Fifth Dispatch. Practice Makes Perfect, And Perfect is Me. Action.

[trinkett]

[It's a hot afternoon, and Effie Trinket has sneaked into the Barracks -- first checking to make sure no one else is in there.

No one is.

It's far too hot and dusty and anyone in her right mind would choose the techy comforts of the Battle Dome over this place.

This is a good thing. Effie doesn't WANT to meet anyone today. For one thing, she feels very awkwardly dressed: running shorts and a bright yellow T-shirt (yellow is a Power Color); white athletic socks with that 1970s-era striping at the top; sneakers. No heels, no shoulder pads, no wig, no makeup.

She is here -- VERY GRUDGINGLY, MIND -- to train for warfare. Her last announcement to the village brought on plenty of warnings, and even a subtle death threat or two, and at least a few people giving well-meaning advice. She can hardly believe any of the doubters who'd said the Malnosso would sacrifice her in a battle, but better safe than sorry. One never knows when the higher-ups might make a clerical error or shifting error and accidentally send a valued subject into dire straits.

The second reason she doesn't particularly want to meet anyone is because she knows none of the Luceti peons like her very much. That's fine with Effie. Eventually the Malnosso will take her into the inner workings of the organization and place her right where she belongs. Until then? Well. She can and has been staying indoors a great deal, being a bored journal stalker.

Unfortunately, this lonesome round in the Barracks confirms that Ms. Trinket is not cut out for warfare at all. It turns into hesitant prods at practice dummies with wooden swords, a lot of staring out the windows, and a frustrating turn at a punching bag.

Fighting is horrible and she's horrible at it and consequently is in a horrible mood.]

Comments

[inyourfavor]

Oh, that was easy. A brutally abridged version of "Candide" was taught not as a satire but as fact in the Capitol.

""What! Have you no monks to teach, to dispute, to govern, to intrigue and to burn people who do not agree with them?"

That was a direct quote from Chapter 18. Effie Trinket had recited it to stern applause at her sixth-form pageant.

[greenjacketed]

"...Can't bloody stand monks," muttered Sharpe, who for the life of him could remember no quotations but the lonely single line he'd memorized: God is not on the side of the big battalions, but the best of shots. "Sanctimonious pricks!" His judgement gained steam. "Damned straight, none of'em ever taught me..."

Mmhm. He was taking her words a little too literally, as though she had somehow questioned him personally on his relationship with the monastic orders.

[inyourfavor]

She stared at him blankly, not quite getting the gist. Then: "I personally do not think you can stand anyone, Major. That's why you're so....

Well. We don't have monks anymore. They were people who lived long ago.

In your time, I suppose. Very historical."

[greenjacketed]

"Very papist," countered Sharpe. Even though his best and closest friends were Catholic. His daughter was likely being raised in Romeish ways. But some insults came easier than others.

HUFF. But the woman was likely right. The only company Sharpe could conceivably stand was that of other exiles, and he hadn't yet realized they were all exiles here.

"But -- aye. Katniss said so. No parishes. No religions. Had to explain what Christmas was..."

[inyourfavor]

"Christmas?"

It sounded dangerous.

"Maybe you shouldn't tell me. Just in case..."

[greenjacketed]

"In case of what? Me havin' to get you a blasted gift, as well?"

Sharpe didn't do gifts. But he wondered if it was the sort of thing you were SUPPOSED to get for the people you shared a house with. Problem was, he'd never reliably shared a house with anyone but other poor orphans. Or poor prostitutes. Or those scant few months with Grace...

[happyhungergames]

Wait wait wait wait GIFT?

"......Gifts?"

Effie LOVED gifts.

[greenjacketed]

"On Christmas day. People give each other gifts. Celebrate the little Christ baby and the bloody wise men and somethin' about being born in a stable..."

Sharpe was not the best one to ask about the Christmas story -- he'd only just barely learned its intimate details later in life. Anyway, what was the big deal about being born in a stable? Richard Sharpe was born in a gutter, and no one gave him a day to himself. The Major didn't even know his own birthday, although it must have been recent. He could dimly recall his mother calling him a June or July child, but that was the only memory he had of her before she'd died and he'd been consigned to a childhood of picking hemp and oakum. Of beatings and of being thumped on the head with heavy Bibles. Always reminded: be sure your sin will find you out.

[happyhungergames]

"I don't think I'm supposed to be hearing this. It sounds...odd. Dangerous. No one talks like that. We don't celebrate people born in stables." Because that sounded like the Districts and the Districts were NOT celebrated, except with the Hunger Games. And no gifts were really exchanged for that, except sometimes from generous, sympathetic, or interested sponsors. And Effie's job was, in part, to solicit those in any way she could on behalf of her Tributes.

[greenjacketed]

"Instead, you celebrate children dying in arenas. Don't you?"

Fascinating, really, how he just about managed to edit the vitriol out of his voice. It was calm and collected. Oddly factual. After all, didn't his own home celebrate death just as vigourously?

[onlyeffie]

She flushed hot, and sweat trickled from her palms, stinging one. "Richard? Don't."

Because she wasn't the same woman who had memorized so faithfully and delivered so ecstatically the scripts for the Hunger Games. So faithfully and so ecstatically and FERVENTLY. She didn't know what she was. Had no idea. But she wasn't THAT anymore.

[greenjacketed]

Some days, he didn't understand the fuss. Hadn't he killed his first man at an age younger than Katniss's? Sharpe could still remember the crack of his enemy's skull on the slick flagstones, and Maggie Joyce's insistent whisper in his ear that he flee St. Giles and make for the north. He'd been thirteen, a common street thief, and unusually small for his age.

And here he was -- tall, strong, and an officer. Scarred, perhaps, but successful. So, sometimes, when he heard Katniss get down on herself or witnessed others turn up their noses at the thought of children willing to kill just to survive? He'd begun to wonder if it somehow invalidated how far he'd come.

But he did know that he should act as though their Games offended him. And they did, to a point, but not because of the children. Nor even the competition. It was the conscription that rankled.

"You've truly nothing else? No holidays? No feast days?" Perhaps, he thought, their Capitol celebrated more than the Districts.

[happyhungergames]

"We have holidays quite frequently." Bread and circuses, the Romans called it. "And we celebrate birthdays. And then of course there's Black Friday."

That's when you ate and ate and ate and then shopped until your feet swelled up and exploded. Figuratively, of course.

[greenjacketed]

"...Black Friday?"

Now, there was a day what sounded dangerous.

[happyhungergames]

"You eat. You eat and eat and eat. There's banquets and drinking and dancing everywhere! In the streets, in the restaurants. On roofs of buildings."

It was a very exciting holiday. Lights were strung up everywhere.

"And then you shop until the wee hours of the morning. All the shops stay open for days and days. Some people shop for a week."

[greenjacketed]

"How can they afford it?"

Stupid question. Of course they could afford it -- he'd witnessed enough opulence second hand to believe it.

[inyourfavor]

"We're rich." Even Effie made out pretty well in her government job. Not to mention television appearances and the odd product endorsement.

[greenjacketed]

"...Must be convenient."

[happyhungergames]

"It is." She could NOT resist a happy little flip of her hair. "But it's not nearly as convenient as everything being free. Like it is here. Even though there are too many things here that should be restricted and burned."

Like the aforementioned books.

[greenjacketed]

Everything being free rather disturbed him. It wasn't that he had scruples -- after all, if it was necessary he'd steal what he couldn't buy. But he couldn't help but wonder how they were actually paying for all this luxury.

"Restricted and burned?"

[trinkett]

"Restricted. Incinerated. Our Peacekeepers are excellent at rounding up anyone in possession of anything deemed intractable or subversive."

[greenjacketed]

"...Sounds like the provosts, if you ask me."

She didn't. She didn't ask him.

[trinkett]

"Provosts?" Better late than never.

[greenjacketed]

"Military constables," he explained. "They enforce regulations, like. Make sure no one ain't stealing."

Or worse.

[trinkett]

"Really? Someone of your caliber, stealing?"

Her tone indicated that she thought this entirely possible. But mostly that was for show. Richard Sharpe wasn't someone she considered a threat, probably because she cooked so much damn lamb for him.

"Certainly you've remained well above the law."