Second Floor Common Room; Sunday Afternoon

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

A love for sports ran in the family so, naturally, Luke was excited about the World Cup final today. All of the teams he rooted for were kicked out of the tournament a while ago (seriously, Greece, what the hell?), so he didn't have much of an opinion on who he wanted to win. That little octopus guy picked Spain and his grandfather had a thing for Krakens so maybe he'd lean over that way.

Whatever, he just wanted to eat some popcorn and possibly see people duel with vuvuzelas.

[Well it's open, naturally]

Comments

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"One of the biggest games of the year. The sport's called soccer. Or football...you know what, we're in America, I'm gonna stick with soccer. Ignore what I said about football," he said. It would just be confusing to explain all the names and why Europe thinks Americans are idiots for calling it something else. "It's pretty much the world's most popular sport."

He wondered if his father had anything to do with that.

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

Katniss studied the screen for a moment, waiting for this soccer to resemble her own national sport at any time. "...they just kick that ball?" she asked, sort of pleased by this. "That's it?"

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

Luke wanted to go into the intricacies of the sport and how it took skill and brain power to play it. "Yeah. Pretty much."

Well so much for that.

"They're trying to get the ball into the nets at the end of the field."

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"Why?" she asked, already leaning forward with her elbows on her knees to watch more intently. "What do they win?"

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"A gold trophy," he said. "And being able to say they're the champions of the world for the next four years."

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"That's all?" Katniss asked, but it wasn't disdainful. She actually looked pleased. "It doesn't look terribly violent, either. That's a plus."

[OMFG I AM SO SORRY. I got dragged into a floorset post-meeting and they JUST freed me.]

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"It's not as violent as other sports," Luke agreed. His version of Capture the Flag was more violent than soccer. "Hockey and American football are a lot worse on the violence scale, but even they have a bunch of padding to protect them."

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"Like armor?" she guessed, tilting her head. "This is what you do for fun around here, then? These players are just doing this because they like to?"

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"Sort of like armor. Only squishier," he said, because he knew real armor quite well. "These guys on TV get paid a lot to play sports, but the average person plays them for fun. Good way to meet new people, and it's a nice form of stress release."

Spoken like a true son of the patron god of sports and athletes. If his dad were the type to pay any attention to him, he might be proud of Luke right now.

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

Sports for fun -- or rather, sports that were enjoyable for the players as well as the spectators -- was a new concept for her. "Do you play?" she asked, nodding to the screen. "Or are you better at another sport?"

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"I'm pretty decent at most sports. It, uh, runs in the family," he said, figuring that would be the easiest answer. "But I don't play on a team or anything. I guess I'm best at sword fighting--but that's not really a sport at all, is it?"

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"Hey, I've never heard of this soccer or hockey or anything you've mentioned except sword fighting," she replied, looking interested, "so as far as I'm concerned, it counts. It's the only thing that, um, I recognize from our sport at home."

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

A sport that involved sword fighting seemed right up Luke's alley. "Yeah? What kind of sport is that?"

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

Katniss shifted a little, and carefully replied, "It's called the Hunger Games, and it's this yearly event where twenty-four kids...basically fight one another to the death in an arena for a few weeks. Last one standing wins. Not that much fun for the participants, but it's wildly popular with the spectators. Sword fighters usually do well."

There. That was a decent summary of the Games, without getting into her own time in the arena. And it was acceptable, should the president hear this conversation.

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

Luke came from a place where it was perfectly fine to send children out on dangerous quests (or it had been, before Luke had screwed that up for everyone), so he wasn't all that appalled by the idea of the Hunger Games. Still, it was kind of weird.

"Rough sport," he said, thinking that was an understatement. "I didn't think we would've gone back to that kind of thing in the future. It's very...Roman Empireish."

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, the future's sort of rough that way," Katniss said, shaking her head. "It's a punishment kind of thing. And the arenas usually have Capitol-created animals, that kind of thing, for competitors to deal with on top of the other tributes. People bet on their favorites. And the victor gets to take a tour of the country and have bragging rights and immunity." She paused, and added, "No gold trophy like your soccer players, though. As far as I know, anyway."

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"After all that, I think a gold trophy would be kind of a lame prize. A tour doesn't seem like much of a prize either," Luke told her. He couldn't say much about the bragging rights, since it seemed like the only thing demigods did was try to achieve immortality through them.

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"You get money and a lovely house, too," she added, to be fair. "And your district gets more food and supplies. If there are more prizes, I haven't received them yet." She hadn't meant to slip that she was a victor, but she just moved past that. "I'm not sure a gold trophy seems like a very good prize in general, though I'm sure those little men running around on the screen would disagree."

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

The way Katniss glossed over winning the game and the way she looked when she said it told Luke that it wasn't something to ask about. He sympathized with that, considering how little he liked talking about surviving a fight with Ladon.

"The trophy's just a symbol. Like a physical representation of bragging rights," Luke said with a slight smile. "If their team wins, they'll get more money and fame. And I think most of them like winning for the sake of winning. Losing's never fun."

Especially in a game where losing meant you'd die, but he felt that went without saying.

[thegirl-onfire.livejournal.com]

"Losing is terrible," she agreed. "Worse for any fans you might have at home." Particularly in the Games, where fans were usually parents watching their children die on mandatory viewing.

She turned her attention back to the screen, and added, "I like their little uniforms," she noted, smiling a little herself. "And there's something to be said for having a whole team. The Games usually is every tribute for his or herself. This is more fun to watch, I think. Looks like they're having fun, too."