Author Games: Panem Entangled

When Given A Friend | Entries 7-12

District 7 Female: Puck Georges-Bouffairet

"Did you know that your squirrel is dead?"

Puck blinks herself awake, peering out with one eye first and then the other into a foggy and saturated world. Memories of either the morning before, or he sap-fueled dreams trundle back to place in her head, but the visuals, also just coming into relief, do not corroborate them. Where is the tree she suckled from? Or all the others that sucker-punched her? Who is this boy? Oh wow, she's in a death arena who the heck is this boy? She scoots backwards from her prone position until something twiggy starts prodding through the back of her shirt. The boy does not move with her or adopt her frantic nature, he just stands up and scratches his back and blinks. His eyes are so big and magnified that they make noises when they blink. Blink blink blink. "Are you going to hurt me?" she asks him.

The boy giggles. "No, that would certainly be a queer thing for any parent to name a child. I'm Hansel. Hansel Chae, by the way," he bobs his head to the rhythm with which he speaks and looks pleased with his wit and cantor. Just before he would have mentioned the way it rhymes he bites himself to stop from doing so and extends a hand instead. "You're Puck." To this, Puck pinches one of his fingers and gives it a waggle, saying 'oh wow.' Hansel smiles and praises his memory. "Who was this, though?" he goes ahead and strokes the pelt she has draped over her shoulder.

"Who?" she turns her cheek and prickles as her round chin brushes against bristles. "Oh wow, Scamper Two! You are real!" She returns to address Hansel, "This is Scamper Two, he's a squirrel actually."

A frown sagging so low it looks painted-on drips from Hansel's mouth. "Well, he was one. That's what I was trying to tell you: he's died, unfortunately. If he was ever alive... You can tell by how it isn't respirating." The addendums are borne from the lingering silence which hangs between them and Hansel's desperate desire to fill it.

Puck takes up Scamper Two with both of her hands and holds him up to her nose. Gravity pushes bags of mottled fur towards the earth and a tiny pink tongue from its cute and tiny muzzle. Looks fine to her. "I don't know what that word means so I assure you I cannot. I can tell he's alive because he's telling me you're lying." A filled-with-doubt Hansel asks for clarification: 'he said that?' Puck nods just once, "He whispers to me. He's saying he doesn't trust you."

"Yeah, well, it doesn't have much of a choice. We're connected somehow. By overturning his palm, Hansel reveals a wound sweltering in the epicenter of his palm, a rut which interrupts all the crease paths across his skin. With gentle, seamstress, fingers she would never expect to come from the plow-fields of ten, he takes Puck's hand to display the same mark on her own hand. He does not show the bloodied dagger burning in his back pocket. "So we're here. And whatever happens to us, happens to both of us. So there's that."

Mention of their setting reminds Puck to always be aware of her surroundings. That's what Tshalala said, at least, and it was one of the few things she said that made sense, which Puck doesn't know whether that accounts or discounts its credibility. Doesn't hurt to try. She pulls aside the curtains of mist and looks past the boyish countenance which bobs for her attention to see head-high hedges heading out in circles of different widths. Hedging her bets, she'd guess the outer shell of foliage would take a couple minutes walking to follow around once. The forest she fell asleep in is long gone and she's - they're - lost in this new dimension. Walking through the maze with her eyes, she sees a glowing orange orb nestled in the middle of the pathway. "What is that?" she asks, pointing. Hansel says he doesn't know. As they approach it, they see that it it holds more intricacies than a plain sphere; smaller yellow orbs run along the surface of it in orbit and the body is built with a meandering mass of smaller but not so much smaller balls themselves. CERANNU, Puck thinks with such vigor she thinks she may have whispers its name, but when she checks, Hansel is still entranced by the sphere of energy and stewing in silence. "Touch it," Puck finally says.