Day Two: Weapon of Choice
The armoury is something Kyrie relishes every chance of use she has. Gleaming blades, blunt weapons, rack upon rack of longbows. It has everything she could want and more in it. Enough weapons to support the training of every child who takes them up.
Her eyes linger longingly on the swords for a second. Long, straight, two and a half feet or more of good Two steel. The kind of weapon she sees Ariadne, and Minos, and Selene, and others besides gripping like a lifeline. Still, she discards that.
The polearms. Recommended by just about everyone, because as much as everybody loves the flashy elegance of a sword there's nothing that is believed to compare in effectiveness to the glaives and spears. She steps closer to these, a hand is lain on the ash shaft of a spear with a particularly long end. Considers the falx sword she played with for a year. Discards her grip on it, eventually.
Then it's the turn of the ranged weapons to be passed over. The bows, everything she could have wanted, discarded without a second thought. The throwing knives, the spears are similarly ignored.
Finally, she reaches the weapons that are more her speed. The blunt instruments, rows of morningstars and warhammers passed over until a small box is opened with a whir. Inside, sitting happily on a small cushion, is a single iron fan. One that seems to leap into Kyrie's hand, cool and heavy as she grips it. IT's a shimmering weapon, and as she lets it bounce from hand to hand she can feel the weight behind it.
The war fan is a force to be reckoned with in her hands. Not because it's particularly sharp or lethal, but because she knows how to use it, and because of how well they play with people's expectations. People don't expect a fan to be dangerous. People expect that the fan will be a trinket, something used as a novelty when the real threat is in the Ones, her District Partner, the Fours.
She'll show them. The CYDD, the Districts, the Capitol. She'll show them all that no, it isn't about the sharp blades or the spin of the axe in a hand or the dances the longbows do. It's about skill, and if there's one thing Kyrie has in spades it's skill.
She's with Minos today. Not because she wants to be, because he's laughing and saying something about how easy this will be and she doesn't like the disparagement even if it is all in good fun. But because she's been assigned, and if there's one thing she does know it's how to follow orders. Orders, after all, are what separates them from the rest. The order to kill, to play nice, to come back home.
It's an order she hopes to fulfil someday. Victor Ellison, after all, has a nice ring to it.
For now, she looks at Minos. At his closely cropped hair, his deep brown eyes, the laugh seemingly etched into his features. At the eyes that she remembered so well from a kiss, right before his girl caught them laughing together. 'The next two volunteers for the Games', she said before dragging him back into the house. They hadn't spoken together since, maybe for the best given the circumstances.
Minos makes the first strike, silver blade slashing forwards in a swing that seems to take a year and a second at the same time. Enough time for Kyrie to step back, to arch around the blade and grab his wrist, using it as a point from which to drag him forward and her knee up into his stomach. He lets out a yowl, like a particularly injured cat, and in an instant swings the sword right over her head thanks to a last second duck.
The blade spins around again, and now she's giving ground. Her fan catches the blade in its sweeping arc, before being allowed to slip down to prevent a rap on her fingers that in a real fight would have taken them from her. Fingers rising up, she allows the fan to extend outwards into the arc it wanted to take, disorienting him for the moment she needed.
Disorienting him right before she grabs Minos' wrist again, bringing the fan up with a swift movement as she holds his sword arm still. Slamming it into his face, watching as the blood blossoms from his nose and he collapses to the floor with a whimper. A flash of regret hits as she looks down at the closely cropped hair, the deep brown eyes, the nose oh god the nose. He won't be competing for Volunteer position, that's for sure. Not with that exploded tomato over his face. She wants to apologize.
The flash is gone, and replaced with triumph, because she's shown them all. Shown them all that her weapon isn't weak, it isn't useless. Shown them all that she can do just as well as a Squaddie with a sword, better even, because he's on the floor with a shattered nose and her hand's being lifted up in the air and she's almost crying with the excitement of it all. Just the excitement. Minos limps off, and her next match is soon.
Six months later, and she's standing on the stage. Her hand's up, and it's been announced that Kyrie Ellison, along with Marcus Ridgeway, will be representing District Two in the 48th Hunger Games. A smile slips over her lips as she glances over to the Eighteens, to where Minos is standing with that look on his face. The frown. She doesn't see what the issue is, soon enough she'll be home and then they can all have fun together. Maybe, as they'd discussed last night, there wouldn't be her fan at the Cornucopia. Not that that would be likely, if she could show talent it would be there. Everyone knows that.
