#op task

Aracelia walked away from the first aid station and decided that she would check out the hand to hand combat; she felt she had been trained well by James while she was still back in district 5, but it couldn’t hurt to test the waters. She walked up to the trainer and asked if she could spar with him to test out some of the moves in her repertoire (and who knows, maybe she would learn some new ones.) 

The trainer started off easy, just stretching, limbering up (which she had done when she woke up that morning, as she did each morning) and moved into some different fighting stances.  Aracelia knew these for the most part, James had taught her well. 

Once they had run through all the basic moves and static combat practices, Aracelia suggested some sparring. The trainer and Celia wrapped their hands and proceeded to run through sparring techniques. Aracelia was well matched, every blow was matched with a perfect block for each fighter, and by the end of the match Celia was almost out of breath. 

It seemed like Charlotte was giving me some sass. I had gone to the effort of seeking her out and trying to be friendly, and she was sassing me. Maybe that was just her coping mechanism, she seemed to have some sort of anxiety, like me. Why else would she have passed out when her name was called? 

She mentioned something about brothers, maybe that’s why she had reacted so strongly to being reaped. Either way I brushed her comment off, and returned to watching the instructor who was showing us how make a splint. I hoped I wouldn’t have to that because it looked a little too complicated and it probably wouldn’t do much. If you broke anything more than a finger in the arena you were probably going to die anyway.

The woman finished up by talking us through using a hypodermic needle (which made me feel a little weak looking at, I realised I was mildly terrified of needles for some reason I couldn’t place), and asked if we had any questions or if we wanted to try anything for ourselves. 

I looked to Charlie to see if she wanted to try anything; I wanted to make sure i fully understood how to use the needle just in case something went wrong and it was necessary for me to use one. 

This was the first day of training and I had to make the decision of where i needed to go. I already had a lot of experience with hand-to-hand combat, I probably wouldn’t be needing to spend much time (if any) there. I thought about finding allies, they would be useful in the arena, and it couldn’t hurt to maybe have a friend. (Didn’t mean i would get attached though.) 

I walked up to the girl from district 6, Charlotte i think her name was, and introduced myself.

Aracelia calmed down in time for them to pull into the station. She managed to clean her face and reapply what minimal makeup she had been wearing, but there was the hint of red in her eyes that only comes after crying and this was something she didn’t really need to deal with. Her first time in the capitol, she was expected none the less, and she had already panicked. Her appearance had to look good, both physically and emotionally. She had to look strong, like something had happened on that train which changed her outlook on the situation. That had been her original plan, frightened orphan girl at the reaping, but hardened adult by the time she made it to capitol. Funny how things never work out the way you want them to, Celia thought bitterly. 

As the train slowed and came to the station, Sebastian looked at her. 

“Are you ready to go out there?” 

“Well I don’t have much of a choice do I?” But Aracelia threw her shoulders back and lifted her head up and....grabbed his hand.

And they were off the train and walking through the crowd, their fingers intertwined.

“Give the people something to talk about yeah? A reason for them to remember me.” Aracelia said softly, leaning into his shoulder briefly for a moment as they walked.

But the feel of his soft warm hand in hers was more than just something to get the capitolites talking, no, this was for her. This was because James had never given her this feeling before and she was living in it as long as she could. This boy that she had just met today, a boy she thought was just some shallow capitol scum, was giving her more peace after one of her panic attacks than her mother or best friend ever could. Introducing herself and trying to get noticed was a great excuse for her to hold his hand and maybe keep this feeling for a little longer. 

As cameras flashed, people leaned on the barriers that were holding them back to call out her name and maybe get a glimpse of this new tribute (fresh meat, she thought bitterly to herself), she walked quickly with her small hand wrapped tightly in his. 

And it was ok.

Aracelia lifted her head and placed an even smile on her face. She wasn’t thinking about whatever had happened back there on the train, (what had happened back there?) all she could feel was his presence next to her and knew she needed to smile and look like she could handle everything. Soon they were at their suite for dinner and she went to drop his hand, but he kept holding on.

Aracelia was taken into a room where James was standing against a window, his arms behind his back. He looked much calmer than he should have been; Celia was leaving him to fight on his own. He knew how much she wanted this, though. He turned around as he heard Sebastian say “5 minutes. That’s all you’ve got.”