shenevermisses | 17th Throw

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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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.

17th Throw - [ video ]

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