shenevermisses | 22nd Throw

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

Fair enough. You can train them, but they have to be able to use what you've taught them.

[When to run, when to fight, how to stay alive, it's all things to learn but it's different out in the field. When every situation is different and can go south in a second. And maybe whoever is being taught will never have to use those skills, never have to fight or kill or do what it takes to stay alive. Maybe. Maybe not.]

Hey. You once gave me advice about staying useful here. [About staying here, staying alive.] Thanks.

[Which is what makes the training so hard. She's dealing with a girl who, really, should run every chance she gets. She shouldn't kill. She hasn't been raised to kill without remorse. But Clove knows nothing else. She knows how to run... if you're leading your pursuer into a trap. If you're going to suddenly turn and throw a knife into his chest or throat.

She doesn't know how to fight -- she knows how to kill.]

I can't promise it'll work. They're pretty temperamental here, but it's advice I got from one of them, sort of. So... Not like they've said anything about there being limited room.

I figure nothing is guaranteed here, but there's logic behind the idea at least. We're dead [And there's a pause as Ginia looks at the words because it's the first time she's attributed it to herself without hiding her identity.] so we have nothing to go back to, not like everyone else. But if we make ourselves useful for the cause, then it benefits them.

Heard from someone else the housing situation has adjusted itself according to the population size so it doesn't seem like space is an issue.

Yeah. Buildings altered. It's weird, but you kind of get used to it here. Which is even weirder.

They start limiting space, though? And it's every person for themselves. Which I think you'd at least get, unlike most of the bleeding hearts here.

I guess there's a lot you get used to here. [For better or worse. It's too comfortable here, too quiet, too nice. Sometimes Ginia can feel the edge of tension and caution slipping from her and it scares her as much as it relaxes her.]

I get it, but honestly I don't fault those who think otherwise. Different mindsets, different lives.

[And once in awhile, Ginia wishes she could have a different mindset and different life too.]

I read in the guide there was a food and water shortage and refugees from another enclosure here. Were you around for that?

Yep. I'd learned to hunt, though, and have a camp near a lake. So food and water weren't a problem for those of us who'd thought about it.

And it'll happen again. People here? Like to defy them -- the Malnosso. Sooner or later? They're going to want to regain control, maintain order, and they're going to do it by limiting the food. They bring it in; they can make it stop.

[Water supply Ginia isn't too worried about with the close proximity of the river, though bottling up water wouldn't be a bad idea. And food she's begun stocking, but learning to hunt isn't a bad idea.]

It's the classic way to enforce control. The question is was anything learned from the situation? Emergency stockpiles or food or supplies around the village, people stocking up in general?

[And if there are stockpiles of food and supplies around, who is watching them? Who is responsible for rationing everything out in times of need?]

People here don't learn. Especially in situations like that. None of them even thought "Hey, we should learn to provide for ourselves" or anything like that.

Pity, but good to keep in mind for the future.

Do you know if there are many around here that can hunt or have survival training?

Plenty who claim it, but I bet most of them wouldn't last a day if they actually had to.

[It'd be an interesting test. It also wouldn't be a bad idea for someone to host a survival training course, but that's someone else's job.]

Thanks for the heads up. Didn't realize people were that poorly prepared around here.

They like to talk tough, but most of 'em? Wouldn't last long if it came to "kill or be killed."

When the time comes, it's sink or swim. It's the only way it'll get in people's heads.

Most of them'll be dead before they have a chance to learn.

[It's cold, but it's the way she views the world.]

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