Round Three - Celeste Strom vs Ruth Baran

[lance]

The end is so near, yet it still seems so very far away. How much blood has been spilt by your actions, poorly disguised by pressure-washed armor and rusty, antique weaponry? How many souls lie forever damned on your shoulders, eternally damned despite the booming and supportive cheers and shouts of the crowd?? And yet there are still two trials remaining, two more kills that you must make in order to cling to life for more than a handful of minutes.

Like before, the bodies of the dead have been removed, even if the sand still runs red with their blood. Like before, the stands are divided between two separate colors - one side red and yellow, one side yellow and blue. The drones still circle lazily overhead, the banners with your faces flapping in the wind. But the arena itself has doubled in size, and the burning wrecks of two drones litter the field. A new field of battle, a new opponent - will that stop you, or will that be simply the penultimate hurdle for you to overcome in order to survive?

At this point, it remains anyone's game. So what will you do to make it yours, and yours alone?

--

Section One will consist of the following mandate, to be completed only in death:

Celeste Strom vs Ruth Baran

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

r u t h

I will not be made useless
I won't be idled with despair
I will gather myself around my faith
For light does the darkness most fear

Faith wounded.

She knew all too well that one’s heart and devotion led to such disappointments, especially in a world that demonstrably didn’t give one whiff if she lived or died.

Her sorrows weighed heavy on her heart even if they paled in comparison to the boy from four, or any of the other young children chosen in tribute. But she could not remove herself from the narrative that faith had led her here, through blood-stained patches of dirt and miles from where her flesh and family had been born.

She could taste the coppery blood at the back of her throat and she wondered how long she would go on standing. If she laid down right now, and stared up at the sky, would someone come to put her out of her misery? But she did not want to quit, no matter how heavy her arms felt now or how each twist of her neck sent a shock of pain down her sides. She was a patchwork of wounds, but she would not idle here.

Ruth sucked her lips against her teeth when they’d set about fixing her up for the next round. She counted just three others that stood between her and home. Had she really come so far, within a hair of seeing the other side?

She wanted to pray to God that if she could not make it home to Mary, at least make her death painless.

But she supposed after the three she’d killed; the devil would see to it she felt all the pain she deserved.

“We’ve come so far from where we’ve been,” Ruth spoke to her opponent, the young woman from one, she twisted her spear in her hands and kept staring out at the crowd behind them. “A whole lot of people to watch all of this?”

She wasn’t sure who the question was for, whether the heat of the day had fried her brain or if she still couldn’t believe anyone could’ve found her so amusing. But then, she’d even surprised herself with how angry she’d been, running through her opponents as though they’d give her absolution.

Only she could do that.

“I’m Ruth,” She said once again, perhaps the last time she’d put her name to her lips, “From eight. I lived with a sister and a mom and dad who owned a laundromat. I was going to own a diner.”

She said it all as though it’d already been paved on her tombstone. If one of them made it out, maybe they’d have enough of a memory to not let one another fade to dust. (Was it even fair to want her to remember me?)

“Do you believe?” Ruth asked. Her bare feet slid up and out of the sand and then forward. “In anything?”

She wondered if they’d start booing her for all the time she was taking trying to get to know this girl.

“I used to, and then didn’t, in God.” Ruth swallowed down even though her throat was dry, “But I do again. Probably because I’m about to die.”

She almost laughed at herself.

Almost.

“I guess being closer to death helps clear your head to figure out what you believe.”

She idled for another minute and stared back at the crowd.

Then, she rushed forward and with all her might, stabbed her spear at Celeste.

[ruth baran d8f attacks celeste ström d1f with her spear]

elegant

NBeXVtQ4naspear
[result:+9.5]spear

[ᴥ]

Violence only becomes cruel when it's lost all meaning. Celeste realizes this as she ends up in the same place all over again, silent as they scrape the worst of the gore from her armor. The Capitol does not cleanse her of all sin, no, they make it beautiful. They curate carnage for a camera lens, leaving a spatter of rust-colored blood beneath her eye and instruct her to wipe the remnants of Haobin's blood across her thigh. It trickles down blue sequins, resting cold and damp against her skin.

She tolerates it. Not a coward but a survivor, she tells herself and it does something to ease the horrible aching in her chest. “We’ve come so far from where we’ve been,” Celeste blinks and she's back in another memory, the one where she stares down a stranger with her knife in a white-knuckled grasp. This one's softer than Haobin, her words look not to wound but to ease her own anxiety. She gets the feeling Ruth talks as much to herself as she does Celeste.

"Yet we're back here again. Same arena, same audience." Celeste inclines her head in a gentle nod, looking over her shoulder at the crowd now shifting in their seats. Uneasy as the action lulls, as they force them to watch two girls get to know one another before one of them dies. No chance to see red and lose themselves in bloodlust and adrenaline rushes.

Look at us. It's a demand. You will see us.

If there's anything Celeste learned growing up on the goodwill, or lack thereof, of others it's how quickly you become something less than human. Worthy in only the ways you make them feel better about themselves.

They'll hate you. Haobin had told her. He was right and Celeste didn't care one fucking bit.

"Hello Ruth." She tests the ground beneath her feet, taking a few steps to the side of her opponent and then a few steps back. Her spear had more reach - that was an obvious advantage. Celeste would have to get up close strike while Ruth could keep her at a comfortable distance. Still she doesn't dare consider the possibility that these breaths are her last. That's when everything would start to crumble.

Do you believe? In anything?

It's a question that gives Celeste pause. Ruth doesn't look like she's ready to fight yet, though this could be some clever ruse to catch Celeste off guard. Still pointing her knife at Ruth with weight shifted to the balls of her feet and ready to strike the minute their conversation lulls, she answers honestly.

"Myself, I suppose." It lacks the grace God has given Ruth. Celeste had never lived in a house long enough to know anyone else. Each new family had welcomed her home but in the end she picked herself up off the ground. Cleaned the blood off her knees, wandered the streets of One with an empty, aching stomach until dawn greeted her alone.

Alone. Celeste has always been alone. The corner of her mouth quirks up in a feeble grin. "I'm glad you have someone on your side, though, Ruth." Celeste is not in the habit of lying, there's never been anyone to lie to. Faith is something she understands because it's the very thing that's got her to this point. Alive, as alive as she can be. Desperate to stay that way.

"We'll greet death very differently, I think."

It happens in a split second. A blow she could have dodged, could have side stepped. It might be a mistake on her part or the sheer force of will of her opponent. Memory is cruel in times like these - Celeste doesn't remember the blow itself only the immense pain that followed.

She sputters, one hand wrapped around the spear's shaft and the other still clutching her weapon. Weak but not dead. Celeste is not afraid she just doesn't want to die. Desperately, viscerally, she takes a shaking breath and clings to the weapon that now connects her and Ruth.

"They should be sorry. Not us." The audience roars behind her. Starving then fed, blossoming in bloodshed. "Their fault. Not ours."

She lets the spear push deeper into her stomach in order to strike out at Ruth.

[celeste attacks ruth -- knife]
4WZ76f6cmhknife
[4.0]

knife

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

r u t h

I will not be made useless
I won't be idled with despair
I will gather myself around my faith
For light does the darkness most fear

She’s dying.

Ruth’s hands held tight to her spear while it burrowed deeper into Celeste, and the girl still did not fall. She swung back at Ruth, cutting across her shoulder, scattering more blood across the sand. The crowd roared again, no doubt satisfied by the violence, but that both had clung closer to surviving than decency. Would this be her forever, clinging to survival in the wake of all the decisions she’d have to make? Would there be no answer to her prayers, only time – a hollow victory for someone so young with forty, fifty years of life ahead of her?

“Yes,” Ruth’s voice cut across the distance between them. Saying she felt remorse for what she’d done wouldn’t make difference to the curdling blood at Celeste’s feet or remove the sin she’d committed. There would have always been the choice, she’d remind herself, to have turned away from evil and committed to a more righteous end. And instead, she’d sullied her hands and pressed forward.

But she was selfish, and seventeen – certain that she could not know what the answer would’ve ever been, no matter how deeply she looked upon her faith for an answer.

If ever there’d be evidence God did not exist, surely this was enough.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forgive anyone for this,” She shifts her feet and slides her hands along the shaft of the spear. Forgiveness had to bring redemption, to open their hearts and bring peace. But how could that ever happen in a world like this? With all the faces in the stands ready to see her perish or plunge her weapon further into the girl before her. Perhaps those were the only choices she’d ever had, to kill or die.

She thought about the faceless buildings on her walk to school. How eight’s streets were a scattered mix of rubble and asphalt, with burned out cars dotting corners the further one when from the district center. Kill or die, she’d always been living in survival mode, it was no wonder she had managed to get so close to the end.

What a lonely existence if that’s all there ever was.

Ruth twisted the spear in her grip and pressed forward. The pressure was sure to wound Celeste more deeply, and from the amount of blood trailing out of her now, couldn’t be much longer for this world.

“Suffer little children,” Ruth recited for Celeste then, “To come unto me and forbid them not.”

She had to believe in a plan for her life, even if it was only for another few minutes or forty-three years.

Man had put her here, just as they’d warred with one another and ruined the good world that had been set out for them.

If people like Alex had the chance to come to eight and she to six, things could’ve been different.

Which was hope enough. Hope in the unseen.

She gritted her teeth and thrusted the spear forward.

[Ruth attacks Celeste with her spear for the +3 end of round damage / to finish this thread]

elegant