Cage me like an animal • F Odair¹ •

VI

"Weird. I don't remember joking. Sweet dreams, Maris."

•∘♛∘•

Athena woke up the next morning to the sound of Alayne banging on the door, singing cheerfully of another "big, big, big day!" ahead. Athena stayed lying in bed for a time, though, and realized with a jolt that tonight was the first night that she hadn't been awakened too early by nightmares. Wondering if that was some sort of good omen, she rolled out of bed and showered quickly, careful about which buttons she hit, before heading to the dining room. Athena served herself some of the lamb stew with dried plums quickly, before sitting down beside Mags.

"So, what's the schedule, then?" Athena asked curiously. "Or am I not allowed to ask since - you know, we're not being coached together?"

Finnick shrugged. "No harm in telling you both now. Means we can get right to work. Now, as you know, Kai's being coached by me, and Athena, you're being coached by Mags, so we'll stay by your sides all day. But Alayne also gets four hours with each of you to teach you etiquette. The other four hours is when me or Mags teaches you two about content. Athena, you start with Alayne for the first four hours."

"Four hours?" Kai repeated, as stunned as she felt. "What kind of etiquette takes four hours to learn?"

"Oh, trust me," Alayne said, "sometimes four hours doesn't seem like enough."

Alayne looked directly at Athena as she said that. Even though it had all worked out in the end, Athena suspected that Alayne still hadn't entirely forgiven her for her stunt during her evaluation. Still, Athena couldn't imagine what Alayne had to teach her that could take that long to perfect, but as it turned out, Alayne had her working down to the very last minute. Athena, Mags, and Alayne all went to Athena's chambers directly after breakfast, where Alayne then put Athena in a full-length gown and high-heeled shoes, instructing her to walk. Athena's only consolation was that this wasn't the outfit she would be wearing for the actual interview, because walking in it was a disaster. The shoes were the worst part; Athena had worn high heels before, for formal occasions at the academy and even one or two Reapings, and on those occasions, they have never posed any real problem. But Athena had never ones with heels this high, ones that left Athena to wobble around helplessly on the balls of her feet. Her struggling in the shoes was made even more humiliating by the fact that Alayne ran around in even higher heels full-time, yet Athena could barely take three steps in hers. The gown didn't help matters. It was so long that it kept tangling around in her shoes, so that Athena had to hitch it up, only then Alayne swooped down on her like a hawk, smacking her hands away and crying out, "Not above the ankle!" Mastering the art of walking was potentially one of the most difficult things she had done since coming to the Capitol, filled with tripping and falling and a wide variety of curse words leaving Athena's mouth.

"You better hope that this part of you doesn't come out during the interviews!" Alayne insisted, covering her ears with her hands and looking scandalized. "You swear like a sailor!"

"You clearly haven't spoken with any sailors, if you think I'm bad - " Athena began, but stopped at the look Mags shot her.

It didn't get all that much easier after she conquered walking. There was also sitting and posture. Alayne certainly didn't seem to enjoy it, but she corrected Athena's posture nearly every five minutes, making her sit up straight, forcing her shoulders back and her chin up, nagging her to sit like a lady.

"Honestly, Athena, if you don't do something about that slouch, you'll be a hunchback before you're forty," Alayne said, clucking her tongue disapprovingly.

Athena didn't know if that was one of Alayne's thoughtless comments or her way of showing that she believed in Athena enough to think that she would even make it to forty. Before she could ask, though, they moved onto eye contact - there was still that nasty habit of looking to her upper left whenever she lied that Finnick pointed out a few days ago, and apparently she had another habit of avoiding eye contact when she wasn't happy about the subject being discussed. Then there was hand gestures. Apparently Athena used her hands too much when she spoke when she was upset or frustrated, the gestures were always wide and aggressive and a little frantic, and otherwise, she didn't use her hands at all. Last was smiling, which was mostly just about smiling more. Alayne must have made her say over a hundred banal phrases starting with a smile while smiling, or ending with a smile.