[He says it slowly. She's a smart girl, but why would she figure this out in advance?]
That means it's been twenty-three years since my Games. That means it's been twenty-three more games-- nd forty-six more kids.
They make you mentor them, you know, when you survive. Guide em. Get em sponsors. Be likable if you wanted just one of those kids to survive. I was seventeen and I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.
They died. And so did next year's kids. And next year's.
[He stares so steadily at her.]
I was a coal miner before that. Down in the deeps. My brother was younger, I kept him out of there as long as I could. And then suddenly I'm too good for that, because I went off and killed a bunch of other kids. So I didn't do much else but wait, and know I was gonna fuck it up, because everybody knows twelve winning was a freak accident. We're too ill-fed and poor to be a threat.
Twenty-three years of that. Forty-six kids dead under my tutelage.
no subject
[He says it slowly. She's a smart girl, but why would she figure this out in advance?]
That means it's been twenty-three years since my Games. That means it's been twenty-three more games-- nd forty-six more kids.
They make you mentor them, you know, when you survive. Guide em. Get em sponsors. Be likable if you wanted just one of those kids to survive. I was seventeen and I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.
They died. And so did next year's kids. And next year's.
[He stares so steadily at her.]
I was a coal miner before that. Down in the deeps. My brother was younger, I kept him out of there as long as I could. And then suddenly I'm too good for that, because I went off and killed a bunch of other kids. So I didn't do much else but wait, and know I was gonna fuck it up, because everybody knows twelve winning was a freak accident. We're too ill-fed and poor to be a threat.
Twenty-three years of that. Forty-six kids dead under my tutelage.