Heartbeat Steady [River/Absalom]

Absalom Ottrel

When the trainers had tried to explain swordplay, Absalom kept feeling himself drift off to the time he’d dressed up as a pirate as a child. There had been some sort of costume party, an opportunity for him to hold a little plastic sword and wear an eyepatch like the boy from eight’s, and he’d never enjoyed chasing folks around so much as when he could threaten them with a sword. The memory seemed distant enough he wondered where all the time had gone, and more importantly, how much of the lesson on stances that he’d missed.

Hand-to-hand was his specialty. Sheer force, body weight, and anticipating movement were all it took to lay someone flat across a mat. He’d proven time and again that even as hard as some things were to understand, he could wrestle better than almost anyone he’d known in district one. He had thought that some of those skills would transition over into holding a sword, but it seemed that adding a weapon threw all of it off balance. Where he would step and hold his body without a weapon, he had to acknowledge a different bout of movements, and worse, that there was a way to strike to do maximal damage.

So when the girl from nine asked if he wanted to spar, Absalom was less than enthusiastic. He had a feeling that someone would come along to challenge him for the sheer sake of being one of the larger boys there. That, and the vaulted career status meant he was supposed to be one of the better fighters. Kids in his gym in one would challenge Absalom for the same reasons.

‘If I win, steal me some wine from the kitchen. From what I've seen, they don't offer it to the tributes, but it wouldn't be that hard to steal, either. I just don't want to do the work.’

There was the added wager that made winning that much more important. When he looked over at the girl he could see the fire burning in her eyes. He wondered if such a fire would sustain her through the arena, or if there was enough kindling that it wouldn’t burn out too early. He hoped she stuck around, if it meant someone so fierce would fight to the end.

“Okay. Sure.” Absalom couldn’t say no. He’d look like he was afraid in front of the rest of the tributes, and part of him wanted to see just what kind of mettle this girl had. “I’ll take you on.”

His words were far more confident than his feelings. He took the wooden sword and tried to position into a stance.

“Ready.” He said with a grin, hand on his hip. Maybe if he pretended to be a pirate again, he’d be an ounce better at sword fighting.