𝙒𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙍𝘾𝙊𝙇𝙊𝙍 𝙀𝙔𝙀𝙎 // finnick o.

𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜

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THE TRAINING ARENA was well armed with weapons for each tribute. The careers took initiative of their years being skilled with the art of each one. They were training only for intimidation, they knew they could kill, but they wanted their presence known.

She saw Birre from afar, he was making a poor attempt to tie a not with a rope. The tutorial he was shown didn't help much either.

Lilac watched as the girl from District 4 went up to him, she offered to help Birre out. The young boy looked shocked but graciously thanked her.

"Your worried about him." a unfamiliar voice caused Lilac to jolt in place, looking behind her. A tan male stood behind her, she remembered him as the District 4 male tribute. He smirked, "Don't worry, I won't tell."

"What do you want?"

"Hey relax," he spoke softly, "Brook and I are just looking for some possible allies."

"Why us?" Lilac looked unconvinced, she furrowed her brows at the boy in front of her.

"What? You think you can handle the careers by yourself?" he questioned, "we won't stand a chance against them by ourselves."

Lilac frowned, "I never said I was going to fight the careers."

"You will to protect that kid." the District 4 tribute pointed out, gesturing to the kid who was tying knots at the rope station with the District 4 girl.

Lilac turned away from Birre and back to the strange boy as he continued, "And don't you think the careers will come after you first if your by yourselves?"

"Alright, alright." Lilac put her hands up in defense. "What do you want out of it?"

"I don't want anything, except for us hopefully to become friends." he smiled, the boy actually looked genuine.

She sighed, "Ok, um— what's your name exactly?" she felt rude for forgetting, knowing they watched their reaping on the way to the Capital.

Though, the District 4 male found amusement with the girl's question, "Eldoris." he laughed, shortly stopping as he pointed to his district partner. "That's Brooke."

Lilac nodded along, watching as the girl made eye contact with them and waved. Birre refused to make eye contact with them, still going according to their plan.

Eldoris and Lilac worked through the days training learning a variety of options, though both tributes didn't go through any of their fighting techniques due to the careers speculating everyone in the training arena's moves.

When the day was over, the two District 12 tributes made there way back to their rooms. Lilac notably spotted Eldoris and Brooke speaking with Finnick.

Could he have been the one who set this up? Lilac thought to herself, he did tell her he wanted to help her win The Hunger Games, but why exactly? Maybe it was just a trick to help his tributes get an ally.

She made her way back up to her room, meeting Haymitch, Effie, and Birre once she stepped inside.

"Tomorrow I want us to go down early, before everyone wakes up." Haymitch said, he had been quite uncharacteristic from what she'd been seeing these past few days. He'd willingly help both the two tributes, and she'd notice he'd been drinking less. Maybe he actually saw something in the them.

"Why so early?" Birre questioned.

"I want you two to be more comfortable with weapons without showing off to the other tributes." he spoke, shortly adding on, "from what i've seen of them these careers take their time getting to the arena. Since there isn't exactly a requirement for arrival, it'll give you two a advantage without the opponent seeing your every move."

The two nodded, Lilac wondered if Birre would actually attempt to use a weapon, he has some strength for sure but he'd told her he never wielded one.

And also the fact that he detested the idea of killing another tribute.

THE SPEAR SHE CARRIED wasn't exactly like the makeshift one she used to fish back in twelve, if you could even count that thing as a spear to begin with.

Haymitch had been helping her prep for this back on the train with more makeshift spears they'd made out of the legs of a chair.

Lilac raised arm up, clutching the spear in the form Haymitch had taught her, the back end of the weapon wobbled in her grasp. She adjusted, trying to even out both of the sides as she held it.

Once she set her arm into position, she wounded it back, the rest of her body moving along with it as she threw it at her target.

The good thing, the spear managed to hit the target. Bad thing, it didn't hit a prominent part of the body to kill a person. She'd have to work on that.

The only thing Lilac didn't expect was the gamemakers to be there that early, she'd assumed they'd be asleep or somewhere throwing a feast. But they watched intently as she preformed. It was extremely suspicious to Lilac given she was from an outer district.

As the time pasted they'd stopped with their practice, not wanting to get caught by other tributes. Haymitch and Lilac learned that Birre was good at creating traps, assuming they were animals anyways. Perhaps he'd have to be coaxed into the idea of creating a trap for a human being...

After the three cleaned up, Haymitch left the two tributes to their own things. Lilac decided to move towards the rope station, watching the screen above it on how to tie different types of knots.

The visual guide did little to actually help her as she struggled tying what had looked like one of the basics. Subtly, a pair of muscular arms wrapped around her hips, their hands moving for the two lines of rope.

"Here." barley louder than a whisper, a deep yet familiar voice spoke to her.

Her breath hitched as she froze, utterly shocked. It took her a moment as she turned her head to the side, looking at the one and only, Finnick Odair.

Their eyes locked onto each others, Finnick grinned at her as he started laughing. He removed his gaze from hers, focusing on the rope. His chest was pressed up against her back, she was squished between him and the table.

"You scared me!" she lightly slapped his shoulder with her hand. However his antics did bring a smile to her face.

"Sorry, sorry." he stopped laughing, looking back up at her. His smile grew, continuing to fiddle with the rope as he attempted to multitask, finding it a but difficult to tie the rope together with Lilac in the way.

"Here. Look at the knot." he gestured with his head, Lilac moved her head to zone in on it as he guided her through the steps.

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