shenevermisses | 22nd Throw

22nd Throw - [ voice ]

There are some things you just can't teach. Not after a certain point.

[She doesn't sound frustrated or upset. Just... interested, in a way.]

It's weird, in a way. Trying to teach someone to be like me and finding out that's not possible. I mean, we're doing good. Great student.

[For Rue's sake more than anything, she's not going to name her over the journals, not going to divulge what they're doing.]

But there's just something different. How we were brought up. You can't teach that.

Which I guess is why they start us young. Start training us when we're five, where I'm from. Parents who think their kids have potential agree to send them off to the Academy, where they'll only see them maybe every weekend.

Usually less than that.

From there, they weed out the undesirable. The weak, the emotional, the nervous. Every year, there are fewer students your age. By the time we're sixteen or seventeen, there's only the best left.

At that point, only the girls who are stupid enough to get pregnant get sent away.

I guess I never really thought about it, but trying to teach someone else what I grew up with? You realize that some things just can't be taught. Not after a certain point.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Crossbows are pretty good.

[But they lack speed.

Small, barbed shots for the slingshot have promise. Especially if the barbs could be poisoned. A good paralytic, maybe. Something that, in case friend were mistaken for foe, wouldn't have a death on this girl's conscience.

She goes to the blades and picks up a stiletto. As long as her palm but as thin as one of Rue's fingers. Sharpened to a lethal point.]

Here.

[Clove shifted her hold, offering the small wooden hilt to Rue.]

Hold it in your palm, one finger on the shaft to control it.

It's a close-quarters weapon, but I think your best bet would be to incapacitate first and then, if necessary, go in for the kill.

[Rue takes the blade and holds it as directed. She feels the smooth wood of the hilt in her hand, grips it tight. The blade is thin, easily hidden, better for stabbing than slashing, but the point could open up a person's throat in a pinch.

She's still not sure if she can. If she could. If things came down to it.]

If they can't see me, they can't kill me, right?

Right. And that's what you've got.

[A pause. A smirk. A correction.]

That's what we've got.

You have to be invisible and have strong friends.

[It was why she'd blended into the pack, done nothing to stand out in it. Let them all underestimate her among the Careers, overlook her. And why she'd come between Cato and Peeta early on, right after the bloodbath. Why she'd argued that he was their best bet for finding Twelve.

Because Peeta was strong enough to take on Cato directly. Something she didn't have on her side.]

Let them -- like me and Cato and Katniss -- do the hard work. Use your allies. Never hesitate on that point: use your allies.

[Use your allies. Rue nods. It was what her mentors had said too, to find strong allies and hide by them for as long as she could, then run fast and far once things had thinned out.

And it worked, hadn't it? She'd survived far longer than she would have at Katniss' side.]

I've been making good allies. People that can fight, people that are smart.

[Katniss. Clove. Laura. Loki. Thor. Johanna.]

If you can, leave the dirty work to them. But always have something on you that you can use. Something that is right at hand and you can kill with if you're trapped.

[Like the stiletto.]

I think what we'll want to do is commission barbed shot for you. Maybe see if we can find a poison to coat the spikes in. Something that'll act as a paralytic.

[It doesn't work well with knives, and she has no mind for poison making and that kind of thing, but it's a good strategy. Especially for a small girl who is fast and young. Someone who Clove isn't sure she could ever teach to be a killer.]

The people at the smithy could probably make the shot, but do you think any of them would know about poison? Or anyone in the village? It sounds like something you have to be careful asking about.

[People getting the wrong impressions and all. Or asking too many questions and not understanding the answers.]

I'll see about figuring that part out.

Enough of them already don't like me, so the worst that can do is make them like me less.

Only if you're sure.

[Rue looks down at the stiletto in her hand.]

How do you carry your knives?

[Clove kneels down and shifts her pant leg up, revealing the handle of a hunting knife tucked into her boot.]

This one, I rigged up here.

[Then, she opens her jacket, showing the vest she'd claimed in the arena and the throwing knives fitted into it.]

This one found me.

For that, though? We'll rig something for the wrist, I think. That way, when you need it, it's right at hand.

[Rue looks at both sheath and vest with interest, then looks down at the stiletto again. It's just the right size to fit inside something strapped to her wrist.]

Okay. [She turns it around in her fingers, getting used to the feel of it in her hand.] I like it.

[Clove considers for a moment then stands fully. She tilts her head, considering it for a moment.]

Now. Think.

Here, you have all the time in the world.

You have the opportunity. You have to strike. Where do you put the blade?

[Rue looks at Clove, a frown falling across her face. She chews on her lower lip as she thinks. She's not a Career so thinking on how to kill, where to strike is hard.]

Um... Stomach. Or thigh.

Thigh'll slow me down. Stomach will bleed to death -- in a couple days.

[She reached up, touching her throat.]

Here. Or. [Her hand touches her side.] Here. Between the ribs. Up.

I'm too short to reach someone's throat, I could miss.

[But the side, up into the ribs. It's not necessarily doable for her, no easier than sticking her knife into a person's stomach or thigh, but she'll remember that.]

Not if they're coming at you, coming down. Because they have to go down to get you.

[Rue nods, though still uncertainly.]

What if I miss?

Then keep stabbing. Keep inflicting pain until they let go.

[Keep inflicting pain until they let go. Rue nods again. If someone wants to kill her or hurt her, she needs to stay ahead. She needs to live, she needs to survive.]

Keep stabbing. Okay. I'll try.

Don't freeze. Don't scream. Attack.

[Clove can't help but sigh a bit. It's hard to think about, even now.]

That's what got me killed. I forgot that, and it got me killed.

[No fear, just attack. No fear, just attack.

But what if she can't? Then she dies, that she knows. Rue swallows nervously. It's what got her killed too. Caught in a net, unable to cut herself, only able to scream for Katniss before the spear entered her body.

Her voice is a whisper.]

I'll try.

[She knows a little about how Rue died. The screams hadn't been hard to hear. It had only required one of them -- only Marvel had needed to check that. She and Cato had looked elsewhere for Katniss, had expected her to run away from the sound of her name.

Because Twelve teaming up? That had been a surprise. The two cannons were supposed to have been for Twelve and the girl from Eleven. Not for the young one and Marvel.

It had been a lesson not to underestimate Twelve.

But she can still remember those screams. Even if she hadn't been there to see the death, even if they don't really haunt her dreams.]

Do you know how I died?

[It seems fair. To tell the girl.]

[There weren't many left after her death. Katniss, Peeta. Clove, Cato. Thresh. And one other... oh yes, the red-haired girl, the one who was as fast on the ground as Rue was in the trees.]

...Was it Thresh?

[Because they spoke once about Thresh.]

Kept me from killing Katniss because he figured out you were allies.

[And now, Clove's attention is on the knives. Picking them up, handling them like they were made of glass, inspecting them like they were fine jewels. Every curve and detail made note of.]

And I -- a Career, someone trained for that moment, to fight and to kill -- just screamed.

I died screaming for Cato.

[Her hand starts to tighten, but she realizes she's holding the blade of the knife she's examining. No. None of that. Not right now.

So, she makes herself breathe.]

[Rue listens. She hears. It's all she can do. There's nothing to say, nothing to do. They were all caught up in the games, they had no choice. And they all knew only one could walk out alive.

She knew Cato and Clove wanted to. They were Careers, it was what they did. Katniss, she had her sister to return to but there was Peeta as well.

Who would root for a 12-year-old girl from District 11? Not even Thresh had good odds.

Rue can't imagine Thresh killing Clove. She doesn't want to, not really. She would rather remember Thresh as she always does; with half a smile, kids half his size hanging off his massive arms and back as he stomps around the fields, laughter surrounding him.]

...I'm glad there aren't any more Games.

[And for Clove, Thesh will always be something that stalks her nightmares. Cato wakes up with memories of dogs; she sees a boy, huge and towering. Even now, if she closes her eyes, she can feel it. That fear of the certainty of death. Her throat still feels raw when she thinks of screaming.

Screaming and screaming... for nothing.

Cato didn't come.

She died humiliating her district, and Cato -- Cato, who had smiled at her at the announcement that two Victors could be crowned if they were from the same district -- hadn't been there. He hadn't protected her. He hadn't kept his promise.

She shifts the knife in her hand, grabs the hilt, and stabs down. Hard into the wood base. Drives it in and can't easily pull out. Only then does she breathe, forcing herself not to cry. It doesn't matter. It shouldn't still bother her. She's been here for years now. She should be over it.

But it wasn't just then.

Another breath. A few more moments.]

I wish I could've seen the last one. The pampered brats of the Capitol, suddenly in an Arena, like they'd watched and enjoyed for so many years.

22nd Throw - [ voice ]

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