Private-turned-Public Training Sessions . 93

The answer comes to you in the night, a whisper in the dark at the nape of your neck as you bathe the day’s dirt off your skin.

Candlelight flickers, shadows beckon as steam clouds the mirror of the ensuite bathroom in your room. The escort told you no fires, admonished you earlier in the day when she found one, stem half burned and clinging to your bedside table like a tree does to a cliffside.

”Where did you even find this?” they asked you.

”I made it,” you told them honestly. Rendering the fat from the creatures in the training centre had been simple, you’ve been making candles since you could walk.

And you’re not used to the hard overhead lighting of these Capitol buildings. You’re not used to glancing out the window and finding yourself hundreds of feet in the air, you were raised in the dark, in the earth, close to The Mother.

You’ve never felt foreign until this week.

You watch the other kids speak to each other, some almost playful. They use phrasing and tones you’ve never heard before, slang that never existed in your stone church and as the days pass, you only feel more isolated.

Your father warned you though that you would face challenges here, he told you in your last moments in the justice building that the Crone would be waiting at every turn.

This is your gauntlet, your purgatory before your descent into hell. You have gone where The Mother can’t reach you and you have left everyone you’ve ever known behind.

But you must be strong, you push your shoulders back and preach as your father would, arms open wide in the middle of the training centre. The Mother’s voice behind your own guides you and you believe, you believe enough for all of them.

”Heed me!” you cry, ”The riches of this place only blind us to the truth that awaits us! Do not fall prey to it! Together we are strong! Parted we are weak!”

And you know better than them, you know the ugly truth, competitions like these were built by The Crone to topple your kingdoms. She wants you fighting each other, separated and bleeding.

But you offer no alternative and your cries fail to rally them to you. You’ve never dealt with this before, your flock back home hung off every word you said, as if every single thing that fell out of your mouth was dripping with wisdom.

This was what it was like, you thought, this must have been what it was like for father before our people began to listen.

But you don't have time to build a flock like your father once did, you only have today.

And if you must fight the darkness alone, so be it.

You are bent over in prayer, palms pressed flat against the floor and your rumbling lips nearly kissing the concrete when your name is finally called.

When you look up, there is only yourself left waiting in the hall outside of the testing room. Ten minute time slots for twenty-three tributes before you, hours have gone by while you waited and your knees protest as you rise to your feet.

As the last to go, you will have plenty to prove. Anything that the gamemakers have expected to see today, will already have been done long before you cross their threshold.

So it is your duty to show them something entirely new.

Calm begins at the base of your heart and spreads through you slowly as you step into the large room. The door closes behind you with a quiet click, as gentle as a nagging afterthought. There is purpose in your movement though as you walk across the room to stand almost exactly in the centre of it.

”Belmont,” you greet and bow delicately, one hand held graceful over your midsection and the other in a fist behind your back, ”Sato, Racnoss.”

The lights dim on cue after you raise your chin from your last bow. It’s easy then to spot the clear glass beads woven through your hair and the deep red the stains the inner part of your lips.

”As a token of my goodwill, I have decided to allow you to witness the giving of a poisoned body to The Mother.”

It is a ceremony reserved for the eyes of only the flock of the cult but here, thousands of miles away from Twelve, you know that this is the only way to make them understand.

”Amongst my people, the enlightened few, we know that there is a great evil that has poisoned our land,” you say as you move gracefully over to a worktable full of knives. "Everyday she, The Crone, comes closer to her ultimate goal of total desolation of humanity."

You open your hand over the table and shut your eyes, moving your hand slowly over the hilts of the knives until one calls to you. ”It is only The Mother and her light that can protect us, but she has grown weak from their constant battle,” you continue.

Your hand falls and you open your eyes to see the wicked curved blade of a sickle in your grasp. ”So it is my duty as her chosen warrior to eke out the darkness in the hearts of all living beings and eradicate it.”

As you raise your hand to the light, the sickle almost seems to glow in your hand, further proof that your goddess, The Mother, approves or is it simply a trick of the lighting?

No matter, almost casually you toss the sickle into the air high above your head and watch the shining blade turn blade over hilt to come down towards you. Just as it appears to make contact with your face, you raise a hand and snatch it deftly out of the sky before slicing it through the air in front of you.

Every self respecting member of your flock knows how to handle a knife.

"Let us begin," you whisper.

With your next cue given, a small panel in the wall opens, and a goat is prodded into the room using a rod. It lets out a light chuckle and then moves forward hesitantly into the light. You gaze at it, removing yourself from its sweetness, shutting down the portion of your brain that feels pain to do so.

You are born of The Mother so you love and respect all life, but in your short time on this mortal plane you have had to do many things and you have long grown accustomed to this.

Besides, everyone knows that goats are a sigil of The Crone.

"Oh Mother," you begin, "Please continue to shield me and mine from the tempting tones of The Crone, who even now waits in shadow for a slip of my tongue." You cast your knife towards the dark corners of the room, sharp end pointed out in warning as you walk slow circles around the goat. It bleats softly, turning with you, watching, calming as you slowly herd it in circles.

"Though you fight in darkness, oh holy Mother, know that I, your humble servant work beside you to eradicate the evil sewn into this plane." Your hand wraps around one of the horns of the goat and you tug, tilting its head towards you. The goat opens its mouth in an annoyed huff and you use the distraction to bring your knee up into its side, toppling it over. You follow it, knees hitting the floor hard but you feel no pain, not in the throes of ceremony.

"Mother I have found your enemy in the dark and offer him to you now," you say, placing one hand firm on the goat's side. You can feel it's heart racing beneath your touch, feel the panic moving beneath your hand. Good, you think. It is simply the Crone realizing that you have her servant cornered.

"Oh Mother!" you cry out, righteous passion making your voice almost shrill, "Our pain is shared as is our glory! Bear witness to it!"

The blade of the sickle comes down into the side of the goat, who screams in agony at your cut. It bucks there beside you as blood pours out of the wound but you pay it no mind, there are precious few seconds left to complete the ritual. You drop the sickle and it lands with a clatter beside you but your hands are already reaching into the side of the goat, pulling and tearing at the skin to give you more room. The animal bucks beneath your touch, squirming in pain and terror.

But your hands, they are closing around the heart of the beast and you can feel its blood pumping beneath them. "Oh," you cry out, in ecstasy now as you feel its life beat beneath your fingers. You pull back, the heart of the animal in the palm of your hand now, then you raise the organ above your head, blood raining down on both you and the floor as the body of the goat twitches, emptied now of its evil in front of you.

"Oh Mother," you pray and rock back on your heels, "Accept my offering and let it lend you the strength that you need to bring a swift end to this war. Let this be a small victory in your battle against the Crone."

Then you bring the heart down to your lips and you bite down.

"Let it nourish you," you say as you wipe the back of your hand over your lips, "And continue to guide us through the dark."

Blood pools around your knees, soaking through the fabric of your training gear. That doesn't matter. You turn your head to look back towards the gamemakers, a serene expression on your face.

"It is done," you tell them, "We have removed the poison. The darkness here is vanquished and The Mother only grows stronger."

Finally, you understand what you have been sent here to do, as if you spoke to your goddess herself in these last few precious moments. You climb to your feet and bow again, low and sweeping until the tendrils of your hair are dragging through the dead animal's lifeblood.

"Know this," you begin, "I will not rest until I have found and offered the heart of every single one of the Crone's servants in your arena to The Mother." You raise the sickle above your head then, the very image of a warrior off to battle. When you speak next, your cry booms across the space with great purpose, "And I shall swiftly cut down anyone who dares get in my way!"