Hopper quickly finds Detta working out in the gym, lifting weights at the bench. 

"What's our strategy?" "How does this work?" "How do you grapple with someone with a sword?"

His questions at first are practical, as he follows her from one car to the next. She ignores him as he tries to engage her with these inquiry, however, and makes her way from the gym to the bar car to have a drink. 

His questions quickly begin to devolve though, as she sips her gin and tonic he finally steps over the line. Pointing at her metal prosthetic hand, which she had done her best to conceal, he excitedly asks, "how did you lose your arm"

At this the tall woman pauses from her drink, and there is a moment of awkward silence before a bell chimes and the words 'dinner is served' ring over the intercom.

The dinner is nicer than either of the tributes had ever had before. Pea and bacon soup, a salad of shredded root vegetables, roasted venison with  potatoes and mushrooms, smoked cheese with brown bread and grapes, and to finish, generous slices of blackberry pie with cream. The meal comes in courses, brought in from the kitchen car by stiff lipped staff who are silent as they present each new dish. Two chilled pitcher's of wine are brought in, and the tributes are given a choice between a dry red or a blackberry wine. 

This is eaten by candlelight, the chandelier casting ominous shadows across the faces of those dinning. The food is consumed quickly by the tributes, who take generous portions of what is offered. Euphemia eats delicate bites, while Detta eats a normal amount for someone her height. No one complains about the food.

As the pea soup is being served, Hopper watches Detta intently, trying to look cool and casual. Once the servers leave and the wine is poured (both tributes pick the blackberry wine), Hopper leans back in his chair and with a raised eyebrow, once again asks, "so how did you lose that arm?"

"The first Hunger Games, they gave the tributes too much food and too many tools and too much room to roam around in. Nobody fought each other. Things stretched out for months before children started dropping of disease."

If she's going to answer obnoxious questions, she may as well make it a history lesson. This kid sure needs it.

"The second games, they overcompensated in the other direction. Twenty four children, no food, a ring of fire blocking out all routes of escape, and a single machete." She lays her prosthetic forelimb down on the table between them. It thuds heavily. "I didn't end up being the one holding the machete."

Hopper sips his soup rather stupidly and watches Detta with a blank expression. He isn't sure how to respond as she goes on, talking about the games. Once a year, for school, his class has to watch one of the previous year's hunger games. For reasons he doesn't understand, his school never airs the second games, even though their district had won.

Despite his curiosity, his mother never let him watch it. His father wouldn't have it, either. 

Hopper was one to seek to satisfy curiosity. If there is an interesting looking piece of machinery being built, he has to figure out what it is. If there is a secret going around school Hopper will find it. His desire to find knowledge knows no bounds, even if he doesn't know what to do with it. 

However, for the first time in Hopper's life, he regrets his curiosity.

“So how’d you win, then?”

The next course is delivered while this question hangs in the air. The chopped up root vegetables are crunchy and covered with a vinegar sauce and chopped walnuts. The two tributes are distracted momentarily from their questions as they curiously taste the strange dish. Dhina shrugs and just digs in, while Hopper shudders and then picks at his curiously before properly settling into it. 

Detta watches the two in amusement, and then answers.

"I'd gotten one of my arms pretty badly mangled in an industrial accident a few years beforehand. I threw it into the way when he came at me, and the Machete got stuck on the steel plate in my forearm. The other tributes saw this, and mobbed him. I got knocked to the ground, arm torn open, left for dead. I crawled over to the wall of fire and cauterized the wound."

"Steel forearm plate. How'd someone from District Six afford surgery like that?"

"Someone from the capital took an interest in me. Covered my medical bills. I volunteered for the games to get out of their pocket."

"So that explains how you survived, but how'd you win? One arm. Zero machetes. Doesn't sound like the odds were in your favor."

"The steel plate in my forearm tapered to a point at one end. I extracted it, waited until there was just one other tribute left standing, and then used it as a shiv."

Hopper starts coughing and a server pats him on the back as the boy tribute almost chokes on some vegetable matter, his eyes going wide as he clears his throat and stares at Detta. Other servers place the venison on the table and cut each diner a piece.

The same server stands by Hopper with some water as the boy sputters; it is their job to get the tributes to the capital alive. 

"What..?." he gasps, tears welling up in his eyes. "You did what now? That is so... so cool."

What an obnoxiously endearing youth. She is not sure whether she wants to ruffle his hair or stab him in his sleep.

"Yes. It was pretty cool. About a decade later, I finally stopped having nightmares."

Hopper pretends to pay attention to the venison and potatoes for a moment, but is too excited to pay attention to his food for long.

"So what did it feel like when you knew that you had won? What was it like coming home a victor?"

“I think you might be getting a little ahead of yourself there.”

Hopper doesn't know what to say once again, and the sound of more food being brought in luckily breaks the silence. A platter of smoked cheese with grapes and pieces of brown bread cut at a weird angle being wheeled in and left so that the dinners can enjoy it as they please.

Hopper is barely tucked into his venison, and his stomach is already fuller than usual, so he slows down and eats a few of the mushrooms while he thinks of what to say next. 

"So which of us do you think has a better chance?" 

“You’re bigger, stronger, and you grew up learning a less useless trade. Before you opened your mouth, I figured you as a much more promising tribute.”

”Now, though? I’m less sure.”

This last statement from Detta kills the conversation, and the tributes focus on their food. After the dessert is finished, each is escorted back to their private suites and is left to themselves.

The sound of the train doesn't lull the tributes to sleep, despite what is normally said about sleeping on trains. The night lasts seemingly forever.

The next morning, the table in the dinning car is laden with steak and kidney pie, pancakes with fruit compote, scones with butter or jam or marmalade, and thin slices of smoked pork. 

Hopper shows up late for breakfast, and upon entering the dinning car, the other occupants wretch as his scent hits them. This was due to him having found the complementary cologne. He reeks of sesame oil, animal musk, and sea water. 

The ensuing conversation is terse and backhanded, and it holds the tributes attention to such an extent that they don't even realize when they arrive. The train stops in the capital station.

The sounds and smells of machinery are not too foreign to former denizens of district six, but the glittering lights and sweeping architecture beyond certainly are!

Dhina has seen pictures before, but it’s different in person. “...so big?”

The tributes are taken from the train with armed peacekeepers as their guides. The crowd has to be held back, as the tributes make their way off of the train with their escort and mentor. 

The people of the capital seem so strange to the tributes. They've seen videos, and the strange fashions, music, etc. TV and news exist in their district, so the sight of furs from large animals such as bears or wolves used as cloaks or shoals isn't a surprise to them. Nor are the feather hats or dark makeup which has become popular, although most of the dead things warn aren't nearly as identifiable as the full stuffed fox perched atop Euphemia's hat. 

What is jaring, however, is the fact that there seems to be a sort of district six fan club waiting for them. Having to be held back are middle age capital citizens and their children, the adults having been young when Detta won at the second games, these people grew up seeing her as a kind of action hero. This itself isn't so surprising, each victor has their followers, and the same sentiment about Detta is held in district six. But it never occurred to either of the tributes that dressing up and role playing, or collecting memorabilia from certain games would be a pass time, more or less a popular one. But there are families present in matching train conductor outfits, made of finer material than anyone from district six could ever afford, of course. There are signs with rings of fire to represent the arena, and even small children dressed up in little train costumes. But most disturbing of all, there are people holding up and waving plastic versions of the sharpened metal prosthetic that Detta had used to win. 

A reporter comes out from the crowd and asks Detta "who are you wearing?" This garners Detta's characteristic silence, which make the audience roar with laughter. 

The  tributes walk slowly as they are led along by the peacekeepers "Come now," says Euphemia, gesturing toward a tower. "we need to get you two cleaned up." As she says this, she pinches her nose and frowns at Hopper.

Hopper sits in a large tub like a cat that is being forced to take a bath, because this is approximately what he is doing. As soon as he arrived in the preparation center, his beauty team force him to undress, scrub him down, make him shower, wax off all of his body hair (there isn't much), and then finally let him relax in the tub. 

He grips his knees to his chest tightly, eyeing his beauty team suspiciously. One of them wears a leather apron and gloves as if working with livestock, her hair died jet black and tied back tightly in a bun. The other two are twins who are closer to au naturale, working topless in loose fitting, suede briefs as their only clothing. Both men have their heads shaved and wear intense amount of smokey eyeliner. 

As the woman begins to pick up and move his clothes from where they were left on the floor, Hopper stands up, holding out his hand in a stop gesture. "Wait," he says, not wanting to have the woman take his clothes. "May I keep them?" he asks.

"They're going to be washed and sent up to your room, yes," she sneers, and then glances down so that Hopper gets the message. 

"Hopper then realizes that he has exposed himself to these strange people, and immediately sits back down in the warm, soppy water. He just wants his goddamn sock.

Dhina has no words for the adults grooming her.

She doesn't even let herself make sounds during the more painful bits.

(Beauty has a surprising amount of painful bits.)

She endures, and then she is clean, and then she is 'pretty' and then it is over.

In the large prep room, each tribute is being cleaned up before going to see their personal stylist. The tributes with their beauty teams are each given a large curtained off space so that the tributes, either naked or partially so, can be bathed and waxed and made some form of acceptable. Sounds of running water, hair ripping out from waxing, clippers, filling of nails, and other sounds fill the air. 

The intense nervousness of tributes being made up for the slaughter lingers above everyone's heads in a way that is familiar to the beauty teams now. 

But this intensity is suddenly broken with the sound of a loud, pained yelp. Out of one of the curtained off areas, the sound of someone stumbling out into the middle ground is then heard, and beauticians peak out to take a glance. But nobody gets a chance to see what happened, as the worker who came out is quickly ushered out of sight by white uniformed peacekeepers. 

Did another tribute just attack a beautician?

Dhina can sympathize with that sentiment, but is certainly not disposed to such viciousness herself.