Tribute Interviews
Sept 16, 2012 23:31:55 GMT -5
Post by Rosetta on Sept 16, 2012 23:31:55 GMT -5
~Bran Wolfe
"Bran Wolfe!"
It was always his name. Never before had his name caused such deep creases in his forehead. Bran Wolfe had fallen from the Justice Building. Bran Wolfe had been Reaped. Bran Wolfe got a three on his private training session.
Bran Wolfe was crippled.
"Bran Wolfe! What a name. Matches Aria's!" Caesar winked and Bran smiled weakly. The fact that he had an interview had completely slipped his mind until the morning of when his prep team woke him up in the early hours of the morning, grinning down at him quite frightfully.
"Careful of his legs," they chided each other, as if fearing the slightest touch might send him into unimaginable agony or worse, infect them with the same ailment.
"I'm fine," he said over and over as they shaved the non-existent hair on his face and mused his hair. "I'm fine. Really."
"Of course you are, sweetheart," one grinned, revealing moss green teeth as she plucked at his eyebrows.
"So, Bran," Caesar smiled genuinely and Bran found it hard to dislike him. Usually the smiles he got were cruel and twisted or of pity. This was a real smile. "I'm sure all of us here are wondering about the same thing." The Capitol crowd muttered out in reply, but quickly fell into a hushed silence. Bran knew what was coming and he swallowed hard.
"You're crippled..." the teacher faltered, chewing on her lower lip. She stepped slightly away from him. "From the waist down?"
"From the waist down," Bran agreed and Caesar's smile didn't fall from his face.
"Bran," his teacher's hand clung to the edge of her desk, but now, she gave it a final squeeze and moved towards him. Kneeling down, she became eye level with him, but still her eyes could not meet his. "It must take a lot to return to school, but, dear," she frowned and patted his hand awkwardly, "just warning you, kids may not take very kindly to your...your....disability." Her hand squeezed his. Bran nodded, taking a deep breath and she forced a small smile of pity before standing and turning from him. "But, Bran," she began, walking back to her desk to cling to it for dear life, "I must asked you-"
"How did it happen?" Caesar spoke entirely without shame and Bran felt his heart drop into his stomach. Though he had anticipated this question, he'd never quite come up with a suitable response. Did he dare utter the story that haunted him so? Clung over him like death? "He saw."[/i] There was a reason he fell and that reason was so that he could never ever dare to relay what he'd seen to other people.
Did that still apply to dead boys?
"I..I..." Bran looked away from Caesar and stared hard at his lifeless legs, narrowing his eyes, "I fell..."
"You fell?" Caesar repeated and Bran shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
"Yes," he went on, "I like to climb-I mean," his chest seized up, "I liked to climb..."
Caesar leaned forward and patted his arm sympathetically, but Bran pulled away, his forehead creased with lost chances to tell the truth.
"That must've been very hard for you," Caesar went on and Bran could only manage a nod. "I gather you had a lot of support at home?"
Rajas.
"This is heavy,” Bran muttered as his stylist helped him into the night's outfit.
"Bran," he was told, "it's all for the effect. You may be crippled, but you're not weak. You're a soldier. You're strong."
"No, Rajas is strong," he replied stubbornly, but allowed himself to be dressed.
The little soldier fingered the breastplate he'd been slid into. Armor. His entire outfit was a suit of armor. Even his legs were clad in iron.
"Yeah, my mom...and my sisters like Aria and my brothers...especially Rajas. My older brother," and Bran wrapped his arms around himself, metal clanging on metal, trying to mimic his brother’s strength, but feeling tiny, like one of Ricky’s toy soldiers. Caesar grinned at him.
“I’m sure he’s excellent,” he agreed, “and we already love your sister, don’t we folks?” The crowd cheered and Bran smiled weakly, his stomach filled with a stabbing pain because that was the sister they were planning on murdering in cold blood. “Now, Bran, I have just one more question for you.” Caesar’s grin had completely slipped from his face now and he leaned forward, a more urgency in his tone when he said, “Do you have anything you’d like to say about your disability? Anything you’d like to tell your fellow tributes?”
On the day Bran was Reaped, he sat by the window of the speeding train and watched his whole life blur. His heart was thumping wildly, tick tock, a ticking clock it was. Ticking away all the remaining life he had left. He wanted to get up and walk away from it all, but he couldn’t. He was stuck. He recalled grazing Death’s cold fingers, but pulling back from him and pushing upward out of the dark ground, finally resurfacing in his bed, sheer determination having been his driving force, but this time, Bran knew he wouldn’t be able to dig himself back up. This was it and again, those fingers closed chillingly around his arms and Bran could only sit there, a thumping rhythm in his ears, listening to himself die.
Ka-thump, ka-thump, and Bran stared at this man in the eyes, this genuinely smiling man who would love to see him die and Bran shook his head and his hands tensed on the wheels of his wheelchair, preparing to wheel himself away. He spoke with a certainty, such a kind that was strong and unwavering in the air, almost suggesting that he didn’t fear what was to come, that he’d accepted it--
“No, I don’t have anything to say—“
When in truth, he just felt it beating inside of him, the truth, rattling his bones. He just couldn’t walk away from it. [/blockquote][/color][/size]