The way the tide pulls [Storm/Madelyn]

storm cho

My soft fingers graze the shaft of a particularly deadly-looking trident on the rack. This particular trident, as long as I am tall and with wickedly sharp prongs, always was my favorite. Many a dummy had lost their stuffing to this beauty, and many a Career their blood. No one else really seems to like it; the balance is off, they say. But being able to adapt to challenges is what makes a Career a good one. Most of the people around me, I find, are lacking in this department.

I take just a moment to exhale, forcing every last wisp of warm breath through my lips as I close my eyes and ground myself. Fighting is half skill, half headspace. Skill will take you far, but if your head isn’t in it you’ll fall to an opponent much less worthy than yourself. At least, that’s what my mother tells me. My fingers close around the cold black handle of the trident, and with a steady yank and a thousand internal affirmations I pull it free from the weapon rack.

“Yeah, man. Totally worked it too…” the trailing ghost of a conversation floats past my ears, interrupting my focus in the same way as a buzzing mosquito interrupts the reading of a good book. Frankly, it’s pissing me off. I shake my head to rid it of the petulant insectoid buzzing and saunter over to the row of canvas effigies across from the girl. Calmly, I take my place before the dummy and begin.

Thunk! The trident sticks deep into the soft canvas torso of the dummy. With a flick of my arm, I tear it free as a shower of stuffing cascades to the cold tiled floor of the gymnasium. The swaggering owner of the voice I heard earlier takes her place next to me, eagerly bravadoing for the gawking gaggle of young girls with eyes wide and full of stars. My own eyes subconsciously list upward and roll satisfyingly. Under the stark light of the fluorescent gymnasium ceiling, I continue goring the canvas person in front of me. Wish it were her, I think.

storm cho

Oh great, it’s here, I think to myself as the blonde doll approaches me. Without a word, I turn to meet her gaze with frightening indifference.

“You know, maybe you should ask before you try to take my audience away from me, not that I needed them. They were fawning over a false figure anyways.”

The voice hits my ears like grating nails on a blackboard. And for some reason, it’s really pissing me off. More than usual.

“Not my fault I’m more interesting than you. And the false figure bit? Yeah, that’s probably true,” I say gruffly, wanting more than anything to knock this girl on her chin. The air in the training center is hanging heavy with sweat from all of the other students. This combined with the girl’s bothersome presence threatens to smother me. I break my locked gaze with her as long as I dare, eyeing her head-to-toe, assessing the threat. So far there doesn’t appear to be much of one.

I’ve dealt with impending fights many times in my few years. District 4 abounds with pirates looking to prey on a wayward pearl diver, wannabe Careers attempting to intimidate one another, and just general jackasses picking fights for the sake of it. This girl falls firmly into the third category. A thought briefly crosses my mind that maybe I’m being the asshole, but I quickly brush it off. I don’t particularly care.

She plants herself like a bothersome weed at the dummy next to me, hacking away at it before picking bits of stuffing off of her trident. I raise my own in my arm and take a few steps back, homing in on my dummy’s chest. I take a deep breath and at the last second swivel my feet to the right and launch it as hard as I am able. It sticks firmly in the chest of her dummy.