All My Friends Are Heathens :: [Day 1]

Scout Krigel is dead.

Sooner or later, anyhow. Somehwere under the slick of blood are deep wounds - survivable wounds, maybe. Individually. Outside of the arena. But on Day One, there is no hope for her. He hasn't seen every Hunger Games, not even all of the last twenty, but Roger can't remember a tribute lasting long after leaving the cornucopia half so bloody. (His sister would know a counterpoint, he's positive, but Roger is sure he'll break if he spends any more time dwelling on how much more adequately equipped Brig Strangways-Teach is to save Scout Krigel's life.)

With a heart of lead - soft, malleable, too heavy to remain in his chest - Jolly Roger glances over at the bloody girl who's still literally trying to hold herself together. Scout Krigel is dead and Roger can't get the idea out of his mind that it would be kinder of him to make it official.

He could do it painlessly — or damn near. He knows he could. He's got the strength from heaving sails to break her neck in half a second — snap! and then sleep. Or wait until exhaustion overtakes her and smother the girl in her sleep. Or pull her into a hug, slip the point of his small blade between her fourth and fifth ribs. Does it count as stabbing her in the back if it's meant as a mercy? (He shuts his eyes tight against the imaginary scene in answer to himself.)

Even if Roger could do it, he can't.

He's so fucked. He got feelings and let the attachment take over, and now he's so fucked.

It all comes down to Krigel. He can't kill Scout — not even out of mercy, not even if she asked him to — because what mentor in his right mind would gift anything to the tribute that killed his cousin? And he can't burn that bridge just yet because the arena is nothing but fire and brimstone, and Jolly Roger won himself fuck all and a bag of coins from the bloodbath. Because he had to pull Scout out of there. Inches from death.

Now he can't kill her and can't even see to it that she doesn't die. Even with the strength and skill, he doesn't have the supplies or the manpower to keep them both alive.

He could ditch her... but he can't.

Given his current equipment predicament, he doesn't protest when Scout insists they make a second pass over the carnage of the cornucopia.

He thumps on the bones that once sheltered the supplies, a skeletal high-five served out of restlessness rather than celebration. Something clicks inside his head and all of a sudden, he is twelve and settling in to watch the bloodbath of the Games of his first reaping. The Bloodbath hadn't carried much promise for District Four's tributes — both fled with meager supplies and minimal damage — but the group who'd won the wealth had set their sights on a bigger prize than the pile of scattered items. The Sixty-Seventh Hunger Games were memorable for a wide-eyed young career boy from Four — but beyond that finale, little stood out more in his memory than the brute from Two they called Cowboy Dan hacking the covered wagon cornucopia free of its supports and taking his gang on a five-day joyride.

Curiously, he lifts one of the torches from its slot. His pirate's instinct takes over the rest. [attr="id","rSpeech"]"Well lookie there," he drawls, mimicking the cowboy in his memory, his small theft an homage to the grand heist of years past. [attr="id","rSpeech"]"If it isn't nailed down..." he suggests, leaving the invitation implicit.

Scout's too busy panicking over — Roger's adrenaline flares in response, the torch in his left hand, his knife in the other — ...a falling stone? He can hardly blame her; he's not sure she could handle another skirmish in her state. He sighs.

A feeble smile cracks his beard as his voice cracks the silence. [attr="id","rSpeech"]"Well, if you think about it, the worst part's over," he offers. [attr="id","rSpeech"]"Won't be twenty-four of us in the same place again. So from a numbers standpoint, things can only get better, can't they?"

He tries to give her another one of his trademark reassuring grins, but the lie of it catches in his teeth.