running far, running fast [#TUX]

[pogue]

T    E    X

"Hey-" His own voice sounds foreign at this point, slipping into the air in a heartbeat and dissolving just as fast into the crisp air. "I'm gonna go down to the river, try and wash off what's left of my skin." His voice is deep, stoic, more of a growl than a whisper at this point. They've been moving non-stop since they'd regrouped after the Bloodbath, until their footsteps had grown slow and the red that seeped from their wounds had finally stopped displaying a trail worth following behind them. Now all they can hear is the wind hitting the trees and the sound of the river fighting against it, so calm amidst the chaos, deceiving and deadly and everything in between as he makes his way away from his allies and to the waters, dropping his weapon before dropping to his knees at the edge.

He watches his own life ebb and flow into the running waters, crimson blood fade into the river as he dips his hands in. His own wounds howl and scream under tissue paper skin as he does so, flinching in pain and biting into his lower lip. Beneath him his own reflection shatters and breaks in a never-ending loop, shards of what is left of his own image coming and going as fast as the arena will allow it. It's a hollow reminder of what he is in a world like this, so easily seen and so easily broken, so easily bloodied and so easily forgotten in the current.

He wonders how long he has left, how many more heartbeats will pound in his chest before a cannon fires, a chorus of his own death.

That's when he hears it-

Too late, of course.

What's left in his stomach sinks when he sees Lux Bellisario standing feet away, her shadow stretching the distance between them and cast over his weapon. He gulps, feels what could be his last few heartbeats inside of his chest as he tries to measure the space between them, finally concluding that the Career is too fucking close for him to grab for his sickle, resting softly in the grass as if to taunt him.

Brown eyes sweep over her form, both of them worse for wear and neither wearing it well, she's clutching her arm and he can only assume she'd caught the way scarlet had soaked his backside from a wound that wouldn't fully heal. They're reflections of the same broken image, pulled from the river's current but still shattered nonetheless.

No choices left, he clumsily rolls the dice. "Y'know, back in the Training Center you said Love liked to be on his back." His own memory serves him well, observance and silence and sewed shut lips finally pulling apart. He juts a thumb back towards the cut on his back, trying to quell the way his hand shakes.

"Can't say I'll ever share the same opinion." 

[#LOOKING #RIGHT NOW #YOURPLACE]

BGJYVq0Enr1-6

1-6

[alex 🐺]

She resists the urge to fluff Willem’s hair before she disappears from the group.

The fragile thread stretches between them taut enough to break. She whispers to him that she’ll be back soon and not to worry.

It’s too much—too familiar and too caring and not at all what a girl made of diamonds and shards of glass should be saying to anyone, let alone a boy from Four.

Charlie and Freyr find them soon enough after they flee the tavern, regrouping just in from the edge of the woods and she feigns disinterest as they nurse their wounds, pulling the black mask higher on her face to hide her emotions.

But much like the tavern, this space was too enclosed, nearly suffocating. The trees feel like they're bending inwards.

Yeah, it had to be that. It couldn’t be the way she was carrying her arm at an angle, bruises, and scratches littering her body from the all-out melee that was the Bloodbath, her heart racing in her throat.

She had to—she had to go—to get away. The feeling nearly bursts from her throat like a scream that she tamps down, biting her lip nearly bloody.

“Stay here. I’m going to go see what I can find down by the water.”

She hoists the satchel up higher on her good arm, clutching the sickle tight enough to see the whites of her knuckles.

Her footsteps are silent as she makes her way through the trees and she’s reminded of the third formation when she wore the skin of a fox to stay warm in winter frost. She had stalked her kill for twelve hours before making the final strike of her spear.

But the way Tex is splashing along the water’s edge makes a silent approach nearly unnecessary. She could have killed him, if she'd felt so inclined.

He reacts, but it’s late, and Lux smiles, stowing the sickle through a strap in the satchel and putting her hands up in mock surrender.

“You weren’t watching your six,” she states plainly, stepping closer to Tex as she sheds the satchel and her boots and socks, gingerly pulling them off with the arm that wasn’t hanging limply by her side.

She steps from the shore into a shallow part of the water, eyes tracking the way droplets of red drip from Tex’s hands, disappearing into the current. A baptism of sorts, she thinks.

“Throw any good punches?”

✧ lux bellisario looks for some stuff too, i guess ✧

T4UVC6OJp8“1-6”

“1-6”

[pogue]

T    E    X

Fear refuses to creep in slowly, instead rushing in all at once in the span of a heartbeat and a half as he looks towards Lux, cheeks running pale and adrenaline firing off in his veins, replacing the somber quiet of creeping soreness that had nearly taken over his body when he'd first arrived at the River. No time to rest in a place like this, he was told it by every trainer and every thrown fist in the Bloodbath, and Lux does nothing but confirm it with the smirk of the devil carved into her lips.

"You weren't watching your six." It's half a mockery thrown out to the air between them, punctuated by the sleight of her hand and his own weapon dropping into the strap against her satchel. He gulps, heavy, feels his heart shudder and sink in his chest and narrows his gaze towards the Career. She was unpredictable at best and dangerous at worst, eighteen years of itching to spill blood written into the diamonds carved against her skin. He'd read the stories on the Bellisario family after the 88th, a long list of their dangers and achievement spreading through a wilted grapevine all the way to Twelve. "Yeah, noted for next time." He mutters, a fearful whisper dissipating quickly into the sound of rushing water and the faux-kindness of the arena.

She steps forwards, his first instinct is to step back. She finds comfort in the pressure and all he finds is the edge of the River blocking his path, water splashing against his boots and the black fabric of his outfit. Red still drips from his wounds both fresh and old, carving little veins into the exposed skin of his uniform as the water hits it, pulling his blood out from between the gashes in ghostly wisps.

He watches his life drain into the arena beneath him as he steps backwards into the water, a coffin, a burial site.

Lux eyes him like a piece of meat, or maybe a target, or maybe a human being who wasn't worth anything close to a quick death, tracing the way his own blood is plastered against his skin, outlining his vital organs like he's target practice. And he sees it in the way her gaze shifts as she steps into the water, realizes he's not worth the sound of a cannon hitting her ears, not worth the effort.

He should be grateful. "Throw any good punches?"

"Not enough." He states plainly, able to count the amount of hits thrown and wounds received on his hands. He'd slipped into the shadows like he'd done all his life in that Bloodbath, until the light had directly shone on him and the number 12 had been put on full display for the world to see, a target he was born with, a death sentence. "Y'know, no chance for brawling back in Twelve." Like we'd talked about, he thinks, and he sees her make the connection to back in the Training Center, pushes forwards while keeping his distance.

"I lasted longer than you in there, Lux." 

[alex 🐺]

Tex Lovell has the look of a boy used to years of intense hurt and hunger.

His eyes aren’t brown, not really, closer to tourmaline—dark and gritty with a hidden vulnerability that shines as he stares at Lux.

He's scared of her.

She shouldn’t be surprised that he views her as a threat, even with the familiarity with which she offered whispered words to him in the Training Center so many days ago. She knows who she is. She knows that she carries her skin littered with diamonds over a heart transformed through years of trials. She knows who she isn't and can't be guilty for it. 

She thinks she may know a little bit of who Tex is too. 

---

He called her over to where he’s standing with an axe, his knuckles like pinpricks of light in the darkness, betraying his weighted stance. ”Teach me a thing or two." 

She scoffed, her arms crossed over her chest, eyes narrowed. "What makes you think I wanna do that?" 

“Well, nothing really.” His fake bravery should be commended, really, but it's all false bravado. She can see the way his pulse races in his neck like a rabbit's. “But I figure you Careers value directness over cowardice, right? Killer values and all that?”

“Killer values,” Lux repeats slowly, eyes tracking from the boy’s face to his arms to his calloused hands that have probably seen just as much suffering as her’s had, despite different upbringings.

He's got balls, at least. That's gotta count for something.

“Something like that,” she finally says. “What do you wanna know?”

“Enough to kill someone.”

---

The words flash through her mind as she steps towards him, dodging the rocks that would twist her ankle with one wrong move. She bends to pick up a stone smoothed by the current with an edge to its tip that could draw blood. 

"I lasted longer than you in there, Lux."

"You want a prize for that, cowboy?" Lux laughs, reaching out to shove Tex. She misjudges the distance, the current, the familiarity with a boy who could use years of misery and want and need as fuel for an inferno, and she falls flat on her face.

Lux stands, dripping wet, and daring Tex to say something.

"Sorry I didn't stick around long enough to see you flail your way through things. It would have been a sight."