SPARK ✩ CORIOLANUS SNOW.¹

𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐞.

          "Tell me about them."

Jude bent at the knees to tie the strings of his slick boots, specifically avoiding the bright-eyed blue stare of the boy next to him. It was distracting, and that was the last thing that he needed on his first day of training. He needed to know what he was getting into when about to enter a room of 23 grown adults armed to the teeth with weapons, not how crystalline the golden morning sun was turning Coriolanus's eyes.

He was irrevocably pissed to even think it at all, and yet, it was the sole thought that he kept coming back to.

Coriolanus, however, didn't seem to have any lingering sentiments regarding the night before. He subtly nodded toward Ruby, who had gravitated toward a long haired man with tan skin and bellowing laughter. A dark haired woman equally as beautiful stood at his hip, arm hooked through the bicep of the former.

"Reuben Odair," Coriolanus said, and then, more tense, "though you're familiar with him already. Not much to tell on him. Heavy into the jewelry business, his side of the family. Reuben's more of a snake than one to carry on that legacy. He weaved in and out of deals so easily that his family cut him out of it. But since he's the only heir, the business will die if they don't cut him back in, so it's inevitable they'll bring him back."

Jude whistled under his breath, rising to his full height again. "How do you know all of that?"

"It's my job," Coriolanus brushed off, now regarding the interlocked couple. "River and Rielle Astren. Married for... seven years? She was Reaped first, and he volunteered seconds after. He's one of the head fishermen, and she goes on trips with him into the sea." He paused, considering them with pursed lips. "Romantic, isn't it?"

Jude snorted. "That they're gonna die together? Sure, yeah. Romantic alright."

Coriolanus's grin was wicked and venomous.

Another burst of loud laughter echoed from River, and Ruby waved over Sapphire from the corner of the room to join them in their ruckus. She stood by a large screen with an array of buttons in front of it, abandoning the session with only half of them lit up. Slowly, they flickered out until none were again.

"Sapphire Morgaine." Coriolanus seemed to soften, his voice lowering somehow even quieter than the whisper he kept it at. "A mother to three very, very young girls, and not a lot of family left to look after them after the loss of her husband." He looked at Jude, then, as if remembering in his stream of thoughts that his tribute was there. "She was treated by Capitol doctors after the birth of her last daughter. She is very loved in the Capitol, Miss Morgaine, for how she pulled through after the struggles she's been put through."

Jude crossed his bare arms over his tanktop laden chest, studying the weary smile that the woman wore, and wondered if she knew that though her sadness still lingered like a scar, she wore it with the strength of a soldier. She reminded him of his mother, so gentle on the outside but shaped with steel. No wonder Ruby attached himself to her hip.

The weapons for the training itself were still being hauled over due to it being the first day. Not having been trusted anywhere near district folk until Capitol eyes could keep an eye on them, the tributes had time to start forming their alliances, hence the budding friendship seeming to spark between Ruby and the married couple. Expectedly, Jude wasn't sought out, and he didn't have intent to seek anyone out, either.

Slowly, Jude listened to the rest of the tributes being recounted by the man at his hip, eyeing them and the things that they gravitated toward. Macks and Lyra, techies, reluctant allies from District 3. Though Lyra was silent any time that Jude was present she seemed to have no trouble bumping Macks out of the way and correcting what she assumed he was doing wrong on the screen that Sapphire abandoned. Dean and Nina, opposite sides of the training room, glaring daggers at each other just as Jude and Mason did. Both were in the same power plant at District 5, apparently vying for the same promotion that, logically, would never come, but the competition was fierce anyways.