Panem's Got Talent: Division Week!

Through to the next round, it was expected. The Capitol loves the taste of watching young people fight but now Trish has the problem of piecing together a whole new fighting performance in very little time. ”We need more props, better outfits!” She is re-enacting all the private training sessions she used to imagine before falling asleep. There was at least a dozen of them, all with their little twist and the magic touch of her father’s teachings. Whether she liked them or not, her father’s advice has been a life saver throughout her time in the career training centre, and soon that time will be up. With the nineteenth birthday on the horizon.

Then what for Beatrice Morrisen? Well, she needs to win this to help get the ball rolling on adulthood. On a life of her own.

”This next performance will be absolutely blow your asses off, I can promise you. Your pants will be wet!”

There is fire and there is sparkle. Arrows are lit up, her backing performers have flames on their helmets and weapons. A fight choreographed within a day. ”I hope there are film producers in the audience, this is my resume for a stunt double career…or maybe leading action genre actress?” And with a wink, Trish begins the act with the pull of the string of a bow, lighting up the target and bringing heat to the stage. Then a backing performer chargers from behind with a flaming axe, she ducks and they jump over her back.

She can’t fuck up now, not when there is no plan B.

.

[ ✰ ]

"Hi everybody! So excited to be back, just let me know when to start!"

"Kay, now's good." 

": )"  

Amy starts her routine off with a pep jump, a running start with Tarragon in their matching overall's. Do you know how it is to get a pet outfit fitted for a herbareptilis this size? Hello, almost impossible! She made everything herself from the costuming to the props and stands - it's all PVC pipe from the corner store! 

She's a girl with a dream on a budget, high off life and peel n' stick stickers. Amy does as she did last course, playing guide with Terra as they make their way to the course, and her reptile keeps up for the most part. Sassy in bits, but that's in the personality really. The two make it to the end of the course and bam! Tennis ball gun! 

"Now Terra's got a few tricks up her sleeve you guys didn't know about!" She says with a cheek to cheek grin as she shoots the first ball into the air, 3 feet over Terra's head just for mutt to snatch it out of the air with its vine appendages. New move alert! 

A second, a third and- sticks the landing! See what we did there? 

" thanks for watching everyone !! "

CJPrD8ftWT1-100

1-100

[ ✰ ]

Yo, watch me do the splits!!

Kidding, aha, I'm not flexible.

I jump and touch my toes and pull a stack of frisbees out of a duffle bag.

Y'all ever played ultimate frisbee golf tag? It's hard with just one person, but I manage. I chuck a yellow disc and it comes back like a boomerang, conks me right in the head - that's comedy! I laugh it off and cry when the spotlight changes colour.

My cousin's dead man, what the hell?? Let a kid grieve. Stop looking at me.

I spin the frisbees on my fingers like dinner plates, toss them up and down and then back up again. I shimmy and stand on one foot, do the windmill with the other leg. I think I feel a little funny. My tears get all over the plastic, what a fuckin' bummer, man.

One of the frisbees goes flying out my hand and hits someone in the crowd.

They cheer.

Nnr0MoDiQ11-100
1-100

[ ✰ ]

I reminded myself to stay calm. After all, if I was stressed I might mess up. And landing wrong could result in me hurting myself bad, not just losing some points. I wondered if Teddy Ursa was watching in Six right now. We had met and had a really good conversation between auditions and me leaving for the Capitol. I don't know if him, my idol, watching would make me more or less nervous honestly.

I didn't want to be a celebrity. I didn't even want to do gymnastics professionally. I wanted to be a science teacher, the exact polar opposite of being famous. This was just supposed to be for fun. And now everyone was watching me. I felt the world, and the world continued to stare. Analyse my every movement. I needed to take it up a notch this round. Sure I got two 9s in the audition, but my third passing score was a 5 - borderline failing.

This time instead of cartwheeling onto the stage, I did a series of flips. I introduced myself just as I did last time, "Uh hi, Peter Webster-Văduva here. Don't try this at home, kids!" And immediately I started running at the wall. I ran "up" it a couple of step before using the momentum to do a flip off of it. The started the show, which ended in a bow. I just hoped it was enough.

AFdaE_Q1tw1-100

1-100

[ ✰ ]

"Is Panem at least calling me Fiddle?"

"No, they're just calling you nervous." 

And rightfully so, he'd cringed when he'd watched the recap of his introduction to the judges and Panem itself during the audition week, felt sweat trickle down his brow when he'd seen the cameras cut to the unimpressed faces of Risky Pope and the rest of the audience. He'd looked like a staggering fawn in his original audition, shaking instrument and shaking hands and shaking breaths and everything he shouldn't have been. Stage fright was an understatement.

One of the production assistants had shown him an edited video of his nervous performance that had been going around too, all auto-tune and mockery. He still wasn't sure how that was supposed to make him feel better.

"I think they're keeping me around to laugh at me." He stammers, frowning as the stage hand checks his microphone. She shrugs, apathy laced into the movement and fingers straightening the collar of his shirt.

"You might be onto something." How reassuring. "But hey, at least you're here, right?" 

"... I mean, yeah, sure." His eyes watch the screen as the performance before him comes to a close, a sigh and a disappointed murmur running through the crowd. He'd played something slow, melodic for his audition space and had gotten nothing but dust and laughter, only realizing that the Capitol could care less about something from the heart when he'd made it backstage.

He peers out behind the curtain and towards the crowd. Gulp, swallow, realize that their attention spans were shorter than a twelve year old in the hunger games. Keep 'em entertained and keep it brief and treat 'em like the toddlers they were.

"Fiddle again." He says as he makes his way to the microphone. Voice crack, great fucking start. "I'll play something a bit faster for y'all tonight I promise, something right from the streets of Nine-" He raises the fiddle as if holding a trophy to an audience that could care less.

"-hopefully this one doesn't end up being made into a joke video yeah?"

The crowd looks at him with a gaze that says no promises.

Yeah, he shouldn't have expected anything else.

[ ✰ ]

Gamemakers were the judges.

That's all he had to go off of. His first trick had impressed three of the judges, just barely scrapping by the judgement. Part of him feels like he's under a microscope again; with Glamour Kinkade rating his skillset. An eleven wouldn't save him here. After all, he'd died last time he scored high. A silence fills him as he takes a deep breath before he's ushered before the judges. Mitchell would have told him to breath. Take a deep breath and just go for it. That's what Carter Laws was best at.

Just going for it.

"Hello, amazing judges once more. I have a trick just for all of you."

His hands tense as he swipes the deck of cards from his coat, swiveling them out in a fanned pattern before he stops and continues. "Today's trick involves a story of two brothers. The King of Hearts and the King of Diamonds. One having died and the other still living. We're gonna play a little guessing game! So, Risky, if you could please choose which one you want to be death and the other to be life." Handing the two cards out to Risky, he steps back, putting the rest of the deck into a machine waiting for him.

"You've got it! Alright, the next part is I want you to put both of them into that box I set on your table earlier today. Feel free to examine it all you'd like. Soon enough I'll pick a card, but this isn't any old card trick. It's a guessing game, just like the games. Any single choice can cause a tribute to live or die. As I would probably know, but to live it means to beat the odds. So let's beat the odds here."

Stepping forward he grabs the box and continues.

"Now, there's a twist. Who would have guessed I to be the one to say that? If I pull the life card, the trick is over and I win. But if I choose the death card, a volley of sharpened playing cards will be shot at me and I will die here on stage. So let's get this game started."

Reaching in the box, he pulls a card. The silence is deafening as he reveals the card. A sound of shock as the card Risky had chosen was the king of death. A smile on his lips as a deck of throwing cards that could kill him are shot out of a machine at him, the box fumbling to the floor. A quick movement as he dodges a handful of them, but then reaches out and snatches a card from the air. A smirk on his lips.

"I think this card was the card of life, but would you look at that."

Half of the card was the king of hearts and the other half of the card was the king of diamonds.

"Rebirth."

[ ✰ ]