The //Sword// in the //Darkness// ~Open~

[Rosetta]

Samuel Tulius

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For the third time that day, Sam reached back to pull up his drooped bottoms before glancing around hastily to be sure no one had seen.

Pepper had woken him up early that morning with a toothy grin and a sing-song voice, “Rise and shine, Sammy!” He had blinked blearily pulling the blankets over his beefy head to shield from the bright sunlight only to have Pepper excitedly pull them away and tell him,“Your training clothing is over there. That’s your size, right?” And Sam, or to Pepper “Sammy,” had lifted his head to see a sweat suit several sizes too large, laid out across a large chair. Everything in Sam’s suite was large. The bed, the chairs, the table, all set to accommodate his enormous waist and then some. Sam knew that in his bed alone he could fit another approximately his size and as his cheeks burned, surveyed the oversized room, he tried to manage that extra person being a lovely girl, settled into his bed to warm the cold spots on either side of him.

The only thing that wasn’t overly large were his plate portions. Every meal served to him was miniscule, hardly enough for him to consume in two mouthfuls and there was no dessert in site and with each night since leaving District Eight, Sam went to bed hungrier and hungrier, whimpering in his sleep. He’d always though that there was nothing worse than District Eight, skirting down alleys to avoid the paths that his father took every day and listening to them giggle and point at his broad build, but now he knew.

Sam finished adjusting his over-sized pants (having been unable to tell an ecstatic Pepper that they were, indeed, far too large) and turned back to the rack of swords he had been eyeing. Around him, the clicking of fellow tributes rubbing two stones together in hopes of building of fire coupled with the clang and thwack of swords kissing briefly before swinging around again hounded him and Sam knew that it would be them with that sword into their gut or him.

He knew when he sat alone in the Justice Building, the back of his mouth stale and sour, tugging at each of his fingers individually. When no one even spared him a visit except for old Blind Elfric who came only briefly, turning his ear towards the boy and pressing the necklace into his hand. “This is mine, boy,” he patted Sam’s hand closed around the woven thread, letting to gold raven feather trinkets dig into his palm, “I made it when I was a boy. You were always a good help. I’ll miss that help.” He smiled with his toothless mouth as if he’d said something comforting. “Maybe we’ll meet again, Samuel.” And then he was gone and Sam was alone. No more visitors. No more gifts. A car ride, a train, the candy-coated Capitol. But, all Sam could taste was the bitter past tense Elfric had used on him. Used to. And the uncertainty. Maybe. Father surely was saying something similar as he sat shamelessly at a table set for three, himself, his wife and the only son he had, Sam’s brother. He had no other son. Only one. Maybe Sam was not even in his vocabulary anymore. His name spoken once, “Samuel Tulius,” and then extinguished, leaving Sam to sniff and snivel the entire train ride away and away.

The sword reflected his own trembling chins back at him as Sam picked one up and ran a callused hand over its sharp blade. His heart was racing as he imagined that very point finding its way into his stomach…would it hurt? Would he feel the blood dribbling down his skin? Would he cry? Or would it feel like nothing at all? Would he die quickly? Or slowly? Could a sword to the belly even kill him with all the fat there anyway?

Turning, Sam fixed his gaze upon a dummy a few feet away. Would it hurt the dummy? Tentatively, Sam stepped forward and poked it gently with the sword, right in the belly. For a split second, he cringed expecting it to the poke back, but it was quiet, no poking, no prodding, no “Boy, what is this on your body? Fat, that’s what it is!” Poke, poke, a handful of fat, “Let me go! Let go! That hurts!” “It won’t hurt you if I cut all this fat off. You won’t feel it. Too much fat to feel anything, you disgusting pig.” But, the dummy didn’t none of those things and this time, Sam poked harder.

“Does that hurt, piggy?” he whispered as he pulled the sword away and corn-colored stuffing poured out. Sam poked harder, staring at that double chin, the crinkled forward, those stuffed cheeks and the ripple of a belly. “It won’t hurt you, piggy. You’re so fat. Just so fat. You disgust me.” Spit dripped down the dummy’s unresponsive face like tear drops. This time, when Sam poked, he poked hard and the hole widened, stuffing dropping to the floor and some brushed up against his leg, tickling him. With a gasp, Sam dropped his sword with a clang and stepped back. His heart was racing, his tummy fluttering with the hole he’d tried to put through it, but only the dummy felt it.

Does that hurt, piggy?

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[Verbal, Lord of The Dreadfort]

Gaff Grimsdottir

As a career, I was one of the most dangerous tributes in the room at that very instant.

... but everyone still seemed to be older than me.

I think I had heard about another fourteen year old volunteering for the games, a girl from five, but everyone else here looked like puberty had hit them like a box of bricks. The center was filled with the clanging of swords and the grunts of young adolescents making thrusts with their weapons into unperforated dummy flesh. The whole place (or at least the place were us tributes had been sent to train,) smelled like a brand new gymnasium, a sleek, chrome colored one which had been constructed just for us (had it been?) Even a fourteen year old boy such as I could highlight generally who knew what they were doing and who didn't. My tribute outfit was tight and felt almost like a second skin, but clearly, not everyone was quite so fortunate with the clothing that had been laid out for them.

This one, uhm, "larger" kid looked like he was trying to fight both the dummy he was aiming to skewer and his training garb at the same time.

The training garb was winning.

He didn't look like he knew how to hold a sword. At all. And I felt a pang of remorse for him as he tried to stab the dummy. Even when he seemed to get irate with it, (for some reason...) he didn't seem to get very far. Of course, a guy that size could crush me with his shear body mass no problem, so maybe he simply wasn't playing on his strengths.

I tell myself "to hell with it, we'll both probably be dead in a week anyways" and promptly pried myself off the wall I had been leaning on and began to make my way towards the larger kid.

He was staring at the dummy with odd intentness when I leaned up against the sword rack in the same position I had been leaning on the way before.

"If you find dead men that interesting, then you've certainly come to the right place."

[sbeeg]

Motel Hunt

The boy has never been an early riser so why should training week be any different? Well, the escort- the woman named Olive who in no way resembles an olive- dragged him out of bed at dawn to make him presentable. Motel is a gentle soul, but he had to admit, he didn't really like this lady. Besides her complete lie of a name, she kept poking him the ribs complaining how skinny he was and grabbing his hair commenting how stringy and greasy it was. How long has it been since you've had a bath? A real meal? Motel would usually inform her that he caught a possum two nights before the Reaping and that it was more than enough. Olive wrinkled her nose and made sure to keep two paces away from Motel at all times after that.

Sitting on his bed he watched the woman teeter on her spiky shoes and shuffled through the Capitol closet. Motel wanted leather- Olive didn't. Motel didn't want to wear a shirt- Olive wanted him to. They just weren't compatible you see. Snapping around she ordered Motel to stand up to lay a green paisley shirt against his chest to see how it would look. Grimacing, her eyes flickered up to his face. "You look like a spoon" was all she said before returning to the closet.

Eventually, the escort wrangled Motel into a pair of black pants and a wrinkled white t-shirt. She kept insisting he had to wear shoes but Motel didn't think so. Well, until he went down in the elevator and the trainers made him go back up for some. After putting on boots he went back down to the gym, surveying the area for anything that caught his attention. Naturally, all the sharp objects did. Skipping across the gym, Motel grabbed a sword, swinging it through the air a few times before searching for a target to practice on. Instead he found a boy stabbing at a dummy and whispering things to its gutted corpse. And people called Motel special.

Inching closer, he listened to the boy mumble "piggy" to the dummy. Motel's dark eyes moved from the boy to the dummy to the boy to the dummy to the boy to the dummy to the boy to the dummy to the boy to the dummy and to the boy again.

"Is that his name?" he asked innocently. "Piggy?"

[charade]

There were a lot of things Erik wasn't sure about, and the way some of the other tributes continued to surprise him only cemented the fact that he knew less about how everything worked than he did when he had first arrived in the Capitol. One thing that he was sure about was that it would be prudent to find a handful of like minded individuals. A brotherhood, so to speak. Now, Erik was hard pressed to find people like that, especially when so many of them seemed haughty or closed off. The ones that didn't? Erik was watching one of them hack away at a practice dummy with a sword. The tribute in question was the rotund boy from district eight, although he was looking less large as the week wore on.

Maybe it was the training regimens they were all being subjected to, because the portly boy -Sam his name might have been- was not fitting into his clothes, and given that Erik had seen more food in the Capitol in a few days than he had ever seen in twelve in years, he couldn't imagine how else a boy like that could be losing weight when surrounded by such decadence. Sam was muttering something too. From where he was, Erik could see the other boys lips moving, though he couldn't make out the words. Other people had noticed the boy from eight's antics too. Erik noted one of the younger career tributes going over there to talk to Sam, swiftly followed by the boy from ten.

When Erik had been watching the other reapings to get a sense of the competition, Motel had been one of the few to stand out to him, as the Hunt boy was from a lower district and yet had seemed about as happy about being reaped as Erik had. There was no clue to the other boy's motivation, but Erik felt reasonably sure that he had found a kindred spirit. But how to make an impression? How to catch his attention? For that matter, what about the other boys? It didn't seem likely that they'd pay attention to him after he cracked a few jokes, and they certainly weren't as inviting as Opal had been. Erik grumbled futilely for a bit before grabbing hold of a small javelin of sorts that was about as long as his arm and carefully aiming at the dummy several feet away.

The weapon was strange to him, and he'd only used it a couple times in the past few days, but he was reasonably sure that he could throw it without hurting anyone. Reasonably. He hefted it experimentally and aimed for the dummy's head. And then he threw it. Unfortunately, he forgot to account for drop and speed and though the projectile did wind up hitting the dummy, it was in it's lower stomach region instead of the head, just narrowly avoiding skewering the boy from eight. Erik sucked his teeth in and made a face before walking over to the gathering. "Um. Hello. Sorry, sorry about that, wasn't trying to create a problem. Just thought I'd get to know some of my fellow tributes. I only meant to grab your attention. Hi, I'm Erik."

It was then that Erik realized that hadn't really thought this through and didn't exactly have anything else to say and involuntary shuddered.

"Heh. It's a bit nippy isn't it?"

[Rosetta]

Samuel Tulius

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Sam lived by the rule that if a group of people decided to speak to him, they were most likely making fun of him.

First came a Career boy, leaning coolly against a sword rack and telling Sam, "If you find dead men that interesting, then you've certainly come to the right place."

“I…I…I don’t want to kill anything!” Sam stuttered, taking a step back, and the second wave washed over him in the form of that frightening District Ten boy with the piercing eyes, so searching, so calculating.

“Is that his name? Piggy?”

“Uhm, no…” Sam swallowed, his cheeks reddening, completely forgetting about the slipping pants, as he backed up, “it’s not, I didn’t say-“ Suddenly, he jumped back as a javelin whizzed back his head, (he screamed) tripping over the dummy behind him and only just managing to keep his balance by grabbing onto a climbing rope hanging just above his head as the third wave, the thrower of the javelin approached him.

"Um. Hello. Sorry, sorry about that, wasn't trying to create a problem. Just thought I'd get to know some of my fellow tributes. I only meant to grab your attention. Hi, I'm Erik. It’s a bit nippy isn’t it?”

It took Sam a moment to recover from this avalanche of people and questions for he was surrounded, heart beating heavily, trying to wrap his head around the words being spoken to him. Nippy? It’s nippy? All Sam could do was shake his head, still clinging desperately to the rope. “I…I…” his squeaky voice gained strength as suddenly he felt himself heat up, from both being surrounded by an odd assortment of tributes and nearly being disemboweled by the thrown javelin. “I…I think it’s hot,” he insisted, swallowing so hard his double chin trembled. His watery eyes were on the move, glancing around anxiously for an escape route-

“Piggy! Piggy!” Grassy school year, ripped up dirty by his feet as he tried to push past. “Piggy, does this hurt?” A punch in the gut and he’s on the ground, crying, doubled over, fat spilling over, tears on his wrists, down his cheeks, in the dirt. “Piggy, Piggy!”

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“My…my” Sam spoke even louder trying to drown out the ringing in his ears. He spoke directly to the Career boy, “my name is Sam, not…not…” he glanced at the District 10 boy, Motel, with his innocent gaze, before zeroing in on the District 12, Erik. “You really should be more careful,” he advised, hand tightening around the rope-who was he kidding, he couldn’t climb it-“Someone…someone could get hurt!”[/color][/size][/blockquote][/blockquote]

[sbeeg]

Motel Hunt

The boy in front of him turned beat red and started stuttering. Motel squinted his eyes, thinking if he focused harder on what the boy was saying he could understand it but nope it was just gibberish coming out in choppy intervals. The only thing he learned as that the dummy's name was, in fact, not Piggy. It looked more like a Rachel to Motel anyway. As soon as the boy made the discovery a javelin slid right between Motel and the new boy to stab Rachel right in the gut. The District Ten tribute's head whipped around to get a look at who threw it. The boy who approached was about their own age, from which district Motel had no idea. He didn't do as much research as the other kids. In fact he did none at all. After blabbering on about why he had thrown the weapon, Motel's mind finally tuned in on the last part "Hi, I'm Erik. Heh. It's a bit nippy isn't it?"

Erikkkkkkk. As the two other boys talked, Motel said the name to himself, trying it out on his tongue. "Erikkkkkkkkkk," he hissed. His name was so hard, it was nothing like his own. “My name is Sam, not…not…” Sammmm? Sssssssssam. That was a gentler name. Motel liked it. It was like butter sliding off a piece of toast.

"MY NAME IS MOTEL," he shouted at the pair. He hadn't really meant to shout it, he just got a little excited and it sort of came out that way. However he quickly finished the sentence to get caught up in the conversation. "I feel just fine and I thought that javelin throw was pretty sick!"

Motel grinned at Erik and threw an arm over Sam's neck, hugging the boy closer. "Soooo were are you two from, Sssssssam and Erikkkkkkk?"