The Beasts of Us [A Hunger Games Fanfic]

LIGHTS V. Nineve.

The drink Honey had given her was sweet and sent a warm fizz down her limbs, and Nineve sipped it gratefully while the escort strode around fussing with the furniture. She'd already sat her down on a big, ploofy chair that felt like sitting on a cloud and was now busy rearranging the lighting, muttering to her daemon every so often. Nineve had offered her help, but she'd refused. Most of the room's main lights were off, the windows had been darkened, and Honey was dragging over a tall, fierce lamp that reminded her of some kind of insect. Wincing in the glare, she took a few more sips as Honey positioned it over her head and stepped back to admire the effect. The escort was still confusing her a little. When clinging to Mako's arm and surrounded by her posse of cameramen she was all shrieks and giggles; she still was, but now there was a briskness to her voice and her manner that Nineve hadn't seen before. It was odd, coming from someone who wore her daemon as a statement necklace.

"It's a spotlight, see?" Honey tilted her head in a perfect impression of uncertainty, then reached out and tweaked the lamp the smallest possible amount in response to something her daemon had said. Nineve flinched. "Perfect! Now, obviously you'll be wearing something a bit more darling and there'll be a whole audience of people, but I thought if we could maybe get as close as we can, you won't be struck dumb like last year's. Ready?" Nineve nodded apprehensively. "Put your drink down, then. If you turn out to be a fidgeter we'll get something for your outfit, a bracelet or something, so that it's not obvious. Unless you've got one already?" She'd spotted the bracelet danging from her wrist. Nineve forced herself not to cover it up and said nothing. Honey grinned, arranging herself in another chair that had been dragged forwards. "We'll come to that later, then! Here we go. Hello there!"

Hello, hey or hi? They each had their own separate impressions: hello could be too stiff and formal, hi too chirpy and not serious enough. Lin would say hi. Stunner would probably say hey and add the wink, just to make sure he was sending out the right message. But what could she say?

She settled for: "It's great to meet you."

"That's great, hun," Honey hissed, before assuming her interviewer voice again. "Nineve, isn't it? Or can I call you Nin, seeing as the whole Capitol is?"

"Nineve, please."

"And your daemon...?"

Nineve recoiled. "That's a bit...intimate."

Honey laughed and gave her a pat on the knee that didn't help. "Not in the Capitol, hun! And it's a Capitol audience you're trying to impress. They'll want to know everything about you, and I mean everything."

"So should I answer it?" The idea made her insides curl. One or two people, or even the rest of the trainees in the Center, fine, but the whole of Panem...

"Not if you really don't want to. But you need to dodge it cleverly, or they'll just ask again. Try: only people who are really special to me get to know his name."

It sounded trite but Nineve repeated it anyway, trying to make it sound genuine. Honey seemed impressed. Echo, still nervous about Zavier and therefore hiding behind her ear, wriggled. "I'm not a he."

With Honey watching, she didn't want to say that she'd done it on purpose. They'd seen interviews with tributes like them before, and they'd inevitably been asked what they thought made them so special. Nineve had often spent her spare time pondering this very question and had a few theories of her own, but she wasn't willing to share them with one person, let alone everybody.

"That's good," Honey said cheerily. "Once more, with a bit more emphasis on the 'special'?" Sure that she was blushing, Nineve tried again. Honey applauded. "Much better! I am loving that little colour in yours cheeks, hun, and you can bet the rest of them will too."