Something Worth Living For [THG] // Finnick Odair

XIII

Enebry shakes me like a mother would and looks at me with – sympathy? Why would she do that? Anyway, I sit up and look at her with half-opened eyes, I cover my mouth as I yawn, or Enebry would have scolded me for sure.

"It's almost time for you to train, hunny." Enebry informs me. "It's 9:30."

I murmur a 'thanks' and nod at her. I am so tired and my legs are so sore from all the running a few hours ago. I grab a piece of bread and eat some of it and even drink a bit of coffee to help me wake up, it doesn't do much but something is something.

I remake my 'high' ponytail, which was pretty loose and was hanging by my left ear, I also wash my face and teeth and head out of there, straight to the gymnasium. Ryle joins me on the lift, and we walk together to the gymnasium. As soon as we get there, the both of us go our separate ways, though.

I take a glance at the stations and try to decide which one to go to. I have already been in each one of them, and I can't use the weapons stations, not yet. I decide to try the gauntlet again. But after an hour there isn't much to do in that station, and my legs are shaky and tired so I look for another station that doesn't require much movement. I walk to the 'making-fires' one, and it takes me awhile, but I do make a fire, and a good one. The one station I still have some problems with, is the camouflage one. So I go there too and stay until lunch trying to make my skill better.

At 1:45 p.m. everyone throws their weapons or utensils and leaves the gymnasium in a rush to eat. And in less than two minutes I see Finnick walking inside the gymnasium. I can't help but smile.

"Hi Danieka."

"Danie," I say. "Call me Danie."

"Alright, Danie. How are you?"

"Tired," I say trustfully.

"I know, that's why we will fight for only twenty minutes today." Finnick says as he grabs a sword. "And then we will just shoot some arrows."

"We?"

"Yeah, I'll shoot some too," He says shrugging.

I am improving relatively fast with the sword. My fights last more time now, and I wouldn't end up dead every time if they were real fights. I am surprised and happy with the results.

As he promised we only fought for a few minutes, less than half an hour. Then I throw some knives and other weapons at some dummies and shoot some arrows after that, like he said. That takes me another thirty minutes or so.

"We'll eat now." Finnick says.

He gives me a small dish with some food and as soon as I see it, I know this task will be harder than fighting with the sword or wrestling with Finnick. I grab a small piece of the fish and swallow it fast. I want to do it before my brain registers what I am eating so I don't gag or puke. But soon after that, I start to gag a bit, I take deep breaths and the gagging eventually stops.

"You have to finish it, you know?"

"You are kidding." I say in disbelief.

"I'm not kidding." His infamous smirk or any kind of smile is lacking from his face and I know he is serious.

I try several techniques to accomplish eating a fish. One is swallowing without tasting it, the more effective one so far. The second one is eating the fish along with something else, but that doesn't work that well. I also try chewing a piece of fish a bit and swallowing it quickly and then eating something else so the flavour would go, it is harder than it seems. I try more unsuccessful approaches but by the end I have eaten 2/3 of the fish. My gag reflex is awful, though. I gag the whole time. It's so embarrassing Finnick witnessed all that.

"It took you fifty minutes and you are not even done." He tells me as he looks at the clock on the wall.

"I'm actually happy with it." I exclaim. "Last night it took me an hour or so and I threw up half of what I ate, believe me when I say this is a big accomplish."

"I just want to make things easier for you when you are in the arena."

"I know."

"I understand it's not easy for you, that's why we are doing this." Finnick says. "And to help your stomach get a bit used to it as well, so if you eat it during the games your stomach won't get upset. Try to eat some meat for dinner, and try to eat any kind of meat these days until..."

"Until the games start." I say when I notice his voice starts to break a bit.

"Yeah." He says nodding. "I think I have to go now." He says looking at the clock on the wall once again.

"Time flies by way too quickly." I comment. "Will I see you tonight?"

"No, not tonight."

"Oh." I say, the only thing I could get out.

I stare at him in shock but recover quickly and pretend to act cool. In such a little amount of time, three days or so, I have gotten used to the idea of training with him three times a day, every day. Instantly I start to think I have done something wrong, something to upset him so he doesn't want to see me again. I nod at him, trying to hide my disappointment.

"The private training session is tomorrow." He explains. "I want you to do the best you can, therefore I don't want to tire you up if we train tonight and tomorrow morning."

"I had forgotten about it." I admit. "I don't even know what I'll do."

"Don't worry much about it." Finnick says. "Your score is a bit important to get more sponsors, but it's not really as important as some people make it look. Some tributes get a five or so and end up winning the games. They act weak so other tributes don't see them as a treat or they gamemakers don't really see their potential but they do have it because they win or they get close to winning."

"Will I do that?"

"Tell you what, we can go to the roof tonight and talk about it if you want." Finnick says. "As your mentor – "

"My illegal mentor." I say interrupting him, with a smirk on my lips. I couldn't even smirk before I got here, now I smirk all the time. Weird.

"Yeah, as your illegal mentor I must give you advice on that as well, don't you think?" Finnick says smirking too. "So the roof is just above the 12th floor, there's a button in the lift with an 'R' on it. Let's meet at 8:00 p.m., that way we can talk and discuss the session and you can still go to bed early so you can rest for tomorrow."

"Sounds good to me." I say smiling.

"Alright. I'll see you later then."

"Yeah." I nod.

Finnick gives me a last smile, a genuine smile before turning around and walking out of the gymnasium. I sigh and go back to a survival station, the rest of the tributes come back about ten minutes later.