ktenology

Luzrina Moiral. 33 years old. Head gamemaker for the 110th games.

[surya-mirga]

He blew out some air through his nose before taking another hit, watching the woman with slightly narrowed eyes as she spoke. He couldn’t look directly at her, it made him too uncomfortable to do that with anyone, so he just looked over her shoulder and out into the distance as he listened to her. He’d heard the same speech a hundred times from teachers who wanted to know why he didn’t do his homework, didn’t get involved with more at school, didn’t seem to pay attention in class. When she mentioned the number of dead children, it struck him so much harder than he was expecting that his chin dropped down and he leaned forward a little as he felt something sour in his throat. Amazing how relegating them to just a number affected him more than just imagining their faces did. It was too easy for him to imagine the quantity. “Th-they’re all still dead, too.”

[luzmoiral]

“Nothing can change the fact that they're dead. Nothing can chnage that. And even though they try to change that they were people. That they lived and breathe and all had their own lives... they can't. Because I will always know. I'll always know who they were and remember their faces even after they're long gone... and maybe that doesn't make it any better. But I wish it did." She finished, taking a deep breath as she shook her head a little. Luz knew it didn't make it any better. If anything it only hurt herself to think about everything and remember all of their deaths, but the woman couldn't help it. She thought if she respected the people that go into that arena, than maybe it would be better than somebody else doing her job who didn't.

[midas-silk-blog]

“Yes? How are you just finding this out now, the Capitol literally ate that story up.” 

[luzmoiral]

“Because I don’t bother with scandals. I hate people seeing being humiliated by their secrets being revealed to the public. I never watch it. I preferred telenovelas when I was younger. At lest those are fictional.”

[midas-silk-blog]

“That was the only part of my childhood.” Smiling. “When I was young, it was all cutesy stuff. When I got older I was a heartthrob, and then I got a little older, and it was nothing but parties, experimenting with a few drugs, and then of course the grand finale was losing my virginity in a stairwell, you can find that tape anywhere.” 

[luzmoiral]

“You lost your virginity in a stairwell?”

[surya-mirga]

He’d done enough research on his own on stutters, mostly on stories about how people got them to stop, but nothing ever worked. There were therapists that could help, some that might’ve even been willing to travel to Three so he wouldn’t have to go into the Capitol. He’d always refused the help, though. He thought it’d never work for him. “I-it is,” he assured her with a sigh. “M-my whole life is a cl-cliché. D-dead par-rents, stutt-tter, R-reaped victor sibling. I-it’s all bee-een hear-rd of. I’m noth-thing special.”

[luzmoiral]

“I wouldn’t say that about yourself.” She cut in, replying immediately after he finished talking. Luz hated to see people hate on themselves when they clearly shouldn’t. Despite the fact she was guilty of doing it herself. She didn’t want to see other people feel the way she did about herself. “Everyone has something special about them. We might all be people. We’re all human. But we’re individuals. I can tell you, that there might be similarities, but every kid that’s gone in there are different from another one. I should know. I've been in this tower long enough to see one hundred and sixty one. That's how many have died in the arenas since I've been here. I've known something about every single one of them, and I know they're all different in their own ways."  

[nova-samole-blog]

“So you don’t enjoy this work then. You shouldn’t be involved in such a career. You must understand that you have hundreds of thousands hating you and what you stand for. How do you even cope?”

[luzmoiral]

“Self-loathing and whiskey.”

[midas-silk-blog]

“Yeah, that’s probably true.”

[luzmoiral]

“What was it like when you were a kid? The fame part.”

[surya-mirga]

Chip looked toward the woman as she spoke, tilting his head to the side slightly when she mentioned that it took eight years to get a ‘better’ job. He’d seen plenty of people finish high school, and it didn’t matter that they had the degree, they were still stuck doing jobs even dropouts like him did. There was something about the way the woman said it, though, and he could feel something else behind it, but he forced himself to ignore it, playing it off as fake empathy. It was always easy to pretend he couldn’t notice, it made for less awkward situations with him not blurting out some ridiculous attempt at comfort that didn’t fit well with his makeup. The question about his stutter was almost a relief. “S-since I can r-remember,” he admitted, shrugging nonchalantly by force and coming across perhaps a bit crass with it. If he acted like it didn’t matter, other people wouldn’t either, right? Two plus a equals four so a must be two. It was the simplest equation. “Got wor-rse when my par-rents died. Cliché, unfor-ortun-nately.”

[luzmoiral]

"I don’t consider it cliché." Luz admitted with a small shrug of her shoulders. Her eyes shifted from looking to the boy to staring out at the city skyline. "It makes sense that it would get worse. I read that stutters are usually connected to stuff like that. Like people who are left-handed and get it 'corrected' to write with their right hand, they usually tend to have stutters. Or people who suffer emotional abuse... stuff like that." She commented, knowing she probably had no experience or slim to none with dealing with a stutter.

[dolly-nova]

Mira pressed her lips into a thin line as she looked at the younger woman, letting out a slow breath. She’d been even younger than Luz was when the Games became more boring and monotonous than they were horrifying, and she’d only been an escort. If she’d ever been a Gamemaker…well, she was certain her clarity of mind would never have been questioned. “Whether you prove me wrong or right, it doesn’t matter to me. You can be easily replaced. There are others just as smart or smarter than you out there, even within the same Gameroom as you. You just have to prove yourself right.”

[luzmoiral]

Replaceable. Luz hated the fact but she knew Mira was right about it. The blonde could easily be replaced and that’s what she hated so much. She feared it a lot more when she was out of the chair, but Luz was able to handle it a lot more when she was out of the chair. Now that she was in a chair, she had to struggle just to prove to everyone that she could maintain her power. “I can prove it to myself.” Luz said firmly, not wavering. She knew she couldn’t. She couldn’t afford that kind of weakness. 

[midas-silk-blog]

“Oh sorry, am I getting too real for you?” 

[luzmoiral]

“I don’t think you know what real is.”

[nova-samole-blog]

“Ah, so you’re behind all those kids’ deaths. Very interesting. Now tell me, do you get much sleep at night? Because if you do, then it’s good to know that I should stay away from a sociopath.”  

[luzmoiral]

“I’m not a sociopath.”

[zaraining]

“That’s so mean!” Zara exclaimed, deeply outraged by the press error that she believed in until so recently ago. “Wow! Why would anybody do that to you? Can’t you ask them to stop because it is literally not true and so mean?”

[luzmoiral]

“People will always be mean. I can’t control what they think of me, only what I think of myself.”

[midas-silk-blog]

Laughing. “No idea. In my phone he’s under great bjs, so I have no idea what his actual name is.” 

[luzmoiral]

“Too much information there, Marcus.” She warned him. 

[kaelen-tyr]

His eyes shifted back to look at the chair when she brought the attention to it, for the first time ever really getting a look at the wheels and the make of it. It wasn’t like the ones they lent out from the hospital that always seemed a little banged up and were clearly meant only for a temporary occupant. It was too sturdy, to indicative of how permanent it was. Or maybe that was just Kaelen’s mind making it all up, he really wasn’t so certain. “Or is that the only help you accept?” He shook his head almost imperceptibly, glancing down at his watch to see how much time he’d spent talking to her. “Don’t answer, you must have stuff to do.”

[luzmoiral]

It was the only help she accepted, but Luz was told not to answer so she wouldn’t answer. She might have admitted it to herself after a few drinks in her system but she wasn’t going to say it out loud any time soon. It would be something she wouldn’t say to anybody. She was fine with that though. Luz nodded her head, moving herself backwards. Luz wheeled the chair around but paused before she could turn her back to him. “I’m only telling you this because I respect you and Peaches has a big mouth so it’s bound to come out eventually. I started walking again. Not physically because that’s impossible, but I have robotic braces for my legs and crutches. It’s actually hard on my body because none of the weight is supported by my legs. Just the device and the crutches. I'm not even sure I want to go forward with it because I hate it but– I become tall again when I wear it... so.. I miss that. The worst part about the chair is that I'm shorter than everyone else. Being short is the true struggle.” It was a joke, but the smile that came onto her face was forced and fake. There were still hints that she was trying though, but they were weak. 

[kaelen-tyr]

He wasn’t entirely sure what he felt for her at that moment, if it was sympathy or pity or empathy, a strange combination of all of them, or something entirely different. It was getting difficult lately to establish clear lines about how he felt when it was anything other than anger - and even that was so laden with grief it seemed to be in disguise. Which was disguising as the other, he didn’t know, or really care. “I can’t help you,” he stated, thinking his voice was soft, but it wasn’t soft in the same way it had been even a year before. “I don’t know how I could.”

[luzmoiral]

She reached up her thumbs, swiping the edge by the corner of her eyes. Luz was still emotional despite the fact that she felt like she lost her heart. Though the emotions she felt were just memories of the person she used to be. Now she just felt numb with so much pain that she couldn’t tell the difference anymore when something got to her or not. It wasn’t exactly the best way to live, but it was the only way she was living. “I’m beyond help. The only help I get now is a curtesy for my situations here.” She commented, looking down at her chair. 

[kaelen-tyr]

Kaelen bit the inside of his lip as he listened, wondering if he should maybe tell her about what happened. He doubted she’d even remember a vague mention to a Peacekeeper getting killed on the news, especially since he and his mother fought to make sure it was only vague and that his father’s name wouldn’t be released in the Capitol. Everyone in One found out, of course, but One was his father’s home, where he’d served most his time on duty. The Capitol would’ve blown it into something awful, or another display of ‘rebels gone wrong’. Her father’s death was different than his, though. And the injuries she’d suffered that day wouldn’t just scar like his, but would follow her for the rest of her life. “You’re not a kid anymore,” he pointed out quietly. “You can find a new way to get closure.”

[luzmoiral]

“I can never get closure, Kaelen.” She insisted, not trying to convince him of anything but stating it like it was a fact. A cold hard fact that she couldn’t change. "I have nothing. Nothing. I have two gravestones. I didn't even get to say goodbye to my mother. I wasn't there for her when she died. And I barely even knew my father. I grew up without him and he still died for me. I didn't even know it was him until he mouthed to me that I look like my mother. He had been serving me for years, ever since I started as a gamemaker. He was right there the entire time and I never even bothered to look at him because I hated avoxes because he was one and abandoned me and my mother. I'll never get closure because I left so many things unsaid. Because they left so many things unsaid. I'll never get the chance... so... so there is more than one way to get closure. But not for me."

[nova-samole-blog]

“Whatever, it’s fine,” she murmured. “So, what’s your role around here?”

[luzmoiral]

“Head Gamemaker.”

[kaelen-tyr]

He didn’t say anything at all as she spoke, hands shoved into his pockets as he just watched her. It struck him that he couldn’t be so critical, considering he was still working in the Tower, as well. Then again, they were on two very different sides of the Games, and the brand on his wrist was something he already knew prevented him from having a chance to get a new job elsewhere considering he’d tried that just after the 109th. He wanted out and he’d done what he could to get out, had hoped he would be able to before Marcia was in the arena, but since then he had other things to occupy his mind. Things that meant access to Tower technology and the training center would be useful to help him prepare for. “I don’t hate you,” he muttered, wanting to clear the air on that before he got to anything else. “I’m still sorry about what happened with your parents, it sucked. But we’ve all lost people.” As he took a deep breath, he could feel the skin around the scar on his chest tug a little. “And it’s a disgrace to the dead to hate the life we still have. Closure, revenge, whatever you need to get, do something about it.”

[luzmoiral]

She didn’t know if she was relieved about the fact that he didn’t hate her. Luz hated herself and felt like he should too, mostly because in a few weeks she would be sending his sister to her potential death. This year was especially hard on her because most of the tributes were a lot younger than usual and though she tried to deny the fact it bothered her, it did. It bothered her like it always bothered her, so Luz wasn’t quite aware of how much did it actually get under her skin. “I–” She began, thinking of something to say in response to that. “I was an angry kid... I wanted revenge for so long. I was selfish and envious and I wanted more in life. I blamed a lot of people for not having more in the first place, some which included the wrong people. I hated my father so much. I wish every day that one day that I would be exactly what I am now. A gamemaker, like he was. Only this time I wouldn’t screw up and then I would find him and rub it in his face that I wouldn’t make the same mistakes he did. But I did... and revenge isn’t what I want anymore. But it’s the only way I could ever get closure, so I can’t get what I want anymore. I just have to take what I’m given from now on instead of always wanting more.”