13th Throw - [ action / written ]

[shenevermisses]

Written:

I want a specific scenario in the Battle Dome. Can someone help me program it? I'll repay you. Terms can be discussed before the programming.

Action:

[Clove will be waiting outside a room in the Battle Dome. She hasn't been sleeping, and it shows. She's also been skipping meals.

She has her Journal with her, and she's dressed for a fight. Tribute from head to toe, knives in her vest.]

Written:

[The next short message appears a few hours later.]

It gets so quiet here. Between missions and drafts, there's just nothing. That's the one thing I hate about this place. It gets too quiet.

Action:

[For most of the evening, Clove will be at her camp. She's turned up a little game to cook, and she's ignoring the cold as best she can. She considers, as she starts to really feel the nipping of winter, knocking on Katniss's door. She could probably sleep there to escape the cold and not go back to the apartment.

She's not sure she's ready to go back and face Cato yet.]

Comments

[Written]

[complicatedliar]

It is simple enough. I can instruct you.

[Written]

[shenevermisses]

[The small picture the Journal gives her lets her know how to reply.]

Already found someone. Thanks anyway.

[No way is she getting into any kind of debt to a muttation with all the arrogance of a Capitol resident. She won't forgetthe draft she ran into him. Dangerous and condescending. Not someone she's trusting with a Battle Dome scenario that's somewhat personal.]

[Written]

[complicatedliar]

As you like. Enjoy.

Written

[snikting]

Depends on what you're looking for, kid. I don't do pleasure cruises.

Written

[shenevermisses]

I want a specific layout for training and a specific opponent. Or opponent style.

Written

[snikting]

[Heh. Where were you a week ago when he offered that? Oh well. This is his area of expertise. At least, one that he can actually DO in Luceti.]

That I can do. I'm already at the Dome. [He's ALWAYS there.] Mind describing what you want?

written

[not_a_troll]

I got silly string. Let us break this tedious silence, yes?

written

[shenevermisses]

Silly string?

written

[not_a_troll]

It is a type of string. But then more silly. It also behaves quite silly. It comes out of a can.

It is most fitting for acts of mischief.

written;

[etudes]

What's so bad about things being quiet?

written;

[shenevermisses]

It's irritating. Nothing to do, no fights to be had. The Dome's not enough, really.

[etudes]

.. But.. I thought it was a good thing for there to be no fights. Fights are bad when people get hurt, after all.. I know some people like fighting, but still..

[ written ]

[greenjacketed]

[ he almost ignores it, but... ]

Restless, are we?

[ written ]

[shenevermisses]

More than. It's not the same, the Dome.

[ written ]

[greenjacketed]

Won't fight in it, myself.

[ he painstakingly carves his agreement into the page. ]

[written]

[dangerouswind]

Agreed. It becomes monotonous, sometimes.

[written]

[shenevermisses]

And monotony leads to trouble. People get bored.

not!written / action

[deadalready]

[Cato sees her post. Of course he sees it, it's just his luck that it's one of the first that pops up as he leafs through his journal looking to see if she had made one in the past week or not.

He's in similar shape to her. Bags under his eyes stand out a lot more and it's not that he won't eat, it's that he can't. Because meat - so far - keeps coming back up and he refuses to go all green and leafy just because he has a stomach virus or something stupid.

It's not a stomach virus but denial is a river he swims in apparently.

He writes - starts to write:]

I'm sorry

come back

I'm an asshole

come back

Clove

I miss you

[He starts about five or six different sentences before deleting them in progress. They never reach her and with good reason. Cato isn't going to apologize for shit, because writing makes him think about it and the whole four days leading up to their fight.

He is not going to apologize after that. Fuck apologizing.


He grabs his sword, close to fuming the whole way to the Battle Dome but not quite managing it.]

[(more) action]

[It'd be cliched to say his breath caught in his throat when he saw her standing outside one of the Battle Dome rooms decked out in her knives and looking just as sharp as they did but -- fuck -- if that wasn't what happened. His steps don't stutter though, when he comes to a definitive stop, a good two rooms down. He isn't shy or contrite and makes eye-contact like they're back at the Academy training. No venom, no heat. Nothing. He's being incredibly careful and perhaps that is the last thing he should be doing but Clove is...

Clove is...

She means something to him. All he knows is that they've been through enough to not handle each other like glass, to just let the other break if the needed to and leave it at that. To be quiet when the other cried or shook in their sleep. They had a system and it worked and those four days fucked it up.

He doesn't know if he loves her. Or if he did. But he's here now because he was sort of inadvertently stalking her and wow that's kind of pathetic isn't it?]

You don't have to.

[He offers lamely. Because he's here to fight her but if she didn't want to, if she doesn't want him she can just say it now and he'll leave and take it out on some fucking stupid trees and animals and maybe their camp because he's petty like that.]

action:

[shenevermisses]

[Clove isn't surprised to see him. She didn't expect him to come, no, but she's not surprised when he does. It seems...

fitting.

That's exactly the word. Fitting.

Because this is how differences were settled in the Academy, how things worked. This-- violent, unforgiving-- is what they were. Are. Everything that a Career ought to be is wrapped up in this place and this setting and everything.

Clove stands up, abandoning her Journal. She doesn't say a word, but she punches a few memorized buttons into the Battle Dome simulator, and a screen displays her chosen... arena. That's what she's come to think of it as. They're all arenas.

And hers, which she got help programming, has a familiar look to it.]

Or another.

[She doesn't want an unfair advantage. She's been practising in that world, facing an enemy roughly the size of Thresh. Just to prove to herself that, in another encounter, she could have beaten him. That she doesn't need to be protected by Cato.

But she won't make Cato face the Capitol's Arena again if he doesn't want to. There are other options.]

[Action]

[savedtheworld]

[And Aang will spot her when checking out the Dome.]

Hey, you look sleepy!

[Action]

[shenevermisses]

[Clove fixes him with an even, unimpressed look. Kindness isn't her forte.]

I didn't sleep well.

[Action]

[origami_ninja]

[As luck would have it, Konan is at the Battle Dome. She was going to set up her own scenario when she notices Clove looking exhausted.]

If you're going to train, I would recommend a snack and some water first.

[It's insulting to fuss over a fighter overmuch, but Clove doesn't look well. At all.]

[Action]

[shenevermisses]

[And Clove... doesn't mind. Not really. Because it's not a demand. It's a suggestion. And from someone she doesn't mind.]

I'm going to get water in a bit. Not really hungry.

[spohkh]

I can be of assistance to you Miss Clove. However, you may need to wait until I have my sight returned....

[shenevermisses]

[Capitol person who told her he could mess with her mind. No way she's trusting him with this.]

Not up for waiting.