submissions of 500 - 1000 words of fic are welcomed at the bc.unfinished.gmail.com account (sorry, i got that wrong last week, eep. this is the correct address.) FEED ME, SEYMOUR.

today's submission hails once again from cybermathwitch who said:
A/N: There was a prompt-a-thon prompt for a Hunger Games AU (by nessataleweaver) here.


This is the beginning. (And can you tell the prompt-a-thon was good for my muses? And that they like to write AUs apparently.)

*****

The train sped ever forward towards the Capital, scenery blurring together in the windows. No one in the dining car was paying much attention to the windows, anyway.


It was a minor miracle there was anyone in there, at all. The influenza that had ravaged District three had wiped out all but a handful of the illicit "Careers" at the training center. (It had wiped out nearly a third of their total population in truth, but had hit the heart of the city where the careers lived and practiced particularly hard.)


The boy was only fifteen and hadn't expected to have his chance for at least two more years. The girl though. She might not - probably wouldn't have - been picked at all. She was slight, tiny even, and had curled herself up into a ball, knees to chest, as soon as they'd boarded. He'd been watching her, like he watched all the trainees, and hadn't seen her eat anything at dinner. The only way she would even have been at the training center was if she'd been orphaned or abandoned.


His paperwork on her said she was turning eighteen in two days. If she'd been born a week earlier, if the Reaping had been a week later, (or if the plague had held off another three months) she'd have been out of this year's running and out of the Reaping altogether. Fate probably didn't like her very much. It didn't say good things about her chances in there.


Absently he flexed his right hand and forearm, working some of the stiffness out from the scar tissue. He'd survived the Arena, but he knew better than anyone that no one came out unscathed.


******


The boy, Rikter, was a disaster area. Clint wasn't sure if it was nerves, or if he was just that bad at this game, but he was clumsy as hell and wouldn't look anyone in the eye. Clint wasn't even sure he'd last through the Bloodbath.


Natasha on the other hand, showed promise. He'd written her off at first, and she'd meant for him to. Then he'd caught the calculating look she gave the boy and realized she was playing them.


He waited until dinner was over and Audra had taken the boy off to talk. She'd seemed to have developed a soft spot for him somewhere along the way - or maybe the girl had just irritated her somehow.


That suited him fine. It was his second Games as a mentor, and last year he'd really only observed. But their oldest member was "retiring" and he'd been tapped to take his place at grooming tributes. He was only a few years older than they were, but he felt like it was decades. The Arena tended to have that effect on you.



He found her still curled into her customary seat (if one day could lead to anything being 'customary', which he doubted) and sat down across from her, forearms braced on his thighs so she could get a good look at his scars.



"You're not as helpless as you look."



Green eyes studied him. It was the look in her eyes that had tipped him off. They were calculating, direct - determined might be a good description. She wouldn't back down from a fight.



"I get wanting to keep what you can do close to your chest for everyone else, and not wanting to give away an advantage. But I'm not everyone else. I've been there before and I've got information you can use. I'm also not your enemy. I want you to win and I'm going to be doing everything I can on the outside to get you what you need. But you need to be straight with me if I'm gonna figure out what that is."


"Why should I trust you?" It was the first thing he'd heard her say since they met at the Reaping. It was also a very good question.


"Because I'm all you've got."



*****


They'd been fed well at the training center, but there was still more food spread out in the dining car than she'd ever seen in her life. That was why she'd been sent to the training center, after all - her family hadn't been able to afford to feed another child and they'd tossed her aside as soon as she was old enough the District would take her.


In the center they were given the best of everything, so long as they earned it. And you earned it by fighting, by being faster, stronger, fiercer, better than everyone else.


She'd done alright. She'd always made sure she was doing enough to survive, but never enough to be the first choice to "volunteer" when the Reaping came. That hadn't even been difficult, because plenty of the other candidates were eager to be the chosen one.


The plague had come swiftly and silently with fever and chills that made you shake so hard your bones rattled against one another. They had all watched one another succumb, until every bed was full and no one was even on their feet to care for the others. Her age group of fifteen girls had dwindled down to ten, then five, the two. Adelaide was still alive, but in no shape to stand up and volunteer, let alone walk into the Arena.


So she had boarded the train.