trinkett | Fourth Dispatch: It's Not What You Think. Voice.

Yeah, show up at the Battledome. See for yourself and see whether you can do better. Since you seem so keen on martial combat. Give you a taste of what you'll put people through.

How do you like the thought of being hunted?

Edited 2013-06-25 12:50 (UTC)

Fine. When. Give me a time. [Because she thinks he's bluffing.]

Tonight. Six o'clock. Battledome. Come dressed comfy.

Very well.

[Bother. Bother bother bother bother bother BUT STILL -- he wouldn't dare. Not here. Not with so many flying people and heroes and such about! And the Malnosso so carefully watching her, their favored daughter!

So when six rolls around Effie walks very confidently -- at least in appearance -- into the Battle Dome. She is wearing a tasteful jewel-tone blue day dress with matching pumps. Very comfortable. Her hair is done up tightly beneath a silver wig ornamented with large, silk iris blossoms. Perfect.

She is unarmed.]

Hello? Glaring, angry man? Yoooo hoooooo

[She doesn't sound happy.]

[Huh, he's impressed, he hadn't actually expected her to show up.

What she's wearing though...]

Guess I should have specified that comfortable usually means something you can run in.

[Because he's wearing loose jogging pants and a t-shirt, his bow slung over his shoulder.]

Why would I run? [Why run when you can just stand there and fold your arms and glare? It was what she usually did to Haymitch.]

[Clint just smirks and jerks his thumb back towards one of the training rooms.]

You wanted a demonstration.

So you need me to dress like ...

[She gives him a VERY CRITICAL up and down look. Okay, so he's a rather quirkily good-looking man, but dressed like THAT?]

A homeless tennis player.

Circus performer off-duty actually.

Unless you like getting nice clothes covered in sweat and dirt.

I don't like ANY clothes being covered with sweat and dirt! [In fact, she looks horrified at the thought. But still dignified.]

A girl I know told me not to come here, you know.

Sweat and dirt are the price you pay for being the peak of human conditioning.

[He smirks slightly at that.]

Oh really? Who told you that, and why?

[It had been Katniss, and it had been out of compassion.]

I don't see how that's any of your business. But I think, as to the why...

[A pause.]

She thinks I'm valuable.

Because I'm curious who knows me well enough to be giving such advice.

Valuable.

So obviously, since you're here, you disagree with that. Kind of insulting to the person you spoke to, isn't it?

[Her face reddens, slightly.]

Not at all! I consider myself eminently valuable! I simply do not break my word!

Well then, better make it worth your while then. Follow me.

[He heads over to one of the rooms, one that he's already set up with a basic training scenario he's used before.]

[Effie follows, suddenly feeling VERY unsure of herself. The last time she was in here had been with Derek, and he'd fought vampires. What would this room hold?]

Are you going to tell me what you're doing? Or should I guess?

[Her words were much braver than her heart, or her stomach.]

[The door closes behind them, and it's a cityscape, tall buildings and seemingly peaceful.]

Just a glimpse into what it means to kill and fight for your life. And proof of my capabilities.

[So he has an ego? So what?]

And what am I supposed to be doing while you give me this "glimpse"?

[There go the arms -- folded across her chest, again. Except this time it's more self-protective than stern.]

The same thing you ask of these gladiators of yours. Be entertaining.

[And that's when the first shot is fired, striking the side of the building close to them. Clint unhooks his bow, reaching for the first arrow.]

[Effie backs toward what used to be the door. Now, though, it's obscured in the holographic effects of the Dome.]

Wh--what? I'm....NO.

[And arrow is loosed, taking out that first attacker through the eye and they fall from the roof of a building a fair distance of. He spares Effie a glance, raising an eyebrow.

The shots are coming faster and harder now, and there's the sound of approaching boots.]

Better get moving. These guys don't care if you can't fight. Might even say that they find it entertaining, watching people who can't fight die.

LET ME OUT. [Effie does not run. Effie crumbles, holding her arms over her head. She knows this can be stopped. She's just not sure HOW.

[He's being cruel, he knows he is, as he fires arrow after arrow at the soldiers who turn the corner while Effie screams behind him. But no-one's ever accused him of being a nice person, and he's sure as hell not a good one.

But for a few moments, all he can think of is every innocent he's seen killed, every person who's laughed about it.]

Is that what they say? The people you so enjoy watching fight? Do they beg for their lives while you laugh and drink cocktails?

[Effie doesn't answer. She's thick in a memory that makes her legs feel as though they are stuck in treacle. A bullet whines close to her and strikes the wall just behind, but she barely notices. She's listening to the tromping booted feet, coming closer.

"It was for the good of us all," her father insists, putting down the phone and folding his arms, a grim smile on his face. Her mother pats Effie on the head.

"Good job, darling. Always Report. You've clearly been listening in school."

In the apartment next door, the baby is crying again, but this time, instead of soothing it, its parents are rushing about and calling to each other in sharp, low voices. There is a thump. The baby cries more loudly.

"Always Report is one of the first things they're taught in fifth form," her mother goes on, proudly informing her father. "Effie, what's the other Big Lesson?"

Effie doesn't answer. Why don't they pick up that baby? It's wailing, now.

And then there is the sound of Peacekeepers' booted feet, tromping up the stairs. Kicking down a door. Even her parents quiet down at that sound: the not-so-secret Police.

Next door, she can hear a woman begging and a man crying. There is shouting, a commotion, and the man's crying stops even as the baby's continues.

"Look, Effie," her mother says in a no-arguments tone. "Fashion Police is on! It's the new episode." Her parents turn to the TV and tune the rest of the world out.

But Effie can't. She watches the stylists and their models walk the runways, but she can only hear a dragging sound in the hallway outside the apartment. Booted feet, still tromping. A baby, still crying in an otherwise-empty apartment, even as the sound of the marching boots fades away.

Will someone get that baby?

Her father turns up the volume; crowds cheer on the television as new fashions are revealed in sparkling pyrotechnics.

The next morning, the baby isn't crying anymore.]

Edited 2013-06-26 17:21 (UTC)

[There's a few more arrows loosed, a few more fallen soldiers. Not a bullet will touch her, not a solider will reach her, even if it wasn't a simulation. But how many people has he seen in his own world using people like this? Seeing people, normal people, as toys and things less than human. Entertainment. Things to be used and discarded.

And that feeling, that is one that he knows very well.

He glances back at her, the wide eyes and shaking and unseeing expression and sighs, the blind anger bleeding out of him as he stops the sim and the soldiers and buildings fade away into bare walls.]

It's over.

[Voice]

[Voice]

[Voice]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]

[action -- SIX O'CLOCK.]