seeking a great perhaps // emery

I'm not afraid of the game, but it's not to say that the players don't daunt me. Sitting cross-legged on the training center floor and trying half-heartedly to wrestle a rope into one of the fancy knots I've been taught, my eyes wander. (What could be more interesting in this castle of enemies disguised as simple rivals than to watch the humans? People tell better stories in the way they act than the words they speak, Susan told me that a long time ago.) Every year, as I watched the television and clutched my siblings hand, I marvelled at the horrors of the Games and the children that participated. Now, more than ever, the faces that await their deaths look young and rosy-cheeked. We are not the army of seventeen and eighteen year olds that usually walk these halls; and twenty three of us are never going to grow up.

It's hard to stay happy when the days ahead promise so much bloodshed, but I am Lucy and Peter always said nobody was better at spreading smiles and sweetness. (And as I glance around the training center I wince at the children who sit at the edges of the training center, speaking to nobody and sulking into their hands.) We are all afraid, surely, but a little bit of cheer wouldn't go amiss around here. Dusting myself off, I climb up from the ground and drop my tangled ropes at my feet, more bored than defeated. (Edmund's words ring in my ears - "Lucy, you can't stand to be alone for a second, can you?" - he was annoyed, then, wanting me to leave him be.) Pushing my brother's face from my mind, I move to the nearest of my fellow tributes and smile brightly, stumbling forward in a whirlwind of enthusiasm. "Hello! I'm Lucy, what's your name?"