a war that could never be won [Tansy one-shot, among us]
Oct 11, 2020 5:25:19 GMT -5
Post by Lyn𝛿is on Oct 11, 2020 5:25:19 GMT -5
[Googlefont="Yesteryear:400"]
Tansy Konahrik
They cracked down on District Ten, after everything that went on in the 85th.
Slowly at first, a trickle of new laws about gatherings and curfews that were pretty easy to get around if you knew what you were doing. We tightened up our cells on a need-to-know basis, keeping every closer guard or the chatter about friends and family that slipped into the spaces of conversation. We switched up our meeting spots. Somebody's barn, a wing of the cannery legitimized by a sympathetic foreman, an empty grain silo the week before the shipments of feed from District Eleven were due to arrive and fill it.
"Those lazy paper pushers are too stupid to ever catch us," Conan had laughed, his blond hair glimmering in the dim candlelight, as Lysander's victory tour had brought with it the news of another wave of restrictions. We'd seen the signs, even then. We knew those words were too comforting to hold weight, too dangerous to be made a joke of. The trickle of laughter he'd gotten in response had been thin and filled with tension, treading the line between underestimating our enemies and holding them up as worthy of ridicule.
They could make flipping through paperwork look menacing, after all. There wasn't much they couldn't do. But Conan continued to laugh at them until a Keeper gave his friend a couple broken ribs and a concussion right in front of the voting booth for, allegedly, not having the proper documents to prove himself an eligible citizen of the district. I'd tried not to gloat too hard when he came to the next meeting wearing a big puppy-dog face, apologizing and mumbling how he 'didn't know it'd gotten this bad'. Idiot.
The kid meant well, he really did. Tried to take a bullet for Liv when the four of us finally got busted that night in the stable, not that the pigs would let him. I might even have grown to like him, under different circumstances, but I can't help but resent that he got off light compared to the rest of us. Liv's six feet under with everything she never wanted carved across her gravestone. Avon's missing their tongue and probably in the Capitol by now, getting sold off to the highest bidder. And me?
Well, our illustrious Azazel Fenwick is apparently investing in a new juvenile detention center in District Nine. According to what the Keepers said, I get to be shipped over there, do his bidding, and get released with a clean slate. Work makes you free, or something like that.
Honestly? It sounds too good to be true. And I'm not convinced the dude isn't just missing the thrill of playing with kids' lives a little too much...
They cracked down on District Ten, after everything that went on in the 85th.
Slowly at first, a trickle of new laws about gatherings and curfews that were pretty easy to get around if you knew what you were doing. We tightened up our cells on a need-to-know basis, keeping every closer guard or the chatter about friends and family that slipped into the spaces of conversation. We switched up our meeting spots. Somebody's barn, a wing of the cannery legitimized by a sympathetic foreman, an empty grain silo the week before the shipments of feed from District Eleven were due to arrive and fill it.
"Those lazy paper pushers are too stupid to ever catch us," Conan had laughed, his blond hair glimmering in the dim candlelight, as Lysander's victory tour had brought with it the news of another wave of restrictions. We'd seen the signs, even then. We knew those words were too comforting to hold weight, too dangerous to be made a joke of. The trickle of laughter he'd gotten in response had been thin and filled with tension, treading the line between underestimating our enemies and holding them up as worthy of ridicule.
They could make flipping through paperwork look menacing, after all. There wasn't much they couldn't do. But Conan continued to laugh at them until a Keeper gave his friend a couple broken ribs and a concussion right in front of the voting booth for, allegedly, not having the proper documents to prove himself an eligible citizen of the district. I'd tried not to gloat too hard when he came to the next meeting wearing a big puppy-dog face, apologizing and mumbling how he 'didn't know it'd gotten this bad'. Idiot.
The kid meant well, he really did. Tried to take a bullet for Liv when the four of us finally got busted that night in the stable, not that the pigs would let him. I might even have grown to like him, under different circumstances, but I can't help but resent that he got off light compared to the rest of us. Liv's six feet under with everything she never wanted carved across her gravestone. Avon's missing their tongue and probably in the Capitol by now, getting sold off to the highest bidder. And me?
Well, our illustrious Azazel Fenwick is apparently investing in a new juvenile detention center in District Nine. According to what the Keepers said, I get to be shipped over there, do his bidding, and get released with a clean slate. Work makes you free, or something like that.
Honestly? It sounds too good to be true. And I'm not convinced the dude isn't just missing the thrill of playing with kids' lives a little too much...
