shenevermisses | 1st Throw - [ video/written/action ]

1st Throw - [ video/written/action ]

[Her approach today: simple, caution edged with sweetness.

Clove has set her Journal on a table in her apartment for the perfect upper body shot.

The key to her appearance is the word "simple." Her long hair is pulled back into a low ponytail. She has enough make-up on to color her features, but it is light enough that it's only just noticable. Her shirt is pale grey, fitted and sleeveless with a high neck but made of light material.

She gives herself a few seconds before she speaks.]

Hello, everyone. My name is Clove. I've only just arrived, and I'm still getting my bearings.

[Remember to smile. She obeys the advice from her absent mentor.]

I've been sort of a recluse these last few days, and I'm really sorry if you've seen me around the village and I ignored you. This is just a lot to take in all at once.

[This isn't the Games, and there are no sponsors... but in a new, strange place like this, a little good PR can't hurt.]

I look forward to getting to know everyone.

[Off goes the feed.]

[A few minutes later, she writes a short note.]

If you're somehow reading this, Cato: come find me. Tonight at sundown.

[Come sundown, Clove is sitting at her makeshift camp by the western lake.

She's sure Cato isn't here. She'd have heard from him long before now if he was. Still, her message was for him to find her at sundown, so she waits.

Her location has been carved into various trees throughout the forest and village using a signal taught in the Academy to make pack activity easier. If he looks for her, he'll find it.

Of course, anyone out that way will see her waiting for someone who won't come.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[What's it like...]

What do you want to know?

What kind of food do you guys get to eat?

Three meals a day.

[She appreciates the luxury now, after the destruction of the Career food supply.]

A moderate meal of bread, eggs, and meat in the morning.

A light meal of bread, fruit, and meat in the afternoon.

A large meal of bread, vegetables, and meat in the evening.

Controlled portions depending on the student, water to drink.

[A simple but filling diet, specifically designed for keeping them active, lean, and strong.]

They'll vary the kinds of meat and bread or the like, but it's always the same basic components to the meal.

Oh, that's so much food. [Her tone is slightly wistful and even a bit angry. Everyone knew District Two was a wealthy district, favored by the Capitol, so it's no surprise, but hearing it makes Rue just a little angry. They didn't starve workers in District 11, especially not during harvest season when everyone needed to work sunrise to sunset, but they weren't well-fed either.

Eggs? Meat? Fruit? At best, they got some bread and a watery soup with some vegetables. Meat was once in a rare while. Water portions were good at least.]

Did you all sleep in the same area or did you get rooms?

We sleep six to a room, boys and girls have separate buildings, every year is on a different floor, and there are eight rooms for every year.

[A pause.]

Sometimes the rooms aren't full. Kids who can't keep up, who aren't performing as well, transfer either to the academic program or to the village schools, and if someone who isn't a thirteen-- the last year we attend-- goes to the Games, they don't come back to the Academy if they win.

[She can't speak on anything but the athletic program. Most of the academies went home at night, ate what their families fixed. The miners? Clove had never thought of or thought to think of what their meals and lives might be like.

She knew only her small corner of the world.]

[It's all interesting to Rue. Everyone knows no one is supposed to receive any special training, but everyone knows about the Careers too. Maybe it's a perk of being in District Two or any other career district; people turn a blind eye to it.]

Do you... [She realizes what she's going to ask next is a strange question given the situation, but she wants to ask it anyway.] do you guys get along when you aren't training? Talk with each other at night? [Make friends, even knowing you might have to kill the other?]

We do.

[There's equal parts homesickness and comfort in this "chat." She likes talking about it, really. Because it's familiar and she misses it. But it makes her all the more aware of how far it is and how long she feels like she's been gone.]

I mean, we're encouraged to keep to ourselves-- girls with girls, boys with boys. But they don't keep us separated, except when we sleep.

[Because there was no danger of crossed loyalties then. Girls didn't go to the Games with other girls.]

The only thing they really forbid is sex. They definitely discourage athletics dating other athletics, but getting caught having sex is an automatic expulsion. [There's no reason to really sugar-coat it.] That rule pretty much only applies to the girls, though. They catch an athletic boy and academic girl, and they usually hush it up. [But it's not unfair. Not to her. It's simple and practical.] They don't want to risk sending a pregnant girl to the Games, after all.

[No reason to sugar-coat it, but Rue still flushes a little in embarrassment. She's seen people kissing and heard the adults whisper at night, but she's still twelve.]

Oh, I see. [Her voice is a little rushed as she moves on.] Do you have friends in District Two?

A few. I always got along better with the guys than with other girls, though I think even some of the guys were glad to see me go when my name was called.

Did you know Cato?

[There's a pause. Longer than she likes. But she thinks her voice sounds even when she speaks.]

Yeah. I did.

I knew Thresh. [It's a bit of a peace offering, for what it's worth.] Not well, but he was always nice to me.

[Thresh.

Huge and looming. A hand on her back. Hands on her. A blow to the head.

Clove tries to make the gasp at the memories sound like just a breath. And she holds stubbornly to the conversation. She won't-- can't-- think about the District Eleven male tribute.]

Cato was a year older than me, and, at dinner, the boys always went through the line first. Sometimes we had a choice, different kinds of food that, as long as he met our requirements for the meal, we could have our pick of.

Cato... would always grab an extra apple. Because those went fast, and I love them.

We'd hang out after hours-- sneak out of the dorms. Just spend time on the grounds. And when he could, he always had the apple for me.

[The story can't do either of them any harm now. The Reaping and Games are in the past. She and Cato both died and not because of sentiment or friendship or anything like that. Her death might have been humiliating, but it hadn't been because she'd been weak against him.

That was one consolation.]

[Sorry, Clove, she wouldn't have mentioned Thresh if she knew.]

He sounds like a good friend. [She wouldn't have said that about the Cato she knew in the arena, arrogant and violent, but she realizes she didn't know Cato either. She only knew Thresh and Katniss because of their alliance.]

We made a deal in the Academy.

That if one of us went, we both went.

[For a moment, she doesn't sound like a Career. Or even a tribute. She sounds like a sixteen-year-old girl, talking about a seventeen-year-old boy whose side she almost never left.

The effect is gone almost instantly.]

Keep close to your allies, kid. From the sounds of it, this place is just another arena.

[Rue wants to say it sounds like a sad promise, because it would be impossible for both of them to come back, but that's life in the Hunger Games. They're careers too so she knows it's a little different. But it's still a little sad.]

The Malnosso are just as bad as Gamemakers. [Why yes, she does sound a little bitter about that.]

[It almost sounds like she chuckles. Or starts to.]

And here, we're not even promised a Victor.

[There was no stylist, poking and prodding at her. No mentor repeating things she'd heard a thousand times at the Academy. There had been no fire to outrun or tracker jacker stingers to use fingers, knife, and teeth to get out of swollen flesh, with nothing to further aid recovery. There was food and shelter, and there were weapons freely available...

...but they hadn't seen combat yet, and they were trapped. This was as much an enclosure as the arena, she was sure. Maybe tomorrow she'd find the perimeter, just to know how far she could travel...

Better or worse than the Games, that has yet to be seen.]

But everyone can live like one if they want to. You don't really win anything. [Though there is one thing Luceti grants to everyone that Panem never gives; life. Here, they can live as they want, even if they're already dead. Even the dead can come back to life after a week. It's strange, being able to live without having to worry too much about surviving.]

[A pause. It takes a long time (at least, a long time for Clove) to find the right words.]

We're living like tributes, not victors.

[Rue has to think about that before she realizes Clove is right. Some of the other districts had lots of food and were treated well, but they were reaped all the same.]

I guess you're right. Someone could only be a victor if they never had to worry about the experiments, kidnappings, and drafts.

We still have to fight for our lives.

[It's quiet, calm, even.]

And they can put us back in an arena, as armed or empty-handed as they see fit.

Whenever they want.

[If they could bring them here without any of them knowing how it was done, they could move them just as easily.

There's a long silence, long enough for Rue to reply, certainly. Then... a sound. A pair of sounds, actually.

A crash. And a thud.

A knife thrown from the bed, shattering a vase of flowers Clove had liked, and burying in the wall behind where the vase had stood.]

[Rue gives a tiny jump on her end when there's a crash. She waits a few seconds before quietly asking:]

Are you okay?

[No. She's not okay. She will never be okay.]

I'm fine.

Are you sure?

Of course.

[Cold, hard.]

1st Throw - [ video/written/action ]

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