#swann.

They haven’t ventured outside of Twelve’s car much. They didn’t want to leave everyone there alone; they didn’t want to be alone. But curiosity pulls them out. And, almost immediately, into Swann.

There was something about Swann Meture. After Snow’s party, Hudson hadn’t known what to make of her. She seemed to come on too strong, know too much; Hudson couldn’t be sure if she was the carrot to Teal Pitsmith’s stick—a trap, a threat, just a different kind. But maybe they were too quick to discount her. Learning the wrong lessons: so sure they were too quick to trust that they became too quick to be suspicious instead.

They remember what she said to them—stay close to your people—and, in retrospect, it sounds like good advice. And, if the rebellion is real, then that means that people they’ve met must be involved in it. Maybe they can find them, if they just look.

She’s bent over something. A drawing. From what Hudson can see of it, it might be the train. “Are you—” they ask, but the words are hard to find. “What’re you doing?”

There are things, from their own Games, that they don’t even remember. Or things that they never knew in the first place, because they were hunkered down in the Arena instead of sitting in the Capitol with a bird’s eye view. It hadn’t bothered them, until they realized that there were surrounded by people that did. People who knew the worst days of Hudon’s life better than they themself did, people who had seen him delirious, dying, dragging around a leg that he no longer has.

People who, now, want to tell them all about it.

It’s too much to bear, leaves them casting their eyes over their unwanted companions’ shoulders for a lifeline. They’re looking for Fava, for Nelly, for Griffin, but they don’t see them. Instead, they lock eyes with Swann Meture.

It’s not the escape that they would have picked. As a Victor, Swann is beloved. A Career; and now, someone who fits into the glamour of the Capitol like they were born into it. But she sees them, and she doesn’t look away, and Hudson isn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Excuse me,” he says to the flock swarmed around him, and makes his escape, even if it’s a little rude.

“You don’t mind pretending we’re having an engrossing conversation, do you?” They say, with a smile they hope is more charming than they currently feel. “If I’m alone, I’m a sitting duck.”