The Girl With the Bread

Consideration

Sokka seethes on his bed in the wake of Iroh's speech. It's such a joke! He and Toph pretending to be friends when soon enough they will be sentenced to death, and one might have to kill the other. The only mercy he prays for is for someone else to kill Toph. He can't do it. He knows that.

He can hear Toph's voice in his head. He has no idea. The effect he can have. Obviously, she meant to demean him. Right? But a tiny part of him wonders if that was a compliment. That she meant he was appealing in some way. Like the attention she'd paid to his hunting. And apparently, he has not been as oblivious to her as he'd thought. The running. The flour. He has been watching the girl with the bread.

It's almost ten. He brushes his teeth and releases his hair from its ponytail. Anger temporarily blocked out his nervousness about meeting the other tributes, but now he can feel his anxiety rising again. By the time he meets Ty Lee and Toph by the elevator, he catches himself biting his nails. He stops at once.

The actual training rooms are below ground level of their building. With these elevators, the ride is less than a minute. As they descend Toph's fingers brush his, and he restrains from grabbing her hand. They're enemies now.

The doors open to an enormous gymnasium filled with various weapons and obstacle courses. Although it's not yet ten, they are the last ones to arrive. The other tributes are gathered in a tense circle. They each have a square cloth with their District number pinned on their shirts. While someone attaches the number 12 on his back, he does a quick assessment. He and Toph are the only ones dressed alike.

As soon as they join the circle, the head trainer, an athletic woman named Kyoshi steps up and begins to explain the training schedule. Experts in each skill will remain at their stations. They will be free to travel from area to area as they choose, per their mentor's instructions. Some of the stations teach survival skills, others fighting techniques. They are forbidden to engage in any combative exercise with another tribute. There are assistants on hand if they want to practice with a partner.

When Kyoshi begins to read down the list of the skill station, his eyes can't help flitting around to the other tributes. It's the first time they've all been assembled, on ground level, in simple clothes. His heart sinks. Almost all of the boys and at least half of the girls are bigger than he is, even though many of the other tributes have never been fed properly. You can see it in their bones, their skin, the hollow look in their eyes. He's not lacking in the height department, and overall his family's resourcefulness has given him an edge. The meat and plants from his days in the woods plus the exertion it took to get them has given him a healthier body than most around him.

The exceptions would be the kids from wealthier districts, the volunteers, the ones who have been trained for this since they could walk. The tributes from 1, 2 and 4 traditionally have this look about them. In District 12, they're called the Career Tributes, or just the Careers. And like it or not, the winner will undoubtedly be one of them.

The slight advantage he had coming into the Training Center, his watery entrance last night, seems to vanish in the presence of his competitors. The other tributes were jealous of them, but not because they were amazing. Because their stylists were. Now he sees nothing but contempt on the faces of the Careers, glaring not just at him but at Toph, who of course has no idea. Each of them has at least fifty pounds on both of them, and when Kyoshi releases them they head straight for the deadly weapons section and handle each one with ease.

He's torn from his staring by Toph nudging his arm. She is still beside him, per Iroh's instructions. "Where should we start?"

He looks around at the Careers, who are showing off, clearly trying to intimidate the field. Then at the others, the underfed and incompetent, shakily having their first lessons with a knife of an ax.