home is in your heart.— [six/blade]

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Everyday Six was trying to sit with different people and meet new tributes. At first, it was scary for the quiet boy. And when he sat in bigger groups he stayed mostly silent, just listening and observing. And there were a few people he was still too scared of to approach. Today he saw the girl from district five was sitting alone. She seemed nice enough. And honestly, he had overheard some guys talking about how beautiful the girl from one was, and he just couldn't see it. But the girl from district five? She was really pretty. She was definitely way out of his league, but pretty.

He went over to her table, deciding to try to get to know her. Originally he decided to get to know people because of what his big brother Lock had said. But now? Now he genuinely enjoyed learning about the other tributes. He was used to his loud home full of chaos, and the silence reminded him just how far from home he was. So having someone to listen to? It made him feel a lot less homesick. He just hoped she wanted someone to talk to as well.

He held his plate with one hand and grabbed the chair across from the other, "Hey, do y'a- you mind if I sit here?"

He was working really hard on not saying ' y'all ' anymore. Coming from the country that was just something he said. But, after he heard someone laughing over it, he decided it would probably be better if he stopped saying it. That was just another thing that he used to not mind that he was slowly beginning to hate about himself. Another example of that is his own name. He was beginning to see how weird it was to have a number for a name. He was beginning to wonder why his parents wouldn't just give him a normal one. And he was starting to see why kids always called them the weird family.

But here? He could reinvent himself. That's what the goal was anyway, right? The Capitol wanted them to give up everything they were so they could turn into what the government wanted. They ripped away their families, childhoods, and lives. They left them bare and naked with nothing - not even their humanity by the end of everything. And it was all so they would be forced to play into their sick fantasies. It was how they turned them from teenagers to monsters. And it worked. It fucking worked. That was the worst part of it all.

[✨ zozo.]

🗡

I'm not supposed to make friends here.

Momma's words in the back of my head as I spoon food into my mouth, a grim reminder of what I left behind and what's to come next. She said that the ones with friends never win. They're butchered, too trusting, and if the ones that form bonds in the arena do come out they come out severed from the inside-out.

The thing that pisses me off the most, that makes me ball my fingers up and aggressively push pasta around my plate is that she's right. But all these thoughts of what to do, what not to, wrong and right, they're making me nervous - and when I'm nervous I lose my appetite. Here I was thinking I'd get to sample everything I could and enjoy it.

Funny, how I thought I'd enjoy any of this.

Momma's voice in my ears when a smaller boy with an 11 stamped to his training uniform asks if he can join me. I smother the sound, smiling and nodding subconsciously as I gesture over my plate to the empty seat. "Sure!" a pep in my voice and a lump in my chest - don't get too friendly, or do, then surprise them.

Who am I kidding. I'm not pulling anything out from under my sleeve in there.

"I'm Blade," my name is always a juxtaposition to the girl it describes. "What's your name, Eleven?"

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Being referred to as 'Eleven' really threw Six off. He had realized it was in reference to his district, but not before he thought of his younger sibling Eleven. All of a sudden his mind filled with visions of the child, who wasn't even of reaping age yet, in the same position he was. He thought of Eleven having to deal with some of the tributes - tributes like Mauve. He imagined Eleven having to train, have to fight, to kill. It was a lot for him. And it was right then that he decided he didn't care what he was called, as long as it wasn't that.

Of course, he didn't blame the girl. She had no way of knowing about his family or his siblings names. Even if he had told her their names before, which he hadn't, it was a lot of names to try to remember. He didn't mind nicknames. In fact he was frequently called 'Half-Dozen' and 'Seven' by a member of his own alliance, he just didn't have any siblings with those names. He didn't want to come off as overly aggressive for that reason. But, for once he was going to stand up for himself instead of brushing off something that bothered him.

"My name is actually Six... and uh, I know this sounds real silly, but please don't call me by my district. I have a sibling named that and it kinda bugs me."

He felt bad standing up for himself. He had been knocked down so many times that actually taking a stand gave him altitude sickness. He was trying to be polite about it, he really was. He sounded nervous as well, as if he really didn't want to say anything about it. Six was worried he had made things awkward so he tried to move on the conversation as he sat down and poked at his food with his fork. He was having a lot of trouble looking at her. Part of it was because, again, she is very pretty. And the other part was just overall shyness - made worse by pretty girls.

"Blade? That's a really pretty name. I like it."