Post by Seek on May 5, 2013 7:02:40 GMT 10
Title: Talents
Rating: R
Word count: 521 words
Summary: Buri thinks about the intervening years. Hunger Games AU.
Pairing: Buri/Raoul
Round/Fight: 1D
Notes: Part of the Flashfire Games series.
Warnings: Children being sent to fight each other to their deaths. Hinted non-con.
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They mostly see each other when they’re mentoring. District Ten has so few Victors that Buri finds herself returning to the Capitol year after year to try to beat into shape the latest unprepared Tribute from her District. She tries and manages to hold a few classes, but there simply isn’t enough time in District Ten for that sort of thing, and too many are resigned to dying in the Arena if their name is drawn.
District Two, though, has such a large pool of Victors that Raoul doesn’t have to spend very much time mentoring. He still comes down to the Capitol each year, occasionally drops in on her while she’s at the mentoring station or when she’s looking for sponsors.
She learns to hate the colour red, even if they say she looks good in it. She wonders if they thought she looked good when she slit the throat of the boy from One.
Her entire family dies one day, but Thayet stays alive. Buri knows why, when she picks up a shed emerald-and-blue feather on the ground. (President Ozorne is never without his beloved birds.) If they kill everything she’s got, they have nothing left to hold over her.
An accident, they call it. The next time they meet in the Capitol, Raoul gives her a gigantic bear-hug, but she doesn’t allow herself to cry. The few tears she’s shed when she had to bury the entire Tourakom line in the shallow earth next to the horse field. Perhaps it’s better this way. She wouldn’t put it past President Ozorne to work some mischief with even their graves.
Thayet wants to know what’s wrong. Buri bites down on her sharp tongue because Thayet can’t know, and must never know, and she can’t find the words. With Raoul, she doesn’t have to, because Raoul already knows.
She spends most dinners pretending to be a block of wood while her companions natter on. Most of them don’t care anyway; they only care when she goes back with them to their apartment, and then the lights turn off.
The frantic showers never stop. Sometimes, she’ll head up to the roof to find Raoul there. He works on the plants. It is, he informs her, his talent. They’re supposed to focus on and cultivate one particular skill since they’re set for life once they win the Games. He’d picked gardening and grows all kinds of flowers. Once, he leaves one of his orchids on her doorstep. He leaves it on everyone’s doorstep, but Buri recognises the flower and knows.
Her talent, she informs him, is horse-breeding, something that both fascinates and horrifies the Capitol. He snickers. He laughs even harder when she tells him about the things that don’t make it on camera: when the Capitol folk who came to interview her stepped right in a big pile of horse manure.
They put her in a light cotton dress for that one; earthy, but still red.
She does think about sending Raoul a dark horse that she names Drum, but knows that she can’t, for the same reason he’s given everyone orchids.
Rating: R
Word count: 521 words
Summary: Buri thinks about the intervening years. Hunger Games AU.
Pairing: Buri/Raoul
Round/Fight: 1D
Notes: Part of the Flashfire Games series.
Warnings: Children being sent to fight each other to their deaths. Hinted non-con.
-
They mostly see each other when they’re mentoring. District Ten has so few Victors that Buri finds herself returning to the Capitol year after year to try to beat into shape the latest unprepared Tribute from her District. She tries and manages to hold a few classes, but there simply isn’t enough time in District Ten for that sort of thing, and too many are resigned to dying in the Arena if their name is drawn.
District Two, though, has such a large pool of Victors that Raoul doesn’t have to spend very much time mentoring. He still comes down to the Capitol each year, occasionally drops in on her while she’s at the mentoring station or when she’s looking for sponsors.
She learns to hate the colour red, even if they say she looks good in it. She wonders if they thought she looked good when she slit the throat of the boy from One.
Her entire family dies one day, but Thayet stays alive. Buri knows why, when she picks up a shed emerald-and-blue feather on the ground. (President Ozorne is never without his beloved birds.) If they kill everything she’s got, they have nothing left to hold over her.
An accident, they call it. The next time they meet in the Capitol, Raoul gives her a gigantic bear-hug, but she doesn’t allow herself to cry. The few tears she’s shed when she had to bury the entire Tourakom line in the shallow earth next to the horse field. Perhaps it’s better this way. She wouldn’t put it past President Ozorne to work some mischief with even their graves.
Thayet wants to know what’s wrong. Buri bites down on her sharp tongue because Thayet can’t know, and must never know, and she can’t find the words. With Raoul, she doesn’t have to, because Raoul already knows.
She spends most dinners pretending to be a block of wood while her companions natter on. Most of them don’t care anyway; they only care when she goes back with them to their apartment, and then the lights turn off.
The frantic showers never stop. Sometimes, she’ll head up to the roof to find Raoul there. He works on the plants. It is, he informs her, his talent. They’re supposed to focus on and cultivate one particular skill since they’re set for life once they win the Games. He’d picked gardening and grows all kinds of flowers. Once, he leaves one of his orchids on her doorstep. He leaves it on everyone’s doorstep, but Buri recognises the flower and knows.
Her talent, she informs him, is horse-breeding, something that both fascinates and horrifies the Capitol. He snickers. He laughs even harder when she tells him about the things that don’t make it on camera: when the Capitol folk who came to interview her stepped right in a big pile of horse manure.
They put her in a light cotton dress for that one; earthy, but still red.
She does think about sending Raoul a dark horse that she names Drum, but knows that she can’t, for the same reason he’s given everyone orchids.
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!