He’d listened to the anthem play, watched the capitol seal, and exhaled when no faces appeared in the sky that evening.

No cannons had sounded across the arena, so it wasn’t as though Delroy hadn’t been expecting everyone to have survived. More that his stomach turned thinking about where the people were that he’d met during training. Was Neysa bottling her rage against the capitol and keeping safe? Had Dom mended her wounds from the bloodbath? What of Amelia, the curious volunteer who’d struck out on her own (was she still alone)? He figured soon enough they would cross paths, though staring up at the few stars he could see between clouds, he whispered a quiet prayer for each of them.

He’d tucked close to Shy for body warmth, certain to be back to back as they drifted in and out of sleep. Not that there was anything wrong with two guys cuddled up next to one another, but Delroy felt they’d probably be warm enough as they were. If it got too cold they could talk about who would be the big spoon and the little one (he imagined it’d be a rock-paper-scissors decision). He’d folded his arms across his chest and kept his shivering to a minimum, even as the snow started to come at them sideways.

Morning didn’t come from a sunrise, the snow too heavy and the clouds blotting out the sky overhead. Instead, he’d shivered himself awake, and unable to stop his teeth chattering or his hands from losing their feeling, Delroy had gotten himself to his feet and dusted off the snow from his coat and lycra suit. He’d plucked the ice that had started to form in his eyebrows and sighed.

“L-let’s g-g-get going,” Delroy had shivered out. He had packed his camper’s sack and made sure to include his winnings from yesterday. Delroy had put his rebel rebel tee on over his coat, hoping to trap a bit more heat. He’d tucked his ice weapon to the side of his pack, and wrapped part of the rope from the sled around a strap so it dragged behind him as they walked.

He wasn’t sure what direction they should be headed in, if only somewhere away from the hauntingly quiet ice lake. Perhaps to the edge of the arena, where they could take stock of what was and what wasn’t.

“…they used to tell us about how we were serving for the sins of those who stood against the capitol. But you know that there were people within the capitol too that thought we needed a different approach to how the districts ran?” Delroy walked ahead of Shy, spitting out a history lesson on why being a revolutionary was less radical than one had been led to believe. “And there used to be more travel between districts, instead of walls. People had checkpoints to go through on roads, and could use automobiles, until the gas resources were restricted.”

Shy seemed content to let him ramble on, and Delroy could spend the rest of the morning doing so. Even as the wind howled, the boy from eleven pressed his point. The exchange of ideas would energize him, and keep him from admitting just how frozen his toes had become.

“Mayor Izar talks about unity and bringing the districts together but the real plan should be for all of us to refuse giving up our resources so readily to the capitol. A strike across the districts, a real work-stop would be the first message.” Delroy hated how so many thought it impossible. He hated how so many were content with what little they had they couldn’t bear to think what others didn’t. Or worse, they knew and didn’t care. They’d gotten theirs, and it was too hard for them to reconcile what it’d take to help them.

“Don’t get me wrong. He’s doing his best, but I don’t exactly put my faith in someone that talks so much about love when we need someone who’s got to be ready for a knife fight to get anything done…” Or a war, Delroy had wanted to add at the end, but knew just how extreme that could look to the censors (as if he and Shy weren’t being edited out with ads for the newest trinkets on sale at capitol big box stores).

‘…those things over there?’ Shy called out about something, and Del had been so wrapped up in his own treatise he barely recognized someone else had spoken. Huh?

‘Del!’ This time, Del turned to see Shy with a snow ball in his hands. He turned to duck as the career heaved the packed ice forward. Del watched it sail clear through the air, going wide of a boy not twenty-yards from them. He recognized the two from ten – Delroy hadn’t taken time to get to know them, but had made a space his heart for those from a district like his own – and struggled over the name of the boy from four. He was famous, or rather, part of his name was, but Delroy had spent most of his energy fuming over Jacynth to learn Luke’s.

“Yo, come on now, slow it down,” Delroy whispered as he held up a palm to Shy. Out of the corner of his eye he could see another kid approaching, but drew a blank to his name (six?). “Let’s see if we can’t use some diplomacy first.”

“Hey y’all, let’s take a minute.” Delroy raised his other hand to put a palm up toward them. “No one’s dead yet. What do you say we keep it that way? They’re waiting to see us go for each other. Why should we give them what they want?”

Delroy scooped up another handful of snow and grinned.

“I think I’d rather piss them off by having a little fun. Fuck the game makers.” He pressed the powder into a ball. “And fuck the capitolites watching. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather toss a few snow balls than bash anyone’s skull in.”

[Delroy throws a snowball (misc blunt projectile) at Anari Chesterfield]
RprYCsl_Kfprojectile
[result:8073 -- Deflected -- 0.0 damage (Miscellaneous Blunt Projectile)]

The tundra’s cold set into Delroy’s bones. Careful to watch the boy from four question what it was going to be, Del did his best to stop his teeth from chattering. Still, there’d been hope when he’d tossed a snowball back, and then one came at the boy from eleven, whizzing right past his head. Maybe things would be different, Delroy imagined, if they could fight the urge to grow up, and stay kids for a little while longer.

But maybe he was thinking about all of it in the reverse.

As Lithe launched a rocket at the boy from four, the girl from ten came stomping out across the ice with a bone to pick with Shy. She took better aim than he had, smashing a block of ice against Shy and accusing him of killing her brother. Which was half-true. Shy had gone and killed a boy from ten, who was still alive. Delroy remembered him fighting side by side with Carmen and the girl from six. Two kids facing off against some knobby headed teen from ten, and two girls armed to the teeth against one that’d sacrificed herself. At least, that’s what it’d looked like to him, watching the red head scrape out a fight less than he'd been keeping an eye on Carmen.

Two, Six, and Eleven. Strange how fate had arranged it much the same way again.

Delroy wasn’t so sure he was going to sacrifice himself on behalf of the eggplant boy just yet, though he certainly didn’t want him to be the first to go.

That, and Carmen had made him swear he’d do what he could to keep Shy safe.

A revolution wasn’t coming, at least, not with the duo from ten and the boy from four. Much like the snow blowing sideways, they’d been lost to the throes of the wind. Scattered across an empty field, Delroy imagined their bodies would meet the same end as the kids from eighty-five years since.

Besides, his great uncle would’ve never left another soldier behind. He liked to think that however his life had been ended, Taylor Wickersham, fighting for the first rebel battalion, had given up his life alongside his fellow soldiers in arms. Not because he imagined they would win the war. But because it mattered more that they had tried at all.

“It’s going to be war,” Delroy muttered, soft at first, his left-hand reaching at his side to unlatch the club of ice from his bag. He debated parting with Shy in his choice to go for the boy from four – the kids from ten must’ve known struggle like those in eleven did – but imagined such a break could shatter so much more. Especially if he failed, or if the boy from six turned on either of them in the meantime.

“It was always going to be, just thought we’d have had a longer peace first.” Delroy called to Anari, weapon drawn, soldier’s steadiness through his arms as he heaved the thing with his whole might. “HRRRNG”

[Delroy Wickersham attacks Anari Chesterfield with his icicle club (spiked blunt)]
QRlYXdYVynspiked blunt
[result:14191 -- CRUSHED CHEST -- 40 damage (Spiked Blunt)]

One swing is all it takes. Two if you count my lousy hit to the arm. The noise made from the mace hitting the boy's head made my body freeze up. I didn't even have to try to imagine how the vibrations that Del felt as his weapon made contact as flashbacks of 6 years ago come back. Instead of the new blood falling down in the snow, Faux slowly falls down onto a greener floor, his blood spilling out as though it was a fountain.

More words fly around, pulling me back to the frozen wasteland that some might call reality. The next thing I know I grab Del's arm and run. I don't give any explanation, but I don't think he needs one. Does he follow me? I don't know, nor do I care. All I know is that I... no. WE need to get out of there. There's no real reason to stay. The Capitol's going to get the body somehow, and I don't want to know what they'll do with it, as long as they don't bring him back into this hellhole again. Please for the love of Ripred leave all other tributes alone... they don't deserve to live with the memories of what they've done...