all the king's men | [noah/umber]

Somehow, perhaps by sheer cosmic fuckery, the young tribute from Twelve yet again found himself face to face with one of the careers. After each interaction, he'd walked away having learned something a little different than the time before. From Eulalie, he learned that testing a career's patience is... never a good idea... From Florentine he'd learned that there are more layers than the superficial ones shown to the cameras, and from Andromache he'd learned that power comes in more ways than simple brute force.

But all of them were less scary, somehow. Not only were they closer to him in age and size, but seeing Eulalie's anger and embarrassment humanized her as much as it made her terrifying. Hearing some of the comments Florentine made changed his perspective of the career districts as a whole, and Andromache was as good a talker as she was a schemer, but he felt like his chances of beating her in a fight were about the same as if he were to fight Roslyn or Sigrid. Which, like, he could totally do. Probably.

Maybe.

But the boy from Two was intimidating by size alone. Athletic, with glossy dark curls, broad shoulders, and nearly half a foot taller, he stood directly behind Umber in line for the sword station of all bloody things. Umber gulped, his throat constricted and uncomfortably tight from nerves.

"You can go first," he offered, his eyes flitting from the taller boy to the two tributes sparring in the ring ahead of them, "I uh, um-" he cleared his throat, tapped his fist to his chest a couple times and then held up a finger as if asking for a moment to gather himself. Really, he was just buying himself a moment to think of a valid excuse.

"I forgot to stretch." He pressed his lips together in a thin line and shrugged- what can ya do? He wasn't sure what to expect from the boy, if he was being honest. He wasn't going to try and guess, either. Every time he thought he had his finger on the pulse of whatever made a career tick, the lights came on and he realized he'd yet again missed the mark.

"Probably for the best," he joked lightheartedly, nodding to the camera crew getting set up to film footage of the sparring for some Pre-Games Deluxe Package the Capitol elite could buy for a pretty penny. "Wouldn't wanna deny the Capitol the chance to see, you know-" he gestured from Noah's head to his feet, "Alla... that."

Face beet-red, he stepped to the side to allow the other boy to pass.