thecapitol | Calm Like a Bomb

WHO| Mindy, Open
WHAT| General hope for CR interaction, basically
WHERE| I'm going to have her in the training center/tribute tower
WHEN| This week
WARNINGS| Swearing and likely dialogue of the adult situations. Mindy just rolls like that.

1. The training room was becoming her home away from home.

Which, honestly, it HAD to be. Home was where dad trained her, home was making herself ready, finding the tired, aching in her bones welcome after the drudgery of the games forcing her to be alert almost constantly. That had happened too soon after her attempt to conform to real life. Even in her "roll with it" personality demanded the switch, it still left her in a hard place, untrained for fucking wilderness and traps.

She knew better now. She'd eaten more, even allowed herself to get dolled up every so often (two random days) so she could regain a little bit of herself. It just helped her regain a foothold back to what she did best: training her body to shatter some bones. A run n the gymnasium cleared her head. A few choice weapons of the stabbing variety kept her senses sharp. A rundown on long ranged weapons told her how much more she had to go. Everything she did, she recorded on a notepad for herself.

There was no more dad here to keep tabs on her: kill or be killed. Mindy wasn't going to go into the latter category easily.

Right at the moment, she was suspended from a rope, her eyes closed. One of the exercises she had set for herself was sensing everything around her. She had lost the previous games because she blundered into a set trap. That had been reckless, and made her feel even dumber for falling for it. She'd make sure that didn't happen again. This meant sensing everything around her, disciplining her body in the case someone or something had to be detected. This, she knew, would be harder to do suspended like this.

photo LOVE-9-S-S-2013-chloe-moretz-33517801-1024-1536-1.jpg

2. It was hard to get to sleep sometimes. Between nightmares of her father and her leg getting torn up, her head was becoming a space of unpleasant imagery and that was not something she needed. She was in a faux lap of luxury suite, she didn't need her mind reminding her how desperate everything was: all of this was wrong. So she regressed back to her over sized shirt and walked out of her suite, trying to gather her thoughts.

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"Oh, no," he said, shaking his head. "I try to stay out of the way, mostly. But I've been exploring the city too."

"Yeah, me too. So what have you found?"

"Buildings." He chuckled. Also pubs, but he wasn't about to mention that to a child. "Shops, restaurants, parks. Much like any other city, really, just with different architecture."

"Not that different from back home. Hell, we have skyscrapers. Kinda miss them, now that you bring up all that stuff. Still, its all inda sinister now because we're trapped here. It's sorta deceptive that way."

"I hadn't thought about it like that before." Now he was imagining the buildings looming and closing it, and he shook himself before it could get to him. "I'm not so used to the luxuries we have in here though."

"It's...a really pretty cage that we all live in right now. "

"Isn't it just," he said drily.

"At least you don't have to wear a dress. I hear that takes hours."

He raised an eyebrow. "I'm very glad I don't have to wear a dress." For more than one reason. "Why would it take hours?" Surely you just put it on, like any other clothes.

"You would think it wouldn't, right?" Mindy said. "Apparently there's all this makeup and crap involved too, so you have to pretty much run a whole schedule around it. Like I didn't have enough reasons for not wanting to dress up."

"Women do seem to like that. But not you?" He wondered if that was just because she was too young and she'd change her mind later - if she had the opportunity.

"Oh I know it doesn't matter if I do or not: they'll make my wear it anyway. Still, I might look good, like, all hair slick back and dapper guy, just to mess with people!"

In retrospect, it might be fun! She figured she could rebel a little, make her kind of a favorite.

He smiled. "Maybe you would. People probably wouldn't recognise you all dressed up."

"Sure would be better than just playing along," Mindy said. "Have enough reminders that the whole reason I'm here is because of them."

"Anything's better than just playing along." He sighed. "Well, almost anything." Not death or torture, obviously.

"I'm willing to do anything," Mindy said. "Can't really give myself up to the games just yet."

Ian chuckled. "I like your attitude."

Mindy stared at him. "I'd like yours more if you didn't stay passive. You seem like a cool enough old guy-we need more people like that in this shit hole."

He shrugged. "It works for me."

Mindy looked dubious. "Does it really?"

"Yes," he said simply, not wanting to go into specifics.

Mindy stared, then shook her head and turned around. "Doesn't sound like much to me. But hell, your life, right? as much as they'll allow it to be anyway."

He shrugged and turned to go himself. "It's worked so far." And it meant that he had control over how and when he died, which was far better than having control over nothing.

"I guess, but it doesn't make you any better or worse off than you are. How long have you been here?"

"Three arenas," he said, thinking back. "At least I've come back after every single one." Not everyone did.

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hit_girl_mindy - 2014-01-08 16:50 (UTC) - Expand

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