"I can't have you," Finnick whispered, pressing a soft, parting kiss to Rose's forehead, "because you'll always be Snows, not mine."
Rhoswen (Rose) Snow is the daughter of President Snow, who rescued her from a homeless, destitute life in District...
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Rose blew gently on the log, watching smoke curl upwards, the acrid smell filling her nose. She watched in wonder as orange flames engulfed the wood, spreading rapidly, tiny and controlled, but still fire. She had done that. Rhoswen Snow. The girl with the golden spoon in her mouth. Take that, careers, she chanted in her head, wrinkling her nose.
"It looked like you just gave yourself a mental high five," Callum said, plopping himself down next to her in what they both like to call the "nature" section of the training sector. There was a a corner where you could learn about different types of plants, where you could learn to purify water, and then where you could learn to start fires.
"You know all this time giving my hand blisters trying to start this damn fire will be really pointless if we end up in the ocean or something," Rose muttered, pressing a button on the ground next to her that quickly extinguished the flames.
"Yeah but at least you know how to start a fire on an artificial log. Not everyone can say they do."
"Okay, jerk," she muttered, bumping his shoulder. "What have you done today?"
"I worked on climbing," he said, jerking his chin to the towering rock wall. Rose had been tempted to climb it, just to see if she could, but Finnick told her to wait. That he didn't want her to fall and reveal her weakness. Because, yes, Finnick did say she was severely lacking in strength. Though she figured she could make it at least a little of the ways up with how intensely she had been hitting the weights and pounding down the protein shakes. She was pretty sure she was half whey at this point. She also couldn't remember a time when she wasn't sore. Every morning she groaned getting out of bed, a new muscle she didn't even know she had screaming in protest as she stumbled to the shower.
Finnick had been working her every night. She'd been running one more mile every day. Now she could run up to five without stopping. Finnick had been right, she did have good endurance, and she actually found she didn't mind the running. The fighting on the other hand...
She wasn't terrible at it. In each session, Finnick taught her something new. And she took what she learned from the day before and applied it to their match. She could now evade his punches with ease and even get in a few herself. She was quick, could keep darting around the mat until Finnick got tired. Or at least, he told her that was when her opponent would get tired. He was much too "experienced" to get winded so quickly.
But she wasn't strong enough. Every hit she did manage to get in, it wasn't enough, and she only managed to exhaust herself and make herself vulnerable as she was going in for the hit. She was learning a lot, and a lot of it she was doing well with: like the knife throwing, and the sword fighting –specifically the sword fighting she found she enjoyed– but some things just couldn't be rushed. No matter how fast Rose trained or how hard she punched the punching bag...she just couldn't escape her upbringing. Her softness. It was ground into her blood, her bones. Inescapable.
