Lexi Circuit (18) D3F
Well this sucks. Being Reaped in my last year of eligibility certainly hadn't been in my life plans, but there was nothing to be done about it. I was just going to have to deal with it and figure out what to do. I knew I'd need allies, and I knew I'd need to train. I also knew, though, that no matter what I did, one week of training would not a Victor make. My one measly week of training wasn't going to let me take down Careers, even though I was already fit. I needed weapons, and I was going to need a lot of them. I needed sponsors.
All right then. A cute ally. A useful one, but a cute one, I thought to myself, my game plan forming as I went. There weren't too many kiddos this time around, just Yvette, Nixon, and Raven. I knew right off that a girl would be most up to my speed, as sexist as it was. Girls were easy to talk to. Girls were fun. Boys could easily be, but a thirteen-year-old boy and an eighteen-year-old stripped likely wouldn't mesh well. All right. Yvette's up first.
It didn't take me too long to find Yvette. I had been in hand-to-hand, but I figured she was going to be in a survival station. Kids seemed to like those. Sure enough, she was right where I'd expect a kid to be: the edible plants station. She was also looking at poison, which was understandable. Anyone who really liked plants would really like just about every plant. I walked over to her and waved, smiling my brightest. I wasn't trying to manipulate her, but I couldn't be intimidating.
"Hello! Are you looking for allies?" I asked her, knowing after I said it that that would seem shifty. I was eighteen. Adults didn't look for child allies. Still, she might not mind. Maybe she'd assume that I was just an idiot, or that I had a little sister.
"Sure!" Yvette replied, smiling right back at me. I was a bit surprised. I would have taken longer to decide if I was in her shoes. Still, I didn't mind her enthusiasm. It'd be great to work with.
"All right! What are you working on here? There aren't too many plants to learn about in Three..." I began, finding my mood eased by hers. She was light. She seemed happy. She wasn't training just to train; she cared about all of the plants she was working on. That was amazing. I found myself, the mature adult, being encouraged by a little kid about to be sent to a fight to the death. I hoped she could keep encouraging me, but far more, I hoped I would never have to encourage her. I wouldn't be able to.
Yvette Ishi (12) D7F
Lexi seemed pretty cool. She talked freely about her life in Three, something I wouldn't have expected from someone with her past. "It was just a nine-to-five" was one of my favorite quotes from her. I never worked a nine-to-five. I was twelve, so that meant a whole lot of nothing to me. Still, it was neat. It was amazing that she had lived a hard life and wasn't scarred at all, from what I could tell. It threw my relatively easy life into a little bit of perspective, and it made me really want to make Lexi some tea. She had long since earned a break.
"We're going to have a tea party!" I told Lexi once the Training Center closed. We had both been spending a lot of time training, focusing all the way. Lexi had learned a whole lot of plants while she was with me, and she taught me a little bit of self-defense. I learned the right defensive stance and a block! Our break after training was quite well-earned, and I wasn't going to let Lexi spend it being the stoic person she seemed to want to be. I was going to awaken her inner child, the one I knew she had been suppressing, even if it meant making an idiot of myself. It was what a good friend would do.
We walked around freely for a while, trying to decide what supplies we should have for the tea party. Lexi said we should try to get sponsors, which I knew meant that I should be super cute so people sponsored her. I was smart enough to know why someone her age would ally with someone mine. I thought we should take the only break we were going to get before the Games and get sponsors once we were in the Arena. That was the happier decision.
"Is that... Ginger?" I heard Lexi asked. I looked to where she was tilting her head, and sure enough, it was President Ginger. I looked over in amazement, watching her casually drinking tea and talking with... a boy. A normal, District-looking boy. I walked over to her, despite Lexi telling me not to. It was a good time to make myself a connection.
"Hello, Ms. Ginger!" I said, taking a quick bow like a good girl was supposed to. "Could I invite you to my room to have tea?" I figured she would have to say no. I figured it would be considered unsafe to be in the room of two likely angry tributes.
"Of course! I'll have to bring my bodyguard here with me, but that sounds amazing." I jumped back in amazement. President Ginger actually said yes? I was going to have the President over for tea? That sounded fake. That sounded like something out of a happy movie. Maybe the Games Building wasn't going to be awful.
TWO important notes. One: Yeah, Yvette isn't a crybaby. I broke her character because Tina needed the scene.
Two: Please leave a review or PM me if you're reading! It's good for me to know who's still around ^_^ It doesn't have to be much - just a "Yep, still kicking!"