This Is Us [Abs/Tris]

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

Absalom Ottrel

If there was one thing that Absalom enjoyed it was exploring the training center. While most of the time they encouraged the tributes to be a part of the main training session, Absalom had found that there were a good number of rooms along the corridor that seem to have been created and fallen into disuse. Either that they didn’t want the tributes to spend their time in them, or that they had been created and forgotten all together. Which, being the boy that Absalom was, made him itch to get inside them all the more.

So one morning while folks were learning to make fire, and Absalom was thoroughly bored watching the boys and girls rub sticks together, he’d gotten up and walked out the double doors. He pressed along the pristine hallway underneath the fluorescent lights until he came to a room that was marked Tribute History. Along the side were images of past tributes: a boy fighting a giant kraken with a girl swimming at his side; an armless, legless tribute with a knife in their teeth; a boy with a little robot.

He stepped into the room, the doors screaming open. Lights flickered on and cast out the darkness to reveal a wall that was entirely a screen, and two podiums. He took one step, then another, cautious as though he might set off some sort of trap. The screen hummed, flickering black with the words ‘ENTER TRIBUTE NAME.’

Absalom studied it curiously, and after a moment, decided to enter his own.

As ABSALOM OTTREL flashed across the screen, his face came up on the left, and a summary on the right. Numbers in relation to strength, intelligence, dexterity, and ‘status in district.’ There were clips of him on the wrestling mat taking down a number of competitors.

As he watched himself, he heard the door scream again, and turned to find he wasn’t alone.

[sbeeg]

tristitia long

I crunched into an apple, walking through the training center. Everyone was focused- throwing knives, making fires, identifying plants. After the first day I realized I didn't have much luck in any category and decided my best plan would be to eat as much food as humanly possible now and live off that for the week or so in the Arena. I saw someone slip into a hall and I followed- distracted by the hall of tribute portraits. They were moments from Games past with tributes I didn't remember standing in Arenas that have been collecting dust since before I was born.

What an honor to hang in this off shoot hallway, all they had to do was die.

I threw open a door and found a dim room with a display in the middle. Another tribute stood in the middle of the room- one of the big beefy boys from a career district. He stood beside a picture of his own face his name shining up on the screen.

"Oh, uh, did I interrupt something... personal?" I asked, watching this tribute admire himself on the screen. Was it a weird sex thing? I think it may be a weird sex thing.

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

Absalom Ottrel

‘Oh, uh, did I interrupt something... personal?’

Absalom turned from his spot. He hunched his shoulders forward and cringed, as though he’d been caught doing something wrong (though he wasn’t quite sure what). The girl standing behind him curious as to why he was watching himself, her question then having him question why he’d typed in his own name.

“Uh… I mean, I don’t know?!” Absalom’s usually deeper voice came up an octave as he stared back at her. She wasn’t one of the tributes that he’d recognized, but then he figured out of the twenty-four he only really knew five, so the odds were in her favor. Still, aching for any form of human interaction beyond having to fight, Absalom wanted to try his best not to scare her away.

“I came in here and it asked for a tribute name and I thought I’d put in my own name because… I don’t know,” Absalom admitted, going through the motions of what he’d done, his hands gesticulating to the door and then the keypad. “And then it came up with videos of me that I didn’t even know someone had made. Which is creepy.”

“Do you want me to try you?” He stared back at the girl. At least this way he’d get her name – and he wouldn’t have to show that he had no clue who she was or her district.

[sbeeg]

tristitia long

He seemed very defensive at firs so I was beginning to think it was definitely a sex thing. Bu as the details poured out it became something weirder. Not from the kid, but from the people holding us here. I watched the clip of him wrestling on the blue mat in the training center. Were there cameras in there? I certainly didn't know about them.

There must be a lot of shots of me picking wedgies then.

"Yeah, go ahead and put my name in," Tris said, before taking a bite of her apple. She was about to speak with her mouthful but remember her conversation with Little Bill the other day and thought better of it. Instead she stood there watching him until she'd chewed and swallowed the entire large chunk of apple she'd bit off.

"It's Tristitia."

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

Absalom Ottrel

The girl continued to chew at her apple and Absalom stared at her face. She didn’t seem unkind, perhaps more curious than anything. She reminded him some of his sister, a benefit for sure. When she agreed that he could put in her name and learn more about her, he turned back to the keyboard and gave a nod. What did she say her name was?

“Tris-ta-ti-she-uh.” Absalom sounded it out and tried to picture the letters in his mind. He gritted his teeth as he looked at the keyboard, then feeling sweat at his brow. He could remember the red marks over his papers in school, how his sloppy handwriting never managed to get the words right. And now with a name with so many sounds?

“T-r-i-s-t-i-s-h-a. No.” The machine whirred with no results flashing in red.

“T-r-i-s-h-t-i-s-u-h.” The machine buzzed again, and Absalom clenched his fists.

“Okay. Tristisheauh.” He swore. “Fucking thing!”