Calm Like a Bomb

[hit_girl_mindy]

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.


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.

Comments

[splendid_roman]

He shook his head. "Not all of them." And he was sure that most policeman would be honest enough not to allow themselves to be bought. "Surely it would be better to make sure they couldn't be bought, than to send children out to fight criminals."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"You don't need all of them," Mindy said. "All you need is to have one stoolie. He ferrets information to the criminals, who are organized, and they do what they need to. Criminals are going to do what they want. So yeah, sometimes you need someone who operates outside the law. No one expects that to be a kid."

[splendid_roman]

"I suppose not," Ian said with a sigh. He still didn't think it was right and that there were other ways to do it, but he wasn't going to convince her. And it wasn't like it mattered anyway, since none of them got much of a choice of what to do here. "I suppose it's at least good experience for the arena."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Yeah. When it comes down to it, we have to compete or die, and I'm not the type who just likes to roll over. Think about it. What if I had no skills or knew how to fight and they brought me here? I'd be getting killed by one of their concocted monsters or traps, or someone would kill me. I think I'd rather go down fighting."

[splendid_roman]

He nodded. "Probably. But however you die you get brought back here." Unless you didn't, but if she didn't know that yet he didn't want to be the one to tell her.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Yeah, I know. Like I said, its just how I am. I can't imagine giving up and dying. That's just not me. I wanna live, and die trying my best TO live. Well, except for the last time I was dying."

[splendid_roman]

Ian couldn't really complain about that attitude - wanting to live was a good thing after all. "I'm glad. I hope you still feel the same way after a few more arenas."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Knowing they'll happen, and why, helps," Mindy said. "Its supposed to be routine, we just have to accept that it is and not hope for anything new. They have all the time in the world, and then can just bring us back as much as they feel like. It's all about how much of yourself you put into it."

[splendid_roman]

Ian nodded. "I still don't like it, though."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"It's not for everyone," Mindy said. "If it was, we might all actually be grateful to the Capitol for the wonderful opportunity to have rich people gawk at our finesse and prowess."

Her voice was dripping with sarcasm, of course.

[splendid_roman]

"Quite," Ian agreed, in a similar tone. "I'll just keep doing what I'm doing until such time it doesn't work any more."

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy looked him with a concerned expression. The idea of this guy dying over and over again actually bothered her. He seemed all right, like someone's grandfather or something, why the hell would they need him in the games?

"And then what?"

[splendid_roman]

He shrugged. "I suppose we'll see."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Yeah."

She paused, then took his hand.

"Yeah, you, so, um...look. You'll be careful, and not be some passive aggressive wall flower, right? Because...come on, these assholes can't enjoy watching you die, right?"

[splendid_roman]

"I'm pretty sure they could." He wanted to laugh at the idea of him as a wall flower, except that's what his current arena strategy was. "But I'll be careful," he promised. "As long as you're careful too."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"After the last time, I'll definitely be careful," Mindy said. "Dying once was really enough. I'm not trying to do that all over again. That sucked."

[splendid_roman]

"I'm not sure you'll get much choice. There is only one winner in each arena, after all." He wasn't sure she was likely to be a winner, based on his experience.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Yeah," Mindy said quietly. "To win, I'd probably have to be pretty ruthless or hope other stuff in the Arena got rid of people."

In other words? Totally possible. Especially if she wanted to continue with other plans.

[splendid_roman]

Ian wasn't entirely keen on either of those options, but he just nodded and said, "Well, good luck."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Yeah," Mindy said, swinging herself back upright. "You too. So tell me something: in a world you obviously don't want to take part in, what do you do for, like, a hobby?"

[splendid_roman]

He shook his head. "This isn't the sort of place that lends itself to hobbies."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Oh come on," Mindy said. "I know you don't like the place, but you have to do something. You don't just stay in your room depressed, do you?"

[splendid_roman]

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

[hit_girl_mindy]

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

[splendid_roman]

"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."