Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
ARDEN.
+++
ARDEN RETURNS TO THE TRAINING CENTER THE FOLLOWING DAY WITH A ONE-TRACK MIND. She plans to focus on herself completely, working closely on skills she knew she needed to improve on. She had no idea what was in store for the Quarter Quell Arena but she would prepare herself for any and all conditions.
She recalls the layout of her very first Arena. Arden had no clue what she was getting herself into back then, either. But then the platform lifted her into the eroded badlands, with the hot sun beaming down on her face and piercing her vision, the cracked and rocky terrain running up to the red mountains. She will always remember the sigh of relief she'd let out when she reached that Arena. It was a climate that Arden was all too familiar with, being from District Five. It was hot and dry and it felt like home. She had known then that her chances of winning the Hunger Games had increased dramatically. It had motivated her to fight harder, and fight she would.
Returning to her surroundings in the Training Center, Arden takes in the newly renovated area, watching her fellow tributes test out the latest Capitol technology. They had replaced the majority of their physical target practice dummies with shimmering holographic that had the ability to mimic human movement. She glances over at Gloss, who is swinging his axe repeatedly through his pixelated victim, finishing it off with a clean slice to the crown of its head.
She puts these new training features on the backburner and instead, Arden makes her way to the station put out for practicing survival skills. Building shelter, fires, finding food. All practices that most tributes neglect to think about while they're training, but always proved to be most vital in the Arena. Arden had personally lucked out, with her first Games only lasting four days. But with this pool of former tributes, the odds were unpredictable. These were not amateurs, and there was a chance that she could be stuck in this arena for a long time.
She can feel a pair of eyes on her, beading into her side profile. At first, she wants to ignore them and continue her hunt. But then all she can think about is the eyes, the beady eyes following her every move closely, trying to piece together her next move in their heads before Arden herself even knows. It made her skin crawl. Arden used to bask in the attention she was given when she had first gained victory, but as she has become more entwined with the Capitol and their desires for her, she's become resentful of it. She does not want to be adored or goggled at, she wants to be feared. The unsettlement of the eyes burning holes into her back cause Arden to lose her concentration. Groaning, she turns her head to face whomever it is that has decided to shadow her. Katniss Everdeen.
Katniss stands ahead of her, with the old woman from Four, Mags, by her side. Their eyes follow Arden's movements as she steps forward. Katniss' face is hard to read. She is clearly sizing Arden up, but as an enemy or as an ally? Arden doesn't know, and she doesn't care. She doesn't have time to try and pick apart the girl's motives.
