(no subject)

[inciting]

Who| Katniss and anyone from District 12 + Those plans have been made with. Drop me a plurk or PM if you wanna jump in so we can plot something.
What| Katniss meeting her tributes, and a few new people.
Where| Within the training center.
When| Since the crowning. Before meeting with Cinna.
Warnings/Notes| None atm

The usually reserved Girl on Fire was everywhere around the Tribute center in the day after the arena, greeting people, sociable (for Katniss at least) as she sought out her Tributes. Peeta was right that she should spend some time with each of them, and after thinking on it, Katniss was ready to dive in.

She had ditched the tablet thing Effie kept pressing on her for a simple notebook, each tribute having their own page, name printed firmly at the top. On each page, she had already scribbled down some thoughts on each tribute. Now she just needed to track them down and talk to them. Given that she couldn't usually get anywhere without being stopped several times, she had a feeling this was going to take a few days.

The crowning had shaken her, but she wasn't going to just shy away from it. They had to be ready.

For what, she wasn't sure. The arenas, of course. But, hopefully, for more.

Comments

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy popped out of her room for only a moment in the most simple clothes in her closet...which happened to be her training suit. She had paint on it and a thin piece of fabric hanging off her neck like an ascot.

Grabbing a glass of purple and pink juice [she had no idea how some of these things were created] she gulped at it greedily and only then did she look up to examine the room and spot Katniss. There was a flicker of vague recognition but nothing more solid then that.

[inciting]

Katniss was glad to have caught her before she got out of the suite. It was always better to catch them here, if she could.

"Hey, Sandy!"

She hadn't had much time alone with the girl, and offered a friendly smile. Hopefully looking disarming, though Katniss wasn't ever sure her smile was disarming.

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy gave a start having not been expecting anyone to call out for her. Looking around her eyes settled on Katniss and her face twisted with puzzlement.

"Oh uh...hey."

She knew who Katniss was of course. But she'd spent more time talking to Peeta and hadn't seen much of the well known victor of District 12. She was curious but cautious.

"What's up?"

[inciting]

"I wanted to, uh..."

It felt sorta pathetic to be say anything to the point of 'do the job I should have already been doing' especially since Peeta had been so good at it. Perhaps specifically because he had been.

But it was what it was.

"Talk to you. Get to know you."

[justoutrunyou]

Well that was very sudden. Still Sandy couldn't find a reason not to. After all wasn't Katniss supposed to be her mentor too?

And obviously she could use all the help she could get.

"Yeah uh...alright." She refilled her juice glass and helped herself to a round squishy sugary cake from the food trays.

"Why now?"

[inciting]

"Better late than never." Katniss says, trying to offer a smile and hoping it doesn't look too tight.

"I talked to Pruna recently, and Peeta, and it got the gears moving."

[69problems]

The Signless knew Katniss on sight, not because he saw her around the building much, but because Karkat had forced him into watching the recap of her Games so many times. He was in the training center when she approached him, taking a break from sickle training to work on something he wanted to practice -- camouflage. When all he was really good at was surviving, it wouldn't hurt to have an extra edge. He wasn't terribly good at it yet, though. Painting had always been the Disciple's specialty.

"Hello."

[inciting]

"Hello. I'm Katniss."

Unsure how to go forth from there, she looked down at the painting, smeared across his skin. A good skill for one of their to develop, though maybe not the best one for her to help with.

"Have you talked to Peeta about this? he's...amazing at it."

[69problems]

Really, he was surprised more trolls weren't putting time into learning this skill. The grey skin and bright orange horns weren't exactly easy to hide... but then, for the trolls where they really stood out, fighting back wasn't much of an issue.

"I haven't, but I should. It's something I only recently thought about trying to learn -- from watching your Games, actually."

[inciting]

She flinched slightly. The idea that anyone could just pick to watch those, anytime they wanted...it was unnerving.

It was also exactly what Signless should be doing.

"Does the paint stick to your horns?" She almost reached out to touch them, and then pulled her hand back. Was that rude? Probably.

[69problems]

A little, but he was by this point used to humans not knowing about troll social norms. Goodness knows it had taken him this long to begin to wrap his head around what was and was not acceptable for humans.

"Well-enough. They're the most visible part of me, so they're the part I need to work hardest to cover. At least my horns are small, compared to most."

[inciting]

She nodded, considering them.

"Mud, too, could cover them. Or leaves, or something, if those things aren't available. Do they still grow, or molt?"

Every seasons, the deers grew new horns, and she wondered if they were like them. None of the trolls seemed to have lost theirs, however.

[andproper]

Prim isn't a tribute - or a mentor... really, she isn't sure what she is or where she fits in. That's part of why she's been so focused on learning medicine, of late - she feels a need to do something in this place, separated from home.

But there are two thing that are constant, even here - she is a member of district twelve; and she is Katniss's sister.

So here she is. Looking around.

[inciting]

However much this is stressing her out, when she sees her sister, her face lights up.

"Hey, you. How you doing?"

Hooking an arm around the younger girl's shoulders, she searched for a place to settle them, to take a break from today and get some one on one time.

[andproper]

That's the reaction she was looking for - she's happy to see Katniss enjoying herself. It doesn't happen enough.

"I'm alright," she promised, looking serious for a moment as she allowed herself to be led, looping her arm as best she could about Katniss.

She wanted Katniss to keep smiling, and not be worried.

[inciting]

"Anything new?"

She felt like she hadn't seen Prim much. Not really. She saw her every day, but she hadn't been able to settle in and talk to her for any long period of time.

[andproper]

Prim knew that Katniss was busy. She understood what her sister was doing, what she was responsible for - which wasn't to say that the little blonde didn't miss her terribly, sometimes.

"I've been talking to the tributes," she offered after a moment. "I'm learning about where they came from..." like where the trolls came from.

[orestes]

It was unusual for Enjolras to spend time at the training center. He had no distaste for exercise, although it hadn't exactly made it into his routine often since moving to Paris. It was simply that being in the presence of so many people he'd seen die (some of them more than once) was unsettling to him. Philosophers may spend their days preparing for death and dying in the metaphysical sense, but this took that sentiment to a far more pragmatic place the likes of which made him intensely uncomfortable.

Nevertheless, no one could be immune to nagging forever, and, at the insistence of the various mentors, stylists, and hangers-on which floated around his District's suite, he'd dragged himself from the city with its varying interests, to the training center and its singularity of purpose. He had, naturally, brought along a book to which he clung whilst debating the merits of practicing fencing alone. It hardly seemed productive.

It was during this distracted contemplation when he spotted Katniss and her notebook. He didn't make a habit of studying the Games outside of their abstract significance in the political structure of Panem, but she was, of course, impossible to escape. The image and the story of the Girl on Fire who had defied the Capitol for love (which was in itself mildly ridiculous, but he was willing to disregard that rather harsh reaction for the moment) was a favorite among the people. He spent a moment watching her with fascination over exactly how unassuming she was in reality, without the fury of the Arena around her, or the makeup, feathers, and other peculiarities the Capitol forced on them.

"From the way they speak of you, Mademoiselle, one might have believed you to be more than human. I'm relieved to see that isn't the case." There was a wry note to his voice but the comment itself was sincere. If such an unassuming girl could stand up to the tyrannical system (even if it were for, in his estimation, the wrong reasons) there was hope for the rest of them.

[inciting]

She looked up, and placed him instantly. Although his posts were dense, District 12 lacking in philosophy along with other important life lessons, she picked through them as much as she could.

She knew he was intelligent. And more important, she knew he had to be brave as hell to post that stuff. Though doing so under the Capitols nose made her question the first part.

"You're not the only one." She said with a smile, deciding talking to him was actually a very interesting proposal. "Being the Capitol's Katniss Everdeen all the time would be exhausting."

She tucked her notebook under her arm, extending a hand. "Enjolras, right?"

[orestes]

With a manner and poise that spoke to his antiquity, he accepted her hand. It was unusual for him still that a woman should behave in such a way, but after a few incidents (primarily involving a certain suite-mate), he'd learned to ignore the impulse to comment on it. Equality was, as he was quickly learning here, not merely defined in terms of politics. "Yes, that is correct. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, mademoiselle."

And he meant it. Seeing the real thing was useful, and from the little bit she'd said thus far, she seemed to have an equally wary appreciation for her status within the city. "They force us to watch the --video, is it not?-- of your Arena."

[inciting]

Being told her game was used for training had long ago stopped making her flinch, but she still wished that wasn't the way people were introduced to her. Even if it was edited and polished to make her look like one of the most amazing Tributes ever. Probably because of that fact, actually. That wasn't here, not the way it was shown.

"Lucky you. They don't have to show them to us, we all watched them as they happened."

[peacekeeperavox]

The Avoxes on the twelfth floor had been given broader assignments in general. They were still there on a regular and predictable schedule, cleaning late at night and setting out meals, but they were less and less available to pamper the tributes and answer their random requests.

Darius was mostly there in the early hours of the morning, like a dawn ghost cleaning the common room and setting up the table for breakfast for those who preferred to eat in the semi-privacy of the penthouse. The dim lights of the early morning suited him - he'd seen his face. He didn't like the looks it drew.

[inciting]

Darius made Katniss feel guilty. Deeply guilty. A guilt that drove her, when she was faced with him on a regular basis, to avoid him, because she saw literally no other option.

This morning, even that wasn't an option. And seeing him, the damage to his face...only made her guilt, once again, swell up.

Had they even bothered to fix him? If they had been at home, and he could have gone to her mother, would he still be in one piece.

She made eye contact, and when she did, panicking, blurted out "Hello."

And then remembered how uncomfortable avoxes became when spoken to. Good. More guilt.

[peacekeeperavox]

He paused in laying out the silverware, glad that it was her, at least. When his mind allowed it, Katniss, with her Seam face and the way she spoke, could feel like home.

Setting down the cutlery, he made a tiny wave back.

[inciting]

She let out a breath, only realizing as she relaxed that she had, in fact, been holding in a breath.

And moved close, trying to keep a smile pinned to her face. No one was around. If there was a time to talk, it was now.

She just had no idea what to say.

"Hey."