ext_158887 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
seta-suzume.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
31_days2012-12-17 10:46 am
seta-suzume.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2012-12-17 10:46 am
[Dec. 17] [The Hunger Games] Steam, Smoke, Shadows
Title: Steam, Smoke, Shadows
Day/Theme: Dec. 17, 2012 "burned into coal"
Series: The Hunger Games
Character/Pairing: Mags, OCs
Rating: PG-13
There was too much smoke and steam to see properly anymore, but there were hints of bodies beyond the smokescreen, shadows and elbows and boots and legs. If they had wanted to, the Capitol's cameras could've pierced it- several mentors were certain of that (Beto had been saying it over and over since the first blast of air clouded a lens)- but the tension it provided amped the spectacle up a notch or two and the audience was eating it up.
Every so often, it got this bad and it was impossible to know what was happening in there. The commentators could say anything they liked.
The mentors with tributes still living were stretched tight and thin and sleepless. The eleventh day in an arena the sight of which had reduced Mags' father to tears and stuttering as soon as it was unveiled. He interrupted her mentoring duties with a phone call. "Mags," he choked, "That's Hell!"
Her father had survived the Dark Days largely because he hadn't been out on the forefront fighting the Capitol, so it wasn't the hell of the battlefield he spoke of. It was an older hell that tormented him. One he had never seen with his eyes, but, Mags supposed, he had seen at some time in his mind. "It's okay, Papa," she had tried to soothe him, "Whatever it looks like, it's only the arena. If it's too bad, don't look. Do a puzzle. Call up 'Lito to sit with you."
Mags knew as much as her fellow victors about hell as created by other people. The additional kind of hell that Papa believed in was a foreign nightmare. A story that came down from the real old days. There was God and there was Hell and she couldn't claim to understand all of it, seeing as her father hadn't discussed it much. But the pair from District 6 knew it too. The stories she'd heard and her Victory Tour too had convinced Mags that in District 6 there was plenty of reason to know about Hell.
There was sizzling and screaming onscreen. Already in these Twenty-Fourth Games, three tributes had been roasted alive by boiling air or steam. The soil was stained red. Fire caught freely. What fellow tributes did to one another there paled in comparison to what the arena itself did to them. Sunny Lightfoot had to give up eating before watching. She could never keep her meals down.
Metal (a weapon?) glinted through the thick steam. A cannon fired.
There was so much noise. So much yelling and gasping and grunting. It had to be unedited. It gave the feeling that they, the victors - the viewers- were right there in the thick of it.
Another cannon.
"Twenty-two," Ios counted aloud.
Two tributes left then, but who were they?
Hector stomped a foot against the ground, a heavier tic than tapping. Kayta pressed the cold side of his drink against his forehead. Reinhold covered his eyes with his hand.
An arm passed close to the camera. An arm tied tight with a green-dyed leather cord. The arm was moving. It was hard to know what shape they were in, but that tribute was alive. "That's him!" Mags screamed, jumping from her seat, "That's him! That's Tyde!"
2, 4, 7, or 12. Two were dead. And half of the set that still lived was District 4's own (Mags' own) Tyde.
The camera panned along the arm- Tyde's arm- to his blood-smeared, blistered hand. A hand that snapped out like an eel from a reef and grabbed an ankle through a boot half sheared away by some enormous heat, slamming the wearer to the ground.
"Shadow puppets," someone said.
Everyone stared at the over-sized silhouettes of Tyde Barrow stabbing Mikkel Lundgren over and over in the chest with a slim slip of a knife that hissed with heat from the bubbling water he had dunked it in.
Tyde stood up. A gust of wind blew the heat haze back from his face. There were burns on his face. There was blood. A smattering of facial hair had crept in despite the Capitol's efforts to keep the tributes looking young (Tyde was old for a tribute, eighteen, but nearer to nineteen). A tiny tremor (a shiver, despite the heat?) ran through him as the final cannon echoed throughout the arena.
He looked heroic, Mags thought.
He had been her tribute. He was a victor now. He was coming home.
"Congratulations," said Kayta. Technically he had mentored the girl from 7 and Reinhold had managed Mikkel, but home was home.
Reinhold had turned and put his head against the wall.
"Thank you," Mags shook Kayta's proffered hand. "I have to go now. I have to see what's left of him."
If only- oh, she hoped- if only Tyde Barrow was as strong and as brave as he looked.
Day/Theme: Dec. 17, 2012 "burned into coal"
Series: The Hunger Games
Character/Pairing: Mags, OCs
Rating: PG-13
There was too much smoke and steam to see properly anymore, but there were hints of bodies beyond the smokescreen, shadows and elbows and boots and legs. If they had wanted to, the Capitol's cameras could've pierced it- several mentors were certain of that (Beto had been saying it over and over since the first blast of air clouded a lens)- but the tension it provided amped the spectacle up a notch or two and the audience was eating it up.
Every so often, it got this bad and it was impossible to know what was happening in there. The commentators could say anything they liked.
The mentors with tributes still living were stretched tight and thin and sleepless. The eleventh day in an arena the sight of which had reduced Mags' father to tears and stuttering as soon as it was unveiled. He interrupted her mentoring duties with a phone call. "Mags," he choked, "That's Hell!"
Her father had survived the Dark Days largely because he hadn't been out on the forefront fighting the Capitol, so it wasn't the hell of the battlefield he spoke of. It was an older hell that tormented him. One he had never seen with his eyes, but, Mags supposed, he had seen at some time in his mind. "It's okay, Papa," she had tried to soothe him, "Whatever it looks like, it's only the arena. If it's too bad, don't look. Do a puzzle. Call up 'Lito to sit with you."
Mags knew as much as her fellow victors about hell as created by other people. The additional kind of hell that Papa believed in was a foreign nightmare. A story that came down from the real old days. There was God and there was Hell and she couldn't claim to understand all of it, seeing as her father hadn't discussed it much. But the pair from District 6 knew it too. The stories she'd heard and her Victory Tour too had convinced Mags that in District 6 there was plenty of reason to know about Hell.
There was sizzling and screaming onscreen. Already in these Twenty-Fourth Games, three tributes had been roasted alive by boiling air or steam. The soil was stained red. Fire caught freely. What fellow tributes did to one another there paled in comparison to what the arena itself did to them. Sunny Lightfoot had to give up eating before watching. She could never keep her meals down.
Metal (a weapon?) glinted through the thick steam. A cannon fired.
There was so much noise. So much yelling and gasping and grunting. It had to be unedited. It gave the feeling that they, the victors - the viewers- were right there in the thick of it.
Another cannon.
"Twenty-two," Ios counted aloud.
Two tributes left then, but who were they?
Hector stomped a foot against the ground, a heavier tic than tapping. Kayta pressed the cold side of his drink against his forehead. Reinhold covered his eyes with his hand.
An arm passed close to the camera. An arm tied tight with a green-dyed leather cord. The arm was moving. It was hard to know what shape they were in, but that tribute was alive. "That's him!" Mags screamed, jumping from her seat, "That's him! That's Tyde!"
2, 4, 7, or 12. Two were dead. And half of the set that still lived was District 4's own (Mags' own) Tyde.
The camera panned along the arm- Tyde's arm- to his blood-smeared, blistered hand. A hand that snapped out like an eel from a reef and grabbed an ankle through a boot half sheared away by some enormous heat, slamming the wearer to the ground.
"Shadow puppets," someone said.
Everyone stared at the over-sized silhouettes of Tyde Barrow stabbing Mikkel Lundgren over and over in the chest with a slim slip of a knife that hissed with heat from the bubbling water he had dunked it in.
Tyde stood up. A gust of wind blew the heat haze back from his face. There were burns on his face. There was blood. A smattering of facial hair had crept in despite the Capitol's efforts to keep the tributes looking young (Tyde was old for a tribute, eighteen, but nearer to nineteen). A tiny tremor (a shiver, despite the heat?) ran through him as the final cannon echoed throughout the arena.
He looked heroic, Mags thought.
He had been her tribute. He was a victor now. He was coming home.
"Congratulations," said Kayta. Technically he had mentored the girl from 7 and Reinhold had managed Mikkel, but home was home.
Reinhold had turned and put his head against the wall.
"Thank you," Mags shook Kayta's proffered hand. "I have to go now. I have to see what's left of him."
If only- oh, she hoped- if only Tyde Barrow was as strong and as brave as he looked.