training wheels // luya blitz.

[✨ zozo.]

You've never been a breakfast person, but you can hear Cassie in your ears even when you're thousands of miles apart. She tells you that you need all the strength you can get in this place, that skipping meals will just hurt your chances. And she's right, and you hate that, frowning as you take a tray of eggs and greens and toast, a carton of orange juice to boot, shoveling food into your mouth every morning and trying to ignore the waves of nervous nausea that follow.

You'd taken to arriving early and eating as quickly as possible in an attempt to avoid everyone else. The dining hall, much like everything else in this centre, was cold and metallic and you hated it, the way even the smallest of sounds bounced around in echoes and revealed your presence in an instant. Ripred help you if you found yourself in the path of some particularly angry career tribute. You'd heard the whispers about them. Tears and a punch to the stomach weren't going to be on your menu if you could help it.

But this morning someone had peaked your curiosity as you collected your regular meal and juice. One girl had arrived before you, sitting with her back turned to you and the door. She looked small, an 11 stamped to the back of her freshly-pressed training shirt, tinier still in the empty expanse of the dining hall.

You stood there for a moment, tray in hand, eyeing the back of her head and debating with yourself. On one hand - she wasn't a career. It would pay to make at least one friend here, a distraction of conversation as you forced food into your tiny little frame. On the other, the tiniest tributes were often the deadliest - and Eleven had about as many victors as you have fingers.

In the end you decide on the former. Truth be told you miss your sisters, as awful as they could be, missed their company if anything -- and you need a friend in here. Desperately.

"May I sit with you?" you ask on approach, gesturing with your tray to the seat across from her and trying on a smile for size.

table by elegant // gfx by me.