a bump -| kiah&wonder

[Wonder]

robin keeni, district 6

The morning came with a sickening throb in his hips. Even with a quick morning stretch reaching all his limbs out to the ends of their sockets didn't help numb the pain. Training consisted of exercising. Exercising was a thing that Robin himself wasn't all that used to. Sure he spent hours walking up and down the streets of Six, trying to find some way to get a meal or some money. But all these shenanigans? The fighting with swords and the learning how to make traps? It wasn't easy on an untrained body, and that's one thing Robin could say he was easy - untrained. The streets didn't do anything in terms of weaponry or navigating through all those plants or all these people surrounding him day in and day out with killer instincts.

At that, how did one go about getting a killer instinct? Was Robin just supposed to be thrust into this world and expected to have the natural ability in his body to kill another human person? Sure, they were in the eighty-eighth games, and generationally speaking Robin's great-grandparents had lived through the Games as well, he'd never met anyone who lived before the Games. But that didn't mean that all-of-a-sudden he was meant to expect to end up here. Come into the world ready to chop off a head or shoot someone in the eye? The thought of the fountain-gushing blood through an injury made his stomach curdle up. Though the image was cartoonish, the idea played endlessly in his mind - all that blood, spurting. Gross.

Flynn's brutal and detailed retelling of his Games from his perspective didn't help the reoccurring image in his head of enthusiastic blood splattering, but it did give Robin the companionship that he so desperately wanted. Flynn was a good guy. Initial anger aside, most of his time spent since the reaping had been with the previous victor. It was clear to Robin now that Flynn had every intent on trying to get him out of this arena alive to the best of his ability. But whether Robin was able to follow through on his end of the bargain was another matter altogether.

He stumbled into the Training Center ready to foster another day of not learning a single thing that would help him live beyond the week. Sure he can point out poison ivy for a regular leaf now, but what good did that do when some giant monster comes crawling out of the ground and the leaf was just its antenna? Seven feet tall, rows of monstrous fangs, spikes pointing out of every orifice, and a singular leaf stem. That would be his luck. They'd call it something like The Boogey Man or Leafzilla or -

In his trance, he gently bumps clumsily by the side of another tribute, "I'm sor -" As he turns, the apology halts immediately in his throat. Mauve. The District Three girl. That was who Robin had bumped into. Her cold and uncaring demeanor had given Robin the chills from the second she'd wandered onto the stage. Three was by no means a career district, but you would expect much differently by one look at Mauve. She was lean but athletic, and her sunken eyes seemed to scream disinterest. He'd spent much of his time avoiding her, staying on the opposite side of wherever she'd venture in the training center, desperate to avoid her cold stares. Yet here she was, inches away from his face.

Like a ghost running full speed through a room, Robin's hair stood on end and a cold blast shivered through him. Jokes with Six aside, this girl could very well be the reason they start this year's Games with twenty-three instead of twenty-four. "I'm so sorry." He dribbled out of his mouth as quickly as he'd stopped. "So sorry." He repeated as he took a giant step back to avoid any potential murder. Maybe he actually wasn't ready to die? Some good news today.

[k!ah]

Mauve had been studying the trainers, looking for weaknesses. She sat on one of the benches, one leg kicked over the other, her eyes tracking on of the youngest trainers. She had heard whispers that he was an intern, follow around one of the senior, taking notes in his notepad that reminded her of Bellamy. His instructor points something out about Bubby's form, and he scribbles it down, nodding his head enthusiastically.

Mauve was not surprised that they had come to a stop by the district 4 boy. He was terrible, his form was ridiculous, his arms shaking from the effort as he struck with his sword as though it was a bat. Mauve didn't need to he in hearing distance to know that he would be stumbling over words like a child learning to walk. They point out another thing that has Bubby's face falling, the intern lips pulled back into a grin, nodding along judgmental gaze cast over her victim from four. She didn't like it. It was her job to make the pathetic scrap of a boy cry

It was in that moment that she decided that this intern would be the centrepiece of her private session, one that would not be forgotten for years to come. Lips pull back into a small twisted smile, oh, she had plans for him.

Stretching, she straightens her legs, arms outstretched above her head, before she pushes herself to her feet. As she walks she knocks over a few water bottles, watching the liquid spill out onto polished ground. She doesn't bother picking them up, hoping that the spill might cause a fellow tribute to fall on their ass, maybe even break a bone or two.

In the corner she spots Atticus, her darling mentor. He speaks with Bellamy, and she wonders if he had told Bell why he wore that bandage. Did he spill their secret about how she had lost her patience, lashing out with a butter knife and pinning him to the wall? Did she really care if he did? He could whisper the rumour around to all the ears in this training center and Mauve Morganstern could not give a rats ass. She kind of liked the idea that he name, her very presence might cause someone to tremble in their boots-

Much like the boy who bumps into her now, well bump might not be the right term. She had seen him coming, purposely putting herself in his tracks, waiting for his skinny shoulder to knock into her. "I'm sor -" The words die in his mouth as eyes take her in. He seems to pale instantly, his feet scrambling to put some distance between them. "I'm so sorry. So sorry."

Mauve pins him with her piercing eyes, her head tipped to the side slightly as her lips part into a smile that should have looked innocent, but on Mauve it looked anything but that. "Do I scare you?" She asks, taking a step closer. She didn't know exactly what had caused his fear, maybe Atticus had been whispering stories about her. Or that Avox she had terrorised on the train, and then again in the kitchen.

Her eyes take in his skinny body, cheekbones sharp, and shoulders bony. Had it not been for the six imprinted on his uniform she might have thought him to be from one of the lower districts. "Six? Ah! You belong to the child Victor." Had Flynn spoken about their encounter in the elevator?

Reaching out she grabs his chin, not roughly, but firmly. She pulls him a little closer, shifting his head from left to right as she examined a face that had known hunger. Kind of what her mother might look like by the time she came home. Kind of how her sister looked now, cheeks hollow, eyes sunken in. Even though Beth was her best pieces, there was still imperfections that Mauve could not quite correct. She looked alive... But very much dead at the same time. Her skin discoursed and pale. Very pale, like the boy before her.

"You remind me of someone," she says finally, letting go. "But she's dead now. Kinda like how you will be within the next couple weeks. So I guess... You have that in common too."