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Tango struggled, his hands shaky and unsteady as he tried to tie the bowline knot once again. The instructor for the traps and ropes stand had patiently shown him multiple times, still he couldn’t figure out what looked like a simple hoop. He could take apart an engine in under half an hour and he couldn’t manage a simple knot? How dumb could he be?
“Need a hand?“
The blond boy from District 4 had come up behind him, and was now bowing forward so that he stood tall over cross-legged Tango. He tilted his head up in surprise, but he hadn’t startled, Timmy… Jimmy… hadn’t been quiet in his approach.
“More like five. I swear a bowline shouldn’t be so hard to tie.“
“It isn’t, let me show you! I’m Jimmy by the way! Tango, right? District 6.“
Their District number was embroidered on their uniform, but Tango nodded anyways.
“Mh- Yeah, Tango…“
Jimmy didn’t wait for an invitation, immediately grabbing a piece of rope for himself and joining Tango on the floor. He held out his hand and started demonstrating the knot while he slowly talked.
“Alright, you mad a little ringlet, make sure that the longer side stays on top.“
“So far so good.“
“Wait! I just saw them, what happened to your hands? No wonder you’re struggling with that mess!“
Tango’s hands were still battered and bruised from his punishment the night before the Reaping, which had left his fingers painful and shaky. He fought the urge to drop his length of rope and hide them in his pockets, so he made up an excuse instead.
“It’s fine, I’m a mechanic. My hands haven’t been completely healed once in like years!“
“Oh, sounds painful! Had no idea that they started you so young in 6. Never mind, try to follow me, we have knots to learn! As I was saying; the ringlet is gonna be our burrow, the long side the snake that lives in it. The short bit is gonna be a tree.“
“You are kidding. That’s so stupid.“
“It may be stupid but I could tie a bowline at four years old and you have been making bunny ears for fifteen minutes…“
Tango scoffed, but he stopped complaining. It couldn’t be too bad, just a little memory trick. A stupid and childish one, but he needed it to work. So he copied what Jimmy was doing.
“Okay, now our snake comes out of the burrow, that means from behind to forward — or bottom to top — but it still leaves it’s tail in the safety of it’s home, basically don’t pull all the way, leave some rope ‘cause that’s gonna be our handle.“
“Snake comes out but not all the way, got it.“
“Great! Now it goes behind the tree to check for squirrels and it comes back into the hole! Just like that! Hold onto the tail and the head of the snake and pull the tree! There you have it, a bowline as if you’ve been docking ships all your life!“
“Oh! I did it! The story is still stupid but I did it!“
“Who cares if the story is stupid, it works! Now try it yourself, maybe around something… like that pole!”
Jimmy pointed to one of the horizontal metal supports of the stand above them and Tango immediately got up to try again on his own, stretching his arms high up above his head as he was shorter than Jim had realized and struggled to reach the pole. The District 4 Tribute was about to stand up as well, to help and tie a knot himself when he noticed Tango’s shirt had rode up slightly, revealing a large purple and yellow healing bruise on his lower back shaped worryingly like the sole of a boot. Without even realizing the question tumbled out.
“How did you get that?“
Tango’s arms shot back down, tucking his shirt back into his pants, he knew exactly what Jimmy was talking about.
“What are you talking about?“
“That big bruise on your back. It looks like it hurts but that isn’t something you get working on trains is it?“
“You don’t know me. You helped me and that was nice enough but mind your business.“
The young boy turned to walk away, but Jim was quick to grab his wrist and pull him back to look at him. He wasn’t stupid or naive, he had seen horrible things happen to the kids around him back home and he could guess where a bruise like that might come from. He wasn’t gonna let that darkness swallow anyone around him, even if Tango was technically his opponent.
“I don’t know you, that’s true. But I am terrified right now and so are you.“
His voice was kind but it did not allow Tango to retort, even as he spoke slowly.
“What I need is a friend, just one.“
Tango freed his arm from Jimmy’s grip and his expression quickly shifted, from anger to fear until it landed to something soft, not happy but calm as he nodded.
“Can you show me the bowline again? I immediately forgot it.“
“Sure! Did you know it’s also called the lover’s knot?“
Jimmy smiled brightly as he moved to a lower metal pole to re-tie the rope.
“That’s kind of weird…“