elven ranger stranger danger - august + georgie

So, swinging the biggest, spikiest and heaviest weapon is not the game plan. Not because it sounds so stupid (it does) but it is literally impossible. Muscles are non-existent along Georgie’s pale arms. She is standing at the first aid station again, asking the trainer whether they have any steroids. Zilch. Not even a protein shakes to start the day is going to help her bulk up, so she matches up with the other tributes. Of all the things she had to inherit from her dad, it wasn’t his build. That man is BUILT and yet she has never once seen him step into a gym.

All she’s got is little knives, but she doesn’t want to be the arena’s ankle biter – even if the idea occasionally sounds fun.

One of her mentors won by keeping his distance and firing a gun, he was small too, but she’d rather not follow in the footsteps of that one. Guns are powerful but she wants to be more destructive. All she needs is something that she can handle but make up for her small size. There’s a book in the library all about medieval machines. Something like a:

Battering Ram.

Catapult.

Ballista.

All the names from the book ping out of her mind, the illustrations are still printed in her brain. They all look so complicated, and, on the diagrams, there were a lot of men pushing them around. Yeah – they’re all just as impossible as her swinging a glaive.

There must be an alternative out there for Georgie, she did think of controlling mutated beasts. All of them under her command and getting blood on their claws for her but yeah, IMPOSSIBLE!

What is possible is all the varying pieces of trash laid out on the table at the build your own weapon station. The trainer pounces on her, showing off all the possibilities that she could string together but she is more bothered about the guy scraping a knife along a piece of wood. It looks boring. So boring that her own presence forces the guy to put down the tools.

”Hey, you’re Georgie, from Six, right?”

”Right.”

Then he offers up a challenge, another impossible challenge. As if they teach kids like Georgie how to make bows in Six. Dissect a frog challenge – she’d win that! ”I think you’ve already won. I have never made a bow before, never had the need to…” Georgie picks up the knife that August dropped on the table, she is really volunteering herself for a competition she has no chances in (at least she didn’t volunteer herself for The Hunger Games).

She recalls the crossbows in the medieval book, maybe they could be one of the possible alternatives. She is not going to make one though, Uncle Teddy can get his act together and sponsor her one!

”I have no idea where to start. Do I just got to scrape the wood with this?” Georgie raises the knife, half shrugging as she does.

Dars.

Georgie stares at the laminated guide for five minutes, still clenching to the knife. This can’t be any different than the classes back home. Slicing up the aortic valves and the four chambers of a heart to have a closer look inside. This is just wood, nothing difficult about wood.

But it is difficult trying to figure out the best wood to use. It takes another five minutes for her to pick the perfect stick. It is less bumpy than the others and narrower, the logic is that it won’t take too long to turn into a weapon.

Now what?

Several near misses. Probably a gazillion near misses if she actually counted and wasn’t so frustrated every time the knife nearly cuts her skin. ”No, I can do it myself.” She tells the trainer every time they try and take the knife from her. Maybe it won’t look good on them if she walks away from this with a missing finger.

It is getting so repetitive, so boring. Georgie occasionally looks over to August to see his progress, he is a lot further ahead than her. But he got a head start, she keeps telling herself.

”You make doll houses at home? That’s cool, I have got one at home!” It is starting to collect dust now, her dad had it commissioned just for her. It is a close replica to Teddy’s house in the victor’s village. The dolls don’t look anything like the real people inside the house, but they definitely have similar pet names.

Time passes and the wood that Georgie is working on is starting to look smoother, more like the same shape of the bow in the picture. She skips a few steps and immediately cuts a string to tie to it. Supposedly it is got to be tight but not too tight. That’s confusing.

Georgie holds up her bow to August. ”Why does my bow look doll sized?!” It is miniature, especially compared to her. She looks down at all of the scraped wood that has fallen off the table onto the floor, it is more wood than what is on her bow. ”Damn it! It should still work…” She’s been avoiding the small weapons and somehow she has made one herself!

Dars.