[.} digging ditches out of boredom {.]

Going back to the clinic tomorrow morning and don't know if I'll be able to get on in the afternoon, hence shit post. This is what I get for procrastinating =P Will expand someday, even if it takes me as long as Themba's death post.

Me looking at this seven-years-minus-one-day later: ..... well, I did get there eventually!


"We get through this jungle together, or not at all!"

Tap-tap-tap went the sheep across the top of the improbably metal plateau, leaning from its left feet to its right. "We're natural enemies! Your big weird eternal rodent teeth could snap off my head at any moment!"

"The Curse will take us all!" The rat launched up from all fours to an awkward bipedal pose. "We have to work together to cure the plague, or... or, uh...! Everyone dies, I guess. Look, I don't really know this story." Yaron let go of the rat, which smacked back down with a small splash of sand, and studied the X over its eye for a moment. "I don't think there were sheep, anyway? There's, uh... bats? Not gonna lie, guys, it's a weird fucking story."

Yaron listened when other kids at school talked about Ripred, but only with half an ear. Joining the conversation for an excuse to elicit "You've never celebrated Ratmas?" lost its entertainment value about nine years ago, and a huge, scarred talking rat with impossible skills in battle and a taste for shrimp never sounded any more convincing than what her parents had to say about a really old dude. It did make for a cooler mental image, though, which although admittedly pretty far down on the list of things Yaron needed (after someone to set her leg and water and food and the ability to go to the bathroom in peace) was starting to climb higher the longer she had to look at all this sand.

No one, not her stylist or the older victors or any of the trainers, warned her that the Arena was going to be boring.

Sure, logically, she knew that not every moment could be do or die and a blur of frantic heartbeats and vital decisions. She used to joke to her family, mostly to scandalize Dor ("Do you have no respect!" "Obviously?"), about all the unglamorous things the Capitol must cut out like kids swapping makeshift pads or cutting gunk out of their hair or peeing. But somehow she never thought about all the down time until she found herself in the middle of it, staging plays with her token and a metal idol she didn't even believe in to distract herself from the shimmering glare of endless red sand.

It seemed wrong to feel something as mundane as boredom when last night's ten faces still lingered whenever she closed her eyes, accompanied by the screams of the Bloodbath—and, as always, her brother. Her brave, stupid brother coming to her rescue, besting her in combat as he had in training. (Where was he now? Holding his own, hopefully. She certainly couldn't be there for him—not, she thought with a nasty glance at the wounded leg that sat propped on her back, that she would do him much good even in a normal Games at this point.) But the last living things she had seen were the swarm of cockroaches exploding out of the cornucopia, and they hadn't been great conversationalists.

Well, probably. Who knows about mutts, really? None of them spoke up when she rolled her eyes and smacked them away from her accidentally- and painfully-won spoils, though.

"Oh, hey, weren't there roaches in the jungle story?"

The pewter rat stared back emptily until Yaron sighed. "You could've left a full set to work with," she told the sky. "Or like, a book with shit in it." She was never much of a reader, but she could go for The Amazing Adventures of Ripred, or whatever. Doodling in her empty notebook only held her attention for so long, and she was out of ideas both for her list of ways to tie a scarf (currently wrapped around her head to keep off the sun) and the increasingly outlandish list of things to do with a towel (1. sop up blood. 2. shawl. 3. blanket. 4. platform to sit on to keep sand off (failed idea). 8. makeshift carrying case. 12. peace signal flag, as if that would ever be useful here. 29. tinder. 41. soak up water in a small hole in the ground you can't reach any other way, then suck the water out. 53. cape for Ripred, which probably was some kind of weird blasphemy, but fuck it, didn't everyone look cool with capes?).

Yaron flopped onto her back to wait, but the sky just sat there above her, empty and unhelpful and exactly as boring as the red sand below it. Eventually she sighed, propped herself up on one elbow, and told the rat, "If you don't do a whole-ass miracle right now I'm leaving you here when I get going."

Nothing, of course.

Yaron was excruciatingly jealous of tributes who got to have allies, just so there was something to do. Maybe she and Shrol would bicker their way around the entire Arena, but it would break the stagnant air. She would know whether he was okay—

It was time to have another try at figuring out how to comfortably duct tape her flashlight to her arm.