[[This is my new collection of Clato drabbles that, for whatever reason, didn't make it into a full work. Some of them will be actual snippets that would've taken place in one of my stories, while others will be entirely unrelated. Some are fully-fleshed scenes, while others are abstract thoughts. New drabbles will be posted along with updates of Ichor, so about once a week, more if time permits.]]

The first time she fought against Cato, it was an accident.

She had been in the Training Center, leaning up against the wall and waiting for her assigned sparring partner to come find her. She hadn't had to go looking for her partner in over two years; everyone knew who she was. Clove was the tiny girl with the bright eyes and the unerring talent for throwing knives, so capable she'd been promoted a whole year ahead of her classmates. When she'd been moved up early, she hadn't bothered to learn the names of anyone she was fighting against. They were insignificant to her.

A hulking brute of a boy had stalked over to her, light eyes raking over her body in a way that amused rather than repulsed her. He was all muscle, nearly a foot taller than she was, and clearly much more powerful than she. Clove had sighed. A month before, she'd grown too confident in her abilities, so her trainers had pitted her against a boy with much the same dimensions. It hadn't ended well. Hand-to-hand combat was her greatest weakness. She was too small to be of much worth in a close-quarters fight, but she'd been scrappy enough to last nearly five minutes before he'd knocked her out of the fight. Apparently she'd grown cocky enough to need to be taken down a few notches again.

She had turned to face him, noticing with faint surprise that she did know this one's name. He was Cato, top of his class, heavily rumored to be the next tribute. She'd seen him the day prior fighting some other trainee. The fight hadn't lasted long; he had flipped the other boy on the ground and punched him bloody. Cato had stopped a few steps away from her, weight shifted onto one leg, face twisted in disgust. Clearly, he thought she was too weak to be of much competition.

To change his mind, Clove had leapt at him, shoved him to the ground, and proceeded to punch him. He'd tossed her aside remarkably swiftly, sending her skidding along the ground as he started for her again. A trainer had intervened, yelling all sorts of obscenities as he separated the two, and Clove had felt even smugger when it came to light that Cato had misread the assignment sheet and had swapped her name for a pudgy boy with a squint.

Cato had sported a black eye and a scowl for several days after.

Now it was a month away from the Reaping, and Clove was set to fight Cato again. She flashed him a cheeky grin, smiling wider when he scowled. "Cato, darling," she gushed. "It's simply lovely to see you again. We just didn't have enough time to chat last time we met." It was the first time she'd spoken to him, unless he counted her muffled curse when he'd slung her bodily across the room.

Cato didn't seem amused. He towered over her, more wary than last time, she noted. He was balanced in a way that she couldn't knock him over without magically becoming twice her size, pale eyes watching her every motion carefully.

"Are you done checking me out yet, Ludwig?" she asked mildly. Inflammatory comments, delivered in a precisely innocent sort of way, were her specialty.

But he didn't react in the kind of seething, fuming fit of temporary insanity she'd anticipated. She hadn't pegged him as cunning, clever enough to see through her aggravating words. His temper was too quick, his brain too slow… or so she'd assumed. "Are you done letting your mind run off into fantasies yet, Fuhrman?" he responded, letting his face assume a slow smirk. "I understand your reasoning, but we really should get to practicing."

Clove felt her face flush despite herself. "As if," she countered with as much venom as could be packed into the two weak syllables. "I think knife training would be a good way to spend the day."

Cato let his eyes drag slowly over the high score boards in the back of the room. Clove refused to turn. She knew her name and record filled the top slot on the knife ranking, knew her record was well above that of any of the other trainees, just as she knew Cato's name held the top slots for sword fighting, spear throwing, and hand-to-hand combat. She'd scaled the ranks for several categories quickly, reaching the top in sprinting and the ropes course, but it was in knives that her true talents laid.

"Cute," he replied at last. "I figured you'd be too scared to go up against me in something you might struggle at."

"Can you even throw a knife?" Clove spat, all traces of false sweetness evaporated. There was something intangibly irritating about Cato, something about his sun-bright hair or brutish face that makes her loathe him. The longer she stands there conversing- she didn't consider it polite enough to be called "talking"- the more she wanted to run to the targets against the wall and throw knives until the center was swallowed by gleaming silver blades.

Cato smirked, seemingly unfazed. "I can throw a spear from fifteen yards and slice your head from your body within seconds, Fuhrman. I don't need to waste my time with knives. All they're good for is cutting steak."

Clove was bristling with fury at the slight to her talent, about ready to fling one of her affronted knives at him, when one of the trainers who'd been watching the spat with idle curiosity stalked over. "Ludwig, you can't throw a knife? Perhaps you don't need to volunteer this year. Our District doesn't care to be embarrassed again."

Cato was scowling again, but the trainer hadn't finished. "It's fortunate you've been paired with Fuhrman for the day, then. Fuhrman, teach Ludwig how to throw a knife- properly. If he hasn't managed to learn the concept by the end of the day, the two of you will continue to be paired until progress is shown."

"That's ridiculous!" Clove exclaimed, more shocked than anything. "It's a miracle Ludwig's learned his own name, let alone how to handle anything that requires finesse rather than brute force!"

Cato cut in before she could insult him further. "Sir, I believe it would be in the best interests of Fuhrman and myself to cut ties. Surely one of the trainers can teach me instead."

The trainer smiled then, a very small and very deadly smile. Cato had pushed too hard. "You'll accept Fuhrman's assistance with whatever grace you possess, and then you'll teach her to wield a sword. You both have a month's time until the Reaping. One would hope you've improved by then." With that, the trainer strode off to nitpick another trainee's stance, obviously closing the matter.

Clove slumped against the wall. "You couldn't have managed to avoid pissing off the trainers, could you?" she sighed. "Now we're stuck paired together forever." She paused. "No, just until you learn how to throw a knife," she amended. "So forever." She ducked to avoid Cato's sullen punch.

Infuriatingly enough, Cato seemed to take to a knife far quicker than she to a sword. His natural adeptness with a spear lent rather well to the small blades he was able to fling with not inconsiderable accuracy. By lunchtime, he had the basics down well and was on his way to hitting the target board consistently. Clove hid her scowl well, except for the one time he'd somehow bungled his lack of skills into hitting the bulls-eye. She supposed that sometimes a negative and a negative did create a positive, after all.

Somehow, this small victory made him that much worse of a teacher. When she struggled with the sword (not that she actually struggled; the sword was ill-proportioned for anyone of less than Goliathan stature), he just smirked or gave her a condescending little laugh. Somewhere along the lines, he'd picked up "little girl" as a moniker and used it far too liberally for her liking.

"No, little girl. You have to actually put strength behind the sword to swing it," Cato explained in his most condescending way, demonstrating the tactic by moving her hands with his own.

"Thank you for the advice, Ludwig," she snarled and batted his hand away, the effect somewhat dimmed by the way her arm shook with fatigue from holding the heavy sword for so long. "'Little girl' sounds rather pedophilic, doesn't it? Figures you'd be into that kind of thing." She flashed him a saccharine smile.

Cato's hand closed rather roughly around her wrist, but his voice was restrained. "You're not my type, I'm afraid. I like my women a little less sadistic and a little more sane."

Clove made her eyes wide, as if suddenly stumbling upon knowledge. "Oh, I see! Opposites do attract, then." She made sure to bat her eyelashes before wrenching her arm from his grasp. It took an embarrassing amount of effort to do so, but she refrained from rubbing the pink ring where his hand had encircled her wrist.

Before Cato could retort, either by grabbing at her arms again or through a verbal lashing (she'd found he quite enjoyed both), the metallic sound of a recorded bell rang through the Training Center. "Time for lunch," he remarked unnecessarily. "Maybe you'll be less pathetic once you've eaten." He eyed her diminutive frame with detached interest, maybe even disgust. "Do you actually eat?"

Clove recoiled more so than the comment deserved. He'd been calling her 'little girl' all day. Surely he knew she was strong despite her size, especially since she'd been one of the few to ever knock Cato Ludwig off his feet. "Just because I'm not a walking protein shake like you doesn't mean I don't eat!" She threw down the sword that had been taunting her, relishing in the clang of metal upon the floor as she stormed away as powerfully as she could.

She was still fuming about his barbed little question over her wilted salad, stabbing it with a fork in a most indelicate way. The other trainees had sensed the rage that draped itself around her like a robe made of chains and had wisely chosen to empty the tables nearest to her. All, that was, except for one.

Cato sat down with his tray right next to her, and if the other trainees were shocked that someone had dared to encroach upon her space, they kept it quiet.

She finally glanced up from her much-prodded salad, eyes throwing the daggers she wished she could. "Ludwig, what are you doing here? Your cronies and harem are on the other side of the room," she told him, but there was a sort of resigned quality to her voice. She'd learned over the rough few hours that Cato rarely did what he was told.

Cato shrugged, cutting a chunk off some grisly unidentified meat. "I figured you'd miss me. Most girls do." His leer and wink turned into laughter as she shuddered. A few heads turned, surprised to hear someone laugh at Clove, no doubt, and probably wondering if she would kill him quickly or painfully.

They seemed particularly surprised when she laughed back.