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.]

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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.]

[It sounded fair in her head. Hadn't that been the initial agreement anyway? An agreement they had silently agreed to break when it came to Katniss' death at Clove's hands.

A death that, at least in Katniss' opinion, was as as much her fault as it was Clove's. It didn't fit in the terms of their treaty. Not if either of them really stopped to consider it.

Maybe she should mention this to Sharpe. The agreement that existed between Tributes. Make certain he knew better than to even take a chance in breaking it. The ghosts that already haunted her dreams were enough.]

Okay.

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17th Throw - [ video ]

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