lemon to a knife fight (georgie + flo)

They may as well have dragged her in here with her hair.

District Six with its two girls who are incompetent of being deadly. They decide to distract them with an open-access library filled with infinite shelves of books yet expect them to be throwing punches on a training mat? So the seriousness did strike Georgie last night, especially with the twisted dream that changed the words of her dad’s promise…I don’t have the power to bring you home. As if he would ever say that!

So before stepping into the Training Centre, Georgie scolded herself in the mirror. It is the only way to get to her brain, to the part that orchestrates her dreams. Hopefully it will listen so she can get a good rest tonight. She’ll repay it by skipping the library today.

Hours are burned as she just observes and wastes time at the first aid station, re-learning what she already knows. All she needs is small steps. First aid to plant scavenging to smuggling. It should be easy.

Except she ditches the rolls of bandages and heads straight to the weaponry rack as it is the first time, she has seen it without any of the big kids hanging around.

There’s a whole lot of pointy metal that she has only ever seen on the television screens or illustrated in books. Her neck must crane up just to see the top of the biggest one. Her logic is that she needs to pick the biggest one, Georgie is not even 5ft tall and the only way she can reach the level of the other kids is by supplementing somewhere. So, she picks the chunkiest and longest spiky looking weaponry that is labelled glaive. She is not sure what she is going to do with it but picking it up will be a start.

But someone thinks that is a bad idea.

Georgie has only shuffled it half an inch, she hasn’t enough of a grip to even feel the weight, but she drops it and turns around. It is one of the many girls with blonde golden and white hair, a colour she has always admired but she has never been allowed near the box dyes. She is so jealous of those born with it. She shakes her head at the girl’s first question while trying to recall a name that goes with the face.

This is one of the careers, the ones she has been told to watch out. There’s a whole lot she has been told about these types of people, but this girl doesn’t seem to be like what she has painted in her mind.

"you're the mayor's kid, right?"

”Yeah, I think so.” She doesn’t recall there being any other mayor’s kids amongst the tributes but there are eleven other mayors and who knows, one of their kids could be hiding in here.

Georgie’s eyes follow the motions of…Florentine’s (she’s finally remembered her name) fingers as she points at the smaller set of knives next to the fascinating deadlies. Georgie takes one that is handed to her, there’s no ache in her muscles. No need to put in one hundred percent effort to pick it up. ”But knives are small. I am small!”

The blade in her hand is probably the same size as her face, she raises it to her eye level and grips onto the very bottom of the handle. ”How is this going to help me against someone bigger than me and knows what they’re doing? Someone like you?”

"if you can't lift the thing, you're completely useless."

”Thanks.”

Her dad has his occasional life lessons and says honesty is always the key. Even though he likes to edit some of the facts in his speeches with lies. Another lesson he has given her is politeness, so she always praises him with her lovely beaming smile. Just as she does with Florentine as the older girl smiles at her, she smiles back.

Even if there is a little hurt in her chest. Georgie’s idea of swinging around the big weapon has come crashing down because of this other girl’s words.

She could always prove her wrong, but Georgie is really good at avoiding making a fool of herself. Unlike somebody really close to her…

Georgie carries the knife onto the training mat, she is kind of stuck on having to follow the other girl. She’ll look like the little cowardly girl that they probably all think she is if she does run away but now, she is risking that whole making a fool of herself thing.

”I am not sure what I have got to try but I’ll definitely give it.” Her words are so confused just as her mind is. The nearest thing she’s been to violence is playing pirates with her friends. Oh, and that time a few months ago when an angry mob hurled flaming paper balls at her and her dad’s mayoral entourage. Damn she was so good that day – dodged every one of them!

"what were they teaching you, back home?"

Now that question really gets her mind ticking. An index finger taps her chin as the vulnerable girl stands in the middle of the mat, dangling the knife near her foot with her other hand.

”Oh they teach us biology, chemistry err...algebra… I really hate that one! They teach us how to heal wounds. Not the same way they did with my dad’s though, I am trying to find that out from the Capitol while I am here…” That time eighteen year’s ago when her dad’s throat got slit in an arena. He never let her see the clips of his time in the Hunger Games but now she is in the Capitol, and she’s seen all the highlights. Same as her great great great uncle 90 years ago who fell off a pirate ship!

Georgie points the knife towards Florentine, her whole arm is extended. It is best to keep the enemy far away – that is one thing she has learnt here. ”Do they teach you how to save lives in Four or just how to take them?” She’s good at asking questions too, the only thing she knows about Four is the fish.