User blog comment:Blissfully Mine/Summer's User Games!/@comment-25272673-20140101180052

Sorry this is late ;~; As she is companied by several other tributes that have yet to show off to the Gamemakers, Claudia's attention is focused on her hair rather than  Individual Training. She had woken up waaaay too late and she didn't have time to prepare. As her fingers run through it, trying to make it as straight and silky as it had been the night before (but failing miserably), she tried to form a plan for what she would do for the Gamemakers. Of course, it would involve knives. Duh. The least she could do would be to show them her best and possibly her only skill. While she had kept in mind that trying for a high score would make her a target or make sponsors consider her a show-off, she needn't disappoint or even embarrass her alliance. Clumsy, irritating Claudia who would never dream of being in a different alliance and is even surprised she was accepted into this one.

The sound of a monotonous voice turns Claudia's attention from her hair and self-pity, to the door. "Claudia, District Eight."

She turned to the other tributes and a simple glance feels like a subtle, unanimous nod to go on. She thought to herself, "No turning back now, I guess."

The first few seconds in the room are vague. Her first thought, loud in her mind, is simply "dafuq." The room alone gives her the chills, and remorse hangs in the air like the tangy aftertaste of the Capital's refreshments. She shrugs this off. Certainly it's just the anxiety, right? All tributes feel this way, right?

She snaps out of her dazed state and walks cautiously to the knife-throwing station. She tries to walk with confidence but she ends up using such flimsy movements that she looks like a ragdoll and this even makes the Gamemakers chuckle. She wipes away a few small tears when she reaches the station.

She grabs a simple knife and is taken aback by the dry, ominous texture of the handle. She shudders, puts it back, realizes she's being watched, takes a more complex, professional knife that an experienced killer would use, and pretends that the other knife was too wimpy for her...even though it was probably the other way around.

Her arm pulls back and then rockets forward, releasing the knife. She flinches, closing her eyes a bit too tightly, bracing for the sound of impact. A thud, and she opens her eyes to see that the knife made it. At least, to the place where the targets were. Yards away from Claudia, the knife was embedded in the target's support beam, the strong pole that connected this target to the roof from which it hung. Claudia foolishly runs over only to find that she can't reach it. She's barely 5'2, and the target hung seven feet up. Claudia lets out a defeated sigh as she ponders what she will do for the Gamemakers for the remaining eleven minutes. She decides to practice knots, which is, for her, a useless skill, but she would do anything for the Gamemakers.

Anything to keep them watching.

She walks over to the Knots station and takes a length of tangled ropes and wires. It takes her two minuted to untangle them, and by the time she has them fixed, she realizes she's pretty much blew it. The Gamemakers are bored and nearly dozing. Claudia feels her face turn hot and she stomps back to the knife station. Without thinking she grabs the most advanced knife. She throws it, and in a rage of energy and fury...it misses the target by about ten feet...and disappears into the wall. Claudia doesn't even have the time to wonder where it went, or why the hell it just sunk into the wall. Nope. She throws another one and this one slices the other support beam of the target. The target dangles by a thin wire that was inside the first support beam, and Claudia considers leaving it like that. But no. She gives the final knife a quick lick and sends it spiraling at the final wire and listens to one of the small training targets hitting the ground as she makes her exit. On her way out, before entering the elevator, she turns and, to the now-semi-alert Gamemakers, confirms her session.

"Claudia Niall, District Eight."

She turns and gets into the elevator, her face hot with fury and dignity but her eyes wet with tears of anxiety.