Clove was very aware she wouldn't be able to bring them into the arena. Her precious throwing knives would not pass a review board as a district token. For Clove, these were her only friends. Forged in her district especially for her. No one else had touched them since they had been tucked into the leather satchel. Made for pain and violence, they had only known dummies and targets. It was this set Clove had used to earn the right to volunteer as the female tribute from district two. This was her specialty.
It was quiet in the Captiol, when compared with district two. Neither masonry nor the training of armies and peacemakers were quiet trades. It was the sounds of drills and the pounding of chisels on marble that Clove had grown up falling asleep to. This frivolity, the cheering of crowds disgusted her. She removed the peachy-colored dress her stylist had chosen for her and stood naked in front of the window, wearing nothing but her token. Who cared if someone saw her? She had spent much of tribute training partially clothed, naked, in strips of wrecked clothing. Practicing cold tolerance. Practicing heat tolerance. Practicing humiliation. Her fingers closed around the tiny rock dangling from her wrist.
Her district token was a tiny version of a keystone, one triangular piece of stonework. Clove knew what it meant. The keystone was the most important piece in an arch. It had to be cut just so, all of the weight of the other bricks balanced perfectly on either of its longest sides. No use even trying to build an arch with an imperfect keystone. Clove did not intend to be an imperfect keystone.
Who were her enemies? The giant from 11. Marvel and Glimmer. Fire girl and Loverboy. And Cato. Theoretically, she mused, walking back to her bed where she had laid out her knives, Cato would be easy enough to kill. Huge and arrogant, skilled with a broadsword and a pike, but defenseless against flying knives. Clove had something else up her sleeve as well. Tonight would be the time try it, to start it. The others she could figure out, but it was Cato she needed to put off guard if she was going to live through this, to be The Keystone, rather than just carrying the keystone.
Clove thought about her own death often, rarely with fear, but with a dark fascination. She had watched several others in the training course die and had always wondered about those last breaths. Yes, this was what was necessary. She put on her simple underclothes and secured her knives. It may have been unusual, but Clove didn't go anywhere unarmed. Not so much because she was afraid, but because the cool edges of her knives kept her focused. A keystone needed to be solid, unshaking. She tossed a thin robe over her shoulders.
Cato's room was close to hers. She did not have to announce herself to him, he was awake, sitting on his bed in his training pants. He was unsurprisingly occupied with running an old cloth over an enormous sword, the sheath of which sat last in a careful row of various sabers. The ritual of cleaning weapons was not private, but Cato glared at her and his face colored as though she had caught him touching himself.
"What?" He barked, "I thought we already agreed to ally with one and four?"
She stepped fully into the room. It was identical to hers.
"We haven't talked about what we're going to do when it's down to the six of us."
He snorted derisively, "We can pick 'em off, or we can just take 'em." He set the sword to the side. His golden eyes promised pain. Clove was not afraid. At some point in her training, she had accepted pain as a reality of the world. She embraced it. Whatever happened next was sure to bring pain. Perhaps more even than the morning.
She shrugged, letting the loose garment slide down over one shoulder. She eyed him carefully and took several meaningful steps forward.
"Then what."
Cato noted the change in her cadence. His laugh was cold and familiar. "Then I run you through with my sword, little Clover," He stood, and brushed her robe to the floor. He saw the knives glittering through the dark fabric of her brassiere. His voice was raspy as he continued, "If I can, before one of your knives hits me in the chest."
"Just stab me through once, huh?" She sauntered past him, picked up the naked sword and slid it slowly into its leather home, her eyes on him all the while. "Fast? Or would you draw it out? Give the viewers a good show?"
"Oh," he said, he drew closer still, took the sword from her and held it out, "It'll be just me and you, then, I'm sure I'll have time to enjoy it."
"I think you should. I will, when I hit you first. Really, I think I can have much more fun with you with these," she flicked a tiny dagger out with practiced ease. "it'd be a much better show." She gave him a dark, impish smile. "Watching little me slice brutal, bloody Cato into a thousand tiny pieces, oh, won't they enjoy it?" She watched a shudder pass over his body. Clove knew that Cato never shook with fear, so it could only be desire.
This was the ironic thing about Cato and Clove. They were taught not to fear spilled blood, but to relish it, taste it, salt the wounds of their fallen sparring partners. Most of the others simply learned to steel themselves to it. They had learned to enjoy it. Perhaps this was the only way district two tributes could truly go into the arena without fear. They had only recently discovered this about one another, and never had the chance to explore it. Clove had thought this through repeatedly, It was a win-win. If she could use this to set him off guard, even a little, her chances of being the first with that knife would be exponentially greater. If it failed- well, Clove had no desire to die a virgin, anyway. Even if she won, she couldn't imagine anyone else enjoying her dark tastes so thoroughly as she knew he could.
Then, she was only centimeters away from him, still holding the cold, pretty dagger up between them. She could see him hardening through the thin pants as she pressed the smooth side to his chest, not puncturing his skin, but showing him the edge. Bloodlust, it turned out, was a real thing.
He growled and yanked her against him, Clove knew she would have a bruise there tomorrow. She expected to accumulate several more. In the arena, the bruises would only serve to remind her of this very plan. It was the combination of these thoughts, as well as the image of Cato's massive, powerful arms rippling in the effort to crush her against him, that sparked heat in the very pit of her stomach. His hardness was insistent against her firm stomach. Then, with both hands on her buttocks, he pulled her up onto him, as though she weighed nothing at all. His hands pressed hard into her flesh, and she moaned.
Their first kiss was harsh, all gnashing of teeth and dueling tongues. Clove kept her attention on tracing light scratches all along Cato's body with the knife. The growl that came from deep within his throat only served to spur her on. She threaded her fingers into his short, spiked hair and pulled hard. At this, he caught her lower lip in his mouth and bit down hard enough for her to cry out, but not such that he drew blood. They would not see blood tonight. There would be enough of that tomorrow.
He threw her onto the bed and divested himself of his pants. He wasted no time in ripping her flimsy underclothing off of her, destroying both utterly in the process. Clove watched as he prepared to pounce on her, to spear her through as he had promised he would. But she was faster and had the knife pointed toward him, between them. He stopped immediately, frozen.
She rose up onto her knees fluidly, the point of the knife never moving from where it was aimed at the base of his ribcage."Slowly, Cato," she purred, displaying her alabaster body, "This is our one chance."
His face changed. The mask of anger and stone that was Cato slipped for just one moment. Bingo. They faced one another on the bed, both kneeling. She traced the knife's point down to the base of his shaft. She watched it twitch as she closed one hand around his sex and began to stroke it with deep, careful pumps, keeping the knife trained, placing pressure all the while. He reached out and grasped her breasts, kneading them forcefully. Clove grinned into his chest, the sensation of his hands on her was more than she had bargained for, she didn't know it could hurt so good.
Then, again, he shoved her down to the bed, the hand with the knife splayed out to the side as he kissed and bit down, down, until he was at the very center of her, doing less biting now, but still rough, his face buried between her legs. She abandoned the knife to the floor and buried her hands in his hair, pulling and scratching. Without warning, one of Cato's large hands flew up and smacked across her chest, leaving a perfect handprint on her left breast. It was enough to bring her to the edge. He did have incredible aim.
"Cato," she gasped his name, and he slid up against her. They were pressed together now, he poised at her entrance, both breathing quickly. "fuck me."
Before her invitation was over, he was buried to the hilt in the heat of her. They were both still for a moment, staring into one another's eyes. The other tributes could die virgins. These child warriors from district two were now not going to go out that way. Clove tried to get her brain to focus. She gave him the best gentle smile she was capable of, and when he smiled back, just a little bit. And she caught a glimpse, breifly, of what Cato may have become had he not been tall and strong. A stonemason. A peacekeeper. She had to demean herself, as her heart, possibly for one of the first times in her life softened for another person. She kissed him on the cheek, then the ear, and whispered to him,
"Don't you dare kill me quickly, Cato. I want to feel everything."
This reawakened the need between them, and he moved swiftly, pounding into her in a way that would surely break another woman. Clove closed her eyes and rode the waves of pain and pleasure crashing over her body. As he began to tense and shudder, she watched him, watched and saw what Cato looked like when he was at his most vulnerable, when he lost control, when he gave himself completely to her. The look did not last for long, and he came quickly, far before Clove reached any kind of climax, but that had not been her intention. When they were done, they lay quietly. Cato threw the blanket over them, and said,
"We have a lot of killing to do tomorrow," and with that, he fell asleep. Clove sat up for another few minutes, inspecting the marks he had left on her. Thinking about the new things she had learned about her district partner. She decided, then, that given the chance, she would kill him swiftly. There would be no need for a show at that point. Only to slide the final piece, the keystone, into the arch to make it complete.
In her last moments, she heard Cato screaming, screaming her name, felt his strong hands on her body once again. And knew, with all of her being, that they would be together very soon. In her mind, an arch crumbled.