turn the hourglass [chaos - day 1.5]

[shrimp]

anise himura

[continuation of previous thread,
see upside-down; no right way around in Rose Garden Prime]

"You came from in there?" Gabby asks, picking a twig out of Anise's hair. It gets caught on one of the fibers as she pulls, and Anise winces ever so slightly. Her body's still in shock - she can feel her eye twitching ever so slightly, and she takes the time for a slower, deeper breath. "I didn't see you at the Bloodbath. There must be another arena somewhere."

It clicks. The images in the halls aren't an alternate reality, just another reality. It's genius, almost - less chaotic for the gamemakers, and more confusing for the tributes. Anise sighs, glancing out of the bush again. Perhaps she should have expected this, it is a quell after all, but her mind's not made for a world turned upside down. Her hands ache for the weight of her fencing sword, for rough plastic mats on the dojo floor. But now she just has her two hands and four colored pieces of wax.

Then, the world roars, and Anise has just enough time to whisper "not again" before the two are sent plummeting into darkness. Gabby's grip is all that keeps her together, as branches tear at her skin and dirt forces her eyes shut once more. The darkness is forever as they fall upwards (or downwards? What is up? What is down?) towards an unreal universe. She doesn't scream this time, her teeth grinding against each other so hard she thinks she'll break.

And just like that, it's over. The two girls plummet into the sky as the topiary lands with a dull thud. "Fuck," Gabby spits, glancing out of the tree. "I can't believe we aren't dead."

Anise turns, wiping the dirt off of her ally's face. "Not yet." Gently, Anise digs into her pockets, grabbing the plants that she collected just before the fall. "Here," she says, placing the herbs into Gabby's palm. A pause.

"Moreno is dead," she states, her voice even. "Didn't even leave his podium." Slowly, she climbs out of the topiary, taking care not to fall back down into oblivion. She dusts herself off before turning towards Gabby.

"We have to move, someone must have noticed." For a moment, she stops, thinks. Out of everything she needs, one of three is acquired. She stretches, hearing her joints pop like an array of explosions. "Plus, we need supplies. And I need more than my fists." Anise glances back at the mansion, standing on its bird legs. They'll have to go back in sooner or later. She can't remember much from her fall, but the opulence was apparent, adoring every hallway and dotting every floor. Perhaps, she thinks, there'll be a sword.

"Please look out for something like this." She takes out a crayon, sketching a sword onto the wall. The hilt is simple, with a grip that fits her hand perfectly. The blade is long and straight, with enough weight to pack a punch. She doesn't need opulence, but knowing the arena that seems to be the only option.

Anise supposes anything will work better than her hands, and at the end of the day she's not sure if she can trust Gabby to look for her - but this is what she's used for years. This is what will get them through the day. She turns around, ready to explain to Gabby why it's important, when there's a thump.

Anise turns, staring at a sword the color of peonies, lying on the ground.

"Oh."

[anise gives gabby 1 bundle of medicinal plants]
[uses medium rose crayon for a sword]

[sadniss everdeen]

Gabrielle Bellamonte

you were a tempest when you were born, but
time erodes even the greatest of storms

"Neither did Eden," you sigh, stuffing the plants in your pocket instead of shoving them in your mouth. While you ache in various places and with various intensities, you know very well it's only going to get worse from here. "I broke the face of the guy who killed her, but..." it wasn't enough, you want to say, but her ghost lodges in your throat and leaves you silent.

Your descent out of the topiary is careful. With the awkward way it's skewed, you half-expect it to dislodge and send you plummeting straight out of the earth itself, ejected out from the crust and flung into space. It wouldn't be so bad, maybe; a sea of stars lulling you to sleep. There are worse ways to die.

You're about to compliment Anise on her drawing when the whole thing starts to bubble and churn, seeping out of the wall itself like alive. You have your knife in front of you before you can really think about it, but the sword that wasn't a sword turns into a sword and drops with a clang by your feet, and you can't really do anything else but stare at it. It's gorgeous, in a way, a twisted turn of rose and vine and something otherworldly you can't quite place your finger on. Still, you inch forward, nudging it with your toe (noting with some consternation it's pretty much the same colour as your shoes) before hooking your foot through the guard and dragging it towards you.

"Every time I think things are weird enough," you murmur, running your fingers along the material before handing it to Anise. "You look like a girl who knows what she's doing, so I probably won't see it coming if you decide to run me through with this thing, but," you shrug, your grin more of a lopsided smirk, "I promise I'll put up a fight no matter who it is that tries to stick me."

And, hell. Put back-to-back at the end of the world (for you) with a pretty girl who knows how to fuck someone up? You're considering yourself pretty lucky right now.

A soft ding catches your attention. There's a little white parachute caught in the branches of your topiary; a few hours ago you would have cursed up a storm at seeing yet another of one of those little wax crayons, but now you open it with barely contained glee. A cerulean crayon lies nestled in the box, and you snatch it up so quickly it almost snaps in half.

"My favourite colour!" you exclaim, taking another glance at Anise's new weapon. That had been drawn on another surface, so what would happen if you coloured in your own skin...

Don't risk it, warns the voice in your head, but that only makes you want to do it more.

"Since when am I careful?" you ask (yourself?) her as you press it against the back of your hand and begin to colour.

[gabby colours in some bangin' gloves onto her hands]

[shrimp]

anise himura

It's difficult to tell exactly what this sword is made of, but it looks as if it might be hewn from rose petals. The slightly feathered linework appears soft and at home in the light of the garden.

It's strange, Anise notes. But that much was obvious already, with a sword evaporating from lines of wax. The sword itself is almost hazy, lines not fully formed as petals wrap themselves into the blade. Beautiful, but practical is another question. She bends down to pick it up but before she can blink it's been nudged, then hooked by a foot. Gabby picks it up, examining the craftsmanship ("Every time I think things are weird enough...").

Anise's right index finger twitches ever so slightly, but her face stays as solid as stone. Eyes glance at her hands, watching for any sudden movement. Anise's brain runs through a thousand ways of self-defense as her father's speeches whisper in her ear. Versus a sword and a knife? No chance.

So she waits. An eternity passes.

But then, Gabby's hand shifts, handing the sword back. "You look like a girl who knows what she's doing, so I probably won't see it coming if you decide to run me through with this thing, but," she shrugs, a confident smirk. "I promise I'll put up a fight no matter who it is that tries to stick me."

Anise waits for a second before taking the blade back, curtly nodding. Her right hand curves around the hilt, as soft as silk but certainly dense enough. As Gabby turns around, walking back over to the topiary, Anise's eyes glance down, left hand feeling the smooth blade, a material unknown to her. Soft yet sharp. Gives slightly to pressure, but dense enough for injury. It's different, foreign. The edges blur into the garden around them, and she's lost in thought until a loud exclamation rings through her ears.

"My favourite colour!" Gabby holds a crayon in her hand as a parachute floats down between them, filled with a box of colors slightly less garish than the world around them. From the sword to the crayon, Gabby's iris moves to and fro before stopping on her skin. Anise's eyebrow rises.

It's soft, a faint wisp of a phrase. "Caref-"

"Since when am I careful?" The marks are rough and heavy, and Anise sees the crayon crumbling under the pressure until it begins to form around Gabby's hands, bubbling and frothing until a pair of gloves is adorn. Anise exhales slightly longer than usual.

"I don't trust this," she says, picking up the parcel regardless. But what else is there? The mansion is filled with who knows what, and from the sounds the two heard during their flight, battles are being waged, woven into each hallway and glistening off of every surface. And if this sword, if she can even call it that, fails, she needs a backup plan.

Her strokes are cleaner this time, more confident. Anise feels the wax receding into the walls as the lines become slightly curved, creating a knife that moves along with the arc of her hand. The grip is firm, the blade slightly jagged. And this time, she sees it bubble out of the wall and form. She picks the knife up, examining it before equipping it within the deep pockets of her trenchcoat. Then she looks up.

"We have to go in there," she states. There's no way out of this garden except through the mansion, and based on the clearing, they may not want to be here at night. "But straight through won't work." No, they need a better vantage point, one that allows them to get higher, instead of being dragged along the floor like ragdolls.

"If only we could fly," Anise says, dryly. But for a moment, her fingertips brush against a crayon before jerking back.

No, this is ridiculous.

[creates a knife out of Razzmatazz]
[anise receives 4 crayons: Blush, Goldenrod, Periwinkle, Wisteria]

[sadniss everdeen]

Gabrielle Bellamonte

"Whoa," you whisper as the wax lifts off your skin, bubbling and peeling like a bad burn before solidifying. Your fingers flex softly and then clench into a fist, feeling what could be mistaken as fabric if not for the fact that you know better. The dirtied strips of your dressing gown flutter to the floor and maybe the wax stings in your cuts, sure, but it's better than getting that pretty looking sword through one palm. It's not that you don't trust her, really, because you don't even trust yourself, but... humans do whatever it takes to survive. Even if it means offing an ally in the middle of the night, and frankly, you want to see a little more of this arena before you die.

Does it mean you'll be able to catch the sword in your hands? No, but maybe you'll only lose one finger instead of all of them, and you only need a few to hold a knife.

A hand on your shoulder, cold and clammy. You chew on your tongue and turn away from it, back towards Anise, but he doesn't let you. What are you waiting for? Your brother's grip is a phantom, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Your marrow bubbles in the places he's settled. Look, she made a second one. Get ready.

Your back ripples with tension, your newly-gloved hands holding your butterfly knife in a stranglehold, but all she does is pocket her knife and glance towards the mansion. The anxiety bleeds from you like cut out, and you take a step away from the dead and back towards the living.

"I don't really want to go back," you attempt to hide the slight shake in your voice and fail miserably, picking at the edges of your new gloves, "it was pretty rough when I left... though I guess this is your arena, not mine." You groan a little, pressing a thumb into your aching temple. "I'm so over this whole parallel reality bullshit."

But she's right. There's nowhere else to go other than up, and you aren't keen on staying in a place where the ground can crumble without a second notion. Still, the mansion totters around on its skinny legs and your hands ache at the mere thought of climbing back up those god-forsaken vines and splitting open the wounds that have only just stopped leaking.

"If only we could fly," she says, probably sarcastically, but her fingers touch the crayon and a lightbulb goes off in your head so bright it would shine through your eyes, if it could.

After a brief struggle and a lot of tugging, you whip off the (actually comfortable) sweater you'd been given, leaving you with wind that licks your bare flesh and helps soothe the ache of the heliotrope array scattered under your skin.

"Here," you grin, nudging your shoulders together and turning so you bare the flat expanse of your back towards her. Underneath your ribs, your heartbeat thuds just a little bit faster - you hear a riot of voices in your head telling you to turn around, to pick up your weapon, to see the point that'll undoubtedly spear you clean through your center; what are you doing, silly girl-- don't sign your own death warrant, not like this--, but instead you take a deep breath and hunch ever so slightly to pull your skin taut. "Draw me some wings so we can get the fuck out of here. Just don't make them a really stupid colour, I don't want to have something attached to me that's baby-puke green."

You were a child of the deep, but you've always wanted to see if flying was just another side of the same feeling, the weightlessness you know very well going up instead of down.

[shrimp]

anise himura

She was kidding, she swears it now and she'll swear it to her grave. But there's noises coming from behind her, and Anise whips her head around to see Gabrielle Bellamonte stripping off her sweater, completely bare-chested (what) with an impish smile on her face. On instinct Anise averts her gaze, her face turn slightly right to keep the girl in her peripherals.

"Draw me some wings so we can get the fuck out of here. (wait what) Just don't make them a really stupid colour, I don't want to have something attached to me that's baby-puke green." (oh god she's serious)

It's possible that Gabby hasn't thought this through, and Anise is fully aware of this. But there's no guaranteeing that drawing wings will even work, and if they're just drawn on her back there could be serious consequences that they've been lucky enough to avoid. In an instant she's lived twenty outcomes, resulting in maiming, third-degree burns, or even death to the both of them. This is a terrible idea, Anise knows this for a fact. But-

She sighs. "Fuck it. Back against the wall. And I'm not drawing it on you."

Anise can promise that the wings won't be baby puke green, but she's not entirely sure Gabby will enjoy the color choice. However, if they're going to do this, they're doing this right. She starts on the wall, drawing two expansive wings from Gabby's shoulders that stretch to the heavens (or three times Gabby's wingspan, Anise loses count). they curve gently and gracefully, but there's not enough crayon for detail. "Step away," Anise says.

The empty space left between the two wings is filled in with a backpack of sorts that Anise hopes will be thorough enough in this whirlwind of a universe to work as maybe an engine, maybe just a slot for the wings to grow from. Straps are drawn that will conform to Gabby's shoulders, and a buckle connects the two together. Quickly, she makes sure that the measurements work and fit to Gabby's frame (at least the backpack will fit) before stepping back. On the wall rests their diagram, hopefully a functional one.

Now, all they can do is wait.



[draws WINGS FOR GABBY out of Shamrock]

[sadniss everdeen]

Gabrielle Bellamonte

Well.

You can't say you were expecting a miracle, but the empty backpack between the huge wings is still disappointing. You briefly consider drawing an engine on the inside, but you aren't the best artist and don't really want to trust your bodily safety to wax pistons that might melt much like Icarus did the second they heat up. The mauve sweater clutched between your hands gets shrugged back on as you peer inside like it would magically fill up with what you need to get back upstairs.

Nothing. And green! Though true to her word, it wasn't baby-puke, so you can't complain too much. Your fingers run over the angry looking wings and you're surprised to see they're fairly light, bending ever so slightly to your touch like real flesh. It flutters just a little and you draw back, half-expecting a monster to grow out and bite you.

It doesn't, and you shrug the backpack on with only a little bit of trepidation. "At least it looks cool," you shrug, spinning in a circle and watching the suspended wings bob and weave with you, "just don't mistake me for a mutt in the middle of the night. Maybe we can glide the fuck out of this place once we reach the top."

Still, the pressing issue of getting back into the house. It wobbles in the same place it always did, its strange legs stepping back and forth and making the entire structure shake just a little bit. You aren't about to use the vines again to climb up - your hands still hurt, for fuck's sakes - and you don't have any rope in this tragically empty backpack of yours. If not for the fact that you can't find your way out, you'd love to just stay here; a minute ago, you were pretty sure you saw a tribute fall out of the window and to his death, a trail of blood off the windowsill and down into the bushes below. You grimace. What a shit way to die.

"How's your upper body strength?" you ask as you take out your burnt sienna crayon, snapped in two from your earlier mad dash through the Bloodbath. The lines you draw on the wall are shaky, but they don't have to be pretty. "You look stronger than me, to be honest, but I've spent my life climbing up and down rigging so I know what I'm doing." One half of the crayon creates a rope, complete with lines to denote the twists in the fiber, and the other creates a simple grapple hook that's attached to the end. Because apparently, the crayon-gods take things very literally, you make sure to stretch out the rope as far as you can before you run out of wax.

It bubbles to life a second later, uncoiling from the wall to land at your feet, and you test its strength the best you can. It should hold.

Should.

[shrimp]

anise himura

"At least it looks cool."

Gabby twirls as she puts on the backpack, its wings having turned gnarled and threatening: fangs that glint, well, green. "just don't mistake me for a mutt in the middle of the night. Maybe we can glide the fuck out of this place once we reach the top."

Anise supposes that this wouldn't work out in the first place; the crayons seem to be somewhat specific in their requests - it's not magic, after all (it can't be, everything in this arena was made somehow, with genius minds that put themselves to use in the strangest games yet. Anise sighs and stares at the creation, now just a bag with flair. "I'll try not to."

But there's still the question on how to get up. But Gabby seems to have a plan, taking out a crayon the color of clay and drawing lines that crisscross and weave together, forming a rope with a grappling attachment that might just do the trick. It sizzles into existence and Gabby picks it up, testing how taught it can be before sending them to their doom.

"I'll manage," Anise responds, as she takes the grappling hook and fires. It lodges itself into a window, catching on the sill as Anise tugs it into place. She hopes it'll manage the trek upwards, a fall could kill them. Breathe in, breathe out.

Before they leave, they take a look at the topiary, sacrificing its limbs for their own devices. Then, they climb.

They don't look back.

[collects firewood]