since -| robin day1

robin keeni, district 6

It felt as though this was the longest that Robin had ever walked. Surely not, he spent days walking up the cobblestone streets of downtown every single week. Collectively, that had to make up a lot of distance. But that distance didn't take into account the fact that he almost got murdered a couple of hours ago and his body felt as though it would give in at any second. Purple and black markings started popping up around his arms and legs in the ensuing hours, clear bruising from the beat up. Just what he needed. By the time he was dead, Robin would end up looking like a full blueberry, which would look fantastic in high-definition television.

Blueberry Boy Beaten Black or maybe As Red Robins Fly South, a Blue Robin Goes South. Some quirky headline like that to catch the reader into knowing the cannon had sounded. The thought of being a buzzing article title that Capitolites subscribed to for alert messages was maybe one of the most atrocious parts of this situation. The complete lunacy of it all didn't happen here in the arena, it happened out there. Robin looked towards the sky, it all looked so beautiful, but he knew that wasn't the reality of the situation. For all Robin knew, the sky was nothing but a series of LED panels. Maybe this year they were two-way mirrors, and Capitolites were lined behind them like a gladiator arena - anything to catch an extra buck. It wasn't as if there wasn't already a twenty-four-hour live stream broadcasting what he did at every minute.

Robin almost wondered about branding himself. Not physically, with a mark or anything. But as a character. At the end of the day, the Games were a con, and if Robin was anything in life, it was an artist. Could he control optics? Make them love him? Flynn had told him to act certain ways in the interview and ceremony, but the reality hadn't set in at that point. This, all of this, was nothing but a later funeral. But as Robin marched through the grassy hills, feeling every step and recognizing its solidity, the truth hit him like a barreling truck. Every tip and trick Flynn had sputtered into him over the last week that didn't click, every camera he'd seen flitter by in preparation times - it was all starting to make sense.

Before long, like a spooky playground, a set of monkey bars peaked out of the trees. Just out of sight a low double-sided climbing wall beckoned for jumpers to clear its barricade. Perhaps in another life, Robin could have been agile, a tracking field professional, but his craft had come down to learning how to operate with his hands - not that it meant anything now. He winced, stretching out his left hand, the impact from the earlier blow still reeling. As he approached the monkey bars, he reached out to grab the first rung with his uninjured hand. Maybe in a world where he wasn't about to die, this place might be a dream to play in. He used to love swinging off the bars with his half-siblings, the park had been one of the few positive memories he had from his overcrowded and underfunded childhood. He swung off the first rung, as though he were leaping into action dramatically, and trudged forward.

No one had seemingly followed Robin over to the area, which was his biggest immediate concern. Not in plain sight anyways. But the further he got from the elevators, the denser the trees seemed to become. Soon enough, he'd need to begin relying on his other senses to alert him of predators. Robin had managed to slip away from the bloodbath while the two larger alliances were going at it, untangling himself from the shuffle he'd started with the girl from Eleven. He was already a few hundred meters away before he'd heard the first cannon followed by the scream of a girl. He'd almost dared to look back and see if it was Willa, but despite their connection to home, he knew he had to move fast for his best chance at survival. Make distance, hide, find a way.

The fields beyond the jumping wall revealed a climbing rope with a bell, the freestanding rope seemingly reaching up a story off the ground. Every impulse in his body dared him to climb up the rope and see what was up top and yet - he couldn't. Not now, not with his arm being the way it was. But maybe one day. He smirked towards the standing rope and continued on his adventures through the challenge course.

He'd managed to snag a bag of trail mix lying on the outskirts of the Cornucopia, along with a small bottle of pills - what he could only imagine were iodine tablets. Robin had learned all about them in the training center and their ability to purify water. But he hadn't planned on succeeding as well as he did in the Bloodbath, so he'd managed to learn how to build a fire as well. But his small treasure was enough to keep Robin feeling not confident, but calmer. The bruising in his thighs and arms were growing brighter, the throbbing began to dull over time until it was consistent but no longer hurting as much. A weapon, food, a canteen, medicine, iodine. If that wasn't a starting kit, Robin didn't know what was, all packed up in his pull-string bag, draped gently down his sweating back.

The humidity felt as though Robin were breathing through a wet cloth, and the exercise probably wasn't helping the matter. As Robin walked, he lackadaisically picked up firewood and stuck the twigs through the top of his pack for later. Never make a fire during the daytime, only at night. Something he'd learned from previous years hunting. He found an old rope, similar to the stature of the one in the training center that he'd gotten practice with. The boy from Eleven, Six (confusing), had shown Robin how to set a couple of basic game traps. The climate certainly seemed to promise the possibility of game. Meat on the first night? Robin smirked maybe a bit too confidently in the thought, unaware of the long reality of trapping.

As the sun peaked, Robin found time for a quick rest in the shade of the surrounding trees. His knobby knees covered in mud, his shirt untucked, the sash tugging at his scratched neck. Before this moment he'd been afraid to stop for even a second. But with the sweat dripping down his forehead, and what seemed like hours of traveling behind him it made sense to maybe take a breather. Surely he would hear someone approaching, and he had six knives. A projectile, surely Flynn would be proud.

This was much harder to do alone than he thought. Robin couldn't help but remember moments and opportunities he could have tried a little harder. To Willa, on the train. To Six, in the training center. Even maybe that crazy chick Mauve, their interactions were brief and scary, but at least he wouldn't be out here alone. It seemed so hard on television to lose the other tributes when you allied with them. Year after year Robin watched the heartache strewn across children's faces as their friends die in their arms. Robin had promised himself that if he ever gotten reaped, he wouldn't let himself feel that pain, but the harsher reality had kicked in real fast: he needed those connections. He needed people. He couldn't do this alone. Flynn wasn't in here, he had done his time, and he couldn't help Robin by waking him up at night if danger approached.

Robin had been alone his whole life. Celebrated his solitary nature, even. Scoffed at children who ran in packs, but here he was - a sheep away from the herd and desperate.

And alone. But not the good kind.



[robin picking up 15ft bandages, Machete (Sword), rope, the bundle of Firewood]
[uses 10 feet of bandages on self]