shenevermisses | 17th Throw

17th Throw - [ video ]

Hello everyone.

[The Journal camera is on, and Clove is smiling. She's dressed nicely but casually. She nervously tucks a strand of loose hair behind her ear as she takes a few seconds to get out the next part of what she has to say. She glances away, unsure, then looks back at the camera.]

I want to apologize.

I've... made a pretty bad impression. I don't expect to undo the harm I've done, but I'm still sorry.

I wanto explain, just a little. I've been doing research lately, and I read about men called gladiators, who fought to the death for sport. I... I guess you could say I was raised to be a gladiator.

It's hard, not thinking like that. If I've... acted cold or ruthless, it's because I'm having a hard time learning not everyone's out to kill me in the end. I know I've been rude about it, and I'm sorry.

Forthose who've offered me friendship, I would be grateful for another chance at accepting it.

Again: I am so sorry. I hope I can earn what forgiveness there is to be had.

[The feed goes off.

And the act ends.

Clove glares at the Journal, a sour taste in her mouth. Three people in Luceti will recognize the girl they just saw. Cato, Twelve, and Twelve's representative will see the young woman from District Two sitting with Caesar Flickerman, her smile meant to endear her to all of Panem. Not the sexual create One presented, but something sweet. With just a little bit of a competitive edge.

Everyone else... Well. They can see what they'd like. Knowing most of them and their overbearing sense of morality? They'll think she's come around, they'll want to laud their superiority in having known all along she'd be better off thinking like them and how nice it is she's come around.

Let them think that. When the time comes, she'll still be just as capable. Just as detached from all of them. And they'll be compromised.

She can play that game.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

To make up for how I've acted, Katniss.

[It's simple, almost sweet. Because anyone can hear this. And she says the name not as she'd started to, with that vague understanding and alliance. The simple... truce that had become more. Instead, she says it like she would have in an interview at the Capitol. Polite, respectful, but distant.]

I've been... a bit more harsh than seems appropriate with several people. I thought a public apology would probably be a good start to mending fences with them.

[It's not real. It might seem real to others. Real and sincere and completely honest, but Katniss knows better. Can hear the voice of a Tribute playing nice to appease the audience. Clove never calls her Katniss. Never.

Something's wrong. Very wrong. She called her Katniss.

Damn. Why didn't she ever bother to learn how to do filters on these things?]

When?

The whole time I've been here. There have been... several occasions on which my behavior was rather regrettable. It just took me awhile to really understand that.

[She smiles a little again, tilting her head.

It's too bold. Too risky. She knows it, can feel it in her blood. But she refuses to be afraid. She refuses to let herself be cowed by the girl from district twelve. From the outlier and underdog. It just can't happen.]

If you'd like to discuss it, I'd be happy to meet you somewhere to talk. Privately.

[Because she knows her ability to make things private isn't the strongest, and she wants no evidence of the conversation she's sure will come for the community to see.]

Are you in town?

[It's probably stupid. Stupid to agree to meet with her in person when she's been acting so erratic lately. Clove is lethal. She's experienced the other girl's blood thirst multiple times before. Died by her hand. That was an experience Katniss never wanted to repeat again. Even if the promise she made to Sharpe had been referring to the draft, she didn't want to die.

Not for a long, long time.

But in some ways, she feels as if she owes Clove something. It's strange to think on. Strange to think of this companionship that's formed between them. But before Effie's arrival, she had been the only person from home she could talk to. She knows that she and Cato would never do more than tolerate each other's presence. She oddly needs Clove in her life.]

You could come over. Effie and Richard are both out.

Not your house. Not my camp. Somewhere else.

[There's something about her that doesn't trust herself. She doesn't trust Katniss. Thaat should be normal, but there's a bitter taste in her mouth at the thought. Somehow, she'd come to trust her, so this betrayal...

It hurts. She hates Katniss for doing it; she hates herself more for letting it.

She wants somewhere neutral. Where neither of them have the advantage.]

[Somewhere neutral. Somewhere private. She's not certain that she can think of many places that fulfill such requirements. Not the forest. Though secluded, there are memories tied to both of them in those woods. Memories of fights and deaths. No. That kind of reminder won't make this situation any less tense.]

What about the library? There are secluded spots there.

Fine.

[It doesn't matter where. Just as long as it's somewhere she's not extremely exposed.

Though...]

Or we could meet by one of the streams. The ones that run from the lakes to the village.

[Private enough... They could sit by the water and look like they got along. No one would need to know what they were talking about.]

[A stream puts them at equal footing. It also ensures that they're out in the public where other people might pass by. A situation that would prevent both of them from lashing off. Because, she suspects, neither of them wants to develop any kind of poor reputation. There might not be sponsors here but there certainly were allies.

She nods.]

Okay. The southern one? In fifteen minutes?

I'll be there.

[And, true to her word, Clove is seated on the bank of the creek to the south in fifteen minutes.

She has her knives. Why wouldn't she? They're hidden by her arena jacket, though, not displayed as openly as she normally wears them. Her shoulders are pulled back, her spine totally straight, and her eyes are narrowed at the water as she waits.

It's simple, meeting with Twelve. But it's terrifying, too.]

[Clove isn't the only one to come prepared. But it's not so much because of this meeting as it is out of habit. Rarely does she walk around the village without her bow and quiver. But while Clove's weapons are hidden, her own are openly displayed. It's hard to ever obscure something so big. And to do so is not a thought that's ever really occurred to her.

Fifteen minutes later, she's also walking up to the bank. Her hand rests on the recurve of her bow. She takes a deep breath when she sees Clove standing tense by the river. She still doesn't know what's making the other girl act like this. What's happened between them.

So it's safest to announce her presence before getting any closer. She stops a few feet away.] Clove?

Twelve.

[Familiar but cold, her shoulders pulling back and up a little more sharply.

Her eyes are narrowed, specifically on the bow. If this comes to it, they'll be in another fight. Then into the water, probably. One drowning the other. That would happen, she thinks. Easily.

But the other girl might have help nearby. It could, even though there's a fair amount of visibility all around, be an ambush. Could be dangerous. And she doesn't have Cato. She wouldn't want him here anyway. He'd be no help, not really. Because he can't be counted on to save her. He's proven that. More than once.]

[She's not sure what bothers her more: the coolness in Clove's voice or the way her wings droop a little, the tone stinging. They're not friends. How could they ever be friends? Clove had tried to kill her once. Succeeded in doing so a second time. The odds had never been in their favor to be friends. And yet, yet, there's something that had formed between them. Some sort of companionship that had grown to mean as much to Katniss as any friendship.

A weakness, she knows. And yet, for a second there, a flash of sadness crosses her face. Girls like her shouldn't feel anything. Did her best not to. And yet, yet here she was. Feeling sad and disappointed and more than a little confused by the cold treatment.]

Clove. Hi.

[If she was smarter, Clove thinks, she could evade the point. Get Katniss to confess herself, without revealing anything about it. But Clove knows she's not clever. Not really.

She's fast and she's strong and she's good with knives. She's smart enough to survive in the Arena for the most part, but she's not clever.

So, she has to be direct. She doesn't know how else to be. Not with something like this.]

How many of them know?

[However direct Clove chooses to be, it's not direct enough. Because Katniss has all but forgotten telling Richard the truth behind her death. It had happened months ago, in a situation out of her control. Those damned chocolates and that damned love shift. Like most of the Malnosso's games, she did her best not to focus on them. Only to remember when she had to.

At least, for the most part, they didn't haunt her dreams the same way the Hunger Games did. The uprising, the loss of her sister.

So it's with honest confusion that her brow wrinkles and she shakes her head.] I don't know what you're talking about.

About the forest. [Clove struggles to keep her temper even, fights to maintain control. Attacking the girl? Will only bring trouble. More trouble.

She doesn't want that.] About what happened.

I know Sharpe knows. [Someone she'd liked, someone she's started to consider an ally, someone who seemed to get her just a little.

Someone who'd like to kill her now. She's sure he wouldn't. Didn't on the draft, but there are reasons for that. Avoiding making a scene, wanting to get her somewhere he could be sure no Lucetian would wander by.

She doesn't dare look at Katniss as her fingernails drive into her palm.]

Who else knows?

[About the-

Oh. Oh. The forest. Richard. That day in the hot springs. The damned chocolate that got her to talk more than she ever had in her entire life. And she had- she had told him, hadn't she? She remembered now. Remembered just how easy it had been for her to break that promise.

It's strange, that feeling that comes over her. As strange as that feeling of hurt from moments ago. The self-loathing, anger, might not be so new. But the fact that it's caused by Clove? That she feels so ashamed of her actions? That's strange. Very strange.

She ducks her head, looking anywhere but at Clove.]

No one. [She says the words slowly but confidently.] No one else knows. Richard only does because of the chocolates. You remember those? At the spa?

[The chocolates.

She remembers those. The strange lightness of that entire thing, the ease with which she'd not only spoken but acted. How she and Katniss had talked, how she'd said and asked more than she normally would. How she'd chatted with Cato after that. Because she'd taken some home. How they'd talked about--

She remembers the chocolates. Too well.

And it makes sense.]

Unless he's told anyone. [It's not paranoia. Not with information like this. She turns her head, her dark eyes focusing in on Katniss.] You're the one with the pack now, Twelve. The one with allies I can't match.

[The fear that prompted the return of the Career, the girl who'd smile for the camera and offer false friendship to try and buy herself time from the worst.]

[It was hard to think of it like that. To think that she had a pack here not unlike the one that Clove had been a part of in the Hunger Games. People who had her back, who would do their best to protect her. But it was more than that. It wasn't a treaty that could be easily broken. She had friends here.

She'd never understand why.]

He promised he wouldn't. [He had kept his word before. But then again, she hadn't expected him to confront Clove, either.] It was my choice to die. I told him that, too. That I used you to die.

Until something happens. [It's not even an accusation. It's a statement of fact.

Katniss was supposed to keep that secret. Then the chocolates happened.
Sharpe is supposed to keep the secret now. Until something happens.

And this girl has allies. Has friends. Something Clove only half understands. Because she had people she might have called friends in the Academy, girls she could tease and relax with, girls she'd never be in the Arena with. But in this place. Somewhere that strikes her as so much of another Arena. She isn't sure she can make friends, especially here. Especially with people like the ones here.

They require a goodness she isn't capable of. A goodness that, in her, would only be weakness.

She responds only to that because... what else can she say? She doesn't understanding wanting to die. She only understands the fear of death, of fighting to stay alive. But giving up... Though, if she was going to let herself die, she'd do it like Katniss had. Find someone who'd fight her, go down in battle.]

[She hated to nod in response. But what other choice was there? She had never meant to tell anyone about the reasons behind her death. The hows and whys. There was no guarantee that something similar wouldn't happen to Richard. That there'd be chocolate or some other food that would cause people to speak without thinking.

Another stab of guilt makes her hang her head for a moment, frowning. There was no guarantee Richard would keep the secret. She had put Clove in a horrible situation. All because Katniss herself had been selfish, too hesitant to claim her own life without the assistance of others.

I'm sorry would just sound lame. Words she doubted Clove would want to hear anyway. Because I'm sorry doesn't change the past. It doesn't make it all okay.

So she just sighs.] What did he say to you?

We talked about survival. [Because she won't mention the conversation about singing. That Katniss used to sing before Clove stabbed her. Over and over and over. Clove can still see the blood. There'd been more to it than survival. She'd known it even then. It hadn't been hate, no. It hadn't been revenge. It had been fear. Some clinging weakness that had made her keep attacking even once the girl lay still.] He asked if Cato and I'd fought. Because we split up for the fight.

[To Clove, now, it was a question of whether anyone would care if she turned up dead. She still isn't sure why he didn't kill her. No one would have known then. It wasn't like leaving the body in the woods, hoping no one would find it, and claiming it was dogs.

Whatever Sharpe might have done to her, he could have blamed on the Third Party. There were enemy combatants all around, things he could have claimed killed her, rather than him. Why he spared her, she isn't sure.

...Maybe because he wanted her to live with this fear.]

He kept approaching. I ran, he followed. [Fear. Purely fear.] I told him if he got any closer, I'd kill him. [Survival. A cornered beast.] I ran again.

Didn't like my odds against someone that much bigger. Especially when he had a gun.

[Survival seemed like a fitting topic for the two of them. After all, Richard probably knew just as much about survival as either she or Clove did. And he was good at it, too. Otherwise she doubted he would survive as long in his army as he had.

But she wondered why he'd keep pursuing Clove if she didn't want to talk. If she didn't want to be near him. It wasn't to kill her. That much was obvious. Because she was almost certain that if Richard had planned on killing her, he wouldn't have kept pursuing her. He would have shot her and been done with it.

His aim was pretty good. As good as hers. He wouldn't have missed.

She took a breath and shook her head. This was probably pointless to say, Clove probably wouldn't see reason. But she felt that she had to defend him anyway.] I don't think Richard was trying to kill you.

Not then.

[It's a simple admission. After all, she knows about chasing prey that's decided to run. If you want it dead, it doesn't get away. Not as easily as she did.]

But I'd killed an ally of his. I could either put distance between us... or trust him not to kill me.

[The implied question is obvious: Would you have taken that risk?

Right then, he hadn't wanted her dead. But he could, in her mind, have been waiting for her to let her guard down. To sleep. To trust him that he wouldn't hurt her.]

[It took her a moment to realize that the ally Clove had referred to was herself. It was strange to think of it like that, to think of Richard as an ally instead of just a friend. Maybe even more than a friend... The sort of person that could just as easily become a surrogate father to her.

Ally just didn't really seem to work.

But Clove was right. She had done the smart thing, fleeing. Because Katniss knows that she wouldn't have done much different.

She had more questions she wanted to ask. Wanted to know if it was this that prompted Clove's recent journal post. Wanted to know what would happen next to their own tentative alliance. But she can't find it in herself to ask any of that. And instead she just nods.]

[Clove sits in utter silence, one knee ducked directly against her chest, leaned forward a bit.

She understands the chocolates. But that doesn't wipe away the threat. That doesn't mean that Sharpe might not decide -- of his own volition or influenced by something here -- to either tell more people or to take revenge. She's underestimated it before, the way people care about others. It led to her death. She hadn't taken Thresh into consideration at all before talking about Rue, hadn't thought he'd care either way. And the more people who know, if he does tell, the more dangerous the situation becomes for her.

Especially since she's still told Cato nothing.

She forces herself to shrug. And to speak.]

Anyone does me harm, I'll repay them twice-over.

[Her original... threat or agreement... whichever it could be taken as. The start of her strange truce that had become an alliance. Those were the only terms really agreed upon, and... They'll do now, too.]

[action]

stillplaying - 2013-05-12 02:20 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

17th Throw - [ video ]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video] / [action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]