Get Into It [bards v cowboys]

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

*

For all the faces that showed up in the stars the first night, when the anthem played and not a single person came across the night sky, I couldn’t help but shake my head.

“Five people and then none isn’t a good average of things,” I’d said as though getting impatient with death was something I’d earned from my spot under the stars. If I hadn’t been so dark under the trees of the forest, Cor and Alpha might’ve spotted how red my cheeks got a minute later. Even for as much of a dick I pretended to be, I hadn’t forgotten how I’d wanted my sisters and brother to be raised. The last thing they’d needed to see on television was me cursing that few more kids hadn’t lost their heads.

That would all come in due time, and hey – careful what you wish for and all that, right?

I chose not to eat the second night more as a test to myself than any real strategy. Something about how the gnawing hunger felt real. I may not have had much control over where we were going or how the rest of my life turned out, but this? I would let my hunger and thirst tap me on the shoulder for now and lie in wait a few steps behind. Almost reminded me of home in a way, saving what little I had for the long days, when things would undoubtedly get harder.

I’d been last to keep watch, which had probably been for the best. I’m no gonna lie to you, I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do, other than stand around in the dark waiting for something to pop out and try to kill us again. And maybe, because it’d been another night of hardly any sleep and not really eating or drinking, my eyelids had started to get heavy and the wind creeping up through the branches of the trees felt a whole lot warmer than it’d felt the night before.

When I’d nodded off, it hadn’t been much more than the sight of our farm overhead: a crisp, bright little space sky where the weathervane tilted in the wind and you could hear the chickens clucking in the distance.

I’d half-hoped that I’d get to see all their faces again. Or that I could go back to the night when Xavier and I had been out in the fields alone, shooting the shit before the reaping.

But his face doesn’t come, and I’m left with the sight of an empty fantasy, all bones and no fat.

My snoring woke me up before Cor had the chance to bash my head in for falling down on the job.

“Hope you’re having a good long laugh at me, Xavier,” I muttered out for the cameras.

All right. That had been enough moping for one evening.

Because I had still been alive, after all, unlike almost a half-dozen kids that had gone tits up the first day. So instead of turning into a serious sad sack, I was going to make sure my legacy didn’t have y’all thinking too hard. Nothing worse than having to crawl into someone else’s head and thinking about how miserable life was for a while.

Fuck that noise.

Instead, I decided on the early morning march out the forest and into the meadow I’d bust out a song for my lovely allies that went something like this:

“We’re walking on the path
And the girl who’s leading me
Is from district one –

Yeah

And she’s got a face to kill
And a voice that’s so shrill
That she makes my ears bleed

Oh!

She’ll cut you in half
If you dare to even laugh
Because she has no fun

Yeah, yeah, Cordeeeeeelia

Then there’s Alpha, too
I haven’t forgotten you
Yeah, yeah

Quick with a threat
Or better yet,
An axe to cut you in two

Yeah, yeah, Alphaaaaaa

Okay, LUTE SOLO!”

I started hopping and skipping around, strumming my lute. I gave a good two minute solo, until I dropped down on my knees with one last flourish.

“THANK YOU HUNGER GAMES ARENA, YOU’VE BEEN GREAT!” I shouted, holding the lute above my head.

I blinked, still breathing heavy from my performance.

Two figures were heading in our general direction – unfortunately for me, I couldn’t remember much more than one of the two of them had knocked the shit out of me in the bloodbath. The other I think was from a lower district like me.

I strummed a few chords with a grin.

“Are y’all here for an encore performance?” I asked. I stood up and gave a little strut with the lute in tow. “I seem to remember you wanted a piece of me, right? What was it – uh – Six? Or Eight? I honestly didn’t pay much attention when they told me. My bad.”

I swung the lute behind my back and unsheathed my sword with all the grace of a boy who’d learned how to do both two days ago – which was to say it took a couple pulls to get the whole sword out.

“All right ladies, I know you want me to defend you so it’s only the gentlemanly thing to do,” Because if there was one thing they would love me saying is that I had to protect them, “No offense uh – California? Ah, no – Texas!” The name had been on my tongue since I’d heard it. Tex felt like a name from Ten. “But I’d rather not beef with the lower districts today. Solidarity.”

I turned back toward Six and charged.

The roar that escaped my lips was more a screech but, uh, watch the replay and you decide.

[cachimorro olentzero attacks kiptyn nott with his sword]

PdJ2Drozfnsword
[+8]sword

[pogue]

T   E   X

He expects to feel comforted at the way the day ends with no cannons fired, the eery silence of the arena only disrupted by the sounds of the forest as he'd walked, rustling trees and the occasional howl off in the distance. It was peaceful, for a time, an illusion caught in the wake of their own suffering, surrounded by beauty and waiting for it to turn red.

Until the night had come and dragged the mist along with it, soft sway of the trees turning to sharpened claws and twinkling lights turning to bloody eyes. His stomach does flips as he looks out into the tree line, moon clawing at the sky in the wake of the setting sun and its light only illuminating the shadows that sprint in the distance. Unnerving is one way to put it, downright terrifying another, and exactly what he expected being the third.

The anthem only adds to it, nothing but midnight clouds and the echoes of trumpets blasting down towards the earth. Zero, the number bounces around in the back of his mind like a sinister confirmation, something deadly knotting up in his stomach as the sky returns once more to silence. he glances towards Kip as he lays back, thinks of what has already happened and what is to come with the lack of portraits in the sky. Gulp, swallow, he feels nothing but dried blood and dust settle in the back of his throat as sleep starts to take him.

He wonders if, when he wakes in the morning, Kip will be dead and gone too. Then, he wonders if he will wake at all, falls asleep to the thought of his own death. It feels fitting.

They awake like every other morning: tired and hurting and hearts still reluctantly beating. His bones and muscles groan in protest as he stirs, spear laced deep into his grasp and brown eyes scanning the tree line of the forest for any sign of approaching danger. He's met only with the same half-hearted innocence that this area provides, the soft morning wind pulling the branches towards them as if to point out their own destinies,

and then the wind pulls them back and the branch shift away, pointing them towards their next path.

"Stick close." He tosses out towards Kip, helping him up to standing and catching the way his injuries still refuse to fully heal, the occasional shimmer of scarlet liquid shifting underneath the surface of half-healed wounds and messily applied bandages. They're dead men walking as they leave the forest, branches snapping underneath their footsteps and echoing out into the forest, a target on their back and a call for anything sinister to come find them.

Instead they find it first, the forest slowly withering and dissolving into the sway of a vast meadow, the sound of a poor man's song sweeping across the area. 'Fuck." He hears himself say, feels the spear in his hand and prepares himself for what is to come. Their only hope in a silent approach is dashed quickly, the boy turning back towards them and meeting the challenge head on. 

"Are y'all here for an encore performance?"
He wants his own death to be quicker than that.

"You know this guy?" He throws to Kip, glancing over towards his only remaining ally and feeling the fear seep in between them. Kip's recklessness had been found in the Bloodbath, red spilled and wounds new and old opened back up. He grunts at the misuse of his own name, arches an eyebrow and finally nods when he stumbles onto the correct answer. "Bingo." He mutters, tightening his grip on the spear.

"... I'd rather not beef with the lower districts today. Solidarity." 

"No such thing-" he begins to say, a bloody whisper slipping into the dead spaces between them. Solidarity, the word sits heavy on his tongue and then moves down to his heart, strikes at what is already dead and kills what is still living. Because his gaze is narrow and his bones are aching and his fingertips are laced into the makeshift spear in his hand, pointed out towards their enemies in anticipation of what he expects to come.

In a moment, a single red flash, the boy proves him right.

"Kip!" He begins to say, tries to thrust his arm out and push his ally out of the way even though it is already no use. Because silver meets skin and red blooms out from the source, crimson meets his gaze and suddenly there is fear laced into his bones, paired with adrenaline and all the survival instincts he can muster. Kip stumbles backwards and it's more of a flash than anything else, the way his spear carves through the air and his grip adjusts along the handle of the weapon, sunlight catching the stalagmite and reflecting over the dried blood.

"Yeah, solidarity." He hears himself say, more of a mockery than anything as he charges in retaliation. Eye for eye and ally for ally, he finds the nearest tribute with bloodlust in their eyes and strikes.

[attacks alpha ; spear]

NaGWyZTUqWspear

[result]

spear

[heather - d2 [mylee]]

K  I  P  T  Y  N

Suspicion is palpable the entire evening, and it seeps fast and heavy into the night. I had tried to convince Tex that it couldn’t have been me, but when I was finished laying out my line of reasoning he didn’t bother to respond, or respond thoughtfully, rather, just nodded slowly while I stared at him expectantly. The more desperate I got, the more guilty I’d look, and I knew that, tried to talk the tension out of my muscles and fear out of my voice. By the time I managed to drift off into a fitful sleep, Tex’s eye was still open and squinting in my direction. I wasn’t sure if I’d wake up to his company, or wake up at all.

But the sun does eventually crest the horizon and I’m somehow conscious to see it, the soft light warming my muscles despite their protests. I’ve never felt disconnect like this, my body and mind functioning on such different planes of being that the only task seems to be trying to bridge the space between them, complicated entirely by the lack of recognition, my own body so battered and distorted that I’ve spent minutes each morning staring at it, tracing fingers along my remaining limbs, my chest and thighs--this touch geared solely toward making this body mine again.

The breeze pulls through a few stubborn wounds, those gashes still open and exposed to the outside air. This morning, I swear I can hear my flesh whistling, the wind cutting through them like the persistent river at the bottom of a canyon. Despite his reservations, Tex had still aided me the evening before, patiently changing bandages and threading the needle, my jaw clenched as he drew the thread through my skin. The stitches weren’t even, but they were just another in a series of attempts to close the wound that had been cut into my stomach the first morning. I had tried unsuccessfully the day before after we'd distanced ourselves from the swarm of animals, but the stitches had popped out one by one the second my breathing got heavy and irregular. But Tex's efforts seem to have survived a night of my tossing and turning, and it makes me nauseous now to trace them, to feel the end knot thick and bulging against the bruised and irritated skin.

Stick close, Tex says, interrupting the inventory I’m taking of myself to pull me to standing. A part of me wants to tell him that I’d rather not leave, that the surrounding trees have provided a sense of security I selfishly don’t want to abandon. But he’s clearly unnerved, and I want to chalk it up to place, to topography and claustrophobia--anything that’s not me and the distrust I’ve somehow managed to sow between us. So I follow him obediently, walking in his shadow silent and steady, our pace consistent and determined as we tear our own path through the trees.

When we break through the edge of the forest, the meadow stretches out before us, lush and unending. My first instinct is that the music is just a part of it, natural and intertwined with the ecosystem. But I hear fuck creep out of Tex’s mouth and follow it to the figure standing out in the clearing, swiveling around to stalk toward us when he does. I don’t even register that’s he’s addressing me until Tex prods me in the side and asks, You know this guy? My first instinct is to shake my head, and there’s a part of instinct that is usually correct. I don’t recognize him, and certainly don’t know his name. Tex doesn’t seem to know him either, and considering that we were the only humans we saw yesterday, I figure I must have taken a blind swing toward him in the tavern after Tex and Cain had long fled the scene.

I’m still connecting the dots when Tex shouts my name, stepping toward me with his arm extended, and I’m still watching him when I register the feeling of metal tearing across my leg, crimson blossoming and spilling out to dribble down my thigh. I reach down to press my palm against it but can’t reach, what’s left of my right arm too short to be useful and my other hand occupied with my glaive. And I don’t know what to do so I default to standing there with my mouth open, the crisp morning air getting sucked in and then stalling out somewhere in my throat, a friction and burn that makes everything in me feel used.

I can feel the sob building behind my throat as I will myself to watch Tex, my vision frozen at eye level or ever so slightly up, just to avoid seeing my new body, to have it be made unfamiliar all over again. What he says I don’t hear, but I see it all too clearly when he lunges forward, his spear extended and instantly shot clear through the throat of one of the girls. I see the tip momentarily out the other side, and then it's drawn back and she crumples to her knees, then falls at an awkward and unnatural angle to her side, unmoving besides an occasional spasm that shakes her body until even those stop, too.

A cannon, and I hear the sob that finally escapes me, fear and pain nesting like a terrified animal inside me. Directionless, I stumble forward and trip over her body, fall to the ground hard. From where I land, I’m face to face with the blood pulsing out, a fast and thin stream, from the point where the spear pierced. When it meets the earth it immediately spreads, barreling the blades of grass over until they’re flattened. My own blood rushes out to join it, each heartbeat driving more and more out onto the grass from the new wound in my leg, and I can feel Tex’s stitches, well-intentioned as they were, straining against my distended and dread-filled stomach. Another sob and they’ll give, I’m sure of it.

The memory of care I had at one point had been composed of Tex’s hand trembling gently, his best efforts to stay steady as he pressed the needle into my skin. But now when I look up at him from the ground I see dusk glinting mean off the thin metal, his fist curled around the needle like a weapon and the swift motion as he jabs it, down to the eye, into my own throat.

I know I’m panicking, but I can’t stop it. Each breath gets shallow and quick, and I feel the snap of one stitch, then the next. Though I swing my head around from side to side, the three figures around me are blurred, their limbs unnaturally long and disproportionate. When I gather my feet underneath me, I spot the treeline I think we emerged from this morning and take off toward it, some small part of me hoping Tex doesn't follow.

[ table: pogue ]

[ kiptyn nott flees ]

[k!ah]

Filler flee, refer to this post for actions and dialogue

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

*

‘Solidarity, no such thing.’

It’s all edges what came out of Tex’s mouth, right back to me, grinning like the fool I was for having cut deep into the kid from six. But it didn’t faze me, not that he couldn’t imagine why I’d want to preserve a gentle truce for a bit longer.

I always figured boys like him knew what hard lives were like. Not that the kid from six couldn’t come from a hardscrabble place, too. But you just know that twelve’s more likely to have had that deep gnawing at his stomach that feels like glass itching at his insides. Or maybe one or both of his parents is dead, from the bottle or their heart gave out. Worse, that they up and left before they could see their own sun shipped off and then shipped back, an import-export that wound up tied up in a bow inside a pine box casket.

“Well, all right then,” I had been facing six when I spoke. I stared him down, even if he gave me a bit of the creeps, not saying a word at all. Maybe that was his tactic, the strong silent type – or he just couldn’t find the words to express how insane it must’ve been that a kid he’d seen trying to fit as many grapes in his mouth (thirty-seven, thank you very much) now trying to carve him up into an even smaller version of a man.

His spear caught Alpha in the throat, clear through the sinew and bone, looking less than lethal until he pulled it back out, and all the blood came rushing through the hole.

Death’s quieter than you give it credit for.

Maybe we’re just used to it in Ten.

Sick calves don’t always make it through their first winter. Hens stop laying, and you got mouths to feed. Or you find the old outdoor cat, the one who’s almost as old as you are, the one who hisses every time he sees you and yet’ll be the first one to rub against your legs when you crack a tin of tuna – curled up at the corner of a barn, eyes closed, and cold.

And you can wonder what it must’ve been like to have gone all alone, why anyone would ever have wanted to go alone, in silence, in all that pain –

But death’s silence can’t stay.

Six is off with a start and Cor went on without me. No surprises there.

I could’ve gone toe to toe, made some grandiose speech about how I was gonna tear him limb from limb next time I saw him.

But what was the use in bluster over what both of us already knew? He’d go home in a casket as sure as I would or wouldn’t. No reason to make it hurt any worse. He’d do that to himself – we all would.

“Solidarity.” I said again, eyes on Tex. I put my sword back into its sheath and gave a nod.

I stared at Alpha’s body a second more, let out a little shit on exhale, and turned to follow where Cor had gone.

[flees!]

[pogue]

Filler flee for now! Gonna write write write in my post today