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.

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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.

What do you mean?

[The final vote for one more game with the kids of the Capitol, that was a detail Rue hadn't known. Not from Peeta, not from Katniss, certainly not from Johanna.]

[...Ah. She didn't know.

Well. No one said she has to be totally honest. Sometimes it's okay to lie. Especially to a kid.]

That's what the new government decided. They'd abolish the Hunger Games after taking one more year. One more reaping. But just of the Capitol kids. Since they'd spent seventy-five years not having to deal with it.

[One last game, with kids from the Capitol. Kids that had been safe for seventy-four, seventy-five years. Kids that watched other kids die for entertainment, who never had to know what it was like to fear or starve or suffer.]

...That's wrong. Even if they never knew what it was like, no more games should be no more games.

[No more kids dying.]

[Clove shrugs.]

And after 76, there weren't.

They deserved it.

[Did they deserve it? Did they deserve it any more than the innocent kids through all twelve districts did?

Rue's not sure, but there's no changing what's already happened.]

Is there anything else here?

Look around.

[It's, really, the best advice Clove's got. She means well, at least.]

Anything that catches your eye? That you think would be a good fit?

[Rue slowly moves off into the store, looking at the shelves for anything that catches her attention. She wanders back a few minutes later with a collapsible grappling hook connected to some rope.]

This. They had them in District 12.

Huh. Cool.

Can't say I've seen anything like that, but it definitely looks useful.

It's a grappling hook. The ones in District 11 aren't as nice, but they're used for climbing and pulling things.

Definitely sounds useful, then, yeah. They probably used something like this in the mines of Two, but I never saw anything of those except the offices.

22nd Throw - [ voice ]

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