  Auklet stared at the bread in disbelief. I scraped off the black stuff and sliced the bread. We ate an entire loaf, slice by slice. It was good hearty bread, filled with raisins and nuts.
I put my clothes to dry at the fire, crawled into bed, and fell into a dreamless sleep. It didn't occur to me until the next morning that the dragonet might have burned the bread on purpose. Might have dropped the loaves into the flames, knowing it meant being punished, and then delivered them to me. But I dismissed this. It must have been an accident. Why would he have done it? He didn't even know me. Still, just throwing me the bread was an enormous kindness that would have surely resulted in a beating if discovered. I couldn't explain his actions.
We ate slices of bread for breakfast and headed to school. It was as if spring had come overnight. Warm sweet air. Fluffy clouds. At school, I passed the boy in the hall, he had a nasty bruise on the side of his head. He was with his friends and didn't acknowledge me in any way. But as I collected Auklet and Anemone, and started for home that afternoon, I found him staring at me from across the school yard. Our eyes met for only a second, then he turned his head away.
I dropped my gaze, embarrassed, and that's when I saw it. The first dandelion of the year. A bell went off in my head. I thought of the hours spent in the woods with my father and I knew how we were going to survive.
To this day, I can never shake the connection between this boy, Herring, and the bread that gave me hope, and the dandelion that reminded me that I was not doomed. And more than once, I have turned in the school hallway and caught his sharp eyes trained on me, only to quickly flit away. I feel like I owe him something, and I hate owing dragons. Maybe if I had thanked him at some point, I'd be feeling less conflicted now. I thought about it a couple of times, but the opportunity never seemed to present itself.
And now it never will. Because we're going to be thrown into an arena to fight to the death. Exactly how am I supposed to work in a thank-you in there? Somehow it just won't seem sincere if I'm trying to slit his throat.
The mayor finishes the dreary Treaty of Treason and motions for Herring and me to shake talons. His are as solid and warm as those loaves of bread. Herring looks me right in the eye and gives my talons what I think is meant to be a reassuring squeeze. Maybe it's just a nervous spasm.
We turn back to face the crowd as the anthem of Panem plays.
Oh, well, I think.There will be twenty of us. Odds are someone else will kill him before I do. Of course, the odds have not been very dependable of late.
== Chapter Three ==
The moment the anthem ends, we are taken into custody. I don't mean we're chained or anything, but a group of gleaming white Peacekeepers march us through the front door of the Justice Building. Maybe tributes have tried to escape in the past. I've never seen that happen though.
Once inside, I'm conducted to a room and left alone.
It's the richest place I've ever been in, with thick, deep carpets and a velvet couch. When I lay down on the couch, I can't help running my talons over the fabric repeatedly. I stretch and flap my wings. It helps to calm me as I try to prepare for the next hour. In the time allotted for the tributes to say goodbye to their loved ones. I cannot afford to get upset, to leave this room with puffy eyes. Crying is not an option. There will be more cameras at the train station.
My sisters and my mother come first. I reach out to Auklet and she climbs on my lap, her wings around my neck, head on my shoulder, just like she did when she was a toddler. Anemone sits beside me and I wrap a wing around her. My mother sits beside me and wraps her wings around us. For a few minutes, we say nothing. Then I start telling them all the things they must remember to do, now that I will not be there to do them for them.
Auklet and Anemone are not to take any tesserae. They can get by, if they're careful, on selling herbs at the small apothecary business my mother now runs for the dragons in the Dive. Riptide will get her the herbs she doesn't grow herself, but she must be very careful to describe them because he's not as familiar with them as I am. He'll also bring them game - he and I made a pact about this a year or so ago - and will probably not ask for compensation, but they should thank him with some kind of trade, like fish or medicine. I don't bother suggesting Auklet or Anemone learn to hunt. I tried to teach them a couple of times and it was disastrous. The woods terrified Auklet, and whenever I shot something, she'd get teary and talk about how we might be able to heal it if we got it home soon enough. Anemone hates leaving the Dive, insisting that she is not going to get caught hunting by the Peacekeepers, no matter what I say to convince her.
When I am done with instructions about trading and staying in school, I turn to my mother and grip her arm, hard. "Listen to me. Are you listening to me?" She nods, alarmed by my intensity.
She must know what's coming. "You can't leave again," I say.
My mother's eyes find the floor. "I know. I won't. I couldn't help what-“
"Well, you have to help it this time. You can't clock out and leave Auklet and Anemone on their own. There's no me now to keep you all alive. It doesn't matter what happens.
Whatever you see on the screen. You have to promise me you'll fight through it!" My voice has risen to a roar. In it is all the anger, all the fear I felt at her abandonment.
She pulls her talons from my grasp, moved to anger herself now. "I was ill. I could have treated myself if I'd had the medicine I have now.
That part about her being ill might be true. I've seen her bring back people suffering from immobilizing sadness since. Perhaps it is a sickness, but it's one we can't afford.
"Then take it. And take care of them!" I say.
"I'll be all right, Tsunami," says Auklet, clasping my snout in her talons. "But you have to take care, too. You're so fast and brave. Maybe you can win." Anemone nods vigorously. “Auklet’s right!”
I can't win. They must know that in there heart. The competition will be far beyond my abilities. Dragonets from wealthier districts, where winning is a huge honor, who've been trained their whole lives for this. Males who are two to three times my size. Females who know twenty different ways to kill you with a knife. Oh, there'll be people like me, too. People to weed out before the real fun begins.
"Maybe," I say, because I can hardly tell my mother to carry on if I've already given up myself. Besides, it isn't in my nature to go down without a fight, even when things seem insurmountable. "Then we'd be rich as Haymitch."
"I don't care if we're rich. I just want you to come home.” Anemone says. You will try, won't you? Really, really try?" asks Auklet.
"Really, really try. I swear it," I say. And I know, because of Auklet, I'll have to.
And then the Peacekeeper is at the door, signaling our time is up, and we're all hugging one another so hard it hurts and all I'm saying is "I love you. I love you all!" And they're saying it back and then the IceWing Peacekeeper orders them out and the door closes. I bury my head in one of the velvet pillows as if this can block the whole thing out. Someone else enters the room, and when I look up, I'm surprised to see it's the baker, Herring's father. I can't believe he's come to visit me. After all, I'll be trying to kill his son soon. But we do know each other a bit, and he knows Auklet even better. When she sells fish at the Hob with Anemone, she puts two of them aside for him and he gives her a generous amount of bread in return. We always wait to trade with him when his witch of a wife isn't around because he's so much nicer. I feel certain he would never have hit his son the way she did over the burned bread. But why has he come to see me?
The baker sits awkwardly on the carpet. He's a big, broad-shouldered dragon with burn scars from years at the ovens. He must have just said goodbye to his son.
He pulls a white paper package from his jacket pocket and holds it out to me. I open it and find cookies.
These are a luxury we can never afford.
"Thank you," I say. The baker's not a very talkative man in the best of times, and today he has no words at all. "I had some of your bread this morning. My friend Riptide gave you a squirrel for it." He nods, as if remembering the squirrel. "Not your best trade," I say.
He shrugs as if it couldn't possibly matter.
Then I can't think of anything else, so we sit in silence until a Peacemaker summons him. He rises and coughs to clear his throat. "I'll keep an eye on the little girls. Make sure their eating."
I feel some of the pressure in my chest lighten at his words. People deal with me, but they are genuinely fond of Auklet and are kind enough to Anemone. Maybe there will be enough fondness to keep them alive. My next guest is also unexpected. Moray flys straight to me. She is not weepy or evasive, instead there's an urgency about her tone that surprises me.
"They let you wear one thing from your district in the arena. One thing to remind you of home. Will you wear this?" She holds out the circular gold pin that was on her dress earlier. I hadn't paid much attention to it before, but now I see it's a small bird in flight.
"Your pin?" I say. Wearing a token from my district is about the last thing on my mind.
"Here, I'll pin it on your pearls, all right?" Madge doesn't wait for an answer, she just leans in and fixes the bird to my pearls. "Promise you'll wear it into the arena, Tsunami?" she asks. "Promise?"
"Yes," I say. Cookies. A pin. I'm getting all kinds of gifts today. Moray gives me one more. A kiss on the cheek. Then she's gone and I'm left thinking that maybe Madge really has been my friend all along.
Finally, Riptide is here and maybe there is nothing romantic between us, but when he opens his wings I don't hesitate to go into them. His body is familiar to me - the way it moves, the smell of wood smoke, even the sound of his heart beating I know from quiet moments on a hunt - but this is the first time I really feel it, lean and hard-muscled against my own.
"Listen," he says. "Getting a knife should be pretty easy, but you've got to get your hands on a bow. That's your best chance."
"They don't always have bows," I say, thinking of the year there were only horrible spiked maces that the tributes had to bludgeon one another to death with.
"Then make one," says Riptide. "Even a weak bow is better than no bow at all."
I have tried copying my father's bows with poor results. It's not that easy. Even he had to scrap his own work sometimes.
"I don't even know if there'll be wood," I say. Another year, they tossed everybody into a landscape of nothing but boulders and sand and scruffy bushes. I particularly hated that year. Many contestants were bitten by venomous snakes or went insane from thirst.
"There's almost always some wood," Riptide says. "Since that year half of them died of cold. Not much entertainment in that."
It's true. We spent one Hunger Games watching the players freeze to death at night. You could hardly see them because they were just huddled in balls and had no wood for fires or torches or anything. It was considered very anti-climactic in the Capitol, all those quiet, bloodless deaths. Since then, there's usually been wood to make fires.
"Yes, there's usually some," I say.
"Tsunami, it's just hunting. You're the best hunter I know," says Gale.
"It's not just hunting. They're armed. They think," I say.
"So do you. And you've had more practice. Real practice," he says. "You know how to kill.
"Not dragons," I say.
"How different can it be, really?" says Gale grimly.
The awful thing is that if I can forget they're dragons, it will be no different at all.
The Peacekeepers are back too soon and Riptide asks for more time, but they're taking him away and I start to panic. "Don't let them starve!" I cry out, clinging to his talons.
"I won't! You know I won't! Tsunami, remember I -" he says, and they yank us apart and slam the door and I'll never know what it was he wanted me to remember.
It's a short flight. from the Justice Building to the train station.  In the Dive, we travel on wings and talons.
I've been right not to cry. The station is swarming with reporters with their insectlike cameras trained directly on my face. But I've had a lot of practice at wiping my face clean of emotions and I do this now. I catch a glimpse of myself on the television screen on the wall that's airing my arrival live and feel gratified that I appear almost bored.
Herring, on the other hand, has obviously been crying and interestingly enough does not seem to be trying to cover it up. I immediately wonder if this will be his strategy in the Games. To appear weak and frightened, to reassure the other tributes that he is no competition at all, and then come out fighting. This worked very well for a girl, Johanna Mason, from the Rain District a few years back. She seemed like such a sniveling, cowardly fool that no one bothered about her until there were only a handful of contestants left.
It turned out she could kill viciously. Pretty clever, the way she played it. But this seems an odd strategy for Herring because he's a baker's son. All those years of having enough to eat and hauling bread trays around have made him broad-shouldered and strong.
It will take an awful lot of weeping to convince anyone to overlook him.
We have to stand for a few minutes in the doorway of the train while the cameras gobble up our images, then we're allowed inside and the doors close mercifully behind us. The train begins to move at once.
The speed initially takes my breath away. Of course, I've never been on a train, as travel between the districts is forbidden except for officially sanctioned duties. For us, that's mainly transporting pearls. But this is no ordinary coal train. It's one of the high-speed Capitol models that average 250 miles per hour. Our journey to the Capitol will take less than a day.
In school, they tell us the Capitol was built in a place once called Jade Mountain. The Sea District was in a region known as the tail of Pyrrhia. Even hundreds of years ago, they dove for pearls here. Which is why our diver have to go so deep.
Somehow it all comes back to pearls at school. Besides basic reading and math most of our instruction is pearl-related. Except for the weekly lecture on the history of Pyrrhia. It's mostly a lot of blather about what we owe the Capitol. I know there must be more than they're telling us, an actual account of what happened during the rebellion. But I don't spend much time thinking about it. Whatever the truth is, I don't see how it will help me get food on the table.
The tribute train is fancier than even the room in the Justice Building. We are each given our own chambers that have a bedroom, a dressing area, and a private bathroom with hot and cold running water.
We don't have hot water at home, unless we boil it.
There are drawers filled with fine accessories, and Effie Trinket tells me to do anything I want, wear anything I want, everything is at my disposal. Just be ready for supper in an hour. I slide off my mother's pearls and take a hot shower. I've never had a shower before. It's like being in a summer rain, only warmer.
I dress in a sliver breastplate, that look’s pretty, but not like it would protect me.
At the last minute, I remember Madge's little gold pin.
For the first time, I get a good look at it. It's as if someone fashioned a small golden bird and then attached a ring around it. The bird is connected to the ring only by its wing tips. I suddenly recognize it. A mockingjay.
They're funny birds and something of a slap in the face to the Capitol. During the rebellion, the Capitol bred a series of genetically altered animals as weapons. The common term for them was mutations, or sometimes mutts for short. One was a special bird called a jabberjay that had the ability to memorize and repeat whole human conversations. They were homing birds, exclusively male, that were released into regions where the Capitol's enemies were known to be hiding. After the birds gathered words, they'd fly back to centers to be recorded. It took people awhile to realize what was going on in the districts, how private conversations were being transmitted. Then, of course, the rebels fed the Capitol endless lies, and the joke was on it. So the centers were shut down and the birds were abandoned to die off in the wild.
Only they didn't die off. Instead, the jabberjays mated with female mockingbirds creating a whole new species that could replicate both bird whistles and melodies. They had lost the ability to enunciate words but could still mimic a range of dragon vocal sounds, from a dragonet's high-pitched warble to a dragon’s roar. And they could recreate songs. Not just a few notes, but whole songs with multiple verses, if you had the patience to sing them and if they liked your voice. My father was particularly fond of mockingjays. When we went hunting, he would whistle or sing complicated songs to them and, after a polite pause, they'd always sing back. Not everyone is treated with such respect. But whenever my father sang, all the birds in the area would fall silent and listen. His voice was that beautiful, high and clear and so filled with life it made you want to laugh and cry at the same time. I could never bring myself to continue the practice after he was gone. Still, there's something comforting about the little bird. It's like having a piece of my father with me, protecting me. I fasten the pin onto my brestplate.
Effie Trinket comes to collect me for supper. I follow her through the narrow, rocking corridor into a dining room with polished paneled walls. There's a table where all the dishes are highly breakable, so I keep my wings tucked in. Herring sits waiting for us, the chair next to him empty.
"Where's Haymitch?" asks Effie Trinket brightly.
"Last time I saw him, he said he was going to take a nap," says Herring.
"Well, it's been an exhausting day," says Effie Trinket.
I think she's relieved by Haymitch's absence, and who can blame her? The supper comes in courses. A thick soup, a green salad with octopus, lamb chops and some beautiful fish, how many drops, which are a specialty from Pantala. Throughout the meal, Effie Trinket keeps reminding us to save space because there's more to come. But I'm stuffing myself because I've never had food like this, so good and so much, and because probably the best thing I can do between now and the Games is put on a few pounds.
"At least, you two have decent manners," says Effie as we're finishing the main course. "The pair last year ate everything with their talons like a couple of savages. It completely upset my digestion.
The pair last year were two dragonets from the Dive who'd never, not one day of their lives, had enough to eat.
And when they did have food, table manners were surely the last thing on their minds. Herring's a baker's son. My mother taught my sisters and I to eat properly. But I hate Effie Trinket's comment so much I make a point of eating the rest of my meal with my talons, slurping octopus tentacles loudly. Then I wipe my talons on the tablecloth. This makes her frown and her scales turn orange for a moment.
Now that the meal's over, I'm fighting to keep the food down. I can see Herring's looking a little queasy, too.
Neither of our stomachs is used to such rich fare. But if I can hold down Greasy Sae's concoction of mice meat, pig entrails, and tree bark - a winter specialty
-I'm determined to hang on to this.
We go to another compartment to watch the recap of the reapings across Pyrrhia. They try to stagger them throughout the day so a dragon could conceivably watch the whole thing live, but only dragon’s in the Capitol could really do that, since none of them have to attend reapings themselves. One by one, we see the other reapings, the names called, (the volunteers stepping forward or, more often, not. We examine the faces of the dragons who will be our competition. A few stand out in my mind. A monstrous HiveWing who lunges forward to volunteer from the Hive District. A clever and capable looking female SkyWing from the Sky District. A male MudWing with a lame foot from the Mud District.
And most hauntingly, a four year old female from the Sand District. She has strange green eyes, and more good colored than sandy. She's very like Auklet in size and demeanor. Only when she mounts the stage and they ask for volunteers, all you can hear is her mother screaming “Sunny! SUNNY!”
There's no one willing to take her place.
Last of all, they show the Sea District. Auklet being called, me flying forward to volunteer. You can't miss the desperation in my voice as I shove Auklet behind me, as if I'm afraid no one will hear and they'll take Prim away. But, of course, they do hear. I see Riptide pulling her off me and watch myself mount the stage. The commentators are not sure what to say about the crowd's refusal to applaud. The silent salute. One says that the Sea District has always been a bit backward but that local customs can be charming. As if on cue, Haymitch falls off the stage, and they groan comically.
Herring's name is drawn, and he quietly takes his place.
We shake talons. They cut to the anthem again, and the pro-gram ends.
Effie Trinket is disgruntled about the state her jewelry was in. "Your mentor has a lot to learn about presentation. A lot about televised behavior."
Herring unexpectedly laughs. "He was drunk," says Herring. "He's drunk every year."
"Every day." I add. I can't help smirking a little. Effie Trinket makes it sound like Haymitch just has somewhat rough manners that could be corrected with a few tips from her.
"Yes," hisses Effie Trinket, her frill turning orange again. "How odd you two find it amusing. You know your mentor is your lifeline to the world in these Games. The one who advises you, lines up your sponsors, and dictates the presentation of any gifts. Haymitch can well be the difference between your life and your death!"
Just then, Haymitch flys into the compartment.
"I miss supper?" he says in a slurred voice. Then he vomits all over the expensive carpet and falls in the mess.
"So laugh away!" says Effie Trinket. She flys over the pool of vomit and flees the room.
Chapter Four
For a few moments, Herring and I take in the scene of our mentor trying to rise out of the slippery vile stuff from his stomach. He flaps his wings and I back up so I don’t end up with it on me as well. The reek of vomit and raw spirits almost brings my dinner up. We exchange a glance.
Obviously Haymitch isn't much, but Effie Trinket is right about one thing, once we're in the arena he's all we've got. As if by some unspoken agreement, Herring and I each take one of Haymitch's wings and help him to his feet.
"I tripped?" Haymitch asks. "Smells bad." He wipes his talons on his snout, smearing his face with vomit.
"Let's get you back to your room," says Herring. "Clean you up a bit."
We half-lead half-carry Haymitch back to his compartment. Since we can't exactly set him down on the embroidered bedspread, we haul him into the bathtub and turn the shower on him. He hardly notices.
"It's okay," Herring says to me. "Ill take it from here."
I can't help feeling a little grateful since the last thing I want to do is wash the vomit off of his scales, and tuck him into bed. Possibly Herring is trying to make a good impression on him, to be his favorite once the Games begin. But judging by the state he's in, Haymitch will have no memory of this tomorrow.
"All right," I say. "I can send one of the Capitol dragons to help you." There's any number on the train. Cooking for us. Waiting on us. Guarding us. Taking care of us is their job.
"No. I don't want them," says Herring.
I nod and head to my own room. I understand how Herring feels. I can't stand the sight of the Capitol dragons myself. But making them deal with Haymitch might be a small form of revenge. So I'm pondering the reason why he insists on taking care of Haymitch and all of a sudden I think, It's because he's being kind. Just as he was kind to give me the bread.
The idea pulls me up short. A kind Herring is far more dangerous to me than an unkind one. Kind people have a way of working their way inside me and rooting there. And I can't let Herring do this. Not where we're going. So I decide, from this moment on, to have as little as possible to do with the baker's dragonet.
When I get back to my room, the train is pausing at a platform to refuel. I quickly open the window, toss the cookies Peeta's father gave me out of the train, and slam the glass shut. No more. No more of either of them.
Unfortunately, the packet of cookies hits the ground and bursts open in a patch of dandelions by the track. I only see the image for a moment, because the train is off again, but it's enough. Enough to remind me of that other dandelion in the school yard years ago.
I had just turned awav from Herrings's bruised snout when I saw the dandelion and I knew hope wasn't lost. I plucked it carefully and hurried home. I grabbed a bucket and Auklet's talons and swam to the meadow near Shore and yes, it was dotted with the golden-headed weeds. After we'd harvested those, we scrounged along inside the fence for probably a mile until we'd filled the bucket with the dandelion greens, stems, and flowers. That night, we gorged ourselves on dandelion salad and the rest of the bakery bread.
"What else?" Anemone whined. "What other food can we find?"
"All kinds of things," I promised her. "I just have to remember them.
My mother had a book she'd brought with her from the apothecary shop. The pages were made of old parchment and covered in ink drawings of plants.
Neat handwritten blocks told their names, where to gather them, when they came in bloom, their medical uses. But my father added other entries to the book.
Plants for eating, not healing. Dandelions, pokeweed, wild onions, pines. Auklet, Anemone and I spent the rest of the night poring over those pages.
The next day, we were off school. For a while I hung around the edges of the Shore, but finally I worked up the courage to go under the fence. It was the first time I'd been there alone, without my father's weapons to protect me. But I retrieved the small bow and arrows he'd made me from a hollow tree. I probably didn't go more than twenty yards into the woods that day. Most of the time, I perched up in the branches of an old oak, hoping for game to come by.
After several hours, I had the good luck to kill a rabbit.
I'd shot a few rabbits before, with my father's guidance. But this I'd done on my own.
We hadn't had meat in months. The sight of the rabbit seemed to stir something in my mother. She roused herself, skinned the carcass, and made a stew with the meat and some more greens Anemone had gathered. Then she acted confused and went back to bed, but when the stew was done, we made her eat a bowl.
The woods became our savior, and each day I went a bit farther into its arms. It was slow-going at first, but I was determined to feed us. I stole eggs from nests, swam and caught fish, sometimes managed to shoot a squirrel or rabbit for stew, and gathered the various plants that sprung up beneath my feet. Plants are tricky. Many are edible, but one false mouthful and you're dead. I checked and double-checked the plants I harvested with my father's pictures. I kept us alive.
Any sign of danger, a distant howl, the inexplicable break of a branch, sent me flying back to the fence at first. Then I began to risk climbing trees to escape the wild dogs that quickly got bored and moved on. Bears and cats lived deeper in.
On May 8th, I went to the Justice Building, signed up for my tesserae, and pulled home my first batch of grain and fish in Auklet's toy wagon. On the eighth of every month, I wasentitled to do the same. I couldn't stop hunting and gathering, of course. The grain was not enough to live on, and there were other things to buy, soap and milk and thread. What we didn't absolutely have to eat, I began to trade at the Hob. It was frightening to enter that place without my father a wings distance from me, but dragons had respected him, and they accepted me. Game was game after all, no matter who'd shot it. I also sold at the back doors of the wealthier clients in town, trying to remember what my father had told me and learning a few new tricks as well. The butcher would buy my rabbits but not squirrels. The baker enjoyed squirrel but would only trade for one if his wife wasn't around. The Head IceWing Peacekeeper loved wild turkey. The mayor had a passion for strawberries.
In late summer, I was washing up in a pond when I noticed the plants growing around me. Tall with leaves like arrowheads. Blossoms with three white petals. I knelt down in the water, my talodigging into the soft mud, and I pulled up handfuls of the roots. Small, bluish tubers that don't look like much but boiled or baked are as good as any potato.
"Katniss." I said aloud. I spent hours stirring up the pond bed with my toes and a stick, gathering the tubers that floated to the top. That night, we feasted on fish and katniss roots until we were all, for the first time in months, full.
Slowly, my mother returned to us. She began to clean and cook and preserve some of the food I brought in for winter. People traded us or paid money for her medical remedies. One day, I heard her singing.
Auklet was thrilled to have her back, but I kept watching, waiting for her to disappear on us again. I didn't trust her. And some small gnarled place inside me hated her for her weakness, for her neglect, for the months she had put us through. Auklet forgave her, Anemone was a bit like me and took longer to forgive her, but I had taken a step back from my mother, put up a wall to protect myself from needing her, and nothing was ever the same between us again.
Now I was going to die without that ever being set right. I thought of how I had yelled at her today in the Justice Building. I had told her I loved her, too, though. So maybe it would all balance out.
For a while I stand staring out the train window, wishing I could open it again, but unsure of what would happen at such high speed. In the distance, I see the lights of another district. Rain? Mud? I don't know.
I think about the dragons in their houses, settling in for bed. I imagine my home, with its shutters drawn tight. What are they doing now, my mother and sisters?
Were they able to eat supper? The fish stew and the strawberries? Or did it lay untouched on their plates?
Did they watch the recap of the day's events on the battered old TV that sits on the table against the wall? Surely, there were more tears. Is my mother holding up, being strong for Auklet and Anemone? Or has she already started to slip away, leaving the weight of the world on my sisters’s fragile shoulders?
Auklet will undoubtedly sleep with my mother tonight. Perhaps even Anemone with be curled under her wing.
This day has been endless. Could Riptide and I have been eating blackberries only this morning? It seems like a lifetime ago. Like a long dream that deteriorated into a nightmare. Maybe, if I go to sleep, I will wake up back in the Sea District, where I belong.
If I'm going to cry, now is the time to do it. By morning, I'll be able to wash the damage done by the tears from my face. But no tears come. I'm too tired or too numb to cry. The only thing I feel is a desire to be somewhere else. So I let the train rock me into oblivion.
Gray light is leaking through the curtains when the rapping rouses me. I hear Effie Trinket's voice, calling me to rise. "Up, up, up! It's going to be a big, big, big day!" I try and imagine, for a moment, what it must be like inside that dragon's head. What thoughts fill her waking hours? What dreams come to her at night? I have no idea.
I put the breastplate back on. My talons trace the circle around the little gold mockingjay and I think of the beach, and of my father, and of my mother and sisters waking up, having to get on with things.
We can't be far from the Capitol now. And once we reach the city, my stylist will dictate my look for the opening ceremonies tonight anyway. I just hope I get one who doesn't think nudity is the last word in fashion.
As I enter the dining car, Effie Trinket brushes by me with a cup of black coffee and and irritated orange scales. She's muttering obscenities under her breath. Haymitch, his eyes puffy from the previous day's indulgences, is chuckling.
Herring holds a roll and looks somewhat embarrassed.
"Sit down! Sit down!" says Haymitch, waving me over.
The moment I slide into my bench I'm served an enormous platter of food. Eggs, ham, piles of neatly sliced fish. A tureen of fruit sits in ice to keep it chilled.
The basket of rolls they set before me would keep my family going for a week. There's an elegant glass of orange juice. At least, I think it's orange juice. I've only even tasted an orange once, at New Year's when my father bought one as a special treat. A cup of coffee. My mother adores coffee, which we could almost never afford, but it only tastes bitter and thin to me. A rich brown cup of something I've never seen.
"They call it hot chocolate," says . "It's good."
I take a sip of the hot, sweet, creamy liquid and a shudder runs through me. Even though the rest of the meal beckons, I ignore it until I've drained my cup. Then I stuff down every mouthful I can hold, which is a substantial amount, being careful to not overdo it on the richest stuff. One time, my mother told me that I always eat like I'll never see food again.
And I said, "I won't unless I bring it home." That shut her up.
When my stomach feels like it's about to split open, I lean back, stretch my wings, and take in my breakfast companions.
Herring is still eating, breaking off bits of roll and dipping them in hot chocolate. Haymitch hasn't paid much attention to his platter, but he's knocking back a glass of red juice that he keeps thinning with a clear liquid from a bottle. Judging by the fumes, it's some kind of spirit. I don't know Haymitch, but I've seen him often enough in the Hob, tossing handfuls of money on the counter of the woman who sells white liquor. He'll be incoherent by the time we reach the Capitol.
I realize I detest Haymitch. No wonder the Sea District tributes never stand a chance. It isn't just that we've been underfed and lack training. Some of our tributes have still been strong enough to make a go of it. But we rarely get sponsors and he's a big part of the reason why. The rich dragons who back tributes - either because they're betting on them or simply for the bragging rights of picking a winner - expect someone classier than Haymitch to deal with.
"So, you're supposed to give us advice," I growl at Haymitch.
"Here's some advice. Stay alive," says Haymitch, and then bursts out laughing. I exchange a look with Herring before I remember I'm having nothing more to do with him. I'm surprised to see the hardness in his eyes. He generally seems so mild.
"That's very funny," says Herring. Suddenly he lashes out at the glass in Haymitch's talons. It shatters on the floor, sending the blooded liquid running toward the back of the train. "Only not to us.'
Haymitch considers this a moment, then punches Herring in the jaw, knocking him from his chair. When he turns back to reach for the spirits, I drive my knife into the table between his hand and the bottle, barely missing his fingers. I brace myself to deflect his hit, but it doesn't come. Instead he sits back and squints at us.
"Well, what's this?" says Haymitch. "Did I actually get a pair of fighters this year?"
Peeta rises from the floor and scoops up a talonful of ice from under the fruit tureen. He starts to raise it to the red mark on his jaw.
"No," says Haymitch, stopping him. "Let the bruise show. The audience will think you've mixed it up with another tribute before you've even made it to the arena.
"That's against the rules," says Herring.
"Only if they catch you. That bruise will say you fought, you weren't caught, even better," says Haymitch. He turns to me. "Can you hit anything with that knife besides a table?"
The bow and arrow is my weapon. But I've spent a fair amount of time throwing knives as well.
Sometimes, if I've wounded an animal with an arrow, it's better to get a knife into it, too, before I approach it. I realize that if I want Haymitch's attention, this is my moment to make an impression. I yank the knife out of the table, get a grip on the blade, and then throw it into the wall across the room. I was actually just hoping to get a good solid stick, but it lodges in the seam between two panels, making me look a lot better than I am.
"Stand over here. Both of you," says Haymitch, nodding to the middle of the room. We obey and he circles us, prodding us at times, checking our muscles, examining our snouts. "Well, you're not entirely hopeless. Seem fit. And once the stylists get hold of you, you'll be attractive enough."
Herring and I don't question this. The Hunger Games aren't a beauty contest, but the best-looking tributes always seem to pull more sponsors.
"All right, I'll make a deal with you. You don't interfere with my drinking, and I'll stay sober enough to help you," says Haymitch. "But you have to do exactly what I say.
It's not much of a deal but still a giant step forward from ten minutes ago when we had no guide at all.
"Fine," says Herring. "So help us," I say. "When we get to the arena, what's the best strategy at the Cornucopia for someone-“
"One thing at a time. In a few minutes, we'll be pulling into the station. You'll be put in the hands of your stylists. You're not going to like what they do to you. But no matter what it is, don't resist," says Haymitch.
"But -" I begin.
"No buts. Don't resist," says Haymitch. He takes the bottle of spirits from the table and leaves the car. As the door swings shut behind him, the car goes dark.
There are still a few lights inside, but outside it's as if night has fallen again. I realize we must be in the tunnel that runs up through the mountains into the Capitol. The mountains form a natural barrier between the Capitol and the eastern districts. It is almost impossible to enter from the east except through the tunnels. This geographical advantage was a major factor in the districts losing the war that led to my being a tribute today. Since the rebels had to fly all the way over the mountains, they were easy targets for the Capitol's air forces.
Herring and I stand in silence as the train speeds along. The tunnel goes on and on and I think of the tons of rock separating me from the sky, and my chest tightens. I hate being encased in stone this way. It reminds me of deeps that poor SeaWings must dive into each day.
The train finally begins to slow and suddenly bright light floods the compartment. We can't help it. Both Herring and I run to the window to see what we've only seen on television, the Capitol, the ruling city of Pyrrhia. The cameras haven't lied about its grandeur. If anything, they have not quite captured the magnificence of the glistening buildings in a rainbow of hues that tower into the air, the shiny cars that roll down the wide paved streets, the oddly dressed dragons that are mostly SilkWings, RainWings a few other tribes scattered in. All with bizarre accessories and painted snouts who have never missed a meal. All the colors seem artificial, the pinks too deep, the greens too bright, the yellows painful to the eyes, like the flat round disks of hard candy we can never afford to buy at the tiny sweet shop in District 12. Those are dragons that were lucky enough to be the ones that live in the capitol. The SilkWings and RainWings in the districts are less crazy colors and more tough dragons who actually use their weapons such as venom and silk. 
The dragons begin to point at us eagerly as they recognize a tribute train rolling into the city. I step away from the window, sickened by their excitement, knowing they can't wait to watch us die. But Herring holds his ground, actually waving and smiling at the gawking crowd. He only stops when the train pulls into the station, blocking us from their view.
He sees me staring at him and shrugs. "Who knows?" he says. "One of them may be rich.”
I have misjudged him. I think of his actions since the reaping began. The friendly squeeze of my talons. His father showing up with the cookies and promising to feed my sisters... did Herring put him up to that? His tears at the station. Volunteering to wash Haymitch but then challenging him this morning when apparently the nice-guy approach had failed. And now the waving at the window, already trying to win the crowd.
All of the pieces are still fitting together, but I sense he has a plan forming. He hasn't accepted his death.
He is already fighting hard to stay alive. Which also means that kind Herring, the dragonet who gave me the bread, is fighting hard to kill me. 
Chapter Five 
R-i-i-i-p! Venia, a SilkWing with aqua scales and gold designs painted above her eyes, yanks a strip of Fabric from my leg. It’s meant to remove a layer of my scales, making them cleaner and fresh. "Sorry!" she pipes in her silly Capitol accent. "You're just so dirty!"
Why do these dragons speak in such a high pitch? Why do their jaws barely open when they talk? Why do the ends of their sentences go up as if they're asking a question? Odd vowels, clipped words, and always a hiss on the letter s ... no wonder it's impossible not to mimic them.
Venia makes what's supposed to be a sympathetic face. "Good news, though. This is the last one. Ready?" The final swathe on my scales of my legs is ripped of in one stroke.
I've been in the Remake Center for more than three hours and I still haven't met my stylist. Apparently he has no interest in seeing me until Venia and the other members of my prep team have addressed some obvious problems. This has included scrubbing down my body with a gritty loam that has removed not only the sand and dirt under my scales, but at least and extra layers of my scales, turning my talons into sharp uniform shapes. I don't like it. My scales feel vulnerable. But I have kept my side of the bargain with Haymitch, and no objection has crossed my snout.
"You're doing very well," says some RainWing named Flavius. He has intense orange scales with purple spots here and there "If there's one thing we can't stand, it's a whiner. Grease her down!" Venia and Octavia, a plump SilkWing whose scales are a pale shade of pea green, rub me down with a lotion that first stings but then soothes my scales. 
The three step back and admire their work.
"Excellent! You almost look like a dragon now!" says Flavius, and they all laugh.
I force my snout into a smile to show how grateful I am. "Thank you," I say sweetly. "We don't have much cause to look nice in the Sea District.
This wins them over completely. "Of course, you don't, you poor darling!" says Octavia clasping her talons together in distress for me.
"But don't worry," says Venia. "By the time Cinna is through with you, you're going to be absolutely gorgeous!"
"We promise! You know, now that we've gotten rid of all the filth, you're not horrible at all!" says Flavius encouragingly. "Let's call Cinna!" They dart out of the room. It's hard to hate my prep team. They're such total idiots. And yet, in an odd way, I know they're sincerely trying to help me.
I look at the cold white walls and floor and resist the impulse to retrieve my robe. But this Cinna, my stylist, will surely make me remove it at once. Instead my hands go to my hairdo, the one area of my body my prep team had been told to leave alone. My fingers stroke the silky braids my mother so carefully arranged. My mother. I left her pearls never thinking about retrieving them, of trying to hold on to a piece of her, of home. Now I wish I had.
The door opens and a young dragon who must be Cinna enters. I'm taken aback by how normal he looks. Most of the stylists they interview on television are so dyed, stenciled, and surgically altered they're grotesque.
But Cinna's not a RainWing or SilkWing. He appears to be a hybrid of both. He is a very dark green, with flecks of gold dotting his snout. The only concession to self-alteration seems to be metallic gold lines that connect some of his freckles like constellations.  that has been applied with a light hand. Despite my disgust with the Capitol and their hideous fashions, I can't help thinking how attractive it looks.
"Hello, Tsunami. I'm Cinna, your stylist," he says in a quiet voice somewhat lacking in the Capitol's affectations.
"Hello," I venture cautiously.
"Just give me a moment, all right?" he asks. He walks around my strong, stocky body,  but taking in every inch of it with his eyes. had expected someone flamboyant, someone older trying desperately to look young, someone who viewed me as a piece of meat to be prepared for a platter.
Cinna has met none of these expectations.
"You're new, aren't you? I don't think I've seen you before," I say. Most of the stylists are familiar, constants in the ever-changing pool of tributes. Some have been around my whole life.
"Yes, this is my first year in the Games," says Cinna.
"So they gave you the Sea District." I say. Newcomers generally end up with us, the least desirable district.
"I asked for the Sea District," he says without further explanation. “How about we have a chat."
I follow him through a door into a sitting room. Two red couches face off over a low table. Three walls are blank, the fourth is entirely glass, providing a window to the city. I can see by the light that it must be around noon, although the sunny sky has turned overcast. Cinna invites me to lay on one of the couches and takes his place across from me. He presses a button on the side of the table.
The top splits and from below rises a second tabletop that holds our lunch. Chicken and fish cooked in a creamy sauce laid on a bed of pearly white grain, tiny green peas and onions, rolls shaped like flowers, and for dessert, a pudding the color of honey. I try to imagine assembling this meal myself back home. Chickens are too expensive, but I could make do with a wild turkey. I'd need to shoot a second turkey to trade for an orange. Goat's milk would have to substitute for cream. We can grow peas in the garden. I'd have to get wild onions from the woods. I don't recognize the grain, our own tessera ration cooks down to an unattractive brown mush. Fancy rolls would mean another trade with the baker, perhaps for two or three squirrels. As for the pudding, I can't even guess what's in it. Days of hunting and gathering for this one meal and even then it would be a poor substitution for the Capitol version.
What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by?
What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment?
I look up and find Cinna's eyes trained on mine. "How despicable we must seem to you," he says.
Has he seen this in my face or somehow read my thoughts? He’s not a NightWing, is he? He's right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is despicable.
"No matter," says Cinna. "So, Tsunami, about your costume for the opening ceremonies. My partner, Portia, is the stylist for your fellow tribute, Herring. And our current thought is to dress you in complementary costumes." says Cinna. "As you know, it's customary to reflect the flavor of the district."
For the opening ceremonies, you're supposed to wear something that suggests your district's principal industry. The Sand District, factory’s, the Rain District, agricultural, the Sky District, jewels.
the Hive District, beekeeping. This means that coming from the Sea District, Herring and I will be in some kind of pearls diver's getup. Our tributes usually end with a bag of pearls around their neck and a headlight. One year, our tributes got seashells glued to their scales. It's always boring and does nothing to win favor with the crowd. I prepare myself for the worst.
"So, I'll be in a diving outfit?" I ask, hoping it won't be indecent.
"Not exactly. You see, Portia and I think that the diver thing's very overdone. No one will remember you in that. And we both see it as our job to make the Se District tributes unforgettable," says Cinna.
I'll be have shells covering my entire body for sure, I think.
"So rather than focus on the diving itself, we're going to focus on the pearls," says Cinna. Covered in shells, I think. "And what’s something that can’t hurt pearls, " says Cinna.
"You're not afraid of fire, are you, Katniss?" He sees my expression and grins.
A few hours later, I am dressed in what will either be the most sensational or the deadliest costume in the opening ceremonies. I have a leather breastplate, with pearls studded around the edge, But it's the fluttering cape made of streams of orange, yellow, and red and the matching headpiece that define this costume. Cinna plans to light them on fire just before our chariot rolls into the streets.
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