A Man for All Seasons [Skiplaurel / August]

Every new piece of information learned firsthand in the training center felt so stupidly simple that August felt dumb for not knowing it already. Widen your stance. Don’t get close enough for your opponent to grapple you. Swords are heavier than they look. It seemed like the Careers were born with a different kind of common sense than the one he’d always thought he had.

As the dummy he’d been using for sword practice stared back at him, empty rubber eyes vaguely judgemental, August slid the sword back into the sheath at his belt. His aching shoulders and biceps begged for rest. A line of sweat along his spine produced a tickling sensation where it stuck to his shirt. He was in the middle of a staring contest with the dummy, trying to decide what to do next, when Skiplaurel spoke up and scared the shit out of him.

”Hey August, made any new friends yet?”

He whirled around, the sheath at his belt swinging with him. It looked out of place with his plain t-shirt and athletic pants. How was it that people kept approaching him without his knowledge? Was his hearing really that bad? Then again, it wasn’t like there was a real doctor for that kind of thing in Seven. Not that he knew of.

Laurel made him uneasy in some way he couldn’t place. It wasn’t that he disliked her—something about her lack of self-awareness was kind of endearing, really. Maybe it was just that she reminded him too much of home, combined with the fact that to get back there, she would need to die.

He sighed. Then put on a smile.

”Laurel. Hey. Uh, yeah, actually I met somebody who was on Panem’s Got Talent a few years back. Hard to say who’s your friend here, though,” he admitted with a sideways smirk. ”You here to teach me all the lethal new moves you learned?”