hedy sublino | d1 | cbd #1

[Lyn𝛿is]

hedy sublino
fifteen
district one

There's never been a problem too tough for Sublinos to solve, she likes to think. They're clustered around the little TV now, all her uncles and cousins and aunts with her, sitting on cushions they'd dragged over onto the hardwood floor when they'd run out of chairs.

Fire from two javelins flashes across both sides of the screen. For a moment, the divider in the middle seems to absorb the weapons; then they emerge, in slow motion, on their opposite sides to strike deep into little Eve Renner and the Ten kid. Aunt Pavarti gets up, awkwardly, disappearing into the kitchen to check on the pot of simmering rose syrup.

Hedy shifts the clipboard against her lap, nervously rolling a corner of the blueprint between her fingers. She'd chosen to use the thicker paper for this particular project, the better to stand up to her habit of worrying at its edges until it fell apart - and to repeatedly erasing and redrawing the parts of the mysterious machine she'd sketched out in the center.

Bette would have figured out how to fix this thing by now. She scrubs at an offending line, leaving a thick smudge trailing across the page. It didn't help that she couldn't look at the actual machine that Lumiere kid had brought over. It, along with most of her family's contraband, had been tucked away safely in preparation for the reporters' arrival. Now there was only the anxiety, the staring intently at the screen even long after Bette and Temple had fled to safety. As soon as the girl from Six fell, on the other side of the arena, they'd be banging down their door.

There's never been a problem too tough for Sublinos to solve, she thinks the next morning, sitting bolt upright in bed as she remembers how the rotors had been positioned -

The interviewers had come and gone the previous night. She'd let Rakesh do most of the talking, which seemed to satisfy them well enough, and they'd left the house without throwing too many suspicious glances at them.

- just right to form a series of electrical circuits, if the missing one were replaced, and the rusted ones brought back into alignment -

Temple pushes Bette out of the tree.

There's never been a -

The fear that's simmered inside her since the Reaping comes rushing forward again in full force.

Or is there?

[Lyn𝛿is]

shrimp has dibs

[shrimp]

There's never been a problem too tough for Sublinos to solve, she thinks the next morning, sitting bolt upright in bed as she remembers how the rotors had been positioned -

:heart-eyes:

Accepted!