Clove's POV
It all started one night in the training center. I was over at the knife throwing station, hitting every target, when I heard a voice behind me.
"What are you doing? It's after hours."
I was expecting to turn around to find a trainer. What I didn't expect was to turn around to see a boy who looked about my age. I've seen him around before, but I never knew his name. He's tall, blonde, and obviously strong. I've seen him take down boys a few years older than us. You don't want to piss this boy off.
"I might ask you the same question," I say, crossing my arms.
"No need to get defensive. Just coming in for extra training hours. By the way, the name's Cato." And he slowly walks to the sword area. What does he think he's doing? Coming in for extra training was MY thing. I throw a knife at him, but strategically miss his ear by half an inch. He doesn't even flinch. "You're pretty handy with that knife. I'd say maybe the best I've seen." He says without looking up. He walks over to me and hands me a sword. "Now lets see how good you are with a sword."
I do the best I can with the little training of swords I've had. You'd think that once you'd been training for six years, you'd have mastered all the weapons, but some are easier to handle than others.
After about a twenty minute fight, he finally pins me down with his sword at my throat. He smirks. I can tell he's trying to make me scared of him, but his act doesn't work on me. He sees that. He takes the sword away from my throat and stands up. "How did you last so long?" He asks with a confused look on his face.
"What do you mean?" I ask, even more confused.
"No one has ever lasted that long against me. Not even a trainer." He can't be serious. Swords aren't even my weapon. Knives are. "If you're that good at sword, I can only imagine how great you are at throwing knives." Just to humor him, I stood up, walked to the knives, set up ten targets, each at different distances and different heights. I threw ten knives, each one hitting each target dead center. I knew I wouldn't miss. I never miss.
Cato just stares with his mouth hanging open stupidly. I smirk. "I'd hate to be going into the arena with you one day."
I no longer have anything else to say or do so I start to head out the door. Just before I reached the door, his voice calls out to me. "You know, I never did catch your name."
I turn my head around and see him looking at me expectantly. "Clove." I reply.
"Well, I hope to see you here at the same time tomorrow night, Clove."
"Well, we'll see about that" I say as I head out the door.
And that was how Cato and I's friendship started. And the two things that I have noticed about him in the past five years are that he never takes pity on anyone, and that he has never been nicer to anyone than he was with me on that night in the arena when we were only twelve.