deadalready | 9th Swing [Video]

[The video lights up on Cato's face as he watches something off-screen with a very fixed look. Whatever it is, it grabbed his attention just before he opened his journal. It's only a few seconds before he looks back at the page and clears his throat.]

So does anyone want to tell me who's responsible for this --

[The video cuts away a moment, blurring as he shifts to stealthily show Clove hunkered down over some small piece of wood in her hands with a look of very intense concentration her face. There are little bandages peppering her fingers and she looks like she's trying to cut the little piece into something smaller. She keeps shaving away at it.

The video jerks back to Cato's very bemused face.]

I have no idea what she's doing. But it's been going on for days now and I'm a little....weirded out. Every time I tell her to stop because it's making her upset she just yells at me and she won't even show me what she's doing with it.

This is the first time she's cut herself with her knives in years. I don't think I've seen her this bad with one since we were thirteen and just starting out with our weapons.

Someone told her to do this, didn't they? It just...doesn't make sense for her.

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...Never heard of any of those before.

[This is all coming out of the blue to him. Like, way out of the blue.]

What is it called where you're from?

I don't know?

[Basic psychology and spirituality were never really things children were taught in school where he was from. The entire concept is lost on him.]

[He is somewhat baffled by this answer.]

But - it happens, right? It isn't unknown?

People freak out about things, yeah.

[He thinks of his mother. It's a private thought; one he's not very willing to share with a strange turtle but she came home from the Games a Victor and had been changed by her time in the Capitol. Or so his father told him. He saw it, sometimes, how off she was. Sometimes she'd just stare into space for hours, other times she'd cook way too much food and it'd all go bad before they could finish it. Other times she'd lock herself in her room and cry. She was a loud crier, but he liked to think it was because she trusted him and his father to hear her.

Cato wasn't expecting that little trip down memory lane and quickly stops thinking about her. Because that'll just lead down a very sad road.]

They get sad and can't...function sometimes. I've just never had a real name to put with it.

But I don't think that's what's happening to Clove.

[Not right now at least. In ten minutes, an hour, a day, a week? Who knows.]

What do you think is happening?

She just sucks at cutting wood.

... Okay.