The Shattered Golden Boy

Sable believed he absolutely would have destroyed her had he had all his limbs. He was a victor, after all, one of the shining stars of District One. Now though, she had the upper hand. And Brighton would be ruthless.

"I wouldn't want you to go easy on me crutch or not, hell if it weren't for the crutch I would ask if you wanted me blindfolded so you had a fighting chance." He grinned a little, picking up his set of knives from the table, and feeling their weight. They felt good in his grasp and he nodded towards Brighton,

"Yeah, I mean, Cain's not exactly a super common name in District Two either," he shrugged. Maybe it wasn't common, but that didn't mean it wasn't meaningful. In a roundabout way, it got right to the heart of who he was meant to be— at least if you thought of Cain as a hero in his story.

"Really no uptick in Cains after you won? I would have thought the whole, baby winning without having to kill woulda caused a lot of parents being like we want our baby to have that type of luck." There were a lot more Sheens in One after he won, but he also thought some of it was because of his mother talking parents into naming their kids after him or something like that.

Slate almost felt a bit bad, his sarcasm and the bite of his comment being missed. He still didn't like how Sheen spoke about it, how he seemed to think a month and some change was a significant period of time to serve when Slate knew so many who'd fought for years, who'd died. Hell, his own time in Eleven had been longer than that. But when Sheen mentioned him being good at helping people, he scoffed. "Where you been getting your news from?" he asked. "Don't think I've ever helped anyone."

"When we've helped people, I think it matters little whether we think we have or not, and what they think. I'm....I'm more than willing to bet that a lot of people....all over Panem that you may not have even met think you did a lot to help them. Through that magazine, you ran...through the games....through other ways." Sheen had met a lot of people as a Victor people telling him that his winning helped them, it never felt earned or deserved but....he supposed he couldn't take that feeling from them.

Denver looked across the training room. She made notes of which tables each tribute was drawn to, and who if anyone was working together. A tribute from District Three sunk a knife into a training dummy, and Denver winced, thinking of a boy she saw being rushed into the medical tent, a knife lodged between his ribs. That boy hadn't made it.

Sheen was pressed up against a wall, he refused to bring his chair into the Training Room, but he also knew he need a break to take some of the weight off his good leg and the crutch so he was leaning against the wall, trying his best. He was watching the boy from Three with a knife and a dummy, Sheen tutted a little. His form could be a lot better, if he were fighting an actual person they would have been able to disarm him easily. When he was asked what his plans,

Sable finished her stretches and the warm-up throws with her knife - the basics she learned in school that she knew still surpassed the skills of any of the outer districts. She wasn't as skilled as her sister but she could beat anyone without training, and that was what she was prepared to prove today. And if anyone saw her and thought she was pulling her punches, she could say that she was - she could be saving her strength for the real deal, the private training, and then the Arena. She locked eyes with someone near the sparring mat.

Sheen was standing by the sparring mats with a crutch, he was watching the tributes from Four. Assessing if they were or were not Career Fours. It was always a hit or miss with District Four he had found in how talented they actually were. When he turned to go, he caught Brighton's eye, and grinned instantly understanding the meaning. Moving over towards her, he chuckled.

"Probably...I didn't meet any Dorian's the month I was in Two." He chuckled a little, "But if I'm ever back now I know to keep my eyes open, I'd say the same for you in One, but you throw a rock and you have a good chance of hitting a Cobolt. Better chance of hitting a Diamond, or Emerald though. I lucked out, Sheen is sorta unique, well it was......after I won.....Sheen became a little more popular." He listened to Cain, how he wanted to say no but it still meant a lot to him. He shrugged at the presumption that if you wanted the games to end you should regret the academy.

Least they could do after what I've done for them. Slate knew he was talking about the Vox, about fighting for them, and he felt the thick stir of anger in his gut. Even though he was pissed at the higher-ups for the choice to bring the Games back, it went further than that -- he was more pissed with the Districts for refusing to connect and cooperate. For forcing their hand. So for Sheen to get on board late, once the tide turned, and act like he had done the Vox a favor was maddening.

The sarcasm went over Sheen's head, he was too tired for it to register, and if he wasn't he would actively try and get into some sort of fight with Slate, simply because he knew what he meant to Cress. Shrugging at the idea they were lucky to have him, "Maybe....doubt it though for all of Vox." He smirked a little, before chuckling, "Though I definitely know Marsh was lucky I was there, or it would have been his foot. Marsh was in my direct squad, he was from Four....." His voice drifted off, he missed them.....all of the guys. When he asked how long that was, Sheen nodded.

"Mentoring would be an honor," Ty replied, with more enthusiasm than he'd mustered before. "You really think these will be the last?" There was a hint of disappointment masked in his tone.

Sheen let out a laugh at Tiberius' enthusiasm, "Trust me there isn't much honor to mentoring. You get blamed first when the tributes lose, and I've come to realize a lot of tributes from One don't really care about the advice I have to give. The year after I won, I had two 24-year-olds who couldn't care less about what 15-year-old me had to say." At the question, he pursed his lips, they were alone, and he doubted that Tiberius felt any loyalty to Vox. "I think they're lying. I think the games are coming back after this. No way you put effort into a one-time thing like this and then expect them to go away, especially not after you so quickly tried to ban them."

"I've always been short." Link offered, nodding. "I was shorter than my siblings, that was a little weird. but the height wasn't that big of a change otherwise." She could understand the differences between them, but mostly, she was just enjoying having someone who could really relate to her. "I mean hey, I won when I got my chair. maybe you do deserve it."

"Hope they're getting you good prosthetics," Slate said, though he was unsure. The medical industry had always been lacking in the districts, but now it was lacking in the Capitol too. "But you know, I know it's different, but they wanted to fix my ear -- give me a prosthetic, make me look... prettier, I guess." He rolled his eyes. "And help with the hearing. I didn't wanna let some fuckin' Capitol doctor think they could fix me, though. I'm district. Just 'cause I'm a victor doesn't mean I should get special treatment."

"For as long as they're taking it better be because they're taking their time and actually waiting for decent parts to come in. Least they could do after what I've done for them." Sheen listened to Slate talk about his ear, he wasn't quite sure if he agreed with the logic, mainly because hearing was rather important, but Slate always seemed to have quite a bit of misplaced pride.

Denver listened as Sheen spoke about his prosthetics. She nodded as if she understood what the words meant, though she didn't. "If you're interested in showing them off, I could do some kind of fluff peace on them," she suggested. "Drum up a new war hero persona for you." Drumming up new exciting spins on horrific things was her job now, after all. But she was talking to Sheen as a friend, not as a reporter. "Seriously though, I'm glad you're okay. That it was just a leg and not an entire Sheen." She gave him a smile.

Sheen waved his hand a little when she asked if he wanted to show them off, have a piece written about them, drum it all up, make him a war hero. He may have been a war hero, but....he didn't want the attention, especially attention focused on the fact he lost his foot. "I appreciate that Denver, but it's fine. After the Capitol and being a Victor and all of that, I've had enough attention on me to last several lifetimes. I just wanna be Sheen the nobody." He knew he was never going to have that.....but he wouldn't feed into the attention.