TWO

Gladiators (Short Story Winner)

A/N: Congratulations to @IsabelleFuhrman_Info on Instagram for winning my short story contest! I absolutely loved your short story and I hope you keep writing it! Thank you to everyone who entered my contest. All of your stories were lovely to read and you all have wonderful creative minds. 

She was furious. She was absolutely furious. That stupid dress was so heavy, it made her feel slow, powerless. Even because of those things, she wore it.

Gladiators, the ancient Rome. Does anyone know about what they are talking about? That world had already disappeared and Clove could bet that there weren't any of them out there. Not even the big temple ruins. And she was dressing like one of them. Like a loser.

Nyara told them that there weren't any losers in the big Roman Empire where the sunset never existed. If they weren't losers, what were they? Clove didn't know. People said that winners were never forgotten, but she didn't even know who they were. Were they a group of women? Of men? Maybe they were one strong woman wearing those golden dresses Clove was wearing right now, and she maybe was followed by a pack of wolves. She didn't know it and she didn't want to know it.

Clove went out the room following by her three personal stylists. And suddenly he was there. Now Clove could bet that the golden armor wasn't made for standing out her qualities, but Cato's.

It was tightened up to his well-built body, to his muscles. He crossed his arms when he looked at her, checking her out slowly. She didn't waste time either. His blonde hair merged his helmet. The blue light in his eyes was his most striking feature on his face.

Clove listened to the stylists at her back, but she wasn't paying attention, she became engrossed because of a battle of staring without blood. When they took her helmet off and her tied up hair fell on her shoulders, she was surprised. They spent two hours making that kind of tied up hair perfectly. Her stylists overwhelmed her and made her mad, "What the fuck are you fucking doing?"

A short and concise road to make them know how she felt. She was tired. All the attention was to the district male. To the boy. Cato, this. Cato, those. Cato, Cato, Cato. And then, she had to wait for last minutes changes, but he had everything prepared in the first second. Perfect everything.

One of her stylists, Lyone, said, "We thought you could be better wearing your hair down. To make your feminine features stand out."

A feminine feature? Have they ever stopped to look at her? She was fifteen and she wasn't well-developed yet at all. The armor hid her useless curves and it made more even where she didn't know that it could be curves there.

"I like her hair up," Cato had pursed his lips again when he walked by her. Clove doubted, she wasn't sure if she had listened it right or not, if he had said it or it was just her imagination. But her hesitation disappeared when other of her stylists tied her hair up again.

She didn't know how he did it, but Cato had already won the games, everybody knew it and, because of that, everybody treated him like if he was already a mentor. Like if he was the mentor and she was the tribute.