relladon abarka | capitol | fin

"Wrong!" She shouted, surging forward and yanking the knife from the boy's hand. It was clear he had experience, but he was from Three, which meant he shouldn't have, but his technique was completely forged on the streets. She guessed it would get the job done where he was from, but here, there wasn't a chance in hell. "Vandel, have you been listening to anything I've said?" He bit his bottom lip, then crossed an arm over his broad chest in embarrassment. "Yes. I'm just, it's hard." He said, and she sighed. "Look, kid, you've got potential. You can do this, now, this time don't hack away at the dummy. It's unrealistic because in real life, your target isn't just going to stand there and let you kill them."

She walked around the plastic dummy, her eyes still on the boy from Three. "You have to be quick," She jumped in and jabbed, sinking the blade to the hilt, then pulled it out just as quickly as she put it there. "You have feet, use them. Move around, keep your opponent guessing." Another stab, then she rolled to her right, coming up and stabbing the thing in the head. "Now you try."

This time, he was much, much better, landing one, two, three, four good hits in under ten seconds, all in different places. He improved, which meant she did her job. She gave him a nod of approval, then moved on to the next tribute.

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She was born into a family that already had her entire lifetime planned out. Ace school, get a degree in fashion, become renowned for her work, marry, have children, live just a small distance away from her parents- it was something that may have been the ideal life for anyone else in the Capitol. Unfortunately, Relladon hated every aspect of it. She hated fashion, and though she bothered to keep up with the styles and trends in order to both appease her parents and to be accepted by her peers, she knew she would never just grow to love the industry of clothing. She was much more passionate and rugged, with a love for the games like no other.

Once she revealed that she wanted something to do with them, whatever it might have been, her parents tried convincing her to become a stylist, but half of those people just made the tributes look ridiculous in front of the entire country, no way in hell would she be a part of it. Her dream was to be head gamemaker, but that was a job people fought to the nail over, lifetimes of working themselves into their own graves before they finally got the chance to be in control of the games. It wasn't something she could just get over night, so she started off by becoming a trainer.

Her parents, at this point, had accepted that she would never be a fashion icon, and decided that her chosen work was good enough for them, and they also accepted that she needed her space, and planned on living as far away from them as possible, but they also drilled their other wants from her as hard as they could, always setting her up on blind dates and introducing her to men her father worked with- it was embarrassing to her, and a complete waste of time, since she much preferred the touch of a woman to that of a man, but she never told her parents, probably because she knew she had already peppered them with more than enough "difference". She had managed to deviate from every one of their plans except one: having children of her own.

Children were the one plan her parents made for her that she was okay with. She wanted to raise someone, give them options that her parents never wanted to give her, help them become whoever they wanted to be. She had money, and she had more than enough space, but she knew she couldn't do it alone. No way in hell was she letting her mother step in and help, Relladon herself had barely made it out alive. She was just going to have to wait until she was in a committed relationship before she had any children, and that was that.

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She looked like a fighter. Both of the tributes from Nine did. The boy was hauntingly tall, and learned quickly, so he was one of her favorites, but the girl... It was rare to find a tribute from a lower District that already knew exactly what they were doing, and this girl did. Relladon watched her from across the room, throwing blade after blade into targets, rolling and running and jumping, and still, every one hit it's mark. She walked over to the girl, whose wavy brown hair had fallen loose from her ponytail, and now hung in her face, giving her an edgy appeal. "What's your name?" She asked, and the girl's expression instantly changed from one of passion to one of confidence. "Magenta Ryker," then she held a hand out to her. "Your's?"

"Relladon. I noticed you seem pretty capable with a knife. How is that?" She smiled mischievously. "I work in a butcher shop. I guess I spent a little too much time playing during work time." She mused, and Relladon raised an eyebrow. "Apparently not." Then turned to walk away.

"Keep it up, Kid." She called over her shoulder.

---

Other than occasionally dying her hair a unique and different color, Relladon has always been one of the most conventional people ever born in the Capitol when it came to fashion. When she was younger, her mother would style her naturally blonde hair in ridiculous styles and dress her in outrageous clothing to try and persuade her to love Capitol-esque fashion, but it actually only made things worse for her. Despite how much they feuded, though, Relladon had a lot more in common with her mother than she cared to admit.

Icy blue eyes, clean, pasty white skin, long skinny arms, scary looking fingers, all traits she inherited from her mother. She also inherited her mother's stubbornness, and her persistence and drive. Her father seemed to always be neutral ground, respecting each side of every argument the two girls had as Relladon was growing up, and the girl had always wished she could be more like her father. The only thing she has inherited from him was her height, and those pouty lips that seemed to take away from the intimidating look she always went for.

She wore nice clothes, but they were tasteful. She had witnessed one too many disgusting woman that had gone under the knife three times too many trying to show off their not-so-perfectly engineered bodies to ever want to follow in their footsteps. She is a virgin to plastic surgery, and unless it become necessary, she always will be. The one thing she had always agreed with her mother on was that the beauty a person was born with was always better than the one that was built into them.

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"Um, do you... can you help me?" She turned to find a mass of curly brown hair and bright green eyes staring at her, and her first thought was of an over-sized puppy standing there, which made the bow and arrows in his hands seem a bit out of place, but this boy was anything but a puppy. He was a wolf. He and his district partner had both volunteered for District Seven, saving the lives of innocent children, but risking their own at the same time.

"I can't seem to hit the center of the target." She wrapped her arms around him from the back and was surprised to find a bit of a physique. She placed her hands over his where they squeezed the bow for dear life. "First thing's first, Kid, you've gotta loosen your grip. There ya go, now, straighten up, shoulders back." He followed each instruction like a robot, his eyes glued to the target ahead. "You need to relax. The only thing you are gonna shoot down with all this intensity is your pride, okay? Try to aim a bit above the center, yeah, like that. Now, deep breath in, and when you blow out, let the arrow go. THUNK! It sank into the "8" ring, not perfect, but already an improvement. "Again." This time the "6". "Remember to relax, again!"

And it landed perfectly in the center. "There we go. Not half bad, kid. What's your name?" She asked, and it was true. If he were to get out of his own head, the kid could have been lethal. "Gavin Barker." He replied with a smile, then he waved goodbye and shuffled away. It should have sickened her that he may have died, that almost everyone she ever trained died, only a handful had made it out, but instead it fueled her to be the best she could be. Find the winner before he won, make sure she was the reason they did so.

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i'll teach you how to smile
and i'll teach you how to bleed
don't weep for me, child
there is no need

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table by zoe