Whistles & Slaps // [District 5 92nd Train]

[admin kay]

CANTARA KANANSIS

Cantara walked just half a pace ahead of the Peacekeepers flanking her. She doubted she'd ever feel at ease around their faceless, reflective masks, but after more than a week in District 6 there was something more familiar about them now. Better the devil you know. So when they urged her out of the Justice Building, through the alleys, emerging at the train stations, Cantara didn't hold back. She didn't need to follow them to know exactly why they were there: to compel her into the 92nd Hunger Games.

The one time she did turn her chin over her shoulder it was to check to see if the other tribute followed them. Already a reporter had pounced. No one had come to say goodbye to her. There wasn't anyone. So when she emerged from the room, perhaps the reporter assumed she'd been wanting to speak with someone.

"Quite the traditional pairing, you and Cash. In these modern times, what do you think about being reaped as one female and one male in District Five?"

Cantara pointed first to a Peacekeeper and then a side door. "That way?"

"Please, Miss, just one minute --"

The Peacekeeper inclined their gun towards the preferred exit. The reporter shadowed her feet to the threshold, squawking about their job and what it would mean to get a direct quote.

Hand on the knob, she turned and looked just above their eyes. "I think that I haven't had a chance to ask the other tribute their pronouns. Good day."

On board, after being processed by the Peacekeepers, they were ushered into the dining car. It was still, musty, suffocating. She frowned. It was in that very moment she realized that she'd been looking forward to seeing Patricia Valfierno again. Cantara hadn't known her to be neglectful of her tributes. "Do you see any...?" She started to ask Cash and then heard the faintest sound of someone snoring.

There, in the far corner, wasn't Patricia. She wasn't even anything like Patricia. Cantara felt it bubbling up, the adrenaline of the day, the rage, the injustice. She strode over, boots clacking, as the train sped away from the District -- from their home -- and came to stand directly before a passed out Lysander Mae. "Wake up," she hissed, raising an open palm.

She held it, just in case Cash wanted to stop her. "Look at me."

[pogue]

C   A   S   H

His lips are practically sewn shut by the time he leaves the Justice Building, blue eyes sweeping across what is left of his district- his home, before men in white press metal into the small of his back and guide him out towards the train. His family visited him and he knows he's lucky for that, knows he's unlucky for having to look them in the eyes one last time and know he isn't coming back. It's unspoken what they all knew already, written between lines of crimson and red and rosy cheeks, a consequence for not abiding and an animal plucked from the herd.

He's his father's son, he is his family's punishment. Retribution for the crime of wanting to live.

It's why there is silence, ice and everything in between injected straight into his core when he follows the herd of speckled white and red out of the building, drenched in the shadows of every tribute that had come before him, of every body that had come home in a coffin nailed shut. It doesn't take him long to realize that he is following in the wake of fire, Cantara's tone slicing daggers into the dead air that seems to surround them all, baring fangs and fury to a world that has already forgotten them.

He gets it, he knows it. It gnaws at him as he walks in her path, locks eyes with a scorned reporter and sees his life flash before his eyes, looks at the flash of sunlight bouncing off of a Peacekeeper's gun as they lead them on to the train car. He is smart on the streets but not with the words on the page, knows what it means to solidify yourself in the middle of the pack because he has seen it time and time before, looked down the barrel of a gun and has heard what sound it makes when you pull the trigger.

It's why his hand ppulls back against Cantara's open palm when he sees it raise into the air, a warning and a threat, why blue eyes connect with her glare and jaw clenches with words better left unsaid.

His gaze says what dances on the tip of his tongue, echoing and burning around the base of his skull. We need her more than she needs us, it's proven in the way Lysander Mae sleeps instead of looking into the eyes of two new failures sitting in her path. And that's the cruelty of it all- that Lysander Mae has made it back to a home that doesn't claim her anymore, that she doesn't have to claim any remnants of it when they sit and face her if she doesn't want to. That the two of them need her, that Five doesn't need them. 

He's not smart, but he knows the way a pack moves and knows how easy it is for the runts of the litter to be put to starve. Cantara sits in fire and threatens to burn them both, he laces ice and compassion into stopping her from destroying their odds before they even start. "Him 'n his." He mutters the words as if he hardly knows them, Cantara's answer to the reporter just moments ago flashing through his mind. 

His limbs ache in protest when he finally turns back towards one of Five's only victors, looking a shit situation in the eye and refusing to blink. Patricia was gone, he knew nothing of Lethe Turner except what aged little birdies said about her- he looks down at a rusting crown and a sleeping victor. "Miss Mae.." Voice low, like he's chewing on gravel, he presses a soft palm into her shoulder and shakes her awake. 

"We need your help."