thecapitol | Game Night

Entry tags:

Game Night

Who| Torin and Linden
What| Two Victors meet for a game of chess.
Where| Torin's apartment.
When| Sometime this afternoon.
Warnings| Discussion of drugs, death, all sorts of fun things that follow past Tributes around.

Torin wasn't known for being particularly social. Sure, he handled himself very well when it came to navigating the complicated web of Capitol parties that produced Sponsors to help out his Tributes, but that was just part of his job, and not a part he particularly enjoyed. He wasn't in the habit of making friends at these parties, merely casual acquaintances that might throw money at his Tributes.

But it was different when he was dealing with other Victors. They understood. At least, the ones that weren't also from Two understood. They got that sense of loss despite winning what was said to be a great victory, and most of them came out broken for it. Torin wasn't sure what drove him to keep going, what kept him brave enough to continue facing life without falling back on some sort of crutch in a bottle, but it was something.

Possibly it was the feeling that he was an example. He had to be strong for those he was supposed to guide and watch over, even if traditionally, that meant he was to guide kids who were already perfectly all right with what would be expected of them. Yet there were Victors from other Districts, Victors from places where the Games were not well-loved, whose views were more similar to Torin's own. And the older he got, the more he wanted to try to guide those Victors as well as his own Tributes. That's what led him to offer to play a game or two of chess with Linden, and that's what led him to clean up his already Spartan apartment in preparation for guests. He'd obtained a chessboard and some light snacks, and with that host stuff taken care of, was tinkering with a few things at his workbench while waiting for his guest to arrive.

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Linden considers the gambit, but opts not to take it, instead covering his rook by gently moving a pawn forward.

"A nine?" Linden sounds impressed; while the number may be low for a career district, it's very high for an outlying one like 6. "Probably a good place to be. Not high enough to make you an immediate target, but enough to make you seem formidable. I was..." he pauses, trying to remember. "Scorpii was an 11," he says helpfully, almost proudly.

Torin nods approvingly at the failed gambit, and he instead moves the rook to a safer location...for now.

"It had its good points and bad points. Probably part of the reason I separated from the others so soon..." That had been Torin's first major upset that Games--turning on his fellow Careers and striking out on his own. It had worked well enough, allowing him to go out, tame dinosaurs, and ultimately survive.

He nods when Linden gives Scorpii's score. "That's right, it was." Scorpii's score, but not his own. Troubling. Still, he carries on as though nothing awkward has happened. "We were rather excited when it was announced. "Makes for a bit of a target, but the Sponsors love high scores."

Linden's been through enough of the Games by now to know that a high score is a great reason to high-tail it away from other Tributes, unless, like Scorpii, the ones around you scored too low to pose much of a threat.

His smile actually seems genuine; talking about Scorpii seems to be a substitute for talking about himself, in that it's rewarding and feels good and gives him a certain amount of satisfaction, as if he'd done those things himself. Despite being his arena's Victor, Linden has never really felt like he deserved it, and he frequently behaves like the other boy is still around and living the life of a Victor he currently experiences.

"You were excited because it's exciting. Only a handful have ever scored that high," he says proudly, making a bolder move, separating his rook and queen at least.

It speaks volumes of how District 2 perceives the Games that Torin's even thinking to say a score of nine might have been thought to be low. (Or perhaps, it's more a reflection of his father's unreasonable nature.)

He's still a bit unnerved at Linden's continued obsession with Scorpii, but he can understand it. Surviving an Arena did strange things to people. Coping was hard. In some ways, Torin had ended up relatively well-adjusted mostly out of spite for the system. So he's willing to indulge that topic of conversation. (It's nice to see Linden happy, anyway...) "That's right. He did very well in front of the Gamemakers that night."

"I wish I could have seen it. He was very strong, and you could tell that he knew he'd done really well when he left his scoring," Linden says, running with the license he's been given to live, even briefly, in the past. "He was clever, too. That was my thing, what my Mentor told me to emphasize during my scoring, but he was probably more clever than me."

He should have won, by every law in the universe it would have been right.

"He was good-looking, too. A lot of bidders were disappointed with the Games' outcomes, I was told."

And he says so like he doesn't blame them, couldn't dream of blaming them.

"Someone's getting disappointed every Games," Torin points out gently. "It's the way of it." He knew the survivor's guilt well, even if his own was wildly skewed, and he missed his dinosaur mutts most of all.

"Some Districts know how to deal with disappointment better than others," he shrugs. "6 is great at it. 2... maybe not so great. Was your father proud, or was it just what he expected?"

Torin moves another of his pieces. "It was what he expected of me, I think." He's staring perhaps a little too hard at that chess board. "What he would have expected of any of his children." Yet more reasons he and Torin had never gotten along.

Linden responds almost immediately with a move of his own, grateful that they're back in the game despite the high he always gets from talking about Scorpii, then he follows Torin's gaze that's distracted despite its intensity.

"Well that makes you sound discouragingly interchangeable," Linden comments bluntly. "Parents who are lucky enough to see their children grow up should be a little more sentimental, right?"

That actually gets a smile out of Torin, even if it's accompanied by a bitter laugh. "Sentimentality was not my father's strong suit." He takes another move. "He always saw such things as a grave weakness. To him, the only things that mattered were proving your strength. Beating down anything in your path."

"Then you succeeded, at least in that regard," Linden offers, noting the harsh note in Torin's answering laugh as he considers his next move carefully. "You proved your strength. What better way to do that in Panem, aside from winning the Hunger Games?"

He decides on a move, sliding his bishop toward Torin's back row. "Check."

"I doubt there is one." Torin nods approvingly at the move as he leans forward to scrutinize the board. "But that's just how high his expections were..." He smoothly makes a move to get his king out of danger...and offers him an opportunity to strike at Linden's own king if Linden isn't careful.

"No limit to expectations sounds like, no offense... a really shitty way to grow up," Linden says, pursuing the King, leaving his own recklessly open. "I imagine that maybe... competing was as much of an escape for you as it was an honor."

Torin actually laughs, though it's a bitter one. "I had very few friends...none quite so good as what I found in the Arena." He still misses those poor dinosaurs. "I suppose you could say the competition was a bit liberating, yes."

Torin's laughter is something of a relief; Linden can be abrasive, abrupt and definitely offensive, and people have left the room before due to some slight or perceived insult.

"A lot of people use the Games to do things they felt they couldn't before... the idea is that you do whatever you can to survive, and some seem to treat it as carte blanche to behave in an utterly depraved manner. I have a lot of respect for people who manage not to cave and fall into that."

"Roaming with those dinosaurs was better than anything else I could have gotten up to, I think." That gets another smile out of Torin. "I've respect for those who can use alliances to their advantage. It wasn't something in the cards for me, at least not in the traditional sense." No one had expected a Tribute to turn to arena mutts for support against their fellow Tributes to the degree Torin had.

"It was inspiring to watch," Linden replies. "Your Games were some of the first I watched when I was preparing for mine. It's probably the most impressive strategy I've seen to date, given that the Mutts aren't typically designed to be friendly with Tributes. Did you have many pets growing up?"

"You know, they had a bit of controversy over that. No one knew if it was intentional on the part of the Gamemakers, or if some of their scientists had made a mistake." Or if Torin had been just that good. He shakes his head. "I didn't have too many, no. My father wasn't fond of animals. I tried to sneak a puppy in once when I was small. Father was...less than pleased when he found out." Torin grimaces at the memory.

"It's not unusual for there to be a controversy over something in every game," Linden comments. "But regardless, you didn't break any rules by using the arena and its creatures to your advantage. Even if people expect Careers to take a more direct approach to winning, you didn't do anything wrong."

The assurance-slash-congratulation is interrupted for a brief moment by Linen looking crestfallen.

"So... what ended up happening to the puppy?" he asks quietly.

"I know there was some fuss when I broke off from the other Careers," Torin laughs, "but that didn't really bother me. We didn't really get along." And he grows a bit more somber. "I'm not sure what happened to the puppy. I never asked after he took it."

"Not even once?" Linden asks, tilting his head sideways. "I think I would have, but... that being said, I didn't have your father."

He figures, at least, that the reason Torin didn't ask had more to do with fear for his father than a lack of concern for a small, sweet animal.

"There aren't a lot of pets in 6. I thought that maybe in 2 it would be different, since it's wealthier and people have more expendable income."

"He found it after it vomited on one of his shoes." Torin closed his eyes. "Asking after it would not have been particularly safe." And when he was nine, he wouldn't have been nearly strong enough to stand against the man. That had been the one good thing about the Arena--it had given him that strength. "More people have them in 2, I think, though my father still felt they were a waste of resources."

"...I see."

His voice falters. He can imagine, as he's sure that Torin has, just what might have become of that puppy. Like many who grow to dislike and distrust human beings, he enjoys the company of smaller, gentler creatures, and it's sad to think of them being disposed of by angry, intimidating fathers.

"The definition of a pet is being sort of a waste of resources," Linden says quietly. "They're amusing, and that's how they earn their keep. Like us," he adds with a shrug. "How useful are Mentors, in all honesty?"

Torin sighs. "We're here to ensure their survival." It's a question he's asked himself many, many times. "...and yet our best use is in helping the Tributes after they get out of the Arena. That's a...different...sort of survival."

Linden has a difficult time even pretending to believe what Torin says. Though it's a correct attitude for a Mentor to have, it's exhausting to truly believe that he was helping year after year and parachute after wasted parachute. He couldn't ensure the survival of the unskilled factory kids from 6 any better than he could ensure that he woke up on any given morning without being immediately and violently sick to his stomach.

"Everything I know about the other Districts I learned from other Mentors," Linden admits. "I always wanted to know what was outside of 6 while I lived there, so I should be happy."

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