Petaline Tiller volunteers as tribute (nofortunateone) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-02-20 06:42:00 |
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She didn't know what the bread meant. Was it supposed to be encouraging? Remember your district, have faith and confidence in your skills, we're all pulling for you? Maybe it was supposed to renew her dedication to the District 1 alliance. After all, Aramis had gotten one too... and looked about as confused when he received it. It should have been weapons, shouldn't it have been? Or medical supplies. Maybe it was a 'good luck, suckers' gift, a token of their disapproval and ultimate abandonment. Yes. That sounded right. Sephora had tucked it into her bag without taking a bite. She felt the wind changing in an abstract way. Their alliance would break soon as the tributes whittled down further, leaving nothing but each other. That's when she'd need the bread. She had plans for that eventuality, of being hungry and alone, but what good were plans here? Useless. You had to live wholly in the moment. Expect everything and nothing. Move. The arcade was still abandoned and her sweep of it once again was fruitless. There was so much space to cover, and while Zepporah couldn't go 50 feet without tripping over a tribute to maim, Sephora seemed to repel them. She rested at a skee-ball booth, taking the weight off her still aching leg, and tried not to think such dour thoughts. It was good she repelled them, she reminded herself. It was a new mental tack she was trying to take now that her attempts to kill tributes was derailed. It didn't matter how many she killed, just that she killed the second-place Tribute. Yes. Surviving. Living. This was important. Quantity didn't matter, it was quality. Or, even, timing. She picked up one of the small brown balls from the tube and rolled it on the velvety surface of the track absently, pressing her palm into it to smooth out the tense muscles that felt frozen by all the time spent with a dagger in hand. With a careless flick of her wrist, she sent the ball up the platform towards the spiraled targets. It pocketed neatly into the center and she jumped a foot when the game suddenly lit up with lights and sounds. The score blinked and she looked down to see 6 apples fall into the tray. Sephora's head tiled up to the sky, towards the Gamemakers. "Really?" she asked them, then looked down on the surprising bounty. Well. Her mentors might be annoyed with her, but apparently the Gamemakers weren't? She bent down and picked the dagger she'd set down on the felt, then took one of the apples. It looked perfectly like an apple - no strange tricks easily apparent. With the edge of her knife, she cut into the side of once, surprised by how pleased at she was by the sound of steel meeting crisp flesh. A tentative bite confirmed it. It was an apple, crisp, a little sweet, a little sour. It wasn't a weapon, but she couldn't help but feel a little encouraged by the development. Maybe the time she had left wouldn't be so fruitless after all. She cut herself another slice with a bright smile that the cameras had been missing. |