BLOOD ON MY HANDS || Finnick Odair

three; how to tie knots

Breakfast that morning had been a fluffy flat cake type food that Valynn had called pancakes, along with syrup and eggs and bacon and sausages and fresh fruit; Eden wasn't sure he would be able to stomach it all, but he held his ground.

After finishing his meal had helped Flora into a pair of comfortable grey pants and a loose green tee-shirt that Titus had left for her, apparently having designed it specifically for her to wear to training. He was just in a gray shirt and black fitted pants again, with a pair of shoes more comfortable than anything he'd ever felt in his life. Both of them had the number 10 pinned onto the front of their shirts, signifying their District of origin.

While Emery and Moira bickered away about what angle they should play in front of the tributes, Eden did everything in his power to make Flora laugh.

He made quiet comments about their mentors, about Valynn's new style of neon colours everywhere, about what the other tributes could be like, but she hardly even cracked a smile and kept her eyes on her plate. So he settled for tightly holding her hand under the table until they were escorted to the elevators.

Even there, Flora hardly looked up from her shaking hands.

"Do you want to tell me what's going on?" He spoke quietly while pressing the button to the training floor, then settling his eyes on her. "Because I know that this is an awful situation, but you're starting to really freak me out."

"I just don't want you to die, is all," Flora shrugged, her voice cracking over the word die. "But if I'm having this baby, then you'll..."

"I know," he sighed, pulling her into his arms. "But you'll still have part of me, alright?" He gently pressed his lips to hers, and pulled away just as the elevator doors dinged open.

There were only five of the districts already in the room waiting; 1, 4, 5, 7, and 12. The moment they stepped out of the elevator the pairs from 1 and four turned to look at them, the other six tributes just stayed miserably in place.

The pair from 1 were obviously dangerous eighteen year olds; the boy was all floppy dark blonde hair and visibly bulging sculpted muscles while the girl, who's hair was a few shades darker than his own, was tall and slender with a wicked and torturous smirk.

The ones from 4 weren't as old, or as nerve-wracking to look at, with the boy shorter than the other one in the quartet, and not as big, but he was clearly strong enough to take out at least four people in the room before anyone could land a hit on him. The girl couldn't have been older than fifteen, and had a sweet face, but Eden had seen tributes win with less.

Instead of stopping to make conversation, he just placed his hand on Flora's lower back and guided her over to an empty space with a chair so she could sit down. She leaned her head on his side, and he took the waiting time to look over the other tributes as they filtered in, catching a glimpse of their escorts stopping at the door.

The tributes from 5 didn't look particularly harmful, scrawny and blue eyed, but the girl was talking with the red head from 1, so he made a mental note of that. District 7 was equally as thin, and both were tan with light brown hair, but kept to themselves. As always, the pair from 12 were both dark haired, olive-skinned and indescribably thin. The boy looked to be about eighteen, but the girl was small and looked like she was twelve years old, and she kept watching them with wide curious eyes.

A spark of anger flickered in Eden's chest for a moment, aimed toward the capitol for not bothering to find a tribute to take Flora's place, and for making a twelve year old girl who couldn't weight more than eighty pounds soaking wet fight for her life.

A woman stepped up on a pedestal so they could all see her once everyone had arrived, and gave them an introductory speech about which stations teach you what and how there was no fighting allowed between tributes, and how they should be prepared to face anything in the arena. No matter how hard he tried to, Eden couldn't focus, because the tributes from District 2 — both dark haired, fair skinned, and light eyed — were constantly looking at Flora and hissing comments at each other.