Dhina flatly refuses to get the upcoming elevator door.

Fortunately, Emily is competent for handling this herself! It’s just walking that’s giving her trouble presently.

”So. Where are we?”

“This is where tributes train to survive.”

“Oh.”

"Awesome," says Hopper, smiling and helping Emily into the elevator. "What floor, miss?" he asks.

“Third, I believe.”

The small group land in a briefing room where the other tributes with their stylists, escorts, and handlers, are quickly getting them out of their costumes talking excitedly about the new development.

Euphemia seems a bit reluctant as she brings Emily back to her stylist, as if she were handing over a valuable asset. She frowns as she watches them cross the room to the district four bench. 

"Detta, you really should bring up strategy with these two. With our new rule I believe the odds might not be so unforgiving, as is the usual case from your district." She breathes these words out seethingly, biting at the words quietly as they pass from her teeth. Without looking up, she grabs a pad from her literal bear head purse, and begins pursing her lips as she scans the news.

“Strategy.”

She’s tried a lot of strategies for keeping other District 6 tributes alive over the years, and none of them have panned out particularly well.

”Before we dig into that, I should see what the two of you have to work with.”

Dhina walks over to a display panel for one of the training machines and pushes a button on it.

Then pushes another button.

Then pushes a third button with especially exaggerated dexterity.

Hopper practically laughs out loud and walks over to a shelf of smaller weapons, realizing his strength is low but his precision is high. He picks up a small-ish hammer mallet and a few throwing knives. He sets the flat-bunted knives blade first into a panel wood so that they stand up like railroad spikes. He then proceeds to swing the mallet and hit each knife on the head, driving them into the wood panel. It takes him quite a bit of effort and he is sweating profusely by the exertion, but he lands each blow and drives the knives slightly deeper into the wood each time. 

His class in school did a hour long work-shift after lunch every day in school, and he had been driving in railroad spikes since he was ten. It was always his job because he hit the nail on the head every time.

Dropping the mallet and looking away, he looks up at Detta and says, "...and you should see what I can do with an electrical grid."

"That is not what I meant!" protests Euphemia through gritted teeth. She holds up her pad for Detta to see, scrolling down on the touch screen with her finger tips. Its a miracle she doesn't scratch the screen due to her sharp, now blood red nails.

"The District six fan club is 'blowing up,' as the children say. Headlines about the 'chivalrous, purple eyed train conductor' from district six is getting people's attention. Obviously not nearly the amount of attention as the more popular districts, but for one that hasn't had a win in more than a decade, you need this attention. Especially with the addition of sponsors. You have a fan club Detta, use it!" Her tirade comes out as a series of hisses and squeaks, but Euphemia puts her hands on her hips and some of the other tributes are starring at the frightful woman. She has a point.

“I’ll meet with some of my contacts tonight and see if the next few days have publicity opportunities.”

The tributes are given ground rules after they have regrouped with their escorts and are instructed to come down to the third floor for training for the next three days, and that day four will be for individual assessment and scores. Day five will be prep and their final interview that night, and the next morning they go into the arena. 

The rules for the training center are as follows:

no fighting with other tributes

no leaving the training center

no private interviews unless approved of by all parties involved in their district tribute team

and a few other basic rules about not damaging things or stealing. 

They are instructed on how the games will work, how when they are in the arena, they can't leave their platforms until the gong sounds or else they will get blown up right then and their. How only one out of the twenty three of them will come out alive. They are wished that the odds will be ever in their favor.

The tributes then make their way up to their various suites, one district per floor. The district six floor has a fountain in the center and a long dinning table next to it, with a sitting area to the right. The people in charge really paid attention to detail when it came to making the tributes feel at home, and so all of the decorations were themed after trains and cars. No elevators, however. 

Dinner was almost ready when the district six tributes reached their suite, and the two youths were sternly instructed by Euphemia to change into some of the clothes provided and to not throw their costumes on the floor. Fifteen minutes later the tributes were back at the main table in fresh clothes, being served raw oysters on the half shell as an appetizer, as the servant called it. 

"Girl. Dhiiiina, you really think there's nothing you can do to at least be less of a throw away in the arena?" mewled Euphemia thirstily before tipping up a shell and letting an oyster slide down her dry throat.

"The average tribute dies on the first day." Dhina doesn't look up from her food. "I don't have delusions of being above average."

Euphemia purses her lips and turns to the next course of a clear beef consomme, acting as if she hadn't heard the impertinent girl. "I will set up an interview for both of you with one of the local channels tomorrow morning before training begins. They are doing a fluff piece on the districts with the highest tribute mortality rates. It will play in district six, your parents can watch it," she offers this in a way that doesn't seem in the least conciliatory, but more like she has decided that with these new rules she will put more effort in because her job of delivering and marketing the tributes now has some even ground underneath it.

"So, let's go over the things that you two should and shouldn't say. Number one, it is generally well known in the capital that the light skinned phenotype from district six has purple eyes." her ridiculous statement actually manages to pull Hopper away from his soup, and he blinks his eyes repeatedly, the purple contact lenses still in place.

"What?" he asks, gesturing at his eyes with one finger. "Is this why that squ-... lady put these things in my eyes?"

He blinks repeatedly, letting the idea sink in. He always thought that a lot of tributes over the years looked a little... off. He had assumed it had been fear or maybe just the lighting, but the concept that the capital thought people from the districts had distinct looks was just weird.

Dhina is vaguely curious as to what her own 'phenotype' qualifies as, but not enough to pose the question.

She keeps quiet, intent on knowing the rest of Euphemia's rules (she can't effectively break the rules, after all, if she doesn't know what they are).

"So keep quiet about those 'things in your eyes,' as you put it," says Euphemia, biting down on her soup spoon as if to chew off the end. 

"The main thing to keep in mind, is to be happy that you are here. Smile, say you're proud of your district, miss your family, but that you are glad to have been picked," she lets this sink in as the next course comes in, a roast goose stuffed with blackberries with a side of parsnips. She smiles as the servant removes the head and places it in the middle of the table for a decoration, before cutting her a thin slice of the crisp meat.

"You are happy to be here. It's okay to be scared to die, but you are confident and want your family to see you and you love the capital and its ok to rave about the food but don't talk about food or lack thereof in your district. Period." With this she sinks her knife into her goose and cuts herself a delicate bite, the berry juice dripping from the crisp flesh like blood.

And now she knows what her captors' sore spots are.

Excellent.

"I should get going soon, if you still want me to scout out publicity opportunities."

The rest of the dinner, which Detta missed due to her newfound mission, consisted of a spinach salad dotted with edible flowers, beef pate on wafer thin crackers, and for dessert, a huge plate of strawberries dipped in chocolate of every kind and covered in different types of crushed nuts. The tributes eat this meal heartily, because why shouldn't they at this point?

Detta, meanwhile, makes her way through the training center and up the elevator to the penthouse. She isn't a prisoner here like the tributes, on the contrary, she can go anywhere. But the victor knows that her best chances of finding people to 'sponser' her tributes is to go where the highest betting, most high stakes people retreat for the games: The Cornucopia. The door to the elevator opens and she find herself in a large room with black marble floors and low lounging tables scattered about. A fire burns in a pit off to the side near where the doors lead out to a balcony that looks over the whole of the capital. The theme of this bar is of the games itself, with souvenirs from the previous games mounted into the walls or else set up on stands. But the real stand out is the giant bar that takes up an entire half of the room itself. It is shaped like the cornucopia of the games and inside bar tenders stand behind the bar mixing spirits and poring beverages for the various people hanging around tonight. 

The patrons of The Cornucopia are comprised of victors, inverses, gamblers, game makers, district fan club presidents, and a few people who are simply bored or rich or both. 

Detta looks around the bar and confidently approaches, one of the bar tenders looking up and smiling. "Miss Gagnon, what can I do for you this evening?" 

“Drinks for a long night.”

She doesn’t need to say more than that.

This place’s whole gimmick is being a premier destination for victors of the games, which means the staff go out of their way to know their dozen-odd star customers and cater carefully to their needs.

When Detta asks for a long night, she’s saying she has business to conduct and would like to stay something approximating sober for the duration of her stay. When she asks for a short night, they bring out the hard liquor and pour it fast ‘till she’s too messed up to remember... whatever it is she’s trying not to remember that particular day.

And tonight’s for business, not forgetting. She takes a seat out by the balcony and waits.

The victor waits, quietly sipping a glass of red wine, tart and full bodied. The view is as heinously exquisite as ever, a lovely city with lights dancing as people celebrate the games. She has seen it every year since she was eighteen, and now she sits here and waits once again, only this time she actually waits for something instead of just the passing of time.

She didn't have to wait long

"Hello miss Detta?" asked a level voice from behind her

Meanwhile, a scared Hopper goes through his drawers until he finds where his prep team had stored his clothes. He quickly locates the sock he stole from the station master's house and hurries back to bed, trying not to make a sound.

A few minutes later when he was finished, he petted the sock in his hands. "Emily," he whispers into his pillow.

She glances over her shoulder.

Most former tributes don't much like being snuck up on, so whoever just solicited her either really knows what they’re doing or really does not know what they’re doing.

Either’ll do.

”Care to join me?”