With thanks to AbbyCoraby123 for your review of the last chapter. :)
He had washed his hands, and the blood was gone from them. But it wasn't until he walked into the apartment living room and his escort screamed that he realised the force of an arterial spray had splattered the substance across his face.
He had ignored the blood (his escort had done enough to his own face voluntarily; a spatter of blood shouldn't surprise him) in favour of watching the screens set up blaring Capitol TV. Clearly the usual young and pretty newsreader had been bypassed in favour of a seasoned veteran of Games crises- Caesar Flickerman read the news tonight, his garish attire of an entertainer forgone, a sober suit of pure white replacing the glitter and sequins.
"An unfortunate accident in the Training Center today lead to District Seven's male tribute, Chal Detria, being taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries."
"An unfortunate accident?" Quint said, unconsciously mocking the clipped tones of the Capitol accent. "Wasn't anyone watching the Training?"
His escort shook his head. "They put it on a delay of a minute- if anything bad is said, they switch to other tributes- and if anything truly bad happens, they can cut to recaps of Reapings and vox pops in a heartbeat."
Quint looked up curiously at his escort, whom he had come to believe was merely a surgically-obsessed airhead. The escort shrugged, almost with embarassment at the knowledge he owned.
"You don't get to be an escort for no reason; I used to work the Gamesmaker circuit under Seneca Crane's predecessor. Nothing fancy, naturally; I was just directing and redirecting cameras- but this happens more than you'd believe."
Quint was introduced suddenly to a brand of Capitolian he was almost certain did not exist- an informed one. He didn't know his escort's name, and all of a sudden he wanted to know. He feigned disinterest for now, vowing he would learn his escort's name before the Games in a few days' time. Until then, with only the two of them in the living room (his other tribute had holed herself away in her room and denial, and the few Victors Six held were always on Morphling), Quint could see the opportunity to ask more, to learn more. He wanted to know.
"So Chal's going to come back in? They're not going to pull him out, or re-draw? They claimed it was non-life threatening, but- you weren't there, but she cut his throat. She really cut it."
His escort almost seemed affronted by the suggestion. "We're not your country bumpkin doctors like in the Districts, Quint. They'll have him scarless and able before the Games come around."
Technology like that could have saved his parents from the factory explosion that claimed them when he was a child, but Quint had promised his grandfather he would not become bitter without purpose.
He had promised his grandfather, who without him to provide medication and food would likely be dying. Quint could not imagine it. Quint could not permit himself to. He changed the subject again.
"And what of training scores?"
His escort shook his head, his artificially plumped cheeks wobbling not quite enough to make them seem real. "Worry about your own, kid. He'll get something low to reflect the 'accident', and you need to get something high to make sure you're not down with him."
Quint tilted his head at his escort. "Do you truly care about our lives?"
His escort was almost evasive- his eyes flicked to an ever-ready Avox in the corner. But his tone was firm.
"Of course."
"Then why are you here?" Quint meant it with little malice. He mostly was purely curious how such contrary decisions could align for you to protect the life of the person you damned.
His escort was silent, then- the middle-aged man looked his age for a scant second as he ran his hand through a purple wig. Quint would have ordinarily counted it as vain, but now it almost seemed defensive- a safety blanket, using triviality to hide a broken soul.
"Because another guy might not." He replied weakly, before yanking up a bottle from the not-yet-cleared dining table and retreating to his own quarters.
Quint was not one to form respect easily, and especially not for the people that had kept his own in the fetters of poverty and drugs for so long. But he had formed respect now for his escort, and he could not help re-think his opinion of the Capitol as a whole.
He wondered if the Capitol that had to hide behind glitter and farce to protect themselves from the awful truth they were forced to see were the Capitol he truly hated; or if the Capitol he had learned to despise should actually be counted as the ones inside the Presidential Mansion, orchestrating the tune to which even the Capitolians must sing.
Quint shook his head then, standing. He was an engineer, and his mind was honed to fix problems. But here he faced something insurmountable, and he trivialised his thoughts with the politics of Panem. He had no time for triviality.
He did, however, wash the blood from his face before he went to sleep.
The morning came and the second day of training began. Quint had mostly tried to gain knowledge in what he didn't know- he lived in urban areas, and while he had no guarantee of where he'd be there was usually fair odds of a rural environment. Plant knowledge, hunting, weaponry- these were matters he knew nothing of.
But mostly, he observed his fellow tributes; the children that in coming days would become meat for the slaughter. They all wore the same uniforms, decked only in numbers to differentiate them; it felt demeaning to Quint. Almost, ironically, like the four golden coins that Capitolian had bestowed upon him in what had been only weeks ago, but felt like an eternity.
The tributes that moved around him paused only to give him odd looks- the boy that had helped a Career save another tribute's life. Perhaps they considered his actions redundant. Perhaps they considered his actions heroic. Quint did not know and could not care.
He had done it because the Two girl had slit the throat of an innocent, and it was, rightly or wrongly of him to believe it, his duty to protect who he could.
He had done it because-
He had done it because-
Damn it. Quint threw away a plant shoot from himself in disdain. Plants were incomprehensible to Quint, and so too were certain areas of his own mind. He didn't know why he had really, truly saved that boy's life.
But he had seen it happen, and he had rushed to help the Career boy Theon save Chal's life.
He didn't know why. But the blood had rushed over his fingers, onto his face, trickled into his mouth like a covenant.
He did not know why.
But the Games were arriving fast on the horizon, and Quint would have to make a decision before his time was up on why he had done it, who he was.
What the name of his escort was.
The Training Center was tense this morning; and while he would not know it, outside of the building's boundaries the Capitol was as well.