15th Throw - [ written ]

[shenevermisses]

[It's a question that's been on Clove's mind.

Okay, she's had a lot of questions lately. Valentine's Day and that whole week... It wasn't unkind, but it made her think too much. There were too many uncertainies. The ones with Cato... She didn't feel like thinking about.

But Katniss. She can talk about some of that.]

What do you all do for a living, where you're from? Or what were you going to do? Does everyone in your area do it?

In Panem... your district says a lot about what your job will be. Not always, but probably. Like me... If I hadn't gone to the Games? I'd probably have been the foreman in a factory. Or an overseer of a quarry.

And what you do... When did you learn to do it? And from who?

Comments

[contaeoro]

I've spent the last few years doing some bookkeeping. I kept track of the expenses of the people I worked for.

[shenevermisses]

Did they spend a lot?

[Because, really, that doesn't sound difficult at all.]

[contaeoro]

Not exactly, but we run a number of businesses around the city so it was my job to make sure they were all running properly. It was more counting the revenue than keeping track of expenses, really.

[shenevermisses]

Oh, okay. [Like keeping track of a few quarries and mines. It makes sense enough to her, though definitely sounds like Academic work, not what she'd have been put to.] Did you like it?

[contaeoro]

I sure did. The people I worked with are like family to me. [That is what they called themselves, too.]

How about you?

[shenevermisses]

I was only trained for combat. The Academy didn't teach js job skills until we were eighteen.

[contaeoro]

I see.

Did you come from a... ah, a militant world?

[shenevermisses]

[That's a difficult question for her to answer. "Militant" means war, but there's combat...]

We don't have a military, where I'm from. [So she sort of dodges. Trying to figure out what she should say.]

[contaeoro]

But a world with combat. [He tries to form an image of what that world must be like. He's seen a number of different civilizations, maybe there's something similar he's seen before. But she did say there was a school of some sort.]

What kind of combat?

[shenevermisses]

We have the Hunger Games. Twelve boys, twelve girls -- one of each from the twelve districts. We're chosen, and we go into a specially designed arena. Then, it's survival and combat until there's one left. The victor.

[Calm, controlled. Because talking about the Games is nothing.]

[contaeoro]

[Well that sure surprises him, and it might show in the noticeably longer pause that follows Clover's explanation. Survival and combat until there's only one?]

... You fight one another?

[shenevermisses]

Twenty four tributes enter the Arena. One victor leaves it.

We fight each other, the weather, animals there, poisonous plant life, hunger.

There are a lot of ways to die in the Games.

[contaeoro]

I see.

[He's quiet again. He hasn't heard of anything like that in recent times.]

Is it a ritual... of some sort?

[shenevermisses]

Well, the Reaping sort of is. I mean... it's a ceremony. And then there's the tribute parade, once we're all in the Capitol. The interviews.

But the Games? Not really a ritual. Just... they put us in the arena and let us go at it.

[contaeoro]

[It sounds pretty glorified.]

And you were a part of it, too?

[shenevermisses]

I was.

District Two's female tribute in the 74th Annual Hunger Games.

[contaeoro]

And you're a survivor. Or did you get brought here in the middle of it?

[shenevermisses]

I was the nineteenth to die. Had my head smashed.

[contaeoro]

[Oh.

Well, now he feels bad for asking. He shouldn't have asked, he realizes now. He had stepped onto a ground littered with landmines and stepped wrong on the first try.]

I'm sorry to hear that.

[shenevermisses]

[Her voice is calm, extremely even.

After all, that's what happens in the Games. Tributes die. Her reaction still bothers her. What she did when faced with death... but that's why she doesn't talk about it.]

There's nothing to be sorry about. Twenty-four go in, one comes out. We're all as good as dead the moment we're chosen to go. It's an honor to be chosen. To face that test.

[contaeoro]

An honor, I see.

I suppose you and I come from quite different backgrounds. It was surprising to learn about, but it's also intriguing. Has this been a tradition for long?

[shenevermisses]

I was a tribute in the Seventy-Fourth annual Games, so... yes. I suppose that's a long time. Depends what you compare it to, I guess.

[contaeoro]

That's longer than some but shorter than others. How did it come to be if you don't mind me asking?

[shenevermisses]

I... Let's see if I can do this.

[She takes her pen out and writes] Here.

[Back to speaking.] I think that should reference where I explained it to someone else.

[contaeoro]

[It takes him a moment to figure it out. He listens to the information quietly, though he turns it off before the other person in the conversation responds.]

... I see. Thank you for explaining, Clover.