Isolation or Allies (Thistle x Keanu)

I stand at the trapping station, large fingers fumbling over the steps and trying to keep up with what the instructor was saying. Apparently, increased strength and a good hand with first aid left me open to completely sucking at even basic traps.

I stop for a second, throwing down the trap in frustration and turning away from the station for a moment, rubbing my forehead and wiping sweat off of my brow. I look around at all the stations, all the tributes in this room. Some were amazing at things, the careers mostly. Others were lacking, struggling like I was at the stations. "Oh, no." That sudden realization was coming again, I could feel it. Always there, silent and waiting until it could come forward, through all my other thoughts and emotions and feelings and everything.

I would have to kill these people in just a few days.

I would be sent into some terrifying arena where everything could kill me and yet, I was expected to kill these people, with anything I could get my hands on. Sword, axe, anything. And these kids were expected to do exactly what I was. I could imagine my head caved in, a look of eternal fear painted on it's face. I could imagine my body laying in the middle of the cornucopia, stepped on and beaten as these tributes, these children scrambled to do exactly what I had been trying to do, to survive. My blood would surround me, drowning me. My father had gone like that, in a pool of his own blood because he'd tried to save us when we were about to have something stolen from us, by some robber who instead stole my father away.

Maybe I was jus trying to be the hero like my father, to prevent myself from being stolen. Maybe i'd just end up like him, drained of life and any amount of that confidence that i'd had at the reaping.

Or maybe, i'd live.

Nervously I turn back around, my hands shaking slightly and my mind empty, my body moving and trying to get the trap to work but no thoughts running through my head. I almost don't feel the light tap on my shoulder, causing me to jump slightly and turn around.

"Hi I'm Keanu Frost, and let me just get to the point.., I need an ally"

My first reaction is to shake my head and turn around, going back to my trap. In fact, I do just that, just without the shaking of my head. I can feel him standing there, behind me and waiting for a reply. What district was he from? Keanu Frost... he had heard the name here and there, but he had no clue of what district he was from.

What the hell was I doing? Ignoring a chance at an actual alliance with someone because of the way he'd approached me? It was blasphemy, stupidity. My hands suddenly stop moving, the pretty sharp trap being held down by my thumb as I look behind me. He was still there. Waiting for a response.

"Thistle Cardo... And about the alliance... Well, what can you do?" I say it as if i'm the perfect tribute, capable of doing everything and yet, I couldn't even make a simple trap.