burn for sport | {Ingrid/Gavin}

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

gavin {♔} barker My blood had boiled, and my heart had already stopped beating too many times to count, and the fact that the actual games themselves hadn't even started yet terrified me. Why had I ever considered this a pass of freedom? If anything, I felt more trapped than I did back at home. At least there I was free enough to sneak out of my window and disappear into the forests at night. (Screaming into the open air until my throat was raw shouldn't have been my first argument, but it was one of the few things I still could do.) I stood in a sea of grey, waves of silvery, shining weapons all around me, and sounds of weapons clashing together like thunder. This was my temporary home. This was where I was supposed to rest my head until the morning when I was going to be thrown into an arena to fight for my life. But I had wanted this, and now that I had finally gotten it, I wasn't going to convince myself it was the wrong decision. After all, choices like these were not ones I could just take back. Most of the tributes looked as ridiculous as I felt, trying their hand and failing with weapons and other stations, but I knew that I was competent at the things they couldn't do. Every time I picked up an ax, I told myself it was practice for the day that was fast approaching, and being from a district filled with lumber meant a lot of practice. I had pushed myself so hard that my hands bled, even my callouses growing too raw to handle the stress, and now it was going to pay off. It was going to pay off for me. One girl, short with dark hair and scary eyes stood all alone, and I could see why. She intimidated the hell out of me, but I decided it was probably a good thing that she did, and since I was still without a single ally, I decided that she was a good potential candidate. I walked over so that I was standing directly in front of her, then lifted a knife from the table next to us. "See the barb in the blade here?" Then I held it up. "That alone can royally screw up a person. One good stab and they'd be finished." A bit more morbid than I had meant for it to be, but I hoped it was enough to get the job done. "Gavin Barker, District Seven."

[Python]

I N G R I D E L W Y N

She felt lost in this place, like a creature that didn’t belong. These grey walls and sleek black training outfits were not her cup of tea, and the grunts of diligent tributes practicing hand-to-hand combat with their trainers were far from melodies to her ears. Silver knives winked at her as she approached the blades station, palms grazing cold steel as her eyes flickered from dagger to dagger. These were not weapons of the wild – these were cheats, hacks, cowardly ways to kill those who needed to be drowned. A knife in the heart or the skull was a swifter death than drowning, but it wasn’t clean. Without being cleansed the proper way these people would be barricaded from paradise and left to drown in ashes instead. The pits of Hell awaited those who stood against nature. Ingrid refused to be such a person. Her place was the water, where pain was a long and necessary sensation in death. If the Capitol drones tried to rob her of this justice, she had blood to fill the gaps. When it was her turn to die she knew what she would do.

A stranger with wavy hair and a clean face walked up to her in the midst of her contemplation, apparently intent on educating her about knives. She didn’t know his name or his origins, and she didn’t care to find out either. Socializing was not her forte, not with anyone but Potato so far. She had her eyes on the District Four tributes, whose names and faces she had memorized without realizing it, because she envied them. They dwelled next to the ocean, the largest body of water this earth had to offer. She wanted to muster the courage to ask them about it, to reveal its truths before she died. This stranger was standing in her way.

”That alone can royally screw up a person. One good stab and they'd be finished.” Her expression remained blank, eyes focused on the glimmering silver that exposed her reflection in its sheen. He introduced himself as Gavin Barker from District Seven. She forgot what district that was, not that it was relevant. ”I know how knives work,” she drawled. She didn’t mean to sound rude – or maybe she did, she wasn’t sure how she felt about these doomed strangers just yet. She could only picture their deaths. Surely a Seven wouldn’t win, they didn’t have many victors, right? ”I’m Ingrid, from District Eleven.” It sounded odd to refer to herself as a specific number. She was just Ingrid from the forest, an Elwyn trapped in the wrong world. Nothing more or less.

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[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

gavin {♔} barker "I know how knives work," Words fell from her mouth like venom from a serpent. I narrowed my eyes at her. Maybe she hadn't meant to sound so angry. Maybe she hadn't sounded rude and all and I just conceived it that way. Or maybe she was. I nodded, refusing to bite back. Enemies were the last thing I needed. "District Eleven? That's um..." I tapped my chin. What industry was it? "Oh, right, agriculture. You like it there?" I wasn't entirely sure why I was making conversation with the girl at all. She clearly hadn't been interested, but for some reason I was enchanted with the idea of making her be. I needed friends in a place like this, I needed to know that I wasn't completely alone, even if in the end, I would be. I tried to imagine what life in District Eleven would be like. Agriculture. For some reason, I only pictured Seven with it's forests and birds and saw dust, the smell of pine littering everyone that lived there. That was all I had ever known. It was all I would ever know if I didn't come out of this alive, so that what I had to do. I had to win, so that I could be free from the mind of someone from District Seven once and for all, and of course bring Rowan along for the ride.

[Python]

I N G R I D E L W Y N

Agriculture.

Her district wasn’t just an industry. Is that how everyone else viewed her home, a place for food? She didn’t know much about exports and the like; she was just in school, not earning money to support their poverty-stricken family like Imelda was. During classes they taught everything that The Capitol deemed worthy to share, but she hardly ever listened to lectures or classmates. She would often skip classes to seek freedom in the outdoors. Education was such a bore in comparison. It must be the reason why she couldn’t recall anything about District Seven other than their evident lack of victors, but she blamed the Capitol television for her knowledge of their worthless celebrities. No matter how poor a family was, a free television was always distributed to a home in need. It was mandatory to watch their stupid programs, mandatory to waste her time on their irritating customs.

Gavin decided to ask an obvious question. Of course I like it there, it’s my home. She might as well be in a different world right now, and she hated it. She hated this unholy place and its stupid Games. ”It’s better than here,” she said, tracing her fingers over the handle of a knife. It was carved of wood, but it felt too polished. Everything here is fake and unnatural. It was a wonder how anybody could be fond of this ridiculous city. ”I don’t know why anybody would like this place.”

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