locked with uncertainty | three's train

Maybe some of the other tributes could get into the whole, depression is my personality sort of malaise, but Arthur Rollei had gone from momentary melancholy to straight up pissed.

Even after he’d been chained to the radiator of the little waiting room in the justice building (due to his tiny miscalculation in attempting to haul ass out of the reaping after his name had been called), Arthur kept wondering when he might be able to slip from the room and disappear for good. Not necessarily to hurt himself, but man - he knew that the road he was about head down was well trodden and he did not picture himself coming back to three in one piece. And if he were really honest, he didn’t even want to compete, so why not go down in a blaze of glory or hail of gunfire if it meant a different kind of legacy?

His parents had soon come to wrap him in grief, which itched underneath his skin so that he felt too hot the pinprick their hugs brought. They apologized that his brother Stanley hadn’t shown, but then, he was never going to appear. Not when a few days prior some peacekeepers had taken him to god knew where, and now either fate played a cruel joke or the capitol had decided this was a far better way to try Arthur’s crimes.

When they told him how good he was and how much they loved him he chafed, scratched and sneered at the notion. He was guilty, a stinking teenage ne’er do well that had been snapping photos and helping make anti-capitol propaganda in the dark light of a concrete bunker. And he’d loved every second of it. Not just because it gave him something to believe in but more that he’d become enamored with hating the capitol for the sake of hate.

Anger felt easy to turn to rage when the target deserved it.

He’d taken one last picture with them. Even though he’d had to crouch to adjust the chain that connected to his wrist so that he could get the proper light and all their faces in the photo, he’d snapped one last memory of people he might never see again. His mother had told him not to smile but Arthur wasn’t going to pass up a good selfie. At least then, when his body was laid to rest they’d have one last photo, however horrible the memory.

And so he’d been left alone for a period of time, until a peacekeeper came in to unchain him and pulled his arms behind his back so he could be led aboard the waiting train.

Which left him in the most glorious mood. Compounded with the fact he hadn’t eaten breakfast before the reaping and that he’d gotten a few hours sleep, Arthur was spoiling for a reason to fight. Or rather, as he fell further down into a hell he’d created for himself, readied to drag the rest of them down with him.

He’d hated the hand carved wood they put into the train. Or the fact they were riding on a train and not the superior mode of transit - a hovercraft, which would have covered the distance in far less time. And that every little detail seemed to insist on the grandiosity of the capitol as though less couldn’t be more in terms of design aesthetic.

By the time he’d arrived in the dining car and seen Atticus, Arthur couldn’t help but suck his lips between his teeth and chew.

His brother probably would’ve reminded him that this dolt would do his best to save his life, but he still had to deal with being an agent of the capitol. Which meant no matter how much he wanted to help, he’d never be able to go far enough.

When he’d finished speaking, Arthur had been pressed back against an opposite booth, hands on his camera. Win the hunger games. Yeah, and maybe he’d fly on the back of a Pterodactyl, too.

He looked at Tsara. He didn’t know a thing about his district partner, at least nothing other than the rest of the boys had been sad to see her walk away, but he hoped she wouldn’t be the type to cry or stab him in the back. At least not before he could first.

Arthur leaned forward with a smirk and held up his camera toward Atticus’s face. Without warning the flash went off.

“Is this it? No offense," He said, sniffing at the air, with a thumb over the bridge of his nose, "But I had wanted to take photos with Klaus.”