diana-adler-blog

[diana-adler-blog]

larktimbers

Lark smiled, holding mason out to her. “Want a little trainee today?” She asked. Diana was her sister, and mason’s aunt. She was more than happy to see them together and happy.

She took Mason, his weight familiar in her arms after the many months, and blew out her cheeks to make a funny face for him. Babies had completely taken over the seventh floor, she’d even taken to finding quiet corners in the tower to grab naps away from them. But that didn’t mean she didn’t adore the twins. Wouldn’t beat anyone senseless for saying a bad word about them. “Don’t throw up on my training clothes little man.”

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“Did it take a lot of practice?” Of course it did, but she didn’t know what else to ask about. The last thing she wanted to seem like was rude and she did want to know if it was something she could reasonable pick up before the games. “Like the basics…”

Her gaze narrowed slightly as she looked to the tribute. District nine. She remembered from the reapings. That meant she was Callahan’s kid. “The basics for you would be self-defense. Don’t try anything more complicated it’s a waste of your time.”

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Task 005// Back to the Future

Diana moved from the west coast to New York City after college, chasing a photography internship at a newspaper. She grew up in a small Washington town nestled inland and had a relatively happy and stable upbringing. Her father died in a car accident a few months before she was born, and she wore his watch around her wrist daily as a reminder of him. There was a lot of competition and jealousy in the Adler household and between Diana and her younger half-sister Theo, but they’ve grown closer as they’ve aged.  2018 was the first year Diana felt at home in the city. She was still occasionally homesick, still spent hours on facetime with Theo, but she didn’t yearn to return anymore.

She works part-time as a barista and as a dog walker to make ends meet and lives alone in her studio apartment with her cat Oscar.

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The trainer didn’t move until Diana had stepped out of the fighting ring, picking themselves up from the floor and leaving the ring with what little dignity they had left. Fell scoffed at the sight, giving a shake of his head as he looked back at Diana.

“I’d rather be down here than in that box,” he replied, giving a nod back over his shoulder toward the spectator box. “Besides, if I had to be the one talking to sponsors, there wouldn’t be a lot of sponsors for Two.” Honestly, he had been killing time while the kids from Two were training on their own. In a while, he would round them up and help with their fighting skills, perhaps take a little extra time with Fiona before they would call it a day. “I’m meeting up with the kids from Two in a bit to train with them. I’ll be better help to them here than up in a box with a bunch of Capitolites.”

She nodded, understanding the sponsor struggle better than most. As her friends often said, she wasn’t good at bullshitting. No matter of experience or overheard conversations throughout the years could remedy that.

“Maybe you should switch to just training,” she told Fell. She started unravelling the bandaging around her knuckles, eyeing the next pair that stepped up to spar. She’d need to get a sense of Arion’s defensive skills later that evening when there weren’t so many eyes appraising them. “We could use a few less idiots in the ranks.”

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“Good.” She responded, before beckoning Diana closer, ever so slightly. “We’re bringing him home.” It was determined, and whispered in her ear so nobody else could evesdrop. “You hear me?”

Diana’s hand rested gently on the back of Mason’s head as she moved closer. The softness, the warmth of it a comfort during this time. She wanted to tell Lark that you didn’t make promises like that in a place like this. There were no assurances in their world. Instead she just nodded fractionally.

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Phoebe Tonkin as Gwen Reed in Bloom.

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Camilla had paused to drink some water, just as she witnessed Diana put a fellow trainer in his place. She bit her lip to keep the water from spewing out of her mouth. After a long drink, the Victor sauntered toward the pair with a small smirk. “Men never learn, do they?” She clicked her tongue and looked down at the sparring partner sprawled out on the mat. “What was he going on about this time?” The onyx-haired woman turned her attention to Diana with a quirked brow. “Hopefully nothing misogynistic or I’m going to have to kick his ass too.”

“He wouldn’t be conscious if he had,” Diana said. She stood with her weight solidly in her heels, ready for a counter strike should her opponent attempt a retaliation. “Simply thinks my talents aren’t up to par.”

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“Betting he’s wishing he could now,” he replied, looking down at the trainer on the mat. He had sparred with a trainer earlier himself, letting his Tributes train on their own for a while before he would check on them. Sparring was a way for him to kill time rather than being stuck up in the spectator’s box with the Gamemakers and sponsors.

“Had to have said something stupid to deserve that,” he added, only catching the tail end of the exchange between the two. “Unless we need to take an emergency trip to that fudge shop.”

She stood for a minute waiting to see if the trainer would get up, if they’d go another round and then turned and jumped down from the fighting ring. “That one definitely didn’t graduate top of his class,” she said, trying to shrug off the insult. She worked hard to get herself ready for training every game season. What was the point if she wasn’t up to par with the career crop of the year? She didn’t take pleasure in flaunting her skills so much as other trainers did and that sometimes earned her a few misplaced words. 

She smiled at the idea of sneaking out for some homemade fudge but that was for later, when the tributes went into their ice baths. “Aren’t you supposed to be up in your spectator box, Mentor Fell?”

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Arista watched silently as the woman before her took a rather larger tribute and knocked them clear to the ground. She had to admit, he had probably deserved it.

“That’s pretty impressive.” She told the woman as she watched the man grumble to himself as he walked off. “Where did you learn to do that?”

Diana glared at the trainer as he went off to nurse his bruises, looking to the tribute only when he was out of sight. “My mother,” she said simply. She strated unraveling the bandages around her knuckles and hopped down from the fighting circle. “And practice.”

[diana-adler-blog]

larktimbers

Lark had woken up that morning and gotten coffee, happy that diana had been thoughtful enough to make it. Especially lately everyone on the seventh floor lived on coffee. The kids were down to one feeding a night, sometimes two, but regularly waking at midnight still disrupted their sleep.

She smiled, looking up to see Diana’s face with a smile. She was still very happy that the woman was back in her life since candlenights and no longer mad at her. She nodded to Diana, purely in mentor mode again.

“yes, you’ll need to get him started with knives.  Assume No skills. Report back to me  on talent and skill. If he doesn’t seem like he gets it within… say, three hours or so, can you move him to something you think he’ll do well? He’s lithe, you should be able to get knives or spears in with him. Heavy muscle should be avoided, we’re trying to get his fat-weight up to burn, he doesn’t need to be carrying extra muscle. I;ve already told him most of that, and sent him to go find you.”

She was speaking buisnessly, eyes glinting. Maybe diana didn’t like that she was mentoring, but really lark didn’t mind this part. Strategy and logic and keeping a kid or two alive. She was doing her best, and her best was pretty good. she refrained from asking her usual ‘understood?’ to diana, only because it was her.

“that sound okay?”

She nodded, hands resting on her knees and clasped together in front of her. She’d taken to the habit of biting her nails again, something her mother had tried vehemently to break her of when she was younger. Everything Lark said was rational, emotionless. They needed to be that way when it came to training, especially when it came to the lower districts. Learning curves were intense during this time. “I can work with that,” she told her. 

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Diana liked to think that she had a tight grip on her temper. She could be grumpy at times, even snarky when the mood hit, but she always tried to keep the worst of her anger wrapped up. But that self-control went straight out the window when her sparring partner made a remark on her skills.

“Soft?” she asked. She lashed out kicking them to the mat with a well placed jab. “Want to take that back?”

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She’d been up since before dawn. A quick jog around the central city square, a few stretches, and she was ready to begin. She left Lark and Jo a note on the counter.

Coffee’s made. Out getting ready. See you for training. -D

After going through some quick drills with a few of the other trainers, she noticed Lark sitting to the edge with two babies in her lap. The image of them mashed together with the capitol weaponry grated against her nerves. She hated that Lark wasn’t able to at least get a year off with her babies before returning for mentoring.

“Hey. You got any suggestions on where I should start with Arion?”

Lark had her babies. She had been interacting with sponsors and other mentors without them before, but that had been out of necessity, wanting to secure things before bringing her kids into the open of the capitol. Now that they were in training, she knew she could bring them with her. Honestly, she needed to be near her kids as much as they needed her, at this point. They were the best part of her life, and she constantly had a slightly irrational fear that snow would take them if they were allowed out of her sight for more than a few hours.

That was why she’d made the executive decision of keeping Mia and Mason on her lap as she watched the training in the room. Plus, the sponsors liked seeing her babies, and Lark couldnt blam them. the kids were adorable. only downside was it was loud, but she had put small earmuffs on the M&Ms. It was a little trick she’d figured out when she realized noise was one of the largest set-offs for them. She was thankful for it, and she held one in each arm as she watched all the tributes, eagle eyes surveying the room but always darting back to the infants, one smiling and one sleeping on her lap, held in her arms.

“hey.” She said, not even looking to the side, as she felt a presence sitting beside her on the bench. she didnt look up, not knowing who it was, but utterly focused on her kids and the tributes. she needed to look for allies for her boy. she needed to tell him who to avoid. she ignored the twelve year olds.

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Because the world is so full of death and horror, I try again and again to console my heart and pick the flowers that grow in the midst of hell.

Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund   (via thoughtkick)

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He looked up to see Diana’s eyes trained on him. He gave her a quick smile, wishing he had a large hoodie to swallow him whole and protect him from his guilt. Seven years after the fact and his guilt was still strong. He didn’t even see her sister in the Arena, but he had known her when they had trained together. Seeing Diana, brought up deeply buried feelings, which could send him into a tailspin.

“How are things, Diana?” he questioned, letting the towel hang from his neck and reaching down for the soaked shirt he had draped on the nearest chair. Birch didn’t know how to talk to Diana or if she actually wanted to talk to him. They had successfully navigated out of each other’s path for several years now.

She shrugged, tucking her hair over one shoulder and attempting (if unsuccessfully) to not look as awkward as she felt. There was nothing to blame Birch for, and she reminded herself that often when she spoke with him. But the weight of Theo’s life existed in the spaces between their conversations. 

“Fine,” she offered. She was working on very little sleep over the past couple of days, but that wasn’t anything to complain about to a victor. “You?”

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Echo shrugged, not sure if she agreed that it was different.  “Either way you’re beating up kids.  If it happens because they want it or because they’re fearing for their lives is kind of irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.”  It was the same thing.  And everyone was doing it to try and help the tributes better themselves.

“Maybe.” She’d seen a lot of tributes throughout her life, enough to know that for the careers all the training did was serve as a warm-up for the main event. For the outer districts it was a huge learning curve. “I loved training when I was a kid. My tributes all seem to hate me for it.”

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Fell’s head leaned toward Diana, “You might be able to with that. Emphasis on might.” He didn’t drink often, but there were a few circumstances when he would, few people he would indulge in a social drink with. But he liked spending time with Diana, it was one of the few things he looked forward to on his arrival in The Capitol.

“After last year, One needed those kids.” They had a younger Tribute last year as well, and she had gotten far. Mostly because Lincoln had been looking out for her, but she made it further than anyone had expected. He nodded at her assessments of the other kids, “I thought the same thing about him. They’ve got potential in different ways, we’ll have to see how things unfold in training.”

She rested her elbows on the bar top and her chin in her hand, and bit down on a grin at Fell’s reply. She was definitely not the first choice when it came to schmoozing with sponsors, and she could bet on quite a few afternoons saddled with babies. 

“Imagine the district one dry spell continuing?” she shook her head, knowing that somewhere in that district there were trainers getting increasing desperate.Ever since Jo’s deception five years ago, she didn’t pin all her expectations on training. “I’m dying to get in the center,” she admitted. There were a lot of downsides to her job but she loved the opportunity to move and throw herself into training. “Chariots, styling, all this is window dressing.”