Ready, Set... {Lyndis}

s usual, towards the end of the day, Velvet found herself cleaning up the training center. That meant putting weapons back on the racks, vacuuming the lanes clean of sawdust, finding empty bottles shoved behind shit and wondering whose ass she was going to kick tomorrow because of it. Have some pride in your district!

Granted, the general mood in the center was brooding and downright salty. Only three years had passed since district twelve had taken the crown, and those coal dust covered freaks had done it again.

Again.

They were the lowest of the low, living in the trash heap of Panem. And yet they’d managed two victors in four years. Meanwhile, district one, for all of their vaunted training, still hadn’t brought home the crown since Justice Fray. What the fuck were him, Opal and Topaz teaching people? Damn it, Velvet thought as she angrily crushed a water bottle and shoved it in the trash bag she was holding. If district twelve was trash, what did that make district one?

Her mother had flipped her lid when Nico struck that killing blow. It was a matter of district pride, and now Velvet knew that the training regimens were going to get even harder for all of them. She tied up the bag and put in the can, surveying the area. Most people had cleared out already, emotions running the gamut from disappointed to depressed, but there were a few still plugging away, like the little girl trying to throw knives. Velvet’s eyes narrowed. The little girl had to be around twelve or so. And she hadn’t been in the center earlier.

Still, she looked somewhat familiar. Had she been on television for some reason? That seemed to be the most likely explanation for why Velvet thought she’d seen her somewhere, because she definitely wasn’t a regular. Velvet knew everyone on sight. Or by name, she thought with a grumble as one of Agnes’s doe-eyed smirks flickered through her head.

God, there was an epidemic of small and useless children in her training center.

Now, while she was just as hopeless at throwing knives as a certain other girl was at axes, Velvet stalked over with a little more curiosity than annoyance. Had this child snuck into the center to practice? If so, she had some real guts.

“What are you doing here?” she intoned from directly behind her. “You’re not wearing a name tag, so I know you’re not a member.” Velvet smirked briefly and pointed to the tag on her own chest. “Care to explain yourself?”